Some Thoughts and Questions on Free Will
From: Peregrinus the Nihilist I finished reading your five-part series on free will yesterday evening, after several sittings over dinner. It was an interesting and informative presentation indeed. The...
View ArticleAtman- mirror
1.19. Just as a mirror exists within and without the image reflected in it, so the Supreme Self exists inside and outside this body. The idea is this: The image in the mirror has no real existence. It...
View ArticleReview of article on Shankara by Ramakrisnan Balasubramanian
(This is a slightly modified article published here one year ago, which was improperly and incompletely posted. Ramesam had asked me to review the following article, with which I complied after much...
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Who Slept Well?
This is the first of a four-part article by Acharya Sadananda of Chinmaya Mission Washington (edited by myself) clarifying the nature of the deep-sleep state and addressing a number of problems which...
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Vedanta the Solution – Part 6
VEDĀNTA the solution to our fundamental problem by D. Venugopal Part 6 examines who we think we are and explains how this dictates our degree of happiness. There is a complete Contents List, to which...
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Who Slept Well – part 3
Experiencer of the Deep-Sleep-State As noted in Part 2, we have three experiences in the deep-sleep state: 1. I exist, since I say I slept well; 2. I have the knowledge of homogeneous ignorance, since...
View ArticleThree neo-Advaitin Quotes
Three quotes from neo-Advaitin teachers on the value of seeking, and finding the truth (or not): Spiritual seeking is the art of walking in very small circles. This does two things: it creates the...
View ArticleRevision of ‘Review of article on Shankara’ – Part 5
A tarka (reasoning, argumentation) is required for the analysis of anubhava, as both SSS and RB (the author) agree – consistent with Shankara’s position. That is, language and thought, needless to say,...
View ArticleReality, appearance, and mind
Quote: “Sage Vasishta: Please listen to me carefully as I shall now teach you the most supreme of all topics — ways to calm down the mind. Just like pillars bear the weight of a building, raajasic and...
View ArticleBhakti in Advaita
“Bhakti” in common parlance is generally taken to mean a sort of Master – slave relationship of a seeker towards a superior Guru/Master/Lord/God, an attitude that in a way does reinforce duality....
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Becoming, Being and the Brain
Can one day the brain science tell us “Who we truly are?” And show the difference between ‘becoming’ and ‘Being’ in a brain scan? Can a scan possibly differentiate a “Knower of Truth” vs an “Expert on...
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Topic of the Month – buddhi
The mind in Sanskrit is antaHkaraNa. It is the seat of both thought and feeling. It derives from antar - within, interior – and karaNa, which means “instrument” or sense-organ. The mind consists of a...
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Control Genes With Your Thoughts
The day is not far when you can control your genes with your mind! Effectively you can change not only your moods and behavior but also essentially what you are by the power of your thought! The...
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Science and Vedanta (Part 2)
Part 2 of a 3-part essay by Dr. K. Sadananda, AchArya at Chinmaya Mission, Washington. (read part 1) Analysis of Objective Sciences An objective scientist provides a narrow definition for science as...
View ArticleQ. 367 – shraddhA – Is it necessary?
Q. I come from an atheistic upbringing, and in addition I have studied a good chunk of modern Western philosophy and science, and such a position has become my “default mode”. A day came a couple years...
View ArticleDream Space, Awake Space and Mind-Space
[This short extract, in addition to providing the answers, also serves as an example of the incisive logic and inductive and deductive approach taken by Sage Vasishta in explicating the nature of the...
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Waking World is also Unreal
Dreams are a powerful metaphor in Advaita. The Yoga Vasishtha is perhaps the best known book to utilize them extensively but probably the earliest teacher to do so was Gaudapada in his kArikA-s on the...
View ArticleScience and Philosophy – Part III
“The intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups…literary intellectuals at one pole – at the other scientists, and as the most representative,...
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Vedanta the Solution – Part 16
VEDĀNTA the solution to our fundamental problem by D. Venugopal Part 16 discusses the distractions of the mind (vikShepa) and how to overcome them by meditation (upAsanA and japa). There is a complete...
View ArticleQ. 370 – nirvikalpa samAdhi
Q: Should a person have compulsorily experienced nirvikalpa-samādhi in order to know that he has a mind which is prepared for jñāna? In other words, is experience of nirvikalpa-samādhi a must as a...
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