The Spirituality Blog

  There was a quarrel between a pond and a river. The pond addressed the river thus: "O river, you are very foolish to give all your water and all your wealth to the ocean; do not squander your water and wealth on the ocean. The ocean is ungrateful, the ocean needs it not. If you go on pouring into the ocean all your accumulated treasures, the ocean will remain as salty as it is today, the ocean will remain as bitter as it is today, the brine of the sea will not be altered. „Do not throw pearls before the swine.‟ Keep all your treasures with you." This was worldly wisdom. Here was the river told to consider the end, to care for the result and regard the consequences. But the river was a Vedantin. After hearing this worldly wisdom the river replied, "No, the consequence and the result are nothing to me; failure and success are nothing to me; I must work because I love work; I must work for its own sake. To work is my aim, to keep in activity is my life. My Soul, my real A

  1.Work  2.Self sacrifice  3.Self forgetfulness 4.Universal love  5.Cheerfulness  6.Fearlessness 7.Self reliance  Some of the points made by Swami Ram Tirtha in Japan  October 7 , 1902

Lessons from Vivekachudamani by Shankaracharya  The intelligent and learned man skilled in arguing in favour of the scriptures and refuting counter-arguments against them,—one who has got the above characteristics is the fit recipient of the knowledge of the Atman. The man of discrimination between the Real and the unreal, whose mind is turned away from the unreal, who possesses calmness and the allied virtues, and is longing for Liberation, is alone considered qualified to inquire after Brahman First is enumerated the discrimination between the Real and the unreal, next comes the aversion to the enjoyment of fruits (of one’s actions) here and hereafter, (next is) the group of six attributes, viz., calmness and the rest, and (last) is clearly the yearning for Liberation. A firm conviction of the mind to the effect that Brahman is real and the universe unreal, is designated as the discrimination (Viveka) between the Real and the unreal. Vairâgya or renunciation is the desire to give up