Guest guest Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 Namaste: Lord Krishna continues to spell out the Divine Glories to facilitate us to recognize His Presence in every action that we undertake and everything that we come across. The message is, "the divine is very near still due to our ignorance we look for Him everywhere instead of see Him within!" There are no external objects other than Him who is everpresent withing our heart!! Harih Om! Ram Chandran Gita Satsangh, Chapter 10: The Yoga of Divine Glories(VibhuutiyogaH) Verses 37 to 40. Vrishneenaam vaasudevo'smi paandavaanaam dhananjayah; Muneenaamapyaham vyaasah kaveenaamushanaa kavih. 37 Among Vrishnis I am Vasudeva; among the Pandavas I am Arjuna; among sages I am Vyasa; among poets I am Usana, the poet. By calling Vasudeva His own self, the Lord establishes identity between a manifestation of God and God himself. The intention is to show that it is the integral Brahma or the Supreme Person, the unborn, immortal and almighty Over lord of all created beings, who manifested Himself as Sri Krsna, son of Vasudeva (IV.6). Therefore, he who regards the Lord as an ordinary human being commits an egregious blunder. Even though Yudisthira was the eldest of the Pandavas, a highly virtuous soul and a great devotee of God, yet it is Arjuna who is recognized as the greatest of the Pandavas. The reason for this is that when the Lord appeared as the sage Narayana, Arjuna was present with Him as Nara. More than this, he was the dearest friend and a great lover of the Lord. That is why the Lord declares him to be His very self. A 'Muni' is one who meditates on God and makes a deep study of the Vedas and other scriptures. Bhagavan Vedavyasa divided the Vedas after thoroughly examining them, and is the author of the Mahabharata, the various Puranas and many other scriptures. He is a part manifestation of God, and a repository of all noble virtues. Being thus the foremost of all sages, Vyasa has been declared by the lord as the same as Himself. The word 'Kavih' stands for a learned and wise man. The great ukracarya is the lord of the Bhargavas (sons of Bhrgu), an adept in all branches of learning, and in the science of reviving the dead, and for most of the wise. Hence he has been declared to be the very self of the Lord. Dando damayataamasmi neetirasmi jigeeshataam; Maunam chaivaasmi guhyaanaam jnaanam jnaanavataamaham. 38 Among the punishers I am the scepter; among those who seek victory I am statesmanship; and also among secrets I am silence; knowledge among knower I am. Deterring the unrighteous and unruly element from sinful conduct, the fear of punishment urges them to right action. It is through self- restraint that the mind and senses of man are controlled and help him in God-Realization. It is through fear of punishment that all living beings perform their respective functions. Hence the authority possessed by gods, kings and rulers who rule according to law has been declared by the Lord to be the same as Himself. The word 'Niti', in this verse, stands for righteousness. It is righteousness alone which brings one true victory. A Government that abandons righteousness, and follows the path of unrighteousness, is doomed. Therefore, righteousness is the best means for the attainment of victory. Hence the Lord declares that He and righteousness are the same. Secrets can be maintained only through silence. Without restraint over speech, it is exceptionally difficult to preserve a secret. Silence being thus the best custodian of secrets, the Lord speaks of it as His own self. The word 'Jnanavatam', stands for those truly wise men who have realized the supreme Brahma or God. Their knowledge alone is the best of all knowledge. Hence the Lord declares such knowledge to be His own self. In verse 17 of Chapter XIII to the Lord likewise declares Himself to be the same as "Knowledge". Yachchaapi sarvabhootaanaam beejam tadahamarjuna; Na tadasti vinaa yatsyaanmayaa bhootam charaacharam. 39 And whatever is the seed of all beings, that also am I, O Arjuna! There is no being, whether moving or unmoving, that can exist without Me. I am the primeval seed from which all creation has come into existence. I am the seed of everything. I am the Self of everything. Nothing can exist without Me. Everything is of My nature. I am the soul of everything. God alone is the ultimate support and substratum of the whole of this animate and inanimate creation; it is from Him that everything originates. Hence He alone is the seed or ultimate cause of all. It is for this reason that in VII10. He has been declared as the "eternal seed" of all beings, and in IX18 as the "imperishable seed". Hence, in the present verse, He proclaims His identity with the seed of all beings. By the latter half of this verse the Lord reveals His omnipresence and His identity with all. That is to say, all creatures, animate or inanimate, are pervaded by Him, and there is no creature whatsoever which is devoid of His presence. Therefore, regarding all beings as identical with God, and knowing them as pervaded by Him, one should think of God alone in the form of whatever presents itself before his mind. This concludes the reply to Arjuna's question contained in X. 17, viz., in what particular forms He should be meditated upon by him. In verse 19 the Lord stated that there was no end to His divine glories, and therefore undertaken to enumerate only His conspicuous glories. Accordingly, from verse 20 to 39, He described those glories. Now He winds up the topic revealing again the infinite variety of His divine glories. Naanto'sti mama divyaanaam vibhooteenaam parantapa; Esha tooddeshatah prokto vibhootervistaro mayaa. 40 There is no end to My divine glories, O Arjuna, but this is a brief statement by Me of the particulars of My divine glories! By the first half of this verse the Lord indicates that even His divine glories are unlimited, much more His ordinary glories. Even as the particles of water and earth cannot be counted, so it is impossible to count His glories. They are so numerous that they can neither be known nor described by anyone. His glories are endless in the countless universes, and none can ever expect to find their limit. By the second half of the verse the Lord intends to convey that the extent of His divine glories described in this chapter represents only a small fraction of them and that their full description is very difficult. Hence He concludes the discussion of those glories. Easy references: The Gita Supersite http://www.gitasupersite.org/ contains most of the commentaries including commentaries in many languages. Access Adi Shankara's commentary and Swami Chinmayananda's commentary at URL: advaitin/files First click and open the folder: <Bhagawad Gita Commentaries and References> Then click on the Gita related folders such as Sankara1 and Chinmaya to access the files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 Namaste Satsanghis: Gita in subtle terms imply that the recogniztion of Divine is only possible with the Divine Grace. Everything that we recognize through our sense organs are 'transient' and they have a begining, a middle and an end. Alternativley, everything that we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste undergo changes. First, our sense organs themselves undergo changes (our sensing faculties do not remain constant all the time even within a day!) We are very alert in the morning but by nighttime, we become tired and we refuse to function. Our confusion will likely remain as long as our recognition is bounded by our senses. The Divine is changeless with no beginning, middle and end and if so, how can we recognize Him as long as we are bounded. Gita provides the answer to these questions through chapters 9, 10 and 11. In chapter 9, the Divine Secret is injected to us for contemplation through Arjuna. In chapter 10, the Divine spells out that His glories can be recognized if we have Faith in Him and everything that He explains has to be necessarily the Truth! Chapter 11 is the climax with the Divine showering His Grace to Arjuna by providing Him with a Divine Vision. Verse 8 of chapter 11 illustrates that only with Divine Vision with His Grace the seeker can recoginize the Divine! Na tu maam shakyase drashtum anenaiva swachakshushaa; Divyam dadaami te chakshuh pashya me yogamaishwaram.. (Chapter 11, verse 8) But surely you can't see Me with your physical eyes and therefore I vouchsafe you with the divine eye. With this you behold My divine power of yoga. Harih Om! Ram Chandran advaitin, "Ram Chandran" <ramvchandran wrote: > > Namaste: > > Lord Krishna continues to spell out the Divine Glories to facilitate > us to recognize His Presence in every action that we undertake and > everything that we come across. The message is, "the divine is very > near still due to our ignorance we look for Him everywhere instead of > see Him within!" There are no external objects other than Him who is > everpresent within our heart!! > > Harih Om! > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 post 30725 Sri Ramji writes : (Maunam chaivaasmi guhyaanaam ) 38 ( and also among secrets I am silence) Secrets can be maintained only through silence. Without restraint over speech, it is exceptionally difficult to preserve a secret. Silence being thus the best custodian of secrets, the Lord speaks of it as His own self. ) This sounds great. But i am looking for a more 'profound' explanation .. Is it possible to give a more metaphysical explanation of this seemingly simple statement 'i am silence among secrets' .... subbuji, sadaji and others can you throw some light on this with the help of Upanishads ? regards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 advaitin, "dhyanasaraswati" <dhyanasaraswati wrote: > > post 30725 > > Sri Ramji writes : > > (Maunam chaivaasmi guhyaanaam ) 38 > > ( and also among secrets I am silence) > > Secrets can be maintained only through silence. Without restraint > over speech, it is exceptionally difficult to preserve a secret. > Silence being thus the best custodian of secrets, the Lord speaks of > it as His own self. ) > > This sounds great. But i am looking for a more 'profound' explanation > . Is it possible to give a more metaphysical explanation of this > seemingly simple statement 'i am silence among secrets' .... subbuji, > sadaji and others can you throw some light on this with the help of > Upanishads ? > > regards > Respected Madam, Namaste. In the context of the particular Gita verse under reference, what Sri Ram ji has said is quite adequate. But as you are asking for some 'profound' explanation, an attempt is here made. Instead of giving a note on mounam i present some instances that bring out the meaning of mounam: 1. Lord SriDakshinamurti is the Silent Teacher of the Tattvam which is itself silent. 'Mouna-vyaakhyaa-prakatita parabrahmatattvam...' is a well-known prayer on this Lord. 2. Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi has said that our True Svarupam is itself Mauanm. The practice of maunam is to ultimately identify oneself with the Svarupa-maunam and be one with It. 3. In His Brahmasutra bhashyam, Acharya Shankara has recounted an interesting Vedic tale that is pertinent here. Baskali was desirous of knowing Brahman. So, he approached the enlightened sage Badhva and requested, 'Please teach me about Brahman'. Badhva remained silent. Baskali repeated his appeal but again the sage did not respond. Being earnest, Baskali asked for the third time, 'Please teach me about Brahman'. The sage said, 'I have already taught you but you have failed to comprehend. This Atma is quiescence'. 4. Atmavidya is the Greatest Secret, 'guhyatamam', 'Raja-guhyam', the Sovereign Secret says the Gita of this. Naturally, such a great Secret has to be protected from falling into those not qualified to receive it. It is mounam that enables to protect this. Hence, the teaching in the form of mounam. When a sadhaka meditates, it is ideally intended to maintain 'mental mounam', that is, even the thoughts have to be restrained. When this reaches a significant stage, the 'grasping' of the Silent Tattvam is possible, for the mouna-vyakhyaa is constantly going on inside our being; only that we have to tune ourselves to it properly. 5. In the Vivekachudamani, the Acharya has said that the first step to Yoga is vaang-nirodha, restraint of speech, mounam. Sadhakas take up a vow of silence and practice it at regular intervals. Some people observe it for a whole day, for some hours in a day, etc. depending upon their circumstances. 6. A story: A holy man was seated in front of his Hut. A family that was being hounded by some bandits came running that way and took refuge behind the hut. Shortly thereafter the bandits reached that place and asked the sage about the family. As the sage did not want to lie, he directed them to the hiding place. The bandits immediately massacred all of the family and left the place. The moral of the story is: Had the sage remained silent, mounam, in safeguarding the secret place of the hiding, he would not have incurred the sin for his role in the massacre of the family. 7. Numerous devotees have reported that in the presence of Bhagavan Ramanar's silence, many of their questions and doubts had vanished for answers became clear to them even without any verbal communication. 8.Here is an excerpt from the book 'The Saint of Sringeri' by Sri Jnanananda Bharati Swamigal (formerly Sri R. Krishnaswamy Iyer of Tirunelveli): On another occasion, I happened to enter the room where His Holiness Sri Chandrasekhara Bharati Swamigal was seated quite alone. After a slight gesture asking me to sit down, HH relapsed into silence and continued in it for about twenty minutes. The peace and exaltation that i felt and enjoyed during that period can never be adequately expressed. I thought I noticed a smile flickering on the face of HH and looked up. HH asked 'Shall I tell you?' I naturally replied 'If your Holiness so pleases'. Then HH said, 'I was in perfect peace when a thought disturbed it. I realised that you were sitting near me and perhaps expected me to speak. This led me to the further thought that, if I had to meet your expectations, I must speak. I recollected immediately that 'to speak' was a verb requiring an object. I thought therefore I must find an object as otherwise there could be no speech. Then I recollected that all objects in the universe came under either of two categories, the True and the False. The True is Brahman and the False is the world of form. Either of these two things must therefore be spoken of. But the Vedanta has declared in unmistakable terms that Brahman the True is beyond all speech and even all thought. So Brahman as an object of speech was out of the question. There was thus only the world to be talked about. But regarding the world, the Vedanta was equally emphatic that it was Anirvachaniya or incapable of being explained in words. So the world also seemed to be out of the question as a fit object of speech. There was no tird entity available. There was therefore no fit object of speech. For want of an object, there could be no speech. When I came to this conclusion, I realised that i had come back only to wherefrom I started and that I need not have allowed these thoughts to disturb me. The example of the cartman who drove his cart through the byepaths to avoid the toll-gate but found himself at break of dawn just in front of it suggested itself to me. Evidently I smiled at myself for all this waste of thought and you looked up.' Having said this much, He relapsed into silence. This was far more of a lesson to me in practical Vedanta than anything I could learn from the books. I realised keenly that I might have quite unconsciously entertained a passing thought that HH was silent and a vague hope that He would break the silence. I realised at the same time that I was the unconscious cause of bringing HH to the level of the ordinary world. I immediately rose up and took leave of HH. When HH is revelling in a higher sphere, is it not profanity to make Him care for us if only as a matter of etiquette? (End of the excerpt) 9. An excerpt from 'Exalting Elucidations': So powerful was Acharyal's (Sri Abhinava Vidyateertha Mahaswamigal) anusandhaana that it had a profound impact on those nearby, provided they suitably attuned themselves. I vividly recall one such instance. I was accompanying Acharyal on His Kundapur camp. I was going in the pilot jeep when I noticed that Acharyal had ordered His car to stop. HH asked me to sit in the front seat of His car and sent His attendant Mahabala to the jeep. No conversation ensued. Acharyal lost Himself in the contemplation of the import of the Upanishads. The effesct on me was extreme, to say the least. (Contributed by Sri P.S.Venkatasubba Rao, an enlightened person himself.) Warm regards, subbu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 Namaste Subbu-Ji: The Sanskrit saying, "Moune Sarvartha Sadhakam" explains fully the secret meaning and reward to those who observe 'real' Mounam. The above quoted saying that the best understanding of all secrets that we want to uncover can only through silent contemplation. What a profound one-liner explaining the entire vedanta in a nutshell. There is no wonder why Swami Dayanada and most of the others who wrote detailed commentaries did not elaborate any more than what has been presented. Also Bhagawan Ramana Maharishi has proved the validity of the above quoted saying through 'self-enquiry' in SILENCE! Anything more I say will against what Lord Krishna's emphasis on the importance of observing silence! Warmest regards, Harih Om! Ram Chandran advaitin, "subrahmanian_v" <subrahmanian_v wrote: > .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 post number 30766 Thank you , Subbuji - this was the kind of explanation i was looking for. Yes. Maunam is not mere absence of speech. That is the most commonly accepted meaning of this word . But Sri Ramana used to say 'maunam is not merely silence of speech - it is also silencing of thoughts. ' He even said Silence means the 'annihilation of the ego. ' Thayumanavar, the great saint-poet , used to follow his Guru's advice 'summa eru' ( be quiet) - this quietitude involved not just silencing the tongue but also restrining the senses and calming the mind ! Be still ! when the mind is still, one can hear God's footsteps- even the christians say that! Subbuji , you are right ! Mahatma Gandhiji used to dedicate every monday to observing Silence - He advocated this as a means of great spiritual discipline . Sometimes , he also used 'silence' as a means of protest ! Most saints also observe 'mauna' amavasya in spiritual practices. subbu-ji, Brahma vidya is param guhyam ( a great secret) and only those who are qualified should receive it. (adhikaratvam) Have you heard of the great Shakta text - Tripura Rahasya - onlt those initiated in Sri Vidya are qualified to read this great text and understand its true meaning. the word 'mauna' itself is derived fronm the word 'Muni' - the silent one. Buddha himself was called Sakhayamuni - the silent sage. If one goes to a buddhist monastry , one will notice that all monksdo every activity silently even walking and eating. However, when social justice is threatened , it is time to speak up. The abolition of 'sati(widow burning) would not have taken place if social reformers like sri Raja Rma Mohan Roy had not 'spoken' up against the evils of Sati! When one keeps quiet (silent) on such issues which threaten the moral fabric of a society, it appears that we are giving our consent! On such occassions, we should 'voice' our opinions! Henry David Thoreau says " In human intercourse the tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood. " thank you , once again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 3, 2006 Report Share Posted April 3, 2006 advaitin, "dhyanasaraswati" <dhyanasaraswati wrote: > > post number 30766 > > Thank you , Subbuji - this was the kind of explanation i was looking > for. > Madam., I forgot to include a small humorous piece on mounam: 1. Mounena kalaham naasti - One can avoid quarrel by resorting to silence. 2. Mounena kavalam jaasti - One is supposed to be silent while eating. The result is that many morsels can be consumed !! Then, during shraaddham, there is an instruction to the two brahmanas who are fed: Mounena bhoktavyam.....Be silent while eating and whichever dish you want to be served again, you must point to it with your fingers. Regards, subbu > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted April 4, 2006 Report Share Posted April 4, 2006 Subbuji and respected members : It is now time to say 'goodbye' as i am leaving for my trip to my motherland , India. Yes - i do not plan to participate for the next month or so in these discussions. So that will be a period of 'forced' silence for me. Sri Ramji and other moderators , thank you so much for letting me post in the group in my different i.d.s - i started out as adi_shakthi16 and ended up as Dhyanasaraswati with a 'purushartha' in between. What is in an i.d anyway? The true id is the one we should all honor -Tat Twam Asi! Subbuji, mauna is a great instrument in spiritual sadhana. The Brahma sutras say Maunavaditareshamapyupadesat III.4.49 (474) Subbuji, may be you can elaborate on this ! smile! Well, it is wise for the ignorant among us to be 'silent' lest we should reveal our ignorance while speaking up , the learned among us must continue to 'speak' and enlighten others in this Satsangha ! In any case, the 'tongue' is there only to sing the praises of the Lord just as the hands are there only to worship the Lord! let me now enjoy the sweetness of slience- Mauna madhuri! love and best wishes to one and all! advaitin, "subrahmanian_v" <subrahmanian_v wrote: > > advaitin, "dhyanasaraswati" > <dhyanasaraswati@> wrote: > > > > post number 30766 > > > > Thank you , Subbuji - this was the kind of explanation i was > looking > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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