Guest guest Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 Dear Narshimarao, well those who are quoting Vivekananda-ji selectively are forgetting his ohter messages are we anywayre near it say if masses dn't come to education, education must go and teachthem where they are as they work to eat, live to eat, teach in the farms or working areas awake, arise rest not till the goal is reached -where is now we are happy to see as many dillusive moves and reconcile, we dont bother to test the truth one of his other sermons. we dont fight injustice either we take the worst of the wst and keep our worst [castims for votes not upliftment]. whenhe said take the best from the west and give them our best, well we have given them our brain drain in the caste drive relife than welfare drive reservations. so people especially the leftists in his state now have LONG replaced him with carl marx and still hold him sacred when USSR, CHINA etc have throw him to dust. responsiblities, justice, knowledge, welfare, moral values,, humane values need to be re-kindled. best wishes G B Prashant Kumar Narasimha P.V.R. Rao <pvr (AT) charter (DOT) net> sjc-guru; sohamsa; vedic astrology; ; SriJagannath Group <>; sjcBoston Wednesday, February 14, 2007 3:03:36 PM [vedic astrology] Vivekananda and astrology Namaste friends, I know that this issue of Swami Vivekananda dismissing fate and astrology in a lecture came up earlier also. Let me share my 2 cents on that. > let's not be oblivious to some rather famous and great names of the past > being skeptical of astrology. If we penned a list, Swami Vivekananda would > be certainly be the top seed. Suppose I am watching a movie with my children. Suppose the hero, who my child self-identifies with while watching the movie, is badly hurt by the villain. Suppose my child is very badly upset because of it. If my child is mature enough, I can explain that this movie is not really happening (even though it seems to happen live on the big screen in front of us) and hence one need not worry about a "delusion" that is playing out on the screen. However, if another child of mine is not mature enough to understand and appreciate that, I may not want to confuse. I may just re-assure that the hero is after all going to be fine and recover to hit back at the villain soon. If I have means to guess it, I may even guess that the hero is going to hit back after 5 minutes 20 seconds. That makes the child happy. This is bad in a way because the child will continue to stay in the delusion that what is happening on the screen is real in some way and it is ok to be emotionally affected by it. But, that child is not ready for more. If my answer to a child in a simplistic scenario such as the above (if you can, please note that some details in this example are carefully chosen to reflect on the role of astrology/astrologe r) can be different based on my perception of the maturity level of the child, why can't the answers of a spiritual master to seekers be different based on the maturity level of the audience? Swami Vivekananda was a great teacher of masses and he did not want to confuse his audiences. He would focus on one point, based on his audience, and drive his point passionately. Because of the passion to drive his point home, he would sometimes over-state something, strictly within a particular context. If you take it out of context, it loses its meaning. In the context of this world appearance being a delusion and in the context of one having to rise above it and not be bound by the delusion of world appearance, it is completely true that astrology is a useless subject. But, if you take the context away and come to the context of a normal layman's daily life, then astrology is a very useful subject (assuming you have a genuine, learned and honest astrologer helping you). Bottomline is that not every statement made by Swami Vivekananda represents his real view. After all, he is a rishi. His understanding is so subtle and supreme that it cannot be completely captured by his audience listening to his lecture (vaikhari). The lecture only captures a small portion of his understanding. The audience of his lecture is akin to my children who listen to me in the example at the beginning of this mail! My answers are fine-tuned for each child and they do not reflect my complete views. Same holds for Swami Vivekananda' s lectures. People have taken a statement of Swami Vivekananda out of context and jumped to a conclusion that he questioned astrology. It is one thing to question the sincerity of most astrologers, the correctness of astrology as understood today and the validity of overly relying on astrology, but quite another to absolutely dismiss fate and astrology. A reborn rishi like Swami Vivekananda simply could not have dismissed a Vedanga altogether. I am 100% sure that Swami Vivekananda' s said quote is a misunderstood one. In fact, I understand that Swami Vivekananda had a passing knowledge of astrology and he referred to a printed panchange before withdrawing into his room for his mahasamadhi. Some of his close associates, such as Swami Vijnanananda, were scholars of Jyotisha. May the light of Brahman shine within, Narasimha ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- - Homam manual and audio: http://www.VedicAst rologer.org/ homam Free Jyotish lessons (MP3): http://vedicastro. home.comcast. net Free Jyotish software (Windows): http://www.VedicAst rologer.org Sri Jagannath Centre (SJC) website: http://www.SriJagan nath.org ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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