relavance of advaita in day today life

[Guest guest]

Hare Krishna, Namaskarams.

 

" Bhagini_Nivedita wrote: I would like to request my fellow advaitins

to elaborate the

relevance of this Sutra to the practice of Advaita philosophy

!......................

Advaita is not an 'ivory tower' philosophy ! it has to be lived and

practiced in real life - showing kindness to one and all ! so , this

brings us up an important point .... What is the relevance of Shankara

advaita in day to day living ? "

 

 

" The answer is that you go through life without attachment to the

thought impressions. Good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, hatred or

kindness - take them as certain impressions with very little meaning.

One should be unattached to Life - live like a lotus leaf unwetted by

water. This is not easy but not impossible.A consequence of this is

that an Advaitin does not get affected by whatever that happens around

him and deals with it as necessary with no feeling of either delight

or disappointment. In fact this is the real test of Advaitic wisdom

experienced by a person. (Edited redrafted from An Introduction to

Advaita by N.K.Srinivasan) "

 

" It is a long-standing practice that a spiritual aspirant

makes progress along the spiritual path by ascribing to himself the

state of a perfected person. This is because such cultivation requires

a good deal of effort.' In the Gita Sri Krishna advises aspirants to

simulate the conduct of earlier masters and perfected souls.An

aspirant may see the world as the manifestation of the exquisite

beauty of God endowed with maya, and establish a loving relation with

it. All these attitudes may be found among Advaitists who develops

themselves through sadhana chathushtayam.

 

In the Advaitic tradition, there are certain stages in the life

of an illumined person wherein there is simultaneous manifestation of

knowledge, work and devotion, at least as seen by an empirical

observer; an aspirant cultivates the same consciously in his life. It

is natural to presume that this perspective affected to a great extent

the thinking of Swami Vivekananda, an Advaitin that he was.

Furthermore, in his opinion such an active Advaitism alone can be the

starting point and unshakable basis of every religion, morality and

social order. There is no other doctrine which has such a universal

and liberal outlook and which calls people to march unwaveringly

towards the Truth. Fixity of the goal combined with a ceaseless onward

struggle to reach it, can be found in Advaita alone. [Edited and

redrafted from " Vedanta in Practice-By Swami Gambhirananda "

(Translated by Shoutir Kishore Chatterjee)]

 

It is a fact that many of our leading gurus of spiritual teaching have

in addition to teaching institutions run social service organizations

for health, education and related works for the needy. One example is

the involvement of Swami Dayananda sarasawathi for the recent Sunami

relief fund..

 

May lord Krishna bless us all.

 

Baskaran