Vedanta Vani
February 2025
Why does Gita say that the teachings are not for the non-devoted?
Q: Is grief necessary to progress in the spiritual plane?
Swami Abhedananda: No, grief is an obstacle.
Q: What are the first steps to the attainment of God-consciousness?
Swami Abhedananda: The first step is self-control, concentration and dispassion, then discrimination and enlightenment. The third eye must be opened in order to attain God-consciousness.
Q: Why is the advice given not to impart the wisdom given in the Gita to those who have not subdued the emotion?
Swami Abhedananda: Well, I do not believe it is particularly mentioned “who have not subdued the emotion” but who do not believe, who do not have any inclination or desire to know the truth. It would be the same thing as throwing pearls before swine. Just as Christ said, do not throw pearls before swine. They would not appreciate. Unless we appreciate a thing we cannot make any progress. There must be appreciation, and in order to appreciate, we must have it within us. The highest truth, when it is spoken, those only can appreciate it who have it within them, who have their eyes open. Otherwise, others would laugh and ridicule, and perhaps would say mean things about the science or the philosophy or the teacher. Only those who have their spiritual eyes open can appreciate it.
The Last moments of Gopaler Ma
Sister Nivedita
All night long we had been watching the slow hard breathing of the dying. In, in, in, it would go, growing ever more and more still, till one thought that never again could any movement occur in the aged frame, and then freedom once more and a succession of quick deep inbreathings. Such breathing, they said, was seen but seldom, and was the result of long years of Pranayama, practised unconsciously over the beads, as night and day the old woman had counted them, saying the name of her Ishtam, “Gopala, Gopala, Gopala! ”
For she beside whom we sat and watched was Gopaler- Ma, that saint whom Sri Ramakrishna Himself had treated as His mother.
Without a single want she lay there, as she had lived, the mind suspended in the thought that had made its life, the face full of the last sweetness and peace. A day and a night already had she lain thus by the Ganges side. For at the moment of the rising of the full moon, we had stepped with her over the threshold of the door, and had felt the silent soaring of her spirit, as it cast off triumphantly the first of its outer wrappings, the shell of home. But when she had reached the Ghats, and lain awhile in the play of cool breezes and the brightness of the moon, she had shown, as the dying are wont to do, some signs of revival. And the candle of life for many an hour thereafter had burnt up in its worn socket, before it was finally to be put out.
There she lay, the last changed breaths coming at easy intervals, while one of the monks, whom she had known as boys, bent over her and with his brow to hers, half spoke, half whispered the words that the Hindu loves to hear in his last hour—Om Ganga Narayanal Om Ganga Narayana Brahma! A moment more, and then with one voice from the circle of watchers came the shout of Haribol, for the last breath had gone. The spirit of Gopaler-Ma had taken flight, and only the garment of flesh was left behind.
Then one at the head of the bier, looking up at the brightening of the sky behind the clouds asked, “Is this the dawn?” And from the foot came back the answer, “Yes it is the dawn! ” And then, looking down, we saw that the waters that had bathed the feet of the dying were already receding—were already sunken some inches below us. Gopaler-Ma had died indeed at the moment of dawn, on the very turn of the outgoing tide.
Sri Ramakrishna’s Teachings
If you feel proud, do it in the thought that you are the servant of God, the son of God. Great men have the nature of children. They are always children before God, so they have no egoism. all their strength is of God–belonging to and coming from Him, nothing of themselves.
If after all you cannot destroy this “I”, then let it remain as “I the servant”. The self that knows itself as the servant and lover of God will do little mischief.
By acquiring the conviction that all is done by the will of God, one becomes only a tool in His hand. Then one is free, even in this life. “You do your work, o Lord, people say I do it.”
Girish Chandra Ghosh’s Last Song on Shiva
Jogasane mahadhyane magana jogi-vara…..
Mahapurush Maharaj [Swami Shivanandaji] said: “Ah! What an excellent song Girish Babu composed!” Shivanandaji began singing the song. Later he remarked: “Without the grace of Sri Ramakrishna he couldn’t have written that way. He composed the song, having a vision of Shiva, so to say. How beautiful and profound the idea is! “Time remained static in the present while Shiva was absorbed in meditation.” It describes the state of deep meditation. When meditation is very deep, one loses all sense of the past and the future. There is simply consciousness of the present and that vaguely. That is why Girish Babu wrote: “Time remained static in the present.” Then all sense of past and future is obliterated, there remaining only consciousness of the present. Of course, when the mind is lost in samadhi there is no consciousness of the present either. It is a state beyond past, present and future. That state cannot be described. That is why Swamiji said: “It is beyond speech and thought. Oly he/she who has the experience knows it.” It is not an ordinary state. Coming down from it one cannot find words to express the joy
The human dimension in times of death and violence
Kees Boukema
[Concluding part of a very interesting narrative.]
After the war, Camus remained in the service of the now legal ‘Combat’. In 1947, his novel ‘La Peste’ was published. The book immediately attracted worldwide attention. Within six months, one hundred and thirty thousand copies were sold and many translations appeared. Not only in almost all European countries, but also in the United States, Africa, India and Japan. This interest was partly due to the image that Camus sketches of Christianity in the person of Father Paneloux. In a sermon, he tells the faithful that they have been collaborating with evil for too long and have trusted in God’s mercy for too long. People thought that if they only showed remorse, everything was permitted. But God, tired of waiting, had turned his head away. “Deprived of God’s light, we find ourselves for a long time in the darkness of the plague,”
The doctor Rieux is asked what he thinks of this; his answer: “I have been in hospitals too much to feel anything for the idea of collective punishment. But oh, Christians sometimes talk like that, without really meaning it. They are better than they seem. Paneloux is a scholar. He has not seen enough people die, so he can speak in the name of a truth. But the first priest who has administered the holy sacraments to his parishioners himself and has heard the breathing of a dying man, thinks the same as I do. He will try to alleviate the misery, instead of arguing for its excellent effect.”
In the post-war years, Camus also delved into the history of politically motivated terrorism and the arguments with which people have tried to justify the terror. He incorporated the results of his research into the book “Man in Revolt” (Paris, 1951) and also into the play “Les Justes” (The Just). This play is based on the attack on Grand Duke Serge in January 1905 by the ‘Fighting Organisation’ of the revolutionary socialist party. The main character is Yanek Kaliayev, a man whom Camus respected and admired, because “in the execution of the most ruthless task he could not calm his heart”.
Kaliayev had taken it upon himself to throw a bomb at the carriage in which the Grand Duke was. But at the decisive moment he backed down, because he also saw two children in the carriage. Kaliayev is called to account for this by the party:
Stepan (party ideologist): ‘The party ordered you to kill Grand Duke Serge.’
Yanek Kaliayev: ‘That is correct, but it did not order me to kill children.’
Stepan: ‘We must free humanity from itself and its slavery (…) .
Everything is permitted that can serve our cause.’
Annenkov (party leader): ‘I do not want you to say that everything is permitted, for whatever reason. What matters now is: Are we going to kill two children?’
Stepan: ‘Don’t you understand anything? Because Yanek didn’t kill those two children, thousands of Russian children will continue to die of hunger for years to come. Have you ever seen children die of hunger? I have. And death by bomb is heaven compared to that.
Yanek didn’t see them, he saw two trained dogs of the Grand Duke.’
Do you only live for the moment? Then do charity, fight everyday evil, but don’t dare to start a revolution, which will eliminate all evil from the world forever.’
Dora (activist): ‘Yanek knows that the death of the Grand Duke can bring the moment closer when Russian children will no longer have to die of hunger. But because of the death of the Grand Duke’s niece and nephew, not one less child will die of hunger.’
Stepan: ‘The truth is that you don’t believe in the revolution. If you were really convinced that through our sacrifices and our victory we could build a Russia freed from tyranny, a free country that would eventually encompass the entire world and free man from his rulers, why would you care about the death of two children?’
A second assassination attempt succeeds and Yanek Kaliayev is arrested. He confesses his guilt, is sentenced to death and executed by hanging. Kaliayev was one of the few terrorists who believed in God. Shortly before the attack, one of his comrades had seen him standing in front of an icon. In one hand he held the bomb and with the other he made the sign of the cross. But he rejected organized religion. In his cell before the execution, he had refused all ‘spiritual assistance’. ‘I consider my death to be the supreme protest against a world in which tears and blood rule,’ he declared. (Man in Revolt, p. 137 et seq.)
In 1950, the year this play was performed in Paris, rebels were campaigning for independence in Algeria. France remained categorically deaf to this demand, whereupon Algerian nationalists proceeded to enforce their demands with increasing violence. On 1 November 1954, an uprising against the French colonial government began under the leadership of the ‘Front de Libération National’. The French government initially believed it could suppress the uprising with counter-violence. To this end, thousands of soldiers were eventually deployed, including three regiments of ‘zoeaves’ (Algerians of French origin). In articles in the French weekly L’Express, Camus advocated reforms that would do justice to the diversity of Algerian society. He urged the warring parties to refrain from violent actions that could hinder a resolution of the conflict.
On his initiative, a meeting was organised in the centre of Algiers on 23 January 1956, at which, in addition to Camus, representatives of Islam and the Christian churches would also speak. His speech in which he advocated a ‘civil truce’ (trêve civile), which meant that women, children and innocent civilians would be spared if violence were used, was interrupted by commotion. Outside, an FLN security guard had clashed with a group of French nationalists who had organised a counter-demonstration under the slogan ‘Algérie francaise’. Camus, who had come with the intention of moderating the conflict, saw that his initiative had only intensified it. He decided to no longer participate in the public debate, because ‘it only led to a hardening of positions and caused more division’ (Ger Verrips, Albert Camus; a life against the lie, p. 131 et seq.)
He broke his silence once. In 1957, when Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, he was asked point-blank during the press conference after the award ceremony, ‘what his commitment was to justice in his native country’. His answer: “I have always condemned terror. I must also condemn terror when it operates blindly. At this moment, bombs are being thrown into the trams of Algiers. My mother could be in one of those trams. If that is justice, I choose my mother.” (Verrips, p. 156 and René Puthaar, afterword to Albert Camus, ‘Last cahiers; 1951-1959’, p. 329). The prize money associated with the Nobel Prize enabled him to buy a house in the South of France. There he worked on his autobiographical novel ‘La premier homme’. On 4 January 1960, the car of his friend with whom he was travelling to Paris crashed head-on into a plane tree. Camus was killed instantly. He had with him the unfinished, handwritten text of the book. The last fragment of this manuscript reads: “That day he felt life, his youth and people slipping through his fingers without being able to save anything from them and, abandoned to the blind hope that the dark force (force obscure) which had lifted him above time for so many years, had nourished him without limit and which remained itself even in the most difficult circumstances, would provide him with reasons to grow old and to die without rebellion (mourir sans révolte) with the same untiring generosity as it had given him his reasons for being.”
Mr Kees Boukema is a scholar in Vedanta and Comparative philosophy. His brilliant and thorough-going articles on various philosophical and spiritual subjects are being published since the first issue of the magazine. His latest work is De Beoefening van Meditatie.
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Meditations
[Meditations on the Self, from Viveka-chudâmani]
सर्वाधारं सर्व-वस्तु-प्रकाशं सर्वाकारं सर्वगं सर्वशून्यम्
नित्यं शुद्धं निश्चलं निर्विकल्पम् ब्रह्माद्वैतं यत्तदेवाहमस्मि ।।
“Who am I? I am the basis, the ground, the foundation of everything. I am the Light that reveals everything. I am all the forms. I am all-pervading. I am beyond everything. I am pure, divine, absolutely stable and beyond modifications. I am that One Supreme Brahman.”
सर्वात्मको’हं सर्वो’हं सर्वातीतो’हमद्वयः केवलाखण्ड-बोधो’हम् आनंदो’हम् निरन्तरः।।
“I am the Soul of everything and everyone. I am everything. I am beyond everything and yet I am One. I am that unique cognition of indivisible One. I am Bliss itself and I am beyond all separations.
न मे प्रवृत्तिर् न च मे निवृत्तिः सदैकरूपस्य निरंशकस्य।
एकात्मको यो निबिडो निरन्तरो व्योमेव पूर्णः स कथं नु चेष्टते। ।
I have no involvement in the world, nor is there renunciation. This is because I am eternally One, non-different and not a part of anything. I am the One pure Self and am always present. I fill the universe and beyond and so what ordinary thing can affect me?