Vedantavani

January 2026

Editorial

How Karma Acts….

In this world, which is called karma-bhumi, nobody can escape the eternal law of karma. The eternal law of karma is that what we sow, so we reap. We need not unnecessarily blame others for our problems and sufferings. We must rather blame ourselves. We had done something wrong in the past. Some religions call it sin. Vedanta does not recognize sin. There is nothing called papa or sin. There are errors. All of us commit errors in our lives. We have heard that putting our hands into blazing fire is wrong, as it will burn or scald our hands. But we put our hands. When the effect shows up, we blame God, family, neighbours, and everyone around. Vedanta advises us to stop blaming others.

One more advice Vedanta gives is, stop blaming yourself also. Self-criticism has a limit. Don’t demean yourself too much, as that will block all channels of grace and love. Vedanta teaches us to excuse ourselves for our past errors. Once we shake off our guilt feelings, we become light. We open the channels to grace and love of the Divine. We grow.

Vedanta is not fatalism. It does not say, “You have made mistakes in the past and so you are doomed.” Such an idea never exists in Vedanta. Vedanta is positivity, opportunity and bright light. Yes, there’s suffering or problem due to some past deed. But start praying to Ishvara, start doing some good, selfless act, repeat mantras, start meditating, do something good. All the effects of the past errors are wiped away. The supreme incarnation of Love and Compassion, Mother Sri Sarada Devi assures us: “Due to some past misdeed, if it is destined that you must lose your leg, by prayer there shall be only a pin-prick. Or, karma flows away like the water that flows under the bridge, without affecting you.”

Vedanta is Life. Life is positive. We make our lives miserable by hyper-negativity, self-castigation, ignorance. The true way is to go ahead towards Light, without fear, without sadness, but with the hope that we shall see the Light. For this, just doing some good deed selflessly every day, offering all our duties to Ishvara, and offering ourselves to Ishvara are the best means.

Swami Sunirmalananda

 

Ramakrishna Method of Testing Disciples

To determine the tendency of a person’s mind, whether it is good or evil, Sri Ramakrishna would weigh the person’s hand in his own hand, from the fingertips to the elbow. If he found the weight less than normal, he would conclude that the mind was good. Let us give an example. While Sri Ramakrishna was staying at the Cossipore garden house, suffering from cancer, the present writer’s [Saradananda’s] younger brother came to visit the Master one day. The Master was very pleased to see him. He had him sit beside him, questioned him about various things, and gave him many instructions. When I went in to see Sri Ramakrishna, he asked me, “Is this your younger brother? He is a fine boy and more intelligent than you. Let me see if he has good or evil tendencies.” Saying this, he took my brother’s hand in his own and weighed it, saying, “Yes, he has good tendencies.” He then asked me: “Shall I draw him towards me (i.e., turn his mind away from the world and towards God)? What do you say?” I replied, “Yes, please do.” But Sri Ramakrishna thought for a moment and said, “No, not anymore. I have taken one, and if I were to take this one too, your parents, especially your mother, would be very sad. I have displeased many a Shakti (woman) in my life. Not anymore.”
The Master used to say, “People with different tendencies also have different ways of functioning physiologically, such as sleeping. Experts can find signs of character in these things. For example, not all people breathe the same way during sleep. A worldly person breathes one way, a renounced person another.”
Sri Ramakrishna said of women that there are two kinds: Vidya Shakti, of a divine nature, and Avidya Shakti, of an asuric or low nature. “Those of divine nature,” he said, “eat and sleep little. They don’t care for sense gratification, they enjoy talking with their husbands about religious topics, and they save their husbands from evil thoughts and impure actions by inspiring them with spiritual thoughts. They help their husbands lead a spiritual life so that they (the husbands) can ultimately realize God. But the Avidya Shaktis are the exact opposite. They eat and sleep a lot, and they want their husbands to think of nothing but happiness. If their husbands talk about religion, they get irritated.”
Sri Ramakrishna told us many things in this way. Once, he examined the body of Naren (Swami Vivekananda) in the way we mentioned above. He was very pleased with the result. He said, “You have all the good signs on your body, only during sleep you breathe heavily. Yogis say that indicates a short life.”

[from: Sri Ramakrishna as They Saw Him]

Selection from the book by Mary Saaleman

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India and Dharma

[Prabuddha Bharata 1920]

INDIA is One—from the spiritual viewpoint. ‘This is evidenced in our literature and religious beliefs, and the background is the vision of Brahman, the triumph of the soul over the consciousness of the body. ‘This is the land of spiritual ideas. At bottom we are one from Ceylon to the Himalayas, because our ideas, though innumerable and most marvellously complex, are one, bearing relation to the vision of the Divine. Never have there been greater men than the Rishis; never have there been more comprehensive thought-systems than those of the Vedanta. Our epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, are charged with most inspiring narratives of heroes and of sages. They embody the very highest ethical and spiritual outlook and they give us the history of the Indian ideas and of Indian greatness. Where shall one find more inspiring scriptures than those of the Vedas and the Upanishads? And where in the history of human thought are there elsewhere such divine utterances of soul as the Bhagavad Gita and the Nirvana Shatka!

Here, in our motherland, the human mind has thought out the most inclusive ideas, going beyond the very foundations of logic into the depths of the spiritual consciousness. Here, in our motherland, the human soul has struck the highest note of truth concerning the Nature of the individual. Here, in this land, the grand exclamations of the soul, which has attained the divine Consciousness, say, ‘‘Aham Brahmasmi!’’ and ‘’Tat ‘vam asi!’ Behold the long list of the Avataras: Rama! Krishna! Buddha! Shankara ! Chaitanya ! Guru Nanak! Behold the retinue of philosophers, Kapila, Gautama, Kanada, Jaimini, Ramanujacharya, Madvhacharya, Vallabhacharya and the philosophers of Nalanda and Nadia universities!

Aye, India is One. For from North to South and from East to West this is the basis of Hinduism. It is Hinduism. From Kashmir and Nepal to Rameswar and Bombay and from Kailash to Ceylon, India is One in its culture, in its faith, in its spiritual outlook. ‘True India is not an India of provinces, but of culture. It is a Nation.

Swami Raghavananda

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The Teachings of Acharya S.N. Goenka

Kees Boukema

Where there is darkness, there is a need for light. Now that the world is ravaged by violent conflict, war, and bloodshed, peace and harmony are desperately needed. This is a tremendous challenge for world leaders and for spiritual leaders. Let us rise to this challenge.

Religions have an inner essence and diverse manifestations, such as rituals, worship services, expressions of faith and dogmas. This external appearance varies from religion to religion, but the essence lies in the realm of morality and charity, and this is universal: developing a disciplined and pure mind full of love, compassion, goodwill, and tolerance. Spiritual leaders should emphasize what they have in common, and believers should put this into practice. If we were to focus on the essence of religions and be more tolerant of their external appearance, the risk of conflict would be significantly reduced.
These words were spoken on August 31, 2000 at the United Nations headquarters in New York at the opening of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. [See YouTube www.dhamma.org/nl]. The audience responded with applause and cheers. The speaker, Acharya Satya Narayan Goenka, a meditation teacher in India, continued:
“Every individual should have freedom of religion. Believers must be careful not to neglect the essence and ensure that their own religious practices do not disrupt those of others. One should not condemn or denigrate differing beliefs. The Buddha was often approached by people with differing beliefs. He would say: ‘Let us put aside our differences, let us focus on what we agree on, and let us put it into practice.’”
“I come from an ancient country where, over the past thousands of years, many philosophical and spiritual schools have emerged. Aside from occasional violence, my country was a model of peaceful religious coexistence. About 2,300 years ago, that country was ruled by Emperor Ashoka the Great. He had edicts chiseled into stone pillars everywhere, stating that all religions must be respected. This allowed followers of all faiths to feel safe. These inscriptions are still legible:
“We may honor our own religion and must respect other religions. By doing so, we help our own religion grow and we do a good service to that of others. Someone who honors his own religion and condemns that of others may do so out of love for his own religion, but his behavior is more likely to harm it. There must be unity: the willingness to listen to the teachings of others.”
According to Goenka, there are still leaders who keep this tradition alive. He cites Oman, the sultanate on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, as an example. It is a country with freedom of religion, governed by a monarch who devoutly practices Islam and allows followers of various religions to practice their faith in mosques, churches, and temples. The propagation of religions is not tolerated, and missionary proselytizing is prohibited.

In Oman, Islam is the state religion; the vast majority of Omanis adhere to Ibadism, a branch of Islam that has traditionally been tolerant of other religions and teaches that faith can never be a reason for war or violence. A faith remains vibrant if it is in harmony with changing cultural and scientific circumstances. “Such rulers will regularly come to power in the future,” Goenka said. “It is written, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God’ (Matt. 5:9). If there is no peace in the hearts of people, there can be no peace in the world. A religion worthy of the name does not divide, but unites. Let there be no conversion from one religion to another, but conversion from misery to joy, from bondage to freedom, and from cruelty to compassion.” (Again: Loud applause and enthusiastic cheers.)

A peaceful society requires more and more members to be peaceful. It is our responsibility as leaders to be an example and a source of inspiration. A peaceful society will also find a way to live in harmony with its natural environment. We all know how important it is to protect our environment and stop environmental pollution. Mental pollutants like ignorance, cruelty, and greed stand in our way. Eliminating these pollutants will not only promote peace among people but also a healthy relationship between human society and its natural environment.
“There are differences among religions, that is true. By gathering at this Summit for World Peace, the leaders of all major religions demonstrate their commitment to peace. May peace be the foundational principle of a ‘universal religion.’ Let us stand united and declare in our declaration that we will abstain from killing and condemn violence,” said Indian meditation teacher Satya Naryan Goenka in his address on August 31, 2000, at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

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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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A Story

Swami Vivekananda had a stock of funny stories, some of which he told  again and again. One was about a missionary to the cannibal islands who, upon his arrival, asked the people there how they liked his predecessor and received the reply, “He was de-li-cious”. Another was about the Negro preacher, who in telling the story of the creation of Adam, said: “God made Adam and put him up against de fence to dry,” when he was interrupted by a voice from the congregation, “Hold on dere, brudder. Who made dat fence?” At this, the Negro preacher leaned over the pulpit and said solemnly: “One more question like dat, and you smashes all teology.”

Then Swamiji would tell about the woman who asked him, “Swami, are you a Buddhist?” {pronounced like bud}, and he would say wickedly but with a grave face, “No, madam, I am a florist.”

Sister Christine

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The “Redemption” of Babel

Paulo J. S. Bittencourt
Professor of the History Course at UFFS – Erechim Campus

I am a perplexed witness to what Promethean humanity has ventured to accomplish, across the vast field of languages, in the year 2044. It is desperately for this reason that I write this missive, deprived, against my will, of the serenity against which the most urgent haste always threatens. For little time remains to me, and, as if that were not enough, dissenting voices are always targets of the most stupid persecution. I ardently wish that the words I weave here may echo in distant futures, reaching the ears of time travelers whose noble journeys we most yearn to undertake in dreams, although our steps, so upright, cannot, for now, tread them. Perhaps then the real pilgrims that our expectations idealize may opportunely warn the generations that preceded me about the dangers arising from their thoughtless actions.

I therefore firmly hope that these words, deposited in one of the virtually infinite bottles that sail the digital oceans, may be found, even through more intricate paths, by those whose feet are planted in the past. Here, I undertake an assessment of the resounding impacts on our ways of perceiving the world and human relations themselves resulting from the most revolutionary of virtual applications ever conceived. This is “Redeemed Babel,” which can be easily translated as “Babel Redeemed.”

Created 10 years ago, the application aimed at a most noble principle: to overcome the linguistic colonialism that so rampantly plagued a humanity divided by material and symbolic power asymmetries, even though the most widespread languages ​​currently spoken have been built, for most of history, only through the violent subjugation of some by others. It was estimated, however, that all these issues could be definitively overcome, so that if the colonizer never bothered to learn the language of the colonized, the subjugated would no longer need to assimilate the language of their subordinates.

In attempting to trace the history of this audacious project, I recall that its origins date back to the first virtual translators that were so widespread, for example, on the long-forgotten YouTube. This offshoot consisted, basically, of digital readers that simply translated the original languages ​​of content creators for the countries that replicated their channels. Obviously, it was a way to avoid the costs that would be demanded by paying a narrator whose native language was actually that of the target country.

It was then that, from this branch, the first steps of the application quickly unfolded in various countries, so that its acceptance accelerated geometrically. The program basically followed the same structural pattern as its birth, although the rapid advances in the world of computing have ensured a gradually cumulative efficiency to the point of instantaneity. The scheme is basically as follows. Through highly complex headsets that carry two interlocutors, each unfamiliar with the other’s language, the program processes the simultaneous translation of what is being said, in such a way that dialogues unfold in astonishingly real time. Studying foreign languages, therefore, came to be proclaimed as a completely superfluous activity.

It doesn’t take much thought to conclude that the large contingent of translators and teachers of foreign languages ​​was catapulted into the disunited masses of the world’s lumpenproletariat, from which only tiny strata were redirected in terms of labor. All those who devoted themselves to the study of living languages ​​came to be seen as the dilettante scholars of yesteryear researching dead languages. Their nascent voices merely echoed in deserts of listeners. Yes, it is true, it also became unnecessary for speakers of spatially more restricted languages ​​to learn to speak the languages ​​of empires.

Humanity then discovered that the Tower of Babel could be built not with sun-dried clay bricks, but with intangible blocks amidst a planet of superheated temperatures. The discovery by all societies that other groups exist who speak a language different from their own is what imploded. The notion that distinct sounds produce similar meanings was completely lost. As Octavio Paz reminds us, it is precisely the diversity of languages ​​that breaks the link between sound and meaning, undermining the unity of the spirit. It was believed that this relationship belonged not only to the natural order, but also to the supernatural. Although unexplained, it was a bond that made the terms of the relationship inseparable and indissoluble. If the Spirit is united, the soul, as dispersion, institutes otherness. This was precisely the answer of the story of Babel to the perplexity among us produced by the existence of many languages. “The whole world used the same language and the same words.” (Genesis 11:1) Humanity then conceived a project that offended the Spirit. “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens!” (Genesis 11:4) Just as Prometheus was severely punished by Zeus for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humanity, Yahweh also punishes human audacity. “‘Behold, they are all one people, and they all speak one language. This is only the beginning of what they have done; now no plan will be made for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.’” (Genesis 11:7) The consequence is that the people ceased to be one, and the beginning of plurality was also the beginning of history, with its empires, wars, and – as Octavio Paz warns – “those proud heaps of rubble that civilizations have left behind.” Thus, cosmopolitanism was condemned, “the plural and pluralistic society that admits the existence of the other and others.”

With “Redeemed Babel,” humanity realized the universal communicator of Star Trek, seeking to overcome the ruins of the original, fractured unity, but shamefully, against the interest in the singular linguistic history that has always constituted the irreducible singularities of the significant worlds of life among different cultures. If plurality appeared as a curse in destroyed Babel, redeemed Babel made the sin against the Spirit real. This is because what the other says is now understood only and always in terms of the language spoken by the observer, so that there is no longer any contemplation of the arbitrary conventions of the relationship between sound and meaning, as defended by Saussure and his disciples, and yet, the ancient magical belief, shared among poets, in the identity between the word and that which the word names, was also killed, but in an even more brutal way.

Speakers, now, are atoms of closed identities that harden, surprisingly, in the same proportion as they interact through language.

I make this warning driven solely by the belief that the power of indifference will never cease to be a form of subordination of others. As André Malraux argues, more than by the fascination of power itself, the will to force stems from the vain search to escape the human condition in favor of the chimerical disease that is the will to divinity. The builders of Babel thought the same.

It was then that linguistic diversity became merely a piece of ornamental tapestry that had long since grown weary. Through its death, a refined form of identity assassination of otherness was consecrated.

Human language, therefore, destroyed the world.

 

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Professor Paulo Bittencourt teaches History at the UFFS, Erchim Campus, Rio Grande de Sul. “Federal University of Southern Frontier” [UFFS] is one of the best universities of Brasil with highly qualified professors at the helm. Professor Bittencourt never rejects our request for articles, though he is very busy.

 

 

 

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“Pray to God with tears in your eyes whenever you want illumination or find yourself faced with any doubt or difficulty. The Lord will remove all your impurities, assuage your mental anguish, and give you enlightenment.”

Mother Sri Sarada Devi

 

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The heart is the greatest river of your life, the head is the bridge over the river. Always s follow the heart.

 Swami Vivekananda.