Monthly Archives: August 2016

Significance of Janmashtami

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the significance of Janmashtami: 
“Janmashtami celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna. Ashtami is significant as it indicates a perfect balance between the seen and the unseen aspects of reality; the visible material world and the invisible spiritual realm.
Krishna’s birth on Ashtami signifies his mastery of both the spiritual and material worlds. He is a great teacher and a spiritual inspiration as well as the consummate politician. On one hand, he is Yogeshwara (the Lord of Yogas — the state to which every yogi aspires) while on the other, he is a mischievous thief.
The unique quality of Krishna is that he is at once more pious than the saints and yet a thorough mischief-monger! His behaviour is a perfect balance of the extremes — perhaps this is why the personality of Krishna is so difficult to fathom. The avdhoot is oblivious to the world outside and a materialistic person, a politician or a king is oblivious to the spiritual world. But Krishna is both Dwarkadheesh and Yogeshwar
Krishna’s teachings are most relevant to our times in the sense that they neither let you get lost in material pursuits nor make you completely withdrawn. They rekindle your life, from being a burnt-out and stressed personality to a more centred and dynamic one. Krishna teaches us devotion with skill. To celebrate Gokulashtami is to imbibe extremely opposite yet compatible qualities and manifest them in your own life.
Hence the most authentic way of celebrating Janamashtami is knowing that you have to play a dual role — of being a responsible human being on the planet and at the same time to realize that you are above all events, the untouched Brahman. Imbibing a bit of avadhoot and a bit of activism in your life is the real significance of celebrating Janmashtami.”

The Third eye 

The third eye belongs to the subtle body. When the energy is moving through the physical body, you are looking through the physical eyes. That is why through the physical eyes you cannot look at anything other than the physical, than the material.Only with the third eye functioning can you enter a different dimension. Now you can see things which are invisible to the physical eyes, but are visible to the subtle eyes. Then, with the third eye functioning, if you look at a person you look at his soul, at his spirit, not at his body – just like you look at the physical body through the physical eyes, but you cannot see the soul. The same happens when you look through the third eye: you look and the body is not there, just the one who resides in the body.
This movement through the third eye transforms you into a different world. You start seeing things you have never seen, you start feeling things you have never felt, you start smelling things you have never smelled. A new world, a subtle world, starts functioning. It is already there. The eye is there; the world, the subtle world, is already there. Both are there, but not revealed.

Once you function in that dimension, many things become apparent to you. For example, if a person is going to die, if your third eye is functioning you will become immediately aware that he is going to die. No physical analysis, no physical diagnosis can say that certainly he is going to die. At the most, we can talk about probabilities. We can say perhaps he will die, and this statement will be conditional: “If such and such remains the case, he may die; if something can be done he may not die.”

~ Osho – The Book of Secrets.

     

Hypocrisy and Religion!

Tantra believes in your inner goodness: remember this difference. Tantra says that everyone is born good, that goodness is your nature. It is the case! You are already good! You need a natural growth, you do not need any imposition; that is why nothing is taken as bad. If anger is there, if sex is there, if greed is there, Tantra says they are also good. The only thing lacking is that you are not centered in yourself; that is why you cannot use them.Anger is not bad. Really, the problem is that you are not inside, that is why anger creates havoc. If you are present there inside, anger becomes a healthy energy, anger becomes health. Anger is transformed into energy, it becomes good. Whatsoever is there is good. Tantra believes in the inherent goodness of everything. Everything is holy, nothing is unholy and nothing is evil. For Tantra there is no devil, only divine existence.

Religions cannot exist without the devil. They need a God and they need a devil also. So do not be misguided if you see only a God in their temples. Just behind that God, the devil is hiding, because no religion can exist without the devil.

Religions always divide you into two: the evil and the divine. They accept the divine and are against the evil – the evil has to be destroyed. So if someone really follows them, he will come to conclude that the moment you destroy the devil, God is destroyed. But no one really follows them – no one can follow them because the very teaching is absurd. So what is everyone doing? Everyone is just deceiving. That is why there is so much hypocrisy. That hypocrisy has been created by religion. You cannot do whatsoever they are teaching you to do, so you become a hypocrite. If you follow them you will die; if you do not follow them you feel guilty that you are irreligious.

The whole world has become hypocritical, no man is honest. Unless these dividing religions disappear, no man can be honest. This will look contradictory because all the religions are teaching to be honest, but they are the foundation stones of all dishonesty. They make you dishonest; because they teach you to do impossible things, which you cannot do, you become hypocrites.

~ Osho – The book of Secrets.

        

Gayatri Mantra explained !!

What is the significance of Gayatri Mantra? Can women chant it ? Why do we chant 108 times?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – Ga-ya-tri – there are three types of misery. We have three bodies, the gross body, the subtle and the causal body. And in all the three levels there is misery. The human life has to cross-over all the three, and that is what Gayatri means. One who sings it, sails over the ocean of misery to go to bliss.

The Gayatri mantra is one of the greatest prayers mankind has.

What does it say? Let me soak in the Divine, and let the Divine destroy all my sins.
The Divine light that burns all sin, let me adore and soak in that Divine light. And let the Divinity inspire my intellect.

See, all our actions happen through our intellect, right? Thoughts come and then you act.
So you pray to the Divine to bring good thoughts into your mind. You pray to the Divine, ‘Take over my intellect. Inspire my intellect’; dhiyo yonah prachodayat.

Dhi means intellect. May my intellect be guided by, kindled by, and inspired by you (Divinity).

When right thoughts come, your action will always be right. When intuitive thoughts come, your actions will be fruitful. So praying for the best thought. Let my mind, my whole life energy be soaked in Divinity. That is the significance of Gayatri Mantra.

Why 108 times?

Sri Sri – Because there are nine planets and twelve constellations. When nine planets revolve around the twelve constellations, it brings 108 kinds of changes. If there is anything wrong in these changes, it can be rectified with the positive energy of the mantras.

Can women chant The Gayatri Mantra?

Sri Sri – Yes. Nowhere it is said that women cannot chant.

It is unfortunate that somewhere in the middle ages, these rights of women were taken away. We have reinstated this in the Ashram. Many women are learning.

Knowing SHIVA !!!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – I would ask the question ‘What is not Shiva?’ Is Shiva somebody? Is he a form? Is he someone sitting in some place? No! Shiva is the entire universe. He is in every atom of the universe.

Shiva doesn’t have a body, he was never a person at all. To symbolize the unfathomable, the infinite divinity, and to make it comprehensible for young people, for children and others, they made a form. In fact, there is no form to Shiva.

Shiva is a principle (Tattva) from where everything has come, everything is sustained in it, and everything dissolves into it. Shiva is the space, it is the consciousness.
There is no way that you can even step out of Shiva at anytime because Shiva is the summum bonum of the whole creation. That is why Shiva’s body is depicted in blue because blue signifies the sky; the all pervading infinity which has no limits, and no shape.

Watch the Video below to explore more about the Shiva principle: