Radhanath Swami.Info

The Power of Inquiry

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:12:25 +0000

One great saintly personality remarked that everyone spends their lives within a series of questions and answers. When a bird rises in the morning, it begins asking questions and searching for answers. When it comes back to the nest at night, it is still asking questions and trying to find answers. Inhuman society the businessmen, politicians, lawyers, artists, farmers etc. all are seeking answers to their questions.

Life is a series of questions and answers:
How to solve our problems?
How to find happiness?
How to avoid suffering?
How to make friends?
How to gain power and prestige?
Of course, in today’s age the series of questions and answers is mostly abouthow to make money.
All the television shows, cinemas, newspapers, magazines, are about these questions and answers.
The Vedic scriptures explain that, now that you are a human being, inquire about who you are. The questions about eating, sleeping, mating and defendingand all of their various sub-divisions exhibit the basic trend of human intelligence in today’s world, but these are unimportant questions.

Who am I?
Why am I suffering?
Where am I coming from?
Where am I going?
Who is God?
What is the nature of this universe?
What is my relationship with God within this universe?
When a human being comes to the elevated platform of making serious inquiry on these subjects, then human life has real spiritual value.

If we really want to digest food, we have to have hunger. If we have no hunger, we have very weak digestion. Hunger is a very important part of life because it gives power to digest and that principle holds true for spiritual knowledge as well. When we feel the urgency and the hunger to solve the real problems of life and we inquire from people who act truly and who reveal the word of God in an unadulterated way, then our human life really begins.

The scriptures tell us that there is a final exam. That final exam is called death. It’s not a horrible thing unless we fail it. Death is neither good nor bad. If we fail the exam of death it’s a miserable situation. But if we pass that exam it’s the most glorious opportunity in all of creation. We can pass this examination by using our life to seek answers to the questions of the purpose of life and then following those answers which will lead us to the right path and destination of our life.

- Radhanath Swami

Hope in Pain

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:25:18 +0000

Whatever God does is ultimately a miracle for our pleasure. Even the punishments are ultimately for our pleasure even though they may cause pains in our bodies. Biologically, what is pain? Different nerve endings go through certain transformations that create signals, which come out as pain. It is an unbelievable creation.

Even pain is God’s miracle. Technologically it is so complex that even the greatest machine cannot create such a thing as pain.

Pain is specifically designed and minutely created by God for our pleasure.Ultimately, everything is for the pleasure of the soul, to bring us, souls, back to God’s original abode. Everything that takes place in our life is God revealing His miraculous, incredible mercy upon us. The entire existence is simply a reciprocation of love between God and His children.

by Radhanath Swami

Deity and Omnipresent God

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:52:39 +0000

Many times people ask, “If God is omnipresent, why worship a Deity?”

If God is omnipresent, is He not present in the Deity as well? If we are honest and realistic, we can very easily understand that to fix our mindon God who is present every where and in everything is indeed difficult. Therefore, the Lord out of His mercy and kindness reveals Himself to usthrough wonderful mediums by which we can completely absorb our consciousnessin Him.

One such medium is His name. The name is the Deity of God in sound that wecan carry with us everywhere. The Deity in the temple is another manifestation that God has so kindly given us to completely focus our mind and senses in serving Him. In His Deity form we can bathe God, we can feed God, we can meditate on His beauty, we can completely absorb our attention in Him.

Deity worship is a most wonderful sublime form of meditation that awakens ournatural serving potency and our love for God. God has given the Deity as a wonderful facility and opportunity for us to fix our mind on Him and to love Him and serve Him.

by Radhanath Swami

Love Means to Give

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:46:01 +0000

The essential need within every living being is to seek pleasure. What do people do for pleasure? Now, different types of living entities have different standards of pleasure and they work in different ways to achieve them. For a little ant, the pleasure is a grain of sugar.

For a moth, its pleasure is light. And we’ve seen what they’ll do to attain that grain of sugar, how hard they will work to achieve that light, even taking the risk of their lives. For some people, their pleasure is to satisfy their ego by inflicting pain and harm on others. Some people find pleasure in being famous, in being adored and aggrandized. Some find pleasure in being worshiped, while some others find pleasure in acquisition of wealth, acquisition of property, acquisition of the power that comes with all these things. A mother finds pleasure in giving satisfaction to her child. A father finds pleasure in seeing the family prosper.

Everyone is looking for pleasure. That essential need for pleasure, in its most important form, is the pleasure of love. Even if you were the proprietor of everything on the entire planet earth but you were the only person on earth, you would be unhappy. There can be no real satisfaction of the heart without having people to love and without being loved. The real problem in the world is poverty of the heart. The only way to fill that hunger is love. The only thing that touches the heart is love. To love means to give.

The child gives nothing to the mother, but the mother is found to take more satisfaction in that child than practically anything or anyone else and all she is doing is giving her love, all she is doing is just sacrificing.

Because that is real pleasure. Love is not just to take, love is to give. The more you give, the more genuine your giving is, the more people will naturally reciprocate, thus bringing satisfaction to the heart.

- Radhanath Swami

God’s Special Effects

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 07:35:53 +0000

We wake up in the night and we find ourselves in the middle of the most incredible feature film right before our eyes. There is an unending 360-degree movies theater all around us. God is revealing incredible miracles at every stage.

Show me any special effect that can be compared to the sky at night, studded with the luminous moon and innumerable stars. We are able to see them although they are billions of miles away.

–Radhanath Swami

Penetrating the Cloud of False Ego

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:23:33 +0000

False ego is the basic principle of all material bondage. It is the beginning and the end of material entanglement. The beginning of all our sufferings in this world is when we think “I am the doer; I am the enjoyer and I am very good. Just see what I have done; just see who I am.”

From the insignificant insect to the blade of grass, all are covered by the false ego. A fully conscious spiritual entity has an eternal relationship with God in the spiritual world. Such an entity knows the truth, knows God and is full of all wisdom and bliss. However, when under illusion, that same soul thinks, “I am this blade of grass, I don’t think; I don’t act; I simply stand here, doing nothing.” This is the power of the cloud of the false ego.

The only purpose of human life is to penetrate the cloud of false ego, enter into the light of the spiritual sky and to revive our eternal relationship with God. Cultivating humility means fighting against this principle of false ego.

– Radhanath Swami

Humility Means Honesty

admin — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:21:01 +0000

Humility really means honesty. Humility simply means being truthful. What do we have to brag about? If God does not make the sun rise, what would you do? Did you create your brain? Did you create your eyes to see? Did you create your heart to beat? Did you create your arms to act? As they say in British parlance, “Do not be proud of borrowed plumes.” Whatever we have is not ours. We have the free will to use what God gives us in a good way or in an evil way or in a spiritual way. We have that free will and, according to what we do and what we say, the karma is going to come back on us. But still all the facilities we have are coming from a power way beyond our own. Even if you are young and strong now, but by the power of time, how long will you remain young and strong? The body is under the control of nature, the mind is under the control of nature. So humility really means to be honest.

nityo nityanam chetanas chetananam eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman (Katha Upanisad 2.2.13)

The above verse explains that there is one supreme eternal and all others are subordinate to that one supreme eternal. So the fact is that we are always subordinate to the supreme.

Hitler was subordinate to the supreme. The Lord gave him a mind and a body and he totally misused it and exploited it. He tortured and killed others and accumulated oceans and oceans, mountains and mountains of horrible karma upon himself, but ultimately he is dead and gone and his soul has to go to the next place to get his karma. Alexander, the great, came and conquered so many parts of the world, but where is he now? He was conquered by time. So everyone is subordinate to the power of God. So to be humble means to be realistic and honest. To be proud is to be simply dishonest, ungrateful and unrealistic. To be proud is an illusion. Of course in the world today to be proud is a very cool situation. People like proud people, but the fact is that pride is an illusion and it is a miserable condition for the heart. Humility means to have enough integrity to be honest with the reality of our life before God.

- Radhanath Swami

Radhanath Swami.Info

The Power of Inquiry

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