Key to self-realisation

Category: Articles — at 6:33 pm on Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Science has been continually probing and unravelling the fascinating aspects of the universe and the human body; but more fascinating is the fact that the scriptures are a storehouse of these truths. In a lecture, Swami Suddhananda pointed out that the Vedas and the Upanishads provide an insight into the intriguing world of one’s body/mind complex in the fashion of a comprehensive manual that one uses meticulously to operate a technical gadget, and it is in the hands of each one (user) to use both the manual and the gadget effectively. Just as when one buys a vehicle, one has to learn to drive it successfully and also maintain it, so too one has to learn to use the body and maintain it.

The basic truth of the dichotomy and interdependence of the body and the soul is the key to self-realisation. The birth of each individual signifies a soul living in a human form for a limited period of time.

The body grows from childhood to youth, adulthood and old age, and heads towards death. The soul within, while being responsible for the functioning of the sense organs, mind and intellect, has at its disposal all these (body) to enable it to strive for liberation during its lifespan.

The body is the ground for experience and it is the self within that experiences. The body’s function is similar to that of a car, a knife or a pen when these are used to carry out actions such as speeding, cutting or writing. The body signals hunger and also satiation; but it is the experiencing self that desires for varieties and delicacies. The body is not aware of death, while the self is aware of the body’s ageing nature and fears death. The thoughts arising from sensory experiences shape the destiny of the individual.

The Katopanishad uses the analogy of the horse driven chariot to describe the body. The self is the lord of the chariot and the mind is like the reins that enable the charioteer (the discriminating intellect) to hold the horses (the senses) in check. The road is the world of objects over which the senses move. If the reins are not held firmly and wisely, the senses will get out of control and the self will be caught in the cycle of births.

Source: The Hindu dated Tuesday, Feb 27, 2007

Why can’t religion be common cause?

Category: Articles — at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, February 27, 2007
What can one say about developing a religion where the ultimate organising principle is not one derived from divine inspiration but, instead, relies on the wisdom and contribution of the masses?

That it openly militates against the notion of an omnipotence? Or, that it tacitly underscores the importance of human divinity? In the field of computer programming the concept is not new.

It’s called open source design where the source code of a software is made available to the general public with either relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions.

This allows users to create self-generated content through either individual effort, or collaboration. The result of this meritocratic system — in one case at least — has been the operating system called Linux.

On the other hand, the older and more established model is where the code is held invisible and securely sacrosanct by a handful of program creators residing in the body of an all-powerful corporate identity which cannot be questioned. Such as the Windows operating system of Microsoft, for instance.

It’s a hierarchical system. Similarly, the traditional religious model is also a top-down one where a body of clergy gets organised into successive ranks or grades with each level subordinate to the one above. It’s a religious rule by a group of ranked people.

Alternatively, an open source religion would aim to make its creed inclusive, amenable to change and responsive to collective inputs, working on the assumption that every aware, conscious and sentient spirit is divine and has direct access to truth.

Above all, there would exist no unnecessary authority figure — the idea being that groups are often smarter than the smartest people in them. One example of such a religious movement is Yoism whose followers claim that their version of open source religion does not owe allegiance to any spiritual guide, but that rather the sense of authority emerges from the group via consensus.

Critics object to such a movement being called a religion on those very grounds itself — namely, that it doesn’t talk about any revelation from the divine. They also say that it embraces a transitory view of reality which contradicts traditional notions of religion based on belief in fundamental truths.

But what is the truth? And how can we be certain about its fundamentality? In fact, open source followers aver there always exists the possibility of one day discovering that all our current truths are wrong.

Source: The Economic Times