Inspired Talk 01
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In the beginning… | Inspired Talks of Swamiji 1 || Swami Samarpanananda
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Inspired talk
Final Submission
Third Draft
Second Draft
Background of Book
Thousand Island Park .Miss Dutcher . Hudson River Run down Cottage .
One Room Swamiji Others Shared Room. Talk in Hall after Breakfast
Waldo . Long hand notes. Missed Points . Filled up by Sister Dev Mata 1940
Swamji – How could you have caught my thoughts and words so perfectly
Meaning of Religion and Vedanta.
Books have authors. Other Religions have a founder Prophet. Saint , Greatts
Hinduism – Fundamental Religion – No body founded. Sages in depth of Meditation dsicovered and spoke out some Truths
First Draft ( 3000 Words – Speak out time – About 7 min )
Date 27 Aug 2023
Inspired Talk – Very Important book to understand true meaning of Vedanta and Of Religion
Background of the Book
Every Religion based on Spiritual Realisation of some Prophet , Saint,Sage , Incarnation
Hinduism is different that way – Not founded by any one Person ..
Who founded Science , Art, Languages
Romeo Juliet – who Wrote
Hinduism – Fundamental Religion – Nobody Founded it.
Sages who went into depth of Spiritual Realisation discovered spoke out Eternal Truths
Not privy confined to One person
Bible
Lots of Truths are Universal
Some words of Jesus that narrows down in confines
If you don’t follow the Christian path you will go to the hell
Many religions talk in similar refrain
Hinduism never does that
Hindu says
I follow these words of Sages – Eternal Truths – anybody can follow anywhere
Whatever sages realised in depth of Meditation known as Vedas.
We have to rely on tradition as history does not reach there.
Vedas lost many times , discovered many times
These truths – Not confined to particular period , person , locality.They are eternal
Vyas – Collected Vedic Wisdom
Organised them into 4 Vedas
Later Sages – Words as sacred but Not Vedas
Ramayan , Mahabharat, Puranas – Sacred but not as sacred as Vedas
Hinduism and Partly Judaism
Many prophets have contributed to that Religion.
Follower of Particular book consider that as sacred
Eg
Bhagwatam for some is the Ultimate Work. They don’t have to Go to the Vedas
Ramcharit Manas as sacred work in Hindi Belt . Tulsidas is a safely poet not a prophet.
Sri Ramakrishna went really deep into Spiritual Practices.
Biography – The Great Master by Saradananda
Embodiment of Entire Hindu Spiritual Realisations that Indian Race came across throughout its History and Existence
Life and spiritual practices – Sadhana .Phenomenal Thing.
Compared to Life of every great Prophet, saint , great spiritual personality of world
Some Distinguishing factors
– Amount of Spiritual Experiences
– Kind of Synthesis he came up with
– Whatever was known to him during his times – different religions, different paths, different modes of spiritual sadhana – He practiced everything
– He showed each of them is Valid in its own way.
It does not mean , one is to be replaced by the other .
Sri Ramakrishna nowhere says
Hinduism can be replaced by Islam, Islam can be replaced by Christianity
He says – All these paths are true in their own way
They all lead somehow to spirituality
Last word about Spirituality , The Ultimate Goal – Getting out of Worldliness ..That is common with all
Very idea of God – It will differ.
Why they Differ – For that need to go through this Book – Inspired Talks
Sri Ramakrishna Famous disciple Swami Vivekananda
He trained him in spiritual practices
Poured Into him almost everything he had known
When a teacher gets a very good disciple
He gives all that he has
Whatever Sri Ramakrishna had earned through his spiritual practices, he gave entirely to Swami Vivekananda.
10 min .
Sri Ramakrishna born in 1836 Gave up his body in 1886
Mere 50 years
Next 7 years Swami Vivekananda kept on moving across entire length and breadth of the Country
He felt, he knew – He had a mission – He was not very sure about it
Biography of Swami Vivekananda
Especially
1886-1893
You will find lot of conflict in his mind , confusion, not very clear about things
Whenever he gets stuck
Something comes and a door opens
Reached America
11 September 1893 spoke there for the first time
Swamiji had a message for India
A message for the world.
What did Swami Vivekananda
Sri Ramakrishna stood for.
What is the life Philosophy of Gandhi ji Netaji Tolstoy?
Socrates, William Shakespeare, Rabindra Nath Tagore
Every person is an embodiment of one single idea – even in case of multifaceted personality
Grand symphony
One particular raga note tune is playing
Cadence music of that person
Other aspects are minor notes.
Cadence of Sri Ramakrishna
Cadence that Swami Vivekananda represented.
There was only one
Practical Vedanta
Materialism is not seen as antagonistic to spirituality
Materialism is seen as an aspect of Vedanta
A lower aspect
Day to day life
Implications derivatives
Eg
Idea of diluted Materialism
Materialism controlled diluted
In america he talked about Vedanta as chief Goal of life.
America was going all out for materialism.
India all out for Spirituality
People of India were Poor materially
Of America Spiritually
Complete Works 9 volume elaboration of practical Vedanta
Outside that four beautiful lectures on Practical Vedanta
15:00
Practical Vedanta
The Spiritual ideals of Vedanta when applied in daily life.
Why use the word Practical
Religion not a way of life.
It becomes and end.
Eg.
Heaven after death
You be good. You do good. Heaven after death.
Goal is to go to heaven and may have to make life hell here.
Contradiction
Life goes into poverty
Fundamental contradiction on what you do here and what you expect to get there
Traditional Hindu Religion
The Vaidic Yagna
Pouring oblations, sacrificing thing
Once you die you will be acquiring things
Give a paise to beggar you will get millions in heaven.
Not reasonable.
There has to be a.continuation.
Not a sudden jump.
After life has to be a continuation of what you have been doing.
Practical Vedanta Comes into effect
Vedanta says
This is the Truth about life.
You are Divine .All others are divine. Man is divine.
Treat yourself as Divine.
You will automatically treat yourself with respect.With Dignity
Utmost Care
Will Not be scared of anything.
You will have all the Strength
Knowing that You are the Supreme Thing, you will never act foolishly
Practical application of Vedanta in this Life is about Strength,
Wisdom and Love.
For Self and for others
Not selfish Altruistic
Everybody has to move forward towards Mukti
You become conscious of it that You have to be Strong all the Time.
You can’t act in an undignified way
You can’t show disrespect to yourself nor to others
Mystic
Brother Lawrence
Russian Church
Practice in the Presence of God
Difference lies between them and Vedanta
What is Mukti Freedom
Moksha
Ultimate of Strength
Strength Wisdom Love Become one and the same.
God is one and the same.
These ideas already there in Upanishads.
Ishopnishad says
Once you realise there is Divine Oneness, how can you feel sorrowful
How can you ever be tempted by anything in this world.
One thing about the Great Truths.
Does not move systematically
Does not change you.
You like, you applaud
and there it ends.
If you want to make use of some Knowledge, you need to work Systematically
If one could have known everything from books we won’t have schools and colleges and universities
Books are explained.
Spiritual truths need to be learned from a master.
When you fall ill, you don’t go to an engineer ; nor to a doctor when you have to build a bridge
Legal advice
Professionals for all things
When it comes to God and Religion and Social Structure
Everybody is a teacher.
Steephen Hawkins
Scientist
No authority to talk about God
He does not believe in God
Why have we to listen to him about God
Religious people talk about science people laugh at them.
Not so when scientists talk about God
Author of Sapiens
He is taking about Religion . Authority ?
Religion sitting at the feet of a faster..
Swami Abhedananda
Some was
Introduced as Scholar of Veda .
He said
We are the scholars of Vedas.
Read a book .
Have some idea
Pick up an idea and start jumping like a monkey
Stung by a scorpion
Think that you have become masters
Filmstars giving opinion about God Religion
Freelance protestors.
Insanity
Swamiji realised and said
No more lecturing.
Never delivered lectures after that.
He said
He wants chosen few to whom he will talk
And these talks will be based on certain books
Dozen of talks not many.
1894 to 1896
Mostly he took classes
Talks as recorded in the class
Goodwin
Employed by devotees to take notes .
In between most things are nearly lost
We get some little from newspaper
Does not give true picture
Swamiji wanted to create some real Yogis
Close band of devotees
No disturbance
No External influence
Total commitment
Disciple
Miss Dutcher
Had a run down cottage on Hudson River
Thousand Island Park
Maximum listeners were 12 sometimes 8 or 9
Generally hovered at 10
Swamiji Reached there on 18 June 1895
Left on 07 August
42-43 days 7 weeks
Swamiji talked to them Freely everything religion
Thousand Island park
Elevated place away from crowd
Locals thought these people to be quite queer
Breakfast over
Swamiji would come to a hall
It was a small house
Swamiji had one room
Others had shared room
There was a hall
They assembled
Swamiji would come with one book in hand
30 min
Usually one of the Upanishads Gita Brahmasutra
Narad Bhakti Sutra
People so immersed so elevating talks
impossible to take down notes
Lady Miss Waldo
Used to make long hand notes
Lots of points were lost
Made for her own use
Once Swami Vivekananda saw that she was making notes
He wanted to have a look and was surprised
He said
…..
ITALICS
How could you have caught my thoughts and words so perfectly
Not every thing had been noted down
Spirit of what Swamiji wanted to say was thoroughly noted down
In 1940s Waldo showed to someone perhaps Sara Bull No.
Sister Dev mata
It’s criminal thing to keep these things in privacy of your trunk
These things must see the light of the day
If Dev mata agreed to edit them she could publish
Dev mata edited made those sentences full
Slowly published
Now we have in form of Book
That’s the background of this Book
Inspired Talks
33
What was his outlook
What exactly these talks are about
Hindu Religion is mass of Spiritual wisdom
Acquired by Indian Sages
Read some pages of Vedas and you will be bored to death
You can’t make head and tails out of it
They are just so many prayers seeming to be repetitive boring
Hindus continued with preserving these massive manuals
Spiritual record of Hindu Race
Vedas not accessible to lower castes
So came Vyasa
The great sage
Collected entire mass of Vedic learning
Organised them into four
Synthesised every kind of practices in Hindu Society and put them into famous work
Mahabharat Gita
Vyas is the great synthesisor
Synthesised the then practices and spiritual wisdom of the Hindu Race
.1000 year later
Shankaracharya
Synthesised entire Hindu Religion it’s philosophy it’s practices it’s beliefs it’s systems based on the Vedas
He was the second great unifier synthesisor of Hindu religion
after vyasa
Third is Sri Ramakrishna Vivekananda
Sri Ramakrishna never lectured
His talks are recorded as Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Swami Vivekanand started delivering lecture much before Gospel appeared for the first time that too in a single volume
Complete works of Swamiji is an elaboration on Gospel
Swami Vivekanand and Sri Ramakrishna
Outlook Philosophy Personality they are one and the same – Not twin ideals it’s a Single Ideal
Kathamrit
Huge mass of Spiritual Wisdom
Swamiji Elaborated things as he had learned from Sri Ramakrishna
In Inspired Talks he becomes much more compact and condensed than Sri Ramakrishna himself
Explaining certain things
Swamiji was harmonisor of Hindu Religion
This time it was not about Hindu Practices
Philosophy Hindu Customs
It was religious ideal if entire world
Most ancient religious ideas including religious ideas of entire world have been incorporated here and beautifully harmonised
Vedanta and every other religion they are linked
Kind of symphony
While talking to his disciples at Thousand Island Park
Says
Now I will tell you one of my discoveries
Advaita
Visishta Advaita
Dwaita
These three are just three stages of spiritual growth
Difficult part of talk
Advaita means God alone Exists
Everything else is play of name and forms
Ocean and waves
When you look at waves you can’t look at Ocean
Ocean goes off the mind
When you really see ocean then you see that waves are also ocean
It’s not that ocean is one Reality and wave is another reality
It’s one single reality Ocean
40 min.
This reality the Advaitins call Brahman or Atman
Great Saints like Ramanujan who do not accept this Truth
For them God as personal God in the form of say Vishnu Narayan
Subtle differences
Don’t matter
Present times Sri Krishna
The personal the impersonal
Whatever is in this World owe their existence to God
Relationship is like between tree and leaved.
Leaf is connected to the tree but it is also dependent on the tree
If tree where not there the leaf would not be there
Dualistic Schools
Popularised by Madhvachaarya
Who looks at the world as God is Separate
The World is Separate
Individual is Separate
Swamiji says these three are three facets of Same reality
Initially a person who accepts Shankaracharya will not accept Ramanujan
One who follows Ramanujan will not accept Madhva or Shankar
People not interested in spiritual things
People go by Word
They donot go by principles
Principles don’t matter to them .
And India is in such poor plight
Forget about
Applying the principles in life
Not even ready to understand those principles
He says
When you look at these three aspects
Dualism where God and Individual are separate
Visishta Advaita where Individual and Universal are connected
The third
Where Individual and Universal are one and the same
The three Strands of Truth
Dualism – Dvaita Individual and Universal are
Eternally Separate
Visiishta Advaita where two are connected but one is master other is Slave
Third one Individual and Universal Are One and the Same
When dualism is applied to the Ethnic groups of Europe
On society and culture of Europe it becomes Christianyity
Christianity does talk about Monism
Certain Mystics who seem to be talking about Advaita
Christianity is out and our dualistic religion
You see many people chanting name of Krishna
They are also dualists
They will condemn anything that has slightest smell of non dualism
Advaita means Non dualism
When applied to Semitic people that is Israel area Arab area
It becomes Islam Mohammadenism
45
Advaita in Yog Perception form
Advaita has many aspects
one of them is Yoga Perception
Yogic Aspects Advaita
Intellectual aspect
Devotion aspect
Yogik practices aspect
When you apply the yogic practice aspect of Advaita
In its pure form
It becomes Buddhism
Buddhism is a very small part of Hindu religion
Hindu religion encompasses everything
All three Strand
4600
ITALICS
..
By Religion is meant the Vedanta
Applications must vary according to the different needs surroundings and other circumstances of different nations
My mind and your mind are different
My mentality my mindset is different from yours
So when you talk about religion
Has to be seen into totality
Dualism qualified non dualism
Which is vishisht advaitha advaitha Advait
And non dualism advaita
When the whole things falls on me
Ancient belief
Swati Nakshatra
Oyster Pearl
Snake Poison
Banana leaves Camphor
Spec of sand belly if oyster .pearl
The same religion descends in your mind something
In my mind something
48
Cultural Group
Falls in one particular land with
It’s customs and believes
It becomes Hinduism
The same thing becomes Christianyity
Essentially there is no difference
Whole thing is contained in the Vedanta
Dualism Qualified Non dualism are all contained in Advaita Vedanta
To understand this you will need to study Swami Vivekananda thoroughly
The fight between followers of Shankar
Followers of Ramanuja and of Madhvachaarya
Has been going on thousands of years now
Even today
Sanskrit scholars start abusing in the name of Advaita Dvaita
Did not have slightest of spiritual experiences
No
And they fight trying to prove their superiority
Don’t go to scholar for knowing what is Vedanta
Go to a person who has practiced Vedanta
Religion
Go to a person who has practiced religion for years and years
To understand religion Go to Swami Vivekananda or Sri Ramakrishna or any of those master
50
This idea not the belief but truth that
These three are facets of the same truth
Advaita the Ultimate Truth
Advaita applied in daily life
Becomes Practical Vedanta
Many more facets of Inspired Talks
In Brief
Swamiji would be talking about
What exactly Religion is
There are different aspects of Religion
These are not the theories of Swamiji
This is what Swami Ji had experienced
Swami ji was face to face with these Truths
…
Begin Inspired Talks
…19 June 1895
All assembled were Christians
Bible Book of John
Main Book
New Testament has four parts by
Mathew Mark Luke and John
The fundamentals of Christianity come from these four Gospels
These disciples had heard from Jesus
Spiritual content
No contradiction in their words
So these are the words of God
In the Beginning was the Word
And the Word was with God
And the Word was God
Idea of Word comes from far more ancient philosophy
Creation comes from Logos
Later logo became word
Christian tradition
This word is believed to he Jesus himself
So
In the Beginning was Jesus
And Jesus was with God
And Jesus was God
Common belief with Christians
Swamiji explains the meaning of word and says
Hindus call this Maya
The manifestation of God
Because it is the power of God
The Word
As recorded in the Bible actually means Maya
People have wrong notions about Maya
Maya is Not illusion
Maya is Not delusion
Maya is Power of God
Swami Vivekanand
Sri Ramakrishna repeatedly keep talking about
It is Power of God
Because
God and His Power
A person and his power
Are Not Separate
A Ferrari and It Power to Run are Not Separate things
Salt and automatically it’s saltiness included in that
Fire and it’s burning power
For Spiritual persons
Power becomes slightly secondry Not entirely secondary
So they focus more on God
Because of that
Lots of Differences come up
We will cover in this book
What are those differences
What are their implications
In Next Talk
Explanation to this statement
In the Beginning was the Word
.