happiness and peace

- I want happiness and peace.
- Remove "I" and "want" and you're left with happiness and peace.

- from a lecture at chinmaya mission

six philosophies

Today's lecture by Swami Prakashananda was about six philosophies. What's different about them and what do they share. He also gave details on three schools of Vedanta. Instead of paraphrasing the lecture, here are some comments instead:

There's a few lines by Guru Nanak about this:

chhi-a ghar chhi-a gur chhi-a updays.
There are six schools of philosophy, six teachers, and six sets of teachings.

gur gur ayko vays anayk.
But the Teacher of teachers is the One, who appears in so many forms.

baabaa jai ghar kartay keerat ho-ay.
O Baba: that system in which the Praises of the Creator are sung

so ghar raakh vadaa-ee to-ay.
follow that system; in it rests true greatness.

Do we really need to understand the various philosophies for our spiritual journey? The freedom we are seeking is in accepting the mystery that is the creation and its Creator. The philosophy is is a product and food for intellectual activity and it could enhance the ego.

These six philosophy show that the Truth is beyond our intellectual capability, it cannot be described, if it was then these great thinkers would have come up with one philosophy.

There are many resources available online about these philosophies.

religion and spirituality

- Religion is the container and spirituality is the contents.
- Our problem is that we focus on the container and not the content, our attachment to the container is the source of countless wars.
- The container is also needed but the most important is the contents.
- Spirituality is the spirit, spirit is the reality, [the truth].
- To become spiritual, one needs a spiritual practice or Sadhana.
- There are many practices depending on religious background.
- Any Sadhana is liable to become a mechanical act.
- Awareness, total alertness makes sadhana, spiritual.
- Any sadhana without awareness is a mechanical act.
- We need to keep our mind where our hands are.
- Don't multi-task, focus on what you're doing at the moment.
- Doing one thing and thinking about something else is the source of stress.
- We are here but we want to be there - a source of stress.
- We need to put attention where our effort is.
- Thoughts of past and future keeps us away from present.
- We are not living, we are either dying (past) or dreaming (future).
- How to stay awake:
* focus on what you're doing in present moment.
* catch yourself every moment you stay away from present.
* use your breath to focus back to present. [or we can focus on inner energy]
* develop detachment.
- The cause of our wondering mind is our attachments. [i think to be detached we need to develop the role of being an observer or a witness. Witnessing everything happening around us including inside us without any judgment.]

-- paraphrased from a lecture by Swami Prakashananda - Chinmaya Mission (except what's in [ ...])

parenting tips

- before your child is born, make yourself into the person you want your child to be.
- when you child is born, live the thought of "these children are not mine, they belong to God."
- parenting is a form of seva - an act of devotion.
- the purpose of parenting is to bring up a child who will be a gift to the society not a burden.
- a gift to the society is defined as someone with inner-strength, not necessarily someone who is rich, educated, or someone with degrees. a person with inner weakness would become a burden to the society even if he/she is successful in material world.
- parenting is also an opportunity for us to evolve spiritually.
- the degree of our attachment to the children is proportionally equal to degree of weakness inside the child.
- the most important aspect of parenting: Love your child as God.
- we need to balance the three aspects of our child development:
1. their own tendencies (vasanas)
2. what we provide to them: values, food, ...
3. what society imposes on them


-- paraphrased from a lecture by Swami Prakashananda, Chinmaya Mission June 18th 2007