“That which has reached us from the discoveries of their clear thinking and the marvels of their inventions is the (game) of chess. The Indians have, in the construction of its cells, its double numbers, its symbols and secrets, reached the forefront of knowledge. They have extracted its mysteries from supernatural forces. While the game is being played and its pieces are being maneuvered, there appear the beauty of structure and the greatness of harmony. It demonstrates the manifestation of high intentions and noble deeds, as it provides various forms of warnings from enemies and points out ruses as well as ways to avoid dangers. And in this, there is considerable gain and useful profit.” …    more »

In 1879, when the British were ruling over India, Lt. Col. Martin of Agar Malva was leading the army in the war against Afghanistan. Col. Martin used to regularly send messages of his well-being to his wife. The war continued for long and Lady Martin stopped getting messages. She was very upset. Once riding on her horse, she passed by the temple of Baijnath Mahadev. She was attracted to the sound of Conch and Mantra. She went inside and came to know that the Brahmanas were worshipping Lord Shiva. They saw her sad face and asked her problem. She explained everything to them. They told her that Lord Shiva listens to the prayers of devotees and takes them out of difficult situations in no time. With the advice of the Brahmanas she started the Laghurudra Anushtthāna of the Mantra Om Namah Shivāya for 11 days. She prayed to Lord Shiva that if her husband reaches home safely, then she would get the temple renovated...   more »

...at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, Feb. 4...NASA will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first space mission — the launch of the Explorer 1 satellite — by using the system of huge antennas that usually listen for inbound signals from space to send one outbound instead: the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe,” which as it happens was mostly recorded exactly 40 years earlier, on Feb. 4, 1968.

Reception will be best in the general direction of Polaris, 431 lightyears away, which is where NASA is aiming the signal. (That would be the North Star to us laymen.) But it ought to be audible in plenty of places on Earth as well, at least by imitation: NASA is encouraging space fans and Beatle fans alike to play the song themselves at the same time.

NASA’s press release includes some perfectly in-character comments from Sir Paul McCartney (”Amazing! Well done, NASA! Send my love to the aliens. All the best, Paul.”) and from Yoko Ono, widow of John Lennon, the song’s main author (”I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets across the universe.”). ...   more »

Here is the recitation of Bhagavadgita in Sanskrit and a few other languages...

To listen to the Bhagavadgita as it is click here

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What from a spiritual point of view might be the truth behind the recent history of India, particularly its independence? To answer this question, we will have to peep behind the veil of politics, economics, and culture. These are only the exoteric coverings of world events, the esoteric kernel of whose inner significance is usually hidden from most people.

Writing more than 100 years ago, Swami Vivekananda explained what this hidden truth about India was: "Here in this blessed land, the foundation, the backbone, the life-center is religion and religion alone. In India religious life forms the center, the keynote of the whole music of nation."

In other words, in India, religion forms the base, politics and economics, the superstructure. To change the latter, you have to act on the former. This is what revolutionaries in India have recognized down the ages. The greatest impact could be made by those who altered the religious and spiritual organization of society. Any number of examples can be cited: the Buddha, Shankaracharya, Basava, Nanak, Kabir, Chaitanya, and in more recent times, Ramakrishna, Aurobindo, Gandhi, and even Ambedkar.

The importance of dharma in Indian life has been summed up well by Sri Aurobindo in his famous Uttarpara speech in 1909: "When it is said that India shall be great, it is the Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism) that shall be great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatan Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the Dharma and by the Dharma that India exists. To magnify the religion means to magnify the country." When Aurobindo was in jail, the Divine actually spoke to him, giving him the following message:

Since long ago I have been preparing this uprising and now the time has come and it is I who will lead it to its fulfillment." At the end of this historic speech, Aurobindo repeated his main contention: "I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a religion, a faith; I say that it is Sanatan Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatan Dharma, with it, it moves and with it, it grows. When Sanatan Dharma declines, then the nation declines.

Of course, it needs to be stressed that by Sanatan Dharma, Aurobindo meant the eternal, universal religion, not any particular sect or creed: "If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose."   more »

History of Religion in 90 Seconds. Good illustration.   more »

Here are two stories—one of construction and the other destruction. While in China a Hindu temple is being built, the historic 40-metre tall Bamiyan style Buddha in Pakistan’s Swat valley is in the process of being reduced to rubble.   more »

The following article is RYD's Foreword to 'Freedom and Future—an Imaginary Dialogue with Sri Aurobindo' by Daniel Albuquerque

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...In this imaginary dialogue, in six sessions with Sri Aurobindo, Albuquerque has restricted himself essentially to socio-political rather than literary, philosophical, poetic, scriptural, occult, yogic or spiritual aspects. The thematic contents of these discussions are generally in the context of India’s problems, though at times they also touch upon much wider issues. While the first session gives an overview of Sri Aurobindo’s life before his coming to Pondicherry, the other five deal with political freedom, economic liberation, prospects of science, the foundations of a new society to build the future order of the world, and religion and spiritual democracy…

To illustrate the method adopted by Albuquerque in conducting his dialogue with Sri Aurobindo, we may pick up an example: the question of the Individual versus the State. It is an age-old problem, the Sophoclean problem of Antigone, the fundamental conflict of freedom vis-à-vis the functioning of a powerful democratic government. While theoretically it is easy to postulate the complementary and harmonious working of the two, in practice there is the discordance and antagonism of an unreconciliatory character. Liberty in a country is possible only when also go hand in hand with it rights and duties, that in order to be free one must obey law. The Individual has certain duties towards the State. The State is there to take care of him by assuring him welfare and protection. But then it becomes a contentious issue also…

When Sri Aurobindo speaks of sanātana dharma as a nationalist’s creed, he does not speak about it in a sectarian sense. Nor is the definition of nationalism restrictive in any constricted fashion; in fact, people often find patriotism and nationalism difficult to define. Even Tagore thought that the concept of a nation is not an Indian concept but of an alien origin, the one which we have borrowed from the Western thinking. But it must be well recognised that nationalism is not a mere political programme based on occidental ideologies. “Nationalism is a religion that has come from God. Foundation of nationalism is the country and not race.”

...Unity for the human race by an inner oneness and not only by an external association of interests; the resurgence of man out of the merely animal and economic life or the merely intellectual and aesthetic into the glories of the spiritual existence; the pouring of the power of the spirit into the physical mould and mental instrument so that man may develop his manhood into that true super-manhood which shall exceed our present state as much as this exceeds the animal state from which science tells us that we have issued. These three are one; for man’s unity and man’s self-transcendence can come only by living in the Spirit. ...   more »

Abbasid Gardens in Baghdad and Samarra

Not Mecca the birthplace of Mohammad nor Medina where he became the Prophet and King, but Baghdad of the Abbasids was the centre of Islamic culture and civilization for five great centuries. Founded in 762 by the mighty Caliph al-Mansur on the banks of the Tigris this old Babylonian city, aptly called the Gift of God, remained in its conquering glory until the Mongols subjugated it in 1258. Baghdad as capital of the Caliphate became in the Middle Ages the seat of power and also had the distinction of being the intellectual centre of the world. A blaze of philosophical, scientific and literary creations brought to mankind another spirit of life’s opulence. The poet Anwari praised it as a seat of learning and art, with gorgeous crafts on display in streets and marts. Here were a thousand splendid mansions, villas and palaces “simple without, but within, nothing but azure and gold…. The royal palace at Baghdad had on its floors 22,000 carpets and on its walls 38,000 tapestries out of which 12,500 were of silk.”<br>
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When Mahomedanism appeared, Christianity vanished out of Asia, because it had lost its meaning. Mahomed tried to re-establish the Asiatic gospel of human equality in the spirit. All men are equal in Islam—whatever their social position or political power—nor is any man debarred from the full development of his manhood by his birth or low original station in life. All men are brothers in Islam and the bond of religious unity overrides all other divisions and differences. But Islam also was limited and imperfect, because it confined the ideal of brotherhood and equality to the limits of a single creed, and was further deflected from its true path by the rude and undeveloped races which it drew into its embrace. Another revelation of the old truth is needed ...   more »

The condition of present-day civilisation, materialistic with an externalised intellect and life-endeavour, which you find so painful, is an episode, but one which was perhaps inevitable. For if the spiritualisation of the mind, life and body is the thing to be achieved, the conscious presence of the Spirit even in the physical consciousness and material body, an age which puts Matter and the physical life in the forefront and devotes itself to the effort of the intellect to discover the truth of material existence, had perhaps to come. On one side, by materialising everything up to the intellect itself it has created the extreme difficulty of which you speak for the spiritual seeker, but, on the other hand, it has given the life in Matter an importance which the spirituality of the past was inclined to deny to it. In a way it has made the spiritualisation of it a necessity for spiritual seeking and so aided the descent movement of the evolving spiritual consciousness in the earth-nature. More than that we cannot claim for it; its conscious effect has been rather to stifle and almost extinguish the spiritual element in humanity; it is only by the divine use of the pressure   more »

'Hindutva' has been described and defined by many. The first definition has come from Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923, in his pamphlet entitled" who is a Hindu?" to describe movements advocating Hindu Nationalism. Thereafter, a spate of definitions and interpretations have arisen, but none of them carries the full Import of the struggles of the Hindu life on this Earth.

Firstly, all the previous efforts in defining it were rooted in some type of a Social or Religious motivations (all religions in their present status are materialistic in practice - and not truly Spiritual), or Political motivations. Now, presently the effort is for gaining a lost self-identification motivation.

Secondly, in view of the laws of 'the spiritual evolution', eternally functional and in operation in the universe, the human cognitive limits have always failed to realize fully the true agenda of their life. Vedic knowledge is the only guide available to the struggling human mind; and Hindus have inherited and attempted to follow this wisdom to a large extent. Therefore, the concepts or definitions of organized religions, Natural Sciences and even 'Spirituality' 'Dharma' are all in the crucible. ...   more »

When I went to jail the whole country was alive with the cry of Bande Mataram, alive with the hope of a nation, the hope of millions of men who had newly risen out of degradation. When I came out of jail I listened for that cry, but there was instead a silence. A hush had fallen on the country and men seemed bewildered; for instead of God's bright heaven full of the vision of the future that had been before us, there seemed to be overhead a leaden sky from which human thunders and lightnings rained. No man seemed to know which way to move, and from all sides came the question, "What shall we do next? What is there that we can do ?"   more »

...Man is not final, says Sri Aurobindo, the great Indian mystic. Man is a transitional being, he says. Beyond him awaits the “divine race, the superman”, with super-consciousness. Aurobindo sees a progressive divination of the human race.

We are actors in this cosmic drama that is unfolding before us, not mere onlookers. The Gita says: Ceaseless action is the lot of man! -- But the ways of the world differ. Europe has chosen one way, we Hindus have chosen another and the Muslims have their own way. Each has its merits. They must be left free to seek their different ends. We must not force on the world one way as the Christians and Muslims are trying to do. ...

The two ways are not hostile to each other. They are in fact complementary. ...   more »

Thanks to Yatanti for referring us to this site re "The Works of Rabindranath Tagore" and other sacred texts.  ~ ron
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Savitri’s House of Meditation

Savitri is encountering the last decisive turn towards the dreadful and her failure would imply the failure of the present creation, possibly leading to another pralaya or dissolution.  But Savitri has picked up the mantle, the sword of conquest, and must win the battle. Yama, the God of Death with the soul of Satyavan with him, is unyielding and Savitri is just following him helplessly. She doesn’t seem to have any likelihood of winning the difficult race. For a moment, however, she withdraws into her inner self, summoning the strength that alone can reverse the outcome. She enters her House of Meditation and observes the eternal Yajna being carried out there. With it, everything changes, and changes in a most decisive way. The prospects of her winning the race have become assuredly splendid. Savitri has now become, from behind, the Leader of the March and everything is in her full control. Such indeed is the efficacy of the Vedic Sacrifice. And here is a Sacrifice which is being performed by the Lord and his Spouse themselves, by the Sat-Purusha and the Adya-Shakti, the omniscient Being and the omnipotent Consciousness-Force. No power can now stop Savitri. The race is settled in the glorious Yajna. The present article provides an overview of this Yajna of Savitri. ...
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