Jnaana Saraswathi
Spiritual Discourses by Shri Datta Swami
Explore spiritual discourses covering all aspects of universal spirituality, philosophy, and divine wisdom from Shri Datta Swami.
Showing 15 of 5828 discourses
LORD OF PRAVRUTTI AND NIVRUTTI
God is the Lord for both Pravritti and Nivritti. You have to please the Lord even in Pravritti. If the Lord is not pleased in Pravritti you cannot please Him in Nivritti. The fundamental requirement to please the Lord in Pravritti is to have satisfaction at every step. Contentment with whatever you have will always please the Lord. You must be happy with whatever is already given to you by the Lord and you must always thank Him for the past. You should not put your eye on the present or the future and put an application to the Lord [you should not aspire for more]. Even if you have travelled from one place to another, you must thank the Lord for having protected you during the journey. You have reached the destiny...
SHANKARA'S TEACHING
[Following is an abstract of a discourse given by Shri Datta Swami in the town hall at Narasaraopet, on January 6, 2006.] Shankara preached that this world is Mithya, which does not mean absence of everything or vacuum. He Himself defined the word Mithya as “Sadasat Vilakshana”. It means that it is neither true nor untrue. It is true because it is giving entertainment to the Lord. The Lord created the universe for entertainment as said in the Veda (Ekaki Na Ramate). If the creation is untrue then the Lord again remains alone and thus there is no entertainment to the Lord. But the Veda says that the Lord is entertained and His wish cannot become false, because He is called as “Satya Kamah” by the Veda...
GOD NOT EXISTS IN AWARENESS OF SOUL
[Datta Jayanti] A human being cannot do any work just by his will even after long concentration. The same work happens as soon as the Lord wishes just once. This whole universe is created just by His one wish. Faith is will power concentrated for a long time. Will is common in both the Lord and the human being. Will is a characteristic of awareness. This awareness is a common item in both the Lord and the human being. Therefore, will is also a common item in both the Lord and the soul (human being). All these worlds are created just by one wish of the Lord. But even if the soul wishes one crore times [ten million times] in a highly concentrated way called ‘faith, even an atom cannot be created. When both are forms of awareness...
DEVOTEE CATCHES GOD
Initially the Lord attracts a human being through miracles and creates belief and devotion in his mind. Thus the human being is converted into a devotee. From the stage of an ordinary human being, the soul carries on the journey to the stage of a devotee. This journey takes place due to the effort of the Lord alone. This is called as the ‘Marjala Kishora Nyaya’, which means ‘the case of a mother-cat carrying its offspring in her mouth’. The effort of the human being is nil in this case. But the human being must have an open mind to receive help from the Lord and to recognize the existence of the supernatural power of the Lord and thereby to recognize the existence of the Lord. The problems and troubles faced...
HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY - STRONG TIES
My dear Christians and Hindus, Jesus Christ came to India and He was honoured by Indians. He wandered all over India and several Indians were attracted to His shrewd preaching given with excellent analysis. He lived up to 85 years of age and was buried in Kashmir with all the spiritual honour. Hindus treated Him as their own preacher. Similarly, Christians honoured Swami Vivekananada and His preaching was appreciated. Christians loved Him from the bottom of their hearts. They treated Him as their beloved preacher. No two religions can mix so fast and so homogeneously as Christianity and Hinduism. The reason for this is that the spiritual skeleton of both religions is one and the same. When the skeleton is similar, the flesh and the skin...
CHAIN OF COLORED GEMS
This address was given to a gathering of Hindus and Christians] You are the cream of Christianity and Hinduism. In course of time the devotees of other religions will also join you and make this group a complete representative of Universal Spirituality. I wish that all of you retain the identification of your individual religions. Let this group be a chain of gems of different colours. Let not the other gems be coloured by white paint so that the whole chain can become a garland of only white gems. Let the pearls remain in the garland, which are white in colour. Let them not insist that the other gems also be coloured by white paint. A chain with different coloured gems looks more beautiful than a chain of mere pearls. The thread running through all these gems is Universal Spirituality. Religion is a gem with a particular colour. Spirituality is the thread that is holding...
COMPLETE SACRIFICE OF WORLD ESSENTIAL FOR GOD'S GRACE
[Devotees worshipped Swami on the day of this festival (Ekadashi), January 10, 2006] Today you have made Me sit facing the north and you have had the vision of Me in these early morning hours with the faith that Lord Vishnu is seen today through the north gate. You think that the divine abode of the Lord is in the north and that hell is in the south. This is not correct. The Veda says “Duramete Viparite Vishuchi” which means that God and this world are quite opposite like north and south poles. The word Vishuchi means the instrument having two needles pointing in opposite directions like north and south [magnetic compass]. It is only a simile and the concept is that God and the world are diametrically...
Sacred Time Is Whenever One Is Involved With God
[Makara Sankranti] Today the sun is entering the zodiac sign, Capricorn. The sun represents the knowledge of the intelligence, which is in the final form called decision or determination. The Veda says that the sun initiates the intelligence (Dhiyo Yo Nah). Capricorn is famous for rigidity; when it catches something it will not leave it under any circumstances. Therefore, this whole physical model represents the rigid decision of divine knowledge. From this time onwards, for the next six months, the sun makes its northward journey [from winter solstice to summer solstice]. Indians consider the north as auspicious and divine, because the pure white, sacred snow-capped Himalayas...
BOUNDARY OF INFINITE COSMOS IS REALLY UNIMAGINABLE
The scientific atheists say that the cosmic energy is the ultimate God from which this entire creation is generated through big bang, maintained and destroyed. He says that another unimaginable God as generator of cosmic energy is unnecessary. If we say that an agent of intelligence is required to maintain all this creation in such a systematic manner, the atheists disagree saying that randomness with probability based on theory of evolution can be the reason for such systematic administration. We cannot completely rule out this answer of the atheists. In such case, the unimaginable God disappears and the imaginable cosmic energy becomes God. The concept of energy is clearly understood only through intricate scientific analysis...
GRADUAL PROGRESS WITH DIVINE KNOWLEDGE
Shri Ramanath: O Swami, even in some foreign countries, a lot of corruption happens upto the topmost level. I feel that Indians alone need not be blamed for corruption. Shri Swami: Suppose you are drinking one bottle of wine every day. I show a person who does not take even one drop of wine and then advise you not to drink. Then you will have some inspiration seeing that person and try to stop drinking. Your trial shall be in controlling your habbit of drinking and not to make a search of that person to see whether he drinks or not. If you have found him drinking ten bottles...
PREACHING ACCORDING TO DISCIPLES'S; LEVEL
Krishna, Buddha, Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva are the five important preachers in the spiritual knowledge. Krishna gave the original text called as the Bhagavat Gita. He told that God is unimaginable (Mamtuveda nakaschana…) and also told that God is incarnated through the imaginable creation (Prakrutimsvaam…). The incarnation is imaginable part of creation in which unimaginable God exists. The human beings can see, touch, talk and live with the human incarnation from which they can clarify all the doubts and get correct guidance, which is the most important factor. The Gita is the essence of the Vedas and the Vedas also say that God is unimaginable (Namedhaya…) and that God enters a part of the imaginable creation...
SYMBOLISM OF TEMPLES AND RITUALS
A temple represents the body of the human incarnation (Deho devaalaya proktah). The statue in the temple represents the Lord in a human body (Jeevo devah sanatanah). The Gita also says that the Lord enters a human body and comes down to this earth (Manusheem tanum aashritam). The Veda says that the Lord can be seen here on the earth itself (Yat saakshat aparokshaat Brahma). The temple and the statue are only models to teach this concept. Once the concept is understood there is no need of any model. Hanuman recognized the human incarnation (Lord Rama) and sacrificed all his work to the Lord. Hanuman was not a householder and so he did not possess money to sacrifice to the Lord...
VALUE OF ETHICAL SCRIPTURE IS DUE TO GOD ALONE
[Krishna Ashtami Evening Message] Gopikas were the sages born as ladies. The sages propagated the ethics as word of God for the sake of balance of the society. During such propagation, some sages were overcome by the sacredness of ethics and thought that God became sacred by ethics, since He always supported ethics. Such sages born as Gopikas, failed to reach the Lord in the night when His flute was heard. The sages, who always thought that the sacredness of ethics is always due to God only, could run to God, violating the ethical tradition. The reality is that the value of any ethical principle is due to the fact that it is valuable since it is the word of God. It means that every word of God is ethical and it does not mean that God speaks only ethical...
GOD'S AWARENESS IS DIFFERENT FROM HUMAN-AWARENESS
[Guru Purnima Day] God wanted to create the universe and based on this reason God is thought to be awareness. Awareness can alone desire to do anything and not an inert entity. Another strong reason is that as the human awareness creates dream-space and the subsequent dream in it, the God-awareness created this real space and the universe in it. Just as the dream and its space are generated by the human awareness, maintained and controlled, and finally dissolved in human awareness, the universe along with the real space is generated, controlled and is dissolved by God-awareness. Another step was that the human awareness itself is God-awareness. As the dream-space and dream are real during the period of dream, the universe and real space are real...
ETERNAL OBJECT CANNOT BE CREATED AGAIN
[Guru Purnima Day Afternoon Message: Some devotees told about their visit to a sacred place called Tripurantakam. Swami gave the following message.] The word Tripurantakam means God, who destroyed the three bodies. The gross body or sthula shariram is made of the inert five elements. The second body is the subtle body or sukshma shariram made of the vibrations of pure awareness. These vibrations are thoughts or feelings, which can be classified into three main categories called as trigunas or the three qualities i.e. sattvam, rajas and tamas. The third body is the causal body or karana shariram, which is made of pure awareness without vibrations. The subtle body is called as jeeva and the causal body is called as atman. The subtle body cannot exist without the causal body...