The Brahma Sutras as a Moksha Shastra -1.2 Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya Mission :

The 'Each One Reach One' campaign, which was initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic to support the government's healthcare activities PAN India, culminated in significant capacity enhancement of medical oxygen!

This relief campaign, guided by Pujya Swami Swaroopananda, aimed to address the issue of hospitals depending on scarce oxygen cylinders and medical equipment, thus alleviating suffering for millions.

Shri Rajmohan Unnithan, M.P., inaugurated an Oxygen Plant donated to the Kasaragod General Hospital by the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, under the chairmanship of Shri. N. A. Nellikkunnu, a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Kerala.

The Municipal Chairman, Shri V M Muneer, delivered the welcome address, followed by the lighting of the lamp and an overview by Swami Viviktananda ji, the Regional head of Chinmaya Mission Kerala.

Dr. Manisha Khemalani, CEO of the Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, received felicitations on this milestone and addressed the gathering. The event concluded with a vote of thanks by Dr. Jamal Ahmed, the Hospital Superintendent.

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Thursday, 22 Jun, 2023. 06:30.

Chapter 1: The Differing Views of Sankaracharya and Ramanuja on Brahman - 2.

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To obviate this difficulty which students generally feel in their classrooms of Upanishadic studies, the great sage Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa classified the Vedas. Sri Krishna Dvaipayana is called Veda Vyasa, which means to say one who analysed, classified, edited and arranged the mantras of the Veda into the present form we see in texts or editions of the Vedas. This great Vyasa who wrote the Mahabharata and the eighteen Puranas, who analysed the Vedas into the present section-wise form, also wrote the Brahma Sutras, which means ‘aphorisms on the nature of Brahman'. Very few people study the Brahma Sutras, as it is frightening. Even the name itself is abhorrent to ordinary intellectual understanding.

The Upanishads confine themselves to an investigation into the structure of the Ultimate Reality of the universe, and in the language of the Upanishads, this Ultimate Being is designated as Brahma—but not the Brahma who created the world as one of the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. This Brahma, or Brahman, is the transcendent Absolute, to put it in the language of Western thinkers. Brahman in the neuter gender, representing the Ultimate Existence, Reality of the universe, is known as the Absolute in Western philosophical parlance. Often people call it the Ultimate Substance. These names—Ultimate Substance, Ultimate Reality, the Absolute, Transcendent Being, Brahman—are all appellations of this wondrous, eluding Reality that is beyond human comprehension.

The Brahma Sutras contain more than five hundred and fifty small, enigmatic statements, known as sutras. A sutra is a short saying. The Brahma Sutras particularly consist of sayings which are so short that we can make no sense by reading the sutra by itself. Sometimes there is no verb, and sometimes there is only a verb without a subject. We cannot find the meaning, and have to depend upon learned commentaries on the Brahma Sutras in order to understand these explanatory notes. The sutras were written to explain the intricate meaning of certain passages of the Upanishads, but these annotations themselves are so difficult that no sense or meaning can be made of them. This is because in those days when the texts were written there was no printing press to make copies of this textual lore, so they had to be communicated by word of mouth and heard by the student. They had to be committed to memory by rote, and as lengthy explanations made it difficult to commit the whole thing to memory, they used code words, such as the difficult sutras of Panini in Sanskrit grammar. There are several thousand small sutras of Panini comprehending the whole of Sanskrit grammar and literature. People study them by rote, wracking their heads to find out the meaning therein. The Brahma Sutras are intricate annotations. Here I will be dealing with the aspect of their practical usefulness to spiritual seekers.

The Brahma Sutras commence with a wonderful statement. Athato brahmajijnasa (1.1.1) : Now, therefore, an enquiry into the nature of Brahman. What is the meaning of ‘now', and what is the meaning of ‘therefore'? These little words have a deep import. ‘Now' means after having completed one's obligations in the form of the duties of life—‘now, at this moment, when you are free from entanglement in worldly affairs and your heart and mind are free from any kind of tension, emotionally or intellectually, at this moment, therefore...'

What is ‘therefore'? ‘Therefore' means having disciplined your personality enough to be able to receive the meaning of these teachings. Firstly, you have to be free from the obligations and duties of life. If there is a pinch or a pinprick from human society, family, office or the factory in which you work annoying you every day, the mind will refuse to go deep into these matters. Either you have to develop such a capacity that you harmonise your external duty with internal aspiration, for which you have to be a genius in your own self, or if you do not accept that you are a genius of that type, you have to fulfil your duties and then, when there is nothing of the nature of a call from the world distracting your attention, take to a leisurely period of concentration of mind in order to understand the meaning of this great text. ‘Therefore' means ‘after disciplining your intellect and emotion, having withdrawn yourself from attachments of every kind'

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To be continued

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