Within this extraordinary memoir, Radhanath Swami weaves a colorful tapestry of adventure, mysticism, and love. Readers follow Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to renowned spiritual guide.
The Journey Home is an intimate account of the steps to self awareness and a penetrating glimpse into the heart of mystic traditions and the challenges that all souls must face on the road to inner harmony and a union with the Divine. Through near-death encounters, apprenticeships with advanced yogis, and years of travel along the pilgrim’s path, Radhanath Swami eventually reaches the inner sanctum of India’s mystic culture and finds the love he has been seeking. It is a tale told with rare candor, immersing the reader in a journey that is at once engaging, humorous, and heartwarming.
H.H. Radhanath Swami has been a source of inspiration for several projects both in India and outside of it. Radhanath Swami is also a great source of inspiration for several thousands of people aspiring to seek spiritual enlightenment in the line of bhakti yoga. His efforts to help people in this field have been delivering positive results. Radhanath Swami’s students come from various walks of life, age groups, castes, races, and nationalities
The Journey Home by HH Radhanath Swami
At the age of 19, in 1970, Radhanath Swami started his journey of spiritual quest. After meeting several people and studying various paths of spiritual enlightenment along the way, he finally reached India. Radhanath Swami’s experiences through the journey enabled him to understand the truth from all cultural perspectives. The deep realizations that he gained in the process reflect in his teachings today.
The sufferings and exploitations he had to endure on this path made Radhanath Swami more determined and focused, it increased his faith and humility. Radhanath Swami’s uncompromising determination to find a guru who can provide answers for his questions made him reach the holy land of Vrndavan, India, the holy place of Radha and Krsna. Radhanath Swami
Radhanath Swami learned from many but accepted one guru. Radhanath Swami’s surrender and service to his spiritual master is a great source of inspiration to all his followers. Radhanath Swami’s lectures, kirtans, and yatras sustain the spiritual lives of many. Radhanath Swami’s explanation of complex topics of scriptures and the insight that he provides into apparently confusing philosophical topics is amazing.
H.H. Radhanath Swamy is an extremely rare personality that anyone would meet during the journey of his or her lifetime. Stories From Journey Home-1 Book by HH Radhanath Swami
Stories From Journey Home Book – A Lecture by HH Radhanath Swami given at Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram in Hrishikesh in the year 2012.
Drawing on a deep knowledge of Christian scripture as well as Hindu philosophy, musician and teacher Russill Paul reveals that the mystical core of religion offers us much more than the simple solace of unthinking dogma. By demonstrating that these two seemingly separate and irreconcilable religions can actually unite in one person’s spiritual practice at the center of his life — as they did in his — he offers an alternative to religious intolerance and strife, as well as hope for personal liberation.
Russill Paul, a musician, teacher, Yogi and author of “The Yoga of Sound” and “Jesus in the Lotus: The Mystical Doorway between Christianity and Yogic Spirituality“, speaks with Miriam Knight about his views on the role of spirituality and mysticism in everyday life.
Samsara means “to wander on endlessly”. Peter Russell discusses how we wandering on through life seeking one transient satisfaction after another, not realizing that that which we seek is our true nature. Nirvana means “to extinguish” as in blowing out a flame. Knowing our true nature blows out the flame of desire that drives the endless wandering on.
Acharya David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri) is a unusual western born knowledge-holder in the Vedic tradition. He carries many special Vedic ways of knowledge (vidyas), which he passes on to students in India and in the West. In India, Vamadeva is recognized not only as a Vedacharya (Vedic teacher), but also as a Vaidya (Ayurvedic doctor and teacher), Jyotishi (Vedic astrologer), Puranic (Vedic historian), a Hindu acharya (Hindu religious teacher) and a Raja Yogi.
In India, Vamadeva’s translations and interpretations of the ancient Vedic teachings have been given great acclaim in both spiritual and scholarly circles. In America he is known as a teacher and practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine and of Vedic astrology (Jyotish) and has done pioneering work on both these subjects in the West. Most recently the integration of Yoga and Ayurveda has come to the forefront of his work.
Pandit Vamadeva (Dr. Frawley) presents authentic Vedic knowledge in the Western world and in a lucid presentation recognized by the tradition itself. He has worked extensively teaching, writing, lecturing, conducting research and helping establish schools and associations in related Vedic fields over the last thirty years. He has studied and traveled widely gathering knowledge, working with various Vedic teachers and groups in a non-sectarian manner.
Vamadeva sees his role as helping to revive Vedic knowledge in an interdisciplinary approach for the planetary age. He sees himself as a teacher and translator to help empower people to use Vedic systems to enhance their lives and aid in their own Self-realization. He sees Vedic wisdom as a tool for liberation of the spirit, not as a dogma to bind people or to take power over them. For him, Vedic knowledge is a means of communing with the conscious universe and learning to embody it in our own life and perception.
Though Vamadeva has worked in several different fields, he has endeavored to approach each of these with a great deal of specificity and precision, providing both the background philosophy and deeper practices. For a good overview of his work and background, it is best to examine his book Yoga and the Sacred Fire: Self-Healing and Planetary Transformation (2005).
Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz and their new book, The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Our Hidden Past, Emerging Energy Age and Enlightened Future, brings clarity and understanding to the vast cycles human existence have endured.
There are many intriguing examples of anomalous knowledge which existed in the ancient past: verified knowledge of anatomy and physiology and modern-like medical treatments in use as early as 2500 BC in Egypt, China and India, the precision construction of the Great Pyramid in 2600 BC (or perhaps earlier), and accurate knowledge of math and physics, including the size and nature of the atom, embedded in India’s Vedas dating back to the sixth millennium BC – just to name a few.
The field of alternative history has long sought the answer to where this advanced knowledge came from – and why it didn’t survive.
One theory, familiar to most of us, is that aliens came to earth in the distant past and gave knowledge to man that was beyond his comprehension. As the theory goes, when the aliens eventually left, the knowledge quickly died out because man wasn’t yet ready for it.
Another theory, sometimes put forward by apologists for mainstream archeology, is that advanced knowledge may have existed in the ancient past but it was due only to chance combinations of primitive technology and individual genius – serendipitous discovery. As the theory goes, when that particular genius or serendipitous circumstance was gone, the knowledge quickly died out because man wasn’t yet ready for it.
There is however another explanation for advanced knowledge in the past – one which comes to us from the ancient past itself – that does not rely on aliens or serendipity. The explanation is that man had more advanced consciousness in the past than he now possesses, and that it was this advanced consciousness, natural to man, that enabled him to develop advanced knowledge on his own without need for alien intervention or serendipity.
While this alternate explanation doesn’t rely on alien visitation it does not preclude it either. But instead of ancient aliens arriving at a planet full of primitives, the aliens may have been met with a population as advanced as themselves. Furthermore, man’s advanced consciousness in the past could well have enabled him be the one who traveled through the stars to visit other planets himself.
Common to this explanation as it comes to us from the ancient past is the notion that man’s consciousness goes through a cycle of development, that man’s awareness, perception, and abilities advance and then decline in a recurring cycle. This concept has been a part of the traditional cultural lore of numerous cultures as far back as anyone can determine. Perhaps best known to those of us in the West is the ancient Greek description of descending ages – from the Golden Age, through Silver and Bronze and finally into the Iron Age. The tradition of descending ages exists throughout the world. In Giorgio de Santillana’s, Hamlet’s Mill, he explores scores of such traditions.
In India the tradition of descending ages is known as the yugas or the yuga cycle. (Yuga simply means “age.”) The yuga cycle, however, stands apart from the other traditional descriptions of the same phenomenon. Modern exponents of the yuga cycle, such Sri Yukteswar, whose description of the yuga cycle appears in his book “The Holy Science” written in 1894, offer both dates and explanations for cycle.
Sri Yukteswar provides specific dates for the beginning and end of each age or yuga. Moreover, unlike most traditions of descending ages, in which man is said to still be at the nadir of his development, Sri Yukteswar states that man reached his nadir in 500 AD – but since then he has begun to advance once more – as you can see in the diagram below.
Perhaps even more important for explaining the ancient past than the specificity of dates is Sri Yukteswar’s description of man’s consciousness in each yuga. His clear description of ancient man’s consciousness and abilities may well allow us to finally understand some of the most enduring mysteries of the ancient past.
Case in Point: Treta Yuga and the Vedas
The Rig Veda, a collection of over 10,000 Sanskrit verses, is the oldest known spiritual work in the world – and can be dated to as early as 7300 BC. The Rig Veda is the wellspring of spiritual knowledge for what we know as Hinduism and has remained so for over nine thousand years. The Rig Veda is in Sanskrit, in all likelihood the oldest language on earth – and to this day it remains the most precise and internally consistent system of communication in the world. Sanskrit’s structure and grammar have been studied by developers of computer programming languages in order to help them create programming languages free of ambiguity.
The Vedas were accurately passed down from generation to generation in India by virtue of an extremely methodical system of oral transmission which involved chanting each verse in ten different ways to crosscheck for integrity. It is believed that only two words have become corrupted in over nine thousand years.
Such an effective and elaborate system of oral transmission is amazing in itself, but more amazing yet is that there is a large body of astronomical, mathematical, and physical knowledge embedded in the Vedas, knowledge popularly believed not to have been discovered in Europe until the Renaissance and later. Contemporary scientists have found the following knowledge embedded in the Vedas:
The sun and planets are spherical.
Each of the seven colors of the rainbow carries a different amount of energy.
The sun is the source of all energy for life on earth.
The earth rotates around the sun.
The sun, earth, and other planets rotate on their own axes.
The earth’s rotation creates night and day.
The earth’s orbital path and axial tilt result in the seasons.
The poles have six-month-long nights and days.
The two tropics and the equator are separated by twenty-four degrees.
The earth has a slightly elliptical orbit.
The cause and timing of solar and lunar eclipses.
Because of its orbit around the sun, the planet Venus is both the evening star and the morning star.
The apparent movement of sun spots is due to the rotation of the sun.
As seen from the earth, the full rotation of the sun takes twenty-seven days.
The earth’s orbit around the sun creates a plane and on that plane are the twelve divisions of the zodiac.
The precession of the equinoxes.
The length of a solar year is 365.244 days.
The moon’s light is reflected from the sun.
The sun’s energy is generated by a continuous process at its core.
The sun is gaseous.
The earth’s surface is 70% covered by water.
The clouds consist of heat-produced water vapor, which in turn gives rise to rain.
The stars are “innumerable.”
The stars exist in collections (niharikas), or galaxies, which rotate around their own center points.
The earth and sun are part of a galaxy that rotates around a center point.
The physical world is made up of atoms.
The atoms have an internal structure resembling the solar system.
The symbol and concept for zero
The decimal system of notation
The concept of infinity
The concept of arithmetic progression
The concept and value of pi
The formula for calculating the area of a circle
The concept of a number up to 1018
The theorem of diagonals (the Pythagorean Theorem)
The means to determine square roots and cube roots
The concept of negative numbers
The concept of algebraic equations using letter symbols for unknown quantities
The conception and expression of quadratic and indeterminate equations
The geometry of the triangle, parallelogram, rectangle, and circle
The geometry of the sphere, cone, and pyramid
How does one explain this?
The Vedas are, after all, spiritual tools, sacred writ. The verses of the Vedas are mantras whose purpose is to raise the consciousness of one who chants them. The verses of the Vedas express an intimate relationship of man and Divine. Yet at the same time they contain scientific knowledge – knowledge that is currently believed to be attainable only through sequentially developed mathematics, scientific instruments such as the telescope, and a rigorously applied methodology of experimentation.
According to Sri Yukteswar, in the most recent Treta Yuga (6700 BC to 3100 BC), during which the Vedas were composed, man was able to directly comprehend that everything is made up of ideas or thoughts. Treta Yuga man’s attunement to thought also made him highly intuitive – able to perceive truths without the need for the cumbersome process of experimentation.
If man possessed such awareness and comprehension in the ancient past then he would have had no need to use the tools of science as we understand them today. He would have perceived these truths directly through intuition. The “scientific” truths of the Vedas were perceived right along with spiritual truths – part of the same indivisible reality.
If such an explanation seems farfetched, let me offer you an interesting example of intuitively derived – and very precise – scientific information that was discovered intuitively around the turn of the twentieth century.
Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater, prominent members of the Theosophical Society conducted intuitive investigations into the nature of atoms. They compiled a large number of descriptions and drawings of what they observed while in deep trances. Their descriptions and drawings were quite detailed and complex – in fact more complex than the known facts of the day.
Many years after the passing of Besant and Leadbeater, physicist Dr. Steven M. Phillips began to study their journals. He published his findings in 1980 in Extra-Sensory Perception of Quarks. A thorough examination of their psychic investigations led Phillips to conclude that Besant and Leadbeater had accurately described the number and nature of quarks – sub-atomic particles that make up the larger structures of the nucleus of the atom, such as protons and neutrons – years ahead of their discovery by modern physics.
The yugas, as explained by Sri Yukteswar, require no outside influence to explain the mysteries of the past. The yugas simply say that as man’s consciousness advances, his knowledge, perception, and abilities advance as well. Man doesn’t merely know more as the yugas advance – he becomes more.
David Steinmetz found an amazingly clear archeological and historical footprint to match the dates and consciousness of each yuga. Nor did we have to rely on the strange, unusual or controversial to see the footprint. A clear view of the arc of the yugas can be seen in the broad trends and accepted facts of the past and present. We believe that the yuga cycle could serve as a framework for the discoveries and work of many researchers and authors in the field of alternative history.
Joseph Selbie studied ancient Western cultures at the University of Colorado and ancient Eastern cultures at UC Berkeley. He has had a keen interest in ancient history since grade school. He has taught and lectured on the principles of Eastern philosophy for over thirty years. Joseph lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California.
David’s background includes forty years of scientific work, including astronomy at the University of Arizona and optics at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Currently, he teaches about the yugas, ancient world cultures, astronomy, and physics at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom. He has been writing and lecturing on the topic of the yugas for more than a decade. David lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California.
When I first came across this concept, in the Bhagavad Gita, about 20 years ago, I was immediately fascinated by it. Not being subjected to birth, old age, disease and death got my attention. It’s safe to say that no one is looking forward to these aspects of life.
We do our very best to avoid old age, disease and death, but to no avail. We don’t want to look or get old and the proof of this is in the hundreds of billions of dollars that are spent by the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries in trying to preserve our youth and vigor. We’ll do just about anything to keep on looking young — stretch, pull, nip, tuck — whatever it takes. It’s an attempt to have eternal youth.
Disease and death are no-brainers. No one wants to die and as Steve Jobs said it so wonderfully: “Even people who want to go to heaven, don’t want to die to get there.” We experience so much pain in this life when we lose something of value. Losing even little things such as a pair of jeans or a phone can cause pain and disturbance to our lives. What to speak of losing a loved one which can leave us despairing for years. Death is that moment that rips us away from everything that we hold dear, all at once! It’s quite difficult to imagine how painful that must be.
If we consider the process of birth with some thoughtfulness, I’m pretty sure we’d want to avoid that too. Getting your whole body and head squeezed out over hours and hours seems like nothing less than torture. It’s no wonder that we come out of the womb and into the world screaming at the top of our lungs.
Chapter two of the The Bhagavad Gita explains:
For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.
Krishna dedicates the entire first section of chapter two to explaining this concept to Arjuna and to all the readers. The basic point that Krishna wants to drive home is that we have been identifying ourselves with something that we’re not. That we’ve been identifying with something temporary and material as opposed to something spiritual and eternal. It’s a classic case of mistaken identity.
Yes, it’s a very difficult paradigm to digest, even if you were raised with a belief in the soul. Basically, it’s telling us that when we’re looking into a mirror, we’re not seeing the real person. We’re only seeing the exterior covering. The real person is sitting within the body. The body is often times described as a vehicle and the soul as the driver. A vehicle can’t function without the driver. The soul is seated in a vehicle made not of metal, but of flesh and bones. The eyes are like the headlights and the arms and legs like the wheels which allow for motion. And like most vehicles, ours also comes with an exhaust pipe. Personally, I live in an Asian-Indian 1972 model. What’s your make and model?
It’s explained within the Upanishads that the soul is one ten-thousandth the size of a tip of hair. The Bhagavad Gita describes the soul as, “invisible and inconceivable…unbreakable, insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried.” The Upanishads also explain that the soul resides in the region of the heart.
I sometimes get asked “if someone gets a heart transplant, are they also getting a new soul?” The answer is no. The soul is in the region of the heart but doesn’t move if the heart is removed.
The soul is the spiritual spark that creates consciousness. It can also be said that it is consciousness. Without the soul, the body is just a lifeless lump of matter that starts decaying and loses all attractiveness. We have to admit that no matter how close we were to someone, once the soul leaves the body, we’d prefer not to hang around the body for too long.
Recognition of our spiritual identity doesn’t translate into indifference towards one’s own or others’ bodies. The body is a very important vehicle. It can’t be neglected as it serves as the vehicle for the soul and it takes the soul to its next destination. That destination can either be another material body or liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
Of course, liberating the soul from being entangled in the body is no easy task. It takes a regulated and committed spiritual endeavor of meditation and certain lifestyle changes to achieve that goal. For those who have come to the realization that the material body isn’t their permanent home and that they need to transcend this cycle of birth and death, will aspire for such a commitment. When I had this realization, I started taking small steps towards reuniting the soul with God. I know I have a long way to go, perhaps even several life times, but in my opinion, it’s a worthwhile endeavor.
The Bhagavad Gita: You Are Not Your Mind
Have you ever wondered about why your mind works the way it does, and how it comes up with all of its scattered, random and half-organized thoughts? Where are all of these thoughts coming from, and what’s the reason they are there? Many of our thoughts originate from experiences we’ve had in the past, but the mind will also come up with dreamlike scenarios about events that have yet to take place in our lives.
We will find ourselves in a scenario for a future event, and we will be fully imagining the experience of what it would be like to live in that scenario. Some of these situations can be pleasant, while others are very nightmarish.
We’ve all had experiences where we can be eating, sleeping, walking down the street, studying, working, listening to music or even engaging in a conversation with someone else, and the mind will begin to drift away to somewhere else. We didn’t consciously decide to let the mind wander, but it did. It just left us standing there talking to someone while it decided to go away for a while. This happens all the time!
This happens for prolonged durations during the dreaming state. Our dreams often seem so vivid and detailed, but they weren’t our conscious creations. The mind conjures them up and gets very creative. This brings me to that statement Morpheus makes to Neo in “The Matrix”:
Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
No one willingly chooses to have a nightmare where one is chased by an animal, attacked by a murderer or falls off of a cliff. We can wake up in a sweat with our heart beating a million miles an hour. It becomes obvious that we weren’t in control of our thoughts at that time, and that we are rarely ever in control of our thoughts at any time.
The Bhagavad Gita describes the tendency of the mind as follows: “For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy.”
By referring to the mind as a friend or an enemy, the Gita treats the mind as if it were something different from us. Many times it can sure feel as if someone else, or even a whole group of people, is carrying on elaborate dialogues up there that have little to do with our present reality.
Many Hindu texts create a distinction between the physical body, the mind and intelligence. The mind is often compared to an impulsive child who isn’t capable of making proper decisions, and the intelligence is likened to a parent that helps the mind choose the appropriate and healthy course of action.
A mind that isn’t given proper attention and is allowed to run wild can cause havoc in our lives. The uncontrolled mind is the sole source of fear, stress and anger in our lives. We’ve all had the experience of recalling instances where others might have physically, financially or emotionally hurt us. Even though we tell ourselves that “it’s over and that there’s no need to continue to remember such instances,” we find that the mind forcibly brings these thoughts back to the forefront of our consciousness.
The Gita explains that we can either become liberated with the help of our mind or completely degrade our consciousness. Believe it or not, the choice is ours. It may be possible to avoid unpleasant situations, uncomfortable places or unfriendly people, but the mind isn’t something we can escape.
The mind lives within us and controls our thoughts, emotions and actions. We go to sleep with it every night and we wake up with it every morning. If we’re going to spend that much time with someone, doesn’t it make sense to develop a friendship with that individual? The question arises: How do you develop a friendship with someone that you can’t see or touch or really even talk to?
First of all, we have to acknowledge that we have a mind and not that we are the mind. Second, we need to be able to admit that we have very little control over the mind’s activities. Thirdly, we need to know that we’re never going to have complete control over the mind.
Of course, we’re not talking about controlling the mind in some forceful, unnatural way. What we want to accomplish is a harmonious relationship between the mind, intelligence and the soul, so that these different components of our being can be on the same page more often. This will lead to a happier and more peaceful existence. This, of course, requires training and practice. Nothing worth achieving ever comes easy.
During the mantra meditation session that I lead at Columbia, I encourage participants to incorporate a regulated practice of meditation into their daily lives. After all, we make time to clothe and feed the body, so why not take time to feed and nourish the mind? Even a short regiment of 10-15 minutes a day will gradually reduce the hurricane-like winds in the mind and grant the mind greater levels of focus and steadiness, which is something we can all use a bit more of.
Meet Gadadhara Pandit Dasa, Columbia University’s First Hindu Chaplain
Gadadhara Pandit Dasa (also known as Pandit) has been a monk in the bhakti-yoga tradition since September of 1999. After spending six months in different monasteries in India, Pandit moved to a temple/monastery in the East Village of Manhattan, where he currently resides.
Pandit currently serves as the first-ever Hindu chaplain of Columbia University and New York University. His activities at Columbia include facilitating weekly vegetarian cooking classes, discussions on the classic Eastern work Bhagavad-Gita, and sessions on the art and practice of mantra meditation. His motivation is to help the students and faculty to find a balance in their material pursuits and spiritual aspirations.
Pandit was featured in the NPR piece “Long Days and Short Nights of a Hindu Monk,” and he has also appeared in a PBS documentary on the Bhagavad Gita, as well as The New York Times. He also is a participant in the interfaith community and dialogue of New York City. For more from Pandit, check out his website at nycpandit.com
After long and patient trip through time, “Maitreya” is finally available in English! Several editions in Croatia, and some other countries, and thousands of readers inspired began their own spiritual adventure after reading this book.
“In ancient India, on the banks of the legendary Sarasvati River lived a great master and teacher called Parashara who devoted his life to researching jyotish, astrology of Vedic rishies. With the help of Ganesh, divine being with a human body and an elephant’s head, Parashara discovered the laws of time and human destinies. He predicted the tragedy of his own civilisation and in it anticipated signs of danger that mankind would be encountered with during the forthcoming millennia.
In the desire to help, Ganesh and Parashara initiate a complex net of events that in an unusual way connect different historical periods. And everything began when Parashara sent his most distinctive student on a spiritual journey over the boundaries of time. His name was Maitreya.
Jyotish, astrology of ancient Vedic rishies and sages, hides within itself many secrets about the connection between man and the universe. In the novel Maitreya, A.P. Kezele, a jyotish student himself, uncovers the principles of this knowledge about time and its laws in a truly interesting and unusual way. Human destiny, free will, the spirituality of an individual, the future of mankind, and great world periods –all of these interesting subjects, along with many other details like stories about planets, constellations, how a jyotishi (astrologer) works, and the possibilities of jyotish alone, are introduced in this intense story that is read in one breath.”
Terrorists are cowards. Whenever terror has struck in any part of the world, we have heard people say it is an act of cowardice. A coward runs away from action but harbours all negative feelings and does it surreptitiously.
This is exactly what happened to Arjuna. Arjuna was angry, upset, sad and wanted to run away. In the Bhagawad Gita, Lord Krishna said not to be a coward. So, it is an antidote to terrorism. Shri Krishna said bravery is the way – face the war when it is inevitable and do your duty.
A terrorist is stuck in his identity – he hides it, has no rationale and inflicts pain. Whereas Bhagawad Gita helps one to transcend one’s identity, encourages reason and infuses wisdom. In this sense, it could be called the antidote to terrorism.
The duty of a policeman, a soldier or a king is to be impartial for the sake of the nation, whether it is their mentors or relatives. Terrorists are never impartial. A soldier is brave and a terrorist is a coward. A soldier is protecting and preventing violence and a terrorist is inflicting pain and suffering. The Bhagawad Gita is the scripture of bravery in both realms of physical and metaphysical.
Terrorism is deeply steeped in hatred. An act without hatred is what Gita propounds. The Gita epitomizes the correct action – of righteousness, of upliftment of spirit and an action or duty that ought to be performed even in the most compelling situation.
In the last 5149 years of the existence of the Gita, there is no evidence of someone becoming a terrorist after reading it. In fact, Mahatma Gandhi wrote commentaries on the Bhagawad Gita and it was an inspiration for his non-violent movement. The Bhagawad Gita is a unique scripture which caters to the entire range of human evolution, comprising every level of this vast existence.
Gita stands for poise and equanimity and for performing one’s designated duty. Krishna does not encourage everyone to take the weapons and fight but a soldier cannot sell bananas in the market. He has to take his weapon to bring security to his people. If Bhagawad Gita is a terrorist scripture then all military academies in the world are nothing but terrorist organizations. Doesn’t this sound strange? Would the courts ban Lenin, Marx and Mao Tso-Tung, who to stay in power inflicted terror on millions?
A terrorist or a coward hides and inflicts pain on others whereas a soldier sacrifices his own life to bring security and peace to people. They both may take the gun but their intentions are poles apart.
Gita encourages reasoning and dialogue while terrorists are blind to any reasoning and are closed to any form of dialogue.
Interestingly, in any military training all over the world, the soldiers are asked to see the enemies as dangerous objects which need to be eliminated. The psychology behind indoctrination of such an idea is that when they think the enemy is a human being the soldiers are unable to raise their arms. There are many such survival tactics where the army men are desensitized.
A similar situation happened to Arjuna. Lord Krishna went step by step to deal with Arjuna’s emotions, ego, mindsets and concepts. He finally touched on the nature of his spiritual being; revealing him the highest knowledge and making him realize his eternal nature. This brought him enormous strength and then propelled him to perform his worldly duties. A doctor cannot be taken as a dacoit just because he opens up the stomach of the patient.
Krishna says, no sin begets him whose intellect is unattached and free from cravings and aversions, even if he kills the whole world. Now, the condition of an intellect free from cravings and aversions itself counters terrorism. Terrorism is done when the intellect is deeply attached and is hateful. The metaphors and the high standards of humanism exhibited in the Gita are unparalleled.
Jesus had said, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” In the Quran, there are many verses which talk about striking terror in the hearts of the infidels and cutting off their fingers. By these standards if you still call Gita a terrorist scripture then you have to precede such statements by Bible and Quran.
The fact is that it is not the scriptures that inflict terrorism; it is the mis-interpretation of an ignorant and stressed mind which justifies their actions quoting scriptures.
By Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
This article is to cater to the common man. This piece was written in December 2011, in the midst of a Russian court case against the Bhagawad Gita. The case ended with the Russian court rejecting the ban.
H.H. Radhanath Swami has been a source of inspiration for several projects both in India and outside of it. Radhanath Swami is also a great source of inspiration for several thousands of people aspiring to seek spiritual enlightenment in the line of bhakti yoga. His efforts to help people in this field have been delivering positive results. Radhanath Swami’s students come from various walks of life, age groups, castes, races, and nationalities
