A journey towards the ultimate truth

Author: Dr. A. V. Ramachandran

What is compassion?

We need to distinguish between passion and compassion. Passion is associated with body-mind, while compassion is associated with the mindless inner self. A passionate person is full of desires and hence gripped by unawareness. A compassionate person is rooted in desirelessness and awareness.

How to Achieve Excellence

Have you ever pondered why some individuals are successful and excel in various spheres of life? Why do most individuals live an ordinary life without much credit or recognition? Is success or excellence a mere act of luck or a random event touching some people? When viewed from the spirituo-scientific way, it may seem that the so-called chance is merely an act of past good karma. Mundane, ordinary life may seem then as an act of no-good karma. However, karmas are our actions of the past or the present.

Let not the Sun wake you up

I had been an early riser from early childhood as I was born into a family of early risers as a rule or discipline. This habit continued into my adulthood, and as a rule, I had to wake up before sunrise. In the early part of my life, being in a village background, my family members used to rise early, take a bath and start their chores and rituals, may it be household activities or religious practices. I could see that all men around me never let the Sun catch them in bed. They never did dilly dally in bed and used to spring into action.

‘Yama’ – God of Death

Descriptions of Yamraj as the deity of death can be found in Garud Puran and other mythological texts. Garud Purān and other mythological texts are full of untruth. Yamrāj stands depicted in these texts as having a very fearful body and a width of many kilometres. He is shown as the devta of death, the one who snatches the life of people. He seems to have assistants or messengers who inflict varieties of unbearable torture on sinners in the nether worlds (Hells).

What is True Devotion?

As we find in the world and practised by most people, devotion essentially involves ritualistic practices for self-appeasement. Something like visiting temples, shrines or mosques, worshipping Gods and Goddesses, offering prayers/namaz, formal worship with lit wicks soaked in clarified butter, chanting hymns, donating money, and going on pilgrimage. The question is, why do we do these and what for? By and large, it is for gaining material benefits or getting good husbands or wives for our daughters or sons or health and wealth. We also do these acts with the aspiration to attain peace, health and wealth.

Life and Truth

What is ‘Real Life’? We need to understand it objectively. What we call Life is essentially a perpetual struggle from womb to tomb.

Importance of Moment

When talking of life, we can say that ‘life is all about moment and decisiveness’. We witness that life goes from moment to moment, and the future moves into the past, or we can say the future becomes the past. And we end up not doing many things because of our indecisiveness.