The Atma Jyoti Blog

One of the most popular and useful articles on the Atma Jyoti website is the Brief Sanskrit Glossary. As Sanskrit terminology is at the heart of the spiritual tradition of India, newcomers (and veterans) to the study of the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Yoga Sutras, and writings of the saints will find this tool helpful in understanding the richness of these sacred writings.

We have now updated the Brief Sanskrit Glossary, improving existing definitions, and adding dozens more.

Visit the Brief Sanskrit Glossary.

In our trips to India in the past years, we have taken hours of video footage to remind us of our heavenly sojourns there. As time has allowed, we have edited the footage of our various adventures. We have now added some of these videos to our main web site, for the enjoyment of those who love the spiritual face of India. View links to the videos below on our India Videos page. Due to the size of some of the videos, and the speed of your web connection, the pages may take some time to load, but the wait is well worth it.

From Belur Math to Dakshineshwar

On the banks of the Ganges River north of Kolkata are two of the most remarkable religious sites in all of India. On one side is the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple, where Sri Ramakrishna practiced intense spiritual disciplines while serving as the priest of the Goddess Kali. The temple compound has become a place of pilgrimage for devotees of Mother Kali and Sri Ramakrishna alike, including monks from Atma Jyoti Ashram who filmed this video.

Down river, on the other side of the Ganga, is Belur Math, the monastery founded by Swami Vivekananda, the world-renowned disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, which has become the world headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission.

Ganga Arati

Every night in Hardwar, in the foothills of the Himalayas, at about 6:00 p.m. there is worship (arati) of the Ganga at the Brahma Kund. In February of 2003, pilgrim-monks from the Atma Jyoti Ashram participated in the Ganges worship, which they also videotaped, as well as the shrines and religious goods shops located around the Brahma Kund.

Glimpses of India

A compilation of four short spiritual events filmed by our pilgrim monks during their trip to India in 2005:

1. The Morning Havan by the students at the Vedic Gurukula at Om Shanti Dhama in Karnataka.
2. Rare footage of the spiritual figure known as “Ajja” in Puttur, southern Karnataka.
3. The evening Nagar kirtan of Ram Nam at Anandashram, made famous by Papa Ramdas, near Kanhangad, Kerala.
4. Devotional Bhajans and dancing by village devotees at the Samadhi Shrine of Jnaneshwar in Alandi, Maharashtra.

Temple Elephants in India

A two minute video filmed in various temples throughout India, showing temple elephants blessing devotees, and being fed by their mahuts. Elephants in this video include Rukmini from the Arunachaleshwar Temple in Tiruvannamalai, Andar from the Sri Rangam Temple in Trichy, and the temple elephant from the famous Krishna temple in Udupi.

India Smiles

When people anywhere see a camera, it seems to bring out the budding actor in them. In our trips to India, we have frequently brought smiles to people’s faces by showing them their images in both still and video cameras. This film is a short collage of footage of both young and old enjoying their moment of fame on film.

Visit our India Videos page to see these videos in your choice of sizes, depending on the speed of your web connection.

From “A Decent Education” a dharma talk by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu. See the full talk and many others at accesstoinsight.org.

“The narrative of most people’s lives is — what? They were born, they struggled, they went through all sorts of difficulties, and then got sick and died. If they were lucky maybe they got to do some good things for their fellow human beings, but then they still just grew sick and died.

“But if you touch the Deathless, that’s a very different narrative, the narrative of a life that genuinely accomplished something, a life well lived. If you don’t touch the Deathless, the question at the end of your life is, “What was that all about? What was accomplished by all that producing and consuming, all that struggle?”

“Whatever you do in time and space is going to get changed someday, like a picture you draw with a stick in flowing water. But if you touch something outside of time and space, then life hasn’t been wasted. The narrative arc is really satisfying — because once you’ve found the Deathless it’s always there to depend on. You always have something to show for your efforts.

“And that’s the most important thing you’ll ever need to know.”

More reading:

• The Ultimate Man: from Faith to Knowing
• Buddha’s Words: the End of the Journey
• Hard Sayings of the Great Masters

Words of Mahendranath Gupta, also known as “M”, the author of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

With indrawn eyes, M addressed all here present:

“People think they have taken their whole meal (of knowledge) as a monkey does. If food is placed before a monkey he quickly puts it all in his mouth. But actually he does not eat – he keeps it stored in the bag of his throat.

“Likewise many people think that they have eaten a lot – so much of divine talk they have heard. But they have not digested it. They have heard it all right but have not made use of it – they have not tried to live it in life. That’s why it does not show. That’s why one wants to eat other things. The mind runs after sensory enjoyments.

“What is it  merely to hear? Nothing will happen even if it is kept in the brain when there is no strong effort to practice it one’s life. No work is possible by going slow. Tremendous effort is needed after hearing: let my life ebb out, I shall not give up effort. Then alone the real ‘food” is taken, the alone knowledge is acquired.”

This quote is taken from the book M, the Apostle and Evangelist, much of which can be found online at Kathamrita.org.

Forgotten gems from the Atma Jyoti Blog:

• The Key to Finding God
• The Sure Way to Realize God
• Living on the Mountain of Higher Consciousness and Life
• The Yogi’s Retreat from the World

A few months ago we added the Google Translation widget to the left sidebar of our blog. Since we were unsure of the accuracy of its translation efforts, we asked fans of the Atma Jyoti Blog and Website on various social media sites such as StumbleUpon to give the translator a try. Results were mixed, but mostly positive. Those who spoke Hindi and Spanish said that the Google Translator did a fairly accurate job. French was not as accurate, however, and Romanian was apparently abysmal.

We urge readers of the Atma Jyoti Blog to experiment with the translation widget, and if you are satisfied with the results, share them with friends who normally would not be reading an English language blog.

We are happy to announce the completion and publication online of Swami Nirmalananda’s new Commentary on the Upanishads. The text of this commentary is available for reading online from our Upanishad page, and is also available as a free PDF Download. The Upanishad Commentary covers the eleven major Upanishads of the Vedas (Isha, Katha, Kena, Mandukya, Mundaka, Prashna, Aitareya, Taittiriya, Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, and Shwetashwatara), and is is 332 pages, 1.33 mb.

What are the Upanishads?

The Upanishads are  those treatises of mystical and speculative philosophy which are part of the Vedas, the most ancient and authoritative scriptures in India (and the world). The word “upanishad” comes from the root word upasana, which means “to draw near,” and is usually considered to mean that which was heard when the student sat near the teacher to learn the eternal truths.

The authority of the Vedic scriptures rests not upon those who wrote them down but upon the demonstrable truths they express. They are as self-sufficient and self-evident as the multiplication tables or the Table of Elements. They are simply the complete and unobscured truth. And realization of that Truth alone matters.

The Upanishads have long interested students of philosophy in the West. The English philosopher Hume translated some of them into English in the eighteenth century. Later he travelled to America where he taught Sanskrit to Thomas Jefferson and together they studied the Upanishads in their original form.

Through a unique combination of exhaustive study and scholarship, and insight and wisdom gleaned from personal experience, Swami Nirmalananda’s commentary offers new gems that will enrich all true seekers.

Download the new Commentary on the Upanishads by Swami Nirmalananda Giri.

Related: Find more ebooks to download–Om Yoga–Its Theory and Practice and A Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, both by Swami Nirmalananda, by visiting our Free Ebooks page.

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