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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.

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.

“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

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

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.

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.

Subscribe to the Atma Jyoti Blog and receive notices about new ebooks when they are published, and read the latest articles on practical spiritual life as they are posted.

• Meditation: Training for Living

A useful article about the benefits of meditation. “Meditation is not an end in itself, but rather the means to an end–to the daily living out of the illumined consciousness produced by meditation. We go into meditation so we can come out of meditation more conscious and better equipped to live our life.”

• 19 Exceptional Web Resources for Spiritually Minded People

This is one of the most popular articles on the Blog, as the wide range of web resources in it are exceptionally useful.

• How to Misuse Your Power of Thought

A practical analysis of the negative habits which can lead to a spiritual downfall and a miserable life.

• The Sure Way To Realize God

An important article about remembering God at the moment of death. “The moment of death is perhaps the most important moment in our life, equalled only by the moment of birth.”

• Reincarnation: Choosing Our Costumes in the Drama of Life

How our choices in this world determine our future births.

• Creating Your Happiness – Paramhansa Yogananda

The first of a series of articles by Yogananda on happiness, written during his early years in America in East-West and Inner Culture magazines.

• What Is the Mind?: A Meditator’s Guide

An understanding of the mind is essential in dealing with the mind in meditation. A very helpful article.

• New Bhagavad Gita Commentary Completed and Available as Free PDF Download

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

• Humans: Are We Carnivores or Vegetarians by Nature?

This is a reprint of a remarkable article exploring the anatomical differences  in ­ teeth, jaws, and digestive systems between herbivores and meat-eaters. How do humans fit in the scheme of things? Read and find out!

• A Yogi’s Recommended Reading List

This posting is actually from 2007, but is a valuable resource for students of meditation and spiritual life.

For a fuller list of some of the best articles on the Atma Jyoti Blog, visit Top Articles on the Atma Jyoti Blog.

Read new spiritual articles as they are published. Subscribe to the Atma Jyoti Blog.

Victor Zammit

“Of the research I have done over the years, the most impressive hypnotherapist I have come across in showing how past life regression is linked with reincarnation is psychologist and former skeptic Peter Ramster from Sydney, Australia.

The following information is taken from Peter Ramster’s very important book, In Search of Lives Past (1990) and from a speech he gave to the Australian Hypnotherapists ninth National Convention at the Sydney Sheraton Wentworth Hotel on the 27th March, 1994 and from the films he made on reincarnation.

In 1983 he produced a stunning television documentary in which four women from Sydney, who had never been out of Australia, gave details under hypnosis of their past lives. Then, accompanied by television cameras and independent witnesses, they were taken to the other side of the world.

One of the subjects involved was Gwen MacDonald, a staunch skeptic before her regression. She remembered a life in Somerset between 1765-82. Many facts about her life in Somerset which would be impossible to get out of a book were confirmed in front of witnesses when she was taken there:

• when taken blindfolded to the area in Somerset she knew her way around perfectly although she had never been out of Australia
• she was able to correctly point out in three directions the location of villages she had known
• she was able to direct the film crew as to the best ways to go far better than the maps
• she knew the location of a waterfall and the place where stepping stones had been. The locals confirmed that the stepping stones had been removed about 40 years before
• she pointed out an intersection where she claimed that there had been five houses. Enquiries proved that this was correct and that the houses had been torn down 30 years before and that one of the houses had been a ‘cider house’ as she claimed
• she knew correctly names of villages as they were 200 years ago even though on modern maps they do not exist or their names have been changed
• the people she claimed that she knew were found to have existed?one was listed in the records of the regiment she claimed he belonged to
• she knew in detail of local legends which were confirmed by Somerset historians
• she used correctly obscure obsolete west country words no longer in use, no longer even in dictionaries, words like ‘tallet’ meaning a loft
• she knew that the local people called Glastonbury Abbey ‘St Michaels’—a fact that was only proved by reading an obscure 200 year old history book not available in Australia
• she was able to correctly describe the way a group of Druids filed up Glastonbury Hill in a spiral for their spring ritual, a fact unknown to most university historians
• she knew that there were two pyramids in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey which have long since disappeared
• she correctly described in Sydney carvings that were found in an obscure old house 20 feet from a stream, in the middle of five houses about one and a half miles from Glastonbury Abbey
• she had been able to draw in detail in Sydney the interior of her Glastonbury house which was found to be totally correct
• she described an inn that was on the way to the house. It was found to be there
• she was able to lead the team direct to the house which is now a chicken shed. No-one knew what was on the floor until it was cleaned. However on the floor they found the stone that she had drawn in Sydney
• the locals would come in every night to quiz her on local history?she knew the answers to all the questions they were asking such as the local problem which was a big bog—cattle were being lost there.

Cynthia Henderson, another subject of Peter Ramster, remembered a life during the French Revolution. When under trance she:

• spoke in French without any trace of an accent
• understood and answered questions put to her in French
• used dialect of the time
• knew the names of streets which had changed and were only discoverable on old maps.

Peter Ramster has many other documented cases of past life regression which in very clear terms constitute technical evidence for the existence of the afterlife.

Read more of Victor Zammit’s page on researches into reincarnation.

More on Reincarnation from the Atma Jyoti Blog:

• Reincarnation: Choosing Our Costumes in the Drama of Life
• The Authentic Christian View on Reincarnation

Keep up with new articles as they are posted. Subscribe to the Atma Jyoti Blog.

Paramahansa Nityananda

The Chidakasha Gita is a transcription of random teachings of Nityananda, given when he would walk unannounced into a house, sit down, and begin speaking. Though the devotees did the best they could, writing frantically in hope of keeping up with his words, the resulting records are often disjointed and sometimes make no sense since something is missing. This of course is a defect of the transcribers and not of Nityananda who was speaking spontaneously in spirit consciousness without interest in polished expression. Nevertheless, a devotee collected these fragments and had them printed under the title of Chidakasha Gita. [Chidakasha–from A Brief Sanskrit Glossary: “The Space (Ether) of Consciousness.” The infinite, all-pervading expanse of Consciousness from which all “things” proceed; the subtle space of Consciousnesss in the Sahasrara (Thousand-petalled Lotus). The true “heart” of all things.] They have been translated into several Indian languages as well as English.

Swami Nirmalananda has attempted to separate them under different subject headings to make it easier for students of spiritual life to examine these valuable teachings.

Our friend Kumuda (Sharon Janis) of Spiritual-Happiness.com has recorded the Chidakasha Gita according to topic and made it available for listening on her website. She has also made her recording available for purchase on CD or as a MP3 download, as well as other spiritual recordings. They are well worth listening to.

Below are some excerpts from the Chidakasha Gita on our site:

Bhakti

• It is not bhakti to give a man some money or to give him a meal as charity. Bhakti is universal love. Seeing God in all beings, without the least idea of duality, is bhakti.
• Bhakti in the beginning is selfish. Afterwards, there is no selfishness in it.
• A vessel without water is of no use. Bhakti is water; intelligence (buddhi) is the vessel. He who has no subtle bhakti is no man.
• Take ten men; their bhakti is not of an identical nature. When ten people are going on a journey, if one of them sits to take rest, the remaining nine will also do the same. Likewise, one man is inspired with bhakti; other people, by seeing or hearing him become also bhaktas.
• Bhakti is the state of eternal bliss.
• Bhakti (devotion) is nothing but love a man manifests towards an object. A man should believe that thing as great by which, because of his faith, he has been much benefited. This belief should not be relaxed. There is not a single thing without bhakti. All animals have bhakti. Just as water flows in different directions, so also is bhakti of different types. All animals have a right for bhakti. Bhakti is in all objects. Bhakti should be absolutely pure. Bhakti should be realized in the sky of consciousness. Bhakti should be internal and it should realize the subtle. Then a man becomes desireless and sorrowless. This state is eternal mukti. Let mukti be entered into by the path of sushumna.

God-vision

• You must see that God Who is in the heart-space. Yes, you must see Him. You must see that Krishna who is eternal bliss (Nityananda). It is delusion to regard stone as God.
• All tattwas have one root tattwa called Parabrahman. When this is realized, it is called jivanmukti. You must see the river at its source and not after it merges into the sea. You should see the mother root of a tree. All the trees have one mother root. So also, all have one and only one God. When you have realized all as one, homogeneous, this realization is mukti.
• One who has become one with the Supreme has accomplished the object of his birth. One must concentrate his mind on the Supreme. One must become one with the Supreme. Wakefulness, dream state, and sleep state must melt in the Supreme and become one.

Mind (Manas–Buddhi)

• The glass of a chimney lamp, when covered with carbon, is not transparent. Similarly, the carbon of the mind should be removed.
• Just as camphor is consumed by the flames of fire, so also, the mind must be consumed by soul fire.
• There are matches in a match-box. Fire is produced only when the match is rubbed against the side of the box. So also, the manas is the match; buddhi (intelligence) is the side of the box. We should rub the manas against buddhi and then we get the kingdom of atman which is the same as the liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
• Buddhi is the king; manas is the minister; manas should be subordinated to buddhi.
• Your mind should not flicker like the reflection of the sun in the shaking water.
• The sea water is boundless; the tank water has a boundary. Our mind must be like the tank water. Mind is the cause of good and evil. A man may be good and bad according to his good or bad thoughts. God does not do good or evil to any man. The reason is, intelligence and knowledge are the divine faculties in man. A man protected by good thoughts cannot be harmed even by a cannon shot. Without yoga, liberation from karma is impossible.
• Mind is the creator of ideas. When the gross ideas are suppressed and the man lives in the subtle, this state is called nirvikalpa samadhi or samadhi without ideas. Just as we teach a bird how to talk, keeping it in a cage with its feet bound, we must keep our mind in our buddhi. A man must learn for himself.

Read more of Nityananda’s Chidakasha Gita.

Find definitions to any unfamiliar terms in A Brief Sanskrit Glossary.

Listen to the Chidakasha Gita online.

Keep up with new articles as they are posted. Subscribe to the Atma Jyoti Blog.