The awakening

In the round of current philosophical probings, a read through from the site Anand Marga is presented here. Readings, which i have been contemplating since some time now.


"There is in the living being a thirst for limitlessness"
The following sections present main topics with links and few extracts from them.

Social Philosophy
All should be afforded equal opportunity for their development

Progressive Utilization Theory
All long for the Supreme, either knowingly or unknowingly. All want infinite happiness; perfect peace.

Neohumanism
Neohumanism is the practice of love for all created beings of the universe, animate and inanimate. It is the spirit of humanism extended to all: the elevation of humanism to universalism.

As human beings we have intellect as well as instinct. Intellect can either be used sentimentally or rationally. If it is used sentimentally it leads to dogma. If it is used rationally it leads to devotion.
 
Sentiment is intellect minus rationality. It allows the mind to be attracted to whatever it wants, without any regard for the consequences. It is based on selfish pleasure, and therefore is dangerous to oneself as well as to the society.

Sentiment leads to dogma. A dogma is an irrationally established idea devoid of logic. It is a preconceived idea which "stifles the spontaneous growth of human intellect." As such it gives rise to superstition, oppression and pseudo-spirituality. "With dogma, even 10-20 percent of human intellect cannot be properly utilized… The human intellect has got to be liberated from all sorts of bondages, from all kinds of dogma."

Rationality, on the other hand, is the ability to discriminate between right and wrong, between what should and should not be done. Rationality is a great asset, and it is only found in humans.

Rationality gives rise to devotion. Devotional sentiment is the highest and most valuable treasure of humanity. It makes the heart sweet and strong, and leads to expansion of mind because it is not a limiting sentiment. As such it transforms the sense of worldly existence into the supreme spiritual stance. 

Education 

Three fundamentals of education are: 

1. It must be based on factuality, 
2. It must awaken a thirst for knowledge, and 
3. Students and teachers must both have a balanced mind.

Spiritual philosophy
"The Supreme Entity is the vastest entity;
the ultimate source of all cosmic emanations.
The Supreme Entity, which is difficult to conceive,
is the subtlest of the subtle.
He is farther away than any other entity,
but again He is nearer than the nearest.
Only the one who looks into the innermost recesses
of himself can realize the Supreme Entity."

Realms of the mind (kosas)
"The mind is composed of five layers, just like the banana flower."

Service to Humanity
In synch with the prevalent mindset of our present-day society, we tend to think of life in terms of sensual gratification and spend a good deal of our time going about acquiring the objects we believe will give us that gratification. When we fail to get lasting satisfaction from those material objects and the sensual pleasures they give us, we automatically believe it's because we didn't get enough of them, or that we need to try something new.
That's the illusion. The reality is something quite different. We need to go the other way; to give instead of take; to think about the well-being of others as much as of our own . It should not mean that we deprive ourselves (or allow ourselves to be deprived) of our basic necessities. But for our mental and spiritual wellbeing we need to move away from the tendency of getting more for ourselves, and move towards giving more to others, without expecting anything in return. That's why service is a big part of spirituality.

God's Theory

The world is going round and round and there are many reasons for that.
One of the most controversial issues is the existence of God. In many ways it is proved that he really exists and in many ways not. Religion is one way in which the rules of heaven are explained to us. Though history proves that there have been many wars, conflicts, riots for religion, it’s very difficult to find the reasons behind this because human faith has reached a point of no turning back in this respect.

Let’s go back to the times of man's first existence, and assume that we don't know anything. Imagine yourself in a situation where you never knew what life was meant to be.
We prowled about like animals into the vast sea of knowledge and such has been the case of fear and survival.
As humans dived into the deep sea of faiths and beliefs, he discovered so many things. There wasn't a soul which couldn't be influenced by these beliefs. No one did question destiny. We all dived together in the sea of blindness. The very question of a difference in thought separated us from each other. From a man of unknown existence we turned into Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, Jews, Christians and so on.

And down the memory lane just ask ourselves the question, what is all this leading to? Are we living our life or are we living a lie? There's no time to react or to think because we are so busy in our activities.
We have wandered far from our thoughts. We exist today as none other than puppets moved by thoughts and expressions not ours. We have been doing what we are told to, never ever do we raise a question about all that is happening around us. We are afraid of god, but there was never a god who wanted us to be like this. We believe what we never knew and we support things and thoughts that we never thought about. If all this activity is for good, then everything would be running smooth as you would say. But misery exists as a carcinogenic cell in everyone's mind.
You give it a chance and it will multiply to death. It was for us to discover that unless we practice what we believe we will never realize what we have been up to.

Coming to our Indian society and its principles, there is a lot to tell, a lot to believe and a lot not to. When we constrain ourselves in the social sphere, we reduce our thoughts to accept just what we are given, and live and die in this sphere. And the one, who wanders out is given a bad name. He is sort of a criminal in Indian society.

Come out of your shells and take a look at the real world. There’s much to discover than just visiting a temple every weekend. In a place where religion matters so much, it’s been made a survival guide, place where the hard text rules and your mind is hibernating in wondrous worlds. If you really know something, know it to the best of your knowledge. And in the field of existence there is a lot to discover and there is a lot to discard.

Do your self a favor and get to the originals. Leave behind all that u learned form those who never knew what they learnt. It’s really difficult when the world turns you down and you got nothing but your faith and beliefs. Believe in god and have faith. But ever let your faith be practiced in human kind, because god's grace should be always in his hand.

There are some things that you never wanted and some things you wanted to take. Life is a lesson and you will learn it when you are through. Spirituality is a reason for thought, it is an impetus to another world, where illusions rule and not your old desires. You really need it when you are an affected soul, and you need it to live life the way you have been living, its cold and its hard but if you have the courage to face it all then you are welcome to the world of truth, where you will be a child listening to the same old lullaby but this time it will really mean to you and you will get the essence of life away from pride and away from hard earned facts of life. You will feel like never before. The look in your eyes, the glory of your soul, which God always wanted to see that is the prayer, that really holds on. Remember there's a light in every soul that come out to discover the child in us and have your faith in god enhanced and hear the sweetest lullaby of your life! It’s very easy to criticize a thing but it’s really hard to appreciate the same thing. It’s easy to make a promise but very hard to keep it. It’s very easy to say yes to whatever you have but it is very difficult to accept it. It’s easy to fall in love but it’s very difficult to keep it.

And the last remark- it’s very easy to think what you have in mind but it is very difficult to communicate to others.