My Journey into Sanatana Dharma

Earlier in one of my posts "Freedom": I had said this: From what I read, Mahayana Buddhism is very very similar./close to Advaita school of thought. In fact many vishishta advaita and dvaita school's of thought proponents have accused  AdiSankaracharya of having borrowed concepts from Mahayana Buddhism, which predates advaita by many centuries (may be even millenia), there are subtle differences though, we should read up further on both to understand.  My understanding stands to be completely wrong. When I wrote the blog, i thought that the Advaita vedanta was an interpretation of the Vedas and the Upanishads provided to us by Adi Sankaracharya in the 6th-7th Century A.D. I couldn't have been more wrong. Tracking the lineage of Adi Sankaracarya, it goes back all the way to Brahma, the creator of the universe. There was never a time when Advaita wasn't a school of thought. Mahayana Buddhism, like other Buddhist schools are greatly influenced by the Upan

A common question, I am sure: Why is and has been there so much bloodshed in the world on the name of religion? People who blame religion for hatred and bloodshed in the world:  Just follow the comments people post on tech news articles, and other domains which a lot of people from different parts of society are interested in and more importantly emotionally invested in, you'll realize this: People fight. Period. And belligerent and political leaders just need a reason. Religion just seems to be in fashion these days. Remove religion from the equation, I guarantee this, people will still fight, perhaps people who like Microsoft vs people who swear by Apple vs people who swear by Google. Haven't you heard of riots and violence after soccer games? What about political riots? How about regional fights? (Ukranians vs Russians) (Telangana vs Andhra) maharastrians vs north Indians? What about racial fights? Whites vs Blacks? Chinese vs Japanese? white supremacists Arya

Have you ever thought abt this:  Dark energy: 1. pervades EVERYTHING in the universe. 2. Its origin, and it's very existence and its properties and what it really is, is a mystery par none. 3. It is omnipresent, and it's the very reason that matter has mass (as far as we/humans are concerned only matter with mass is "real") 4. It's mysterious in its working. Now replace Dark Energy with: Krishna: the dark one, the mysterious one. The all pervading divine who "sees" EVERYTHING. who is responsible for everything in the universe. Who is the source of everything that exists. Now after watching a video on YouTube narrated by Morgan Freeman, from the "Into the Worm Hole" series, that says that some scientists think the universe might be a gigantic organism,  I started to wonder: We understand next to nothing abt Dark Energy, yet it covers EVERYTHING in the known universe, and we technically understand less than 4% of this known uni

One of my good friends, Chandrasekhar Dhall, posted this on facebook recently: God helps those who DO NOT help themselves - Swami Vivekanand This quote, while ringing true, reminded me of a powerful part in the Ramayana through which the power of "Sharanagati" or Complete Surrender is explained. This story is narrated by Sita Devi in the 5th canto of the Ramayana, known as "sundarakanda". When our dear god Hanuman goes to Lanka in search of Sita devi who was abducted by the demon king Ravana, he eventually finds her sitting under a large banyan tree (sishupa vruksham), surrounded by demon women slaves who were ugly and frightening at the same time. By this point in the story, Hanuman having never met Sita Devi and vice versa creates an interesting conundrum in the mind of Hanuman to prove to each other that each other are what they say they are. Remember in the Treta yuga, demons who could change forms and morph into different beings were common place. H

At this level of understanding, the concept of the string in Super string theory formulated by majority of theoretical physicists in search of a unified theory of Everything, is very very similar to the concept of Brahman/God/SuperConciousness/Parameshwara/Supreme Divine in the Advaita philosophy of Vedanta that is 100% based on the Vedas. Science and Spirituality can coexist. Further research necessary: But the documentary: Te quantum activist , makes a compelling case on similar lines. Brian Greene: Making sense of string theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtdE662eY_M&feature=youtu.be This posting is a work in progress. Perhaps will be the longest work in progress blog post of my life. I have a back log of books written by various people about the same topic and comparison. And many videos that do the same comparison to go over, reference and compile into a singular location.

He is born in vain, who having attained the human birth, so difficult to get, does not attempt to realise God in this very life.[1] --- Ramakrishna Paramahansa (Guru of Swami Vivekananda)  If u think abt it, there are only two ways to live life: 1. Believing that 'we' are but a chance of existence in the infinite universe. Hence everything is for a naught anyway. 2. Believing that 'we', may be a chance, but that chance was created by the infinite intelligence, that that "chance", is conscious, and we live to realize this infinite intelligence, call it what you want. Coz evolution is clear abt the fact that only human consciousness is the most advanced The "believing" part is still the same in both the options. I just like to hedge my bets. Shouldn't everyone?

Before we answer this question let me tell you a story about AdiSankaracharya: When Adi Sankaracharya was alive, there once came a man to him and said , “ what is wrong with you? no one knows if there is a God or not, then why are you wasting your life, living the life of a celibate, wearing just a piece of cloth and applying ashes (vibhuthi) all over your body and hardly eating anything tasty?, and following your daily “anusthana”( discipline of daily living, pooja, rituals, meditation, studying of ancient texts, philosophy etc);  Why not enjoy life, the way I do?” To this Adi Sankaracarya responded, “ you are right, no one surely knows if there is a God or not, but here is how I see it, the very “ enjoyment” that you talk about, the very enjoyment that you get in wearing fancy clothes, fancy jewelry, the very enjoyment that you get out of watching plays,  chasing women, the very enjoyment that you get in eating the tastiest meats, the tastiest alcohol, the tastiest food; I get th