Dear friends, I am delighted to tell you all that tomorrow I will begin a project very close to my heart, for which I need all of your blessings and good wishes. I am going to start a weekly class in Sri Ramcharitmanas, focussing on the sunderkand. I intend to do a deep, line-by-line exhaustive elaboration on the text. It is the first step in a new life for me, and I need all your grace and blessings for the success of this endeavor. Hari Om!
Best of luck darling! You will be great! May the Lord guide your words, thoughts, and deeds and may you and your class be blessed in deep understanding.
That's awesome, Bhaskar. Is this to be a Sanskrit-based work or does it originate in another language? I'm not capable of blessings, so I wish those of Sri Krishna for you, and you have my own best well-wishes.
Brother Bhaskar, I will add you in my prayers to krishna. May the supreme lord Sri Hayagriva swami (an avatar of Vishnu representing the vedic knowledge personified), grant you all the vedic wisdom contained in any text , word , phrase you translate. May he aid you and guide you in translating as well as in understanding the text you choose.
Thank you all for your blessings and good wishes. The Valmiki Ramayan, the first Ramayana, was written in Sanskrit. The Ramcharitmanas is the work of Sri Goswami Tulasidasa, who also started to write it in sanskrit. But each night when he went bed, he woud wake up in the morning to find that the work had been reduced to ashes. He was sad and frustrated, and he prayed intensely. That night Lord Shiva appeared in a dream and explained that Sanskrit, the language of the scholars, was not accessible to all. There was already a Sanskrit Ramayana (two if you count Veda Vyasa's Adhyatma Ramayana), so Shivji told Goswamiji to write in the local tongue of the time, Avadhi, a dialect of Hindi. So the Ramcharitmanas was written in Avadhi and is a most beautiful and poetic text, deeply devotional, and filled with deeper hidden meanings. In the beginning of each canto, however, there are some invocatory verses in Sanskrit.
I remember reading Swami Vivekananda a long time ago In one of his essays somewhere he says that it is better to play football and win laurels for your country than waste your time reading scriptures. Looks like you never read that essay of Swami Vivekananda
Too much focus on scriptures, too much study etc can have disadvantages. In my case, I've found that often one has to 'un-learn' a lot of this stuff in the end. Vivekananda was, I think, quite a revolutionary in his own way. Certainly he said many things which are unacceptable to conventional Hindus.
It is amazing how some people selectively quote masters to suit their own purpose. If you don't care to study scriptures don't. Sit at home and watch tv, since that is so much better for you. First I would like to see the context of that quote and a better attribution that "some essay somewhere." Often I have found people quote teachers on things they have never said. Vivekanandji himself studied scriptures, wrote about them, taught them to his students. There are far many other things he exhorts us to do than just play football. To take that one quote and say that the sum of Vivekananda's teaching is that everyone must play soccer, is so ridiculous I won't even bother addressing it. Yes, he did say that scripture is only useful up to a point, for beyond that we have to meditate and realize the truth for ourselves, rather than remain in a rote intellectualization of scripture. I am certain that that quote, if it is even accurate and can truly be attributed to Vivekananda, then I am certain that it is in a context that does not apply here. And of all the activities available int he world, I can think of none more rejuvenating (for me at least) than listening to katha. In the two weeks I have been teaching this class, I have had to dedicate a lot of time to preparation. I have seen the results already - I am more effective at the office, I am happier and have more peace of mind, am more tolerant and less judgemental, and have been in a position to bring happiness more effectively to more people. In short, it works for me, so I do it. Those who come to listen, I hope also do so for the same reason.
The trouble I mentioned of the need for 'un-learning' though is a point worth considering too. Too much study can lead to a kind of over-constructed set of beliefs, which in turn can lead to a kind of narrowness, even a blindness or unwillingness to acknowledge that which doesn't fit into our 'system'. An over-constructed intellectual view can easily become a block to direct experience. It's good to read and to study up to a point, eventually, I think though that a kind of saturation point can be reached. The way my own experience seems to be leading me these days is to simplify - to discard a great deal of stuff which once seemed useful, but which I now see as nothing but excess baggage.
Yes, but Bill, what I am doing in this class is not that. It is story telling, detailed, yes, but it is story telling. It isnt philosophising, or intellectualization, it is a form of meditation. And if simplifying is what you want, katha is the simplest, most elegant spiritual practice. It is not learning, it is music and poetry and devotion.
