Business to the Buddha

Tag: Adwait Vedanta

  • One consciousness

    I had been thinking about writing on Bhojan Mantra unfortunately for the last couple of days I did not get time. This Covid lockdown has changed me in more than one way, especially regarding spiritual practices and reading books on One consciousness. I have started respecting food a lot. Earlier I used to just gobble in anything – vegetarian of course – without giving it any thought as such. Food is there, I have to eat it at a given time or if I am hungry I am going to eat it. During Covid when people are struggling for food, suddenly my approach to eating is changed. Many people are donating especially for the daily wage workers, in fact, I had been donating also to International associations for human values – donate here –  an organization which is donating food packets to the daily wage earners.

    I said that Covid-19 changed me in a certain manner, food is one very change. Almost always whenever I eat my lunch or dinner I recite this Mantra called Bhojan Mantra. There are two mantras the video of the same is given here a loose translation of the same is also available on this video. This is my first trial of creating video, Sanskrit recitation is not an issue, the challenge is the usage of technology. I wish someone could help me in creating or editing the videos better.

    The first Mantra (sourced by Bhagvad Geeta Chapter 4, Shloka 24) loosely means that whatever we are eating is the energy or the Brahman whoever is eating it is a Brahman and the action performed afterward and even during eating the food is also Brahman that is by the Brahman for the Brahman of the Brahman. Interesting isn’t it? Everything is made up of the same energy – only forms are different – and everything is going to go back in the same energy. If you now try to relate it to the concept of Physics concept E=Mc2 (Mass-Energy Equivalence) you realize that this Mantra was written long back and it means the same thing which has been accepted and proven scientifically.

    Note – Here Brahman is not the varna that Indian system has.

    I was attending a meditation session of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – Guruji – in the session, he said every incoming Breath energizes You and outgoing breath relaxes it suddenly struck to me the moment you eat your food it becomes you, the moment you breathe in that air the air also becomes you and the moment you breathe out that air going out actually is no more you. In a way, we can say that the breath becomes me and dies as me when it goes out! Or if we expand our Horizons actually everything is ME – the air the food.

    http://business2buddha.com/2012/12/tender-coconut/

    We define ourselves as the body alone which was some mineral in some parts of the world some time ago. Now it is me, or perhaps now I am feeling that it is me, it was, it is and it will remain me – only thing is I need to look beyond the body alone. This is also a concept of Indian spirituality – Adwait – everything is one single Monolithic entity represented or manifestation of the same energy or consciousness – Brahman – in multiple ways.

  • This and That







    When you see me as different from you, you get into the idea of “This” and “That”. When there is an “Me” and “other” there is a question of “This” and “That”. In Indian philosophy we call it dvait (द्वैत) or duality. There is a whole philosophy in India on duality – Adwait Vedanta. I am neither an expert nor have I read much about the vedanta so I wont be commenting on those lines.

    crossroadsWhen Maria suggested this topic, I felt this is a unique and interesting topic. However, my line of thought did not go beyond the Indian philosophy of Adwait Vedanta. The mind suddenly moved to “free will” and choices when This Vs that came to my mind.

    Are we really free to make choices? Science may suggests now that our perception of free will is a kind of illusion. Perhaps, in future we would prove with big data analytics that there is no free will. I am sure we can do this with analytics as I have been involved with analytics on various levels and have personally seen what decision and output we may get when it is rightly done. So how a person would react in given situation may be predictable and the choice of “This and That” may not be the “choice” actually. Our choices are influenced by what we have been exposed to, how our mind is conditioned. I think a game of chess can explain how we make decisions – we make one decision and if that works we may say this was right. If that decision fails we may say the other option we skipped would have been better. [relevant blog here]. So the free will of This and That makes us rational individuals but that rationality is also under question.

    I love how the Buddha has put things across for such kind of situations. Free will seems to be an illusion – “Go meditation”. Free will is not concerned with you. Does God exist? “Go meditation” that question is irrelevant. Though I am not Buddhist (This) nor I am staunch Hindu (That) or follower of any other religion as such but somehow I love the way The Buddha has explained his line of thought. It is “This” and “That” together – Interdependent co-arising.

    This topic was suggested by Maria, for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently nine of us write on the same topic every Friday.  I hope that you enjoyed my contribution to that effort.  The seven other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order – Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Ramana Uncleji, Shackman and The Old Fossil. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

    Image source – https://pixabay.com/en/crossroads-signpost-directions-wood-303896/