Tag: Advaita Vedanta
-
Positive Overcomes Negative
In Thought Power, Swami Sivananda lays out the “law of thought.” I’ll have more to say about this astonishing work in the future, but for today I’d like to briefly touch upon something that is undeniably yet also wondrously true: positive thought prevails over negative thought. This, if true, is an argument for God. For…
-
Power And Clarity
Over a decade ago, my wife Alexandra and I met a spiritual teacher in Southern California. What puzzled us at the time was the fact that while his teaching was very crisp and clear, the energy in the room was very low. We’ve since come across teachers around whom one feels that the energy has…
-
Vivarta Vada And Self-inquiry
You may have heard this line from Chandogya Upanishad: “May I be many, may I grow forth.” Hearing it, you may have fallen to wondering: “How did the many actually come from the One?” What if manifestation never really happened? In this connection, let’s consider just one doctrine: vivarta vada. This teaching draws upon the…
-
Personal Peace Is Not The Ultimate Aim
The contemporary spirituality scene–be it New Age or Neo-Advaita–is lacking in many respects. Two such are pointed out by Swami Satyananda Saraswati in Rikhia: The Vision of a Sage, an account of the rural development project undertaken in Rikhia, India, starting in 1989. Satyananda, presumably speaking to younger disciples, asserts, “Personal shanti may be an…
-
Atmabhava: ‘Feeling The Pain Of Others As If It Were Your Own’
The sum and substance of spiritual life, the best teaching of Vedanta, is atmabhava, which means feeling the pain and distress of others as if it were your own, feeling the poverty, sickness and calamities of others as your own. –Swami Satyananda Saraswati, “Atmabhava” Since Satyananda alludes to Advaita Vedanta, one might be surprised to hear…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 