Total Thoughts – Monday, Oct 5, 2009 - The Four-Fold Qualification

This past Monday we began reflection upon the nature of objects by using viveka to define the unreal and introduced dispassion, vairāgya, to understand the temporary joy observed from the unreal. Dispassion is the strength to give up the sorrow-giving, impermanent and joyless objects, mentally or physically.

Total Thoughts – Monday, Oct 5, 2009

The Four-Fold Qualification, Tattva-Bodhah, pg 17-19

• As long as we feel that objects have joy, we cannot prevent likes or dislikes for them
• Through constant reflection on the nature of objects we determine firmly that they have no joy
• By giving up impermanent joy through dispassion, we attach ourselves to the Real through constant reflection and right thinking
• Vairāgya and viveka  are forms of right thinking through constant reflection that help us detach from the lower and attach to the higher
• Ones dharma should be performed through vairāgya and out of love for the higher
• Vairāgya fuels viveka, and viveka fuels vairāgya. By serving the ultimate, we function in society with the greatest joy

Foundation for our Upcoming Discussion:  The Six- Fold Wealth

Total Thoughts – Monday, Sep 28, 2009 - The Four-Fold Qualification

• All expressions of life are impermanent, life itself, is permanent
• Change is the only constant in the world. The moment we understand this, the happier we become as we stop pursuing temporary happiness in objects, people, places, things, and time
• By changing our inner perspective through discrimination of real vs. unreal we shed light upon that which brings us closer to Reality
• Even the desire of desirelessness fades as we become our goal, similarly, right thinking becomes our nature once we overcome wrong thinking
• Only with oneness can there be peace, not with duality
• Although limited, we fail to use our body, mind and intellect effectively. We have the power of discrimination, yet we employ it in meaningless actions and thoughts. Through correct thinking and viveka we are able to use the limiting, and go beyond it to the limitless.

  

Foundation for our Upcoming Discussion:  The Four-Fold Qualification, pg17 onward

Total Thoughts – Monday, Sep 21, 2009 - Invocation

Invocation, Chapter 1, Tattva-Bodhah

• Scriptures bring happiness that foster conviction. Conviction leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to discrimination.
• Vedas teach Dharma and Brahman. Dharma is that which we cannot learn by ourselves, Brahman is how to transcend the "I".
• The finite cannot perceive infinity. Therefore, self awareness is not available for direct perception.
• Since Atman is beyond the mind (time, space, causation), it must be infinite. The infinite cannot be 2. Therefore, the Real Man is the omnipresent Spirit. The apparent man is only a limitation of the Real Man.
• Existence and awareness are the same. If there is no awareness, there is no existence. If there is no existence in awareness, awareness doesn't exist.
• Man has the subtle power of discrimination which separates him from other beings. It should be used as a tool to discriminate between that which brings happiness (real) vs that which does not (unreal). It is not restrictive, rather, offers liberation.

  

Foundation for our Upcoming Discussion:  Qualifications required for liberation

Total Thoughts – Monday, Sep 14, 2009 - Tattva Bodha

Tattva-Bodhah (pg 1-5)

• Happiness is within us, outer happiness is fleeting and elusive. It is here and now, and not in the past or the future.
• Anything that is finite is subject to change, anything that changes, cannot bring permanent happiness: time, objects, status, people.
• Sadness is not our natural state, happiness is our true nature.
• We are happiest when asleep. Why? Because there are no thoughts!
• Therefore, happiness is a thoughtless state where there is no "I and my, you and yours…"
• The mind, whose nature is ignorance, cannot lead us to happiness.
• Our query begins with identifying the qualities (tamas, rajas, sattva) of everyday life, and optimizing the sattva in the mind: compassion, love, patience, independence
• "That (Brahman), the Light-of-all lights, is said to be beyond darkness; Knowledge, the Object-of-Knowledge, seated in the hearts of all, to be reached by Knowledge." Srimad Bhagvad Gita, Chapter 13, verse 18.

  

Foundation for our Upcoming Discussion:  Factors required for knowledge