The way I see it

I was thinking of the Vedanta concept of God being everywhere. He being the essence of everything that exists and that does not exist. The soul (or sanskrit "Purusha") is present in every being and non-being. While I was thinking about this, something suddenly came to my mind. Consider a painter or an artist who has created a beautiful painting. Won't you say that this painting is a part of that artist? The painting is a reflection of the artist's nature, his mood, his state of mind, an expression of himself. And all this gets poured into that art form when he creates it. So the essence of every art form lies somewhere in the artist himself. Isn't that similar to God and his creation? He creates everything out of himself and no doubt everything will have His essence, His presence in it. As if He has put life into everything. The artist creating magnificent forms pouring out his soul, his essence in everything that he touches. The result is this magnificent uni...

Last weekend (Jan 30th), Swami Atmarupananda was here in Phoenix. He is a monk in the Ramakrishna order. I took some notes at his lecture on Sadhana or spiritual discipline. So I am presenting his thoughts as I understood them, for my own benefit and for whoever else that might benefit from it. Here it is. A serious spiritual life starts with the urge to find answers to the basic questions of life. Lets first understand what Sadhana (spiritual discipline), Sadhaka(aspirant) and Sadhya(goal) mean to each one of us. We have to first ask ourselves what is my goal in spiritual life? What is it that I am seeking? Our nature will determine what our goal will be in spiritual life. The sadhaka should then try to answer the question of "who am I"? This can be answered by understanding ones own temperament, whether I am devotional or action oriented or want to work with my mind, etc. Once we understand what our inclinations are we can be more clear about our goals and finally what pa...