flâneur

Hinduism | Are.na

are.na · 104 words · saved by 1 readers

Vedanta is much more than the idea or the belief that this is so. It is centrally and above all the experience, the immediate knowledge of its being so, and for this reason such a complete subversion of our ordinary way of seeing things. ...no Hindu can realize that he is God in disguise without seeing at the same time that this is true of everyone and everything else. In the Vedanta philosophy, nothing exists except God. Sophisticated Hindus do not think of God as a special and separate superperson who rules the world from above, like a monarch. Their God is "underneath" rather than "above" everything, and he (or it) plays the world from inside. Vedanta is the teaching of the Upanishads, a collection of dialogues, stories, and poems, some of which go back to at least 800 B.C. "He is a real teacher who not only instructs others, but practices the same instructions himself" (Hindu Proverb) I owe to Hinduism the original landscape of my religious imagination, those towns and rivers, batt

When Gandhi was teaching about non-harming, non-harming of speech and action, ahimsa, the avoidance of harm to any living creature in word or deed - someone asked, "Well, couldn't one kill a cobra to protect a child or oneself?" And his reply was, "I could not kill a cobra without violating two of my vows: fearlessness and non-harming. I would rather try inwardly to calm the snake by vibrations of love. I could not possible lower my standards to suit my circumstances. But I must confess, I could not carry on this conversation so serenely were I faced with a cobra in this room."

saved by

related reading