Four kinds of people do worship Me: Those who want something,
those who are unhappy,
those who want to know the truth,
and those who are wise.
Of these four kinds of people, the best are the
wise
because they love Me most.
Wise people love God with all their heart and I love them back very much.
But only a very wise person after many many
lives realizes the truth: God is everything.
Excerpt from The Gita, By Irina Gajjar
The world seems real because I use My divine
Maya
to make it appear.
“Maya” is make-believe. It is magic.
It causes the world and everything in it
to seem solid and permanent.
But the things in the world are always moving and always changing.
That is why they are not real
and they do not last forever.
Only God is forever real.
I am the wetness in water
the light in the moon and the sun;
I am Om in the Vedas.
“Om” is God’s magic word.
I am the manliness in men
and the smell of the earth
and the brightness in fire.
I am life in living things.
I am the seed in all beings.
I am the wisdom in men’s minds.
I am the strength of the strong
and the wish in your heart.
Everyone thinks that the things in the world
are real,
but only I, God, am real and unchanging. Everything else is make believe.
Only people who understand God can
understand this.
Only the wise can understand
that God alone is real.
Bhagvan said:
Arjun, listen now
to how by thinking of Me and loving Me
you will know Me and be sure about Me.
I will help you to understand
and after you know God,
nothing in the world will be a secret.
Of thousands and thousands of people, only a few try to know Me.
And of the few who try,
just a handful of special ones
really understand God completely.
I am made of earth, water, fire, air,
ether, mind, reason, and the self.
These eight things are one side of Me.
The other, higher, side of Me
is what makes the whole world exist
and is called the “life principle.”
Arjun, now you know that everything comes
from Me
and it all will turn back into Me.
And there is nothing in the world but Me. And I am God.
I am the wetness in water
the light in the moon and the sun;
I am Om in the Vedas.
“Om” is God’s magic word.
While Hinduism understands that God is beyond the grasp of human thought, it also acknowledges God’s tremendous power over our human minds and lives. As the quest for the enlightenment is the quest to become one with God, Hinduism strives to bring humankind to oneness with divinity.
Hindu philosophy gives great importance to the soul or spirit which it distinguishes from the mind as well as from the body. Hinduism equates the spirit with God. Chapter thirteen of the Bhagavad Gita explains that the spirit cannot be described, that it cannot act, that it is always pure and endless as the sun and the sky. God is considered the greatest spirit Thus, to Hindus, finding our soul is akin to finding infinity within us. It equates to achieving perfection which can only be attained by a highly evolved soul, a soul that over many lifetimes has superseded the limitations of humanness.
This excerpt is from On Hinduism, by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon link.
I am made of earth, water, fire, air,
ether, mind, reason, and the self.
These eight things are one side of Me.
The other, higher side of Me
is what makes the whole world exist
And is called the “life principle.”
(Gita 7:4, 5)
The self when it pertains to the body or to the material aspect of God means ego. It differs from the Self with a capital letter which means the sense of being. The Self is the life principle or the essence of life. It is God unmanifest. It is the spirit that sparks the eternal soul of living beings. It resides within our temporal minds and bodies but it is not of the mind or body.
The concept of reincarnation underpins the Vedic belief that the eternal soul attains salvation by merging into God. A spark of God’s marvel illuminates the soul which is confidence to the cycle of birth and death until it dissolves into God. When that occurs, the soul’s spark becomes one with the flame that is God and the soul experiences total bliss.
This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon Link.
According to the Bhagavad Gita, we can reach God by loving God, by acting with purity in doing our duty, and by learning the truth. Knowledge is a boat that takes us across the ocean of ignorance to God. Knowledge is the fire that burns our karma. It is the sword that cuts out doubt. Knowing the truth releases the bond that binds our soul to the material world and frees us from the endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth:
But I quickly rescue
from birth and death
whoever loves only Me
and does everything for Me only
and worships Me all the time
(Gita 12:6)
This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon link.
Early in the twenty-first century India witnessed an event that some viewed as miraculous: the resurgence of rivers in the desert. Hindu writings make many references to a river that flowed in a region that has been arid for millennia. The Rig Veda honors Saraswati as the River, the Mother, and the Goddess. At the time of the Mahabharata, it was already known that the Saraswati river had dried up in the desert. Gradually, Saraswati, the flowing woman who materialized from Brahma’s head, evolved into the goddess of knowledge, music, and the arts.
On January 26, 2001, an earthquake that measured 7.6 on the Richter scale wrought havoc in India. Its epicenter was in the State of Gujarat, but the quakes were felt as far as one thousand miles away. Immediately afterward, a number of rivers sprung forth. One of these rivers began to flow in the arid, salty, and barren thirty thousand square kilometer expanse known as the Rann of Kutch. It measured over one hundred kilometers in length and over eighty meters in width.
Some scientists concluded that the new rivers could be part of the once sacred Saraswati river network that had until then existed only in legends. Others believe that the Indus Valley Civilization—that had endured for one thousand five hundred years—was coming back.
The new rivers that were born from the earthquake may not flow above the ground forever. Their waters may not always remain sweet. Yet the resurrection of the rivers has given credence to legends that puzzled many for thousands of years.
This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon Link.
The self when it pertains to the body or to the material aspect of God means ego. It differs from the Self with a capital letter which means the sense of being. The Self is the life principle or the essence of life. It is God unmanifest. It is the spirit that sparks the eternal soul of living beings. It resides within our temporal minds and bodies but it is not of the mind or body.
The concept of reincarnation underpins the Vedic belief that the eternal soul attains salvation by merging into God. A spark of God’s marvel illuminates the soul which is confidence to the cycle of birth and death until it dissolves into God. When that occurs, the soul’s spark becomes one with the flame that is God and the soul experiences total bliss.
This excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar. To purchase the book, visit our Amazon Link.
The following excerpt is from On Hinduism by Irina Gajjar.
Several legends explain how Ganesh/Ganpati got an elephant’s head. The most popular one tells that his mother Parvati created him out of the sandalwood paste on her body and of the river Ganges. Then she told him to guard her bathroom while she bathed.
Lord Shiva, Parvati’s husband, had been away and when he returned he did not recognize his son and was angry at Ganesh for keeping him away from his wife. As a result, Shiva struck off Ganesh’s head.
Parvati became devastated. To comfort her, Shiva promised to restore Ganesh to life. He told his attendants to bring him the head of any sleeping being they found who was facing north. In a while, the attendants returned with an elephant head which Lord Shiva affixed to Ganesh.
Parvati was not consoled. She told Shiva that no one would respect her son with a big elephant head on his shoulders. So Lord Shiva promised that all worshippers would forever pray to Ganpati before praying to God and would invoke Ganpati’s blessings before beginning any important undertaking in life.
In this manner, Ganpati became the leader of the people, the lord of success, the remover of obstacles, and the destroyer of evil. He is honored in most Hindu homes and establishments and people celebrate him every year in a big ten-day-long festival held in August or September. True to Shiva’s word, Ganpati has become a part of every Hindu’s life.
