The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.
Vivekananda
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The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.
Vivekananda
Self is bob.
Bob ~ 20392 A.D.
Self is usually found in our bloated egos.
True selfishness I believe is true unconditioned reasoning. Awareness of our egos and how it feeds it self may be a path to liberation.
Just a thought.
I am sure there are many views on this one!
Hi Martha! Nice post. The body itself is amazing. Look at the functions of a single cell which can be compared to a metropolis. And now look at this planet of ours. The entire universe is so grand, we're just a speck of dust! Yet, we're bound on exploring all creation. Thank God!Quote:
Originally posted by MarthaM
The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.
Vivekananda
A very short, yet very wise statement when you understand it :)
When we look at first, the self is the ego, the person who you are as a seperate being. However on a higher level, the ego ceases to exist and we are all 'one' as a part of a greater something, which you could call 'god'. Like beautiful stars in the nightsky, they are all seperate little stars with their identity, yet they are part of the sky, which is what makes them one. We exist on both levels, and ultimately these levels would be one :)
What made you post this, might I ask, I assume you believe in a similiar idea? 8)
Wow! Somebody can quote Vivekananda!Quote:
Originally posted by MarthaM
The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.
Vivekananda
That reminds me... I should go on line and purchase a copy of Vivekananda's Complete Works (he died young and we are all lucky that his complete works are not too copious and that he passed before he began to get too trivial), and perhaps a copy of Ramakrishna's Talks, Ramakrishna being the Avataric Guru to Vivikananda... they both made quite a splash at the turn of the 20th Century.
It was in interesting story about Vivekananda. He was still a very young man... he had been a brilliant student in India and nobody knew a better debater when he felt this calling to take Yogic Spirituality to the West. There was to be a Congress of World Religions in Chicago USA and Vivekananda begged, borrowed and stole just bearly enough to get there -- a young 20 yearold 'darky'. Well, his powers to speak strongly and apparently extemporaneously -- he could speak in organized essays, with every paragraph having a cogent point or a clever laugh at the end -- made him the hit of the Show. The Newspapers picked it up and then he moved on to being an attraction at one of the Wild West Shows, where I suppose the his selling point was that he was a "Darky" he had a British Accent and could speak like a Professor -- people would pay money to see what was then considered such an oddity. But while speaking, he was also writing and his Treatises on Yoga were very well received by the Intellectual and the budding Spiritual Communities. Where Spirituality had been the preserve of Seance Going Glib Bullshitters up until then in the West, with Vivekananda suddenly there was the vein of golden integrity -- the real article. Becoming famous in the West, his own Countryman began to wonder what the Big Deal was about and Vivekananda returned home and publically walked the length and breadth of India, speaking in every sizeable City and Village along the way, creating something of a Yogic Renaissance even in his own country.
But all of this was hard on his health. As he declined he became a devout devotee to the Goddess Kali Durga, the Patroness of Death and Destruction, which presaged his own immanent death.
As we can see from Martha, his influence is still reverberating. I am always surprised to find that there are still active Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centers. Their translation of the Bhagavad Gita is the best I have found, and Vivekananda's Complete Works is the still the best introduction to Eastern thought that can be read in a week.
I have been informally studying religion for several years. I practice yoga and meditation for both physical and spiritual benefits. I enjoy exploring the similarities, the basic teachings, that tend to unite the religions. And then I look at the differences to see how mankind is so divergent and creative. www.vivekananda.org is one of a handful of websites that I visit on a daily basis. The message that I posted made an especially clear point that I hoped to share.