resurgent

VIP免费

2024-12-20 0 0 143.64KB 32 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

RESURGENT CULTURE

Being three lectures delivered at the

University of Allahabad by

SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA

Sri Swami Sivananda

Founder of

The Divine Life Society

SERVE, LOVE, GIVE,

PURIFY, MEDITATE,

REALIZE

So Says

Sri Swami Sivananda Sri Swami Krishnananda

A DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY PUBLICATION

Fourth Edition : 1997

(2,000 Copies)

World Wide Web (WWW) Reprint : 1999

WWW site: http://www.rsl.ukans.edu/~pkanagar/divine/

This WWW reprint is for free distribution

Published By

THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY

P.O. SHIVANANDANAGAR—249 192

Distt. Tehri-Garhwal, Uttar Pradesh,

Himalayas, India.

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

The present publication brings out the substance of the three lectures delivered by Swami

Krishnananda at the University of Allahabad, on an invitation received from the hon’ble

Vice-Chancellor, requiring that the students be addressed on the essentials of culture and a life of

knowledge. These discourses were given on the 7th, 8th and 9th of November, 1960, and they cover

the foundation of Indian Philosophy and a practical application of it in one’s daily life. The

Appendices provide a statement on the leading points in the technique of living an Integral Life, and

an effective method that could be implemented in the Educational Process.

It is the fond hope of the Swamiji that this unique example set forth by the Allahabad

University in feeling the necessity to work for rousing in the minds of students a consciousness of

the Higher Life be emulated by the other Universities also. Knowledge is not mere accumulation of

facts, and is meaningless if it is divested of that light which illumines the basic demands of human

nature. Education and culture make the true Man, and towards this end are the efforts through this

publication directed.

THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY

“Culture is a progressive transfiguration of nature, a creative activity of the evolving mind

of man to approximate itself to perfection, so far as it is possible for it with the knowledge and

energy with which it is endowed at a given level of life. The individual is neither a body merely, nor

only a mind. The human individual, at least, is a composite structure, a complex of physical forces,

vital urges, emotional stresses, moral aspirations and rational needs. Nothing that does not

comprehend these in its compass or contribute to the training and development of these aspects can

be called an integral culture. Culture is the reflection of the soul in man, and it is complete in

proportion as it answers to the original, viz., internal perfection. Pure thought, decent speech,

nobility of character, impartial love, truthfulness, honesty, straightforwardness,

forbearance,—such virtues as these are, therefore, the natural insignia of right culture, which can be

regarded as an index of self-fulfilment. Culture implies voluntary self-restraint for the attainment of

a higher goal” - Swami Sivananda

iii

CONTENTS

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE ......................................iii

PREFACE .............................................v

RESURGENT CULTURE.....................................1

The Goal Of Life .......................................1

What Is Truth?......................................1

Modern Science: Its Implication.............................2

The Changeless Consciousness .............................3

The Underlying Unity ..................................5

The Psychology Of The Inner Man ..............................7

Relativity Of Perception.................................7

Life A Process And Activity ...............................8

Metaphysics Of Thought And Its Functions .......................9

Secret Of Right Action .................................11

Sure Ways Of Success In Life................................12

Yoga An Art And Science................................12

Sacrifice And Dedication In Life ............................14

Inner Discipline .....................................15

APPENDIX I ...........................................17

Path To Perfection ......................................17

APPENDIX II ..........................................19

The Educational Process In India ..............................19

PREFACE

What man needs is not philosophy or religion in the academic or formalistic sense of the

term, but ability to think rightly. The malady of the age is not absence of philosophy or even

irreligion but wrong thinking and a vanity which passes for knowledge. Though it is difficult to

define right thinking, it cannot be denied that it is the goal of the aspirations of everyone. It is not

that anyone would deliberately wish to think wrongly, and wrong thinking, is that attitude of the

mind, where the false is mistaken for the true. This is a deep-rooted prejudice which it is hard for

most people to eradicate. Error has become so much a part of man’s thinking that there seems to be

no one in position to point it out. One cannot, at the same time, be a judge and also a party

summoned for examination. It is necessary that some effort has to be put forth in tackling the

problem in its core.

There is often a complaint that today the world has lost all philosophical or religious

consciousness and that there is no receptivity to higher values. In this connection it is always

forgotten that the higher values do not suddenly fall from the skies and they have to be inculcated

into the mind with some care. It is impossible that consciousness can reject truth, for the two are

inseparably related to each other, and, in their highest states, the two are one. What is needed is the

presentation of truth in a proper form, fitted to the particular stage in which human consciousness

finds itself. What is said should be neither too much nor too little, but suitably adapted to a given

situation of the human mind.

This means that the educational method varies for the different levels and, though the same

truth can be taught to all, it cannot be taught to everyone in the same way. Methods of instruction

differ, though the truth does not vary. Our present-day education has become a failure because of

the wrong methods adopted in stuffing the student’s mind with information that cannot be easily

digested. Education is not accumulation of information but assimilation of reality by degrees. When

educationists forget this fundamental truth behind the educational process, education becomes a

travesty and life a meaningless adventure. This is exactly the condition in which most people find

themselves to day and there cannot be remedy unless a vigorous attempt is made to come face to

face with the main point in question.

There is also a complaint that life is very busy and there is no time for philosophy or

religion. But philosophy and religion are not activities which require time,—they are not works to

be done but identical with right thinking, which does not require of one time. Just as one does not

require time to exist, though time may be needed for doing something, the question of lack of time

does not arise in the case of an effort to think rightly. It is like maintenance of health, which is more

a natural condition to be aspired for than a business to be dealt with or executed.

Teachers of philosophy and religion have been persistently making the mistake of suddenly

commencing to teach the outer forms rather than the essence of this knowledge. What the students

require to be told in the beginning is not Plato, Kant or Sankara; Hinduism, Buddhism, or

Christianity, but the rationality behind the structure of existence and life as a whole, a systematic

envisagement of the actual facts of life in their completeness and their ultimateness, so that the real

problem before us is faced both inwardly and outwardly, at a single grasp. It may be called, if we

would so like it, the philosophy and psychology of religion, understood in its proper sense, and not

in terms of the schools of thought in the history of philosophy or the forms of practice in the history

of religion. It should always be remembered that the student’s mind is to be approached with

caution, for it rejects what it cannot understand or absorb into its constitution.

To be rational is not to be dogmatic but sympathetic and tolerant. Toleration is the mark of

real religion. It is impossible to have one religion for the whole world in its outer form, though its

essence and content are one, even as we cannot have a common form of diet for the whole world,

though it is true that everyone needs food. Religion is not so much practice of form as living of its

essence. When this is achieved, true culture emerges.

It is my intention to present to modern students certain broad outlines of the fundamental

principles that can pave the way for world-understanding and conduce not only to social prosperity

but also personal solace and real freedom which everyone seeks. I have attempted to lay in this book

the foundations of that impersonal meaning on which the personal forms of philosophy and religion

are constructed. I shall regard myself as amply rewarded if the studentworld finds here profound

suggestions for deep thinking and research.

Sivanandanagar, Swami Krishnananda

lst March, 1968

RESURGENT CULTURE

THE GOAL OF LIFE

WHAT IS TRUTH?

We say we live in a world, because we perceive and experience certain phenomena which

impinge on our senses and make us feel that we are in an objective environment. This supposed

environment in which we appear to be placed is felt by us to be a complex situation that influences

not only our individual personalities but also other individuals whose existence we observe

intuitionally, as it were. We are aware, by analysis, experiment and observation, that broadly

speaking, we have three avenues of knowledge, two of which are in direct relation to our normal

world-experience, and one is unknown to most of us. These channels of perception are sense,

reason and intuition.

Sense-perception reveals to us that we are in a world from which we are cut off as knowing

subjects. The world, again, is separated from us as a non-intelligent principle placed in the context

of an object which is differentiated from the knowing subject in that the latter is endowed with a

principle which we call intelligence, while the former is apparently bereft of it. And how do we

perceive the world through our senses?

Any cautious intellect will be able to understand that the special feature that we observe as

characterising anything in the world is change. Change appears to be the order of things. Everything

moves, flows is in a state of becoming. We have never seen, nor have we any chance of seeing,

anything in this world, that is not subject to some kind of transformation or the other. Even our

bodies, our senses, nay, even our own minds exhibit this subjection to the inexorable law of change.

In short, we are in a process, not being.

And how do we know that there is change? The obvious answer would be that we see it. But

here we have to raise a question, as rational beings who will not be easily satisfied by a dogmatic

statement that there is change just because we see it. A truly great person is he who has the patience

and the ability to first investigate himself, his power of knowledge and his fitness for judging the

nature of things. Are we correct in assessing the value of the phenomena that we observe through

our senses? What is the standard of correctness? When we say that everything in the world changes,

do we also include ourselves in all that changes? Now, just imagine: can we know that something

changes or is in a state of transformation, if we ourselves are a part of this observed flux? Can there

be knowledge of change if the knower himself changes with the change? The fact that it is possible

for us to recognise such a thing as movement or process shows that we somehow find ourselves

standing as witnesses of what we observe. For the observer himself cannot be observed, and change

itself cannot be its own knower. We say that a river flows, because the bed of the river itself does not

flow, and we do not flow with the waters but stand as witnesses on the bank. This is an observation

easy of understanding, that we cannot know the distinction between one part of a process and

another unless we, as observing intelligences, are able to bring together the two distinguished parts

by a link of understanding or consciousness which cannot belong to any one of the parts, and which,

yet, has to be equally present to both the parts. The knower is different from the known.

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

RESURGENTCULTUREBeingthreelecturesdeliveredattheUniversityofAllahabadbySRISWAMIKRISHNANANDASriSwamiSivanandaFounderofTheDivineLifeSocietySERVE,LOVE,GIVE,PURIFY,MEDITATE,REALIZESoSaysSriSwamiSivanandaSriSwamiKrishnanandaADIVINELIFESOCIETYPUBLICATIONFourthEdition:1997(2,000Copies)WorldWideWeb(WWW)Repr...

展开>> 收起<<

resurgent.pdf

共32页,预览7页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

resurgent

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: