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The Path of Experience

Swami Satyananda Saraswati given at Sivanandashram, Paris on Sept. 15th 1979 There is a mysterious substance behind man's existence. The wise men have tried to define and explain it, but most people have not yet been able to understand it. In the last decades, a tremendous awakening has taken place all over the world and now people have accepted the fact that there is a very mysterious power at the core, at the basis of existence. From where do the thoughts come and from where does the consciousness emanate? There are thousands of such questions which man has not been able to answer. We can discuss and explain them very clearly in theoretical terms, but they will never be understood in this way, because this mysterious substance is not a matter of knowledge, but of experience. We may have perfected our intellectual concepts; we may comprehend the nature of the substance in perfect mathematical terms and be able to explain it in thousands of equations, but the ultimate ...
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Science behind Vedic Traditions

Mysteries Explored:   Science behind Vedic traditions: Vedic Customs Vs Scientific Reasons Traditions in Hinduism were considered mainly as superstitions, but with the advent of science, it is becoming evident that these traditions are based on some scientific knowledge and moved from generations to generations as traditions. Though the common people did not know science in it, they were following it very faithfully over the years. This blog is an attempt to bring forward the science involved in these traditions and rituals...  1. Throwing Coins into a River: The general reasoning given for this act is that it brings Good Luck. However, scientifically speaking, in the ancient times, most of the currency used was made of copper unlike the stainless steel coins of today. Copper is a vital metal very useful to the human body. Throwing coins in the river was one way our fore-fathers ensured we intake sufficient copper as part of the water as rivers were the only source o...

The Pranava

The Pranava Om is the bija of all mantras. Within a seed (bija) is the potentiality of manifestation, and Om was the sound of the initial spandana (vibration) out of which the whole cosmos was manifested. Om, therefore, can be considered as the/symbol of total creativity and it is also said to be the creator, for in Hindu philosophy, the creator and the creation are inseparable. This is what is meant by the declaration in the Rig Veda (the oldest Veda, where the word Om was first mentioned) that Om is the symbol of the cosmos. The whole cosmos is time, space and matter, and the first verse of the Mandukya Upanishad, which is a small Upanishad dealing with the significance of Om, says: "The past, the present and the future, everything, is just Om. And whatever else transcends the three divisions of time that too is only the syllable Om." The Mandukya, although consisting only of twelve verses, is in itself a complete treatise on Om. It relates the individual matras o...

Meditation on the Chakra Symbols

By Swami Amritananda Saraswati. The symbols of the chakras form the basis for many of the advanced practices of yoga. For these practices, you need to be familiar with the names, colours and shapes of the chakras. Of course, it is not strictly necessary that you visualize only these particular symbols throughout your practice. Your experience and your visualization of the chakras can be different according to your choice. But the symbols that I am about to describe are the traditional ones, and they have a scientific meaning as well as a sacred history behind them. The attributes of the chakras: There are three gunas, or qualities - rajo guna, tamo guna and sato guna, and all three are present in the chakras. However, in certain chakras there are more tamo guna qualities, fewer rajasic ones, and even fewer sattvic. Other chakras are more rajasic, less tamasic or more sattvic. Each chakra also contains innumerable other faculties. For example, you might have heard that w...