Science of Knowledge & Wisdom

“Good and evil of this world of duality are unreal, are spoken of by words, and exist only in the mind.” - Bhagavatam.   By Swami Abhedananda, Ramakrishna Vedanta Math -Culcutta In the voluminous writings of Hindu sages, there is no word that means creation out of nothing. The word, they use, literally means Projection and not creation, answering to the modern idea of evolution. Unlike the Western people of the present day, they had nothing to learn, as they had slowly and gradually discovered the true cause of good and evil, and afterwards explained their mutual relation as clearly as possible. They said that good and evil are relative terms, one of which cannot exist without the other. What we call good depends upon the existence of what we call evil, and evil exists only in relation to good. Being interdependent terms they cannot be separated. In trying to separate them and to make each stand by itself as independent of the other, we not only destroy the...

From The Mahabharata, Santi Parva.   King Yudhishthira said : When the high righteousness suffers decay and is transgressed by all, when unrighteousness becomes righteousness, and righteousness assumes the form of its reverse, when all wholesome restraints disappear, and all truths in respect of righteousness are disturbed and confounded, when people are oppressed by kings and robbers, when men of all the four modes of life become stupefied in respect of their duties, and all acts lose their merits, when men see cause of fear on every direction in consequence of lust and covetousness and folly, when all creatures cease to trust one another, when they slay one another by deceitful means and deceive one another in their mutual dealings, when houses are burnt down throughout the country, when Brahmanas become exceedingly afflicted, when the clouds do not pour a drop of rain, when every one’s hand is turned against every one’s neighbour, when all the necessaries of life fa...

  Most people are unfamiliar with the mind and do not understand its language or behaviour. Although the mind is an inseparable part of our being, our knowledge of it is very limited. We are continually happy or unhappy, desirous or frustrated, loving or hating, thinking, dreaming or sleeping. But all of these are beyond our control. If we stop thinking, it is because we can't think any more, and if we think too much it is because we cannot stop. We are happy, not because we choose to be, but because the emotion arises due to the fulfillment of some desire or condition.  The behaviour and reactions of the mind are not under our control. We have been living with the mind, yet we are totally unfamiliar with it. According to the Vedic scriptures there is an entity known as the ‘mind’, which is derived from the subtle essence of the food consumed; which flourishes as love, hatred, lust, anger, and so on; which is the totality of mind, intellect, memory, will and ego; which...

It is time for the power of music to be reinstated as an aid to healing and regeneration. With a little imagination music could be used to ease the tensions accumulated during a hard day at work, soothe a headache, lift depressed emotions and even stimulate enthusiasm and inspiration. Though we experience the effects of music and sound throughout our whole waking lives, we have not developed a modern science of sound. Once we become aware of the role of sound and music in our lives and their effects on our consciousness, we can manipulate them to produce desired effects. This has practical application at home, work and in hospitals. Nada yoga, kirtan and mantra, when woven into the total yogic framework, are a useful and powerful basis for the science of music therapy. Sound travels in the form of wave motions, transmitting energy and vibrating the medium it travels in. It is this transfer of energy which can be utilized in therapy. To gain an understanding of the...