My humble comments to questions on spirituality

I am honored that I have been getting comments from readers on various topics. Here, I thought of summarizing some of the comments and my responses. I request readers to give their comments so that all of us can share our spiritual experiences and help benefit all by sharing.

The Holy Bhagwad Gita: The Battle within Each of Us: What do the Pandavas and Kauravas stand for?

1. Dharmaraja stands for Divine calmness. 2. Bhīma stands for the life force that links consciousness to the sense organs 3. Arjuna stands for divine self-control. It is said that he had such a fantastic control over his sense organs that when Menaka the loveliest nymph of Heaven tried to seduce him, he could refuse. 4. Nakula stands for divine power of adherence or what ought to be done 5. Sahadeva stands for divine power of resistance or what ought not to be done 

The Kauravas stand for the 100 vices that each of us have to battle daily. Rather than list all 100 vices, here is a sampling of the vices: material desire, anger, greed, avarice, hate, jealousy, wickedness, lust, sex attachment, dishonesty, ill will, harshness of speech, arrogance, listening to evil, tasting evil, seeing evil etc. on 

The fall from Bliss to Unhappiness and means to regain Bliss: Why do we feel insecure?

From a non-dual perspective of spirituality, let me try to put my understanding of security. When do I feel insecure? I feel insecure because of someone/ some object not likely to be liking me, not likely to be available to me, not likely to be giving me physical/emotional/intellectual pleasure etc. Non-duality argues that the real I am supreme consciousness and in that context, since there is no second at all, there is no question of me feeling insecure because of actions/non-actions from another person/object. Insecurity arises because I identify with the body/mind/intellect and see the outside world as separate and anything that the world gives/does not give affects me. Kindly do have a look at my blog Who am I, published some time back.  

The Ego and its manifestation : How do the mind and the intellect differ?

If we look at the thinking process, we would notice two distinct types of thinking. One is the emoting process which involves the ability to feel sad, happy, angry etc. These are emotions, which are experienced by that aspect of us called the "mind". The other type of thinking is the ability to conceptualize. How do I know I am white/black? How do I know I am an Asian/European? I have now structured the outside world into categories and this aspect of my identity, which is able to conceptualize, is the "intellect". Now comes the interesting part of action. Every action happens through a combination of the action organs. Every action happens due to some desire, which arises out of emotions in the mind. Every desire arises out of concepts generated in the intellect.

I suggest a reading of my blog on Who am I? (http://spirituality essemmkay.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-am-i.html)

The Prerequisites for a spiritual journey : How can the soul accelerate its learning without taking birth or going through pains and trials?

From what I have understood so far, the soul is the same as the universal consciousness. It is complete, blissful and ever existing. A soul does not need to learn anything. However the soul because of its own illusory capabilities gets projected as the ego. All our problems occur because as the "ego", we have forgotten we are the soul. The only knowledge we need is that we are not the ego, but the soul. Once that realization occurs and is integrated into our existence, there is nothing more to learn. Further, since there is no ignorance, the ego cannot take on any other identity or go through cycles of birth and death. I hope I have been able to convey my thoughts. I also request you to kindly read my blog on getting rid of all accumulated sins (http://spirituality-essemmkay.blogspot.com/2012/01/getting-rid-of-all-accumulated-sins.html).