Priya Kunj Ras

  Sanatan Dharma is worldwide known as the ‘Hindu religion’.  However, this is not the real name of our system of philosophy that has come from God himself . The civilization along the Sindhu River was known as Sindhu civilization and the system of faith & philosophy followed by their people came to be known as the Hindu religion (‘S’ modified to ‘H’ by the people who could not pronounce ‘S’ easily). The word ‘Sanatan’ means that which is an eternal truth i.e.,  it already existed earlier, it exists at present and it will always exist in the future as well . ‘Dharma’ could be understood as duty, obligation, spirituality or characteristic, according to the context. ‘Sanatan Dharma’ means the eternal duty of a human. In order to understand the eternal duty of a human being, it is essential to first understand the meaning of  Jiva tattva , i.e., what is a ‘living being’. The Jiva (or Jivatma) is the result of the combination of Para Prakriti (Atma, the conscious, pure soul) and

Why should we do bhajan? It is because you are given a great opportunity in the form of this human body to get out from the cycle of birth and death. [Forms like animals, birds etc., are also engaged in eating, sleeping, defending and mating just like human beings, but this form of human body is unique because it has the fully developed form of consciousness with the help of which the jivatma (conditioned soul) can gain freedom from Maya (material world) through bhajan (Chanting, penances, austerity etc.)] When Yamraj (the demigod of death) will come to take you out of your material body, you might pray to God, “O Lord, I always knew about the transience of this human birth and that one must do bhajan to overcome Maya, but what can I do? I was so entangled in various worldly matters, obligations, desires, etc that I was not able to do bhajan in parallel, despite being aware of its importance” . God will just give you a big zero and ask Yamraj to take you away. If you ask, “Lord, why

  Krishna gives darshan (sight) in many ways before giving darshan in person. Sometimes, He gives darshan in dream, Sphurti state, etc. But all of these are ‘Avrita darshan' , that is, shrouded darshan. The ‘Anavrita darshan' , that is, pure and unshrouded darshan is so powerful that the human body cannot tolerate its impact and the devotee might die. In dream or Sphurti, Radha Krishna give only partial darshan with the help of Yogmaya. Many people think that they have received divine darshan and become content in their bhajan as soon as they get a glimpse in Sphurti state. But such darshans are not the perfection of bhajan. The pure darshan can be tolerated by a devotee only at the stage of perfection of Prem Bhakti. One of my godbrothers, Shankararanya, gave a letter to my Gurudev saying, “I am going to Nidhivan. I cannot tolerate the pain of separation anymore. I don’t know if I will return.” He left on an Ekadashi night. At that time, the boundary wall of Nidhivan was lo