Thursday, July 16, 2009

Lessons from Purana

Purāna are the holy scriptures in the Hindu philosophy. They are collections of numerous stories about lives of different people or Gods. Each of them suggests one or more lessons about the life. Each mortal being is expected to keep these lessons in mind at ever juncture of his life. But if one asks what exactly is the sum total or the gist of all the lessons from Purāna, then he can be told that:

अष्टादशपुराणानां सारं व्यासेन कीर्तितम्
परोपकार: पुण्याय पापाय परपीडनम्

अर्थात्
महर्षी व्यासांनी सर्वांपर्यंत पोहोचविलेल्या सर्व अठरा पुराणांचं सार केवळ दोनं तत्वात सामावलं आहे.
दुस-याला मदत करणं हे पुण्य आणि दुस-याच्या पीडेचे कारण बनणं हे पाप.

In English,

Only two sentences can sum up the eighteen Purāna by Maharshee Vyās.
To help others is the divine deed. To be the source of trouble for others is the sin.

3 comments:

  1. It speaks of virtue and sin. To be able to do what truly Divine wills for us is a progressive truth of our nature when we make ourselves more in the image of divine and have been able to conquer our ego and desires. It's certainly not easy for anyone of us to rise above our surface nature and live in the truth of the soul (a portion of the Divine).

    Prasad, your post is good in the sense that it reminds us that since we are from that One Creator, in helping others we are helping ourselves and in hurting others we hurt ourselves alone.

    Let's pray for that consciousness of Oneness to be the living truth of humanity in the coming time.

    Seema

    ReplyDelete
  2. For further elaboration, can visit the Auroville website. It's an emerging international township based on the ideal of Human Unity with Divine Consciousness as the core, central living theme.

    Seema

    ReplyDelete
  3. a small correction in the second one:

    living faith is more appropriate for it carries with it the dynamic power of the soul within ... theme is a mind connotation.

    ReplyDelete

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