-7th chapter: verses 21, 22, 23, 24
-The lecture was given by Swami Tattwamayananda on March 12, 2021.
-21st verse: “In whatsoever form a devotee seeks to worship God with unwavering shraddha, that shraddha is enough for him to reach his goal.”
-Shraddha is the highest qualification needed to reach our spiritual goal. Shraddha refers to a sense of sincerity, integrity and purity. It is the language of the heart.
-Vedanta doesn’t say that there is only one concept of God. It is the devotee’s heart that matters. Any good human being, such as one who follows the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path prescribed by Buddha – and who is endowed with shraddha, can realize the supreme truth.
-In the Parable of the Sower, the seeds fall on fertile ground as well as rocky surfaces and thorny bushes. The results depend on the quality of the soil where the seeds fall. Shraddha is like fertile soil. A person with shraddha surrenders to God and eventually connects with the highest spiritual reality.
-22nd verse: “Endowed with that kind of shraddha, he worships his deity and his desires are fulfilled. To whomever he worships, all that worship comes to Me, and all the results are granted by Me. I am the one Absolute Reality behind all gods and goddesses.”
-164th sukta of the first mandala of Rigveda Samhita says: “Reality is one; sages call it by various names.”. The full mantra is: इन्द्रं॑ मि॒त्रं वरु॑णम॒ग्निमा॑हु॒रथॊ॑ दि॒व्यः स सु॑प॒र्णॊ ग॒रुत्मा॑न् । ऎकं॒ सद्विप्रा॑ बहु॒धा व॑दन्त्य॒ग्निं य॒मं मा॑त॒रिश्वा॑नमाहुः ॥
-The different hymns in Rigveda begin with polytheistic ideas, but end with monotheistic conclusions. In Rigveda, there is an evolution of Hindu godhead from Pantheism (God is equated with the external world) to Panentheism (God is the spirit within the external world) to Polytheism (God is the divine power regulating nature) to monotheism (there is only one God) to monism (non-duality).
-As we evolve, our understanding of the Divine Reality becomes clearer. At the highest experience level, we find that the same Absolute Reality is within all of us, it is all pervading - and it is impersonal, transcendental, indescribable and non-definable.
-Shraddha is spiritual wealth that involves effort and evolves from lifecycle to lifecycle. In the 41st and 42nd verses of the sixth Chapter of Gita, Lord Krishna explains how spiritual wealth evolves across lifecycles. A spiritual aspirant, who has unfulfilled desires, will be born in a pure and prosperous family, where his parents are spiritually oriented, and where his unfulfilled desires can be fulfilled. A highly evolved seeker will be born in a family that has a tradition of producing great spiritual aspirants.
-23rd verse: “Those who worship to fulfill desires are men of little understanding. They worship different deities and reach the goal accordingly. They do not seek the highest knowledge and do not develop an attitude of total surrender to God.”
-24th verse: “My true swarupa is Avyaktam – it is universal, impersonal, transcendental, unmanifest, cosmic, birthless and deathless. Not understanding this true state of Mine, one brings it down based on his own spiritual evolution.”
-Avyaktam means abstract, subtle, unmanifest – that cannot be empirically understood.
-Per Shankaracharya, this Absolute Reality is universal, infinite, cosmic, non-dual. But because people have not reached the highest state of evolution, they do not understand its cosmic dimension – they understand the Absolute only in terms of the relative. The cosmic dimension remains concealed to them due to the Avarana and Vikshepa shakti of Yogamaya.
-When we think of a great spiritual teacher, such as Lord Krishna or Sri Ramakrishna, we should think of their universal, transcendental dimension that is not limited by time, space and causation.
-When we feel inner contentment and joy during spiritual practices, it is a definite sign that we are on the right path.
-For the one, who has reached the highest state, his whole life becomes spiritualized. Every thought becomes a meditation, every word becomes a mantra, every action becomes an act of worship, every travel becomes a pilgrimage, every movement becomes a circumambulation around the deity, and the whole life becomes an offering to God.

Winning, Losing, and Passively Investing in RE with James Maffuccio