Torah-Veda

An Interspiritual Journey
Find Your Inspiration and Follow It

WELCOME TO TORAH-VEDA

Torah and Veda are two ancient sources of spirituality still vibrant today. Torah is conveyed through the sacred language of Hebrew and Veda is conveyed through the sacred language of Sanskrit. The focus here is on meditation, mysticism, philosophy, psychology and the underlying spirituality that has been incorporated into religions, and not as much on the religions themselves. Your comments and posts are welcome.


Quote of the Week 419 - Listend/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance

Quote of the Week 419 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance


Every one who is thirsty, come and drink. He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, that your soul will live…


--Isaiah 55:1-3, The Living Torah translation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

CURRENT TEACHING SESSIONS




Interfaith/Inter-Spiritual Contemplative Groups


Please check out the following, which is an ongoing activity that may be of interest:


https://www.zgatl.org/contemplative-group.html


https://www.zgatl.org/ongoing-groups.html


http://www.interfaithci.org/contemplative.html


https://faithallianceofmetroatlanta.org/recent-events/programs-events/ongoing-programs/











Thursday, November 17, 2011

Quote of the Week 200 - Requirements for Inner Research


When we start turning within, we do not have to ignore the external world, nor do we have to make any radical change in our external life. We simply have to be ourselves and create a strong desire to know ourselves from within. That desire is the first requirement. If one doesn’t understand the importance of spirituality and meditation, then he should not waste his time and energy with it. If one is not convinced that meditation is a technique that is helpful, if one is not prepared, then he should not apply that technique. So first, to research the inner world, one needs a burning desire to know his inner potentials and states.

In the path of sadhana [spiritual practice, work, discipline] no effort is in vain; all sincere efforts bear their fruits in the unconscious mind according to the inevitable law of karma. Even a little sadhana practices with sincere effort leaves deep imprints in the unconscious mind. Those impressions help and guide the sadhaka [person engaging in spiritual practice] whenever he goes off the path. The conscious part of the mind is but a small part of the whole. It is helpful in communicating with the external world but has very little use on the inward journey. If the conscious part of the mind is trained not to create further barriers, then sadhana is useful.

All your actions leave some impression in your unconscious mind, and those impressions then become your samskaras [subtle impressions that can create limitations and limiting impulses leading to certain external actions or reactions to outer circumstances] and control your life. To make progress, your samskaras need to be purified. You can do that in meditation if you ask all the impressions in your mind to come forward, so that you can examine and burn them. You can consciously bring forward all the latent, buried impressions during meditation, telling your mind that you are ready to face them, and if you have built that kind of determination and willpower, you can allow those samskaras to be burnt mentally. They are all mental impressions, there is nothing solid or material there. All these past impressions can be burnt, and then you can be free from them. The goal is to expand the conscious aspect of mind so that there is no unconscious.

Yoga sadhana alone has explored all the unknown levels of life and is thus useful for knowing the levels of the unconscious and for training the totality of the mind. Sadhana alone is the way of knowing, understanding, and analyzing the internal states and one’s relationship to the external world. While treading the path of the inner world, the sadhaka comes in touch with those potentialities that guide him unconsciously, or sometimes through dreams, and at other times consciously. Fearlessness thus increases, and self-reliance is strengthened. He is fully protected by the finer forces that exist, although he is not aware of them because of his extroverted nature. No danger can ever befall the sincere sadhaka in his exploration of the inner realms. The sadhaka is completely protected if he is fully dedicated to the goal of Self-realization.

You need to examine honestly what is in your mind. Be honest with yourself. Do not meditate if you are being hypocritical and are just sitting and punishing yourself. There should be only one desire, the desire for meditation, the desire to go deep inside. At first, you will fail to achieve it, but that does not matter; you should not give up.

Start to work with yourself: when you work with yourself, do not waste energy observing what others are doing. Appreciate what they are doing, and do not condemn or criticize what they are doing. Otherwise, you spend your whole life in celebrating or in mourning. What is important is that you constantly work with yourself, no matter who your are. The thought, “I am going to enlighten myself,” should not make you egotistical. You should not isolate yourself; this thought should make you more creative, because withdrawing yourself from the world is not your real motive; it is not life’s purpose. Your life’s purpose is to live in the world and yet remain above it.

Above all else, remember this one thing: it is easy to meet that Infinity within.

--from Essential Swami Rama, Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati, Editor

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Quote of the Week 199 - The Power of Sound


The Qabalists believed that the universe was created from sound. Thus by reciting sacred sounds, changes or transformations of matter could take place. Healing could simply consist of reinvoking those sacred sounds in the body…Perhaps this is what the shamans do when they chant.

--Fred Alan Wolf, quoted in the March 2011 issue of The Sun magazine

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Quote of the Week 198 - The Delight of the Moon and the Dew


A certain main once said, “Surely nothing is so delightful as the moon,” but another man rejoined, “The dew moves me even more.” How amusing that they should have argued the point.

--from Essays in Idleness, by Kenko, a 14th Century Japanese Zen Buddhist monk, translated by Lance Morrow