This class was delivered by Swami Tattwamayananda on March 1, 2020 at Stanford University. The Stanford Hindu Students Association hosted the lecture.
-Yama, the deity of death, is in charge of making sure we don’t live forever.
-Vedanta teaches that life moves in cycles: from birth to life, to death, to rebirth. Death is like transferring to a new plane to continue your journey.
-Spiritual saṃskāras from previous life cycles help us to maintain sustained interest in spiritual life.
-Belief that life is only one chance, leads to both a sense of urgency and a strong sense of tension.
- uśan means a person with great respect for doing good things, correct things.
-vājaśrava, was performing a ritual called sarvasva dānam, which is giving away all that one possesses. What is everything for me, I give to others.
- vājaśrava’s son naciketā saw that his father was giving away old useless cows. Seeing that this was a violation of the sincere spirit of the ritual, he became possessed (āviveśa) with the sense of sanctity (śraddhā).
- śraddhā means to do things in a non-indifferent way. It brings us back to a sense of propriety. It creates a sense of discernment, an inner teacher which can correct itself. It is a natural instinct for what is right and what is wrong.
- śraddhā can come as great dedication to one chosen area. Yogic śraddhā lights a candle within yourself, which gives a comprehensive spiritual common sense. This ekāgra (one-pointedness) organizes all of our faculties in a comprehensive manner. We can hear the inner voice.