Building Extension: Our Earnest Appeal

Online Lectures Home

Online Lectures - Video

 

Becoming Part of the Solution Jan. 24, 2010 - Swami Yogatmananda   Please click the 'Play' Button to start. It may take a minute.   Launch in external player   To download the lecture, please right-click here and then click "Save Target As..."   To Order Audio/ Video CDs : bookstore@vedantaprov.org   List of Audio/ Video CDs, DVDs

Summary of this Lecture: Positive attitude is the key to success. When a person sees obstacles as an opportunity to grow, solution starts emerging and s/he is sure to reach success. On the contrary, if a person wastes energy on blaming the situation/people or brooding over the difficulties, then instead of becoming part of the solution, s/he becomes part of the problem and paves one's way to failure. Inspiring life stories of people like Helen Keller, George Washington Carver are shining examples of converting extreme adversities into opportunities. Swami Vivekananda never approved the idea of condemnation. In his lecture 'Open Secret' he says - "Whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and everything adverse must vanish. For, after all, it is but a dream.... Be not afraid. Think not how many times you fail. ...Go forward: assert yourself again and again, and light must come." In another lecture 'Work and Its Secret', he says, "Let us give up our pride and understand that there never has been a blow undeserved.....Be determined not to curse anything outside, ...but be a man, stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find, that is always true. ...." Quest for the ultimate Truth and freedom cannot be given up for it is ingrained in the human constitution. Some philosophers like Immanuel Kant concluded that it is impossible to know the Reality as whatever we know is x+ mind. And as we cannot transcend the mind, x can never be known. However, all noble things in life, like ethics, morality, etc. will vanish if that search for ultimate freedom is given up. Great sages of the Upanishads did not give up the search just because the instruments of senses and mind could not do it. Through meditation, they went beyond the sense organs and mind and attained the ultimate freedom. That is becoming part of the solution. Kathopanisad says that a patient and intelligent person sees through the defects (of the sense perceptions) and turns his/her search within. The ultimate truth shines forth in deep meditation. In Holy Mother's life, we see how this positive attitude is being implemented even at the mundane level. Her life is a lesson being part of the solution at every level : from most mundane to the ultimate spiritual.