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The Point of No Return April 14, 2013 - Chester Boncek Please click the ' Play' Button to start. It may take a minute or two.   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: The point of no return is a term used when one is on a journey and cannot turn back. We may ask: Why have we come to Vedanta? Why do we stay with Vedanta? Science and technology have shaken our religious foundations, and made economic interests the measure of our lives. Religions have been involved in wars and scandals. All of this results in a spiritual crisis. Swami Adiswarananda points out that this in turn results in new movements, such as fanaticism, atheism, agnosticism, and humanism. Fanaticism results from religion not being able to meet the needs of science. Humanism views God as a moral ideal, and religion as service, but “human” is not defined as other than our animal nature. Vedanta has four parts: mantra, ritual, philosophy, and the Upanishads. Critics view Vedanta as otherworldly, pessimistic, and abstract. Swami Vivekananda, by stressing service aspect in Vedanta, linked mysticism with humanism. Experience is considered more important in Vedanta than philosophy, mythology, and ritual. Vedanta encourages honest doubt. Only spiritual realization can silence our doubts. Philosophy teaches us to be unhappy in an intelligent way. The four yogas purify the heart and the mind. The psyche and Ishvara are ultimately illusory when we take the path of neti, neti. In meditation, we try to forget the body and our thoughts. This is difficult to achieve because of our attachments to the world. So we need to ask of everything: Is this myself? The answer is: “Not that, not that”, even for our thoughts, which are constantly changing. The truth is extremely subtle so it takes practice to realize it. We need a pure mind, so we may “shun the objects of the senses as poison”. A song says: “God bless this broken road.” Experience is the goal, and God is driving us ever forward.