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Practical Vedanta – How To Become A Vedantin?

If you are looking on how to become a Vedantin, here are few practical Vedanta ideas.

Virtue and spirituality cannot be taught. They must be imbibed by seeing living exemplars.

The central theme of Vedanta is the divinity of man. All Vedantins assert that each being has a soul (Atman) or is a spark of the Divine, the Absolute. Each soul is potentially Divine; the same Spirit is manifesting through different existential planes. This is the quintessence of the Vedas. it is the duty of every soul to treat other souls as God and not to hate, vilify or injure them in any manner.

In Vedanta, life is known as bondage to the wheel of transmigratory existence. This is an undesirable state as it involves suffering and is alienated from the infinite bliss and freedom of Brahman. But we are limiting ourselves by our karma, which like a chain round our necks has dragged us into this limitation. Break that chain, and you are free.

Treat all classes of people – saints and sinners, the rich and the poor and even dumb animals equally.

In the midst of trials and tribulations, maintain equanimity, poise and grace, the spirit of self effacing service and all-embracing love, and proclaim the supremely uplifting power of godliness and spirituality. Adversity is a great teacher. Virtues are, no doubt, tested in the school of adversity. Adversity mirrors the genuineness of a moral virtue or a spiritual value.

Complete absence of egotism.

Always treat everyone with utmost love.

Even the smallest work must be done with reverence.

The purpose of one’s life is fulfilled only when one is able to give joy to another. Service to all living beings is service to God.

Spiritual life should be natural, without any outward display of ecstasy, trance or emotional outbursts.

Compassion and empathy for all living beings.

Be an epitome of mercy and forgiveness.

Vedanta declares that renunciation of carnal desires and service to others as one’s own self are admirable recipes for cleansing the mind, in as much as these lead to gradual self-effacement, the sine qua non of spiritual progress.

The mind is everything. It is in the mind that one feels pure and impure. A man first makes his own mind guilty and then sees another’s faults. So do not find fault with others.

Practice patience and forbearance.

Vedanta has a higher meaning embedded in ‘neti, neti’ (not this, not this); and that is the affirmative ‘iti, iti’. Instead of saying this world is unreal, believe that the whole world belongs to oneself and that there were no strangers.