Last Sunday 26 April we broadcast via YouTube our Celebration of Sankaracharya’s birthday which falls, this year, on Tuesday 28 April. You can view Pravrajika Sridharaprana’s talk at the Vedanta Society of NSW YouTube channel.
SHANKARACHARYA is the brilliant 8th-century Indian philosopher and reformer who played a significant role in systematizing the many strands of Indian philosophy. And as the anecdotes from his life show, he challenged the deeply ritualistic-bound orthodoxy of those times, travelling widely and debating with leading figures of the day.
Shankara continues to pose a challenge to today’s world, particularly to predominant orthodoxies such as atheism, materialism, and conformism. These orthodoxies tend to limit our life experience to that of the senses, the emotions, and some intellectual ruminations. Any talk about some inner divinity or soul, some realm beyond the everyday sensate world, is regarded by many as irrelevant and impractical, too airy-fairy, an escape for the gullible and the weak.
But those on the spiritual path know that rather than escaping from the challenges of life, they are taking on even subtler ones in the quest to gain access to their inner divinity. That inner divinity is the greatest treasure that life can offer us, and it won’t reveal itself unless we meet the necessary conditions.
These conditions, full of self-analysis, reasoning, and spiritual disciplines are scientifically laid out for us in Shankara’s many philosophical works. As in all other areas of life, Shankara warns us, there is no gain without pain, but in this grandest struggle of all, we’ll gradually tap into the infinite peace and strength within us.
How wonderful that these sacred teachings, which were restricted to just a few over the centuries, are now available to all of us. How amazing that so long ago, Shankara and so many others reached such subtle levels of consciousness and developed such a clear understanding of our true nature and place in the universe.