Ram Dass shares his heart-centered wisdom in each episode featuring excerpted lectures given throughout the last 40 years, with an introduction from Raghu Markus of Ram Dass' Love Serve Remember Foundation.
Dear friends and listeners, our Sanatan is based on several texts discussing philosophies of life. I have been very fortunate to narrate some of the stories from various Upanishads. I have decided to take this effort further and start narrating stories from the Puranas in this channel. Henceforth, I am renaming my channel as “Stories from Upanishads and Puranas”.
Upanishads have a wealth of stories and tales which enrich us with various concepts of "Self-realisation", "Brahman" or the "Supreme-Being", "Aatman" or the "Supreme-Self" and many other foundational building blocks of Santana Dharma. These stories are engaging and leave us with an everlasting resonance of thoughts. Many of these stories are pretty popular, such as the Story of Nachiketa and his dialogues with the Lord of Death or the tale of Gargi or Satyakama. However, each time you hear them, they will provide you with a different aspect. So if you are tired after work, if you are down or if you are stressed out, listen to these stories and enrich yourself to the fullest.
Puranas are a different set of scriptures from the Vedas and the Upanishads. Our ancient scriptures can be broadly categorised into Smritis and Shrutis. Smritis are the texts that were remembered for ages. This category includes Puranas along with Tantras, Shrimad Bhagawat Geeta, Dharma-shastras and our itihaasas such as Ramayana and Mahābhārata. Shrutis are the texts or scriptures that were heard as narration. This includes our 4 Vedas, Vedangas, Upavedas, Upanishads, Brahmanas, Samhitas and Āranyakas.
In my view, Puranas, from which we will hear stories, are the easiest way to understand the Supreme power. These stories bring in the concepts of the Supreme Trinity – Prajapati Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the protector; and Shiva, the destroyer.
They personified the idea of Brahman and divinity with various interesting stories. It was an excellent medium to familiarise the concept of Brahman with common people, as Upanishads and Vedas were technically far superior scriptures in terms of philosophies and thought processes, which were difficult for common people to understand. The Puranas brought in similar ideas but in a story format that was more understandable and interesting for common people.
I will try my best to bring these stories in the simplest language so that they can be enjoyed and understood. So please subscribe, download or follow the podcast series to ensure that you don't miss out on any of these interesting stories.
Until then... Aum Shantih, Shantih, Shantih!!!
