Books by Swami Dayananda

Every human being finds that one's deeply felt wishes in different spheres of a life are not always fulfilled as there are many hidden variables that influence the outcome. In light of this fact, feeling of helplessness is unavoidable. Nothing is more painful than to live with this exasperating helplessness. In this book, Swami Dayananda helps one to discover how to be free from the sense of helplessness in spite of the fact that one unable fulfill all ones wishes.

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This book unfolds the definition and place of values in the teaching of Vedanta. Values such as truthfulness, non-injury, etc. have to be understood and assimilated by a person for him to become spontaneous. Twenty different values from the Chapter XIII of the Bhagavad Gita are commented upon by Swamiji which include absence of pretence, mastery over the ways of the mind, accommodation, etc.

It is not that these values are necessary only for spiritual seeker, they are equally necessary for anyone who wants to live a life free from conflicts. That means, understanding and assimilating these values is essential for day to day living, and compromising them, due to a lack of understanding, costs us the happiness we are seeking.

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"I consider that living begins when one contributes something that will bring about more joy, more happiness, more light, and more freedom. Until then one merely drags one's life through old age and on to the grave. Just 'getting on' is not really 'living'. To live is to be a positive contributor. Something happens to a person when he or she is able to do something for someone. It is not pride. It is something natural, an inner expansion that is an indication of growth because the essential nature of a human being is fullness, wholeness. This wholeness finds expression when one is able to help others regardless of whether the recipient is known to him or her." Swami Dayananda

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"Some popular notions like 'All religions lead to the same goal', 'Truth of the self is to be experienced', 'Teaching through silence' and so on, require to be looked into objectively. If they are found wrong, then entertaining those notions would mean costly consequences. Some of them are presented in this book under the title 'Insights'." Swami Dayananda 

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This book which belongs to the series 'Moments with oneself' includes four short articles: Life is a role playing; The person is free; The person and the personality; Meditation.

"When one reacts, one is not able to measure up to a situation in spite of the powers at one's command. Reactions crystallize themselves to create a personality out of a person. Awareness of oneself in every situation gives one enough inner space to play one's roles following the relevant scripts. Reactions, old and piled up, get neutralized. One is no more a personality but a person totally acceptable to oneself and others." Swami Dayananda

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Other Publishers 

In this lucid lively introduction to Vedanta, Swami Dayananda shows how man's constant struggle to overcome limitation through the ceaseless pursuit of security and pleasure is pre-destined to failure for the simple reason that it is misdirected. Any pursuit of pleasure and security to free oneself from sense of limitation stems from a failure in understanding that all efforts no matter how great, being limited, the result of such effort is also equally limited. Hence, through these pursuits, one can never gain the freedom from limitation that one is seeking.

The road to freedom from limitation, asserts Vedanta is only through finding correct knowledge of one's true nature as already free from all limitations. The clear understanding of man's fundamental problem of ignorance about his real nature, and Vedanta being means of knowledge to remove this ignorance, is what this book is all about.

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For centuries the Bhagavad Gita has remained the single most influential philosophical text shaping Indian thought and life. It is a dialogue between Lord Krishna and the prince-warrior Arjuna in the middle of the battle field, when Arjuna was confused about his course of action due to the immensity of the destruction that he was going to cause.

The teaching begins with the statement that the human limitations of sorrow, death and ignorance are illegitimate. Being the essence of the teaching of the Upanishad, the Gita reveals that knowledge of ones true nature alone can free one fundamentally from all sense of limitation. It reveals the nature of the self as limitless, indestructible and unborn and as the truth of the entire universe. The Gita also points out elaborately the different means to gain the preparedness necessary 
for this knowledge.

Without getting lost in to verse by verse translation, the book with great verve and energy plunges into explaining the central theme of the Gita, unerringly picking and choosing key verses to highlight its message.

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The Gita Course is a unique set of books of over 2000 pages which goes comprehensively through all the different chapters and verses of the Gita with a word to word translation in English from Sanskrit and an elaborate explanation of Swami Dayananda based on Sankara's commentary.

The material of this immense work is based upon Gita classes held during the intensive 3 year course that Swami Dayananda gave to his students in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania from 1986-1989. It is unfolding gradually the entire vision of the Gita. It is the reference book on the Gita for all teachers and students of Vedanta around the world.

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