Impersonal God or Brahman in association with Maya becomes personal God. This universe of names and forms streams forth from God. The power behind this creation, maintenance and absorption is called Maya. Shri Ramakrishna worshipped Maya as the Divine Mother. He taught that Brahman and Maya are not different, like ice and its coldness, fire and its burning power, or a diamond and its effulgence. Throughout the world, God is regarded as Father, Mother, Counselor, Friend,—as everything. But the Indian tradition wants to look upon God as Divine Mother in view of the fact that all living beings emerge from mother.

“Consciousness of the Beyond is the raw material of all religion.” Religion is singular in essence and diverse in manifestation. Every religion may be likened to one pearl strung with others on a necklace whose common cord is the universal soul of each of those religions. Vedanta is concerned with timeless truth and upholds the view that no religion has a monopoly on truth or revelation.

Through divine dispensation, India’s spiritual values and high moral tone expressed through her immortal Sanskrit literature was to make a great impact on the minds of creative writers in the West. Over the last few centuries, the new flavor of Indian literature savored in the West was so enchanting and captivating that responsive writers and thinkers showed their immediate, favorable receptivity to the literary beauty of Indian lore.

Only a great spiritual being can guide human life to perfection. The full personality of one who has risen above human limitations while living in the world is expressed in the ancient Hindu ideal of the rishi. Such a one can be found in the manifestation of Bhisma, the peerless son of Shantanu and Ganga, the great grandsire of the Pandava and Kaurava clans, immortalized in the Mahabharata. In the immortal life of Bhisma, thoughtful individuals will find the prototype of the true Indian hero.

The Hindu mind is singularly dominated by one paramount conception: the divinity of life. Regarding the creation of the universe, Hindu tradition, based on the experiences of illumined mystics, asserts with deep conviction that God is the supreme creator of every thing and every being. The Reality within and the Reality without are identical. There is complete harmony between the individual and the universe, the microcosm and the macrocosm.

Brahman is Self-revealed. It is due to the impurities of the mind that we cannot have a vision of God. Japam, repetition of Om and the Mantram, purifies the mind so that we may have His vision. The spiritual vibrations generated by repeating the holy Name wholeheartedly with faith evoke spiritual emotion that purifies the mind and heart.

Brahman the ultimate Reality is characterized by Satchidananda—sat, chit, and ananda. Sat is Pure Consciousness, the changeless ground of all existence. Chit is self-Awareness or limitless Knowledge, meaning self-luminous and spiritual amidst all material objects. Ananda is intrinsic Bliss, which we enjoy in life in our own way. The Taittiriya Upanishad says that Divinity is “the soul of truth, the delight of the life, and the bliss of mind, the fullness of peace and eternity.” The Infinite and Absolute Being, out of love for suffering humanity, accepts suffering by being born as a human being. Satchidananda comes to us as the Avatara—the Avatara is God in human form. The Avatara comes to inundate the world with a flood of divine compassion which brings life-transforming spiritual vibrations to the entire universe.

The spiritual idealism, eternal wisdom, and hallowed example of the great luminaries Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda ever ignite the divine spark in sincere and noble aspiring souls, wherever they may be. Silent creative minds have had to be inspired and nourished with lofty spiritual ideals in order to live in wisdom and dedicate their lives to the service and cause of Vedanta. The noble Genet family, Jeanne, Rolande and their mother Maman, who lived in the West, is one such example of supreme dedication and devotion to Vedanta.

Among scientists Albert Einstein was a rare soul of singular depth and sincerity, a straightforward personality. He was also a mystic engaged in a lifelong, honest search for the inexorable truth. He had an enquiring intellect. He struggled untiringly to satisfy questions about what he called “a superior intelligence that reveals itself in the knowable world.” These characteristics are gifts of incalculable magnitude. The sum of attributes he brought to bear on his dedicated, unwavering search for truth as a scientist qualified him to probe the inner secrets of nature and to respect nature’s revelations. His dedication to science and its mysteries was sustained by his deep spiritual conviction in the harmony of nature.

Einstein was instinctively otherworldly. Anyone who studies his great life in depth must appreciate his humane personality apart from his intellectual brilliance, though the two aspects were harmonious in him. He was always humane in his dealings with others, even when he was misunderstood.

All evolution is a movement from the undifferentiated state to differentiated states. Vedanta recognizes the process of cosmic evolution from a homogeneous mass into a variety of phenomena. Life forms were initially single cell organisms; gradually, they became multi-cellular and increasingly complex, culminating in the appearance of the human being. Vedanta does not accept any theory of special creation. It accepts the theory of gradual evolution.

In 1991, a scholarly work of great devotion was published by Dorothy Matilda Figueira that indicates the enduring and profound interest on the subject of Shakuntala. Translating the Orient, The Reception of Sakuntala in Nineteenth-Century Europe documents the author's painstaking comparative study of the major European translations of Abhijnana Sakuntalam. Her critical analysis of the text fulfills the objective of addressing the specific problems encountered in cross-cultural translation to serve the nobler purpose of greater understanding between all the cultures of the world.

Down the ages, India has been the eternal source of spiritual inspiration for humanity. This source has been authenticated, amplified, elucidated and rejuvenated by saints and mystics throughout the ages. The Indian mind, despite depressed situations in external life, kept this life-giving and sustaining philosophy and religion in its culture. In the Hindu view, philosophy and religion are not contradictory but complimentary. Religion is the practical side of philosophy. The Supreme Reality is at once the Absolute of philosophy and the God of religion.

From the most ancient period, destiny has entrusted India with the supreme task of upholding spiritual culture. From a historical perspective beyond the reach of memory, Indian civilization reaches into the present with full vigor. A galaxy of great men and women down the long, checkered history of Indian culture stood for the highest aspirations of the Indian mind and this hallowed tradition helps to remind the common people of its supreme importance. The greatest men and women of India were messengers of the Spirit who taught through their elevated lives, the fundamental unity of all in Divinity.

Great spiritual giants move the mind down the ages. This is the testimony of history. We are citing a few examples below to highlight this idea. The subtle spiritual impact of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda courses unerringly through spiritually receptive individuals to the entire world. It is an engaging and radiant, continuous chronicle that includes the names of Romain Rolland, Madame Calvé, K. J. Popov, Nicholai Roerich and Natalia Tots.

Vedanta upholds the idea that creation is timeless, having no beginning in time. Each creation is preceded by dissolution and each dissolution is followed by creation. The whole cosmos exists in two states—the unmanifested or undifferentiated state and the manifested or differentiated state. This has been going on eternally. There are many universes—all follow the same rhythm, creation and dissolution (the systole and diastole of the cosmic heart). According to the Bhagavad Gita this srishti (creation) and pralaya (dissolution) recur at a period of 1,000 Mahayugas or 4.32 billion years or 4,320 million years

From time to time, a strong, global, spiritual current appears with the intensity of a rip tide flowing outward across the ocean from another shore. The appearance of Swami Vivekananda at Chicago’s Parliament of World Religions in 1893 is one such spiritual tide of influence in the West.

Every autumn during Navaratri, a great vibration of love and joy is felt throughout India. It the time of fullness, of worship of the Divine Mother, who comes to earth. The Divine Mother is worshipped as Durga throughout Bengal during the four days of Durga-puja. Devotees offer their worship so ardently in this unsurpassed festival as to reach the highest peaks of fervent spiritual devotion, joy and delight. This festival is a virtual testimony of the social and cultural benefits that spiritual joy brings to the community that worships God.

A letter was written by a householder devotee of Holy Mother to communicate his feeling arising out of a sudden spiritual experience. This incident took place in Shillong where the writer, Panchanan Brahmachari, was working as a schoolteacher. The letter was published in Kartick 1346 in Udbhodan, the Bengali journal of Ramakrishna Mission. A summary of that letter is given here. Interested readers may read the original letter written in Bengali by the blessed devotee.

The Western Renaissance in the fifteenth century began with the migration of Greek scholars to Europe from Turkey since 1453. Similarly, the Oriental Renaissance, with the studies of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit languages by Western scholars has been taking place over the last two and a half centuries. Nearly two hundred research scholars and Sanskritists devoted to classical studies in India facilitated the dissemination of India’s sacred and secular culture to the West.