This book is a virtuous attempt to propound the understanding of Dharma in its true sense which lends support to put it into daily practice through which it is promoted in direct & subtle sense. Pervaded by scriptural maxims & parables, this book discriminates properly between the two means, Dharma & Adharma, to acquire your ends. All desires can be fulfilled either by Dharma or Adharma. Employing the former begets virtue & burns sins while the latter accumulates sins & destroys virtue. Considering the Vedic injunction that all sins. bear fruit, this book elucidates the ways and means by which the reader can acquire waxing Dharma and forsake Adharma.

Hailing from Mahuva, Gujarat, living in Mumbai since many years, NIKUL JOSHI is a real estate & hospitality professional having consulted organizations of repute. Brought up in a liberal yet disciplined home environment, he developed a taste for Hindu scriptures and a yearning to extract their esoteric meanings hidden beneath mysterious anecdotes & ambiguous injunctions. Being absorbed in the holy books propounding Sanatana Dharma, he has been reading them repeatedly along with their commentaries. His life illumined when, by the agency of fate, he was introduced to Swami Nischalananda Saraswati Maharaj, the current 145th Jagadguru Shankaracharya of Puri, Govardhan Math, who is now his revered preceptor. Learning the abstruse knowledge of Sanatana Dharma, he has compiled this book with the sole intention of disseminating the true imports of Hindu scriptures. He is resolved to bestir the spirit of Hindus to reclaim their lost glory by complying with the scriptures in daily practice.

Foreword

We feel proud of the fact that during the past 75 years of Independence, especially in the last 10 years, India has achieved commendable economic progress. The country has emerged as a world economic power and is heading to break its own past records. All this is, no doubt, laudable. But the irony is that people are flushed with money yet they seem to be frustrated and unhappy. Thousands of farmers and students are found committing suicide every year. If a dozen people are asked about the cause of their frustration, they may tell a dozen different reasons for their agony, despite having all the necessary material comforts. They are not content with what they have. Everyone is short of some material possession and is therefore unhappy. The fact of the matter is that material prosperity is only a means to an end, but not an end in itself. One cannot buy happiness with money. People suffer more, not because of shortage of food, clothing and shelter, but on account of their own shortcomings like greed, selfishness, jealousy, hatred, enmity, revengefulness, etc. This is not to suggest that we may refrain from economic development and an improvement in quality of life and standard of living. But, just as complementary medicines are prescribed along with a strong drug to neutralize its side effects, I feel that along with economic development, spiritual knowledge and practice is essential for a stress-free and happier life.

Introduction

Hindu scriptures are a fathomless ocean of extremely esoteric and abstruse knowledge that encourages us to study them with complete submission as to enable us to open ourselves to the divine blessings of rare wisdom. Life and death hinges on the quality of our knowledge because all our actions are based on the accumulation of knowledge we keep distilling from myriad experiences and the impressions they leave on our minds. Virtuous actions can lead us to good future while the opposite can invite unwanted misery. Understanding is the primary requisite in discriminating good and bad actions, in determining what constitutes virtue and vice. Consequences follow all actions and inactions, there is no escape. Hence, knowledge which is virtuous and guided by the principles of Dharma Shastra is the essential acquisition humans must secure. As is the understanding, so is our action and likewise are the consequences.

This book is a labour of repeated distillation of important and essential scriptures to derive a clarified understanding of what they intended for us in order that the human race prospers continuously and keep all conceivable woes at bay. Primary references being Mahabharata, Valmiki Ramayana, Srimad Bhagwata Purana, this book has also referred Manu Smriti, Narada Purana, Shiva Purana, and other principle Upanishads and treatises of Hindu scriptures. Life is only learnt from the past which is termed as history. Only a past mistake enables us to cognize the fact that a similar action shall beget similar outcome, we learn from historical anecdotes the behaviours that deliver happiness and those that have misery alone as their outcome. The future is determined by the wisdom we acquire from scriptures which precisely and wholly is the past; the knowledge acquired thus moulds our future by applying it to present actions. Present is like the middle of a rope that establishes connection between the posterior far end and the anterior far end in the form of two ends of the rope. As a man establishes relationship between his father and his son through his own existence, the present is crucial in determining the quality of future to be erected. A book that speaks the truth are rare; rarer still are books that speak them in palatable ways; and rarer than these are books that consider its impact on the entire human species and speaks only that truth which has complete profit for all. Every effort has been exerted in ensuring that this book disseminates nothing except scriptural truth and does so in a way which is not just received well but embraced in order that its virtuous instructions are internalized as the character traits of society.