KARMA AND DHARM

Description

ABOUT THE BOOK

The title of the Book is KARMA and DHARM. It has two Sections.
Section 1 is on Aatman /Brahm (Brahman) and Section 2 is Tales from the Ramayan and Mahabharat in the Tretay ( Rama) Yug and the Dwapar ( Krishna ) Yug respectively.
Karma refers to a person’s day-to-day actions and the negative or positive obligations these actions bring about whereas Dharm refers to one’s lifelong duty .
Dharm is a way of living life while Karma is your actions which you perform every day
On Aatman /Brahm (Brahman) In Section 1, Neera explains in her inimitable style that Aatman, or soul, is one’s eternal Self. It is all-knowing; it comes from the supreme Brahman. What is the permanent way out of this ordinary and dull existence on earth and birth/ death/ birth cycle? Brahm is the answer. Doing good Karma leads to be one with Brahm which is the ultimate a human being can desire.
In Hinduism the Aatman (“breath,” or “soul”) is the universal, eternal self, of which each individual soul (jiva or jiva-aatman) partakes. The jiva-aatman is also eternal but is imprisoned in an earthly body at birth. At death the jiva-aatman passes into a new existence determined by Karma, or the cumulative consequences of actions. The cycle of death and rebirth (samsara) is eternal but some Hindus say it persists only until the soul has attained karmic perfection, thus merging with the Absolute (brahman).
Section Two- the Tales from the Ramayan and the Mahabharat are specially meant for the young children.
Not only was Neera trying to relate exciting stories from these two great epics but she also emphasized the relevance of the presence of Vishnu Ram in Ramayan and Vishnu Krishna in Mahabharat. With each interesting event from these two epics she kept highlighting the actual purpose of the two Vishnus on Earth which was to remove Adharm and spread Dharm by doing the good Karma.
Hope you will enjoy the Book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neera Manchanda came from a family of educated, well established grounded people. She had attended the best school and college in Delhi and was erudite in speech and the written word. She was greatly influenced in her younger days by her Nani who was a spiritual person.
After completing her studies, she took up painting and aq few years later she joined the aviation industry.
In 1977, she was gifted her first copy of the Bhagwad Gita. This introduced her to her first volume of the Complete Works of Swami Vivekanand. Thus began her journey into the hitherto unknown spiritual world. She had also started penning her thoughts and captured her emotions in the form of poems in a small notebook.
She took voluntary retirement in 2002 to focus on writing, painting and catching up with what she thought was important . She took up a Crafts Course and added various types of Styles and mediums to her Painting.
She joined the Chinmaya Mission and attended the discourses on the 18 Chapters of Bhagwad Gita. It really motivated her and she soon surrounded herself with a vast library of ancient scriptures and the great epics. At every opportunity, she bought books and treatises by well-known Great Gurus on the ancient knowledge of the Vedas and the Upanishads. She spent majority of her time going through these books.
At the suggestion of Dr. Vinay Kumar Srivastava( erstwhile Principal of Hindu College, Delhi), she compiled her poems and the outcome was ‘Kavyanjali- A String of Pearls’ in 2007.
After attending the discourses on Bhagwad Gita, she really busied herself deep into the Volumes of Swami Vivekanand and the Great epic ,the Mahabharat and other related scriptures. This resulted in publishing of her second Book titled ‘ The Gita For You and Me’ in 2009.
She came out with her third book ‘Meditation for Beginners- the Search Within’ in 2014.
The lockdown period were days of utter confusion during the Covid pestilence. Throughout this period she wrote and got her two books based on the Vedas and Upanishads published in 2021. These books were titled ‘Vedanta- The Priceless Jewel and ‘ Road to Serenity’.
She had not been well for the last two years but despite this she continued to study, read and write until she finished her last book, Karma and Dharm. It is a book on her favourite subject, divinity but this time she divided her book in two sections. One was meant for her serious readers and the other was for her grandchildren and the younger age group.