kirtimukha

Einstein On Socialism (1949)

2012-01-24T13:09:00.005+05:30

Einstein's foresight as recorded in an article published in the year 1949 in the Monthly Review magazine:

"The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature."

This observation made in the year 1949 is valid now in 2012 as an accurate and scientific analysis of the present state of society in India and elsewhere too.
Reproduced from: http://monthlyreview.org/archives/2009/volume-61-issue-01-may-2009

Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.—The Editors

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called “the predatory phase” of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: “Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior.

The abstract concept “society” means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is “society” which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human being which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organizations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behavior of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organization which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labor and a highly-centralized productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time—which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely self-sufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. All human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this process of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely, and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population.

Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers’ goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions. Unlimited competition leads to a huge waste of labor, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service.
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Transcending Time, Living in the Present

2012-01-23T09:23:00.003+05:30

“When I say the word "mythology," or "myth," I don't mean something that is false in the popular sense. By myth I mean an idea or an image in terms of which people make sense of the world”. --- Alan Watts

http://web.archive.org/web/20041115120525/http://www.publicappeal.org/library/unicorn/watts/from_time_to_eternity.htm

FROM TIME TO ETERNITY
A Speech by Alan Watts

These are two, I would say, of the great myths of time in the world. And we really, in our day and age now, need to consider this very seriously. Because we, as a highly technological civilization, with enormous power over nature, really need to consider time. Let me ask the question that was asked St. Augustin:

"What is time?" I am not going to give you the same answer. I know what it is, and when you ask me I will tell you. Time is a measure of energy, a measure of motion. And we have agreed internationally on the speed of the clock. And I want you to think about clocks and watches for a moment. We are of course slaves to them. And you will notice that your watch is a circle, and that it is calibrated, and that each minute, or second, is marked by a hairline which is made as narrow as possible, as yet to be consistent with being visible. And when we think of a moment of time when we think what we mean by the word "now," we think of the shortest possible instant that is here and gone, because that corresponds with the hairline on the watch. And as a result of this fabulous idea, we are a people who feel that we don't have any present, because the present is instantly vanishing - it goes so quickly. As this is the problem of Faust of Goethe's version of the story, where he attains his great moment and says to it "Oh still delay thou art so fair" that the moment never stays.

It is always becoming past. And we have the sensation, therefore, of our lives as something that is constantly flowing away from us. We are constantly losing time. And so we have a sense of urgency. Time is not to wasted. Time is money. And so because of the tyranny of this thing, we feel that we have a past, and we know who we are in terms of our past. Nobody can ever tell you who they are, they can only tell you who they were. And we think we also have a future. And that is terribly important, because we have a naive hope that the future is somehow going to supply what we are looking for. You see, if you live in a present that is so short that it is not really here at all, you will always feel vaguely frustrated. And also, when you ask a person "What did you do yesterday?" they will give you a historical account of the sequence of events.

They will say "Well, I woke up at about seven o'clock in the morning. I got up and made myself some coffee, and then I brushed my teeth and took a shower, got dressed, had some breakfast and went down to the office and did this and that," and so on. And they give you a historical outline of a course of events. And people really think that is what they did. But actually that is only the very skeleton account of what you did. You lived a much richer life than that, except you did not notice it. You only paid attention to a very small part of the information received through your five senses.

You forgot to say that when you got up first thing in the morning and made some coffee, that your eyes slid across the birds outside your window. And the light on the leaves of the tree. And that your nose played games with the scent of the boiling coffee. You didn't even mention it because you were not aware of it. Because you were not aware of it you were in a hurry. You were engaged on getting rid of that coffee as fast as possible so that you could get to your office to do something that you thought was terribly important. And maybe it was, in a certain way - it made you some money. But you, because you were so absorbed with the future, had no use for the money that you made. You did not know how to enjoy it. Maybe you invested it so that you would be sure that you would have a future in which something finally might happen to you that you were looking for all along. But of course it never will because tomorrow never comes. The truth of the matter being that there is no such thing as time.

Time is a hallucination. There is only today. There never will be anything except today. And if you do not know how to live today, you are demented. And this is the great problem of Western civilization, not only of Western civilization, but really all civilization, because what civilization is, is a very complex arrangement in which we have used symbols - that is to say words, numbers, figures, concepts to represent the real world of nature, like we use money to represent wealth, and like we measure energy with the clock. Or like we measure with yards or with inches. These are very useful measures. But you can always have too much of a good thing, and can so easily confuse the measure with what you are measuring; the money with the wealth; or even the menu with the dinner. And at a certain point, you can become so enchanted with the symbols that you entirely confuse them with the reality.

And this is the disease from which almost all civilized people are suffering. We are therefore in the position of eating the menu instead of the dinner. Of living in a world of words, symbols and are therefore very badly related to our material surroundings. The United States of America as the most progressive country of the West is of course the great example of this. We are a people who are believed by our selves, although we are slightly ashamed of it, and by the rest of the world to be the great materialists. And this is an absolutely undeserved reputation. A materialist would, in my way of thinking of it, be a person who loves material, and therefore reverences it, respects it, and enjoys it. We don't. We are a people who hate material, and are devoting ourselves to the abolition of its limitation. We want to abolish the limits of time and space. Therefore we want to get rid of space. We call it the conquest of space. We want to be able to get from San Francisco to New York in nothing flat. And we are arranging to do just that.

We do not realize what the result of doing this will be - that San Francisco and New York will become the same place. And therefore it will not be worth going from one to the other. When you go to another place you say you think you would like a vacation and so let's go to Hawaii where we think we will find girls in grass skirts dancing the hula on sandy beaches under the sun and the lovely blue ocean and coral reefs and all that sort of jazz. But tourists increasingly ask if such a place, "has it been spoiled yet," by which they mean "Is it exactly like Dallas?" And the answer is "yes." The faster you can get from Dallas to Honolulu, Honolulu is the same place as Dallas, so it wasn't worth taking the trip. Tokyo has become the same place as Los Angeles and increasingly, as you can go faster and faster from place to place, that they as I say, they are all the same place. So that was the result of abolishing the limitations of time and space.

Also, we are in a hurry about many things. Going back to this account of one's day - you got up in the morning and you made yourself some coffee. I suppose you made instant coffee because you were in too much of a hurry to be concerned with the preparation of a beautiful coffee mixture. And so your instant coffee was a punishment for a person in too much hurry. This is true of everything instant. There is something about it that is phony and fake. Where were you going? What do you think the future is going to bring you? Actually you don't know. I've always thought it an excellent idea to assign to freshmen in college, the task of writing an essay on what you would like heaven to be. In other words, what do you really want. And be specific because be careful of what you desire - you may get it. You see, the truth of the matter is, as I have already intimated, there is no such thing as time. Time is an abstraction. So is money. As so are inches.

After a pause, he resumed the lecture:

Do you remember the Great Depression? One day everything was going on all right. Everybody was pretty wealthy and had plenty to eat. The next day everybody was in poverty. What had happened? Had the fields disappeared, had the dairy vanished into thin air, had the fish of the sea ceased to exist, had human beings lost their energy, their skills and their brains? No. But on the morning after the Depression a man came to work building a house, and the foreman said to him "Sorry chum you can't work today,. there ain't no inches." He said "What do you mean there ain't no inches?" "Yeah" he said, "Yeah, we got lumber, we got metal, we even got tape measures." The foreman said "The trouble with you is you don't understand business. There are no inches. We have been using too many of them and not enough to go around." Because what happened in the Great Depression was that money, there was a slump in money. And human beings are so unbelievably stupid, that they confused money with wealth. And they don't realize that money is a measure of wealth, in exactly the same way that meters are a measure of length. They think it is something that is valuable in and of itself. And as a result of that get into unbelievable trouble, in exactly the same way time is nothing but an abstract measure of motion. And we keep counting time. We have the sensation time is running out, and we bug ourselves with this.

And as we sit and watch the clock, supposing you are working, are you watching the clock? If you are, what are you waiting for. Time off. Five o'clock. We can go home and have fun. Yeah, fun. What are you going to do when you get home? Have fun? Or are you going to watch tv, which is an electronic reproduction of life which doesn't even smell of anything. And eat a TV dinner which is a kind of a warmed over airline nastiness until you just get tired and have to go to sleep. You know, the great society. This is our problem, you see. We are not alive, we are not awake. We are not living in the present.

Let's take education. What a hoax. You get a little child, you see, and you suck it into a trap and you send it to nursery school. And in nursery school you tell the child "You are getting ready to go on to kindergarten. And then wow-wee, first grade is coming up, and second grade, and third grade." You are gradually climbing the ladder towards, towards, going on towards progress. And then when it gets to end of grade school, you say "high school, now you're really getting going." Wrong. But otherwise business, you are going out into the world and you get your _________ on and your diploma.

And then you go to your first sales meeting, and they say "Now get out there and sell this stuff," because then you are going on up the ladder in business, and maybe you will get to a good position. And you sell it and then they up your quota. And then finally about the year 45 you wake up one morning as Vice President of the firm, and you say to yourself looking in the mirror "I've arrived. But I feel slightly cheated because I feel just the same as I always felt. Something is missing. I have no longer a future." "Uh uh" says the insurance salesman, "I have a future for you. This policy will enable you to retire in comfort at sixty five, and you will be able to look forward to that." And you are delighted. And you buy the policy and at sixty five you retire thinking that this is the attainment of the goal of life, except that you have prostate trouble, false teeth and wrinkle skin. And you are a materialist. You are a phantom, you are an abstractionist, you are just nowhere, because you never were told, and never realized that eternity is now.

There is no time. What will you do? Can you discover for me the pop of a champagne cork that popped last night? Can you hand me a copy of tomorrow's Dallas Morning Herald, whatever it is? It just isn't here. There is no time. This is a fantasy. It is a useful fantasy, like lines of latitude and longitude. But you are not going to ever tie up a package with the equator. It is the same as time, it is an abstraction. It is a convenience so that I can arrange to meet you at the corner of Main and lst, or whatever it is, at 4 o'clock. Great. But let us not be fooled by it. It is not real. So people who do not live in the present, have absolutely no use for making plans. Because you see ordinary people who believe in time, and who believe that they are living for their future, they make plenty of plans. Yeah. But when the plans mature, and they come off, the people are not there to enjoy them.

They are planning something else. And they are like donkeys running after carrots perpetually that is attached to their own collars. And so they are never here, they never get there, they are never alive, they are perpetually frustrated, and therefore they are always thinking. The future is the thing with ______. Someday it is going to happen. And because it never does, they are frantic to survive. They want more time, more time please, more time. They are terrified of death because death stops the future. And so you never got there. You never have it. There is always, somewhere around the corner.

Now please, wake up. I am not saying, you see, that you should be improvident, that you shouldn't have an insurance policy, that you shouldn't be concerned about how you are going to send your children to college or whatever other thing may be useful for them. The point is, there is no point in sending your children to college and providing for their future if you don't know how to live in the present because all you will do is to teach your children how not to live in the present, and to keep dragging on for the alleged benefit of their own children who will drag on in a boring way for the alleged benefit of their children. Everybody is so beautifully looking after everybody else, that nobody has any fun at all.

See, we say of a person who is insane, he is not all here. Or he is not all there. And that is our collective disease. In the beginning of the regime of communism in Russia, when they had five year plans, and everything was going to be great at the end of the five year plan, and you got through that and they had another one. As some philosopher said, "You are making all human beings into ________. Now you know what a ______ is, it is a pillar in the form of a being holding up the next floor. You are making everybody into _______ for a floor upon which posterity shall dance. But of course they never get around to it. Posterity also is the _______ holding up another floor. And they hold up another floor. And they hold up another floor, forever and ever and nobody ever dances. But you see our philosophy and the philosophy of the communists is exactly the same. In fact we, our system is their system. And increasingly we become more alike because of this lack of perception of reality. We are obsessed with time. And so it is always coming. So Mao Tse Tung can say to all the Chinese, "Let's live a great boring life and everybody wear the same clothes and work and carry around a little red book so that one day, some day perhaps it will be great." But we are in exactly the same situation.

We are the richest people in the world, and most of our males go around looking like undertakers. We eat Wonder Bread which is styrofoam injected with some chemicals that are supposed to be nutritive. We do not even know how to drink. In other words, living, we live in the abstract, not in the concrete. We work for money, not for wealth. We look forward to the future, and do not know how to enjoy today. So as a result of this, we are destroying our environment, we are Los Angelizing the world instead of civilizing it. And we are turning the air into gas, the water into poison, and tearing the vegetation off the face of the hills, for what? To print newspapers. In our colleges, we value the record of what goes on more than what happens. The records in the Registrar's office are kept in safes under lock and key, but not the books in the Library. The record of what you do is of course much more important than what you did. We go out to a party and have a picnic and somebody says "Oh we are having a lovely time, what a pity somebody didn't bring a camera, so we could record it." People go on tours and they've got these wretched little boxes and instead of being with the scene, whatever it is, they go click, click, click, click, click_______a little box so they can get home and show it to their friends and say "See what happened." Of course I wasn't there, I was just photographing it.

So when the record becomes more important than the event, we are really up the creek with no paddle. So the most serious need of civilization is to come to now. Think of all the trouble we would save. Think of how peaceful things would become, we would not be interfering with everybody. We would not be dedicated to doing everybody else good, like the General who the other day destroyed a village in Vietnam for its own safety. That is what he said. "Kindly let me help you or you will drown" said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree.

Now you see the meaning of eternal life. When Jesus said "Before Abraham was," he didn't say "I was," he said "I am." And to come to this, to know that you are and there is no time except the present. And then suddenly you see you attain a sense of reality. And you want always to be looking ahead for the things that you wanted to happen. You have to find it now. And so really, the aim of education is to teach people to live in the present, to be all here. As it is, our educational system is pretty abstract. It neglects the absolutely fundamentals of life, teaching us all to be bureaucrats, bankers clerks, accountants and insurance salesmen; all cerebral. It entirely neglects our relationships to the material world.

There are five fundamental relationships to the material world: farming, cooking, clothing, housing and lovemaking. And these are grossly overlooked. And so it was like a little while ago, the Congress of the United States passed a law making it a grave penalty for anyone to burn the flag. And they did it with great flourishes of patriotic speeches. Yet those same Congressmen, by acts of commission or omission, are responsible for burning up what the flag stands for - for the erosion of the natural resources of this land. Although they say they love their country, they don't. They love their flag. So I think it is a great time to get back to reality, that is to say, to get back from time to eternity, to the eternal now, which is what we have, always have had, and indeed always will have. So now I have monologued at you enough. ………..

On Alan Watts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts

Though known for his Zen teachings, he was equally if not more influenced by ancient Hindu scriptures, especially Vedanta, and spoke extensively about the nature of the divine Reality Man that Man misses, how the contradiction of opposites is the method of life and the means of cosmic and human evolution, how our fundamental Ignorance is rooted in the exclusive nature of mind and ego, how to come in touch with the Field of Consciousness and Light, and other cosmic principles. These are discussed in great detail in dozens of hours of audio that are in part captured in the ‘Out of Our Mind’ series.On the personal level, Watts sought to resolve his feelings of alienation from the institutions of marriage and the values of American society, as revealed in his classic comments on love relationships in "Divine Madness" and on perception of the organism-environment in "The Philosophy of Nature". In looking at social issues he was quite concerned with the necessity for international peace, for tolerance and understanding among disparate cultures. He also came to feel acutely conscious of a growing ecological predicament; as one instance, in the early 1960s he wrote: “Can any melting or burning imaginable get rid of these ever-rising mountains of ruin—especially when the things we make and build are beginning to look more and more like rubbish even before they are thrown away?"^[16] These concerns were later expressed in a television pilot made for NET filmed at his mountain retreat in 1971 in which he noted that the single track of conscious attention was wholly inadequate for interactions with a multi-tracked world.************** In several of his later publications, especially Beyond Theology and The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Watts put forward a worldview drawing on Hinduism, Chinese philosophy, pantheism, and modern science, in which he maintains that the whole universe consists of a cosmic self playing hide-and-seek (Lila), hiding from itself (Maya) by becoming all the living and non-living things in the universe, forgetting what it really is; the upshot being that we are all IT in disguise. In this worldview, Watts asserts that our conception of ourselves as an "ego in a bag of skin" is a myth; the entities we call the separate "things" are merely processes of the whole.

NOOPURAM

2012-01-20T16:08:00.001+05:30

I am an admirer of the writings Shriman Satakopan Iyengar; I would like to share another article on Noopuram in which he traverses many epics and stotrams where this ornament, worn both by men and women, plays a significant role. MKK
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Srivan Satakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:Noopuram
by Satagopan Iyengar

There are a number of ornaments women are fond of wearing. Jewels embellish and enhance a lady's beauty and sometimes even bring out latent beauty. Ornaments thus serve as inseparable companions of womenfolk, who would rather be seen dead than without their adornments. Be it ear rings, nose-rings, chains of various designs and types, ranging from simple, single stranded ones to those with multiple strands and pendants, dazzling golden belts (Oddyaanam), anklets of shining silver - all these add considerably to women's looks.

Jewels are thus an integral part of our lives and deserve occasional words of appreciation. However, have you heard of an entire work of epic proportions devoted to a single ornament? I am definitely not exaggerating, for a famous Tamizh poet has considered the jewel to be important enough to spin an engrossing tale around the ornament and the incidents it gives rise to. It is again no exaggeration to say that this single jewel was responsible for the death of an exalted monarch and his consort, apart from causing untold loss to life and property, flowing from the burning down of an ancient city by a wronged woman, whose property the jewel was.

By now, readers would have guessed that I am talking about the Silambu or Noopuram as it is known in Sanskrit. There would be none who has not heard of Silappadhikaaram and the way it revolves around the ornament. The Kaavyam is considered among the five great ones of Tamizh literature, is avidly perused by the learned and unlettered alike, and is still the subject of hot debates at Patti Mandrams.

Apart from its forming the subject matter of Silappadikaaram, does the Noopuram have any significance in the Sampradayam? The answer is Yes, and we shall see here a few occasions where the ornament comes in for appreciative mention in our spiritual lore.

As with every thing else, we shall turn first to that eternal guidebook, Srimad Ramayanam, for inspiration. And the Epic doesn't fail us, for we find an extremely heartening reference to the Noopuram in the Kishkinda Kaandam. Sri Rama and Sri Lakshmana reach Kishkinda, searching en route for the abducted Mythily. Sri Hanuman takes them to Sugriva, who promises to make all-out efforts for locating Sri Janaki. Some members of Sugriva's army then show Rama a bundle of ornaments cast off by a woman who was being dragged by Ravana in the skies. Sugriva requests Sri Rama to identify whether the jewels are those of Sita. Sri Rama is overwhelmed by emotion at the sight of these jewels and His eyes cloud with copious tears at the thought of beloved Sita, making it impossible for Him to look at the ornaments, much less identify them. He turns to the faithful Lakshmana and advises him to see if the jewels are those of Sita.

It is here that Lakshmana comes out with an extremely moving speech, which amply demonstrates his devotion towards his brother's wife and his attitude of extreme rectitude and propriety. ''Since I have never looked at my respected sister-in-law in the face and have always had my head bowed with devotion while in front of Her, I have never had occasion to see the ornaments adorning the upper portion of Her tirumeni. However, I can readily identify the Noopuram which She wore on Her feet, since I prostrate before Her daily. That is, in fact, the only ornament I am familiar with, my glances being forever concentrated on Her holy feet, in devotion and propriety'', says Lakshmana. Here is the beautiful slokam of Sri Valmiki :

Naaham jaanaami kundale, naaham jaanaami keyoore
Noopure tu abhijaanaami nityam paada abhivandanaat

It is not only Sita Devi who wears a Noopuram - even Sri Goda Devi's feet are adorned with gem-studded Silambu. And when She walks gracefully, these Noopurams emit a sweet sound that is nectar to the ears of Her Divine Consort, says Swami Desikan in Goda Stuti-

Tvat preyasa: shravanayo: amritaayamaanaam
Tulyaam tvadeeya mani noopura sinchitaanaam

For those who wonder whether the sounds of a Noopuram could be as sweet as all that, here is confirmation from Sri Valmiki, who describes Sri Hanuman as being impressed by the strong and sweet resonance emanating from the Lankan women's ornaments, when they moved-

Sushraava Kaanchee ninaadam, noopuraanaam cha nissvanam

Noopuraanaam cha ghoshena Kaancheenaam ninadena cha Mridanga tala ghoshaischa ghoshavadbhi: vinaaditam

From all the aforesaid, you would arrive at the conclusion that the Noopuram is an entirely feminine ornament, serving as an adornment for ladies' tender feet. However, you would be entirely mistaken, for many are the instances in our religious lore which describe the Lord's feet too to be adorned with the Silambu. Here is a beautiful slokam from Srimad Bhagavatam, attesting to this-

Shanka chakra gadaa padma vanamaalaa vibooshitam
Noopurai: vilasat paadam koustubha prabhayaa yutam

Here is another couplet from the same source, painting a glorious portrait of Sri Krishna, adorned from head to foot with various ornaments - among them the Noopuram-- and gladdening the eyes and minds of onlookers beyond measure-

Kaanchee kalaapa paryastam lasat kaanchana noopuram
Darsaneeyatamam shaantam mano nayana vardhanam

The Adhyaatma Ramayana tells us that not only Sri Krishna, but Sri Raghava too was adorned with Noopuram-

Noopurai: katakai: bhantam tathaiva vanamaalaya
Lakshmanena dhanu: dvandva karena parisevitam

Even at SriVaikunttam, the Lord's feet are adorned with Noopuram. This we come to know from Sri Ramanuja's Gadyams-'Peetaambara kaanchee guna noopuraadi aparimita divya bhooshana', says the Bhashyakara, reserving for the Noopuram a pride of place among the innumerable ornaments fortunate enough to adorn Emperuman's tirumeni, by reserving its mention at the end of a long list of jewels.

Lest you think of the Noopuram as just another ornament, Swami Desikan tells us that it has a glory all of its own, having been responsible for originating a magnificent river known as the Silambaaru or Noopura Ganga. All of us know that when, during Trivikramaavataram, the Lord's feet reached Satyalokam in the process of measuring the second foot of land promised by Mahabali, Brahmaa performed Tirumanjanam for the Tiruvadi, the resultant flow becoming the holy Ganga. However, a part of the water which touched the Noopuram on the Lord's feet became a separate stream and fell atop the Tirumaalirum solai hills, attaining the name Noopura Ganga. Swami Desikan tells us that this Noopura Ganga is much holier than the famed Ganga, as the former is unpolluted by the touch of other Devatas. While Ganga, on its way from the worlds above to earth, had to be borne by Sri Rudra in his matted locks, to lessen its destructive speed, the Noopura Ganga fell straight from the Lord's Noopuram to earth, thus making it more sacred and pure. And the waters of the Noopura Ganga are sweeter too (I can personally attest to this, having spent some time on the banks of the Ganga at Varanasi). This episode is chronicled by Swami Desikan in Hamsa Sandesam thus-

Yasyotsange Bali vijayina: tasya manjeera vaantam
Paatho divyam Pasupati jataa sparsa soonyam vibhaati

The Hamsa Sandesam has another interesting tale to tell about Sri Sita Devi's Noopuram, the only ornament with which Sri Lakshmana is familiar. The Noopuram found by the Vaanara veeras at Kishkinda was the one worn on Sita Devi's right foot. Once She reached Lanka and was imprisoned at Ashoka vanam, Sri Janaki removed the other Noopuram on Her left foot and kept it, along with the other ornaments, tied in a piece of cloth to the branch of the Simsupa tree, underneath which She was forced to spend Her time, watched constantly by the demoniac minions of Ravana. Though She was unmindful of the other jewels, Sita used to take out the Noopuram frequently and heave a sigh of sorrow at the plight of the ornament, which was personally fitted on Her foot by Sri Raghava. At the other end, Sri Rama too fondly looks at the other Noopuram, seeing Sri Mythily in it, finding it as sweet-sounding as a swan's song, eagerly awaiting the day when He would be able to restore it to its rightful place on Sri Janaki's left foot. Here is the beautiful slokam, which establishes Swami Desikan's credentials as a poet par excellence, much superior to Kalidasa-

Vaktum maargam kilava sumateem jagmusha: tat padaabjaat
Manjeerasya tvat upama rute: dakshinasya asya tulyam

Ankaaroode charana kamala mat karena upadeyam
Vaamam shaakha shikara nihitam veekshya gaadam vishannaam

The Noopuram has made me wax rather long. We will wind this up with a quote from Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatam, which tells us to surrender to the lotus feet of Sri Srinivasa, adorned by Noopurams which are covered by fragrant flowers-

Aa noopura arpita sujaata sugandhi pushpa
Sourabhya sourabha karou sama sannivesou
Sowmyou sadaa anubavanepi navaanubhaavyou
Sri Venkatesa charanou sharanam prapadye

Srimate Sri Lakshmi Nrisimha divya paduka sevaka
Srivan Satakopa Sri Narayana Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

We Still Eat Neolithic Fod

2012-01-19T19:46:00.002+05:30

Source: Email from delanceyplace.com 1/19/12

In today's encore excerpt - even at the fanciest restaurants, we still eat the same narrow range of meats and grains first domesticated and cultivated in the Neolithic period. Our hunter-gatherer forbears ate surprising well, and we were reduced to narrowed, poorer diets when we first moved from hunter-gatherer societies to city-based agricultural societies. These narrowed diets brought stunted growth and greater disease. So why did we transition from the relative freedom and better food of hunter-gatherer societies to the serfdom and disease of agricultural societies? In part because the percentage of deaths by warfare fell to single digits from rates that had been well over 50% for some hunter-gatherers:

"It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards. ... A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much vitamin C as the average person today. Even in the bitterest depths of the ice ages, we now know, nomadic people ate surprisingly well - and surprisingly healthily. Settled people, by contrast, became reliant on a much smaller range of foods, which all but ensured dietary insufficiencies. The three great domesticated crops of prehistory were rice, wheat, and maize, but all had significant drawbacks as staples. As the journalist John Lanchester explains: 'Rice inhibits the activity of Vitamin A; wheat has a chemical that impedes the action of zinc and can lead to stunted growth; maize is deficient in essential amino acids and contains phytates, which prevent the absorption of iron.' The average height of people actually fell by almost six inches in the early days of farming in the Near East. Even on Orkney, where prehistoric life was probably as good as it could get, an analysis of 340 ancient skeletons showed that hardly any people lived beyond their twenties.

"What killed the Orcadians was not dietary deficiency but disease. People living together are vastly more likely to spread illness from household to household, and the close exposure to animals through domestication meant that flu (from pigs or fowl), smallpox and measles (from cows and sheep), and anthrax (from horses and goats, among others) could become part of the human condition, too. As far as we can tell, virtually all of the infectious diseases have become endemic only since people took to living together. Settling down also brought a huge increase in 'human commensals' - mice, rats, and other creatures that live with and off us - and these all to often acted as disease vectors.

"So sedentism meant poorer diets, more illness, lots of toothache and gum disease, and earlier deaths. What is truly extraordinary is that these are all still factors in our lives today. Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven - corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats - account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors. Exactly the same is true of husbandry. The animals we raise for food today are eaten not because they are notably delectable or nutritious or a pleasure to be around, but because they were the ones first domesticated in the Stone Age.

"We are, in the most fundamental way, Stone Age people ourselves. From a dietary point of view, the Neolithic period is still with us. We may sprinkle our dishes with bay leaves and chopped fennel, but underneath it all is Stone Age food. And when we get sick, it is Stone Age diseases we suffer."
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Author: Bill Bryson; Title: At Home; Publisher: Doubleday; Date: Copyright 2010 by Bill Bryson; Pages: 37-38
At Home: A Short History of Private Life; by Bill Bryson by Doubleday; Hardcover ~ Release Date: 2010-10-05
If you wish to read further: Buy Now
Should you use the above link to purchase a book, delanceyplace proceeds from your purchase will benefit a children's literacy project. All Delanceyplace profits are donated to charity.

Every Day Is A New Day

2012-01-19T07:33:00.000+05:30

One has to find out for oneself what it means to die;
then there is no fear: - J.Krishnamurti

How does one find out about this strange thing that we all have to meet one day or another?
Can you die psychologically today, die to everything that you have known?
For instance:
to die to your pleasure, to your attachment, your dependence,
to end it without arguing, without rationalizing,
without trying to find ways and means of avoiding it.
Do you know what it means to die,
not physically, but psychologically, inwardly?
Which means to put an end to that which has continuity;
to put an end to your ambition, because
that's what's going to happen when you die, isn't it?
You can't carry it over and sit next to God!
When you actually die,
you have to end so many things without any argument.
You can't say to death,
"Let me finish my job, let me finish my book,
all the things I have not done,
let me heal the hurts which I have given others" —
you have no time.
So can you find out how to live a life now, today,
in which there is always an ending to everything that you began?
Not in your office of course, but inwardly
to end all the knowledge that you have gathered —
knowledge being your experiences, your memories, your hurts,
the comparative way of living, comparing yourself always with somebody else.
To end all that every day,
so that the next day your mind is fresh and young.
Such a mind can never be hurt,
and that is innocence.
One has to find out for oneself what it means to die;
then there is no fear,
therefore every day is a new day —
and I really mean this, one can do this —
so that your mind and your eyes see life as something totally new.
That is eternity.
That is the quality of the mind that has come upon this timeless state,
because it has known what it means to die every day
to everything it has collected during the day.
Surely, in that there is love.
Love is something totally new every day,
but pleasure is not;
pleasure has continuity.
Love is always new and therefore, it is its own eternity.

Seekers of Ultimate Mystery

2012-01-10T18:56:00.003+05:30

by Fr. Thomas Keating

Every seeker of Ultimate Mystery has to pass through interior death and rebirth, perhaps many times over. Our contemporary world desperately needs persons of boundless generosity who dedicate themselves to great ideals and who wish to transform themselves and contribute to the transformation of the world. A great vision is what gives ordinary daily life its direction and invests it with purpose.

Seekers of Ultimate Mystery have to share in the agony of our time. Only trust can make this experience transforming for themselves and for others. As the sense of alienation from Ultimate Mystery, from human values, and from oneself is very deep in our time, so also participation in that experience is bound to be very deep. It may involve an inner poverty so intense and so complete that no word can describe it, except “death.” But this spiritual death leads to an inner resurrection of one’s true self that can move not only oneself, but the whole human family in the direction of transformation. From this perspective, the spiritual journey is the very reverse of selfishness. It is rather the journey to selflessness.

What needs to be emphasized by seekers today is the contemplative dimension of human nature, whether they identify the aim of their search as liberation, transformation, enlightenment, nirvana, divine union or whatever. […] The growth of the contemplative dimension leads to the stable perception of the presence of Ultimate Mystery underlying and accompanying all reality as a kind of fourth dimension to ordinary sense perception. To dispose oneself for this awareness, one needs a discipline that engages all the faculties and a structure appropriate to one’s life circumstances that can sustain it.

To begin with, one needs to cultivate a practical conviction of the primacy of being over doing. Our society values what one can do and this becomes the gauge of who one is. The contemplative dimension of life is an insight into the gift of being human and inspires a profound acceptance and gratitude for that gift. […]

Our culture is at a critical point because so many structures that supported human and religious values have been trampled upon and are disappearing. To find a way to discover Ultimate Mystery in the midst of secular occupations and situations is essential, because for most people today it is the only milieu that they know. Humanity as a whole needs a breakthrough into the contemplative dimension of life. The contemplative dimension of life is the heart of the world. There the human family is already one. If one goes to one’s own heart, one will find oneself in the heart of everyone else, and everyone else, as well as oneself, in the heart of Ultimate Mystery.
– Fr. Thomas Keating in Contemplative Outreach newsletter, June 2010

Guru-Sishya Relationship

2011-11-11T18:54:00.006+05:30

Guru Stotram - slokam 2

om ajnaana-timiraandhasya / jnanaanjana-shalaakaya
caksur-unmilitam yena / tasmai shri-gurave namah

Salutation (namah) to that (tasmai) Guru (gurave) by whom (yena) the eyes (cakshur) blinded (andhasya) by the darkness (timira) of ignorance (agnyana) were opened (unmilitam) with the collyrium (anjana)-sharp pencil (shalakaya) of knowledge (gnyana).

Salutations to that Guru who applies the collyrium of knowledge with a sharp needle to open the eyes of those blinded due to ignorance (lack of spiritual knowledge). The purpose of approaching the Master is explained beautifully in this second verse of the Guru Stotram -
ajnana- timirandhasya jnananjana shalakaya.

Every action of ours is directed to achieve certain end-results; we are happy when we are successful and unhappy when fail to achieve the intended result. Life consists of a series of transactions intended for our sukha praapti ; but many times, there is only dukha and we feel disappointed and dissatisfied. Ramana Maharishi in his Upadesa Saram has compared this sorry state of affairs to falling repeatedly into the ocean of samsara and has suggested self-inquiry as a way out to derive permanent satisfaction in our lives. Those who need help have to seek a Guru.

By middle age, when our dissatisfaction grows and we feel lost like one blinded due to absence of the light of relevant knowledge, we approach a Guru and seek his guidance to gain gnyana drishti for leading life in a manner conducive to yield a steady, happy state of the mind which will not be easily affected by set-backs and failures.. In other words, every effort that we make is for sukha-praapti, to reach a state of satisfaction, contentment and fulfillment, but the goal is not always achieved despite our best efforts.

It is then that we realize that due to lack of knowledge, due to our agnyana, we are presently mired in this condition seeing no way out. At this stage, we proceed to seek a Guru as advised in Kathopanishad:
praapya varaan nibodhata
The Guru stotram describes the resulting relationship between the Guru and the disciple.

The Guru is the Master who can remove the obstacle of ajnana. But it is not as simple as removing something that is covering what is underneath. It is a very tricky process since there is nothing really to be taken out; what is required is a transformation in us that is necessary. The Guru-doctor applies the ointment (anjana) of knowledge to our affected eye and restores the sight – he grants us the gift of gnyana drishti.

The Master's role is similar to that of a sculptor, who uses his hammer and chisel to unlock the hidden potential in a stone. If the stone could communicate with us in words, it will describe the great pain it suffers with every stroke, every blow of the chisel and hammer. Finally, it seems that the torture has come to an end. The sculptor leaves the stone alone for many days. Then one day he returns and starts rubbing the surface of the stone with sand-paper to get rid of even the smallest of imperfections. The stone starts feeling, "I thought everything was done. Why is he torturing me like this again?"

But after having undergone this tortuous process, a beautiful murti emerges from the stone; the real glory of the stone is finally expressed. It is then installed in a temple. It becomes elated because it starts receiving flower garlands, it starts receiving alankara. The sculptor's vision created from a piece of shapeless stone a beautiful art-piece that is worthy of being worshipped. But to reach that state the stone had to undergo the process of chiseling, and fine refinements.

The stone acknowledges to the sculptor: "What a great opportunity you have given me to bring out the best in me!" And in all humility the sculptor replies: "I have done nothing. The potential always existed in you. All I have done is to remove that which was blocking the expression of your potential". If we substitute the words Master for the sculptor and disciple for the stone, we can fully understand the roles of the Master and his disciple.

The relationship between the two is beyond human understanding or expression in words. When we talk of the highest in love, we talk of the natural love of a mother for the children she has given birth to. The love and care of the Master for the student is born out of a deep sense of duty and responsibility that he has voluntarily accepted so that the student may reach the spiritual state in which he himself revels.

His efforts to remove the ajnana, which are so painful for the disciple in the beginning, are intended for the purpose that the student can reach and enjoy the same kind of bliss that the Master is enjoying - nothing less. For, in the field of spirituality, either there is perfection or there is nothing - nothing in the middle. The Master directs all his efforts to help his disciple reach that state of perfection.

The Master is not going to change our lives or our environment; he is not going to change the world that we live in. The Master is only changing our vision, our perception of the world in its as is state. It is not the srishti that has to be changed, it is the drishti that has to change, and the Guru is the person who takes pains in changing that drishti. Here is a person who, with all love and concern, tries to tune our body, mind and intellect and dispel the darkness that we are living in so that we can understand the truth. He blesses us with that vision, drishti, so that, staying in the same srishti, we can enjoy the bliss and glory which is an expression of the Lord.

In order to do this, the Guru has to wipe the slate of our mind clean and create a disciple out of us. Guru is thus Brahma, Guru is Vishnu, and Guru Himself is Mahesvara. Guru is nothing but that absolute truth and happiness which we are searching for. Why is the Guru called Brahma? Why is the Guru called Vishnu? Why is the Guru called Maheshvara? Because in spite of who we are, it is the Guru's mission to create a disciple out us. That is no easy task. It requires total surrender by the sishya to the Guru.

Sishya is defined as —Saasanaat sisyate yah sah sishya - the one who remains in disciplined mode, who is ready for any kind of discipline that is expected by the Master. Or, to put it in very simple words, the one who has accepted the fact that he is going to be disciplined and changed. This is where the concept of sharanagati comes into play. When the Master tells the student to do something, there should be no resistance from the student like, -- "but Sir"…absolutely no choice. It took the Lord Himself all the chapters in the Gita to create a disciple out of Arjuna whom He knew very well. It is the Master's responsibility to create that discipleship in us.

The grace of the Guru expresses itself in every seeker's life as jnana and sakti - the knowledge as well as the capacity to use that knowledge at the right moment at the right time. Jnana-sakti-samaarudah, tattva-mala-vibhushitah. A very beautiful picture of the Master has been painted here. Jnana-sakti-samarudhah, he is samarudah, he enters our life integrating these two things; he bestows upon us, he blesses us with these two things - jnanam ca saktim ca. He blesses us with knowledge and also the capacity to use that knowledge in the correct place, in the correct environment; he builds in us the awareness of the knowledge.

When we listen to Vedanta discourses, we tend to feel that we already know these principles. But knowledge lies not merely in knowing, but also in applying that knowledge, or having the shakti, the saamarthya, the capacity to do so in the right place and at the right moment.
Note:
The text above is an extract from : http://www.chinmayasaaket.org/articles/uddhav/tasmai_sri_gurave_namah.pdf

ON MILK_ABHISHEKAM IN TEMPLES

2011-11-07T20:12:00.003+05:30

पत्रं पुष्पं फलं तोयं यो मे भक्त्या प्रयच्छति

patram, pushpam phalam, toyam
yo me bhaktya prayacchati - Sri Krishna
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"Milk for Abhishekam in temples is a divine offering; let us ensure it is pure, derived from happy cows free to roam in green pastures, eating pesticide-free grass, not from cows confined in narrow stalls, fed high-energy grains and restaurant scraps and injected with growth hormones and antibiotics" -- Aparna Hasling

The following is the text of an article by Aparna Hasling in SriVidya magazine, New York :

"I would like to introduce Eco Vidya, the term I have used to identify an environmental version of Sri Vidya. In this modern age it is ever more important to re-examine the source of our offerings and determine which of our ritual actions may unknowingly be harmful to the Divine Mother, our Mother Earth. It is not enough to just be vegetarian; we should also consider the effect of our purchases at the grocery store. It is time that our temple considers using alternatives to pasteurized milk.

Milk abhishekam has been a divine act of devotion for thousands of years within the Hindu tradition. Our ancient scriptures explain that milk is amritam from a divine being, and so it is respectful to pour it on a deity. But those words were written in an age when milk was pure and cows freely roamed green pastures and ate pesticide-free grass.Today, the milk we buy comes from agribusinesses, places that house thousands of cows in confinement dairies, where stalls are sometimes welded shut, where cows are fed high-energy grains and restaurant scraps, and are injected with growth hormones and antibiotics. Cows are not permitted their natural grass diet; they are fed only to maximize milk production and minimize cost. These mistreated cows are subject to frequent illnesses and infections; the milk they produce reflects their own health in that their milk must be sterilized before it is sold for human consumption. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration of the United States) demands that milk be pasteurized. This modern technique was not needed when cows were healthy. In 1888 Louis Pasteur invented a system of heating milk in order to kill bacteriaâ€"but it killed the potentially harmful bacteria as well as the healthy bacteria needed to bolster the immune system.

The cow on the left lives freely in Devipuram, where it is allowed to roam around and graze. Many private, family farms in North America allow their cows the same natural life. But factory farms (like the one on the right) keep their animals in cruel conditions, where they sometimes don't even have enough room to move their legs or sit down.

This technique started as a temporary solution to the problem of contaminated milk in overcrowded cities without refrigeration or adequate sanitation. Raw milk was understood by all parties to be preferred, but unfortunately the focus has never turned back from heating diseased milk to producing and distributing healthy, raw milk.By purchasing hundreds of gallons of pasteurized milk, we are using our consumer dollars to empower these harmful practices. It is as if we are saying --yes, we want cheap milk at any cost. Agribusiness then responds to our demands by putting more cows on smaller plots, and tormenting them in unspeakable ways to produce more milk. It is our responsibility to advocate for the sisters of Nandi.

The milk-giving cow is the most sacred animal in Hindu religion. She is often understood as the symbol of sustainable life, as well as of the cosmos: her legs are compared to the four Vedas, her eyes to the sun and the moon, her horns to the mountains, and her udders to the oceans. Milk from healthy cows is extremely nutritious for children and is said to delay the aging process in adults. From milk, we make butter, ghee, and yogurt. Even the dung a healthy cow produces can be beneficial and contains ammonia which can eliminate pathogenic bacteria in the home. It can also be burned for cooking fuel instead of timber.

The cow is a symbol of sustainable life. For millennia, the Indian culture has relied on the sacred cow, and now she needs our help.Yes, milk abhishekam has been a divine act of devotion for thousands of years. But it is time to rethink our basic ritual formulas. Please offer abhishekam with anything except milk from cows raised on factory farms: - raw milk, diluted coconut milk, fruit juice, turmeric water, rose water or river water. In doing so, the temple will make a bold statement and serve as an example for the community to become advocates for our Divine Mother Earth."
==========================
My comment:
We take care to prepare Prasadam-offerings like pongal etc with madi in madappalli to ensure purity and respect to the temple deity. Sabari tasted the fruits before offering to Sri Rama. Why don't we examine the milk for fitness to offer it with Bhakti to the Lord? - This is also the theme of the famous Bhajan:

Krishna Govinda Gopala Gaate Raho
Man ko vishayon ke vish se hatate raho
Krishna Govinda Gopala gaate raho

Log kehte hai bhagwaan aate nahi …
Draupadi ki tarah tum bulate nahi…
Krishna Govinda Gopala gaate raho

Log kehte hai bhagwan khaate nahi…
Shabari ki tarah tum khilate nahi…
Krishna Govinda Gopala gaate raho

The Metaphysics of Nothing

2011-10-28T21:46:00.010+05:30

Gita - Ch.II Sloka 16

नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सतः।
उभयोरपि दृष्टोऽन्तस्त्वनयोस्तत्त्वदर्शिभिः।। 2.16 ।।

nāsatō vidyatē bhāvō nābhāvō vidyatē sataḥ.
ubhayōrapi dṛṣṭō.ntastvanayōstattvadarśibhiḥ..2.16..

The unreal hath no being; there is non-being of the real;
the truth about both has been seen by the knowers of
the Truth (the seers of the Essence). - Swami Sivananda

The verse from the Bhagavad Gita (2:16) is part of the argument that Krishna makes to Arjuna for the immortality of the self. As with Parmenides, the point is that something cannot come from nothing or become nothing. We do not get any consideration, however, why a person does not disappear in the same way that wood can be burned into ash and smoke. For that, we need the background of the Upanishads and Vedânta, that the world itself is only a content of consciousness, the consciousness of the ultimate Self, Brahman. As the Chândogya Upanishad says,
Tat tvam asi , "Thou art that."

In death, as in sleep,
"it is not the self that goes away into oblivion, it is the world."

Above is an extract from: The Metaphysics of Nothing

Gita-slokam commentary by Swami Sivananda:

The changeless, homogeneous Atman or the Self always exists. It is the only solid Reality. This phenomenal world of names and forms is ever changing. Hence it is unreal. The sage or the Jivanmukta is fully aware that the Self always exists and that this world is like a mirage. Through his Gnyanachakshus or the eye of intuition, he directly cognises the Self. This world vanishes for him like the snake in the rope, after it has been seen that only the rope exists. He rejects the names and forms and takes the underlying Essence in all the names and forms, viz., Asti-Bhaati-Priya or Sat-chit-ananda or Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Hence he is a Tattva-darshi or a knower of the Truth or the Essence.
What is changing must be unreal. What is constant or permanent must be real. -- Sivananda

Positive Thinking & FAITH

2011-08-26T13:47:00.006+05:30

QUOTES

On Positive Thinking

The Universe is constantly listening to our thoughts.

We must learn to maintain positive thoughts in our mind,
if we want the Universe to help us.

When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you:
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you will be taught how to fly.

When all your efforts end in failure,
it means that you are being taught the lesson
that, not your own efforts,
but God's Grace alone can bring success.
And you should seek His Grace.

On FAITH:

Faith is the nearest English equivalent to the Sanskrit word Shraddha;

it endows us with great value in life.

It is the set of values, axioms, prejudices, and pre-possessions
that colours our perceptions, governs our thinking,

dictates our responses, and shapes our lives generally

without our even being aware of its presence and power.

Shraddha is not an intellectual abstraction;

it is our very substance.

Bhagavd Gita - Chapter17 slokam 3:

श्रद्धामयोऽयं पुरुषो यो यच्छ्रद्धः स एव सः।।17.3।।

"As a person's faith is, so is he"

The Bible, using similar words, says:

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

There is nothing passive about Shraddha.

It is full of potency.

For it prompts action, conditions behaviour, and

determines how we perceive and thus
respond to the world around us.

The power to heal or harm is inherent in our ideas of ourselves.

Yet Shraddha is not brute determination or wishful thinking.

Our lives are an eloquent expression of our beliefs of

what we deem worth having, doing, attaining, being.

What we strive for shows what we value.

We back our Shraddha with our time, our energy, our very lives.

Thus Shraddha determines destiny.

As the Buddha put it:

"All that we are is the result of what we thought.
We are made of our thoughts,

We are moulded by our thoughts."

As we think, so we become.

yat bhaavam tat bhavati

2011-07-25T17:20:00.012+05:30

On: - the News Report report about the death of a famous singer, age 27:

Today’s Metro Plus section of ‘The Hindu’ carries on its front-page the news of the death of Amy Winehouse, brilliant UK artist and Grammy award winner at the young age of 27.

http://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/metroplus/article2292982.ece

Presumably, her drug, alcohol and marital problems were responsible for the tragic death. She became one of the most acclaimed young singers of the past decade, selling millions of albums, winning five Grammy Awards and starting a British retro-R&B trend that continues today. Yet, almost from the moment she arrived on the international pop scene in early 2007, she appeared to flirt with self-destruction. Strangely, she seemed to be 'frustrated with success'. In time, the notoriety from Ms. Winehouse’s various drug arrests, public meltdowns and ruined concerts overshadowed her talent as a musician, and her career never recovered. On Saturday, as the news of Ms. Winehouse’s death spread, many musicians wrote with sadness, but no surprise. She seemed unable to deal with her great succes early in her life, affirmng Oscar Wilde's wise observation: "There are only two tragedies in life: One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

‘The Hindu’ in the article titled ‘Broken Flower’ has stated:

“Winehouse dies at the age of 27, which is the same age when musical legends such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison passed on. But even as conspiracy theorists welcome another member to ‘Death club 27', one can establish another clear link between all the pioneers. Despite their superior musical dexterity, a strong temptation made them deviate and become careless wrecks. Winehouse too, treaded this path and now leaves behind a legacy of music that thematically delved on everything her life was — painful yet ecstatic, but without regrets.”

Why would many talented artists find difficulty and frustration in dealing with the fame and success they richly deserved and achieved? Is there a lesson for all of us from these failures to deal with success, which Oscar Wilde noted as being a weakness in human nature? Is there a strategy to counter this?

Perhaps, our sages have the answer in the lessons they have prescribed for practising Karma Yoga — the mental attitude to Work. In this context, there is great relevance in Ramana Maharishi’s advice in his Upadesa Saram slokam:

ईश्वरार्पितं नेच्छया कृतम् । Ishvaraarpitam na ichchayaa krutam

चित्त शोधकं मुक्तिसाधकम् ।। Chittha shodhakam mukti saadhakam

Actions consecrated to the Lord without attachment to the results, purify the mind and point the way to liberation, freedom from the binding mind. Bhagavad Gita too warns us in sloka VI-5 that our mind can be our best friend and also our worst enemy.

Taking credit for success boosts the ignorant ego (mind) and leads to self-destruction.

Self-confidence should mean confidence in the Higher Self, not in the ego-self created by us and uninitiated into true knowledge of the real purpose of this life, hence termed ignorant. The Kathopanishad advises us to hand over the reins of our Indriyas to the wise Self residing within us, instead of the uninstructed ego-mind:

Atmaanam rathinam viddhi shareeram rathameva tu

buddhim tu sarathim viddhi manah pragrahamevaca

indriyani hayanyahur vishayansteshu gocharaan

Atmendriya manoyuktam bhoktetyahur maneeshinah

Consider the body as a chariot with the Spirit (Atman) sitting in it as the passenger, the intellect as the driver who controls the horses (the Indriyas – organs), with the mind as the reins. When the mind (ego) acts in accordance with the instructions of the Atman, true knowledge dawns and harmony prevails in the travel along the life-path (sat-chit-anand). Only the mind liberated in this manner will be able to deal effectively with both success and failure.

Govinda! Govinda! Govinda!

2011-07-24T19:56:00.008+05:30

The holy-chant: Govinda! Govinda! Govinda! is all-pervading in Tirumala Kshetram. While chanting Sri Vishnu Sahasranama Stotram, we meet with this holy Nama in

slokams 20 and 58. Readers of this Blog may be interested in the significance and meanings given by commentators on the Govinda Nama. The following extract is from

the Sahasranamam web-page in http://kirtimukha.com/chinnamma/sahasra/index.html

Govinda-Nama in Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam

Slokam 20: Govindah

maheshvaaso maheebhartaa srinivasah sataamgatih

aniruddhah suraanando govindo govidaampatih -20

a) One who is praised by the gods (for His help).

b) One who dug out the Earth from the depths of the Ocean.

c) The protector of cows.

d) One who confers the veda-s

Om govindAya namah.

go in samskRt means "Earth", "cows", "speech", or "veda-s" - gaur-vANI, dharA, dhenurvA. From this we derive gavAm, gAm, etc. vid - lAbhe to get, to find, to feel is the root from which vinda is derived.

a) gavAm vindah govindah - gavAm - praise, vindah - recipient. He is govinda because He is the recipient of praise by the gods for the help He renders as outlined in the previous nAma.

b) Another interpretation is gAm avindat - One who retrieved the Earth from the depths of the Ocean.

The following is from Santi parvam in mahAbhAratam -

nashTAm vai dharaNIm purvam avindam vai guhAgatAm

govinda iti tenAham devair-vAgbir-abhishTutah (Santi - 330.5)

"I first rescued the earth which was carried away and hidden in depths of the Ocean (by an asura); hence I am praised by the appellation Govinda by gods and scriptures". The significance of this is pointed out by the dharma cakram writer: BhagavAn is the One who truly understands the world and all its subjects.

c) gAvo vedavANyo yam vindanti labhante, yatra vA avatisThante sa govindo bhagavAn vishNuh - One who is reached by vedic chanting, or One who is the abode of the veda-s, is govinda or vishNu. In harivamSa we have the following -

gaureshA tu yato vANI tAm ca vindayate bhavAn

govindastu tato deva! munibhih kathyate bhavAn! (harivamSa 3.88.50)

gau means worlds.
You pervade all worlds giving them power. Sages, therefore, call you govinda.

d) The protector of the cows - again supported from harivamSa -

aham kilendro devAnAm tvam gavAm indratAm gatah

govinda iti lokAstvAm stoshyanti bhuvi SASvatam (harivamSa 2.19.45)

"I am indra, leader of deva-s. You have attained the leadership of the cows. So in this world men praise you always addressing you as govinda". He is the protector of the cows and played the part ofgopAla in gokulam. SrI satyadevo vAsishTha points out that the leadership of cows also suggests the importance of milk, ghee, etc., in worship, yaj~na etc., and how these also play a key role in thenourishment of the world.

An author by name ananta kRshNa Sastri, who has translated SrI Sankara's vishNu sahasranAma vyAkhyAnam, gives 10 meanings for the combination go+vid - 1) go -svargam - He transcends Heaven.

2) arrows - He knows all the weapons. 3) cattle - He is the leader of cows. 4) Speech - He is to be known by the veda-s. 5) Thunderbolt - He has the vajra marks on His feet. 6) Quarters - He is known in

all quarters. 7) Eyes - He is the seer in every person. 8) The Sun - He is in the orb of the sun. 9) Earth - He recovered the Earth from the Ocean. 10) Waters - His seat is in the waters

Vishnu Sahasra Namam: Sloka-58

mahaavaraaho govindah susheNah kanakangadee

guhyo gabheero ahano guptashchakra gadaadharah 58

govindah

a) One who is praised by the gods (for His help).

b) One who dug out the Earth from the depths of the Ocean.

c) The protector of cows.

d) One who confers the veda-s

e) He who rescued the Earth.

f) He who is known by vedic sentences.

g) He who is responsible for all things that move.

om govindAya namah.

This nAma occurred earlier in sloka 20; the detailed explanation for (a) to (d) were given under Slokam 20.

SrI BhaTTar gives interpretation for (e) thus: a variation of explanation (b) under the current nAma viz. bhagavAn is govindah because He rescued the Earth from the rAkshasa.

SrI Sa'nkara gives the interpretationfor (f) under the current nAma: "gobhih - vANibhih vindate" - He Who is known (vid) through words i.e., vedic sentences. SrI Sa'nkara gives the reference from vishNutilaka -

gobhireva yato vedyo govindah samudAhRtah -

"You are named govinda as you are to be known through scriptual texts".

SrI satyadevo vAsishTha derives his interpretation starting from the root gam - gatau - to go (gacchati iti gauh),and gives the meaning "to possess" to the word vid (vid - lAbhe - toget), and thus derives the interpretation (g) above. His explanation is that anything that moves, including our mind, our indriya-s, the Sun, etc., are His possession, and so He is called govindah. He gives this interpretation for the nAma "govidAm patih" also. He supports his interpretation based on"gacchati iti jagat" - BhagavAn is present everywhere as seen by the movement of everything in this world. The life in all things that live is associated with movement, and He is the One who is behind this movement -govindah.

=======================================

Read also: http://www.tirumala.org/ptv_tm_varaha.htm about the traditinal custom of offering worship to Adi Varaha swamy first and proceeding to Sri Venkatshwara temple only there-after:

Sri Varahaswami Temple in Tirumala is to the north of the Sri Venkateswara Temple, on the banks of Swami Pushkarini. According to legend, Tirumala was originally Adi Varaha Kshetra (the home of Sri Adi Varaha Swami), and it was with his permission that Lord Sri Venkateswara took up residence here.

According to the Brahma Purana, pilgrims should first offer naivedyam to Sri Adi Varaha Swami, before visiting the Sri Venkateswara Temple. According to Atri Samhita (Samurtarchanadhikara), the Varaha avatara is worshipped in three forms:

· Adi Varaha

· Pralaya Varaha

· Yajna Varaha

The idol of Sri Varahaswami in Tirumala is that of Adi Varaha, as it resembles the description of the Adi Varaha murti in Vaikhanasa Agama texts.

The genesis of Sri Varahaswamy Avatarm is given in Canto 3 Chapters 16 - 19 of Srimad Bhagavatam.

_____________________________________

Rajaji's song "kurai onrum illai govinda", sung by MS, chants the glory of Govinda who is present as Archa Murti on the Tirumala hills: ( http://kirtimukha.com/KuraiOnrumIllai.htm )

Kunrin mel kallāki nirkinra varadā

kurai onrum illai, Maraimūrthi kanna!

Manivannā! Malaiyappā! Gōvinda!

Gōvinda! Govinda!Govinda!

_____________________________

Kurai Onrum Illai Kanna

2011-07-19T12:26:00.005+05:30

"Kurai Onrum Illai marai murti Kanna" sung by Smt. M.S. Subbulakshmi is broadcast many times by the TTD on their SVBC TV Channel. The song composed by (late) Chakravarti Rajagopalachari is rich in philosophical content which his grandson Gopal Gandhi has lucidly explained in his article reproduced by Wikipedia at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurai_Onrum_Illai; pl also view the article at my web-site where I have reproduced the Wiki article and also embedded YouYube links to the soulful music by MS.,

Rajaji has used the words 'kuRai onRum Illai' which have been translated by Gopal Gandhi as 'I have no regret'. kuRai in Tanil means a lack that is felt by us, generally leading to a desire and action to remove the lack. But such a situation does not arise since all the needs of the devotee are fulfilled by Kannan/Govinda, as stated by Rajaji in the next verse:

Vendiyadhai thandhida Venkatesan enrirukka,
Vendiyadhu ver illai maraimūrthi kanna-

When Venkatesa is there to fulfil our needs
there is nothing else that we need, O Kanna

A heart filled with devotion (bhakti-bhaava) to Govindaa has no kuRai what soever; the devotee sings His praise soulfully and declares: kuRai onrum illai kaNNa, Govinda.

The Loving Bond

2011-07-16T21:36:00.000+05:30

The kite-flier's attitude is a good illustration of loving-caring for the child. The loving bond that does not bind is the thread; pulling and leaving, we succeed in sending it higher in the free atmosphere. We still hold one end of the thread and keep communicating with the kite, feeling the tightness/heaviness as the air keeps pushing the kite up. We don't hold the kite restricted yet the kite flies free -
-- an ideal relationship described by Khalil Gibran thus in his book Prophet:

Your children are not your children.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and
He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Who am I? Where am I?

2011-07-14T14:14:00.004+05:30

http://bhagavan-ramana.org/ramana_maharshi/books/letters/letter073.html

....... an Andhra gentleman questioned Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi:
“You say the important thing to do is to enquire and find out who I am,
but how is one to find it out? Are we to do japam saying, ‘Who am I? Who am I?’
or should we repeat, ‘Neti’ (not this)? I want to know the exact method, Swami.”
After waiting for a while Bhagavan said,
“What is there to find out? Who is to find out?
There must be some one to find out, mustn’t there?
Who is that someone? Where has that someone come from?
This is the thing to find out first.”
The questioner said, again, “Should there not be some sadhana to find out who one’s self is? Which sadhana will be useful?”
“Yes, it is that that has to be found out. If you ask where to see,
we should say, look within, what is its shape, how was it born, and where was it born;
that is what you have to see or enquire,” said Bhagavan.
The questioner asked again,
“If we ask where this ‘I’ is born, the ancients say, it is in the heart.
How could we see that?”
“Yes, we have to see the heart itself. If you want to see it; the mind must get submerged completely. It is no use doing japam with the words, ‘Who am I? Who am I?’
nor by repeating the words ‘Neti, Neti’,” said Bhagavan.
When the questioner said, that was exactly what he was unable to do,
Bhagavan replied, “Yes, that is so. That is the difficulty.
We always exist and are in all places.
This body and all other attendant things are gathered around us by ourselves only.
There is no difficulty in gathering them. The real difficulty is in throwing them out. We find it difficult to see what is inhering in us and what is foreign to us.
See, what a great tragedy it is,” said Bhagavan.
Some time ago, when a Bengali youth asked similar questions, Bhagavan explained to him at great length. His doubts not being cleared, that youth asked, “You say that the Self is present at all times and at all places. Where exactly is that ‘I’?”
Bhagavan replied with a smile, “When I say you are present at all times and at all places and you ask where is that ‘I’, it is something like asking, when you are in Tiruvannamalai, ‘Where is Tiruvannamalai?’
When you are everywhere, where are you to search? The real delusion is the feeling that you are the body. When you get rid of that delusion, what remains is your Self. You should search for a thing which is not with you but where is the need to search for a thing which is always with you? All sadhanas are for getting rid of the delusion that you are the body. The knowledge that ‘I am’ is always there: call it Atma, or Paramatma or whatever you like. One should get rid of the idea that ‘I am the body’. There is no need to search for that ‘I’ that is the self. That Self is all-pervading.”
*******************
As an illustration of this, I give hereunder the words of Bhagavan in “Unnadhi Nalupadhi”:
Without the Self where is time and where is space?
If we are the body, we have to be bound by time and space. Are we the body?
We are one and identical now, then and always; here, there and everywhere.
So, we are existent, without time and space.” (Reality in Forty Verses, verse 16 )
==========
What are the marks of the Guru’s grace?
It is beyond words or thoughts.
If that is so, how is it that it is said that the disciple realises his true state by the Guru’s grace?
It is like the elephant which wakes up on seeing a lion in its dream.
Even as the elephant wakes up at the mere sight of the lion, so too is it certain that the disciple wakes up from the sleep of ignorance into the wakefulness of true knowledge through the Guru’s benevolent look of grace.
How can there be a connection between the Self which is
pure knowledge and the triple factors which are relative knowledge?
This is, in a way, like the working of a cinema.
The Cinema:
1) The lamp inside (the apparatus) = The Self.
2) The lens in front of the lamp = The pure (sattvic) mind close to the Self
3) The film which is a long series of separate photos = The stream of latent tendencies consisting of subtle thoughts.
4) The lens, the light passing through it and the lamp, which together form the focused light = The mind, the illumination of it and the Self, which together form the seer or the jjva.
5) The light passing through the lens and falling on the screen = The light of the Self emerging from the mind through the senses, and falling on the world
6) The various kinds of pictures appearing in the light of the screen = The various forms and names appearing as the objects perceived in the light of the world
7) The mechanism which sets the film in motion = The divine law manifesting the latent tendencies of the mind.
***

Just as the pictures appear on the screen as long as the film throws the shadows through the lens, so the phenomenal world will continue to appear to the individual in the waking and dream states as long as there are latent mental impressions. Just as the lens magnifies the tiny specks on the film to a huge size and as a number of pictures are shown in a second, so the mind enlarges the sprout-like tendencies into treelike thoughts and shows, in a second, innumerable worlds. Again, just as there is only the light of the lamp visible when there is no film, so the Self alone shines without the triple factors when the mental concepts in the form of tendencies are absent in the states of deep sleep, swoon and samadhi. Just as the lamp illumines the lens, etc. while remaining unaffected, the Self illumines the ego (Chidabhasa) etc., while Itself remaining unaffected.

2011-06-25T18:51:00.005+05:30

Oprah, Elie Wiesel, problem of God Evil

Oprah's interview with Elie Weisel, published in oprah.com is reproduced below. An extract, in which Wiesel reiterates his acceptance of God, inspite of his traumatic experience:

Oprah: Where are you and God with each other these days? Elie Wiesel: We still have a few problems! But even in the camps, I never divorced God. After the war, I went on praying to God. I was angry. I protested. I'm still protesting—and occasionally, I'm still angry. But it's not because of the past, but the present. When I see victims of a tragedy—and especially children—I say to God, "Don't tell me that you have nothing to do with this. You are everywhere—you are God."

If we read our Puranic stories, we notice that God took avatars (literally - came down to earth) *after* atrocities by evil tyrants had happened. In the famous Gita Slokam "*yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya glaanir bhavati*" Krishna assures only that whenever Adharma prevails over Dharma, He comes down to restore the balance in favour of Dharma. There is no explanation as to why adharma was allowed to prevail, in the first instance.
The problem baffling all genuine seekers (not those who merely question to satisfy their intelligent ego), is the obtrusiveness of evil and the absence of a logical explanation for its power and its existence in an universe that owes its origin and existence to God, who is portrayed/postulated as omnipotent and benevolent. One such seeker was British author C.E.M. Joad who was a strong believer in Atheism until about age 40; in his earlier writings, he had denied that an omnipotent God could exist because of the dominance of evil and its power to vanquish good. During World War II, a change came over him and he felt the need for the existence of a power to resist evil since, by oneself, one was powerless. He expressed his views in his new book "God and Evil". The particular events which caused this change in him were the cruel killing of five million defenseless Jewish men, women and children in gas-chambers by Nazi Germany and the many horrors of World War II including the total destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities with atom-bombs that killed almost the entire civilian population of the two cities.
In the first part of this book, he argues elaborately that every logical explanation to reconcile the two positions was bound to fail and then proceeds to Part II of the book commencing with the statement: ".... the conclusions of the intellect deny that the orthodox God of the religious hypothesis - omnipotent and benevolent, could have been the creator of the world; and deny it precisely because of the fact of evil. But if the intellect denies what the heart demands, what then?”

He answers: “...perhaps the deadlock is a sign of, perhaps it is even a punishment for, intellectual arrogance...The considerations which have set my mind working again on the problems of religion are of an emotional order .....the emotions are those connected with inadequacy. The life that lacks religion lacks, so I have come to feel, fullness and roundness, and the desire to find that true which I have always believed to be false, to know something of that which I have thought to be unknowable grows as the years pass by. One is dismayed by the evil at large in the world and in oneself, depressed and humiliated by the inadequacy of one's efforts to cope with it, humiliated then by the inadequacy of one's own self. It is from precisely such a feeling of humiliation that, religious writers have often urged, the search for and need of God, take their rise. What is more, the seeker who is inspired by such a mood may not be wholly without hope of succeeding in his quest. For alienated by intellectual pride, they have assured us, God draws nearer to those who approach Him in humbleness of spirit."
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From Oprah Winfrey's web-site: http://www2.oprah.com/omagazine/200011/omag_200011_elie_b.jhtml

OPRAH'S CUT WITH ELIE WIESEL

He's one of the people I most respect: Elie Wiesel. After I first read his memoir *Night* seven years ago, I was not the same—you can't be the same after hearing how Elie, at age 15, survived the horror of the Holocaust death camps. Through his eyes, we witness the depths of both human cruelty and human grace—and we're left grappling with what remains of Elie, a teenage boy caught between the two. I gain courage from his courage. The story—and especially that number, six million—numbs us: A Jew hater named Adolf Hitler rises to power in Germany, the world goes to war in 1939, and when the showdown is over six years later, the tyrant has slaughtered six million Jews. Six million. Inconceivable. We see footage of the concentration camps, the gas chambers, the gallows.Yet words like Holocaust and Auschwitz are still abstractions—seemingly impossible until we see photos of someone who was there: a Face, Eyes, Hair, Prison numbers tattooed into an arm, a real person like Elie Wiesel who, 55 years ago, made it through the atrocity.
"How could you live through the Holocaust and not be bitter?" I ask Elie. At 72, he emanates quiet strength; with his strong handgrip, it's as if he's saying, "I assure you—I am alive." We sit across from each other at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan, where hundreds come to see evidence of what happened to the Jewish people. Thousands already know Elie Wiesel's name—he is a prolific writer, a professor at Boston University and an activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986—but I want him to take me back to the time when living to tell the story was the last thing that mattered to him. I wanted to know: "What does it take to be normal again, after having your humanity stripped away by the Nazis?"

"What is abnormal is that I am normal," he says. "That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life—that is what is abnormal." "Why didn't you go insane?" "To this day," he says, "that is a mystery to me." and a miracle. After he was liberated from Buchenwald in 1945, he and other orphans were sent to France. There, he lived in an orphanage, then later supported himself as a tutor and choir director—and he decided that he wanted to live again. He studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne, and in 1952 he became a reporter for a newspaper in Tel Aviv. For ten years after his release, he vowed not to speak of his experience. "I wanted to be sure that the words I was going to use about this event were the proper words," he has said.
In our time together, Elie and I talk about how it is possible that he can still believe in the sovereignty of a force bigger than himself, why he has no explanation for his survival in the death camps, and what, five decades after Auschwitz, brings him what he calls real joy.

Oprah: There may be no better person than you to speak about living with gratitude. Despite all the tragedy you've witnessed, do you still have a place inside you for gratefulness?
Elie Wiesel: Absolutely. Right after the war, I went around telling people, "Thank you just for living, for being human." And to this day, the words that come most frequently from my lips are ‘thank you’. When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.

O: Does having seen the worst of humanity make you more grateful for ordinary occurrences?
EW: For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.
O: Did you ever hate your oppressors?
EW: I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying [the Bible and the Cabala] to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.
O: On your first night in the camp, you saw babies being thrown into the flames. Can you ever forgive those who killed the children?
EW: Who am I to forgive? Only the children themselves could forgive. If I forgive, I should do it in their name. Otherwise, it is arrogant.
O: By becoming a voice for those who are suffering, are you doing what the world did not do for Jews during the Holocaust?
EW: I've gone everywhere, trying to stop so many atrocities: Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia. The least I can do is show the victims that they are not alone. When I went to Cambodia, journalists asked me, "What are you doing here? This is not a Jewish tragedy." I answered, "When I needed people to come, they didn't. That's why I am here."
O: Is it our indifference and arrogance that makes us Americans feel that we are the center of the universe—that a mother's pain after losing her child in Bosnia or Nigeria isn't as important as our own pain?
EW: I wouldn't generalize. There are people in America who are so sensitive. Whenever I meet young Americans abroad, they are there to help. A doctor in New York read a quote of mine that sparked her involvement. Somebody had asked me, "What is the most important commandment in the Bible?" and I said, "Thou shalt not stand idly by." So she packed up her office and went to Macedonia—I met her there... We cannot free all the prisoners in the world or save all the victims of AIDS, but we can at least show them that we are with them.
O: You and the others in the camp were forced to march by three people who were hanged. And somebody behind you whispered, "Where is God?"
EW: A voice in me said, "God is there."
O: Where are you and God with each other these days?
EW: We still have a few problems! But even in the camps, I never divorced God. After the war, I went on praying to God. I was angry. I protested. I'm still protesting—and occasionally, I'm still angry. But it's not because of the past, but the present. When I see victims of a tragedy—and especially children—I say to God, "Don't tell me that you have nothing to do with this. You are everywhere—you are God."
O: Did you come out of the horror of the Holocaust with your ability to love intact?
EW: After my liberation, I fell in love with every girl—consecutively. But I would never dare tell a girl that I loved her, because I was timid—and afraid of rejection. I missed so many opportunities because I was afraid to say what I felt. I needed to love more than I needed to be loved. I needed to know that I could love—that after all I had seen, there was love in my heart.
O: Do you remember the day you were released from the camp?
EW: April 11, 1945. The Americans were close by, and a few days before that, on April 5, the Germans had decided to evacuate all the Jews. Every day, they would evacuate thousands—and most were killed upon leaving. I was in a children's block with other adolescents, and we were left until the end. [But every day we marched to the gate anyway.] I was near the gate more than five times before I was released, and each time, the gate closed just before I came to it.
O: How do you explain that you survived the camps?
EW: I have no explanation.
O: You—someone who has studied the Talmud, the Cabala—have no explanation?
EW: Believe me, I have tried to know, but I do not. If it is God, I have problems with that. If he bothered to save me, why couldn't he have saved all the others? There were people worthier than I.
O: Don't you think your survival has something to do with who you've become and what you've said to the world about the Holocaust?
EW: No, no, no. The price is too high. Because I survived, I must do everything possible to help others.

A few relevant Quotes:

We might well pray for God to invade and conquer us, for until He does, we remain in peril from a thousand foes. We bear within us the seeds of our own disintegration. The strength of our flesh is an ever present danger to our souls. Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life. Safety and peace come only after we have been forced to our knees. So He conquers us and by that benign conquest saves us for Himself.-A. W. Tozer

Whatever be our conception of the universe we must, it is obvious, start somehow; we must begin with something; and the something with which we begin, from the very fact that we do begin with it, must itself be without explanation, since, if something else were invoked to explain it, then the "something else" must needs be logically prior to that which it is invoked to explain. Thus the "something" being explained by a logically prior "something else" could not have been ultimate. -- C. E. M. Joad, in God and Evil

Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal -- a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever. ... Dwight Lyman Moody

If we consider the lives of people who believe in God, we so often find that they make good sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, employers, and employees -- they have many individual virtues; but they have no way of life other than that which has been imposed upon them by their environment. It is their sociological conditions, their social class, their neighbourhood, their national characteristics, rather than their spiritual faith, which determine their outlook and values: they are an overwhelming demonstration that it is the economic conditions and background of one's life which determine what one is and what one will think. This is an intolerable condition, and so long as it persists we shall not be able to make any impact on the world, because it will be abundantly clear that it is the world which is making its impact upon us.
... Douglas Rhymes, in "The Place of the Laity in the Parish"

When anger enters the mind, wisdom departs. -- Thomas à Kempis

Khalil Gibran

2011-06-19T07:08:00.003+05:30

ON GOOD AND EVIL

From: ‘PROPHET’ by Khalil Gibran:

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily, when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves,
and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.

You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves;
it is only a divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly
among perilous isles, yet sink not to the bottom.

You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root
that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root:
"Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit, giving is a need,
as receiving is a need to the root.

You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward.
But you who are strong and swift,
see that you do not limp before the lame,
deeming it kindness.

You are good in countless ways, and
you are not evil when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.

In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness:
and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea,
carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends
and lingers before it reaches the shore.
But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little,
"Wherefore are you slow and halting?"

For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your garment?"
nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?"

Khalil Gibran

INDIAN Rip Van Winkles

2011-06-17T09:00:00.007+05:30

"A call to wake up" - for all of us.

India too, like USA in early19th Century, is rapidly changing, but the political parties are still clinging to their old ways and not keeping in-step with the rest of the Country. What will it take to wake up these Rip Van Winkles who are pretending to be asleep?

A critical appreciation of Washington Irving's 'Rip Van Vinkle':
From: http://www.delanceyplace.com : Jun 16, 2011 -
http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?1708

The story of rip van winkle

In today's excerpt - Rip Van Winkle, who was author Washington Irving's vehicle for conveying the lightning pace of change in early post-Revolutionary America. During this period, Americans became the first people to expect and to prize change, and business and profit became more honored than in any other country in the Western world:

"During the second decade of the nineteenth century, writer Washington Irving developed an acute sense that his native land was no longer the same place it had been just a generation earlier. Irving had conservative and nostalgic sensibilities, and he sought to express some of his amazement at the transformation that had taken place in America by writing his story 'Rip Van Winkle.' Irving had his character Rip awaken from a sleep that had begun before the Revolution and had lasted twenty years. When Rip entered his old village, he immediately felt lost. The buildings, the faces, the names were all strange and incomprehensible. 'The very village was altered - it was larger and more populous,' and idleness, except among the aged, was no longer tolerated. 'The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility' - a terrifying situation for Rip, who had had 'an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour.' Even the language was strange - 'rights of citizens - elections - members of Congress - liberty and other words which were a perfect babylonish jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.' When people asked him 'on which side he voted' and 'whether he was Federal or a Democrat,' Rip could only stare 'in vacant stupidity.'

" 'Rip Van Winkle' became the most popular of Irving's many stories, for early nineteenth-century Americans could appreciate Rip's bewilderment. Although superficially the political leadership seemed much the same - on the sign at the village inn the face of George Washington had simply replaced that of George III - beneath the surface Rip, like most Americans, knew that 'everything's changed.' In a few short decades Americans had experienced a remarkable transformation in their society and culture, and, like Rip and his creator, many wondered what had happened and who they really were.

"Before the Revolution of 1776, America had been merely a collection of disparate British colonies composed of some two million subjects huddled along a narrow strip of the Atlantic coast - European outposts whose cultural focus was still London, the metropolitan center of the empire. Following the War of 1812 with Great Britain - often called the Second American Revolution - these insignificant provinces had become a single giant continental republic with nearly ten million citizens, many of whom had already spilled into the lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains. The cultural focus of this huge expansive nation was no longer abroad but was instead directed inward at its own boundless possibilities.

"By 1815 Americans had experienced a transformation in the way they related to one another and in the way they perceived themselves and the world around them. And this transformation took place before industrialization, before urbanization, before railroads, and before any of the technological breakthroughs usually associated with modern social change. In the decades following the Revolution America changed so much and so rapidly that Americans not only became used to change but came to expect it and prize it.

"The population grew dramatically, doubling every twenty years or so, as it had for several generations, more than twice the rate of growth of any European country. And people were on the move as never before. Americans spread themselves over half a continent at astonishing speeds. Between 1790 and 1820 New York's population quadrupled; Kentucky's multiplied nearly eight times. In a single decade Ohio grew from a virtual wilderness (except, of course, for the presence of the native Indians, whom white Americans scarcely acknowledged) to become more populous than most of the century-old colonies had been at the time of the Revolution. In a single generation Americans occupied more territory than they had occupied during the entire 150 years of the colonial period, and in the process killed or displaced tens of thousands of Indians.

"Although most Americans in 1815 remained farmers living in rural areas, they had become, especially in the North, one of the most highly commercialized people in the world. They were busy buying and selling not only with the rest of the world but increasingly with one another, everyone, it seemed, trying to realize what Niles' Weekly Register declared 'the almost universal ambition to get forward.' Nowhere in the Western world was business and working for profit more praised and honored."

Author: Gordon Wood Title: Empire of LibertyPublisher: OxfordDate: Copyright 2009 by Oxford University Press, Inc.Pages: 1-2Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oxford History of the United States) by Gordon S. Wood. Published by Oxford University Press, USA

2011-06-13T10:34:00.005+05:30

··· The 100 Dollar Bill
A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $100 bill in a room of 200 people, and asked, "Who would like this £100 bill?" -- Hands started going up.
He said, "I am going to give this $100 bill to one of you, but first let me do this." He proceeded to crumple the $100 up.
He then asked, "Who still wants it?” Still the hands were up in the air.
"Well".....he replied, "What if I do this?" and he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. Now who still wants it?" he asked. Hands still shot up!
"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the bill, you still wanted it...because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $100 to you."
Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt, by the decisions we make, and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you never lose your value!
Dirty, clean crumpled or finely creased you are still priceless to those who love you. The worth of our lives comes not in what we do or who we know, but by WHO WE ARE.
You are special; don't ever forget it.

Count your blessings. NOT your problems.
•Author Unknown

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Seeing the Value of a Value
A value, any value, universal or situational, is a value for me only when I see the value of the value as valuable to me. Me – the comfortable me – is the source of my values. I fail to follow a universal value only when I do not clearly see its value to me. I make expedient situational choices only when I think such choices will make me feel good.
-- Swami Dayananda

THE ROLE-MODEL IN SOCIETY

2011-06-11T16:30:00.002+05:30

Why has our country earned the reputation of being one among the most corrupt Nations of the World? The Bhagavad Gita states that this happens when eminent, prominent persons in Society who are supposed to lead peoperly, themselves commence to adopt corrupt practices to enrich themselves. Sri Krishna has this answer in Slokam 21 Chapter III of the Bhagavad Gita:
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Bhagavad Gita Ch.3 Slokam 21
यद्यदाचरति श्रेष्ठस्तत्तदेवेतरो जनः।
स यत्प्रमाणं कुरुते लोकस्तदनुवर्तते।।
yadyadācarati śrēṣṭhastattadēvētarō janaḥ
sa yatpramāṇaṅ kurutē lōkastadanuvartatē
यद्यत् whatsoever, आचरति does, श्रेष्ठः the best, तत्तत् that, एव only, इतरः the other, जनः people, सः he (that great man), यत् what, प्रमाणम् standard (authority, demonstration), कुरुते does, लोकः the world (people), तत् that, अनुवर्तते follows.
Whatsoever a great man does, that the other men also do; whatever he sets up as the standard, that the world (mankind) follows.
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Man is a social animal and an imitating person too. He takes his ideas of right and wrong from those whom he regards as his moral superior. Whatever a great man does, the same is considered as an authority by his followers. They try to follow him. They endeavour to tread in his footsteps.
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For the protection of the world, all acts that are appropriate to one's station and stage in life must always be performed by an eminent man who is distinguished for his wisdom. Otherwise, the evil generated from the ruin of the large masses of the world (who neglect their duties by following his example), will bring him down, even if he were a follower of pure Jnana Yoga. – Sri Ramanuja
Whatever the superior person upholds as pramanam, authority, be it Vedic or secular - an ordinary person follows; i.e., he accepts that very thing as authoritative. (Hence, Krishna advises Arjuna who stands confused about his dharma in war, to follow his (Krishna’s) advice.) – Sri Sankara
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In the present context, the श्रेष्ठः śrēṣṭhas are the leaders in power, governing the country. When they fail in their duty to practice dharma, we need a Krishna to appear as promised by Him in "yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya glaanirbhavati" to make a course-correction and guide the country and lead the people back on to the right path. Let us pray that such an avatara-purusha comes to restore Bharatavarsha to its pristine glory. May the Lord's spirit empower him to act properly and effectively.

GITA Ch.3 - Arjuna's confusion

2011-05-17T11:29:00.006+05:30

Gita Chapter III: Krishna's reply in Slokam-3

Purify Mind thro' Karma Yoga, practise Jnana Yoga, gain Atma Jnana and achieve freedom from bondage (moksha)

Desiring for the fruits of actions initiated for fulfillment of one's desires creates pain/pleasure and an ever-repeating cycle of 'action-reaction-action' known as samsara saagara. It is also the cause of rebirth. We take a new body repeatedly to experience karma phalam. If, however, we perform actions with Ishvara bhaava in fulfillment of His purpose without desire for fulfillment of the desires of the ego-self, we cross the samsara sagaram and are released from the bond of repeated births, attain to the blissful state of the immortal abode. Sages who possess stitha pragnya dedicate the fruits of their actions to the Vasudeva Kutumbam, not for personal 'enjoyment'. The buddhi referred to in the three verses 49, 50 and 51 of Gita Ch. II is the wisdom of the Sankhyas, i.e., the knowledge of the Self, Atma-Jnana which dawns when the mind is purified by Karma Yoga.

Chapter III opens with Arjuna expressing his confusion: Yoga of Knowledge or Yoga of Action? Krishna instructs him that self-less action through Karma Yoga cleanses the mind and prepares the sadhaka to receive atma gnyana, knowledge which takes him to the Goal. Ramana Maharishi described the nature of such action as: Ishvaraarpitam na icchayaa kritam, chitta shodhakam mukti saadhakam - that action which is dedicated to the Lord and is not initiated to satisfy the mind's ego-based desires for power, possession and pleasure but action for the benefit of the samudaayam, society at large and public weal. Such action, Karma Yoga, leads to the Jnana Yoga path and the ultimate goal of sat-chit-ananda, bliss-experience.

God created the world, with many dedicated, determined people who can and are willing to work for establishing harmony in the world; these are the karma-yogis, aware of the duty entrusted to them by the Creator. They motivate people like Arjuna to join them in their work for God. Perhaps, that is the reason for the last slokam in Bhagavd Gita (18.78): yatra yogeshvarah krishno/ yatra partho dhanur-dharah/ tatra shreeh vijayo bhootih. Swami Chinmayananda has explained the significance of this picture of the togetherness of Krishna and Arjuna lucidly thus:

"ARJUNA, READY WITH HIS BOW (Paartho-Dhanurdharah) --- Paartha represents here 'the confused, limited, ordinary mortal, with all his innumerable weaknesses, agitations and fears.' When he has thrown down his "instrument" of effort and achievement, his bow, and has reclined to impotent idleness, no doubt, there is no hope for any success or prosperity. But when he is "READY WITH HIS BOW," when he is no more idle but has a willing readiness to use his faculties to brave the challenges of life, there, in that man, we recognise a 'PAARTHA READY WITH HIS BOW'. Now putting these two pictures together --- Lord Krishna, the Yogeshwarah, and Arjuna, the Dhanurdharah --- the symbolism of a way-of-life gets completed, wherein, reinforced with spiritual understanding, man gets ready to exert and pour in his endevours, to tame life and master prosperity (shreyas). In such a case, there is no power that can stop him from success. In short, the creed of the Geeta is that spirituality can be lived in life, and true spiritual understanding is an asset to a man engaged in the battle-of-life.

In modern, day-to-day lives we will be taking the first few steps if we work towards maintaining harmony between the husband and wife, ourselves learn and practise ethical/moral values and inculcate values in the children, keeping a check on our own egoistic behaviour. As Rajaji defined: Culture is restraint. Gita instructs us in many ways how to be successful in this art. Let us make a beginning in this janmam, the present life. - krishnaswamy
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Commentary on Gita Ch.III-Sloka 3 from GitaSuper-site

Sri Ramanuja's Sanskrit Commentary
English translation by Swami Adi-devananda

3.3 The Lord said -- You have not properly understood what I taught you before. In this world, full of people with varying degrees of qualifications, I have taught in the days of yore two ways, that of knowledge (Jnana Yoga) and that of works, according to the qualifications of aspirants. There is no contradiction in this. It is not possible for all people of the world in whom the desire for release has arisen, to become capable immediately for the practice of Jnana Yoga. But he who performs the worship of the Supreme Person without desire for fruits and thereby gets completely rid of inner impurities and keeps his senses unagitated --- he becomes competent for the path of knowledge.That all activities are for performing the worship of the Supreme Person will be taught in the Gita verse, 'He from whom the activities of all beings arise and by whom all this is pervaded --- by worshipping Him with his duty man reaches perfection' (18.46). Earlier also performance of activities without any attachment to the fruits is enjoined by the verse beginning with. 'You have the right to work alone ...' (2.47). Next for those whose intellect has been redeemed by this kind of discipline, is enjoined Jnana Yoga by the words, 'When a man renounces all the desires ...' (2.55).Consequently, firm devotion to Jnana Yoga is taught only to the Sankhyas, i.e., those persons who are competent to follow the discipline of the knowledge of the self, and Karma Yoga to Yogins, i.e., to those competent for the path of work. Sankhya means Buddhi and those who are endowed with the Buddhi (intellectual or mental disposition) having only the self for its object, are Sankhyans. Therefore those who are not fit for this are qualified for Karma Yoga. Those who are possessed of Buddhi which is agitated by objects of the senses, are the persons qualified for Karma Yoga, whereas those whose Buddhi is not thus agitated, are qualified for Jnana Yoga. Therefore nothing contradictory and confusing is taught.It is said in the next stanza that Jnana Yoga is difficult to practise all at once, even when the desire for release arises in any worldly person.
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Sri Sankaracharya's Sanskrit Commentary
English translation by Swami Gambhirananda
3.3 anagha, O unblemished one, O sinless one; This word of address suggests that Arjuna is qualified to receive the Lord's instruction. dvividha, two kinds of ; nishTha, steadfastness, persistence in what is undertaken; asmin loke, in this world, for the people of the three castes who are qualified for following the scriptures; proktaa, were spoken of; maya, by Me, the omniscient God, who had revealed for them the traditional teachings of the Vedas, which are the means of securing prosperity and the highest Goal; puraa, in the days of yore, in the beginning the creation, after having brought into being the creatures.Now then, which is that steadfastness of two kinds? In answer the Lord says: The steadfastness jnaanayogena, through the Yoga of Knowledge-Knowledge itself being the Yoga Here jnaana, Knowledge, refers to the knowledge of the supreme Reality, and Yoga is used in the derivative sense of 'that (Knowledge) through which one gets united with Brahman'.-; had been stated saankhyaanaam, for the men of realization-those possessed of the Knowledge arising from the discrimination with regard to the Self and the not-Self, those who have espoused monasticism from the stage of Celibacy; itself, those to whom the entity presented by the Vedantic knowledge has become fully ascertained (see Mu. 3.2.6)-,the monks who are known as the parama-hamsas, those who are established in Brahman alone. And the steadfastness karma-yogena, through the Yoga of Action-action itself being the Yoga Yoga here means 'that through which one gets united with, comes to have, prosperity', i.e. such actions as go by the name of righteousness and are prescribed by the scriptures. had been stated yoginaam, for the yogis, the men of action (rites and duties).

This is the idea. Again, had it been intended or stated or if it will be stated in the Gita by the Lord-and if it has also been so stated in the Vedas-that Knowledge and action are to be practised in combination by one and the same person for attaining the same human Goal, why then should He here tell His dear supplicant Arjuna, that steadfastness in either Knowledge or action is to be practised only by different persons who are respectively qualified? If, on the other hand, it be supposed that the Lord's idea is, 'After hearing about both Knowledge and action, Arjuna will himself practise them (in combination); but, to others, I shall speak of them as being meant to be pursued by different persons', then the Lord would be imagined to be unreliable, being possessed of likes and dislikes! And that is untenable. So, from no point of view whatsoever can there be a combination of Knowledge and action. And what has been said by Arjuna regarding superiority of Wisdom over action, that stands confirmed for not having been refuted; and (it also stands confirmed) that steadfastness in Knowledge is suitable for being practised by monks alone. And from the statement that they (Knowledge and action) are to be followed by different persons, it is understood that this has the Lord's approval.

Noticing that Arjuna had become dejected under the impression, 'You are urging me to that very action which is a source of bondage', and was thinking thus, 'I shall not undertake action', the Lord said, 'Na karmanaam anaarambhaat, not by abstaining from action,' etc. Or:-When steadfastness in Knowledge and steadfastness in action become incapable of being pursued simultaneously by one and the same person owing to mutual contradiction, then, since it may be concluded that they become the cause of attaining the human Goal independently of each other, therefore, in order to show-that the steadfastness in action is a means to the human Goal, not independently, but by virtue of being instrumental in securing steadfastness in Knowledge; and that, on the other hand, steadfastness in Knowledge, having come into being through the means of steadfastness in action, leads to the human Goal independently without anticipating anything else-,the Lord said.
---------------------------------------------------------
Commentary by Swami Sivananda
The path of knowledge of the Sankhyas (Jnana Yoga) was described by Lord Krishna in chapter II, verses 11 to 38; the path of action (Karma Yoga) from 40 to 53. Pura Prokta may also mean "In the beginning of creation the twofold path was given by Me to this world." Those who are endowed with the four means and who have sharp, subtle intellect and bold understanding are fit for Jnana Yoga. Those who have a tendency or inclination for wok are fit for Karma Yoga. (The four means are discrimination, dispassion, six-fold virutes, and longing for liberation. The six-fold virtues are: control of the mind, control of the senses, fortitude (endurance), turning away from the objects of the world, faith and tranquility.) It is not possible for a man to practise the two Yogas simultaneously. Karma Yoga is a means to an end. It purifies the heart and prepares the aspirant for the reception of knowledge. The Karma Yogi should take up Jnana Yoga as soon as his heart is purified. Jnana Yoga takes the aspirant directly to the goal without any extraneous help. (compare: ch.V.5).
=======================================
(Individuals like Ramana Maharishi who have cleansed their mind in previous births are born ready to continue their travel on the spiritual path, to practice Jnana Yoga and realise moksha. - krishmaswamy)

GOD AND EVIL

2010-08-31T08:53:00.009+05:30

CEM Joad (author of "God and Evil", was an active, crusading atheist who changed after experiencing the “evil at large in the world” during World War II. He has explained the change thus, in his own words:

".... the conclusions of the intellect deny that the orthodox God of the religious hypothesis - omnipotent and benevolent, could have been the creator of the world; and deny it precisely because of the fact of evil. But if the intellect denies what the heart demands, what then? [...] perhaps the deadlock is a sign of, perhaps it is even a punishment for, intellectual arrogance...

The considerations which have set my mind working again on the problems of religion are of an emotional order [...].the emotions are those connected with inadequacy. The life that lacks religion lacks, so I have come to feel, fullness and roundness, and the desire to find that true which I have always believed to be false, to know something of that which I have thought to be unknowable grows as the years pass by. One is dismayed by the evil at large in the world and in oneself, depressed and humiliated by the inadequacy of one's efforts to cope with it, humiliated then by the inadequacy of one's own self.

It is from precisely such a feeling of humiliation that, religious writers have often urged, the search for and need of God, take their rise. What is more, the seeker who is inspired by such a mood may not be wholly without hope of succeeding in his quest. For alienated by intellectual pride , they have assured us, God draws nearer to those who approach Him in humbleness of spirit."
***
My own change from disbelief in my younger days to starting on the path of self-enquiry was aided by a reading of this book and later, other writings and attending discourses. At the root of the problem is the hard fact that if one does not become aware of the limitations of the logical mind and allows it to have dominance over oneself, it will never be possible to reconcile the existence of God with the prevalence of evil and develop Faith. This same ever-questioning mind is also capable of changing into a silent one with deeper and different perception of the world, through contemplation and meditation.
I have only made a beginning in this life - much later than present day youngsters who commence the walk on the spiritual path much earlier. I hope that these late efforts will carry me through to the next life as assured by Shri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita and as envisaged in the following statement about re-birth by John D Barrow: "Perhaps, the end of life in the universe is really just like turning off your computer, and then turning it on later on — the same information stored. But, I don't know."
Seems similar to the Hindu Vasana theory, of tendencies carried over from one birth to the next. We are free to delete, modify, add, erase and start afresh every time and any time.

Oprah, Elie Wiesel, problem of God Evil
Oprah's interview with Elie Weisel, is published at: http://www2.oprah.com/omagazine/200011/omag_200011_elie_b.jhtml.
An extract, in which Wiesel reiterates his acceptance of God, inspite of his traumatic experience:

Oprah: Where are you and God with each other these days?

Elie Wiesel: We still have a few problems! But even in the camps, I never divorced God. After the war, I went on praying to God. I was angry. I protested.
I'm still protesting—and occasionally, I'm still angry. But it's not because of the past, but the present. When I see victims of a tragedy—and especially children— I say to God,
"Don't tell me that you have nothing to do with this. You are everywhere—you are God."
************
If we read our Puranic stories, we notice that God took avatars (literally - came down to earth) *after* atrocities by evil tyrants had happened. In the famous Gita Slokam "*yadaa yadaa hi dharmasya glaanir bhavati*" Krishna assures only that whenever Adharma prevails over Dharma, He comes down to restore the balance in favour of Dharma. There is no explanation as to why adharma was allowed to prevail, in the first instance.
The problem baffling all genuine seekers (not those who merely question to satisfy their intelligent ego), is the obtrusiveness of evil and the absence of a logical explanation for its power and its existence in an universe that owes its origin and existence to God, who is portrayed/ postulated as omnipotent and benevolent. If Elie Weisel could accept God's presence with Faith, why can't we too?

**************************************************************************
A few relevant Quotes:
We might well pray for God to invade and conquer us, for until He does, we remain in peril from a thousand foes. We bear within us the seeds of our own disintegration. The strength of our flesh is an ever present danger to our souls. Deliverance can come to us only by the defeat of our old life. Safety and peace come only after we have been forced to our knees. So He conquers us and by that benign conquest saves us for Himself.-A. W. Tozer

Whatever be our conception of the universe we must, it is obvious, start somehow; we must begin with something; and the something with which we begin, from the very fact that we do begin with it, must itself be without explanation, since, if something else were invoked to explain it, then the "something else" must needs be logically prior to that which it is invoked to explain. Thus the "something" being explained by a logically prior "something else" could not have been ultimate. -- C. E. M. Joad, in God and Evil

Some day you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal -- a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body. I was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit will live forever. ... Dwight Lyman Moody

If we consider the lives of people who believe in God, we so often find that they make good sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, employers, and employees -- they have many individual virtues; but they have no way of life other than that which has been imposed upon them by their environment. It is their sociological conditions, their social class, their neighbourhood, their national characteristics, rather than their spiritual faith, which determine their outlook and values: they are an overwhelming demonstration that it is the economic conditions and background of one's life which determine what one is and what one will think. This is an intolerable condition, and so long as it persists we shall not be able to make any impact on the world, because it will be abundantly clear that it is the world which is making its impact upon us. ... Douglas Rhymes, in "The Place of the Laity in the Parish"

When anger enters the mind, wisdom departs. -- Thomas à Kempis

When you have come to the edge of all the light you have
And step into the darkness of the unknown
Believe that one of the two will happen to you
Either you'll find something solid to stand on
Or you'll be taught how to fly!” -- Richard Bach

IGNORANCE IS BLISS?

2010-08-11T16:28:00.003+05:30

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise" - Thomas Gray

The oft-quoted mantra of 'Ignorance is bliss' is a clever but specious quip. It has raised the status of Ignorance to a pseudo-virtue. Many are quite fond of quoting it to justify to themselves their general indifference to all things religious/scriptural. But the quote is actually a statement of sad and profound irony. It appears at the end of a poem by Thomas Gray titled "Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College":

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.

The "Ode" by Thomas Gray is a poem of great moral despair and it ends with those famous lines on a deeply ironical note. It was written at a time when England was in the throes of great economic and social turmoil caused by the advent of the Industrial Revolution. The poet was reflecting upon the many ills and injustices that were bedeviling his country but of which his countrymen, the silent and thoughtless, seemed utterly ignorant. The line "Where Ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise" actually was meant to describe the attitude of the young but ignorant English masses of those times. They had really "no sense of ills to come"; they didn't seem to know "their fate". They busied themselves only with the humdrum, day-to-day cares of personal life and livelihood. They did not seem to "care beyond today", believing that any thought of the Beyond would only "destroy their (petty, private) paradise" (an apt description, perhaps, of the non-voting population every where).

From the Unreal to Real - Upanishad

2010-06-12T17:53:00.006+05:30

ASATO MAA SADGAMAYA
Thanks to: http://archives.amritapuri.org/bharat/mantra/asatoma.php

asato maa sadgamaya
tamaso maa jyotir gamaya
mrtyormaa amrtam gamaya

Lead me from the asat to the sat.
Lead me from darkness to light.
Lead me from death to immortality.
(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad — I.iii.28)

This is true prayer—the seeker’s admission of his sense of limited-ness and his heartfelt cry for assistance in transcendence. It is not a prayer for the things of the world. It is not a prayer for food, shelter, health, partnership, riches, success, fame, glory or even for heaven. One who recites these three mantras has realized that such things are full of holes, soaked in pain and, even in abundance, will forever leave him wanting. It is in this full understanding that one turns to this prayer.
The essence of each of these three mantras is the same: "O, Guru, help me free myself from my sundry misunderstandings regarding myself, the universe and God, and bless me with true knowledge." It is in this spirit that devotees regularly chant these mantras twice daily, both at the conclusion of the morning archana and after the evening aarati.

The first mantra, asato maa sadgamaya means, "Lead me from the asat to the sat." In fact, it is best to not translate sat (nor its negative counterpart asat) for, as with many Sanskrit words, sat has many meanings; not only are most of them applicable here, their deliberate combined import provides a depth that no one of them could hold independently. These co-applicable meanings include: existence, reality and truth. (Co-applicable meanings for asat being: non-existence, non-reality and untruth.) We often speak of religion or philosophy as a search for Truth. But only in India’s philosophy of Advaita-Vedanta has the concept of "truth" been so meticulously and successfully dissected.
According to Advaita, for something to be considered true in the ultimate sense, it must be true not just at one given moment, but always be true — true in all three periods of time: the past, present and future.
In fact, Advaita goes one step further. It says: if something does not exist in all three periods of time then it does not truly exist, it is not ultimately real. Thus, truth, existence and reality are one and the same. That reality, Vedanta says, is what we call God.

The universe and its things are in a constant state of change. The planets are in constant motion, their positions in relation to each other and the other astral bodies are in continuous flux. The seasons similarly are ever-shifting. Scientifically, we can easily understand that our bodies (and the cells within them) come into existence, are born and then go through periods of growth, sustenance, deterioration and death. In fact these six modifications are part-and-parcel of everything in creation. On the level of emotions, we move back and forth between happiness, sorrow and anger. Even our intellectual convictions rarely stay fixed for very long. Therefore, according to Vedanta, we cannot call this world ultimately real. It is not ultimately true. Ultimately, it does not exist. It seems real etc. but it is not. Such a thing is called asat.

The seeker giving voice to this prayer has come to understand the finite nature of all the objects of the world, and he wants the Guru to guide him from the asat to the sat. He is fed up with depending on things that are not real. Why? Because just as the sandcastle is always washed away by the tide, dependence on the asat always ends in pain. sat is our True Self— the blissful consciousness that ever was, is and ever will be. Being beyond time, this consciousness can never be washed away by time’s tides. In fact, sat is there as the essential part of all of the asat objects. It is a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were. When speaking about the ultimate reality, Sages say it is of the nature of sat-cit-ananda: pure existence, pure consciousness and pure bliss.

The second mantra — tamaso maa jyotirgamaya — means "Lead me from darkness to light." When the Vedas refer to darkness and light, they mean ignorance and knowledge, because ignorance, like darkness, obscures true understanding. And in the same way that the only remedy for darkness is light, the only remedy for ignorance is knowledge. The knowledge spoken of here is again the knowledge of one’s true nature. Currently, in the darkness of our ignorance, we believe ourselves to be bound and limited. But the Guru and the scriptures are telling us that, in truth, we are not, never will be and never have been bound. Eternally we are sat-cit-ananda. The only thing that can remove our ignorance regarding our true nature is spiritual education at the hands of a True Master. At the culmination of such an education, light floods the room, as it were; darkness vanishes.

The final mantra mrtyormaa amrtam gamaya — means: "Lead me from death to immortality." This should not be taken as a prayer to live endless years in heaven or on earth. It is a prayer to the Guru for assistance in realizing the truth that "I was never born, nor can I ever die, as I am not the body, mind and intellect, but the eternal, blissful consciousness that serves as the substratum of all creation."
It is important to remember that, with all these mantras, the leading is not a physical leading. The Atma is not something far away that we have to make a pilgrimage to, nor is it something we need to transform ourselves into. Atma means "self". We do not need to transform our self into our self. Nor do we need to travel to it. We are it. The journey is a journey of knowledge. It is journey from what we misunderstood to be our self to what truly is our self. What the mantras really mean is "Lead me to the understanding that I am not the limited body, mind and intellect, but am, was and always will be that eternal, absolute, blissful consciousness that serves as their substratum."

The first step in attaining the knowledge for which one is praying when one chants these mantras is satsang: listening to spiritual talks, reading spiritual books and being in the company of spiritual seekers and, most importantly, spiritual masters. We need to continuously be fed the knowledge that our true nature is the Atma and not the body, mind and intellect. Through satsang, our attachment to the asat gradually lessens. Slowly as we understand that everything in the world — all worldly relationships, all worldly things — are ever-changing and impermanent, our attitude towards the world changes. We gain detachment. As we become more and more detached, our desires also naturally decrease, because we know that the things of the world are impermanent and cannot bring us lasting happiness. As the desires decrease, the mind becomes less and less agitated. It obtains serenity, stillness, peace. Then, with this stilled, subtle, penetrating mind we can finally come to realize our true nature.

In Vedanta, heaven—or rather heavens—are accepted as part of the lower reality. Unlike in other religions, going to heaven is not professed to be the ultimate goal of life. According to Vedanta, heaven can be likened to a vacation resort. After death, if one has done enough good deeds in life, one can go to heaven for a very long time. But eventually he will have to return to the earthly plane. Thus even though one may be in heaven, he is still bound and mired of ignorance to his true nature.

As it says in the Bhagavad-Gita:
From Brahma Loka to the lowest world,
all are places of misery wherein
repeated birth and death take place O Arjuna.
But one who comes to me, O son of Kunti,
never takes birth again. (Gita 8:16)

The human goal according Vedanta is Self-realization. The Atma is the ultimate reality. When one realizes one's true nature, one attains spiritual fulfillment in this life itself. Then, upon death, one does not go to any heavenly abode but simply merges into the supreme reality.

THE KALPATARU TREE

2010-06-02T11:12:00.008+05:30

May I share with the readers, Dr. Pradip Bhattacharya's excellent essay on
"Desire under the Kalpataru Tree" in which he quotes extensively from the Mahabharata: http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/076.htm and explains how we in our wish-fulfillment efforts, have to pay a high unanticipated future-cost and why we have to be wise in wishing for anything.

At the end of this very well-written article, the author concludes:
"This, then, is the picture of 'Desire under the Kalpataru': Desire, if powerful, does get fulfilled, but brings in its wake a price to be paid which, more often than not, outweighs the gratification experienced through fulfillment of the desire. [....] It is Yayati who sums it up in words of deceptive simplicity that go straight to the mark:

Desire never ends,
Desire grows with feeding,
Like sacrificial flames
Lapping up ghee.
Become the sole lord of
The world's paddy fields, wheat-fields,
Precious stones, beasts, women...
Still not enough.
Discard desire.
This disease kills. The wicked
Cannot give it up, old age
Cannot lessen it. True happiness
Lies in controlling it. (Mahabharata Adi parva, 85.12-14)

The experience of Vyasa's Yayati is echoed by a great epic poet of the occident John Milton, in 'Paradise Lost':

...They, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with lust, instead of fruit
Chewed bitter ashes.

This is the existential experience which pervades the Mahabharata and which Vyasa, the oriental seer-poet, envisions as an outcome of man's fascination with the Kalpataru. Vyasa creates a marvelously eidetic picture of this symbol in the words of Krsna in the Gita (15.1-3):

Mention is made of a cosmic fig-tree
Rooted above,
whose leaves are said to be the Vedas;
the knower of this fig-tree
is the knower of the Vedas.
Its branches reach out below and above,
its flowers are the objects of the senses;
below the ground flourish more roots,
giving birth to action.
You may not see its real shape,
nor its end, birth and existence.
Slice this fig-tree with non-attachment".

===============================================
My Note:
For an illustration of Yayati's statement: "Discard desire. This disease kills" and Oscal Wilde's ironical observation:."When the Gods choose to punish us, they merely answer our prayers" , you may like to read the strange, scary story of "The Monkey's Paw" "

Miscellaneous:

The Kalpataru had kindled in us a spark of fire by granting our first wish
and this has now grown into a blazing fire which consumes us
and we are unable to control or extinguish it.

We generally do not know what is ultimately good for ourselves.
Instead of leaving it to the Lord to grant our needs,
we demand from God the granting of our desires,
like a petulant child not knowing: "Mother knows best".

The result, according to Oscal Wilde:

When the Gods choose to punish us,
they merely answer our prayers!
To have all our prayers answered might be a curse!

Therefore, the Wise surrender to the Lord's Will,
believe with great faith that He best knows what we need
and accept what we receive from Him as His Prasadam.
Krishnaswamy

WHAT IS GOODNESS? - by TAGORE

2010-06-01T09:16:00.007+05:30

The question will be asked, "What is goodness? What does our moral nature mean?"
My answer is that when a man begins to have an extended vision of his self, when he realizes that he is much more than at present he seems to be, he begins to get conscious of his moral nature. Then he grows aware of that which he is yet to be, and the state not yet experienced by him becomes more real than that under his direct experience.
Necessarily, his perspective of life changes, and his will takes the place of his wishes. For will is the supreme wish of the larger life, the life whose greater portion is out of our present reach, most of whose objects are not before our sight.
Then comes the conflict of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our will, of the desire for things affecting our sense with the purpose that is within our heart. Then we begin to distinguish between what we immediately desire and what is good. For good is that which is desirable for our greater self. Thus, the sense of goodness comes out of a truer view of our life, which is connected view of the wholeness of the field of life, and which takes into account not only what is present before us but what is not, and perhaps never humanly can be.
--Rabindranath Tagore, in Sadhan

ON CONSOLING

2010-05-30T17:06:00.004+05:30

Over the years, I’ve tried to find simple ways to help ordinary people know what to do and remember how to be when in the company of someone in sorrow. A simple acronym, SALT— as in the salt of tears—emerged as a teaching tool to help learn by heart four basic premises for support. Four chapters in the book, a chapter for each letter, are dedicated to illustrating each skill:

• See them.
• Allow them.
• Listen to them.
• Trust them.

If you can simply See those in grief without acting on the urge to do something right away, you have taken the first step toward helping them to heal. Your unconditional compassion, without criticism and without your own projection, will Allow them to do what they need to. They may need to talk; your best response would be to Listen generously, without interruption, without asking questions or telling your own story. And finally, Trust that within them is everything they need to traverse this difficult path. They do not need your rescue. They need your quiet, steady faith in their resilience. -Marianna Cacciatore http://mariannacacciatore.com/introduction.htm

Let us welcome Change, the essence of life.

2010-05-01T10:56:00.003+05:30

When we stand still in space,
we part the air and,
as we move,
air moves in to make it whole.
We have other reasons for moving;
but the wise ones move
to make things whole.
Movement is the essence of time;
the whole world moves with it
in one direction -- forward.
Our physical body moves with time --
growing, ageing, decaying.
Our mental image of our 'Self'
should grow with time, not decay,
maturing like the fruit on a tree.
It is then harvested by the creator
not to be born again.
In our every day life,
we shall be happy if
we move to integrate. For,
move, we have to.
Let us not get attached to the space
of power, pelf, position that
we temporarily occupy, and always
remember that we have to move on.
A movement with resentment
brings in bitterness, division and misery.
Moving willingly to integrate,
leaving the space we occupy,
brings in fullness - Ananda, Bliss-eternal,
Sat-chit-ananda.

Pancha Kanyah - Ahalya

2010-04-26T14:27:00.006+05:30

The “Magic Suggestiveness” of Pancha Kanya
An exploration into some aspects of classical Indian feminism
http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/175.html
by: Dr (Mrs.) Ralla Guha Niyogi

(Original article on Pancha Kanya by Pradip Bhattacharya is at: http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/panchkanya/pk01.htm )

Extract from Dr.(Mrs.) Niyogi's article:

The author’s independent research reveals that Ahalya being turned to stone is the Katha-Sarit-Sagara version, expressing the male backlash of a largely patriarchal society [PK, p.23]. Valmiki’s Ahalya, like the heroine of Aparna Sen’s remarkable twentieth century Bengali film, Paroma undergoes, “not an actual physical transformation, but “a psychological trauma [involving a] ‘freezing’[of] the emotions… making her socially into a non-person”. When Rama and Lakshmana socially recognize her by touching her feet in salutation, her “self-respect and status in society [is restored] so that she truly live[s] again”, [PK., p. 23].[19] The fact that she is regarded by the Prince of Ayodhya as “blameless and inviolate” shows that the ancient concepts of virginity or morality were quite different from that of subsequent ages. Thus, the goddesses Ishtar and Aphrodite, too, were regarded as virgins, though later they were considered ‘immoral’. Ahalya, the foremost of the five Kanyas projects the essence of feminism by independently and willingly undertaking a daring act by yielding to her kutuhala or curiosity and thereby she transcends the limits or confines of her gender, asserting in the process, her strong individuality. It is this “dangerous” power of self-assertion in Ahalya that is sought to be curbed by her husband, Gautama.
Ahalya’s consequent acceptance of Gautama’s wrath and her acquiescence to his sentence of temporary segregation from society may be regarded as her awareness and acceptance of existing societal norms and traditions. Thus, she may not be regarded as a “failed Kanya” as the author asks – on the contrary, she exhibits the equivocal position of women in India, portraying “a more complex and perpetual negotiation taking place between women’s culture and general culture”.
As Gerda Lerner states :
Women live their social existence within the general culture and, whenever they are confined by patriarchal restraint or segregation into separateness (which always has subordination as its purpose), they transform this restraint into complementarity (asserting the importance of woman’s function, even its ‘superiority’) and redefine it. Thus, women live a duality – as members of the general culture and as partakers of women’s culture.
Ahalya is perhaps one of the earliest known exponents of “women’s culture” in a largely patriarchal society. Her kutuhala also leads to a partial fulfillment of the feminine jouissance, a word which to Helene Cixous denotes intense, rapturous pleasure present in women, and which Luce Irigaray interprets as a combination of the corporeal and the celestial. Significantly, Ahalya’s act differs from Irigaray’s interpretation as she seeks merely a corporeal union with a celestial being, but she nevertheless displays a variation of Irigaray’s concept of jouissance, for her union with Indra excludes any yearning for motherhood. Jouissance or ananda, in this case, reinstates a woman’s existence as an individual, feminine entity, and she is looked upon as such by her lover :
The female jouissance would [ascribe] to women freedom and a kind of mobility or fluidity … It would be possible only if women have their …. own jouissance, which they could feel …. , and undertake the upward journey necessary for their survival.
Ahalya’s independence of spirit and her desire for union with Indra may be regarded as an instance of women’s need “ to move freely [around] … an axis which grounds them in the earth and connects them to the heavens”. Gautama’s wrath at his wife’s transgression reiterates women’s “lingering status” as the “secondary sex” in Indian society which prevails even today, prompting modern intellectuals to “figure out a way to change [this] dominant [patriarchal] culture”. Ahalya thus emerges as “a metaphor for patriarchy, exploitation and society’s double standards. In the trap of modernity – science and progress … women… are expected to be superwomen.”25 Rabindranath Tagore’s poem on Ahalya, short stories, television programmes, various Bharatnatyam performances on Ahalya’s life and Dr. Pratibha Ray’s Oriya novel Mahamoha which won the Sahitya Academy Award, describing Ahalya’s journey from transgression to transcendence, continue to reinforce the essence of dynamic femininity that this first Kanya represents, which makes her pratah-smaraniya.

LIFE-PATH AS ELLIPSE

2010-02-12T15:53:00.013+05:30

In the sixteenth century, most people believed in the ideas of the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, that all the planets, Moon, and Sun orbited around the Earth. Then in 1543, Copernicus proposed the idea that the planets and the Earth orbited around the Sun. Half a century later, Johannes Kepler sought to refine the Copernican system and truly understand how the planets move around the Sun. He studied observations of Mars recorded by his mentor, Tycho Brahe. Kepler used Tycho's observations to guide the creation of his theories. This was a radical departure from the thought processes of his era. In 1609, he published his Law of Ellipses and The Equal-Areas Law. He had succeeded in using a scientific method to create a simple, elegant, and accurate model to describe the motion of planets around the Sun.
Previous theories of the Solar System, including those of Ptolemy and Copernicus, believed that the orbits of the planets were perfect circles. Kepler was unable, however, to fit Tycho's observations with circular orbits. He rejected the ancient idea of circular orbits and discovered that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. An ellipse is a closed, curved shape that is defined by two foci. It is a like a flattened circle ; if both of the foci of an ellipse are at the same point, an ellipse becomes a circle! If you think about it, the relationship between an ellipse and a circle is like that between a rectangle and square.

An ellipse has two axes. The long one is called the major axis, and the short one is called the minor axis. (Astronomers often use the term "semimajor axis" for this). That's just half the length of the major axis!
The shape of an ellipse is measured by its eccentricity, a mathematically determined property. The "flatter" the ellipse, the greater the eccentricity. A circle, for example, has an eccentricity of zero since both foci are at the center and the distance between them is equal to zero.
As the ellipse becomes flatter and flatter, the foci get farther from the center, the distance between them larger and the eccentricity will approach, but never equal, one.
In the picture alongside, the first (top) ellipse has an eccentricity of 0.7 and the second one has an eccentricity of 0.5
Our individual life-paths may also be visualized as ellipses with the individual Ego at one focus and the divine soul at the other focus. Our aim in life should be to move towards the center and shorten the distance between the two foci, so that the eccentricity is reduced considerably and the Ego comes very near to and under the influence of the One who created and sustains all life.
(Pictures: from http://www.astro.illinois.edu/projects/data/KeplersLaws/ )

When the ellipse is considered as depicting our life-path, its two foci are: our Ego deriving its energy from the mind and the Lord who is ever-present as the Soul at the heart center. An ellipse can be drawn with two pins at the foci, a loop of string, and a pencil. The pins are fixed at the foci and a loose string is passed around them. A pencil is placed on the paper inside the string and the string is made taut. If the pencil is moved around so with the string kept taut, its tip draws the figure of an ellipse since the sum of the distances from the pencil to the pins remains constant, which is the property of the ellipse. The nearer the two pins are to each other, the greater the ellipse will be like a circle. When the two foci coincide, the ellipse becomes a circle.

Our philosophy states a similar truth. Due to agnyana (ignorance), not knowing our true connection with the supreme soul's constant presence within us, we depend wholly on knowledge derived from the Ego. We thus move farther away from our spiritual center wandering about wildly in an ever-widening orbit, increasing our eccentricity. Our life becomes erratic like that of a comet and we get burnt out.
With developing awareness of the true picture, we can move nearer to the other divine centre within us, avoid this fate and create a life-path that has progressively less eccentricity and approaches a perfect circle – a wholeness which the Upanishads proclaim as Poornam.

In this context, we may note that Gita Slokam Ch.18-61 speaks about the heart centre:

ईश्वरः सर्वभूतानां हृद्देशेऽर्जुन तिष्ठति।
भ्रामयन्सर्वभूतानि यन्त्रारूढानि मायया।।18.61।।
Ishvaraḥ sarvabhutaanaam hṛddeshe arjuna tiṣThati.
bhraamayan sarvabhhutaani yantraaruDhaani maayayaa..18.61..
61. The Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, causing all beings, by His illusive power, to revolve, as if mounted on a machine.
In his sanskrit commentary, Sri Ramanuja explains (English translation by Swami Adidevananda):

Lord Vasudeva, who is the ruler over all, lives in 'the heart of all beings,' i.e., in the region from which arises all knowledge which is at the root of all secular and spiritual activities. How and doing what does He exist? He exists enabling, by His Maya (power), 'all beings who are mounted, as it were, on the machine Prakrti' in the form of body and senses created by Himself, to act in accordance with their Gunas of Sattva and others. It was already expressed in 'And I am seated in the hearts of all. From Me are memory, knowledge and their removal also' (15.15) and in 'From Me proceed everything' (10.8). The Srutis also proclaim 'He who, dwelling in the self' (Br. U. Madh., 3.7.22).He now explains the way to get rid of the Maya
[in the next sloka: “Take refuge with all your heart, by every disposition of your body, senses and mind in Him - the ruler of all, who has become your charioteer out of compassion for dependents, and who orders you, 'Act thus' and so on.]

AHALYA EPISODE in RAMAYANA

2010-01-19T19:43:00.002+05:30

By Rajaji

After a day's stay in the City of Visala, Viswamitra and his party left for Mithila. On the way, not far from Mithila, they saw a beautiful ashrama which seemed untenanted. Rama asked Viswamitra: "Whose is this ashrama with ancient trees? Why does such a beautiful abode stand deserted?"
Viswamitra replied: "This ashrama is subject to a curse. Sage Gautama lived here with his wife Ahalya, spending his days in peace and holy meditation. One day during the sage's absence from the ashrama, Indra, filled with unholy desire for the beautiful Ahalya, entered it disguised as Gautama and approached the lady with urgent solicitation. She was not deceived by the impersonation, but vain of her beauty and proud that it had won her the love of the lord of the celestials, she lost her judgment and yielded to his desire. When the sin had been sinned, realising its heinousness and the fierce spiritual energy of her betrayed husband, she warned Indra of his terrible peril and begged him to be gone in the instant.
Indra was fleeing in guilty panic; but unfortunately for him he almost bumped into the rishi who was just returning from his ablutions, clad in wet garments and radiating spiritual lustre. Pretence was hopeless before that all seeing wisdom and Indra bowed in abject supplication, and threw himself on the mercy of the rishi. The sage looked at him with wrath and loathing and cursed him: 'Lustful beast as you are, dead to all truth and righteousness, may your manhood fall away from you.' Indra at once became an eunuch and went back to the Devas in ignominious shame.
Then the sage turned to his erring wife and prescribed a long penance for her. He said: 'Living on air, you shall stay here, unseen by anyone. After a long time, Dasaratha's son will pass this way. When he sets foot in this ashrama, you will be freed from the curse. Welcome him as a guest. You will then recover your lost virtue and get back your own beauty.' The sage then left his violated ashrama for Himalayas to engage himself in austerities there."
Viswamitra said to Rama: "Let us enter the ashrama. You will bring redemption to Ahalya and rekindle the light in her as the sage promised." And they went into the ashrama. As Rama set foot in the ashrama, the curse was lifted and Ahalya stood before them in all her beauty. Having lain concealed behind leaves and creepers and kept her vow for many years, she now shone, says the poet, in Rama's presence, like the moon emerging from the clouds, like a flame issuing from smoke and like the sun's reflection in rippling water. Rama and Lakshmana touched the feet of the sage's wife made pure by penance. She welcomed the divine princes with all the customary rites of hospitality. A shower of flowers descended from the heavens as Ahalya, cleansed of sin, shone like a goddess. Simultaneously the sage Gautama returned to the ashrama and received his repentant and purified wife back to his affection.
…………………………………………………….
The lesson of the Ahalya episode is that, however deadly one's sin, one may hope to be freed from its consequence by penitence and punishment. Instead of condemning others for their sins, we should look within our own hearts and try to purify them of every evil thought. The best of us have need for eternal vigilance, if we would escape sin. This is the moral of Ahalya's error.

The Guru's Role

2010-01-18T10:36:00.006+05:30

om ajnaana-timiraandhasya / jnanaanjana-shalaakaya
caksur-unmilitam yena / tasmai shri-gurave namah

Salutation (namah) to that (tasmai) Guru (gurave) by whom (yena) the eyes (cakshur) blinded (andhasya)
by the darkness (timira) of ignorance (agnyana) were opened (unmilitam) with the collyrium (anjana)-
(applied with the) sharp pencil (shalakaya) of knowledge (gnyana).
Salutations to that Guru who applies the collyrium of knowledge with a sharp needle
to open the eyes blinded due to ignorance (lack of spiritual knowledge).

The purpose of approaching the Master is explained beautifully in this second verse of the Guru Stotram - ajnaana- timiraandhasya jnaananjana shalaakayaa.

We act to achieve certain end-results; we are happy when we are successful and unhappy when fail to achieve the intended result. Life consists of a series of transactions intended for our sukha praapti ; but many times, there is only dukha and we feel disappointed and dissatisfied. Ramana Maharishi in his Upadesa Saram has compared this sorry state of affairs to falling repeatedly into the ocean of samsara and has suggested self-inquiry as a way out to derive permanent satisfaction in our lives.

By middle age, when this dissatisfaction grows and we feel lost like one blinded due to absence of the light of relevant knowledge, we approach a Guru and seek his guidance to gain gnyana drishti for leading life in a manner conducive to yield a steady, happy state of the mind which will not be easily affected by set-backs and failures.. In other words, every effort that we make is for sukha-praapti, to reach a state of satisfaction, contentment and fulfillment, but the goal is not always achieved despite our best efforts. It is then that we approach the Master and seek his help to identify for us the steps that we should take for removing the obstacles which prevent us from being happy, which stop us from being contented. We realize that due to lack of knowledge in this matter, due to our agnyana, we are presently mired in this condition of dissatisfaction with life, seeing no way out.

The Guru is the Master who can remove the disease of ajnana. But it is not as simple as removing a something that is covering what is underneath. It is a very tricky process since there is nothing really to be taken out; what is required is a transformation in us that is necessary. The Guru-doctor applies the ointment (anjana) of knowledge to our affected eye and restores the sight – he grants us the gift of gnyana drishti.

But this Guru-doctor might sometimes speak harshly, making us uncomfortable and wanting to reject him. Why? A famous teacher has given a humorous definition of Guru that really hits home: —Jo shishya ko dekhte hi gurrata hai, woh Guru hai! His purpose in doing this is to disentangle us from our entanglements. But when this happens, our tendency is to react vehemently. Our sharanagati bhaava will be sorely tested!

The Master’s role is similar to that of a sculptor, who uses his hammer and chisel to unlock the hidden potential in a stone. If the stone could communicate with us in words, it will describe the great pain it suffers with every stroke, every blow of the chisel and hammer. Finally, it seems that the torture has come to an end. The sculptor leaves the stone alone for many days. Then one day he returns and starts rubbing the surface of the stone with sand-paper to get rid of even the smallest of imperfections. The stone starts feeling, “I thought everything was done. Why is he torturing me like this again?”

But after having undergone this tortuous process, a beautiful murti emerges from the stone; the real glory of the stone is finally expressed. It is then installed in a temple. It becomes elated because it starts receiving flower garlands, it starts receiving alankara. The sculptor’s vision created from a piece of shapeless stone a beautiful art-piece that is worthy of being worshipped. But to reach that state the stone had to undergo the process of chiseling, and fine refinements. The stone acknowledges to the sculptor: “What a great opportunity you have given me to bring out the best in me!" And in all humility the sculptor replies: “I have done nothing. The potential always existed in you. All I have done is to remove that which was blocking the expression of your potential". If we substitute the words Master for the sculptor and disciple for the stone, we can fully understand the roles of the Master and his disciple.

The relationship between the Master and the student is beyond human understanding or expression in words. When we talk of the highest in love, we talk of the natural love of a mother for the children she has given birth to. The love and care of the Master for the student is born out of a deep sense of duty and responsibility that he has voluntarily accepted so that the student may reach the spiritual state in which he himself revels. His efforts to remove the ajnana, which are so painful for the disciple in the beginning, are intended for the purpose that the student can reach and enjoy the same kind of bliss that the Master is enjoying - nothing less. For, in the field of spirituality, either there is perfection or there is nothing - nothing in the middle. The Master directs all his efforts to help his disciple reach that state of perfection.

The Master is not going to change our lives, the Master is not going to change our environment; he is not going to change the world that we live in. The Master is only changing our vision, our perception. It is not the srishti that has to be changed, it is the drishti that has to change, and the Guru is the person who takes pains in changing that drishti. Here is a person who, with all love and concern, tries to tune our body, mind and intellect and dispel the darkness that we are living in so that we can understand the truth. He blesses us with that vision, drishti, so that, staying in the same srishti, we can enjoy the bliss and glory which is an expression of the Lord. In order to do this, the Guru has to wipe the slate of our mind clean and create a disciple out of us. Guru is thus Brahma, Guru is Vishnu, and Guru Himself is Mahesvara. Guru is nothing but that absolute truth and happiness which we are searching for. Why is the Guru called Brahma? Why is the Guru called Vishnu? Why is the Guru called Maheshvara? Because in spite of who we are, it is the Guru’s mission to create a disciple out us. That is no easy task. It requires total surrender by the sishya to the Guru.

Sishya is defined as —Saasanaat sisyate yah sah sishya - the one who remains in disciplined mode, who is ready for any kind of discipline that is expected by the Master. Or, to put it in very simple words, the one who has accepted the fact that he is going to be disciplined and changed. This is where the concept of sharanagati comes into play. When the Master tells the student to do something, there should be no resistance from the student like, -- "but Sir"…absolutely no choice. It took the Lord Himself eleven chapters in the Gita to create a disciple out of Arjuna whom He knew very well. It is the Master’s responsibility to create that discipleship in us. He is Brahma creating that disciple in us. He is Vishnu, who sustains us as a disciple to reach the state of perfection. How does he do this? He does it by assuming the form of Rudra, destroying, removing the ignorance that we are holding on to and which is an obstacle to our progress.

This is also the cause of confusion in the minds of people because they see a contradiction in some of the characters depicted in the Puranas. The sages are called maharishis, but the puranic accounts depict them as if they cannot control their anger. For instance, we have the oft-quoted example of Durvasa, who was a maharishi well-known for his anger. In our ignorance, we question: - if he was a Master, a maharishi, how could he get angry? We forget that our anger and the anger foof the maharishi are worlds apart. We get carried away by our anger, whereas the Master uses it so that he can correct his students. The anger of the Master is born out of love. The purpose is the betterment of the disciple so that he can grow from his present state of limited existence to that unlimited blissful existence that the Master himself has reached. It is like a mother forcing her child to take bitter medicine despite its resistance and protests. Is the mother being harsh out of love and duty or a desire merely to hurt her child? The relationship of the Guru and the disciple is similar.

The grace of the Guru expresses itself in every seeker’s life as jnana and sakti - the knowledge as well as the capacity to use that knowledge at the right moment at the right time. Jnana-sakti-samaarudah, tattva-maalaa-vibhushitah. A very beautiful picture of the Master has been painted here. Jnana-sakti-samaarudhah, he is samaarudah, he enters our life integrating these two things; he bestows upon us, he blesses us with these two things - jnanam ca saktim ca. He blesses us with knowledge and also the capacity to use that knowledge in the correct place, in the correct environment; he builds in us the awareness of the knowledge.

When we listen to Vedanta discourses, we tend to feel that we already know these principles. But knowledge lies not merely in knowing, but also in applying that knowledge, or having the sakti, the saamarthya, the capacity to do so in the right place and at the right moment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reproduced above (in parts)are extracts from the article "tasmai shri gurave namah" by Br Uddhav Chaitanya; the complete, original article is at: http://www.chinmayasaaket.org/articles/uddhav/tasmai_sri_gurave_namah.pdf.

Life Eternal

2010-01-16T17:13:00.005+05:30

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there.
I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush,
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star that shines at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.
- Mary Elizabeth Frye

Boundaries in relationships

2010-01-16T17:05:00.002+05:30

"I (mention) Arthur Schopenhauer's well known fable, a story Freud liked enough to cite in his book on group psychology (and) I paraphrase the fable as follows:
" 'A troop of porcupines is milling about on a cold winter's day. In order to keep from freezing, the animals move closer together. Just as they are close enough to huddle, however, they start to poke each other with their quills. In order to stop the pain, they spread out, lose the advantage of commingling, and begin to shiver. This sends them back in search of each other, and the cycle repeats as they struggle to find a comfortable distance between entanglement and freezing.'
The story spoke to Freud as a lesson about boundaries. ("No one can tolerate a too intimate approach to his neighbor.") It also spoke to his belief that love is everywhere a thorny affair. Freud wrote: 'The evidence ... shows that almost every intimate emotional relation between two people which lasts for some time--marriage, friendship, the relations between parents and children--contains a sediment of feelings of aversion and hostility, which only escapes perception as a result of repression'...
"All relationships ... require us to contain contradictory feelings for the same person. As the poet Molly Peacock observed: "There must be room in love for hate."
-- Deborah Anna Luepnitz, Schopenhauer's Porcupines.

A Burden that is No Burden

2010-01-14T10:01:00.010+05:30

A troubled man named Wo could not figure out how to live. So he began meditating to find some answers. After many months he felt no progress, so he asked the temple priest for help.
The priest said, "Go see old Jah."
So he hiked to old Jah's village and came upon the happy-looking old man coming from the forest under a heavy load of firewood.
"Excuse me, honored Jah," he said. "But can you teach me the secret of life?"
Jah raised his eyebrows and gazed at Wo. Then with some effort he twisted out from beneath his great bundle of firewood and let it crash to the ground.
"There, that is enlightenment," he said, straightening up with relief and smiling.
The troubled man looked on in shock at the prickly firewood scattered over the ground. "Is that all there is to it?" he said.
"Oh, no," said Jah. Then he bent down, collected all the scattered sticks, hoisted them carefully up on his back and made ready to walk on.
"This is enlightenment, too. Come. Let's go together for tea."
So Wo walked along with Jah.
"What is old Jah showing me?" he asked.
Jah replied, "First, yes, you are suffering a heavy burden. Many do. But, much of your burden and much of your joylessness is your craving for what you can't have and your clinging to what you can't keep.
"See the nature of your burden and of the chafing you experience as you try to cling to it: useless, unnecessary, damaging - and you can let it go.
"In doing so, you find relief, and you are freer to see the blessings of life and to choose wisely to receive them."
"Thank you, old Jah," said Wo. "And why did you call picking up the burden of firewood again enlightenment as well?"
"One understanding is that some burden in life is unavoidable and even beneficial, like firewood. With occasional rest it can be managed, and with freedom from undue anxiety about it, it will not cause chafe.
"Once the undue burden is dropped, we straighten up and see and feel the wonder and power of being. Seeing others suffering without that freedom and blissful experience, we willingly and knowingly pick up their burdens out of compassion -- joining and aiding others in their various struggles for liberation, enlightenment and fulfillment."
"Thank you, Old Jah," said the exhilarated Wo. "You have enlightened me."
"Ah-so," said Jah. "Your understanding is enlightened. Now to make it part of your living and your spirit, you must go follow the practice and meditate. Then you will learn to detach yourself from your useless burden of cravings and to attach yourself to the profound source of being out of which life, creativity, joy and compassion form and flow."

"You give birth to that on which you fix your mind." -- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Compare:
यत् भावं तत् भवति yat bhavam tat bhavati

ON DEATH

2010-01-09T19:28:00.004+05:30

It is not death that one should fear.
One should fear never beginning to live. ~Marcus Aurelius

In this world
nothing can be said to be certain,
except death and taxes. ~Benjamin Franklin

When the day's work is ended,
night brings the blessings of sleep.
So too, death is the ending of a larger day
and, in the night that follows,
every person finds rest until, of one's own volition,
one returns to fresh endeavor and to labors anew.
So has it been with this our friend,
so will it be for all of us. ~Buddhist funeral service

Death is never far away in one's eighth decade of life, and going quickly isn't that bad.
The poet Alfred Lord Tennyson said it gently:
"God's finger touched him and he slept." No heavy pain, no long goodbyes.
~Alfred Tennyson

To anyone who listened to us, we are prepared to maintain
that death is the necessary outcome of life.
In reality, however, we show an unmistakable tendency
to put death to one side, to eliminate it from life.
The complement to this cultural and conventional attitude towards death
is provided by our complete collapse
when death has struck down someone whom we love. ~Freud, Sigmund

Death on a grand scale does not bother us.
We can sit around a dinner table and discuss war,
involving sixty million volatilized human deaths,
as though we were talking about bad weather;
we can watch abrupt bloody death every day,
in color, on films and television, without blinking back a tear.
It is when the numbers of dead are very small, and very close,
that we begin to think in scurrying circles.
At the very center of the problem
is the pending naked coldness of one's own self,
the only reality in nature of which we can have absolute certainty,
and it is unmentionable, unthinkable. ~Thomas, Lewis

Death is not just a matter of fact,
like what doctors are trained to feel;
it is a matter of Fate, intimately connected with life.

Normally, in a patient’s final hours, doctors close the curtain around the bed and disappear,
leaving family members alone with their dying relative. But one doctor, trying to console an elderly woman whose husband is dying,
stayed with her by the side of the bed. As she holds her husband’s hand, he tells her what the strange sights and sounds on the monitors are saying,
and what her husband is experiencing as life ebbs away. That scene of compassion and communication, in the midst of high-tech beepings and buzzings,
shows what doctors can do when nothing can be done.

To wish to see the dearest ones as long as possible in the flesh
is a selfish desire and it comes out of weakness or want of faith
in the survival of the soul after dissolution of the body...
The more I observe and study things, the more convinced I become
that sorrow over separation and death is perhaps the greatest delusion.
To realize that it is a delusion is to become free.
There is no death, no separation of the real substance.
And yet the tragedy of it is that although we love friends
for the substance we recognize in them,
we deplore the destruction of the insubstantial
that covers the substance, for the time being. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Everyone who is being overtaken by death asks for more time,
while everyone who still has time makes excuses for procrastination! ~Hadrat Ali

No man is an island, entirely of himself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends
or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore,
never send to know
for whom the bell tolls; --
it tolls for thee. John Donne

In his 'Meditations' John Donne wrote further:

Tribulation is Treasure in the nature of it,
but it is not current money in the use of it,
except we get nearer and nearer our home - Heaven, by it.
Another man may be sick too, and sick to death,
and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine,
and be of no use to him;
but this bell, that tells me of his affliction,
digs out, and applies that gold to me;
if by this consideration of another's danger,
I take my own into contemplation, and so secure my self,
by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Now, this Bell tolling softly for another,
said to me, Thou must die

Premature death may come as a result of sickness;
but, like birth, death as such is not a sickness at all.
It is the natural and necessary end of human life,
as natural as leaves falling in the autumn.
Physicians should therefore,
explore the possibility of treating death and its pangs
as they have treated labor and its 'pains'.
Death is, after all, a great event.
So long as it is not imminent,
we cling to ourselves and our lives
in chronic anxiety pushed into the back of the mind.
But when the time comes
when clinging is no longer of the least avail,
the circumstances are ideal for letting go of oneself completely.
When this happens,
the individual is released from his ego-prison.
In the normal course of events this is the golden opportunity
for awakening into the knowledge
that one's actual self is the Self which plays the universe,
an occasion for great rejoicing. ~Alan B. Watts

How does one find out about this strange thing that we all have to meet one day or another?
Can you die psychologically today, die to everything that you have known? For instance:
to die to your pleasure, to your attachment, your dependence, to end it without arguing, without rationalizing,
without trying to find ways and means of avoiding it. Do you know what it means to die, not physically,
but psychologically, inwardly? Which means to put an end to that which has continuity; to put an end to your ambition,
because that’s what’s going to happen when you die, isn’t it? You can’t carry it over and sit next to God!

When you actually die, you have to end so many things without any argument. You can’t say to death:
"Let me finish my job, let me finish my book, all the things I have not done, let me heal the hurts which I have given others"
— you have no time. So can you find out how to live a life now, today, in which there is always an ending to everything that you began?
Not in your office of course, but inwardly to end all the knowledge that you have gathered — knowledge being your experiences,
your memories, your hurts, the comparative way of living, comparing yourself always with somebody else. To end all that every day,
so that the next day your mind is fresh and young. Such a mind can never be hurt, and that is innocence.
One has to find out for oneself what it means to die; then there is no fear, therefore every day is a new day
— and I really mean this, one can do this — so that your mind and your eyes see life as something totally new.
That is eternity. That is the quality of the mind that has come upon this timeless state, because it has known
what it means to die every day to everything it has collected during the day. ~J Krishnamurti

There's no cure for birth and death
save to enjoy the interval. ~George Santayana

This is the turning of life's wheel--one of those constants that unites all of us as the fragile yet surprisingly strong human beings that we are.
The one thing that connects us--presidents, celebrities, waitresses, office workers, homeless people --is our mortality.
It's the winding down of years, the inevitability we can't get away from, no matter what we do, or how much money we have,
or how famous we might be. It's a parent getting older, changing before our eyes, slipping and falling, slipping away from us in other ways,
leaving us to wonder how the years could have gone by so fast, how we could have been so reckless with time, with words, with our hearts.
~ Patti Davis, daughter of President Reagan

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Thomas Gray's "ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"

DIRECT PERCEPTION

2009-03-25T19:09:00.000+05:30

WATCHING YOUR "I"

We must become deeply aware of our bondage if we value freedom. We begin to watch our behavior throughout the day; we notice the fear, the anxieties, how much behavior is controlled by acquisitiveness, how we compare ourselves with others and want to become something that we are not. When we watch our own lives, then there is the pain and agony that the awareness of the bondage creates. If we don't observe this in ourselves, we are only theorizing about freedom. [...]

As long as we cling to the idea that this is "my mind, my own personal mind," we'll have a strong tendency to want to look as good as possible. But if we observe the mind, from a nonpersonal viewpoint, from the perspective of nonownership, simply observe our minds and how they function, we'll be less trapped by judgments.

To be attentive to the psychological structure doesn't mean we must disappear somewhere and give up all relationships, responsibilities. The aim is to stay within the movement of relationships, to continue with work, to be a responsible citizen and to be attentive to the play of the mind. But we'll have to be very alert, for the mind is subtle, wily, full of tricks.

It's a tremendous thrill to see the beginnings of anger or jealousy or greed, not simply to be caught unawares when the emotion is full-blown and has us in its grasp, but to see the first tiny movements of emotion. Where does it spread, what does it do to our behavior? Just as there is joy in exploring the unknown wildness, there is a delight in exploring the inner territory, in watching the volcanoes explode without any movement of defense, judgment, sense of ownership.

If we have never observed anger in ourselves from subtle beginnings to full explosion, we will always be caught in its force. We may try to suppress the behavior of anger, but still it will do its damage and we will not be free from it.

Attentiveness without any movement of the defense structure has its own intelligence. But the automatic tendency is to bring in defenses, judgments and to move from observation to justification, evaluation. We may say to ourselves, "My mother or my father was an angry person. I can't help it; I've had an unhappy childhood, I am an angry person because of that." [...] All the explanations, justifications may be true, but they prevent direct perception of what it is that anger does to our bodies, to relationships, to the work we do.

- Vimala Thakar, from 'Ego: Emergence and Merging Back of the "I" Process'

What is SIN?

2009-03-05T14:04:00.002+05:30

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin

SIN & Hinduism

In Hinduism, the term sin or pāpa is often used to describe actions that create negative karma.

Sin, in Hinduism, besides creating negative karma, is violating moral and ethical codes as in the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In fact, it is much described in the scriptures that chanting the name of Hari or Narayana or Shiva is the only way to atone for sins, prevent rebirth and attain moksha. For reference, see the famous story of Ajamila, described in a story described in the Bhagavata Purana.[9]

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami explains in the lexicon section of his book, Dancing with Siva, that "sin is an intentional transgression of divine law and is not viewed in Hinduism as a crime against God as in Judaeo-Christian religions, but rather as 1) an act against dharma, or moral order and 2) one's own self." Furthermore, he notes that it is thought natural, if unfortunate, that young souls act wrongly, for they are living in nescience, avidya, the darkness of ignorance.

He further mentions that sin in Hinduism is an adharmic course of action which automatically brings negative consequences. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami explains that the term sin carries a double meaning, as do its Sanskrit equivalents: 1) a wrongful act, 2) the negative consequences resulting from a wrongful act. In Sanskrit the wrongful act is known by several terms, including pataka (from pat, "to fall") papa, enas, kilbisha, adharma, anrita and rina (transgress, in the sense of omission).

He comments that the residue of sin is called papa, sometimes conceived of as a sticky, astral substance which can be dissolved through penance (prayashchitta), austerity (tapas) and good deeds (sukritya). Note that papa is also accrued through unknowing or unintentional transgressions of dharma, as in the term aparadha (offense, fault, mistake).

Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami further notes that in Hinduism, except for Dvaita school of Shri Madhvacharya, there are no such concepts of inherent or mortal sin, according to some theologies, which he defined as sins so grave that they can never be expiated and which cause the soul to be condemned to suffer eternally in hell.

(Adapted and cited from lexicon section of his book, Dancing with Siva., with italics to indicate non-quotes.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No Illusions, No Resistances - Lao Tzu

2009-02-24T13:40:00.003+05:30

Source: http://www.ijourney.org/index.php?tid=606

Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep it to the original Oneness?
Can you let your body become supple as a new born child’s?
Can you cleanse your inner vision until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand all things?

Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing,
acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control,
This is the supreme virtue.

Act without doing, work without effort.
Think of the large as small, and the few as many.
Confront the difficult while it is still easy;
accomplish the great task with a series of small acts.

The Master never reaches for the great: thus she achieves greatness.
When she runs into a difficulty, she stops and gives herself to it.
she doesn’t cling to her own comfort: thus problems are no problem for her.

The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings.
He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to;
No illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body.
He doesn’t think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being.
He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death,
as a man is ready for sleep after a good day’s work -- Lao Tzu (translated from Tao Te Ching)

Time & Tide Wait for no Man

2009-02-22T18:43:00.006+05:30

This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning. – The Buddha

Time runs out so soon! - Eknath Easwaran
In our teens and twenties, even our thirties, we have ample margin to play with the toys life has to offer. But we should find out soon how fleeting they are, for the tides of time can ebb away before we know it.

As we grow older and our family and friends begin to pass away, we see how relentlessly time is pursuing all of us. There is no time to quarrel, no time to feel resentful or estranged. There is no time to waste on the pursuit of selfish pleasures that are over almost before they begin.

All-devouring time follows us always, closer than our shadow. As long as I live only for myself, as a little fragment apart from the whole, I cannot escape being a victim of time. It is good to bear in mind how evanescent life is so that we do not postpone the practice of meditation.

Poet Bhartrhari expressed this succintly thus:

bhogaa na bhuktaa vayameva bhuktaaH
tapo na taptam vayameva taptaaH .
kaalo na yaato vayameva yaataa-s
tR^ishhNaa na jiirNaa vayameva jiirNaaH

Pleasures have not been enjoyed by us;
we have been consumed in the pursuit of pleasures.
Penance and austerities have not been performed by us;
we have been burned by the practice of tapas.
Time has not just passed by us;
it has ravaged us without our consent.
Our desires have not been fulfilled;
we have been drowned in our desires.

Swami Vivekananda described our situation caused by desires/expectations thus:

If we examine our own lives, we find that the greatest cause of sorrow is this: we take up something, and put our whole energy on it–perhaps it is a failure and yet we cannot give it up. We know that it is hurting us, that any further clinging to it is simply bringing misery on us; still, we cannot tear ourselves away from it. The bee came to sip the honey, but its feet stuck to the honey-pot and it could not get away. Again and again, we are finding ourselves in that state. That is the whole secret of existence. Why are we here? We came here to sip the honey, and we find our hands and feet sticking to it. We are caught, though we came to catch. We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life. We are being worked upon by other minds, and we are always struggling to work on other minds. We want to enjoy the pleasures of life; and they eat into our vitals. We want to get everything from nature, but we find in the long run that nature takes everything from us–depletes us, and casts us aside.

Had it not been for this, life would have been all sunshine. Never mind! With all its failures and successes, with all its joys and sorrows, it can be one succession of sunshine, if only we are not caught.
in the net of expectations, desires)

DRINK IS A DEVIL

2009-01-07T16:27:00.003+05:30

Extract from article in NY Times d.5th Jan 2009:
http://proof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/the-give-and-the-take/#more-39

All of this gave booze the aura of a magic potion to me. It wasn't just that I happened to like how it made me feel — most anyone who has a drink will attest to that. I believed that a certain modicum of it was needed — like food, water or oxygen — for me to lead a happy and successful life. In retrospect, I knew that I was over-drinking by the time I was 30. But I figured that I was a "high performance" alcoholic — an interesting oxymoron, if there ever was one — and honestly couldn't imagine life without the stuff.
As time went on, this became more or less literally true. I can remember a day when a bartender who'd served me unknown thousands of gallons of booze over the years observed that, "You know, when you walk in, it's like you're a zombie until about the third drink. Then, all of sudden, your eyes clear up and you come to life. Amazing!"
The sad thing is, I knew exactly what he meant.
In time, my relationships with loved ones, especially my wife, my career, my health — all began to spiral down in a death dive. Even though I knew booze was the culprit, I just ordered another because that's what I did when I had a problem: I drank. At the root of this twisted thinking was the absurd belief that I'd just lost my touch when it came to the bottle, misplaced my ability to find that "sweet spot" of inebriation where there's a perfect balance between disinhibition and control, euphoria and calm. I just needed to get my swing back.
As with a marriage gone sour, I didn't want to admit that my relationship with booze was suddenly doing me more harm than good. And like a battered spouse, I didn't know whom else to be with.
If I'd been clear-headed enough to take stock, I could have seen what was going on very clearly: Feeling "normal" was requiring progressively larger amounts of the stuff. And while it had become a kind of lifeblood to me, in the real world, alcohol was still basically just a poison (it's what we put on a wound to kill invading bacteria, one of the most effective destroyers of human tissue known to biochemistry). The body and mind and spirit could handle a bit of it, even on a regular basis. But I was literally and figuratively drowning myself in it. While once it had given me things that nothing else could, now it was taking away the two things everyone needs to lead a life that even has a chance of being complete: my dignity and my good health.
In retrospect, like many drunks, I had reached a stage with alcohol where I was paralyzed, frozen in time, stuck in a tiny crevasse between what had been my best friend and what had become my worst enemy. I needed to find a true bottom before I could begin to regain control of my life.
It finally came one night in February, 1993, when I found myself in a drunk tank at the county jail with a bunch of guys you really wouldn't want to meet, wondering how I'd wound up there.
I entered treatment a week after I hit bottom, on February 11, 1993. Alcohol had finally crowded me into a corner from which there were only two escapes — sobriety or death — but I didn't really realize how literally true that was until my third day of treatment, when I noticed that a particular fellow patient was missing. When I inquired about the patient, who was an alcoholic and a heroin addict, I was told the patient had been taken to the hospital with a severe infection related to the drug and had subsequently died. "This business about this killing you is not just a slogan," a therapist observed dryly.
At that moment, I finally grasped what the stakes were — what they'd always been. And while, at the time, I still wasn't sure what all this sobriety business would entail, where it would lead me — whether, indeed, I could do it — I did know that I didn't want to die. That turned out to be enough of an epiphany, I guess, because I haven't had a drink since.

TirukKural

2008-12-31T10:30:00.010+05:30

A commentator had said that Kural is as potent as a mustard pierced at the centre in which the waters of the seven seas are put inside! He meant to say that it is so rich in meaning!

As Dr.G.U. Pope had said it is the Bard of the Universal Man.

Two gems extolling great friendship and great books:

நிறைநீர நிறைநீரவர் கேண்மை பிறைமதிப்பின் நீர பேதையர் நட்பு 782

Nirai neera neeravar kenmai Pirai mathippin neera pethaiyar natpu.
Meaning: The friendship of the worthy develops day by day like the waxing crescent moon But the foolish alliances deteriroate like the waning thereof! Rajaji has given a crisp commetary on this kural." The friendship of men of character is like the young moon which grows as the days pass, but frindship with fools diminishes with familirity like the moon after her full pass!"

நவில்தோரும் நூல் நயம் போலும் பயில்தோரும்
பண்புடையார் தொடர்பு 783
NavilthOrum nool nayam polum payilthorum
PaNbu udaiyar thodarbu

Meaning: As one sees greater beauty and delivers enhanced pleasures from the deeper study of a book, noble friendships gain in worth and grace day by day. Deeper learning of great books and intimate friendship with great persons are both ideal for a good life.

Source: http://www.sparthasarathy.com/naunetnews/44-042007/0407kannan.html

You are your own enemy/friend

2008-12-08T17:45:00.016+05:30

Gita ch.6 slokam 5

उद्धरेदात्मनात्मानं आत्मानमवसादयेत
आत्मैव ह्यात्मनो बन्धुरात्मैव रिपुरात्मनः

6.5 Uddharet, one should save; atmaanam, oneself sunk in the sea of the world; atmanaa, by oneself; one should save, uddharet, should uplift (oneself) from that, i.e. make it attain the state of being established in Yoga. na avasaadayet, one should not lower, debase; atmaanam, oneself.
Hi, for; atma eva, oneself is verily; atmanah one's own; bandhuh, friend. Centainly there is no other friend who can bring about liberation from this world. In fact, even a friend is an obstacle to Liberation, he being the source of such bondages as love etc.
Therefore the emphatic statement, 'For one is one's own friend, is justifiable. Atma eva, oneself verily; is atmanah, one's own: ripuh, enemy. Anyone else who is an external harmful enemy, even he is of one's own making! Therefore the firm conclusion, 'oneself verily is one's own enemy's is reasonable. It has been said that 'oneself is verily one's own friend, oneself verily is one's own enemy.' As to that, (the self), of what kind is one's own friend, or (the self) of what kind is one's own enemy?

-- English Translation of Sri Sankaracharya's Sanskrit Commentary – by Swami Gambhirananda
========================

From: Ramanujcharya’s commentary: (Dr. S. Sankaranarayanan’s translation):

The figure of speech here is of Samsara as the ocean in which the individual self is like an object with liability to sink. What causes its sinking is the lingering attachments of the mind to some objects, though in the discipline of Jnana Yoga one may keep aloof from such objects. A mind with such attachments is the foe and without them, the friend.
==========================

Source: http://www.gitasupersite.iitk.ac.in

Mind in Solitude

2008-12-07T09:45:00.005+05:30

Many are unhappy when they are alone and suffer in loneliness, leading to other ailments. How is it then that saints spend years alone, without company and attain to 'salvation'. Henry David Thoreau explains in an essay in his book 'Walden':

In solitude, I am by myself together with my inner Self and therefore two-in-one; in loneliness, I am actually one, deserted by all others. In solitude therefore, a dialogue is possible between me and myself, as it were, as is the dialogue between quotation marks in all Walden’s essays. True understanding (call it the kingdom of God, if you like) will come from within and for this you need to be left alone. -- Henry David Thoreau

In Dakshinamurti slokam, the introductory slokam explains that the learned rishis had assembled in silence to receive knowledge about the highest truth and Lord Siva explained this highest truth in a silent discourse to the receptive rishis. The inner meaning of this slokam is the same as stated by Thoreau: Learn to live in contemplative solitude; the highest knowledge will be revealed to you from within yourself.

Maunavyakhyaaprakatitaparabrahmatattvam yuvaanam
Varshishtante vasadrishiganairaavritam brahmanishthaih
Acharyendram karakalitachinmudramaanandarupam
Svaatmaaraamam muditavadanam dakshiNaamurtimiide

Solitude is learning that we are not alone when we are alone.

2008-12-02T18:53:00.016+05:30

The Glory of Rama Nama Mantram

Slokam from Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam:

When Parvati Devi requested Lord Shiva to suggest an effective and easy alternative to chanting the thousand names of Vishnu contained in the Sahasranama, Lord Shiva replied:

"Repeat the Rama Mantram; chant Shri Rama, Rama, Rama .....
the beautiful mantra that pleases the mind and captivates it.
It is superior even to the thousand names of the Lord
in Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam."

The great Rama-bhakta Saint Tyagaraja, in his Kriti: "Saarame gaani yanyamaarga vichaara metike" sings the greatness of Rama Nama and makes a reference to the above sloka in Vishnu Sahasranamam thus:

"Oh Mind! Rama Namam alone is the precious thing worthy of being coveted. Why bother with the thought of other paths, listening to the words of all and sundry? Did not Sage Narada, who constantly drinks the nectar of Rama's Nama and traverses the whole Universe with the name of Narayana on his lips, lovingly initiate Valmiki with this mantram? ...............Did not Lord Shiva, the Lord of Kailasa, delighting in Samagana, drink the nectar of Rama Nama and, himself unceasingly uttering the holy name, also initiate his beautiful consort Parvati with the Sri Rama Mantram, explaining its great efficacy and significance?"

In the song Evarani Nirnayimchirira, Tyagaraja refers to the interpretation of Rama Nama given by the Rama Rahasyopanishad that it is an essence extracted out of both the Narayana Ashtaakshari Mantra (Om Namo Narayanaya) and Shiva Panchaakshari Mantra (Om Namas Shivaaya) thus:

"What do people determine you to be and how do they worship you? As Shiva, Madhava,as Brahma, or as Para Brahma,the Supreme Absolute? I prostrate before those wise ones who found the solution by extracting and combining the soul of each of the two mantras: Ra from the Narayana Mantra (Ashtaakshari) Om Namo Narayanaya and Ma from the Shiva Mantra "Om Namas Shivaya" -- the Jiva or life of the two mantras. For, if Ra is taken out of the word Narayana (helps as the path of the aspirants), the word becomes Na-ayana when it would mean the opposite: 'it helps not as the path of the aspirant'; and, similarly, if Ma is taken out of 'Namas shivaya' (Hail to the auspicious) the expression becomes Na Shivya meaning the opposite 'not for auspicious'.

The two jivaksharas thus combined forms the name Rama, worshipped and chanted constantly by all bhaktas like Tyagaraja. As a mantra, it is known as Taaraka mantram which helps the bhakta to cross the ocean of samsara .

The Upanishad Brahmam also, after stating the etymology of Rama Nama in this manner, asks:

"Is it any wonder that this Rama Nama Mantram which combines in itself the two powerful syllables from two powerful Mantrams is considered as giving Moksha to the devotee of the Rama Mantram?"

On Mantra:

The word mantra is derived as: “mun thraayathe ithi manthrah” – a mantra is so called because it protects the mind. A mantra helps us to attain release from the grip of the ego-controlled mind and proceed on our spiritual path without obstacles/distractions. The wording and sound of all mantras are public property. Yet the mantra itself is considered as rahasya or secret. The nearest example:- an idol can be seen or even be possessed by us; but, we can realize the deity represented by the idol only if we associate with it certain sanctity, divine characteristics.
The mind, which is to be controlled and overcome must itself first crave a need for such release, and accept the Mantra as an effective aid to the necessary process. It is to develop such implicit acceptance that one approaches a Guru and receive from him with faith, devotion and love the Mantra as a precious gift, to be treasured and practised.

Mahatma Gandhi and Rama Nama Mantram

Nothing could take Gandhiji away from the rock of his faith in Truth, and Rama Nama was the line anchoring him unto it. Up early in the still very dark, early hours of the 25th, Bapu wrote to a friend in Gujarai: "no one can harm a person who is sustained by Ramanama. I believe firmly in this principle. It is by the grace of that God that I am able to remain calm even though there is conflagration all around. Had it not been for Rama Nama, I would have broken down by now. That is why I proclaim at the top of my voice that I dance as Rama wills. We are all in this world to do our duty. I believe that not a leaf moves without his command. Look at the pride of man: he thinks he does everything! But God is magnanimous and only laughs at man's ignorance. Now you will understand where I stand. What I write in the Harijan shows me as I am. I am very clear about the language and in the same way, I am clear about political questions. Let us see what God wills me to do."

Gandhiji himself has traced the origin of his faith in Ramanama to early childhood instruction from his family nurse:
"From my sixth or seventh year up to my sixteenth I was at school, being taught all sorts of things except religion. I may say that I failed to get from my teachers what they could have given me without any effort on their part. ...... But what I failed to get there I obtained from my nurse, an old servant of the family, whose affection for me I still recall. I have said before that there was in me a fear of ghosts and spirits. Rambha, for that was her name, suggested, as a remedy for this fear, the repetition of 'Ramanama'. I had more faith in her than in her remedy, and so at a tender age I began repeating Ramanama to cure my fear of ghosts and spirits. This was of course short lived, but the good seed sown in childhood was not sown in vain. I think it is due to the good seed sown by that good woman Rambha that today Ramanama is an infallible remedy for me."

ON ENDURING RELATIONSHIPS

2008-11-23T17:45:00.004+05:30

What is the secret formula for preventing a relationship that was once sweet, loving and charming from becoming bitter and hateful and the two parties drift apart and end their once endearing relationship after a few years? The answer is their refusal to recognize that:

To exist is to change
To change is to mature
To mature is to go on
Creatings oneself endlessly.

Having come together once, impressed by the qualities in each other, they expect the other to continue to possess the same qualities always without losing any of those; they get disappointed and become strangers to each other. They forget that each one of them is not frozen in time; their minds have retained a memory of the past and refuse to recognize that change is an inherent and necessary fact of their passage in the river of life. The measure of the strength of their bond is their willingness to accept the change they perceive in each other and recognize that they themselves have to change to enable a mature relationship grow in strength. This process of change continued and nourished endlessly with love and understanding vests the relationship with a long life.

Many philosophers have commented on the element of Change that is an integral part of our existence. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus has made the famous observation:: "You cannot step in the same river twice" - because the flowing river is ever changing and the individual too is similarly changing. The infant child grows in size and its mind continuously changes. “How you have changed, I cannot recognize you, almost” is a constant refrain of friends and acquaintances meeting after an interval. Expecting one’s partner to remain unchanged is contrary to the life-process.

Kahlil Gibran’s advice:

Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Rage against of the dying of the light

2008-11-08T20:50:00.012+05:30

On Probability Statements:
"The Median is not the Message"
by Stephen Jay Gould

(Late) Stephen Jay Gould was an eminent paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. At an young age (41) he suffered from a serious and rare cancer ‑‑abdominal mesothelioma, associated with exposure to asbestos. Accoording to medical research statistics, mesothelioma is incurable, with a median mortality of eight months after discovery. He however, was fully cured.

In the article reproduced below, Gould discusses the need to interpret statistical data fully and correctly. Rather than giving up hope, he wrote that he used his knowledge of statistics to translate an apparent death sentence into the hopeful realization that half those in whom the disease was diagnosed survived longer than eight months, perhaps much longer, giving him the strength to fight on. He died in 2002 at the age of 60.

"We still carry the historical baggage of a Platonic heritage that seeks sharp essences and definite boundaries. This leads us to view statistical measures of central tendency wrongly -- indeed, opposite to the appropriate interpretation -- in our actual world of variation, shadings and continua. In short, we view means and medians as the hard realities, and the variations that permit their calculation as a set of transient and imperfect measurements of this hidden essence. If the median is the reality and the variation around the median just a device for its calculation, the statement: `I will probably be dead in eight months' may pass as a reasonable interpretation.

But all evolutionary biologists know that variation itself is nature's only irreducible essence. Variation is the hard reality, not a set of imperfect measures for a central tendency. Means and medians are the abstractions. Referring to the statistically derived information about probable death in eight months in the case of those suffering from abdominal mesothemia, Gould observed after examining the complete data which yielded the median of eight months:

"The distribution was strongly rightly skewed and, as I had guessed, with a long tail (however small) to the right that extended for several years above the eight‑month median. I saw no reason why I should not be in that small tail, and I breathed a long sigh of relief. I had read the graph correctly. I had asked the right questions and found the answers. I had obtained, in all probability, that most precious of all possible gifts in the circumstances: substantial time. I didn't have to stop immediately and follow Isaiah's injunction to Hezekiah: `set thine house in order; for thou shalt die and not live.' I would have time to think, plan and fight.

One final point about statistical distributions: they apply only to a prescribed set of circumstances; in this case, to the survival with mesothelioma under conventional modes of treatment. If circumstances changed, the distribution might alter. I was placed on an experimental protocol of treatment, and if fortune holds, will be in the first cohort of a new distribution with a high median and a right tail extending to death by natural causes at an advanced old age. I possessed everyone of the characteristics conferring a probability of longer life: I was young; my disease had been recognized in a relatively early stage. I would receive the nation's best medical treatment; I had the world to live for.

I knew how to read the data properly and not despair. I agree with the preacher of Ecclesiastes that there is a time to live and a time to die and when my skein runs out, I hope to face the end calmly and in my own way. For most situations however, I prefer the more martial view that death is the ultimate enemy and find nothing reproachable in those who rage mightily against the dying of the light.

EVOLUTION

2008-11-01T17:34:00.005+05:30

Events of great rarity make history
by (late) Stephen Jay Gould

Nothing much happens for most of the time when evidence abounds; everything happens in largely unrecorded geological moments. We could attribute this pattern to either a devious or humorous God, out to confuse us or merely to chuckle at our frustration. But I choose to look upon this phenomenon in a positive light, for it is trying to tell us something important. There is a lesson, not merely frustration, in the message that change is concentrated in infrequent bursts and that stability is the usual nature of species and systems at any moment.
Evolution has constructed the tree of life; yet, at almost any moment for any species, change is not occurring and stasis prevails. If we then ask, What is the normal nature of a species, the only possible reply is, stability. Yet exquisitely rare change has built the tree of life and made history on a broad scale. The defining property of a species, its normal state, its nature, its appearance at almost any time, is thus contrary to the process that makes history (and new species). If we tried to infer the nature of species from the process that constructs the history of life, we would get everything precisely backward! -- for events of great rarity (but with extensive consequence) make history.
This same tension and contrast exist between human nature and the events that construct our history. We have committed an enormous error in assuming that the behavioral traits involved in history-making events must define the ordinary properties of human nature. Must we not link the causes of our history, or so the false argument goes, to the nature of our being?
But if my analogy holds, precisely the opposite may be true. If rare behaviors make history, then our usual nature must be defined by our ordinary actions in an everyday world that engulfs us nearly all the time, but does not set the fate of nations. The causes of history may be opposed to the ordinary forces that prevail at almost any moment -- just as the processes that construct the tree of life are invisible and inactive nearly all the time within stable species.
History is made by warfare, greed, lust for power, hatred, and xenophobia (with some other, more admirable motives thrown in here and there). We therefore often assume that these obviously human traits define our essential nature. How often have we been told that "man" is, by nature, aggressive and selfishly acquisitive?
What do we see on any ordinary day on the streets or in the homes of any American city -- even in the subways of New York? Thousands of tiny and insignificant acts of kindness and consideration. We step aside to let someone pass, smile at a child, chat aimlessly with an acquaintance or even with a stranger.......Many of us have the impression that daily life is an unending series of unpleasantness ......but think about it seriously for a moment. Such levels of nastiness cannot possibly be sustained. Society would devolve to anarchy in an instant if half our overtures to another human being were met with a pinch in the nose
Why then do most of us have the impression that people are so aggressive, and intrinsically so? The answer, I think, lies in the asymmetry of effects -- the truly tragic side of human existence. Unfortunately, one incident of violence can undo ten thousand acts of kindness, and we easily forget the predominance of kindness over aggression by confusing effect with frequency. One racially motivated beating can wipe out years of patient education for respect and toleration in a school or community. One murder can convert a friendly town, replete with trust, into a nexus of fear with people behind barred doors, suspicious of everyone and afraid to go out at night. Kindness is so fragile, so easy to efface; violence is so powerful.
This crushing and tragic asymmetry of kindness and violence is infinitely magnified when we consider the causes of history in the large. One book burning in the library of Alexandria can wipe out the accumulated wisdom of antiquity. One supposed insult, one crazed act of assassination, can undo decades of patient diplomacy, cultural exchanges, peace corps, pen pals -- small acts of kindness involving millions of citizens -- and bring two nations to a war that no one wants, but that kills millions and irrevocably changes the paths of history.
The alternative view might grant that stability must rule at nearly all moments and that much rarer events make history. But perhaps this stability arises by predominant behaviors of geniality only in relatively free and democratic societies. Perhaps the stability of most cultures has been achieved by the same `dark' forces that make history when they break out of balance -- fear, aggression, terror, domination of rich over poor, men over women, adults over children, and armed over defenseless. I allow that these forces have often kept balances, but still strongly assert that we fail to count the ten thousand ordinary acts of non-aggression -- done if only because people know their places and do not usually challenge the sources of order -- that overwhelm each overt show of strength even in societies structured by domination. To base daily stability on anything other than our natural geniality requires a perverted social structure explicitly dedicated to breaking the human soul -- the Auschwitz model, if you will.........Obviously, both kindness and violence lie within the bounds of our nature because we perpetuate both, in spades. I only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all the time and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored) frequency of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred response nearly all the time.
This is not an essay about optimism; it is an essay about tragedy. If I felt that humans were nasty by nature, I would just say, the hell with it. We get what we deserve, or what evolution left us as a legacy. But the center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days. Nothing can be more tragic than that this Everest of geniality stands upside down on its pointed summit and can be toppled so easily by rare events contrary to our everyday nature -- and that these rare events make our history. In some sense, we do not get what we deserve.
The solution to our woes lies not in overcoming our `nature' but in fracturing the `great asymmetry', and allowing our ordinary propensities to direct our lives. But how can we put the commonplace into the driver's seat of history?
Stephen Jay Gould who wrote this article teaches biology, geology, and the history of science at Harvard University.

A burden that can be no burden

2008-10-15T18:08:00.003+05:30

A troubled man named Wo could not figure out how to live. So he began meditating to find some answers. After many months he felt no progress, so he asked the temple priest for help.
The priest said, "Go see old Jah." So he hiked to old Jah's village and came upon the happy-looking old man coming from the forest under a heavy load of firewood.
"Excuse me, honored Jah," he said. "But can you teach me the secret of life?" Jah raised his eyebrows and gazed at Wo. Then with some effort he twisted out from beneath his great bundle of firewood and let it crash to the ground. "There, that is enlightenment," he said, straightening up with relief and smiling.
The troubled man looked on in shock at the prickly firewood scattered over the ground. "Is that all there is to it?" he said. "Oh, no," said Jah. Then he bent down, collected all the scattered sticks, hoisted them carefully up on his back and made ready to walk on. "This is enlightenment, too. Come. Let's go together for tea."
So Wo walked along with Jah. "What is old Jah showing me?" he asked. Jah replied, "First, yes, you are suffering a heavy burden. Many do. But, much of your burden and much of your joylessness is your craving for what you can't have and your clinging to what you can't keep. "See the nature of your burden and of the chafing you experience as you try to cling to it: useless, unnecessary, damaging - and you can let it go. "In doing so, you find relief, and you are freer to see the blessings of life and to choose wisely to receive them."
"Thank you, old Jah," said Wo. "And why did you call picking up the burden of firewood again enlightenment as well?" "One understanding is that some burden in life is unavoidable and even beneficial, like firewood. With occasional rest it can be managed, and with freedom from undue anxiety about it, it will not cause chafe. Once the undue burden is dropped, we straighten up and see and feel the wonder and power of being. Seeing others suffering without that freedom and blissful experience, we willingly and knowingly pick up their burdens out of compassion -- joining and aiding others in their various struggles for liberation, enlightenment and fulfillment."
"Thank you, Old Jah," said the exhilarated Wo. "You have enlightened me." "Ah-so," said Jah. "Your understanding is enlightened. Now to make it part of your living and your spirit, you must go follow the practice and meditate. Then you will learn to detach yourself from your useless burden of cravings and to attach yourself to the profound source of being out of which life, creativity, joy and compassion form and flow."
You give birth to that on which you fix your mind. -- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Compare: yat bhavam tat bhavati

ON FAITH

2008-09-25T18:18:00.004+05:30

'Weave in Faith; God will provide the thread' --
so says an ancient Indian proverb about the art of weaving the cloth of life.

Read on further to find out what others have to say on the subject of Faith:

Faith is a state of openness or trust.
To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water.
You don't grab hold of the water when you swim, because if you do,
you will become stiff and tight in the water, and sink.
You have to relax, and the attitude of faith is
the very opposite of clinging, and holding on.
In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion,
and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe
becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight.
But the attitude of faith is to let go,
and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be. -- Alan Watts

All that thought suggests to me, I can do.
All that thought reveals in me, I can become.
This should be the unshakable faith in my Self,
Because God dwells in me. ~Sri Aurobindo

No one can call upon God without knowing Him.
St.Augustine wonders:
"May it be that a man must implore You before he can know You?"
The only things to count on are longing and the occult directives of desire.
Does this mean that prayer must come before faith?
Perhaps, 'not knowing' is the first condition of prayer. Can that be?
Augustine finds his working answer in Scripture:
"How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?
They shall praise the Lord that seek him."
Longing is the only sure knowledge, that core of human instinct
which unfurls its song of praise. ~Saint Augustine

Shraddha:
The nearest English equivalent (to this Sanskrit term)
is Faith, but it means much more.
It is the set of values, axioms, prejudices, and pre-possessions
that colours our perceptions, governs our thinking, dictates our responses,
and shapes our lives, generally without our even being aware of its presence and power.
Shraddha is not an intellectual abstraction; it is our very substance.
The Gita says (17:3) --
"A person is what his Shraddha is."
The Bible using similar words, says:
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

There is nothing passive about Shraddha. It is full of potency.
For it prompts action, conditions behavior,
and determines how we see and therefore, respond to the world around us.
The power to heal or harm is inherent in our ideas of ourselves.

Yet Shraddha is not brute determination or wishful thinking.
Our lives are an eloquent expression of our beliefs:
what we deem worth having, doing, attaining, being.
What we strive for shows what we value.
We back our Shraddha with our time, our energy, our very lives.
Thus Shraddha determines destiny.

As the Buddha put it:
"All that we are is the result of what we thought.
We are made of our thoughts,
we are moulded by our thoughts."
As we think, so we become. ~Eknath Easwaran

At points in our life, everything we believe in collapses into a deep, dark hole,
and we feel that all of our previous efforts to live an honest, principled life have been in vain. There is a crisis of faith—a place void of spirit and dominated by utter hopelessness.
There are no guides, no hints at where to go next.
There is no life in front of you and no one to talk to.
This emptiness seems barren.
But a new kind of faith arises directly
out of our depressive thoughts and emotions,
and we no longer crave comfort from anyone else. ~Thomas Moore

When all your efforts end in failure,
it means that you are being taught the lesson
that, not your own efforts,
but God's Grace alone can bring success.
And you should seek His Grace.

When you come to the edge of all the light you have, and
you must take a step into the darkness of the unknown,
believe that one of two things will happen to you:
Either there will be something solid for you to stand on, or
You will be taught how to fly. ~ Patrick Overton

The Guru tells the disciple:
"This is the truth that I have experienced."
and explains and instructs.
The disciple, with deep faith in the Guru,
travels the path, and ultimately exclaims:
"I too have now experienced the truth that my Guru spoke of."
There is no such thing as 'blind' faith!
_________________________

Discovering purpose

2008-09-02T18:32:00.000+05:30

ON PURPOSE

What is the life which most of us lead every day? Basically, it consists of actions to earn enough resources to enable us to acquire things which we want. We want to acquire these things because we expect that through them we will have the sensory experiences which we desire to have.
Since we are driven by our wants and since we cannot fulfill all the wants, we should audit our wants carefully with reference to a check-list and accept a commitment to fulfill only.those which pass this audit. Actions decided upon in this systematic manner will be greatly empowering because everytime we want any thing, we will have made it a habit to ask ourselves these questions:
· What experience am I looking for?
· Do I need this experience?
· Will it make me happy in the long run?
· Keeping in view that my time-resource is limited, can I afford the investment of the necessary time?
· What other activity/experience will I have to forego to be able to afford this? Is such a sacrifice acceptable?
· Am I making a wise choice, over-all?
· A good way of knowing what want we should select and why, is by knowing our purpose in life:
· A purpose is not a goal; for a goal is something that is reached. A purpose is only a direction. We use our purpose to set our course in life.
· A purpose is never achieved; it is fulfilled in each moment that we are "on purpose." When we are "on course," we are on "purpose."
· A purpose is not created. We already have a purpose; we have to discover it. We have always had a purpose and it has always been the same. Our purpose for the remainder of our lifetime remains the same.
When we become consciously aware of our purpose, it's easier to choose actions and our goals and reach them. The litmus test of any action is simply to ask the question: "Does this action fulfill my purpose?" The answer may be yes or no and we always have the option of choosing whether we want the action or not. But it is always wise to remember that there is a certain value to being ‘on purpose.’ Once we discover this value through the practice of staying on course, we will always act to fulfill our ‘purpose.’
How do we discover our purpose? If we listen carefully, we will hear or sense a voice inside ourselves. It's the voice of our inner teacher. We must train ourselves to listen to it. Amidst all the din of the other voices in there, the inner teacher reminds us constantly: "I am here, very close to you. I'm your friend and I love you. If you listen to me, I can guide you." We have to listen to this teacher if we want to lead a purposeful life.
It is necessary to seek this guide; a navigator cannot steer course without a compass and a knowledge of the destination to reach. Religion/philosophy is the book of instruction which assists us in this seeking.

EMPOWERING QUOTES

2008-08-07T07:36:00.006+05:30

Short Empowering Quotes

You are but the product of your thoughts;
What you think, you become.

यत् भावं तत् भवति
yath bhavam tath bhavati

You shall be,
What you determine to be.

What is the process?
Start believing in yourself.
A musician must make music,
an artist must paint,
a poet must write;
What you can be, you must be.

Begin doing what you want to do NOW.
Remember, We are not living in eternity;
we have only this moment,
sparkling like a star in our hand
and melting like a snowflake.

Cultivate the 'Beginner's Mind';
ask yourself:
How can I be a beginner in each moment --
even in situations where I am doing
what I have done before many times?
*****************************************
We do not, what we ought,
What we ought not, we do;
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through.
But our own acts, for good or ill,
are mightier power
*****************************************
The will is free.
Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful.
The seeds of god-like power are in us still;
Gods are we,Bards, saints, heroes,if we will !
*****************************************
The mark of your ignorance
Is the depth of your belief
in injustice and tragedy.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
The master calls a butterfly.
*****************************************
No one can make you feel inferior
without your consent.
*****************************************
Everybody exists.
It is only the few who live.
*****************************************
The past should be a springboard,
not a hammock.
*****************************************
In the confrontation
between the stream and the rock,
the stream always wins,
not through strength,
but through perseverance.
*****************************************
There is no such thing as a problem
without a gift for you in its hands.
You seek problems
because you need their gifts.

=========================================
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear
--not absence of fear." -- Mark Twain

"A man with outward courage dares to die,
one with inward courage dares to live." Lao-tzu

The center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days

2008-08-04T07:37:00.003+05:30

Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness

History is made by warfare, greed, lust for power, hatred, and xenophobia (with some other, more admirable motives thrown in here and there). We therefore often assume that these obviously human traits define our essential nature. How often have we been told that "man" is, by nature, aggressive and selfishly acquisitive?

What do we see on any ordinary day on the streets or in the homes of any American city -- even in the subways of New York? Thousands of tiny and insignificant acts of kindness and consideration. We step aside to let someone pass, smile at a child, chat aimlessly with an acquaintance or even with a stranger.......Many of us have the impression that daily life is an unending series of unpleasantness ......but think about it seriously for a moment. Such levels of nastiness cannot possibly be sustained. Society would devolve to anarchy in an instant if half our overtures to another human being were met with a pinch in the nose

Why then do most of us have the impression that people are so aggressive, and intrinsically so? The answer, I think, lies in the asymmetry of effects -- the truly tragic side of human existence. Unfortunately, one incident of violence can undo ten thousand acts of kindness, and we easily forget the predominance of kindness over aggression by confusing effect with frequency. One racially motivated beating can wipe out years of patient education for respect and toleration in a school or community. One murder can convert a friendly town, replete with trust, into a nexus of fear with people behind barred doors, suspicious of everyone and afraid to go out at night. Kindness is so fragile, so easy to efface; violence is so powerful.

This crushing and tragic asymmetry of kindness and violence is infinitely magnified when we consider the causes of history in the large. One book burning in the library of Alexandria can wipe out the accumulated wisdom of antiquity. One supposed insult, one crazed act of assassination, can undo decades of patient diplomacy, cultural exchanges,peace corps, pen pals -- small acts of kindness involving millions of citizens -- and bring two nations to a war that no one wants, but that kills millions and irrevocably changes the paths of history.

The alternative view might grant that stability must rule at nearly all moments and that much rarer events make history. But perhaps this stability arises by predominant behaviors of geniality only in relatively free and democratic societies. Perhaps the stability of most cultures has been achieved by the same `dark' forces that make history when they break out of balance -- fear, aggression, terror, domination of rich over poor, men over women, adults over children, and armed over defenseless. I allow that these forces have often kept balances, but still strongly assert that we fail to count the ten thousand ordinary acts of non-aggression -- done if only because people know their places and do not usually challenge the sources of order -- that overwhelm each overt show of strength even in societies structured by dominationTo base daily stability on anything other than our natural geniality requires a perverted social structure explicitly dedicated to breaking the human soul -- the Auschwitz model, if you will.........Obviously, both kindness and violence lie within the bounds of our nature because we perpetuate both, in spades. I only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all the time and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored) frequency of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred response nearly all the time.

This is not an essay about optimism; it is an essay about tragedy. If I felt that humans were nasty by nature, I would just say, the hell with it. We get what we deserve, or what evolution left us as a legacy. But the center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days. Nothing can be more tragic than that this Everest of geniality stands upside down on its pointed summit and can be toppled so easily by rare events contrary to our everyday nature--and that these rare events make our history. In some sense, we do not get what we deserve.

The solution to our woes lies not in overcoming our `nature' but in fracturing the `great asymmetry', and allowing our ordinary propensities to direct our lives. But how can we put the commonplace into the driver's seat of history?

Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was a prominent American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science and taught in Harvard University.

(The article was published in "Natural History" magazine)

Solar Eclipse - 1 August 2008

2008-08-02T08:08:00.007+05:30

Very good pictures of the total solar eclipse can be viewed at:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/080801-solar-eclipse-rao.html

Two pictures below:

As the sun's "diamond ring" appears, the total phase of the Aug. 1, 2008 solar eclipse is about to commence. Note the Moon's dark shadow on the lower right beginning to encroach on the cloud deck below.

A total solar eclipse is seen in Jiuquan, in China's western Gansu province Friday Aug. 1, 2008.

Below- Extract from Space.com. http://www.space.com/spacewatch/080801-solar-eclipse-rao.html ABOARD A JET ABOVE THE ARCTIC OCEAN – A total of 147 observers from around the world had a perfect view of this morning's total eclipse of the sun, thanks to an 2,189-mile airlift to a grandstand seat 36,000-feet above the Arctic Ocean at a point between the uninhabited northern coast of Greenland and the Norwegian island group of Svalbard.The contingent of eclipse watchers were onboard an LTU Airbus A330-200 long-range jet, racing the moon's shadow like paparazzi scrambling alongside a celebrity's passing automobile. The aircraft's 555-mile-per-hour speed (mach 0.85) provided 175-seconds of total eclipse for the passengers to take pictures and record other data. In contrast, persons on a stationary ship on the Arctic sea below would have seen – provided no clouds blocked the view – the moon's 139-mile wide shadow speed past them at 2,740 mph, providing a noticeably shorter total eclipse lasting 132 seconds.Unique observing location
No planetarium in the world could have produced so impressive a natural spectacle as the sun and moon did in the cobalt-blue heavens; although the sight lasted less than 3 minutes, the fantastically beautiful skyscape more than repaid the participants, many of whom were already up before dawn to ready themselves for a round-trip flight of 12 hours.

.

The Dual Citizenship - for all.

2008-08-01T06:38:00.004+05:30

Illness is the night-side of life,
a more onerous citizenship.

Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship,
in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.

Although we all prefer to use only the good passport,
sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell,
to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.

************************************* - Susan Sontag

PARIHAARAMS

2008-07-31T08:34:00.006+05:30

Question:

Can one’s Karma be changed/influenced by pariharas?

Reply:

The famous sanskrit statement relating to our human mind: "yath bhaavam tath bhavati" -is applicable to queries regarding the Karma theory and the pariharas undertaken to reduce the sufferings arising as a result of the operation of the law of Karma. One who has unquestioned belief in God's grace will be greatly benefited from the rituals of Pariharas through the consequent strengthening of one's own mind to deal with the karmic situation.

To develop this great faith, one first needs the attitude of mind that can affirm with faith Kulasekhara Azhwaar's staement: yath yath bhavyam bhavatu bhagawanpoorva karmaanuroopam- (Mukundamala). Our weak minds get strengthened and benefit greatly when we accept karmic happenings and humbly seek His Grace to reduce/avoid the ill-effects.

Theories and explanations that are acceptable to the logical mind belong to the realm of science which insists on prior proof through repeatable experiments. All other statements which have stood the test of time over hundreds of centuries and are believed by succeeding generations with great faith belong to what Sri Aurobindo called the 'supra-mind'. Most religions and philosophies call them received truths, implying that sages in the ancient past received the knowledge in their meditations directly from the super-consciousness.

We are lucky to have inherited this cultural tradition in our families through our parents/grand-parents. By definition therefore, these statements/truths are verifiable only through individual experience. For such experience to happen, it is first necessary to have faith that the ancient statements have come from a believable source. To question, at the very beginning, without traveling the indicated path fully is like the one who does not leave home and take even the first unless totally assured of reaching the goal. Even the statistical theory of probability on which many scientific pronouncements are based does not assure certainty for the future happening of an event.

Rejecting this great cultural treasure because of lack of faith and equating it to mere superstitious belief is like the miser with hoarded wealth, who chooses to live like a poor man. Pariharas, which are part of the treasure handed down over centuries are needed by us to strengthen our minds adequately to deal with difficult life-situations.They help to strengthen our minds, if we have faith in their efficacy, to strengthen our mind to face adverse events in life.

Bedtime Prayers (contd.)

2008-07-27T17:54:00.006+05:30

In continuation of the Post: Prayers at Bedtime:

Srimad Bhagavatam relates the story of Gajendra Moksham where the mighty elephant Gajendra, caught in the vicious grip of the crocodile, surrendered to the Lord and cried out for his help. Vishnu rushed to its rescue, killed the crocodile and saved His devotee. In Sri Vaishnava philosophy, the story is recounted to illustrate the effectiveness of the princliple of surrender to God (sharanaagati).

Also in Sri Vishnu Sahasranamam: slokam 99 http://kirtimukha.com/chinnamma/sahasra/sloka99.htm

uttAraNo dushkRti-hA puNyo duH-svapna-nASanaH
vira-hA rakshaNaH santo jIvanaH paryavasthitaH

Nama 926: dus_svapna-nASanaH – “Remover of evil dreams”, is considered as referring to the Gajendra Moksham story and the need for a sharanaagati-attitude of the mind in us.

Hanuman is a great Rama-bhakta, ever-present wherever his Lord Rama's story is told and He is worshipped.

Garuda is in eternal service to Vishnu as His vahanam.

Bhima, the strong one, was a great warrior rendering eternal service to Lord Krishna in the cause of Dharma.

They are all great devotees of the Lord.

Remembering these great devotees of the Lord when we are awake during the day and when we are about to retire for sleep, will help us to develop a sharanagati attitude of mind towards the Lord and ride the rough waves in the samsara sagara - stormy ocean of life..

SrI ChinmayAnanda, in his commentary on Vishnu Sahasranamam, explains that the worst dream is that of being re-born. He notes that when one is ever centered in nArAyaNa-smaraNa, then one's sub-conscious mind is not loaded with half-digested thoughts and unexpressed intentions, repressed desires and suppressed motives, immoral passions and covetous inclinations, and he has no fearful dreams in his sleep. Over time one enters nArAyaNa-consciousness, and there is no room for bad dreams.

What better way to help us than remembering these great souls, great Bhaktas who ever in the service of the Lord.

OM namo Narayanaya
Sarvam Sri Krishnarpanamastu

Prayers at bed-time

2008-07-25T06:07:00.003+05:30

Sri Ranganathar

Bed-time prayers:

Night-fall

kshIra sAgara taraN^ga shIkarA.
sAra tArakita chAru mUrtaye
bhogi bhoga shayanIya shAyine
mAdhavAya madhu vidviShe namaH

Madhava! Lord of Sri Devi, resting on the bed of
the serpent Adisesha in the milky ocean
(like Sri Ranganathan in Sri Rangam),
sprayed with drops from the ocean's waves
shining like stars in the sky, adorning you,
Madhusudana! the killer of the demon Madhu,
to You I offer my salutations.

anyatha sharanam naasthi,
thvameva sharanam mama
tasmaath kaarunya-bhavena
raksha, raksha Janardhana

No other support have I,
except thou to whom I surrender;
therefore, have compassion upon me
O Janardhana! save me, save me.

raamaskandham hanumantam
vainateyam vrukodaram
Shayane yassmaren nityam
dussvapanam tasya nashyati

Hanuman the one with strong, red shoulders,
Garuda, son of Vinati, - Lord Vishnu's Vaahanam,
Bhima - the mighty Pandava with a voracious appetite,
whoever remembers these valiant persons daily at bed-time,
his/her bad dreams shall be destroyed.

Arunodayam - Sun-rise

"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray dear Lord my soul you'll keep.
May angels watch me through the night
and wake me with the morning light.
Amen"
--------------------------------------------------
Hold me with both your hands, lest I should stray;
Fold me in your arms, lest I lose my way.
The night is cold; the road is dim;
My heart, once bold has now lost its vim.
Let me feel your reassuring touch, let the sun shine
Let your ever-wakeful watch surround me.
Let the vermilion elation of your dusk annihilate my trivial woes;
Let my distressed soul bask in the glory of your garden's crimson rose.
Let the molten golden hue of your dawn be smeared on my forehead;
Let me wear your blessing like the Brahmin's sacred thread.
Often my heart is tempted to play a pernicious game,
But, suddenly, I remember your face and lower my head in shame.
My foes are not strong enough to deprive me of your kindness;
Your illuminated presence has cured me of my blindness.
You are my refuge, my harbour on a stormy night;
Against all evils, you infuse in me the strength to fight.
I roll your name on my tongue;
your voice resonates in my ears;
I sing your praise in all my songs;
your touch soothes my fears.
When thunder strikes, the wind howls, I remember this —
I have found the secret path to your tranquil abode of peace.
In this world where hatred is rife and truth has lost its way;
Where recidivist men often revert to strife
and Truth has lost her sway;
Your benison inflames the extinguished flame of hope anew;
Let me hold your hand; let me lean on you.

Mirrors Don’t Lie. Mislead? Oh, Yes

2008-07-24T06:51:00.002+05:30

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/science/22angi.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science

Mirrors are the best ‘virtual reality’ system that we can build

Whether made of highly polished metal or of glass with a coating of metal on the back, mirrors have fascinated people for millennia: ancient Egyptians were often depicted holding hand mirrors. With their capacity to reflect back nearly all incident light upon them and so recapitulate the scene they face, mirrors are like pieces of dreams, their images hyper-real and profoundly fake. Mirrors reveal truths you may not want to see. Give them a little smoke and a house to call their own, and mirrors will tell you nothing but lies.

To scientists, the simultaneous simplicity and complexity of mirrors make them powerful tools for exploring questions about perception and cognition in humans and other neuronally gifted species, and how the brain interprets and acts upon the great tides of sensory information from the external world. They are using mirrors to study how the brain decides what is self and what is other, how it judges distances and trajectories of objects, and how it reconstructs the richly three-dimensional quality of the outside world from what is essentially a two-dimensional snapshot taken by the retina’s flat sheet of receptor cells. They are applying mirrors in medicine, to create reflected images of patients’ limbs or other body parts and thus trick the brain into healing itself. Mirror therapy has been successful in treating disorders like phantom limb syndrome, chronic pain and post-stroke paralysis.

“In a sense, mirrors are the best ‘virtual reality’ system that we can build,” said Marco Bertamini of the University of Liverpool. “The object ‘inside’ the mirror is virtual, but as far as our eyes are concerned it exists as much as any other object.” Dr. Bertamini and his colleagues have also studied what people believe about the nature of mirrors and mirror images, and have found nearly everybody, even students of physics and math, to be shockingly off the mark.

Other researchers have determined that mirrors can subtly affect human behavior, often in surprisingly positive ways. Subjects tested in a room with a mirror have been found to work harder, to be more helpful and to be less inclined to cheat, compared with control groups performing the same exercises in nonmirrored settings. Reporting in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, C. Neil Macrae, Galen V. Bodenhausen and Alan B. Milne found that people in a room with a mirror were comparatively less likely to judge others based on social stereotypes about, for example, sex, race or religion.

“When people are made to be self-aware, they are likelier to stop and think about what they are doing,” Dr. Bodenhausen said. “A byproduct of that awareness may be a shift away from acting on autopilot toward more desirable ways of behaving.” Physical self-reflection, in other words, encourages philosophical self-reflection, a crash course in the Socratic notion that you cannot know or appreciate others until you know yourself.

The mirror technique does not always keep knees from jerking. When it comes to socially acceptable forms of stereotyping, said Dr. Bodenhausen, like branding all politicians liars or all lawyers crooks, the presence of a mirror may end up augmenting rather than curbing the willingness to pigeonhole.

The link between self-awareness and elaborate sociality may help explain why the few nonhuman species that have been found to recognize themselves in a mirror are those with sophisticated social lives. Our gregarious great ape cousins — chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and gorillas — along with dolphins and Asian elephants, have passed the famed mirror self-recognition test, which means they will, when given a mirror, scrutinize marks that had been applied to their faces or bodies. The animals also will check up on personal hygiene, inspecting their mouths, nostrils and genitals.

Yet not all members of a certifiably self-reflective species will pass the mirror test. Tellingly, said Diana Reiss, a professor of psychology at Hunter College who has studied mirror self-recognition in elephants and dolphins, “animals raised in isolation do not seem to show mirror self-recognition.”

For that matter, humans do not necessarily see the face in the mirror either. In a report titled “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Enhancement in Self-Recognition,” which appears online in The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Nicholas Epley and Erin Whitchurch described experiments in which people were asked to identify pictures of themselves amid a lineup of distracter faces. Participants identified their personal portraits significantly quicker when their faces were computer enhanced to be 20 percent more attractive. They were also likelier, when presented with images of themselves made prettier, homelier or left untouched, to call the enhanced image their genuine, unairbrushed face. Such internalized photoshoppery is not simply the result of an all-purpose preference for prettiness: when asked to identify images of strangers in subsequent rounds of testing, participants were best at spotting the unenhanced faces.

How can we be so self-delusional when the truth stares back at us? “Although we do indeed see ourselves in the mirror every day, we don’t look exactly the same every time,” explained Dr. Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. There is the scruffy-morning you, the assembled-for-work you, the dressed-for-an-elegant-dinner you. “Which image is you?” he said. “Our research shows that people, on average, resolve that ambiguity in their favor, forming a representation of their image that is more attractive than they actually are.” Asian elephants are among the few nonhuman animals found to recognize themselves in mirrors.

When we look in the mirror, our relative beauty is not the only thing we misjudge. In a series of studies, Dr. Bertamini and his colleagues have interviewed scores of people about what they think the mirror shows them. They have asked questions like, Imagine you are standing in front of a bathroom mirror; how big do you think the image of your face is on the surface? And what would happen to the size of that image if you were to step steadily backward, away from the glass?

People overwhelmingly give the same answers. To the first question they say, well, the outline of my face on the mirror would be pretty much the size of my face. As for the second question, that’s obvious: if I move away from the mirror, the size of my image will shrink with each step.

Both answers, it turns out, are wrong. Outline your face on a mirror, and you will find it to be exactly half the size of your real face. Step back as much as you please, and the size of that outlined oval will not change: it will remain half the size of your face (or half the size of whatever part of your body you are looking at), even as the background scene reflected in the mirror steadily changes. Importantly, this half-size rule does not apply to the image of someone else moving about the room. If you sit still by the mirror, and a friend approaches or moves away, the size of the person’s image in the mirror will grow or shrink as our innate sense says it should.

What is it about our reflected self that it plays by such counterintuitive rules? The important point is that no matter how close or far we are from the looking glass, the mirror is always halfway between our physical selves and our projected selves in the virtual world inside the mirror, and so the captured image in the mirror is half our true size.

Rebecca Lawson, who collaborates with Dr. Bertamini at the University of Liverpool, suggests imagining that you had an identical twin, that you were both six feet tall and that you were standing in a room with a movable partition between you. How tall would a window in the partition have to be to allow you to see all six feet of your twin?

The window needs to allow light from the top of your twin’s head and from the bottom of your twin’s feet to reach you, Dr. Lawson said. These two light sources start six feet apart and converge at your eye. If the partition is close to your twin, the upper and lower light points have just begun to converge, so the opening has to be nearly six feet tall to allow you a full-body view. If the partition is close to you, the light has nearly finished converging, so the window can be quite small. If the partition were halfway between you and your twin, the aperture would have to be — three feet tall. Optically, a mirror is similar, Dr. Lawson said, “except that instead of lighting coming from your twin directly through a window, you see yourself in the mirror with light from your head and your feet being reflected off the mirror into your eye.”

This is one partition whose position we cannot change. When we gaze into a mirror, we are all of us Narcissus, tethered eternally to our doppelgänger on the other side.

On Torture in Fight against Terror

2008-07-23T19:28:00.004+05:30

Dark Side:
“The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.”

Review by Bob Herbert in New York Times (Madness and Shame )

Jane Mayer of The New Yorker devotes a great deal of space to David Addington, Dick Cheney’s main man and the lead architect of the Bush administration’s legal strategy for the so-called war on terror.

She quotes a colleague as saying of Mr. Addington: “No one stood to his right.” Colin Powell, a veteran of many bruising battles with Mr. Cheney, was reported to have summed up Mr. Addington as follows: “He doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”
Very few voters are aware of Mr. Addington’s existence, much less what he stands for. But he was the legal linchpin of the administration’s Marquis de Sade approach to battling terrorism. In the view of Mr. Addington and his acolytes, anything and everything that the president authorized in the fight against terror — regardless of what the Constitution or Congress or the Geneva Conventions might say — was all right. That included torture, rendition, warrantless wiretapping, the suspension of habeas corpus, you name it.

This is the mind-set that gave us Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the C.I.A.’s secret prisons, known as “black sites.”

Ms. Mayer wrote: “The legal doctrine that Addington espoused — that the president, as commander in chief, had the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries if national security demanded it — rested on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars shared.”

When the constraints of the law are unlocked by the men and women in suits at the pinnacle of power, terrible things happen in the real world. You end up with detainees being physically and psychologically tormented day after day, month after month, until they beg to be allowed to commit suicide. You have prisoners beaten until they are on the verge of death, or hooked to overhead manacles like something out of the Inquisition, or forced to defecate on themselves, or sexually humiliated, or driven crazy by days on end of sleep deprivation and blinding lights and blaring noises, or water-boarded.

To get a sense of the heights of madness scaled in this anything-goes atmosphere, consider a brainstorming meeting held by military officials at Guantánamo. Ms. Mayer said the meeting was called to come up with ways to crack through the resistance of detainees.

“One source of ideas,” she wrote, “was the popular television show ‘24.’ On that show as Ms. Mayer noted, “torture always worked. It saved America on a weekly basis.”
I felt as if I was in Never-Never Land as I read: “In conversation with British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands, the top military lawyer in Guantánamo, Diane Beaver, said quite earnestly that Jack Bauer ‘gave people lots of ideas’ as they sought for interrogation models.”

Donald Rumsfeld described the detainees at Guantánamo as “the worst of the worst.” A more sober assessment has since been reached by many respected observers. Ms. Mayer mentioned a study conducted by attorneys and law students at the Seton Hall University Law School.

“After reviewing 517 of the Guantánamo detainees’ cases in depth,” she said, “they concluded that only 8 percent were alleged to have associated with Al Qaeda. Fifty-five percent were not alleged to have engaged in any hostile act against the United States at all, and the remainder were charged with dubious wrongdoing, including having tried to flee U.S. bombs. The overwhelming majority — all but 5 percent — had been captured by non-U.S. players, many of whom were bounty hunters.”

The U.S. shamed itself on George W. Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s watch, and David Addington and others like him were willing to manipulate the law like Silly Putty to give them the legal cover they desired. Ms. Mayer noted that Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the late historian, believed that “the Bush administration’s extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history.”

After reflecting on major breakdowns of law that occurred in prior administrations, including the Watergate disaster, Mr. Schlesinger told Ms. Mayer: “No position taken has done more damage to the American reputation in the world — ever.”

Americans still have not come to grips with this disastrous stain on the nation’s soul. It’s important that the whole truth eventually come out, and as many of the wrongs as possible be rectified.

Ms. Mayer, as much as anyone, is doing her part to pull back the curtain on the awful reality. “The Dark Side” is essential reading for those who think they can stand the truth.

Quotes from John Maynord Keynes

2008-07-22T09:13:00.002+05:30

Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.

The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.

By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved,
an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems - the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.

Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others.

The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future.

For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not.

Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.

Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.

I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.

Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead!

BRAIN AND BLUEBERRIES

2008-07-20T17:55:00.005+05:30

What is good for your heart is generally good for your brain: for example, fish oil which is rich in omega-3. Dietary intake of antioxidants from fruits and vegetables significantly reduce the risk of developing cognitive impairment. Some of these are: Prunes, Raisins, Blueberries, Blackberries, Cranberries Strawberries, Spinach, Plums, Broccoli, Beets, Spinach Raspberries, Brusselsprouts, Kiwis, Red bell-peppers Avocados, Oranges, Red grapes, Cherries.

"Brain in the News" is a weekly commentary on how brain science relates to the news. The article gives valuable information to strengthen the brain and heart:

The brain is involved in everything we do. Wherever there are human stories the brain is involved. From the impact of war and natural disasters on the brain to drug abuse scandals to courtroom dramas to politics the brain is in the news, and you can read about it here.

Another Reason To Love Blueberries

If you’ve listened to me speak or seen my writings about brain-healthy eating you’ve probably heard me tout blueberries as the best brain food on the planet! Now, there’s even more compelling reasons to include them as part of your diet.

Blueberries help protect the brain, but the fruit may also have a heart protective effect by significantly lowering cholesterol, Canadian researchers say. Lead scientist Wilhelmina Kalt of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada conducted tests on pigs fed a blueberry-supplemented diet. Blueberry-supplemented diets resulted in a reduction in total cholesterol including both low-density lipoprotein, or LDL (the bad cholesterol) and high-density lipoproteins, or HDL, (the good cholesterol), Kalt said.

“In feeding trials, we found that blueberry supplementation reduced plasma cholesterol levels more effectively when the animals received a mostly plant-based diet than when they received a less heart-healthy diet”, Kalt said in a statement. The soy, oats and barley contained in these diets may have functioned synergistically with the blueberries to beneficially affect plasma lipids..

The study, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, found that the greatest reduction in total, LDL and HDL cholesterol levels was found in pigs fed a 2 percent blueberry diet equivalent to approximately 2 one-cup servings of blueberries in the human diet. Pigs have levels of LDL similar to humans and are susceptible to diet-induced vascular disease, develop atherosclerotic plaques in the aorta and carotid artery and have a similar blood pressure and heart rate as humans, Kalt said.

What I’ve found through looking at the research and in my own personal practice, is that what is good for your heart is generally good for your brain. Here are some other thoughts about brain-healthy eating….

Fish, Fish Oil, Good Fats and Bad Fats

Fish has been touted as brain food. Omega three fatty acids are the rave. There is good research to support these claims. In a study published in the British Medical Journal, French researchers reported that there is a significantly lower risk of developing brain problems among older people who eat fish at least once a week. Fish contain higher levels of omega-3-fatty acids.

It is hard to get enough omega-3-fatty acids in our diet. The foods that are now considered "mainstream" are often deficient in omega-3. Even if your diet includes several meals of fish per week, you may not be ingesting sufficient amounts of omega-3. This is because much of the fish we consume is now farm raised or does not contain significant amounts of omega-3. When ordering fish in a restaurant or buying it at the store, ask if it was caught in the wild or farm raised. Ideally, your diet should supply at least 650 mg of long chain omega-3 (DHA + EPA) per day, either from food sources or dietary supplementation. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in deep, cold-water fish, such as salmon, mackerel and sardines. Omega-6 fatty acids are also important, but are usually found in adequate amounts in corn, safflower, sunflower or soybean oils..

Dietary Antioxidants

A number of studies have shown that dietary intake of antioxidants from fruits and vegetables significantly reduce the risk of developing cognitive impairment. Here’s a list of the best antioxidant fruits and vegetables from the US Department of Agriculture…

Prunes, Raisins, Blueberries, Blackberries, Cranberries
Strawberries, Spinach, Plums, Broccoli, Beets, Spinach
Raspberries, Brussel-sprouts, Kiwis, Red bell-peppers
Avocados, Oranges, Red grapes, Cherries .

Your diet affects your brain, which affects literally everything you do. It’s something you can take control of to change your life for the better. Isn’t that what we all want? I encourage you to take an honest inventory of what you’re putting into your body and try a test period of 30 days with some healthier changes. Your vital organs, including your brain, will thank you and so will the people who care about you.

Daniel Amen, M.D., CEO, Amen Clinics, Inc.
Distinguished Fellow, American Psychiatric Association

MOUNAM - the Silent Mind

2008-07-18T09:55:00.006+05:30

A Muni and Mounam.

Thoughts produced by incessant thinking are like the bees buzzing around the hive and taking off for acquiring honey for the Queen bee = our ego. When we ralise that this compulsive, icessant activity is a non-ending slavery to the ego without giving lasting happiness and that it is an obstacle to our progress in the spiritual path, we realise that the ego is the culprit like the ghost which does not exist. As Ramana Maharishi said in Upadesa Saaram, we find: ayi patathyaham nija vibhanakam. The ego falls, and the true self shines forth.

A successful muni = mounee is silent not only in speech, but also in the mind and thus deprives the ego of nourishment. J Krishnamurti advised that we first first learn to observe the interval that exists between two thoughts, become more and more aware of it and extend it to practise mounam.

Getting rid of this disease of ceaseless thoughts, that exists in all human beings, first needs acknowledgment that it is a disease, not an intellectual virtue. Unfortunately, the emphasis is on refining and bettering (worsening?) it as a skill and an asset to a intellectual person. This wrong attribute will persist until a revelation takes place as in the case of Yogis and one does not mind travelling on the rough, difficult spiritual path strewn with difficulties, with guidance from a competent Guru.

What can one do when being a slave to the ego is considered a blessing and one is content and happy with being a slave for ever and ever?

The way to gain anything is to lose it

2008-07-17T08:08:00.007+05:30

The way to gain anything is to lose it.

True charity emanates from sound judgment of the intellect rather than a weak emotion of the mind. In its purest form, charity has the distinction of benefiting the receiver as well as the donor.

Victor Hugo in his novel Les Miserables highlights the benefaction that charity brings to the receiver. A convict had escaped from prison and sought shelter for the night. The priest obliged, gave him supper and a bed to sleep. In the middle of the night he decamped with the silver plates of the house. The next morning the police who had caught him brought him in. The priest feigned surprise and asked the policeman: "Why did you harass him? I gifted the plates to him last night." The policeman apologised and left.

The convict was astounded. To crown it all, the priest picked up two solid silver candlestick stands from his desk and gave them to the convict with these words: Remember, life is to give, not to take. The convict took them and departed. Thence, he was transformed. Living a life of service and sacrifice. Such would be the outcome of true charity.

Likewise, the donor is blessed with the effect of charity. Charity is a synonym for prosperity. So is sacrifice for success. Swami Rama Tirtha proclaims: The way to gain anything is to lose it. The more you run after wealth, the more it recedes. You crave for it, and it eludes you. Leave it alone, and it follows you. Work earnestly, dispassionately; the reward of work shall court you.

The phenomenon of colours illustrates this law of life. Light is constituted of seven colours. When an object is bathed in light the seven colours impinge upon it. An object appears blue when it actually gives away blue and takes in the other six. It appears in the colour it parts with. An object gains the colour it gives away! You gain what you give away, what you sacrifice. Not what you take. Develop the spirit of dispassion, renunciation in life. You turn pure, divine. And when you amass wealth you turn impure, demonic. Oliver Goldsmith wrote: Where wealth accumulates, men decay. [.....] -- Swami Parthasarathy
The complete article is at 'Speaking Tree', Times of India
============================================

In this context, it is perhaps relevant to recall Lao Tsu's

Law of the Reversed Effort

The Law which sees to it that
When you try to stay afloat, you sink;
When you try to sink, you float;
When you hold your breath, you lose it.
Those who justify themselves, do not convince.

It is in the letting go, that we are enabled to receive;
In the stillness, that we can participate;
In the silence, hear; and,
out of the dark night, see.
To know the Truth, one must get rid of knowledge.

Time Shifting vs Time Management

2008-07-16T06:58:00.007+05:30

[...] for those of us who live in nanosecond time, a moment becomes very, very short, and in each moment we ask how much we have gotten done. How much did I cram into it? Was I successful in multitasking?

This approach to time management simply turns up the speed on the treadmill of our lives. I propose we evolve beyond time management to "timeshifting" - which is different from merely "downshifting." The practice of timeshifting recognizes that every single moment has a particular rhythm to it, and that we have the capacity to expand or contract an individual moment as appropriate. One way to shift what's going on in our world is not to try to rush to do more, but to allow ourselves to go deeper into that moment of being present. Our ability to shift gears, to shift our rhythm to meet that moment and be present in it, is what allows us to experience the fullness of life, to create our life in the way we want it to be.-- Stephan Rechtschaffen. ****** Source: Nipun Mehta: Thought/Week

See also: Concept of Time - click HERE

Leaving no Foot-prints behind

2008-07-15T08:14:00.009+05:30

Living in the past, present and future at once

The time zones of our life by Mukul Sharma (article in Economic Times)

Aphorisms telling us to live “one day at a time” turn out to be less cutesy if we think of a day as an extended metaphor for the present. Then it begins to make a little more sense. Recovering drug abusers and alcoholics, for instance, are exhorted by their various anonymous organisations to do the same: just try to stay off the stuff for the coming 24 hours and not think of how they might be able to hold out during the next day, the week after or even luck out for a lifetime later without breaking into a cold turkey of anticipation immediately. The reason is, for most of us the future comes so heavily pre-loaded with the past and memories of experience that it skews the path ahead unfairly at times. As a result we hardly remain in the kind of control we would ideally like to be. In the 1964 classic Games People Play, the psychiatrist Eric Berne described the dysfunctional nature of such set patterns by calling them predetermined “scripts”. He catalogued a series of mind games in which people play through an outlined and predictable sequence of “transactions” that are superficially plausible but which actually conceal motivations, include private significance to the parties involved and lead to a well-defined outcome that are usually counterproductive. Of course we can’t avoid history, much less disregard it, and those who don’t learn from its mistakes are indeed doomed to repeat them with unnecessarily distressing consequences. One day at a time also doesn’t mean repeating the same day forever because that would make it like instant history happening all the time in the present. Neither does it mean an unconcern about opportunity and potential since that would lock us eternally in the here and now. What living one day at a time actually means is being able to learn from the future before it takes place. Learning from the future is the art of trial and error without, in fact, trying or (hopefully) turning out to be erroneous. In a sense it’s a process of virtual extrapolation which makes the day more dynamic, meaningful and, ultimately, rewarding — during the course of the day itself. People who manage to do this also manage to shorten its duration from an arbitrary 24 hours down to the extremely thin slice of “now” moving across the continuum of all time available to them. They live, as some of our wisest folk have done, in the past, present and future at once. – Mukul Sharma

See also Swami Chidananda's discourse "Leaving no foot-prints behind" (click here)

THE LOTUS FLOWER - Significance

2008-07-14T19:58:00.002+05:30

The Lotus Flower - Significance as symbol
In Hindu/Buddhist philosophical literature, the lotus flower is a symbol with great significance. For example, in Sloka 10, Chapter 5 of the Bhagavad Gita it is said: "One who leads his life dedicating all his actions to Brahman, abandoning attachments, is freed from bondage just as a lotus leaf remains unaffected by the water.

Alan Watts, in his Essay "Seven Symbols of Life" explains the symbolic meaning of the Lotus flower thus:

It figures in the art of every great civilization of Asia, and in the course of thousands of years has gathered to itself associations which, to the Western mind, are bound up with all that seems exotic in the life of the East. For the lotus is a mystery—a perfected glory appearing out of the unknown, a flower in whose circular spread of petals has been seen a symbol of the Wheel of Life and the rays of the sun. Yet while there is mystery in the perfection of its form, the greatest mystery is that such a form should appear out of the slime—the formless primeval morass, where, in the earliest ages, stirred the first living creatures—the home of blind worms and slithering reptiles, feeding upon one another and begetting their kind in innumerable masses.

This underworld of the morass has been sufficiently described in Kesserling’s masterpiece the South American Meditations, and there is no need to describe it further. But what must never be forgotten is that this underworld still exists in the soul of man; that while his spirit, like the Lotus struggles towards the light, so beneath him and surrounding and nourishing his roots is the primaeval slime. And further, below this slime is the world of minerals, the rock and ores descending deeper and deeper into the earth right down to that flaming darkness which men have imagined as Hell - From all this the flower gathers its nourishment while from above the sun and the rain bring to it the gifts of Heaven. Both are essential to the life of the flower.

It might seem to the eyes of man that the lotus is no more than a flower, that this resplendent creation exists of itself floating detached and spotless above the water. But this is illusion. For just as the sage may appear spotless and detached from the world he is like the lotus in that he has roots in the primaeval slime—and knows it. Foolishly it is thought that the highest achievement of the human spirit is a heavenly purity detached from earth—a rootless flower suspended in the air and nourished wholly from above. Yet in the symbol of the lotus we see that there is no conflict between heaven and earth; above, the flower develops into the fullness of its glory, expanding joyfully, opening its petals in welcome to sun and rain, while below, its root. stretch out into the morass, welcoming darkness and slime as the petals welcome light and air. For the life of the lotus is not in the flower alone; if it were, the roots would shrivel and die and the flower too would sink back into the mud. Nor is its life in the roots alone, for if this were so the flower would never raise its head above the water.

The realization of the truth contained in this symbol is the central problem of human life—the equal acceptance of both earth and heaven. Yet remember it is the roots which accept the slime—not the flower, and the flower which opens itself to the sun—not the roots. The reverse of this would indeed be abomination and evil- But nothing can be evil so long as it is in its right place, for the conflict between good and evil is not a conflict between heaven and earth, but between a right and a wrong orientation of man between the two. For evil is when the flower turns and plunges into the slime, twisting up its roots to gesticulate meaninglessly in the light of day. Or again, evil is to withdraw from either the root or the flower, to try to deny either of the two by refusing it its right to reach out into its appropriate world. Thus the particular problem of modern man of the West is to recognize his roots.

For hundreds of years his peculiar interpretation of the teaching of the Christ, his cult of consciousness, his moralism, his belief in progress towards the hygienic, the individuated and the independent has made him forget his roots in the primaeval slime. But he must remember that the roots are not to be recognized once more by searching them out with the flower; to attempt this would be to lose all that he has gained by his development, one-sided though it be. It is this folly which we see at work in the West to-day, in the growing obsession with the irrational force of sex, of the herd, of blood and violence. Yet these forces are, in themselves, as pure as any of the virtues, and as full of life-giving nourishment as Reason and the cool thought of great philosophy. For this obsession is not recognition. It is feeding the mouth with the contents of the bowels, or, conversely, filling the bowels with undigested food.

What must be done, therefore, if man is to attain a right orientation between heaven and earth, and a full development of both root and flower? How can he fulfill the Eastern precept, “Grow as the flower grows, at peace”? How can he give full recognition to the slime, and at the same time rise upwards to the sun?

In the darkness below the surface of the water lies what modern psychology has termed the Unconscious. A little way down it remains individuated, but the further it descends, the more individuals are lost in the mass. Thus in the slime is the world of reptiles, an ever coiling and uncoiling world of flux, where the individual is subordinated to the one aim of reproducing the species—a world of extreme fertility and ruthless destruction—symbolized by the circle snake which swallows its own tail. In the depths of the slime below the reptiles are even more primitive and un-individuated forms of life—plasmic formations wherein even the distinction between the sexes has not developed, formations which reproduce their kind simply by dividing into two. And further down, beneath the bed of decaying vegetable and animal matter (the death from which life arises again and again), is the formless substratum of the mineral world.

These depths have their counterpart in the soul of man, for his Unconscious sinks beyond the personal and the chain of his past lives and the lives of his forefathers, to the race, to the animal, vegetable and mineral worlds. Here lies hidden the memory of the whole Universe, and in these unconscious depths every man has his roots. From them he derives his life just as much as from the conscious world above the water. And by accepting them he transmutes the life of the slime into the glory of the flower. Therefore man must learn to recognize his foundation, to accept the primaeval slime as part of his nature—nay more, to affirm and welcome it with his roots, stretching them down deeper and deeper into the earth.

For as men we cannot deny that we came into the world with blood and pain, that the powerful reproductive urge symbolized by the reptile stirs within us, that we have bowels as well as brains, that our life depends alike on growth and decay, and that what we have been accustomed to regard as dirt, violence and pain is an essential part of our nature. This is the meaning of the Resurrection, that life comes forth out of death and decay, just as the fruit must rot for the seed to grow into the tree.

Therefore nothing is to be gained by trying to escape from the primaeval slime; without it we should die, while in truth it is no evil, Indeed, the humility of the sage is his capacity to accept the lowliest of things, to find goodness in slime. Yet it is strange that this should have been perverted into the false humility of the ascetic who rejoices in the dirt on the outside of his body, for this again is obsession, it is making the flower descend to the root.

Some will ask if this is not a ghastly life where the most gorgeous of flowers depends on slime, where growth can only be had at the expense of decay, where great achievements of the human spirit have their roots in the darkness and “depraved” irrationality of the Unconscious. Indeed, there are those who are so revolted by this life that they deny both flower and root, growth and decay, light and darkness, conscious and unconscious—hating both.

But their attitude is false, for they do not really hate both; they hate the dark side and would like to have the light, could it be had without darkness. When they speak of the vanity of life we must remind ourselves of the story of the sour grapes; they would not call it vain if it could be had without death. Yet nothing is to be achieved by revulsion and denial, not only because the attitude is fundamentally false, but because the denial of a thing does not make one free of it. Paradoxically, hatred binds one to the thing one hates, for if anything has enough power over a man to make him hate it, to that extent he is bound and conditioned by it. But while hatred is extracted, love is given. Therefore freedom comes not through hatred and denial, but through love and affirmation. “Love” is not meant in the sense of “like” as opposed to dislike, for one may love without liking; the two are on different planes. To love both the root and the flower, earth and heaven, slime and air, death and life is not merely to like decay because it makes possible growth; it is to bring the two together into an inseparable unity and to become one with it by a complete acceptance; until, beholding it, man can make to himself that tremendous affirmation: Tat tvam asi —That art thou!

by ALAN WATTS

A Personal God

2008-07-10T06:15:00.010+05:30

It's truly a miraculous experience, watching a child grow from infant to baby to child - struggling to crawl, move on all fours, sit, stand, walk and speak to the mother. The instructions wired into the brain have to be decoded and practiced repetitively by the infant before it learns all the tricks to balance itself, stand, walk and speak. The nurturing mother watches, encouraging her child, but every step of the learning process in the mind has to be taken by the child itself.

A similar process is in operation when we learn to walk on the spiritual path. An urge to seek the mysterious spirit arises in the mind that then has to unlearn the old urges and directives of the ego, and learn new ways to see, hear and experience. The Universal Mother, with great love and affection, watches patiently - confident that her child would overcome the initial hurdles as it did the physical ones as an infant and triumphantly come to her ultimately. For, she has already provided the needed equipment and knowledge for this new experience.

We have to have faith in this belief. Reincarnating over many births, benefiting from past experiences, like the child tripping, falling and finally learning to stand and walk and take great strides upon this earth, we too will be ultimately successful in attaining to the goal of Sat-Chit-Ananda that is pure Bliss.

Einstein who said he experienced the mystifying forces in Nature, stated also that he did not believe in a personal God. But the God that he refuted thus was the anthropomorphic God created by man, in the image of man, for the worldly benefit of man - a God that ruled like a disciplinarian, granting favors to those who conformed and punishing the rebels; that was the fictional God of the religions preached by the Priests, in collusion with the earth's Rulers.

The Upanishads however speak only of a Brahman, (in the neuter as tat - IT), that is omnipresent - filling every atom of the Universe and living in every moment of time, past-present-& future. Conceptualizing this huge, timeless & dimensionless presence in a Rama or a Krishna helps the mind of the seeker in the same manner as a stroller helps the child to walk without faltering and falling. Identifying totally with a personal God of one's choice in this manner, one advances spiritually by leaps and bounds. The personal God then becomes the Universal Presence, which is experienced in the silence of the mind and the Bliss in the heart. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa experienced this Blissful presence of the Universal Mother in the idol of Kali that he worshipped.

Hinduism is a strange amalgam of a core theory and accompanying practices, rituals and superstitions. Understanding its core truth is akin to reaching the kernel of a coconut - remove and throw away the tight, adhering coverings of fiber, break the hard shell, pour away the water and reach the pure white delicious kernel. Is it any wonder that those who do not practice it with faith, sincerity, steadfastness, devotion and detachment see the outer coverings and are turned away?

Einstein did not believe in a personal God as he also considered that organized religion and its rituals were not effective in ensuring the practice of what they preached about morality and ethics. He summed up this ineffectiveness, and his disappointment, in forceful terms thus:

"When considering the actual living conditions of present day civilized humanity from the standpoint of even the most elementary religious commands, one is bound to experience a feeling of deep and painful disappointment at what one sees. For, while religion prescribes brotherly love in the relations among the individuals and groups, the actual spectacle more resembles a battlefield than an orchestra. Everywhere, in economic as well as in political life, the guiding principle is one of ruthless striving for success at the expense of one's fellow men. This competitive spirit prevails even in school and, destroying all feelings of human fraternity and cooperation, conceives of achievement not as derived from the love for productive and thoughtful work, but as springing from personal ambition and fear of rejection."

The Vedantic portion of Hinduism lays emphasis on a personal, moral, ethical code of conduct. It however goes further to analyze the root cause of humanity’s suffering and concludes that the powerful, over-riding ego nurtured in societal materialistic values is to blame. This analysis, which is contained in the Upanishads, leads to many recommendations for getting complete control of the mind and developing contact with Universal Consciousness. Perhaps, had Einstein been familiar with the Upanishads, he might have conceded the validity of Upanishadic statements - which do not refer to a Personal God but name Brahman (in the neuter) as the source that exists every where, in all things and beings -- like the concept of energy.

This Upanishadic concept of the Universe is not religion but pure philosophy. Hence, realizing the practical needs of the 99% of humanity, Hinduism’s ancestors created Gods, mythologies, rules, regulations and rituals -- all of which served a temporary, intermediate purpose like a ladder. An advanced practitioner like an ascetic (sanyasi) has to step out of it and climb further on his own in order to realize the Truth.

Hinduism thus provides a 2-tier system: an elementary stage in which you believe in a personal Deity of your choice and follow rules for personal ethics and morality, and an advanced stage when one is ready to leave behind ego-dictated pursuits for material goals and is ready for the higher goal of realizing Sat-Chit-Ananda, with the assistance of a Guru. The Guru of Hinduism is merely a guide and an adviser, not a priest like the priest in a church with authority to control and guide his flock in accordance with a set of rules prescribed in a book. He is a realized saintly person who has understood and practiced the Upanishadic statements relating to the nature of Reality and therefore is able to give his disciple (sishya) guidance in the travel along the spiritual path which has been described in the Upanishad as being like the razor’s edge, difficult to tread and beset with obstacles:

Kathopanishad:
UtthishThatha, jAgrata, prApya varAn nibodhata
Kshurasya dhArA nishitA duratyatA
durgam pathastat kavayo vadanti.

Arise, awake, receive guidance from the best preceptors
For the path is like a razor’s edge
- dark, beset with obstacles, difficult to tread,
so the experienced (who have travelled the path), say.

GOD and EVIL

2008-07-09T06:30:00.006+05:30

One is dismayed by the evil at large in the world and in oneself, depressed and humiliated by the inadequacy of one's efforts to cope with it, humiliated then by the inadequacy of one's own self. It is from precisely such a feeling of humiliation that, religious writers have often urged, the search for and need of God, take their rise. What is more, the seeker who is inspired by such a mood may not be wholly without hope of succeeding in his quest. For alienated by intellectual pride, they have assured us, God draws nearer to those who approach Him in humbleness of spirit." - From the Book "God and Evil" by C.E.M. Joad:

OPRAH WINFREY's interview with ELIE WIESEL
( From Oprah Winfrey's web-site: http://www2.oprah.com/omagazine/200011/omag_200011_elie_b.jhtml )

He's one of the people I most respect: Elie Wiesel. After I first read his memoir *Night* seven years ago, I was not the same—you can't be the same after hearing how Elie, at age 15, survived the horror of the Holocaust death camps. Through his eyes, we witness the depths of both human cruelty and human grace—and we're left grappling with what remains of Elie, a teenage boy caught between the two. I gain courage from his courage. The story—and especially that number, six million—numbs us:

A Jew hater named Adolf Hitler rises to power in Germany, the world goes to war in 1939, and when the showdown is over six years later, the tyrant has slaughtered six million Jews. Six million. Inconceivable. We see footage of the concentration camps, the gas chambers, the gallows.Yet words like Holocaust and Auschwitz are still abstractions—seemingly impossible until we see photos of someone who was there. A face. Eyes. Hair. Prison numbers tattooed into an arm. A real person like Elie Wiesel who made it through the atrocity.

"How could you live through the Holocaust and not be bitter?" I ask Elie. At 72, he emanates quiet strength; with his strong handgrip, it's as if he's saying, "I assure you—I am alive."

We sit across from each other at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan, where hundreds come to see evidence of what happened to the Jewish people. Thousands already know Elie Wiesel's name—he is a prolific writer, a professor at Boston University and an activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986—but I want him to take me back to the time when living to tell the story was the last thing that mattered to him. I wanted to know: "What does it take to be normal again, after having your humanity stripped away by the Nazis?"

"What is abnormal is that I am normal," he says. "That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life—that is what is abnormal." "Why didn't you go insane?" "To this day," he says, "that is a mystery to me." and a miracle.

After he was liberated from Buchenwald in 1945, he and other orphans were sent to France. There, he lived in an orphanage, then later supported himself as a tutor and choir director—and he decided that he wanted to live again. He studied literature, philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne, and in 1952 he became a reporter for a newspaper in Tel Aviv. For ten years after his release, he vowed not to speak of his experience. "I wanted to be sure that the words I was going to use about this event were the proper words," he has said.

In our time together, Elie and I talk about how it is possible that he can still believe in the sovereignty of a force bigger than himself, why he has no explanation for his survival in the death camps, and what, five decades after Auschwitz, brings him what he calls real joy. Oprah: There may be no better person than you to speak about living with gratitude. Despite all the tragedy you've witnessed, do you still have a place inside you for gratefulness?

Elie Wiesel: Absolutely. Right after the war, I went around telling people, "Thank you just for living, for being human." And to this day, the words that come most frequently from my lips are ‘thank you’. When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.

O: Does having seen the worst of humanity make you more grateful for ordinary occurrences?
EW: For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.
O: Did you ever hate your oppressors?
EW: I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying [the Bible and the Cabala] to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.
O: On your first night in the camp, you saw babies being thrown into the flames. Can you ever forgive those who killed the children?
EW: Who am I to forgive? Only the children themselves could forgive. If I forgive, I should do it in their name. Otherwise, it is arrogant.
O: By becoming a voice for those who are suffering, are you doing what the world did not do for Jews during the Holocaust? EW: I've gone everywhere, trying to stop so many atrocities: Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia. The least I can do is show the victims that they are not alone. When I went to Cambodia, journalists asked me, "What are you doing here? This is not a Jewish tragedy." I answered, "When I needed people to come, they didn't. That's why I am here."
O: Is it our indifference and arrogance that makes us Americans feel that we are the center of the universe—that a mother's pain after losing her child in Bosnia or Nigeria isn't as important as our own pain?
EW: I wouldn't generalize. There are people in America who are so sensitive. Whenever I meet young Americans abroad, they are there to help. A doctor in New York read a quote of mine that sparked her involvement. Somebody had asked me, "What is the most important commandment in the Bible?" and I said, "Thou shalt not stand idly by." So she packed up her office and went to Macedonia—I met her there... We cannot free all the prisoners in the world or save all the victims of AIDS, but we can at least show them that we are with them.
O: You and the others in the camp were forced to march by three people who were hanged. And somebody behind you whispered, "Where is God?"
EW: A voice in me said, "God is there."
O: Where are you and God with each other these days?
EW: We still have a few problems! But even in the camps, I never divorced God. After the war, I went on praying to God. I was angry. I protested. I'm still protesting—and occasionally, I'm still angry. But it's not because of the past, but the present. When I see victims of a tragedy—and especially children—I say to God, "Don't tell me that you have nothing to do with this. You are everywhere—you are God."
O: Did you come out of the horror of the Holocaust with your ability to love intact?
EW: After my liberation, I fell in love with every girl—consecutively. But I would never dare tell a girl that I loved her, because I was timid—and afraid of rejection. I missed so many opportunities because I was afraid to say what I felt. I needed to love more than I needed to be loved. I needed to know that I could love—that after all I had seen, there was love in my heart.
O: Do you remember the day you were released from the camp? EW: April 11, 1945. The Americans were close by, and a few days before that, on April 5, the Germans had decided to evacuate all the Jews. Every day, they would evacuate thousands—and most were killed upon leaving. I was in a children's block with other adolescents, and we were left until the end. [But every day we marched to the gate anyway.] I was near the gate more than five times before I was released, and each time, the gate closed just before I came to it.
O: How do you explain that you survived the camps?
EW: I have no explanation.
O: You—someone who has studied the Talmud, the Cabala—have no explanation?
EW: Believe me, I have tried to know, but I do not. If it is God, I have problems with that. If he bothered to save me, why couldn't he have saved all the others? There were people worthier than I.
O: Don't you think your survival has something to do with who you've become and what you've said to the world about the Holocaust?
EW: No, no, no. The price is too high. Because I survived, I must do everything possible to help others.

There is no where that He is not there

2008-07-08T06:50:00.003+05:30

A film that made a deep impression upon me in 1952 -- Yatrik, in which a pilgrim seeks spiritual experience in the Himalayas and realises that God is every where and is only to be experienced, not found. He is in the homes where we live, in the forests, and in our own hearts. Once this realisation takes place, we understand that there is nowhere that He is not there: He is in the temples and mosques, the mountain peaks and the Valleys. He is the beauty in the beautiful flowers, the sound in the waves of the flowing rivers. We experience his power in the cascading waterfalls and the energy in every little particle that He has created. There is no where that He is not there.
The lyrics reproduced below; music at:
http://kirtimukha.com/FilmSongs/tudhoondhtahaijisko.mp3

तू डूण्ढता है जिसको बसती में या के बन में
वह सॉवरा सलोना रहता है तेरे मन में
मस्जिद में मंदिरों में पर्वत के कंकडोँ में
नदियों के पानियों में गहरे समुन्दरोँ में
लहरा रहा है वो ही ख़ुद अपने बाँकपन में
वह सॉवरा सलोना रहता है तेरे मन में
हर जर्रे में रमा है हर फूल में बसा है
हर चीज़ में उसी का जलवा झलक रहा रहा है
हरकत वो कर रहा है हर एक के तन बदन में
वह सॉवरा सलोना रहता है तेरे मन में
___________________________________
tU DUNDutaa hai jisako bastI meiM yaa ke ban meM
vah saa.Nvaraa salonaa rahataa hai tere man meM
masjid meM maMdiroM meM parvat ke kaMkaDoM meM
nadiyoM ke paaniyoM meM gahare samundaroM meM
laharaa rahaa hai vah hI khud apane baa.Nkapana meM
vah saa.Nvaraa salonaa rahataa hai tere man meM
har jarre meM ramaa hai har phUl meM basaa hai
har chIz meM usii kaa jalavaa jhalak rahaa hai
harakat vah kar rahaa hai har eka ke tan badan meM
vah saa.Nvaraa salonaa rahataa hai tere man meM
______________________________________________

Narayana by Adi Sankara

2008-07-07T06:30:00.001+05:30

Why Adi Sankara used the name Narayana when referring to Paramatma as Jagat-karaka:

Even though this country is well known for "tatva vichara", it is even more well known (good name and bad name both) for giving us a large number of Gods (deities). Instead of the Absolute being considered as a "dry" abstract principle, the deities which are no different from the Absolute, have form, and appear as the ' Absolute come to life'. The Acharya, in his bhashyas, could have dealt with the Paramatma as the prapancha karana sakthi, the Absolute, as a dry abstract principle. Instead of doing so, and in order that the treatment may be appealing to the community which is used to relating itself to God with Form, he had thought it necessary to refer to the Absolute at several places by a Name. The question arises about which Name to choose.

Though there are many deities, these can be generally considered as falling under the broad classification of Saiva and Vaishnava. Between Siva and Vishnu, he may have thought about which to choose. The Acharya was himself an Avatara of Siva. So, he may have thought – why use my own Name. Siva is very dear to Vishnu. And, similarly, Vishnu is very dear to Siva. Therefore, wherever Vedanta refers to Paramatma as Jagat-karana-sakthi, Prapancha-mahasakthi, Saguna-bhramman, Iswaran, with an implicit suggestion of attributed Form, where Murthy Rupa is indicated, the Acharya has used NARAYANA as the name.

Avatara Siva talking about Adhara Siva does not look proper and talking about Vishnu appears more graceful, balanced and dignified. Is that not so?

So it is, in the Bhashya books, the root (moola) of the causal principle of the Jagat is referred to by the name Narayana. The supreme central meaning of these books is the Oneness (unity) of Paramatma and Jivatma, that is Advaita. In this way, the use by Siva Avatara Acharya of Vishnu's name brings in the Hari Hara Advaita - that Siva and Vishnu are one and the same.

Mahavishnu has many names. In fact, there are a thousand names. Then it may be asked why the Narayana name is chosen. The supreme astakshari mantra of Mahavishnu has the Narayana name in it.

Ayana means path (marga). Ayana also means the end (goal) of the path. In both these senses, Narayana is the Ayana for the Nara (Jivatma). Bhrama Vidya Sastra gives the path to salvation. Narayana is Bhrama Vidya. When He appears as Krishna Paramatma, he himself says "Adhyatma Vidya Vidhyanam" in the Gita. The final goal of that Vidya is also He only. Therefore it is that when Bhrahma Vidya Guru Parampara is talked about, it starts with "Narayanam". So it is quite appropriate that in the Bhashya books, which are Bhrahma Vidya Sastras, the Narayana name is used.

The name Sankara joining with the name Narayana has given rise to a name Sankaranarayanan. In south Pandya country, there is a place where the worshipped image (murthy) is the image of Siva and Vishnu in one body showing their oneness. That image is known as Sankaranarayanan. The place is called Sankaranarayanan Koil. This is now commonly pronounced as Sankaranainar Koil in usage.

The Acharya himself has used the above name in an important context. He has bequeathed to us in a question – answer form a text called "Prasnottara Ratna Malika". In the penultimate sloka of this work, the question is: Who is called Bhagwan and Maheswara. Our Acharya does not in reply give the names of Siva or Vishnu. Our Advaita Acharya gives the reply as the one Atma which is a communion of Siva and Vishnu. Even there he does not use Siva – Vishnu or Hari – Hara but has used Sankaranarayanan.

Q: Kascha Bhagwan Mahesah?
A: Sankara Narayanatmaikah

Therefore it is appropriate that this Sankara also gives a special niche for the name Narayana.

Thus it is clear that the Acharya has referred to the great causal principle of the Jagat by the name NARAYANA. So, when he intends that the namaskaras performed to us must be conveyed to the Jagat-Karana-Vastu, he instructs: Convey to Narayana. And to carry out the instruction, he has made a rule, which appears easy on the face of it.

Only that Narayana, who has created all this and has endowed all this with vital energy (sakthi), has the "right" to accept all the namaskaras. Namaskara to any deity goes to Kesava. We recite the sloka: Sarva Deva Namaskara Kesavam Pratigachhati. When namaskaras performed to the deities go only to HIM, how can namaskaras performed to ordinary people belong to them? All these namaskaras also go to HIM only. It is that we have been asked to always remember when namakaras are performed to us. In order that we do not "misappropriate" the namaskaras rightfully belonging to HIM only and make sure that the namaskara is duly redirected to HIM, the Acharya has most kindly defined a rule for us – a rule, which as I said earlier, is seemingly easy. The rule is that when someone performs a namaskara to us, we should say "Narayana, Narayana".

SELECT QUOTES

2008-07-06T06:25:00.004+05:30

Zen is like soap.
First, you wash with it.
Then, you wash off the soap. --Yamaoka Tesshu

Let birds of sorrow
Fly over the head;
Do not allow them to build their nests
And multiply in you.

The past should be a springboard,
not a hammock.

Bitterness imprisons life;
love releases it.

Use what talents you possess.
The woods would be very silent
if no birds sang except those that sang best.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you,
but it is most important that you do it.

Don't put the key to your happiness
in someone else's pocket.

Be yourself.
The world worships the original.
Nobody can be exactly like me.
Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.

"Maturity includes the recognition that
no one is going to see anything in us
that we don't see in ourselves.
Stop waiting for a producer.
Produce yourself." -Marianne Williamson

This above all:
to thine own self be true.

No one can make you feel inferior
without your consent.

Chance is always powerful.
Let your hook be always cast in the pool;
where you least expect it, there will be a fish.

A man is but the product of his thoughts;
What he thinks, he becomes.
yath bhavam, thath bhavathi

We do not what we ought;
What we ought not, we do;
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through.
But our own acts, for good or ill,
are mightier power
=================================================
"The Dangerous Age"
It is that point in a woman's life when her children are grown,
when she can finally say out loudthat she is married to the wrong man
and hasn't had a fulfilling romantic relationshipin well over a decade.
She is a little desperate, a little sada litle angry, a little lonely,
wanting to jump ship but not sure she can swim.
It's so common, it's almost generic subject matter.

We wait to see which sculpture the author will fashion it from:
Anna Karenina? Emma Bovary? Erica Jong?

If a woman takes a risk for her own happiness,
will she be happy in the end or will she be punished?
................................................................................... Annette Williams Jaffee
=============================================================

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. --Meister Eckhart

The will is free.
Strong is the soul, and wise, and beautiful.
The seeds of god-like power are in us still;
Gods are we, Bards, saints, heroes,
if we will !

There is a plan to my life
but it's not always my plan.
God's way is not always my way.
Lord, Yours Will be done.

How else
except through a broken heart
may God enter?

Think of yourself as the carpenter
Who builds your house.
Each day you hammer a nail,
place a board, or erect a wall;
Build wisely.
It is the only life you will ever build.
Even if you live it for only one day more,
that day deserves to be lived graciously
and with dignity.

The nature of God is a circle
of which the center is everywhere
and the circumference is nowhere.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour!

The term `myth' is not a synonym for fiction.
Myth is the word used to express
The inexpressible in human experience.
In mythical expressions or tales,
the truth is not in the description
but in the meaning or insight they communicate.

The mark of your ignorance
Is the depth of your belief
in injustice and tragedy.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
The master calls a butterfly.

There is no such thing as a problem
without a gift for you in its hands.
You seek problems
because you need their gifts.

You teach best
what you need most to learn.

Who is Bored?

2008-07-05T07:08:00.008+05:30

Observing Boredom can teach you who you are

The mind exists in a state of "not enough"
and so is always greedy for more.
When you are identified with mind,
you get bored and restless very easily.

Boredom means that the mind is hungry
for more stimulus, more food for thought,
and its hunger is not being satisfied.

When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s hunger
by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV,
surfing the web, going shopping, or — and this is not uncommon —
transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more
to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting more food.

Or you can stay bored and restless and observe
what it feels like to be bored and restless.

As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly
some space and stillness around it, as it were.
A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows,
the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish
in intensity and significance.

So even boredom can teach you
who you are and who you are not.
You discover that a "bored person" is not who you are.

Boredom is simply a conditioned energy-movement within you.

Neither are you an angry, sad, or a fearful person.
Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not "yours," not personal.
They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.

Nothing that comes and goes is you.

"I am bored." Who knows this?
"I am angry, sad, afraid." Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that is known. --Eckhart Tolle
==============================

In Hindu philosophy, a muni is one who observes maunam - silence -
not merely in speech but also in mind;
emptied of thoughts and not engaged in recording,
the mind is totally free to be aware and just observe.

A new perspective of the self and Reality is experienced
and the Muni becomes a realised person.
The highest Truth is then revealed to the silent mind
as described by Adi Shankara :
maunavyakhyaa prakatita parabrahma tatvam
Siva, as the Guru, communicating in silence
to the assembled Munis the Truth about Reality.

We have to learn and practise how to convert boredom into
dynamic Silence that empowers us to receive the highest knowledge.
We need the help of a competent teacher to help us achieve this goal -
as advised in Kathopanishad:
praapya varaan nibodhata get guidance from a competent Guru for enlightenment.
As in education, it is not sufficient merely to get teachers
who "fill the bucket" of the mind with knowledge;
we have to 'light the fire' with a spark from the Guru to experience Reality.

The Fateful events in Ramayana

2008-07-04T06:59:00.013+05:30

Was it Fate?

Any event happens due to the effect of interlocking events of the past.

Dasaratha was under a curse to die of Putrashoka because, while hunting in the forest,he had inadvertently caused the death of the young son of an aged, blind couple. He married Kaikeyi, a foreign princess of exotic beauty by promising her father that her son would succeed him as the king-- ignoring the law of primogeniture. He did not keep that promise.

He sent Bharata and Shatrughna to Kaikeyi's father's home. When they were away and without informing Kaikeyi, he made arrangements for the coronation of Rama - ignoring his earlier promise. He wanted to avoid a confrontation with her. He almost succeeded.

Due to her love and affection for Rama, Kaikeyi at first did not see anything wrong in this.
But when her well-wisher and representative of her father - Kooni convinced her, by reminding her of Dasaratha's two boons to her when she had once saved his life on the battle-field, she demanded that he crown Bharata and send Rama to the forest. Perhaps, we blame Kooni unnecessarily for protecting her ward's interests and doing her duty. Dasaratha could not proceed with the intended coronation of Rama and, due to his ill-health, age and strong emotions, swooned and fell down.

When summoned by Kaikeyi, Rama came and decided that the only dharmic way of dealing with the situation was to accede to Kaikeyi's demands which Dasaratha was bound to concede. ama's proceeding to the forest was thus caused by Dasaratha's actions - not Kaikeyi or Kooni who were merely agents of Fate to execute the Law of Karma.

In the forest also, destiny seems to have guided the handling of the situation involving Soorpanakha. She was teased by Rama to approach Lakshmana who got angry and disfigured her face by cutting her nose. In the normal course, Lakshmana who greatly respected ladies, would have adopted other means to get rid of her as a nuisance. It was because of this incident that Soorpanakha sought revenge, enticed Ravana with an account of the great beauty of Sita and persuaded him to abduct her.

When Mareecha came on the scene as the golden deer, Lakshmana could sense that the deer was a demon in disguise, but Sita insisted and Rama chose to follow the galloping animal far into the forest and finally kill it with the disastrous consequences that followed. Sita, a normally respectful person who was aware of the ability of Rama and the fine qualities of Lakshmana, abused him and goaded him to leave his guard-post and proceed to save Rama who she knew was capable of destroying hordes of demons easily. If rescuing and recovering Sita was the objective, Rama could have preferred to seek the assistance of the invincible Vali. Yet he chose Sugreeva, killed Vali, crossed the Ocean and battled with Ravana.

Every event in Ramayana seems to be tuned towards one single goal: the battle with and Killing of Ravana and his horde of Rakshasas: that was the primary purpose of the Avatar.

But, perhaps, there is an embedded lesson for us in this great story: namely, to educate us on the frailties of the human character and the weakness of the human intellect when it starts acting on its own limited capabilities, however high. That is why after Sita's ordeal by fire in Lanka after Ravana's death, Rama told Brahma: 'I do not know who I am, except that I am the son of Dasaratha, King of Ayodhya.'

May be, this is the important message:

You are not the limited person that you imagine;
you are an informed person, guided by the illuminating spirit
and you should make an effort to recognise its existence
and abide by its guidance instead of the dictates of the Ego.

All the events narrated in Ramayana, which do not make sense in a dharmic way, were perhaps intended to tell us forcefully how we suffer due to lack of contact with this superior intelligence which resides in the heart and is always within our reach.

Narayana Bhattathiri in his Narayaneeyam (Canto35 Verse 10), written about 400 years ago, noted the inexplicable situations in Ramayana (like the fire-ordeal of Sita) and observed:

"This human embodiment of Thine is for instructing mankind how too much attachment (Kama) will lead to pangs of separation and how addiction to Dharma (the letter of the Law) will push one to such Adharma as abandonment of innocent ones. Otherwise, it is unimaginable how Thou, who art ever established in the Atman-consciousness, canst ever have any weakness of the mind."

Discipline and drug-abuse

2008-07-03T16:51:00.014+05:30

Below a photo-copy of an article contributed by me in June 1983 to the Tamil Magazine Magal (Madras).

It commences thus:

மகளே நீ என்ன காரியம் செய்து விட்டாய்? என்னால் இதுவரை யாருடனும் இவ்விஷயத்தைப் பற்றி பேசக்கூட முடியவில்லை. ஆனால் இனி பேசித்தான் ஆக வேண்டும்.

magale! nee yenna kaariyam saithivittaay? yennal iduvarai yaarudanum ivvishayatthaip patri pesakkuda mudiyavillai. aanaal ini pesitthaan aaga vendum.

My dear daughter,
What a great tragedy has happened due to your action. Till now I could not talk about this to any one. But now I have to speak about it. [............] She ends the letter hoping that sharing it thus through the 'Letters to the Editor' in LA Times (Los Angeles Times, December 1982) might help other parents in taking early action.

A large number of young people choose to live dangerously with the youthful courage and confidence that it would all end right. They follow the latest fashionable trend and succumb to peer pressure. The parents are busy and unaware of their children's misguided actions. They are also not conscious / aware of their responsibility in watching and guiding their wards. There are no easy answers to this problem of moulding their chldren as responsible future citizens. The most important element is finding adequate spare time to learn the process and guide the children from a very young age and instilling in them a proper value-system. May the Lord help them and the community.

shubhamastu