TirukKural

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

'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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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
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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

[...] 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

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

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

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.