You can take a guy out of Sea Sands, but you can't take the Sea Sands out of a guy!
Three shrines now stand as memorials to Holy Mother, erected by the loving care of her beloved child Swami Saradananda. One is the Udbodhan, where she spent the last eleven years of her active life. The second, a white temple, stands on the bank of the Ganges at the Belur Math where her body was consigned to fire. The third, another white temple, has been erected on the site of her birth at Jayrambati. From the top of this temple flutters a flag emblazoned with the simple word 'Ma', reminding her devotees from far and near of her repeated assurance that she would stand by them till their hour of liberation, and recalling to them her words of benediction: 'I am the Mother of the virtuous, I am the Mother of the wicked. Whenever you are in distress, say to yourself: "I have a Mother."'It inspires me no end and, when it got into my head last morning, i created an iTunes playlist of all the bhajans of the Old Mother from the Bhajan Cornucopia, a dozen of them.
Teachings of Sri RamakrishnaHad a good laugh over it because the full text of that exchange goes as follows: (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Advice to Householders, page 115, middle)
'M. : ''When one sees God does one see Him with these eyes?''
Master : "God cannot be seen with these physical eyes. In the course of spiritual discipline one gets a 'love body', endowed with 'love eyes'. One sees God with these 'love eyes. With this 'love body' the soul communes with God."--
[Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Advice to Householders. p.42/43.]
M: "When one sees God does one see Him with these eyes?"IMHO, bowdlerization of spiritual material is never a good idea. All of us (except for the Incarnations by birth) are around because of that primeval force called sex. So when it comes to acting coy about sex in spiritual pursuits, who are we kidding?
MASTER: "God cannot be seen with these physical eyes. In the course of spiritual discipline one gets a 'love body', endowed with 'love eyes', 'love ears', and so on. One sees God with those 'love eyes'. One hears the voice of God with those 'love ears'. One even gets a sexual organ made of love."
At these words M. burst out laughing. The Master continued, unannoyed, "With this 'love body' the soul communes with God."
M. again became serious.
Celibacy is not hereditary.
—637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
From corner room to Yojana Bhavan
…
In some ways, Nandan Manohar (sic) Nilekani is destiny’s child, a ‘karmayogi’, to use wife Rohini’s phrase. There have been serendipitous breaks, he’s always been at the right place at the right time.
The 10,000-Hour RuleHe goes on to say that the same thing—demographic luck—was at work in the IT field: (pp. 64-65)
…
Do you know what's interesting about that list? Of the 75 names, an astonishing 14 are Americans born within nine years of each other in the mid 19th century. Think about that for a moment. Historians start with Cleopatra and the Pharaohs and comb through every year in human history ever since, looking in every corner of the world for evidence of extraordinary wealth, and almost 20 percent of the names they end up with come from a single generation in a single country.
If you were more than a few years out of college in 1975, then you belonged to the old paradigm. You had just bought a house. You're married. A baby is on the way. You're in no position to give up a good job and pension for some pie-in-the-sky $397 computer kit. So let's rule out all those born before, say, 1952.* ;-) to Sammy
At the same time, though, you don't want to be too young. You really want to get in on the ground floor*, right in 1975, and you can't do that if you're still in high school. So let's also rule out anyone born after, say, 1958. The perfect age to be in 1975, in other words, is old enough to be a part of the coming revolution but not so old that you missed it. Ideally, you want to be twenty or twenty-one, which is to say, born in 1954 or 1955.
"Sir, please close the back door [French windows] whenever possible as a 4-foot long snake was seen in our lane".Her apprehension might have been due to some of the stuff in Why We Fear Snakes.
Baba's Opinion
One devotee named Muktaram, then said that it was good that the poor creature escaped. Hemadpant challenged him saying that serpents should better be killed. There was a hot discussion between them - the former contending that serpents, and such creatures, should not be killed, the latter that they should be. As night came on, the discussion came to an end, without any decision being arrived at. Next day, the question was referred to Baba, who gave His settled opinion as follows: "God lives in all beings and creatures, whether they be serpents or scorpions. He is the Great Wirepuller of the world, and all beings, serpents, scorpions, etc. obey His command. Unless He will it, nobody can do any harm to others. The world is all dependent on Him, and no one is independent. So we should take pity and love all creatures, leave off adventurous fights and killings and be patient. The Lord (God) is the Protector of all."
Shri Brahmananda was a famous learned Shastri from Karnataka. He began to develop dry leprosy when he was about twenty and decided to remain a bachelor. He did great penance in Venkatapur and prayed to the Lord to give him a guru. The Lord told him to go to Indore. Accordingly he traveled to Indore and met the Master there. The Master was surrounded by men, women, and children. He was discussing with them their worldly problems. Shri Brahmananda wa disappointed to see the guru so much immersed in worldly affairs. He returned to Venkatapur and began his penance again. The Lord pointed to the Master a second time. So he went back to Indore and fell at the Master's feet. The Master asked him to do Sadhana i.e. Japam on the banks of the Narmada river. When he obtained self-realization, he came to meet the Master in Gondawali.…Long-time readers might be aware of this from Rakhal Rocks:
How can I describe the state of my mind? This noon I felt a yearning to go to Narmada and practice austerity.Felt like creating an HTML file showing this linkage:
…prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. …. And that's how it went for Andy - that was his routine.
—Voice-over of Morgan "Red" Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption
When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully because we know the faces of our future generations are looking up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them.Update on19.JUN
—Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation in American Indian Quotes
Reducing Travel Cost and also fulfilling Social Responsibility.It was about homestays in India, with a link to: My Great Stay. Found it esp. useful as i love the Western Ghats so much. Here's the link to all the homestays in Karnataka.
We once again confirm that Mr. Achar has left from the services of PMOA office and he is no longer in our services. We have now a new Head (Admin). Mr. Sridhar Chari appointed to this office.That was too delicious to resist, so i responded:
Looks like we have to chary of Achar ;-)Some folks didn't like this take-off, though there were others who found it funny. Anyway, i have always been amused by take-offs on my name, the best being the GK Vale Shutterbug Club referring to me as:
Never be surprised by anything,but he wasn't fazed at all by the complex-looking ERD:
You don't have to be nice as long as you are fair.Mr. Chari has given a twist to that, by being both fair and nice. His sunny disposition might be due to the fact he was born on a Sunday ;-)
Have a good one, Chief.
I love specialists, in whatever field they might be.
Unless there is some relationship or connection, nobody goes anywhere. If any men or creatures come to you, do not discourteously drive them away, but receive them well and treat them, with due respect. Shri Hari (God) will be certainly pleased, if you give water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked, and your verandah to strangers for sitting and resting.Ranu Singh was quite interested in the many photos, which i took as the wardrobe went towards completion. Guess he considers himself a bit of a looker; i praised him a little bit on that front as well.
If you want others to do things, you do it first.
Remuneration for Labour
One day at noon, Baba came near Radha-Krishna-Mai's house and said - "Bring Me a ladder." Some men brought it and set it against a house as directed by Baba. He climbed up on the roof of Vaman Gondkar's house, passed the roof of Radha-Krishna-Mai's house and then got down from the other corner. What object Baba had, none could know. Radha-Krishna-Mai was, at that time, shivering with Malaria. It may be to drive off that fever, that He may have gone there. Immediately after getting down, Baba paid Rupees two to the persons who brought the ladder. Somebody asked Baba, why he paid so much for this. He replied that nobody should take the labour of others, in vain. The worker should be paid, his dues promptly and liberally.
West Bank
The exodus of Christians continues in Bethlehem, where Tony Rashmawi, his wife, Jeeda, and daughter, Zeina, pack for Canada. "Under Israeli occupation, normal life is impossible," says Jeeda. "We must give Zeina a future."
By Don Belt
Photographs by Ed Kashi
The summer after the drawing class I was in Italy for a science conference and I thought I'd like to see the Sistine Chapel. I got there very early in the morning, bought my ticket before anybody else, and ran up the stairs as soon as the place opened. I therefore had the unusual pleasure of looking at the whole chapel for a moment, in silent awe, before anybody else came in.
Soon the tourists came, and there were crowds of people milling around, talking different languages, pointing at this and that. I'm walking around, looking at the ceiling for a while. Then my eye came down a little bit and I saw some big, framed pictures, and I thought, "Gee! I never knew about these!"
Unfortunately I'd left my guidebook at the hotel, but I thought to myself, "I know why these panels aren't famous; they aren't any good." But then I looked at another one, and I said, "Wow! That's a good one." I looked at the others. "That's good too, so is that one, but that one's lousy." I had never heard of these panels, but I decided that they were all good except for two.
I went into a place called the Sala de Raphael--the Raphael Room--and I noticed the same phenomenon. I thought to myself, "Raphael is irregular. He doesn't always succeed. Sometimes he's very good. Sometimes it's just junk."
When I got back to my hotel, I looked at the guidebook. In the part about the Sistine Chapel: "Below the paintings by Michelangelo there are fourteen panels by Botticelli, Perugino"--all these great artists--"and two by So-and-so, which are of no significance." This was a terrific excitement to me, that I also could tell the difference between a beautiful work of art and one that's not, without being able to define it. As a scientist you always think you know what you're doing, so you tend to distrust the artist who says, "It's great," or "It's no good," and then is not able to explain to you why, as Jerry did with those drawings I took him. But here I was, sunk: I could do it too!
Treasure Trove—Bibliophile’s ParadiseReminded me of my own pottering around MG Road for some very old RDs. Used to get them near the Cauvery Emporium (in WikiMapia), once in a while with three of them stitched together. The earliest ones were from the early 1950s, though there might been one or two from the late 1940s.
It was 1953, College Street, Calcutta. An old professor of English, Rajnikant Chatterjee, would religiously come to College Street every evening and intently read and buy rare old books. At one such visit, he stumbled upon a few torn pages inside an equally hoary old book. Curious, he began to read and lo, those were the lost translations of the legendary English orientalist Sir Edward Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat-e-Umar Khayyam, written in Persian. Students of English literature all over the world are aware that Fitzgerald’s English renditions of 11 exquisite quatrains weren’t available till 1953. Even the universities of Oxford and Cambridge failed to find those 11 rubaiyat. But, Chatterjee luckily chanced upon them and because of him, the English translation of all the quatrains is available to students as well as readers. The world of literature is immensely grateful to Chatterjee and the famous College Street, dotted with dingy bookstalls, that have some of the rarest books in the world.
I make it a point to visit College Street on my every visit to the city. I spend a considerable amount of time with old books. What adds to such intellectually fruitful visits is the bargaining part. I once found eight odd copies of foreign editions from the Reader’s Digest of 1934 and bargained hard and bought them for Rs 12 only.…
The Ram Mandir at Chintamani was opened in 1949. Shri Venkanniah and Shri Subramanyam spared no pains to make the best possible arrangements. Shri Narayan Appa prayed to the Master to be physically present on the RamNavmi day. He did Japam for the whole night. Early in the morning he took his bath and went to the Mandir. He saw the Master sitting near Shri Rama. The Master sat on a tigerskin in his usual Padmasana pose. Narayan Appa fell at his feet. The Master said, "Be sure to see me wherever there is the Japam of the Name of God and mutual love among human beings." With these words the Master disappeared and Shri Narayan Appa was dazed for some time.
I grew up with six brothers. That's how I learned to dance - waiting for the bathroom.In a lecture in 1990, Swami Sukhabodananda gave an unusual reason for chanting, say, the Vishnu Sahasranama:
Folks who do it will continue to see the good things around and in their lives.Jiddu said that one's brain circuitry gets changed with one's thoughts. To me, that makes a very good case to have gratitude as one of the focal points of life.
Know in self, first this: Thou art body, mind and soul, a three-dimensional individual in a three-dimensional consciousness. Hence ye find the Godhead, to a consciousness of an individual in the earth plane, is three dimensions: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each are individual, and yet they are one. So with the body-consciousness: the body, the mind and the soul. Each have their attributes, each have their limitations, save the soul. Nothing may separate the soul from its source save the will of self.
—Edgar Cayce Reading 5089-3
The search for roots: The missing linkSo when Edgar Cayce says that the five races of man (black, brown, yellow, white, and red) were spontaneously created 130 million years ago, i now know the reason behind that.
The cause is not outside. The outside is only a reflection of the inner man. Charles Darwin proposed that human beings evolved from apes. It might seem far-fetched, because for thousands of years apes have coexisted with humans but none of them have evolved into human beings!
Secondly, Darwin was unable to find a link between man and ape, because whenever things develop there are always steps, not jumps. Maybe, just maybe, we have to look for more than just physical evidence.
Interestingly, according to Eastern mysticism, in a very different way, man is evolved from animals - maybe not necessarily as far as his body is concerned, but as far as his being is concerned, yes. And that seems to be more relevant. Eastern mysticism has a theory not that the ape's body develops into a human body, but that an ape's soul or an elephant's soul, or a lion's soul, can develop into a human being. First the soul develops, and then, according to the soul's need, nature provides the body. So there is no bodily evolution, but there is a spiritual connection.
In Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb vacilar, present participle vacilando. It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction. My friend Jack Wagner has often, in Mexico, assumed this state of being. Let us say we wanted to walk in the streets of Mexico City but not at random. We would choose some article almost certain not to exist there and then diligently try to find it.The HomeTown guy had called saying that something we ordered had arrived, so could we come over and pay the remaining amount (they charge 25%+25%+50%, in phases). Since the guys out there work 11:30-9:30, that was ostensibly the reason for setting out with kiddo.
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నీవు నీళ్ళు నమిలితే నిండెను వేదములు —హరి నీ ప్రతాపము, నీకే శరణు |
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 ಸ್ವಾನಂದ |
 The Power of Arunachala |
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रमते राम आओजी आओजी उदियां की गॉनियां लाओजी |
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