Monday, June 30, 2008

Beauty of Brain = Beauty of Maths.

Beauty of Maths!

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

Brilliant, isn't it?

And look at this symmetry:

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321

111111111 x 111111111=123456789 87654321

Now, take a look at this...

101%

From a strictly mathematical viewpoint:

What Equals 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%?

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%?

We have all been in situations where someone wants you to GIVE OVER 100%.

How about ACHIEVING 101%?

What equals 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help answer these questions:


If:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Is represented as:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26.

If:

H-A-R-D-W-O- R- K

8+1+18+4+23+ 15+18+11 = 98%

And:

K-N-O-W-L-E- D-G-E

11+14+15+23+ 12+5+4+7+ 5 = 96%

But:

A-T-T-I-T-U- D-E

1+20+20+9+20+ 21+4+5 = 100%

THEN, look how far the love of God will take you:

L-O-V-E-O-F- G-O-D

12+15+22+5+15+ 6+7+15+4 = 101%

Therefore, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that:

While Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will
get you there, It's the Love of God that will put you over the top!

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Make peace on Earth & Not to piece it.

How Can Peace on Earth Be Achieved?


Peace is a reflection of spiritual consciousness. It begins within each person, and extends to the home, neighborhood, nation and beyond. It comes when the higher nature takes charge of the lower nature.


Until we have peace in our own heart, we can't hope for peace in the world. Peace is the natural state of the mind. It is there, inside, to be discovered in meditation, maintained through self-control, and then radiated out to others. The best way to promote peace is to teach families to be peaceful within their own homes by settling all conflicts quickly.

At a national and international level, we will enjoy more peace as we become more tolerant. Religious leaders can help by teaching their congregations how to live in a world of differences without feeling threatened, without forcing their ways or will on others. World bodies can make laws which deplore and work to prevent crimes of violence. It is only when the higher-nature people are in charge that peace will truly come. There is no other way, because the problems of conflict reside within the low-minded group who only know retaliation as a way of life. The Vedas beseech, "Peace be to the earth and to airy spaces! Peace be to heaven, peace to the waters, peace to the plants and peace to the trees! May all the Gods grant to me peace! By this invocation of peace may peace be diffused!"

Source: KHM
Reprogramming Old Patterns.

In applying this tantra, begin by repeating the affirmation fifty or a hundred times a day. In watching your reactions, you may find that the subconscious will not accept these three statements, "I can. I will. I am able." You may still have feelings of "I can't. I won't. I am not able." This then begins a period to live through where the mind's magnetic forces fight with one another, in a sense. The aggressive forces of your nature are trying to take over and reprogram the passive ones that have been in charge for so many years. Of course, the aggressive forces will win if you will persist with your verbal and visual affirmation. You must not give up saying, "I can. I will. I am able," until you find the subconscious structure actually creating situations for you in which you can and are able to be successful, happy and acquire what you need, be it temporal goods or unfoldment on the inner path.

Here is another positive affirmation that might be helpful for you: "I am the complete master of all my forces. My spiritual energies govern and control the force fields wherever I am for the highest good. Through understanding, being pure, full of spirited life, I am filled and thrilled with unlimited power, now and forever. I will be what I will to be. I will do what I will to do." Affirm this affirmation each day this week for seven days. Repeat it three times each morning, three times at noon and three times each evening.

You have perhaps often heard friends repeat the same complaint over and over again. They were not only making an affirmation, perhaps unknowingly, for their own subconscious mind, but for yours as well. Therefore, it behooves us always to be with positive people, spiritual, life-giving people, in order to be positive ourselves. It behooves us to listen to that with which we want to live, and to be the changer rather than the changed.

The affirmations which violence sets up in the subconscious reactionary habit patterns in the minds of men cause them to fight and kill by spinning emotional force fields out of control. Fear then holds them in these brackets of mind as they react to what they have done. It takes great courage to go from one force field of the mind to another, for this means tearing up long-accustomed patterns and facing a period of adjustment while new subconscious patterns are recreated.

It all has to do with changing the subconscious patterns. This is a power. You can change the patterns of your mind yourself. Try it. It is not too difficult.

Source: KHM
Unexpected Consequences.

Desperate states of mind are disturbing many people these days. They are caught in emotional turmoil and entanglement, scarcely knowing how to get themselves out of it, or even fully realizing what state they are in. This condition, which often deteriorates as the years go by until nervous difficulties and mental illnesses set in, can be alleviated by the simple practice of meditation. Those who are content to live in a mesh of mental conflict, which is not only conscious but subconscious, will never get around to meditation or even the preliminary step: concentration. But a person who is wise enough to struggle with his own mind to try to gain the mastery of his mind will learn the vital practice of meditation. Just a few moments each morning or evening enables him to cut the entangled conditions that creep into the conscious mind during the day. The consistent practice of meditation allows him to live in higher states of consciousness with increasing
awareness and perception as the years go by.

There are surprises, many of them, for the beginning meditator, as well as for those who are advanced--unexpected consequences that are often more than either bargained for, because on the road to enlightenment every part of one's nature has to be faced and reconciled. This can be difficult if the experiences of life have been unseemly, or relatively easy if the experiences have been mostly comfortable. What is it that meditation arouses to be dealt with? It is the reactions to life's happenings, recorded in the subconscious mind, both the memory of each experience and the emotion connected to it. Buried away, normally, waiting to burst forth in the next birth or the one to follow it, these vasanas, or deep-seated impressions, often come forward at the most unexpected moments after serious meditation is begun. It is the shakti power of meditation that releases them. There can be no repressed secrets, no memories too woeful to confront for the serious
meditator. These experiences can be scary if one is "in denial" about certain embarrassing or disturbing happenings.

When this upheaval occurs for you, and it will, combat the paper dragon with the deep, inner knowing that the energy of the body has its source in God, the light of the mind that makes thought pictures recognizable also has its source in God, and nothing can or has happened that is not of one's own creation in a past life or in this. Thus armed with Vedic wisdom, we are invincible to the emotions connected with the memory of formerly locked-away experiences. When they come rolling out, patiently write down the emotional impressions of hurt feelings and injustices of years gone by and burn the paper in an open fireplace. Seeing the fire consume the exposed vasanas, the garbage of yesterday, is in itself a great release.

Source KHM
All Knowing Is within You.................

"I will be what I will to be. I will do what I will to do." You can repeat these two powerful affirmations over time and  again and thus rearrange, restructure, the forces of your subconscious mind and create a great inner peace within yourself.

Become acquainted with the spiritual energies and bring the forces of superconsciousness through your subconscious. This creates feeling, a feeling that you are what you say you are positive, direct, full of life and energy and creative power. Your intuitive mind proves this through your conscious mind, not only through feeling, but you will find yourself acting out the part in all kindness and security, exercising the positive will of "I will be what I will to be" and "I will do what I will to do." Feel the spiritual force permeating the entirety of your body.

You are the security of your statement, and you accept it into your subconscious mind. As the days go by, you will become more creative and more consciously aware of your spiritual destiny. Find your spiritual destiny for this lifetime.

The greatest thing that a devotee must learn is that all knowing is within oneself. Therefore, go to the great super conscious school within you and bring forth knowledge. In order to do this, be confident within yourself. In order to be confident within yourself, have no fear. In order to have no fear, say to yourself, "I am all right, right now." This will quickly bring you into the here-and-now consciousness. You will feel spiritual force permeating your body, and your intuitive state of mind will be active.

Go ahead in full confidence that you are the knower of all that is known. This does not mean that you know everything that is to be known about the material plane, the emotional world of people, or what goes on within their minds. This means that you are nearing the source of all sources, that you understand the ultimate destiny of all souls--to unequivocally merge with God.

Spiritual destiny is manifested in the lives of those who stand out from the masses and actually do something, who live a creative life for the benefit of others. This last affirmation affirms an age-old truth and may be said several times before sleep and upon awakening: "I am not my body, mind or emotions. They are but shells of the infinite energy that flows through them all.

Be this energy........ Be with its source........And be  on its way to merge with God."........AUM NAMASHIVAYA................&.........MAHA MRITHUNJAYA MANTHRAM...

Om Try-Ambakam Yajaamahe
Sugandhim Pusstti-Vardhanam
Urvaarukam-Iva Bandhanaan
Mrtyor-Mukssiiya Maa-Amrtaat ||

Meaning:...............

1: Om, We Worship the Three-Eyed One (Lord Shiva),
2: Who is Fragrant (Spiritual Essence) and Who Nourishes all beings.
3: May He severe our Bondage of Samsara (Worldly Life), like a Cucumber (severed from the bondage of its Creeper), ...
4: ... and thus Liberate us from the Fear of Death, by making us realize that we are never separated from our Immortal Nature.

J.KANNAN, M.Com, FIATA

"WE DON'T THINK TO BREATHE
 WE BREATHE TO THINK"
Must We Marry Within Our Religion?


Tradition requires that the wife adopt the religion and lifestyle of her husband. Thus, Hindu women wanting to continue their family culture and religion will, in wisdom, marry a spouse of the same sect and lineage.


The mutual spiritual unfoldment of man and wife is a central purpose of marriage. When we marry outside our religion, we create disharmony and conflict for ourselves and our children. Such a marriage draws us away from religious involvement instead of deeper into its fulfillment. For marriage to serve its spiritual purpose to the highest, husband and wife should hold the same beliefs and share the same religious practices. Their harmony of minds will be reflected in the children.

A man's choice of spouse is a simple decision, because his wife is bound to follow him. For a woman, it is a far more important decision, because her choice determines the future of her religious and social life. While his lifestyle will not change, her's will. Should a Hindu marry a non-Hindu, traditional wisdom dictates that the wife conform to her husband's heritage, and that the children be raised in his faith, with no conflicting beliefs or customs. The husband may be invited to convert to her faith before marriage. The Vedas pray, "United your resolve, united your hearts, may your spirits be one, that you may long together dwell in unity and concord!"

For Reader's benefit please.

Friday, June 27, 2008

What Is the Basis for a Happy Marriage?

A happy marriage is based first and foremost on a mature love, not a romantic ideal of love. It requires selflessness and constant attention. A successful marriage is one which both partners work at making successful.


While not all marriages must be arranged, there is wisdom in arranged marriages, which have always been an important part of Hindu culture. Their success lies in the families' judgment to base the union on pragmatic matters which will outlast the sweetest infatuation and endure through the years. The ideal age for women is from 18 to 25, men from 21 to 30. Stability is enhanced if the boy has completed his education, established earnings through a profession and is at least five years older than the girl.

Mature love includes accepting obligations, duties and even difficulties. The couple should be prepared to work with their marriage, not expecting it to take care of itself. It is good for bride and groom to write out a covenant by hand, each pledging to fulfill certain duties and promises. They should approach the marriage as holy, advancing both partners spiritually. It is important to marry a spouse who is dependable, chaste and serious about raising children in the Hindu way, and then worship and pray together. The Vedas say, "Devoted to sacrifice, gathering wealth, they serve the Immortal and honor the Gods, united in mutual love."

For Reader's benefit.
Consistency Is Essential.

You can write many kinds of affirmations and use them for many different purposes, but remember, they are powerful. They should be carefully worded, and only used in a way which enhances your spiritual life. To be effective, they should be repeated regularly on schedule, five minutes in the morning, at noon and five minutes at night for seven days to begin with. You will surely benefit by the results you cause spiritually, emotionally and materially.

The greatest emotional security is brought about through the affirmation, "I'm all right, right now," which quiets not only the conscious but also the subconscious instinctive fears, bringing forth an immediate influx of spiritual energy through the subconscious, giving peace and contentment to the entirety of the mind by expanding consciousness. As we expand our consciousness through the conscious control of spiritual energy, we become aware of new attribute and possibilities within our nature. Also, we become aware of the realms of knowledge within us that can be tapped during meditation, or the conscious use of the intuitive mind, to not only solve problems that confront us in our daily activity, but to derive creative solutions from the inner recesses of our own mind.

When you say to yourself, "I am all right, right now," you immediately bring the forces of the mind together. All fears, worries and doubts cease. An influx of spiritual energy fills the subconscious, and a sense of dynamic security permeates your being. "Tomorrow I shall wake up filled with energy, creatively alive and in tune with the universe." Say this several times to yourself and feel the spiritual force begin to move, the life force begin to move, within your body. You will wake up in the morning filled with creative energy, with a desire to be productive, to create. Answers to problems will be immediately unfolded from within yourself. You will experience finding solutions to questions that have been unanswered within your subconscious mind perhaps for years.

A devotee having thus exercised this control over his mind to the point where when he commands the mind to be instantaneously creative, or puts a time limit on it--"Tomorrow I shall be creative, alive and in tune with the universe"--and his mind obeys, then has achieved a conscious control of the intuitive forces of mind. He is truly all right, in every now.

For Reader's benefit.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

With bells on

Meaning

Eager; ready to participate.

Origin

This phrase is frequently used in reply to a party invitation and the common format in that case is to indicate one's enthusiasm with 'I'll be there with bells on!'. The phrase originated in the late 19th/early 20th centuries and most of the early citations of it suggest a US origin. The first record of it that I have found in print, which I doubt is the earliest usage, is in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, 1922:

"All-ll-ll righty. I'll be there with bells!"

The phrase is paralleled in the UK by 'with knobs on', which means, 'with additional ornament'. This is recorded from the 1930s onward, as in the English novelist Margaret Kennedy's The Fool of the Family, 1930:

"I'm waiting for the Marchese Ferdinando Emanuele Maria Bonaventura Donzati." "With knobs on," agreed Gemma airily. "Who's he?"

The ornamentation is sometimes added to, using the intensified form 'with brass knobs on'. Eric Partridge, in A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, 1977, states that 'with brass fittings' was also known in the USA by 1930, but unfortunately omits any documentary evidence and, as yet, I've been unable to verify that assertion.

Whilst 'with bells on' is largely reserved as being an enthusiastic response or as indicating additional ornament, both it and 'with (brass) knobs on' are also used as aggressive responses to a challenge. One might hear all of these in conversation - or rather one might have heard, as all versions are now falling out of use:

"Your 21st? - I'll be there with bells on".
"Little Richard; he's like Jerry Lee Lewis with bells/brass knobs on" and
"You incompetent dummy!". "Same to you with bells/brass knobs on!".

The knobs in the above are fairly easy to identify. The allusion is to the iron bedsteads which were commonplace items of furniture at the time the term was coined. The better class examples were embellished with brass knobs at the top of each bedpost.

The 'bells' derivation is less clear-cut. Bells are often used to indicate ornament or exuberance, as in the late 20th century phrase 'bells and whistles' and the earlier British expression 'pull the other one [leg], it's got bells on'.

The explanation most often put forward as the source of the bells in 'with bells on' is that they were those worn as part of jesters' costumes. The 'going to a party' scenario certainly fits with that. However, the distance in time and place between the world of mediaeval court jesters and the emergence of the phrase in 20th century USA tends to call that explanation into question. Another speculative suggestion along similar lines is that the bells are the bell-bottomed trousers that were worn by sailors. The US Navy and the British Royal Navy both issued bell-bottoms for their sailors in the 19th century but, that aside, there's nothing to support a naval origin. 'Pull the other one, it's got bells on' seems an apt response there.

A stronger contender comes from the settlement of US immigrants in Pennsylvania and other states. Their preferred means of transport were large, sturdy wooden carts, called Conestoga wagons. These were drawn by teams of horses or mules whose collars were fitted with headdresses of bells.

George Stumway, in Conestoga Wagon 1750-1850, states that the wagoners personalised the bells to tunings of their liking and took great pride in them. If a wagon became stuck, a teamster who came to the rescue often asked for a set of bells as reward. Arriving at a destination without one's bells hurt a driver's professional pride, whereas getting there 'with bells on' was a source of satisfaction.

That's not a conclusive proof of derivation but it offers better circumstantial evidence than the others.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Examining Your Total Diet


Each day that we live, we are striving for the middle path, the balanced life, the existence which finds its strength beyond joy and sorrow, beyond pleasure and pain, beyond light and darkness. But in order to arrive at this state of contemplative awareness, we must begin at the beginning, and this week our study is diet: physical, mental and emotional foods.


According to the ancient science of ayurveda, nature is a primordial force of life composed in three modes, qualities or principles of manifestation called gunas, meaning "strands" or "qualities." The three gunas are: sattva, "beingness;" rajas, "dynamism;" and tamas, "darkness." Sattva is tranquil energy, rajas is active energy and tamas is energy that is inert.


The nature of sattva is quiescent, rarefied, translucent, pervasive. The nature of rajas is movement, action, emotion. The nature of tamas is inertia, denseness, contraction, resistance and dissolution. The tamasic tendency is descending,odic and instinctive. The rajasic tendency is expanding, actinodic, intellectual. The sattvic tendency is ascending, actinic, superconscious. The three gunas are not separate entities, but varied dimensions or frequencies of the single, essential life force.

The food we eat has one or more of these qualities of energy and affects our mind, body and emotions accordingly. Hence, what we eat is important. Sattvic food is especially good for a contemplative life.

Tamasic foods include heavy meats, and foods that are spoiled, treated, processed or refined to the point where the natural values are no longer present. Tamasic foods make the mind dull; they tend to build up the basic odic energies of the body and the instinctive subconscious mind. Tamasic foods also imbue the astral body with heavy, odic force.

Rajasic foods include hot or spicy foods, spices and stimulants. These increase the odic heat of the physical and astral bodies and stimulate physical and mental activity. Sattvic foods include whole grains and legumes and fresh fruits and vegetables that grow above the ground. These foods help refine the astral and physical bodies, allowing the actinic, superconscious flow to permeate and invigorate the entire being.

People who are unfolding on the yoga path manifest the sattvic nature. Their path is one of peace and serenity. The rajasic nature is restless and manifests itself in physical and intellectual activities. It is predominant in the spirit of nationalism, sports and business competition, law enforcement and armed forces and other forms of aggressive activity. The tamasic nature is dull, fearful and heavy.


It is the instinctive mind in its negative state and leads to laziness, habitual living, physical and mental inertia. As it is by cultivating the rajasic nature that tamas is overcome, so it is by evolving into the pure sattvic nature that the continual ramification of rajas is transcended. It is important to maintain a balance of our several natures, but to attain toward the expression of the rajasic and sattvic natures in as great a degree as possible.

As you examine a menu closely, you will find that you may allow your inner guidance to tell you what is most appropriate to eat. The desire body of the conscious mind may want one type of food, but the inner body of the subsuperconscious may realize another is better for you. It is up to you to make the decision that will allow a creative balance in your diet. This awakens the inner willpower, that strength from within that gives the capacity for discrimination.

Have happy and healthy eatings ,diet duly examined

PS: Input is the prime factor that determines output. Better input of diet passes through your physical system will produce Best of out put in

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Finding Time For a Break-It can do wonders:-

People who live under tension all of the time are like a machine. They are a product of the material world. Only when they release that tension may they become creative again, products of the soul. In a relaxed state, happiness is found, and the qualities of the soul shine forth. Selfish, greedy people are tense, concerned, often inhibited.

Tension breeds negative thinking. Relaxation gives birth to positive creations. If you have little or no control over your mind, it will be difficult for you to find even five minutes during your day in which to place your body in a prone position. Watch then the tendency of your mind to live over and recreate the circumstances that were occupying your mind before you began your yoga break. If you are going to relive the details of your day during your five-minute yoga break, neither your body nor your mind will relax enough to allow the inrush of spiritual energy that should be yours.

And if you cannot take even five minutes out of your day to enjoy the relaxation of a yoga break, if you are so wound up and so busy, you may be headed for an illness of some kind. A nervous disorder may finally catch up with you as the years go by, because the physical forces cannot stand constant tension.

The best time to take a yoga break is when you feel that you have the least time. If your world were suddenly to fall down around you, leaving you standing alone with no one to lean on, no finances, no family, no friends, where would your power come from? You would have to, in that moment, reexperience the same power that you felt flooding through you as you lay concentrated and relaxed upon the floor. That effulgent, rejuvenating power is the Self, the real You, flowing through "your" mind and "your" body.

Freedom from worldly tensions is only achieved to the degree in which people are able to control the forces of their own mind. In this control they are able to lean upon the power of their own inner security, found in the eternity of the moment. In that moment, your inner strength is found. So, take your yoga break whenever you feel even a little tired physically, a little nervous, a little distraught. That is the time, not when you have time.

Reeeelax,when you are tensed or tired atleast for five to ten minutes and get back rejenuvated to remain active.

Forv Reader's benefit please.
Affirmation Is a Power.

The power of affirmation changes and remolds the putty-like substance that makes up the subconscious areas of the mind. For years we have repeated sayings and statements, attached meaning to them in our thoughts and through listening to ourselves speak. This has helped form our life as we know it today, for the subconscious brings into manifestation the impressions we put into it. Therefore, to change the subconscious pattern and increase the spinning velocity of it, we must remold with new ideas and new concepts its magnetic forces. This can be done through the power of affirmation.

Affirmation, when used in wisdom for spiritual reasons, is a power, and should be understood through meditation. Before beginning to work with an affirmation, we must understand completely from within what we are doing, being sure that when our subconscious has been remolded we can take the added responsibilities, the new adventures and challenges that will manifest as a result of breaking out of one force field and entering into another. Only when we face and accept fully the new effects of our effort should we proceed with an affirmation. First we must understand the nature of this power.

An affirmation is a series of positive words repeated time and again in line with a visual concept. Such a statement can be repeated mentally or, preferably, verbally. Words in themselves, without a pictorial understanding, make a very poor affirmation. To choose the affirmation best suited to our needs, first we must realize what we do not want, and then we must take steps to change it, in the very same way we would discriminate in giving away or throwing away our possessions in order to purchase new ones. Whether one is dealing with home and possessions, thoughts and concepts, self-created inhibitions, or blocks and barriers of the subconscious, the principle is basically the same. If one feels, "I can't," he cannot. If he is always criticizing himself and lamenting over what he cannot do, then he has to reverse this pattern and change the flow of magnetic mental force, enliven its intensity by saying orally and feeling through all the pores of his
body:-

I can.

I will.

&

Iam able to accomplish what I plan."

Put earnest efforts and on can Really make it.

For Reader's benefit please.
What Is the Central Purpose of Marriage?


The two purposes of marriage are: the mutual support, both spiritual and material, of man and wife; and bringing children into the world. Marriage is a religious sacrament, a human contract and a civil institution.


Through marriage, a man and a woman each fulfill their dharma, becoming physically, emotionally and spiritually complete. He needs her tenderness, companionship and encouragement, while she needs his strength, love and understanding. Their union results in the birth of children and the perpetuation of the human race.

Marriage is a three-fold state:

It is a sacrament,

A sacred contract

and

A divine institution.

As a sacrament, it is a spiritual union in which man and woman utter certain vows one to another and thus bind themselves together for life and for their souls' mutual benefit. As a contract, it is a personal agreement to live together as husband and wife, he to provide shelter, protection, sustenance, and she to care for the home and bear and nurture their children. As an institution, marriage is the lawful custom in society, bringing stability to the family and the social order. Marriage is a jivayajna, a sacrifice of each small self to the greater good of
the family and society.

The Vedas exclaim:-

I am he, you are she,

I am song, you are verse,

I am heaven, you are earth.

And We two shall here together dwell, becoming parents of children."

For Reader's benefit please.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Cognition.

Cognition, is the seventh niyama. Cognition means understanding; but deeper than understanding, it is seeing through to the other side of the results that a thought, a word or an action would have in the future, before the thought, word or action has culminated. cognition is the development of a spiritual will and intellect through the grace of an enlightened master. cognition can only come this way. It is a transference of divine energies from the enlightened Master to the disciple, building a purified intellect honed down by the Master for the disciple, and a spiritual will developed by the disciple by following the religious sadhanas the Master has laid down until the desired results are attained to the Master's satisfaction. Sadhana is always done under a Master's direction. This is the worthy sadhana that bears fruit.

Cognition, on a higher level is the awakening of the third eye, looking out through the heart chakra, seeing through the illusion, the interacting creation, preservation and dissolution of the molecules of matter. Cognition is all this and more, for within each one who is guided by the Master's presence lies the ability to see not only with the two eyes but with all three simultaneously. The spiritual intellect described herein is none other than wisdom, or a "wise dome," if you will. Wisdom is the timely application of knowledge, not merely the opinions of others, but knowledge gained through deep observation.

The Master's guidance is supreme in the life of the dedicated devotee who is open for training. The verbal lineages of the many sampradayas have withstood the tests of time, turmoil, decay and ravage of external hostility. The sampradayas that have sustained man and lifted him above the substratum of ignorance are actually great nerve currents within the sushumna of the awakened Master himself. To go further on the path of yoga, one will encounter within his own sushumna current--within one of the fourteen nadis within it--an enlightened Master who preaches Truth. He will meet this Master in a dream or in his physical body, and through the Master's grace and guidance will be allowed to continue the upward climb. These fourteen currents, at every point in time on the surface of the Earth, have an enlightened Master attached to them, ready and waiting to open the portals of the beyond into the higher chakras, the throat, the third eye and the cranium.

To say, "I have awakened my throat chakra," "I now live in my third eye" or "I am developing my sahasrara chakra," without being able to admit to being under a Master who knows and is personally directing the devotee, is foolishness, a matter of imagination. It is in the heart chakra, the chakra of cognition, that seekers see through the veils of ignorance, illusion, maya's interacting preservation, creation and destruction, and gain a unity with and love for the universe--all those within it, creatures, peoples and all the various forms--feeling themselves a part of it.

Here, on this threshold of the anahata chakra, there are two choices. One is following the sampradaya of a Master for the next upward climb into the vishuddha, ajna and sahasrara. The other is remaining Master-less, becoming one's own Master, and possibly delving into various forms of psychism, astrology, some forms of modern science, psychic crime-detection, tarot cards, pendulums, crystal gazing, psychic healing, past-life reading or fortunetelling. These psychic abilities, when developed, can be an impediment, a deterrent, a barrier, a Berlin Wall to future spiritual development. They develop the anava, the ego, and are the first renunciations the Master would ask a devotee to make prior to being accepted.

Coming under a Master, one performs according to the Master's direction with full faith and confidence. This is why scriptures say a Master must be carefully chosen, and when one is found, to follow him with all your heart, to obey and fulfill his every instruction better than he would have expected you to, and most importantly, even better than you would have expected of yourself.

Psychic abilities are not in themselves deterrents on the path. They are permitted to develop later, after Parasiva, nirvikalpa samadhi, has been attained and fully established within the individual. But this, too, would be under the Master's grace and guidance, for these abilities are looked at as tools to fulfill certain works assigned by the Master to the devotee to fulfill until the end of the life of the physical body.

It is the personal ego, the anava, that is developed through the practice of palmistry, astrology, tarot cards, fortunetelling, past-life reading, crystal gazing, crystal healing, prana transference, etc., etc.,.This personal ego enhancement is a gift from those who are healed, who are helped, who are encouraged and who are in awe of the psychic power awakened in the heart chakra of this most perfect person of the higher consciousness who doesn't anger, display fear or exhibit any lower qualities.

For Readers benefit please.
Communications management:-

Communications management is the systematic planning, implementing, monitoring, and revision of all the channels of communication within an organization, and between organizations; it also includes the organization and dissemination of new communication directives connected with an organization, network, or communications technology. Aspects of communications management include developing corporate communication strategies, designing internal and external communications directives, and managing the flow of information, including online communication. New technology forces constant innovation on the part of communications managers

Effective organizational communications are an essential precondition of effective management -without effective communication, management becomes difficult or impossible. Organizations with more than one level of management suffer from communications problems that can interfere with almost any aspect of the organization, including corrective actions.

The purpose of communications management is to ensure that both managers and workers have access to the information. Theoretically, all parties will be able to agree on the tasks to improve the organization, and everyone will work together in a more coordinated fashion; in practice, the same incentives must apply to both managers and workers, or else groups with differing incentives will develop different goals, negating the effect of the shared information.

One of the simplest and most practical communications management methods is a straightforward, hierarchical, bidirectional communication method, with clear incentives.

One simple and popular communications method is called the weekly reporting method. Every employee composes an e-mail report, once a week, including information on their activities in the preceding week, their plans for the following week, and any other information deemed relevant to the larger group, bearing in mind length considerations. Reports are sent to managers, who summarize and report to their own managers, eventually leading to an overall summary led by the CEO, which is then sent to the board of directors. The CEO then sends the board's summary back down the ladder, where each manager can append an additional summary or note before referring it to their employees.

Eventually, each employee will receive a long e-mail, containing many or all of the above-mentioned summaries, from every level of management; reading the full result is rarely a requirement. Curious or ambitious employees are considered more likely to read the result; task-centered employees, however, are not.

At Printronix (NASDAQ PTNX,) a $100m manufacturing organization with five levels of management, this was applied starting in 1990. Within a week, the perennial grumbles about "bad communication" ceased. By 1994 the organization had reduced total floorspace by 40% (eventually 75%), had "found" $100m of cash, reduced backlog from 3 months to 3.5 weeks, reduced product development time (for computer printers, a complex product) from three years to six months, and doubled product service life (greatly reducing the total cost of ownership of their product). This was achieved by a series of employee-initiated, management-led activities: adoption of just-in-time manufacturing, statistical process control, corrections of product weaknesses, and a cross-product "printer architecture" permitting development of "design modules" that could be mixed and matched for niche markets.

All of the programs arose via the reporting structure, making them visible to upper management, who were then free to support proposals they felt made sense.

Another cross-hierarchical system with similar traits arose at Warburg's Bank. According to Jacques Attali's biography, Warburg used a sheet of one-to-four-line summaries of each possible new loan, on a few sheets that were copied through the entire bank each day. It spanned the entire hierarchy, and anyone with comments was asked to bring them. Warburgs grew from 16,000 pounds, to 4 billion pounds under management in less than forty years.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Think outside the box

Meaning

Think creatively, unimpeded by orthodox or conventional constraints.

Origin

'Think outside the box' originated in the USA in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Various authors from the world of management consultancy claim to have introduced it. The earliest citation that I have found comes from the weekly magazine of the US aviation industry - Aviation Week & Space Technology, July 1975:

"We must step back and see if the solutions to our problems lie outside the box."

The 'box', with its implication of rigidity and squareness, symbolises constrained and unimaginative thinking. This is in contrast to the open and unrestricted 'out of the box' or 'blue-sky' thinking. This latter phrase dates from a little earlier, for example, this piece from the Iowa newspaper the Oelwein Daily Register, April 1945:

"Real thinking. Speculation. Pushing out in the blue. Finding out [the facts] was what put me onto the theory of blue-sky thinking."

The encouragement to look for solutions from outside our usual thinking patterns was championed in the UK by Edward De Bono, the British psychologist and inventor, who coined the term Lateral Thinking in 1967 and went on to develop it as a method of structured creativity.

So, what's this box? It turns out that, rather than being metaphorical, the reference was to a specific box - in the form of a two-dimensional square. Sam Loyd's Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks, and Conundrums (With Answers), 1914, included a puzzle, known as the 'Nine Dots Puzzle', which was posed like this:

"Draw a continuous line through the center of all the eggs so as to mark them off in the fewest number of strokes."

Loyd was a little sloppy with the puzzle's rules and ought to have added that the lines must be straight, although he did supply an illustration that makes the meaning clear.

The 60/70s management gurus who exhorted trainees to 'think outside the box' made their point by resurrecting the old 'Nine Dots Puzzle' as a test. Those of you who are familiar with the puzzle's solution will see why. If you haven't yet solved it for yourself, just click on the nine-dot image below.

(Or, if you have a text-based mail reader, use a web browser to go to http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/think-outside-the-box-solution.html)
Success And Failure


Many people feel that when they don't fulfill their vows they have failed. One practical example to the contrary is Mahatma Gandhi, who took a vow to be celibate but broke it many times, yet continued the effort and ultimately conquered his instinctive nature. In taking a vow, at the moment it is heard by priests, elders and all community members, when one hears oneself taking it, and all three worlds rejoice, a balanced scale has been created. Success is on one side, failure on the other. One or the other will win out. This is where the unreserved worship of Lord Murugan will help overbalance the scale on the success side. But if the scale teeters and wavers, the blessings and knowledge of the elders of the community should be sought: the mothers and fathers, the old aunties and uncles, the priests, the pandits and sages, the rishis and gurus. This and this alone will steady the balance. But if actual failure occurs, Lord Ganesha Himself will catch.

The fall in His four arms and trunk. He will hold the devotee from going into the abyss of remorse of the darkness of the lower worlds. He will speak softly into the right ear and encourage that the vow be immediately renewed, lest time elapse and the asura of depression take over mind, body and emotion. Yes, the only failure is that experienced by the one who quits, gives up, turns his back on the path and walks the other way, into the realms of darkness, beyond even the reach of the Gods.

As Tiruvalluvar said, it is better to strive to fulfill great aspirations, even if you fail, than to achieve minor goals in life. Yes, this is very true.

On the everyday level there are vows or contracts made with people of the outside world whom you don't even know. Buy a piece of property, and once you sign the contract you are bound to fulfill it. But a religious vow is a contract between yourself, the religious community, the devas and the Gods and a Master, if you have one, all of whom know that human failure is a part of life; but striving is the fulfillment of life, and practice is the strengthening effect that the exercise of the human and spiritual will have over the baser elements.

Vows before the community, such as those of marriage and celibacy and other vows where community support is needed, are very important. Other, more personal vows are taken before the community, a temple priest, pandit, elder, swami, guru, or satguru if help is needed to strengthen the individual's ability to fulfill them. For a certain type of person, a vow before Lord Ganesha, Lord Murugan, Lord Siva or all three is enough for him to gain strength and fulfill it. A vow is never only to oneself. This is important to remember. A vow is always to God, Gods and guru, community and respected elders.

One cannot make one's vow privately, to one's own individual anava, external personal ego, thinking that no one is listening. This would be more of a promise to oneself, like a New Year's resolution, a change in attitude based on a new belief, all of which has nothing to do with the yamas and niyamas or religion.

In speaking about the yama and niyama vow, there is no difference in how the family person upholds it and the celibate monastic upholds it. The families are in their home, the monks are in their matha, monastery. In regards to the vow of sexual purity, for example, the family man vows to be faithful to his wife and to treat all other women as either a mother or sister and to have no sexual thoughts, feelings or fantasies toward them. Sadhakas, yogis and swamis vow to look at all women as their mothers or sisters, and God Siva and their guru as their mother and father. There is no difference.

For Reader's benefit please.
What Is the Consequence of Sinful Acts?

When we do not think, speak and act virtuously, we create negative karmas and bring suffering upon ourselves and others. We suffer when we act instinctively and intellectually without super conscious guidance. .


We are happy, serene and stable when we follow good conduct, when we listen to our conscience, the knowing voice of the soul. The super conscious mind, the mind of our soul, knows and inspires good conduct, out of which comes a refined, sustainable culture. Wrongdoing and vice lead us away from God, deep into the darkness of doubt, despair and self-condemnation. This brings the demons around us. We are out of harmony with ourselves and our family and must seek companionship elsewhere, amongst those who are also crude, unmindful, greedy and lacking in self-control. In this bad company, burdensome new karma is created, as good conduct cannot be followed. This sin accumulates, blinding us to the religious life we once lived. Penance and throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God and the Gods are the only release for the unvirtuous, those who conduct themselves poorly.

Fortunately, our Gods are compassionate and love their devotees. The ancient Vedas elucidate, "The mind is said to be twofold: the pure and also the impure; impure by union with desire--pure when from desire completely free!"

For Reader's benefit please.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Disappointment, Discouragement:-

Another instinctive response to the ebb and flow of life force is disappointment, which intensified becomes discouragement, depression and despair. These three negative states are obstacles to all human endeavor, , who must learn early to regulate, control and balance the emotional ups and downs so well that he never experiences discouragement, which is nothing more than an imbalance of force.

Life tests and retests our emotional maturity. Whether we meet those tests or fail is entirely up to us. On this path, the Divine Supreme gives the tests in order to mold and strengthen the seeker's character. Great strength of character is required to attain the goals, enormous courage and forbearance, and anyone who lacks that strength and stamina will cease striving long before full realization is attained.

Therefore, to bring out the natural strengths, the God will offer challenges. He knows that we all fall short of our own expectations now and again, and that we react either positively by reaffirmation or negatively through discouragement. As the tests of life present themselves, the God will observe the men's response time and time again until his emotional body grows strong enough to combat negative reaction to what appears to be failure and later to absorb within itself all reaction to disappointment, the father of discouragement.

It is the day-to-day reactions to circumstance that indicate the attainment and not mere recorded knowledge about the path. When men are able to meet ordinary happenings and respond to them in the effortless wisdom born of detachment, that indicates that his striving is genuine. When he is able to encounter conditions that send ordinary people into states of disappointment or discouragement and when his emotional nature indicates mastery over these lesser states of consciousness, he is well on his way toward filling the gaps of a natural growth of the instinctive vehicles--body, emotions and intellect.

But to attain emotional stability, recognition of those vulnerable areas must be cultivated. It is quite natural to encounter circumstances that are potential sources of disappointment. The very recognition and admission are half of the necessary adjustments. As one set of conditions is resolved, another set of a more intense vibration arises naturally to be mastered. With disappointment reined in, men next faces tendencies of discouragement, then depression and finally despair, for they are all linked together in the instinctive nature of humankind. Once he recognizes these states as belonging to all men and ceases to identify them as personal tendencies, he is then able to cognize its source and convert it. In this way the emotional nature matures under the loving and divine blessings of the Supreme.

For Reader's benefit please.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Know the Ten Classical Observances?


Hinduism's religious tenets are contained in ten terse precepts called niyamas(observance). They summarize the essential practices that we observe and the soulful virtues and qualities we strive daily to perfect.


Good conduct is a combination of avoiding unethical behavior and performing virtuous, spiritualizing acts. The accumulated wisdom of thousands of years of Hindu culture has evolved.

1) hri, "remorse," be modest and show shame for misdeeds;

2) santosha, "contentment," seek joy and serenity in life;

3) dana, "giving," tithe and give creatively without thought of reward;

4) astikya, "faith," believe firmly in God, Gods, guru and the path to
enlightenment;

5) Ishvarapujana, "worship," cultivate devotion through daily puja and
meditation;

6) siddhanta shravana, "scriptural listening," study the teachings and
listen to the wise of one's lineage;

7) mati, "cognition," develop a spiritual will and intellect with an
enlightened Master's guidance;

8) vrata, "sacred vows," fulfill religious vows, rules and observances
faithfully;

9) japa, "recitation," chant holy mantras daily;

10) tapas,"austerity," perform sadhana, penance, tapas and sacrifice. The
Vedas state, "They indeed possess that Brahma world who possess
austerity and chastity, and in whom the truth is established."

For Reader's benefit please.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Sources of Good Conduct-

From Whom Is Good Conduct Learned?

The first teacher in matters of good conduct is our conscience. To know what is right and what is wrong we can also turn to God, to our enlightened Master and , scripture and to our elders, family and trusted friends.


Divine laws cannot be avoided. They do not rule us from above but are wrought into our very nature. Even death cannot efface the karma created by evil deeds. Good conduct alone can resolve woeful karmas. Therefore, it is essential that we learn and adhere to good conduct. Good people are the best teachers of good conduct, and should be sought out and heeded when we need help or advice. Talk with them, the wise ones, and in good judgment be guided accordingly. Ethical scriptures should be read and studied regularly and their wisdom followed. The loud voice of our soul, ever heard within our conscience, is a worthy guide. When we grasp the subtle mechanism of karma, we wisely follow the good path. Good conduct, or sadachara, for the Hindu is summarized in five obligatory duties, called pancha nitya karmas: virtuous living, dharma; worship, upasana; holy days, utsava; pilgrimage, tirthayatra; and sacraments, samskaras. The Vedas offer this guidance, "If you have doubt concerning conduct, follow the example of high souls who are competent to judge, devout, not led by others, not harsh, but lovers of virtue."


For Readers benefit please.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Toodle-oo

Meaning

A colloquial version of 'goodbye', now rather archaic.

Origin

The British term 'toodle-oo' is a fellow-traveller of various terms
associated with walking or departing in a carefree manner - toddle,
tootle and their extended forms toddle-off and tootle-pip. Let's also
not forget tootle-oo, which is a commonly heard alternative form of
toodle-oo, and also its Irish variant tooraloo.

Tootle is a variant of toddle, both meaning 'walk in a leisurely
manner'. Toddle, which is really the base word which leads eventually
to toodle-oo, is moderately old and makes an appearance in print in
Allan Ramsay's The tea-table miscellany, or a collection of Scots
songs, 1724:


"Could na my love come todlen hame." [toddling home]

The word is still with us in the term 'toddle off' which, although
somewhat archaic in sound, is still commonplace in the UK at least.
This was in use by the early 19th century and appears in The Dublin
University Magazine, 1838:


"Show this gentleman to his bedchamber, Klaus... and I'll toddle off
to my library," said the Nabob.

'Tootle', which also often comes complete with its 'off', has been
used to mean 'walk aimlessly' since at least the early 1900s, for
example, this piece from the English literary journal The Cornhill
Magazine, July 1902:


"I tootled down to Cooney's a half-hour before time."

'Toodle-oo' sounds the kind of language that we might expect P.G.
Wodehouse to indulge in, in his Jeeves and Wooster stories. Wodehouse
doesn't disappoint and although he didn't originate the phrase his use
of it in an early Jeeves story - Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg, 1919,
makes a clear link between toddling and toodling:


"Ripping! I'll be toddling up, then. Toodle-oo, Bertie, old man. See you later."
"Pip-pip, Bicky, dear boy."
He trotted off...

The first known record of toodle-oo came just a few years earlier, in
a 1907 edition of Punch magazine, which was surely essential reading
for the young Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, who was a contributing
author to Punch at that date, and so may have written this himself:


"Toodle-oo, old sport." Mr. Punch turned round at the amazing words
and gazed at his companion.

The mixing up of all of these terms may also have been influenced by
'toot-toot' and 'pip-pip', which were used in the early 1900s to
denote the sounds of early car horns. This has lead to tootle-pip and
toodle-pip, which might be imagined to be from the same period, but
which are in fact late 20th century inventions in the Jeeves style.
Wodehouse again had an indirect hand in this, as is shown by this
piece from his 1920 novel Damsel in Distress:


"Well, it's worth trying," said Reggie. "I'll give it a whirl.
Toodleoo!" "Good-bye." "Pip-pip!" Reggie withdrew.

Tootle-oo is first known from a date that is near enough to that of
toodle-oo as to make it difficult to be certain which came first. This
variant is recorded in the Letters of T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia), in
1908. The other famous Lawrence, D.H. Lawrence, is coincidentally the
first known user of the Irish form tooraloo, also recorded in a
letter, this time from 1921, and published in 1968 in Phoenix II:


"So long! See you soon! Too-ra-loo!"

Before closing, I ought to mention another commonly repeated theory on
the origin of 'toodle-oo' - that tootle-oo, and by extension toodle-oo
and tooraloo, derived as a slang version of the French à tout à
l'heure, meaning "I'll see you soon". There's no evidence at all to
support this theory, which relies entirely on the co-incidence of
sound. There is also some circumstantial evidence against a French
origin. Whilst the English and French nobility were closely enough
mingled in the Middle Ages for the English then to have taken on many
French terms verbatim, by the turn of the 20th century France had long
become an unpopular rival. Very few French idioms were granted the
status of a popular English slang version in the early 1900s. Just off
the top, I can't think of any. It is difficult to imagine a French
term being adopted as slang by the hostile and predominantly
non-French speaking English populace in 1907.

Finally, I suppose we ought also to deal with another derivation
theory from the bottom of the pile, so to speak. This is that the word
loo derives from toodle-oo, as 'too the loo'. Let's not waste
bandwidth further on that one and just say, "it doesn't".
The Holy Cow Worshipped in Hindu Religion

Milk, butter, curd are food. Urine and cow dung are medicines in Ayurveda. Dried cow dung is fuel. Dung mixed with daub is used to plaster walls and is a building material. Butter is used lavishly in Hindu rituals. The sacred white powder made from dung is applied on the forehead – the holy ash in Hinduism, symbol of God Shiva. Dried cow dung is also used in Hindu funerals in some parts of India.


Food, medicine, house, fuel, prayer….the list goes on…Tell me one reason why five thousand years ago the cow should not have been worshipped. God is the all provider and a cow was the all provider in ancient Hindu society.


Various products provided by the cow are an integral part of a Hindu way of life. Quite often many Hindus might not be aware of it.


Even today there are millions of households in India whose economy revolves around the cow. In rural India, you will find stories like… it is by selling this cow’s milk I was able to educate my son!


Majority of the South Indians find it hard to have lunch without the curd. What about our burfis and the numerous other sweets? The buttermilk, the ice cream, the bhang, ….yet another endless list…. It is not without reason that India is one of the largest producers of milk and one of the largest consumers.


But the holy cow creates numerous traffic blocks. Well, the cows you find on the Indian roads were left there by its owners. So, the fate of an old and diseased cow cannot be any better. The cows loitering on our streets are an indication of a self-centered society. The cow will only be happy to move out of the road and live in some green pastures.

PS: As and wnen you get an opportunity feed the wayside cow's and be graced by God.

For Readers benefit pl.
What Is the Nature of Human Righteousness?

Human law, or ashrama dharma, is the natural expression and maturing of the body, mind and emotions through four progressive stages of earthly life: student, householder, elder advisor and religious solitaire. Aum.


The four ashramas are "stages of striving," in pursuit of the purusharthas: righteousness, wealth, pleasure and liberation. Our first 24 years of life are a time of intense learning. Around age 12, we enter formally the brahmacharya ashrama and undertake the study and skills that will serve us in later life. From 24 to 48, in the grihastha ashrama, we work together as husband and wife to raise the family, increasing wealth and knowledge through our profession, serving the community and sustaining the members of the other three ashramas. In the vanaprastha ashrama, from 48 to 72, slowly retiring from public life, we share our experience by advising and guiding younger generations. After age 72, as the physical forces wane, we turn fully to scripture, worship and yoga. This is the sannyasa ashrama, which differs from the formal life of ochre-robed monks. Thus, our human dharma is a natural awakening, expression, maturing and withdrawal from worldly
involvement. The Vedas say, "Pursuit of the duties of the stage of life to which each one belongs--that, verily, is the rule! Others are like branches of a stem. With this, one tends upwards; otherwise, downwards.

"Aum."

For Reader's benefit please.
The Evolution Of Awareness

The emanation of the light that wells from within the lotus of the heart is always there, regardless of what you do. You may not be aware of the existence of it, but it does exist. You may not care to realize it, but it still exists. When man does not wish to look for the Self God, it is only because his awareness is busy in other areas of the mind, concerned with desires, and he is on the road to fulfill them. The fulfillment of desires causes reactionary conditions within the subconscious mind itself and clouds vision. This causes what is known as the darkness of the mind. When man wishes and desires to find his true Self, his external desires fall in line with basic religious codes for living, and he then is on the path. He is able to realize the essence of each desire on the path of enlightenment, and is able to sense Reality within himself.

A beautiful practice is to try to sit quietly, visualizing within the lotus within the heart a light, a strong light emanating clearly, a light that is always there. This light is radiating at a higher vibration than any form with which you are familiar. Let us say, if you were to have this light in your hand and were able to use it in the external world, each form you turned it upon would disappear under the vibration of the light itself. That is as powerful as the effulgent light emanating from the Self, the Sivaness, which you will see within the lotus of the heart.

The mind, or consciousness, is form with intense vibrations and lesser vibrations, all interrelating. When we are happy and joyous, we are aware of the refined states of consciousness. But when we are not happy or joyous, we are living in the grosser, darker areas of consciousness. We have all lived in the gross area of consciousness, and we have all lived in the happy, joyous areas of consciousness. This is the evolution of man's individual awareness.

For reader's benefit please.
What Are Good Conduct's Four Keys?

Purity, devotion, humility and charity are the four keys to good conduct. Of these, purity is the cardinal virtue. We cultivate purity by thinking, speaking and doing only that which is conceived in compassion for all.
" Aum."


Purity is the pristine and natural state of the soul. We cultivate purity by refraining from anger and retaliation, by maintaining a clean and healthy body, and by guarding our virginity until marriage. We cultivate purity by seeking good company and by living a disciplined life. Devotion is love of God, Gods and guru, and dedication to family and friends. We cultivate devotion through being loyal and trustworthy. We cultivate devotion through worship and selfless service. Humility is mildness, modesty, reverence and unpretentiousness. We cultivate humility by taking the experiences of life in understanding and not in reaction, and by seeing God everywhere. We cultivate humility through showing patience with circumstances and forbearance with people. Charity is selfless concern and caring for our fellow man. It is generous giving without thought of reward, always sharing and never hoarding. We cultivate charity through giving to the hungry, the sick, the
homeless, the elderly and the unfortunate. The Vedas explain, "As to a mountain that's enflamed, deer and birds do not resort--so, with knowers of God, sins find no shelter

Friday, June 06, 2008

Pancha Bhootha Shiva Temples & Its Musical composition in praise of each form of God by the Eminent composer MuthSwami Dikshitar

Shivalingams of Five Natural Elements.

Panchabhootha stalams are five ancient temples in India where Lord Shiva is represented in the form of five elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether. In these five temples, linga or lingam which symbolically represents Lord Shiva is in the form of elements. Ether is known as ‘akasha’ in Sanskrit and is occasionally referred as Sky or Space while referring to the Pancha Mahabhoothas.


The five temples that represent Shiva in the form of five elements are:


1. Earth – Ekambaranatha Temple or Ekambareswarar Temple in Kanchipuram –

Shivalingam here is the element earth. The Shiva Lingam here is believed to have been created by Goddess Parvati from sand or earth.


2. Water – Jambukeshwar Temple or Thiruvanaikaval Shiva Temple in Srirangam –

Jambukeshwara represents the element water. The deity is found under a Jambu tree over a small river. The small stream engulfs the idol during the rainy season.


3. Fire – Arunachaleswara Temple or Annamalaiyar Temple at Thiruvannamalai –

Arunachaleswara or Shiva represents the element fire here. Shiva here is in the form of Lingodabhava Murti, the column of fire, which appeared before Vishnu and Brahma.


4. Air – Sri Kalahasti Temple at Kalahasti in Andhra Pradesh –

Vayu Linga represents the element air or wind here. The element air is evident by a continuous flame which flickers when there is no air source in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.


5. Ether – Nataraja Temple at Chidambaram –

Shiva is represented as ether or sky in an empty space within the sanctum sanctorum. (In Nataraja Temple, Shiva is represented in three forms Nataraja, Crystal Linga form and as Nishkala (ether) in Chidambara Rahasyam.).

The following immense inputs are provided by my Daugter-in-law Sharanya Sriram lives in Hongkong.


Dikshitar has composed krithis on each of these
Kshetras.
They are called
the Pancha Bhootha Kshetra Kritis

The pancha linga kriti-s are dedicated to these five forms of Lord Siva.
These kriti-s were composed respectively at the
temples of:-
1. Chidambaram (ether),
2. Kalahasti (air),
3. Tiruvannamalai (fire),
4. Kanchipuram (earth) and
5. Jambukeshwaram (water).

The five kriti-s in this set are:-

1. ananda natana prakasham (kedaram, mishra chapu on Chidambaram),
2.sri kalahastisha (huseni, jhampa on Kalahasti),
3.arunachala natam (saranga,rupakam on Tiruvannamalai),
4.chintaya makanta (bhairavi,rupakam on Kanchipuram),
5.Jambupate(yamuna kalyani, rupakam on Jambukeshwaram).

Sharanya
Transmitting Tradition- The Right Way.

Siddhanta shravana literally means "scriptural listening." It is one thing to read the Vedas, Upanishads and Yoga Sutras, but it is quite another to hear their teachings from one who knows, because it is through hearing that the transmission of subtle knowledge occurs, from knower to seeker. And that is why listening is preferred over intellectual study.

Because sound is the first creation, knowledge is transferred through sound of all kinds. It is important that one listen to the highest truths of a traditions from one who has realized them. The words, of course, will be familiar. They have been read by the devotee literally hundreds of times, but to hear them from the mouth of the enlightened Rishi is to absorb his unspoken realization, as he re-realizes his realization while he reads them and speaks them out. This is Saiva Siddhanta. This is true tradition--thought, meaning and knowledge conveyed through words spoken by one who has realized the Ultimate. The words will be heard, the meaning the enlightened Master understands as meaning will be absorbed by the subconscious mind of the devotee, and the superconscious, intuitive knowledge will impress the subsuperconscious mind of the devotees who absorb it, who milk it out of the Master himself. This and only this changes the life pattern of the
devotee. There is no other way. This is why one must come to the enlightened Master open, like a child, ready and willing to absorb, and to go through many tests. And this is why one must choose one's Master wisely and carefully and be ready for such an event in one's life.

Tradition actually means an orally transmitted tradition, unwritten and unrecorded in any other way. True, Masters of traditions do write books nowadays, make tape recordings, videos and correspond. This is mini-tradition, the bud of a flower before opening, the shell of an egg before the bird hatches and flies off, the cocoon before the butterfly emerges. This is mini-tradition--just a taste, but it does lay a foundation within the discipile's mind of who the Master is, what he thinks, what he represents, the beginning and ending of his path, the tradition he represents, carries forth and is bound to carry forth to the next generation, the next and the next. But really potent tradition is listening, actually listening to the Master's words, his explanations. It stimulates thought. Once-remembered words take on new meanings. Old knowledge is burnt out and replaced with new. This is tradition.

Are you ready for a Master? Perhaps not. When you are ready, and he comes into your life through a dream, a vision or a personal meeting, the process begins. The devotee takes one step toward the Master--a simple meeting, a simple dream. The Master is bound to take nine steps toward the devotee, not ten, not eleven or twelve, only nine, and then wait for the devotee to take one more step. Then another nine ensue. This is the dance. This is tradition.

When a spiritual experience comes, a real awakening of light, a flash of realization, a knowing that has never been seen in print, or if it had been is long-since forgotten, it gives great courage to the devotee to find that it had already been experienced and written about by others within his chosen tradition.

If all the temples were destroyed, the Masters would come forth and rebuild them. If all the scriptures were destroyed, the rishis would reincarnate and rewrite them. If all the Masters, swamis, rishis, sadhus, saints and sages were systematically destroyed, they would take births here and there around the globe and continue as if nothing had ever happened. So secure is the Eternal Truth on the planet, so unshakable, that it forges ahead undaunted through the mouths of many. It forges ahead undaunted through the temples' open doors. It forges ahead undaunted in scriptures now lodged in nearly every library in the world. It forges ahead undaunted, mystically hidden from the unworthy, revealed only to the worthy, who restrain themselves by observing some or all of the yamas and who practice a few niyamas.

Coming under a enlightened Master of one lineage, all scripture, temple and home tradition may be taken away from the eyes of the experience of the newly accepted devotee. In another tradition, scripture may be taken away and temple worship allowed to remain, so that only the words of the Master are heard. In still another tradition, the temple, the scripture and the voice of the Master are always there--but traditionally only the scripture which has the approval of the Master and is totally in accord with his principles, practices and the underlying philosophy of the traditions.

Please do not rub in hunt of Masters, at the appropriate time, chosen by the divine, undoubtedly an enlightehed and divine Master will walk into your life to guide and lead you further................Beleave it.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

High-flyer

Meaning

High-flyers, sometimes spelled high-fliers, are people who have achieved notable success, especially those who have become successful more quickly than is normal. The term is also used to describe speculative stock that has reached a high price in a short time.

Origin

We might expect this term to have originated in the world of aviation. In a way that's correct. The phrase does in fact predate the invention of planes/balloons by some hundreds of years, but there is an avian connection - if we recall that the word aviation derives from the Latin name for birds - avis. The first known citation of it in print is in Richard Harvey's diatribe Plaine Perceuall the peace-maker of England, 1590:

"Men haue great desire to be compted [regarded as] high fliers and deepe swimmers."

When looking for the origin of the term we need to take account of its change in meaning over time. When coined in the 16th century it wasn't used admiringly to refer to someone who had achieved success, but critically about someone who unwisely aspired to achievements beyond their talents. We still retain a version of the phrase with that meaning - high-flown, which we reserve for critical judgments of people who are extravagantly ambitious and bombastic. These are of course exactly the character faults that were ascribed to Icarus, the figure of Greek mythology who ignored his father's warnings not to use his homemade wax and feather wings to fly too close to the Sun, resulting in the inevitable crash to Earth. It is clear that, until the late 17th century at least, high-flyers were directly equated with Icarus. For example, William Chilcot's Practical treatise concerning evil thoughts, 1698:

"These highflyers, when they are in their altitudes, suddenly their waxen wings melt, and down they fall headlong."

Monday, June 02, 2008

"Old age is not only Gold age but also Bold age.

When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong.

The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, “Progress in Brain Research.”

Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer’s disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older. But for most aging adults, the authors say, much of what occurs is a gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact, like a name or a telephone number. Although that can be frustrating, it is often useful.

“It may be that distractibility is not, in fact, a bad thing,” said Shelley H. Carson, a psychology researcher at Harvard whose work was cited in the book. “It may increase the amount of information available to the conscious mind.”

For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.

When both groups were later asked questions for which the out-of-place words might be answers, the older adults responded much better than the students.

“For the young people, it’s as if the distraction never happened,” said an author of the review, Lynn Hasher, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Rotman Research Institute. “But for older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another.”

Such tendencies can yield big advantages in the real world, where it is not always clear what information is important, or will become important. A seemingly irrelevant point or suggestion in a memo can take on new meaning if the original plan changes. Or extra details that stole your attention, like others’ yawning and fidgeting, may help you assess the speaker’s real impact.

“A broad attention span may enable older adults to ultimately know more about a situation and the indirect message of what’s going on than their younger peers,” Dr. Hasher said. “We believe that this characteristic may play a significant role in why we think of older people as wiser.”

In a 2003 study at Harvard, Dr. Carson and other researchers tested students’ ability to tune out irrelevant information when exposed to a barrage of stimuli. The more creative the students were thought to be, determined by a questionnaire on past achievements, the more trouble they had ignoring the unwanted data. A reduced ability to filter and set priorities, the scientists concluded, could contribute to original thinking.

This phenomenon, Dr. Carson said, is often linked to a decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. Studies have found that people who suffered an injury or disease that lowered activity in that region became more interested in creative pursuits.

Jacqui Smith, a professor of psychology and research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the current research, said there was a word for what results when the mind is able to assimilate data and put it in its proper place — wisdom.

“These findings are all very consistent with the context we’re building for what wisdom is,” she said. “If older people are taking in more information from a situation, and they’re then able to combine it with their comparatively greater store of general knowledge, they’re going to have a nice advantage.”