Iyya

Two things — true love and true friendship are rare in this world. We see children abandoning their parents when they need their help most. In sorrow and misery even the closest relatives desert.
Samuel Butler said: “Friendship is like money, easier made than kept”. In prosperity friends will follow you like a shadow, but in an adverse situation, they will turn against you. Guru Angad commented: “Friendship with a shallow mind, devotion to a man of wealth, is like a line drawn on water”. Such friendship passes quickly, is not permanent and is purposeless.
Socrates said, “Do not make hurry in making friends, but if you do so, keep it, preserve it till end”. Wise men like Mahatma Vidur have repeatedly said that a true friend is he who prevents his friend straying from the right path, encourages his friend to get involved in the service of the less privileged and hapless; does not reveal friend’s secrets to anyone. A true friend does not abandon his friend in difficulties and in the time of dire need he helps him financially. A compassionate friend remains stable both in prosperity and distress. A true friend remains cool and patient even in odd situations like the sun which remains red both at sunrise and sunset. Guru Nanak says: “True friends are those on meeting whom one has a vision of the beloved.”
The sages, the divine teachers, who open a gateway of our soul to divine knowledge are the best and permanent friends. Gita says that man should discover his own reality and not transverse himself; for he has his self as his only friend or as his only enemy. If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he or she will soon find himself or herself alone. A human being should keep his friendship in constant repair. There cannot be two opinions on this that a faithful and true friend is the medicine of life.
Vedas have attached great importance to friendship. A Yajurveda mantra (36.90) says: “Strong one, make me strong. May all beings look on me with the eye of friend. May I look on all beings with the eye of the friend. May we look on one another with the eye of friend.”
Such noble thoughts can make this world a peaceful place to live in. An old Irish prayer says: “Take time to be friendly, it is the road to happiness. Take time to look around, the day is too short to be selfish”.

Source: The Economic Times

In his new book Breaking the Spell philosopher Daniel Dennett blames religion for many of the worst evils of our century. Along with the murderous fanatic minority, he also lambastes the majority of peaceful believers who do not publicly condemn the actions of terror. In this, Dennett uses physicist Steven Weinberg’s quote with approval:

“Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things — that takes religion.”

But he neglects to pose the more crucial question — about religion prompting bad people to do good things. Shouldn’t that be on the credit side of the religion ledger?

Consider this Ramayana story of the transformative power of faith, one that turns a hardened killer into a soft-hearted sage.

In a great forest, there lived a bandit called Valya dreaded for murderous greed. He’d kill for the merest baubble, forget bigger booty, which he’d snatch and run home to his family.
One day, having tired of walking on the clouds, the sage Narada came to the forest only to be ambushed by Valya. The story almost ended there. But as usual Narada was quicker on the draw! “For whose sake are you doing all this?” he asked. “Of course for my family who love the loot,” Valya replied. “What about the sin, shame and the guilt of spilling innocent blood?” Of course they’d share my blood-guilt as well, Valya retorted. “You’d better go and ask them, I am tied up anyway,” Narada said with a smile.
Valya went home to find his family all too eager to share the goodies. But they said they’d have nothing to do with the guilt; it was to be borne by Valya alone. Horrified, the bandit ran back to fall at the sage’s feet. How was he to save his soul? “Meditate onepointedly on Rama,” Narada said, “the deceptively simple mantra that pulverises mountains of sin when chanted with a pure mind.” Now so used to shouting slogans of death and doom was the bandit that he could only say mumble “Mara, Mara (die, die).” “Never mind, in a seamless chant you’d still end up with soul-cleansing Ramjapa,” assured Narada.
Valya’s practice was so steadfast that he wouldn’t stop even when termites covered his body. This is how he became Valmiki, the ‘termite sage’, renowned for his compassion. Later, when he saw a hunter shoot bird, he became so agitated that he ended up composing the Ramayana!

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:
faith thaanga. oru huntera valmikiya maathirukkilla…
mara na ennanga? ivan evlo pera adichurukaan. so ivana adikka varunvaangannu theriyum, avanai mara mara nu sollraan..

birda oru hunter kill panradhai pathu ramayanam ezhudaraan, andha sogam, adhaan sitavoda sogam…

indha anboli bookla vandhirrukku padinga, romba mukkiyam. ellamae solleerukaar. ayurveda book, matha books elllathaiyum padikka vendiyadhilla, idha mattum padichalae podhum, romba mukkiyam idhu.

kayakalpam as in anboli is here

Three billy goats gruff, three blind mice, three stooges, three musketeers… Three is never a crowd in a child’s story. Why are there always three characters in children’s stories and comic books? It is not just the writers of these stories who have a fascination for the number three. Religion, art, literature and the very nature of man have long been preoccupied with the number three.

Time has three phases — past, present and future.

The nature of the human being consists of three distinct levels — body, mind and soul.

Thought, word and deed (manasa, vacha, karmana) completes the sum of human capability.

Things seem to occur in threes or multiples of three.

There are nine planets in the solar system.

A baby is born after nine months of gestation.

The very foundation of the Hindu religion is based on the Trimurti — Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswara. They represent the sum total of all cosmic and divine forces. The sacred chants are repeated thrice — Om Shanti, shanti, shanti. All japas are done in multiples of three. In Celtic art, one finds clusters of three centuries with three heads and objects that repeat thrice.

Art and geometry

In Greek mythology there are three Fates, three Graces, three Gorgons, three Furies. Cerebrus was a three-headed dog. Multiples of three are also used, as the nine muses and the 12 Olympian gods.

Three is an important number in geometry. A triangle is the strongest form in construction. A triangle forms the base of three-dimensional pyramid. It is considered the most stable and strongest of all shapes. The Pyramids of Egypt stand as a testimony to this fact and are one of the wonders of the world for no small reason. The geometric constructions of a long gone civilisation continue to fascinate and awe mankind across the world.

A cantilever bridge like the one on the Hoogly in Kolkata is an assembly of several congruent triangles. Together they can withstand the forces of nature. Every bar on a cantilever bridge experiences a pushing or pulling force. But the bars rarely bend. The triangular form is strong and can absorb any amount of force applied on any of its sides. That is why cantilever bridges can span further than beam bridges.

Triangles have innumerable uses in science and every day life. A hexagon structure forms the base of a windmill and the giant wheel.

Psychologists say that the brain finds it relatively easy to grasp things when they are in threes. Put them in fours and the brain gets all muddled.

One could go on, but the fact remains that the number three is deeply embedded in the psyche of the human mind and we would do well to harness the power of three whether we are trying to communicate or build, it pays to stick with threes.

Let the “fours” be with Star Wars.

Source: The Hindu

Iyya Comments:
paarunga inga 2 pathi solleerukaanga. body, mind, soul. innoru bookal paarunga 2 pathi solleerukaanga. Body, Soul.

amaanga, bodyum soulum nalla irundha mindu nallairukumilla. body, soul appuram thaanae mind…

aiyaa gave a tidbit on monolisa’s smile from a tamil weekly magazine. it goes like, she is a rich lady in italy. Monolisa is also known as La Giocconda. Leonardo Da Vinci took 3 years to draw this. monolisa had a girl child. The child passed away just before he started to draw her. Before taking a photo, they say smile pls, so adhu maari, he asked her to smile, she was not able to smile fully owing to loosing her child and hence this smile…

Iyya Comments:
paathala namakku theriyuminga. paarunga evlo kashtapatirukaangannu. avanga 48 yrs thaan irundhirukkaanga. enna kashtam pattangalo, adhellam namma edhukku aaraichi pannanum. idha mattum purinjukonga, romba unmaiyanadhu…

We are all the time running after material objects of the external world. Most of us are not even aware that such a thing as inner space exists. Deep within each of us, there is a silence. It is the source from which we came. We can never experience this silence by going behind the objects of the outer world. We can experience it only by going inward.
To go inward, we need to be aware of our mind and its workings. Mind is nothing but our thoughts. These thoughts by themselves are all right. But when you identify with these thoughts, it corrupts this inner space. Constantly by replaying the past and connecting independent incidents, your mind creates shafts, connections.
Supposing you have a pain in your shoulder, immediately the shaft of pain will come up. Be very clear: The pain you had nine years ago is different from the pain you had four years ago and it is different from the pain you have now. All are unconnected, one-time, independent incidents and have no connection. It is your mind that makes the connection, which in reality does not exist. This series of connections is what I call a shaft.
You will see that these shafts create thought patterns, which are sets of thoughts that keep repeating themselves. For example, you may have a set of ideas about a person, a situation or a thing. Every time you interact with that person, these ideas surface and bias your decisionmaking. By judging in this manner, you simply miss the totality of that person or the situation and take wrong decisions about them.
Drop your ideas about everything and everybody. Just be friendly with everyone without having any past memories or ideas about them. Just behave the way you would when you meet the person the first time. Life will then be joyful. Your inner space will simply expand. You will be able to actualise your entire potential. Most often you are afraid to drop these shafts because these shafts give you your identity. Just understand that you are an un-clutched, independent being. Don’t try to clutch into these shafts.
Keep your inner space pure. Whenever thoughts arise, whatever they may be, just watch and be a witness to them. You will see that your awareness increases and slowly the number of thoughts in you decreases. You will become aware of the inner space within, which is pure bliss.

Be Blissful!

• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:
aiyaa gave an article on Kayakalpam and said that is very important. indha article layum adhu thaan solleerukku, aana romba simplea irrukku…

IN HIS recent book, Code Name God, the US-based scientist Mani Bhaumik, one of the pioneers of the excimer laser, which made LASIK surgery possible, writes poignantly about his high-octane rags-toriches story in America, “the merry-go-round that broke down”, and the spiritual crisis that followed. “Life in the fast lane doesn’t get any faster — or more hazardous — than in Los Angeles,” he says. “New kings are crowned every day, and old monarchies fall just as frequently. I was freshly minted royalty, and for a time I enjoyed every minute of it. Notwithstanding the spiritual imperative of my forebears, the life of a monk was not for me, and even when the time came to question the foundation of my existence, I did not for a moment consider leaving the joys, tragedies and travesties of everyday life behind, only its ceaseless hunger and conspicuous consumption.”
During this period, on two separate occasions he met Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in social settings. He noticed a common trait in both men, which he claims to have also seen in Mahatma Gandhi (whom he’d met as a young volunteer in a camp at Tamluk during Quit India Movement). Bhaumik describes this trait as a kind of gracious detachment, “as if only a designated portion of (the presidents’) attention could be spared for the occasion at hand, while the rest was reserved for the weighty matters filling other compartments of their minds, matters far removed from the shrimp cocktail”.
Bhaumik goes on to speculate whether, to be a powerful leader, one has to develop a sort of “extended intelligence” to manage a multitude of concerns. Some develop this faculty consciously with deep meditation. Some are born with it or acquire it unconsciously as a kind of coherent will.
As a scientist, Bhaumik believes that such a return to coherence on our part could involve the astounding possibility, supported by quantum physics, that the universe may in some sense be aware of itself. Furthermore, this universal form of awareness — a quantum potentiality of consciousness implicit everywhere in the cosmos — might somehow be linked to the source of creation. This also happens to be the central tenet of Kashmir Shaivism, which calls the ultimate principle Para Samvit, Para Siva or citi (consciousness). Coherence or the cosmic merger of our egos depends on its anugraha, grace.

• VITHAL C NADKARNI

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:
kadasheela padinga, adhu thaan important. ellathukkum avroda grace vennum. gnanam, enlightenmentnu sollrangilla, namma kadavula aagaradhukku, adhai avar kudupaar…

Way back in 1969 Theodor Rosebury published his seminal book Life on Man, which showed that the human body was teeming with microscopic life of all kinds. In particular Rosebury estimated that some 50 million individual bacteria live on the average square centimetre of human skin. By contrast the total number of human cells in the same area is only about four to five million, or roughly one-tenth that number. More importantly, the overwhelming majority of these organisms are required and beneficial — if not vital — for our healthy existence. Rosebury’s conclusion therefore was simple: “All life is a single community,’ he wrote.
Now scientists have discovered that bacteria begin colonising the human body very soon after birth, so that by the time we reach adulthood we carry up to an astonishing 100 trillion microbes, representing more than 1,000 different species — and that’s only in the intestines and colon alone. This has prompted gene experts at The Institute for Genomic Research, in Maryland, USA, to claim that we may not be entirely human but some kind of an amalgam, a mix of bacteria and human cells, because some estimates say 90% of the cells in our body are bacteria. “We may be truly symbiotic organisms, relying on one another for life itself,” the researchers have written in the latest issue of the journal Science.
According to Steven Gill, a molecular biologist from the institute, the reason is because we’re entirely dependent on this microbial population for our well-being. A shift within this population, often leading to the absence or presence of beneficial microbes, can trigger defects in metabolism and development of diseases.
In The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, Fritjof Capra had talked about an understanding of life at all levels of living — organisms, society and ecosystems — based on a new perception of reality that could have profound implications not only for science and philosophy but also for business, politics, health care, education and everyday life. When we realise that our interdependency with other forms of life runs so deep as to become fundamental to our subsistence and that, indeed, to a whole variety of life we are a world — and vice versa — the notion of any being as separate, different and standalone begins to sound faintly absurd. And ridiculously pompous.

• MUKUL SHARMA

Source: The Economic Times

There are several meditation techniques to fall in tune with the Divine. Techniques give us the experience of God. They are the essence of religion. One such technique is Dance, in the literal sense of the word and even otherwise!
Quantum physics has proven that the atom is made up of elements that are static and moving at the same time. A picture taken of this phenomenon reveals the resemblance it bears to the dancing deity — Nataraja. Scientists are proving every atom is vibrant. The whole of Cosmos is actually dancing with joy. Enjoying and celebrating every moment! Only man is still holding on to his prestige and ego, which are nothing but the labels stuck on him by society.
Dance is the ultimate technique to break free of the ego, to break free from the identity that man holds close to his heart. Dancing breaks your conditionings. You do not need to use the mind to dance; you dance from your Being. Dance is the outward expression of the inner joy when you fall into the joyous path.
Just like when you clap your hands and the birds fly off from the trees, so also, when you sing and dance in the name of the Divine, your karmas (past unfulfilled actions) fly away from you; you are liberated from them.
Children need not be taught to dance, they already are that way! Their inner intelligence knows how to balance their Energy in the centre of their Being and that is why they are so joyful all the time. But you are unable to handle them in that state and so you suppress them and make them dull. When you dance with your Being, you are so total and near to God.
Vaishnavism, the Hindu philosophy of duality preached by Saint Ramanuja, made a big contribution to recognise dance as a way to reach God. Followers of Ramanuja do namasankirtan i.e. singing and dancing for hours together, in the name of God. In Sufism, the mystic sect of Islam, the basic techniques for expressing bliss are dancing and whirling. Always the highest form of spirituality expresses itself through dance.
Take for example Krishna, Meera, Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Tulsidas and Tukaram. All of them danced in ecstasy, expressing their love of God. Chaitanya says dancing is the best way of spreading bliss and joy. Ramakrishna says dancing is the ultimate technique to drop your ego. I tell you, don’t hold back, just dance your way to God!
Be Blissful!

• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:
dance na indha velila addaradhu illeenga, ullan aadaradhu. avanga avanga vegathukku etha maari nadakkum. ippo kovama irundha epdi oru aatam irrukku, amaidhiya irundha andha asaivu epdi irrukku…

Malcolm Gladwell’s 2005 non-fiction bestseller Blink talks about the power of thinking without thinking. The essence of the book is that snap judgments are often based on fairly deep knowledge, freed from the constraints imposed by consideration of too much information. “Thin slicing” he calls it, and says it’s the act of relegating the decision-making process to the “adaptive unconscious” by focusing on a small set of pertinent key variables, as opposed to consciously considering the situations as wholes over much longer periods of time. The interesting part is, thin slicing challenges the commonly held belief that “more information is better” when making good decisions.
A good example cited in the book is about the handful of people who knew instantly upon seeing a new acquisition that the J Paul Getty Museum had sunk millions of dollars into a fake sculpture, despite its having conducted myriad tests of the object’s authenticity. “In the first two seconds of looking — in a single glance — they were able to understand more about the essence of the statue than the team at the museum was able to understand after 14 months,” writes Gladwell. “Blink is about those first two seconds.”
So is enlightenment. It doesn’t take any longer for the truly enlightened to get an intuitive grasp of what it’s all about. And that grasp that they get is so fundamental, so comprehensive and so deeply internalised thereafter that virtually nothing can shake their faith in it. But ask any of them to explain their particular thin slice and, like the museum visitors, they would be left without words to do so. Or if they did manage to speak about it, the essence would suddenly go missing — even to themselves. That’s because the power of thinking with thinking belongs to the scientific world of empiricism and rationality which always acts on the “more information is better” principle.
Fortunately, thin slicing can also be done consciously. “The power of knowing, in that first two seconds, is not a gift given magically to a fortunate few,” Gladwell asserts. “It is an ability that we can all cultivate for ourselves.” Sometime guru and author of Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, Jed McKenna would agree. “The truth is that enlightenment is neither remote nor unattainable,” he says. “It is closer than your skin and more immediate than your next breath.”

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:

“Imaginative transformation of mind” - Iyya had written this below the heading of this article.
kan imaikkara nerathula gnanam kedachadhunnu solluvaangilla.
thiru v ka sonna ari Thuyilum indha blikn thaan…

Now that the Hollywood blockbuster “The Da Vinci Code” has reintroduced Leonardo’s most famous work of art to a whole new generation of adolescent movie-goers, the question could again be asked as to what was the secret behind the Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile in the painting. The latest agency reports say that Japanese acoustics expert Matsumi Suzuki has recreated her voice, based on her height and skull measurements. Suzuki measured the face and hands of the portrait to estimate her height at 168 cm and make a model of her skull. Suzuki had earlier recreated for use in film dubbing the voices of other famous personalities who are no longer around. The voice print of every individual is unique and Suzuki claims to have achieved 90 per cent accuracy in recreating the original speaking tone. Thanks to Suzuki, those who log on to a particular Web site can now hear the portrait proclaim, “I am the Mona Lisa. My true identity is shrouded in mystery.” All that Suzuki now has to do is to further refine his technology so that he can measure the Mona Lisa smile to accurately articulate the thought in her mind while she was posing for Leonardo on that summer day in 1503 Florence!
It would be interesting to speculate what the portrait would say if Suzuki cracks that code. Would she say, “Why is this man spending hours painting me sitting on this rock when we could be walking out together in the landscape he is depicting or when we could be taking in a play or just sipping chianti in the nearest bistro? Weirdo! Weirdo! He should be in a loony bin instead of the Louvre!” Or would she say, “My bottom is paining sitting on this rock and here is this moron asking me to pose with all my clothes on and a plastered smile on my face! And they call him a Renaissance genius! Ha!” Or maybe Bob Dylan got it right in his 1966 “Visions of Johanna” when he sang, “But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues./You can tell by the way she smiles.”

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:
andhamma ennaga ninaikka poraanga? paavam naalu mani neram ivlo kashtapattu nammala varaiyaraarennu, andha maghilchiyai kaamichirukaanga…