Iyya

The supreme relaxing and meditative technique of yoga nidra is not sleep but being aware and alert throughout. Tuning in through chanting of ‘Om’, the aspirant relaxes in savasana. In the stillness within (antarmouna), he repeats to himself his objective for life (sankalpa).

Comprehending that effectiveness of that aspect concerning his entire physical body (annanmaya kosha) is the basis for all attainments, he commences, with his gentle, yet powerful awareness, feeling all parts of his body from the toes to the head. He thus experiences the release of stresses from each part and also from each biological function — the muscular, excretory, sexual, digestive, cardiac, circulatory and neurological.

This process invariably brings about regularity in the breathing process, obtaining unto oneself the positive life force (prana), flowing through every nerve centre and nerve (chakra and nadi). This is the realisation of one’s natural pranamaya kosha, conferring also a harmony upon the mind and all thinking and mental formations (manonmaya kosha).

In this process of catharsis, with stresses, ignorance and confusion being gradually released, one comprehends truths and principles to live by — the ‘art of living’. Naturally so, he is enabled also to comprehend that finer aspect concerning himself with regard to the needed clairvoyant and intuitive knowledge (vigyanamaya kosha). This is jnanagni, which, as Bhagavad Gita notes (4:19, 37), releases the binding effects of all karma.

This verily is the ultimate cleansing of the spirit within (atma suddhi), whereby, retarding forces give way, leading to unhindered progress to realise one’s dreams and aspirations. Contended thus in the self, he no more needs external sources for his comfort, peace or enlightenment, as conceived of by Gita (5, 24). This also is the ultimate realisation of the divinity within, one’s anandamaya kosha.

Experiencing this bliss within, the aspirant again repeats to himself his sankalpa, feels the sounds and atmosphere outside, sits up and chanting ‘Om’, commences his normal activities, preparing to integrate the clarity and power within with the world without, as exhorted by the Gita (2, 48).

Yoga nidra is also epitomised by Lord Padmanabha, reclining blissfully in this posture, whereupon, creativity in the form of Brahma issues forth. Indeed, true and deep relaxation serves to flower forth the awesome potential and creativity, residing within us all!

Source: The Economic Times

Advaita Vedanta posits that there is no fundamental difference between the Absolute Reality (Brahman) and the individual Self (Atman). It is this essential identity that is the crux of the teachings in the Upanishads for their objective is to enable the spiritual seeker to realise His spiritual nature. The essential identity of Brahman and Atman is indicated in the Chandogya Upanishad Mahavakya “Tat tvam asi” (That you are) to show that the Reality behind the entire creation is the same as the Self within the individual.

In his discourse, Sri N.Veezhinathan said man did not realise his essential nature because of ignorance. In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says, “Knowledge is enveloped with ignorance; hence it is that beings are constantly falling a prey to delusion.” While elucidating the Mahavakya Uddalaka Aruni explained to his son Svetaketu how ignorance veils the spiritual nature of the Self with examples. The rivers that merge into the ocean all owe their existence to the ocean (the Sun evaporates the water of the ocean and clouds discharge it as rain, which run as rivers) but they are spoken of as distinct though there is no essential difference (as water) between the rivers and the ocean. So also, an individual identifies himself with the body-mind personality instead of with the Self due to ignorance and thinks he is different from the Reality.

A doubt may arise as to how this manifold universe can manifest from the Absolute, which is described as “subtler than the subtlest.” Uddalaka gives the analogy of the tiny seed of a banyan growing into such a big tree. So a spiritual aspirant must have faith in the teaching of the Guru who expounds the spiritual truth, which is subtle. He clarified that the spiritual truth can only be experienced and not taught like other objective sciences by asking Svetaketu to bring some crystals of salt and asked him to drop them into water. The next morning he asked him to take out the salt from the water. When Uddalaka could not, he asked him to taste it and he could taste its salinity. Similarly, he said, Brahman cannot be seen but could be experienced.
Source: The Hindu

Iyya Comments:

neenga ellathukullayum irrukeenga, ungallukku ulla ellamae irrukku. appo neenga enga thaniya irrukeenga?

STRANDED with rainsoaked fellow travellers, the commuter awaits for a minor miracle — for the waters to part, the tracks to re-appear, and for the train to arrive like an angel express. But gods of small miracles move in strange ways. Nothing stirs and the commuter begins a rant against the netas, babus, and the janatafor letting an Urbs Prima go to the dogs. “A mosquito must have sneezed somewhere,” he remarks. “Excuse enough for flooding of tracks.”
   Then a beggar begins a song: Jai Hanuman gyan-gunsagar jai kapis tihu lok ujagar. It halts the commuter’s harangue: he seems to get emotional over the beggar’s rather toneless recitation. Turning to the stranger, a scribe in a blue raincoat, next him, the commuter exclaims in his mother tongue: Idu divya prabandham! {This is a divine discourse!}
   The stranger too seems to understand instantly, as he begins to nod sympathetically to reply with a sigh: Yeh to Goswamiji ki kamal hai! (This is Goswami Tulsidas’s magic!) With his eyes half closed, the commuter nods back languorously. Thoughts of flooded tracks have now been turned to inner vistas of the waters stretching endlessly to the horizon upon which bejewelled Lanka shimmers like a distant memory. But wait! What is that flying through the mind’s eye, swifter than a thought, through the rain clouds? Is it a bird, an aeroplane or Superman? It’s none other than the Superape Hanuman.
   The hero of the beggar’s ballad is also known as Maruti, the Son of the Wind God, infinitely faster than the fastest Bugatti built by mortals. Adventures of Hanuman have inspired everybody starting from that Ur-poet (Adi-kavi) Valmiki, right down to the creators of Japanese manga comics and anime films. You’d also find him in the dance ballets of South-East Asia and in the national epic of China, Monkey, though under a different guise.
   Hanuman’s newest avatar is a post-Schwarzenegger hulk with a King Kong mask grinning at the back of his head. He debuting under Shekar Kapur’s baton in a ‘nagin-theme’ comic series set in East Village in partnership with the wellness guru Deepak Chopra and Richard Branson of Virgin Comics (who describes the socalled next wave of global mythology as ”Bollywood meets Marvel meets Manga”). They’d do well not to forget the deathless magic of good old mythology, which came to life on that rain-soaked afternoon, to show us why he’s called Eternal, Chiranjeevi.

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:

Commuter na ennanga? apdi oru vaarthai english la illa.

commute naah one bye one

kadavaul ellathaiyum onna kuduthu unga naala enna panna mudiyum? adhaan onnu onna kudukkaraar….

IT IS quite natural to expect that a concern for language will remain central to the study of human nature, as it has been in the past. Anyone concerned with the study of human nature and human capacities must somehow come to grips with the fact that all normal humans acquire language, whereas acquisition of even its barest rudiments is quite beyond the capacities of an otherwise intelligent ape — a fact that was emphasised, quite correctly, in Cartesian philosophy. It is widely thought that the extensive modern studies of animal communication challenge this classical view; and it is almost universally taken for granted that there exists a problem of explaining the “evolution” of human language from systems of animal communication.
   However, a careful look at recent studies of animal communication seems to me to provide little support for these assumptions. Rather, these studies simply bring out even more clearly the extent to which human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world. If this is so, it is quite senseless to raise the problem of explaining the evolution of human language from more primitive systems of communication that appear at lower levels of intellectual capacity. The issue is important, and I would like to dwell on it for a moment.

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:

epdi language vandhuchunnu purinjukka mudiyuma?

தோன்றின் புகழொடு தோன்றுக அஃதிலார்
தோன்றலின் தோன்றாமை நன்று.

evlo varusham aanalum, pugaludaiya saanror kitta pona andha pughal oruvannukku varum. apadi avan avarai purindhu kolla mudiyavillai enraal, anga povadhai vida pogaamal irupadhe nalladhu…

naan sollren illenga, inga varaadheengannu…

Morton Meyers

CONTEMPLATING the genesis of the great medical breakthroughs of the last century, most people picture brilliant, well-trained scientists diligently pursuing a predetermined goal — laboriously experimenting with first this substance and then that substance, progressing step by step to a “Eureka!” moment when the sought-after cure is at last found. The reality is different. Progress has resulted only after many false starts and despite widespread misconceptions held over long periods of time. A large number of significant discoveries in medicine arose not as a result of painstaking experimentation but rather from chance and even outright error. This is true for many of the common drugs and procedures that we rely on today, notably many antibiotics, anaesthetics, chemotherapy drugs, and antidepressants.
Sagacity is essential to serendipity. The men and women who seized on lucky accidents that happened to them were anything but mindless. In fact, their minds typically had special qualities that enabled them to break out of established paradigms, imagine new possibilities, and see that they had found a solution, often to some problem other than the one they were working on. Accidental discoveries would be nothing without keen, creative minds knowing what to do with them. A creative mind is open and can go beyond linear reasoning to think outside the box, look beyond conventional wisdom, and seize on the unexpected.

Source: The Economic Times

• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

HINDU mythology of creation talks about how the Universe is created each time the Creator Brahma blinks!
Sages of ancient India measured time through the concept of kshana. Kshana is not chronological time. It was not measured as the amplitude of a pendulum or the frequency of an electronic chip. Kshana was not generic time, but individual time. Kshana is the time between two thoughts. My kshana and your kshanaare different.
In the case of the average person, in whom the mind is constantly active, desires and thoughts pour out without a stop, the time between two thoughts is very small, very very small. In the case of an enlightened being, who is a no mind state, in whom there are no thoughts, kshana is infinite.
Kshana is the time between two thoughts. It is the space between two thoughts. This is the time and space that Buddha referred to as sunya, and that which Sankara referred to as purna. It is the no mind zone, the mindful zone, in which you touch base with yourself.
Kshanais that present moment in which you come face to face with the divinity within yourself, recognise the cosmic energy that you are part of.
When you are in that kshana, you are truly aware; you are energised and refreshed. Meditation takes you into that awareness.
When you are in front of an enlightened Master who is in a no mind state without thoughts your own thought level comes down, and kshana becomes longer. Without even trying you become calmer, more peaceful, and more aware.
The same experience occurs when you are in the energy field of an enlightened master who is no longer in body, as in a Jiva Samadhi, where the master’s body has been buried. Many of our great temples such as Tirupati, Tiruvannamalai, Mantralaya and Palani are built around the burial spots of enlightened masters and that is the reason why we feel the sanctity and peace giving properties of these locations.
Contrary to what western philosophers say the idle mind, if it is silent, is not the devil’s workshop. It is God’s workshop! It is the busy mind that is truly the devil’s workshop. Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am”. That is a mere fact; an irrelevant one. Vedanta says, “When you stop thinking, you are.” This is truth; the cosmic truth.
Be still and you will be God.

Source: The Economic Times

• K VIJAYARAGHAVAN

Yukta Mokhey, when crowned as Miss World in 1999, stated that her role model was Audrey Hepburn, whom she admired for her “inner beauty, compassion and great aura”. In fact such virtues of head, heart and spirit give fulfilment to physical beauty and all material acquisitions. This ‘inner beauty’ is in consequence of clarity, poise, balance and courage of conviction within. These virtues stem from realisation of truth of matters and truths to live by — a process of knowing oneself through comprehending right values and priorities of life and living. No wonder, John Keats recorded, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” (Ode on a Grecian Urn).
Self-confidence or self-esteem is the logical outcome of the aspirant’s search for such beauty and such truth. This self-confidence, therefore, is far removed from conceit or arrogance. In fact, this is rooted in humility, creativity, peace and relaxation within. The designer, who was responsible for dressing and grooming the three successive beauty queens — Aishwarya Rai, Yukta Mokhey and Diana Hayden — pointed out that all of them had a “tremendous amount of professionalism and confidence. If you are as determined as they are, you would succeed at anything”.
No wonder, when asked which was the greatest wealth, Aishwarya Rai quipped, “Self respect”. One who obtains unto himself/herself the sublime truths, which constitute true beauty, is one, who, as Bhagawad Gita notes (2,55) is “satisfied in the self by his own self”.
Physical beauty, by itself, cannot be either endearing or enduring unless accompanied by the true beauty of the spirit. Without this, the situation would be one, as epitomised by Shakespeare, “Golden lads and girls all must,/As chimney sweepers come to dust” (Cymbeline, IV, 2). Such beauty is indeed just skin deep!
Real beauty is, however, one, which would enable the person concerned to radiate joy, cheer and acceptance all over, where he/she becomes “an instrument of peace”, leaving “foot prints on the sands of time”. Having something to contribute, his/her charisma wins over many, just as a honey-laden flower attracts unto itself bees. Lives of millions are touched and miracles are wrought by this uncanny power of the truth and beauty within to transform and influence, through the power of example and inner worth.
Such beauty, doubtless, is not just skin deep. It transcends nations, peoples and creeds. Above all, it transcends time!

Source: The Economic Times

Iyya Comments:

Edhu azhagunnu paarunga…

வகுத்தான் வகுத்த வகையல்லால் கோடி
தொகுத்தார்க்கு துய்த்தல் அரிது.

thaana nadakaradhia poi maathina, disturbance create panni varadhu thaan noi. namma thaan adhai undaakarom, vandhadhu appuram yethukkannum….