Iyya

A13-YEARDutch study on near-death-experience (NDE) published in the reputed medical journal Lancet in 2001 questions some basic assumptions of general medicine and neurology. An NDE refers to the broad range of personal experiences associated with impending death, involving sensations of detachment from the body, going through a tunnel, feeling total serenity, the presence of a being of light, getting an instant and complete life review, blah blah blah and, ultimately, a return to the body. Naturally, some see NDEs as a paranormal and spiritual glimpse into the afterlife while others view it as a physiological reaction of the dying brain caused by drugs, oxygen starvation or depersonalisation.
The paradigm problem, however, arises because such cases are usually reported after an individual has been pronounced clinically dead. In the Dutch study, for instance, several of the subjects exhibited a total lack of electrical activity in the cortex of the brain and their EEGs were flat. Yet, when resuscitated, about 18% of the patients who reported having an NDE during the period did so with clear consciousness in which cognitive functioning, emotion, sense of identity and even memories from early childhood was possible. How could such lucidity of consciousness be experienced at the moment that the brain was no longer functioning in any normal sense?
The medical model so far has been that the brain is the basis of all mental activity and that self awareness, consciousness or mind when it does arise — say, in the case of humans (and perhaps apes and dolphins) — is merely a function of the complexity of the brain. In other words it’s only an epiphenomenon, and the mainstream scientific view is that without an operational brain, the mind cannot exist. Therefore death has to signify the complete disintegration of personality.
Conversely, NDEs could signify that the brain, rather than being the originator and keeper of mental processes, is actually only a facilitator — a receiver and transmitter — of such faculties which exist independent of any physical substrate. Meaning, consciousness can be experienced without our conventional body-linked concept of time and space. No wonder the authors of the Dutch study mention in the Lancet report that “the theory and background of transcendence should be included as a part of an explanatory framework for these experiences.”

MUKUL SHARMA

Source: The Economic Times

WE SHOULD understand one secret: attention is energy. That is why we feel so good when somebody attends to us. When we are attended to; when somebody takes time to attend to us; when somebody serves, we feel so good. We even feel elated.
We can see that politicians seem to be always, continuously energetic. Do you know why? Everywhere they are attended to. Thousands and thousands of people listen to their speech. We can see that if the crowd is more, the volume of their voice will go up. It goes up because the attention creates energy.
If we are attended to well, we feel energetic. We feel alive. Attention is energy. When we don’t live inside our body, when we don’t attend to our body, we will feel our body has shrunk. Our body really contracts, it shrinks. It just begs you, ‘please give me your attention.’ This begging of our body is called pain. Pain is nothing but the begging of our own body asking for our attention; asking for our presence. Our body wants us to attend to it.
Why does our body do that? We continuously live outside our body. Our body is here; but we are somewhere else. Our body is in the house; but in our mind, we are already in the office. When we are in the office our body is in the house. If we continuously live outside the body, our body will go without any attention.
I tell people that when they are in the beachside resort thinking about what they should be doing at work, they call it vacation. When they are at work fantasising about a cruise, they call it work. Both cause suffering. This suffering is the way our body creates attention to itself. This pain of suffering is the way our body calls for attention when we don’t attend to it properly. We need to understand one thing: pain is nothing but the unawareness.
If we don’t live now, here, our body will not be attended to. Our body will not have the attention of our being. When we give our attention, we will see that the suffering simply disappears. When we do not live the real life, we will be only living with the reasons. Our mind will be one way; our body will be in another way. And if we don’t live truthfully, we create a new energy field around us called pain body.
Understand that if we continuously live in the past or live in the future, we are not present inside our system. When we are not present, the energy flow inside our system never happens totally and properly. Be in the present, be pain free and blissful. This is enlightened state.

• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

Source: The Economic Times

OVEREATING is a modern disease. People think that it is better to eat more vegetarian food. Let us be clear here. Overeating any food is bad. Be it vegetarian or meat. It creates a lot of problems for us. We have never learnt to eat only what we need. We should be firm on eating only what we require and how much we need. Overeating is an expression of greed. We overeat as a substitute to fulfil other unattainable wants.
Often, we have no idea of what we eat. When we eat we talk, we read, we watch TV and we do many other things. We do everything except focus on the food we eat. We have little respect for the food we eat. Then we wonder why we accumulate fat. Vegetarian food is the best for people interested in spiritual practices. It digests easily and promotes good energy in our body. It helps in gentle energy flow connecting all the chakras or energy points in our body. The compassion of Buddha led to the wide acceptance of vegetarian food.
A further refinement of vegetarian food is dining on what is called as satvic food. People on satvic vegetarian diet avoid jalapeno peppers, onion and garlic. These vegetables contain steroids. They are all right as medicines and ingested in small quantities once in a while. Regular intake of these vegetables interferes with the energy flow in the chakras. Overeating has the same effect as eating jalapeno peppers, onion, and garlic. When we overeat, we stuff food and make our body a trash bin. Added to it, we will waste a lot of our body’s resources in processing it.
My devotees consider it a privilege to feed me. They pile my plate with many varieties of food. They expect me to eat it up! They advice me not to waste it! They expect me to clean up the plate!
Be clear: wasting food outside is better. It is better to leave the food outside our body than getting the food inside our body and wasting us from with in.
When we decline the food on the plate or in the dish, food remains outside. We are only wasting excess food. It can be fed to others. But, if we stuff ourselves with food, we are serving ourselves a double harm. The excess food is wasted in the body. Our body has no use of it even as it sits in our body. We are exhausting our body’s resources in processing it. If we overeat, food becomes a waste. Food can become a poison.
It is better to decline excess food than to consume it. Be aware of what and how much you eat! If you respect food, your body will respond by being respectful to you!

• PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

Source: The Economic Times

HE’S a motivational speaker and, like thousands of his kind, he goes from place to place along the length and breadth of the country he was born in and lectures focusing on the topics that today’s people face. He regularly travels internationally too to speak to religious congregations, schools, colleges and corporate bodies. So far, he’s spoken to over two million people in 12 countries on four continents. One of his standard lines of patter goes something like this:
“Along the way you might fall down. So what do you do when you fall down? Get back up because everybody knows how to get back up. But there are some times in life when you fall down and you feel you don’t have the strength to get back up. Do you think you have any hope left then? If I try a hundred times to get back up and I fail a hundred times and give up, do you think I will ever be able to get up? No. But what if I fail and try again? And again, and again, and again? I just want you to know that it’s not the end. It matters how you’re going to finish. Are you going to finish strong? That’s when you’ll find that strength to get back up.”
Then, as if to drive the point home as dramatically as possible, he deliberately falls down full on his stomach onstage.
The audience gasps because Nick Vujicic, who was born with the extremely rare tetra amelia syndrome, a disorder which is characterised by the absence of all four limbs, has no arms or legs at all. And as they see his stump of a body — just a truncated little torso really — topple forward face down, the tired clichés the cheery man’s been expounding so long suddenly take on a whole new meaning. Yet the first thing that races through their minds is how’s he going to get back up?
As the first of our cave dwelling ancestors quickly discovered out when they began making spears to use on hunts, arms and legs are not only parts of the body but also extensions of the head. Like the tail dropped by a lizard which can only wiggle by itself for a while before becoming inert, left to themselves our limbs can achieve nothing either.
Nick positions his forehead on the floor and uses it to curve the spine inwards to its maximum and then leverages his body back into an upright position. So can he comb and clean and feed himself too? Chances are he can’t. But then how many of us who can, end up finishing strong like him?

MUKUL SHARMA
Source: The Economic Times

The Bhagavad Gita’s greatest gift to mankind is the knowledge that helps to cultivate discrimination with regard to what is of utmost importance to an individual. Lord Krishna explains at great length the primary distinction between the body and the Self and how it is very easy to forget this and imagine the body to be the Self and thereby allow ourselves to be subject to sorrow and pain. Lord Krishna confers the highest acclaim — Dheera (strong willed) or Sthitaprajna (man of wisdom) — to one who is able to maintain equanimity at all times, pointed out Sri M. V. Anantapadmanabhachariar in a lecture.

Life is a mix of joy and sorrow and one should learn to treat both alike. This is possible only when one knows the true nature of the Self as immortal and as the very embodiment of consciousness and bliss and identifies oneself with it. Then it becomes natural to perceive joy and sorrow as affecting the body alone since the body is the result of one’s past deeds. Such a state of mind is attained only by determined and untiring effort. Lord Rama’s exemplary demeanour (both when the kingdom was offered and later when taken away) that typifies this quality of mind, serves as an inspiration to all those wishing to cultivate this trait.

Much depends on one’s mind that is difficult to keep under control. When Ravana fell in the battlefield, Mandodari wailed at his plight — he who had performed severe penance with perfect control over his senses and secured invincibility as a boon had become a victim to them. The senses had taken their revenge in full when he longed for Sita and brought forth his downfall, not Lord Rama. The Katopanishad also speaks of the powerful sway of the senses that distract man from pursuing the goal of salvation.

The two major sections in the Vedas — the Karma Kanda and the Jnana Kanda — deal with the material (wealth, progeny, learning) and spiritual aspirations of individuals respectively. When materialistic concerns find means of fulfilment in the Vedas, an individual develops faith in the scriptures. But in due course, the impermanent nature of the worldly attractions drives the individual to search for everlasting peace in earnest.

Source: The Hindu dated Feb 13 2009

Iyya Comments:

Calmness of mind.

PARAMAHAMSA SRI NITHYANANDA

WE CANNOT differentiate between love and lust today. Our lives are completely taken over by the fantasy and mental picture that lust creates in us. Our love, or the emotion that we call love, is tainted by greed and fear. All our love is conditional. We can only love someone as long as that person does what we say and obeys us. Control is a precondition to love.
In ancient days, people had the capacity to enjoy their marital pleasures completely without fantasies. They lived out their desires and were ready to give up the life of householders by the age of 40. Vedic scriptures prescribe four stages of life to attain the ultimate spiritual goal of enlightenment. These four stages of life are appropriate for each phase of one’s life. The four stages in life are: Brahmacharya, a student; Grihastha, a householder; Vanaprastha, a householder spending his time in reflection, after having fulfilled his duties as a husband and father; and finally Sanyasi, the ascetic, when the householder retires to be alone, in search of enlightenment.
Man and wife lived their lives fully till they were about forty. They then disengaged from physical relationship and focused on their spiritual development. In this stage, called Vanaprastha, they moved away from day-to-day life. They could either continue as such the rest of their lives or they could move to the next and final stage of renouncing all worldly possessions as sanyasi, ascetics.
Each stage of life was taken seriously and fulfilled. These days everything is half-hearted. Very few couples today understand the sacred verses chanted during their marriage rites. Only the purohits, the officiating priests, get married these days! The couples are disengaged from the beauty of the entire process of the ritual that leads to a meaningful relationship.
The beautiful rite performed in front of the fire in traditional Hindu weddings is called saptapati, the seven steps. There is deep significance when a married couple take the steps together. The couple vows to each other seven times, with fire as their witness, that they will be intimate and develop a deep love for each other.
The Vedic culture did not have the concept of divorce. In Sanskrit no words exist to describe marital separation. Marriage was a wonderful relationship that couples shared without fear and greed, with unconditional acceptance of one another. This relationship extended to all other aspects of their lives.

Source: The Economic Times

WHAT is good for the goose is not necessarily so for the gander. So while size zero might look smashing on Bollywood’s Bebo, on her beau it might be a big no-no. Having the right (or is it ruddy?) size does matter, especially when this is associated with fiduciary health of corporations. The effect of founder-chairman Steve Jobs’ rapidly shrinking waistline, for example, showed up in Apple Computer’s diminishing share price. (One wonders how someone like the late Wallis Simpson might have reacted to that situation. The American divorcee, who once caused the King of England to abdicate, is supposed to have said: “One could never be too rich or too thin.”) Notwithstanding Ms Simpson’s bon mot, it’s a good idea to eschew extremes in ordinary life. Nothing illustrates this as effectively as the statue of the Buddha as starving Sakyamuni done up in the Gandhara style. During his quest for eternal truth, the Buddha is said to have mortified his body with extreme asceticism. He eventually reduced his food intake to a single grain of rice. But when he became so weak as to be near death, the Master realised that the way to enlightenment did not lie in extremes. The Buddha also is said to have thought about the benefits of moderation and the Middle Way when he saw a ballet being performed by a group of temple dancers. In his poem on Buddha’s life The Light of Asia, Sir Edwin Arnold evoked the key insight with the metaphor of the tuning of a lute’s strings: “The string overstretched breaks, and the music flies/the string overslack is dumb, and the music dies.” One should therefore tune one’s sitar “neither too low, nor too high” for “fair goes the dance (of life) when the sitar is tuned (right)”. A psycho-therapeutic approach based on the Buddhist Middle Way has also been found to be effective against mood swings. The model based on Nagarjuna’s Madhyamikainsights uses a technique called analytic meditation. It begins by examining the simplistic polarities that tend to cripple people’s emotional lives. The ultimate goal is to coax attention away from categorical thinking to a mental space beyond words and labels. This may be akin to the state of the ‘unwavering lamp’ that Sri Krishna talks about in the sixth chapter of his discourse to Arjuna: “As a lamp in a windless place does not waver, so the transcendentalist whose mind is controlled, remains always steady” to win the battle.

Source : The Economic Times