Month: June 2023

Posted in Socio-Political

Shall we unmask jaggi vasudev.

Posted on by veeskitchen

RADHE, DAUGHTER OF JAGGI VASUDEV WITH HER HEAD TONSURED AND IN SAFFRON ROBES TAKING DEEKSHA.

JAGGI VASUDEV TAKING JEEVA SAMADHI AND ENDING HIS LIFE IN FRONT OF HIS FOLLOWERS AND IN FRONT OF CAMERAS FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE

JAGG WITH BEGGING BOWL TO DESDERVE BEING CALLED ‘SADHGURU’ – APPARENTLY HE GAVE THE TITLE TO HIMSELF.

JAGGI REFUSED ADMISSION TO MANASARVOR FOR POLLUTION.

SANDEEP NARAYAN AWARDED PERSONA-NON GRATA STATUS IN INDIA

FINALY THE HIDEOUS SHIVA DISMANTLED IN COIMBATORE, ISHA FOUNDATION CLOSED AND THE LAND ILLEGALLY TAKEN OVER RETURNED TO FOREST DEPARTMENT WITH THE ELEPHANT CORRIDOR RESTORED

AT LEAST JAGGI VASUDEV PACKED BACK TO KARNATAKA – JAILED FOR ALLEGED MURDER OF HIS WIFE AND FOR ILLEGALY TAKING OVER FOREST RESERVES OF INDIA, NONBAILABLE CRIMINAL OFFENCE.

NOBODY WHO SELLS ENLIGHTENMENT WITH A BRAND NAME ‘INNER ENGINEERING’ CAN BE GURU, LET ALONE SADHGURU! SHAME! FOR A FEE FAKE GURUS CAN SHOW YOU THE FORMULA TO ENTLIGHTENMENT.

These are a few of my favourite dreams!

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The one and only Sadhguru is Sai Baba of Shirdi. Baba begged for food home to home the way yogis must, so long his health and age permitted. From the food collected in his ‘jolna’ (cloth) bag that was a mixture from different homes, he fed the poor and the dogs first. What remained, he ate. FOR SURVIVAL. Can you imagine this jaggi vasudev who awarded himself the title ‘sadhguru’ doing it. Or can we have jaggi vasudev tonsuring the head of his daughter radhe the way he did to countless young men and women (they say he brainwashed them with an eye to their parents’ estates) to the anguish of their unfortunate parents. Millions worth estates and savings and investments of these girls and boys who took deeksha now will go isha foundation. Or at least can we have jaggi attain his jeeva samadhi in front of his followers and the entire world. I will be lucky if he does not start plotting my samadhi for blogging about him. Seriously! I don’t rule it out after the suspected murder of a girl committed by the ashram in recent times which was all over the media. I used to listen to him and i visited isha twice. But what I could not feel there was anything divine or good vibes. So cosmetic and fake. Plastic. Like jaggi vasudev himself. I even donated for his Kaveri cause but later regretted. This is the man who in the name of Shiva took over elephant corridors and rendered the pachyderms homeless – right in the land that they had walked for millions of years. To the man who lies that everything is legal after taking god’s name, being the so-called yogi, this is PAAP. Not just criminal. For taking over forest reserves of India, jaggi can be jailed for his lifetime. Forest encroachment is a serious legal offence in India. Criminal. This charge must be enough for right government with intention to frame criminal charges against jaggi vasudev. For this reason alone he can be stripped of his Padmashri title awarded by union government. The open secret is that the foundation is benami for many political parties both central and state. Why do you think otherwise the prime minister has to visit him. What happens when the truly spiritual leaders refuse to cooperate with politicians. We know what happened to Sri Jayendra Saraswathi. Jayalalitha Jayaram met with her gruesome end for her karma? But that is what a real yogi would do. Like Jayendra, they would not be bothered about consequences. They would be ready to lay down their lives for the sake of Dharma. And what about jaggi. What did he do. Look at this shining jaggi shaking a leg shamelessly with filmy actresses and selling tickets for lakhs of rupees. Why is then tax exemption given to isha. How about cancelling the tax sops given to isha. Hopefully some NGOs or investigative media like Nakkeeran take up this point and file a suit against tax sops given to isha in local court. Now isha is developing settlement in US and we come to hear of many illegal/incompetent clauses imposed on buyers with greed by jaggi. Jaggi’s son-in-law is american and could be the brainchild behind the scam, oh sorry the scheme? Very notorious online fellow(!) IS FBI CIA listening. Investigate the jaggi vasudev investment in the US. Sounds like a fraud scheme to even those of us in India. Scrap the jaggi township. Indian govt should also investigate the FERA violations if any in jaggi’s US township scheme. The son-in-law sandeep narayan must be under CBI investigation and questioned about the US venture. Looks like he is a dummy piece but he is not. Sustaining on father-in-laws recommendations and bookings for kutcheries but could be the biggest beneficiary in the jaggi american township scheme. Anyway, waiting for the day when jaggi will tonsure his daughter Radhe’s head, drape her in saffron robes and give her deeksha. Does Radhe know what really happened to her mother. At whose hands. Did jaggi vasudev murder your mother vijji, radhe? In cold blood? The case against jaggi for allegedly murdering his wife can always be reopened. What is this Inner Engineering. What a fake guru to be branding and selling enlightenment for a fee. Can you imagine any authentic guru indulging in such a fraud. Lastly, even the isha international school must be annually audited and checked for any child sex offence. Go jaggi go around Coimbatore with your begging bowl. JAGGI VASUDEV must be stripped of sadhguru title and Padmashri. Can we kick this fellow out of Tamil nadu to where he belongs: Karnataka. Lets mount a campaign to that effect.

Posted in Environment

Sea Grass Meadows: the Carbon Capturers of the Oceans.

Posted on by veeskitchen

In Palavakkam, a suburb of Chennai, the stretch of beach sees Olive Ridleys laying eggs in the shore. To encourage the turtle breeding and to not confuse the hatchlings with too much illumination in the darkness of the night, the street lights are strictly switched off. This ensures that the turtle hatchlings make their way to the sea in their still unsteady tiny feat. The neighbourhood volunteer self-styled environmentalists help the stranded ones reach the waters safe. Olive Ridleys breed through stretches of the eastern Coromandel coast of India. The state pf Orissa is another popular pick for them with its pristine virgin beaches with minimum recorded human footfall. As awareness kicks in, locals now make sure that the olive ridley hatchlings survive. And therefore the south east coast of India remains the olive ridleys’ favourite destination when it comes to breeding. To encourage the adult female turtles to lay their eggs in the beach sand, the switching off of street lights is encouraged and practised. This shows that we are a responsible society willing to go the extra mile to see that wildlife is nurtured. Conflicts arise mostly when there is damage to property and/or loss of human life as it happens in the elephant corridors where human settlements bifurcate forest reserves.

Anyway, that is how my interest in olive ridleys happened. For sighting, one can plan an outing. This extraordinary adventure is open for city dwellers without pinching their pockets.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/news/chennai-baby-olive-ridley-turtles-emerge-from-pits-crawl-into-sea/videoshow/58098913.cms?from=mdr

It sounds implausible that the cousins of Olive Ridleys, the Green Turtles must be behind the environmental destruction caused by disappearing seagrass meadows with their mass feeding frenzy?! It comes as a shocking surprise that sometimes specific wild flora and fauna may turn out to be the agents behind driving to extinction many other co-existent wild species vying for survival in the same shared environment or eco-system. Of course, if wheat and paddy are widely cultivated and thriving crop species today, once upon a time they must have been the weed that drove to extinction better cereals/food grains. Like the poultry and cattle, maize and wheat are winners by mere mindless propagation. Green turtles to me sound like these hollow winners of the ecological war. Besides, it is news to me that the seagrass can capture and block at least eighteen percent of global carbon. It means the seagrass may be having a direct and significant role in oxygen quality in planet earth. Precisely this seagrass is fodder for dugongs, green turtles and other sea creature that mostly graze them to extinction. Reading of the green turtles in swarms feeding on the leaves and then even digging out the roots of the sea grass, one is reminded of the human greed. Green turtles have no geographic home ground. They are on the move for the entire span of their lives moving enmasse from one atoll to another, in search of seagrass, their staple food. They circumnavigate the earth thus from Cuba to Indonesia, India to Maldives and Pacific islands. In India, for a while, the Lakshadweep lagoons served as their feeding grounds before they grazed them seagrass meadows to near extinction. And then they were gone. Refer/recommend the book ‘At the feet of the living things’ yet again, authored by research scholars backed by NCF Aparajitha Dutta and others.

Seagrass meadows, the savannahs of the ocean are also the ecosystems that sustain a plethora of fish families besides supporting the turtles, dugongs and the like. Correlated to the corals and the mangroves, the seagrass meadows play a vital role in sustaining living organisms in the planet. Kudos to research scholars and NCF, India for coming up with unconventional ideas to protect and propagate sea grass and thus saving it from total extinction in this part of the world.

Mother nature maintains a delicate balance: the green turtles have to survive and the seagrass meadows also must flourish giving earth a chance to breathe. The key to Planet Earth’s survival lies under the oceans: in the profusion of seagrass meadows that absorb the excess carbon from the atmosphere and keep it all locked down fathoms beneath them cleaning up the oceans.

Wow now I do wanna go for snorkelling! I didn’t capitalize on a dozen chances I got in life, out of … er.. kind of phobia 😀 but then what a terrible loss this is. I must, the next time opportunity presents itself.

Posted in Food For Soul

The Hindu Key

Posted on by veeskitchen

Watched a you tube video where a tantrik spoke of realising Shiva. Not surprised as a practising Hindu. I have blogged about the ant and the boot story many times. The ant at the foot of a man cannot picture the boot of the man or the foot of the man or the man himself or the world behind him with the size of its brain cells. If it tries to exceed the limitations of its birth/janma faculties, the brains of the ant shall burst. In order to proceed further, the ant has to grow larger brains. In short, the ant has to evolve to next state of its existence for better perception of things. But if the ant does as a lowly creature break the ceilings of perception and happens to realize the boot of the man, the foot, the man and the world beyond, then the ant in its lifetime attains Nirvana. The ant merges with the supreme Jyothi or the super or collective conscience. Indian/Hindu saints have done that for centuries: from Ramakrishna Paramahamsa to Swami Vivekananda to Vallalar. Hindu Thamizh history is full of inspiring life stories of englightened men and women: the Nayanmar and Azhwars and others. However ignorance is a bliss. If you don’t have to concern yourself like one curious ant wanting to know what is beyond your realm in your present lifestate, then it is fine. Your world begins and ends with the boot mountain and universe in front of the ant-you! Otherwise this knowledge of the nether is attainable only upon giving up your physical body – upon your passing to the other world. Why is there now a frenzy to know more about Hinduism or Buddhism. Precisely this. Dharma keyed it in where the Abrahamics failed grandly. This is what led Annie Besant and others to India – to establish the key. We still have Besant Nagar as part of Chennai. Yes, the Hindu gods are realisable with powerful chants and some relentless upasanas (meditation practices or mind exercises) as the tantrik claims. Yoga is the tool that enhances your sensory perceptions and gives you the physical and mental fitness to handle the energy of deities you worship. Its much more to do with controlling your senses that can hone your power of perception. I have watched videos in you tube of practising Christians from around the world take to Hindu ways and seek deities. As a Hindu I believe that we live in a civilization that was lost and found. The helicopter markings in Kailasa temple for landing, the flying chariot of Ravana, the missiles mentioned in Ramayana and Mahabharatha, the Ram Sethu built by Lord Ram and ‘vanara sena’ discovered under the sea between Sri Lanka and India – all these are just a few pointers unearthed that suggest at an advanced civilization that once flourished in a different plane of time that was lost to an impending apocalypse. What we have today are remnants – pieces that we picked up and try to stitch together as Dharma. While so, it was disturbing to learn of research into transcendental meditation that paves way for a higher conscience like the (hypothetic) ant, breaking the glass ceiling and realizing the galaxy beyond its original imagination. Not everything is for marketing. The greatest accomplishment of Hindu Dharma is proof that the Abrahamics have wasted thousands of years chasing the wrong rabbit! Who says deities are formless. May be that’s why you cannot see or picture your imagined/cultivated desert god! Our deities are bodied and can be realizable the way they may be pictured. The temple rituals and pujas are merely the base of the pyramid called Sanathana Dharma. It is for beginners. You don’t get stuck up at this level if you want to see the higher dimensions. Hinduism with idol worship is easily relatable to simple folks – the peasants. The idols are mere focal point of our attention. If the mullah wants to make more out of that, then it means his entire nationhood is limited to the the tattered piece of his national flag. In short, an idol is to Hinduism what a national flat is for a nation. Representative. A symbol, no more. Just as we decorate the flag and celebrate it, we celebrate idols. Some religious forms came out in denial of existing, established ways of life. That is the basis of their survival. Anyway, most of the Hindu substance was guarded as ‘rahasya’ for centuries. Now with everything being googled, there is no more such a thing as ‘rahasya mantra’ that can be administered only to worthy few. However, the tantrik held out hope. Even if the evangelists want to seek Hindu deities with diligence covertly adapting Hindu practices, the number that can make it to the gateway for enlightenment for every age stays limited and thoroughly rationed! That’s some good news. Why a Hindu. This is why. A Hindu is a rare breed. As the world wakes up to the undeniable truth, Hindu spirituality gains momentum. Many ardent practising Hindus owe our growing faith to the ‘vibes.’ Hinduism is not sold door to door like Christianity is, like Stayfree and Harpic. Neither did Hindu Dharma spread by the sword the way Islam did and does. Seekers embrace Hindu Dharma finally on questioning themselves. Self realization is possible only with a tool such as Hindu Dharma. And as the tantrik says, an authentic guru with a good lineage can lead you up there. The global stars are not in India without a reason. It takes years for someone to get to this point. Being born a Hindu, you learn it growing up. You have the advantage of playing in the homeground so there is no excuse if it don’t use it well enough. If you are born in India a Hindu, you have to make most of it or you will be squandering a birthtime opportunity. Millions in India do remain ignorant still, pre-occupied with ritualistic worship and limiting themselves to their busy ant-life gathering and saving for a rainy day. Materialism has ruined things for Hindus. Our spiritual training has to give us the mental discipline and improve our capacity for ‘out of box’ thinking. Like the physical body can be trained to be fit, the mind can be trained to go beyond its limited faculties. Only sages and saints train themselves systematically to ‘realize the truth’ in their own lifetimes. How many of us have we laughed at the meditating Sadhus with the anthills growing around them (most as seen in old Tamil flicks). How many times have we poked fun of those who take ‘sanyas’ – the celibacy vows to become hermits. So if you are a non believer or an Abrahamic, do not force yourself. You are the ant that cannot imagine more than that level. You belong in the physical, tangible world. You need logic and reasoning and scientific proofs without which you can never see beyond the boot – to the hovering man or the world behind him. So the first obstacle in the thought process you have to do away with when it comes to finetuning your conscience is: dispensing with the sense of logic and be open enough to receive ‘vibes’ that may be illogical. Under other circumstances, only substances can give you the same result with hallucination or hypnosis. I am talking about the level of conscience that is realizable without substance use or abuse when you transcend realms. Not even those ants like me who know of the ceiling but who can do nothing about it can make a difference. Sadly for those like me, the inability looms like a tragedy as we realize we shall have to be reborn a thousand times to nurture a superior mind and break the birth cycle. By superior mind I do not refer to the scientific or engineering or money making business mind. By superior mind, I am referring to the ant brain that can break ceilings in its own lifetime and can transcend in to the other world. So as of now we are resigned to this state of existence nevertheless we try! Not adding fresh Karma to the load we already carry has a role to play in our punar janams (rebirths). Sometimes I wonder why are we Hindus so complicated. Why can’t we have simple food like the pizza or bread. Why should even our cuisine be so complex with so much of grinding and powdering and deepfrying and shallow roasting and masalas (spices) and lentils and a stunning range of veggies and food grains. But isn’t ours the best palate in the world. Exiting a world cup soccer match in Qatar via a mall, I looked around for restaurant table. The Indian Tandoor had a hundred plus waiting crowd comprising of multiple nationalities (that would have taken them hours before being served) whereas every other restaurant such as European, Chinese, Turkish, Arab etc., had table to spare. Why are our clothes so indigenous. That six yard unstitched piece of cloth that goes for a sari. That four yard unstitched white piece of cotton clothing that goes for dhoti for men. Would they ever dissappear from the face of the world? Why do we have our traditional native classical/folky music to dance to art and literary forms. What about our grand granite temple complexes? Why cannot we be so easily anglicized the way the Filipinos or even the Chinese are. In a similar way is fashioned the Hindu spirituality. It has labyrinths you have to traverse before you could get to the core. If you have to be discouraged by the skin and the pulp, you will never get to see the seed. The more materialistic you are, the farther you move away from the quiet world of inner awakening. As I said, some of us got the message but we have no way of going in there. We cannot figure out but we try to give our best. To those who haven’t a clue, its going to take that much longer to realize what is what.

Decoding Dharma – 3: Why Dharma.
Posted in Women & Family

Bone health for Indian seniors

Posted on by veeskitchen

Flew into Dallas from Doha where we had to transit for the next flight in five hours. Alighting from QA flight I noticed dozens of wheelchairs awaiting passengers. I wondered, whether there had been as many super seniors or senior citizens in the flight or whether I missed something. Doha/Dubai transit flights to the US almost always are full of Indian passengers. On previous occasions I have flown straight to Washington DC, Seattle and Miami. From nowhere I could recollect such a big bunch of attendants with wheel chairs waiting for passengers at the nexus of the aerobridge with the flight exit. In that small niche were cramped dozens of wheelchairs as men and women jostled up for space. I lost count after mentally picking up twenty minimum, lugging my cabin bag. It was time for immigration. Here I caught up with the wheelchairs finally for finer details. Around thirty of them, all for senior Indian citizens who had flown in probably to their children’s homes in Dallas. Texas boasts of very high number of Indian immigrants vast majority of who are IT professionals. Explains. Dallas especially is heavily populated with ethnic Indians. I am 53 myself and wondered whether I would end up in that special queue for wheelchair passengers some of who seemed as young as sixty. It was a disconcerting feeling to note that both Indian men and women, probably grandparents, had no general health and specifically knee strength to board long flights or stand waiting in serpentine immigration queues. It took us one hour. There were only two counters: one for regulars and one for wheelchairs. The third one was for American passport holders. I glanced at those who queued up in my own and noticed that there were many Caucasian women both in front of me and behind me. Quite a few of them were much older. They could have been European or British or Australian or South American/Mexican. I wouldn’t know the difference. But they were holding good. A couple of them were too old really – like in their eighties and nineties. Yet they held their forte, happily and cheerfully chatting away in French or Spanish or English or whatever. Neither can I pick up American or any other accented English. I understand only the Indian English! I could see straight away that they looked less tired from our Indian grandparents. Much older men and women from Europe/Australia or from wherever around the world could carry on not depending on wheelchair comfort. Our Indian elderly looked weakest and depleted of energy. The first onslaught could have started right with the flight food! I can understand this: from India it is more than twenty four hour flight to the US across the Atlantic or Pacific. It takes toll on the already physically unfit elderly of ours. Vegetarianism is the chief culprit behind knee damage. Most of us Indians do not want to admit to the offending truth. I run the risk as well but I cannot imagine myself touching even an egg. A couple of mothers of my son’s friends have already had knee replacement in their fifties. Many more are scheduled to go under the knife in next couple of years. Indians have inherited not only the narrowest arteries among the human race making us most vulnerable species to heart disease. We also have acquired knees and other joints with poorest strength. We have the weakest stamina that got computed into our genes after generations of shunning the red meat and limiting our food choices to vegetarianism or bare minimum meat and fish. We have the thinnest or sparse body hair. Brittle bones. Lifestyle conditions like blood pressure and diabetes are rampant among Indians mainly due to our food habits. The next almost viral complaint among us is the thyroid issue. Most of us seem to get it in our late forties or early fifties with the onset of menopause. Thyroid is a leading reason for developing other complications with our body organ functions. Is there an end to our voes. That Dallas airport scene with lines of wheelchaired Indian seniors is the reality we must face. What cannot be obtained with food nutrients can be to somewhat compensated with workouts. We can’t obviously fix our genes now. I am lagging on the physical fitness front as well. High time to return to Yoga and core strengthening and walking. I am in fact already picturing myself shortly in that wheelchair line and that scares me! No excuse for depending on wheelchair until at least you are seventy five and almost a super senior. We Indians have to rejig our daily menu to include bone strengthening minerals and add supplements to our routine if required. Quality of life is as much important. Physical independence also is quality of life that we must never compromise on. Screening for bone density must be annual and regular feature of masters checkup along with mammograms and pap smears and treadmills.

Posted in Extras

Cartnarc and now the Parknarc !

Posted on by veeskitchen

Since the basics and essentials are good and well taken care of in wealthy nations, they seem to invent reasons to complicate lives as otherwise it can be very boring and uninteresting, lacking the kind of excitement that can pump up your blood and give you the unbeatable adrenaline rush. These yankies yearn for social issues and have it in them to crusade for ‘just causes’ like for instance, returning the shopping cart to its proper place in the supermarket/shopping malls! Or parking proper within the slot! A battalion of secret service agents who call themselves ‘cart narcs’ seem to take themselves too seriously in the US. (I am told its actually a one man army that tries to take many avatars!) They take it upon themselves to approach the offending shoppers who fail to return the shopping cart and leaves it untethered wherever it suits them, leading to chaos in the traffic in the parking lot. Oh the parking lot! Whoever parks haphazard or wouldn’t park proper their car within the parking slot and parks where there is a ‘no parking’ sign may be taken care of by the Parknarcs just the way the erratic shoppers leaving their carts unattended get taken care of by the cartnarc! Some shoppers may leave their carts in the pavements alongside freeways/highways, irresponsibility at its peak. Our cartnarc appears like apparitions in front of these lazy shoppers and lecture them on the importance of returning carts to their slots in the malls. To the rude or insolent shoppers, he may try to sneak and stick the sticker that reads, ‘I don’t have the habit of returning my shopping cart to where it belongs!’ on the trucks/cars the shoppers drive. A parknarc does something similar with wayward (!) parkers! Funny. A mock exercise, still I marvel at the excuses conjured up in one’s imagination to ‘see problems’ and the rebellion in some (!) to quell the trouble before it gets out of hand! Yeah big issues : the unattended shopping cart and careless parking! Sometimes I do wish we have matters as trivial as this occupying our minds in India. For us the days start wondering whether we shall have power interruptions in scorching summers, whether the corporation would turn off the water supply, whether busfare/trainfare is to be hiked, etc. We belong in two separate worlds really. Long live the Cartnarc and the Parknarc ! I do love them really! Watched a few videos that were interesting! Google to find out more on them.