As an NRI i get to watch only the online kutcheris as the Margazhi/December Music festival is in full bloom in Madras/Chennai. But whatever is available is already plateful and even this I am unable to consume wholly! Simply no time and then there is the time zone difference. Today for instance they were all the same time – Sri Rangam Venkata Nagarajan, Prince Rama Varma, Dushyanth Sridhar everyone. Stunning range to cater to all your senses, most overwhelming that we have to choose and ration time. Thanks to webcasters I am enjoying the treat from the confines of my home from OUTSIDE INDIA. I am in particular tuned in to Mudhra and Madhuradhwani and Ragamalika tv to who I want to give credit. They lend a class to our lifestyle so effortlessly! Great job! Feel refreshed totally and recharged. Soul stirring instrumental music without whose mention the post shall be incomplete. This is true of both solos/duets as well as accompaniments. My pick of the season: Amrutha Venkatesh. Soon the classical dance programs are to start – from Bharat Natyam and Kuchipudi to Kathak and Mohiniattam. Carnatic season is including healthy share of discourses (Upanyasams) this year. Of course this trend is seeing a steady rise in recent years. Love listening to newbies who all seem to be outperforming. Young talent is new blood, that longstanding cultural traditions need to be necessarily infused with year after year. Not that I am a pro in anything. Just a connoisseur of good music – music understandable to me , which is why western is ruled out for me. I enjoy anything/everything desi be it classical or folky and ofcourse filmy. You don’t need to know the a,b,cs of the classical to savour the best of it. You don’t have to be a qualified all-knowing rasika at all. Just relax and go with the flow, enjoy the sensation. That is the beauty of the Indian classical musical renditions be that vocal or instrumental. The bhakthi component is indispensable to Indian classical. As much as I love the Thyagaraja keertans, I am also at the same time partial to Muddhuswamy Dikshithar’s kirtans. Favourite composers include Papanasam Sivan (for Tamil renditions), Gopalakrishna Bharathi among others.
Soul-soothing, soul calming, soul enriching, soul awakening: this is how I describe God given gift of classical musical forms of India: Carnatic (of the south) and Hindustani (of the north). Not very familiar with Hindustani though but I have to thank RaGa sisters for introducing us audience to a slice of the spread with selective Abangs.
This is why retired life in India is BEST. Classical music, looming ancient temples that are over 1000-2000 years old spread over hundreds of acres, fresh flowers, monsoon madness, life-throbbing cities and small towns and dusty villages besides the variety of regionwise authentic matchless cuisine. No other nation on earth can come even a close second. Heat and crowd and mosquitoes are small incoveniences. You don’t burn the house to get rid of a pest. Of course, you settle for other pleasures when you don’t have to bother too much about your soul. SOUL FOOD: this you get only in India.
Its a shame although I have known for years or perhaps decades, and that too being an ardent, born and practising Hindu, I still finally got to read this lifechanging book only very recently. Reading for months now from my desktop Kindle. About to finish. Who am I to even review God’s own writing. This book is not fictional and this book is for those who are born outside the Hindu India to understand about the Hindu philosophy/Hindu Dharma. Why, even all of us Indians could make the best use of Shri Yogananda ji’s excellent autobiography – the kind of which I have not come across so far. Not that I am a voracious reader. Being part of the Hindu society makes most things familiar to me. Still the book holds my interest totally and I kind of don’t want it to end. I have been reading rather slowly for that reason. REason for my slow reading is that, if I finish a book fast i forget it in a flash whereas slow reading helps me retain the subject matter for long.
Anyway, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Nothing more to add. Except that, in this dry desert that is my second residence, I experienced a total of 6 rain draps in a span of 2 weeks. 3 rain drops during a walk before national prayers were called for rain. That when I checked with my spouse who was walking besides me was refuted by him that I began doubting myself. As if to confirm my doubts, the week after the national prayers, 3 more subtle rain drops fell on me. Both the times, as it is my practice, I was chanting the Lalitha Sahasranama in my mind. I chant Sahasranama always in my mind while I go for walks. For me, IT WAS LALITHA ANNOUNCING HERSELF TO ME. Just cool 3. No more raindrops. Nobody else felt them. Just 3 + 3 = 6 that grazed my skin so softly, so feebly ,and that too the first one caressing my crown – my scalp. The beauty of faith. I leave it anyone who reads this to believe this or not. But I don’t have to be reading Yogananda ji to believe in my Lalitha. I am enjoying Her subtle leela with me for years now. Very recently She gave me another unbeatable vibe. A stone is a stone if that is what you believe in. An idol becomes God when you believe God dwells in the stone.
Blessed to be born a Hindu, blessed to have been born in my punya bhoomi Bharat (India). My birth is probably REQUESTED. Souls ask to be born in my country. Evolving of faiths happens only with the arrival of the Avatars. Only Hindu Dharma has been NON STOP producing saints and avatars, hundreds and even thousands of them, for centuries and centuries now.
Before I close this post, I add one incident from a friend’s life story. Her name was Bindhu. She was my bosom school friend’s sister. We met almost everyday at school. We drifted apart. She moved to her native state Kerala. Worked for a central government department. Became a mother to two beautiful daughters. Just into her 40s, she was afflicted with kidney cancer. Died within 3 months. But Bindhu was a follower of Sri Sri. She had completed her entire course of Art of Living and had perfected a particular breathing (Yoga) technique. As the course progressed, she was becoming detached from everyone. The course seemed to have brought in a change with her. Before she passed away, she told her sister that she was peaceful, she did not fear death as she kept seeing her last 7 births then for sometime or ever since she was bedridden (for a week’s time). That made her accept her current role and her current body as temporary abode. Her sense of attachment at that point of time sounded shocking to her parents and family. Her sister and my best buddy until today, was stunned. I am using original names here. Once she was detected with kidney cancer at an advanced stage and was not given any hope, Bindhu went to see Sri Sri for one last time. Gurudev paused for a moment at a distance and looked away it seems. HE KNEW without being told – that’s what my friend says. And Bindhu accepted her destiny. After hearing this real life incident, I think of the mahans, India is producing even today. Sri Sri – for the first time in my life, I want to listen to his speeches and follow his Art of living. As I have already chosen a path to nurture my spiritual instincts, I am hesitating that’s all. All this I am saying, happened just 15 years back. This is the beauty of my holy Bharat.
You missed something so precious and unmissable in your life, if you don’t read this book. So, it goes without saying that there is no excuse of any Hindu skipping it or missing it. I am too late but better late than never.
At the back of my mind is always the omnipresent Lalitha. Its like I cannot shake Her out of my system. She is there behind my thoughts and actions; behind my every second. The books has widened my horizons of thoughts.
The swamijis of the last century: Shirdi Baba, Ramana Maharishi, Ramakrishna Parahamsa, Swami Vivekananda, Shri Lahiri Mahasiya, Shri Yuketeshwar, Shri Yogananda Parahamsa, Shri Ananda Moi, Sri Aurobindho …. the list goes on and on and one.
Even in present times we have the Siddhas and great swamijis in our midst in India. Sai Baba of Puttabarthi is no more. His centenary anniversary was held very recently. Hindu dharma is the only faith in the world that has been producing avatar after avatar for millennia.
May Dharma prevail to eternity. Sanatana Dharma ki Jai (Hail Hindu Dharma)!
One evening I asked him a question. “Dick, what is your impression of India?” “Peace,” he said thoughtfully. “The racial aura is peace.”
(Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi (Complete Edition) (p. 513). Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. Kindle Edition.)
This conversation between Shri Yogananda and his American secretary Wright on their visit to India in 1935 says it all.
We need no further certification. I don’t care whether my country is poor or dirty or polluted or crowded or hot or dusty or whatever. In the man-eat-man world, Hindus come across as peaceful community (I mean the REAL peaceful!).
To have stamped your footprint in the sands of planet Earth for 10,000 years and NOT TO GO DOWN HISTORY as invaders, ethnic cleansers of natives, destroyers, land usurpers, marauders, barbarians, conversion mafia – this speaks a lot about Dharmic Hindus. I wouldn’t even say the same of Buddhists – as we have seen Myanmar/Burma and Sri Lanka.
There is in truth nothing to be proud of, to be thought of as ‘peaceful.’ Its just that your ancestors were HUMAN after all. Its okay not to be aggressive. Its okay to be complacent. Bravery and heroism lie in NOT DISTURBING OTHERS for our own personal gains. Not building a life out of others’.
Despite myself, I am proud of our forefathers who did not even bother to patent their inventions and discoveries, many of which are now touted as European. They couldn’t care less really. They lived well.
What Hindus have gone through for centuries, being hunted down, with their women taken away, with the men executed, with our temples ransacked and razed, with their wealth plundered, persecuted enmasse …. paying (Jiziya) taxes to foreign (Mugal) invaders for just being Hindus in NATIVE HINDU LAND INDIA/BHARAT, resisting conversion … its a miracle we are even here today. No violence, no bloodshed, no taking over others lands by invasions, no greed, SIMPLY NO BLOOD IN THE HINDU HANDS AND NO HEINOUS SIN IN THE HINDU CONSCIENCE. NO HINDU HOME OVER THE GRAVE OF THE VANQUISHED NATIVE/SON OF THE SOIL. Well done, dear ancestors. Such a clean world record.
Clicked this pic in my mobile from my desktop kindle. The respect and honour an enlightened Hindu commands.
This is why Paramahamsa Yogananda ji and Swami Vivekananda received red carpet welcome in the US in those days. Through out the world, our yogis are received with respect and awe. World listens to them when they speak. Presidents invite them to their official residences and governments have them address even their parliaments. This is the highest respect accorded to Hindu monks in the world stage today. And this pride belongs to all of us Hindus and our long departed ancestors who sowed the seeds for a peaceful, harmonious, humanitarian society based on values and consideration and compassion over anything. Powerful and wealthy men command fear, not necessarily respect.
Shri Yogananda Paramahamsa was preceded by Swami Vivekananda, also from Kolkata, Bengal, India in 1893 who introduced the eastern ideology to the west for the first time. Many followed him to India as his disciples and sister Nivedita from America, was notable among them.
Such is the soft power of Hindus. Dominating the world as the real movers and shakers: medicos, engineers, scientists, yogis, teachers, nurses etc. Not as destroyers, bombers, terrorists, usurpers. World shall write our history thus: THE NATION THAT GAVE THE WORLD SHANTHI (PEACE) AND WISDOM.
So if such a peaceful nation as India wants to take on the evil demons head on, then the world must wake up to reality. The next time, the devils will at their doorstep, not India’s.
Why should religions evolve. If a religion is evolving, there will be enlightened beings after enlightened beings churned out of such a faithful following. That is what is happening in the case of Sanatan Dharam or Hindu Dharma. For millennia now, century after century, India never ceases to produce enlightened beings who forsake materialism and who transcend the cosmic lines or laws. Islam never saw another enlightened being after their prophet. I am not a follower of Osho but he sure seems to plainly lie down the difference between world’s oldest way of life Hindu dharam and the newest, Islam. This i share without disrespect or prejudice. See, even America that is supposedly No.1 country in the world and the most progressive and advanced scientifically, has FAILED TO PRODUCE A SINGLE ENLIGHTENED BEING IN LAST 3 CENTURIES. Everything about America is ACQUISITION, ACQUISITION AND MORE MATERIAL ACQUISITION. This is their national motto. What for? To what end? What is development really. I am proudly a sanatani, a Hindu. Ours is such an evolved culture and unbroken civilization of over 10,000 years. Deeply entrenched and unimaginable, unfathomable cultural base India has, deeply entrenched for eons. Not in a million years can America or Arabia ever evolve the way the Hindu society has evolved. Even today in India, Hinduism is way of life, 24 hours a day for us, all 365 days an year. It is this social cultural fabric of ours the Abrahamics/Mohammedans of the west want to tear apart. I am too late to be reading ‘the Autobiography of a Yogi’, but please all read this real life account to understand the essence of India, and why trying to contain India shall always fail or even destroy you. Bharathiya’s power and strength lies in our spirituality. Even today India boasts quietly of thousands of evolved yogis and siddhas who easily astro travel leaving their physical bodies, returning at their whim after their space voyages. This is why we can never become another China ever. Our life purpose/goal is different. Hindus are not the staple broiler chicken like the chinese. Finally every society must evolve into an enlightened one. Our goal/purpose in life is to attain Moksha/Nirvana, escaping the birth cycle and become the part of the light. Material aspects are for the first few decades of life. You never build your world destroying others.’ Buddhism is offshoot from Hindu Dharma. There were no demarcations between Bharat (India) and Nepal until a hundred years ago. Seetha is the daughter of Nepal. Pakistan/Af will never prosper as this territory is cursed. Unless and until this region reverts to Dharma, whatever you sink here will be wiped out.
Even Jesus Christ spent 18 years in Bharat (India) learning Hindu scriptures. For us Hindus, he is one more yogi or guru that’s all. Guru is an enlightened being but is not God Himself or Herself. Prophets or Gurus lead us to The Penultimate, the Para. They are the first step. But we should never stop with them. From Hindu ‘om’ came the ‘amen.’ From Hindu ‘Brahman’ came the word Abraham. Krishna was the first cow herder who thousands of gopikas (like nuns) married (out of bhakthi/faith). Jesus was conveniently a shepherd after that to who the christian nuns got betrothed to. Even Noah’s ark is lifted out of ancient Hindu history. Nothing told by abrahamics is new but already told in Hinduism many millennia earlier in history. Since religious conversion is never a Hindu’s agenda, nothing was popularized.
Unlike christianity or islam, you have to choose being a Hindu. Until a century ago, you needed to be born a Hindu. Hindu by blood only. Now many Hindus practise sanatanic ways around the world. That is their conscious choice, not forced or bribed. Hindu gods are discreet. You need to choose them consciously. We call our Divine Mother, Rahasiya Priya, Guhya priya. She hates being forced upon others or even being told about/talked about.
You don’t have to be born a Hindu to have rebirths. YOU WILL HAVE REBIRTH. YOUR NEXT BIRTH WILL BE A LESSON ALWAYS FROM YOUR PREVIOUS ONE. Its therefore important to be kind for our own sake. Save your soul.
Imagine the kind of conversion by the Christian missionary mafia happening in India and the love jehad by the muslims targeting Hindu girls. In many cases, the muslim boys pretended to be Hindu boys and revealed the truth to the girls after impregnating them. Wait till the last drop of oil evaporates in the middle east. A new world order we shall have after this because, economics too play a part in spreading religions. Earlier, conquests and payoffs from conquests spread some religions. Kind of economics too.
Rounding off this post with this: Do you know this temple history. Tamil Hindu history itself reveals innumerable evolved saints over centuries. If Gods are on your side, the first sign is that, they will make you kind and compassionate and reasonable and least judging. You don’t go out of the way damaging others. In Tamil we say, ‘avan arulaale avan thaal vanangi’ which means, even to believe in God, you have to be blessed. If you are evil personification or not wanted, you will be ruthless in nature and cruel and inconsiderate. Racist and religious bigot. Even Hindu gods say that to rout out adharam, it is fine to follow adharmic ways sometimes. Adharma has to be quelled with adharma if our dharma makes us hesitate. It takes millennia after millennia to evolve into such a fine and cultured society as Hindu. The Portuguese gauged out the Hindu eyes and nailed our ancestors to the cross to convert them to christianity. Some Hindus relented to save their children and save their lives. The islamic invaders razed our temples and took our women and tried to sever the very roots of Hindu culture. Tipu Sultan hung 300 hindu men on Diwali day in front of their families for refusing to embrace islam. This is just 0.00000001 percent of cruelty and barbarity inflicted upon by islamists on native Hindus. We even paid taxes to continue to live as Hindus for centuries to these muslim barbarians in Hindu India. That is the kind of sacrifice our ancestors made to save our ancient faith and dharm. This is what India has survived for 10 centuries at the hands of christians and muslims.
Dharma is the only balancing faith and factor on earth. Without Dharma, the world will crash in no time.
Shocked by the gunfire on ISCKON temple in the US. Krishna lived eons before Jesus when modern communication network was practically non existent on planet earth. Further Hindu history is believed to have happened in another plane of time before catastrophe struck. We Hindus believe, we are someone who picked up the shreds of the lost civilization and rebuilt our society from the banks of the Sindhu yet again. Krishna’s heart lives on for us.
Hindu Dharam never spread by the sword. We don’t bribe or coerce anyone into conversion. On the contrary, Hindu deities may want you to REALIZE them. My Ishta devata is Ma Lalitha. We call Her ‘guhyapriya or rahasyapriya.’ She does not even want ignoramus to talk about Her or think about Her, as per scriptures. The realization has to come to people on their own – if not by birth as in the case of the biologically/culturally born-Hindu. Mostly Krishna devotees around the world thus REALIZE KRISHNA on their own as roads may lead them to Krishna mandir.
Puri Jagannath Mahaprasadam is unique, satwik food.
Puri Jagannath Rath Yatra is also reenacted around the world by ISCKON temples. Its a massive event in Odisha that draws lakhs of Krishna devotees from all corners of the globe.
You simply cannot erase Krishna Consciousness. Hindu deities are very much realizable as more and more of non Hindus in America are realizing Lord Ganesha, Kali, Krishna, Shiva among others. (Deities come to us in the form we may manifest them in. In other words, deities are energy forms with names and images that YOU give them. Nobody can shake them off. Most of us seek deities manifested by our ancestors). Krishna is the most accessible and realizable deity who millions around the world find themselves in the same frequency with.
Dharmic Hindu faith, the Sanathana Dharma, is a conscious choice for millions around the world. Of the six schools of Hindu Philosophy, Vaishnavam (under which Krishna Consciousness falls) is more popular with Krishna as its supreme deity or Brahman. Before Jesus was a shepherd, Krishna was tending to cattle. Before the nuns were married to Jesus, thousands of Gopikas were married to Krishna very much in similar fashion. So tell me who copied who.
I am with Shri Rajarshi Nandy totally on this. Missed a golden opportunity to go to Kamakhya with my guru last year. Its in my bucket list. For Shakthi marg followers, Kamakhya is basic. Our spiritual guru conducted homams/yagnas/havan there last year with shishyas. The group also worshiped the Dasa Mahavidhyas who are extremely important for those who have taken diksha or vow for Shakthi Upasana. So the Kamakhya temple corridor case is very much relevant for us as we can understand what it is about. Only someone who is spiritually elevated and someone like Shri Nandy who is doing Bhairav Sadhana and is also a presence at the powerful Kamakshya temple can know about the significance of leaving the shrine undisturbed.
One of the Shakthi peeths, Sati’s yoni fell in this part of Assam. Mother Goddess bleeds therefore a few days (in red) every month even now in Kamakhya. This is rivulet or stream that branches off from the mountains into the temple’s garbagraha (sanctum sanctorum). We don’t know how this is possible as was facilitated by our ancestors. Or by Mother Herself. But until today this is a reality.
Shakthi peeths are most powerful. They determine the destiny of a nation as Shri Nandy ji says in another video. Disturb Kamakhya who is looking after North East, be ready to lose North East. As Nandi ji says, the Mother Goddess will leave Her abode in that case. Without the deity, the pitah will cease to matter.
Some of us are just at the base of the pyramid when it comes to Shakthi Upasana. We have a whole lot of mountain to climb in front of us. Yet Mother’s presence is something we feel deep in our soul. We experience strongest of vibes. So one can imagine the level of spiritual elevation of those like Shri Nandy ji. I am not an expert in anything. I listen to many online. Many online gurus too for me who have been shaping up my thinking for years now. Shri Nandy ji is by far the best and most sincere and is reachable at grass roots level. Very accessible and also so genuine, real. Bhairava energy flowing out of him is unmistakable.
May our PM Shri Narendra Modi ji get some time to look into this matter personally once the Indo-Pak conflict emergency is over. The temple’s eco system needs to be preserved.
Varanasi corridor is an entirely different matter that has got no connection with Kamakhya environment. There it was necessary given that entire Kashi boasts of some 84 ghats. The cleaning up and restoration work was absolutely necessary.
Today I heard another shocking news: that an aerodrome is planned for Sabarimala – at the top of the western ghats. What madness is this. That is totally an elephant country where even tigers roam freely. A heaven for the wildlife of India. Such a biodiversity as in western ghats, you cannot find in more than a handful of places in the world. Bird species count alone exceeds over 200. Western ghats is the LUNGS of India somewhat along with the Himalayas. Already enough damage has been done. Even Lord Aiyappa shall walk out of Sabarimala permanently if this airport materializes. The communist state government of Kerala don’t have it in them to factor in these valid points. You don’t have to kill a 1000 elephants and precious-precarious ecology to make room for temple devotees. What kind of religiosity is this. I can never understand this destructive streak when it comes to nature in our countrymen. I am even against the Char Dham corridor through Himalayas. Anything against nature can never please Shiva or Shakthi. Already Jaggi Vasudev, in the name of Shiva, encroached a vital elephant corridor robbing our pachyderm families of their rightful home of tens of thousands of years. He speaks of enlightenment through crash courses (such as Inner Engineering for this precise reason: If he could only see that Shiva is that elephant… ) How much more must we destroy nature in the name of our deities you bloody fools. Did they ever ask you to do that?! That kind of spirituality I simply cannot figure out. I directly appeal to my PM: Modi ji please STOP plans for any aerodrome for Sabarimala. Don’t send away our deities permanently out of India. They will never return if we turn against nature.
Anyone who by chance comes across my blog, I request to contribute generously to the court case for fighting the proposed Kamakhya commercial infrastructure corridor to promote tourism. This kind of development we just DON’T need around our shrines.
I am waiting for a link that can enable one to make a monthly/regular contribution for Kamakhya corridor case.
A request to Nandy ji too. Please also ascertain whether any aerodrome is proposed for Sabarimala in Kerala and if so, please address this issue as well. You can take up the discussion in your you tube channel. Thank you.
Updated March 23rd: Shocked to note that closure report has been filed by the CBI in Mumbai High court on Sushant Singh Rajput case. A very sad day for justice in India. I for one DO NOT BELIEVE THAT SRI DEVI OR SUSHANT SINGH RAJPUT OR JAYALALITHA died a natural death.
For some of us, afterlife is of most significance than the earthly life. Imagine having a brief celeb life on Planet earth and then suffering miserably to eternity in afterlife. People refuse to see through the Maya. They all think this is their permanent station in life. In the very next birth they could be born as serial rapist or a man in asylum or a homeless living under a river bridge begging for livelihood. The more you think the indispensable you are, the more humbling will be your next birth.
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Finally the Sushant Singh Rajput case is reopened along with Disha Salian’s. Why should a leading hero of Bollywood commit suicide. Hopefully Sri Devi’s suspicious death case also is reinvestigated. Some ten popular Maharashtrian suspicious deaths were reportedly during the covid period. Sunanda Pushkar, Jayalalitha Jayaram – the list is long. If this can happen to the most successful top people in this country, then where is safety or security for mere mortals like us. Someone mentioned about reopening even Divya Bharthi’s case. Actor Shoba of Tamil film industry too supposedly committed suicide. Prime suspect in this case or who we call as ‘person of interest’ is no more. This is a very old case from 1981. Its so sad that these women who were top stars and best of those times could be disposed off so easily and nobody is bothered. What about even our former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who died in state. Marilyn Monroe! Sushant Singh Rajput is a tragedy. He was not cunning enough to perhaps conduct himself like the Khan mafia. Paid dearly with his life.
Was listening to this psychic, and yes I do believe in all that, where she said, among the lost souls still hanging around without making their way to the light of passage – there still remained Sri Devi, Sushant Singh and Divya Bharathi. As per Hindu Karma, only those who have unnatural death or death by accident linger, not knowing their way. The day I listened to this podcast, I wanted their poor atmas to get some shanthi that can finally enable them to get satgati. Imagine being a topstar of her lifetime like Sri Devi and then suffering miserable afterlife. I am sure anyone who reads me will think I am crazy, I don’t care. This is what I believe in.
The parents of this girl Sudikha Konanki in the US are asking the Dominican Republic police to declare their daughter as drowned. Why? Only Hindus can understand the logic behind this request. It means they can perform her last rites that can ensure that, if she is no more, she can PASS OVER. Does that make sense. My heart goes out to her poor parents. Its not my intention to sensationalize this post by mentioning her. This is to show why its necessary to have ABSOLUTE CLOSURE about an Atma, for Hindus. Please someone give the girl and her parents a definitely closure. Om Shanthi.
People talk about political reasons, political contexts. For me its always spiritual connection. People and governments talk about immigrants. To me they are souls or atmas. Just like transgenders. I don’t have political views. Its not my political standing. Its my spiritual take that’s all. Well, you may find that hard to believe in!
Please allow Sushant, Sri Devi, Divya and even Sudiksha passage to light by giving them closure. Om Shanthi.
The Nazi use of the swastika stems from the work of 19th Century German scholars translating old Indian texts, who noticed similarities between their own language and Sanskrit. They concluded that Indians and Germans must have had a shared ancestry and imagined a race of white god-like warriors they called Aryans…
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The German airlines is called Lufthansa. ‘Hansa’ in ancient Hindu language Sanskrit means ‘swan.’ ‘Luft’ means air. The Hindu-German connection is very intriguing. In fact in the Heidelberg university in Germany, there is a full fledged Sanskrit department devoted to research. North Indians are of Aryan stock and the south Indians are Dravidians.
But its very unfortunate that the sacred Hindu symbol Swastika got misused by Hitler for genocide purposes. Now swastika is misrecognized as symbol of hatred around the world. Because of this, people mistake us passive Hindus for fascists. Originally from ancient Hindu culture also used by Buddhists, the symbol captivated the west who started using it more freely in the 20th century.
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Ironically, the two inverted triangles over one another which is a Jewish holy symbol is also a very ancient Hindu sacred symbol. In fact its the basis of much advanced Sri Yantra, a set of 9 (5 and 4) triangles overlapping each other representing Shiva and Shakthi.
the Sri YantraOmsome sacred hindu symbolsswastika, sacred hindu symbol swastika with Hindu temple in background
The Swastika is symbol of lucky charm for Hindus even today. ‘Swasth’ in sanskrit means wellness, goodness. The swastika is a very sacred, holy symbol to us that we adorn our homes and temples with. It is important to spread awareness about Swastika so that the lost glory of the swastika is restored.
Hopefully the bereaved parents get justice for their son. Why does India care. Many of us have our children in the US, our families in the US. What happens there affects us back in India. Indian lives matter/Hindu lives matter. Especially after the careless way a kid was mowed down within varsity campus in Seattle last year by a police car, we realize what it means to be Indian in America and how precarious the condition of our kids may be.
Meanwhile watched this video on spurt in anti-India anti-Hindu sentiment in America, not because the community poses terror threat but because the Indian community is highly successful and is giving Americans a stiff competition in every field. India is lived in for 10000 years and we are not bothered whether the scientists in American universities can come up with carbon dating to establish facts. Well, let them tell us who founded Hindu Dharma, in which date. That is the antiquity of the faith that came from Shiva, the universal father, straight. Which is why we don’t have prophets or sons of God. WE HAVE THE GOD. Any civilization lived in for such a long period and invaded for centuries is bound to have traces of the trauma like India does. Its a miracle we still survive. And our ISRO scientists to medicos today have not run to America for some extra millions of greenbacks. They stay put right in India and do good with what they have. Little girls in India still are not keen to lose their virginity by 10-12 years like American girls and get laid by half a dozen boys by 20th year. Divorces are happening only in this generation in India. Almost zero percentage in my parents’ generation. Indian women are not getting into relationships by 50, 70, even 80 years with boyfriends. We live like ascetics and think of renunciation once our children grow up. We don’t wait for our children to leave home by 18. We spend our life savings on their education and future. We don’t start our day with beer instead of coffee. We are not okay with out children becoming KFC or McDonald waiters (no offence). Our kids succeed because of the monumental personal sacrifice on part of the parents. A three bedroom apartment in Chennai or Mumbai or Delhi may be more expensive than an independent villa in most cities in the US. Right mix of culture, heritage, modernity, conservativism, knowledge and more than that ancient wisdom – this is what makes us tick. I would underline the Hindu spirituality as the sole reason for our success. I was watching or perhaps reading this bit on ancient civilizations. The Egyptian, the Mesopotamia, the Greek, the Roman everything crashed because none of them produced the great Mahaans or saints like Hindu Dharma did. That strong sense of spirituality in Hindus is what keeps us going to this day.
So, throwing this open challenge to world researchers: WHO IS THE FOUNDER OF HINDU DHARMA. WHAT IS THE FOUNDING DATE. Why cannot you establish this simple fact when you can do carbon dating for millions & zillions of years old fossils of dinosaurs? You cannot because, Hindu Dharma was not founded by any human. Dharma existed in another plane of time which is what is continuing today. Its not easy to make outsiders understand anything about India or Hindu Dharma. They see the poverty and the crowds and the heat and the dust. But this land was the land of gold and diamonds over 3000 years back with established universities and dams and reservoirs and courts and poets whether Europeans were swinging from tree to tree.
A tourist guide in an Islamic country was saying this about Algebra. Of how Al Jabber was the name behind it. Its because even when calculus and trigonometry were invented by Hindus over 2000 years back, nothing was patented or claimed as our own. Whoever claimed anything first because the inventor/discoverer! Aryabhatta and Bhaskara were our earliest known astronomers who ISRO named our first satellites after.
Googled this:
Aryabhata’s major discoveries in the works not lost were the value of pi, that is 3.14, the heliocentrism of the solar system wherein he estimated the axial rotation of planets around the sun.
What was invented by Bhaskara?
Among the first discoveries made in his works was the computation of sines of angles of 18 and 36 degrees. Bhaskara-II is credited with discovering spherical trigonometry, a branch of spherical geometry used in astronomy, geodesy, and navigation calculations.
They were probably the world’s firsts to talk about space. Distance between the sun and earth was mentioned in Sanskrit scripture. However Hindus claimed nothing as their own as one by one everything got patented in Europeans’ names. Read this account on vaccination history: a British officer visiting an Indian village hit by small pox witnessed how blood was drawn from one afflicted with pox and anointed into another unaffected person slashing his skin, by village people. Quarantine was self imposed in the village which stopped the spread of the pox. Soon the small pox vaccination was announced in matter of months in Britain as their finding. India lost many of her discoveries/inventions over centuries to Europeans. From Jaundice medication to most ailments treated by Ayurveda, most are patented by the west as their own.
After centuries of subjugation, finally the Hindu has woken up. Broken for 1500 years almost by the moslems and the British.
A normal/regular temple in south India:
The richness of some nations cannot be measured in terms of currency or even bullion. India is one such a unique nation. Its also the responsibility of Indian govt to change the image of India prevalent in the west. The same Americans who cannot afford to wait for months and years for cardio bypass, knee/hip replacement are also traveling to India for medical tourism! Chennai, my hometown, is a big draw with US citizens.
The way they discuss H1B really tears our heart apart. Its not worth it. Why are our kids flocking to this ungrateful America. What is in it for the soul there? NOTHING, A BIG ZERO. There is nothing holistic about America. Its too materialistic and fake. I can enjoy my holidays there but cannot even think of making a life there. Why can’t our children work for the mother country. It takes not just investment on part of the parents/mother country in economic terms, it also takes temperament, patience, atmosphere, nourishing environment of family values, strong sense of spirituality, inclination towards arts, crafts, classical music, dance everything, harmony that comes with contented living – to create a sweet great kid. This is the package India is sending abroad to the US, NOT JUNK LIKE I have seen in America. Look at their obesity! Half of them go for shopping to Walmart in buggies/carts because of overweight, living on disability pension.
I have never imagined myself poor, never thought of myself as poor but always have believed that I live in one of world’s richest countries with the best food, best family values, spirituality, art, classical music/dance, crafts, ancient temples over 2000 years old spread over acres the sculptures of which cannot fit into any museums, best clothes in natural cotton and silk fibres with ethnic vegetable dyes/prints/motifs rather than machine printed, – you name it, we have it. Bestest of jewelry. Its irritating when these Americans assume you are poor just because they live in a vast continent where space is abundant so that its cheaper for them to afford big villas. We in India have one of the best standards of living. Many tourists realize this soon.
Love your mother country: our children must realize this. Why do you want to work for these foreigners/foreign countries where you can never become the first grade citizen. Its okay to live in cramped homes and crowded cities and work for the progress of your mother country. The Indian community in the US is suffering for their own Karma of greed and selfishness of not giving back anything to the mother country that made them what they are today. They are stamping on your dignity, self respect and they air so much of open hatred for you – for being good and successful that is – and you want to work for America? For what? For having an empty 6 bedroom house? To die in hospice with nobody around you in your old age? To destroy your soul with no spirituality consumed by mindless materialism? Is this what our children are going to America for?
Listening to this psychic, I am doing a lot of rethinking on so many things. Like she said, ‘POUR ON TO SOMEONE’S CUP ONLY WHAT THEIR CUP CAN HOLD.’ Anything in excess is going to overspill and go waste. I have done that mistake all my life. Its like the psychic passed on this personal message to me. Because when you lose both your parents within 25 years of your life and grow up emotionally dependent looking for a sense of security right from your teens, you end up becoming a people-pleaser. You want to get into everyone’s good book. You turn out to be the messiah. People use you without remorse. You are someone anyone can take for granted. Anyone can bullshit on you and get away unscathed. You want to keep every single tie, relationship. You don’t realize you have become the sacrificial lamb. You fill every cup that comes your way with too much of love, care, affection, respect, gratitude, loyalty that you don’t see how much of it is getting wasted, overflowing, because those into whose cup you poured your emotion cannot take that much. They are incapable of receiving so much of what you pour out, that you start looking like a fool at the end of the day. But its okay, you do everything on goodwill hoping for the best.
But what the psychic said made a lot of sense to me. She asked us to give someone only what they can take, what they are capable of receiving. Plying them with material gifts or your precious time and valuable energy and undeserved attention, consideration and respect will not give us anything in return. On the contrary you lose your significance in their life.
This is such a beautiful truth that I am having second thoughts on the benevolence I have showered lifelong on thankless people. Why, in some cases, I have even been abused in spite of being the good Samaritan. Opportunists take advantage of our kindness which is our weakness.
Its time those of us who are born with an empathetic heart rework on ourselves and set our priorities right. This is very necessary if we want to respect ourselves. This we do for our own heart, our own sanity. Its vital to align the harmless from the toxic. Make that distinction clear on warfooting basis. Anything or anyone that oversteps that boundary should hold no place in your scheme of things. Its not easy to forget old habits. People can try to win us over with emotional blackmail. Its precisely in these wavering moments that we must hold strong. A sense of peace and calm prevails in my world now after I withdrew almost totally from the social media including from most of whatsapp groups. All those reels and quotes and knowing what your peers are upto and telling them what you are upto – this kind of grind I have managed to bring to a close. Hopefully things stay this way in future.
This was in Google newsfeed today: Peak and end roles in Love. Its not just about love, its about friendships and other relationships as well. Even if we touch a peak in our ties, making memories, how they may end can make us revaluate the entire relationships averaging it all from day one to the close. It makes so much sense again because we do try to brush under carpet the good times when things go awry and want to retain the aftertaste of something gone sour even if it may hurt our senses. We cling to the bitterness, not wanting to be left with a sweet hangover. Somehow the end becomes the defining character of the whole bonding and the times we shared.
These two takes on relationships can make us reassess our own perspectives. Only when our cup is full from receiving in reciprocation, we can ever try to fill others’ cups. When ours is depleting fast from pouring out constantly to others, disappointment and resentment will settle in our heart.
Love and affection and care and mutual trust and basic loyalty and gratitude – these should be returned in equal measures. Respect and consideration must be strongly and willingly reciprocated . Inclusion is the first criterian. Don’t make someone important in your life when you are not in their list of priorities. Pour on to others just what their cup may be capable of holding and not a drop more. Save your mood, time and energy. Cut negativity in real life and practise positivity in reality.
vijiravindran's 