Sound - its importance in spirituality

Sound is one of the most important aspect of life. Imagine a world without sound. One cannot chit chat with friends, no melodious music, no great conversations. One would be bored to death without sound. It is such an integral part of life itself. According to vedic creation, sound is one of the fundamental element created along with taste, form, touch, and smell. We deal with varieties of sounds in our day-to-day life. They are vocal language sounds, instrumentals, singing of various genres etc. Sounds can generate emotions influencing our subtle conscious body. Music therapy is prevalent in many cultures of the world where diseases related to depression are cured using vocal and instrumental sound. Sounds from leaders like Martin Luther King, Hitler, Gandhi have triggered contrasting revolutions moving millions of hearts to action. Why do sounds from some people propel their followers to action and some do not? What is the extra flavor in the sounds emanated from these powerful personalities? Is there something beyond the sounds which impact the consciousness. The molecular vibration which is sound in its gross sense carry invisible layers of functionality which can impact the heart of the listener. Some of the layers which we can discern are an emotional layer, logical-intellectual layer, belief layer etc. Ofcourse the preliminary criteria is that access has to be given by the receiver of the sound to his inner regions. This access is provided when the listener has faith and trusts the person speaking as an authority. The bhagavad Gita describes 3 character attributes for the sound from a speaker to make an impact into the inner regions of consciousness of the listener. They are ‘Pranipatena’(enormous trust) ‘Pariprasnena’(humble enquiry) ‘sevaya’(service relationship).

For any change of action free will has to be influenced. The free will is dependent on belief system. Belief system creates values which determine what action a person approves and what are those he does not. What is belief system? Is it in the mind or the intellect? When belief system has programmed your subconscious, then your actions become involuntary. They will be naturally aligned with belief system. Repeated actions create subconscious programming. Hence all the spiritual traditions have the process of ‘repetition’ as a core spiritual practice. Thru constant repetition of sounds and physical actions related to spirit, spiritual traditions bring a transformation in the subconscious. Of the various repetitions in ancient spiritual traditions, sound repetition is very important for subconscious transformation. These are not ordinary sounds but spiritual sounds called mantras. There are sound vibrations in nature detected by our ancient sages which can liberate the mind of unwanted things. The Hare Krishna mantra can liberate the mind from selfish sense gratification oriented thoughts. Yoga means to connect with the supreme and this connection happens thru the medium of devotional service. Mantras kill individual aspirations, ambitions and focus the person entirely to embrace the supreme’s ambition, purpose. The individual starts to feel the connect with the universal will. When one drops self ambitions, plans, aspirations he moves to the brahma bhuta stage. The Brahma bhuta stage is existence in higher band of energy compared to the material band of energy which we usually dwell. A person who has dropped all selfishness and embraced satisfying the Lord as the only goal is promoted to the Brahma bhuta stage. The primary symptom of this stage is one does not anymore feel hankering for anything nor lament for anything of this world. The sound Krishna even though is composed of molecular vibration can act as a container for the supreme to manifest in the vibration based on the extent of service attitude of the chanter. It is just like the Diety though made up of material elements but is not matter after installation by a bonafide acarya. Similarly sound given to one also has to be installed, so we have to receive the sound from acarya. ‘Nama cintamaniyasya, caitanya rasas vigraha, Purna suddho, nitya mukto, abhinnatvam naama naamino’ Nama is living full of caitanya. Nama is conscious entity but based on the service spirit of the chanter. Nama being non different from the Lord is supremely pure ‘Purna Suddho’ and is never under the 3 modes of material nature ‘nitya mukto’. Naam is nirgun. The tattva or philosophical conception and the emotional state is very important for the Lord to manifest in Nama sound. The proper conception of sanatana dharma is important. Sanatana Dharma is the mood of servant and master that exists between the aatma and Paramatma. This attitude of pure servant desiring only the pleasure of the supreme master is the primary criteria for Naami to manifest in Naam. One more important word used by Rupa Goswami is being ‘aanukulyena’ which is becoming favorable for Krishna’s happiness, to stop being a competitor to Krishna as enjoyer. ‘Ekalai iswara Krishna, aar sab Bhrtya’ which means he is the only enjoyer, all others are servants meant to give pleasure to the Supreme. If there is sincerity in the seeker and he aspires to give up being an enjoyer, then Naami can manifest and accelerate the killing of purusha bhaava in the heart. The competition is in trying to increase the 4 things – Dhan(wealth), Jana(popularity, position, fame), sundarim(Association with women), Kavitam(to be known as greatly learned) – trying to grow in these 4 things means wanting to compete with Sri Krishna as enjoyer. Reducing the need for these and increasing the need for always being in divine service in the association of devotees is being anukool to his pleasure, honoring him as the only enjoyer.

What is the architecture of sound? According to physics, Sound is caused due to vibration of air molecules. The vibrating air molecules impact the ear drum and hence the experience of sound is created. The vibration travels thru the nervous system into the  mind where the sound is converted to information and sense is made out if it. Based on the seriousness of the mind the information can lead to storage and retrieval in future. Beliefs and values are like ROM memory in the computer. Sound has the capability to change beliefs thru the process of surrender and repetition. How to decipher the power of sound? The power of sound depends on the depth of impact on the living being. According to Vedas human being is not just the physical body but made of layers of existence. The Physical layer is the outer most layer. Inside it is the Mind, Intelligence, Ego and then the original existence particle ‘The soul’. There are 4 bodies in a single being according to the Vedas. They are

-          Spiritual transcendental soul body

-          Paramatma

-          Subtle body composed of Mind, intelligence and false ego

-          Gross body

We do not have vision beyond the gross body. So the power of sound is decided on the depth of impact it can make. If a sound can reach the soul then it is the most powerful. The closest layer to the real self is the ‘citta’. The various thoughts in the mind have their source in the tendencies in the ‘citta’ or consciousness. Only mantras vibrated by pure devotees of Sri Krishna can impact the citta layer. The normal chant by conditioned soul of Hare Krishna mahamantra can impact only the gross layer or maximum upto the mental layer. But the mantra received from a pure devotee has the power to hit the citta. The vibration of the mahamantra kills the selfish tendencies and inspire the service tendency. The mantra is like a farmer and the field is the citta. The goal is to cultivate only the devotional creeper in the citta and uproot all unwanted weeds. The sadhana Bhakti process is nothing but ‘Citta vyavasaaya’ means farming or culturing of the consciousness. When the creeper of divine service has started to flower then it is the Bhava Bhakti stage and when there are fruits in the creeper it is the final Prema bhakti stage. Citta bala or ‘conscious strength’ is the resource which is the conscious energy embedded with iccha shakti or the power of desire. There is competition for citt bala among various tendencies in the citta. Redirecting the citta bala to the creeper of devotional service and cutting the supply to other unwanted tendencies is the work of iccha shakti which is strengthened by sadhu sanga. Bhagavan wants to taste the flower and fruit of the devotional creeper. It is our duty to cultivate and offer the flower and fruit to Bhagavan’s pleasure. For this we have to approach the spiritual master who will provide all infrastructure and personally enter our heart as a expert Gardener. 

Japan Nuclear disaster, Anna Hazare, corrpution

The nuclear disaster in Japan has reached to Chernobyl levels. It was so unanticipated. The earthquake followed by the tsunami and boom the reactor is damaged leading to uncontrolled radiation. ‘Padam padam etad vipadam’ – in this material world we court danger every moment. Danger means environment imposes things which tend to destroy our existence. The soul never gets destroyed but the conditioned soul is put into that virtual reality of being effaced. The unexpected events in nature which change the course of history are called the Black swan events. One can learn how properly to react to an unexpected event, one can never plan for it. Its like the surprise tests in IITs, one has to be on the go at all times. But why the world is designed for unexpected events? Of course the big bang guys who think the world was never designed but just happens will definitely not have an answer. The unexpected events are a sign that this place is not for permanent settlement, where death is staring at you every moment. Search for the eternal settlement, the abode of the Lord. Qualify to become a member of the eternal settlement. Past and future ceases toexist in the divine abode of the Lord – it is the reign of the blissful eternal present. The abode is full of the flow of lila – blissfull love pastimes of the supreme being. We are all in one system with the supreme being as the core. Every part of the system has to supply pleasure to the supreme core. We qualify for reflective happiness only, the happiness that reflects from the supreme. Aspiration for direct enjoyment will disqualify us from being integrated with the lila system. Independent life has to be given up. Me and my family, i have my job and i enjoy with my family – i don’t care about supreme etc..will not work. Death stares at disjoint things who are not integrated with pleasure of the supreme. Just being moral, a good law abiding citizen is not enough. One has to give up the independent separate enjoyment and integrate by giving happiness to Sri Krishna.

               The Anna Hazare’s and the lokpal bill cannot solve the problem of tapa traya facing all of us. Annually parts of Australia and West coast of USA is faced with huge forest fires. They cannot be controlled by fire engines,  spraying water etc. When the rain comes automatically the fire is extinguished. ‘Samsara dava nala lidha loka’ ;tranaya karunya ghanaghanatvam’ – The worldly problems is like forest fire. We need the mercy rain from above, from our sweet Lord to pacify the fire of samsara. The mercy rain is the Sri Guru whose form is made up of the Lord’s compassion. Just going near him will destroy our wrong tendencies of wanting to enjoy independent of the Lord. Sri Guru is the nodal point of that mercy and Harinama sankirtan is the outpouring of that mercy in the form of fountain. But there is lack of srddha in general populace on the mercy solutions. Lord caitanya’s movement is mass distribution of this mercy, to create srddha at a public level. The intrinsic core of Lord Caitanya’s movement is going on street sankirtan. The sound of the Hare Krishna mantra enters the ears even unwillingly and creates sukrti srddha in the hearing public. Street sankirtan is also breaking of the mercy dam by Nityananda Prabhu. The fallen, downtrodden, sinful everyone will be swept in this mercy tsunami of Lord Nityananda. The process of devotional service of Bhakti yoga is started by this hearing process. Accidentally a passerby on the street hears this harinama sankirtan his spirituallife has started and will save him from the highest danger of degrading into lower species in future. His faith in sadhu sanga will arise and eternal auspiciousness is invoked.

Transcendental coach

Coaches, consultants and advisors form an integral part of the formula to achieve excellence in any field. Be it team games like soccer, cricket or hockey, or individual games like tennis, badminton, coaches play a very important part in deciding the fate of matches and winning glory for the team. In soccer, many times the coach is more vital than the players. In 2010 we all experienced the mega sporting event on earth – the Soccer World Cup in South Africa - which comes once every four years. Spain defeated the Netherlands to take home the trophy. We experienced the contrasting strategies of coaches from Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. Germany depended on swift counter attacks whereas Netherlands depended on playing rough. The style of Spain was having possession and waiting for the gaps.

Happy new year - How true to heart??

Happy new year 2011. The greetings were all around in the air as i arrived for the first day in office for 2011. Innumerable handshakes, SMS, emails!!!

I joined in it part of group think, which makes one do a ritual just because everyone is doing. Inside me i was thinking ‘what is happy about arrival of a new year?’. I have wished for the past 30 years but nothing better has happened. Corruption levels have increased, crime rates are on rising trend in all major cities and around us. We are constantly at fear of an imminent terrorist attack. So why we are all part of this ritual of wishing when the First of January arrives every year? Have we become very mechanical in life? Have we stopped questioning the intent of anything due to the ever increasing busy life. By the time my first day in office had ended, i had got heavily cynical of these new year wishes. As i was overhearing numerous wishes over the phone across my cubicle i was feeling how empty these wishes are. How many times do we really wish the betterment of a peer and how many times our heart, thought and words are  in synch with each other? In the mad race to acquire more money, fame assets every peer, neighbour, friend is perceived as a competitor.

                Arrival of a new year is a relative concept in our minds. It is basically flow of ‘Time’. Time in a deep sense is change. Time does not allow anything o stay as it is.  Time ensures that we don’t experience ‘present’. In the material world that we stay, every moment is becoming ‘past’ by the time we experience it. Past and future is what exists in the conditioned world. Time is that energy that is on a mission to increase disorder in the universe. Time applies on human beings to make them old. Old means proceeding towards disorder or merging into the fundamental elements. Creation, growth, byproducts and decay -> this is the life cycle of an object operated by time. Just like air, time is also all pervading. Nobody can hide from time. This is echoed in the Gita where Lord Krishna claims in the 11^th chapter – ‘The Blessed Lord said: Time I am, destroyer of the worlds, and I have come to engage all people. With the exception of you [the Pandavas], all the soldiers here on both sides will be slain.’ The hand of the Lord is there in time. But why does the Lord wants to destroy the world using the agency of time? According to the Vedas everything in the world around has to follow the life cycle stages of creation, growth, byproducts and decay. This is sort of a enforced law. Time is the agent which ensures that objects are going thru these stages – be it living or non living. The only difference being non-living things may not give rise to byproducts.

                Time operates on us as long as we are engaged in an attitude of consumption towards the world. The world is meant for my enjoyment and the only goal of life is to enhance quality and quantity of enjoyment. As long as we wish ‘Happy new year’ with this consumption attitude in mind, it can never turn out to be auspicious. Time and the decaying effects of time harp on individuals with consumption attitude. To become free of time we have to develop an attitude opposite that of consumption, which is that of service. Service is the opposite of consumption. To serve and to enjoy are contrasting verbs. To enjoy means an inward flow from the environment to the individual whereas Service is going away from the individual towards an outside entity. The word duty or dharma is always associated with service. To serve parents, nation, is duty – we keep hearing the clarion calls frequently. All of the duties or dharmas is not sanatana dharma. There is only one kind of service which is called sanatana dharma. For understanding which service becomes sanatana dharma we have to delve into components of service. Service involves the ‘Servant’ , the ‘master or served object’ and the activity of service. When the servant is ‘anything living’ and the served is ‘the supreme being’ – the activity of service is called sanatana dharma. In other words service without trace of a self consumption expectation  meant for satisfying the senses of the supreme being Sri Krishna is sanatana dharma. We become independent of ‘Time’ when we are engaged in sanatana dharma all the time like flowing of oil. Any consumption is ‘adharma’ and divine service for the pleasure of supeme being Sri Krishna is ‘Dharma’.  The first ray of auspiciousness is the first time the desire to selflessly satisfy Sri Krishna arises in the heart. This desire is obtained by coming in contact with a rasika or lover of Sri Hari. When the desire is continuously nurtured by hearing and chanting about Sri Hari, it turns into prema or love of God. Lets strive to make this Happy new year ‘Happy’ in the true sense by somehow obtaining the attitude to serve Sri Krishna in the shelter of his devotees. Seek out pure devotees, participate in hari naam sankeertanam and make 2011 a beginning of a truly glorious chapter in your life.

Raja Vidya

9^th chapter of Gita is called ‘the most confidential knowledge’ and it is also the king of all knowledge. What is the meaning of confidential? Suppose i talked to a friend and tell him this is very confidential – keep it to yourself. Confidential means some information is not for public consumption. The Sanskrit word used here is ‘Guhyam’ or secretive. Why do we like to share information with only certain set of people? Like government defence secrets are confidential because it can get into enemy hands and can cause problems to national security. Similarly in the corporate world there are design secrets, trade secrets which if made public can cause harm in harming shareholder interests. Competition, enemity these are some of the causes that we hold some information secret. But Sri Krishna is the Lord himself who does not have competition nor worthy enemies. He is ‘asmaurdha’ ‘ajita’ or unconquerable. Why is he classifying some information as confidential? Also whatever he has said is available for public consumption. So then what is confidential here? There is a contradiction and paradox here which we have to harmonise.

Millions of data packets are flowing thru the internet but the confidential data is encrypted. Only with a software key tha data can be interpreted. Similarly there is encryption in the messages of Gita. So what is the key to decrypt the confidential message hidden? The first key to decrypt is becoming ‘anasuyave’ or ‘non envious’. Arjuna being a close friend of Sri Krishna was non envious of Sri Krishna. Envy means feeling sad at the happiness of another. Feeling bitter at the success and enhanced happiness of the other. So the first key is desiring the happiness of Sri Krishna, accepting him as supreme enjoyer and the sole enjoyer in this cosmos. As long we want to compete with him an an enjoyer we cannot obtain access to the encrypted confidential knowledge he is describing. The second key is ‘Srddha’ or faith. The foundation of faith is trust. Just like we trust our mother, we have to place trust in the words of the Gita. To the degree we have trust the confidential message will be decrypted. On the contrary if someone thinks ‘Sri Krishna is just another ordinary human being and he is just boasting’ one can never enter into the essence of the confidential message. By the association of sadhus, one has to obtain this character of non-enviousness and complete faith. ‘adau Guruasraya’  first principle to understand Gita is to take shelter of a bonafide sadhu who is a pure lover of Sri Krishna like Arjuna. Its a life long sadhana to become totally non envious and faithful. This sadhana is technically of 2 steps ‘Bhajana kriya and anartha nivrrtti’. Bhakti yoga and enviousness cannot go together. If one is envious one cannot begin bhakti yoga. Bhakti begins by desiring the happiness of Sri Krishna and performing activities to provide happiness/pleasure to Sri Krishna. The perfection of Bhakti yoga is when the individual has given up his independence in total and all his 24 hours in a day he is acting for the pleasure of Sri Krishna desiring to enhance it in quality and quantity.

We have to delve into the question ‘Why the Lord has decrypted these messages?’. The lord is unconquerable and he does not have any competitor. The reason should be for the betterment of the people in general because all avataras happen for the betterment of human society.. Offenses are detrimental to spiritual life. Criticising sastras are very harmful to the critic which can bar him for interest in spirituality/Vedas for time immemorial. If the message is encrypted faithless people will generally avoid it thinking it as complex jugglery just like encrypted data is of no interest to the hacker. This will prevent them from unnecessary meddling into the meesages of Gita and increasing ones offensive attitude.

The other kind of people who cannot enter into these secrets are the ones who cannot understand anything other than sensual satisfaction as valuable in life. Sense enjoyment is everything and they can do anything to obtain this. They worship the Lord or the various demigods begging for nectarine sense enjoyment. People who are open minded who can understand the miseries of sensual engagement and can embrace a concept of happiness beyond the senses are the right candidates who can decrypt this confidential message.

Dharma and yoga in product development

Every Hindu is aware of the word Dharma. People in India use it with different interpretations, in different context. The words 'Guru' and 'karma' have already gotten into the English dictionary being part of the vocabulary. It will not be much longer before the word 'Dharma' makes its way. What is the real meaning of the word Dharma? People usually associate with the english word 'duty'. Going deeper into sanskrit grammar, the word Dharma means 'spontaneous property of any object/entity'. Every object exhibits some natural property which cannot be disassociated from it. Like the property of sweetness is tightly coupled with entity sugar, flowing property is associated with water, heat with fire etc... one can go on. Dharma is an idea in people's mind on how a object generally behaves. Its a perception of reality unchangeable with time. Environmental influences can temporarily modify the property - like low temperature can modify the property of flowing of water by converting into ice.

Now lets see what is Quality Management before creating a solid connection between the two. Quality Management is the science of understanding customer perception about the expected behavior of a product and delivering it to the satisfaction/delight of the customer. As we saw earlier, Dharma is the expected natural behavior of any object. So we can conclude that understanding and delivering dharma is the science of quality management. The goal of organizations is to enable engineers to embed dharma into the products. Adharma is any deviation(Defects) wrt expected behaviour in the product. This can be due to misunderstanding dharma (customer's perspective of the natural spontaneous property of the product) or unable to instill dharma in the product. If we look into our sastras, Dharma is always demonstrated thru yoga. Different kinds of yoga practices enable us to enact the dharma of human being. Without yoga we start behaving like animals by degrading to adharma. Applying the same to production principles, if yoga is not there during the product building stage, there cannot be an output of Dharma. The product development life cycle needs karma yoga(Action), Jnana yoga(knowledge), Dhyana yoga(contemplation) and bhakti yoga(passion, love) to delight the customer. Lets delineate the importance of each of the yoga mechanisms in product development.
Karma Yoga: belief in Prescribed action. The prescribed action is derived from industry established best practices. If members of project team align to karma yoga or prescribed action, success is guaranteed in terms of embedding dharma into the product
Jnana Yoga: Belief in Knowledge. Project should demonstrate knowledge sharing mechanisms among the members before, during and after the execution. Knowledge of Customers and their perception of dharma (voice of the customer) is very important
Dhyana Yoga(Yoga of contemplation) Individual, team introspections should be encouraged and formal channels has to be provided to encourage introspection. Each person should think whether he is line to fulfill dharma or is there adharma creeping in. What engineering yoga practices can be included/excluded? MSA is an example of Dhyana yoga at the organization level and Lessons learned is an example at the team level. What we lack is employee level contemplation which should in reality feed the other two
Bhakti yoga:Passion, love motivation must exist towards satisfying customer's need. Its the project manager's duty to instil bhakti in team members.
Vishwa rupa darsana yoga: Zoom out perspective on markets, competition, ecosystem of the customer has to be provided which can cause Bhakti(passion) to arise in team members. Manytimes demotivation is a result of not knowing the value transaction in the big picture, what difference to the world are we making.

A good model can be created by going deep into each of the Yoga described in the Gita. At present we have the above outline. By the practice of the above kinds of yoga in teams, we can reduce adharma(defects) to a large extent and ensure our customers and we can experience swarga after every project release.

Maniratnam, Raavanan and Ramayana

Last week the movie Ravanan got released in multiple languages – Hindi, tamil, telugu. Its a ManiRatnam magnum opus scripted around the character of Ravana – the ten headed villain in Hindu epic Ramayana. Its about exploring the ten different characters in the same person and how they interact, conflict each other. Is it like a multiple personality disorder? I don’t know – haven’t seen the movie. There is a recent spate of movies based on our holy epics. If Rajneeti by Prakash Jha was a take on Mahabharatha, Mani’s version is inspired by Ramayana. In fact this is a first take on Ramayan being used as base for modern day story telling. Mani has to be credited for his creativity and for going in the direction of unexplored waters. What are these epics? Are they just stories, fables or reality? What makes them holy?

BP oil spill - spiritual lessons

Recently 2 kinds of news are hogging the media space. The BP oil spill issue and the union carbide issue. Both have lot of things in common. BP oil spill is about the oil well deep inside the gulf of Mexico going berserk. The earth has oil inside it and we drill it for running automobiles and whole lot of things to enable mechanical motion. But this spill has caused irreparable damage to the environment. Whole ocean flora and fauna is dripped and bathed in viscous oil. Has led to irreversible damage to life. If we can empathize then one can understand the sad plight of life in the gulf of Mexico. The ripple effect on human civilisation will have a time lag but is sure to come. Whole world is a system with interdependent subsystems which need each other for survival and growth. So its only foolishness not to anticipate an impact in the near future. Marine specialists should extrapolate this event to possible child events that will be triggered in future. Why is humanity creating such a mess in the environment? Is it really needed to squeeze the environment for existence?

Jadananda and cidananda

Recently went on a spiritual vacation to Navadwip. Spiritual vacations are little austere to the material body. We adjust with simple accomodation and pilgrim food. This austerity helps us to be rich in cidananda or conscious pleasure. Can Jadananda and cidananda coexist? I think before going to this question we need to understand the significant difference between the two. Jadananda is the ordinary pleasures of this world. Jadananda is the feeling of happiness derived from the interaction or friction of sense objects with the senses. When there is friction between good food with the taste buds of the tongue, jadananda is generated. Similarly all material gross pleasures are born out of friction. Jadananda is of 2 types - the gross and the subtle. The subtle Jadananda is experienced when we deal emotionally by giving meaning to material identities. Ananda due to the interaction between father and daughter is one of the examples.

3 idiots and the motivation for action

Whole nation is going ga-ga over three idiots. The nation has woken up to the new year with the chants of 'All is well'. Hope with this combined aspiration, 2010 will be a great year minus the terrorism and natural calamities. A feel good movie with a message communicated via a laugh riot. This is typical of Raju Hirani - the previous time he made Gandhigiri relevant to the times, again with laugh riot as a vehicle. With 3 idiots, Raju is taking on the education system. The timing of the movie is accurate since India is awakening to the importance of innovation to drive the country's GDP. Education has to teach how to contemplate and solve problems using existing body of knowledge. Of these the skill of contemplation is superior. To contemplate is to think. The popular trend is accumulate information and perform repeated work to earn livelihood. In this way life passes on without challenging status quo. Problems can be solved using existing body of knowledge but What about preventing problems? That needs challenging the systems status quo, to modify going against all odds. How can lateral thinking be imbibed to find out of the box solutions? Optimism and an attitude to challenge the status quo are like an elixir for development.

Why God allows suffering in this world?

Traditional theism has to wrestle with the problem of evil: if God is good, why does he allow suffering and death? But Nature is suffering and death. Recently i read about the above statement from an article on Newyork times about Panteism and the movie Avatar. The definition of God is that he is the root of all creation, the primal point from which everything emanates. Everything that be in the cosmos is a result of his multifarious energies. Life comes from life - so we as life have all emanated from the central super conscious life the supreme being called God. God also stand for Generator, operator and destroyer. Why is suffering created by God?

Avatar the movie and Bhagavad Gita

Viewing James cameron's Avatar on 3D is an amazing experience. The fact of building an alter ego which is fit to live among the Navi community and being able to control that with the present human body is an amazing concept. It all started with the matrix series where you could enter the matrix using a similar setup. What is building an alter ego? Is it giving rise to another individual to satisfy unsatiated desires, which is possible in the alter ego. Websites like 'Secondlife.com' is a very poor version of the alterego

James Cameron's Avatar

Everywhere 'Avatar' buzz is doing the rounds. Nowadays you will not find a single primetime channel which does not have slot reserved for something about 'avatar'. According to initial reports, Avatar seems like a technological leap interms of cinema making and breathtaking experience. There seems also a hidden message in the movie related to global warming. The exploitative nature of human beings is brought out. The society of Navi depicted in Avatar seems like close to description of Vedic society. Living in harmony with nature, in close alignment and worship of their diety. In the movie, a human being is transplanted to the Navi community using DNA transformation. The human becomes like a Navi with 10ft in height and blue skinned(Sri Krishna's color???) physique. According to the movie, an avatar will mean entering a alien society adopting the foreign physical features. Lets explore what 'Avatar' means in the Vedic texts.

Surrender, Serve and enter samadhi

We integrate into another when we take up the cause of the other. This is called yoga which means union. When we shed all our independence and will and take up the pleasure of the supreme person as the only purpose of existance, then we unite into the supreme. We enter samadhi. The only way to enter the higher existance of the supreme person is by embracing his cause, his will, his desire as the purpose of life. How do I know what pleases him or what is his will, desire at every moment? The will is not like the dead person's will or power of attorney. It is a dynamic will which can change at every moment. So what is the medium thru which I can know the will of the supreme consciousness.

Reverse Engineering of Love

All of us have the experience of being in love. When in love, one wants to hear about our beloved(Sravanam), remember them(smaranam) or speak about beloved's qualities with our confidants(kirtanam). Almost everyday I come back from work, I ask my wife to narrate my daughter's activities for the day. Daughters are very dear to the Fathers and they take pleasure even in the trivia. In love, trivia brings in so much ananda. Even when I was in Munich on a business trip, I would get my daily dosage of my daughter's activities...........