A Tale of Sacrifice, Devotion and True Love

            This is a comment in response to an interesting post on Vedska Astrologija Dean Valentic

The original post,

"No one can use more of the Supreme Lord's property than necessary. Lord Vamanadeva indirectly indicated to Bali Maharaja that he was occupying more land than he needed. In the material world, all distresses are due to extravagance. One acquires money extravagantly and also spends it extravagantly. Such activities are sinful.
All property belongs to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and all living beings, who are sons of the Supreme Lord, have the right to use the Supreme Father's property, but one cannot take more than necessary. This principle should especially be followed by brahmanas and sannyasis who live at the cost of others."

Ref. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=462407423779996&set=a.177993578888050.35767.168605473160194&type=1&relevant_count=1


Hello Nitya Ji,
          Thank You for this wonderful post. At the time such an understanding was constituted by Lord Shiva who assumed that perhaps this was the reason this fate befell King Bali. But Lord Krishna, Vishnu as Vamana, and King Bali are Eternal companions, deeply entwined in the highest Love. Their purpose for manifesting was purely to curb the vanity, false supremacy and arrogance of Indra and to give him a taste of real power in divinity and teach him a lesson in humility that he will never ever forget. Bali had attained onto Vasudev Bhagwan well before being incarnate as King Bali. Him offering up his own body as a selfless and loving sacrifice was perhaps the final consummation of his marriage with God, they are entwined together because of this great and unsurpassed act of devotion, Love and faith. It was something that surprised, pleased, immersed and entwined God in a greater act of endless Love and faith. 

           Such devotion is always a two way relationship of the highest  purity, strength, goodness and Truth. Such an explanation or interpretation as hinted by the statement above was proposed by Lord Shiva only as a deceptive attempt to try and ease the anxiety and worry of Indra and the lesser more vain, unjust, lethargic and conceited divinities that occupy and Lord over this realm. Lord Bali unlike Indra and all the divinities of this realm put together, has the highest distaste, renunciation and peace as he is utterly numb to all the gunas, experiences, objects and pleasures of this world, he was totally enraptured in bliss while worshiping, following and carefully serving the will of God. God is equally and eternally enraptured by his devotion as well. It is only in the minds of Men that these faults and accusations exist as illusions. They find fault in God, Lord Krishna and Bali as that is their chosen Natures and base inclinations.

           Krishna was worshiped for the longest time by his immediate family members and their blood lines who consider him their ancestor to this day, it is only in recent times that other people elsewhere have begun to gain an understanding of what his selfless service and Love actually means. It is only recently beginning with such communities as the Yadavs who claim to be of his ilk and blood that his worship was popularized in a place where both him, his actions, his children, his lineage and all his many cult like devotees have all been severely criticized, unfairly questioned and even mocked at times. His life was never perfect because the imperfections lie in the eye of the ever so fallible beholder and their impure hearts. They can never know him and his devotees because they find fault in God rather than themselves. He was also a popular King of Dwarka who threw away his Kingdom and allegedly cursed it along with his wealth into the Arabian sea. His devotee in Bali is very much like him, nothing is beyond the likes of these in this world, nevertheless all is dust in the face of their Love and divine virtues. 

           The Lord in Krishna is said to have had 16000 wives, all of whom were celestial maidens who longed to have him as their husband, their wish was granted but then the Lord tested them as they were more enamored by Shiva in the form of Samb and thus God discarded them to the pleasures of this realm in answer to their betrayal and to serve Samb or Shiva as his bonded witches with permanence. Such is how renounced both God, King Bali and his devotees are, their Nature and virtues are as such, they can never have a need in a world such as this that is well beneath the Truth and the Love in their Hearts and Souls. They are at perfect peace with all of this world and both its wealth and poverty alike, nothing can touch or impress upon their souls, their acts of indifference clearly shows they always have each other and nothing else, there is no distance between their hearts. The hells and heavens of this world can never get in the way of their Eternal existence.  They are not merely men or devotees or renunciants as such, they are divinities and Lovers of the highest kind. Forgetting this world, its pleasures, Kingdoms and sensuality, the ways, the Nature of, the stories and the very surreal virtues of Lord Krishna, Vishnu, Vamana and King Bali remain ever so bizarre and mysterious to the men of this world in my personal opinion, they can never fully understand or comprehend these things let alone genuinely learn or sincerely love such qualities and Truths. Here is an excerpt from one  among my many trusted and most beloved bhaktas/devotees and Spiritual teachers/Masters of all time. 


In the truthful, respectable and sincere words of my saint, Shriji Maharaj ji, 

“If the bhakta happens to be completely devoted and desires nothing

except Bhagvãn, is free of worldly desires, and is an ekãntik bhakta,

then Bhagvãn Himself becomes bound by that bhakta. For example,

Vãmanji seized Bali Rãjã’s kingdom, which comprised of the Svarg-

Lok, Mrutyu-Lok and Pãtãl, and covered all fourteen loks with His

first two steps. Bali Rãjã then offered his own body for Vãmanji to

place the third step. In this way, Bali Rãjã devoutly offered

everything to Bhagvãn. Also, despite the fact that Bhagvãn deceived

Bali Rãjã without any fault of his own, Bali still did not falter from His

bhakti. On seeing such perfect bhakti for Him, Bhagvãn ultimately

became bound by Bali. Although Bhagvãn bound Bali Rãjã only for a

moment, in the process, Bhagvãn himself became bound by ropes

(Bali’s unique bhakti). To this very day, Bhagvãn is forever standing

at Bali’s gate, never out of Bali Rãjã’s sight, not even for a fraction of a second.

61.9 “Likewise, after abandoning all other worldly desires and offering

everything to Bhagvãn, we should also remain as the dãs of Bhagvãn.

In the process, if Bhagvãn happens to inflict more misery upon us,

then Bhagvãn Himself will become bound by us. This is because He

loves His bhaktas, and is an ocean of kindness. He becomes bound by

anyone who offers great bhakti to Him. As a result, the mind of a

bhakta who has such loving bhakti, becomes so bound to Bhagvãn,

that Bhagvãn is unable to free Himself from His bhakta.

61.10 “Therefore, we should become more pleased as Bhagvãn puts us

through more severe hardships, bearing in mind, ‘The more misery

Bhagvãn inflicts upon me, the more bound He will become to me, so He will not be away from me for even a moment’. With such

understanding, a person should become increasingly pleased as

Bhagvãn imposes more and more hardships. However, he should

never become disheartened in the face of misery or for the sake of

bodily comforts.”

Ref.http://www.bhujmandir.org/upload/documents/scriptures/vachanamrut/vachnamrut%20english.pdf

True Love is Eternal and Unconditional. It never dies...this, its Truth, is beyond questions. Although he Loved her and many worship them, Krishna never married Radha. Justice and Truth escapes none who offend or hurt his devotees or the meek.

Blessings & Best Regards,

Jai Krishna Ponnappan

The Intelligence of this Melody

~ The Intelligence of this Melody ~ 

A Sound Characterized by its Harmony and Tranquility 

"No work stains a man who is pure, who is in harmony, who is master of his life, whose soul is one with the soul of all."

           This was inspired by a really interesting post I read today on Corelight, a page authored and run by some  very blessed and inspiring people,

Here is the original post as seen on their page ,

" ~ Attraction and Repulsion ~

           Attraction and repulsion cause the mind to divide all worldly phenomena into the different camps of negative and positive. This leads us into separating and compartmentalizing everything in our minds. Our conditioned tendency is to align with one side (attraction) and disown, reject or avoid the other (repulsion). We have no choice in this; we are bound unrelentingly by this system of judgment. Life is seen through this filter until we agree to do the transformational work. The moment we decide there is no more to life, and wish to explore other options; we have the potential to move into another paradigm, one that exists beyond negative and positive. 
~Leslie Temple-Thurston~"

Ref. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=440724262635357&set=a.235659609808491.52135.221051047936014&type=1&relevant_count=1

~ The Mind is just an Instrument ~

My Response, Love it. 

        I would love to start by saying the mind is just an instrument. It is like honey, so sticky, in that it has a tendency to absorb whatever comes its way, both good and bad, the pleasant and the unpleasant, the positive and the negative. It is only an instrument, it does what it has evolved to do by design. It helps build intelligence deeper into the being or should I say the Spiritual being by collecting intelligence via the senses that pervade the rest of the body and awareness in its entirety. One should control and master the mind through faith, courage and Love. One should attempt to make the mind a friend. After all, It is merely nothing more than an instrument that aids the Being and its intelligence.  

~ Become a Creative Dreamer ~

Co-create as you Dream in Harmony with Nature and Life. 

          Somehow the words negative and positive reminded me of the master and father who revolutionized the way we use, supply and harness electricity. No, I'm not talking of Edison but rather of  that wonderful Dreamer they call Nikola Tesla. The human mind has given or boxed/ compartmentalized this genius with so many undeserving and pathetic labels that reflect the nature of the society we have been co-creating and living in. He had the strangest visions, dreams and incredibly Truthful ideas of how his whole obsession with alternating current (AC) was in perfect harmony with Nature and its songs that buzzed through to him in fits of visions. 

Duality is pervaded by the ineffable Harmony that is this song.
The key is to find and follow the Lover that breathes Love into Souls.

        Even within Nature, in its many infinite nuances, there is creation, there is maintenance and there is destruction. These are the undeniable qualities and regulative processes of this realm. Man once born must learn to understand and live in harmony with Nature. He/She must learn to respect Nature as this experience has so much to teach us. The purpose of life is to enrich the Soul with such undying intelligence. We can strengthen and control what is good only by knowing, tolerating, overcoming and controlling what is bad. We must not deny the experiences that expose us to what is bad or destructive and depleting to our Souls, rather we should understand fully the falsehood of what we perceived as the Truth but only proved to be an illusion. 

~ Find Meaning &Purpose in Duality ~

For example I was reading a peculiar bit of news earlier today from all the way around in India,

It read as, 

"They are namesakes — both good orators and bachelors. But, the similarity between Narendra Modi and Narendra Nath Datta, famous as Swami Vivekananda, ends here."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Monk-who-sold-Narendra-Modis-safari/articleshow/16376201.cms

These men here are renounced, in the fact that they both have taken the vow of chastity. I have met many such people and you might wonder how true chastity is achieved. Let's for example consider that a Soul was incarnate as a man, who falls madly in Love with a woman only to be betrayed and have his whole being degraded and discarded. Such an experience can be extremely painful to a Soul, eventually the person would contemplate the fact that the object of his attraction, that enticing Woman, that illusion of attraction was indeed unreal, false and proved to be Untruthful . He experiences the duality of Life to its fullest. He experiences both attraction and destruction. And even in the midst of such an adverse and tormenting experience he realizes that there is an all pervading Truth transcending and guiding him to its Light. It eventually manages to strengthen him, his intelligence, his faith, his ability and capacity for courage and most importantly his capacity to unconditionally Love the Truth. He becomes a better Lover, His intelligence now can transcend and overcome infinite such minds and illusive but purposeful creations of duality. His intelligence can powerfully gaze right through to the Truth cutting across all facades. Such is the story of how some men achieve the state of True chastity.

      Those that do continue to evolve, stay centered in perpetual bliss and seamless perfection. Those that don't or deliberately will and aim to infuse chaos and disturb the tranquil balance and harmony of things will eventually enter into a state of destruction and rebirth. That energy that is out of place and purpose and self serving is thus renewed in the hopes of becoming something more meaningful and beautiful... only off course by this cycle that traverses through all forms of duality from creation to destruction, rebirth and eventually culminating in higher and eternal Spiritual resurrections. 

Aham Brahmasmi (ah-HUM brah-MAHS-mee) 

 A Sanskrit sutra whose English translation is "the core of my being is the ultimate reality, the root and ground of the universe, the source of all that exists..."

 ..None are less Dear to me and none more dear. I look upon all Life equally; But those who Love, live in me, and I come to Life in them. You are me, as I am in You, as I AM You :) 

Love, Blessings & Sincere Regards,

Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Thinking Out of the Box ~ A Letter by Brian Tracy

          Dear Friends, I wanted to share these useful words of advice from our good Friend, excellent Author and life Coach, Brian Tracy. Learning to cultivate 'Out of the box Thinking and Creativity' is a very rewarding and stimulating exercise. For most people I know, the process often becomes an ever nascent and refreshing passion.. It becomes an evolving journey that lasts a lifetime .

~ Manifesting * This * Envisage ~
A Soul never Envisions Life without the Sensual and Fruitful

Here's the letter,

"Hello Jai Krishna,

Do you know how to improve the quality of your thinking?

      Human beings are mental organisms. Everything we are or ever will be, will be as the direct result of the way we think. If we improve the quality of our thinking, we must improve the quality of our lives. And, there is no other way to do it.

Youth and Creativity

        In one series of I.Q. tests given to children age 2 - 4 years, 95% of the children were found to be highly creative with curious, questioning minds and an ability for abstract thinking.
        When the same children were tested again at age 7, only 5% still demonstrated high levels of creativity. In the ensuing years, they had learned to conform; "If you want to get along, you had better go along," is what they had discovered.

The Dangers of Conformity

       They had learned to color between the lines, to sit in neat little rows, to do and say what the other kids did and said, and to do as they were told. Over time, they lost the wonderful fearless spontaneity of youth and learned to suppress ideas and insights that were unusual or different.

Aggressively Seek New Ideas

          Most of us have had similar experiences. The "Not invented-here" syndrome in many large companies is simply the adult version of "not rocking the boat." But fortunately, since creativity is your birth right, a fundamental part of your nature, you can tap into it at any time, no matter how long it has been since you really used it.

Action Exercises

        Here are two things you can do to start thinking outside of your mental box.
> First, imagine that there was a vastly better, cheaper, faster way to do your job - and somebody else had already discovered it and was going to put you out of business.
> Second, imagine doing exactly the opposite of what you are doing today. Allow your mind to float freely and consider how current trends will change your business. "

Blessings, Best Wishes & Regards,

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Om Tat Sat ~ Getting to Know the Supreme by Design

~ Om Tat Sat ~

        The Supreme Being - Brahman, the Absolute - is designated as Om Tat Sat in a threefold definition or description. Knowers of the Vedas known as Brahmanas, and the Veda mantras, and the yajnas or sacrifices, are all purified and consecrated by the recitation of this mystic symbol Om Tat Sat. 

       The threefold description of Brahman as Om and Tat and Sat is always recited in all religious performances – during the study of the Vedas, at the conclusion of sacrifices of yajnas, and whatever ritual that Brahmanas, that is the knowers of the Vedas, may undertake. Sacrifices (yajna), charities (dana), austerities (tapas), are undertaken by people according to the rules and regulations of the scriptures and as laid down by knowers of Brahman, beginning with the chanting of Om: om ity udahrtya pravartante. Whenever we commence any holy act, we say Om. We will never see people commencing a worship without chanting Om first. Whether it is a prayer or a meditational session or a worship or a svadhyaya – all this commences with an inward recitation of Om.

"Tad ity anabhisandhaya phalam yajna-tapah-kriyah, dana-kriyas cha vividhah kriyante moksha-kankshibhih": 

Similarly, yajna, dana and tapas are associated with the other letter – Tat – in the same way as Om is associated with yajna, dana, tapas, and all religious performances. Sat is the third symbol, which signifies goodness. 

            We say sant, Mahatma, satsanga, sant, saint, which all come from the word Sat. Sadityeya ityuchyate: Whenever there is something good or saintly, we call that Sat. Whenever there is something auspicious – prasasta karma – then also we use the word Sat in regard to that auspicious beginning. The words yajna, dana and tapah – sacrifice, austerity and charity – are repeated again and again, but they become stable and meaningful and bear the requisite fruit only when they are associated with Sat, or Pure Existence. All the activities that we perform for the sake of fulfilling yajna, dana, tapas – karma chaiva tadarthiyam – anything that we do for the welfare of our own self as well as that of others, for the fulfilment of our spiritual aspirations, they all come under Sat, or immense goodness.

            The terms ‘Tat’ and ‘Sat’ signify the transcendent aspect of Brahman and the immanent aspect of Brahman, both of which are blended together in a universalised connotation or denotation, as we may call it, which is Om. The Supreme Being is called Om because of the inclusiveness of the Supreme Being. Though the Supreme Being is inclusive, It manifests Itself as transcendent and immanent when creation takes place. We are in this world of creation, and we know very well that every nook and corner and every cranny and particle of atom is pervaded and indwelt by the Supreme Brahman, yet this Brahman is not exhausted in this world. The whole of Brahman is present in this world, and yet the whole of Brahman is above this world. Purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnamudachyate: The whole Brahman manifests the whole universe, and the whole Brahman enters wholly this whole universe. Though the whole Brahman enters wholly into this universe, the transcendent aspect of Brahman is not in any way affected by this entry of Brahman into the cosmos.

    The usual idea of location that we have in our minds is that if we are in one place, we cannot be in another place; and if Brahman is inside this world, Brahman cannot be outside the world. That is to say, if God is involved in this world as the immanent principle enveloping the whole world completely, there would be no God left beyond the world. There would be no transcendence. But it is not so. The entire Brahman remains there, uninvolved in the creational process, in spite of the entire Brahman controlling the whole universe and entering into it even up to the smallest particle.

    Thus, the ' Tat ' is the transcendent, the otherwordly, impossible to grasp, beyond the reaches of space and time; and the Sat is that very same thing involved in this creation. It is here and also there. Our minds have a peculiar difficulty in imagining the connection between transcendence and immanence, because we always think that transcendence means something getting beyond our control and remaining far above, so distant from us that we cannot even imagine where it is. Far, far, infinitely far, is that unreachable Supreme Brahman. But Brahman which is so far, apparently unreachable even by the mind with its speed of thought, is also here immanently involved as the soul of all beings. Therefore, it is necessary to visualise a total picture of this transcendent existence as well as the immanent existence of God, and overcome the limitations of the mind which compel us to make a distinction between that which is far and that which is near. 

        We cannot even for a moment imagine how something that is very far away can also be something that is very near. It is impossible to imagine such a thing. The near thing cannot be the distant thing. But here is a peculiar situation where the most distant thing is also the nearest thing. That is the reason why we say that spatial definitions are not to be introduced into the characterisation of Brahman, the Absolute.

        Our difficulty in blending together the notions of distance and nearness arise on account of our thinking in terms of space. When we say God is far away, we think in terms of spatial distance. When we say that God is very near us, then also we think in terms of some location in space juxtaposed to our body, as it were. But, try to think a thing minus the measurable characteristic of space. The mind cannot perform this feat. Minus space, nothing can be thought and, therefore, an immeasurable thing or non-measurable thing cannot be conceived in the mind. This is why God cannot become an object of thought. Nobody can think God because thinking is a process involved in space and time, and the Thing called God is beyond space and time.

        Hence, that which is not involved in the distance of space and duration of time cannot be thought by the human mind which always thinks in terms of distance and duration. Yet, in spiritual meditations we are expected to wean the mind from this involvement of thinking in terms of distance and duration, and bring together the concepts of transcendence and immanence – Tat and Sat – together in an Om that is all-inclusive.

        This inclusiveness is signified by Om or pranava, which is partly a vibration that creates all substances constituting the universe, and partly scriptural as it is a name or nomenclature for God. Tasya vachaka pranava, says Patanjali in one of the sutras. If we want to designate God, we have to designate Him only by the term Om, pranava. We cannot call Him by any other name, because all names arising from language denote some object which is in some place. When we say tree, the name ‘tree’ denotes some object which is in some place. Everything else also is of the same nature. When we utter any word that designates some object – it could be any word in the dictionary – that word connotes or denotes something that is in some place or at some time; but it cannot denote something that is everywhere and for all time. So, no word in any language can designate That which is everywhere and at all times.

       Om is specially regarded as a symbolic expression which embodies in itself the total process of Universal Life. 

All the letters of the alphabet, when they are uttered, create a vibration in the vocal cords. The sound box operates in some way when one letter is uttered, and in another way when another letter is uttered; and there are varieties of operations of the vocal system when different letters are uttered. But when Om is chanted, the entire sound box vibrates – Aummmmm. This process originates from the deepest beginning of the process of sound and ends with just a rarified form of the sound ‘m’, which merges into a soundless ethereal pervading something. This total sound vibration goes beyond the process of sound production and becomes an intangible super-sensory force. In this kind of Omkara, the transcendent aspect and the Sat aspect are clubbed together.

         Thus, the three-fold definition of Brahman – Om Tat Sat – means God here, God above and God below, and God everywhere. 

    The everywhere-ness or the omnipresence and omnipotence of God includes the aboveness and the hereness of God. The above-ness is Tat, the here-ness is Sat, and the everywhere-ness is Om. Therefore, Om Tat Sat is a complete mystical symbol, an understanding which was evolved by ancient masters. Therefore, in all auspicious beginnings, Om is chanted; and when we conclude anything, we say Om Tat Sat, dedicating the performance to the Almighty.

"Asraddhaya hutam dattam tapas taptam krtam cha yat, asad ity uchyate partha na cha tatpretya no iha" :

           Faithless performance is asat, whether it is a performance in the form of yajna or sacrifice, charity, a philanthropic deed, or an austerity or tapas. Anything that is done without faith is asat. 

An answer to the question of what faith is in its sattvic, rajasic and tamasic aspects ~ Performance without faith is devoid of the immanent force of divinity because it is not conducted with the operation of the soul, which is called the faith of the person. Faith is nothing but the action of the soul and, therefore, it is more powerful than any other faculty working in a person. If this faith is not there, the performance brings no result either in this world or in the other world: na cha tat pretya, not after death; na iha, not even here. Faith is supreme, and its threefold character has been beautifully explained.

Faith begins when reason finds its limit and knowledge fails to express. Faith begins when belief  continues in its quest to build its bridges across to the Truth.

Blessings & Best Regards,

Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Off With the Horns, On With the Show

“Night is a time of rigor, but also of mercy. She sharpens, She wakes imagination. There are secret Truths which one can see only with the light of the heart in the depths of the dark”  

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

  

At midnight, when Mankind is wrapt in Peace, 

   At midnight hour, when slumbering in their deepest sleep, 

   Worldly Fancy feeds on golden dreams,  

   This gives more Dream to Man’s most dreadful Hour, 

   Quickly startled are these, by the sound of  

   God’s great trumpet sounding high 

   A sound so pure, 

   It roars as it speeds through Hearts and Souls

   At Midnight; ‘tis presumed, this pomp will burst

   From tenfold darkness sudden as the spark…

   An Archangel is seen, seated on a cloud, 

   And with angelic trumpet summons all the world 

   Man, starting from his Couch, shall sleep no more. 

   The Day is broke which never more shall close!... 

   Terror and Glory join in their extremes!

   Quickly they arise and do appear before the seat of God!

INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE HUMAN EGO

       Great spiritual masters, who have explored life in depth and understood it, compare life to a bubble. Time is infinite.  Human life, which appears and quickly fades away, is transient.  But in his arrogance, man forgets this Truth.  When still in possession of wealth, status, authority and youth, man lives in reckless arrogance, thinking, “I am great. Everything is under my control”.  He forgets his dharma to the world, his nation, his fellow-beings, to Nature – even his dharma to himself. Consciously or unconsciously, we give our ego complete rein to rule and control our life.

        When a human life comes to an end, all that it can look back upon are the actions done in that life time and how they have influenced people and society.  Our lifespan, health, strength and physical beauty are limited.  They all fade with time.  Change is the powerful signature  of time.  There is nothng in this universe upon which time does not leave its mark.  It is this change that the ancient sages named maya.  Maya does not mean that which does not exist. Rather, it means something that undergoes constant change.  However, consciousness, which is still and constant, is the underlying foundation of all that undergoes change.  We should learn to recognize the difference between the body and the external universe -  which undergo constant change  --  and the unchanging consciousness that serves as the substratum of the body and universe.  When we recognize this difference, we will learn to see all changes in life as natural and accept them.

Man is Like a Drop of Water in the Vast  Ocean of this Infinite Universe.  

            When he gives undue importance to his ego and asserts its greatness, it is like a drop of water proclaiming that it is the ocean.  It is not man’s ability that makes the sun, moon and planet move, nor is it his ability that sustains the earth and its innumerable life forms. Man, who is just another creature that inhabits this infinite existence, should not nurture his ego.  Instead he should realize its insignificance  and move forward in his life with humility.

           Once there lived an old woman in a village. One day, she quarreled with some people and decided to leave the village.  As she was making her way out, she exclaimed, “Now let me see how the sun rises over this village”. 

“What do you mean?” asked the villagers.  The old woman replied, “The sun rises here only because my rooster crows at dawn.  That is not going to happen any more.  Both my rooster and I, are leaving this village!”  The old woman reached another village where she decided to stay.  The next morning, as usual, her rooster began  to crow. And the sun rose in the sky.  The old woman drew herself up and said haughtily, “Ha ! That will teach them to trifle with me!”  The foolish woman believed that, after she left the village, the sun never rose over it again.  Often, due to our arrogance, we also tend to think like her.

           We often hear people say, "That person has hurt me a lot.  He has made so unhappy that I will never be able to forgive." But if we think a little deeper, we will realize that it is actually our own ego that is hurting us.  Also, on such occasions, it is good to remember that we too have hurt others  and made many people unhappy.  In fact, no one can hurt us without our permission.

Life is like a stage full of Actors. And an Actor is totally vulnerable and  emotionally naked, without signs of fear or shame. His total personality, his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance is exposed to critical judgment and opinions. But it isn't Him at all rather just the ego he deliberately presents and discards with his many carefully rendered masks.
 ~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

Ego instigates us to approach individuals and situations indiscriminately and develop unhealthy attachments.  Whether it is an inner emotion, or directed towards an external object or individual, it is when we establish an indiscriminate attachment spawned innately and subliminally by the workings of egotism that we become hurt and disappointed.

          Consider a man tightly hugging a thorny bush and screaming,” Help! Help! I cannot bear this pain!”  Who can help him?  Only he himself  because he is the one hugging the bush. Only if he himself lets go of the bush, will his pain cease.  Many of our troubles are like this  -- they are our own creations.  They are the result of our own indiscriminate and uncontrolled ego.  We impose  the troubles created by our own mind upon external objects, individuals and situation, and constantly fool ourselves.  We can be free of this only through spiritual contemplation and practice.  Therefore, just as you eat and sleep, you should try to make Spirituality a part of your life. 

Blessings & Best Wishes.

Sincerely,

Jai Krishna Ponnappan :)

IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE AURORA SHOOTING SPREE: MAY YOU REST IN PEACE

MAY YOU REST IN PEACE

The Angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their Loved ones are safe in the hand of God.

Jessica Ghawi, 24

Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6

John T. Larimer, 27

Alexander J. Boik, 18

Jesse E. Childress, 29

Jonathan T. Blunk, 26

Rebecca Wingo, 32

Alex M. Sullivan, 27

Gordon Cowden, 51

Micayla Medek, 23

Alexander Teves, 24

Matthew McQuinn, 27

Death leaves a heartache that no one can heal, and Love leaves a memory that no one can steal.To live in Hearts we leave behind Is not to die.....

If the people we Love are stolen from us, the way to have them Live on is to never stop Loving them.

Satyam Shivam Sundaram ~ Truth is Eternal and Beautiful by Jai Krishna Ponnappan

 ~ Satyam Shivam Sundaram ~

' Satyam Shivam Sundaram '~ Truth is Eternal and Beautiful

From Grays & Shades to Love & Light .

This is a comment in response to an article I read at,
http://blog.californiapsychics.com/blog/2012/07/fifty-shades-of-grey-the-story-between-the-lines.html

               This is only my second comment on this blog this year but I enjoyed reading every single word published on it thus far. Since I believe the people here have an inclination from time to time to divine the Truth, there is no harm in stripping it all down to expose it. 

                 Regardless of what we accept, believe or don’t and Just to go along with what the said Author intended from within the depths of that heart….. it is unfortunate that a lot of the false facades of creativity you see around here is based on the only true ‘~ism’ that is religiously followed in this country. It is called ‘plagiarism’, kind of like invading one’s space and life, extracting bits and pieces of their very personal stories, works and struggles, even if it is from the private lives of real people and then stitching it together with a lot of tasteless, imprecise and vulgar perversions to cook up for yourselves a senseless collage wrapped with baseless and meaningless reasons and decorated with fleeting but worthless $profits$. Even though this may sound a little harsh, such people who spend their lives putting together such works will certainly spend what may seem like an eternity locked ensnared inside an intense entrapment that burns both within and around their Souls polluting every thing and every one that shares in the tastes and poisons delivered by the likes of it. For this is what transpires from all falsehood and thievery. 

“The Truth is rarely pure and never simple.” 

~ Oscar Wilde

You see, thieves who steal and invade the sanctity of another’s existence know nothing about relationships, roles, physical or otherwise. They have never even come close to daring to truly experience, learn and live the Truth. Just as it is mentioned in the other blog entry for today, http://blog.californiapsychics.com/blog/2012/07/what-the-heck-is-intuition.html . One can’t sense any intuition inside their guts, their Souls, their eyes, their flesh or their hearts, they are misguided by the reactions of their many misdeeds and greed. Their words are making an attempt at mimicking fiction and inadvertently mocking the Truth. It is sad how inauthentic and unoriginal every idea expressed here in the said book is, it is sad how people can dare to steal from other Souls and think they can get away so easily without paying the Spiritual price for it. Yes it’s been done by so many others before, but it is still just as deplorable. I’m not saying that invading another’s privacy, psychological intimidation, eves dropping and threatening another is bad or whatever…no but perverting it for profits and portraying it with ‘unoriginal’ falsehood certainly is. 

“You can bend it and twist it... You can misuse and abuse it... But even God cannot change the Truth.” 

~Michael Levy

You live the Truth and write about it or you steal it and lie about it. Writers and Liars are two different breeds that scale along two different extremes. One knows the Truth and the other doesn't. You may please take the liberty to count this as a joke but In my opinion hell is too good for such banal authors ….. Where ever He may be I can hear Marquis de Sade laughing at us all. I’m joking, but I suppose God has most certainly..at least by now, given Marquis de Sade a special license to stalk down the said author’s Soul for himself.

   " Life is a powerful and flowing journey full of Truth. Serve it and it will Serve You ." 

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

-----------------------------X-----------------------------

I am appending another note I made relating to the subject of the Truth from my facebook,

https://www.facebook.com/notes/jai-krishna-ponnappan/oscar-wildes-critique-of-monistic-notions-of-truth/445470778807815

~ Oscar Wilde’s Critique of Monistic Notions of Truth ~

“ A Truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes it.”— Oscar Wilde

Note: I found this on today's Forbes thought of the day daily welcome message page,

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml/

I've always found this fascination and attempts at caging the Truth to be an endlessly interesting subject, something full of bold and colorful opinions. I wanted to make a quick note of this reasonable and valid analysis of Wilde's Notions and the above quote in particular. 

Wilde frequently discussed the concept of truth, and, in so doing, he repeatedly questioned the univocal notions commonly associated with that concept: its alleged explicitness, supremacy and universality. The following passage from The Critic as Artist demonstrates Wilde’s aversion to such a monistic understanding of truth. ‘For what is Truth?’, Gilbert disrespectfully asks his friend, a rhetorical question which he answers for himself: ‘In matters of religion, it is simply the opinion that has sur­vived. In matters of science, it is the ultimate sensation. In matters of art it is one’s last mood.’ The universal term ‘truth’ (capitalized by Wilde) disintegrates into lesser terms, such as ‘opinion,’ ‘sensation,’ and ‘mood,’ all of them debunking the high value of truth and diminishing it in conceptional scope and significance. The totality of truth is revealed as a fragmentary, even a contradictory affair. As with so many of Wilde’s epigrams and bon mots, the above passage is the inversion of a collective habit: the practice of representing our ideas, views and opinions as the truth, the anxiety to verify them, and this in the original sense of the word, veritatem facere. This coincides with another attitude criticized by Wilde. It is the tendency to judge our ‘intellectual products’ according to their truth-value, provability and verifiability, to force them into rigid patterns of scientific reasoning and, finally, to either declare them to be absolute ‘truths’ or to reject them on grounds of their ‘fallacy.’ Thus, lively ideas undergo a process of reification, that is, they turn into petrified facts and immutable commonplaces. 

This leads to a further criticism expressed in Wilde’s work. Commonplaces are constituted by majority views. It is often suggested that these views are true because many people believe in them. Wilde also turns this topos on its head: ‘A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.’ While this inversion is as untenable as its popular antithesis, it does show Wilde’s abiding dislike of all those instances conspiring to the stagnation and ossification of creative knowledge: public opinion, verified facts, closed reasonings, proven certainties. At variance with Bacon, Wilde does not value firmly established ‘truths’ as a source of pleasure but, on the contrary, considers them as the graveyard of human understanding. ‘Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead reli­gions.’ It is characteristic of Wilde to compare intellectual securities and certainties with death, while regarding sceptical doubt as a lively activity: ‘To believe is very dull. To doubt is inten­sely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live. To be lulled into security is to die.’

“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”

 ~ James Arthur Baldwin 

The intellectual attitudes outlined so far in many ways follow the epistemological views of Wilde’s Oxford mentor, Walter Pater (1839-1894). For him, too, human understanding no less than scientific discovery is a highly relative, tentative, inconclusive process. The transitoriness, diversity and inconsistency of understanding cannot, for Pater, be integrated into a definite concept of truth. Thus, it is impossible ‘to arrest every object in an eternal outline, to fix thought in a neces­sary formula, and the varieties of life in a classification by ‘kinds’, or genera.’ Nevertheless, philosophers have attempted to reduce the complexities inside and outside the human mind to clear-cut essences; as an example Pater cites the epistemological writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). Once again, the definition of truth centres upon notions of certainty and totality. ‘We are,’ Coleridges states, ‘to seek [...] for some abso­lute truth.’

It is to be found [...] neither in object or subject taken sepa­ra­te­ly, and consequently [...] must be found in that which is neither subject nor object exclusively, but which is the identity of both.

The nomenclature is symptomatic, particularly the word ‘identity’ which recurs throughout Coleridge’s definition of truth: the identity of subject and object, being and knowledge, idea and reality. On the other hand, this longing for unity and totality springs from a profound anxiety over the fragmentary, the doubtful, the equivocal, the paradoxical – everything that cannot be decided or arrested. Pater arrives at opposite conclusions. Indeed, our impressions of the world are ‘unstable, flickering, inconsistent,’ in short, a ‘whirlpool.’ However, this recognition no longer causes uneasiness. Rather it is taken as an inevitable, yet promising and rewarding mode of coping with the world.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity
 in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. 
~ Albert Einstien

Similar attitudes emerge in Oscar Wilde. Human understanding he sees as an inevitably provisional and paradoxical process, and that in two ways: paradoxical in the original sense of the word, pará dóxa, i.e. contradicting existing opinions; but paradoxical, too, in the sense of self-contradiction, of the contradictoriness of reality and reality models, including that of the human mind. The following epigram pin-points this double meaning: ‘The well-bred con­tradict other people. The wise contradict them­selves.’ Contradicting oneself and contradicting others obviously contains a fallibilistic potential, in other words, cheerfully admitting our own fallibility and that of others, which brings us to a further characteristic of Wilde’s life and work: his playfulness, his liking for games (intellectual, social and dramatic), his playing-around with mistaken identities and realities, both in his drama and in the drama of his life. This conjunction of playful paradoxes, intellectual games, and fallibilistic musings recurs throughout his dramatic work and in his essays, particularly in The Por­trait of Mr. W.H., an essay said to ‘anticipate Borges.’ One could equally argue that The Portrait is even more an exemplum of Popper’s critical fallibilism.

" No matter how harsh, bitter, ugly and unpleasant the Truth may seem to be...I will always Love it, as unconditionally as ever, when you give it to me. And will stay truly indebted to Love you, respect you and pave the way for you into its serene, open, free and endless pastures. The Love in the Truth and the Truth in Love is beautiful and far from a shameful thing to be covered and clothed with fear. " 


by

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan ~