Spring

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

~ Anne Bradstreet

Methane on Mars could signal life

By Dr David Whitehouse
Is there life beneath the soil?

Methane has been found in the Martian atmosphere which scientists say could be a sign that life exists today on Mars.

It was detected by telescopes on Earth and has recently been confirmed by instruments onboard the European Space Agency's orbiting Mars Express craft. Methane lives for a short time in the Martian atmosphere so it must be being constantly replenished. Scientists see two possibilities, both of them scientifically important, but one of them is sensational: either active volcanoes, none of which have been found yet on Mars, or microbes - meaning life on Mars.

Read full article at the BBC News site.

Divinity Invoked To Save Ganges River

PATNA, INDIA, march 23, 2004: Every morning, dozens of Hindu men and women gather at the Khojkala ghat to offer prayers and sing hymns in praise of "Ganga Maiya" or Mother Ganga to save the river from pollution. Arjun Prasad, a member of the group, said the rituals would continue for a year. "We have begun here but will organize prayers at different points along the river," he said. The group has also launched a clean-up campaign and is creating awareness among the people on the need to keep the river free of pollution. "We have been requesting devotees not to throw polyethylene and garbage into the river," said Arjun Prasad Yadav, another member of the group. Members of the group lend a hand every morning to clean up the river. Baskets have also been placed at various points to deposit material left over after prayers that would otherwise get thrown into the river. Last week, noted environmentalist Medha Patkar had urged Bihar Chief Minster Rabri Devi to initiate measures to save the Ganges from getting further polluted. Raw sewage, rotting carcasses, industrial effluent, fertilizers and pesticides infect the river for much of its 1,550 mile stretch from the Himalayan foothills to the Bay of Bengal. The river is highly polluted by the time it reaches Patna, some 1,050 miles downstream from its source.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/577471.cms

Modern Mystics: Ramakrishna

Ramakrishna was one of the greatest Indian mystics of the past 150 years. He was born in 1836 and died in 1886 and his short life represents the very core of the Vedantic spiritual realizations of the seers and sages of India throughout history. His whole life was literally an uninterrupted contemplation of God. He reached a depth of universal consciousness that transcended space and time and had a truly universal appeal. Ramakrishna, as a silent force, influenced the spiritual thought currents of his time and at his death his reputation has been well established in his native Calcutta. But, it wasn't until Swami Vivekananda, his most famous disciple, brought his message of universal consciousness and Vedanta to America in 1893, that his name became synonymous with the best of Eastern mysticism. This God-man of nineteenth-century India did not found any cult, nor show a new path to salvation. His message was his own living God-consciousness. At a time when the very foundation of Hinduism was crumbling under the relentless blows of colonialism, materialism and skepticism, Ramakrishna demonstrated that God can be a living presence and that consiousness can transcend all material illusions and realize true universal consiousness. Drawn by the magnetism of Ramakrishna's mystical personality, people flocked to him from all over Bengal and India. His small room in the Dakshineswar temple garden on the outskirts of Calcutta became a living parliament of religions. Everyone who came to him felt uplifted by his profound presence, boundless love, and universal outlook. Each seeker saw in him the highest manifestation of his own ideal.

The greatest contribution of Ramakrishna to the modern world is his message of the harmony of all religions. To Ramakrishna all religions are the revelation of God in His diverse aspects to satisfy the diversity of human minds. Like different photographs of a building taken from different angles, different religions give us the pictures of one truth from different standpoints. They are not contradictory but complementary. Sri Ramakrishna faithfully practiced the spiritual disciplines of all the different religions and came to the realization that all of them lead to the same goal. Truth. Universal Truth. Ramakrishna declared, "As many faiths, so many paths." The paths vary, but the goal remains the same. Harmony of religions is not uniformity; it is unity in diversity.

Extracted from The Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center site.

Today in Mythology

Today
In the ancient Persian calendar, this day was celebrated as the birthday of Zarathushtra (Zoroaster), who is said to have been born to a 15-year old virgin in 660 BCE.


Today is also the birthday of mythologist and "Follow Your Bliss" teacher Joseph Campbell (1910).

Sunday March 28
A day of mystery in many ancient calendars. It was widely believed in the Hellenistic and early Christian periods that God created the Sun and the Moon on this day. Third-century Christians accordingly chose 3/28 as the day of Christ's nativity, and observed it as such until the December feast of Christmas was created in the 4th century. On this day the ancient Romans hold ceremonies of purification and sacrifice, including, in later Roman times, gladiatorial combats at the tombs of their ancestors.

In ancient Mesopotamian calendars, this is the feast day of Ishtar, goddess of love and war.


March 29 - 30

In the Hindu calendar, this day is Ramanavami, birthday of Rama, one of the most powerful and beloved avatars of Vishnu the Creator. The epic Ramayana tells the story of Rama and his consort Sita, avatar of Lakshmi. Ramanavami is among the most spectacular of Hindu holidays, as it features enactments in theatre and dance of such famous episodes as Rama and Sita hunting the Golden Deer.

~ From the Universal Festival Calendar by Dan Furst

Ancient Rock Art Site Rediscovered in Southern India

KUPGAL HILL, INDIA, March 19, 2004: A rock art site dating back to the Neolithic or late Stone Age has been rediscovered in southern India. There is evidence that the site was first found in 1892 but the exact location was lost to future archaeologists. The Kupgal Hill site, according to the article, has boulders which have small, groove-like impressions called "musical stones" by locals. When struck with small granite rocks, these impressions emit deep, "gong-like notes." These boulders may have been an important part of formalized rituals by the people who came there. Researchers believe that shamen or young males came to Kupgal Hill to "tap into" the power of the site. Dr. Nicole Boivin from the University of Cambridge in the UK has written a book called "The Antiquity," and in this book she explains that in some cultures percussion plays a role in rituals that are intended for shamen to communicate with the supernatural world. At the Kupgal Hill site Dr. Boivin observed that the motifs on the rocks are of cattle and some human-like figures either on their own or with the cattle. Dr. Boivin is concerned about modern day commercial granite quarrying in the area.

~ from the BBC News site at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3520384.stm

Happy Spring Equinox

Spring Equinox, one of the four great cardinal festivals of the solar year. The spring season begins as the Sun enters Aries, and as James Joyce put it, the Ram has power. The festival period that begins now, and lasts for nearly a week, marks the return of Light, and of Mother Earth's vitality, from winter's long darkness and cold. From this point on the solar wheel, the days grow longer until the Summer Solstice and the "white nights" of late June. Spiritual traditions all over the planet celebrate this festival with hunts for eggs, rabbits and other symbols of birth. The Spring Equinox and the New Moon in Aries are both doubly charged this year (2004), coming as they do within only a few hours of each other.

The ancient Celtic and other central European peoples called the Spring Equinox Alban Eilir, or Ostara (source of "Easter"). It marks the day when the Earth goddess Bride, who had married the sky god at Imbolc time in early February, conceives the Sun Child who will be born nine months later at the Winter Solstice.

Like the Winter Solstice festival cycle that runs from Dec. 21 - 25, the Spring Equinox festival cycle extends over a few days, March 21 to 25. The reason for this is simply that in very ancient times, millennia before the rise of Ur and Egypt, the Spring Equinox fell on March 25 and thus was celebrated on that day. It has since moved back, from the Precession of the Equinoxes, to March 21. Thus the closer the equinox festival is to March 21, the newer it is; the closer it is to March 25, the more ancient; or, as in the case of Christian festivals, superseded an older "pagan" festival.

In Japan this day is Shubun, the Buddhist day of contemplation on hakanai, the impermanence of things. This day is ideally placed, not long before the start of one of natures's most glorious spectacles of impermanence, the Japanese cherry blossom season.

In India, this is the great annual Hindu Spring festival of Navaratri, also called Gangaur because it celebrates the Great Mother (Maha Devi) in her aspect as Gauri, the nurturer, the source of all vitality, fruition and increase. Each of the festival's nine days -- the number symbolizing the months in a human gestation cycle -- venerates a different emanation of the goddess.

~ from the Universal Festival Calendar by Dan Furst at www.hermes3.net

Preparation for becoming a Mystic: 2

Buddhist techniques of preparation
From The New Meditation Handbook
Meditations to Make Our Life Happy and Meaningful
by Geshe Kelsang

These potentials are like seeds in the field of our mind, and our meditation practice is like cultivating these seeds. However, our meditation practice will be successful only if we make good preparations beforehand.

If we want to cultivate external crops we begin by making careful preparations. First, we remove from the soil anything that might obstruct their growth, such as stones and weeds. Second, we enrich the soil with compost or fertilizer to give it the strength to sustain growth. Third, we provide warm, moist conditions to enable the seeds to germinate and the plants to grow.

In the same way, to cultivate our inner crops of Dharma realizations we must also begin by making careful preparations.

First, we must purify our mind to eliminate the negative karma we have accumulated in the past, because if we do not purify this karma it will obstruct the growth of Dharma realizations. Second, we need to give our mind the strength to support the growth of Dharma realizations by accumulating merit. Third, we need to activate and sustain the growth of Dharma realizations by receiving the blessings of the holy beings.

It is very important to receive blessings. For example, if we are growing outer crops, even if we remove the weeds and fertilize the soil we shall not be able to grow anything if we do not provide warmth and moisture. These germinate the seeds, sustain the growth of the plants, and finally ripen the crop. In the same way, even if we purify our mind and accumulate merit we shall find it difficult to meet with success in our meditations if we do not receive the blessings of the holy beings.

Receiving blessings transforms our mind by activating our virtuous potentials, sustaining the growth of our Dharma realizations, and bringing our Dharma practice to completion.

From this we can see that there are three essential preparations for successful meditation: purifying negativities, accumulating merit, and receiving blessings.

Preparation for becoming a Mystic: I

The First Steps - Part 1
Yama, Niyama and Asana
The Yogic way
~ Swami Vivekananda

Raja Yoga is divided into eight steps. The first is Yama - non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, continence, and non-receiving of any gifts. Next is Niyama - cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study, and self-surrender to God. Then comes Asana, or posture; Pranayama, or control of Prana; Pratyahara, or restraint of the senses from their objects; Dharana, or fixing the mind on a spot; Dhyana, or meditation; and Samadhi, or superconsciousness. The Yama and Niyama, as we see, are moral trainings; without these as the basis no practice of Yoga will succeed. As these two become established, the Yogi will begin to realise the fruits of his practice; without these it will never bear fruit. A Yogi must not think of injuring anyone, by thought, word, or deed. Mercy shall not be for men alone, but shall go beyond, and embrace the whole world.

The next step is Asana, posture. A series of exercises, physical and mental, is to be gone through every day, until certain higher states are reached. Therefore it is quite necessary that we should find a posture in which we can remain long. That posture which is the easiest for one should be the one chosen. For thinking, a certain posture may be very easy for one man, while to another it may be very difficult. We will find later on that during the study of these psychological matters a good deal of activity goes on in the body. Nerve currents will have to be displaced and given a new channel. New sorts of vibrations will begin, the whole constitution will be remodelled, as it were. But the main part of the activity will lie along the spinal column, so that the one thing necessary for the posture is to hold the spinal column free, sitting erect, holding the three parts--the chest, neck, and head--in a straight line. Let the whole weight of the body be supported by the ribs, and then you have an easy natural posture, with the spine straight. You will easily see that you cannot think very high thoughts with the chest in. This portion of the Yoga is a little similar to the Hatha-Yoga which deals entirely with the physical body, its aim being to make the physical body very strong. We have nothing to do with it here, because its practices are very difficult, and cannot be learned in a day, and, after all, do not lead to much spiritual growth. Many of these practices you will find in Delsarte and other teachers, such as placing the body in different postures, but the object in these is physical, not psychological. There is not one muscle in the body over which a man cannot establish a perfect control. The heart can be made to stop or go on at his bidding, and each part of the organism can be similarly controlled.

The result of this branch of Yoga is to make men live long; health is the chief idea, the one goal of the Hatha-Yogi. He is determined not to fall sick, and he never does. He lives long; a hundred years is nothing to him; he is quite young and fresh when he is 150, without one hair turned grey. But that is all. A banyan tree lives sometimes 5000 years, but it is a banyan tree and nothing more. So, if a man lives long, he is only a healthy animal. One or two ordinary lessons of the Hatha-Yogis are very useful. For instance, some of you will find it a good thing for headaches to drink cold water through the nose as soon as you get up in the morning; the whole day your brain will be nice and cool, and you will never catch cold. It is very easy to do; put your nose into the water, draw it up through the nostrils and make a pump action in the throat.

To be continued....

The Emptiness

What sages learn
Is to return their nature
To the beginning
And let their minds
Travel freely in
Openness.
What developed people
Learn is to link their nature
To vast emptiness and
Become aware of the
Silent infinite.

~ Huai-nan-tzu

Meditation

Having closed all doors of the senses, and firmly holding the mind in the cavitiy of your heart and then fixing the life breath in the head and thus remaing steadfast in yogic concentration on god, he who leaves the body and departs uttering the one indestructible Brahma, OM and dwelling on me in my absolute aspect, reaches the supreme goal.
-BHAGVATGITA IV, meditation 12-15

The dream....

A great image metaphor of the trascendant dreaming of itself as real and vice versa - The Hindu concept of Vishnu (the universal consciousness) and Krishna (the living consciousness) are one and are nothing but a dream of each other as being different.

The flame within calls....

To be one with the inner light is a thirst that is hard to quench. Sometimes I fear I do not have the courage to stay the course. Like the moth that keeps approaching the flame of the lantern, I too am scared sometimes of being burnt. The glass around the flame is like my little glimpses, the ones I see when sometimes deep in meditation, I lose myself and feel a sense of bliss. Ah, if only I could break through the glass and then the flame and I could be like one. But the moth is fearless unlike me. It keeps striking its head against the glass. Who knows, one day it just might break through. Perhaps I too could be as lucky as that moth.

Death

This morning I woke up thinking of death. Why do we fear death? I suspect it is not death we fear, but the process of dying. We fear pain, suffering, loss, our own minds, debilitation, loneliness, over-dependency and regret. We have to develop the ability to cooperate gracefully with the inevitable, and death is inevitable. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, or in a week, what would you do? Would you review your life, prioritize what is important and then try and live out those priorities? Or, would you collapse in fear or denial at the thought of impending finality and enter that domain clinging to the pillow of your regrets? The latter is the gateway to hell, and it amounts to what hell really is, while the prior is the beginning of spiritual wisdom.

To understand the inevitability of death and to face it, no matter how far away it may appear to be is the key to the spiritual life. Mystics, prophets and monks of all traditions are called twice born. This implies that at some point in their lives, they choose to materially die and are then reborn into the spiritual life. They face death squarely and say, "now I live my life as a dead person!" What a release that must be. No more the fear of death. No more the dread of the inevitable. Now you are dead and you can fully live in the moment, every moment, and sense the presence of the divine.

Emotional and psychological mediocrity are not the way to live life, we should be able to plumb the depths of misery to understand true joy and bliss. If we face death squarely and understand that whatever time we have left, a week or forty years, is a gift to be valued, then perhaps we will live every moment fully from now on. First remove all regrets from your life. Then give your love to those you have shared your heart with along the way and give it freely and unconditionally. Then turn inwards and open your inner eye and say, "I am already dead, now let me return to the place I am really from." If you do this with sincerity, the void from which you have come, from which our very essence and matter arose, this void will open its gates and let you catch a glimpse of the light you will see when you die. This moment will be true bliss and then every moment of your life will be lived as a dead person, bathed in the light of timeless, formless, blissful immortality.

Waking up the mystic in me.....

When you look at me,
You see a man,
I bleed and ache and love and laugh,
Need love, need to love, need so much.
Yet every three days I shed my skin,
My cells die and are born again,
I am eternally new, born again and again.
They say that every atom in my body was once a star,
I too must sacrifice myself now
For I too was once a mountain, yes a star.
If you prod me deeper you will find,
I was there at the Beginning of time,
at the awakening of being and of mind.
I am essence at the subatomic plain
Subtle vibrations of cosmic strings
I am not a man, not what you see.
I am eternity trapped in the illusion of this reality.
I am everything there is, all that has been,
And all that is to be.
This body, this need, this time is only but a dream.

Kabir's poem

O SERVANT, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation.
If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.
Kabir says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath."

~ From the SONGS OF KABIR translated by Rabindranath Tagore

Contemplating the transcendental

"All things are created by the Om;
The love-form is His body.
He is without form, without quality, without decay:
Seek thou union with Him!
But that formless God takes a thousand forms in the eyes of His creatures:
He is pure and indestructible,
His form is infinite and fathomless,
He dances in rapture, and waves of form arise from His dance.
The body and the mind cannot contain themselves,
when they are touched by His great joy.
He is immersed in all consciousness, all joys, and all sorrows:
He has no beginning and no end;
He holds all within His bliss."
~Kabir