Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

I found this Christian worship songs video to be awesome and very inspiring, RON KENOLY - GOD IS ABLE FULL CONCERT, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VduWq4OCXU , 1 hr. 27 min. 08 secs. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Is_Able_(Ron_Kenoly_album) : "God Is Able is the Christian worship music album recorded by Ron Kenoly and was recorded live at the Atlanta Civic Center in Atlanta and was released in 1994 by Integrity/Hosanna! Music/Sparrow Records." Ravi: The youtube video seems to be this Atlanta Civic Center live recording and so is around two decades old. The wiki page also has list of songs in the recording. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Kenoly : Ron Kenoly (born December 6, 1944) is an American Christian worship leader, singer, and songwriter whose expressed mission is "to create an environment for the manifest presence of God". His musical style is one of jubilant praise and individual excellence on musical instruments. Although Kenoly hims...

An email response from a correspondent to the contents of a previous blogpost, Claimed paranormal connections via mediums to Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba; Splinter devotee groups , was about how he had a pleasant and unpleasant experience with a 'postman' job of delivering a real-life Swami message to another person. That led me to do some more thinking on medium messages and arrive at a more nuanced view on medium messages related to Swami, as given below. What would I do if I received a message from Swami in a dream to be passed on to somebody (known to me)? Hmm. I would be in quite a dilemma as it has never happened to me so far and I hope and pray that I never land into such a dilemma in future :). I think I may be very frank with the intended recipient and tell him/her that I simply don't know why I got the message in a dream, and that I felt it is my duty to pass on the message. He/she is free to consider the message seriously or to reject it completely. I will a...

The video mentioned below has great pictures and video clippings of Ramana Maharshi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi , and is very much worth seeing if you have not seen such material earlier. Ramana Maharshi is one of my favourite 20th century Indian spiritual teachers and saints and his teachings as well as his life story have been a very important source of spiritual inspiration for me. Towards the end of the video the commentator talks about Ramana Maharshi's emphasis on the path of self-inquiry. I have been blessed and privileged to hear Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba talk about the same self-inquiry on quite a few occasions in Sai Kulwanth Hall (Puttaparthi main darshan hall). Sathya Sai Baba would say Koham (who am I); Soham (I am He), and would follow it up with I am I (Nenu Nene in Telugu). Sathya Sai Baba's I am I seems to me to be equivalent to the I-I referred by Ramana Maharshi as narrated by the commentator. Transcript of youtube video, "Raman...

Last updated on July 29th 2018 As this is a sensitive matter related to faith in mediums who claim to have the power to interact with/talk to Sathya Sai Baba in some manner, I want to be very careful in my comments. I will just say that so long as the teachings of Swami in such interactions are in line with the teachings of Swami that we were blessed to receive from his physical form, the teachings part of these interactions will not cause any harm to the Sai mission and it may contribute to better dissemination of the Sai teachings. But there may also be a very sensitive instructions/advice part in these interactions applying to specific individuals who approach (or have been approached by) the medium. I personally would very much hesitate to follow such instructions/advice delivered via a medium. If Swami came directly to me in a dream and gave me some instructions/advice, I would certainly consider them seriously, perhaps getting into deep prayer and meditation sessions to get c...

Last updated on July 20th 2014 Here are two very distressing articles, Christians flee from Islamic State threats, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/07/christians-flee-islamic-state-death-threats-2014719848721494.html and ISIS Forces Last Iraqi Christians to Flee Mosul, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/world/middleeast/isis-forces-last-iraqi-christians-to-flee-mosul.html Ravi: 1,700 years! Forms of Christianity that are probably much closer to the preaching and practice of Jesus Christ than the mix of secular power and spirituality/religion that the Roman church became after Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman empire (in 380 AD), are being swept away in lands not very far from the land where Jesus Christ performed his miracles and preached his mission! What a tragedy! That in today's early 21st century there are religious groups, who at the point of the gun, threaten people of another religion who have been practicing their religion in th...

Last updated on October 6th 2014 Here is a recent tweet of Pope Francis (twitter handle @Pontifex): The Church, by her nature, is missionary. She exists so that every man and woman may encounter Jesus. — Pope Francis (@Pontifex) July 17, 2014 [Ravi: Text message repeated as sometimes the twitter message box is not shown: The Church, by her nature, is missionary. She exists so that every man and woman may encounter Jesus.] I retweeted (RT) this message as follows: Similar for all religions RT @Pontifex The Church, by her nature, is missionary. She exists so that every man and woman may encounter Jesus. — Ravi S. Iyer (@RaviSaiIyer) July 17, 2014 [Ravi: Text message repeated as sometimes the twitter message box is not shown: Similar for all religions RT @Pontifex The Church, by her nature, is missionary. She exists so that every man and woman may encounter Jesus.] My view is that Sai organizations, associated with both Bhagawan Sri Shirdi Sai Baba and Bhagawan S...

Last updated on 18th Sept. 2020 18th Sept. 2020 Update: I had an inner urge to name-snip the names of some person(s) in this post and so have done so. This post got missed out in the name-snipping I did some months ago. Here's an interesting article by Prof. G. Venkataraman of Radio Sai on rather bizarre claims being made about Swami's (Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's) subtle body (light body) appearances/residence in Muddenahalli and Kodaikanal, http://media.radiosai.org/journals/vol_12/01JUL14/TO-FOLLOW-SWAMIS-WISH-OR-NOT-part-01.htm The reference to mail(s) in this regard in the above article seems to be Mr. Isaac Tigrett's mail(s). Here is a link which shows one such mail content, https://www.facebook.com/christina.hofmann.902/posts/10203813307280314 . The photos in this link show the veteran Sathya Sai community/fraternity leader Shri B.N. Narasimhamurthy as well. I thought I should also share my two paise (Indian 'cents') on the matter. Please be tol...

Here's a recent article about overwork (culture) killing some white collar staff in China, "In China, 1,600 People Die Every Day From Working Too Hard", http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-03/in-china-white-collar-workers-are-dying-from-overwork One of the great things about having a spiritual or religious basis for life is that one is clear that life is a very precious gift in which making a living is an important part but not the most important part. The most important part is the spiritual and/or religious part dealing with values like worship & adoration of God, ethical living which includes fulfilling one's role in the family (as sons & daughters, as parents etc.), peace, love and joy. So making a living alone typically will not dominate such a person's life to the extent of killing him/her from overwork. But they might rise less in their career and make lesser money due to the balance they keep between making a living and living their ...