Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

I was very happy to see that Indian Prime Minister Hon'ble Shri Narendra Modi conveyed his thanks via a letter sent by his Private Secretary to Shri Sai Kaustav Dasgupta for sending him his book on his Swami experiences. The cover of the book and the letter is shown in pic below (note that Sai Kaustuv was OK with this pic being shared on the blog). [You may click on the pic to see it in high-resolution and click outside the high-resolution pic to get back to the blog post]. Sai Kaustuv is a differently-abled and spiritually-abled Sai devotee based in Puttaparthi whose Sai journey is a very inspiring experience, especially for people who are beset by difficulties. I think difficulties of most people, including mine, pale to almost nothingness in comparison to the challenges faced by Sai Kaustuv. And if Sai Kaustuv can overcome such challenges and be a great contributor to the Sathya Sai movement, why can't you and I with our typically much smaller challenges, take inspira...

Today's The Hindu carries this article quite critical of religious education in schools, Indoctrination in the guise of education, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/indoctrination-in-the-guise-of-education/article7045761.ece . I added the following comment to the article web page above: I am for religious education in schools but it should emphasize the common moral values along with the power of prayer to God/Divine power, that all religions mentioned by the author: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc., must be having. [I say, must be having, as I have not studied all these religions.] I think it should also include ethical values followed by humanist atheist and agnostic groups in India, however small their number may be. Any divisive aspects of scripture of various religions should not be included in the school education syllabus. --- end comment --- The above comment has been accepted i.e. put up on the above m...

Last updated on 9th Feb. 2019 Here are a few Google+ Puttaparthi Nature photo albums (pics taken between Nov. 2014 and Jan. 2015), along with a sample pic from each album: Orange Blaze Sunset in Puttaparthi , 4 pics, https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/+RaviSIyerSai/albums/6130133621518328769 [9th Feb. 2019: Above album in Google Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/e3aJAzGb9Dyvz7vQ9 .] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Manual Harvesting in Puttaparthi , 4 pics, https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/109605005465092301005/albums/6130135439172218049 [9th Feb. 2019: Above album in Google Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Pf7t7VVXtSioVQbv9 .] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- White Birds in Puttaparthi field , 3 pics, https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/109605005465092301005/albums/6130139819120451905 [9th Feb. 2019: Above album in Google Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/G57kv4gn2PA3sYnV8 .] --...

Last updated on 23rd March 2015 I came across this TEDx video from a Jeff Lieberman (holds two M.S. degrees from MIT),   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Lieberman_(roboticist) : "Science and spirituality: Jeff Lieberman at TEDxCambridge 2011", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0--_R6xThs , 14 min. 24 secs. This TEDx talk says something somewhat similar to what the Chandogya upanishad verses studied in my document says but in the language of modern science. [You may want to see my blog post, Some Shlokas from Chandogya Upanishad VI chapter including Tat tvam asi (You are That) Mahavakya, and comments on it .] Here is a transcript of the above talk: http://bea.st/inevolution/?p=264 . Some extract from and comments on it [I have taken the liberty of copying large extracts of the transcript as I have presumed that the author would not mind extracts of this spiritual talk of his being shared on this not-for-profit and not-monetised spiritual blog]: So who am I? I’m a hu...

Last updated on 20th March 2015 For novice (and even some experienced) spiritual aspirants today, perhaps one of the biggest challenges in figuring out which (Indian) ashram system is best suitable for them, is in dealing with the various allegations of fraud made against almost every ashram system. [This post is about Indian ashram systems. I don't have any direct exposure to non-Indian ashram systems but some parts of this post may apply to non-Indian ashram systems too.] Some sections of Indian television media revel in making sensationalist and wild allegations against Indian ashrams and god-men and god-women. I think that must be getting them a lot of eyeballs and so, advertisement revenue :-). The reality is that ashram systems are also composed of people who have come from regular society, and bring with them the good and bad of regular society, even if their intention is to eventually eschew all the bad. So some level of corruption and fraud is inevitable, IMHO, in a...

Last updated on 17th March 2015 As of today (16th March 2015), these are the Google search rankings for my main blog post on claimed subtle body/form of Swami (Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba) in Muddenahalli, "Radio Sai article on recent Swami (Sathya Sai Baba) subtle form appearance controversy", http://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2014/07/radio-sai-article-on-recent-swami.html , for the search terms given below (this ranking changes over time like 1st becoming 3rd or something like that but not a drastic change like 1st becoming 11th): 1st rank - Sathya Sai baba Muddenahalli subtle body 1st rank - Sathya Sai baba Muddenahalli subtle form 3rd rank - Sathya Sai Baba Muddenahalli light body 4th rank - Sathya Sai Baba subtle body 5th rank - Sathya Sai Baba subtle form 4th rank - Sathya Sai Baba light body 5th rank - Sathya Sai Baba light form [Please note that Google search giving the above rankings was done in an incognito Chrome browser window to avoid any personalized ...

Last updated on March 29th 2015 What if some medium told you about some private incident/interaction between you and physical form Swami - Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba? Will you then believe that the medium is really interacting with subtle form (sukshma sharira) of Bhagavan? Will you then start following advice/instructions given by this medium who says they are from subtle form/body of Bhagavan? What if all the above happened with me? What would I do? Well, firstly I may have some doubt about whether information about the private incident/interaction between (physical form) Swami and me, may have been passed on to the medium by somebody else in physical form. In other words, the medium found out this info. through normal means (and not paranormal means). For example, physical form Swami used pet-names, quite funny pet-names many times :-), to refer to Sai university students. This pet-name would become common knowledge among student peers during that batch's stint at th...

Last updated on March 10th 2015 Some abstract/high-level but simple theological/philosophical Hindu scriptural view of existential reality In June 2010 I had prepared a document of 12 pages on some largely abstract theology verses (shlokas) from a famous Hindu scripture, Chandogya Upanishad, VI chapter including Tat tvam asi (You are That) Mahavakya (Great Saying), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tat_Tvam_Asi , and comments on/interpretation of it by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Prof. Max Muller, and a few others. I also added some notes of mine to it. Given below are the links to the pdf and Word versions of the document. a) Pdf document: https://iami1.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/chandogyachapter6someshlokas.pdf b) Word document: https://iami1.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/chandogyachapter6someshlokas.docx Being a 'nominal'/by-name-only Sama Vedi Brahmin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaveda , I have been quite intrigued by this Upanishad, as it is from the Sama ...

Last updated on 24th March 2015 I felt it appropriate to reproduce below the comment exchanges (as of 6th March 2015) on my post, Radio Sai article on recent Swami (Sathya Sai Baba) subtle form appearance controversy, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2014/07/radio-sai-article-on-recent-swami.html . I have made minor grammatical-type fixes to the copied comments below which do not really change the content. Paul Kelly, February 26, 2015 at 6:18 AM Narasimhamurthy wasn't presenting himself as an intermediary. He was simply sharing a dream. -------------- Ravi S. Iyer, February 27, 2015 at 8:13 PM @PaulKelly: Here are my two bits on what you wrote. I could be just plain wrong. So do take my words with a pinch of salt. Well, some of Shri Narasimhamurthy's dreams did have instructions from Swami for others besides him (including at least one then senior administrator in the Sai university), and so in these matters he has acted as a medium in the past, and probably cont...

Last updated on 29th March 2015 This post was triggered by very anxious mails of an overseas devotee who was worried about the current divisive challenge breaking up UNITY of the Sathya Sai fraternity/organization(s). My not-so-important take on the general situation now with reference to what I see as the divisive challenge that a rival group is threatening the Sai fraternity with, is as follows (Please note that I currently am not a member of any Sai organization): The vacuum caused by Swami's physical absence has been traumatic to the Puttaparthi/Prashanti Nilayam ashram system. While the activities still go on in some fashion, the old atmosphere of sanctity, devotion to and, very importantly, fear of, Bhagavan seems to have come down significantly. In my considered view, fear of Bhagavan if one did not do one's job properly or did something improper, kept everybody in the ashram system - manual workers, technicians, teachers, doctors and even ashram administrators -...