Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

In response to a Facebook post with the saying, "You'll not be punished for your anger, you'll be punished by your anger. - Buddha", I wrote the following: My take is that in some exceptional situations, anger may be good. Sometimes righteous anger leads to necessary, even if harsh, action against Asathya & Adharma. One sees that in the accounts of the Hindu Avatars. Not only in the account of Narasimha avatar who is famed for his anger at the demon king Hiranyakashipu whom he killed in a rather brutal way, but also Rama and Krishna Avatars. I think even Shirdi Sai and Sathya Sai avatars have been righteously angry at times and have acted strongly against Asathya & Adharma in that mood. ---- Our Puranas have lots of incidents of anger and the good or bad it causes. Durvasa's anger may not have been righteous anger in many cases, as he could easily get angry and hurl damaging curses at people. But I cannot help mentioning here about Krishna's ang...

Shubha Ramesh Kumar's Facebook post here, https://www.facebook.com/shubha.kumar/posts/10157726443285538 , informs us that Hon'ble minister for health of the state of Karnataka, Shri Ramesh Kumar, has accepted the invitation to be a chief guest for Alike Sports Meet function on 30th Dec. 2016 (tomorrow). Shri Ramesh Kumar is Shubha Ramesh Kumar's father. Note that Alike is in Karnataka state and is one of the Sai schools run by the Sri Sathya Sai Loka Seva Trust. Shubha writes as follows: Shri Gangadhar Bhat, reverentially referenced to as Anna is a doyen, a tyagajeevi and a great devotee of Swami that one and all in the Sai Community look up to including my father who is indicated on the invitation as one of the Chief Guests for the Alike Sports Meet. My father's relationship with the tyagajeevis at Alike and the Alike institution is older than Madhusudhan Naidu, the whole Muddenahalli drama, and my father's ministerial position put together. It is in that s...

In the article/extract here: http://nisargadatta.net/SwamiParamatmananda.html , Sadguru Nisargadatta is reported to have said to a person who thought that the path for her was just thinking that she is the Supreme Being, "Nowadays people are full of intellectual conceit.  They have no faith in the ancient traditional practices leading to Self-Knowledge.  They want everything served to them on a silver platter.  The path of knowledge makes sense to them and because of that, they may want to practice it.  The(y) will then find that it requires more concentration (than) they can muster and slowly becoming humble, they will finally take up easier practices like repetition of a mantra or worship of a form.  Slowly the belief in a Power greater then themselves will dawn on them and a taste for devotion will sprout in their heart.  Then only will it be possible for them to attain purity of mind and concentration.  The conceited have to go a very roundabout w...

Last updated on Dec. 27th 2016 Some comments of mine made recently on Facebook are reproduced below (slightly edited): See the great thing about Swami was he would transform people. If people were already saints they did not need to really come to Swami. They could have set up their own ashram. --- Well, let me tell you what I heard. Swami said, I was told, that he has taken form of Sathya Sai not for dedicated renunciants (sannyasis) as there are already realized masters who are available for such sannyasis (and sannyasinis). Neither has he come for those who are utterly disinterested in spirituality and are only interested in material world. He has come for those in the middle, part of the world and yet having spiritual interests and aspirations. That explanation seems to fit well into my experience of Prasanthi Nilayam. It has been and continues to be dominated by married people with families and not Tyagajeevis. And it is that, that is attractive to many people the world...

"Silent Night" ft. Plácido Domingo -The Piano Guys #ASaviorIsBorn, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMvURdq8V6U , around 4 mins. The great Placido Domingo singing some lines of Silent Night The best of Silent Night - Christmas in Vienna, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rh1xzpKc-o , around 11 mins. A gathering of superstars! Silent Night (Live At The Helix In Dublin, Ireland/2013), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf16EBNTxGI , 3 min. 30 secs Justin Bieber singing Silent Night (audio only)! This is one of the first times I am hearing his voice. He does a great job singing two verses of Silent Night! Some voice! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WZI4g7qKrg , 2 min. 49 secs.

Last updated on 25th Dec. 2016 I came across this very interesting article by a regular New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, Am I a Christian, Pastor Timothy Keller?, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/opinion/sunday/pastor-am-i-a-christian.html , Dec. 23rd 2016. It has a question and answer session between Kristof and Pastor, Timothy Keller, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Keller_(pastor) . [I guess I will have to read at least one book of Pastor Keller, about whom I think I had not heard earlier. The wiki mentions his book, The reason for God, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reason_for_God , published in 2008 as making it to #7 on the New York Times Nonfiction bestseller list. Amazon India lists new paperback copy of the book at Rs. 694/-, http://www.amazon.in/Reason-God-Timothy-Keller/dp/034097933X .] Kristof starts off the Q&A by saying that he has deep admiration for the teachings (message) of Jesus but is skeptical of the miracles associated with Jesus inc...

One of my favourite Christmas songs, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Here is Jewel singing it Live, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PURr2u0HKGE , 3 min. 20 secs. Some of the uplifting lines in it: With angelic host proclaim "Christ is born in Bethlehem" Hark the herald angels sing "Glory to the newborn king" ... Hail the heaven born prince of peace Hail the son of righteousness Light and life to all he brings Risen with healing in his wings Born that man no more may die Born to raise the sons of earth Born to give them second birth Hark the herald angels sing "Glory to the newborn king" Here are the full lyrics: https://play.google.com/music/preview/T7y6252dslnn44xa3wyvtkyrzx4?lyrics=1 Ravi: I wish all who adore, love and worship Jesus Christ (that includes me, for sure) a very holy and spiritually uplifting Christmas Eve. ============================================================ An Indian correspondent who was born & raised...

Last updated on 24th Dec. 2016 I have heard some persons in Prasanthi Nilayam say that Swami has said that for good work, money will come on its own. The implication was that if somebody wants to do some Seva activity that is good, money will never be a problem, and that that is Swami's assurance. Now I have heard from many people about how careful Swami would be with money. One person who had many interactions with Swami about lots of work that he had done for Swami in Prasanthi Nilayam, told me that once when he asked Swami for money for the work, Swami responded on the lines of - Dabbu, Dabbu, Dabbu! Ekadnunchi vastundi Dabbu? That translates to - Money, money, money! From where will the money come? [Update: What I have written here about the person who did PN work for Swami, was about him asking Swami for money to pay labour and materials for work that Swami directly ordered him to do. This would have been in or around the 1970s and 1980s (or perhaps even the 1990s).] T...

Last updated on  6 Jun. 2024 6 Jun. 2024: Sensitive content has been snipped. Recently I was asked by somebody about my experiences with Swami (Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba). I said that I have blogged most of it and that I could point her to those of my blog posts. That led me to do to a quick (and so not so thorough) viewing of my blog including the partially done Table of Contents page, to identify which posts had some content related to my experiences with Swami. Note that most of these posts are not focused only on my experience with Swami - they have other content too. I must also say right away that my physical form Swami experiences/interactions have mostly been facial/body gestures of Swami to me usually at fairly close distance of around five to ten feet, or his public discourses heard live by me in his presence, where he cleared specific doubts of mine (I believe that he would simply know such doubts of mine without me saying it to him verbally). I did not desire t...

[Readers who get disturbed by such topics may please skip reading this post.] Given below is a paraphrased account with one paragraph being reproduced, about Shri Nyaya Sharma and his death around and slightly before 1973, from Chapter 3 of the book, Sai Baba, The Ultimate Experience by Phyllis Krystal. [Google Books preview link to view page 18, first page of chapter 3 of this book: https://books.google.co.in/books?id=qr04VrPsXE4C&pg=PA18 ] Krystal writes that in a visit to Bombay prior to 1973 and prior to coming to know about Sathya Sai Baba and taking his darshan, she and her husband had met a Guru, Sri Nyaya Sharma, who taught them a meditation technique and also a method of healing. Phyllis Krystal had kept in "close contact" with Nyaya Sharma through letters until his seemingly untimely and shocking death. Krystal writes that Nyaya Sharma reportedly materialized objects for his devotees but that she had specifically told him that she wanted to receive spiritua...

In a recent Facebook interaction, one person wrote that Baba had said to somebody that if Baba tells something and one's heart tells something else, to always follow one's heart. Given below is a modified version of my comment response to the above. My view is that Bhagavan has taught us to follow our heart, follow our conscience as the pure heart and conscience is where God resides. But we need to interpret that properly. The word 'heart' is used in all kinds of emotional contexts including that of romantic love one human being may have for another human being. My understanding of Bhagavan's words is that we should follow what our pure heart says. But the hassle is, how do we identify what our monkey-mind is prompting based on material desires that cloud our pure spiritual heart, and what our pure spiritual heart is saying. In fact, I am more comfortable with Bhagavan's teaching expressed in terms of conscience rather than the very elastic word, 'hea...

Last updated on  23rd April 2020 23rd April 2020 Update: I had an inner urge to name-snip the names of some person(s) in this post and so have done so. Around lunch time today, I spoke to a student-staff in Prasanthi Nilayam system about the strange case of brother VijaySai B.S. (VSBS). VSBS was in heavy form with physical form Swami for some time. He is an alumus of Sai university, a former teacher of Sai university, a singer, a speaker and a writer!!! That sort-of combo. is UNMATCHED in the history of Sai university, I believe. During my (free spiritual seva) stint in the Sai university (designations of Honorary Staff, Honorary Faculty and Visiting Faculty) from Jan. 2003 to March 2012, I have seen some talented Sai student teacher-speakers and some talented Sai student staff-singers but nobody with the combination of skills that VSBS has. How did VSBS get caught up in this FALSE BELIEF about so called communicator Madhusudan Rao Naidu (MRN)?? MRN is VSBS's student! So VS...