Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

Last updated on 1st October 2017 After I got onto JioFi 3 router, a device providing 4G Internet via WiFi, I took out my old iPod Touch 2nd Gen device which I had virtually stopped using after Bhagawan Mahasamadhi in April 2011. From Dec. 2009 till Bhagawan Mahasamadhi, I was using the device primarily as a pocket scripture ebook reader which I would take with me (in my pocket) to Sai Kulwant Hall and read scripture on it while waiting for Bhagavan's darshan. I was quite a scripture reading freak then - Hindu scripture mainly but with some Christian scripture too, and occasional Islamic scripture. Bhagawan Mahasamadhi and ensuing chaos, confusion and trauma changed all that for me. Hopefully I will get back to my scripture reading freak mode in the near future. I have lined up reading Bhagavat Purana full version (unabridged) which has accounts of many Hindu avatars, and located an Internet based source providing Sanskrit text (which I don't really understand but can read a...

Ravi: Today is Vijayadashmi, Dassera day. Dassera is celebrated by Hindus as the triumph of good over evil though there are variations in the good deities and bad demons that are remembered during these festivities across different groups of Hindus (and different parts of India). In some cases, it is Rama (god) defeating Ravana (demon). In other cases it is Durga (goddess) defeating Mahishasura (demon), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijayadashami . But the underlying story of divinity upholding good and defeating bad/evil is the same. The message of my beloved and revered Gurudev (spiritual master), Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, given below, is, IMHO, a very good capsule form message for good people, whether believers in divinity or not, on this Hindu festival day celebrating the victory of good over bad/evil through divine intercession in human affairs. Here is the video clip from Radio Sai, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv2QDJjhY_g , 4 min 38 secs. This discourse was given on ...

Last updated on 29th Sept. 2017 An Australian Wellness Blogger Has Been Fined $322,000 for Lying About Having Cancer, http://time.com/4960515/australia-belle-gibson-fined-lying-cancer/ . Very unfortunate! But the reality is that some people, including in India, make fake cure claims, including miraculous cure claims, simply for earning fame and/or money. Such fakes cast doubt on the real miraculous cures or real alternative therapy cures. Some extracts from wiki page on her, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gibson : In early March 2015, after media reporting identified Gibson's apparently fraudulent claims of charity fundraising and donation-making, further media investigation soon revealed that Gibson had also apparently fabricated her stories of cancer, and lied about her age as well as other details of her personal life and history. Concerns were expressed that Gibson had led a profligate lifestyle, renting an upmarket town house, leasing a luxury car and office s...

In a public post I put up some days ago, I had written, "My prayers to Almighty God and best wishes for the people of Houston and other parts of Texas, USA, reeling under floods from torrential rain that some say has not been seen before by them (not seen in Houston in living memory)." It was pointed out to me that some people have the view that God doesn't care about suffering that people endure like in the case of Hurricane Harvey and that the term 'Almighty God' can be offensive to some innocent people who have suffered due to such disasters. I had not realized that such words of mine could cause offense to some! My apologies to those who got offended by my usage of those words. There is no doubt that there was and continues to be some horrific level of fear and suffering that's going on in Houston and other places in Texas, USA (including the coastal town of Rockport that got battered by the hurricane; flooding may not have been the big issue there)...

Yesterday a Facebook friend put up an interesting public post, https://www.facebook.com/MJHimanshu/posts/1605313082841856 , having a small list of five famous living spiritual teachers in India whom he considered as "cool to go to". This post is based on the comments I made on the above mentioned Facebook post. Interesting initiative. I applaud your courage in putting it up even though it is your individual list (and not an organizational list). My view is that there should be an ashram safety accreditation organization/body focusing only on grading Indian ashrams on safety of people who visit there and who stay there. This grading should not get into spiritual aspects at all as that is very difficult to grade by anybody except those are very highly spiritually evolved and get intuitive knowledge about people who come in front of them (or perhaps anybody they want to know about even if they are not in front of them). Indian ashram safety criteria should include aspec...

[This post is based on a comment I made on Facebook a couple of days ago.] Firstly I should say that I am quite sure that I have read somewhere that Shirdi Sai Baba uttered the above words (Hindi words, or perhaps he said it in Marathi which was translated to Hindi by somebody). But I spent a few minutes to get a reference to those words on the Internet and failed to get it. I hope to spend more time later on to give a proper reference for these words. If I do not get a proper reference I will suitably modify this post. Of course, if any readers are able to help me in this regard, their efforts are very welcome :-) . My rough English translation of above words, which I believe were uttered by Shirdi Sai Baba is: As Allah (God) keeps you, stay that way! Some may say that's the typical Indian fatalistic way of looking at things. But I think there is a lot of wisdom there - it does not mean that you should not strive to make reasonable effort to face problems and solve them. ...

Asaram, Ram Rahim, Rampal: The 14 fake babas put on boycott list, http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/asaram-gurmeet-ram-rahim-on-fake-baba-list-meet-the-14-faces-hindu-sadhus-want-boycotted/story-JYEQQkSYOOBFFQzKfbD7UP.html , dated 11th Sept. 2017. Ravi: Interesting! I think that such efforts by spiritual groups in the country to curb Asathya-Adharma (untruthful and unethical) activities done by a few spiritual leaders in India, seems to be a good move. A boycott list of fake sadhus/babas/spiritual leaders in India is a good start, IMHO. The article states that the Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad has published this list of 14 'fake babas'. This organization seems to be a top-level Hindu Sadhus (ascetics) body which is composed of various Hindu ascetic organizations. I have not heard much about this body in South India. I guess it may be more of a North India Hindu ascetic top-level body. Here's another article on it: http://www.firstpost.com/india/akhil-bharat...

The article is by Shashi Tharoor, a former UN under-secretary-general and former Indian Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs, who is currently an MP for the Indian National Congress and Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs. I consider its title inappropriate and not in sync with the content of the article, as the author, in my reading of the article, DOES NOT PAINT ALL Indian spiritual leaders (godmen) with the same brush. The article focuses on this particular rape convict spiritual leader, his following and the North Indian social and economic environment, especially in Punjab and Haryana states where lot of Sikhs live, in which this happened. There is a reference to other Dera groups there but WITHOUT presuming that their leaders are also rapists which I think is a very important point. Perhaps the editor(s) of the website where the article appeared chose to make the title racy and something ...

Note: This post has been copy-pasted on 18th Sept. 2020 from here: http://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2017/09/fascinating-interview-of-john-le-carre.html . 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. Spies Like Us: A Conversation With John le Carré and Ben Macintyre,  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/books/review/john-le-carre-ben-macintyre-british-spy-thrillers.html Ravi: In my twenties, I was a crazy fan of John le Carré's spy novels. George Smiley is an unforgettable character for me. So I thoroughly enjoyed the above interview of John le Carré and another writer. John le Carré (JLC) about his childhood (his father was a notorious conman): "The truth, in my childhood, didn’t really exist. That is to say, we shared the lies. To run the household with no money required a lot of serious lying to th...

This article appeared in The Hindu a few days ago: Among the believers, http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/among-the-believers/article19605738.ece . I have given below a modified version of a comment I made elsewhere: The article seems balanced to me. It reports that the key victim who made the rape statement before the judge, had initially not said that to the CBI!!! She wanted to protect her family name or something like that PLUS fear. And I don't blame her. After all, her brother had been killed allegedly by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's goons. This has been the reality of feudal society India for millennia! That's the unpleasant reality. That the CBI eventually got her to tell them about the rape and make her statement in court/before judge, is a great credit to the CBI. Lets give credit where it is due. Some persons are putting the blame on police and politicians. In my view, targeting a few cops and politicians alone is not fair. It is our feudal soc...