Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

At the outset I would like to say that I know very little of Indonesia. I recall reading school history book(s) on President Sukarno of Indonesia and Prime Minister Nehru of India being founder leaders of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM). And during my youth and most of my software industry days, it was Suharto who was President of Indonesia. Bali and Jakarta are famous places of Indonesia (and Aceh due to the tragic 2004 tsunami). I also knew of some historical influence of Hinduism on Indonesia that can be seen even today even though Indonesia now is a Muslim majority country (87.2 % Muslim and max. number of Muslims in any country - 227 million, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country ). Current President of Indonesia is Joko Widodo. I have read some articles referring to him. President Widodo also had come to India as one of the chief guests (from ASEAN) for this year's Republic Day function in India, if I recall correctly. As I have been reading up on religion worldw...

My apartment watchman's wife asked me to play a Telugu Christian devotional song from the Internet, earlier today (30th May). Here's the song I played for her after browsing around in youtube : Hallelujah by JKChristopher,Philip,Vincent,Sharon Sisters Latest telugu Christian songs 2017 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0x4z96iKAY , 4 min. 43 secs. I raised the speaker volume so that she could get a nice feel about it. Music (and dance) form an important part of their Telugu Christian gatherings, especially their public events. I have attended one of them in nearby Karnatakanagapalli. She liked the song. I also liked the song even though I could not fully catch the Telugu lyrics. BTW my apartment buildings' (we have two buildings) watchman family are Telugu Christians. They seem to have converted to Christianity (from Hinduism) a decade ago. I find them to be very decent and pious Christians. She told me that she prays for the well being of all people in the (2) ...

Given below are comments I made on Mr. Ganti's post:  https://www.facebook.com/vr.ganti.1/posts/10212440075261592 , dated 29 May 2018 As far as I know, UGC/ACITE rules ensure that nowadays only academics can hold post of vice-chancellor. So perhaps the above news is a hint that BNNM will be made Chancellor of Muddenahalli Group university. There are no restrictions that the Chancellor needs to be an academic. The founder-chancellor of SSSIHL (Sai university with HQ in Puttaparthi/Prasanthi Nilayam) was Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba and till His Mahasamadhi he was holding that post of chancellor (as far as I know). ---- Vr Ganti sir, About emblems and names blah blah blah (sorry about using those words but I think it is appropriate), I think legally the Sathya Sai name is NOT protected. We had a discussion on this in the past. Inclusion of a clause using legislators support in Lok Sabha is one thing. Whether the clause will stand the test of law in Indian courts of law is quite...

Given below is a recent comment I made elsewhere on Facebook: My view and observations are that PM Modi has publicly spoken about Prasanthi Nilayam and Puttaparthi, showering praises on it. When one of his ministers came to PN as the chief guest (I think it was Piyush Goyal), the minister spoke about PM Modi conveying his best wishes and regards to Prasanthi Nilayam. And we have also seen pics of trustees and leaders of official (Prasanthi Nilayam based) Sai orgn. being received by PM Modi in his Delhi office. PM Modi while speaking about Bhagavan in Muddenahalli Group's Raipur hospital referenced Puttaparthi! So I think PM Modi has publicly evinced support for Prasanthi Nilayam and Puttaparthi. Top ministers of the current NDA government like Piyush Goyal, then minister Venkaiah Naidu (later as vice-president too he visited PN) and Ravi Shankar Prasad have been chief guests at PN functions and have given speeches where they have shown great appreciation for Bhagavan's t...

Last updated on 28th May 2018 I think it was day-before-yesterday (25th May 2018) evening that I received the latest delivery of 12 spiral bound copies of iami1 blogbook from Delhi online printer for a total price (including shipping charge) of around Rs. 1008, which comes to around Rs. 84 per copy. This time around, each book had thick colour front cover page and back cover page as per my provided pics and instructions. That is the good news. I had received a phone call from the Delhi online printer's production guy I think, who confirmed that I wanted it to be this way. However, inner content print quality is not satisfactory. The problems are as follows: 1) Many pages had a slight dark patch indicating a problem in laser printer drum (if I correctly recall my laser printer usage days in industry and academia). 2) The text content also seems to be slightly compressed as compared to earlier book copies this online printer had provided. But as I do not have the older de...

Last updated on 6th June 2018 I just finished watching the last part (part six) of the Wild Wild Country documentary video-series,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country , on the Rajneesh movement, especially their commune in Rajneeshpuram in Wasco County, Oregon, USA. As somebody who is deeply interested in spirituality, religion and contemporary spiritual & religious movements, I found the documentary to be compelling viewing. In the recent past I have done a fair bit of reading up on Rajneeshpuram with my comments on it being captured in this blog post: On being asked about Osho Rajneesh, Sathya Sai told a devotee, Rajneesh's path is dangerous, Sathya Sai path is safe - A related conversation, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/03/on-being-asked-about-osho-rajneesh.html , 19th March 2018. The documentary brought this whole lot of readings and video interviews to life in a way that only good documentary videos can. It shows clips of videos of Rajneeshpuram ...

As I am doing a small bit of promotion of my Existential reality; Vedanta; God & Science conversation blog book (based on my iami1 blog), over email and word-of-mouth, I am exploring which parts of the book would be interesting to different types of people. This is how I attempted that when corresponding recently with an eminent Indian researcher and author in the field of social sciences: I would like to add that the big questions of humanity like: * Who am I? Who are we? * What really is our existential truth? * Did we have a past life before we were born (this birth)? * What happens to us after death? * Is there a just divine power (law of Karma in Hindu traditions)? etc., as of now at least, are beyond the pale of mainstream science (parapsychology is not accepted as a regular science by mainstream science). It is wonderful to see scientist truth-tellers like Dr. Francis Collins, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins , clearly spelling out the limits of sc...

Last updated on 25th Feb. 2019 As my initial intent was to essentially provide ebook and print-on-demand versions of my iami1 wordpress blog as a blog book, my front cover page had a lot of description of content of the book, as compared to regular books. Further, I had initially intended the title to be simply 'iami1.wordpress.com blog book' with the extended description on the cover page telling potential book readers what the book contains. I felt that by using this approach, I was being upfront and fair towards the potential book reader. If the book reader was not interested with the main book contents as described in the cover front page itself, he/she could simply move on to exploring another book or doing something else, without having to spend time on opening the book and looking at its Table of Contents. But somewhere down the line, as I submitted the ebook version to some major ebook sites like archive.org and free-ebooks.net, I saw that I had to provide title i...

Today (14th May 2018) I received 9 well printed and bound book copies of iami1.wordpress.com blog book from Pothi.com. I had placed the order on their web order page,  https://pothi.com/pothi/book/ravi-s-iyer-ultimate-existential-reality-answer-vedanta-god-and-science , on 7th May, which is one week ago. Given below is a pic of those copies. [To open pic in higher resolution, right-click on pic followed by open in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.] This was delivered by India Post's Speed Post service. I was not informed of the tracking number by Pothi.com. Pothi.com's status for this order just shows 'Processing' (even now). I expect they will update the status on Pothi.com tomorrow, to delivered and also provide the tracking number. Going by the tracking number on the parcel and using  https://www.indiapost.gov.in/VAS/Pages/TrackConsignment.aspx , I found that the item was booked at Dandekarwadi S.O. on 12th May at 10...

Last updated on 25th Feb. 2019 [25th Feb. 2019 update: The Open Library entry of my book has been deleted in the National Library of Australia. No reason has been provided. As Australia is a foreign country to me and a place which I have never visited, I decided against making any attempts to contact them to ask why it has been deleted.] Interesting to see that the National Library of Australia has listed my free ebook, "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation iami1.wordpress.com blog book" here: https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/253998922 . It essentially links to the Open Library free ebook (I had added it there a few days ago). I think this is the first national library of any country to list my first proper (well formatted and organized with colour cover front and back pages, table of contents etc.) free ebook. Very interesting that it turned out to be Australia, given some Muddenahalli group Facebook fake ID vi...

Last updated on 20th May 2018 On 30th April 2018, I had placed an order for 12 spiral-bound copies and 1 Soft Cover bound copy with printonweb.in , a Delhi based online printer, at a total charge of Rs. 1119.80. Shipping problems and delays Today (11th May 2018), I received delivery of the order. There was a frantic period I went through yesterday evening for this delivery. Yesterday (10th May), according to the DTDC courier company tracking info., they reported that the package from the Delhi printer addressed to me was NOT DELIVERED yesterday due to "(RECEIVER NOT AVAILABLE)"!!! But I was at home for most of the time, and did not receive any call or SMS from DTDC! I raised a complaint with DTDC customer support and perhaps due to that the status today morning changed to "Out For Delivery" from "Ananthpur Super Franchisee(PUTTAPARTHY)". For my first order with another Delhi based printer, I faced an alleged package return problem. I had made the...

Last updated on 7th May 2018 This post follows up on my recent post: Got two separate Soft Cover binding iami1 blog book copies from Mumbai based big printer and Delhi online printer, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/05/got-two-separate-soft-cover-binding.html . The package that I received yesterday evening had a 'CHALLAN' (invoice or kind of invoice) from the Mumbai based big printer company [I prefer not to mention their name as of now] that I had directly contacted some days earlier to inquire about printing 25 copies with them. I got the impression that those direct printing discussions fell through as their minimum order was 50 copies. I still asked them for a quote for 50 copies but perhaps the marketing person felt it was not worth the bother of providing me a quote. I did not find the name 'Pothi.com' in the 'CHALLAN' or anywhere else in the package. And as I saw the name of the Mumbai based big printer company I had contacted earlier as the ...

Last updated on 7th May 2018 Today (5th May) I was very pleasantly surprised to receive an iami1 blog book copy with excellent cover page quality, soft cover binding as well as clear printing of black & white inner content pages, from a large Mumbai based printer company (as of now, I am not sure whether this large printer company would want me to mention their name publicly). I had explored the option of printing 25 copies of good Soft Cover binding copies with them but was informed that minimum order is 50 copies. I was still interested to know how much 50 copies will cost but I did not hear from them for some time. I had presumed that they had lost interest in me as a customer prospect. So today when I received a very well packaged delivery from a courier company, I thought it might be a book that I had recently ordered from amazon.in. It turned out to be 1 copy of iami1 blog book whose file details I had shared with this big printer company. Note that this company has bra...