Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76rzAAdeOFA , around half an hour, published 30th July 2018. From the youtube video description: My talk describes my own specific experiences with interfaith meetings where leaders of all faiths show love for each other; and yet the fact is that after hundreds of such events over the past 30 years we don’t have religious peace. I explain that the crux of the problem is politically incorrect to discuss. This has to do with the hatred towards outsiders written in most religious texts. These statements are not allowed to be deactivated, amended, or superseded; the reasons for this absolutist dogma have to do with what I have called “history-centrism” in certain religions. Unless all religions stop aggressive proselytizing to convert others there cannot be religious harmony. --- end extract from youtube video description ---- Ravi: I tend to agree with the above extract and large parts of his speech which are on those lines. For those who don...

Sometimes Sathya Sai devotees who are great talkers on Advaita (non-duality) but do not have the very powerful Advaita experiences of oneness with others (where they ***really experience*** that they are in all bodies not just their body alone) tend to be impressive lecturers but fail the great spiritual tests like assessing the claims of deluded/false prophets like Narasimhamurthy and Madhusudan Rao Naidu. And then there are some who claim to be enlightened but have failed to see through the delusions and/or deliberate falsehood of cheap imitator Madhusudan Rao Naidu! So these supposedly enlightened persons seem to be in the darkness and not in the light. And the big tragedy is that these supposedly enlightened person(s) who have been spiritually duped by Madhusudan Rao Naidu and Narasimhamurthy, have endorsed Madhusudan Rao Naidu's claims and thereby contributed to deluding and trapping many innocent Sathya Sai devotees across the world into the false belief of Muddenahalli ...

Warning: This post refers to a blog that, in the process of critically analyzing and refuting nasty and vicious unproven allegations of anti-Sai crusaders, has had to refer to some of their allegations. Those readers who get put off by reading such nasty and unproven allegations should skip reading the rest of this post. end-Warning Recently I was having a public comment exchange with Lisa De Witt on my Facebook post here:  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2227521714131060?comment_id=2227618410788057 . That's when I came to know of her blog - https://persecutorsofsathyasaibaba.blogspot.com/ . It is titled, "Persecutors of Sathya Sai Baba", and sub-titled, "Addresses the suspicious accusations regarding Sathya Sai Baba." There are around 8 posts which are dated from the years 2004 to 2009. I have given below some of the comments (slightly edited) I made on that exchange as I had a quick look at her blog: Hey Lisa, just had a quick look at your ...

Fascinating! "Women devotees, who ran “Ready to wait” campaign to support the restriction on entry of women in the age group of 10 to 50 years in Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, on Thursday told the Supreme Court that Lord Ayyappa’s right to privacy as an ‘eternal celibate’ must be respected." https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/lord-ayyappa-s-eternal-celibate-status-must-be-respected-women-devotees-tell-sc/627009.html My late elder brother was a staunch Lord Ayyappa devotee who observed, many times, the stipulated penance during Sabiramala pilgrimage period, sometimes going to Sabiramala on pilgrimage during this period. He also took the lead in organizing Ayyappa congregational worship (puja) in the part of the town that he was living in. So I am quite well exposed to Lord Ayyappa devotees and the associated traditions, even if I myself have never been to Sabarimala. Of course, I participated in some events of the Ayyappa worship (puja) that my brother took the lead ...

Last updated on 25th July 2018 Given below is a comment (slightly edited) I put up on https://www.facebook.com/vr.ganti.1/posts/10212812975383862 I just saw this very inspiring interview of Rev. (Pastor) Martin Luther King Jr. by BBC in 1961. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df4fycfda10 . I am sure that it was faith in Jesus that formed the core of the inspirational leadership that he provided to suppressed and discriminated African-Americans of the USA then. Note that Pastor King's father was also a pastor. Now in the comment urging us to "lighten up", the word Jesus is also used. "Lighten up. Jesus. Really you're no fun at all." Update on 25th Jul 2018: The full comment was, "I spend my whole day dancing, all day long - you guys are such sour pusses. Lighten up. Jesus. Really you're no fun at all." end-Update. Initially I did not want to respond to the invocation of Lord Jesus Christ in that comment. After seeing this inspiring vid...

Last updated on 28th July 2018 A comment on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/vr.ganti.1/posts/10212812975383862 ) aimed at those of us who were opposing Muddenahalli group with our comments on that post, had these sentences in it: "... - you guys are such sour pusses. Lighten up. Jesus. Really you're no fun at all." I wrote the following comment which I felt appropriate to share as a separate post: We are advised to lighten up :-). Perhaps the philosophy and outlook advised to us is: "Life is a joke. Laugh at it" :-). Interesting approach. But I have faced the fury of my beloved and revered Gurudev Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba (in physical form before April 2011 Mahasamadhi) when I made some bad mistakes. So I certainly cannot take the view that Bhagavan's publicly given instructions on multiple occasions that we should not follow communicators and mediums wrt Him, are a joke! Bhagavan loved humour. But Bhagavan did not find Narasimhamurthy...

Last updated on 20th July 2018 Today (19th July 2018) I faced a case of a USA based Facebook friend being interested in reading my "Who am I? I am I – Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" iami1.wordpress.com blogbook on her smartphone device. The PDF file download was not suitable. That prompted me to work on providing an epub format file generated using an online converter. Of course, besides her there may be others who would like to read my ebook on their smartphone and so it was a generic issue and not specific to her alone. So I have now got an epub format file available for download which I was able to read using Lithium free ebook reader on my inexpensive (cheap) Android smartphone. BTW I am somewhat new to smartphones and so am far from being an expert on smartphones (my comfort zone is the PC/computer). The reading experience of the epub file using Lithium app on my smartphone is far superior to reading the PDF file on ...

On 16th July 2018 evening, I received the latest version of "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" iami1.wordpress.com blog book, https://pothi.com/pothi/book/ravi-s-iyer-ultimate-existential-reality-answer-vedanta-god-and-science . The last changes done were as follows: 1) Border sizes in cover page was modified to remove disproportional border size look in cover front page. 2) Switched back to Glossy lamination for cover page printing in Pothi.com. ---- The delivery received incorporated these changes and the border sizes in cover front page look proportional. I hope that this version is now the stable version for the paperback book. Given below are a few pics of it. [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.] ------

The following note is based on my comments made elsewhere. Those who attribute all to God and none to medical staff in cases of successful critical surgery, I think, are having very unbalanced and wrong views. Medical staff would typically be very deserving of significant credit for such success. But there is nothing wrong in theist patients thanking God too for the success. I don't know if all persons in a typical medical team in an Indian hospital would be atheists but one should not be surprised if one finds that some in the medical team which includes nurses who tend to have more regular care-giving interactions with the patient, are theists. Medical people see life and death at close quarters and I have read that sometimes some medicos pray to God when they are working on a critical case. Whether such prayers help or not (or worse hurt), I think, is difficult to prove scientifically. I have read about many medical staff including cardiac surgeons who pray to God and hav...

When author of post or comment is not mentioned, it should be assumed that it is me (Ravi S. Iyer). My comment dated 31st July 2018 in https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2236133183269913 The Andhra Pradesh govt. has provided vital infrastucture facilities support to Puttaparthi town including SSSCT run Prasanthi Nilayam ashram system. These include decent supply of electric power, (very vital) water to Puttaparthi from Hundri Neeva scheme, maintaining a peaceful town using the police etc. at a time when Andhra Pradesh is facing a huge financial crunch situation due to bifurcation in 2014 and loss of the big revenue earning city of Hyderabad. Some may say that is nothing great! Well, if they visit towns and cities some distance from Puttaparthi, they will come to know about the challenges of life in this drought-prone economically backward district of Anantapur. I am very grateful to Andhra Pradesh govt. led by Hon'ble CM N.Chandrababu Naidu, for what I have deta...

Last updated on 18th July 2018 Released an e-book version with ISBN today (13th July 2018) which is available for download on iami1.wordpress.com at this link:  https://iami1.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/20180713-final-withisbn-ebook-notprint-colourcover-bw-a5-who-am-i-i-am-i-n-god-n-science.pdf . I have also updated the blog's download page ( https://iami1.wordpress.com/consolidated-blog-content-document/ ) to have a link to this file (with ISBN). As discussed earlier I have uploaded this with-ISBN e-book to ebook websites that I use for upload and that DO NOT automatically generate new formats. These websites are: 1) Pothi.com 2) Project Gutenberg Both the above websites have yet to process the upload and update their webpages corresponding to this e-book. I expect both to get updated on or before Monday, 16th July 2018. It was also discussed earlier that ebook websites like archive.org that automatically generate different ebook formats should have (continue to have)...

Last updated on 13th July 2018 As posted earlier my ebook titled "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" has been allotted an (one) ISBN (for E-book book type/book version). The application form does not ask whether the e-book format is PDF or EPUB or Word or any other such e-book format. It has one book version called e-book which I think covers all these formats, as the only other book versions mentioned in the ISBN application (web) form are paperback and hardback. But the User Manual of isbn.gov.in (website of Indian ISBN allotting agency - RRNA) at http://isbn.gov.in/usermanual.pdf on Page 19 states the following: End users need to know a) whether the e-book that they are purchasing will work on their device or software and b) what they will be able to do with it (e.g., copy, print, lend, text to speech etc.). This is normally defined by a combination of file format (e.g., EPUB, .pdf) and software known a...

Last updated on 10th July 2018 Yesterday (6th July 2018) I saw that I had been allotted an ISBN number 978-93-5311-652-1 for my e-book titled "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" which is the iami1.wordpress.com blogbook. The pic below shows the search result for above ISBN on isbn.gov.in. Note that the book title uses . instead of ? as ? is not allowed in book title field in isbn.gov.in web form for ISBN application. [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 ISBN number has to be added in the Verso page of the ebook. That's a simple change. But should the ISBN number also be on the ebook cover (front) page? Note that the paperback version has the ISBN number (different number from ebook ISBN number) and associated barcode image in the bottom right section of the cover back page. The cov...

On 4th July 2018 evening, I received the latest version of "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" iami1.wordpress.com blog book, https://pothi.com/pothi/book/ravi-s-iyer-ultimate-existential-reality-answer-vedanta-god-and-science . The changes from earlier version are in the cover page (full page with back + spine + front) which has the following changes: *) Black coloured title instead of dark red/purple coloured title in front cover page. *) A large ISBN barcode image in back cover page, to make it more easily readable, (and re-positioned the text to the left of it). Further, in Pothi.com cover page printing specifications, Matte lamination was specified instead of previous Glossy lamination specification. Given below are some pics of the latest version book.  [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...