Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

Strange situation! This is one area where Sathya Sai's teachings are crystal clear, in my considered opinion. Serve your parents first - that is your spiritual sadhana. I think there is no question of physical form Sathya Sai having ever supported a son becoming a monk when elderly parents depend on the son to take care of them. Gujarat monk renounces spiritual life to look after disabled parents, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/the-monk-returns-to-sansar/articleshow/65926405.cms , 24th Sept. 2018 Good to see that the son has returned to the parents. Let's hope things work out now for him and his parents both at material level and at spiritual level.

Last updated on 24th Sept. 2018 As a social media writer who tries hard to promote the values of Sathya (Truth), Dharma (Ethics), Shanti (Peace) and Prema (Love) through my writings, I see one of my tasks as writing, at times, about bad and evil which have taken place in the world that is rooted in a bad and evil ideology. Trying to simply ignore such acts rooted in a bad and evil ideology will not make it go away! It has to be exposed for what it is and condemned as bad and evil as a way to counter people getting trapped in that evil ideology and then doing evil acts. Therefore I am putting up this post. Readers who can't handle reading about such things may please skip reading the rest of this post. Sword Killing Was ‘Practice’ for Racial Terrorism, Man Told Police, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/nyregion/fatal-stabbing-race-attack-police-interview.html , 20th Sept. 2018 The article states that James Harris Jackson of Baltimore, USA is a white Army veteran who had sta...

Given below are some of my Facebook posts on this matter in reverse chronological order. From my Facebook post,  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2294628180753746 , dated 22nd Sept. 2018 : What the police said in court today about rape allegations against Bishop Mulakkal This post is based on the following news reports: 1) Former Bishop Franco Mullakal remanded in police custody for two days, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/former-bishop-franco-mullakal-remanded-in-police-custody-for-two-days/story-AMh1nWVon41OP9OlVw30NJ.html , 22nd Sept. 2018. 2) Kerala nun rape case: Bishop Franco Mulakkal in police custody till Sept 24, bail plea dismissed, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/kerala-nun-rape-case-bishop-franco-mulakkal-court-5369493/ , 22nd Sept. 2018 3) Bishop Arrested For Allegedly Raping Kerala Nun Stood Smiling In Court, https://www.ndtv.com/kerala-news/bishop-franco-mulakkal-arrested-for-allegedly-raping-kerala-nun-stood-in-pala-court-s...

I wanted to use the grief that I felt today, as expressed in this post of mine: 26 year old woman joins ranks of mass shooter-killers in the USA; This mass shooting madness in the USA has to stop! http://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2018/09/26-year-old-woman-joins-ranks-of-mass.html , to stir me to think of some suggestions to improve the situation. Now I don't want to get into USA gun politics. Note that the killer-lady used a handgun and not an assault rifle. So even an assault rifle ban would not have prevented this tragedy. The impression I have is that USA today has a lot of poor and lower middle class people who are very worried about their livelihood and their lives. Some of these persons, very unfortunately, tend to lose it, and get into these mad mass shootings. Sometimes even rich people face some deep insecurities which seems to be leading them to do these same mad mass shootings. India has orders of magnitude more poverty than the USA, and life in India can be horr...

Last updated on 15th Mar. 2019 Some days ago, I had sent an email to the Principal, Ramnarian Ruia (autonomous) college, Mumbai. First some info. about Ruia college from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramnarain_Ruia_College : Ruia College is located in the central part of Mumbai close to Hindu colony, between the Dadar(Central) and Matunga (Central)railway stations. It is one of the most highly reputed colleges in the country.The University of Mumbai (MU) granted autonomous status to Ramnarain Ruia College in year 2017. ... Ruia College has become the first college in the country to achieve the 'College of Excellence' status by the University Grants Commission (UGC). --- end extracts from wiki page --- Here's Ruia college website: https://www.ruiacollege.edu/ Some extracts from my initial mail to the Principal, Ruia college, are given below. Dear sir/madam, I studied in Ruia College, Mumbai for 5 years for my F.Y.J.C to T.Y.B.Sc. education. I passed out wi...

Karma accelerator and Karma canceller are two of quite a few terms I learned over the years in spiritual discussions. One view is that spiritual master/messiah X is a Karma accelerator and not a Karma canceller whereas spiritual master/messiah Y is a Karma canceller and not just a Karma accelerator! X and Y vary depending on the person expressing the view😊. What does that mean? My understanding of 'Karma accelerator' is a spiritual master/messiah who speeds up the Karma that a person has to endure so that all the Karma to be endured is finished quickly, say in that lifetime itself, so that the person then attains Moksha/liberation/and is not forced to be born again. Such karma gone through including endurance of negative karma, in the presence of the master/messiah is easier to go through and endure because of the master/messiah's grace. My understanding of 'Karma canceller' is a spiritual master/messiah who cancels out Karmic suffering that a person would...

Today I am feeling blessed and am feeling ***Mighty Pleased*** too :-) A short response comment in the early hours today, from an unknown Facebook user whose profile indicates that she is based in Karachi, Pakistan and whose name indicates that she may be a Muslim, has made my day! Under my comment thread in Dr. Shashi Tharoor's post, https://www.facebook.com/ShashiTharoor/videos/617885205272899/?comment_id=617999435261476 , she wrote, "Ravi S. Iyer , your explanation sounds much clearer and better, now i can understand what Hinduism actually is," I guess at least part of my ****inescapable**** destiny is to be at least a part-time teacher. I have taught tuition (Mathematics for school students) to earn some money when I was studying in college in early 1980s. Within slightly over a year of joining a software company, Datamatics Ltd. in SEEPZ, Mumbai (Bombay then), as a trainee programmer in March 1984, I was made in charge of teaching a batch of MBA graduates and...

As I thought it may be useful for some readers, I have shared below how I recently set up legacy contact mechanisms for my Google and Facebook accounts, and have provided some info. on how WordPress and Twitter handle such situations. A) Google Google Account -> Personal info & privacy -> Assign an account trustee (Inactive Account Manager) Clicking on above leads you to: "Make a plan for your Google Account if you pass away or stop using Google" I have created an Inactive Account Manager Plan. The plan's details are as follows: 1) Google will consider the account to be inactive after 3 months of inactivity 2) I have chosen 1 email id to be notified if my Google account becomes inactive and have chosen to share all my data with them then. [I used Select All option to share all my Google data: This includes the following key data that I use/have on my Google account: Blogger, Contacts, Drive, Mail, Profile and YouTube.] Note that this access will be p...

Last updated on 15-Sep-2018 This post is based on an exchange I had on this Facebook post & comment thread of Dr. Shashi Tharoor, https://www.facebook.com/ShashiTharoor/videos/617885205272899/?comment_id=617999435261476&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R4%22%7D . Note that the thread has a comment of mine as the starter comment. This starter comment of mine is provided in my recent post: My comment on Dr. Shashi Tharoor's 'Why I am a Hindu' short promotional video, http://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/09/my-comment-on-dr-shashi-tharoors-why-i.html . On this comment thread in Dr. Tharoor's FB post, a person commented (I paraphrase) that Hinduism has widely varying and even contradictory thoughts. That (in Hinduism is implied) "One can be an atheist while the other follows religious books and believes in the divine." And that Shashi Tharoor is celebrating this freedom for contradiction in Hinduism while I (Ravi S. Iyer) am talking about others who f...

In Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/vr.ganti.1/posts/10213147132297576 , Mr. V.R. Ganti wrote: "Convert your Passion into your Profession to gain Perfection." Passion and Profession are both different aspects. But if you take your Passion Professionally, the game is all yours. Remember, "When Passion meets Profession, it creates history." So do what your heart says and not what people.! --- end V.R. Ganti post --- Mr. Alok Dara Shikoh commented on the above post (slightly edited to fix typos, provide some clarification and exclude unrelated parts): But sir, we should not forget the other quote by swami:. "the secret of happiness (success) lies not in doing what you like, but in liking what you have to do"... I have always wondered about this and arrived at the conclusion that ultimately your statement "do what your heart says' is very correct, but the determination of "what your heart says" should come not just from pass...

Last updated on 12th Sept. 2018 Dr. Shashi Tharoor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shashi_Tharoor , has recently published a book titled 'Why I am Hindu'. Further note that he is an Indian politician from Congress party and this book publication may have something to do with the upcoming 2019 General Elections in India where the Congress is one of the major parties opposing the ruling BJP party and its allies. Please note that I have a PUBLICLY POLITICALLY NEUTRAL role in these social media posts that I put up related to Indian political leaders which may include leaders in government currently and those not in government. I am an Indian citizen and resident of India. I do vote in Indian elections but I keep who I vote for as a private matter. Here's the comment I put up in Dr. Tharoor's Facebook video post,  https://www.facebook.com/ShashiTharoor/videos/617885205272899/ (4 min. video): My initial reaction is that Dr. Shashi Tharoor is over-simplifying Hinduism ...

Ravi: I would like to declare that while I am a Hindu, I have great respect for faiths like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism etc. I am a firm believer in, and open supporter of, freedom of religion including freedom to have no religion. Lee Kuan Yew on religious tolerance, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KDjjXUx9bY , 7 min. 45 secs. Very interesting views of former Singapore long-time Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990 and legendary leader, the Late Lee Kuan Yew in 1990 about religious tolerance and intolerance in Asia in general and in Singapore in particular from the 1950s onwards. I have given below an edited transcript of the video, using the youtube auto generated transcript as a base. I am not commenting on the accuracy of Lee Kuan Yew's views. Just sharing what Lee Kuan Yew said in the Question and Answer session, and thereby know how he perceived religious tolerance and intolerance in Asia in this period (1950 to 1990). Timestamp: 00:00 Questioner: I'm -...

Who Am I - Transcripts of a conversation with Sathya Sai Baba, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_oDm_oZpcA , 27 min 14 secs, published on 16 May 2017 by youtube user, 'I am That'. Source (of transcript used in above video): http://www.ramalacentre.com/sai_baba_print01b.htm This is a very interesting video for spiritual seekers interested in core aspects of Atma Vidya and Advaita, having practical questions from devotees on these matters along with practical answers from Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. The video shows text extracts from an interview that Sathya Sai Baba reportedly gave to a group of about thirty Western devotees in Kodaikanal in April 1983 or April 1985 ( http://www.atmapress.com/SaiBabaKodaikanalInterview.htm says 1985 but http://www.ramalacentre.com/sai_baba_print01b.htm says 1983). It intersperses that with great pics of Bhagavan. The entire video has pleasant music playing in the background. These features make the video more watchable and may be a pr...