Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

Post title updated in March 2022 Last updated on 29thMar. 2022 28th & 29th March 2022 update: I felt it appropriate to provide this update. Over the past month or so, I have been able to regularly do 'I am divine awareness' meditation. I use 'I am divine awareness' as my key helper statement now.  At times, I use 'What is my reality?' as an initial helper statement whose answer is 'I am divine awareness' and so helps me more easily slide into 'I am divine awareness' helper statement and meditation state. At times, I use 'I am not the body' and 'I want to rise above body consciousness' as additional helper statements (after using 'I am divine awareness' helper statement). [Note that it is implied that I want to temporarily rise above body consciousness and get back to body consciousness later.] The other helper statements mentioned in post below helped me in the past but I don't use them much now. Now I would lik...

Last updated on 30th May 2019 I got the part autobio paperback (with some scanned pics replacing camera pics) delivery today evening. I will upload pics tomorrow after taking pics of book in sunlight. Meanwhile I thought I will give a text description update. The good: The scanned letters (appreciation, experience etc.) pics have come out very well solving the dark patches problem that the prints of camera pics of them had. Very happy with this quality of printing at first look. The slightly problematic: Some pics, both camera and scanned pics, have printed with some white streaks in it. It is not too bad. I wonder whether this is a 'print run' issue and whether a subsequent print will not have this problem. I need to check with Pothi.com on this. But this is not a big problem. I am willing to live with some printed copies having these white streaks in some pics. The somewhat unsatisfactory: The front cover page looks better than previous paperback copy. But, like i...

Last updated on 31st May 2019 There is only one law - the law of Karma. This is a quote of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. [Sources: http://www.saibaba.ws/quotes/religion.htm , https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/05/sathya-sai-aug-1998-interview-with.html ] Ravi: I think if just this sentence is internalized by people, there will be less injustice and horrors in the world. Now this law is a ***divine*** law and not a 'court of law' law. One may escape from a court of law by using smart and fancy lawyers (if one is wealthy enough to afford them), or by fleeing the country where one is being pursued by law enforcement. But how can one escape from the divine law of Karma? One has to suffer in this life or a next life for bad deeds done, unless one becomes exceptionally devoted to God and God cancels the Karma - rare cases. It is by reading Sathya Sai literature and listening to his discourses live in Sai Kulwant Hall (the latter in 2000s mainly) that I developed strong ...

Last updated on 30th May 2019 I have updated the free ebook version of my book titled: Autobiography of an Indian Software Techie and Spiritual Aspirant – Part 1, with better quality scanned pics replacing some camera pics. I have also used scanned pics instead of some camera pics in the front cover page. I have released it as: "First edition, revised" and it does not have an ISBN number. The date of release is 26th May 2019. The new cover page pic is given below: [To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.] The updated ebook is now available for free download from the following: 1) My blog: https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/p/autobiography-of-indian-software-techie.html  . PDF, Word, EPUB, AZW3 (Kindle Format 8) and MOBI formats of the book are available here for free download from Google Drive public share links. 2) archive.org: https://...

I have updated the paperback version of my book titled: Autobiography of an Indian Software Techie and Spiritual Aspirant – Part 1, with scanned pics instead of some camera pics to improve quality of printing of these pics. I have also used scanned pics instead of camera pics in the front cover page. I uploaded the book on Pothi.com on 22nd May and it got approved the next day, 23rd May. I placed an order for it on the same day. I expect to receive the delivery in around 10 days from order date. Now that I have some better quality scanned pics for some documents, I felt it is appropriate to update the ebook too with these scanned pics instead of camera pics. This includes updating the front cover page of the ebook to use scanned pics. I plan to start working on that shortly. As some of the book's pics, including cover page pic, will change with underlying matter being the same but pics being better quality, and without any text change in inner content (except minimal change in...

First, I (Ravi S. Iyer) would like to thank Shri Sudhir Joshi, the transcript author who was present in this meeting, for his valuable contribution to documenting Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's 1998 interview with Mumbai mediapersons and preserving and sharing that documentation with others in Sathya Sai fraternity. Source of transcript and pics given below: https://www.facebook.com/notes/visvesh-baabu/bhagavans-interview-with-the-press-in-1998-transcript-of-the-interview/1117918538239219/ . Note that Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is also referred to as Bhagavan and Swami in the transcript below. SWAMI Met Mumbai Media - 11 August 1998... Photos & Transcription Courtesy - Sudhir Joshi Brother, who was present during interview... It was the dawn of the morning of Tuesday, August 11, 1998, when Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, out of His Infinite Divine Grace, met Shri Ramesh and Smt. Devi Narayan from Canco Advertising Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, Shri Sudhir Joshi from Sri Sathya Sai...

Last updated on 24th May 2019 I created a test PDF file of 35 pages of A5 size which has all the inner content images. To do that, I first created a copy of the paperback Word document file which was used to generate PDF submitted to Pothi.com as paperback book inner contents, and which was used by Pothi.com & its printer-partner to print paperback book copy. How to change Word 2007 default setting of compressing images to 220 ppi, to no compression of images How to turn off image compression in Word, https://blogs.mtu.edu/gradschool/2011/04/06/turn-off-image-compression-in-word/ explains how to turn image compression off in Word 2007 but the particular options descirbed were not available in my Word 2007 program (installation). But the way to access this compression of images setting dialog described in the following link worked in my Word 2007 program (installation): Word: Reduce large image sizes with picture compression, https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/w...

Last updated on 5th June 2019 5th June 2019 Update: Readers may want to visit my later post: Sathya Sai Aug. 1998 interview with Mumbai mediapersons in Prasanthi Nilayam (Puttaparthi): Transcript, pics and corroboration from three participant mediapersons, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/05/sathya-sai-aug-1998-interview-with.html , 24th May 2019. end-Update The concerned interview transcript is provided on this Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/notes/visvesh-baabu/bhagavans-interview-with-the-press-in-1998-transcript-of-the-interview/1117918538239219/ , dated 31st March 2016. As I had mentioned in my Facebook post, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2491490177734211 , "I find this article based on 1998 interview of Swami to leading media persons from Mumbai, to have the potential to be an important historical event in the career of Sathya Sai Avatar. Top media persons from Mumbai are very powerful and influential people. The pics that are put up on thi...

Last updated on 21st May 2019 "In 1536, William Tyndale was tried and convicted of heresy and treason. He was strangled and put to death, then burned at the stake. And the apparent reason? His English translation of the Bible.", https://twitter.com/museumofBible/status/1130280986221129730 Ravi: Hmm. That's the price some religious scholars who shared the word of scripture in local/vernacular language, had to pay in the past. This was in England in the 16th century and the religion involved was Christianity. His wiki page gives additional details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tyndale I have given some extracts from it below: William Tyndale (/ˈtɪndəl/;[1] sometimes spelled Tynsdale, Tindall, Tindill, Tyndall; c. 1494 – c. 6 October 1536) was an English scholar who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known for his (incomplete) translation of the Bible into English. Tyndale was infl...

Today, 19th May 2019, was experimentation day for me to figure out how to solve my problem of pics of appreciation and experience letters which show OK on ebook but print with dark shadows on paperback book. See  https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/05/issues-involved-in-using-grayscale-pics.html  for those paperback book pics. For experimentation, I thought I will explore print quality on laser printer as the (digital) printing of paperback book may behave in a similar but improved manner. I will know for sure only when I get a paperback book copy with those prints but I think it may be reasonable to presume that if the pics print OK on laser printer they will print OK or better on (digital) paperback book printer. The pics below show first the low-cost smartphone (LYF) camera pics of two letters, which were made grayscale and whose DPI was increased to 300. One of the pics is slightly edited to hide a telephone number. [To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on ...