Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

Last updated on 27th Nov. 2019 Please excuse my trumpet-blowing in this post. I request the kind indulgence of readers. A few days ago, I was struggling to explain to an elderly person (an academic) in Puttaparthi about my social media writer work on Sathya Sai and general spirituality & religion. He was aware of my 2 self-published books and my blogs but ... I should say that he was NOT scoffing at my work but neither was he really understanding the impact of my work. This is not to say that my work has great impact. No, it does not have great impact. But in a niche group of readers, it has some impact. And I have seen similar kind of reactions from some other elders in Puttaparthi. In contrast, I have had much more positive responses and encouragement from youngsters and my age people in Puttaparthi. Some elders have been encouraging but some have been rather disinterested. I wonder why this is the case! I am thankful to those in Puttaparthi who provided me encouragemen...

Readers may be interested to view my recent post on another blog: Martha Gellhorn quote about why we must be interested in politics; Ravi: Why I got interested in following politics mid 2011 onwards, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2019/11/martha-gellhorn-quote-about-why-we-must.html .

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari's talk in Kulwant Hall today, Nov. 23rd 2019, Bhagavan's birthday (mainly in Hindi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fOpiOB_JvA , around 10 mins. Nitin Gadkari is a top political leader of India, who hails from the state of Maharashtra, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitin_Gadkari . The talk comes across as straight and sincere. It is mostly in Hindi with a little English here and there. He also quotes a Marathi saying about spiritual greats. He is a native of Maharashtra, the land of saints with a very big tradition of spirituality and service. So it is but natural that he added that Marathi saying which I think embellished his talk very nicely. He said it was his great good fortune to be present today at Bhagavan's birthday function. He referred to value based education and value based family life being two powerful pillars of our (Indian) society and being two great strengths of our society, which Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba promote...

I had fleetingly seen this "featured snippet" result when I was doing searches for the petition update I made a few days ago. But I could not get it when I was doing screen capture of the results. So in the petition update we have some 1st rank results but no "featured snippet" result. Today I got lucky with these "featured snippet" results having our change.org petition. I thought readers may be interested to know about it and so have shared it on this post. But what is a Google Search "featured snippet"? https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9351707?p=featured_snippets tells us the following: * Google’s search results sometimes show listings where the snippet describing a page comes before a link to a page, not after as with our standard format. Results displayed this way are called "featured snippets." * We display featured snippets when our systems determine this format will help people more easily discover what th...

Readers may want to read my recent post on another blog: My recent Facebook (FB) posts related to 1970s Trinity movies starring Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-recent-facebook-fb-posts-related-to.html .

I was pleasantly surprised today to receive 13 paperback copies of my part autobio book, all of which have decent printing of inner content pics. This seems to be the replacement copies for the 13 copies I had received weeks ago where I raised the issue of bad printing of some inner content pics. This action of Notion Press has restored my faith in Notion Press' business practices being fair to the (self-published) author-customer. I thank Notion Press for this action of theirs. As I managed to patch up the bad printing of pics issue in earlier (problem) copies using laser printer printout of these pics which I then cut-and-paste on to the books, I have offered to pay Notion Press the cost they incurred for these 13 replacement copies. I will be happy to pay that to Notion Press - No problem. I have updated the earlier blog post related to this matter and also changed the title of it to: Notion Press' Chennai printer sent me 13 paperback copies of my part autobio book wi...

Last updated on 24th Nov. 2019 Given below are contents of my recent public Facebook post (slightly edited),  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2657854597764434  : Our Change.org petition now has Top-Ten Google search result rankings for some search terms related to Madhusudan Naidu subtle body claim and Madhusudan Naidu spiritual fraud Our petition: Declaration by Sathya Sai devotees and alumni & staff of Sai educational institutions, condemning spiritual fraud Madhusudan Rao Naidu, https://www.change.org/p/sathya-sai-devotee-fraternity-worldwide-we-condemn-spiritual-fraud-madhusudan-rao-naidu is now a Top-Ten ranked search result for following Google Search terms (done in incognito Chrome browser window): 1. Is Madhusudan Naidu subtle body of Sathya Sai Baba? - 1st result 2. Is Muddenahalli Madhusudan Naidu genuine or fake? - 1st result 3. Is spirit of Sathya Sai Baba now in Madhusudan Naidu? - 1st result [Same 1st result rank for: Sathya Sai Baba ...

Last updated on 17th Nov. 2019 Read a quote somewhere, in the context of Vedanta/"Who am I?" oriented spirituality, about peace of mind being liberation. I am not sure about that being correct. But then, I ask myself, what is liberation in the context of Hinduism (may be similar in Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism but I don't know enough about them to be sure)? I think in the Hinduism context, the English word liberation is the translation of the Sanskrit word Moksha. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha says: Moksha (/ˈmoʊkʃə/; Sanskrit: मोक्ष, mokṣa), also called vimoksha, vimukti and mukti,[1] is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism which refers to various forms of emancipation, enlightenment, liberation, and release.[2] In its soteriological and eschatological senses, it refers to freedom from saṃsāra, the cycle of death and rebirth.[3] In its epistemological and psychological senses, moksha refers to freedom from ignorance: self-realization, se...

Recently I read in the book, FDR by Jean Edward Smith, about how intensely US President Woodrow Wilson, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson , worked towards creating the League of Nations, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations , at the end of World War I, how he felt that he was being divinely guided (as per the book author), and how he was blocked from USA entering the League of Nations by the USA Senate as Wilson refused to accept the compromise being offered by Senate leaders. Wilson's health got badly affected perhaps partly due to this intense work that he did and the failure to get it through USA Senate. The League of Nations seems to be the first major international body meant to resolve disputes without war in the world. It failed to prevent World War II and perhaps USA not joining it was part of the reason why it failed. What struck me in this reading was how Wilson's intense Christian faith was the source of his intense desire and work for such...

Last updated on 15th Nov. 2019   I would like to first say that I believe in Shirdi Sai Baba's teaching of "Sabka Maalik Ek" (The master of all is ONE). In other words, I believe in ONE GOD with various religions including Islam being various paths/ways to worship and merge in that ONE GOD. Specifically, I am not against Islam, and am actually supportive of it, so long as it does not interfere in the right of others (like me, a Hindu) to practise their faiths which are different from Islam (e.g. Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism). Shirdi Sai Baba used to say "Allah Maalik" (Allah/God is the master) very often; I revere the same Shirdi Sai Baba, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Baba_of_Shirdi , and try to follow His teachings. The intent of this post is to simply have a more truthful understanding of the past of my country, India, and Kerala state in particular. This post is based on my part of a recent email conversation. Abou...

Last updated on 21 Mar. 2023   I would like to first say that I believe in Shirdi Sai Baba's teaching of "Sabka Maalik Ek" (The master of all is ONE). In other words, I believe in ONE GOD with various religions including Islam being various paths/ways to worship and merge in that ONE GOD. Specifically, I am not against Islam, and am actually supportive of it, so long as it does not interfere in the right of others (like me, a Hindu) to practise their faiths which are different from Islam (e.g. Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism, Judaism). Shirdi Sai Baba used to say "Allah Maalik" (Allah/God is the master) very often; I revere the same Shirdi Sai Baba, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sai_Baba_of_Shirdi , and try to follow His teachings. The intent of this post is to simply have a more truthful understanding of the past of my country, India, and Kerala state in particular. There seems to be a widespread notion in India that Mughals (Mughals were...

Thought of sharing with readers that the search term: Vedanta, god and science used in three popular search engines gives my book "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" within top ten results. Note that the same book is also put up on one site with slightly different title "The Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation". The results rank of the book is as follows (from anonymous Chrome window on my desktop PC): google.co.in - 1st bing.com - 2nd duckduckgo.com - 5th I am quite surprised to see these results. Note that these search results do not really seem to have had an impact in more persons reading my book. Nonetheless it was quite a pleasant surprise to note that for a general term like 'Vedanta, god and science' my book whose title has all these words in that order, makes it to top ten results in famous Internet search engines. [Here's the archive....

Last updated on 11th Nov. 2019 Given below are my comments (slightly edited) on my Facebook post, Christian doctrine of Trinity, https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2644815935734967 , which corresponds to my blog post, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/11/christian-doctrine-of-trinity.html , which I felt appropriate to put up as a separate post. As only my comments are provided below without others' comments, it may be somewhat awkward reading it at times. To see the full exchange, please visit above Facebook post. In response to a comment, I wrote: To my mind, the Trinity doctrine shows how early Christian theologians understood and conveyed their understanding of relation between divine Lord Jesus Christ and God (God of the Old Testament, I think, where God is the Father), and the Holy Spirit. Sanathana Dharma theologians-equivalent which is our Rishis (sages), would have had to do something similar with relation of Avatars like Rama & Krishna with God (...