Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

Samadhi - Communion with God, http://saibaba.ws/articles1/samadhi.htm has a nice collection of quotes of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba on samadhi state. Let me share some of them here: "Samadhi is as the ocean to which all Sadhana flows. The seven streams of Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Prathyahara, Dharana and Dhyana all find their consummation in it. Every trace of name and Form disappear in that Ocean. He who serves and He who receives the service, he who meditates and He who is meditated upon, all such duality is dispelled and destroyed. One will not experience even the experience, that is to say, one will not be aware that he is experiencing! Oneself alone, naught else - that will be the Samadhi. If there is aught else, it cannot be Samadhi. It is something like a dream, a fantasy, a passing vision at best. Samadhi can admit of nothing other than Brahman."(Excerpts from: Sathya Sai Baba."Prashanthi Vahini," p. 60). "Samadhi is of two types, Savikalpa, N...

Last updated on 18th April 2022 [On PC desktop, to open pic in larger resolution (if available), 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.] Above pic: Front cover of Mahabharata by Kamala Subramaniam Amazon link for 2009 edition of the book (I have a later 2017 edition):  https://www.amazon.in/Mahabharata-K-S-1-Kamala-Subramaniam/dp/8172764057 . I recall reading C.Rajagopalachari's abridged version of Mahabharata in English, many years ago. It is available on amazon - https://www.amazon.in/Mahabharata-C-Rajagopalachari/dp/8172764766 . I think a PDF version of it is available here: https://sanjeev.sabhlokcity.com/Misc/Rajaji-Mahabharata.pdf . If I recall correctly, Kamala Subramaniam's book is much larger than Rajagopalachari's book. The page size is larger and the book is thicker. I started reading Subramaniam's book yesterday night and was able to read around 25 pages with a lot...

Some small quotes from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev's book, "Death: An Inside Story" from the chapter: "The Process of Death" and section: "Chakras: The Gateways of Exit": * "Even if you are liberated within yourself, even if you have attained a certain state within you, you still need a lot of skill to leave the physical body consciously. ... People who are on the Yogic path can simply sit in the open and leave - just like dropping one's clothes and walking away, because they know the science of how to leave the body." * "If you want that moment of death to happen in full awareness, you have to live a life of awareness. Otherwise, at that moment, there is no way you are going to be aware....If at the moment of death, a person can be 100 per cent aware, that person will not have to go through rebirth. They will not take another body - they are released." 

Last updated on 17th March 2022 Sairam sir/madam/brother/sister, I felt that if I collect parts of my blog posts that are about my "few" experiences of divine powers of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, into one consolidated document (which can be made a small book later on, if needed), and share that document publicly, it may be helpful to some persons, especially young Sai devotees who have not had much experience of Swami, and new Sai devotees. So I have started that work. I have linked a PDF of the in-progress and rough initial version of the document of 31 pages here (on Google Drive): (document deleted and slightly updated document link given below) . Please have a quick look at it, and tell me whether you think this work may be helpful to some Sai devotees (especially youngsters and new devotees). Please feel free to make frank criticisms. Any other suggestions are welcome.  Note that the document I have linked to above, is a rough initial version. I am just checking out w...

Minor update on 29th March 2022 Readers may want to read my related post: Have become regular in divine awareness meditation; Meditation affirmation-and-helper statements that I use now in March 2022 and that I used in the past (May 2019),  https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/05/hope-to-get-back-to-divine-awareness.html  . Given below are messages (slightly edited) I had shared in the past with some persons privately about a Jan. 2021 meditation session that I had. At that time, I was very hesitant about sharing it publicly. Now I feel I should share them publicly as it may be of interest to some readers with whom I have not privately shared them earlier. Note that at that time, I was **not** keen about having out of body experiences or rising above body consciousness. Now after my recent health emergencies, I am keen on exploring spiritual practices that help a person rise above body consciousness through intense sadhana.  ========================== 18th Jan. 2021 N...

Minor update on 9th March 2022 Once again though on convalescence break, I felt I should write this post. One thing I keenly experienced in my recent health emergency challenges was that while I was not afraid of death and ready for death anytime, I had zero idea of when and how death would come to my body. And that is still the case. I am very convinced about my ultimate reality being the divine, changeless awareness - the Atma - which is deathless. What dies is the body not the Atma/awareness. I also have some limited experience of that awareness. But I have no experience whatsoever of losing body consciousness while engaged in spiritual practice like japam (chanting holy mantra or divine name) or dhyanam (meditation). Instead, as of today, I am very limited by my body and its various weaknesses. It is one thing to be convinced that one's ultimate reality is the awareness and not the body. It is quite another thing to be able to get free of body limitations or lose body conscious...

Minor update on 22 March 2023 While I am on a convalescence break from my social media writing work, I felt that I should write this post on my COVID hospitalization experience as a single (unmarried) simple-living spiritual aspirant, as it may be useful to some readers. An earlier post on this was a short one: Very grateful to Government General Hospital, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh for very good and free treatment for my COVID health emergency, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2022/02/very-grateful-to-government-general.html , 14th Feb. 2022. The COVID pandemic has been a great spiritual test, IMHO, both at personal level and at community level. At personal level, if one gets infected with COVID then one becomes an infection-risk or infection-threat for others.  From a spiritual point of view, at least for me, being an infection-risk to others was (and still is but less so as COVID is not so scary a disease as it was in 2020) quite a disturbing thing, especially in early days of the...