Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

This blog's total views crossed 1 million views a few days back. The blog was started in August 2013 and so this is over a period of 12 years and few months. I felt it appropriate to record this milestone with a post.  Perhaps it may be of interest to some readers. I am not active on this blog for the past two years or so. Excluding tiny referral posts which simply refer to posts I have put up on some of my other blogs, I have put up 25 posts on this blog in past two years or so (from October 2023), making it an average of around 2 posts per month. So it is quite interesting that Blogger stats for the past 12 months (for this blog) reports 136K (136,000) views. Surely some of these views are from non-human bots and also referral spam which cannot be considered as genuine views. Visitors can see the total count of views in the menu of this blog, which is usually accessible from top left menu dropdown in blog window or in the left side menu panel in a large width window (>= 1...

Some readers may be interested in a recent post of mine on another blog:  Blogger's Don't track my views setting gets reset after some time - Probable cause; Chrome extn for notification if reset .

Last updated on 1 Oct. 2025 I was hesitant to share my view about this statement attributed (don't know if the attribution is correct) to the great Nisargadatta Maharaj, in a Facebook post : "It is the person you imagine yourself to be that suffers, not you. Dissolve it in awareness. It is merely a bundle of memories and habits." After some internal debate, I decided to share it, as I thought it may be of some help to some spiritual aspirants. Dissolve suffering in awareness - I find that very interesting as I am very much into "Dissolve in Awareness-I/God meditation" nowadays. "Dissolve in Awareness-I/God meditation" is giving me great contentment and peace but only when my body is relatively free from significant issues or when I am not facing other serious problems. However, as of now at least, I cannot dissolve suffering in awareness. I have to try to resolve any suffering issues I have by prayer to help cope with them and also prayer to get them ...

Last updated on 2 Oct. 2025 Over the past several months, I think I have got some mental clarity on the big and very confusing issue that has been quite dominant in my life since my health emergencies of early 2022. That issue is about what is the best approach for me as a single spiritual aspirant, to handle health challenges and associated financial burden. BTW my health issues are quite under control now with regular medication and lifestyle control but there are many limitations these health issues have introduced in my life as compared to my life before 2022. This 'mental clarity' is, as of now, only at my thinking and mental preparation level and has been stable over past several months. But I really do not know whether they will stand the tests of any additional real life major health challenges in future. Nonetheless, earlier on, after early 2022 challenges, I did not have even this mental clarity, and had got into a lot of major confusion about what is the right way fo...

This post captures some recent spiritual contemplation of mine. In this post, by 'contemplation' I mean: considering (thinking about) something thoughtfully for some time. The ever-present, unchanging and indestructible awareness (awareness-I/Atma) is a great mystery of (my) life, perhaps the greatest mystery of my life. It seems to me to be almost impenetrable. Note that ever-present and unchanging aspects of the awareness/Atma are direct experience for me but the indestructible aspect is a deeply held belief backed by strong intuition. Recently it struck me that the awareness/Atma can be considered partly to be like the mysterious Monoliths in Arthur Clarke's Space Odyssey 2001. Almost impenetrable! Monolith replica pic , Monolith wiki page , Video clip of the Moon Monolith in the movie (3 min. 47 secs.) . I believe and feel (through intuition) that if I am able to uncover or dissolve into or penetrate the awareness/Atma then I may have a clear pathway to go beyond my b...

Last updated on 30 July 2025 This post shares key points related to meditation practice part of my spiritual practice/journey since my last post update on this topic around 2 months back:  Based on my spiritual practice, my understanding but not yet experience, of two possible ways of going beyond body consciousness .  The above post has a section: Method 2: Dissolve into awareness-I / Dissolve into God. I have now become steady in this method for my meditation practice. It is jelling well with me. I am able to get into this meditation method and stay in it quite easily. So I am quite satisfied with this method. But I have not been able to get into a trance or go beyond body consciousness. At times, I do get into a sort-of deeper zone and that's a great feeling but no trance, as of now. On Sundays, I try to spend more time in meditation. Today (27 Jul 2025) being Sunday, I had a good meditation session using this method which was for around two hours though with some spir...

Info given below is based on my usage and also on a recent chat with ChatGPT: For display of blog posts/pages: On Android, Chrome dark mode shows Blogger posts in dark mode well. On desktop PC on Windows, Chrome dark mode for Blogger website does not seem to work or work well. I use a Chrome dark mode extension on desktop PC which works well for display of blog posts/pages.  There seem to be some CSS and/or JavaScript solutions to provide dark mode support for display of Blogger blog posts/pages. But I do not want to get into them now as these approaches will need to be tested well before regular use on my main blogs. For editing blog posts/pages: Blogger website as well as Blogger mobile app does not support dark mode. On desktop PC (on Windows), I use High Contrast which is not a great solution but quite OK. [Windows High Contrast toggle keyboard shortcut: Alt+Shift+PrintScreen] On Android, one of ChatGPT suggestions of "Settings > Accessibility > Color inversion"...

Last updated on 29 May 2025 This post follows up on a recent spiritual notes post of mine. See 10th May 2025 entry in post: Spiritual (Chanting & Meditation) Notes (Edited) from 26 Dec. 2024 to 10 May 2025, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2025/05/spiritual-meditation-notes-edited-from.html . In fact, some of the content of this post repeats what I have said in this earlier post. I decided to put this up as a separate post instead of adding to my earlier post, as I think the topic deserves a separate post. At the outset, I would like to say that I have not been able to go beyond body consciousness despite having tried to do that over a few years now. But in the process, I think I have a clearer idea of the way that could possibly, I repeat, possibly be achieved. Method 1: Raise core of my being to beyond top of my head This method involves fair amount of mental effort, which is first identifying and then staying in what I sense as the core of my being, which is a little behind the e...

Some spam comments on this blog are unavoidable. But the problem is that some spam commenters keep commenting even when their earlier comments are marked as spam and so do not show in the associated blog posts. I googled for a way to block some such spam commenters. Looks like Blogger does not have an in-built mechanism for that. I can stop all comments or limit comments to those with some id (like Google id) but I don't want to do that as that might block some genuine commenter. Further, the regular spam commeters also seem to have Ids like Google/Blogger id. This article claims to give some solution which involves inserting jquery code in blogger theme: How to Ban Someone Commenting on Your BlogSpot Blog, https://www.knigulper.com/2017/11/ban-spam-user-commenting-on-blogger-blogs.html . As of now,  I don't want to get into inserting such code into the blogger theme(s) I use. But I may try it out in future, if required.

Yesterday, 10 May 2025, I was pleased to see quite good responses from both ChatGPT and Gemini apps for my message/request: Tell me about Dissolve into God meditation. ---- I think I had used the Android apps for the chats on my phone and later viewed the chat transcripts from the web app versions on my PC. ChatGPT's response was easier to absorb as it had clear sections and simple explanations. The initial part of ChatGPT's response is given below: "Dissolve into God" meditation refers to a deep spiritual practice where the individual self (ego or separate identity) is surrendered or merged into the infinite divine presence—God, Brahman, or the Absolute. It is common in Advaita Vedanta, Bhakti Yoga, Sufism, and certain mystical Christian and Buddhist traditions. The essence is losing the sense of separateness and realizing oneness with the divine. ---- The whole chat can be viewed at: https://chatgpt.com/share/681f258c-1c44-8013-b4f5-adf4cb1005f6 . Default model was...

Last updated on 18 Aug 2025 Given below is a slightly edited version of my spiritual notes (mainly, if not wholly, on japa-dhyana i.e. chanting & meditation) from 26 Dec. 2024 to 10 May 2025, in reverse chronological order. [The objective of putting it up publicly is that it may be of help to some spiritual aspirant.] ========== ========== 10th May 2025 'Dissolve into God' has become an important part of my spiritual sadhana now. BTW, grammatically, perhaps 'dissolve in God' is more correct but from a mental or verbal chant point of view, 'dissolve into God' is more suitable and so I am using that (the latter). Hope the following will not be too much detail but I thought of sharing it just in case it helps somebody. For formless 'dissolve into God' sadhana, when my eyes are closed, I have noted that trying to focus on the Bhrumadhya (भ्रूमध्य, center of eyebrows, Ref: https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/bhrumadhya ) takes some effort. So I don't...

I have great reverence for Pope Francis. He came across as kind and helpful both as a person and as a spiritual leader. May almighty God shower His Grace on Pope Francis' soul. I shared the above as a share-comment on my share of Indian PM Narendra Modi's Facebook post on Pope Francis passing away. My FB post link:  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/pfbid02CfzkAaV1Rp2TEEVTyHZoTmjdvMdZ4dUbkLR1ZsxnkuUy4bhwqwFGA6D45RWFs5vEl .

Last updated on 21 Apr. 2025 [On PC desktop/laptop, 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.] Some days back I had a chat with ChatGPT about Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba to get some idea about how it would be responding to others who ask it about Swami. In that chat, in some context it had said that Swami had never gone out of India. At that time, I did not try to correct/update it. But today I tried to correct it. I asked it, "Did ssb travel out of India" [I meant to say Sathya Sai Baba and use ssb as a shortcut on my phone but did not note that this shortcut had not got expanded in this chat (I had the chat on my phone).] It responded, "No, Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba (SSB) never traveled outside of India during His lifetime...." I wrote, "Hmm. Actually he did travel once to East Africa (physically, I mean). Would u like ...

Last updated on 14 April 2025 Today I had an interesting conversation with ChatGPT on: Who am I as per Vedanta. Given that ChatGPT is quite popular now and is free to use, I guess that some persons wanting to know more about this topic may be, perhaps casually, asking ChatGPT this question. So I wanted to know how it would answer this vital question. I was very happy to see that it answered the question quite well, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion). Further, it asked whether I would like to know about "a meditative or practical way to explore" it more deeply. On saying yes, I was very happy to see that the "simple yet powerful meditative practice" it suggested was also quite good, IMHO. I later asked it about my related book without revealing that I was the author. It knew about it and presented some info. about it. I then revealed that I am the author and it responded in a very nice way. The conversation was friendly and engaging. I find that aspect of it to be fascinati...

Given below are some extracts from Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba discourse, Summer Course, 16-6-1977, https://sssbpt.info/ssspeaks/volume13/sss13-33.pdf (slightly edited to fix typo kind of errors): Yoga means union or yoking, and the jeevaathma (The Individual Soul) has to be yoked with the Paramaathman (Supreme Soul); one has to find its fulfilment in the Whole, of which it is a part. As the rivers carry the waters of the sea back into the sea itself, happy to lose the limitations of their names, their size etc. in that consummation, so the individual merges into the Universal. That is Yoga. It is Yoga that happens to the salt doll that is dropped into the depths of the sea to calculate the depth of the water. The salt too comes from the sea and becomes one with the sea. ... The aajnaa chakra on the mid-brow spot is the embodiment of vijnaana---the Splendour of Aware-ness---for when this chakra is reached, man glimpses the Truth, gets transformed and becomes translucent. It is only a...

The links of patanjaliyogasutra.in site given below have nice Sanskrit and Hindi explanation of related 3 key verses from Patanjali Yogasutra. I think the English translations in the site could be better. Dharana: Verse 3.1, https://patanjaliyogasutra.in/vibhooti-pada-3-1/ [Sanskrit: देशबन्धश्चित्तस्य धारणा ] Dhyana: Verse 3.2, https://patanjaliyogasutra.in/vibhooti-pada-3-2/ [Sanskrit: तत्र प्रत्ययैकतानता ध्यानम् ] Samadhi: Verse 3.3, https://patanjaliyogasutra.in/vibhooti-pada-3-3/ [Sanskrit: ‌तदेवार्थमात्रनिर्भासं स्वरूपशून्यमिव समाधिः ] [Due to copyright, I am not sharing the Hindi and English text from the above site. The Sanskrit text surely must be out of copyright and so I have shared it.] This book seems to be out of copyright: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, by Charles Johnston, [1912], at sacred-texts.com, https://sacred-texts.com/hin/ysp/ysp06.htm . Its English translations for the verses are: Dharana: Verse 3.1, [Sanskrit: देशबन्धश्चित्तस्य धारणा ] English: The binding o...