Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

Last updated on 28 Sep. 2023 On Facebook, I shared a recent post by Facebook user, "Ramana Maharshi", along with some comments of mine. Here's my shared post link: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/pfbid0p5oi85UKtYDAePKFfLRi34DeB9GCrM15rtkm3TXWEgApmHDatfQ2U56vraMCtMr8l  . The Ramana Maharshi post is about the vision of death Ramana Maharshi had (as a young lad), and how at that time/in that experience, even though his senses were numb, the "Aham sphurana (self-awareness) was clearly evident". That (led to) realization that this self-awareness never decays and that even when the body is burned, the self-awareness would not be affected, and that this self-awareness is the (real) "I". Given below are the contents of my post and one comment of mine on it: I think I may be getting into tricky territory with this comment but I felt I should make it. It is one thing to know one's reality is the undecaying self-awareness and that one's ultim...

My humble views on the above query which is on the lines of a private query I got recently: At a paramaarthika sathyam level, there is only Brahman, which is a formless power or force or presence (and not a personality). At a vyavaharika sathyam level, divinity takes form like Rama, Krishna and Sai Baba. Prayer is heard and understood by divinity in form of Rama/Krishna/Sai Baba as well as by formless Brahman. Some quotes about paramaarthika and vyavaharika sathyam are given below. From Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's divine discourse on 21st July 1996, http://www.sssbpt.info/ssspeaks/volume29/d960721.pdf : There are three aspects of this Divinity: paramarthika, vyavaharika, and pratibhasika (absolutely real, empirical and illusory). These three are not different from each other. The same Divinity is present in all three. There can be no waves without water, and there can be no froth without waves. The waves are the basis of froth, and water is the basis of waves. Water is the same ...

Last updated on 4 Sep. 2023 These blogbooklets were created by using the procedure described in the post: Creating Blogger Blogbooklets based on search criteria and excluding some pages/posts from it, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2023/09/creating-blogger-blogbooklets-based-on.html . The excluded pages and posts were the long lists of posts pages and a long "Ten years since I started regular blogging"... post. The files below have been shared on Google Drive. Please Note: On Google Drive, HTML file is rendered as text file in the preview. To view it as rendered HTML, the file has to be downloaded to PC/device and then opened in a browser. On Google Drive, PDF file preview shows the document but internal links do not work. Download file to PC and then view locally in browser or PDF reader to use internal links (I use free Foxit Reader 9.7 which supports Alt + Back Arrow to go back to point where internal link was clicked). The log file (text file) preview in Google Drive...

Last updated on 18th Dec. 2023 My post: Viewing Awareness-I as essence or part of God in my meditation and trying to dissolve or merge into God (experience oneness with God), https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2023/06/viewing-awareness-i-as-essence-or-part.html , 7 Jun 2023, covers how I now view Awareness-I as essence or part of God in my meditation practice. Now it is around one to two months that I have been regularly using this practice. I continue to do my Namasmarana practice of "Om Sai Ram" too - so for some time I do "Om Sai Ram" chanting and for some time I do Awareness-I japa-dhyaana (chanting-meditation). It was a natural step after viewing Awareness-I as essence or part of God (nameless and formless God) to view my Awareness-I as essence or part of Sai (Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba and Bhagavan Sri Shirdi Sai Baba) while I was doing "Om Sai Ram" namasmarana. Nowadays when I chant "Om Sai Ram", most of the time, automatically the attentio...

Previously I had created posts related to Thuravoor Narayana Shastrigal (TNS) on this blog of mine: ravisiyer.blogspot.com . On 14th April 2023, I copied all the posts with content mainly on TNS, to a new blog I created: tnarayanasasthri.blogspot.com blog (referred hereafter as tns blog). The corresponding old posts of this blog - ravisiyer.blogspot.com - inform readers about this move and provide the associated post of the tns blog as a link. Thuravoor Narayana Sasthrigal (or Shastrigal / Sasthrikal / Sastri / Sasthri / Shastri ) is my great-grandfather (my mother's father's father). I think the key Sanskrit word for the last name is a honorific - शास्त्री . For more about tns blog, please visit: https://tnarayanasasthri.blogspot.com/p/about-blog-and-author.html . Unfortunately, Google search for: Thuravoor Narayana Sasthrigal does not list the tns blog post(s) at all. Instead it returns one post of this ravisiyer.blogspot.com whose contents point the reader to tns blog. Whi...

Last updated on 16 Jun 2023 Note: This is a sensitive topic and I may be wildly wrong. But I felt an urge to write and publish it as it may benefit some spiritual aspirant(s), and so have done so. Any constructive criticism is welcome. I will be glad to change my views based on new material that I have so far not read or viewed. end-Note. Firstly I would like to say that well established in self-realization persons would surely not have fear of (bodily) death. The question in my mind is how they would view bodily pain and weakening of body due to disease and old age. Would they fear having bodily pain and suffering and so try to avoid it whenever possible? If they do have bodily pain and weakening of body due to disease and old age, how do they handle it?  In what follows in this post, when I use the term self-realized person, I mean a well established in self-realization person. In my own case, I am NOT such a well-established in self-realization person but have had some limited s...

In the process of putting up and later updating my previous post on Sam Harris interview video, I happened to write about some similarities and differences between how Sam Harris, an atheist, views experience of consciousness/awareness and how I, a Hindu theist, view it. I thought that I should now put up a separate post (this one) on these similarities and differences which is based on some of the contents of my previous post, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2023/06/rationalist-sam-harris-on-consciousness.html  , but omits some parts which are not directly related to this topic.  Note that there probably are more similarities and differences between Sam Harris' view and my view on consciousness/awareness but this post deals with only that related to one section of the video. That is why in the title of this post, I have used the phrase, 'Some similarities and differences'. 1) Both Harris (atheist) and I (Hindu theist) hold the view that almost all of life is impermanent inc...