Life and Spirituality

Photo shows roof of Naini Mata Temple in Nainital with text overlay by Ashok Malhotra My cousin Pradeep and a face book friend posted something this morning about a Mantra on his wall: Mantra Dhaarnaa Yon Kar, Vidhi Se Le Kar Naam Japiye Nishchaya Achal Se, Shakti-Dhaam Sri Ram These verses in Hindi may be translated as: From right Teacher learn right technique of repetition of right name Then mediate with greatest faith, Upon the Lord’s most vital name I fully agree with my dear cousin that the chanting of Mantras done correctly is a powerful technique, even magical. That is the reason one has magicians chanting spells in fairy tales to perform magic. Recently a college classmate and dear friend got into serious legal difficulties. His name is Rajat Gupta. Until recently he was one of the most senior corporate executives on our planet well known to Prime Ministers and Presidents including Obama and Clinton. He can be found in Wikipedia. However, amongst so...

Song of the Angels by W. Adolphe O nce I read somewhere (I forget the reference) that many meetings are like a visit to the toilet. It involves much sitting, noise and eventually the outcome is flushed down the toilet. As Raymond pointed out as a comment to a post in this blog, as regards spiritual matters, much time is wasted in worthless spiritual discussions and arguments. Nothing could be truer. Spirituality involves many things that are felt rather than seen. It also includes abstract concepts and therefore a meaningless argument becomes all the more likely. As a simple example consider how meaningless is the argument between two men about whether a particular actress is sexy or not. What is sexy to one may be repulsive to another, since in such matters much personal experience and taste is involved. Just as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, spiritual understanding is in the heart of the beholder. Consider the frequent argument between, theists and atheists whether G...