Life and Spirituality

V inod, just sent me lovely birthday wishes composed as a poem. Vinod is a class fellow from IIT Delhi and retired a few years ago as one of the senior most officers of the Indian bureaucracy (he was at the top of the equivalent of IRS in India). We have known each other and been friends for precisely 50 years now. Happy Birthday Forgive us dear friend how could we forget we shouldn't forget our life and breath friend of friends monk among studs worldly too but not of the world wise and bold a style of your own with a sublime touch Happy birthday to you Dear Ashok ji and our best wishes though belated but warmest and most heartfelt and our fervent prayers for a long healthy and most fruitful life to you May God Bless you ever that you go on touching billions of hearts and souls! With lots of love and highest Regards Vinod Khurana

S oon after building a home some twenty five years ago, I planted a lot of trees around it. I began putting out some bird seed and bread etc. to attract the birds. Along with the birds came the squirrels and I discovered they like precisely the same food as the birds. A few of the squirrels became friends and I gave them silly sounding names which to the squirrels must have sounded quite proper and dignified. The squirrels would take bread pieces from my hands. Then around twelve years ago a brood of cats moved into the area. They were great for finishing up rats that inhabited the area from before the homes were built but unfortunately they wiped out the squirrels too. The birds have continued to live because most are much too smart for the cats; a black bird even teases them by hopping around in front of them. As a result the home is surrounded by bird songs all day, every day during daylight hours. I have not seen a squirrel here for about ten years now but today ...

  F rom 1974 to 1978, I spent four years in Vancouver pursuing doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia. During this period, I stayed in a rented room near the university in the home of a Canadian Lady by the name of Olive Cuthbert. She was a retired nurse who had spent part of her younger days in Malaysia. She said the Malaysians had looked after her well and she wished to help students from developing countries to return the favor. She had since rented out two furnished rooms on the first floor of her Vancouver home to such students on very favorable terms. I stayed with her all through my four or so years of study while the occupant of the other room changed over the years. There was one from Fiji, then Kenya and finally from Nigeria. Since we shared the kitchen and much else in the home we all became good friends during our stay. The most interesting of my friendship in this home was with the Kenyan student. His name was Mwaghazi Mwachofi Mwashimb...

W hen one bases one’s life on greed, lies, hate and other forms of evil, then extent of punishment of such persons and when it should begin is decided by Universal Consciousness in keeping with the personality and deeds of such persons.   W hen one bases one’s life on love, truth and simplicity and other forms of goodness then the extent of reward of such persons and when it should begin is decided by Universal consciousness in keeping with the personality and deeds of such persons. H owever, the punishment is one of love like that from a loving parent to a child, for reform and education, never for retribution as human ones at times tend to be. T here is a gullible and foolish person who looks at evil ones and thinks, “look they are enjoying great wealth and power, let me also become like them and enjoy what this world has to offer, this talk of God and goodness is stupid talk designed by clever humans to enslave and exploit the rest,” for it is from among ev...

https://twitter.com/PardueSuzanne/status/745088325560729600 A Happy International Yoga day to all this June 21 st , 2016 About Entropy yoga, the simplest to begin with http://someitemshave.blogspot.in/2014/07/a-yoga-for-everyone-entropy-yoga.html Follow with Sun Inspired Yoga http://someitemshave.blogspot.in/2014/12/five-steps-to-sun-inspired-yoga-improve.html Or Jump directly to love with Kriya Yoga http://nainitalgoddess.blogspot.in/2010/09/kriya-yoga-as-taught-by-baba-haidakhan.html Nainital Plains photographed by author on way to Haidakhan Ashram

http://www.pd4pic.com/bird-sparrow-nature-animal-digital-art.html S everal birds live and visit the small garden around my home. It has many trees, dense bushes and a lawn. They just love that aside from the fact that I put water, bird seed, left over rice, bread crumbs etc. out for them quite regularly. Most times the visits are from about half a dozen types of birds common in the area with the sparrows and the red tailed Bulbul being the friendliest. However, every now and then a special or different bird also makes a visit. Once in a while, a visit may be so special that it is a special message from Nature or as some say, an omen. I do not understand a lot of the language in which nature communicates with us but most definitely a lot more than my friends and most other humans simply because I have lived a more reclusive life in close companionship with nature over the last decade or more. So today, when a special sky blue love bird came to visit while I was waterin...

http://absfreepic.com/free-photos/download/beautiful-sun-beam-on-grassland-4608x3072_66131.html G rass is the most plentiful source of food on our Planet for humans and animals. Of various grasses, some are excellent food sources for humans. Both wheat and rice are varieties of grass. The seeds can be dried and stored for long. Wheat is one of the cheapest sources of food for humans because of its abundance. A few humans are allergic to gluten in wheat and in that case rice or corn is an alternative. http://www.stock-free.org/field-harvest-wheat-haystack.html Humans have a tendency to develop food fads for a few decades at a time such as cholesterol free, caffeine free, gluten free etc. Natural food eaters avoid all such fad foods that are unnatural and have undergone much processing . Those components are essential to the food they are a part of but since individual chemistry of each person is unique and reacts differently to same food, some may be allergic ...