Life and Spirituality

Happy New Year 2017 M ost humans aspire for a long life and wish the same for loved ones. Yet many mystics and spiritual persons have come to the realization that life is in fact immortal. The soul survives death and it is only the body that is discarded as a soul moves on to acquire yet newer bodies, just as a man discards worn out clothes and acquires a new dress. The source of our likes and dislikes, inner habits, emotions, joys and sorrows i.e. the essence of our personality is our soul and it survives death. The mind and body are only temporary acquisitions. The soul uses the mind to store and process information in some ways similar to the manner in which a person uses a computer. While computers may work with a windows or android operating system, the mind works on a God designed operating system. Yet not all are mystics or spiritual persons. Many are not convinced of the immortality of the soul. It is these latter who fear death and aspire for a long life. ...

I n a companion blog, I described the story of a friend from college – Alok Sagar – who after a great education, a doctorate in Engineering from Rice University in USA and a faculty job suddenly dropped it all, to take to the forests as a hermit and began service to forest Tribals, wild life and forests of Central India. He is now known as Maharishi Alok a title of great respect for the spiritual and the educated. In the comments to that post a family friend expressed disappointment and said the family had tried to convince him not to take that road. Good men and women of the world strive to succeed in their worldly careers and serve their families through that success while reserving a portion of their time, effort and money to serve the world, others in need, quietly, anonymously whenever possible for a deed of compassion does not emerge from a desire for worldly rewards. However, the saintly serve the world instead. Buddha and Jesus abandoned their families (although a...

E ven a casual observer would not have failed to note how varied life of humans on Earth is. There are times, places and individuals for which it is utter misery or even worse while there are other times, places and persons for whom it is filled with peace, happiness and joy. Mystics and spiritually inclined persons have pondered over the question since the beginning of civilization and arrived at the conclusion that it is our thoughts and choices we make every moment of our lives that determines our life. Those who are doing well in life often assume it is because they are so very smart and talented or hardworking while those who are having a difficult time say it is because of bad luck. Mystics say it is neither but simply a result of ones deeds emerging from one’s thoughts and choices that is showing up. Some say it is fate but then mystics say those are just past actions and the link has been forgotten. Some modern scientific persons say it is also due to random happ...

O ne can learn much about foods for good health by observing the diet of the healthiest and longest lived humans on earth. However a broad knowledge of food is necessary in order to draw correct inferences. Recently a 117 year old lady has come to the attention of media. Emma Morano celebrated her 117 th birthday this Tuesday; she was born in the 1800s.   She is fully alert in mind, cheerful and disease free despite her age. Therefore the attention of the world was drawn to her regular daily diet. It turned out to be two raw eggs a day and cookies. Much of the media and world has perhaps erroneously concluded that the magic lies in raw eggs. However, this may lead to harm because in many parts of the world there is danger from salmonella bacteria in raw eggs. This dear old lady has been fortunate enough to live in an area where this infection does not prevail. On reading further the secret lies in the lady not consuming meat and getting her protein requirements...

A photo of grass in the author's garden W hen modern humans read or hear about sayings and descriptions of mystics through the ages, many consider it as nonsense of an imagination gone wild. While some of it might be so, there is also much that is based on intuitive knowledge of the universe we live in. It was expressed in the metaphors of the time. The fault lies with us in not being able to interpret it properly. If a modern human with scientific knowledge is able to read through metaphors of mystics, he may attain profound wisdom. Just as an example, when someone reads in a scripture that in the beginning darkness was separated from light, many just laugh at that as wild sayings of a mystic gone poetic. However, within that is a deep scientific truth. A scientific model of creation describes that the first step to creation is the separation of nothingness into an equivalent amount of photons and anti photons – a separation of darkness from light. Many other mystic...

The Yoga of Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food#/media/File:Foods_(cropped).jpg A round 2500 years ago Gautam Buddha advocated compassion and non-violence to all life including animals. This led to a large number of persons adopting a vegetarian life style in South Asia. In recent times the concept has spread further, across the globe. A traditional vegetarian diet consists of not consuming any meat or fish. However milk and its products are consumed freely. In a traditional vegetarian diet eggs are not consumed since these too are regarded as a flesh food. Vegans on the other hand go further and consume no animal product at all including milk. Some years ago, this author proposed the concept of Loveganism that included eliminating or at least minimizing violence to all life, not just animal life but also plant life. Lovegan foods are foods that conform to this principle. Since the introduction of the concept online a few years ago, it seems that some have ta...

D ays, weeks and years roll by, some beautiful sunny days, neither cold nor hot, some bitterly cold or burning hot and a few even with fearful storms and hurricanes. That is the story of life too. Some of the posts are on heavy matters while others are light and joyful. A few recent posts have been heavy and it is time to return to lighter matters. I found the subject of today’s note in a lovely blue creeping flowering plant in my garden and snapped some pictures of it to go with the note. It is called blue butterfly pea or just blue peas. Its botanical name is Clitoria Ternatea. The flower, originally a native of tropical Asia now grows all around the world The flowers of the plant are edible and have health giving properties. They have found use in ancient Indian and Chinese medicine. According to Wikipedia it is ascribed various qualities including memory enhancing, antistress, anxiolytic, antidepressant, anticonvulsant, tranquilizing, and sedative properties. Follow...