Malcolm X's verdict on the white liberal was that "when the chips are down, you'll find that as fixed in him as his bone structure is his sometimes unconscious conviction that he's better than anybody black

American troops contributed nearly 25 percent of South Korea’s gross national
product, and the sex industry accounted for over half of the local economies
surrounding military bases


As of 2000, it was estimated that up to
twenty percent of Korean women between the ages of 15 and 29 had been
involved with jobs that served sexual purposes.


After having my body ravaged by
several customers in a row I just get too tired to move my limbs. At times like
that, I need a shot of heroin. […] I can’t help but take the drug in order to keep
myself in working condition’”.74 These young women, who were often coerced or
kidnapped by pimps, primarily served lower class men who could not afford sex
tours or expensive call girls. The average street prostitute charged approximately
50,000-100,000 won, or the equivalent of the cost of “a few beers”

In SANTA FE
6/15/2014--

When I went near Amma , I told Amma I had been in the forest for few days
Amma asked me why I went. And then asked was it to smoke kanjav
and I laughed so did Amma, and i said no,
Amma said I hope the words coming out of your mouth are true, krpa anugrahte- may grace be on it
And then she moved heard toward me.

When I was sitting watching Amma, Amma gestured its ok for me to pull out my legs.
Also did that wave with scrunched fingers.
And then Amma called me during Poornamrita Swami Bhajans
and asked me what I was thinking of.
I was sitting there recalling all my memories in the past with Her and doing my japa intently.
Then Amma asked me if I saw the talk at Stanford. I said yes, I asked why Swamiji was sitting on the groun- I asked why Amma's head representative swami sat , Amma said he does not get the American english as much and Also priya writes even his satsangs. Then I asked why priya did not wear shoes, Amma said you know and i completed the sentence gurotoam. The feeling of the masters method- so in that case they would never wear shoes where Amma is not and particuarly that respect for the Guru. I thought priyas answer were not as good and took too long translation. Her english is also particular to India but still it was good. I did not say these things. Amma gazed at me and grabbed my hand when asking me about it. Amma asked me you are going to be here tomorrow right.

This tide of my love cannot find a receptacle in little
human beings. I want to love where this mighty river of my love can go, the
ocean of love; this rushing tremendous river of my love cannot enter into little
pools, it wants the infinite ocean.

Vol 1 Vivekananda
Story of VILVAMANGALA

Goodbye Drogas.
Goodbye Alcohol.

-- the discussion of the bottle to order, the big, sexy glasses, the delicious aromas, the dark red or pale yellow of the wine as it's decanted and sipped. At the grocery store I sometimes walk down the wine aisle and admire the pretty labels, the great names of the wineries, and sigh a little. It looks good to me -- it just doesn't feel so great.

I will miss those beautiful reds, and Italian spirits and all the lovely herbal tonic wines
But I am now entering the temperance mode of my life.

I am
proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the
purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to Southern India
and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy
temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny.

Vivekananda

Beautiful beings do not sing in melodious tones” is the unwritten legendary indigenous postulate in Tamilnadu and this note of German missionary Pressier very much appears to have been accepted by the Germans also! Example: the beautiful peacock‟s voice is not bearable – let alone being pleasant. Conversely, the cuckoo and the lark which are not as beautiful as the peacocks sing very pleasantly. Yet another example is the parrot. It looks beautiful; but its voice is not melodious. And it is a matter of extreme surprise and appreciation to us today, to note that these Germans keenly observed not only the birds and animals here in Tamilnadu; but also our heritage legends and fables, associated with zoological and ornithological beings, all of which they came to know of during their tenure in Tamilnadu as Lutheran „missionaries‟ for nearly two centuries.

It is all right. When a person is unmarried he remains fresh. After marriage reality takes over, imagination is absent. Then, the partner becomes a possession, a part of one's self. Also, there may be fear of losing the person - though not in Hinduism, especially among Brahmins. Yet, tastes change. When a person is a child he may want a tricycle, then a bicycle. Later, that will have no meaning and he'll want a motorcycle. So it is with the mind

Ramaswami Pillai

For spiritual life, infinite patience is needed - not just for one lifetime but for many lifetimes.... The sense of time should disappear

Sri Balarama Reddiar

When I arrived at the Ashrama, Bhagavan gave me a warm welcome with a benign smile. As He was seeing me for the first time, His two spontaneous utterances surprised me. Like an affectionate mother, He asked me, "When did you come?" and "How is your right hand?" My right hand was badly fractured when I was 14-years-old and though it healed up the hand remained bent and short. I used to cover it up with full sleeves and even my friends did not know of this serious deformity. How did Bhagavan know about it? And what affectionate concern He showed! After Bhagavan inquired about it, my sense of inferiority because of the defect totally disappeared. More than all this, He asked me to be seated in front of Him. Gazing at Him I sat down and I do not know what happened to me then. When I got up two hours had elapsed. This was an experience I had never had before and I have always cherished it as the first and foremost prasad and blessing received from my Sadguru. That day I understood the purport of the statement, "The Sadguru ever gives unasked!" That moment I knew I had been accepted into His Fold. This strong bond He allowed me to enjoy until His Mahasamadhi, and even after.

M.G. Shanmugam
in remembering Bhagvan Ramana Maharshi

It is what Thomas Jefferson warned us about in 1816: “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

In the 1860s, in the midst of the rebuilding of Paris under Napoleon III and the Baron Haussmann, Charles Baudelaire presented a memorable portrait of the flâneur as the artist-poet of the modern metropolis:
The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family, just like the lover of the fair sex who builds up his family from all the beautiful women that he has ever found, or that are or are not—to be found; or the lover of pictures who lives in a magical society of dreams painted on canvas. Thus the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.
—Charles Baudelaire, "The Painter of Modern Life", (New York: Da Capo Press, 1964). Orig. published in Le Figaro, in 1863.

They have made Radha queen, in the beautiful
groves of Vrindaban.
At her gate stands Krishna, on guard.
His flute is singing all the time:
Radha is about to distribute infinite wealth of love.
Though I am guard, all the world may enter.
Come all ye who thirst! Say only 'Glory unto Radha!'
Enter the region of love!


That was a great hour indeed when he spoke of Buddha; for, catching a word that seemed to
identify him with its anti—Brahminical spirit, an uncomprehending listener said, "Why,
Swami, I did not know that you were a Buddhist!
"Madam", he said, rounding on her, his whole face aglow with the inspiration of that name, "I
am the servant of the servants of the servants of Buddha. Who was there ever like him? — the
Lord — who never performed one action for himself — with a heart that embraced the whole
world! So full of pity that he — prince and monk — would give his life to save a little goat! So
loving that he sacrificed himself to the hunger of a tigress! — to the hospitality of a pariah and
blessed him! And he came into my room when I was a boy and I fell at his feet! For I knew it
was the Lord Himself!

There is nothing for modern man to return to. Our wonderful time in the wilderness had given us a taste of what man had abandoned and what mankind was still trying to get even further away from. Progress today can be defined as man's ability to complicate simplicity. Nothing in all the procedure that modern man, helped by all his modern middlemen, goes through before he earns money to buy a fish or a potato will ever be as simple as pulling it out of the water or soil. Without the farmer and the fisherman, modern society would collapse, with all its shops and pipes and wires. The farmers and the fishermen represent the nobility of modern society; they share their crumbs with the rest of us, who run about with papers and screwdrivers attempting to build a better world without a blueprint.

| Thor Heyerdahl

"Existence can never be non-existence, neither can non-existence ever become
existence. ... Know, therefore, that that which pervades all this universe is
without beginning or end. It is unchangeable. There is nothing in the universe
that can change [the Changeless]. Though this body has its beginning and end,
the dweller in the body is infinite and without end." (Ibid. 16-18.)


Knowing this, stand up and fight! Not one step back, that is the idea. ... Fight it
out, whatever comes. Let the stars move from the sphere! Let the whole world
stand against us! Death means only a change of garment. What of it? Thus
fight! You gain nothing by becoming cowards. ... Taking a step backward, you
do not avoid any misfortune. You have cried to all the gods in the world. Has
misery ceased? The masses in India cry to sixty million gods, and still die like
dogs. Where are these gods? ... The gods come to help you when you have
succeeded. So what is the use? Die game. ... This bending the knee to
superstitions, this selling yourself to your own mind does not befit you, my
soul. You are infinite, deathless, birthless. Because you are infinite spirit, it
does not befit you to be a slave. ... Arise! Awake! Stand up and fight! Die if
you must. There is none to help you. You are all the world. Who can help you?



"As the tortoise can draw in his legs, and if you strike him, not one foot comes
out, even so the sage can draw all his sense-organs inside," (Ibid. 58.) and
nothing can force them out. Nothing can shake him, no temptation or anything.
Let the universe tumble about him, it does not make one single ripple in his
mind.




Vivekananda

There are certain works which are, as it were, the aggregate, the sum total, of a
large number of smaller works. If we stand near the seashore and hear the
waves dashing against the shingle, we think it is such a great noise, and yet we
know that one wave is really composed of millions and millions of minute
waves. Each one of these is making a noise, and yet we do not catch it; it is
only when they become the big aggregate that we hear. Similarly, every
pulsation of the heart is work.



The majority of us cannot see beyond a few years, just as
some animals cannot see beyond a few steps. Just a little narrow circle — that
is our world. We have not the patience to look beyond, and thus become
immoral and wicked. This is our weakness, our powerlessness.


There arises a difficult question in this ideal of work. Intense activity is
necessary; we must always work. We cannot live a minute without work. What
then becomes of rest? Here is one side of the life-struggle — work, in which we
are whirled rapidly round. And here is the other — that of calm, retiring
renunciation: everything is peaceful around, there is very little of noise and
show, only nature with her animals and flowers and mountains. Neither of them
is a perfect picture. A man used to solitude, if brought in contact with the
surging whirlpool of the world, will be crushed by it; just as the fish that lives
in the deep sea water, as soon as it is brought to the surface, breaks into pieces,
deprived of the weight of water on it that had kept it together. Can a man who
has been used to the turmoil and the rush of life live at ease if he comes to a
quiet place? He suffers and perchance may lose his mind. The ideal man is he
who, in the midst of the greatest silence and solitude, finds the intensest
activity, and in the midst of the intensest activity finds the silence and solitude
of the desert. He has learnt the secret of restraint, he has controlled himself. He
goes through the streets of a big city with all its traffic, and his mind is as calm
as if he were in a cave, where not a sound could reach him; and he is intensely
working all the time. That is the ideal of Karma-Yoga




Vivekananda
Yoga Works. Vol. 1

'The elation and the excitement of the previous night had
burnt away, and a chilling reaction followed. I was very
hungry, for I had had no dinner before starting, and choco
late, though it sustains, does not satisfy. I had scarcely slept,
but yet my heart beat so fiercely and I was so nervous and
perplexed about the future that I could not rest. I thought
of all the chances that lay against me; I dreaded and de
tested more than words can express the prospect of being
caught and dragged back to Pretoria. I found no comfort in
any of the philosophical ideas which some men parade in
their hours of ease and strength and safety. They seemed
only fair-weather friends. I realised with awful force that no
exercise of my own feeble wit and strength could save me
from my enemies, and that without the assistance of that
High Power which interferes in the eternal sequence of
causes and effects more often than we are always prone to
admit, I could never succeed. I prayed long and earnestly
for help and guidance. My prayer, as it seems to me, was
swiftly and wonderfully answered.'

| Winston Churchill
Roving Commission
My Early Life

Working from Dr. Clayton’s framework, Monika Ardelt, an associate sociology professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, felt a need to expand on studies of old age because of research showing that satisfaction late in life consists of things like maintaining physical and mental health, volunteering and having positive relationships with others. But this isn’t always possible if the body breaks down, if social roles are diminished and if people suffer major losses. “So these people cannot age successfully? They have to give up?” she recalled asking herself.

Wisdom, she has found, is the ace in the hole that can help even severely impaired people find meaning, contentment and acceptance in later life.

In the words of Shankaracharya


A father has got his sons and others to free him from his debts, but he has got none but himself to remove his bondage

* Great Indian Philosopher and reorganizer of the ancient monastic Swami Order. His date is uncertain, scholars assign him to the 6th Century. The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan sects which were removed to India for safety, were organized accordingly or placed as the ancient Indic Swami Order tradition encompassed in different areas and sections of the sub-continent.

The Buddha said -- The profit of the holy life, O monks, lies not in gains and favors and honour nor in, the fulfillment of morals, nor in the fulfillment of concentration , nor in the knowledge and vision; but just this,  O monks: the sure, unshakable deliverance of the mind. That is the aim of this holy life. That is its heart That is the goal.

In  Connection
(gynamata of the yogananda order)

But the best gifts cannot be purchased and given. The gift and graces of the soul must be acquired by patient, daily practice. All will surely be yours in time, for if you do not obtain them in the position to which God has called you for, where in all the world are they to be found?

I tend to feel happy; but - the eternal dilemma - how can we be happy amid the unhappiness of others? I'd do everything I could to give everyone a moment of happiness. That's what's at the heart of my music

| Nino Rota

Q: So all my questions, my search and study are of no use?
M: These are but the stirrings of a man who is tired of sleeping. They are not the causes of awakening, but its early signs. But, you must not ask idle questions, to which you already know the answers.
Q: How am I to get a true answer?
M: By asking a true question -- non-verbally, but by daring to live according to your lights. A man willing to die for truth will get it.



Q: The memory of my wonderful experiences haunts me. I want them back.
M: Because you want them back, you cannot have them. The state of craving for anything blocks all deeper experience. Nothing of value can happen to a mind which knows exactly what it wants. For nothing the mind can visualise and want is of much value.

Surely, the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself.

M: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it.
Q: Surely everybody deserves peace.
M: Those only deserve it, who don't disturb it.
Q: In what way do I disturb peace?
M: By being a slave to your desires and fears.
Q: Even when they are justified?
M: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are never justified. Seek a clear mind and a clean heart. All you need is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.

Q: What do you see?
M: I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of your attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus, become aware of your own existence. See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your self. The way back to your self is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about your self anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the ‘I am’ is over -- you are no longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. All definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being -- we differ only in appearance. We discover it by being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind
Clothes him in front, but leaves him bare behind.
But actually it is we, the rich and highly educated whites, who have left ourselves bare behind. We cover our anterior nakedness with some philosophy-Christian, Marxian, Freudo-Physicalist-but abaft we remain uncovered, at the mercy of all the winds of circumstance. The poor Indian, on the other hand, has had the wit to protect his rear by supplementing the fig leaf of a theology with the breechcloth of transcendental experience.

In the musical 1776, John Hancock sharply questions whether the Tory conservatives, who oppose independence, are loyal 'to the British Crown or to the British half-crown.' His opponent responds:
'Don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us . .

“The mule I sit on while I recite
Starts off in one direction
But then gets drunk
And lost in
Heaven.”
The Gift
Hafiz