Experiences
2015-- Summer

Seattle:



San Ramon:

Last Devi Bhava (2nd one):

Amma said this haircut (recently cut by Sals) looks better. She said you still look handsome. I had thought Amma said this looks better than the other one, meaning the other person, aka dheepu, but Amma firmly said your other hair cut. Then I said I want to swim in the prema sagara. Amma said prema sagara, you want to be a part of it, she said it is all around you, but you look this way and that way, and don't see. I was little confused/annoyed, Amma gave me this look. 

Previously, I brought the cashews (raw) to Amma seasoned, but Amma said after much reluctnance it was little salty. Then she said to feed her one by one. Gita said do it freely. Amma had this awkward look like what am I doing, on more of a purposeful way, then She said its like she is the baby and I am the mother. Then after sometime Amma said, thats enough . She said you will finish me or something of the sort. 

When I went to talk to Amma, then Amma asked me where is he, your brother, I said oh, he is sitting up there. I told Amma I do not think the girl he is with has an aishwaryam, but then Amma said about how she had this devotee in New York, she had wanted to marry an Amma devotee but ended up with some devotee of that breathing saint guy, ram something. Amma seemed perturbed by this as she repeated it several times throughout the conversation. I told Amma, ideally one should marry someone who grew up in Amma and such, Amma said yes , then dheepu came. I told Amma, oh he may get angry if you repeat my opinions. Amma told dheepu, oh he is making lies about you. Amma told me, you have to be able to get the girl. Amma said here people also have to mentally make up their minds when they decide or choose to get married. Amma said I have brought some here. She told me India is different, you guys have more samskara then them, as they eat where ever, movies, etc.. Amma told me you don't know India has become worse. Then I said don't you have your pearls, Amma said of course. 

When I left, I told Amma I got a haircut and then Amma said oh thats the change. She said it looks good, and rubbed my head, as I bent way down in this like way as she said good. When I was in Seattle, amma during devi bhava asked me why I was in a bad mood, are you depressed, and then I said i need this swarupam, and Amma squeezed my cheeks and flattened my face like a pancake  in between her hands. I almost felt like I entered samadhi at that point. This type of experience happened once or twice. I literally felt like I was being carried away. It was such an intense feeling, and then gradually faded away. I could not express that after sometime, it went away. I hope to get that again. When Amma asked me if i did not want to marry. I said i see a difference between lust and love. And lust is not fully controllable, but for me all the love, I received through Amma. I did not get the chance to live with the Guru in this life, guru girih vasu, but I want to reach her, by thinking of her, and that this life should be lived like so. Amma repeated to dheepu, though I doubt he understood, he said oh he speaks well, then Amma said aren't you the lawyer. Dheepu said oh the girls in India may not work out, Amma said you speak from your experience, like reading one book in the library, but can you judge all the other books. 


In Amma's satsang she stressed, that one is born in love, lives in love , and dies in love. 

Amma also told me as I fed her, you are doing these things, but you had better control your habits. Amma had told dheepu he has somehow gotten this habit, how someone so close to Amma could have it. Amma said I have mild  psychosis like daddy, nothing major , but still. Then I researched and found that MMJ can have a bad sustained effect on people who are regular habitual smokers. So I have decided it is best to quit as it may intensify my psychosis to unmanageble degree. She had said it is very small, but still. 

She also told me not to lose this job. I had told Amma I do not wish to work for 10 15 years in this world, as one looses all the beauty of spirtiuality. Amma looked at me with a strong look. She said dont throw away this job. She said work, and then after few years we will see how fit your mind is. 


When one day I was leaving, she asked me where I was going. I said work then dheepu was with me. I said I have to work, he doesnt or something (he took 2 weeks vacay, but still worked remotely), Amma gave dheepu this beaming look. Amma had told madhu, I told you guys you can come any time to ask me, not wait like these people. Amma was talking about how dheepu comes here, next to Amma, and Amma opens the way, but still does not come to speak. 

How grand and subtle are her effects and notices. Indeed as long as the mind continues with great intensity toward Bhagvan, the guru will guide you. You have to work on retaining purity and doing sadhana, the Guru will literally fill the rest of your needs. An active and busy life is a requirement. Lazyiness indulges poor habits that are not aligned with spirtiual practice. 

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.