Daily Archives: 10th June 2014

Medicine miracle

RamaKrishna Paramhansa

Rama Krishna Paramhansa –

Swami Vijnanananda practised severe austerities fifteen hours a day for ten years while at the Brahmavadin Club. In 1910 he bought a house and a vacant plot across the road from it in the Muthiganj area of Allahabad. He turned the house into a Ramakrishna Monastery and built another house on the vacant plot for a charitable homeopathic dispensary.
Once the doctor of the charitable homeopathic dispensary resigned. This created a great difficulty for the swami. He could not find a doctor immediately, and he was very concerned for the indigent patients. He pondered: “Well, it is the Master’s work; I shall give medicine chanting his name.”
Swami Vijnanananda had no knowledge of medicine, nevertheless he started to go to the dispensary every morning. He gave homeopathic medicine to the patients without asking about their diseases or physical problems. When the female patients tried to tell him their physical problems, the swami said: “Don’t talk about your disease. Take the medicine and go home.” It was amazing: Every single drop of homeopathic medicine he gave cured each patient – not one had to return for a second dose. When this miraculous news spread, more patients began to appear every day. It became difficult to control the crowds.
Then the swami brought in a doctor from Varanasi and was relieved of the responsibility. The doctor checked the stock of medicine and discovered that even the nitric acid bottles were empty. Frightened and amazed, he said to the swami, “Maharaj, you have cleared even the nitric acid!” Vijnanananda simply said: “I have given medicine in the name of the Master and the patients got well. There is no credit for me; I did as he asked me to do.”!

Forces of Creation !!

Three Forces of Creation
This universe has been in existence continuously for billions of years.
What are the basic forces of Nature that keep it going this way?
In the building blocks of creation, there are three quarks. These 3 quarks create stability in the creation process. The three quarks are expressed as three colours for want of any other name. The colours of the quarks are not discernable.
Dr.Archana Sharma, Senior Physicist, CERN, says, “At the time of Creation, once the God Particle makes its presence felt, under the influence of its field, 3 quarks group together to make up a stable proton and many other particles which form the constituents of matter. These are formed within nano seconds after the Big Bang. When 2 come together, they do not form a stable particle again. 3 are needed for a stable proton to take shape.”
Indian thought has a similar concept expressed as Trigunatmikaprakrithi, where the soul, the essence of the universe is made of three subtle characteristics. It is these that keep the universe ceaselessly flowing from inception to infinity.
Tri means “three”, Guna means “characteristic attributes”, Atmika is that which comes from Atma, the soul, “the subtle basis of everything” and Prakrithi means Nature “the very nature of this universe”.
Trigunatmikaprakrithi is that which naturally possess three attributes of which this whole Creation is sustained by.
While this insight is from tradition Indian knowledge, modern research also speaks the need of the three forces that keep the universe in a continuously flowing state.

Four different modes of Consciousness

Q : When the six layers of our existence become transparent, then we are able to perceive the seventh layer, the self. Could you please talk about how to make the intellect transparent?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: Let us understand what the intellect is.
Consciousness functions largely in four different modes, similar to the different modes or functions in a cell phone. The four different modes in the consciousness are:
1. The Mind – The Mode of Perception: Now you are looking at me, I am looking at you. It is the mind through which the eyes perceive, and the mind through which the ears hear. It is the mind through which the nose smells, if there is a good fragrance around; but if your mind is elsewhere, you would not even notice the fragrance. So, this faculty through which we smell, taste, hear, see, touch, is the mind.
2. The Intellect – The Mode of Analysis: Once you perceive, then the mind goes on judging, whether this is good, not good. The understanding of the fragrance; the understanding of the site; the understanding of the sound falling on your ears. This is the intellect. The intellect categorizes, analyses things; saying this is right or wrong, or I like this and I don’t like that. In order to analyze things, the intellect needs a third layer, called the memory.
3. The Memory – The Mode of Storage: The intellect is in between the memory and the mind. The mind and the memory together make the intellect function. If there is no memory, the intellect cannot function. The basis of the intellect is memory and perception. The memory captures some deep impressions, that is the limitation of the memory. It captures the pleasant memories, and the unpleasant memories (the unwanted, deep impressions called trauma); all of these are stored in the memory.
4. The Ego – The Sense of Identification: Beyond the memory, the consciousness identifies with something, that is ego.
Then is the Self – it is beyond the four different functions. It is the reference point of all changes. If you say that everything is changing, you do notice that everything is changing, right? Your body is changing, your thoughts are changing; thoughts form part of the mind. Your concepts are changing, that is the intellect. The memory is changing, there are certain things you remember, and certain things you don’t remember. All this is changing. If you say that all this is changing, there must be something that doesn’t change; this is the logic. How do you know something is changing? This is because there is something that is not changing. Now you don’t know what this something is! But there is something, some vague thing that is there, and you can feel the changes because of its presence. What is this something?
Lord Buddha wanted to know this. He meditated and meditated, and he found that there is nothing! It is empty.
He said, ‘I searched and searched and searched for the Self, but I could not find it. There is nothing.’ He said, ‘Shunya (zero); everything is empty. There is only emptiness; I could not find anything’.
Adi Shankaracharya, from the Vedic tradition, came after Lord Buddha.
When Adi Shankaracharya met Lord Buddha, he said, ‘Yes, I understand, this is all temporary, everything is changing’. He asked Lord Buddha, ‘You said you could not find the Self, but who could not find the Self? There must be someone who was searching. Who was searching? Who could not find? That is the Self!’
With this one logic, Adi Shankaracharya turned around and brought the Vedic culture back into India. The Vedic principle is that everything is full; this is all consciousness. What we perceive as empty, is all bliss. Adi Shankaracharya said that the one who could not find (the Self), the one who is searching for it, that one is Sat Chit Anand. It has three characteristics: Truth, Consciousness and Bliss.

Be Courageous be Meditative

Meditation is just a courage to be silent and alone. Slowly slowly, you start feeling a new quality to yourself, a new aliveness, a new beauty, a new intelligence—which is not borrowed from anybody, which is growing within you. It has roots in your existence.”

~ Osho

Historical RAMA

When was Rama born?
We are celebrating Rama Navami, the Birthday of Rama today. When we say, we celebrate His birthday, does it mean that He was born on this earth? If He was born on this earth, can we specifically say on what date in the English Calendar He was born?
To answer this question we need to look at the source text, namely Valmiki Ramayana. This text Valmiki Ramayana is called Itihasa. Itihasa comes from ‘Iti+ha+asa’ meaning ‘it thus happened’. Thus, the very terminology Itihasa means it is a Historical Text. In Valmiki Ramayana, the star position of the birth of Rama is clearly given by Verse No. 1.18.8, 9
Rama was born on the Navami tithi of Shukla Paksha of Chaitra masa (9thday of the increasing phase of the moon in the lunar month of Chaitra). At that time, the Nakshatra or star was Punarvasu and Sun, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus were in Aries, Capricorn, Libra, Cancer and Pisces respectively. The Lagna was Cancer and Jupiter and moon were shining together.
By searching the skies of the past for the configuration of planets as indicated by the sloka, one can arrive at the date in the English calendar for that configuration using the planetarium software. Late Shri Pushkar Bhatnagar took up this daunting task of searching the skies and identifying such a star position and the date when that occurred.
1. Sun in Aries 2. Saturn in Libra 3. Jupiter in Cancer 4. Venus in Pisces 5. Mars in Capricorn 6. Lunar month of Chaitra 7. 9th day after New moon (Navami tithi, Shukla Paksh) 8. Moon near Punarvasu nakshatra 9. Cancer as lagna Cancer constellation rising in the east 10. Jupiter above the horizon
With this clear data of the star positions in the sky, the date and time of Rama’s birth has been arrived as 12:30 pm on 10th January 5114 BCE.
If Rama was born on 10th January in 5114 BCE, you may wonder as to why we usually celebrate Rama Navami around March end- April mid.
The reason for this is the concept of precision of equinox where 1 day is to be adjusted for every 72 years. Thus over a 7200 year period, it works to around 100 days between January 10th and April 15th.
This year on 8th April, 2014, we will be celebrating 7128th Birthday of Rama.