A Nepali Mystic

The magic of 09.09.09

2009-09-09T21:09:00.003+05:45

Everyone from brides and grooms to movie studio execs are celebrating the upcoming calendrical anomaly in their own way. In Florida, at least one county clerk's office is offering a one-day wedding special for $99.99. The rarity of this September 9 hasn't been lost on the creators of the iPod, who have moved their traditional Tuesday release day to Wednesday to take advantage of the special date.
Focus Features is releasing their new film '9,' an animated tale about the apocalypse, on the 9th. Not only does the date look good in marketing promotions, but it also represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century (until January 1, 2101), or a millennium (mark your calendars for January 1, 3001), depending on how you want to count it.
Though technically there's nothing special about the symmetrical date, some concerned with the history and meaning of numbers ascribe powerful significance to 09/09/09. For cultures in which the number nine is lucky, September 9 is anticipated -- while others might see the date as an ominous warning.
Math magic Modern numerologists -- who operate outside the realm of real science -- believe that mystical significance or vibrations can be assigned to each numeral one through nine, and different combinations of the digits produce tangible results in life depending on their application. As the final numeral, the number nine holds special rank. It is associated with forgiveness, compassion and success on the positive side as well as arrogance and self-righteousness on the negative, according to numerologists.
Though usually discredited as bogus, numerologists do have a famous predecessor to look to. Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician and father of the famous theorem, is also credited with popularizing numerology in ancient times. "Pythagoras most of all seems to have honoured and advanced the study concerned with numbers, having taken it away from the use of merchants and likening all things to numbers," wrote Aristoxenus, an ancient Greek historian, in the 4th century BC.
As part of his obsession with numbers both mathematically and divine, and like many mathematicians before and since, Pythagoras noted that nine in particular had many unique properties. Any grade-schooler could tell you, for example, that the sum of the two-digits resulting from nine multiplied by any other single-digit number will equal nine.
So 9x3=27, and 2+7=9. Multiply nine by any two, three or four-digit number and the sums of those will also break down to nine.
For example: 9x62 = 558; 5+5+8=18; 1+8=9. September 9 also happens to be the 252nd day of the year (2 + 5 +2)...

Loving 9
Both China and Japan have strong feelings about the number nine. Those feelings just happen to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. The Chinese pulled out all the stops to celebrate their lucky number eight during last year's Summer Olympics, ringing the games in at 8 pm on 08/08/08. What many might not realize is that nine comes in second on their list of auspicious digits and is associated with long life, due to how similar its pronunciation is to the local word for long-lasting (eight sounds like wealth).
Historically, ancient Chinese emperors associated themselves closely with the number nine, which appeared prominently in architecture and royal dress, often in the form of nine fearsome dragons. The imperial dynasties were so convinced of the power of the number nine that the palace complex at Beijing's Forbidden City is rumored to have been built with 9,999 rooms. Japanese emperors would have never worn a robe with nine dragons, however. In Japanese, the word for nine is a homophone for the word for suffering, so the number is considered highly unlucky -- second only to four, which sounds like death.
Many Japanese will go so far as to avoid room numbers including nine at hotels or hospitals, if the building planners haven't already eliminated them altogether.

Suicidal planet seems on death spiral into star

2009-08-27T23:02:00.001+05:45

WASHINGTON – Astronomers have found what appears to be a gigantic suicidal planet.
The odd, fiery planet is so close to its star and so large that it is triggering tremendous plasma tides on the star. Those powerful tides are in turn warping the planet's zippy less-than-a-day orbit around its star.
The result: an ever-closer tango of death, with the planet eventually spiraling into the star.It's a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
"It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said.
The star is called WASP-18 and the planet is WASP-18b because of the Wide Angle Search for Planets team that found them.
The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.
The planet is 1.9 million miles from its star, 1/50th of the distance between Earth and the sun, our star. And because of that the temperature is about 3,800 degrees.
Its size — 10 times bigger than Jupiter — and its proximity to its star make it likely to die, Hellier said.
Think of how the distant moon pulls Earth's oceans to form twice-daily tides. The effect the odd planet has on its star is thousands of times stronger, Hellier said. The star's tidal bulge of plasma may extend hundreds of miles, he said.
Like most planets outside our solar system, this planet was not seen directly by a telescope. Astronomers found it by seeing dips in light from the star every time the planet came between the star and Earth.
So far astronomers have found more than 370 planets outside the solar system. This one is "yet another weird one in the exoplanet menagerie," said planet specialist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
It's so unusual to find a suicidal planet that University of Maryland astronomer Douglas Hamilton questioned whether there was another explanation. While it is likely that this is a suicidal planet, Hamilton said it is also possible that some basic physics calculations that all astronomers rely on could be dead wrong.
The answer will become apparent in less than a decade if the planet seems to be further in a death spiral, he said. -- AP

http://www.nature.com/nature
http://www.superwasp.org/

Suicidal planet seems on death spiral into star

2009-08-27T23:02:00.000+05:45

Newfound planet orbits backwards

2009-08-14T00:25:00.001+05:45

Planets orbit stars in the same direction that the stars rotate. They all do. Except one.
A newfound planet orbits the wrong way, backward compared to the rotation of its host star. Its discoverers think a near-collision may have created the retrograde orbit, as it is called.
The star and its planet, WASP-17, are about 1,000 light-years away. The setup was found by the UK's Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) project in collaboration with Geneva Observatory. The discovery was announced today but has not yet been published in a journal.
"I would have to say this is one of the strangest planets we know about," said Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT who was not involved in the discovery.
What's going on
A star forms when a cloud of gas and dust collapses. Whatever movement the cloud had becomes intensified as it condenses, determining the rotational direction of the star. How planets form is less certain. They are, however, known to develop out of the leftover, typically disk-shaped mass of gas and dust that swirls around a newborn star, so whatever direction that material is moving, which is the direction of the star's rotation, becomes the direction of the planet's orbit.WASP-17 likely had a close encounter with a larger planet, and the gravitational interaction acted like a slingshot to put WASP-17 on its odd course, the astronomers figure.
"I think it's extremely exciting. It's fascinating that we can study orbits of planets so far away," Seager told SPACE.com. "There's always theory, but there's nothing like an observation to really prove it."
Cosmic collisions are not uncommon. Earth's moon was made when our planet collided with a Mars-sized object, astronomers think. And earlier this week NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence of two planets colliding around a distant, young star. Some moons in our solar system are on retrograde orbits, perhaps at least in some cases because they were flying through space alone and then captured; that's thought to be the case with Neptune's large moon Triton.The find was made by graduate students David Anderson at Keele University and Amaury Triaud of the Geneva Observatory.
Bloated world
WASP-17 is about half the mass of Jupiter but bloated to twice its size. "This planet is only as dense as expanded polystyrene, 70 times less dense than the planet we're standing on," said professor Coel Hellier of Keele University.
The bloated planet can be explained by a highly elliptical orbit, which brings it close to the star and then far away. Like exaggerated tides on Earth, the tidal effects on WASP-17 heat and stretch the planet, the researchers suggest.
The tides are not a daily affair, however. "Instead it's creating a huge amount of friction on the inside of the planet and generating a lot of energy, which might be making the planet big and puffy," Seager said.
WASP-17 is the 17th extrasolar planet found by the WASP project, which monitors hundreds of thousands of stars, watching for small dips in their light when a planet transits in front of them. NASA's Kepler space observatory is using the same technique to search for Earth-like worlds.

BajraGuru Padmashambahav Jayanti

2009-06-02T22:48:00.003+05:45

According to the lunar calendar, today is BajraGuru Padmashambhav Jayanti.

Padmasambhava (Tibetan: པདྨ་འབྱུང་གནས; Wylie: padma 'byung gnas, Chinese: 蓮華生上師; pinyin: Lian Hua Sheng Shang Shi ) The Lotus Born, is said to have transmitted Tantric Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet in the 8th century. In those lands he is better known as Guru Rinpoche ("Precious Master") or Lopon Rinpoche, where followers of the Nyingma school regard him as the second Buddha. He said: "My father is the intrinsic awareness, Samantabhadra. My mother is the ultimate sphere of reality, Samantrabhadri. I belong to the caste of non-duality of the sphere and awareness. My name is the Glorious Lotus Born. I am from the unborn sphere of all phenomena. I consume concepts of duality as my diet. I act in the way of the Buddhas of the three times."
He was born into a monarchic Brahmin family.
His Pureland Paradise is Zangdok Palri (the Copper-coloured Mountain).
He is further considered an emanation of Buddha Amitabha and traditionally even venerated as "a second Buddha".

According to tradition, Padmasambhava was incarnated as an eight-year-old child appearing in a lotus blossom floating in Lake Dhanakosha, in the kingdom of Uddiyana, traditionally identified with the Swat Valley of Ancient India in present-day Pakistan. His special nature was recognized by the local king who married him to one of his daughters, Mandarava. She and Padmasambhava's other main consort, Yeshe Tsogyal, developed into realised practitioners. Many thangkas and paintings show Padmasambhava in between them.
Entrance to Dawa Puk, Guru Rinpoche's cave, Yerpa, 1993.
His fame became known to Trisong Detsen, the 38th king of the Yarlung dynasty, and the first Emperor of Tibet (742–797), whose kingdom was beset by evil mountain deities. The king invited Padmasambhava to Tibet where he used his tantric powers to subdue the evil deities he encountered along the way, eventually receiving the Emperor's wife, identified with the dakini Yeshe Tsogyal, as a consort. This was in accordance with the tantric principle of not eliminating negative forces but redirecting them to fuel the journey toward spiritual awakening. In Tibet he founded the first monastery in the country, Samye Gompa, initiated the first monks, and introduced the people to the practice of Tantric Buddhism.
Padmasambhava had five major female tantric companions, the so-called 'Five Wisdom Dakinis' (Wylie: Ye-shes mKha-'gro lnga) or 'Five Consorts.' In Padmasambhava's biography - they are described as the five women "who had access to the master's heart", and practiced secret sexual tantric rites which are considered to have exorcised the previous demons of Tibet and converted them into protectors of the country.' They were: Mandarava of Zahor - the emanation of Vajravarahi's Body; Belwong Kalasiddhi of (North-West) India - the emanation of Vajravarahi's Quality, Belmo Sakya Devi of Nepal; the emanation of Vajravarahi's Mind, Yeshe Tsogyal of Tibet; the emanation of Vajravarahi's Speech and Mangala or Tashi Kyedren of "the Himalayas" - the emanation of Vajravarahi's Activity.
Padmasambhava's ability to memorize and comprehend esoteric texts in a single hearing established his reputation as a master above all others. Knowing that the life force of the wife and son of an evil minister was about to end, he constructed an accident which resulted in their death. As a result, Padmasambhava was banished from the court and exiled in a charnel ground. Transiting various heavens and hells, he developed the power to transcend the cycle of birth and death, accomplishing the so-called great transference, otherwise known as Nirvana.
In Bhutan he is associated with the famous Paro Taktsang or "Tiger's Nest" monastery built on a sheer cliff wall about 500m above the floor of Paro valley. He flew there from Tibet on the back of Yeshe Tsogyal, whom he transformed into a flying tigress for the purpose of the trip. Later he travelled to Bumthang district to subdue a powerful deity offended by a local king. Padmasambhava's body imprint can be found in the wall of a cave at nearby Kurje Lhakhang temple.
Padmasambhava also hid a number of religious treasures (termas) in lakes, caves, fields and forests of the Himalayan region to be found and interpreted by future tertöns or spiritual treasure-finders. According to Tibetan tradition, the Bardo Thodol (commonly referred to as the Tibetan Book of the Dead) was among these hidden treasures, subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa.
Tantric cycles related to Padmasambhava are not just practiced by the Nyingma, they even gave rise to a new offshoot of Bön which emerged in the 14th century called the New Bön. Prominent figures of the Sarma (new translation) schools such as the Karmapas and Sakya lineage heads have practiced these cycles and taught them. Some of the greatest tertons revealing teachings related to Padmasambhava have been from the Kagyu or Sakya lineages. The hidden lake temple of the Dalai Lamas behind the Potala called Lukhang is dedicated to Dzogchen teachings and has murals depicting the eight manifestations of Padmasambhava. Padmasambhava established Vajrayana Buddhism and the highest forms of Dzogchen (Mengagde) in Tibet and transformed the entire nation.
On Padmasambhava's consort practice with Princess Sakya Devi from Nepal it is said: "In a state of intense bliss, Padmasambhava and Sakyadevi realized the infinite reality of the Primordial Buddha Mind, the All-Beneficent Lord (Samantabhadra), whose absolute love is the unimpeded dynamo of existence. Experiencing the succession of the four stages of ecstasy, their mutual state of consciousness increased from height to height. And thus, meditating on Supreme Vajrasattva Heruka as the translucent image of compassionate wrathful (energized) activity, they together acquired the mahamudra of Divinity and attained complete Great Enlightenment."

The new Year 2009: The year of Astronomy

2008-12-31T23:17:00.000+05:45

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009 !!!

A delightful display of planets and the moon will occur on New Year's Eve for anyone wishing to step outside and look up just after sunset.
Venus, brighter than all other planets and stars, will dangle just below the thin crescent moon in the southwestern sky. It'll be visible -- impossible to miss, in fact -- just as the sun goes down, assuming skies are cloud-free.
Soon thereafter, Mercury and Jupiter will show up hugging the south-southwestern horizon (just above where the sun went down) and extremely close to each other. Jupiter is very bright and easy to spot; Mercury is faint and harder to see, but it'll be apparent by its location just to the left of Jupiter.
Jupiter and Mercury will set less than an hour after the sun, so timing your viewing just after sunset is crucial. You'll also need a location with a clear view of the western horizon, unobstructed by buildings, trees or mountains.
All the planets, along with the moon and sun, traverse an arc across our sky called the ecliptic, which corresponds to the plane in space that they all roughly share. For this reason, you could draw an imaginary line from the general location of Venus and the moon, down through the other two planets, and the line would point to where the sun went down. This line could also initially help you find Jupiter and Mercury.
Weather permitting, you can get a preview of the sky show on Tuesday, December 30. On this evening, the planets will be in nearly the same place they'll be on December 31, but the moon will be midway between Venus and the Mercury-Jupiter pairing.

The brightest full moon of 2008

2008-12-12T23:07:00.003+05:45

Here is some treat for the sky watchers, as today, the12th December, the world will witness the brightest full moon ever. The moon to appear today is about 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than the other full moons seen in the year 2008.

This phenomenon is because the moon is much closer to the earth than usual, on its egg-shaped circle around the earth. When it get closer to the earth it is perigee and when farthest from earth it is apogee. The two points occur once every year , but the moon's exact distance varies over the years. "Typically, we don't have the full moon phase and perigee coinciding at the same time, so that makes this event particularly special," said Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. Today's event will be the closest lunar perigee since 1993, at 221,560 miles (356,566 kilometers) from Earth. This unusually close perigee is expected to have a direct effect on the tides on earth.
The moon to appear today is about 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than the other full moons seen in the year 2008.
"While high tides happen each month when the sun, Earth, and the moon are aligned, there is going to be an enhanced effect, with the moon being the closest it's been in more than a decade," said Ben Burress, staff astronomer at the Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California. "This would result in extra-large tides in regions that are susceptible to them, like Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy," he added. The moon will appear larger today due to its closeness to the earth and will be most noticeable as it rises above the horizon at sunset. That's when an optical illusion usually comes into play that makes the full moon seem larger, set against familiar Earthly objects, than when it's higher in the empty sky. "This combination of the moon illusion and close perigee gives sky-watchers a chance to see the biggest and fullest moon rise possible," Burress said. This vent can be viewed across the globe with out any instruments. "If you are charmed by the idea of seeing the biggest and brightest full moon visible in 15 years, be ready to go outside at sunset and watch for the rising moon in the east," said Krupp.

Lunar Eclipse tonight

2008-08-16T22:38:00.003+05:45

On Saturday midnight the full moon is predicted by astronomers that it will be visibly appearing muddy red. People will be able to view the moon partially murky with light shades of hues as per atmospheric nature of a region.
According to astronomers, the full moon will come into the penumbra (lighter shadow) of the earth at around 11.50pm on August 16 night. The marginal lunar eclipse will start at 1.05pm on August 17.
The sky at night will host about 80 per cent reddish moon at 2.03am. At this time the eclipse will become matured and by 4am it will recede completely.
In a lunar eclipse, the moon, earth and the sun, fall in the same rotational conjunction as the moon goes into the corner of a shadow cast by the planet earth.
Interestingly, this lunar eclipse will be visible to people across the Middle East, Asia, Africa where the moon is above the horizon of the earth, barring North American region, which is believed to remain out of this spectacle.
On August 17 night the sky will be partially cloudy in India. Though clear visibility is doubted, people would get sufficient sighting of the eclipse.
All those who love celestial sight-seeing just get ready to view the lunar eclipse without worrying for any special device or X-ray film to see the spectacle because unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is safe to see with naked eyes.

Solar Eclipse today

2008-08-01T22:33:00.001+05:45

The solar eclipse of August 1, 2008 is a total eclipse of the Sun with a magnitude of 1.0394 that was visible from a narrow corridor through northern Canada (Nunavut), Greenland, central Russia, eastern Kazakhstan, western Mongolia and China. It belonged to the so-called midnight sun eclipses, as it was visible from regions experiencing midnight sun. The largest city on the path of the eclipse was Novosibirsk in Russia.
The total eclipse lasted for 2 hours, and covered 0.4 percent of the Earth's surface in a 10,200 km long path. It was the 47th eclipse of the 126th Saros cycle, which began with a partial eclipse on March 10, 1179 and will conclude with a partial eclipse on May 3, 2459.
A partial eclipse could be seen from the much broader path of the Moon's penumbra, including northeastern North America and most of Europe and Asia.

From some parts of Nepal it can be observed a partial eclipse.

Scientists find strange ring circling dead star

2008-05-31T12:56:00.000+05:45

Washington: Scientists have found a bizarre ring of material around the magnetic remains of a star that blasted to smithereens, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has said. The stellar corpse, called SGR 1900+14, belongs to a class of objects known as magnetars.
These are the cores of massive stars that blew up in supernova explosions, but unlike other dead stars, they slowly pulsate with X-rays and have tremendously strong magnetic fields. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope had spotted the ring.
"I was flipping through archived Spitzer data of the object, and that's when I noticed it was surrounded by a ring we'd never seen before," said Stefanie Wachter of NASA's Spitzer Science Centre, who found the ring serendipitously. Wachter is lead author of a paper about the findings in this week's Nature. Wachter and her colleagues think that the ring, which is unlike anything ever seen before, formed in 1998, when the magnetar erupted in a giant flare.
They believe the crusty surface of the magnetar cracked, sending out a flare, or blast of energy, that excavated a nearby cloud of dust, leaving an outer, dusty ring. This ring is oblong, with dimensions of about seven by three light-years. It appears to be flat, or two-dimensional, but the scientists said they can't rule out the possibility of a three-dimensional shell.
The discovery could help scientists figure out if a star's mass influences whether it becomes a magnetar when it dies. Though scientists know that stars above a certain mass will "go supernova", they do not know if mass plays a role in determining whether the star becomes a magnetar or a run-of-the-mill dead star.
According to the science team, the ring demonstrates that SGR 1900+14 belongs to a nearby cluster of young, massive stars. By studying the masses of these nearby stars, the scientists might learn the approximate mass of the original star that exploded and became SGR 1900+14. - Xinhua

Youngest star 'pulsar' behaves strangely

2008-02-23T11:07:00.001+05:45

New York: The youngest known pulsing neutron star - or pulsar - is behaving altogether like another type of star, a magnetar, forcing a rethink among astronomers.
One kind of neutron star literally changes into another, and scientists studying this pulsing neutron called PSR J1846-0258 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre wonder whether they have stumbled on the long-sought missing link between different types of pulsars.
A neutron star forms when a big star explodes as a supernova, leaving behind an ultra-dense core. Most of these emit regular pulsations and are powered by rapid spins. So far, some 1,800 pulsars have been found in our galaxy. Pulsars have very strong magnetic fields, but a few of them - slow rotators known as magnetars - derive their energy from even more powerful magnetic fields, the strongest known in the universe. These fields can stress the neutron star's solid crust past breaking point, triggering starquakes that snap magnetic-field lines, producing violent and sporadic X-ray bursts.
Astronomers have always wondered whether there is an evolutionary relationship between pulsars and magnetars - whether magnetars are a rare class of pulsars, or if some pulsars become magnetars during their life cycles.
Scientists studying archival records of the PSR J1846-0258 at NASA's Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) found four magnetar-like X-ray bursts in May and July 2006. Lasting just a fraction of a second, each of them packed the power of at least 75,000 suns. Previously, astronomers had classified PSR J1846 as a normal pulsar because of its fast spin (3.1 times per second) and pulsar-like spectrum, noted Fotis Gavriil of the Goddard Centre, lead author of a paper in the February issue of Sciencexpress.
Now there is a clear re-think on the subject.
"Never before has a regular pulsar been observed to produce magnetar bursts," said Gavriil.

Astronomers discover largest dark matter in space

2008-02-22T10:59:00.001+05:45

Toronto: An international team of astronomers have detected the largest-ever dark matter structure ever seen, stretching an awesome 270 million light-years across the night sky.
The team, comprising French and Canadian scientists, "X-rayed" the dark matter, or an invisible web that makes up more than 80 percent of the mass of the universe.
They used a technique called weak gravitational lensing, similar to an X-ray of the body, to reveal the underlying skeleton of the dark matter. "The results are a major leap forward since the presence of a cosmic dark matter web that extends over such large distances has never been observed before," says Ludovic Van Waerbeke of British Columbia University.
The study relied on data gathered from the world's largest digital camera.
The discovery is crucial for an understanding the history and evolution of the cosmos, said Waerbeke.
The astronomers observed how light from distant galaxies is bent and distorted by webs of dark matter as it travels toward Earth. They then mapped dark matter structures by measuring the distortions seen in these galaxy light patterns.

Happy Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T07:34:00.003+05:45

Let love prevail on earth. Hundreds of years ago in England, many childrendressed up as adults on Valentine's Day, the february 14th. They used to go singing from home to home.

Good morning to you, valentine;

Curl your locks as I do mine ---

Two before and three behind.

Good morning to you, valentine!!!

The custom of exchanging love messages on Valentine's Day started on the day he died, February 14, 269 AD. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine. Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine's Days.

Though popular modern sources link unspecified Graeco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St Valentine's Day, Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas argued that prior to Chaucer, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed. Thus whether or not in the ancient Athenian calendar, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, was dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera is immaterial. In Ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia, anarchaic rite connected to fertility, without overtones of romance.

There are varying opinions as to the origin of Valentine's Day. Some experts state that it originated from St Valentine, a Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity. He died on February14, 269 A.D., the same day that had been devoted to love lotteries. Legend also says that St. Valentineleft a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From YourValentine".

Other aspects of the story say that Saint Valentine served as a priest at the temple during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Claudius then had Valentine jailed for defying him. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honour St. Valentine.

Valentine's Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honour Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage.

The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia. The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned himt o be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off.

He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At that time it was thec ustom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia,f easts in honour of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names ofyoung women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens.

And as the Lupercalia began about themiddle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for the celebration of this new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patronsf or the coming year, arose in this way.

Scientists discover new planet outside solar system

2008-01-03T11:10:00.001+05:45

Scientists in Germany have discovered what is believed to be the youngest planet outside the solar system, the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics announced. The giant young planet, called TW Hydrae b, "is still linked to the dusty disk surrounding its parent star", the institute said ahead of publication of the discovery in the British science journal Nature.
The planet has a mass ten times greater than that of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, and orbits its mother star every 3.65 days at a distance of 6 million kilometres.
The astronomers estimate that the age of the new planetary system is about 10 million years, which is only about 0.2 percent of the age of the solar system.
Planets are believed to form within disks of dust and gas around newly born stars, enabling them to tell scientists something about how their planetary systems were formed.
The discovery of the newborn extra-solar planet, located in the constellation of Hydra, shows that it formed rapidly after the birth of its nearby star, the institute said.

Our moon is uncommon

2007-11-30T12:21:00.000+05:45

Moons are common enough in the universe, ours is rather uncommon, according to a new study by US astronomers.
The Earth's moon, the subject of much art, myth and poetry, was formed out of a tremendous collision, a rare event seen in less than 10 percent of moon formations, Sciencedaily.com reported.
The study, based on new observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, was undertaken by researchers at the University of Florida and appears in the latest edition of the Astrophysical Journal.
Scientists say the moon was created between 30 million and 50 million years after the sun was born, and after other rocky planets had begun to take shape.
A body as big as Mars is thought to have smacked into the infant Earth, breaking off a piece of its mantle. Some of the resulting debris fell into orbit, eventually coalescing into the moon we see today.
The other moons in our solar system either formed simultaneously with their planet or were captured by the planet's gravity.
"When a moon forms from a violent collision, dust should be blasted everywhere," said Nadya Gorlova, lead author of the study. "If there were lots of moons forming, we would have seen dust around lots of stars - but we didn't." Gorlova and her colleagues looked for the dusty signs of similar smash-ups around 400 stars that are all about 30 million years old.
They found only one out of the 400 stars immersed in the telltale dust. Taking into consideration the amount of time the dust should stick around, and the age range at which moon-forming collisions can occur, the scientists calculated the probability of a solar system making a moon like Earth's to be at most five to 10 percent.
The astronomers said that the planet-building process itself winds down by 30 million years after a star is born. Like our moon, rocky planets are built up through messy collisions that spray dust all around.
Current thinking holds that this process lasts from about ten million to 50 million years after a star forms.
The fact that Gorlova and her team found only one star out of 400 with collision-generated dust indicates that the 30-million-year-old stars in the study have, for the most part, finished making their planets.

Mahavatar Babaji

2007-11-16T11:55:00.000+05:45

The Deathless Master

The northern Himalayan crags near Badrinarayan are still blessed by the living presence of Babaji, guru of Lahiri Mahasaya. The secluded master has retained his physical form for centuries, perhaps for millenniums. The deathless Babaji is an avatara. This Sanskrit word means "descent"; its roots are ava, "down," and tri, "to pass." In the Hindu scriptures, avatara signifies the descent of Divinity into flesh.

"Babaji's spiritual state is beyond human comprehension," Sri Yukteswar explained to me. "The dwarfed vision of men cannot pierce to his transcendental star. One attempts in vain even to picture the avatar's attainment. It is inconceivable."

The Upanishads have minutely classified every stage of spiritual advancement. A siddha (perfected being) has progressed from the state of a jivanmukta (freed while living) to that of a paramukta (supremely free-full power over death); the latter has completely escaped from the mayic thralldom and its reincarnational round. The paramukta therefore seldom returns to a physical body; if he does, he is an avatar, a divinely appointed medium of supernal blessings on the world.

Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again;
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me-in vain!"

The 'Moon of Delight'' is God, eternal Polaris, anachronous never. The ''Moon of Heav'n" is the outward cosmos, fettered to the law of periodic recurrence. Its chains had been dissolved forever by the Persian seer through his self-realization. "How oft hereafter rising shall she look . . .after me-in vain!" What frustration of search by a frantic universe for an absolute omission!

Krishna, Rama, Buddha, and Patanjali were among the ancient Indian avatars. A considerable poetic literature in Tamil has grown up around Agastya, a South Indian avatar. He worked many miracles during the centuries preceding and following the Christian era, and is credited with retaining his physical form even to this day."

An avatar is unsubject to the universal economy; his pure body, visible as a light image, is free from any debt to nature. The casual gaze may see nothing extraordinary in an avatar's form but it casts no shadow nor makes any footprint on the ground. These are outward symbolic proofs of an inward lack of darkness and material bondage. Such a God-man alone knows the Truth behind the relativities of life and death. Omar Khayyam, so grossly misunderstood, sang of this liberated man in his immortal scripture, the Rubaiyat:

"Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again;
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me-in vain!"

The "Moon of Delight" is God, eternal Polaris, anachronous never. The "Moon of Heav'n" is the outward cosmos, fettered to the law of periodic recurrence. Its chains had been dissolved forever by the Persian seer through his self-realization. "How oft hereafter rising shall she look . . . after me-in vain!" What frustration of search by a frantic universe for an absolute omission!
Krishna, Rama, Buddha, and Patanjali were among the ancient Indian avatars. A considerable poetic literature in Tamil has grown up around Agastya, a South Indian avatar. He worked many miracles during the centuries preceding and following the Christian era, and is credited with retaining his physical form even to this day.

Babaji's mission has been to assist prophets in carrying out their special dispensations. He thus qualifies for the scriptural classification of Mahavatar (Great Avatar). He has stated that he gave yoga initiation to Shankara, ancient founder of the Swami Order, and to Kabir, famous medieval saint. His chief nineteenth-century disciple was, as we know, Lahiri Mahasaya, revivalist of the lost Kriya art.

The Mahavatar is in constant communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption, and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully-illumined masters-one with the body, and one without it-is to inspire the nations to forsake suicidal wars, race hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang-evils of materialism. Babaji is well aware of the trend of modern times, especially of the influence and complexities of Western civilization, and realizes the necessity of spreading the self-liberations of yoga equally in the West and in the East.

That there is no historical reference to Babaji need not surprise us. The great guru has never openly appeared in any century; the misinterpreting glare of publicity has no place in his millennial plans. Like the Creator, the sole but silent Power, Babaji works in a humble obscurity.

The deathless guru bears no marks of age on his body; he appears to be no more than a youth of twenty-five. Fair-skinned, of medium build and height, Babaji's beautiful, strong body radiates a perceptible glow. His eyes are dark, calm, and tender; his long, lustrous hair is copper-colored. A very strange fact is that Babaji bears an extraordinarily exact resemblance to his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya. The similarity is so striking that, in his later years, Lahiri Mahasaya might have passed as the father of the youthful-looking Babaji."

Babaji's mission in India has been to assist prophets in carrying out their special dispensations. He thus qualifies for the scriptural classification of Mahavatar (Great Avatar). He has stated that he gave yoga initiation to Shankara, ancient founder of the Swami Order, and to Kabir, famous medieval saint. His chief nineteenth-century disciple was, as we know, Lahiri Mahasaya, revivalist of the lost Kriya art.

The Mahavatar is in constant communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption, and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully-illumined masters-one with the body, and one without it-is to inspire the nations to forsake suicidal wars, race hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang-evils of materialism. Babaji is well aware of the trend of modern times, especially of the influence and complexities of Western civilization, and realizes the necessity of spreading the self-liberations of yoga equally in the West and in the East.

That there is no historical reference to Babaji need not surprise us. The great guru has never openly appeared in any century; the misinterpreting glare of publicity has no place in his millennial plans. Like the Creator, the sole but silent Power, Babaji works in a humble obscurity.

The deathless guru bears no marks of age on his body; he appears to be no more than a youth of twenty-five. Fair-skinned, of medium build and height, Babaji's beautiful, strong body radiates a perceptible glow. His eyes are dark, calm, and tender; his long, lustrous hair is copper-colored. A very strange fact is that Babaji bears an extraordinarily exact resemblance to his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya. The similarity is so striking that, in his later years, Lahiri Mahasaya might have passed as the father of the youthful-looking Babaji.

Swami Kebalananda, my saintly Sanskrit tutor, spent some time with Babaji in the Himalayas.

"The peerless master moves with his group from place to place in the mountains," Kebalananda told me. "His small band contains two highly advanced American disciples. After Babaji has been in one locality for some time, he says: 'Dera danda uthao.' ('Let us lift our camp and staff.') He carries a symbolic danda (bamboo staff). His words are the signal for moving with his group instantaneously to another place. He does not always employ this method of astral travel; sometimes he goes on foot from peak to peak.

"Babaji can be seen or recognized by others only when he so desires. He is known to have appeared in many slightly different forms to various devotees-sometimes without beard and moustache, and sometimes with them. As his undecaying body requires no food, the master seldom eats. As a social courtesy to visiting disciples, he occasionally accepts fruits, or rice cooked in milk and clarified butter.

"Two amazing incidents of Babaji's life are known to me," Kebalananda went on. "His disciples were sitting one night around a huge fire which was blazing for a sacred Vedic ceremony. The master suddenly seized a burning log and lightly struck the bare shoulder of a chela who was close to the fire.

*Note : Text and the image of Babaji taken from the book 'Autobiography of a Yogi' By Paramahansa Yogananda

Tantra: Prakriti

2007-11-02T11:54:00.000+05:45

...there is nothing more sensitive and delicate than primal, creative nature, who, having realised that she has been seen, with draws and never again comes into the sight of consciousness (that is to say primordial maternity behaves like a lovely and shy young virgin who, having been seen in her nakedness by a man quickly withdraws from his view)
-Samkhyakarika verse 61

(Manifest) Vyakta -
Caused
Distractible
Non-pervading
Mobile
Manifold
Dependent
Merges back
With partsSubordinate

(Prakrti Unmanifest) Avyakta -
Uncaused
Eternal
Pervading
Static
One
Independent
Does not merged
Without partsNon-subordinate

(Sprit) Purusha -
Uncaused
Eternal
Pervading
Static
Plural
Independent
Does not merged
Without partsNon-subordinate

Prakriti - Made up of three gunas, General, Non-consciousProductive/fecund
Purusha - Does not have gunas, Possesses discrimination, Never objectifiable, Subject/knower
Individual/specific, ConsciousUnproductive/immobile

Purusha
Witness
Isolated
Indifferent
Inactive

All women are sprung from Prakriti
The best, the worst and the intermediate,
The best are derived from sattva portion
They are well-mannered and chaste
The intermediate are parts of rajas,
Seeking pleasure and ever intent on their own ends,
The worst are parts of tamas, of unknown ancestry,
Bad mouthed, unchaste, licentious, independent, fond of quarrel,
Unchaste women on earth and heavenly nymphs
Are known as prostitutes, and are parts of tamas.
-Brahma Vaivarta Purana

Biggest and brightest Full Moon

2007-10-26T20:36:00.000+05:45

Today's full Moon is the biggest full Moon of 2007. It's no illusion.
Some full Moons are genuinely larger than others and ronight's will be a whopper.
Why? According to NASA, the Moon's orbit is an ellipse, with one side 48,000 km closer to Earth than the other.
The full Moon of 25-26 October is located on the near side,
making it appear as much as 14% bigger and 30 per cent brighter than lesser full Moons we've seen earlier in 2007.
In the language of astronomy, the two ends of the Moon's orbit are called 'apogee' and 'perigee.'
Apogee is the farthest point, perigee the nearest.
This week's full Moon is a 'perigee Moon' with extra-high 'perigean tides.'
The Moon is 14 per cent bigger, but can we actually tell the difference?
It's not so easy: there are no rulers floating in the sky to measure lunar diameters.

Its a special day today: Happy birthday

2007-10-25T11:17:00.000+05:45

Today is a special day. though every morning we are born and every night we die, the Tantra states that every passing seconds we die and we are born with every new breath we take, the life and death is eternal.

Its a special day because its 25 October. 2+5=7.
Seven number is the mystic number. And if its anyone's birthday; it has more meanings.

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said: If you are born today, you will achieve all the highs in your life. Success, Love, material achievements everything you name, will be yours. But at the end, spirituality, and only sprituality will satisfy you. May you climb new mountain this coming year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!

Rumi...the mystic

2007-10-15T13:54:00.000+05:45

Jalaluddin Rumi was born on September 30, 1207, in Balkh, which is in Afghanistan.

His father was an important scholar and teacher of that area. Around 1212 he moved his family to Smarkand, a city where the cultures of both Turkey and Persia met. The Mongol invasions were bringing death and destruction to a large part of the Muslim world at that time, and Rumi’s family and friends, journeyed westward to escape it.
They arrived in Konya in Turkey, and Rumi’s father was given a professorship and he taught there until his death in 1231. Jalaluddin Rumi, took over from his father, as university professor.
In 1244 there was a significant meeting of Rumi with a wandering Sufi, a lover of the Prophet Muhammad, the sun of Tabriz, Shamsuddin. Rumi and Shams became inseparable.

The university professor in Rumi diminished, and his spiritual side increased. Rumi’s students became jealous of the close friendship with Shams, and this caused Shams to disappear. Forty days after the loss of Shams, Rumi ordered mourning robes. Rumi had changed.

He now wrote or spoke poetry as never before. He whirled around reciting poems which expressed his longing and love, and which also expressed his astonishment with his own transformed state.
The message of Rumi is timeless and is one of boundless, and boundary-less love.

He said, ‘I am neither of the East or the West, no boundaries exist in my breast.’

On his 800th birthday, UNESCO has declared 2007 to be year of the Mevlana - the year of love and understanding.

The New moon, new begining

2007-10-06T11:18:00.000+05:45

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said: The New moon always kick starts a new phenomenon. Watch out for October 11 the New moon, particularly.

We all love it when each piece of the puzzle starts fitting perfectly into place. In Celestine Prophesy, author James Redfield calls that 'the radiant road'. So when doors keeps opening, one right after the other, like you will soon experience, that's the road you should follow.

Those, who think that they are the king-makers, find themselves on the other end.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

2007-09-18T22:11:00.000+05:45

Neighbour-love

Ye crowd around your neighbour, and have fine words for it. But I say unto you: your neighbour-love is your bad love of yourselves.
Ye flee unto your neighbour from yourselves, and would fain make a virtue thereof; but I fathom your 'unselfishness'.
The thou is older than the I; the Thou hath been consecrated, but not yet the I: so man presseth nigh unto his neighbour.
Do I advise you to neighbour-love? rather do I advise you to neighbour-flight and furthest loves.
Higher than love to your neighbour is love to the furthest and future ones; higher still than love to men is love to things and phantoms.

Zarathustra

The Zoroastrian religion dates from its prophet Zarathustra, who is reputed to have lived around 1200 BC, though some say 600 BC. He is believed to be the author of the core texts of the Avesta, the main source of Zoroastrian teachings. An Iranian tribal prince became his follower, and so his faith took root and eventually became the state religion of the Persian Empire whose priests were the famed magi.

Bhadra will be a decisive month

2007-08-18T21:53:00.000+05:45

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said:
The month of Bhadra that started from today will be a decisive month for us. Keep watching the month's activities and be aware, and alert. Among the nine planets, five are with the Sun and in the house of Sun. The solar, lunar, venus, mercury, saturn and other palnetary combination is very strange.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

2007-08-09T21:34:00.000+05:45

The Rabble

Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all fountains are poisoned.
To everything cleanly am I well disposed, but I hate to see the grinning mouths and the thirst of unclean.
They cast their eye down into the fountain; and now glanceth up to me their odious smile out of the fountain.
The holy water have they poisoned with their lustfulness; and when they called their filthy dreams delight, then poisoned they also the words.
Indignant becometh the flame when they put their damp hearts to the fire; the spirit itself bubbleth and smoketh when the rabble approach the fire.
Mawkish and over-mellow becometh the fruit in their hands; unsteady, and withered at the top, doth their look make the fruit tree.
And many a one who hath turned away from life, hath only turned away from the rabble; he hated to share with them fountain, flame and fruit.

To all the Gurus

2007-07-30T22:05:00.000+05:45

Guru Brahma: Guru Bishnu Gururdeva Maheshwora:
Guru sakshyat Parabrahma, Tasmai Sri Guruwe Nama:

Today on the day of guru Purnima:
Salutation to all the Gurus — the epitome of trinity; Brahma, the creator, Bishnu, the preserver and Maheshwor, the destroyer — who visited this earth and will visit this earth.

Tantra Sutra

2007-07-26T21:22:00.001+05:45

There is nothing forbidden in Tantra. In Tantra there is no division between what is good and what is bad what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. For instance, Tantra, places no moral judgment on your activities. Panchamakara — the five acts that are generally prohibited — is what some tantriks practise. Some claim that Tantra can be practiced by anyone who is attracted to this path but others claims it to be secretive.
The Tantra vision is one of wholeness, of embracing everything, because every situation, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is an opportunity to become more aware about who you are and how you can expand your capacities. Because Tantra believes in wholeness, it embraces opposites, seeing them not as contradictions but as complements.
The concepts of male and female therefore are not set apart, forever divided by a gender gap, but are viewed as two polarities that meet and merge naturally in every living being. Tantra recognizes that each human being, whether man or woman, has both masculine and feminine qualities. It means discarding our gender stereotypes, we can expand our sexual identities tremendously, honouring the polarity in ourselves that until now has been largely ignored. In Tantra a man can be encouraged to explore his soft, receptive, vulnerable, feminine aspects. He can slip out from beneath the weight of his male responsibilities, stop performing, and relax. And a woman can explore her masculine dimension, recognizing that she is capable of dynamic leadership in taking the initiative, creating new ways of guiding, teaching, and giving. The man does not give up his masculinity, nor does the woman abandon her femininity. They simply expand their potential to include the other polarity.
In Tantra, when the male and female polarities merge, a new dimension becomes available-the sense of the sacred. When this sacredness of union is felt, it is possible to experience connection to the life force itself, the source of creation. One can then, feel that one is a part of the great dance of existence, the Tandav Nritya — the dance of destruction and creation by the Lord Shiva.

Tantra

2007-07-16T23:05:00.000+05:45

A secret throughout the centuries, Tantra remains diffuse, mysterious and puzzling yet constantly present in the diversity of various techniques. With purposeful investigation, it presents a genuine science of humanbeing and living beings where cosmic forces mingle with physiology, psychology, magic and spiritualism.
Tantra offers a practical, multi-leveled vision of the human being, a unified theory that explains the most intimate aspects of man's behaviour which have evaded current research. A detailed, sincere study and practice of Tantra could contribute to the enrichment of contemporary science and psychology in a manner not as yet conceived.
Tantra forms the primitive lode of eastern spiritual tradition, a foundation deeply connected to universal philosophies. Much has been written and discussed regarding these studies, but due to their profoundness and hidden symbolism they remain opaque.

Wait for tantra series. To be continued....

2007-07-07T22:08:00.000+05:45

Today is 2007.7.7 and Saturday the 7th day. So, the combination is 07.7.7.7.
Seven is considered a mysterious number. And this combination occurs in more than a thousand year. It seems that the nature has something in her store for me, you and everybody.

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said: Lets sing to the mysterious mother nature.

Who are you?

2007-07-02T22:05:00.000+05:45

Who do you fear to? Is there anyone, who is worse than you or better than you? or is there anyone who can threaten you, except you yourself? It is your self insecurity that creates enemy, it is your own weakness that makes you fear others.

Like in the noon, even one's shadow is not with oneself, who will reamin with you? You are your own enemy, you don't want to work and blame others, you don't want to except the reality and you make excuses.

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said: Nobody is dangerous than your ownself. Nobody is your best friend, than yourself. You are the God.
Aham Brahmhasmi!

The nature is the smartest

2007-06-26T22:30:00.000+05:45

There was once a crow, who used to think that he is the smartest on earth. And he was indeed smart. But there lived a cookoo near his nest, who used to steal his eggs. The crow, one day, found that there is someone smarter than him on earth.
But he was still wrong, Nobody is smarter than the nature. The nature is the smartest of all. She has created everything in her own way.

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said: It is good to be smart but the nature has created smarter than you also. (If you still don't understand, wait for a month. You'll get to know a surprising news. Amen!)

Free and forever?

2007-06-25T23:45:00.000+05:45

Once there lived a poor fisherman in a village by the sea. he was so poor that he hardly could manage a couple of meals for his families. He was, but, the staunch devotee of the Lord. One night the Lord came in his dream and said him to set to the sea early in the morning before the dawn.Being a staunch devotee, he got up early and started to sea. It was pitch dark and he hardly could walk. He tripped on something in a dark. He tried to figure out what it was that he tripped upon. It was a kind of sack with hard and small pebbles. He has almost reached the sea but it was still dark.Waiting for the sun to rise, he sat there, and lazily he started throwing the pebbles from the sack one by one in the sea. It took almost half an hour when he sun came out on the horizon. With the first ray of sun, he got the chance to look at the pebble he was throwing for half an hour. To his surprise, the pebble in his hand reflected the sun light. It was beautiful, he suddenly gasped, it was diamond. And he has thrown all the diamond in the sea. It was the last piece.

Swami Ananda Abhijaat repeated the story
again and said:
You get anything for free, you loose easily!
You earn hard, it will remain with you for ever!

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh

2007-06-14T21:28:00.000+05:45

Once there lived a poor fisherman in a village by the sea. he was so poor that he hardly could manage a couple of meals for his families. He was, but, the staunch devotee of the Lord. One night the Lord came in his dream and said him to set to the sea early in the morning before the dawn.
Being a staunch devotee, he got up early and started to sea. It was pitch dark and he hardly could walk. He tripped on something in a dark. He tried to figure out what it was that he tripped upon. It was a kind of sack with hard and small pebbles. He has almost reached the sea but it was still dark.
Waiting for the sun to rise, he sat there, and lazily he started throwing the pebbles from the sack one by one in the sea. It took almost half an hour when he sun came out on the horizon. With the first ray of sun, he got the chance to look at the pebble he was throwing for half an hour. To his surprise, the pebble in his hand reflected the sun light. It was beautiful, he suddenly gasped, it was diamond. And he has thrown all the diamond in the sea. It was the last piece.

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said: The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh.

Good Omen: Bad Omen

2007-06-09T21:57:00.000+05:45

I was jugging this morning. Another man, a stranger, was also jugging at the other side of the road. The man wanted to cross the road and come to my side and at the same time a black cat crossed the road. The cat went to the other side and the man came to my side. They crossed each other's way. A thought crossed my mind, what will happen to the man now as the black cat crossed his way?
No sooner I reached the corner of the road and turned I saw a car coming in full speed from the opposite direction. I stood there waiting for the car to pass. The other man, who saw me standing there, smiled at me and continued jugging. I felt embarrassed and started jugging. As I started jugging, I heard the car hit something and the sound of screeching brakes.
I turned back thinking that the man must be hit by the car. But it was the same black cat that the car has hit.
The scene replayed in my mind; the black cat and the man crossing each other's way; who is bad omen for whom? Is there any fault of a black cat, has it done any wrong except it killed rat to survive. But the man kills another fellow human for nothing and a man does everything to another human to prove superiority.

Swami Ananda Abhijaat said: Next time when you are walking be aware! a man, who is much more dangerous than a black cat, might cross your way !!!

I invoke you, VajraGuru Padmasambhava

2007-06-01T21:49:00.000+05:45

Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum!
(I invoke you, Vajra Guru, Padmasambhava, by your blessing may you grant us ordinary and ...)

As this week is celebrated as VajraGuru padmasambhav week. Lets go into deep, who he was, the great mystic Padmasambhava, meaning 'Born of the Lotus', is Pe-ma lung-ne in Tibetan. Many titles and names have been applied to him. He is called Guru Padma, or the Lotus Guru, and is even more popularly known as Guru Rinpoche, or Saint Lama, the precious holy Supreme One. Like Nagarjuna before him, he has been acknowledged a 'second Buddha' after Sakyamuni.
He has also been called Arunagiri Babaji, the holy mystic of Red Mountain, the eternal youth (Kumara), and the Mahavatar or Great Incarnation of the world.
"As an objective man," wrote H P Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, vol- I, page 208," he is the mysterious (to the profane) yet ever present Personage about whom legends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he again who holds spiritual sway over the initiated Adepts throughout the whole world.
He is the "Initiator" , called the Great Sacrifice. For, sitting at the threshold of Light, he looks into it from within the circle of Darkness, which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day of this life cycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen post? Why does he sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no longer, as he has naught to learn which he does not know—aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its heaven? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on their way back to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing their way in this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth-Life. Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may profit by the Great Sacrifice. It is under the direct, silent guidance of this MAHA-(great)-GuRu that all the other less divine Teachers and instructors of mankind became, from the first awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early Humanity."

Introduction
Inseparable from the Primordial Buddha Samantabhadra, the all-pervading Lord of the three jewels of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and master of the three roots of lama, yidam, and dakini, the glorious Guru Padmasambhava should be definitively understood as being the essence of Buddha Amitabha. In order to propagate and spread the teachings of the Dharma in general, and particularly the secret mantra and Dzogchen teachings, he appears to every being of the three thousand billion world systems in a form to benefit them according to their personal karmic vision. In this way Guru Padmasambhava has countless unimaginable biographies, one biography for each being. Although that is the definitive biography of Guru Padmasambhava, the historical figure Guru Padmasambhava's life-story as known to the common disciples is as follows.

Birth
When the time for Guru Rinpoche to liberate the beings of this world approached, on the tenth day of the sixth month of the Monkey year, he appeared miraculously in the blossom of a lotus in the lake called "Ocean of Milk" in South West Odiyana, which is also known as Lake Danakosha located on the Afganistan-Pakistan frontier. However there are different interpretations regarding his birth. Some Indian historians affirm that he was born to a minister or a King of Odiyana, and some claim that he appeared instantaneously on the summit of Mt. Malaya in Sri Lanka. But Guru Padmasambhava's treasure teachings confirm the version which states that he was born spontaneously from a lotus. This source is the most renowned and thus the following history is provided accordingly.
Odiyana The great river Sindhu, one of the four great rivers that springs from the four directions of Kailash mountain, flows towards the Western Land of Odiyana and finally empties into the Arabian Sea. When the river reaches Odiyana, it forms a lake filled with lotuses. As the lotus roots produce a sweet-milky juice, it is called "Ocean of Milk." Prior to Guru Padmasambhava's birth, in the center of the lake a large, fully mature, beautiful, red lotus grew, and from the heart of Buddha Amitabha in space, a red syllable HRI fell about eight cubits above the collora of the lotus. The syllable dissolved into light and instantly, without depending on the causes and conditions of father and mother, there arose an eight-year-old child perfectly adorned with the characteristic major and minor marks. Holding a vajra and a lotus in his hands, he immediately began giving teachings to the gods and dakinis of the area.

King Indrabodhi
At that time, the ruler of the land of Odiyana, the Second King Indrabodhi, was residing in his nine-tufted palace with his queen as well as hundreds and thousands of inner and outer ministers. Because the king did not have a son, on the full moon day of the fifth summer month, he made great offerings to the Triple Gems and recited the Dharma Cloud Sutra. He also opened the door of his three thousand treasuries and went on distributing alms to the poor and needy until his wealth was exhausted. He then exclaimed, "Beggars have still not ceased, but I have nothing to grant!" When the remaining beggars did not receive their share, they told the king that if he did not provide their share, whatever was done in the past would be meaningless. The king heard this and, inspired to acquire inexhaustive wealth for the beggars, he traveled to the ocean to procure the wish-fulfilling jewel from the crown of the mystical creature, Charumati, daughter of Naga. He procured the jewel without mishap and sailed back with his boat filled with the seven varieties of jewels. While traveling to meet the king, the king's religious minister, Trig Na Dzin, found the extraordinary child on the lotus and narrated the full story of the child to the king. The king was pleased by this news and went to the child and inquired about his father, mother, and to which caste and country he belonged. The child exclaimed:
My father is the self-arisen Samantabhadra.
My mother is the sphere of reality, Samantabhadri.
My caste is the union of primordial wisdom and the Dharmadhatu.
And my name is the glorious Padmasambhava.
Lotus-Born

Having heard this, the king was thrown into a wonder of delight. He thought a Nirmanakaya had taken birth and invited the child to the palace as his son as well as religious guide. The child was named 'Padmasambhava' meaning 'lotus-born'. Later Padmasambhava married Prabhadharani, the daughter of King Chandan Gomashree, and ruled the kingdom in accordance with the Dharma. He became renown as Shikhabandh Raja or 'The King With Plaited Hair'.

Rodravajrakala
He perceived that since politics is contradictory to the teachings of liberation, and his position would not fulfill the purpose of sentient beings, he performed a mystical activity of killing the son of a wicked minister and lifted his consciousness into the Dharmadhatu. As a result he was banished from the country to the fearful cemetery of Sitavana. Gradually by performing mystical activities at the cemeteries of Nandanvan, Daanbhumidvipa, Parushakavan, and so forth he accomplished the common and uncommon siddhis and came to be known as Rodravajrakala, 'The Wrathful Vajra Display'.

Guru Dhimana Varruchi
In order to inspire faith towards the teachings in the disciples of the future, he then went to Bodhgaya and many other places displaying the act of receiving teachings from many great scholars, accomplished masters, and Dakinis. By listening just once, he comprehended and accomplished the whole canon of the three-baskets of Vinaya, Sutra, and Abhidharma, as well as the teachings of the outer and inner secret mantra, oral transmissions, and the pith instructions of the highest and innermost tantra of Atiyoga. Even if he did not propitiate, the deities of the mandala displayed their forms and he became a peerless erudite and accomplished master. Thus he showed the signs of perfecting the level of the Fully Ripened Awareness Holder. Thereafter he was known as the Guru Dhimana Varruchi, "The Supreme Love Endowed With Wisdom."

Marriage to Mandarava
He then took princess Mandarava, daughter of Shastradhara, the king of Zahor, as his consort. Possessing the marks of a dakini, he took her to the mountain cave of Maratika, known as Halesha, in present day, Nepal, where they performed the accomplishment rituals of longevity for three months and actualized the Immortal Vajra Body which marks the attainment of an Immortal Life Awareness Holder.

Tso Pema
In order to tame the people of Odiyana he returned there disguised as a mendicant but many people recognized him and he was set to be burned alive in a sandalwood fire by a host of evil-minded ministers and people. When the fire was lit, he miraculously transformed the fire into a huge lake filled with lotuses. Sitting himself with consort over a giant lotus in the middle of the lake, the king, ministers, and people were astounded and developed great faith towards him.
In addition, at the cave of Yanglashod in Nepal he practiced the Vishuda deity depending on the accomplishment consort Sakya Devi of Nepal and very soon both of them became supreme Mahamudra Awareness Holders. Thus were some of the achievements of Guru Padmasambhava prior to coming to Tibet.
The Master Spreads the Dharma in the Land of Snows

Birth of Dechogma
When Lord Buddha gave Avalokiteshvara the responsibility of taming the backwards land of Tibet, Avalokiteshvara looked at the barbaric land and shed tears of compassion. From these tears the Goddess Ganga and Gangchungma were born. One day Goddess Gangchungma stole some celestial flowers and due to her decline in merit, when she died she was unable to again take rebirth as a god and fell to the human realm. She took birth as the human woman, Dechogma, the daughter of Sale from the Jardzinma caste.

The Sons of Dechogma
Being born from Avalokiteshvara's tears, she naturally had great faith in the Dharma and thus commissioned the construction of a magnificent stupa in Boudha near Kathmandu in Nepal. However she died before the stupa was completed. Her four sons vowed to complete the unfinished stupa, and in honor of their mother, and out of supreme faith in the Dharma they made solemn prayers from the bottoms of their hearts. Upon completion of the stupa, they each fervently prayed to be reborn as a Dharma king, a great learned khenpo, a powerful tantric master, and a messenger that would bring the previous three together. Legend also has it that during the construction of the stupa a wise donkey was commissioned and overheard the four sons' prayers. Hearing thus, the donkey thought, "I have done so much work for them and they don't even remember me in their prayers! I vow to do my best to destroy the fruits of their prayers."

King Trisong Deutsen
According to their aspirations, one son was reborn as Trisong Deutsen, the 38th king of Tibet and an incarnation of Manjushri. One son was reborn as the king's messenger who invited both the great Khenpo Shantarakshita and the tantric master Guru Padmasambhava from India, who were the reincarnations of the other two sons. Guru Padmasambhava, recalling his past aspirations, accepted the invitation, and on his way he subdued all the harmful gods and demons of Tibet, making them faithful guardians of the Dharma. After meeting in Tibet, the king, guru and khenpo together constructed Tibet's first great monastery at Samye and fully furnished it with statues. In addition they gave monk's vows to Tibet's first seven monks, standardized translation methods, supervised translation of most of the sutras and tantras from Sanskrit to Tibetan, and for the first time in Tibet, firmly established the tradition of study, contemplation, and meditation, thereby radiating the Buddha Dharma in Tibet like rays of the sun.

Langdharma
As for the donkey, he was later reborn as Langdharma, the 41st king of Tibet, and subsequently almost succeeded in eliminating the Dharma from Tibet.

Treasures Concealed
Not leaving even the space of a horse-hoof untouched, Guru Padmasambhava miraculously walked upon the entire land of Tibet and generally blessed all the mountains, lakes, and caves as places for accomplishment. Specifically in the Ngari region of upper Tibet he blessed twenty mountain caves. In Utsang he blessed twenty-one sacred places of accomplishment. In Dokham he blessed twenty-five sacred places, as well as the three kingly treasure places in upper, central and lower Tibet, the five provinces, three valleys, one island and so forth. In addition, for the sake of beings to be tamed in the future, Guru Padmasambhava concealed eighteen varieties of treasure which include treasure texts, material wealth, holy images and so forth, and gave explicit prophesies regarding the future manifestation of these treasures, including the revealer and protector of the treasure, as well as time of revelation.

Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche
So forth were the enlightened activities performed for the sake of sentient beings by Guru Padmasambhava's eight manifestations which are as follows:
Padmavajra, Vajra of the Lotus, severed the roots of the five poisons.
Padmaraja, King of the Lotus, provided mundane and ultimate benefits to sentient beings.
Padmasambhava, the Lotus-born, blessed beings endowed with faith.
Dorje Drolod tamed the Yakshas and haughty beings.
Suryaprabha, the Rays of the Sun, taught the essence of secret mantra.
Sakyasimha, the Lion of Sakyas, guided beings towards the path of liberation.
Simhanada, Roar of the Lion, defeated the outside aggressors of non-Buddhists.
Dhimanvaruchi, the Supremely Wise Love, showered the teachings of sutra and mantra.

Accomplishments
The results of Guru Padmasambhava's activities include the attainment of liberation by his twenty-five disciples and eighty other disciples who attained rainbow body. In addition, three million disciples achieved stability in tantric generation stage practice, one hundred thousand disciples showed signs of accomplishment, ninety thousand disciples achieved the uncontaminated Illusory Body, and eighty million disciples had some attainment. Having accomplished these great activities, knowing his personal beings to be tamed on Earth were exhausted, he departed for the Southwestern universe of the magical cannibals, to help the beings there and to protect Earth from their harm.

Length of Life
Guru Padmasambhava is said to have lived for three thousand and six hundred years in India upholding the Buddha's teachings and benefiting sentient beings. But for his stay in Tibet there are many unreliable versions claiming he stayed for three years, six years, thirteen years and so forth. Despite these differences, according to Guru Padmasambhava's own kama teachings, he actually stayed for fifty years and three months, directly manifesting the meaning of the teachings by benefiting countless sentient beings in incredible myriad ways according to their desires and propensities, which is a reliable and trustworthy fact.
With kindness as vast as the sky, Guru Padmasambhava powerfully
served the beings of the god, human, and naga realms.
Remembering his past aspirations, with infinite profound treasure
teachings and material wealth,
He especially benefited the beings of the snowland of Tibet.

The Great Mystic Padmasambhav

2007-05-25T23:23:00.000+05:45

The Great Guru Padmasambhav was born
exactly after 37 minutes from now.
Lets celebrate the Guru, the greatest mystic
Guru padmashambhav's birthday.
(On the tenth day of waxing moon in
Jestha)

A mystic is born today

2007-05-17T22:14:00.000+05:45

A Nepali Mystic is born today.