Sathya Sai Baba's 83rd Birthday Today!

Today, 23rd day of November, 2008 marks the 83rd Birthday of this Saint from Puttaparthi, India. The celebrations took place in his ashram center named "Prasanthi Nilayam".

On his 81st Birthday, Sathya Sai Baba addresses the following messages to students. Though it was directed to young students, it has a lot of message even the adults could use.

Here goes the 81st Birthday message to students:-

"It is not possible to describe how fortunate a human being is. Jantunam nara janma durlabham (of all living beings, human birth is the rarest). Man is not able to realise the value of humanness and is deluded by the sight of ephemeral and transitory objects of the world. The basis of man's life is not the transitory and ephemeral world. His life on earth is a synthesis of moral, ethical and spiritual values. Man, in fact, is the image of divinity. Mamaivamsho jivaloke jivabhuta sanathana (the eternal Atma in all beings is a part of My Being). "

"All of you are a part of Myself, you are not different from Me. Unable to realise the value of his humanness, man becomes a victim of his many delusions. All your learning and your strenuous efforts should be directed towards realising this truth. You don’t need anything else after realising this fundamental truth."

"All the material possessions of this world are a cause of bondage for man and so long as man is in bondage, he has to suffer. Therefore, man should try to achieve freedom from this bondage. He should get rid of the feeling of attachment. Nothing is ‘mine’ and ‘thine’, everything is one. Develop the feeling in your heart that all are one. Only then can you experience truth, peace and bliss."

Check your desire levels....

"Embodiments of Love! Your life is full of ambitions and desires. You have to enquire whether you are making appropriate efforts to attain fulfilment in life. First search your heart to know what your thoughts and feelings are - whether they are pure, steady and selfless or are they tainted with desires. Desires are like luggage which is a heavy burden in the journey of life. Less luggage more comfort makes travel a pleasure. Therefore, gradually reduce your desires. If you have less luggage, you will be more peaceful. On the contrary, man today is increasing his baggage of desires instead of lightening it."

Ekatma Sarva Bhutantaratma...1 atma dwells in all beings....

"Thousands of people have assembled here. Heads are many, but the feeling is one. Ekatma sarva bhutantaratma (one Atma dwells in all beings). Because of your body attachment, you are subjected to too many troubles. Today you are a single person. After completing your studies and securing a good job, you will try to get married. Then you become two. When one wears one bangle, no sound is produced. Only when one wears two bangles sound is produced. After marriage, you are inclined towards worldly acquisitions. You will have children and your family will expand. With this type of ‘progress’, how can you have peace? All these worldly attachments are the result of your deluded thinking. There is no reality in them. When your thoughts and feelings are not in the right direction, you are bound to suffer.

Love brings peace of mind.....

"Once you take to the path of service, your problems will gradually decrease. Love All, Serve All. Do not consider anybody as other person. Develop the feeling that he and you are one. The entire mankind is one. What you see in this world is only the reaction, reflection and resound of the reality that is one. Once you understand this truth, you will be peaceful. Only then will your mind be steady and one-pointed in the pursuit of your study and profession."

On the importance of service towards society...

"Therefore, first and foremost, engage yourself in the service of society. What is society? Society is your own reflection. Therefore, do not distance yourself from society. Keep yourself always engaged in the service of society. Why has God given hands to you? They are not given to scribble something on paper. They should be fully engaged in the service of God. Work is worship. Duty is God. Do your duty."

The Body-Senses-Mind-Intellect-Atma Relationship.

"You are now young and all your limbs are healthy and strong. First is the body. Next come the senses. Higher than the senses is the mind, and the intellect is higher than the mind. The Atma is the highest. When you understand and contemplate on the principle of the Atma, you will be free from all suffering and bondage. It is the perversion of the mind that is the cause of all your sufferings and bondages."

On accepting the beliefs of diverse religion...

"Gradually, My name is spread far and wide. This created jealousy in some people. In spite of the jealousy of people, people from many countries of the world representing various faiths started coming to Prasanthi Nilayam in large numbers and started celebrating their festivals here. Now December is coming and Christmas is approaching. Christians from all parts of the world will assemble here and celebrate this festival. Likewise, Mohammedans also came to Prasanthi Nilayam and prayed for My permission to celebrate their festivals. As I have always been telling you, “All are one.”

His Teachings....

Religions are many, but the goal is one.

Clothes are many but yarn is one.

Jewels are many but gold is one.(Telugu poem)

The essence of Truth....

"Who is God? Truth is God. Truth is unshakable. Sathyannasti paro Dharma (There is no Dharma greater than adherence to truth). It is Dharma that leads man to peace. Without peace man cannot live. Saint Thyagaraja said, “One cannot have happiness without peace.” When you attain peace, you will experience love and bliss. Truth is the origin of bliss. Non-violence also emerges from truth. A man of love will not entertain even a thought of violence. Sathya (truth), Dharma (righteousness), Santhi (peace), Prema (love) and Ahimsa (non-violence) are like the five life-breaths of man. These are the prime qualities of a human being. The need of the hour is to develop these human values. Only when these values are developed can there be peace in the country. Wherever you see today, you find limitless desires in people."

The final reminder...

"The worldly pleasures are no pleasures in the real sense of the term. Today you may enjoy pleasure, tomorrow you may experience difficulties. You may be happy when a son is born, but you will be grief-stricken when some mishap occurs to the son and he dies. One day you smile, another day you cry. There is only a little gap between happiness and sorrow. Everything in man’s life is transient and temporary. Ma kuru dhana jana yauvana garvam, Harathi nimeshath kalah sarvam (do not be proud of your wealth, progeny and youth; the tide of time may destroy them in a moment)."

That was the message Sri Sathya Sai Baba had for young students on his birthday 2 yrs ago. I cannot dismiss his "final reminder" of his birthday message: "Everything in a man's life is transient & temporary...the tide of time may destroy them in a moment". Currently, recession is taking place globally. Ask a man who has just lost his job of 10 to 20 yrs old due to downsizing or retrenchment & he will tell you how right is that statement!

The Cop who is a Mentalist.

This is quite an interesting news that I picked up from Express news covered by Brian Chasnoff. It is about a 51 year old policeman with special abilities. He is known as Candin though his real name is Wayne Cannon. As I was reading, I thought that it would be nice if every precinct in the world has cops with such special abilities then....there would not be anymore missing persons,things or missing animals...

Here goes...

He's a police officer — a missing persons detective, serving and protecting the Alamo City for 12 years. Soon he'll start investigating crime scenes.
He has other interests which includes deep space, Armageddon and mentalism. He performs the latter — a form of mind reading, a more rarified sort of magic — when he's not helping solve mysteries in the streets.

“We have to remind people that he's not the Antichrist,” says Steve Schmidt, owner of Enchanted Springs Ranch in Boerne. “He's not the dark side.”

Sometimes they watch the mentalist perform. He'll bend a spoon before your eyes. Pick a word from a 300-plus-page novel & he will tell you what word you chose. “It's sleight of mind,” the mentalist explains, cryptically. “You have to persuade somebody to go a certain direction.” He will guess your mother's name if you tell him your birthday.


Candin spikes his shows with off-kilter humor, conflating ESP with ESPN, for example, and he's peculiar in conversation too, sputtering digressions about dinosaurs and meteorites.

He collects meteorites in an aquarium in his laundry room. He's spent thousands of dollars on them, misshapen chunks of debris from outer space. One, he says, contains amino acids not found on Earth.
“There's your extraterrestrials,” he says. “That's my passion.”
He points out stones that fell in Russia and China, New Orleans and Africa.
“This thing came down like a bus in Peru,” he says. “It's fascinating to me because this is from somewhere else. It's like, how close can you get to God? With a meteorite.”


The book of Revelation intrigues Candin. He reads the Bible literally. He steers clear of witchcraft. He won't touch Ouija boards. “Contacting the dead is an abomination,” he says. “It's in Deuteronomy. You shouldn't do it.”

But mentalism is different. Candin says it's an art form that encompasses suggestion and psychology. Skeptics say it's trickery, that the novel the mentalist hands you is a fake. Candin says he uses techniques, but he's no skeptic. His performances can startle even him.

“God is supernatural,” he says. “He's paranormal, and I think he shows us things.” Other times, Candin takes more of the credit. “I mess with people's minds,” he says.


Candin used to be in the Air Force. He's afraid of breaking rules. He's skittish about connecting mentalism to police work.

Candin says,“I get hunches, but I think every police officer has that ability.”
And: “I think it makes me a better detective because you're acting as a prophet. No, I don't want to say that.” And: “If it does subconsciously help me with police work, so be it.” And: “I know you're saying this guy's a psychotic policeman.”
He's not. People who know him love him. They say he's unusual, yes, but also funny and kindhearted. And he became a cop for the right reasons.

“He has very high ambitions,” says an officer who's known Candin for more than two decades and requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to a reporter. “He always aspired to be a good person.”

One of the thing Candin most loves to do is to catch people off-guard when they are in the midst of admiring his meteorites. And that's when Candin will tell you to look at a coin he acquired in an exotic land. Next, a fireball will explode in your face. Candin will smile, and you'll smell the butane as you wait for your heart to stop pounding.

STIGMATA OF TERESA NEUMANN.

Stigmata...What is it?

Stigmata are bodily marks, sores or sensations of pain in locations which corresponds to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus. These are called visible stigmata. There is another form of stigmata that does not have any marks that can be seen but only sensation of pain that the stigmatic alone endures. This is called the invisible stigmata. Witnesses can't see any trace or marks that is normally expected of a stigmata phenomenon.


Stigmata are mainly associated with the Roman Catholic Church. This might pose as a problem to some who might question as to why the Protestants don't experience the same phenomenon since they too are believers of Jesus Christ??

The Ratio of stigmata...
Most of the Stigmata reports shows a large number of them are women who are members of the Catholic religious orders. The ratio of reported stigmatics are largely women as compared to men.

The Invisible Stigmatics...
St. Catherine of Sienna had visible stigmata in the beginning but later through humility, she asked that it be invisible for she did not want the marks to scare those who may view it. And her prayers were heard. Those visible signs were transformed into invisible where only she alone may sense & endure. Another invisible stigmatic was also by the same name, St Catherine de' Ricci, a Florentine Dominican from the 16th Century. There were many others as well.

Dr. Imbert's research on this subject...
Dr. Imbert Gourbeyre undertook an extensive research on this subject where he investigated a total number of 321 cases out of which only 41 turns out to be male. He describes this phenomenon to strike mostly pious and fervently religious women.

Roman Catholics versus the common doctor's view...
Most Roman Catholic theologians accept many cases of stigmata as being genuine. However, some doctors share an opposing view to that. They explain that this phenomenon was being caused by the effects of a subdued form of hysteria with wound mark differences as to how they imagine Jesus Christ was crucified.

What are these good doctors suggesting? Are they suggesting that the stigmata occurs as a result of auto-suggestion of the mind of the person wanting to display Christ like symptoms of crucifixion? Are they saying that this is fake?

Case of the Stigmata
1. Teresa Neumann
Teresa Neumann is a 20 yr old German girl who was blind and paralysed. On a Good Friday in 1926, she experienced a vision of St Therese of Lisleux. Following that, she was cured of her afflictions which she has underwent for the last 6 yrs. But then, every Friday, for 24 hours each time for the next 36 yrs until her death in 1962 she has been exhibiting marks of stigmata (as can be seen in the video below).

She usually falls into a trance and exhibit deep rectangular wounds to her hands which heals as quickly as it develops. Eye-witnesses have described her shedding tearlets of blood from her feet, her side & her forehead.

Video of Teresa Neumann:



Whether stigmata is fake or not does not matter to me. From a religious perspective, I see that it reinforces the belief system & faith of a person in religion. Therefore, it does no harm to the society or the world unlike some claims by a certain people that their dogma allows them to kill in the name of religion...and that they will be rewarded with God knows how many virgins waiting for them. And THAT....needs to be investigated. Period.

A Simple Meditation...

MEDITATION

(for focusing and experiencing the power of Now)

We cannot live without oxygen but breathing is something that is taken for granted and given no importance in most people’s lives. In this first meditation below, concentration is on the breath…in the second it is using the breath…and the third puts these two things together. For when you are fully experiencing what you are doing, you are touching God or whatever God means to you.

The Breath
Find a quiet place to sit – a place you have made sacred space.
Sit with your back as straight as possible. Settle yourself in a comfortable position.
Close your eyes and take 3 very big and deep breaths to clear your nose and lungs.
Breathe gently in and out in your own rhythm and concentrate on how it feels as the air moves in and out of your nose. When you are completely familiar with that follow the breath in and out of the lungs. Feel how it affects your body, does your pulse rate change - slowing on the in breath and speeding up on the out breath? Feel the difference in the depth of each breath and follow the flow of energy outward from the lungs and track it through the body. Allow the breath to take you deep into the meditative state.

Using the Breath
Find your comfortable position in sacred space and begin your meditation while concentrating on your breathing. Then with gentle open eyes, survey your room or surrounding space carefully memorizing where each thing is. Then close your eyes and picture the room or space in your mind, reconstructing and visualizing exactly where each and every thing is. When you have reconstructed the room in your mind to your satisfaction, open your eyes and check that you had it exactly right. Repeat the process until you get it correct. When the inner picture exactly reflects the outer one the focus is on the now, and you are one with your surroundings and the energy will have changed. Note all of the changes as they happen.

Refining the Focus
When you combine these two things and bring them into everyday life, you become fully and completely involved in the experience of living. The past has no power and the future is not in place, and you are living in the moment where the power is yours to create what you want. Start with the repetitive or mundane activities first then go on to more difficult things. Do each day for at least a week.

Initially it is helpful to sit in your meditation place and start the breathing to create the focus of living in the NOW, and then move on to doing normal daily duties. You will find you are not in a deeply meditative state but one of focused consciousness and heightened perceptions. When you are fully experiencing what you are doing, you are touching God. By having fully focused on what you are doing you unite with your higher self to enhance communications with the higher realms.

Jewels of the Mother.

1. MYSELF
I belong to no nation, no civilisation, no society, no race, but to the Divine.
I obey no master, no ruler, no law, no social convention, but the Divine.
To Him I have surrendered all, will, life and self; for Him I am ready to give all my blood, drop by drop, if such is His Will, with complete joy; and nothing in His service can be sacrifice, for all is perfect delight.

(from Words of Long Ago, p.166,February, 1920, Japan)

2. About finding one's divinity....

"...The most important thing for an individual is to unify himself around his divine centre; in that way he becomes a true individual, master of himself and his destiny. Otherwise, he is a plaything of forces that toss him about like a piece of cork on a river.... It is a rather unpleasant sensation to feel yourself pulled by the strings and made to do things whether you want to or not -- that is quite irrelevant -- but to be compelled to act because something pulls you by the strings, something which you do not even see -- that is exasperating. However, I do not know, but I found it very exasperating, even when I was quite a child. At five, it began to seem to me quite intolerable and I sought for a way so that it might be otherwise -- without people getting a chance to scold me. For I knew nobody who could help me and I did not have the chance that you have, someone who can tell you "This is what you have to do!" There was nobody to tell me that. I had to find it out all by myself. And I found it. I started at five."

(from Questions and Answers 1953, p.139, 1 July 1953)

3. About the entrapment of our mundane lives & how we are so helpless...

"At the beginning of my present earthly existence I came into contact with many people who said that they had a great inner aspiration, an urge towards something deeper and truer, but that they were tied down, subjected, slaves to that brutal necessity of earning their living, and that this weighed them down so much, took up so much of their time and energy that they could not engage in any other activity, inner or outer. I heard this very often, I saw many poor people -- I don't mean poor from the monetary point of view, but poor because they felt imprisoned in a material necessity, narrow and deadening.
I was very young at that time, and I always used to tell myself that if ever I could do it, I would try to create a little world -- oh! quite a small one, but still... a small world where people would be able to live without having to be preoccupied with food and lodging and clothing and the imperative necessities of life, so as to see whether all the energies freed by this certainty of a secure material living would turn spontaneously towards the divine life and the inner realisation."

(from Questions and Answers 1956, p.161, 30 May 1956)

4. Is it useful to note down one's dreams? Mother explains....
"Yes, for more than a year I applied myself to this kind of self-discipline. I noted down everything -- a few words, just a little thing, an impression -- and I tried to pass from one memory to another. At first it was not very fruitful, but at the end of about fourteen months I could follow, beginning from the end, all the movements, all the dreams right up to the beginning of the night."

(from Questions and Answers 1950-51, p.62, 27 January 1951)

5. About not over burdening ourselves with more than what we can handle...

"Once, I remember, four of us had gone on a walking tour across the mountains of France. We had started from one town and had to reach another. It was about an eight or ten days' journey across the mountain. Naturally, each of us carried a bag slung across our back, for one needs a few things. But then, before starting we had a little discussion to find out what things we really needed, what was quite indispensable. And always we came to this: "Let us see, that thing we can manage in this way" and everything was reduced to so little..."

(from Questions and Answers 1950-51, p.385, 5th May 1951)

6. About Truth & Harmony on earth...

"My way of seeing is somewhat different. For my consciousness the whole life upon earth, including the human life and all its mentality, is a mass of vibrations, mostly vibrations of falsehood, ignorance and disorder, in which are more and more at work vibrations of Truth and Harmony coming from the higher regions and pushing their way through the resistance. In this vision the ego-sense and the individual assertion and separateness become quite unreal and illusory."

(from Words of the Mother, p.95)