vsdprasad

Last Sunday I went to the Festival of Chariots, San Francisco and invited my colleague, who is an advanced amateur photographer. He uploaded some of the photos to his amazing website: http://www.peace-on-earth.org/SFIndianFestival/

Last Sunday I went to the Festival of Chariots, San Francisco and invited my colleague, who is an advanced amateur photographer. He uploaded some of the photos to his amazing website: http://www.peace-on-earth.org/SFIndianFestival/

I walk on the road in the night happily whistling. Suddenly I step on something and to my dismay I sense a snake and I sense it wriggling. I make a big leap and jump and shiver and my body starts perspiring. My heart beat increases. Now this shivering is so real, the perspiration is so real and my heart rate appears so real. Then I shout to the top of my voice and hearing my voice, some man brings a torch light. Then I find that I stepped on a thick rope and considered it to be a big snake. Now I realize that I was temporally under illusion but this realization happened only after some nice man brought a torch light. As long as I was under illusion, there is no way I could believe that the whole thing was an illusion. Until then everything was 'existent' to my subjective perception. Later, after I came out of illusion, I find that it was indeed 'non-existent' and it is definitely not enduring. Now, there are similar illustrations in some books like 'yoga vasistha' but I wouldn't try to digress from the discussion for now. Also, we see many optical illusions that circulate in the internet. We see something which appears quite real but later we see that it was a temporal illusion. Thank You and happy reading!.

Please excuse my interruption.. One prominent example which spiritualists give is that of a dream. Imran, please excuse me since this example doesn't necessarily relate to the length of time but definitely relates to our perception. During the time we dream, we experience so many things which appear so real. This experience includes all kinds of sense perception which we have in a wakeful state i.e sense of touch, sense of taste etc.. As long as we are in the dream, we never think that all these perceptions are illusions because there is no way to believe that the dreamful state itself is an illusion- since the perceptions in dream are very realistic.. (It is a different case altogether when you have lucid dreams.. which I will explain subequently). So, the dreamful state can be called 'asat' because it is temporary and the wakeful state can be called as 'sat' (just for the sake of this analogy) because it is not as temporary as that of a dream. But the analogy also goes beyond just the length of time. While sleeping we think that the dreaming state is not illusion but a reality- unless you come out of your dream and later you realize that it was indeed an illusion. Now coming to the verse, the material body is temporary but our perceptions with it appear to be real & permanent. It is 'asat' (even though it appears to have permanent existence) but there is some other body which we don't perceive easily and that is 'sat' & the verse says there is no cessation of this 'other body' which normally appears to be non-existent. Coming back to our analogy, when we are dreaming, it is not easy to perceive our real body that is sleeping. I mean, if your friend pinches you when you are in deep sleep, you won't normally experience it. You don't perceive the pinch easily because you are in a deep sleep. And when we have 'lucid dreams', we are aware of the fact that the dream is an illusion and that there is a reality outside this dream and we also have some perception of that reality. Thank you

Ticket Checker to the Sadhu: “Where are you going?” Sadhu: “Where Ram was born”. Ticket Cheker: “Baba, show me the ticket” Sadhu: “I don’t have the ticket” Ticket Cheker: “Ok! Let us go then..” Sadhu: “Where?” Ticket Cheker: “Where Krishna Was born!!!!”

It is not customary for ladies to tonsure their heads completely. Just small strands from the four sides would do. Very few women go for a complete tonsure, & most of them belong to rural places. So its their personal wish. It is also said that vaishnavites are not supposed to go for complete tonsure. Here's the reason (from a SriVaishnavite resource): 1. Hair on the head is compared to the infinite desires of the mind of various kinds. But in that infinite desires are also included the desires for the Lord. Thus our acharyas say all the desires are not detrimental to the individual as long as they are tied up with the desire for the Lord. To indicate this, our sampradayic-vedics always keep most part of their hair tied up as a knot, to indicate that all the desires are tied up along with the desires for the Lord. 2. When visiting divya kshetrams like Tirumala, one needs to shed all the desires but the desire for the Lord Venkateswara should not be removed. To indicate this when offering the head gear, all the hair including the mustache (most important one which displays the macho tendency undesirable before the Purushottaman) needs to be removed and a sikha needs to be sported at an ideal place (which is regarded as Brahmarandhram). demonstrating that the desire for the Lord is still intact. Otherwise a clean shaven head (mottai or bowdigundu) indicates that all the desires including the one for the Lord is also removed, which is suicidal.

[ <font color="red"> /images/graemlins/smile.gif M-A-H-A-B-H-A-R-A-T /images/graemlins/smile.gif </font color> <font color="blue"> Krishna: Arjun, Try to respect the e-mails of your elders. </font color> <font color="brown"> Arjun: But Vasudev, how dare I send junk mails to my honorable elders who are logged on to honorable domains ? </font color> <font color="blue"> Krishna Paartha, at this moment they neither are your friend nor your foes. They are mere mail-users. So follow your Net-dharma. Logon and send dozens of junk mails. This is your Karma and this alone is your Dharma. </font color> <font color="green"> Arjun Hey Murari! After seeing all this, I feel like resigning from Software Industry itself </font color> <font color="blue"> Krishna Bandhu, it seems you are caught in a vicious circle of Maaya. In this material world you have none and you are committed to none. Junk mails have existed before you came to this world and shall remain long after you are gone. Rise above this Maaya and perform your duty. Just keep sending junk mails. </font color> <font color="purple"> Arjun But Devaki Nandan...........! </font color> <font color="blue"> Krishna ...Victory or failure is not in your hands. So stop pondering about results. Don't waste your knowledge on the junk shastra bestowed by your Guru Dronacharya. </font color> <font color="brown"> Arjun Hey Keshav, how is junk mail related to the ' system ' ? </font color> <font color="blue"> Krishna Junk mail is just junk mail. It has no connection with Hardware. However, it is another matter that it overloads the system... fills up the hard disk....but you are not supposed to worry about it. Listen Kunti putra, the way Aatma leaves one physical body and moves onto another, likewise these junk mails move from system to system. </font color> <font color="brown"> Arjun How can one define junk mail ? </font color> <font color="blue"> Krishna Neither fire can burn it.., nor air can dry it... neither it can be conquered nor it can be defeated. He who sends junk mails cannot be looked down upon even by Mahadev... Junk mails are immortal. </font color> <font color="purple"> Arjun Hey Narayan ! Now all my doubts on junk mail are crystal clear. You have opened my eyes Yashoda Nandan, or else I would have lost myself in Maaya and read all the junk mails myself. </font color> <font color="red"> ........... MAHAAABHAAAAARAT ........... </font color> <font color="black"> Years have passed since then, generations have come and gone, seasons have cycled, technology advanced, but junk mails remain. So, go on, contribute something to the history by hitting that forward button yet again to send this junk mail to all !!!!!! </font color> ]

I too had a similar question regarding fasting during Janmastami day. Since it is the birthday of Lord Krishna, people should have a gala time celebrating the event. This is should include having a wonderful feast, but what is the reason behind fasting during this day /images/graemlins/frown.gif? Iam sorry if my question appears to be offensive in any way. Thanks, -Prasad.

I too had a similar question regarding fasting during Janmastami day. Since it is the birthday of Lord Krishna, people should have a gala time celebrating the event. This is should include having a wonderful feast, but what is the reason behind fasting during this day /images/graemlins/frown.gif? Iam sorry if my question appears to be offensive in any way. Thanks, -Prasad.

Brahma Samhita was sung by Lord Brahma countless millenia ago and the text was discovered by Lord Chaitanya. What is the general opinion of SriVaisnavas about Lord Chaitanya (other than considering him as a saint)? I mean do they have any concern about his philosophy? -Prasad.

...when your roller coaster suddenly gets stranded like this while you are in /images/graemlins/wink.gif: "Cars sit stopped on way up first hill of Magnum XL200 ride during power outage, Cedar Point Amusement Park, Sandusky, Ohio."

"Happy Independence day" to all Indians from me too. <font face="Wingdings" size="5">O J O</font>

It's once again time to review the winners of the annual Stella awards. The Stella's are named after 81 year old Stella Liebeck who spilled coffee on herself and successfully sued Macdonald's . That case inspired the Stella Awards for the most frivolous successful lawsuits in the United States. Unfortunately the most recent lawsuit implicating Macdonald's, the teens who allege that eating at Macdonald's has made them fat, was filed after the 2002 award voting was closed. This suit will top the 2003 awards list without question. 5th place (Tied). Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving toddler was Ms Robertson's son. 5th place (Tied). 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr Truman apparently did not notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal the hubcaps. 5th place (Tied). Terrence Dickson of Bristol Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He could not re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family were on vacation and Mr Dickson found himself locked in the garage foot 8 days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the house owner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The Jury agreed to the tune of $500,000 4th place. Jerry Williams of Little Rock Arkansas was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbours Beagle dog. The Beagle was on a chain in its owners fenced yard. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the might have been a little provoked at the time as Mr Williams who had climbed over the fence into the yard was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun. 3rd place. A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her coccyx (tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms.Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. 2nd place. Kara Walton of Claymont Delaware sued the owner of a Night Club in a neighbouring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms.Walton was trying to sneak out of the window in the Ladies Room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses. 1st Place. This year's runaway winner was Mr Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City Oklahoma.Mr Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago Motor Home. On his trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the Freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly the RV left the Freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr.Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him that in the owner's manual that he could not actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor Home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit just in case there was any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles. No wonder lawyers earn so much!! :-)

Recently there wes a report by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), India about pesticide contents in leading soft drinks in India. They displayed the reports of laboratory analysis here: Soft Drinks, Hard Truths . The pesticide residues were higher than permissible levels and it is reported that each sample was toxic enough to cause - in the long term - cancer, damage to the nervous and reproductive systems, birth defects and severe disruption of the immune system. The news in the air is all about allegations by the press and denials by Coke and Pepsi. The Parliament has banned these softdrinks in its premises and the general public are rapidly getting aware of the reports. The softdrink giants are much worried since their $1 billion market in India is at stake!. And taking advantage of this are the desi (Indian) brands of softdrinks who are all in a hurry to launch their products asap! But no matter how many products come in the market, Nothing is better the natural cooldrink: "tender coconut". With all the essential nutrients, the packaging is natural and the expiry date is also natural (when the water inside dries on its own). But the problem is we cannot get these tender coconuts at every place /images/graemlins/frown.gif -Prasad.

priya mitrama /images/graemlins/smile.gif , "prem" anu vyakyanni ila rayiduru. Attachment chudumu ! usted consiguió la diferencia entre el "prem" y el "prema"?

<< It is hurting to see people for their own benefit drink the milk which is for the calf! >> As long as calf is getting its share of milk, there is nothing sinful. you never know if calves got their share as long as you buy milk from the store. If you go to places in rural India or even at some places in cities, you can go to farm houses and the milkman extracts milk in front of you. You will get to see the cows, calves all happily grazing unlike other commercial plants where extracting milk from cows is mechanized.

<< It is hurting to see people for their own benefit drink the milk which is for the calf! >> As long as calf is getting its share of milk, there is nothing sinful. you never know if calves got their share as long as you buy milk from the store. If you go to places in rural India or even at some places in cities, you can go to farm houses and the milkman extracts milk in front of you. You will get to see the cows, calves all happily grazing unlike other commercial plants where extracting milk from cows is mechanized.

Its definitely difficult to stop these in a preemptive way, it requires complex intelligence. Even if securitymen are able to stop it, enemy have many other options like using nuclear missiles etc. Even if we use NMD shield systems to counter them, there may be many other options better known to cruel minds like Bin Ladens.There is little use if priests know karate or kungfu. Showing a "kata" is of no use when enemy carries a gun. and when priests carry weapons or appear like brucelee or schwarzenegger, it disturbs the sanctity in the sanctum sanctorum. Even there might be some unscrupulous people acting like priests. Better to rely on kshatriyas who take care of security. Even better is to rely on powerful sadhakas who possess some of the siddhis. Its difficult to find sadhakas these days let alone finding those with important siddhis. When things are written on head, no one can change it. Take the example of king parikshit. At any stage we have to rely on Almighty. The symptom of kaliyuga is "dina dina gandam noorellayishu". ILK: usted desea traducir? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Jahnava prabhu, you wrote in tattva12.htm : << To revive this latent siddhi you will need to take up mantra upasana very seriously. At present we are shifting our library from one location to another, so all of our manuscripts are in trunks. After one or two weeks, when the shifting is over, I will be able to provide you with the necessary mantra and yantra for prapti siddhi. >> Could you pls provide more info on it.

LEji, a small correction! Talugu is not same as Telugu /images/graemlins/smile.gif. Well, it is believed that sanskrit is the root of all other languages in India. So its easy to become a polyglot beginning with sanskrit. Also Telugu script is similar to that of Kannada. So its slightly easy to understand kannada if you know Telugu well but not vice versa. To ILK: Adentandi "anni bhaashamula kanna Telugu bhaasha minna" kada? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

You may consider him a philanthropist. But don't treat him beyond a person with some mystic powers.

Haha that was really hilarious. /images/graemlins/smile.gif This reminds me of a witty speech by swami dayananda saraswati, posted in another thread: http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/remlinker.php?Cat=&Entry=96&F_Board=hinduism&Thread=44189&Main=44185

Even little American Flags are MADE IN CHINA. vERy bad! can't they make ATLEAST this item on their own?

The characteristic of any discussion is that each person puts all his arguments and other person analyses it without instigating an altercation. If someone tries to explain the point and for some reason person X doesn't seem to get convinced, it doesn't mean he should conclude that the points are invalid. The perfect way of ending any religious discussion (that may seem to get heated) is to say "So be it..." and carry on with individual beliefs with tolerance. Many individuals including me have tried to give convincing replies but for some reason Mr SS seems to have come here not for genuine discussion but for bashing the scriptures using some gleaned verses across the internet. An intelligent person takes the essence from the scriptures for his eternal benefit. Persons with small intelligence don't have any intention except to fuss about & wrongly interpret verses in a narrow minded fashion. I want to quote a verse from Srimad Bhagavatam 4.18.2(a hindu scripture) "A learned man takes the essence of knowledge from all places, just as a bumblebee collects honey from each and every flower." I definitely don't think Mr SS has any objection to such verses. Take the essence from hinduism. Don't try to deride or blashpeme. Seeing the behaviour of Mr SS, I wouldn't recommend anyone replying to his queries because it is evident that he cannot convince himself no matter how much you put forth. Only genuine persons with humility who are inquisitive can understand and it is better to avoid others who have come with other motives. -Prasad.

Apart from economic reasons there are many other reasons. They are highly deep rooted beliefs. It takes time to " smoke 'em off" or atleast change the perspective. In India there are many ceremonies for a girl as she grows up compared to a boy. Even after marriage, some ceremonies need to be taken care by the girl's parents. Most of the parents consider it to be like draining of their resources and only few parents consider the girl as lakshmi that gives luminance to the house. And another thing that concerns the minds of parents is the increment of family descendants. Only boys remain in the family tree and a girl goes to different family tree after marriage. Also its belived that the forefathers are benefited when direct descendants perform the family rites and hence forefathers cannot get their share of punya when there are no male descendants (considering that the descendants are religious without going away from it). And dowry problem is not limited to hindus. Even many muslims in South India are playing with this menace. The attitude of people doesn't change overnight. It would take a couple of generations before the problem is completely eliminated. Pragmatism helps in dealing with it. People are slowly getting aware of the fact that its more easy (economically) to raise a single child be it girl/boy than raising two or more (considering the cost of various things like education etc...). A funny thing happened to my uncle. He first had a daughter and then during the second delivery, a nurse informed that twins were born & they are both female. He felt glooomy, then took a deeeep breath, went quietly to a nearby temple to stay in peace atleast for few minutes. When he returned after some time, everyone were happy & smiling. The truth was he had twin boys and the nurse misinformed him. It is easy to imagine his plight & thought process till he came to know about his two sons. /images/graemlins/smile.gif