Question about Vegetarianism

Question:
Namaste,
I read the blog and have some opinion on the same. Who said a large brain indicated the highest manifestation of consciousness? This so called developed consciousness is presently guaranteeing the death of the planet and race perhaps within 100 years. No bodies of Moksha then! An animal may be all the soul needs to become realised for 'Love is 'God' and 'God' is Love' and an animal has no developed ego to interfere with the free flow of Sakti.
Firstly it is not proven that Jesus ate meat. The greek word in the gospels translates as food not meat. Secondly even today in some places like Scotland, meat can mean any kind of food, vegetarian or not. The particular Essenes whom Jesus was associated neither ate meat or drank alcohol.
With regard to Vivekananda and Ramakrishna, I don't know whether they ate meat or not, Ammachi also ate fish when she was younger at least. I don't know whether any of these people were Jivanmuktas or not as I am not one, but if one is a Mukta it matters not what one eats, for Who is doing the eating? And what is eating?.
However for the rest of us, vegetarianism represents a developed vijnanamayakosa to some extent and the feeling of Daya, without which there is no Moksha IMHO.........ONS...Tony.

Answer:
Manifested consciousness is the expression of freedom. It doe s not mean tha tit will do ony do good. It has a freedm to do both good and bad. It is the inorance coupled with freedom brings about destruction and wisdom with freedom brings about good for oneself and for others. Man can be both. Fortunately even thought there are many who are bad the good out nember them so the world is suviviving and progressing. To believe that man brings about distruction of mankind is being negative and not having faith in man. That is not spiritual. So let us assume man will realize and save teh world with honor and dignity.
Eating meat or not eating meat is not going to decide ultimately whether some one does not attain moksha or atttains. I only gave the logic behind being vegetarian from various angles which alos included the idea of consciousness. Ammachi was eating fish Vivekananda used to eat meat. But they were at that level where they immensely respected teh consciousness. Ther are several strict vegetarians but have no respect for consciousness. I like the former.

I also don't think vegetarianism represents developed vijnanamaya kosa too.

Love,
Raghuram.

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Special Note:
Light a candle for mumbai victims !!

Dearest Ones,
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Cheers

Pictures from Turkey and North Cyprus Visits

Dear All,
Raghuramji's short Turkey and Cyprus visit will be completed tomorrow.
We are adding a few pictures to give you a glimpse of his short trip...





We conducted MSRT (Mind Sound Resonance Technique) in Pranaki Yoga Center in Istanbul. There were so many attendants that it was not possibble to put them all in one picture...




Our traditional guru party was more colorful than ever, as we also celebrated Raghuramji's 58th birthday. The energy (!!!) of the hall was so high that taking a proper photo was hard... The birthday cake was the first-ever-made egg-free brownie with wild strawberries and vanilla cream, so the ones that would like to try this delicious recipe, please contact ayca_gurelman@hotmail.com




As Anatolia is the land of the oldest communities, it was impossible not to visit Catalhoyuk exhibition (more information on http://www.catalhoyuk.com). Here you see Raghuramji to put his hand print on the walls like the ones in prehistoric ages.





Well, not only prehistoric community exhibitions were there, but also the Exhibition of the world renowned scupture artist Rodin was there... It was hard to skip! (more information on http://muze.sabanciuniv.edu/rodin/english/index.php)



Then we continued our journey in North Cyprus, where we had two public seminars and a yoga class. Above you see Raghuramji with our host (certified yoga instructor from Scotland), Sibel Irmak in her yoga center Yoga Yama in Kyrenia/Cyprus.



In our spare time we visited Kyrenia Castle and also made a boat trip. Still the main focus was yoga philosophy and we could hardly enjoy the view, as we were busy talking philosophy..




Everybody needed so much clarification and there were so many questions that were hard to cover in this trip. The discussions were going on even on lunch time...

We are happy to say that we found great enthesuaism to yoga and a very warm hospitality in North Cyprus. Our new family decided to take YICC in November 06 in Bangalore so we hope you will be meeting them soon there!

Love...

Questions About Existence

Question 1. We experience the state of consciousness-waking, dream, sleeping in
mind-manomaya kosha.
Answer: They do not belong to Manamaya kosa. Manomaya kosa belongs to these states. They are your experiences or the experiences consciousness goes
through. Not only these but we also have the experience of Fourth state but we don't normally recognize that state.

Question 1 cont'd: But,some internal researchers like-Ramana maharshi etc said that-they experienced presence of god in the heart.What is true sir?Whether I am wrong?thinking like this?

Answer cont'd: Internal researches said that all of us have even the fourth state of experience and in the transition when we are at heart level we have such experience of divinity. Soon we bring about the intellect to evaluate and
judge and in this process we loose that experience. People like Ramana are so pure that they do not corrupt it. what else is there around other than god! But in order to feel that you need pure heart. Pure heart is that experience it is not that you purify the heart and then some thing comes is not true.

You are suchitra and in your name is the quality of purity. statements of persons like Ramana are your inspiration!!

Question 2.How we can correlate Akasha and states of consciousness?
Answer: Akasha according to Indian thinking is that state of being where all these states are possible for us to freely transit from one state to another state. If only we don't have attachment then the transition becomes smooth and no burden.

Love,

Raghuram

Question on Shakti Power

Question:
Why is it that the female is called the shakti/power Aspekt of creation? When i look at men and women than it is obvious that man have more physical power than women. All the hard work which has to be done like building roads etc. is being done by men. Most of the intellektual , philosophical, scientifical research work is being all done mainly by men. All civilisation and culture of the world all great artists, musicians, painters, inventors, discoverers of the history were men. Nearly all the great work in the world has been made by man.Even in the spiritual field Buddha, Jesus, Shankaracharya, Vivekananda all were men. Of course all borne by women. But this becoming a child itself is even not something which the women is doing
actively by will but it is much more happening to her. The bringing up and caring for the child is no doubt a hughe work to do, but there also one has not to do something so altively but it is more something where one has to be patient and be constantly there for the child. Not so much of something activily energetically doing something.
But also Vivekananda was emphasizing the important role of women with the shakti aspekt of his work. And also giving great importance to Sarada Devi though all the teachings he got from Ramakrishna and not from her.
When the female Aspekt should have the force Aspekt then women should go round the globe and teach spirituality and do the great work. I don't understand this at all. Can you pleas give me a hint? yours

Answer:
The creation is surviving not because of strength but because of Harmony you se the grass plant not only survives but smiles with satisfaction. You see it in the big jungle it is most insignificant but it will also bring about a small flower insignificant though. Nobody is there to recognize no body fears it has absolutely no strength next moment there is no guarantee that it will survive but still you see the fullness in it.This is prakriti or the feminine aspect which we call as Shakti. Shakti is wrongly translated into Power or interpreted as power which gives the concept according to modern science. This quality which brings about harmony is the feminine shakti which can be there in man or women. we all have both these aspects Where the shakti aspect finds its expression eloquently there you can see the harmony aspect. the strength aspect is the masculine aspect.you are very true when you say that women's activity is not done actively. The harmonizing aspect requires great patience and sacrifice. A child is growing inn the womb for nine months requres such an immence patience. When people say woman does sacrifice literally means that women does not place herself in doing. Woman only allows it to happen She silently carries the whole happening patiently. man can give energy but can not have the patience. Whether it is Jesus or Vivekananda or Ramakrishna and all the saints they have seen or experienced the energy which is tremendous in themselves. that is the reason they could realize the importance of harmony which is necessary for it to be useful to mankind a strength with no sense of harmony is destructive.
a strength which pays profuse respects to harmony can create divinity out of the world!
That is the reason I am always disturbed when people emphasize that yoga and peace of mind will give power because power with out the humility can become biggest ego and can be destructive.
love,
Raghuram

Humor on lighter side reg

Sravana means listening and it is a spiritual sadhana! we think it is easy but it is very difficult! in lighter way let me quote some incidences I am sure you all may have similar experiences!
it is just to show how much we only listen to what we are already stuck in our minds. especially to convince some one that yoga is for total personality and not just postures it is so difficult!
in one of the yoga teachers program I gave several hours of talk on various paths of yoga where in I mentioned that yoga Asanas is one step in Patanjali's astanga yoga which is also a part of rajayoga. apart from that we have karma yoga, jnana yoga and Bhakti yoga. I explained in detail about several yoga streams and finally when I concluded my talk on Bhakti yoga one of the participants asked me, Raghuramji, do you do same set of asanas you taught us for Bhakti yoga also!
while giving a talk in India I said yoga is part of our culture and great saints have carried the torch of yoga over centuries people like Patanjali gave these principles of raja yoga Meerabai and Tyagarajas have carried us from centuries the ideas of bhakti yoga.....
after listening to all this one person was telling his friend which I over heard See, Raghuram says even Meerabai and Tyagaraja were practicing asanas!
I gave a two hours of talk in one place in my recent trip to USA telling that yoga is not just physical and even when our body moves it is not because it is just physical but there is life force called prana which is actually causing this movement and I also explained I thought very clearly that we have a hospital where several chronic ailments especially several psychological and psychosomatic ailments with the help of yoga techniques and correcting the mind and creating inner harmony and I also made them to do one hour of pranayama and meditation and told the audience that yoga is broad category and under that are all these techniques. After the whole class is over everybody was walking out of the hall there was a young couple both attended the whole session and the man brought his wife and personally told me that they have enjoyed and proudly introduced me to his wife saying, "See, Raghuram said they have a orthopedic center in Bangalore hundred fifty bed orthopedic center". I was shocked but happy he did not introduced that we run a "human carpentry center".
Raghuram

Suryanamaskara Philosophy video

Dear All,

To watch the Suryanamaskar Philosophy from Sri Raghuramji, please click on the following link:


Suryanamaskara Video

With love...

Question on different comprehensions of yoga

Question:
I would like to ask a question about the image of yoga. Because I notice that we are now going through some kind of yoga-mania, and everyone has to say something about yoga. But I’ve noticed that yoga is most positioned like something, like an escape from this chaotic and exhausting world, people leave this world and they go and sit for meditation, this is the image.
On the other hand, yoga’s also like a medicine to be much more successful human doing, like you say in your talks.
How do you look, feel about all this?

Answer:
That’s a very beautiful way you presented the question. Yes, yoga has taken multi-forms, expressions. People are doing anything in the name of yoga. That’s the reason why there is one good thing and one bad thing.
The good thing about this is- at least people started recognizing and learning about yoga. If not today, another two years, three years. They would like to inquire into what are the texts which talk about yoga, where the ideas of yoga come from. So you start investigating into it, and the moment you start investigating into it, you will come to the right understanding about yoga. A little bit of inquiry tells us what is right, what is wrong. So I have no doubt- let the whole world take yoga and everybody start looking at what exactly is the idea of yoga, where is it coming from, and they will come to the right understanding.
The bad thing about this is that we who have taken to yoga, let us investigate into it and see that logically the texts which give us yoga, the concepts that talk about yoga, you can easily get the right information, what exactly yoga is all about. So that way, people are running away from the work. People are trying to become meditative and this and that, they would like to run away from the work, people have a fear that people takes me away from the work. Yoga does not take you away from your useful work. Yoga brings about an awareness- one of the most important contributions of yoga is to bring about awareness, and the moment you develop awareness you start inquiring into whether what you are doing is useful or not. See.
Like a simple thing is gossip- like two four? Persons are gossiping. They get annoyed by how the time flies. Why? Because you don’t have the awareness. But the moment you become aware then you start thinking ‘hey, I can do much better work than spending time in gossip’. The awareness brings about the correctness. So this is how basically, people who are spending their time otherwise in the not useful means, the moment that they do yoga, their awareness brings them back into rightness. In fact it is said- if you are telling a lie, if you are aware, you cannot tell a lie. If you are doing harm, if you are hurting somebody, if you just become aware you cannot hurt somebody, once you become conscious of it. So this awareness will put you in the right path. So the people who are otherwise spending their time in wasteful ways, they start saying that why this man, this woman, is withdrawing from the group? Yes, it’s important that we need to withdraw from the group, because we should show that this is something much better than all of the things that we are doing. You know, how much time, money, things like that, we are wasting?
Once I happened to go to Las Vegas. And it is a place where I had a habit of getting up early morning at 4:30 – 5:00, and 5:00 Las Vegas goes to sleep. Whereas I got up and came outside, I was going for long walks, it is a beautiful city. And after long walk I come back around 8:00 I found that in one of those casinos there were coin machines, and there were two elderly women sitting there and putting the coins and pulling the lever. I was so surprised- they were 80 years and sitting there and putting the coins. So I said let me develop an interesting conversation with them. I went to those ladies and said ‘good morning’.
They said ‘yes good morning, how are you doing?’
and I said ‘you know, we have a saying in India that ‘early morning luck is very good luck. So it seems that you are trying your early morning luck’.
Then she said, ‘ah well, no luck, no nothing. We were not getting sleep, that’s why we came out. And you ask us making money? No, nothing. We are killing time’.
I said ‘you know, they give you this time, the medical community is doing so much research, spending millions of dollars, so much research to see that your age is extended by ½ hour, half a month, half a year. They are very happy, proud of it, you know? And that research, spent money, and all the research that has given you that time, and you are killing that time? What is the use of doing all that research?’
This is what happens. We are unnecessarily killing our time in so many other things whereas the moment you start doing yoga, I’m sure that your time will be usefully spent. But once again, when the time is usefully spent does not mean that you have to increase your productivity. You know that productivity, material progress, has an inherent defect in it. The inherent defect is- we think that the happiness is there in the object outside. The object gives me happiness, more money gives me happiness, better production gives me happiness, my profits which touch millions of dollars give me happiness. Closely watch, is it really giving you happiness. No. We are completely hypnotized into that idea. Whereas, happiness is our nature. I don’t say that you do not produce, you produce wonderful. But produce so that more and more people will be happy, not because that your happiness will increase. So basically, we should never get into the paradigm that the objects give me happiness. If that is going to give me happiness- look at what happened to your grandfathers... Were they not happy? They did not have all these things. They never knew computers. They were so very happy because neither computers were there, nor computer viruses!
When we did not have all these riches, we were happy. Objects are not contributing to our happiness, but objects are giving us some conveniences. Just making life a little more easier. When we used to use a lamp, now we just switch a light on, that’s all. It’s a little bit more convenient but not an addition to happiness. If you are like that, then you do not go unnecessary fighting and struggling and stress.

Love,
RaghuRam.

Question on creating karmas

Question:
Regarding hte Karma Yoga article: "I guess it really depends on the person, and what they percieve as bad/good etc. But what if someone truly believe they are doing a good will, when actually they are doing the total opposite... Do you think they get the same karma back as to a person who's intent is the same as theirs.. yet released in a more darker way?."

Answer:
The idea is very simple. the karma we are talking about is the physical activity like putting hand in fire. even if you do not know fire burns the moment you put hand in fire it burns. same way some one who is thinking that he is doing good may not know he is doing bad instead of good. In any case the bad fruit will be there. this is even without his own knowledge. how are we guarenteed that we are now doing all activites with full awareness. we are not sure. but we have the freedom within us to be disturbed or not. Therefore we need not be disturbed by them. but situations can be same for one who did it wilfully or the person doing out of ignorance. the later has atleast a choice to learn from his mistakes but the former does not even have that!
That is why we say a person who goes wrong ways with knowedge will go to deeper darkness. his knowledge can come in his way.

love,

Raghu Ram

Questions on Universal Inteligence

Dear Raghuram,
Thank you for all the articles you are writing for us to help us on the spiritual path.

Question: How can you say that there is something like a Knowledge substance. The flower creates itself out of the elements like earth sun etc. And you say that there is a knowledge doing this. But it may be also said that the flower (and everything else)exists just because of the properties of matter. As soon we take away the matter there is no flower and knowledge is also not there. The knowledge which creates the flower only exists in connection with matter. If matter is not there knowledge can also not be there.

Answer: Creation essentially has two aspects or substances. one is the material cause and the other is the intelligence cause. the latter I called as knowledge substance which is normally referred to as property of the material or element. In this regard there is a slight difference in thinking which is material is the property of the knowledge or intelligence and not the other way round. At element level there is intelligence which begets the material like the wetting intelligence be gets water burning intelligence begets fire etc. And again the flower intelligence with the help of such elements or the intelligences and with their rightful combination will bring out flower. Same way in a human being it is the intelligence body which is subtle begets the physical body which is the gross.

question: Even if there is just a slight change in the properties of matter the flower will not come. For instance if you heat the seeds above a certain temperature the seeds cannot create a plant anymore. There is no knowledge which can even overcome the smallest changes in matter. So where is the knowledge independent from matter?

Answer: at the seed level the intelligence is limited only to the degree that if the conditions are suitable within that range they will be able to give manifestation to their intelligence and flower flowers. but the moment you alter the conditions beyond certain limits then they fail. their intelligence is in one sense extraordinary as to look at a the intelligence present in the seed within given a lump of clay moisture and such conditions it can bring out a plant and nice flowers which we can not do in a laboratory. But suddenly if he conditions change they can not have the freedom like if it snows they can not move into safer place! This is their limitations. their knowledge is fixed having lesser degree of freedom. where as at human level there is so much freedom.

question: Even when one says it is not expressed but it is there. How can we say that it is there when we don´t perceive it apart from matter? When it is perceivable only in matter it is matter itself.

Answer: This is the argument of materialists or existentialists say that there is nothing like intelligence. even if it is there it is nothing but the aspect of the matter. This argument extended further like the way intelligence is part of the matter even the intention and intuition also do not exist. or even if they exist they exist as part of the matter and not independent. And finally the soul also does not exist. With that view two dangers are there. One is that when we are physically there we are there and there is nothing beyond. Then there is no place for charity, compassion etc as superior values If I have material advantage I do if not I don't. there is nothing like moral and immoral. Second thing is how do you explain the experiences of people who meditate and have outer body experiences and the experience of body apartness etc.

Question: And when it is not percievable apart from matter it is not there at all.

Answer: There are therefore two strong positions in the world One is matter based Universe and the other is the consciousness based universe. In the later position since the consciousness is the prior position instrumentation which is nothing but the matter will not be able to prove the presence of consciousness or intelligence so perception by any external means is not possible but it is only experiential.

I hope I have answered your questions. In my assessment they are very deep and thoughtful questions!
Regards
Raghu Ram

Benefit of Jala Neti

I have been advising this to people all the time since thirty years I am happy this is becoming popular. When I started I did not have any one to guide me so i used to do it very crude way We did not even had netipots those days, but i got such benifit when i was twelve years, I gave upusing thenasal drops which i used to use every hour before. I used to carry the dropper to the school !
Love,
Raghuram

The readers wrote:

I hear that Kaiser suggests sinus irrigation for persistent or frequent colds; many western doctors not only recommend it but also sell "netty pots" and "smelling salts"in a package for $15-20. East-West has fancy sets for higher prices. My husband's allergies have improved drastically and I have got rid of my headaches due to jalaneti. Prevoiusly if I caught a cold in winter, I'd sniffle and cough all winter. Last year I did NOT catch a cold throughout winter. This year after the whole family had two bouts of cold and my husband had a particularly nasty one after a business trip, I developed a mild cold. At work people are still suffering but I have managed to steer clear. It has become my daily habit and recently in the middle of a stinking headache, I did jalaneti (had not done that morning due to a hurried schedule so did after coming home) and my headache lightened tremendously. A short rest, with my eyes covered, completely eliminated my headache. Please try this out and see the effects. I feel that I see more clearly after having started this practise.

Madhulika















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A couple more people sent their testimonies.... (I should start practising shirshasana and sarvangasana also)
Yes, I have tried it before and can attest to its benefits as well. The other option is to try sutra-neti (using a catheter) if you are a bit queasy with
water going up your nose.

Regular practice of shirshasana and sarvangasana also builds immense immunity to colds and helps with quick recovery from colds as well (if you still manage to catch it).

Srinivas

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Yea, it worked successfully for my in-laws too.. My Brother-in-law who also had sinus problems before used it and is very much satisfied with the results.. with the success my mother-in-law had, she gave some to her colleagues and they were very happy as well..
it looks as an effective and simple solution (though never used myself yet :) )

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Last year I threw away at least $200 worth of cold/sinus meds. We have saved a tremendous amount of money in cold medicines and nasal drops, saline solution that Mukul (Mike) used few times a day; not to mention, I haven't missed a single day of work due to sickness, Mike has missed much fewer days and the biggest benefit is not feeling miserable and vanquished by common cold, flu and general bad health. The world is so much more enjoyable when one is healthy!!

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