Spritual, Inspirational & Motivational Corner

[KirKS]

Here's a tiny corner for people to share their first hand experience involving spirituality, satsung, bhajan, quest for truth, motivational incident, inspirational message/situations..

You can share anything that made you feel quite happy, scared or curious about 'who am I', 'why am I here' & other spiritual/ philosophical thoughts. Also, comments pertaining to someone's experience shared is most welcome.

PS:
1. For all discussions diverting into God/No God, My religion v/s your religion, 'Evidence', "Proof" etc., please use MT: Religion

2. The keyword is 'first hand' - Could be self or close friends/family. But preferably not some google links.

[KirKS]

Two experiences from Sunday to narrate:

1. Quality of Gurus: After getting inspired by the Favorite Devotional Song thread, finally, I headed to Ramakrishna Matha (Ashram) after nearly 1 and a half decades. This time I wasn't alone though..Heard the soothing preaching by the senior swamiji in the auditorium, in the patented punctuality style. Sharp at 5.30 preaching starts, ladies & gents separated, absolute silence including mobile nuisance missing and exactly at 6.29 a close to the preaching with push-button close of auditorium stage sliding wooden doors. Incredibly disciplined people.

Many moralistic & motivational stories were told. Heard it just like when I was in high school. One story really stuck to my mind. Imagine a big flat terrace of a building. Many pipes of different size, bend & position are fixed to get the water that accumulates on top to various sections of the building down. Now note that some of the pipes may be corroded, colored or in polluted in other ways. The same clean & colorless rain water from the terrace shows up in different colors & force in various end points downstairs. Now that clear, colorless water is the eternal spiritual truth. Pipes are the mathas/ashrams/organizations preaching spirituality/religion. Pipes from top to bottom also signify the swami/guru lineage (not exactly gene pool) over the generations. Color, rust, pollution, blockage etc. in water movement within each pipe represents the mental/physical cleanliness, discipline & overall quality of shishyas (students) setup & supported over the generations. Finally the end result, the quality of water collected downstairs will depend upon how clear, clean & efficient the overall guru-parampara (teach-student knowledge transfer) has been. Some will invariably pass on better 'water' or spiritual truth than the others.

Moral: Stuck to my mind immediately the difference between a Sringeri matha guru parampara maintained extremely well for 1200+ years to that of modern age swami/Guru like Nityananda

2. If God takes something away, he compensates for it in another form: For the 2nd half of the afternoon, we sat through the evening bhajan. Again, highly disciplined, mostly non-verbal & non-soliciting way of setting the stage for the bhajan, the typical Ramakrishna matha style. One volunteer takes the bell & rings it on his way to various parts of the big complex garden & monuments. Not a single word spoken, but everyone knows that it's time to stop moving around & head to bhajan hall. Children under 7 strictly not allowed inside. Not one exception in seating or silence part. Just an awesome feeling being with 100s of extremely interested & spiritual crowd.

Between 6.30 and 6.45 (Ekadashi special aarti), most sanyasis in robes & head turban seat themselves at the front. Dot at 6.45, Aarti starts to the Ramakrishna idol and this aarti song is sung by everyone.

Khandana-Bhava Bandhana ~Composed by Swami Vivekananda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXAtqWbvtS8

An immense chill went through my body this time. Maybe because I missed it for over 15 years in person (internet can never substitute to real experience). I wasn't a very regular during earlier days, but somehow this Bangla/Sanskrit song had huge impact on me right from beginning. Don't know why.. Maybe the words & raaga. This time during the middle of song, both my eyes overflew with ananda-baashpa (tears of happiness). By the end of song, I had tears down the cheek & almost to my chest from both eyes.. I am hardly a guy who cries easily, even in extreme real life sentimental scenes. But somehow yesterday's Khandana Bhava Bandhana rendering, 100s of extremely devotional people, the absolute synchronization of rendering probably touched the right chord in my cortex:) To sum it up, it was a real divine experience..:emrose:

It got better after about 30 minutes & more songs. The theme on Ekadashi day is Rama bhajans. From 6.45 till 8.15. Around 7.13, one volunteer walks in a blind man in his dhoti right to the mike in the front next to swamiji's seat. In a couple of minutes, Aarti to Rama, Sita, Lakshmana & Hanuman photo starts & the swamiji just pats the left shoulder of the blind man. Then magic starts. His voice mesmerizes the crowd. Those Rama bhajans & his immensely impressive vocal chords make those assembled feel as though Hanuman is hugging them, Sita is blessing them.. Magical 45+ minutes. Even though I don't know more than half of bhajans & didn't carry any book, thoroughly enjoyed his voice. When everything was over and the blind gentleman was being helped on his way out, I hushed to him.. 'Bahala chennagi haadidri' (you sang very well sir). He felt my touch, gave a very simple smile & walked out. No drama, no hype & absolutely no one cared if I put 1 rupee or not to Aarti plate/contribution box.

Walked out after taking ashirvad from Swamiji later. Of course wife donated well with a very happy mind.

Moral: If Bhagawan takes something very important for a meaningful life, like eyes, he does give enhanced capability to some other sense... even for those who came into this birth with a poorer Sanchita Karma score card. Yesterday that blind gentleman proved it to me with absolutely no doubt what-so-ever. God bless him & his amazing devotion which feeds energy off to 100s of those who assemble weekly.

Till next time. Do share if you had a inspirational and/or spiritual experience off late.

[BeeAndButterfly]

Inspirational and motivational for me
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Very interested in understanding the power behind this. What is the source of the above? How and why did it come about? Would love to understand what our seers have to say about the above.

Science will help explain some of this. I do not see science as different from the spiritual quest for truth. You have seers and quacks in both.

[boca]

Inspirational and motivational for me
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2655[/ATTACH]

Very interested in understanding the power behind this. What is the source of the above? How and why did it come about? Would love to understand what our seers have to say about the above.

Science will help explain some of this. I do not see science as different from the spiritual quest for truth. You have seers and quacks in both.

Cat's Eye Nebula. Sweet! :)

I was amazed with this one over this weekend of LL Pegasi binary star nebula. The spiral is the expanding spherical matter (it is a carbon star, emitting carbon) that becomes spiral due to it being a binary (sort of sprinkler effect).

[BeeAndButterfly]

Cat's Eye Nebula. Sweet! :)

I was amazed with this one over this weekend of LL Pegasi binary star nebula. The spiral is the expanding spherical matter (it is a carbon star, emitting carbon) that becomes spiral due to it being a binary (sort of sprinkler effect).

Breathtaking. I am a newbie and have only recently forayed into exploring/reading about astronomy and astrophysics thanks to Guru Hubble. Truly humbling and awe inspiring.

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http://rigel.csi.cuny.edu/rowan/lectures/Hubble%20Nebulae.htm

[boca]

Breathtaking. I am a newbie and have only recently forayed into exploring/reading about astronomy and astrophysics thanks to Guru Hubble. Truly humbling and awe inspiring.[/quote]
You should not miss Hubble 3D then. (http://www.imax.com/hubble/)

It is humbling for any anthropocentric being. :) To me, it is fascinating, not necessarily humbling. :) Earth is a mere pale blue dot, definitely not the center of the universe as we know it.


From Wikipedia: Seen from 6.1 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) from Voyager 1, Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

By the way, there is a site where all the Hubble and other images of galaxies are classified. If you want, you can help classify the images. It is a collective effort. Will dig up and provide the link later. If you happen to find an odd star or galaxy, you may very well have your name given to that star/galaxy. :)

Added Later: http://www.galaxyzoo.org/classify. Have fun! :)

[Desi]

Inspirational and motivational for me
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2655[/ATTACH]

Very interested in understanding the power behind this. What is the source of the above? How and why did it come about? Would love to understand what our seers have to say about the above.

Science will help explain some of this. I do not see science as different from the spiritual quest for truth. You have seers and quacks in both.

It is a nebuale. The Nebulae are ultra massive clouds of Hydrogen and Helium. Hydrogen is the most abundant gas in the universe which formed when the plasma contained in the universe had expanded after the big bang and then cooled with expansion. The hydrogen being one proton and one electron is the gas that formed. Gravitation does the rest. And the massive nebulae form the birthing grounds for stars eventually leading to galaxies. Most galaxies seem to have a large black hole in the center and I have not delved into whether the black hole is in aging galaxies or also in younger ones and if in younger ones then how it gets there.

[boca]

Very interested in understanding the power behind this. What is the source of the above? How and why did it come about?[/quote]
Cat's Eye Nebula is a "planetary/ejection nebula". It is probably a few thousand years old (3000-4000 years). Yes, you read it right. It may be light years away, but it is pretty young. :)

Now, what is the power behind this? A dying star (or two?). That is its source. A dying star ejects (more like coughed up) its outer layers in concentric rings -- the dying star's core collapses and the outer layers fall to the core. But the heat generated bounces the outer layers outwards. Pretty much the story of our sun, perhaps 5 billion years from now. :( The resulting matter just spreads into the interstellar medium, to be reused eventually in the creation of new stars/planets. Now, why does the star die? It just runs out of fuel. 95% of stars will be come "planetary nebula" and the rest that are more than 8 times our solar mass will become Supernovae (which also enriches the interstellar medium, eventually).

Hope it helps with your how and why. You can say the power behind this is "Surya Bhagwan", just that there are billions (200-400) of "Surya Bhagwans" just in our galaxy. The real angry/powerful ones become Supernova, when they die. :)

Would love to understand what our seers have to say about the above.[/quote]
Let me guess... :) They probably didn't know what a nebula is, leave alone a specific type that is the "planetary nebula".

[BeeAndButterfly]

It is a nebuale. The Nebulae are ultra massive clouds of Hydrogen and Helium. Hydrogen is the most abundant gas in the universe which formed when the plasma contained in the universe had expanded after the big bang and then cooled with expansion. The hydrogen being one proton and one electron is the gas that formed. Gravitation does the rest. And the massive nebulae form the birthing grounds for stars eventually leading to galaxies. Most galaxies seem to have a large black hole in the center and I have not delved into whether the black hole is in aging galaxies or also in younger ones and if in younger ones then how it gets there.

I do understand that "gravity" is currently assigned a prime mover role in creation at the astrophysical level (nebulae, stars etc). And what/how/why of gravity will likely be the next level of knowledge that the physical sciences will pursue. But it seems like this will be an infinite onion of a search for the prime cause.

[P_Jani]

Here's a tiny corner for people to share their first hand experience involving spirituality, satsung, bhajan, quest for truth, motivational incident, inspirational message/situations..
You can share anything that made you feel quite happy, scared or curious about 'who am I', 'why am I here' & other spiritual/ philosophical thoughts. Also, comments pertaining to someone's experience shared is most welcome.

:)

Nice going.
Good that you started this thread.

Just a thought:

It's said that, God helps those who helps themselves !
Thinking a little deeper, it seems that the ?upper guy? has distributed the work 50-50 with human being !

You plough the field,????? I will water it ( Bring the rain )
You seed the soil,???????I will bring the Corn on the Crop-Top !
You eat It,?????????? I will digest it for you !

????.