RANDOM THOUGHTS (some mine, some others')

1. I am unique. There is no one else like me in the entire universe. I acknowledge and embrace the special qualities that make me the person that I am. Therefore I do not compare myself with other people.

2. My best hour is early in the morning when on waking at dawn I step on my roof. As I sit down to drink a glass of water, nearby I see roofs; further - a sprinkling of trees; beyond - a ridged hilltop perched on which I visualize a meditating Shiva that is actually attached by a binding wire to the top bar of the roof fence; then – sky with daily new slow-moving mosaic of clouds. I feel the gentle, pulsing waves of silence and allow it to cleanse me. I meditate for ten minutes and find bliss within my soul.

3. I consider that caring for myself is no more selfish or self-centered than caring for the important people in my life. My willingness to see to my own needs facilitates my ability to ensure the well-being of others.

4. Here's what I tell anybody and this is what I believe. The greatest gift we have is the gift of life. We understand that. That comes from our Creator. We're given a body. Now you may not like it, but you can maximize that body the best it can be maximized.

5. Only the present moment exists. That is where life is (indeed it is the only place life can truly be found). Becoming aware of the ‘now’ has the added benefit that it will draw your attention away from your (negative) thoughts. Use mindfulness techniques to fully appreciate your surroundings and everything you are experiencing. Look and listen intently. Give full attention to the smallest details.

6. I ensure that most of my interpersonal interaction takes place on a plane of sincerity by making the choice to trust others until they give me some cause to question their integrity.

7. Going on a trip always adds much pleasure and excitement to my life – be it to my Gym, Bridge Club, a cricket match, homes of my daughters or friends; or traveling abroad.

8. Critically pondering the new ideas that I come across from books, internet or conversations enable me to draw new conclusions about the world around me and my place in it even at this age when I am in my seventies.

9. By instinct, I prefer some things - and some people – over others. And, sadly, what I do not prefer I avoid.

10. My life is interesting because I never had a quest for perfection and have rather aspired to do what was acceptable to my conscience.

11. The only person of whom I feel a little envious is George Santana, Spanish philosopher of 20th Century. He spent the entire World War II in Rome and when the liberating American soldiers asked him how he made out during the war, he replied: “I have no idea – I was living in eternity”.  

12. We ensure that wisdom can flow freely into our private and professional lives when we are willing to pose the many questions that linger continuously in the forefront of our minds. While we may hesitate to articulate this burning curiosity because we fear our peers will deem us ignorant or green, we can fill in the gaps in our intellectual experience only when we are forthright about voicing our many inquiries.   

13. We often remain entirely skeptical of advice or knowledge we have been given until we are afforded an opportunity to put it into practice in our own lives, in our own way. This is because it is only when we see for ourselves that we can truly grasp the significance of certain forms of experiential wisdom. Consequently, we should endeavor never to reject any advice from a reputable source without first considering how we can test it in a real-life situation.

14. The fear that others will perceive you as unintelligent can further influence your behavior, causing you to consciously avoid speaking your mind or asking questions.

15. "Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough."

16. "We can learn a lot from trees: they're always grounded but never stop reaching heavenward."

17. "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

18. Weaving the thread of kindness into your everyday life can be as easy as choosing to offer a hearty “Good morning” and “Good night” to your coworkers or neighbors, a stranger on the street, or the grocery store clerk. When you commit a kind act, you are momentarily disconnected from your ego and bonded with the individual who has benefited from your kindness. Being fully present in each moment of your life facilitates kindness as it increases your awareness of the people around you. You’ll discover that each act of kindness you engage in makes the world, in some small way, a better place.

19. The sun also reminds us that our own shining truth is never extinguished. Our light shines within us at all times, no matter what else occurs around us. Though the sun gives us daily proof of its existence, sometimes our belief in our own light requires more time. If we think back, however, we can find moments when it showed itself and trust that we will see it again. Like the sun, our light is the energy that connects us to the movements of the universe and the cycles of life and is present at all times, whether we feel its glow or not.

20. Should you find yourself beset by annoyances, however, try to remember that you can choose whether you will carry them with you after the fact. No tragedy will befall you if you decide you would rather be happy than sad. Let go of any residual pain still within you

21. "It is the responsibility of every adult to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them."

22. "The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore."

23. What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waste. What is the wind, what is it.                  24. "It is one of my sources of happiness never to desire knowledge of other people's business."

25. When we take a realistic view of the virtues and faults of humanity as a whole, we can accept that people make mistakes without lingering over the disheartenment we naturally feel. Ultimately, we understand that the people who are a part of our lives, however much we love or revere these individuals, are on journeys similar to our own and prone to blunders. When you learn to both appreciate others’ humanity and forgive their errors today, your expectations regarding their conduct will be levelheaded and reasonable

26. "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it, but all that had gone before."

27. Silent discord is understood rather than seen;

28. Since your experiences won’t be similar to others’ and your behavior will be shaped by those experiences, you may never stop reacting strongly to the challenging situations you encounter. Even if you are able to do nothing more than acknowledge what you are feeling and that there is little you can do to affect your current circumstances, in time you’ll alter your reaction to such circumstances. You can learn gradually to let negative thoughts come into your mind, recognize them, and then let them go. You may never reach a place of perfect peace, but you’ll find serenity in having done your best.

28. "I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse."

29. "A lot of people like to do certain things, but they're not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything."

30. "It is infinitely more exciting to live a life of catastrophic failures than a life of could-haves, should-haves and would-haves."

31. "You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event -- it is a habit."

32."Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you will help them become what they are capable of becoming."-- J.W Von Goethe

33,"You have to start by changing the story you tell yourself about getting older... The minute you say to yourself, 'Time is everything, and I'm going to make sure that time is used the way I dream it should be used,' then you've got a whole different story."

34. "The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."

 35.  It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is
the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.

36. "Real beauty isn't about symmetry or weight or makeup; it's about looking life right in the face and seeing all its magnificence reflected in your own."

37. Square your shoulders to the world, be not the kind to quit. It's not the load that weighs you down but the way you carry it. 

38. "It is books that are the key to the wide world; if you can't do anything else, read all that you can."

39. "Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone."

40. "There are generations yet unborn, whose very lives will be shifted and shaped by the moves you make and the actions you take." Andy Andrews

41. "The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward." 

42. "If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble."
Bob Hope 

43. "Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used till they are seasoned." Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

44. "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made." Robert Browning'wanting.' It is not logical, but it is often true."

45. "Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person."-- Dr. David M. Burns

46. "We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down
on a hot stove lid again -- and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." -- Mark Twain

47. "The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out." – Macaulay

48. "Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next." -- Herbert Hoover

49. "No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance." – Confucius

50. "You are the same today as you'll be in five years except for two things, the books you read and the people you meet

51. "There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." – Epictetus

52. The older I get, the more Hindu I become. V.S. Naipaul, Trinidadian novelist.

53. "Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place."-- Mark Twain

54. "Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." -- Lao Tzu

55. "You can do so much in 10 minutes' time. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into 10-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity." -- Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of IKEA

56. "Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody." -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

57. "We must let go of the life we planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."
-- Joseph Campbell

58. "Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?"-- Babe Ruth

59. "The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision."
-- Helen Keller

60. One of the most beautiful lessons of Bhagwan Krishnas life is: never lose yourself due to external circumstances, never lose your smile, never lose your song Bhagwan Krishnas life was full of trials and tribulations, beginning on the day when He took birth in a locked jail cell and ending in the jungle shot by a hunters arrow. However, throughout it all through the innumerable challenges wrought upon Him He always maintained His divine smile. He always played His divine flute. Even after His physical flute was left with Radhaji, the song of Krishnas flute was always on, wherever He went. The song emanated from His very being. He never once said, Im in a bad mood today so I will not play my flute. No. Regardless of what the external world brought and wrought, the Song was on. This is a beautiful message for our own lives. Wherever He went, wherever He was, He was always blissful, always joyful, always shining His divine light upon others. When our hearts are full of God, then we live constantly in the most beautiful Golden Palace, regardless of where our bodies may be.

61. An old saying asks one never to go where one gets too much respect. This is because getting too much attention is a sure recipe for developing a temperament accustomed to throwing tantrums at the slightest perceived disrespect. Therefore, one should never cultivate the habit of receiving too much respect or honor.

62. "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." -- Nelson Mandela

63."Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence." – Unknown

64. The Bhagavad Gita explains, "As a blazing fire reduces the wood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge reduce all activity to ashes. There is nothing on earth which possesses such power to cleanse as wisdom. The perfect yogin finds this knowledge in himself by himself in due time."

65. Seek the Infinite, for that alone is Joy unlimited, imperishable, unfailing, self-sustaining, unconditioned, timeless. When you have this joy, human life becomes a paradise; the light, the grace, the power, the perfections of that which is highest in your inner consciousness, appear in your everyday life.

66. You may be someone who understands the true nature of reality, perceiving deeply that we all emanate from the same source, that we are all essentially one, and that we are here on earth to love one another. To understand this is to be awakened to the true nature of the self, and it is a blessing.

67. Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made." -- Robert H. Schuller

68. The mind is like milk. If you keep the mind in the world, which is like water, then the milk and water will get mixed. That is why people keep milk in a quiet place and let it set into curd, and then churn butter from it. Then that butter can easily be kept in the water. The mind will float detached on the water of the world.  Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa

69. The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.    Siddhartha Gautama (ca 566-486 bce)

70. "The one comfort is like that prayer, which I always liked: 'Forgive me not according to my unworthiness, but according to Thy lovingkindness.' Tolstoy ‘AK’

71. "Where the needle goes there goes the thread also."

72. But women, my boy, they're the pivot everything turns upon.

73. In short, there are two kinds of Hindus--a majority who worship in the temples without a philosophical background and those who do have such a background and take part in their religion, discussion of the higher knowledge and meditation upon it, feeling no need for the Gods or for temple worship. The Panchakshara Mantra, Aum Namah Sivaya, the center of the Vedas, is the link between the two, between Siddhanta and Vedanta, because it makes the mind realize what it knows. Every Siddhantin knows a little about Vedanta and disregards it. And every Vedantin knows a bit about Siddhanta and disregards it. Through chanting Aum Namah Sivaya, finally you will realize what you know, including what you previously disregarded, and that blends the two--makes the whole person. The purusha becomes satisfied living in the physical body. The jiva becomes Siva.

74. In working through challenges, it can be helpful to first empty all worries from our heads onto the safe pages of our journal. Fears can be brought to light rather than allowing them to haunt the dark corners of our subconscious. We may even feel heaviness dissipate once our heads are free from clutter, leaving space for inspiration and the creation of positive images in their place. Often in the process of writing out all the details of an event that troubles us, something that had been forgotten will come to the surface, providing a missing piece of the puzzle. Then we can truly begin to come up with answers, and write them down beside the worries to map the way from concern to constructive thought.

For capturing guidance and flashes of inspiration, journaling is ideal. This is especially true in the case of dreams, which often fade as we awaken. While working toward goals, keeping track of progress as well as guidance from readings or divination tools can be encouraging. Though it can be difficult to keep all of our guidance in the front of our minds, if we write it down it can serve as a reminder whenever we need it. We can also use our journals to converse with our higher selves or even the universe. Journaling offers yet another way to unburden mind and spirit, while also creating a record of the present and preserving our hopes and dreams for the future.

75. No one can think a thought for me in the way that no one can don my hat for me.
(1929)  Wittgenstein. Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it.

76. "Whatever acts a good or bad man may do, the fruits thereof follow him and will never stop pursuing him." -- Sri Sai Baba

77. Whenever you have the chance, laugh as much as you can. By this all the rigid knots in your body will be loosened. But to laugh superficially is not enough; your whole being must be united in laughter, both inwardly and outwardly. Do you know how this is to be expressed? You literally shake with merriment from head to foot; so that it is impossible to tell which part of your body is most affected. I want you to laugh with your whole countenance, with your whole heart and with all the breath of your life.  Anandamayi–Her Life and Wisdom by Richard Lannoy

78. "It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

79."Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work."Twain

80. "A strong positive mental attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug."
-- Patricia Neal

81. As long as we are in touch with our higher selves, our egos are not a threat. They are simply useful tools in the service of spirit. We keep our egos in check when we continually nurture our awareness of who we really are. Then our egos are free to serve without trying ineffectually to rule. It is healthy to have ego, but like all things in life, ego functions best when it is in balance and harmony with your whole self.

82. "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of urselves."
-- Carl Jung

83. "Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think." -- Horace

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84. "Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice." -- Wayne Dyer

85. Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
   Rabindranath Tagore

86. "The future may be made up of many factors but where it truly lies is in the hearts and minds of men. Your dedication should not be confined for your own gain, but unleashes your passion for our beloved country as well as for the integrity and
humanity of mankind." -- Li Ka Shing

87. Children, love can accomplish anything and everything. Love can cure diseases. Love can heal wounded hearts and transform human minds.    Mata Amritanandamayi Ma, or Ammachi.

88. To hear of the Self is a great blessing, indeed, but to desire to realize the Self means that in this and your past lives you have gone through all of the experiences that this Earth consciousness has to offer. You have died all of the deaths and had all of the emotional experiences. You have had the good of the world and the bad of the world, and the mixed good and bad of the world through all of your many lives before you come to the life where you say, "I want to realize the Self in this life." Now you begin to tie up all the loose ends of past experiences that have not been fulfilled or resolved, because those loose ends are what bring you back to birth.

89. "The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." -- Carlos Castaneda

90. John F. Kennedy loved a little proverb he thought was Irish, but actually came from the Indian epic Ramayana: There are three things which are real–God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.

91. Siva's ardent souls grow old gracefully, without fear, knowing that the soul is immortal and the mental body does not age, but becomes stronger and more mature, as do the emotions, if regulated stage by stage. Aum.

92. As the bee takes the essence of a flower and flies away without destroying its beauty and perfume, so let the sage wander in this life.

93. Make the mind always remain poised, like a hummingbird over a flower, so that you begin to live in the eternal now constantly, permanently.                                                 Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami   (1927-2001)

94. Knowing that the soul is deathless, Siva's devotees never suffer undue or prolonged sorrow for the departed, lest they bind these souls to Earth. They rejoice in the continuing journey of loved ones.

95. The Vedic edict is: "Ahimsa is not causing pain to any living being at any time through the actions of one's mind, speech or body."

96. As the dawn breaks on a New Year, let us give thanks for all we hold dear: Our health, our family, our friends, the grace of God which never ends. Let us release our grudges, anger and pains, for these are nothing but binding chains. Let us vow to live each day in the most pious, God-conscious way. Let us vow to serve all who are in need, regardless of race, caste, gender or creed. Let us vow to keep God in our heart, to chant His name each day at the start.

97. If one wants to abide in the thought-free state, a struggle is inevitable. One must fight one’s way through before regaining one’s original primal state. If one succeeds in the fight and reaches the goal, the enemy, namely the thoughts, will all subside in the Self and disappear entirely.    Ramana Maharishi

98. "Anything that we have to learn to do we learn by the actual doing of it... We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate ones, brave by doing brave ones."

99. "Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed."
-- Bertrand Russell

100. An ancient Upanishad defines twenty obstacles, upasarga, to spiritual progress: hunger, thirst, laziness, passion, lust, fear, shame, anxiety, excitement, adversity, sorrow, despair, anger, arrogance, delusion, greed, stinginess, ambitiousness, death and birth. Another obstacle is the intellect which, unguided by intuition, merely juggles memory and reason as a way of life. The experience of these impediments creates reactions that combine with the sum of all past impressions, samskaras, both positive and negative. Residing in the subconscious mind, these are the source of subliminal traits or tendencies, called vasanas, which shape our attitudes and motivations. The troublesome vasanas clouding the mind must be reconciled and released. There are beneficial tantras by which absolution can be attained for unhindered living, including ayurveda, jyotisha, daily sadhana, temple worship, selfless giving, the creative arts and the several yogas. The Vedas explain, "Even as a mirror covered with dust shines brightly when cleaned, so the embodied soul, seeing the truth of atman, realizes oneness, attains the goal of life and becomes free from sorrow."

101. "There are those who work all day. Those who dream all day. And those who spend an hour dreaming before setting to work to fulfill those dreams. Go into the third category because there's virtually no competition." -- Steven J Ross

102. Our lives are definitely able to touch those of other people, and it's possible for us to contribute to the peace and compassion of the coming years by helping others to realize their hopes and dreams and goals, and to help their self-esteem through teaching and encouraging.

103. After receiving grace of a God, the devotee can never be the same again, never look at life again in the old way. By grace we are directed deeper into spiritual life, pointed in the right direction, carefully guided on the San Marga, the straight path to our supreme God. After grace has been received, our thoughts are enlivened, our life is inspired with enthusiasm and energy, and we live daily in the joyous knowledge that everything is all right, everything is happening around us in accord with our karma, our dharma and God’s gracious will.
   Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

104. "We are like tea bags -- we don't know our own strength until e're in hot water."
-- Sister Busche

105. "Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
-- Anonymous

106. I am divine love in expression. I make a sacred connection with others. Love is the glue that binds my relationships and evokes reverence and mutual appreciation.


This Book Harms You PDF Print E-mail

By Mahendra Mathur, on 03-01-2010 09:00  

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SURAH 4 - An-Nisa

3. And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan ­girls, then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one or (the captives and the slaves) that your right hands possess. That is nearer to prevent you from doing injustice. 11. Allah (thus) directs you as regards your Children's (Inheritance): to the male, a portion equal to that of two females15. And those of your women, who commit illegal sexual intercourse, take the evidence of four witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them (i.e. women) to houses until death comes to them or Allâh ordains for them some (other) way.

24. Also (forbidden are) women already married, except those (captives and slaves) whom your right hands possess. Thus has Allâh ordained for you. All others are lawful, provided you seek (them in marriage) with Mahr (bridal money given by the husband to his wife at the time of marriage) from your property, desiring chastity, not committing illegal sexual intercourse, so with those of whom you have enjoyed sexual relations, give them their Mahr as prescribed; but if after a Mahr is prescribed, you agree mutually (to give more), there is no sin on you. Surely, Allâh is Ever All­Knowing, All­Wise.

34. Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allâh has made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient (to Allâh and to their husbands), and guard in the husband's absence what Allâh orders them to guard (e.g. their chastity, their husband's property, etc.). As to those women on whose part you see ill conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful), but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance). Surely, Allâh is Ever Most High, Most Great.

A man can divorce his wife by oral announcement; the wife has no such right. Surah 2:229

Sunni Islamic law allows husbands to divorce their wives by just saying talaq ("I divorce you") three times. In 2003 a Malaysian court ruled that, under Sharia law, a man may divorce his wife via text messaging as long as the message was clear and unequivocal.

All of the above is against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 16 which states:

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

For some reason, when it comes to a Muslim woman wanting to learn a "male dominant" subject, she is frowned upon, largely by Muslims. She gets told that her place is in the home and her duties are to look after her husband and children. She is repeatedly reminded of these duties, and that having an interest outside these arenas is made to look sinful. As Dr. Tariq Suweidan, speaker at the 2002 FAMSY annual conference once said, "You cannot build a nation hopping on one leg".

In these times when a Negro is the President of the U.S.A., it is relevant to read again what Susan Anthony said at the conclusion of her speech after casting an illegal vote in the U.S. presidential election of 1872. "The only question to be settled now is: Are we persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens: and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes".

Time has now come for verses that discriminate against women to be removed from the education of Muslims. Rather, what should be emphasized is the verse 35 of Surah 33 which is quoted below.

[33:35]   The submitting men, the submitting women, the believing men, the believing women, the obedient men, the obedient women, the truthful men, the truthful women, the steadfast men, the steadfast women, the reverent men, the reverent women, the charitable men, the charitable women, the fasting men, the fasting women, the chaste men, the chaste women, and the men who commemorate GOD frequently, and the commemorating women; GOD has prepared for them forgiveness and a great recompense.

Actually there are at least 345 verses in the Koran which ought to be made obsolete if the world - Muslim and Non-muslim - is to be saved not only from Al Quaida and  Taliban but also from people like Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan, butcher of Ft. Hood and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 just before it landed in Detroit.

If the obsolete, violent and discriminating verses are not deleted from the Koran then the world should seriously think of mandating the warning on every Koran on the lines that has been used for prevention of smoking. The notice would read "Reading this book harms you and others around you."

Absurdity of Militant Islam PDF Print E-mail

By Mahendra Mathur, on 10-01-2010 07:37  

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12. (Remember) when your Lord inspired the angels, "Verily, I am with you, so keep firm those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who have disbelieved, so strike them over the necks, and smite over all their fingers and toes." 13. This is because they defied and disobeyed Allâh and His Messenger. And whoever defies and disobeys Allâh and His Messenger, then verily, Allâh is Severe in punishment. 14. This is the torment, so taste it, and surely for the disbelievers is the torment of the Fire.

What are quoted above the verses 12, 13 and 14 from Surah 8 Al-Anfal of the Quran. It has to be said that teaching of these verses is against the Article 26(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is quoted below.

Article 26.

  • (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
  • (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
  • (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

It is verses like 12,13 and 14 of Quran'S Surah8 that have caused havoc in so many countries to so many communities over the centuries. Predominantly Muslim countries that are now intolerant of non-Muslims are:

  • Pakistan has different electorates for Muslims and non-Muslims, and limits the public positions a non-Muslim can hold. Even to launch their Army's recent operations against Pakistani Taliban some soldiers bought into the amazing invention that the Baitullahs and Fazlullahs were India's secret agents. Others were told that they were actually fighting a nefarious American-Jewish plot to destabilise Pakistan.
  • Saudi Arabia limits religious freedom to a high degree, prohibiting public worship by other religions.
  • The overthrown Taliban regime in Afghanistan was considered intolerant by many observers. Some ancient Buddhist monuments, like the Buddhas of Bamyan, were destroyed as idolatrous.
  • The Islamic government of Iran recognizes Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians as minorities- although all three groups are subjected to some severe discrimination in practice - while the situation of Bahá'ís, considered by the government as a pro-Zionist, un-Islamic heresy, is far worse.
  • In Sudan, there was extensive use of the rhetoric of religious war by both parties in the decades-long battle between the Muslim North and the largely non-Muslim South.
  • In Egypt, a 16 December 2006 judgment of the Supreme Administrative Council created a clear demarcation between "recognized religions" - Islam, Christianity and Judaism - and all other religious beliefs; the ruling effectively delegitimatizes and forbids the practice of all but these aforementioned religions. The ruling leaves members of other religious communities, including Bahá'ís, without the ability to obtain the necessary government documents to have rights in their country, essentially denying them of all rights of citizenship. They cannot obtain ID cards, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage or divorce certificates, and passports; they also cannot be employed, educated, treated in public hospitals or vote among other things.
  • In Yemen, now considered as a second haven for Al-Qaeda in the mould of Afghan-Pakistan Border, there have been a spate of attacks on foreign and government targets, most recently suicide bombings against South Korean tourists.

  • And now from the U.K. comes the news that Islam4UK, led by one Anjem Choudary, is soon going to bus in 500 people to Wootton Bassett to march along the High Street carrying token coffins to mourn the Muslims who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by the UK.

    Wootton Bassett is a small market town in the county of Wiltshire in the UK, which is located next to the Royal Air Force's transport air-base. RAF Lyneham is where aircraft bring the remains of British servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan, and from where the coffins are transported to their homes, driven in hearses through Wootton Bassett's High Street.

     Choudary is of Pakistani descent and was born in the UK and whilst a qualified solicitor was struck off the rolls in 2002 and now lives on benefits. This is what Wikipedia has to say about the man: "As the head of Al-Muhajiroun in the UK, on Oct 17, 2000, Choudary issued a press release which threatened British Jews if they continued to support Israel."

    "The press release said, in part, that it is an ‘Islamic obligation upon Muslims everywhere to support the jihad against those who fight Muslims anywhere in the world or who occupy Muslim land'; ‘the Quran is explicit in making Israeli aggressors and occupiers legitimate targets for Muslims wherever they may be,' and that ‘if you support Israel financially, verbally or physically you will become part of the conflict.'"

    Regarding the July 7, 2005 bombings in London which killed 56 and injured over 700 innocent people, many Muslims among them, he was asked on a BBC interview why he wouldn't condemn the killing of innocents. His reply: "At the end of the day, when we say innocent people we mean Muslims. As far as non-Muslims are concerned, they have not accepted Islam. As far as we are concerned, that is a crime against God."

    This militant Islamic teaching must be outlawed in all countries because it is absurd and violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The people who follow this teaching fall in the category so eloquently described by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniaswami: "At this time on this planet those of the lower nature, unevolved people, are society's antagonists. Being unevolved, they are of the lower nature, instinctive, self-assertive, confused, possessive and protective of their immediate environment. Others are their enemies. They are jealous, angry, and fearful. Many take sport in killing for the sake of killing, thieving for the sake of theft, even if they do not need or use the spoils".

    How wonderful this world would become if these unevolved people could think like a Hindu who, again to quote the Satguru:  strives to be consciously conscious of his soul. When those soulful qualities are unfolded, he is filled with a divine love and would not hurt a flea if he could help it. The Yajur Veda exclaims, "May all beings regard me with friendly eyes! May I look upon all creatures with friendly eyes! With a friend's eye may we regard each other!"

    Ultimately it is only power of such Hindu teachings that will bring peace to the world. Efforts of the surge in troops to fight Al Qaeda and Taliban in various countries can only bring temporary respite.

  • Obliterating False Jannats PDF Print E-mail

    By Mahendra Mathur, on 17-01-2010 04:36  

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    An artificial paradise (Jannat) established by terrorists for brainwashing would-be suicide bombers was captured by Pakistani security forces in South Waziristan Agency recently.

    The ‘Jannat' in the Nawaz Kot area was shown to a visiting team of Peshawar-based journalists. The journalists, who were taken to the place in a helicopter, took a round of the so-called paradise and later were briefed about the modus operandi for churning out suicide bombers. The make-believe heaven consisted of four rooms. Each room contained exquisite paintings of lakes overflowing with milk and honey and scenic valleys inhabited by ‘hoors' (beautiful women).

    Religious teachers in the training centre used to show would-be bombers around and dupe them into believing that after their death in suicide attacks their stature would be equal to Sahaba-i-Karaam and that they would enjoy the company of the Prophet. The term ‘Sahaba-i-Karaam' refers to close associates of the Prophet.

    Boys aged between 12 and 18 were trained to become suicide bombers under the supervision of Hakimullah Mehsud. The TTP chief would keep hammering away at ‘an unending bliss awaiting you in Jannat dotted with lakes of milk and honey', the journalists were apprised. The building also had a ‘slaughterhouse' for killing kidnapped security officials. A huge cache of arms and ammunition was seized from there.

    At this time Islam must be reinterpreted, both to make it acceptable to the rest of the world and to breathe life into the Muslim world itself. The fact that this will improve relations with other communities is something that will follow naturally. To present the current crisis as a Judeo-Christian- Hindu onslaught against Islam or vice versa is criminal.

    False Jannats must be obliterated from the minds of young madrassa students and their teachers. And this can be done only by bold actions from the Muslim clergy. They must come out and state categorically that violent verses from the Quran must be treated as obsolete and the young Muslims must not be exposed to them.

The Muslim clergy should take lessons from Hindu teachers who do not hesitate to even reject the Gita because they find some violence in it - even if it is not directed against Non-Hindus. It is instructive to read the lines that follow which were penned by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniaswami.

Mystical seers, both Hindus and Western teachers, at that time, in
an attempt to justify the Gita as scripture, explained that Krishna
represented Arjuna's higher self, and Arjuna himself was his lower
self, or the external ego. Krishna encouraged Arjuna to kill out
attachments to family, friends and foes, to become a yogi and realize
Parabrahman. Teachers attempted to satisfy the minds of their followers
that, in fact, the Bhagavad Gita was an allegory of man's struggle within
himself toward the highest realizations. Unconvincingly, contemporary
swamis and astute commentators tried to justify God Krishna's urging his
devotee to kill his friends, his relatives and his guru, that all would
be well in the end because the soul never dies. I was never satisfied
with this and found no alternative but to reject the book altogether,
despite its many lofty chapters. I agree fully with those awakened Indian
swamis who have called it kolai nul, the "book of carnage," a book that
gives divine sanction to violence.

Never have the Hindus invaded other countries in the name of religion nor have the Hindus gone out of their Country to attack and kill people of other religion. Yet, the Hindus still abhor the idea of violence even when it is for a right cause. There is no reason why such education should not be imparted to Muslims. It is much better to obliterate false jannats by drone attacks of wisdom on Muslim minds rather than killing thousands of brain-washed Muslims by American drones and Pakistani firepower.

That it is possible to re-educate Muslims is demonstrated by the example of a Muslim mason in Thrissur district of Kerala has designed and sculpted an idol of Lord Rama for the local Hindu temple. Rasheed and his wife spent all their savings to sculpt and install this idol. The six feet high idol is entirely made-up of concrete.

'Being an Indian every one of us should protect India as our own country. Let an individual be from any religion - Muslim, Hindu or Christian or belong to any caste, it is our duty to save our country. So I sculptured the idol of Lord Ram to spread awareness about communal amity to those people who kill one another in the name of religion,' said Abdul Rasheed.


CONCLUDING PAGES OF FROM PREPOSTEROUSLY TO DIVINITY (continued from the site pustakpresspvt.yolasite.com)

"Everything other than love for the most beautiful God is agony of the spirit, though it be sugar- eating. What is agony of the spirit? To advance toward death without seizing hold of the Water of Life."

Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.

                                                                                                                                                                                              PLOTINUS (204/5-270 c.e.) WAS AN EGYPTIAN BY BIRTH but Greek (or Hellenistic) by upbringing.  He studied philosophy in Alexandria under Ammonius Saccus, before joining a military campaign against Persia, where he encountered Indian ideas.  He went to Rome c 244, where he taught until about 268. For Plotinus, and other Greek mystics, such as Plotinus' predecessors Plato and Pythagoras, Spirituality means the ascent from the lower sense-reality to the higher spiritual reality.  Like twentieth century scientists such as Albert Einstein, these ancient Greek mystics derived meaning and purpose from the contemplation of nature.  But instead of contemplating the wonder of visible physical reality, they contemplated the wonder of the invisible spiritual reality which they saw as the cause and ultimate meaning behind the physical reality.  

 Plotinus believed that man should reject material things and should purify his soul and to lift it up to a communion with the One.

Generally he prefers the Hindu notion that the soul transmigrates from lower to higher, or from higher to lower, forms of life according to its virtues and vices in each incarnation. He had no care for his body; indeed he was ashamed that his soul had a body. He refused to sit for his portrait on the ground that his body was the least important part of him – a hint to art to seek the soul.

The Soul, in its highest part, remains essentially and eternally a being in the Divine, Intelligible Realm. Yet the lower (or active), governing part of the Soul, while remaining, in its essence, a divine being and identical to the Highest Soul, nevertheless, through its act, falls into forgetfulness of its prior, and comes to attach itself to the phenomena of the realm of change, that is, of Matter. The level at which the Soul becomes fragmented into individual, embodied souls, is Nature. “Sometimes,” wrote Thoreau, idly drifting on Walden Pond, “I ceased to live, and began to be.” “When this takes place,” says Plotinus:

The soul will see divinity as far as it is lawful. . . And she will see herself illuminated, full of intellectual light; or, rather, she will perceive herself to be a pure light, unburdened, agile, and becoming god.

Virtue is the movement of the soul toward God. Beauty and virtue are one – the unity and co-operation of the part with the whole.

Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful, yet act as does the creator of a statue. . . he cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line lighter, the other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked. . . and never cease chiseling your statue until. . . you see the perfect goodness established in the stainless shrine


 THE DICTIONARY OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY in 1694 defined philosopher as

One who devotes himself to research work in connection with the various sciences, and who seeks from their effects to trace their causes to trace their causes and principles. A name applied to one who lives a quiet and secluded life remote from the stir and troubles of the world. It is occasionally used to denote someone of undisciplined mind who regards himself as above the responsibilities and duties of civil life.

Cyrano de Bergerac published a tragedy in 1654 which had these lines:

“What, then, are these gods? The offspring of our fears; pretty nothings that we adore without knowing why. . .; Gods whom man has made, and who never made man.” And on immortality: “One hour after death our vanished soul will be that which it was an hour before life.”

Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), the “Father of the Enlightenment”, though a professor in philosophy in Sedan, had a small salary but was content to live simply as long as had access to books. He wrote:

“In sound philosophy Nature is nothing else than God Himself acting by certain laws which He has established of his own free will. So that he works of Nature are not less the effect of the power of God than miracles, and suppose as great a power as miracles is being altogether as difficult to form a man by natural laws of generation as to raise him from dead.”. . . “Which of us can be so sure that he has the truth as to warrant injuring another for differing from him?”

In the most famous of his articles he recounted the massacres, treacheries, and adulteries of King David, and left the reader to wonder why such a crowned scoundrel should be honoured by Christians as the ancestor of Christ.

Bayle counseled philosophers not to set a high value on philosophy, and he advised reformers not to expect much from reforms. Since the human nature is apparently the same in all centuries, it will continue, through greed, pugnacity, and erotic appetite, to produce the problems that disorder societies and cause the infantile mortality of utopias. Men do not learn from history; every generation shows the same passions, delusions and crimes.

Bernard le Bouyer de Fontenelle (1657-1757), was a French author. In the most delightful of his Diologues Montaigne meets Socrates and discusses the idea of progress;

MONTAIGNE. Men are like birds that repeatedly let themselves be caught in the same nets that have already taken a hundred thousand birds of the same species. Everyone enters new into life, and the mistakes of the parents are lost on the children. . . Men of all centuries have the same inclinations, over which reason has no power. Hence, wherever there are men there are follies, even the same follies. . .

SOCRATES. Clothes change, but that is not to say that the figure of the body changes, too. Politeness or grossness, knowledge or ignorance, . . . are but the outside of man, and all that changes; but the changes not at all; and all of man is in the heart. . . Among the vast multitude of foolish men born in a hundred years, nature may have scattered here and there. . . two or three dozen reasonable men.`

Fontenbelle hoped science would grow by leaps.

When we behold the progress the sciences have made during the last hundred years, in spite of prejudices, obstacles and the small number of scientific men, we might almost be tempted to let our hopes for the future rise too high. We shall see new sciences springing out of nothingness, while ours are still in the cradle.

Approaching his death, he explained to his friends that he was “suffering from being.”

A DUTCH PHILOSOPHER of Portuguese Jewish origin, this strange and lovable character, Spinoza: 1632-77, made the boldest attempt to find a philosophy that could take the place of a lost religious faith. He was determined to inquire whether there might be anything which might be truly good and able to communicate its goodness, andby which the mind might be affected to the exclusion of all other things.

 He contended that everything that exists in Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe) is one Reality (substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which surrounds us and of which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality, namely the single substance (meaning "that which stands beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part. God would be the natural world and have no personality. “By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, i.e., a substance consisting of infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence.” God is the infinite, necessarily existing (that is, uncaused), unique substance of the universe. There is only one substance in the universe; it is God; and everything else that is, is in God. The more we understand individual objects, the more we understand God. “God is not a bearded patriarch sitting on a cloud and ruling the universe.”

He writes against “those who feign a God, like man, consisting of a body and a mind, and subject to passions. But far they wander from the true knowledge of God.” Besides being false, such an anthropomorphic conception of God can have only deleterious effects on human freedom and activity. The emphasis of religious teaching should always be upon conduct rather than creed. The prophets excelled not in learning but in intensity of imagination, enthusiasm, and feeling.

We become both more free and more like God, he wrote: "men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the` causes whereby that desire has been determined." He contended, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion. For him, the crucial distinction was between active and passive emotions, the former being those that are rationally understood and the latter those that are not. He also held that knowledge of true causes of passive emotion can transform it to an active emotion. Some of Spinoza's philosophical positions are:

  • The natural world is infinite.

  • Good and evil are related to human pleasure and pain.

  • Everything done by humans and other animals is excellent and divine.

  • All rights are derived from the State.

  • Animals can be used in any way by people for the benefit of the human race, according to a rational consideration of the benefit as well as the animal's status in nature.

The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to late eighteenth-century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism. Three of Spinoza's ideas strongly appealed to them:

  • the unity of all that exists;

  • the regularity of all that happens; and

  • the identity of spirit and nature.

Virtue is to be desired for its own sake; nor is there anything more excellent or more useful to us. . . for the sake of which virtue ought to be desired. To use the imaginary rewards and punishments of a life after death as stimulants to morality is an encouragement to superstition and quite unworthy of a mature society. “We should expect and bear both faces of fortune with an equal mind; for all things follow by the eternal decree of God in the same way as it follows from the essence of a triangle that its three angles will make two right angles.”

To make use of things, and take delight in them as much as possible, is the part of a wise man.

DAVID HUME (1711 - 1776), a Scottish philosopher, economist, historian who maliciously suggested that the world was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance?

As like or not the world, as the Brahmins asserted, “Arose from an infinite spider, who spun this whole complicated mass from his bowels. . . Why may not an orderly system be spun from the belly as the brain?” Or conceivably “the world is an animal and the deity is the soul of the world, actuating it and actuated by it.”

Thomas Paine on Christianity & True Greatness:

There is an idea that exists in the world known as national honor, and this, falsely understood, is often times the cause of war. In a Christian and philosophical sense, mankind seems to have stood still at individual civilization, and to retain as nations all the original rudeness of nature. Peace by treaty is only a cessation of violence for a reformation of sentiment. It is a substitute for a principle that is wanting and ever will be wanting till the idea of national honor be rightly understood. As individuals we profess ourselves Christians, but as nations we are heathens, Romans, and what not.

I remember the late admiral Saunders declaring in the House of Commons, and that in the time of peace, “That the city of Madrid laid to ashes was not a sufficient atonement for the Spaniards taking off the rudder of an English sloop of war.” I do not ask whether this is Christianity or morality, I ask whether it is decency. Whether it is proper language for a nation to use? In private life we call it by the plain name of bullying, and the elevation of rank cannot alter its character. It is, I think, exceedingly easy to define what ought to be understood by national honor, and that is this: What is the best character for an individual is the best character for a nation; and wherever the latter exceeds or falls beneath the former, there is a departure from the line of true greatness.

It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth and all religions agree. All believe in a God, The things in which they disagree are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and therefore, if ever an universal religion should prevail, it will not be believing any thing new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and believing as man believed at first. Adam, if ever there was such a man, was created a Deist; but in the mean time, let every man follow, as he has a right to do, the religion and worship he prefers.

 IN HIS SOLITARY WOODLANDS RAMBLES IT SEEMED TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) that in the chatter of the animals, the rustlings of the trees, even in the resonance of rocks and hills, he heard the voice of a hidden and multiform god. So he sat.

Alone upon some jutting eminence,                                           At the first gleam of dawnlight.                                                 Oft in these mountains such a holy calm                                 Would overspread my soul, that bodily eyes                              Were utterly forgotten; and what I saw                                 Appeared like something in myself, a dream,                            A prospect in the mind. . .                                                              I, at this time,                                                                                 Saw blessings spread around me like a sea.  . .                            with bliss ineffable                                                                          I felt the sentiment of Being spread                                             O’er all that moves and all that seemeth still,                                O’er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought                          And human knowledge, to the human eye                               Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;                                                   O’er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,                       Or beats the gladsome air; o’er all that glides                               Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,                                  And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not                                If high the transport, great the joy I felt,                            Communing in this sort through earth and Heaven                     With every form of creation, as it looked                              Towards the Uncreated . . .                                                                                                                                                             

In 1798 Wordsworth had begun The Recluse on the theory that only a man who had known life and then withdrawn from it could judge it fairly.

                                                                                      GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL (1770 –1831) was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. Napoleon engaged Prussian troops on October 14, 1806, in the Battle of Jena on a plateau outside the city. On the day before the battle, Napoleon entered the city of Jena. Hegel recounted his impressions in a letter:

 I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it [...] this extraordinary man, whom it is impossible not to admire.

For Hegel, the inner movement of reality is the process of God thinking as manifested in the evolution of the universe of nature and thought; that is, Hegel argued that, when fully and properly understood, reality is being thought by God as manifested in man's comprehension of this process in and through philosophy. Since man's thought is the image and fulfillment of God's thought, God is not ineffable (so incomprehensible as to be unutterable) but can be understood by an analysis of thought and reality. Just as man continually corrects his concepts of reality through a dialectical process so God himself becomes more fully manifested through the dialectical process of becoming.                            

INTERRUPTION, AS MME De STAEL INSISTED, is the life of conversation – but is its death if the contradiction is not pertinent and resolved.

The only real liberation, for the nation or the individual, is through the growth of intelligence; and intelligence is knowledge coordinated and used. The highest freedom is in the knowledge of the categories and their operation in the basic processes of nature, and their union and harmony in the Absolute Idea, which is God. There are three ways in which man can approach this summit of understanding and freedom: through art, religion, and philosophy.

  EVEN J.D. SALINGER, the hermit of American letters, who passed away in 2010, wanted to abandon the ego:

Just because I am so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I’m sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of splash.

A SOUL THAT DOES NOT GO ON from the ways of devotion and works into the way of knowledge is not totally delivered, but achieves at the best the incomplete salvation of “heaven.” That is the last word of Aldous Huxley in regard to man’s final end.

CHAPTER XII

HUMAN INCARNATIONS OF THE DIVINE GROUND

THE DOCTRINE THAT GOD can be incarnated in human form is found in most of the principal historic expositions of the Perennial Philosophy – in Hinduism, in Mahayana Buddhism, in Christianity and in the Mohammedanism of the Sufis, by whom the Prophet was equated with the eternal Logos.

                           

KRISHNA is the eight incarnation of lord Vishnu and was born in the Dvarpara Yuga as the "dark one". Krishna is the embodiment of love and divine joy that destroys all pain and sin. Krishna is the protector of sacred utterances and cows. Krishna is a trickster and lover, an instigator of all forms of knowledge and born to establish the religion of love.                              

Krishna was born as the 8th child of Devaki, sister of the cruel demon king Kamsa. The sage Narada had predicted that Kamsa would be killed by his nephew, so the king killed Devaki´s first six children. The 7th, Balarama escaped and the 8th, Krishna, was secretly exchanged for a cowherd’s daughter.

Krishna was brought up in a cowherd’s family. As a child, Krishna had great love for his foster-mother Yashoda.

Later Krishna loved to play the flute and to seduce the village girls. Krishna is the deity of Hasya or Humour and a messenger of peace. His favorite was Radha. This is known as the Krishna Leela.

After Krishna killed Kamsa, he became the king.

In the epic poem 'Mahabharata' he helps the Pandavas against the Kauravas, two families in contention. In the poem Krishna is depicted as divine. Also in the poem he delivers his celebrated oration 'Bhagavad-Gita' on duty and life to the troubled Hero Arjuna, for whom he was a charioteer, on the eve of the decisive battle. This speech persuaded Arjuna that it was right to fight against evil. Says he in the Gita:

In every age I come back                                                                

To deliver the holy,   To destroy the sin of the sinner,                                                        

To establish righteousness.       

There are certain parallels between his birth and infancy and that of Christ's which tend to link these two important figures together.

In art Krishna is usually portrayed as blue-skinned.

[if !mso]

AMITABHA IS THE MOST ANCIENT BUDDHA among the Dhayni Buddhas. He is said to reside in the sukhabati heaven in peaceful meditation. He is of red color originating from the red syallable (HRIH). He represents the cosmic element of "Sanjana"(name). His vehicle is the peacock. He exhibits Samadhi Mudra his two palms folded face up, one on top of the other, lying on his lap. The lotus is his sign. When represented on the Stupa he always faces the west. He is worshiped thinking that one can have salvation. Sometimes holding a Patra on the same posture. His female is Pandara. Amitabha denotes "Boundless light" or Incomprehensible.

The fundamental principles of Mahāyāna doctrine were based on the possibility of universal liberation from suffering for all beings (hence the "great vehicle") and the existence of Buddhas and bodhisattvas embodying Buddha nature. Some Mahāyāna schools simplify the expression of faith by allowing salvation to be alternatively obtained through the grace of the Buddha Amitabha by having faith and devoting oneself to chanting to Amitabha. This devotional lifestyle of Buddhism is most strongly emphasized by the Pure Land schools and has greatly contributed to the success of Mahāyāna in East Asia, where spiritual elements traditionally relied upon chanting of a Buddha's name, of mantras or dhāraṇīs; reading of Mahāyāna sutras and mysticism. In Chinese Buddhism, most monks, let alone lay people, practice Pure Land, some combining it with Chan (Zen).


                            

WHEN JOHN WAS IMPRISONED JESUS took up the Baptist’s work, and began to preach the coming of the Kingdom. He “returned to Galilee,” says Luke, “and taught in the synagogues.” We have an impressive picture of the young idealist taking his turn at reading the Scriptures to the congregation at Nazareth, and choosing a passage from Isaiah:

 

The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the down-trodden free.

He seems to have taken over without scrutiny the harshest contemporary notions of an everlasting hell where unbelievers and unrepentant sinners would suffer from inextinguishable fire and insatiable worms. He tells without protest how the poor man in heaven was not permitted to let a single drop of water fall upon the tongue of the rich man in hell. He counsels nobly, “Judge not, that ye be not Judged,” but he cursed the men and cities that would not receive his gospel, and the fig tree that bore no fruit. He may have been a bit harsh to his mother. He had the puritan zeal of the Hebrew prophet rather than the broad calm of the Greek sage. His convictions consumed him; righteous indignation now and then blurred his profound humanity; his faults were the price he paid for that passionate faith which enabled him to move the world.

For the rest he was the most lovable of men. We have no portrait of him, nor do the evangelists describe him; but he must have had some physical comeliness, as well as spiritual magnetism, to attract so many women as well as men. We gather from stray words that, like other men of that age and land, he wore a tunic under a cloak, had sandals on his feet, and probably a cloth headdress falling over his shoulders to shield him from the sun. Many women sensed in him a sympathetic tenderness that aroused in them an unstinted devotion. The fact that only John tells the story of the woman taken in adultery is no argument against its truth; it does not help John’s theology, and is completely in character with Christ. Of like beauty, and hardly within the inventive powers of the evangelists, is the account of the prostitute who, moved by his ready acceptance of repentant sinners, knelt before him, anointed his feet with precious myrrh, let her tears fall upon them, and dried them with her hair; of her Jesus said that her sins were forgiven “because she loved much.” We are told that mothers brought their children to be touched by him, and “he took the children in his arms, laid his hands upon them, and blessed them.”

The psychological nature of the miracles is indicated by two features: Christ himself attributed his cures to the “faith” of those whom he healed; and he could not perform miracles in Nazareth, apparently because the people there looked upon him as “the carpenter’s son,” and refused to believe in his unusual powers; hence his remark that “a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house.”


Kindly and pious women joined the apostles and disciples, contributed to their support, and performed for them those solicitous domestic functions which are the supreme consolation of male life. Through that little band, lowly and letterless, Christ sent his gospel into the world.

If he could cleanse the human heart of selfish desire, cruelty, and lust, utopia would come of itself, and all those institutions that rise out of human greed and violence, and the consequent need for law, would disappear. Since this would be the profoundest of all revolutions, beside which all others would be mere coups d’etat of class ousting class and exploiting in its turn, Christ was in this spiritual sense the greatest revolutionist in history.

.He told them, says John that he would be with them “only a little longer... I give you a new command: Love one another... Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God and believe in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions... I go to prepare a place for you.”

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WHEN MOHAMMED WAS BORN in Mecca in 570 AD, the black Kaaba Stone was the religious center of all Arabia. In Mohammed's day, 365 idols were worshipped there, standing in the great courtyard. One of those deities was called Allah and was the god of the Quarish tribe, of which Mohammed was a member. When the Quarish tribe took control of Mecca, all the idols except Allah, the idol of their tribe, were destroyed.

The Koran tells us that Mohammed drove the other idols away; his god was now the only god and he was its messenger. But he kept the Kaaba as a holy, sacred place and confirmed that the black stone had the power to take away man's sins. He obligated every believer to make a pilgrimage to the stone at least once in his lifetime. The six beliefs of Islam are:

God: There is one true God, named Allah.

Angels: They are the servants of God, through whom he reveals his will. The greatest angel is Gabriel who appeared to Mohammed. Everyone has two "recording angels": one to record their good deeds, the other to record their bad deeds.

The Prophets: Allah has spoken through many prophets, but the final and greatest of these is Mohammed. Other prophets include Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

The Holy Books: The Koran or Quran is the holiest book of Islam, believed to be Allah's final revelation to man and it supersedes all previous revelations, including the Bible. It contains Allah's word as passed on orally to Mohammed by Gabriel. It contains 114 chapters or Suras. Muslims also recognize the Law of Moses, the Psalms and the gospels but consider them to be badly corrupted.

The Day of Judgment: A terrible day on which each person's good and bad deeds will be balanced to determine his fate.

The Decree of God: Allah ordains the fate of all. Muslims are fatalistic. "If Allah, wills it", is the comment of a devout Muslim on almost every situation or decision he faces.

The five pillars of Islam are:

Affirmation: "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger" which is recited constantly by devout Muslims.

The Fast: Faithful Muslims fast from dawn to dusk every day during the ninth month of the Islamic calender, Ramadan, which is sacred.

Almsgiving: A worthy Muslim must give 2.5% of his income to the poor.

Prayer: Muslims are required to pray five times a day, kneeling and facing Mecca.

The Pilgrimage: Muslims are expected to journey to Mecca at least once in their lifetime.

In Ibn Arabi's teaching, each prophet is called a logos but not the Logos, which latter term refers to the spiritual principle or Reality of Mohammed.  Ibn Arabi calls everything a Logos - a "word" of God - inasmuch as it participates in the universal principle of reason and Life, but prophets and saints are distinguished because they manifest the activities and perfections of the universal Logos Mohammed to a perfect degree.  The difference between the Spirit or Reality of Mohammed and the rest of the prophets and saints is like that between the whole and its parts; he unites in himself what exists in them separately.

The Divine Logos manifests as countless Avatars, Perfect Masters, Divine Presences, and so on; whether in human form as an actual physical Avatar, or in subtle non-incarnate form as a Presence that moves subtly in the spiritual Heart (Qalb) of each individual being.

BY PRECEPT AND BY EXAMPLE, THE AVATAR teaches that transforming knowledge is possible, that all sentient beings are called to it and that, sooner or later, in one way or another, all must finally come to it.                        

                                

                                   




 

 

 
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