We Are All Hindus Now

America is not a Christian nation. We are, it is true, a nation founded by Christians, and according to a 2008 survey, 76 percent of us continue to identify as Christian (still, that's the lowest percentage in American history). Of course, we are not a Hindu—or Muslim, or Jewish, or Wiccan—nation, either. A million-plus Hindus live in the United States, a fraction of the billion who live on Earth. But recent poll data show that conceptually, at least, we are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways we think about God, our selves, each other, and eternity.

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: "Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names." A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur'an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that "many religions can lead to eternal life"—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing. Thirty percent of Americans call themselves "spiritual, not religious," according to a 2009 NEWSWEEK Poll, up from 24 percent in 2005. Stephen Prothero, religion professor at Boston University, has long framed the American propensity for "the divine-deli-cafeteria religion" as "very much in the spirit of Hinduism. You're not picking and choosing from different religions, because they're all the same," he says. "It isn't about orthodoxy. It's about whatever works. If going to yoga works, great—and if going to Catholic mass works, great. And if going to Catholic mass plus the yoga plus the Buddhist retreat works, that's great, too."

Then there's the question of what happens when you die. Christians traditionally believe that bodies and souls are sacred, that together they comprise the "self," and that at the end of time they will be reunited in the Resurrection. You need both, in other words, and you need them forever. Hindus believe no such thing. At death, the body burns on a pyre, while the spirit—where identity resides—escapes. In reincarnation, central to Hinduism, selves come back to earth again and again in different bodies. So here is another way in which Americans are becoming more Hindu: 24 percent of Americans say they believe in reincarnation, according to a 2008 Harris poll. So agnostic are we about the ultimate fates of our bodies that we're burning them—like Hindus—after death. More than a third of Americans now choose cremation, according to the Cremation Association of North America, up from 6 percent in 1975. "I do think the more spiritual role of religion tends to deemphasize some of the more starkly literal interpretations of the Resurrection," agrees Diana Eck, professor of comparative religion at Harvard. So let us all say "om."

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/08/14/we-are-all-hindus-now.html

Cracking the coconut myth

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Cracking the coconut myth

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Bangalore: It is time to get back to the roots of traditional cooking methods. In the days of yore, women used coconut oil for cooking. But with the passage of time, myths that coconut oil increases cholestrol and heart attacks came up. But what’s the truth?

With a drop in local usage of coconut oil, a ‘safe coconut movement’ has been initiated, where farmers and consumers of coconut will come together to prove the myth wrong. “We will all gather and start a rally — Bicycle jatha — and prove that coconut oil is the best oil one can use in everyday cooking,” said Anekatte Vishwanath, convenor of the rally, that will kickstart at 10 am from Chikkanayakanahalli, Tiptur Turuvekere, Gubbi, Doddaballapur and Tumkur.

“The soyabean lobby is spreading the myth and trying to push the third world against using coconut oil, claiming that it is unhealthy. It’s time to wake up and safeguard our kitchen culture and condem the hidden agenda of MNCs. Therefore, we have decided to be part of the rally. In America, 99 per cent of soyabean produce is genticallty modified, and they say that soya beans are healthy. We need to prove this wrong because coconut oil works against bacteria and viruses and even enhances immunity to fight diseases like common cold, fever, hepatitis, hershis andd even HIV,” said Krishna Prasad, convenor of Organic Farmers’ Association.

Why Siddhas, Rishis, Saddhus and Yogis are Genius ? - Kundalini and the Brain

Kundalini and the Brain
The awakening of Kundalini and its union with Shiva is immediately and intimately connected with the whole brain. To explain it simply, we can say the brain has ten compartments, and of these, nine are dormant and one is active. Whatever you know, whatever you think or do is coming from one-tenth of the brain. The other nine-tenths, which are in the frontal portion of the brain, are known as the inactive or sleeping brain.
Why are these compartments inactive? Because there is no energy. The active portion of the brain functions on the energies of ida and pingala, but the other nine-tenths have only pingala. Pingala is life and ida is consciousness. If a man is living but is unable to think we say he has prana shakti but not manas shakti. Similarly, the silent parts of the brain have prana, not consciousness.
So a very difficult question arises: how to awaken the sleeping compartments of the brain? We know how to awaken fear, anxiety and passion, but most of us do not know how to awaken these dormant areas of the brain. In order to arouse the silent areas, we must charge the frontal brain with sufficient prana, with sufficient vital energy and consciousness, and so we must awaken sushumna nadi. For both these purposes we must practice pranayama regularly and consistently over a long period of time.

Lighting up the brain
In Kundalini yoga it was discovered that the different parts of the brain are connected with the chakras. Certain areas are connected with mooladhara chakra, others with swadhisthana, manipura, and so on. When you want to turn on a electric lamp, you don't have to touch the lamp itself, you operate it by means of the switch on the wall. Likewise, when you want to awaken the brain, you can't deal with it directly, you have to flick the switches which are located in the chakras.

Modern science divides the dormant area of the brain into ten parts, whereas in kundalini yoga we divide it into six. The qualities or manifestations of the brain are also six fold, e.g. the psychic powers, These manifest in different individuals according to the degree of awakening in the corresponding areas of the brain. Everybody is not clairvoyant or telepathic; some people are talented musicians. Anybody can sing, but there is a center in the brain where transcendental music expresses itself.

Total and partial awakening
A genius is one who has awakened one or more of the dormant areas of the brain. People who have flashes of genius are those who have had a momentary awakening in certain circuits of the brain. It is not total awakening. When the total brain wakes up, you become a junior god, an incarnation or embodiment of divinity. There are various types of geniuses; child prodigies, inspired poets, musicians, inventors, prophets etc. In these people a partial awakening has occurred.

Sahasrara is the actual seat of Kundalini
Although the classical descriptions place heavy emphasis on the awakening of kundalini in mooladhara chakra, there is widespread misconception that kundalini must be awakened there and made to travel through and awaken all the chakras in turn. In fact, the seat of Kundalini is actually sahasrara. Mooladhara is only a manipulation center or switch, like the other chakras, but it happens to be easier for most people to operate this switch.

Each of the chakras is independent; they are not connected with each other. This means, if kundalini shakti awakens in mooladhara, it goes directly to sahasrara, to a particular center in the brain. Similarly, from swadhisthana the shakti passes directly to sahasrara, from manipura it goes straight to sahasrara and so on. Kundalini can be awakened in an individual chakra or it can awaken throughout the whole network of chakras collectively. From each chakra, the awakening shock moves up to the top of sahasrara. However, the awakening is not sustained and those centers in the brain return to dormancy. This is what is meant by the return of kundalini to mooladhara.

If kundalini awakens in an individual chakra, the experiences which are characteristic of that chakra will be brought into conciousness. This may also occur when one does the practices for an individual chakra. For example, swadhisthana practices will raise joy; manipura practices will increase the self-assertion; anahata stimulation will expand the love; the vishuddi practices will awaken discrimination and wisdom, and ajna practices will increase the flow of intuition, knowledge and perhaps extrasensory abilities and so on.

If the nervous system is highly aroused, we may have other faculties opening because of the general arousal of the brain. This probably results from stimulation of an area in the lower end of the brain called the reticular formation. The function of this areas is to rouse the whole brain or to relax it, as in sleep.

The reticular formation and related areas have an inherent rhythm which is responsible for our sleeping/waking cycles. but it is also largely activated by sensations from outside-by light ,sound, touch, etc., and from inside via the autonomic nervous system. It is the latter which seems to account for the more general arousal caused by the kundalini practices and other powerful yoga practices such as kumbhaka or breath retention.

Kundalini -Energy or nerve messages?
There are a number of schools of thought as to what kundalini really is. Many yogis say that kundalini is a flow of pranic energy along in esoteric pathway (sushumna) associated with the spinal axis. They consider that it is part of the flow of prana within the meshwork of the pranic body and that there is no anatomical counterpart. Other yogis relate their perceptions of kundalini to the flow of messages along the nerve fibers. These arise in the networks of the autonomic plexuses and ascend along tracts in the spinal cord to definite anatomical centers in the brain.

These schools of thought use different descriptions to convey the experience of kundalini, but they all agree that the experience of kundalini is a total psycho physiological event which centers around the spinal cord. Within the spinal cord there is a very important fluid, the cerebrospinal fluid. When, through practices such as pranayama, awakening occurs in mooladhara chakra, this fluid gets excited. We cannot really say what happens to it because even the scientists are not exactly sure, but by studying the experiences of kundalini awakening, one thing is apparent. When the cerebrospinal fluid moves through the vertebral column, it alters the phases of consciousness and this is a very important process as far as evolution is concerned.
It is the chitta or consciousness which undergoes evolution in man. Chitta does not have a location point in the body, it is psychological in nature, but it is controlled by the information supplied by the indriyas or senses. While chitta is being constantly supplied with information, its evolution is blocked, but if you prevent the passage of information from the indriyas, chitta will evolve very quickly. That is to say, if you isolate chitta from the information being relayed through the eyes, nose, ears, skin and tongue, chitta is then compelled to experience independence. When the cerebrospinal fluid is affected during pranayama, the senses become dull and their messages are relayed to chitta very slowly. Sometimes, when tire cerebrospinal fluid is highly stimulated, all sensory impulses are suspended and experiences take place within the chitta. Sometimes these experiences are fantastic, you might see light, feel the whole earth trembling or experience your body as if it were as light as a piece of cotton. These and others are the experiences of a chitta as a consequence of the cerebrospinal fluid's reactions.
One world renowned scientist, the late Itzhak Bentov, put forward the theory that kundalini is an effect caused by the rotation of nerve impulses around the cortex of the brain during meditation. He considered that this is caused by rhythmical pressure waves which result from the interaction of the heart beat, breathing, and the fluid inside the skull, thereby causing the brain to oscillate up and down which stimulates specific nerve currents in the brain.

Unlocking the storehouse of cosmic consciousness
Although there are varying views about kundalini, one thing is certain— kundalini has the ability to activate the human consciousness in such a way that the person can develop his most beneficial qualities, can enter a much more intimate relationship with nature about him, and can become aware of his oneness with the whole cosmos.

All the great miracles of the remote and recent past. and the ones yet to come, have sprung from what is known as the storehouse of cosmic consciousness, the golden egg, the golden womb, the hidden hiranyagarbha within the structure of the human brain. This particular center in us is not sleeping or inactive, but it is unconscious, only because we are not conscious of it. What came as revelation to the ancient rishis, to Newton and Einstein and to many other great seers, is existing in us also, but it came to their Conscious plane while it does not come to ours. This is the only difference between the inspired artist and the common man.
The aim of kundalini yoga is not really to awaken the power of man, but rather to bring the power down to earth or to bring the power of the unconscious or higher consciousness, to normal consciousness. We have no need to awaken the consciousness, for it is ever awake. We have only to gain complete control over our higher Conscious forces. By means of kundalini yoga we just try to bring the centers from mooladhara to ajna into operation so that the higher knowledge will be gradually revealed to us.
Today, man has mastered the material dimension, the energy of prakriti and discovered the mysteries of nature. Now, through the process of kundalini, man should become master of the spiritual dimension.
- by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

Siddhas – Ancient Indian Scientist Mystics

Siddhas are a religious order of mystics found in the southern part of India. Their origins can be traced back to the eighth century. The word “Siddha” comes from the word “Siddhi” which means an object to be attained perfection or heavenly bliss. Siddhas relied only on the Human being's efforts for the accomplishment of liberation. Their attribute attitude is: find out for yourself. They wrote their discoveries, in the form of poems in Tamil language, on palm leaf which are gathered and stored in what are identified today as Palm leaf manuscript, today still owned by private families in Tamil Nadu and handed down through the generations, as well as public organizations such as universities world over (India, Germany, Britain, U.S.A.).


Siddhas who came in a line of wandering saints, claim a divine origin; according to them Lord SHIVA (Hindu God) is the first Siddha. Some times their origin is traced to the mysterious mythical sage, THIRUMULAR. He is regarded as the supreme preceptor and originator of the exoteric school of Siddhas .

Siddhas explored and explained the reality of Nature and its relationship to man by their yogic awareness and experimental findings. They prostulated the concept of spiritualism for self-improvement and practices propounded by them came to be known as the “Siddha System”. A sense of mystery prevails about Siddhars, or people who achieved siddhi. They are philosophers, healers and people with supernatural powers. While they were reputed to be miracle men, the medical science they practiced is surprisingly well documented.


There were 18 notable Siddhars in olden days:
THIRUMULAR, RAMADEVAR, KUMBAMUNI, IDAIKADAR, DHANVANTHRI, VALMIKI, KAMALAMUNI, BHOGANADAR, MACHAMUNI, KONGANAR, PATHANJALI, NANDIDEVAR, BOTHAGURU, PAMBATTI SIDDHAR, SATTAIMUNI, SUNDARANANDADEVAR, KUDAMBAISIDDHAR AND KORAKAR.

The basic principles of Siddhas
Siddha science considers nature and man as essentially one. A close relationship is found to exist between the external world and the internal system of man. Practitioners of Siddha maintain that the structure of the human body is a miniature world in itself. Man consumes water and food, breathes the air and thus maintains the heat in the body. He is alive on account of the life force given by ether. The earth is the first element which gives fine shape to the body including bones, tissues, muscles, skin, hair etc. Water is the second elements representing blood, secretions of the glands, vital fluid etc. Fire is the third element that gives motion, vigor and vitality to the body. It also helps digestion, circulation and stimulation besides respiration and the nervous system. Above all, ether is the characteristic of man`s mental and spiritual faculties.
Siddha acknowledges the power of Raja yoga. The serpent power or kundalini is believed to be dormant at the base of the spine, in the sacral region (Mooladhara Chakra). Siddhars are said to be capable of releasing this power. This power is to be control hormones and lead to greater perception.

The Siddha medicine
'Siddha medicine’ means medicine that is ‘perfect’. Siddha medicine revitalizes and rejuvenates the organs, the dysfunction of which is causing the disease. This brings back normal functioning of the organs. It also maintains ratio of Vata, Pitta and Kapha, thus maintaining the healthy state of the body. Since no artificial chemicals are involved, it doesn’t cause ay side effects.
Siddha is a psychosomatic medicine that deals with the relationship between the mind and body. Man is composed of 96 forces. These are both physical and methaphysical. Therefore, a person’s health can be effected by physical, emotional, mental or karmic disturbances. The Siddha system does not believe in merely treating the symptoms. It eradicates the root cause for the illness, provides relief and also prevents recurrence.

Mahabharatam

The Mahabharata tells the story of two sets of paternal first cousins--the five sons of the deceased king Pandu (the five Pandavas and the one hundred sons of blind King Dhritarashtra--who became bitter rivals, and opposed each other in war for possession of the ancestral Bharata kingdom with its capital in the "City of the Elephants," Hastinapura , on the Ganga river in north central India. What is dramatically interesting within this simple opposition is the large number of individual agendas the many characters pursue, and the numerous personal conflicts, ethical puzzles, subplots, and plot twists that give the story a strikingly powerful development.

The five sons of Pandu were actually fathered by five Gods (sex was mortally dangerous for Pandu, because of a curse) and these heroes were assisted throughout the story by various Gods, sages, and brahmins, including the great sage Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa (who later became the author of the epic telling this story), who was also their actual grandfather (he had engendered Pandu and the blind Dhrtarastra upon their nominal father's widows in order to preserve the lineage). The one hundred sons of the blind king Dhartarashtra, on the other hand, had a grotesque, demonic birth, and are said more than once in the text to be human incarnations of the demons who are the perpetual enemies of the devotees of the lord. The most dramatic figure of the entire Mahabharata, however, is Sri Krishna who is the supreme personality of Godhead himself, descended to earth in human form to reestablish his devotees as care takers of the earth, and who practice Dharma. Krishna Vasudeva was the cousin of both parties, but he was a friend and advisor to the Pandavas, became the brother-in-law of Arjuna , and served as Arjuna's mentor and charioteer in the great war. Krishna Vasudeva is portrayed several times as eager to see the war occur, and in many ways the Pandavas were his human instruments for fulfilling that end.

The Dhartarashtra party behaved viciously and brutally toward the Pandavas in many ways, from the time of their early childhood. Their malice displayed itselfwhen they took advantage of the eldest Pandava, Yudhishthira (who had by now become the ruler of the world) in a game of dice: The Dhartarashtras 'won' all his brothers, himself, and even the Pandavas' common wife Draupadi They humiliated all the Pandavas and physically abused Draupadi; they drove the Pandava party into the wilderness for twelve years, and the twelve years of exile had to be followed by the Pandavas' living somewhere in society, in disguise, without being discovered.

The Pandavas fulfilled their part of that bargain by living out side the kingdom, but the evil leader and eldest son of Dhartarashtra, Duryodhana , was unwilling to restore the Pandavas to their half of the kingdom when the thirteen years had expired. Both sides then called upon their many allies and two large armies arrayed themselves on 'Kuru's Field' (Kuru was one of the eponymous ancestors of the clan), eleven divisions in the army of Duryodhana against seven divisions for Yudhishthira. Much of the action in the Mahabharata is accompanied by discussion and debate among various interested parties, and the most famous dialog of all time, Krishna Vasudeva's ethical lecture and demonstration of his divinity to his devotee and friend Arjuna (the Holy Bhagavad Gita appeared in the Mahabharata just prior to the commencement of the world war. Several of the important ethical and theological themes of the Mahabharata are tied together in this Gita, and this "Song of the Blessed One" has exerted much the same sort of powerful and far-reaching influence in the Vedic Civilization that the New Testament has had in the Christian world. The Pandavas won the eighteen day battle, but it was a victory that deeply troubled all except those who were able to understand things on the divine level (chiefly Krishna, Vyasa, and Bhishma the Bharata patriarch who was symbal of the virtues of the era now passing away). The Pandavas' five sons by Draupadi, as well as Bhimasena and Arjuna Pandava's two sons by two other mothers (respectively, the young warriors and Abhimanyu, were all tragic victims in the war. Worse perhaps, the Pandava victory was won by the Pandavas slaying, in succession, four men who were like fathers to them: Bhishma, their teacher Drona , Karna (who was, though none of the Pandavas knew it, the first born, pre-marital, son of their mother), and their maternal uncle Shalya (all four of these men were, in succession, 'supreme commanders' of Duryodhana's army during the war). Equally troubling was the fact that the killing of the first three of these 'respected elders,' and of some other enemy warriors as well, was accomplished only through ' trickery', most of which were suggested by Krishna Vasudeva as absolutely required by the circumstances.

The ethical gaps were not resolved to anyone's satisfaction on the surface of the narrative and the aftermath of the war was dominated by a sense of horror and malaise. Yudhishthira alone was terribly troubled, but his sense of the war's wrongfulness persisted to the end of the text, in spite of the fact that everyone else, from his wife to Krishna Vasudeva, told him the war was right and good; in spite of the fact that the dying patriarch Bhishma lectured him at length on all aspects of the Good Law (the Duties and Responsibilities of Kings, which have rightful violence at their center; the ambiguities of Righteousness in abnormal circumstances; and the absolute perspective of a beatitude that ultimately transcends the oppositions of good versus bad, right versus wrong, pleasant versus unpleasant, etc.); in spite of the fact that he performed a grand Horse Sacrifice as expiation for the putative wrong of the war. These debates and instructions and the account of this Horse Sacrifice are told at some length after the massive and narrative of the battle; they form a deliberate tale of pacification that aims to neutralize the inevitable reactions of the war.

In the years that follow the war Dhritarashtra and his queen Gandhari , and Kunti , the mother of the Pandavas, lived a life of asceticism in a forest retreat and died with yogic calm in a forest fire. Krishna Vasudeva departed from this earth thirty-six years after the war. When they learned of this, the Pandavas believed it time for them to leave this world too and they embarked upon the 'Great Journey,' which involved walking north toward the polar mountain, that is toward the heavenly worlds, until one's body dropped dead. One by one Draupadi and the younger Pandavas died along the way until Yudhishthira was left alone with a dog that had followed him all the way. Yudhishthira made it to the gate of heaven and there refused the order to drive the dog back, at which point the dog was revealed to be an incarnate form of the God Dharma (the God who was Yudhishthira's actual, physical father), who was there to test Yudhishthira's virtue. Once in heaven Yudhishthira faced one final test of his virtue: He saw only the Dhartarashtra Clan in heaven, and he was told that his brothers were in hell. He insisted on joining his brothers in hell, if that were the case! It was then revealed that they were really in heaven, that this illusion had been one final test for him.

End.