Friends,

1) we have redesigned our Prometheus a bit, and the new issue is now available
at

http://meaus.com/002009-prometheus-144.htm


2) also the HOME page has been redesigned to put the main emphasis on the
Museum, the Alexander Sculpture Garden & our activities and projects

http://www.meaus.com


3) our website continues to become more and more popular.
In May we hade over 160,000 visitors to our website, bringing the total so far
in 2009 to over 850,000 visitors.

4) Those of our readers and friends who would like to support our work, can make
a donation (tax-deductible) to:
Museum of European Art, 10545 Main Street, Clarence, New York 14031.

With the best wishes to our friends around the world,
John Zavrel
Museum of European Art
zavrel@...

Friends,

            The recent dedication of the Sculpture Garden of Alexander the Great at the US Museum of European Art in Clarence, New York is the realization of a decades-long dream that came about with the idealistic support of friends of art, art collectors and artists from Europe and the United States.

            The Sculpture Garden is a unique and still growing project. New sculptures and portrait-busts will be added every year. Eventually, we hope to achieve something great and of lasting, significant artistic and cultural value.

            A visitor, entering through the wrought-iron gate, is greeted by the monumental bronze eagle PEACE, by the prominent European sculptor Kurt Arentz. Then, the view opens up to a circle of 16 sculptures and portrait-busts of prominent personalities of the 20th century. Among them are three US presidents: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Sr. and Bill Clinton. And we also see here the painter Salvador Dalí and his wife & muse, Gala; the music conductor Herbert von Karajan, the inventor Wilson Greatbatch, and others.

            Two interesting sculptures can be seen also here: OBERON, inspired by William Shakespeare’s play ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and SAINT CHRISTOPHER, the patron of animals and Nature.

            Beyond the circle of sculptures, in the far-right corner is a gazebo, a quiet, peaceful place to sit & relax or meditate, looking at the life-like bust of the great sage and humanitarian, Swami Rama of the Himalayas. Other sculptures on the opposite size of the garden include ODE TO JOY, inspired by Beethoven’s 9th symphony, and KNIGHT, DEATH AND DEVIL, after Dürer’s famous painting.

            Returning back to the main gate, one sees several display walls, about 8 by 6 feet in size. Here, interesting reliefs in bronze and stone will be installed in the years ahead. On each wall, a commemorative plaque will show the names of those friends and supporters, who made donations to support the establishment of the Sculpture Garden.

            Friends, visitors and people who enjoy and appreciate fine art, can donate $ 300 (couples, $ 500) and have their names included on these commemorative plaques. Or, one can make such a donation in memory of a deceased friend or relative.

            We invite you to visit this young, but interesting and growing Sculpture Garden in Clarence. If you like what you see and find it worthy of your support, please show it by becoming one of our donors. Since we have never sought any kind of government support, all  that has been accomplished over the years is a result of an initiative of private individuals, friends and lovers of art and culture.

Sincerely,

B. John Zavrel

Director

The current exhibition SALVADOR DALI IN CLARENCE of 50 graphic works, sculptures and art objects by the great surrealist painter has been organized on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Dalí’s death in 1989.  Included are the 33 color woodcut illustrations to Purgatorio, the second part of Dante Allighieri's poem 'Divine Comedy'.

Also on exhibition are selected works from the museum's collection: small bronzes by European artists, lithographs, etchings, and reliefs in bronze and stone.

Admission is by reservations only.

Guided tours start at 11 am, 1:00. 2:30 & 4 pm, Monday to Friday, and Saturdays & Sundays, 1:00 & 2:30 pm.  

Admission, $ 10.

For reservations,  e-mail to: info@..., or call 759-6078

 Museum of European Art, 10545 Main Street, Clarence, New York 14031

www.meaus.com

Swami Veda talking to an audience in Toronto in June, 2008.

New York/Minneapolis (meaus)  The Meditation Center is pleased to host this year's Congress offering all participants to experience the 'Song of Silence'.

From July 17 to August 1, 2009, Swami Veda Bharati will bring his Yoga Academy to the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota to lead the 2009 Himalayan Yoga Congress.

Lear from Swami Veda, inspired and loving teacher, prolific author and poet known for his ability to guide audiences to calm states of meditative silence.

Join Swamiji, his acclaimed faculty, and Russell Paul, Yoga of Sound master and recording artist, at the 2009 Himalayan Tradition Congress.

The 'Listen to the Song of Silence' Congress will include: Yoga Teacher Training, Yoga Nidra Weekend, Prana Vidya for Hatha Teachers, Spirituality Weekend, Lecture Series, and Silence Sessions.

Immerse yourself in one of the concurent 'Song of Silence' ashram retreats:

a) Teacher Training and Continuing Studies

b) Yoga Teacher Continuing Education

c) Spiritual Seeker

For more information and to register, visit http://www.himalayanyogatradition.com/stpaul.html

© PROMETHEUS 141/2009

PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin - News, Politics, Art and Science. Nr. 141, March, 2009

Om. Sri.

What is Sri Vidya? I shall try to answer this question the only way it can be answered, in a very roundabout way. For, defining is confining. We need to rise beyond the realm of our definitions. It is like the new trend in the computer science known as the fuzzy logic. If you can appreciate fuzzy logic or the theory of chaos, then you would somewhat understand what it means to rise beyond mere apparent definitions and becoming all-conclusive, where the order is not quite as easily visible, quite as simply discernable as it is in the well-defined axioms or axiomatic logic based on S is P, S is not P. It is not so in Sri Vidya, the science of Sri, God's science of the universe.

The concept of Sri forms the entire Hindu-buddhist civilization, directly or indirectly, quite often in small segments and powers. However, even in this area of ancient civilizations, with the exception of, say, one in half a billion people, no one really understands what Sri Vidya is because learning Sri Vidya is not like mastering any of the sciences, it is mastering one's own self. It is God's science of the universe, God's science of self-knowledge, that very self-knowledge where God within us also knows Herself.

One of the countries where the word Sri is very popular is the Bali Island of Indonesia. The ancient Indian Rishis, sages, founders of sciences, they through whom many sciences were revealed, crossed the seas, and established what is now an ancient civilization. In Bali you would often hear of Bhu Devi or Sri Devi. Bhu Devi means the deity which is the earth. And then Sri Devi, the mother deity of prosperity, no, not prosperity, no, growth, no; ah-- I'll play the modern anthropologist: fertility, now you've got it right! But you haven't. You see, to understand the ancient Eastern sciences, one would have to learn to forget some of the popular definitions given in high circles of learned people in modern systems. Until you can step out of that, you cannot move from the reductionist sciences and schools towards the holistic sciences and schools. It's a question of redefining yourself. And by redefining yourself you will redefine that which your self knows, wishes to know, will know and the seed of that knowledge as well as the substratum of that which we wish to know, or do know, since all these modes of knowing occur within the self. This is one of the very basic principles of Sri Vidya.

Talking of the Sri Devi, in every rice field in Bali there is a small shrine to Sri Devi by whose presence the rice grows. Well, obviously it's a fertility cult, so say the experts from the Western civilization which is all-knowing, and knows all about what people think and feel everywhere and how they work out things in a most unscientific way with all these superstitious beliefs such as that some goddess makes the rice grow. Now, for each village there are priests who perform the appropriate rites. There's a chief priest for the whole of Bali Island, who, by his own method of internal coordination, sets up the entire agricultural policy: when the people of different areas should plant, when they should irrigate the fields, when they should reap the crop. In comes the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and all the great scientists of the world who want to pull these backward people out of their unscientific, superstitious views and institute studies of agricultural patterns and how the agriculture may be improved. As they have done in many, many societies, destroying the entire established fabric and ensuring almost the extinction of a vast diversity of living things through their 'scientific' methods. A few exceptional people are wise and it occurred to them to do a computer model of what would be the best way to really coordinate the planting and the irrigation and the reaping of crops in the right time in all different areas and topographies of the island. It turned out that the models thus prepared coincided with exactly what the chief priests of Sri Devi have been doing in guiding the entire country in matters of agriculture for the last ten or twenty centuries. Leave well alone; the scientists concluded. For details see Stephan Lansing's book, Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali (Princeton University Press, 1991).

It is heartening to see that for a change someone took the trouble of trying to comprehend the ways of those who have understood some sciences intrinsically, who know to plan the agriculture of an entire country by intuitive methods. Not guess work, please. Intuition is not guess work. We also need to correct the trend both in the East and West, of equating intuition with guess work. Sri Vidya is the science of intuitive mastery of exact sciences.

The way we write Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, in the Western countries, the common term used in the communication in India is, for a man, Sriman; for a woman, Srimati; for Ms., Su-Shu and so forth. The Queen of Thailand, Sirikit is actually the sanskrit work Srikirti, the glory of Sri. So all the 850,000,000 Indians carry the title Sri, Sriman, Srimati, Su-Sri: one endowed with Sri. A title originally in ancient times reserved for those who were initiated into Sri Vidya, they in whom God's glory of the universe has made a home, those who are endowed with knowledge, empowered with the energy and the intuition of mother Sri. The basic text of Sri Vidya says: one who knows mother Sri can never be orphaned. In the rituals and ceremonies in the Indian tradition, when one sips the holy water they say, Mayi Shrih Shrayatam: may Sri dwell in me. The word for refuge is Ashraya: to be one as Sri. "May many come taking refuge in me, may I seek refuge in none"--is the prayer of those who wish to have this capacity to give refuge. This capacity is Sri. You might translate Sri Vidya as the science of capacities, the science of potentialities.

One of the first principles in Sri Vidya is that your individual self cannot be separated from the universal principles. In studying universal principles of any science, you must first be studying yourself. And the application of those principles must first be directed towards yourself so that you cannot study physics or chemistry without first studying yourself. This would make no sense to an average student of physics and chemistry, but, what about biochemistry? You see there a relationship between what you consider to be your individual self, mere body, and the constituents of the world. At least you see the connection between what is happening in you and what is happening in the test tube. Without understanding that link there can be neither biochemistry nor pharmacology. Sri-Vidya is thus a science of connections. The connections are realized not through writing research papers on them. But through processes of concentration, contemplation, meditation one achieves an assimilation of the universe and oneself.

We said above that Sri Vidya is God's science of the universe. Here I reiterate what has often been taught in lectures on Sri Vidya. God's energy, capacity, potentiality is three-fold; iccha, jñana, kriya. These are the three shaktis: iccha-shakti, jñana shakti, kriya-shakti, respectively the energy called will, knowledge, and action. In that which you know to be self; in that which you know the self that is God; in that which you know to be the universe that is God, that is in God. In God that is the universe, God that is in the universe, God that is in you, God that is you. These sentences must not be taken in a sequence, for if you depend on sequence of thoughts, then you will never reach that knowledge which in the yoga sutras is called a-krama, knowledge without sequence, simultaneous; flash of lightning, of truth; as knowledge in which these principles are not studied in a logical sequence, through an intellectual process but all of them flash as one.--(See Yoga-sutras III. 54)

When this, God's science of creation, maintenance and dissolution, through his power called will, knowledge and action, is absorbed, assimilated, is fully realized by the yogi he is then the master of Sri Vidya. Even these words are sequential, for the language fails here. Sri Vidya is the science of energy fields of the metaphysical universe. The energy fields that are non-sentient and the energy fields that are sentient; the energy fields that know themselves to be, the sentient ones, and the energy fields that do not know themselves to be or whose degree of knowing is somewhat reduced. When these energy fields are seen as parts of a single assimilated whole, then you begin to understand Sri Vidya, and that the microcosm and the macrocosm; the pinda and brahmanda; the shape and form on one hand and linga, that is your subtle body, your operative self, and the egg of God, the ovum that is the universe: all these are inseparable.

The Newsweek, one of the bibles of the modern world, on May 4, 1992, starts an article titled "God's Handwriting," with these words: "There is no dearth of creation myths, from Easter Island's bird-god that laid the world egg to the Old Testament's six days of Genesis." Actually, this concept of the universe as an egg is very basic to the Indian tradition of cosmology. Often the form of the linga, the sign of the presence of light that is worshipped in the temples of India, is somewhat oval; it represents the

1. For a deeper understanding of the Yoga-Sutras, it is recommended to study: 1) The Commentary by Hariharananda Aranya, S.U.N.Y. Press. 2) The Commentary by Usharbudh Arya, Himalayan Publishers, and 3) instruction cassettes available from Rishikesh Foundation, P.O. Box 279, Clarence, NY 14031.

universe expanding within an oval space. If you take away the physical body of a human being, what remains is the oval of light.

Sri Vidya begins where quantum physics ends. The contemporary philosophers of science have reached a cul de sac, and do not seem to know where to go from there because they are presented with enigmas, the gigantic, vast and majestic koans, the mysteries of the universe in a jyotir-bindu, a pinpoint of light that is infinitesimal. Infinitesimal because the space has not yet been created, therefore it has no location because locations are in space. So the question of where this pinpoint of light was or is, is like a question of what happens to a soul after death, where does it go? Well, where does it go? Where is there to go? You talk of the soul as if it were something confined to spaces and times, so you speak of after death and before birth and the soul going away someplace as though it has a passport to galaxies or something. It's an n/a question: not applicable.

Yet because we are so conditioned to going in space, we cannot imagine a condition wherein space has not yet been created. So with regard to where the pinpoint of light is or was, that some say, explodes into a big bang, this question of where does not arise, because if the universe has not yet been created, no space has been created. Now, here, please, I'm not trying to establish points of compromise between modern science and the ancient traditions. I'm speaking purely and simply in ancient terminologies.

Jyotir-bindu, the pinpoint of light, explodes, expands; for this very pinpoint of light is also the nada-bindu, the pinpoint of sound.

Another word for the pinpoint of light is tejo-bindu. Among the Upanishads there are four upanishads whose names have the word bindu in them. Elsewhere, I have given the etymology of the word bindu: that which one must burst through; that which must explode; that which must burst; and that, I repeat, which one must burst through. That is the meaning of the word point, which is cognate to or is derived from the word bindu. The word bindu is derived from the verb root bhid or bhind, to burst, to break through. It means to explode like the explosion of an atom so that we may burst through the atomic particle and come to the next dimension of energy.

I was saying that there are four Upanishads that have the word bindu in their titles. Brahma-bindu Upanishad, or Upanishad of Brahman as bindu or bindu of Brahman; Brahman as the point. The great transcendental being as the point. Then the Tejo-bindu Upanishad, the point of light Upanishad. Then the Nada-bindu Upanishad, the point of sound Upanishad. Then the Dhyana-bindu Upanishad, Upanishad of the meditation that is the point. Get the point?

Now once again, you are not to take these phrases, the point of light, the point of sound, light as point, sound as point, meditation as point, or the point of meditation, brahman as point or the point of brahman, in sequence. Until you can abolish sequences, you will see no relationship, and without that abolition of sequences, you will not understand the central point, that bindu around which the Sri Yantra is built.

So, that jyotir-bindu, the pinpoint of light, that point that is the light, is also nada-bindu, the pinpoint of sound. Hence, the big bang from the pinpoint of light. In the tradition we are taught that nada and jyoti, the sound and light, are one. The light produces the sound, sound produces the light. And in my little book of Blessings I have said: may you see the light that sound produces as it travels through space; may you hear the sound that light creates as it travels through space. So we may see the explosion of light, and of sound, explosion of what later comes to be known as matter in space, is one and the same. Now, the ancient tantric system says that it is actually the space itself that is identical with the sound, that is identical with light, and these ripples and wrinkles that occur in space become the winds of the universe.

I have here another article from the magazine called Asia Week, which is Asia's equivalent of Newsweek and Time published from Singapore and Hong Kong. Dated May 8, 1992. I wish I had the original articles from scientific journals to refer to, but this will do quite nicely. The title of the article is "Ripples in the Wind." It says on Page 26: "Every culture has its creation myths. Unless you can see it through a telescope, it's a myth. But you cannot see that pinpoint of light which the present theorists are saying exploded into the universe and if you cannot see, it must be a myth, too." Now, where do you draw the line between reality and myth? Anyway, the article goes on: "Every culture has its creation myths. The ancient Tibetans believed that in the beginning there was a vast emptiness without cause and without end. From it arose faint ripples of wind that after aeons grew stronger and eventually formed the world. Modern science has its own creation myth, which it calls the Big Bang Theory. Like the Tibetan legend, it holds that the universe was a vast emptiness. Then, about 15 billion years ago, a cataclysmic explosion sent matter shooting in all directions, eventually creating the planets and stars. Of course, most scientists would be appalled to hear the Big Bang described as a myth. To them, it's a legitimate theory, but dressed by observation, calculation and the whole penopula of scientific thought.

"Now they are excited by the discovery of "ripples" of matter. They say it confirms the theory and helps explain the foundation of stars and galaxies. These huge ripples as described by a scientist as 'wispy clouds of matter' were apparently set in motion by the big bang and have been moving outwards ever since. The scientists are justifiably proud that their sophisticated and expensive instruments have allowed them to record echoes of these ripples across billions of light years of space, and their conclusion -- doesn't seem much different from that of the ancient Tibetans." Hooray for the editor. I couldn't have said it better.

Now, so far, so good. But not quite so good. The question is not only concerning the origin of the universe and its expansion, but also the question of consciousness. Now where does consciousness come from? Can we produce consciousness in some research lab? And once again, until we can take the holistic, assimilationistic point of view, we will not be able to answer this question. The Tantra, which is an expansion of Sri Vidya, believes that the original energy dwelling in the first pinpoint of light, is a conscious one. Sri Vidya and all Tantra believes it to be that force which is consciousness. It is not that somewhere in the process of expansion, when all the chemicals have formed that these chemicals then interact and thereby produce something called consciousness. In fact, the process of creation is the process of reduction of consciousness. It is not an evolutionary process, it is a devolutionary process. And since the process of creation is the process of devolution, the process of reduction of force, therefore, it has the inbuilt entropy, the well-known principle in modern science. Everything moving toward the principle called antaka, the principle of dissolution.

One of the questions in the modern philosophy of science is whether this universe is going to keep on expanding? What is going to happen with it? Where is it expanding into? In this context the concept of emptiness is one of the most important philosophical principles. It is the same principle, shunya, which the Buddhists call the ultimate reality. It is the same from which the Indian civilization derived the concept of zero, for which the common word used nowadays in Indian schools is still shunya. And I shall not belabor the point that I have made elsewhere that this shunya is not simply a void. It is that void which voids all voids. Shunya is the ultimate reality, is that void that voids all voids.

So, just as the question as to where this pinpoint of light was is meaningless, because the word where means in what point of space and the space hadn't yet been created. The same applies to the question: into what is the universe expanding, where is it going. They are also meaningless, because where the universe is not, there is no such where, nor there. As for it to be something called "there," there would have to be some relationships of times and places and points. Even in elementary philosophy, such a question doesn't arise. It is by expanding that the universe creates space, not that it expands into some empty space. The ancient Indian philosophy of physics, called Vaisheshika, speaks of akuñchana and prasarana, contraction and expansion as interlinked principles. The Sanskrit texts discussing the attraction of gravity and the basic principles involved in it, also discussed this question of attraction and contraction, the centripetal and centrifugal forces as well. They also arrived at the conclusion at that time that the minutest atomic particle would have to be simply a point in space, bindu, the point in the centre...

We are discussing here bindu, the point in the centre of the Sri Yantra, the point from which the expansion occurs, and into which the circle contracts again. From my meagre understanding of the principles of tantra, I would like to venture a proposal to the modern philosophers of science, that they stop being unidirectional. The idea should be abandoned that expansion is occurring into some empty space the presence of which, something called space, outside the universe has not been established. We need to understand that the winds in space (vayu) that were spoken of by the ancient sages, need to be looked at much more closely. Once again, light and sound are one, sound and light exists before creation and after the final entropy (dissolution) is invalid, for the space is the first creation and the last one to dissolve. Until space is created, the question of where does not arise. The space is a location for light, and sound. The ancient texts say akasha-deshah shabdah, the location of sound is space. One of the words for space is akasha, that which is lit all over, that which is filled with light, although the space travellers tell us that it is all dark. Simply because it is dark to our eyes does not mean that it is not filled with light. If we are all owls, that is not God's fault.

One of the first principles again is that expansion and contraction in space are an identical process, just as creativity and entropy are interwoven. The boundaries between evolution and devolution cannot be determined. They are two sides of the same coin. So, this is silly notion to ask: if the universe keeps expanding, then what? Are the atoms and subatomic particles going to move so wide apart that they are simply going to evaporate? No. The ancient philosophers of Tantra spoke of light expanding, becoming space; space being filled with light; everything around us being one with this light, akasha; for there is no part of space which is not light, which is not energy. In other words, akasha, space, is a form of energy, the very first form of energy. If we understand that, only then we can understand what the present day theory is trying to say: that the processes that are taking place in the formation of this universe are as though ripples in space. They are ripples in the vast energy field, called the field of light, that is akasha.

I quote again from the article titled "God's Handwriting" in Newsweek of May 4, 1992. It says, "But for the truly weird, imagine the Big Bang. An explosion of space, not in space, a kernel of cosmos inflating so widely that faster than an eyeblink a blob smaller than a proton grew as big as today's entire visible universe. This infant world, developing ripples of energy in the fabric of its space, the ripples stretching as the universe expanded and creating the sparkling necklaces of stars and the pinwheels of galaxies that bedeck the night sky."

To quote one of the scientists in Berkley "Announced that they had discovered primordial wrinkles floating at the very edge of space and beginning of time. No more than wispy tendrils, they are between 2.9 billion trillion and 59 billion trillion miles across. The most gigantic and the most ancient structures ever seen." That is why Carl Sagan has said that the Hindu cosmology comes closest to the modern Western cosmology. The only difference is that the modern cosmology still separates fields of consciousness from the expanding fields of the universe. And that is why it has no bearing on the principles by which we may live, by which we may order our individual lives, by which we may worship. And I use the word worship with great precision. Worship is the attitude which you may worship nature and the environment as sacred. The consciousness that is in me is not in me. I am that field called consciousness and so also what you refer to as nature is a field of that consciousness.

This expansion and contraction are not opposite principles. They are not to be studied or even thought of in sequence. Evolution is devolution. Creation is dissolution. Creativity is entropy. The beginning is the end in any loop. And the universe is nothing if not a loop. There is nothing in the universe that is not a loop, a chakra, where one does not return to its origins.

To put if differently, whenever in nature one follows a direction of any kind, one must also simultaneously follow in the opposite direction to reach the distant goal as well as to reach the origins. To reach the origin is to reach the most distant end. The ultimate end is the very origin. The origin is the ultimate end. Creation thereby becomes a process that leads to dissolution, and dissolution becomes the process which thereby leads to creation. Thus a student of Sri Vidya, a novice or one proficient in it, ceases to see negations of anything; he sees positions as negations, negations as positions. Not as opposite principles, but as a single composite principle. Wherever he formerly saw opposite principles, he must now see complementary composite principles. Therefore in a debate as to whether X is the correct answer or its opposite, the minus-X or non-X is the correct answer, the answer is in the composite of the X and the non-X. I do not know if the mathematics has been developed to follow through on this. I would say perhaps yes. The close association of the 0 and 1 in the binary system may be an example of this principles. For, it is the zero that gives value to a digit, that often ascertains its value. It is in relation to a zero that we often evaluate a digit.

Again, seeing the two opposites in one and the same, the ancient texts say that from this great expansive self that is the infinitesimally minute pinpoint of light, from this vast expansive self, (tasmad va etasmad atmanah), which is the minutest, infinitesimal pinpoint of light, there arises akasha, the energy that is space, the light that is space. It is also the location of all sound. Now on this basis, the ancient philosophers of Vaisheshika figured out that because of this principle, when something falls elsewhere, we hear its sound as a ripple, as a wave, over here in our ears. In that energy, akasha occurs vayu the wind. From that vayu, comes the fire, the light again, the visible lights of the world, the fires that burn in the universe, such as in the interiors of the suns, as well in the gems. Both are considered as a single principle. Including the lights in between also, the lightnings and the fires we burn with kindling. Then comes the state of flow, the waters; and when the flow reaps its opposite principle of inertia, then comes prithivi, the solid. Then further biological diversity occurs. The process of dissolution, of course, is the reverse. The inner solids begin to flow, the flows become fires, the fires become winds, ripples in space, the space returns to that vast expansive conscious self which is the infinitesimally minute pinpoint of light, the tejo-bindu, the nada-bindu.

To comprehend this, one must go through the process of dhyana-bindu. The point that is meditation; the point of concentration on the principle of consciousness. So once again, the discussion as to whether the universe is expanding and will keep on expanding and into what it will keep on expanding, is invalid. The question itself is untenable. Any argument, only based on that will ultimately be found to be untenable because while the universe is expanding, it is contracting. The akuñchana and prasarana that I spoke of earlier from the Vaisheshika philosophers, are taking place simultaneously. While it is expanding, it is returning into that pinpoint of light. It is not that one process is the reverse of the other, but the two, what appears to us to be two, is a single, composite process.

Thus, Sri Vidya begins where the current understanding of quantum physics ends. It is the science of sciences, the mega-science. Wherever there is a study of points, lines, configurations, graphs, charts, it is part of Sri Vidya. Wherever we study forms as fields of energy, it is Sri Vidya. But it is experienced only with the assimilation of these principles into our consciousness; not in intellectual process, but in our very being, in our very essence; so that our essence is not seen apart from the ever expanding and contracting universe. Therefore, Sri Vidya cannot be learned as a series of drawings alone, the drawing of a yantra. It has to be learned as concentration on the points within.

If you take diagrams of the chakras within our personality, and superimpose them one upon the other, it becomes the internal Sri Yantra. It is not by drawing on paper that one will learn Sri Yantra. It is by doing the drawings within. That is why it is such a long process. The mastery of the points and the expansions and contractions can take a hundred lifetimes.

One one hand, Sri Vidya is a science of internal energy fields, where all the fields become one composite field. This entire field is drawn into a single pinpoint of concentration, the point becoming the centre--not the centre of something--but of itself within itself, as well as the point from which the expansion occurs. It is at these points within the centres of the chakras that the forces in the universe that have been ejected from the original point of light, meet and merge in us. By entering into those points with our entire mind and bursting through them like an atomic explosion do we thereby become one with the expansion in the universe. That is called cosmic consciousness, the awareness of virat, the vision that Krishna gave to Arjuna, the vision that Yama granted to Nachiketas.

So, the entire science, for example, of the marmas in ayurveda is part of Sri Vidya. Marmas are the points in the body where a little pressure can cause an illness or death. Or a healing. Similar are the points of acupuncture. They are all parts of Sri Vidya.

In the Tantras it is said that one cannot learn music without the study of dance. One cannot learn dance without sculpture. One cannot learn sculpture without architecture. One cannot learn architecture without music. One cannot learn music without architecture. One cannot learn architecture without sculpture. One cannot learn sculpture without dance. One cannot learn dance without music. For architecture is forms; it is solid music; music in solids; music cubed. Music can be seen as graphs; arising and falling of lines and energies. Make them into three dimensional solids, it becomes architecture. The body of architecture is dance. The relationship of dance and architecture is in sculpture. That is why some of the most profound works of architecture in India were sculpted out of mountains. One can still visit these two-story, three-story monasteries simply sculpted out of the mountains without a single piece of masonry in which the pillars constitute intricate dancing figures as part of that sculpture.

This composite vision of art is part of Sri Vidya. And then one needs to see the entire universe as architecture and God as the architect. See the entire universe as music and dance, as we see in the dance of Shiva. All that is part of Sri Vidya, it is a great, grand vision. No, not vision. Not imagination. But, the image of reality.

Here I do not want to lead you into what again may be dismissed as superstition. Tell me, how is it that, in all the cultures, the benefits of so many herbs have been so accurately established? By what trials, approved by what FDA, did the thousands of herbs of the Indian pharmacopoeia become defined as suitable or unsuitable for certain diseases and certain healing processes? I assure you that that, too, is part of Sri Vidya. In fact, some of the herbs have been identified as suitable for certain healing only by their shape, their line drawing, pointing to the similarity of a certain organ. Now that does not mean that if a leaf looks like a hand then it is good for healing the hands. One has to go much deeper, one has to observe and experiment.

The shapes of mountains, and their peaks, the apexes of the pyramids, the spires of the churches, the shikharas of the temples of India, all of these are line drawings of music, the lines along which the energy of expansion and contraction flows in the universe.

Even the ordinary chessboard is a yantra, part of Sri Yantra. It is a simplified bhu-pura, the earth-city, the earth as a city in which all the patterns are taking place, divided into 64 subsquares. So also in the tradition of yoga we speak of 64 yoginis, which are principles of establishing relationships between squares and cubes. Establishing relationships between arithmetical squares and cubes on one hand and geometric squares and cubes on the other through the process of seed mathematics is a part of understanding the mathematics of the universe as architecture. The sanskrit word used also in the current, modern Indian education system for algebra is bija ganita, seed mathematics in which signs play a role like that of bija-mantras.

So, into how many areas can we enter, altogether, simultaneously, and see the relationships? How is it that without the aid of the computer in the ancient times one could figure out the number of rice grains? One of the origins of the chessboard, is that a king offered to the priest/mathematician as much rice as he wanted. The priest said: "Oh, one grain of rice on one square of the chessboard, then double that one on the second square, then double that on the third square, and so on." The king could not fulfill the demand because the figure reaches more than the amount of rice that can cover the whole earth. Or even more than all the number of atoms in the universe. The game of chess has more possible moves than all the atoms in the whole universe. How were these calculations made? On a square board, divided into 64, what is the relation between the four corners of the square and the figure 64?

When you begin to see these relationships, then you immediately begin to drop the relationships, because relationships are between two. Until the number two is dropped, the unity will not be established. Without that unity, the merger of consciousness into the pinpoint of light will not occur. Until one sees it all into that single pinpoint of light you will not understand that the universe actually is not even expansion of the pinpoint of light, but rather replication, the same point occurring again and again and again. The same one point. And the point, having occurred so many times, having replicated itself, identical to the very original pinpoint, becomes a light, becomes a ray, becomes a line, becomes a ripple, becomes a figure.

In drawing the Sri Yantra within the human body also we go through the same process that we understand in the drawing of Sri Yantra on a wooden, copper, silver or golden squared board. The downward expansion, the upward expansion. Contraction of forces into a point. Expansion of forces from the point.

The 61-point exercise known to the practicing meditators, for instance, simply delineates the periphery of the bhu-pura, of the city that is the earth, the earth that is the city, which is the body, in this particular case. And when you will see the relationships among those 61 points, how many lines can one draw from one point to the other 60 points? How can one connect those 61 points? Then the sadhaka is amazed at what fields of energy are dancing within us. When one uses any of those 61 points as an entry point into the linga, the subtle body, one finds that the awareness will have to pass through certain central points, and from there expand, to permeate the whole body. Here is a theory of personality based on experiential epistemology that is yoga.

In preparing the personality to be seen by oneself as a Sri Yantra, so that one may see the universe as a Sri Yantra, so that one can understand these line drawings, one goes through the process of bhuta-shuddhi, purification of the constituents of personality. And when total purification is completed the personality becomes a Sri Yantra.

In drawing the internal Sri Yantra, one may take a chakra and may be taught to draw its bhu-pura first, the boundary, the ramparts of this citadel, of this particular city. Then he finds the entry point; then find where the energy flows meet, and then swim along those flows of energies coming to the central point. Or one may start from the point and expand outwards to the ramparts, to the bhu-pura. Or one may see the two processes as a singular process in a single instant. That is why the phrase that the article I just read to you from Newsweek touched me: "faster than an eyeblink." It said, "A kernel of cosmos inflating so widely that, faster than an eyeblink, a blob smaller than a proton grew as big as today's entire visible universe." I have in my lectures on meditations from the Tantras spoken on unmesha and nimesha. Now remember that the eyeblink is a measure of time in all the Indo-aryan or Indo-European systems. Augenblick is a measure of time in German, augenblickje in Dutch. The time it takes for the eye to blink. In the blink of an eye. In the shortest possible moment. The idea is derived from the unmesha and the nimesha. Unmesha, out-blinking the eye. Nimesha, in-blinking the eye. This opening and closing of eyelids.

yasonmesha-nimeshabhyam jagatah pralayodayau;

tam shakti-chakra-vidhava-prabhavam shankaram stumah

We adore Him,

The creator of Harmony and Peace,

The Origin of the diverse glories of the whirls (chakras) of energy,

The One by whose outblinking and inblinking

the creation and dissolution of the universe occur.

I. 1 in Spanda-nirnaya of Kshemaraja

2. A record cassette of the process of bhuta-shuddhi by Dr. Rajmani Tigunait is available at the Himalayan Institute.

This is from one of the texts of Kashmir Shiva philosophy that developed from the seventh century to the seventeenth century A.D. and reigned supreme during that time. These texts, all say that unmesha is nimesha; nimesha is unmesha. Out-blinking is in-blinking; in-blinking is out-blinking. Opening the chakra means closing the chakra. Drawing the chakra-world to its most central point is the goal of such concentration. It is practiced so that what others call expansion is understood to be expending, debilitating of energies in pursuit of sensual desires. The sense thoughts and sense emotions must cease and the principle of the conservation of energy be followed, for the energy to be drawn to that central point from which it ripples out as spanda, as a spontaneous vibration at all times.

Just as in the practice of internal concentrations in Sri Vidya, so also in learning to draw the Sri Yantra there are two processes among others. Drawing from the bhu-pura, from the ramparts, inwards. From the ramparts inward to the central point, to the palace of the great Mother. The opposite way, from the inner point outwards.

One of the branches of Sri Vidya is surya-vijñana, the solar science. The solar science establishes a connection between the rays of the mind and the rays that solidify to become forms. As a child I read an article on surya-vijñana, on the solar science, in the yoga issue of the well-known Hindi magazine known as Kalyana. The article was by the then most famous scholar of Tantra, Gopinath Kaviraj. After fifty years I found the book again in my library and I was surprised how much of it I remembered. Because the article triggered something in me as a child and ever since then I kept longing to meet a master who would show me the solar rays of the mind.

If it were simply a matter of sitting down and drawing a diagram, well, anybody can draw diagrams. I can draw a straight line, more or less! I'm still learning to draw the line, learning to understand a little of the triangles; how the triangles merge into the points and how the points expand into triangles. The lines of energy that go from one of the 61 points to all the other 60 and how they interlink: I have quite yet to envision fully. My own perception is that one cannot learn these sciences without 24-hour concentration. Take, for example, the demonstrations of surya-vijñana, the solar science. The writer of that article spoke of his guru who said that everything in the universe is rays of energy. The mind also is a ray of energy or, rays of energy emanate from the mind, and one connects these rays of energy to produce any form. The Tantras say, sarvam sarvatmakam: Everything is everything. Gold is lead, lead is oxygen, oxygen is hydrogen, hydrogen is uranium. For, essentially, in their energy essence, they are all one; it is only a matter of manipulating the energies. The ancient alchemists of the West or the masters of al kimia believed it to be so. "Al," which is the definitive article in arabic, "kimia" from which the English word chemistry is derived. Masters of al-kimia in the arabic civilization and the masters of rasayana in India all spoke of the fire within everything. They stated that if we can learn to manipulate the fire within everything we can change anything into anything.

So, the master of solar science could, within the view of his disciples, produce first a shimmer in the air. The shimmer becomes delineated, the lines become form and there is a lotus flower. It was demonstrated thus. Or look at it differently. We have spoken of light and sound as one. My master Swami Rama speaks of the experiments they made in the caves: spreading sandalwood powder on a square board and producing sound vibrations in its presence by reciting a seed-mantra in an appropriate notation of sound and music. They thereby simply produced a Sri Yantra design in the sandalwood powder. Now, who among us has such concentration of mind to produce the like result. We don't even understand what we mean by rays of the mind, let alone transmit them, and then have them connect with the rays which solidify as forms.

Many cities in India have been built around Sri Yantra. There is a book titled Hindu Temple by the famous scholar, late Stella Kramrisch. It's a classic. A reading of this book would explain how some of the great architectural wonders are built around partial application of the Sri Yantra principle. So are the pyramids. When a yantra takes a three-dimensional form, that form is then called a meru. The meru is the central mountain of the universe. Since the entry into the interior cave of personality for meditation was one and the same principle as of finding a cave in a mountain for meditation, the projection of this two-fold principle of entry into the cave then became architecture. When you enter a temple or a cathedral, you are entering the cave in the mountain, the cave of the heart, the cave of the skull. Hence sometimes we refer to the skull as a dome.

There are at least three cities in India named after Sri. The capital of Kashmir, Sri Nagar. Another Sri Nagar is in the Garhwal Mountains, which we pass when we go to the great shrines for pilgrimage. And, one of the old cities where New Delhi--the capital of India--is situated has an area even now known as Siri. Alas, time passed and people stop being part of the energy field; they cease to identify with the energy field of the city. The locations of the Sri Yantras are lost. All kinds of dissentions among the people occur because the field is destroyed; or it is warped by their dissentions.

One of the dimensions of Sri Vidya is to honor the Shakti principle in living human beings, especially the recognition of this mother Shakti principle in women. For women to see themselves as shakti, as sacred energy, and for men to see women as embodiment, incarnation of shakti. Shakti, the sacred energy of consciousness having become flesh. What it means is brahmacharya, the practice of celibacy. Not practice of celibacy as a psychologically-damaging suppression but an assimilation of upward and inward energy. One who is initiated into Sri Vidya at one time or another will slowly, naturally become celibate because the habit of expending the energy of svadhishthana chakra will be changed into expanding, that is contracting. Closing the outward gates and opening the inward flood gates. In fact, one of the symptoms of the opening of the second centre of consciousness is natural celibacy. Synonymous with opening of the sixth centre. The two are almost identical. So long as there remains in man a desire for woman, in woman a desire for man, as principles exterior to them, no celibacy can occur. It can only be a suppression and not a solitude of serenity.

In certain Shakti temples in India once a month on the full moon the worship of Sri in the form of a living lady is performed. She sits on a seat of honor and receives the worship. The reader would say, "What? I worship a human being, a lady?" It is not the worship of a human being. I change the direction here a little. Sometimes when I pay my respects to my master or address him the word that has popped out of my mouth involuntarily has been 'mataji,' a respectful way of addressing one's mother. The first time it occurred I said, "Oh, excuse me, Swamiji," apologizing for my mistake. But he said, "Oh, no, quite correct." Because one may worship the mother principle even in a male body. People who have difficulty in seeing the Mother Principle in women will have further difficulty in understanding this form of the worship of God.

It cannot be understood intellectually. Either it occurs as an assimilated internal principle or it doesn't occur at all. I have observed that when such worship of the live Sri is performed, the person in whom the Sri at that time is invoked and resides, changes. A deification occurs. If Christ can be present in a piece of bread, why can't shakti be present in a living woman? And be honored and worshipped.

One might object: I do not want to deify a human being. But who am I to deify a human being? Deifying means 'making into a deva, making into divine.' It is not the worshipper who makes him divine. It is not the worshipper who causes the consubstantiation or transubstiation in the host to occur. It is the Grace that does it. The person becomes deified by an internal presence. From that moment the person has no personal name, no personal form. The worship is not offered to the person of that name, shape and form but to the divine principle that becomes manifest. I have seen that change occur. You can see the stance; you can see the entire body undergo a transformation; you can see the eyes and you know then that you are not in the presence of a person. That some internal universal beauty named Mother Lalita has come and taken abode to receive the worshippers' offering. We call Her Tripura-sundari. Tri means three. Pura means polis. Sundari beauty. The three Miss Universe! The Beauty of the three universes. She comes and dwells there. It is the same as the primary force of consciousness, as the lightning of all beings. Sometimes this lightning becomes Shiva, or it becomes Shakti, and emanates from you. You embrace your emanation and you say you have married. This divine marriage into which a Christian monk enters, is the same marriage which is the marriage of Shiva and Shakti, which is the marriage of Krishna and Radha, which is the marriage of Rama and Seeta, which is the marriage of you and your lightning.

In this interplay of the potent and the potency, the potent and the potency become one. Hence the very first verse of Saundarya-lahari celebrates the potent one joined by the potency.

In this internal marriage of the potent and the potency, the entire dance of the universe takes place. The earth in the first chakra, the waters in the second, the fires in the third, the winds in the fourth, the space, akasha, in the fifth one; the mind in the sixth. The Lord and the Lady in eternal embrace in the seventh. All presided over by the great Sri or Lalita, the Principle of eternal beauty. Not the beauty of forms but that principle, which dwelling within shapes and forms, beautifies them from within, giving them balances, harmonies and proportions. These emanating and reabsorbing forms constantly interact in the Sri Yantra form of 43 triangles. Four upward triangles, five downward triangles and konas, angles, take shape. I have spoken of the process of five-fold devolution, space to winds, to fires, to flows, to forms. These have their correspondences in the five chakras. The Verse 14 of the Saundarya-lahari says that the earth principle dwelling in the first centre has 56 rays emanating; the flow principle in the second centre has 52 rays; the ripples of winds principle dwelling in the heart centre has 54 rays; the throat centre containing the akasha, the principle of sound and space and their unity, has 72 rays; and the dwelling place of the mind, the ajña chakra, has 64 rays emanating from it. "Above all of these rays are thy two brilliant feet, Oh Mother"--says the verse.

So the question arises: where do I go from here? You contemplate these principles. You create time for the contemplation of the principles. Learn to change your vision of the relationships in the universe. Vision, and sentiment, concerning the relationship between men and women.

An average Nobel prize-winning philosopher of science even would be hard-put to see these connections. He would say that it is a hodgepodge of linguistic confusions. Now what is the relationship between sub-atomic particles and expanding of the universe with the worship of a woman in a temple, good God! He is likely to dismiss the entire thinking process. I wish there could be a conference between Western scientists and Eastern scientists. We could provide at least theories to answer some of the problems in modern philosophy of science. We could show how the consciousness dwelling in a pinpoint of light within my heart centre is the same as the pinpoint of the light of consciousness which exploded in a big bang and became the mahanada, the megasound.

Stated above, there are two ways of looking at the Sri Yantra or at any of the chakras within ourselves. Entering from the ramparts of the earth city, the fortress built on the earth city, and then going to occupy the central squares of the chessboard. Or expanding from there outwards. The one and the other are not two processes but one. That the expansion of the universe and its contraction and dissolution into the central point of light is one and the same. So that ultimately the two major systems of drawing the Sri Yantra also must be assimilated. When they are assimilated, that is called the samayachara. Where the guru's mind and the disciple's mind become inseparable, the individual mind and the universal mind cannot be delineated as separate, and the entire mind of the universe becomes your mind--is called samayachara. I wish that we could elaborate on these in a dialogue with the present-day philosophers of science.

Now again, to the question as to "Where do I go from Here?" Take time for contemplation. Memorizing the whole of Saundarya-lahari and reading a very poetic translation of it is not going to do it. There is a very beautiful poetic translation of it by W. Norman Brown, a very senior American sanskrit scholar who left his body some years ago. But that will show you nothing. Contemplate. Deepen the practice. Try to bring your meditation to a point. Your determination to know should be just that, but no effort on your part is going to open the portals of the bhu-pura, of the ramparts of the earth city. That will happen only by grace, only by grace, "whomsoever he shall choose, shall find"--says the Upanishad. You keep knocking, yes, but there must be an element of self surrender and a decision in you that you want to prepare yourself as much as possible. When your mind is ready, there is no reason whatsoever that a master of Sri Vidya will not introduce you to what you can grasp, learn, master. If you have been given one verse of Saundarya-lahari to practice, then practice it.

Keep looking for the central point within, that is the point from which the universe is created, to which the universe is returning. It is the point within your centre to which the universe is returning through its expansion. It is this very point whose expansion is the entire Sri Yantra, the yantras of all your chakras superimposed upon one another, a single stem passing through them, becoming the thousand-petaled sheltering tree in your skull. Even those thousand petals must be dropped. There remains only a vertical line and that vertical line contracts and becomes a point again. This constant evolution-devolution, expansion-contraction, the merger in the unity of centripetal and centrifugal, this expanding and expending goes on constantly as a single process. Understand it. Observe it within. Integrate it and remain true to your practice. Whatever you are prepared for will definitely come to you.

Friends,

we wre informed that the FIRST memorial service for Swami Hari will be held on
JUNE 29, 2009 in Malethi, India.


This is the program for the day:

1. Garlanding the photo of Swamiji.
2. Morning recitals in the memory.
3. Rituals
4. Health camp by Himalayan Instt.
5. Bhandara (community lunch)

Time: June 29, 2009, from 8 A.M. to 1 P.M. and onward.


Those of us who had the pleasure and privilege to know Swami Hari, can at least
remember his memory on this special day.

In service,
John Zavrel

The ancient TARKESHWAR TEMPLE in the Himalayas, where Swami Rama of the Himalayas attained enlightenment. His birthplace was in the nearby village of TOLI. Swami Hariharananda (Swami Hari) spent seven years in this temple.

A close-up view of the temple from the back, surrounded by majestic pine trees. From the top of the mountain, one can see the vast Himalayan range with the highest peaks.

Swami Rama of the Himalayas (right) initiates Swami Hariharananda into his tradition. Swami Rama arrived with a group of his students the preceeding night, and the next day, on October 23, 1992 performed the initiation.

A walking distance from the Tarkeshwar Temple is the village of TOLI, the birthplace of Swami Rama. Recently, a Computer School was establised by the initiative and efforts of Swami Hariharananda (Swami Hari) in Toli. In front of the building is the bronze portrait bust of Swami Rama by the European sculptor Kurt Arentz.

By Prof. Hermann Oberth

Member of the Alexander Order

John Zavrel, Chacellor of the Order of Alexander the Great, with Professor Hermann Oberth in Feucht, Germany.

Foto Copyright: MARCO, Bonn

The coming decades will be dramatic enough for humanity even without atomic wars or other military confrontations. Dangers such as overpopulation, destruction of the environment, a decreasing supply of raw materials, educational and intellectual deficiencies in a large part of the population, dangers such as these are gradually becoming apparent to the average European, American, and Asian and are forcing the governments to exercise foresight, to be responsible, and to deal with more problems than ever before.

A. The Space Reflector, Space Travel, Space Stations, and Wind-Driven Power Stations

In order to gain time against the greatest danger, namely overpopulation by people who are incapable of culture, it is urgent that we take in hand the following technological projects.

I have already discussed a few of these in my writings, "Ways to Space Travel", "The Space Reflector", and "The Kite Power Station" (a wind-driven power station at high altitudes).

1. With the aid of the space reflector we can:
2.  
1. increase the amount of arable land on earth,
2. improve the climate,
3. illuminate large cities,
4. keep the Arctic harbors free of ice,
5. provide the earth with a source of energy which is not harmful to the environment and which can also be used to produce electricity,
6. provide energy which can be used as microwave beams to propel rockets into space, etc.
3.  
4. In my book, "Ways to Space Travel", I described as early as 1929 the rocket technology which is used today, the future design of an electrical spaceship for interplanetary travel, the smelting of lunar ore, and the lunar centrifuge necessary to get this material to the 60-degree libration point of the system Earth-Moon and store it there. This material is to be used to build manned space stations, the space reflector, and other large construction projects. I suggested the construction of terrariums on the moon for people, as well as the building of space telescopes and the study and use of asteroids.
5.  
6. The wind-driven power station at high altitudes, which is not built on towers or poles but is carried by balloons up to 12,000 meters, could alleviate the earth's energy shortage considerably. Cheap electricity could be used to desalt sea water and propel traffic on the highways by means of electrically-powered tow cables, thus eliminating some environmental problems and saving oil.

Producing electricity by utilizing such natural sources as waves, tides, and the sun is what I consider to be our most urgent task in the coming years.

Many of the power stations driven by the waves at the mouth of the Amazon River would also cause the loam which is floating in the water to settle, and land can thus be reclaimed. The same thing could also be done at the mouths of other large rivers.

B. Water Utilization

Water is our most valuable raw material. It should be employed to better advantage than it has been up to now.

For instance, central Asia could be irrigated by closing off the northern part of the Caspian Sea with a dam and directing the waters of the Volga to central Asia. An additional possibility for irrigating central Asia could be achieved if the waters of the Danube, the Dniester, the Dnieper, and the Don Rivers were combined after damming off the northern part of the Black Sea. This water should then be directed by a canal into the Sea of Azov and then into the Caspian Sea by way of the Manych Depression. If this were done, lakes and forests would be created in central Asia which would improve the climate (mild winters and early spring) there as well as Europe.

Even Saudi Arabia and Iran could be irrigated, if the Persian Gulf were sealed off at the Strait of Hormuz and the water of the Shatt-el-Arab used. Of course, sea water from the Persian Gulf would also have to be drawn out and desalted.

Too much water from the Mississippi and the Nile still flows into the sea.

In Australia, too, water which flows into the ocean would be redirected inland by creating man-made valleys.

C. Water Reservoirs

The sheets of ice over the Antarctic could likewise be thickened in order to create a reservoir. A 200-kilometer-wide cooling strip could be built up around the land mass. In the glaciers, shafts might be drilled down to the earth's surface; in these shafts cooling liquid circulates which is cooled down from the top and then cools the earth and prevents the glacier from moving. In doing this care is to be taken that the coolant does not enter the ice mass or sea. The earth will not be driven off its axis or crack as a result of this; only the Platonic year will be a bit longer. Around the North Pole, too, an enclosure of 1000 to 2000 kilometers in diameter could be built. The walls should reach 4000 meters above sea level. Inside, the water will freeze all the way down to the earth's surface. Later the enclosure will be filled up to the brim with ice and snow. Through these efforts the sea level will drop several meters, and the land will reclaim what the sea once took from it.

All these measures would increase the salt content of the oceans, and they would have to be desalted to the point where they are today. Then, too, the plan of the "King of the Sahara," as de Lesseps, the son of the architect of the Suez Canal, called himself, could be realized. Already at the close of the previous century this man suggested redirecting sea water by means of a canal to the part of the Sahara which lies below sea level.

Additional reservoirs could be created by subterranean water reservoirs, which could be sealed up with deep-sea clay.

D. Reports of the Uranics

In one of his last communications, my medium wrote: "Even in technology we are more advanced than you are. We could teach you a great deal in this area, and you would be attentive pupils, but we do not want to make you stronger in an area where you are already strong enough. Your culture is comparable to a ship whose cargo has all been placed on one side and is keeling over. Technology is masculine wisdom; what you are lacking is feminine wisdom. The masculine mind holds sway over the principle of destruction; the feminine, over construction. One should only destroy where something better can be built instead. Furthermore, however, it is also God's will that you be permitted to solve your own problems, so that you will gain experience and become stronger in the struggle for survival and in your battle against the powers of evil. Most of this can only be learned through experience. You must also withstand personal misfortune and suffering and do your own discovering and inventing. We can only make suggestions as to where and how your strengths should best be used and what your goals should be instead of dissipating your energies in petty national jealousies and ideological battles. Dispense with nuclear power plants. You should continue atomic research, for God wants you to enjoy learning and discovering new things. But in addition build space stations at the 60-degree libration points between the Earth and the Moon. Such research work belongs in space, not on a flourishing planet. The danger is greater than you think. You have the capability to make the earth uninhabitable for human beings. To us it would make no difference. We know of creatures who live in a climate like the one you are about to create on earth. We would resettle them on earth if you annihilate yourselves and your fellow creatures. But it would be a shame to lose you and waste the efforts which your God expended on you and His Creation. Disarm yourselves and guard against bellwethers who run into burning stalls out of fear; and do not be like the hare who, afraid of the beater, exposes himself to the hunter's gun!

Learn birth control! Whoever prevents his God from erasing strokes from the living picture which he has drawn, must blot them out himself and bear the blame for the damages if he makes a mistake. Beware of the great seducer: Nobody can speak as pleasingly and piously as he. He has often been mistaken for God and God for him. But El-Elion* is inexorable: It is a natural law!

An excerpt from the book "Primer For Those Who Would Govern" by Prof. Hermann Oberth.

This book can be ordered from West-Art, 10545 Main Street, Clarence, New York 14031 (USA). Price is $ 20 plus $ 4 for shipping. More information, zavrel@...

 

A sage of our times: Swami Veda Bharati, disciple of Swami Rama of the Himalayas, brings the message of the power of non-violence in everyday life to America. Speaking to a group of students near Albany, New York, Swami Veda says, 'act is not vilolence, mind is non-violence'. And he urges us to be free of the deepest fear in our lives--the fear of death.The source of that fear is that we are aware, deep inside us, that we visit death upon others all the time.

All that glows in the living human being is of the Divine origin, of the Divine Presence. Dark shades are of matter. You are not of the matter. You are an exile from the glowing world of Light's delights, in this world of appearances of material forms.

An exile in a material body prison, confined, delimited, thinking yourself to be a being who is 5'6" or 6'2"... whereas when you are in your own country in a world of unlimited delight, in which there are no dark shadows of limitations.

The being whose body this is, containing trillions of cells, is a puny being compared to the being whose body is the universe, containing trillions of stars, planets and space of purity and of Light alone... you are that being whose body is the universe. Know Thyself. Come out of this prison, this confinement, this exile where everything disturbs you, and yet you hang on to this source of disturbance -- like a prisoner who has lived in a prison for 40 years and considers that to be his home, and is afraid to come out of the prison into the wide world. Such a prisoner you are. Break the bars and shackles that have boxed your consciousness into a confined space.

When you think of yourselves as one, small unit of consciousness confined to a box, placed inside the bars of a prison, you become little, you become small. Divorced, separated, divested of the supreme identity, which identity is not of multiplicities, but of unity in infinity.

Then there is no 'other'...

I always advise my friends and students to become Self-centered. But first find who this 'Self' is, who is to be your center.

That Self, upon re-cognizing which as your own identity, no 'other' remains.

The one without a second. That one, you are.

There is no other but you in the entire universe.

You say, 'But I am I, he is he, she is she, what about all of these multiplicities?' How many units, numbers is takes to constitute infinity? All the numbers arise from infinity, no matter how many numbers you subtract from infinity, infinity is thereby not reduced, infinity is thereby not increased.

Such is this unity in infinity. All of you numbers who think you have been subtracted from infinity, are not subtractions. All of you numbers merged back, added to infinity, are not additions. You, the number, were never outside infinity.

When you know that to be so, then God is not one.

I do not believe in one God...for one is a number, and God cannot be numbered. God is infinite.

So also you, a dweller in your homeland called infinity, when you view yourself as a number, you exile yourself from your homeland.

This knowledge, this re-knowing, re-cognizing is called ahimsa, is called non-violence, and without this knowledge, there is no non-violence.

Then, there is fear.

In the Yoga Sutras, in my commentary on Chapter II, 'fear' and 'violence' are interchangeable words, they are synonyms. Only someone afraid carries a gun. The bigger the gun, the greater the fear. You want to see the size of someone's fear, just look at the size of his gun. And what would you say of a nation afraid, with this terminology?

Fear arises from the concept of a second, the concept of 'another'. When there is no 'other', then there is no fear.

All the millions of nations that are at war with each other inside your scull, projected outwards, become the intrnational conflicts and no number of treaties, no amount of signing truces and cease-fires brings peace, so long as there are these nations fighting in each individual scull.

Peace begins in your mind, non-violence begins in your mind, ahimsa begins in your mind.

The acts are only a natural stream, flowing our of that sam-adhana, that harmonizing, that bringing together.

You are walking alone, in a narrow, dark street at night. You hear footsteps. 'I'm alone, I wonder who that is, whose footsteps I hear..Oh, they're coming toward me...I wish I had a knife in my pocket, I wish I had a gun, I'm afraid'.

The other person -- now transfer your "I" into that person's "I" -- the other person is alone, in a narrow, dark street, and he or she hears your footsteps...'Oh, footsteps! I wonder who that is? I wish I had a knife in my pocket!'

Which of the two is the source of that fear? Did you generate the fear in him, did he generate the fear in you?

You did not generate the fear in him, he did not generate the fear in you. The thought of the 'otherness' generated the fear.

When you become the being whose body is the universe--there is a term in the Bhagavad Gita, "vasudeva" -- vasudeva principle, the in-dwelling deity in all beings and in all entities, this 'vasudeva' is ALL. In the Sanskrit language, one of the names of God is 'sarvam' -- meaning "all".

See, the name of God is "all" -- God is all-being...and when you discover this all-being, then you become 'Self-centered', by a different definition of Self. At present, you are ego-centered, not Self-centered. You're centered into that box which is placed behind the bars of the prison that is time and space, a box made of the three metals, sattva, rajas, and tamas ... the three gunas, and that is a box that is very difficult to break out of.

For other boxes to break out of you need a hammer and saw--for this one, you only need sankalpa - will. Not a 'wish', but a 'will'! There is a difference between a wish and a will...most people are not willing, they are only wishing.

A meditator gathers his consciousness, focuses it. The amount of light that is lighting the walls of this room and the faces in this room -- the same amount of light, gathered together, passed through a gem, becomes a laser beam with which you can operate on a cancer, can operate on a cornea, or send a message to the moon. It only takes this amount of light, no more.

It only takes this amount of will, no more.

Pass it through the jewell of concentration and your will cuts through this dry, metallic box and releases you beyond the confinements of the delimited spaces and times, back into your homeland called infinity, in which there is no 'other'.

You think with the gray matter inside your scull, you see with your eyes, you smell with your nostrils, you hear with your ears, you touch with your skin, you lift, receive, grab, give, caress, slap with your hands. You move with your feet, you digest with your digestive organs, you breathe with your respiratory organs, you cleanse with your system of elimination, you speak with your mouth -- no, you speak with your MIND first, then you produce the speech, utter something with your mouth.

All of these outwardly, apparently separate functions--they belong to whom? They belong to one.

To someone who thinks, the same one who sees, same one who smells, hears, touches, breathes, moves, grabs, receives. Through all of these organs, through all of these limbs, through all of your cells and pores in which each cell has a life of its own -- through all the different parts of the brain courses that unity, that oneness, and you do not doubt that that one who is in the hand is the same one who is in the head. And the same one in the navel and the same one in the lungs...

But they are all performing different functions.

Once upon a time, in the concourse of an artery, two genious, prodigeously intelligent cells met. And one said, 'Listen, I just found out something, a realization dawned on me, a very high realization -- I do not know why it does not dawn on all the other fellow-cells of mine, brothers and sisters -- that there is some being, from whom we arise, in whom we dwell, into whom we dissolve. There is a being, it is from that being that our life proceeds, and when our individual cellular bodies die, the life continues into that being'.

And the other cell says, 'You're crazy! Show me that being!'

Show a human being to this cell!

There is no proof of your being the unity of all those cells in your body, each one of which is performing a different function-- a stem cell could become liver, or could become pancreas, or could become eyes.

You and I are in the position of the same two cells.

There is a being from whom we are born, in whom we dwell, into whom we dissolve.

Show me! Where is this God of yours? Show that cell where is that human!

Those in whom this realization has dawned, are 'the awakened ones'.

The word Buddha means 'the awakened one'. They are the awakened ones. They are awakened to this reality in which there is no 'other'.

Ahimsa begins at that point.

Just as from the cell of your brain to the cells in your toes, there is a diversity and there is a unity.

There is a continuum...and in that continuum, the multiplicity of functions is united.

When you see all beings with the same view, that we are all cells in a single body called the universe.

So then the cells in the eyes do not contemplate murder of the cells of the hand which are holding an ugly object which the eyes do not wish to see, because between the eyes and the hand, there is a continuum.

Only when you realize that between this cell that you call your personality and all the other entities there is a similar continuum, then there is no 'other'.

Non-violence, ahimsa, Gandhi said repeatedly, is not to be confused with fear, with cowardliness, with running sway. Gandhi also said that if your sister is being assaulted by someone and you just stand there doing nothing in the name of non-violence, that is cowardice.

All the martial arts of the world have been invented by monks. All the martial arts of India are invented by the yogis. All the martial arts of China and Japan are invented, taught and maintained up to this day by monks!

How do you reconcile this dichotomy?

Think about it.

The yogis invented all the martial arts of India, and still continue them. There was no greater martial arts expert than Swami Rama of the Himalayas. One day he was carrying some large amount of money for his mission, on some lonely road between Dehradun and Rishikesh--at that time it was all forest areas-- and he was stopped by some robbers--hefty fellows--carrying big sticks and whatever else--'Show us what you have!'

'I'll show you what I have--you got that big stick. Just hold that stick like this, in both hands in front of you...and Swami Rama hit it with one finger in the middle, and broke it. And said, 'This is what I will do to your scull!' The fellows ran away...

So here we are not talking of 'situational violence' and 'situational non-violence', we are talking of something other: FEAR.

What is fear?

Another word for fear in the Yoga Sutras is abhi-nivesha. Which means an obsession. An obsession with the thought: naham nasyam -- an obsession with the thought 'May I not cease to be'.

'May I not cease to be what I now am!'

What am I now? I'm a man, 6'2", I'm a woman, 5'3", I'm tall, I'm short, I'm young, I'm old, I'm rich, I'm poor, I'm somebody's daughter, I'm somebody's mother, I'm somebody's husband, I'm somebody's wife, somebody's daughter-in-law, mother-in-law, what have you.

All of these divisions imposed upon single infinity, cutting and quartering it. The Upanishads say, 'The day someone will walk down to a market place and will order a piece of space, cut to a certain length and will wrap it up and carry it away, that day there will be peace without knowing the Supreme Self'.

That peace, without knowing the Supreme Self, is as impossible as someone taking a pair of scissors and cutting a piece of space, and wrapping it, selling it and buying it.

This space is the continuum that cannot be cut.

Therefore comes the doctrine of karma, 'What you do to the one you consider 'another', comes back to you!' ... because there was no 'other'.

And Krishna, the Lord incarnate in the Bhagavad Gita says, 'And seeing me as the 'other', they then hurt me, who am the same one as themselves; in that 'other', not knowing I am vasudeva, the in-dwelling deity who is the ALL.

And that is why, the very first word in the practice of yoga is what? AHIMSA!

And it says there in the sutras and the commentaries, that the five yamas and the five niyamas -- which you have been taught so thoroughly and so deeply by your teachers (seeing you, we have a tradition in India, if you want to know how great a teacher is, see their students! -- by seeing you, I see how great they are, and they taught you) ...

... it says all the yamas and niyamas derive from ahimsa, are based in ahimsa, support ahimsa, and are supported by ahimsa.

And without ahimsa, none of these appply.

Because the ultimate in yoga is this Self-realization--realization of the Self, in which there is no 'other'. And until there is no 'other', there is fear.

Walking through a forest in those days when there were tigers, once my master asked me 'you go diving (because scuba-diving was personal hobby for a long time, and I dived in all the different oceans of the world), so he said 'Aren't you afraid of the sharks?' And I was in a naughty mood, so I said 'Swamiji, are you yogis afraid of tigers?' He says 'no'. And I said, 'Well, it is the same thing'.

You encounter a tiger, and if you are a coward, you run. And the tiger smells the release of the hormones in you--the hormones of fear, and attacks. Chases after you and attacks...you've seen that with the dogs.

Or, you're prepared to defend yourself, it is exactly the same hormones, no other that are involved in the counterattack. Physiologically, there is no difference between the fight and flight response, both are tension responses, both are fear responses.

But there is a third response...

The flight response is a coward's response.

The fight response is a response of a brave person, who equals bravery with offence and attack.

There is a third response, and that is yogi's response.

The yogi sits in his forest cave, and the tiger -- who lives by the universal unconscious (unlike you) senses the waves you are generating from the superconscious both into the conscious and the universal unconscious, senses (he has no words for it) and is drawn to the source of those waves, and sits down by your side, like a cub approaching the mother.

Those who knew Swami Rama of the Himalayas 40 - 50 years back talk of his pet bear, who one day sensed him and his master and another swami, sitting in the cave meditating, sat down outside the cave like a dog. And the swamis came out, and he is sitting there, receiving the petting... Wherever Swami Rama walked, the bear walked behind him, like a dog.

That is non-violence.

That glow is called universal love.

But until you have reached that state, don't walk unarmed and step off your car, or wherever you are, and you encounter a grizzly bear and want to pet him!

So, as you see, I'm not going into the situational thing.

'Oh Swamiji, why is all this going on in the world, is the world coming to an end?'

Soon after this horrible event, soon after September 11, 2002, one of my very dear spiritual daughters wrote me 'Swamiji, what do you think of the war?' I wrote back, 'Of the 36 wars now going on around the planet, which one might you be referring to?'

You stop one war, I assure you, don't worry: there will be another. And another. And another.

For different causes. For different purposes. If it is not a crusade, it is a jihad. If it is not a jihad, then evil people in the 1965 Russia, or somebody else--will continue.

And if it is not this group murdering that group, some other group will be murdering some other group.

Remember the massacre of the Huguenots.

So, situational responses without full spiritual power and strength and realization behind them will only be temporary solutions.

No amount of shouting for peace will bring peace, because those very people who are shouting for peace now (generally speaking), when they get in power, they do exactly the same thing.

You know why? They do not realize that they have the same kind of ego, out of which the preceding tortures have emerged. Each group stands up in the name of justice, in the name of equality, in the name of giving people security and peace, comes into power, and does exactly the same thing. In every country, throughout history, because the leaders of these movements have not worked on their personal emotional purification.

When you are shouting, that is not non-violence.

And you talk of peace in the world, and your wife did not put enough salt on the table, and you blew up. By that moment, you have blown the chances for world peace.

Your child did not complete his or her homework, and you started shouting and yelling at the child, you have destroyed the chances for world peace.

It is your personal angers that you must first conquer.

Whether you are among the leaders, or you are among the led. Whether you are among the powerful, or you are among the weakest sections of society. Whether you are white, black or yellow, whether you are tall or short, man or woman, and you have NOT conquered your PERSONAL anger, and you talk of peace and non-violence--not workable!

Abhi-nivesha -- fear 'May I not cease to be!'

Why do we fear?

Because we fear dying.

All fear is a variation of the fear of death.

Why do we have such fear of death? Do you know why?

Because we are aware, deep inside us, aware of the death that we visit upon others all the time.

And I'd like to pause here...

The death we visit upon others all the time.

We know it is going to recoil, like a boomerang, as in the law of karma, as in Newton's third law of motion, and that is why we are afraid.

And conquest of fear will begin by stopping the death we visit upon other living beings. I do not use the word 'human beings', I use the word 'living beings'!

So, if you want to practice non-violence, do some introspection on this question, 'In what from, in what way, subtle or gross, do I visit death upon others?'

This piece of cloth I am wearing ... what has died? I do not mean only literal death, it can also be figurative death.

I start from the grossest manifestations, the most apparent manifestations, and your sensitivities will increase. And over a period of time, you will eliminate subtler and subtler forms of violence and anger from your life.

Enough people doing that will change the face of the earth. One Gandhi did. One Martin Luther King did.

It is possible for an average individual--Gandhi was a very average individual--you couldn't enter him into a 'Mr. Universe' competition... 'A bag of bones', somebody said. And when he fasted, no more bag, only bones! Not the most handsome man in the world, but beautiful! Not handsome, but beautiful!

You know the difference between being handsome and being beautiful?

He was not working for the independence of India. He was not working for the justice in the society. He was working for his self-purification. That is all.

'May I do the right. May I become the right person. May I complete myself. And when you work on completing yourself--Swami Rama used to say 'We human beings are unfinished products, we are raw materials for humanity, we are not full humanity yet' -- and Gandhi reshaped himself.

And as he reshaped himself, he was so full that it overflowed and it filled the consciousness of his friends and of his enemies. When he was the first time imprisoned in South Africa for opposing the racial discriminations, with his own hands he made a pair of slippers, and sent them to the prime minister of the country, or the governor as a gift. And the man who was responsible for imprisoning him wrote back 'It is my honor to have a prisoner of your caliber'.

And in other countries, people fight for independence, and when independence comes, they want to become presidents, prime ministers--Gandhi took no positions in the administration of India. He was not even present at the celebrations-- he was there, where there were riots going on for the partition of the country. He was walking among the people. He took no part of the celebrations. He was not Prime Minister of any country, he was not President of any country, yet when Gandhi died, the United Nations lowered its flag.

So the power does not come from the social and political position you hold. If you want to change the society, your power comes only from your internal realization of this continuum I have spoken of.

Question: Why did Krishna teach Arjuna to fight? Why are the monks the inventors and keepers of martial arts?

In admonishing Arjuna to fight, the first thing Krishna says is to overcome his fears, his cowardice.

Arjuna was not refusing to fight because of his commitment to non-violence, but out of cowardice. But a coward, given the opportunity, can be more violent--hand a big gun to a coward and see what he does!

So the words in the Bhagavad Gita are, 'Arjuna, fight; but first abandon your feverishness! Then fight.'

The principle in the martial arts is 'The body moves, but something inside you must remain absolutely still.' Have you seen that movie "Karate Kid'? That is the message.

The body moves, most effectively, but the center of consciousness maintains its stillness, which only a monk can do.

So my favorite story on this question is from a Sufi text about two soldiers...

So the form is not non-violence, the interior self-examination is non-violence.

And that is the most subtle and most difficult part of non-violence.

You cultivate, you cultivate it slowly, you make a decision. 'Let me look--in what forms, in what way, directly or indirectly, am I visiting death upon others?'

In my thoughts, in my words, in my language, in my voice, in the way I speak to my employee, in the way I resist my boss, in the way I try to resolve a conflict between me and my wife, and children and generations?

Forget about world peace-- this is the place here, this frame, what you do inside. Like Gandhi, like the masters of martial arts, who are by their teachers at one time or another artificially put into the position of anger, and if they respond with anger, they are disqualified.

(I used to be a very, very angry young man .... the story how his nose bled all night due to anger) ...

The conquest of the world is nothing--the conquest of self is what matters.

You have to overcome anger in everyday life...

You can make these experiments in life.

Starting with the conflicts in your mind, starting with the conflicts between you and those who are closest to you, and finding the path of least resistance, yet being effective.

Being effective through least resistance. You can accomplish it, I assure you of that.

That is where the real base of human power is, that it can convert a disturbed person's mind into a place of tranquility.

One of my favorite stories is about the great poet Tagore--Gandhi and Tagore were both blessed by the same Himalayan masters, I have that on the authority of my own master. And what Tagore has written is not poetry...it is a description of his own mystical experience. And because for such an experience there can be no other language, so what he writes, appears to be poetry.

In India, there is a tradition that every saint has been a poet, every saint. Whether is is Kabir, Tulsi, etc., every saint is a poet. Because there is no other language. It seems like poetry to others, but for them it is the accurate description in the language of the metaphor.

(Story about Kabir writing a poem and someone coming to murder him...'the only time in history a poem was used as a weapon of self-defense'...)

Act is not violence. Act is not non-violence. Act is neutral.

Mind is non-violence.

Realize the need for self-purification, self-conquest, conquest of your own personal angers, replacing them with harmony--not repressing, but replacing them with some other tools that are at your disposal. In the same situations, in which an untrained mind becomes agitated and excited, same very situations that bring about in you a tension response, the very same situations in a trained mind bring about a relaxation response.

Then you have mastered the relaxation techniques, if the first response to a situation of agitation is relaxation. Not that tension arises and then you relax it. Not that anger arises and you suppress it.

That anger no longer arises. Or something else arises. A different kind of emotion arises, a different kind of sentiment arises, that generates a smile. And remember the story of the Sufi soldier...

And as you gradually grow, you realize the continuum in all beings, and there being no 'other', there is no fear, no defense, there is no offence, and you are terminating your exile in the world of multiplicity and returning to your homeland in infinity.

God bless you.

Copyright 2002 Swami Veda Bharati

Lecture given in Albany, New York on June 17, 2002 at the American Meditation Institute.

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The tradition of Yoga and all other related spiritual traditions adhere to the fact that the physical body is built using the subtle body configurations as the mould.

Here I repeat something I have said many times before. If you place a piece of paper on a magnet, sprinkle some iron filings, the iron filings move around and adjust themselves according to the lines of the force field.

So it is that the physical body is built around the magnetic field of the subtle body. The changes in the magnetic field will change the configuration of the iron filings, but not necessarily that a change in the configuration of the iron filings will change the pattern of the magnetic force. However, in our interlinked layers of the personality systems, the spirit, mind, prana, breath and body are so closely connected that they are often inseparable. Changes in one may generate changes in all the others, or may not.

Not derived from this thought, but now generally accepted, theory in modern medical science is that the pattern of the entire body structure is engrained and imprinted in the totality of our brain-mind, even the part of the brain that is primarily responsible for holding this pattern has been recognised. This theory has been forwarded as part of the explanation for what is known as ghost limbs. A foot or a leg has been amputated, but the patient continues to feel pain in the area where it had been before.

My own view of the pain in the ghost limb is that even though the physical part has been cut out, that is the iron filings have been disturbed, the force field is present and the brain-mind experiences the force field even without the nerve extensions, because the feeling is not in the nerve extensions; it is in the pattern imprinted on the brain-mind.

This short note is by way of a suggestion to those in the healing professions. Just as a person undergoing any kind of trauma goes through shock, which is now recognised as a combination of many physiological effects, so also one undergoes a shock during surgery, even though one is fully anaesthetised. This shock is both physiological and psychological.

Here we need to interject the yoga understanding of the phenomena like sleep and coma, as well as unconsciousness introduced through anaesthesia. There is a discussion on this by Shankaracharya in his commentary on one of the Vedanta sutras , mugdhe'rdha-sampattih, but I will not go into the sutra at this time.

No one is ever fully asleep. No one is ever in total coma, nor absolutely unconscious under the effect of anaesthesia. Only that layer of the mind which comes awake is the one that sleeps or becomes comatose or is anaesthetised, not the total mind. The other areas of the mind, such as the observing mind, the seat of the holistic mind, continues to function. As proof of this happening through sleep, I have formerly referred to the following types of evidence:

1. If one were fully asleep how would one respond to his name being called? Who is it who hears it?

2. During sleep our toes become cold. We wake up having covered ourselves, but had not gone to sleep this way. Who was keeping track of whether the toes were cold or warm?

3. As children we rolled off the bed, as adults we don't. We may roll all over the bed and roll from one edge to the other but as we reach that edge, who tells us now not to roll on that way, but to start rolling in the opposite direction?

In the case of comatose persons it is known, for example, that someone placing a loving hand on the person's forehead brings down the blood pressure.

So also in the case of someone anaesthetised. It is like entering a tunnel. Whatever you carry into the tunnel will emerge from the tunnel when you come out. For example, those who go under the anaesthesia remembering their mantra, come out of anaesthesia remembering their mantra. Sometimes the surgeon, to make sure that the person is going under fully, asks the patient to count one, two, three, etc. Slowly the voice fades and the person stops counting and has gone under. As they are coming out of anaesthesia they continue the count where they left off. So something was going on underneath.

All of this needs much more careful and properly designed research. Perhaps under a title like "levels of consciousness during anaesthesia". The observing mind is observing, is experiencing; only the neuro-cerebral connections have been suspended.

There is another principle, especially in Ayurveda, that when there is one imbalance (vaishamya) anywhere in the body, some imbalance occurs in all the body systems. This would also be partial ayurvedic explanation for the physiological phenomena associated with shock which can be fatal. It is possible that many people who die during surgery are not dying from the surgery going wrong, but just this subconscious shock both to the body and the mind. Short of dying outright, the factor of varying intensities of shock remain. The shock has to be defined simply as vaishamya, imbalance.

Whenever any part or system in the body is in an unbalanced state, that local imbalance is not an isolated event. All other systems of the body--as everything is interconnected--become unbalanced in varying degrees. An incomplete list of imbalances and their substrata can be provided here :

1. Consciousness, mind, brain, prana, breath, body may suffer mutual loss of connectivity, coordination and balance between any two, more, or all of these.

2. Different parts of the brain may lose mutual coordination and balance.

3. Varying hormonal systems, brain fluid, spinal fluid, hypothalamus, pituitary, pineal, thyroid, parathyroid and all other hormonal systems may become unbalanced and uncoordinated.

4. Thorasic and cardiac and respiratory systems may become unbalanced and uncoordinated.

5. Digestive systems, including functions of the liver, pancreas and such may experience partial, complete, temporary or permanent failure; a milder form is weakness of appetite and digestion and elimination.

6. The production of various components of the blood may suffer, or the components may not remain balanced.

7. The absorption of nutrients, especially micronutrients, may be disrupted.

8. The elimination of body dross may not be effected properly; dead cells, gases that are normally eliminated in respiration, lymphic drainage, intestinal and urinary elimination, shedding of the uterine lining, -- and all such are included in this category of imbalance.

9. Those around may notice a patient's change of temperament caused by discomfort, hormonal imbalance etc. and may not realize it to be temporary and symptomatic and may thus overreact , eliciting further aggravation of the patient's temperament.

10. There may be unnatural loss or gain of weight.

11. Distortions of internal organs and external limbs--muscles and joints.

12. Imbalances of the immune systems.

13. Pains, including stomach and abdominal pains and headaches of various kinds, that are not of purely physical origin, may be experienced; these are not imaginary, but products of imbalance in the neuro-cerebral systems.

14. Sleep disorders may ensue.

15. Dream patterns may be disturbing.

16. In the Ayurvedic system, the imbalances of (a) sattva, rajas and tamas, in all their functions (b) vata, pitta, kapha, (c) partial loss of ethical sense, which further produces mental imbalances.

17. All of these situations, each alone or in combination with one or more of its associates, may produce psychological symptoms. For example, hormonal imbalance may cause depression, anger, self-destructive behaviour, like lack of self-control or bad self-image.

18. Each and all of these may slow down the healing process in many different ways.

This is just a partial list and all sorts of permutations among these various categories are possible, all part of the shock syndrome which

(a) may give rise to further complications and

(b) even produce new diseases in the body,

(c) not to speak of death, which ordinarily gets attributed to some specific functional disorder and not to the disarray and erratic misfunction of the entire personality systems which constitutes shock.

1. A wise patient should be able to recognize the symptoms of shock, and use autogenic training, imparted as part of the yoga practice, to reduce the force and effect of shock.

2. The loving ones around should help bring about a

-soothing feeling by voice, touch and caring,

-providing home-made balanced nutrition, with loving persuasion in case of a lack of appetite,

-expert massages of different kinds,

-prayer,

done by oneself,

by relatives in the patient's vicinity, or elsewhere,

through a priest or a person of sattvic nature,

including homa and other worship offerings

(There are special prayers and specific worship offerings for different imbalances),

-soft music and beautiful poetry,

-ample opportunity for rest through

sleep,

meditaition and japa (whether sitting up or lying down)

yoga-nidra breathing

yoga-nidra proper,

-inspirational reading,

-inspirational pictures in the vicinity (not disturbing TV programmes)

-a relaxed body posture and faces of those around, and

joyful mien--not bringing problems and conflicts into the patient's vicinity.

3. The doctor should not dismiss post-surgical shock as minor and temporary, but something to be taken seriously.

I have no doubt that surgery leaves certain lingering and complex psychological patterns. I have a fairly good idea of what these patterns are, but that will require a much larger paper. In any case, a lot of systematic research needs to be done on this proposition. I will give one example here.

There is a particular sacred text, Durga-sapta-shati, that many of us on the Path recite everyday. It consists of 700 verses. Initially the recitation of 700 verses from memory required 45 minutes for me; slowly as the meditation habit became deeper it was brought down to 25 minutes and on occasion to seventeen and a half minutes. Here it ceases to be recitation and becomes only a remembrance in the deeper, subtler, higher frequency mind.

After I had my heart by-pass operation, I immediately found that my mind had slowed down. The level at which I do this remembrance was now operating on a slower frequency. In all of 12 years since the operation I have tried very hard to reach again the level of seventeen and a half minutes for that mental recitation, and have never managed to come down below 23 minutes. I have no doubt that the surgery itself interfered with certain prana patterns, which has left a lasting effect on the frequency of the force field called the mind.

Many people report certain phenomena following surgery. One patient reported dizzy spells following brain surgery, and asked my opinion as to whether the surgery might not have fully succeeded. This prompted the writing of this brief article as an answer to her question.

My suggestion is that during brain surgery different parts of the brain had to take up the functions of the other parts, which were being operated upon or which were impaired, and it has taken them some time to re-establish a coordinated pattern and I would attribute the dizziness to this lack of coordination among the different parts of the neuro-cerebral system. As the psychological and physiological shock wears off, the coordination will be re-established, and some of the uncomfortable phenomena will cease.

What I am saying here is that the nature of shock during surgery both to the physiological and psychological systems has not been fully understood, and an interdisciplinary team of researchers need to prepare a careful research design to investigate this phenomenon. Many of the post-surgical complaints which are dismissed as "this is all in your mind" will no longer be dismissed, but certain definite positive action will be taken to re-establish the coordination and balance (samya) which was disturbed through the fact of surgery.

It is for this purpose that the various yoga exercises become very necessary for a person to re-establish such samya in the psycho-physiological personality. The practices are well known : balanced nutrition, practice of silence, meditation and breathing exercises such as alternate nostril breathing, as well as shavasana practices. However, for a different kinds of shock following different kinds of surgery would require emphasising different practices and only an expert in yoga, relaxation, meditation and yoga-nidra would be able to determine how this would be obtained.

Here a word about system of yoga healing at a subtler level.

The healing of a particular organ is not accomplished by concentrating on that organ.

The triggers are elsewhere. For example the overeating disorders--their trigger is in the throat centre of consciousness.

Constipation may be cured by entering the cave of the heart, not by concentrating on the intestines and the colon.

Similarly there are special ways for using mantras for different kinds of healing. There are practices such as whole body mantra permeation (vyapaka) subdivided into many different methods. Only someone trained in the subtler systems of yoga therapy would know enough to apply these methods.

In creating a research design it will then be necessary that while one of the control group is not using the yoga system, there are other control groups that are using different methods of the yoga system, especially the subtler one.

In the meantime, all those who feel post-surgical phenomena that are not explained by their doctors should seek active advice and guidance from a teacher of subtler breathing and subtler meditation practices of the type I have just referred to but have not described. It will require a detailed medical text book to prescribe various combinations of yoga and meditation practices appropriate for various combinations of the components of shock. This opens up a whole new vista of research in holistic medicine.

Swami Veda Bharati is the leading disciple of the legendary Swami Rama of the Himalayas. 

Medical researchers interested in the topic are welcome to contact Swami Veda at his personal e-mail at tadit369@...

Copyright 2004 Swami Veda, Prometheus 91, 2004

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The Maha Mandaleshwara Sri Swami Veda Bharati.

January 2001, Allahabad. Emerging from the sacred dip on the banks of the Ganges River at the Maha Kumbha Mela, Swami Veda Bharati assumed the full weight of his spiritual role as one of the most respected swamis of Hinduism, and of his own responsibility in continuing the teachings of his gurudeva Swami Rama.

"The experience confirmed and enhanced the authority granted by Gurudev Swami Rama" Swami Veda said after completing the sacred bath at the sangam -- the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers -- on January 24, the most auspicious day of the month-long Kumbha Mela celebrations at Allahabad.

"Only after taking the dip did I feel in me that I am a Mahamandalesvar," said Swami Veda, who was conferred the position in March, 1999.

"I immediately felt a sense of spiritual authority; that I now own the position. It conveys a sense of responsibility to lead which is greater than before," Swamiji said after partaking in one of the most colorful celebrations in the month-long festivities.

An estimated 20 million people took to the waters on January 24 -- the Mauna Amavasya, a date and time ordained by the pandits as occurring only once in 144 years, and the first in the new millennium.

The streets in the makeshift tent city set up on the dry river bed of the Ganges turned into a mammoth gathering of swamis, sadhus and devotees from all over the world as they prepared for the auspicious bath that day -- the highlight of which was a procession starting before dawn which Swami Veda took part in for the first time.

Gathering before dawn in the chill of the north Indian winter, initiates and devotees in Swamiji's camp joined a five-kilometer long procession which snaked its way for half an hour through the makeshift city, along a temporary pontoon bridge before reaching the sangam.

Watched over by Indian security forces -- on foot or mounted on horses -- and armed with wooden lathis (sticks) the procession wound its way through the surging crowds.

It was a scene which conjures images of processions in centuries of Maha Kumbha Melas -- which occur every 12 years. But instead of caparisoned elephants, the ochre-robed Mahamandalesvars were carried on iron trailers hauled by diesel tractors summoned to duty from wheat fields of Uttar Pradesh.

While Swami Veda had attended previous Kumbha Melas since 1952 -- all of them in Haridwar -- this was the first time he was participating in Allahabad, and the first time since he was conscrated as a Mahamandalesvar in March, 1999.

On a trailer decorated in maroon cloth and festooned with marigolds, jasmine and roses, Swami Veda sat on a silver-plated throne chair. Beside him sat Swami Hari, smiling beatifically, while Pandit Dabral stood by, looking poised and calm. A dozen or so devotees crammed on to the trailer for the five-kilometer long journey, while others walked behind.

In the pre-dawn darkness, the belching diesel fumes from the tractors and the confusion which often accompanies such processions in India, the significance and grandeur of the procession was not immediately palpable.

But as the sun's rays shone over the Ganges, the full magnitude of the crowds became apparent. It was an awesome spectacle.

Families lined some thirty-deep behind wooden barricades all along the procession route. They chanted, they sang, they clapped. Many held out their hands to ask for a blessing or a rose petal from a passing swami. Policemen laid aside their truncheons to throw flowers on to passing trailers of the procession.

Such is the faith in the power of these swamis, that in the past, pilgrims have been known to roll in the sand of a swami's trailer which had passed. Those gathered on this day were were the same pilgrims who had huddled over open fires, barely shielded from the cold of winter in thick blankets while they slept in the open. Entire families, even villages had walked -- some for over a week -- to witness this scene and to bathe.

Throughout the Kumbha Mela celebrations, loudspeakers at the makeshift city had blared announcements asking for lost ones to report to police posts to re-unite with their families. In the week before devotees of Swami Veda arrived at Allahabad, Indian newspapers had carried reports that 5,000 pilgrims had already been reported lost during the Kumbha Mela in which an estimated 70 million people were estimated to have attended.

Forty minutes after it started in darkness, the procession reached its destination and the devotees joined Swami Veda for a quick dip in the Ganges. Battling through crowds of other bathers, Swami Veda removed his ochre robes and stepped into the bone-chilling waters for the morning dip at the sangam.

While other devotees shuddered and shivered even as they felt a sensation of spiritual ecstasy as they emerged from the waters, Swami Veda stepped ashore calmly after his bath. "I am a heart patient and a diabetic. And yet I felt no cold as I emerged from the sangam. Instead I felt a sense of internal spiritual healing and a deep love and energy of consciousness," Swami Veda said.

Swamiji said that after the sacred immersion there was a change in consciousness; a deep compassion for each of the millions who sought a blessings. "Which of these do I really need to bless? my mind asked. I scanned the throngs; selected the ones I felt were connected to me no matter how distant in the crowd. Somehow their eyes would mesh with mine and I would raise a hand in blessing". It was all being ordained by some other force.

This "force" which filled Swami Veda with compassion and guided him in his own spiritual realization in the 2001 Kumbha Mela, is the same unseen power which watched over the millions who thronged Allahabad in mankind's greatest gathering for a single purpose -- the search and experience of the Divine.

Dear Loved Ones,

Namaste and greetings from Allahabad. (Actually this was written two days ago and we are now in Varanasi, but more about that later).

We have been safely tucked away at the banks of the Ganges for almost an entire week and have not so far been able to communicate our e-mails to you. It is difficult to get in and out of the camp, especially during the time of the sacred baths. We seem to be busier every day, especially as we become accustomed to moving about on our own, exploring the vastness of the Kumbha Mela. Just to give you a clearer picture, we are sharing a campsite with Muniji Swami Chidanand from Rishikesh and he has gone into great lengths to make this temporary ashram very comfortable. We have running water, sometimes, even half a bucket of hot water, electricity and great food. There is a lot of dust and fog as you will read from one of the journals written by one of our pilgrims from Singapore.

Since we got here we have been doing Yajnas every morning from 9:00 to 12:00 and chanting the Saumya mantras. All pilgrims have the opportunity to offer grains into the sacred fire. At this camp, Muniji has trained many young priests and has about 48 young "Rishi Kumars" under his care. Their chanting is just divine and the Yajnas are enhanced by their their sweet young voices chanting the mantras precisely in unison. What a wonderful way to culminate the practice of the Saumya mantra.

Later I will send you what I have already written about the rest of our days and the visit of the Dalai Lama and Shankaracharya to our camp and the procession of Mahamandaleshwar Swami Veda Bharati and his Akhara to the holy bath at Sangam on 24th.

The Pilgrims

Journal 1: Fire Ritual At Sangam

January 21, 2001

Allahabad, India. Swaying to Vedic hymns chanted over loudspeakers, initiates of and followers of Swami Veda from across the globe gathered for the much-awaited aarti ritual at the Kumbh Mela at Prayag (Allahabad).

After months of detailed planning, and a journey to the sangam -- the sacred confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers -- they joined millions of devotees in what Indian authorities and the world media has billed the largest ever gathering of mankind for a single purpose.

The aarti on Saturday evening was orchestrated by Rishikesh-based Swami Chidanand Saraswati, known as Muniji, with Swami Veda jointly leading the ritual on the verge of the bank of the sangam.

Young trainees for the priesthood, wearing saffron tunics, sang Vedic hymns in unison, to the accompaniment of tabla, flute, and organ -- the music flowing out over loudspeakers. Swami Veda and Muniji waved oil and candle lamps towards the sangam, invoking Mother Ganga to shine the light into our hearts.

For the dozens of barefoot initiates huddled in the chill of the north Indian winter, it was the reward for the long journey to this most auspicious event in the Hindu chronology. For this Maha Kumbh Mela is the most auspicious for its occurrence once in 144 years.

The aarti on Saturday night (January 20) was the second since the group arrived at the campsite late into the night of Thursday (January 18). It was a journey that, for many, began months ago in preparation, through meditation and -- for the organizers -- a logistical endeavour demanding military precision.

Sahara Airlines Fllight S2521 descended from its hour-long journey from New Delhi to the holy city of Varanasi, bringing the first group of devotees, who travelled in a convoy of four buses for about six hours through dusk across the flat, dusty plains of wheat and saffron in the Hindu heartland of Uttar Pradesh.

The destination -- and temporary ashram -- for the next week or so for these devotees is a setting that would defy the imagination of many a Hollywood director. For nowhere else could such a scene be realised, or even conceived.

Millions -- some estimates say up to 70 million people -- will gather at the sangam during the Mela; from naked Nagas (whose only possession is a sword) to saffron-clad sadhus and millions of sannyasis (renunciates)

Journal 2: Take two aspirins (Chant Some Mantras) And Call Me In The Morning

January 22, 2001

Allahabad. Doctors have been summoned from their meditation to perform sewa (service) to devotees and initiates of Swami Veda Bharati who have been taken ill at his temporary ashram at the Kumbh Mela festivities in Allahabad.

Doctors say one of the reasons for the incidence of illness is the thick fog, which has enveloped this makeshift city, trapping the dust and smoke from thousands of fires lit by pilgrims during the north Indian winter, and causing respiratory related illnesses.

"About 30 of 180 devotees at the temporary ashram of Swami Veda have been taken ill -- none seriously," said Dr Mano Murty, who is based in Ottawa, Canada. "The sicknesses are minor and fall into the categories of allergic/respiratory/gastric problems. They are easily controlled with medication."

The temporary ashram has benefited from the services of a number of medical doctors, including Dr. Kalpana Patel from Regina, three from USA and three from Brunei on Borneo Island. Between chanting the Saumya mantra and partaking in fire rituals, they have been taking turns to visit devotees struck with the 'flu bug.

"We have been advocating preventive medicine in a couple of ways," she said. "We recommend intake of at least one liter of water a day, regardless of whether people think they need it or not. We also monitor symptoms to make sure that the infection does not spread to the chest. Finally, we have been advising devotees not to practice the fast -- we had one person who fainted while fasting at the Kumbh Mela."

Despite the austere conditions -- millions gathered in makeshift tents on the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. Everyone is careful about using bottled water and the food at the temporary ashram is surprisingly tasty and filling.

Dr. Rajeshwari from Brunei said doctors have been mostly prescribing symptomatic relief such as antihistamins, an anti-allergy. "We have not started to prescribe antibiotics unless there are cases of lung infection."

Asked about having to perform medical duties while on a pilgrimage, she said: "Wherever we go, it is our duty, and we are happy to perform it."

But if you think doctors have been spared the flu bug, think again. "We are having the same problems. We are also human."

Journal 3: Dutch TV Records Documentary on Swami Veda At Kumbh Mela

January 23, 2001

Allahabad. Swami Veda Bharati, a well-known figure to the Indian community in Holland, will be featured in an extensive four-hour television serial to be aired in April to an estimated audience of half a million viewers.

A television crew on assignment for Om Television channel of Dutch national television has been busy recording valuable footage of Swami Veda at ceremonies during the Kumbh Mela festivities in Allahabad. To be aired over four weeks from April, the program will feature Swami Veda, the Kumbh Mela itself, the yajna fire ritual, and the Dutch participation in the Kumbh Mela.

"Swami Veda is a personality well known to the Hindu community of Holland. They regard him as one of the great writer, poet, philosopher and thinker of our time. He has appeared on Dutch television many times before," said Rabin Baldewsingh, who is directing the program.

Despite being based in the United States, Swami Veda's links with the Hindu community of Holland and its former colonies run deep. Between 1956 and 1962, Swami Veda was based in South America, where he did extensive missionary work, including the establishment of an ashram in Guyana in the late 1950's, among the Hindu community there.

His work involved travel and interaction with the Hindu community in Dutch Guyana (renamed Surinam after independence in 1975), British Guyana and Trinidad. In these areas, "he brought education to remote village areas, trained hundreds of cultural leaders and re-awakened the consciousness of Indian traditions," according to his official curriculum vitae.

Despite his schedule during this period in South America, Swami Veda found time to participate and contribute to the literary scene. He wrote songs and even penned a play -- on immigration of the Indian community to Surinam, said Baldewsingh.

The presence of the Hindu community marks an interesting period in the confluence of histories of India and Dutch colonialism in the 19th century, in which Swami Veda was later to play a role as a chronicler of the oral traditions of this period.

With the abolishment of slavery in the 19th century, the European colonial leaders sought to find workers for its plantations across the globe. Indentured labor from India became a source of inexpensive labour to toil the fields as far flung as Fiji and South America.

Farm workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were brought to South America by the colonial masters in both British and Dutch Guyana, said Baldewsingh, a Dutch national of Indian origin.

Apart from his mission work, Swami Veda also became interested in the folklore of these indentured labourers and started to conduct pioneering research of these songs as an oral history of their migration across continents.

Armed with his research on this folklore, Swami Veda later applied for a doctoral dissertation with the University of Utrecht in central Holland. Despite not speaking Dutch, he was accepted by the university -- one of the oldest and best-known universities in Europe and went on to complete the dissertation.

That study was published in 1968 by E.J. Brill of Leiden, Holland, as Ritual Songs and Folksongs of the Hindus of Surinam.

Achievements such as these have endeared him to the Hindu community in Holland, which now numbers about 200,000 of the total population of 16 million. The community speaks a unique patois known as Savnami Hindi which combines Dutch words with Hindi.

"I have had a very long connection with the Hindu community of Surinam -- with some families it stretches for three generations. They have a very special love for me," said Swami Veda.

"I enjoy all communities in all parts of the world. But the people of Surinam originally came from a very, very simple background. I enjoyed and learnt about that simplicity from them. From the last to the present generation the level of education has risen dramatically -- farmers' children have now become scientists and professors and still they have not changed their commitment to their spiritual traditions," said Swami Veda.

Dear friends,

The Maha Kumbha Mela 2001 - the Festival of the 'nectar of immortality' - - bringing together 70 million people in one month, is coming to its end. Many of us have returned from the 'Kumbha Nagar' (= Kumbha City, a 1,200 hectare township), formed along the sandy floodplains of the river Ganges and the Jamuna. Many of us have gone through an experience as a 'pilgrim' that will have impact on us; it will transform us in someway or another....the great monks and saints said so. Being together with some 30 million pilgrims from all over India and all over the world on the 'Maun Awashya' on the 24th of January 2001 has created an awareness within us of togetherness, solidarity, collectivism, and the common spiritual grounds. We have also become aware of the weaknesses of words required to describe the experiences accumulated during the Maha Kumbha Mela, held once every 144 years ('normal' Kumbha Melas are held once every 12 years). That is the reason why I am sending you a few photos to give you a better impression of the activities and the atmosphere:

 Meeting of the Saints: Swami Veda Bharati with H.H. the Dalai Lama and Swami Chidananda Saraswati.

The ENCOUNTER Photo above shows the 'encounter' between Swami Veda Bharati (left), His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who joined our international group on the 25th of January 2001, and Swami Chidananda Saraswati (Muniji). During this gathering the Dalai Lama and the Great Shankaracharya (the highest Hindu Religious Leaders in India) announced the 'unity' of Hinduism and Buddhism. This recognition came after some centuries. They both emphasized the importance of tolerance and respect of religions, including those without a religion. Atem has made a video of this historical 'encounter'!

Many spiritual seekers who have listened to the songs of the mystics ask a question: "Is it not said that all the sanctity is within one's person: that it is not by much walking, or taking dips in sacred pools that one will be liberated, but by internal surrender, purification, diving deep within ? "If taking a dip in a river would grant me liberation, the fish would have been liberated long ago." says Kabir, a philosopher. Why, then, all this talk of pilgrimage ? Subject for further gatherings....

Yes, the 'residents' of the Kumbha City have been suffering from dust, the cold weather, smoke and smog. Yes, indeed the water quality of the Ganges river is bad. About 6,000 sweepers have kept the Kumbha City clean, pushing away 200 tonnes of solid waste by trucks every day. No flies, a few mosquitoes. Millions of liters of milk and millions tons of food had to be brought to the area. Civic and Urban management has been demonstrated: Indian civil servants have worked around the clock to ensure ones safety and security. Some 36 fire departments were active to kill fire in the city; a media centre and a hospital were set up too. Water and sanitation were made available almost in every road junction. Thirteen pontoon bridges were built by the Indian Army to connect the city of Allahabad with the Kumbha Nagar. A loudspeaker system (a used in prisons) ensured the provision of information and guidance everywhere; 10,000 families who lost each other in the events could find each other at the communication centre of Kumbha City. No fights, no riots, no deaths! All residents had the same purpose and no conflicting interests.

Once there in Kumbha Nagar, and with each other, one does not focus on minor physical insufficiencies or short comings or on the 'nakedness' of respectable saints and monks (male or female), but on the sense of being ONE. Whether Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Christian or Muslim. All realize that we desire to merge into ONE.

Hope to be there again in year 2145 !

Regards and love,

Atem Ramsundersingh

(Holland)

Dalai Lama: My Dream For Tibet's Freedom,

Interview with Professor Thubten Jigme Norbu, elder brother of H.H. the Dalai Lama

 Tibet: Give us Liberty, by B. John Zavrel

After several warmer days in the sandy flood plain of Ma Ganga in Allahabad, a raw, cold, dusty, dry wind gusted heavily all night over the Kumbha Mela. Excitement and anticipation rose within each of us as we huddled sleepless in our sleeping bags in the traditional but comfortable camp provided by Swami Chidananda Saraswati (Muniji). At 3 AM up and down the rows of temporary brick cottages the sound of watch alarms beeped although most of us were up already anyway, tying our dhotis, arranging our yellow initiates' scarves and trying to figure out what few things to stuff in our pockets for the sacred bath in Mother Ganges on the day of mauni amavasya. It is the full moon of silence and the most auspicious day during the Maha Kumbh Mela. While this event takes place once in 12 years, the 2001 Maha Kumbh Mela was significant in that its astrological occurrence is taking place for the first time in 144 years, and the first in the new millennium. A small party of twenty or so men had been allowed to process to the sacred confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers with Swami Veda's elephant (consisting of a tractor and trailer with a flower bedecked throne) in the procession of the Niranjani Akhara, the monastic organization within which he is a Mahamandaleshvara.

Clad in white kurta, dhoti and scarf, some devotees had to be buffered by thermal underwear in the 40 degrees F pre-dawn chill, while some chose to participate barefoot. The contingent set off 4:10 AM from Parmarth camp for the 10-minute walk to Swamiji's own camp. The Shankaracharya Marg, the 100-foot-wide main street in this part of the makeshift tent city of 20 million, is packed side-to-side with pilgrims even in this early hour. Vehicular traffic had been banned altogether for the past two days. Reaching Swami Veda's camp, we formed up into a procession, Swami Veda at the head, followed by our sannyasis, Ma Tapasya, Ma Seva, Swami Hariharananda, Swami Asanga, and then by those of us accompanying him, close students from many countries.

I slip off my sandals and the soles of my feet sink into the fine, white, cold sand of the sangam &endash; the sacred confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers. Let these feet be as open as possible to the energies of this place and time. We are instructed to walk in silence and to keep our minds focused on japa of the Saumya mantra. This is in stark contrast to 24-hour din of the loudspeakers and the surging crowds as millions move, laughing and shouting, towards the sangam.

The Akhara camp is a short walk across Kali Marg and the tractors with all of the Mahamandaleshvaras' decorated thrones are arrayed around the outside. As we move inside the camp, swamis acting as marshals and armed with silver-plated sticks brusquely direct traffic and our line is at first sent the wrong direction. But we quickly found ourselves in a desperate crush that makes it easy to understand how one could suffocate standing up in this place. Soon, however, the problem is righted and we found ourselves in line besides others groups of disciples, the Mahamandaleshvaras all having taken their seats on the stage for some brief ceremonial organization. I recognize M.M. Santoshi Ma, one of the lady Mahamandaleshvaras who attended the United Nations Religious Summit last summer. She has kindly arranged to host Ma Tapasya and Ma Seva in her procession for the bathing as male and female swamis bathe in different areas.

We left Swami Veda's camp at the about 4:30 and it took some time for the processions to organize themselves. There procession of Mahamandalesvaras taking the sacred dip is traditionally led by the Naga Babas who are the first to take the sacred bath. By 6 AM the tractors are starting up and we are on our way out again into the crowd. The sangam is a relatively short distance from the camp but it took another hour to arrive at the sacred spot at our appointed time of 7 AM. Many climbed aboard the trailer with Swamiji, especially Swami Hariharananda, and the rest of us followed along behind, having greater or lesser success keeping to our japa. Excitement and glee ran high all around us, although by comparison, we are an almost sombre group. Slowly we made our way across the pontoon bridge a few feet at a time. Arriving on the other side I felt the energy rising into my heart and tingle over the crown of my head. Looking up, I saw the red ball of the sun coming over the horizon. Within, I withdrew to the place of the inner teacher and remembered Swami Rama with deep gratitude for having brought us here right at dawn. "Pratah smarami hrdi samsphurad atmatattvam"&emdash;"at dawn I remember that true self flashing in the heart." Quietly tears flowed with the thought, "I have been here before," returning to touch, however subtly, the waters of some previous birth.

We top the rise above the Sangam precisely at 7. Many things in India are difficult to do on time; Kumbha Mela is not one of these. Everything ran right on time, because any deviation from the negotiated schedule could have touched off a riot - and hundreds have died in previous Kumbh Mela incidents. But our mela was peaceful. Just as we dismounted our carriage and prepared our things, the shout of the Naga Babas went up and they sprinted for the water. Now all the wraps came off (though no one but the Naga Babas bathe entirely naked). Hundreds of us were all grins and gooseflesh. The wraps of sober, silent patience come off people's comportment in child-like delight. The wraps came off the heart and our heats beat as one, together as big as the Triveni Sangam itself. Some go all the way in; wade far into the Sangam laughing and splashing, some jumping and dunking, praying and shouting. Some stood in quiet prayer, facing first the current of grace upstream, then towards the sun downstream, poured a bit of water from their hands and gently ladled the grace of Lady Ganga over their heads, over and over, taking the dip for those they know who could not be here. Prayers filled the air all round and thousands of grinning giggling faces, many of them with lower jaws chattering in the cold beauty. Swami Veda somehow evaded his companions for a moment and managed a private bath, alone with the millions of us in a prayerful moment of great sanctity.

Soon the marshalls' whistles were blowing and they came with their sticks to shoo us out of the water in preparation for the next procession and the next gleeful charge of Naga Babas. Grateful (but cold) we gathered our things and mounted the bank to rejoin our carriage and make the painfully slow way back to the Akhara camp &endash; a procession which took over an hour, three times as long, because of the crowd. As we waited on the pontoon bridge for the parade to inch along, we began to pull apart the garlands on the carriage to throw to the crowds of people pressed against the barricades. Swamiji and the rest of us felt obvious delighted offering the roses and marigolds and the small white flowers in the garlands to the deeply appreciative pilgrims. As we passed crowds of destitute people, many of whom had come hundreds of miles to be here with no food for days for the sake of faith, I watched Swami Veda blessing them, silent, his eyes deep with compassion, his right hand raised in the abhaya-mudra, the gesture of compassion, conveying no need to fear.

Finally, at long last, we reached the Akhara camp at 9 AM. Deeply satisfied we headed back to Parmarth Niketan, down the Shankaracharya Marg's crowds, surging since 3:17 PM the preceding afternoon when the Mauni Amavasya began. Back in camp, Muniji later led those who were unable to accompany the procession to a location on the but away from the main area where the Akhara continued to process and bathe. As my companion was too ill to go in the early morning I decided to accompany him now. Unlike the formal procession, the way is easier as Muniji had police escorting us all the way, holding back the crowd at the crushing intersections and parading us all under the yellow Parmarth banners. When we reached the bathing spot, the Rishi Kumars from the Parmarth School, orphaned boys 9 to 14 years old in a traditional gurukula learning to be priests, formed a cordon around the group so that there was room to change and bathe. The energy was the same in the chilly bright sunshine. Some dunked, some prayed, some jumped and splashed, and again, all around, the thousands of grinning faces, their lower jaws chattering and not noticing it.

After most of the pilgrims had bathed, we joined hands in the cordon to relieve the Rishi Kumars who charged into the river for their moment of playful worship, cheered on by Muniji on the shore clapping and directing people. After a few minutes, the boys formed a circle in the water and begin to chant formal prayers, with their usual gleeful energy. When they finished we all slowly made our way back, deeply refreshed, deeply grateful and washed to our core of silent, shimmering light.

Our last few days at Kumbha Mela Jan 24 to 26th

After Swamiji and most of the men returned from their morning dip with Swamiji's procession from the Niranjani Akhara, we sat for Yajna with renewed energy within the air of excitement. Some of the men had returned dancing with happiness, full of episodes that had taken place during the morning. The lady pilgrims began to look forward to their dip.

Muniji and his staff were so kind and hospitable and extended invitations and even transportation to all their wonderful programs. Again he showed immense compassion in arranging the dip for the ladies and gathered the Rishi Kumars in the afternoon to lead us towards the part of the Sangam where Artee is usually held. Muniji, the singers, young priests and many pilgrims from Parmarth camp started off with the cry of "Gopal Krishna, Radhe Krishna". As the little ochre-robed ones led us with their banners held high, the crowds made way for us to pass. On this Mauni Amavasya there was hardly any room on the streets to walk and when we reached the edge of the banks of the Holy Ganges, we noted that we were certainly not the only ones looking forward to our holy dip in the Ganges. Muniji stood on the banks like a loving father as we all prayerfully entered the shallow water. Even in the afternoon, the coldness of the water left a tingling, refreshing feeling to the body and a curious rejuvenation of the mind. Many of us formed a circle chanting the Saumya mantra and after the initial prayers and offering began spontaneously splashing and enjoying the moment of being with each other in the water. What a wonderful feeling it was!!

On that Wednesday evening Swami Veda and the pilgrims proudly honoured Muniji by showering him with rose petals and presented him with gifts of love. Ann Glazier from England, Wolfgang from Germany, Christina from Italy, Idriss from Burkina Faso, Kailash from USA, Atem from Holland and others gave thanks on behalf of Swamiji and the pilgrims. Many spoke of the wonderful atmosphere in Parmarth's camp and of the compassion showed. . Muniji responded with much love and grace and gave packets of information relating to Parmarth. As you know, Muniji's ashram is in Rishikesh and he warmly extended invitation to Swamiji and all pilgrims to visit his home ashram there.

The next day passed by in a whirl of activity and excitement. We were expecting the Shankaracharya of Kashi and the Dalai Lama to visit our camp! Shri and I sat as Yajmanas and the Yajna lasted for three hours. Initiates took turns in giving offerings into the sacred fire to the chant of our Saumya Mantra. After lunch the Yajna resumed and our Special Guests, the Shankarachrya and Dalai Lama joined us about 4:30 for a few special offerings and to see the exhibition of wonderful photographs of Mansarovar where Muniji is building schools and facilities for the poor. We were quite excited to be in such close proximity to the Dalai Lama. He was so happy and spontaneously made offerings into the fire as we chanted the Saumya and the Tara mantras. He is truly a wonderful example of purity and love and gave a talk in English.

This is mostly the text of the Dalai Lama's talk given on January 25, 2001:

The Dalai Lama spontaneously addressed the devotees:

"Just I want to express my deep feeling. It is the second time I visited this place; I think in 1966 I came to Kumbha Mela first time. This is the second time.

I think many of my friends may know I always try to promote human values and religious harmony. So, now, as far as promotion of human values is concerned, although we have no right and no use to impose religious faith to non-believer… as non believer should remain non-believer &endash; that is their own right. But at the same time, for the promotion of human values, various traditions have important role. So therefore, not thinking how to convert or make people believer &endash; not that way! How we can make contribution to the promotion of human values including non-believer. For that, a closer understanding, genuine unity among the children of different traditions is extremely important.

So this is not just smile with one another and express few nice words to one another. That is not sufficient. We must participate to the other religious traditions for the experience.

We must, through participation gain deeper understanding through that way automatically develop genuine respect, genuine admiration. So that is why, whenever I get the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to some holy places of Christian, some Muslim or various religious tradition…..

Now, as far as Hinduism is concerned, I always considered this is like twin brother/sister, same sort of practice, same sort of root there. Very special - although in the past more than 2,000 years a lot of defeat with Buddhist masters and Hindu masters &endash; doesn't matter.

So therefore, I have always believed that between Buddhism and Hinduism we should develop a closer understanding. Sometimes I feel that my relationship with Christian brothers is more closer than Hindus. So therefore, I am very, very eager to come to this place and meet…… (applause) Hindu masters, brothers and sisters. So today, one of my dreams is realized.

Now my humble request or appeal is wherever I go to participate in religious or even political function, - everybody's mouth word of peace is always there but now peace must be within oneself and inner peace can transform into action &endash; in that way we can promote genuine peace. Peace in the family level, at the community level, at the national level and in our individual self.

If we remain undisciplined mind, no commitment, no compassion, no tolerance, under that circumstance prayer for world peace is unrealistic.

Therefore if we are really concerned about world peace, first must improve ourselves. Through that way we can really transform the world and world can be a more peaceful, more compassionate, more friendly and perhaps more spiritual".

There were so many cameras and reporters but for the most part, the Dalai Lama's visit was very protected from the general crowds at the Kumbha Mela. He then went on to see the exhibition of wonderful photographs of Muniji's project at Mt. Kailash.

Everyone then piled into Army trucks and were moved towards the Sangam where we were to witness Aarti on the Ganges. The Shankaracharya and Dalai Lama, Swami Veda and Muniji reached there first and went straight to the spot on the banks of the rivers. Our transportation was not allowed to cross the pontoon across the river so we were dropped off about 10 minutes away, and we mostly ran in our eagerness to watch this historic moment where the Shankaracharya and Dalai Lama would wave the lights of the Artee honoring the sacred spot at the confluence of the holy rivers. The Dalai Lama spoke in his language and we managed to get some wonderful pictures. He was whisked away shortly afterwards and our group walked back amongst the crowds toward our camp. On the way, we stopped at Swamiji's Niranjani Akhara and saw many Swamis, Sadhus and Naga Babas in different activities, some having dinner and some chanting at the main shrine.

January 26, 2001

On the last full day of our pilgrimage to Kumbha, Swamiji and Pt. Hari Shankar Dabral led us in the final offerings of the Saumya Mantra. Swamiji conducted initiations of the 'vanprastha nastik diksha'. Among those who received this initiation were Margo Balog, Ann Glazier, Wolfgang Bischoff, Ingo Beardi, Pandit Ananta, Yumi Ito and Mr. and Mrs. Jachak. Muniji came to the Yajnashala congratulate the new initiates. We again thanked him for his love and kindness and Swamiji made love offerings to the young priests, to Pandit Dabral and to Pandit Prakash. All remained serene yet with hearts bursting with joy and harmony as we completed the purnahutis or final offerings into the sacred fire. Afterward, when the ashes from our week long Yajna cooled, Dr. Patel placed them into little bags to be handed out to the pilgrims to take home with them.

Later that afternoon, some packed and others went out into city of the Maha Kumbha Mela, taking in the smells, sights, sounds and feel of this holy place. Some even went to Ganga Artee with Muniji and the Rishi Kumars. Soon we will be based at the hotel in Varanasi and it would all be a wonderful scene etched in our memories. After dinner, everyone did their final packing. Some of us went to say goodbye to Muniji before he entered into silence. The buses arrived were loaded the luggage into the respective buses. We said goodbye to that wonderful place of so many divine memories in the wee hours of the morning and travelled toward Varanasi.

January 27, 2001

As our four buses drove away from our temporary home at Parmarth for the period of 9 days, we all had mixed feelings, mostly sad to leave. Everyone tried to get some sleep as the trip started to Varanasi. After we had travelled for a few hours however, all traffic came to a standstill. There had apparently been an accident ahead since midnight before and so the roads were totally blocked. No one knew how long we would have to wait. We were literally in the middle of nowhere; although there were lots of cars, trucks and buses. There was a teashop nearby but no bathroom facilities. Before long everyone started alighting from the buses moving around and chatting. Needless to say, many temporary bathrooms sprung up out trees bushes and brick structures! Josh did his asanas and meditated right in the middle of this scene. What an inspiration he was! We waited here for almost four hours before traffic began to move!

Our first stop was for tea and to see the place where Mother Sita of the Ramayan had disappeared into the earth. This is a wonderfully peaceful temple, cool and serene. Swamiji explained about the story of the Ramayan and then we set off again to have lunch with a family in Vindyachal. It was originally planned to be breakfast but we managed to be there after lunch. Nevertheless it was very enjoyable and varied. We walked to a temple dedicated to the Divine Mother &endash; Sri Vindyavasini Devi and we took turns filing into a small space and finally to offer our prayers there. Swamiji explained that this was the same deity that manifested herself to be exchanged thus saving Lord Krishna from the hands of his cruel uncle.

We arrived at the Taj Hotel about 7:30 p.m. and were very happy for hot showers, clean sheets and much needed rest.

 Another view of the ancient holy city of Varanasi.

January 27, 2001

Banaras/Varanasi. Our journey along the Ganges on a beautifully decorated boat was just divine. We arrived at the ghats - long flights of stone steps some as much as 200 leading up to the holy places - about 10 a.m. and took some time to board the boat one at a time. The boat was decorated with flowers and there was a raised area where Swamiji and Swami Hari sat. Swamiji used the portable P.A. system to welcome everyone and to let us know that Mr. Hari Prasad Agarwal was responsible for hosting us in this royal way. Muniji (Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji) had called ahead and asked Mr. Agarwal to help with our plans to visit Varanasi after our nine-day stay at Allahabad for the Kumbh Mela. Not only did he help but arranged everything with such finesse that we were very impressed. Mr. Agarwal and his family arrived shortly after we had boarded in a separate boat which we found out later was the one in which our scrumptious lunch was prepared and served.

As we cruised along enjoying the beautiful atmosphere and in awe of the scene in front of our eyes, Swamiji explained about the ghats and a bit about the history. Hindus call this city Kashi - the Luminous City of Light. There are temples, ashrams and holy places stretched along the river. Pilgrims come to bathe at these ghats from all over India and the world.

This is what Diana Eck says in her book, 'City of Light' of this city which was previously known as Banaras:

For over 2,500 years this city.... has attracted pilgrims and seekers from all over India. Sages such as Buddha, Mahavira and Shankara have come here to teach. Young men have come to study the Vedas with the city's great pandits. Householders come on pilgrimmages, some to bring the ashes of a deceased parent to commute to the River Ganges. Sannyasins come to gather in the monasteries (mathas) and ashrams of Kashi, especially during the rainy season when they were unable to continue their lives as homeless wayfarers. Widows too have come to Banaras, out of piety or out of misery, to take refuge in its temples and to live on the alms of the faithful. And the very old or very ill have come to Kashi to live out their final days until they die."

Indeed, we found out that the waters of the Ganges are called the 'nectar of immortality' and that those who die in Kashi are assured of liberation.

Manikarnika Ghat is the famed burning ghat that we saw from the boat. At any one time, there may be half a dozen cremation pyres burning. It is supervised by the Doms, an untouchable caste. Swamiji showed us the home of one of the Doms and it was a big home. Manikarnika ghat is originally a desirable area for bathing. There is a scared tank called the Manikarnika Kund and is north of the Manikarnika cremation ground.

As the boat moved along the river, Swamiji with Mr. Agarwal's help pointed out the most important ghats and then we stopped to climb 70 steps towards a small temple which has a Shiva Lingam. It was told that the Swami who lived there died in the 19th century at the age of 200. During the time he lived in Varanasi he he took the Shiva Lingam, which weighed 500 kilograms, more down to the Ganges every day for bathing, down those 70 steps and then brought it back up. The Shiva Lingam originally came from the Ganges. This temple was very serene and we engaged in prayers here.

After this, we had a wonderful tasty lunch. I forgot to mention that a chilled fluffed cream &endash; a delicacy of Varanasi &endash; was served in little clay pots. Everyone enjoyed it so much. It was made of boiled milk left out in the dew and then the next morning it was churned until it became of fluffy, marshmallow like consistency. It was very light.

We had a rest even on the boat and then got ready to see and participate in the Ganga aarti which Muniji had arranged for us. The area was so beautifully decorated with flowers and fabrics and Swamiji was welcomed honorably and warmly. Some of us went with Swamiji to the ghat while most of the pilgrims stayed on the boat to view the aarti from the water. There were thousands of people there. The music and organization was divine. After we had done a puja on the ghat, Swamiji was taken to a special seat of honor and he was given the opportunity to speak. His talk was in both English and in Hindi and we were all enraptured and filled with the harmony of it all. He wished much success to all those who carried out the wonderful traditions and gave so much happiness to people.

The aarti began with honoring the Ganges with incense, peacock feathers, and finally the lights. When we glanced along the waters, there were thousands of tiny lights floating along. All of those who went on to the ghat with Swamiji had a chance to wave the lights of the aarti. It was a wonderful, sublime and moving experience.

We all went back to the hotel fulfilled and happy and had dinner together before retiring for the night. Swamiji had a press conference the next day and Kwok Kin, Shri, Kalpana and Vasudevan were all involved in helping with that. Kwok Kin from Singapore not only wrote some of the journal but organized the order of the press conference with much efficiency. The hotel cooperated and made everything a big success. Swamiji was pleased with the outcome.

The next day we would visit Sarnath as guests of the Maha Bodhi Society led by Sumedha Thero. There we would have a wonderful lunch and see where the Buddha preached his first sermon.

More about this later.

With love

Priya

It is from the personal interior experiences of a certain light of consciousness in awakened great souls that the various religions of the world begin. This experience is indefinable and indescribable. The knowledge thus obtained from such a realization is imparted by these pure souls to their disciples. The disciples, who have not yet reached the highest rung of the ladder, in the absence of the personal experience, fail to fathom the real meaning of that knowledge and fall into the trap of disputations. One royal path becomes divided into many byways (or in Hindi, panths). The teachers of those divisive byways resort to arguments, exterior forms, rituals and ceremonies. This confusion continues until some other great soul reaches the pinnacle of enlightenment (Sambodhi) and re-awakens the personal realization.

To merge the religious disputations into a unitary truth, and to test and personally verify whether such forces as soul and God truly exist or not, the way these goals is that of experimenting with and observing the process of consciousness in the interior mental apparatus (antah karana). This way of diving deep into one's own consciousness is termed meditation (dhyana yoga). The highest rung of this ladder is called self-realization. In the experience that prevails at this level, there is no further scope for divergences of religions. This is how one may rise above religious prejudices through the common spiritual experience. This experience will not be obtained through argumentation, but through internal silence alone.

The entire culture of India, its arts and music, sciences from Vastu to Ayurveda, it's festivals and sacraments, all these originated from experiences of the states of samadhi of the rishis and yogis. Therefore, these as well as the Vedas, Upanishads and other philosophical texts cannot be comprehended without yogic vision. Furthermore, they all lose their meaning without such a vision. The learned people, thinkers and leaders who are concerned about the future of Indian culture definitely need to work for expanding this spiritual vision.

The question may be raised &endash; are there not divergences in the path of meditation just like the ones among the various religious and sects? Is there any ground for coordination among these divergences of the meditative traditions? If there is, where? Nowadays, so many different systems of yoga and meditation are being promoted. Which is the accurate one?

The reality is that in the traditions of Himalayan yogis, all of these are included. It may be said that they are part and parcel of that complete tradition. Whoever is trained and initiated in the Himalayan Tradition has gained an entry in all the methods of meditation. These methods are not mutually contradictory but are complementary. Each has a particular place in the entire framework. The systems of all these merge together, plus more, constitute the Himalayan Tradition. The system of this tradition is entirely scientific. The great yogi Swami Rama of the Himalayas proved this fact.

In the decade of the 1970's, Swami Rama offered himself to psycho-physiological research laboratories in the United States, and demonstrated to the highest specialists in this science, as to how the spiritual consciousness and mind's channels control and direct the body. For example, he produced different temperatures in two different muscles of the hand simultaneously. He also demonstrated through brain wave recordings that even in the deepest sleep he could remain conscious at the same time. The reports of these scientific events are not to be found in religious or spiritual magazines but such scientific publications as Encyclopaedia Britannica &endash; science supplement 1973. This produced a spiritual revolution in the psycho-physiological research throughout the world. We now have bibliographies of nearly 2,500 articles in scientific journals reporting the results of other experiments demonstrating the efficacy of yoga and meditative practices in commanding both voluntary and involuntary systems of the body.

The scientific method of meditation taught in Swami Rama's Himalayan Tradition is the easiest, most effective, and can be practiced by followers of all religions. This method is a common denominator among all meditative traditions such as those of Thera-vada, of the Southern Buddhist school, Tibetan Mahayana, Chinese Ch'an, Korean Son, the Japanese Zen schools like Soto, Rin-zai, Shin-gon, the Sufi Dzikr, the Christian Prayer of the Heart and many others. The method of integral breath awareness (pranapana-smrity-upasthana) is taught in the yoga sutras of Patanjali and the Master-disciple tradition of the Himalayan yogis.

By this method we merge the experience of the spiritual seekers of all religions; prevent diseases such as hypertension, migraines, psycho-somatic ulcers; we counter the stresses of daily life; we eliminate distances between sciences and religion; above all we evoke almost instantly a state of peacefulness in agitated minds. Finally, we lead the practitioner into the path of self-realization.

Those attending this press conference will be led into a brief experience of this method of meditation.

Before meditation, Swami Veda stood under the Bodhi Tree talking to the pilgrims.

Our group was very fortunate to visit with the Maha Bodhi Society in Sarnath on January 29, the day after we had seen the holy ghats of Banares and participated in a wonderful Ganga Artee.

It was at the World Peace Summit in New York in August 2000 that Swamiji indicated to the venerable Sri Badhanta Sumedha Thero that his group of pilgrims to the Maha Kumbha Mela would be very interested to visit the place where the Buddha preached his first sermon. We were well received in Sarnath and enjoyed every moment of this peaceful setting.

Swamiji had a press conference that morning. About 20 Indian reporters were hosted at the Taj Ganges Hotel. The text of Swamiji's remarks to the press is also given in this site. Swamiji was well received and answered many questions, and later gave packages of his writings to the reporters, while they partook in light refreshment.

We were ready to leave for Sarnath some time after noon. Located about 7 miles north of Varanasi, Sarnath is a tiny hamlet where the Buddha delivered a sermon called Dharma Chakra Pravartana (The Turning of the Wheel) 2,500 years ago.

Swamiji gathered everyone in the foyer of the hotel and spoke about the trip that we were about to make. The Lord Buddha was a wandering teacher during much of his life travelling over the plains of the Ganga, preaching his doctrine and staying at the monastery in Sarnath during the monsoon months. Today, Sarnath is an important center of Buddhist thought and is one of the holiest shrines of Buddhism, visited by devotees from all parts of the world.

When we arrived in Sarnath, Sri Sumedha Thero met us and treated us to a wonderful, wholesome lunch. Both Swamiji and Sri Sumedha Thero spoke briefly to the pilgrims during lunch, and then after a bathroom stop we walked to the museum where there were many ancient and broken statues depicting scenes from the life of the Buddha. The original Ashoka Chakra, which adorns the Indian Flag, is in the Sarnath museum. Swamiji took the opportunity to be our tour guide, explaining some of the objects there and pointing out the deity Tara.

Having stayed a while in the museum, we were unable to visit the Dhamek Stupa, but we saw it from the grounds of the Buddhist Temple. This is a huge structure, believed to be exactly the place where the Buddha preached his second sermon to his first five disciples.

Inside the temple grounds, Swamiji read part of the first sermon which is written in Pali and explained it to the pilgrims. The Buddha focused upon suffering, and said that the cause of suffering was desire. If man wished to be rid of suffering, he must first get rid of desire. Man's salvation lies in freeing himself from desire and achieving nirvana, which is freedom from the cycle of rebirth. We then sat under the Bhodi Tree for meditation, and then went into the temple for Puja.

Swamiji was honorably welcomed into the inner sanctum of the temple and the prayers were chanted by Sri Sumedha Thero and the monks and by Swamiji. Afterward, the monks brought a relic of the Buddha (a small part of his finger) and showed this to pilgrims under a light. We ended this wonderful Puja quite late, and then proceeded to the buses.

That evening we were invited to dinner by Mr Agarwal at his home in Varanasi. In spite of being tired and sleepy in the bus, the pilgrims honored this gracious invitation and we were pleasantly surprised by the variety of excellent soups, curries, sweets and drinks. Mr. Agarwal had also brought a fine array of silks from his business and many pilgrims shopped to their hearts' content.

Swamiji and the pilgrims chose this opportunity to thank Mr. Agarwal and his family for his kindness and hospitality during our days in Varanasi. Mr. Agarwal gave Swamiji a beautiful shawl, and the pilgrims chose representatives to speak of the graciousness of this family.

The Pilgrims now chose this long awaited opportunity to honor Swamiji and to thank him for being instrumental in giving us the best memories in a lifetime. Idriss and his group sang a wonderful song, and many others contributed to letting Swamiji know how loved and appreciated he was.

We ended this divine evening quite late, and were happy to return to the hotel for a good night's rest. The next morning we would have some free time to do last minute shopping, packing and socializing before we left for the airport. We took group pictures outside the hotel and said our goodbyes to Swamiji, the Ashram Staff, and Pandit Harishankar. Indra and Kailash, our tour coordinators, thanked everyone for their cooperation and for being so easy to work with. We told them we were looking forward to the next tour; wherever that might lead us!!

Our wonderful tour coordinators from Search Beyond Adventures; Kailash and Indra Dakshinamurthy. Indra selflessly devoted almost a year towards the Kumbha Mela and making sure that all plans came to fruition. Swamiji and the pilgrims would like to thank Indra and Kailash with all their hearts for their loving devotion towards the project. In the picture, Kailash and Indra are seated for one of our delicious lunches together with other volunteers.

By Wolfgang Bischoff

Swami Veda Bharati, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Pandit Dabral.

Shri Swami Veda Bharati rose like a shining star into the sky of love, selfless service, joy and devotion of the Maha Kumbha Mela 2001. I was able to share with my beloved elder brother and dear spiritual teacher a lot of painful processes since the Maha-Samadhi of our Gurudev Shri Swami Rama.

I had criticized him for some of his worldly actions, but never his spiritual achievements and depths. I for myself was struggling to understand the initiation poem of Goethe &endash; "The Secrets" where he says; "From the violence that binds all living beings, only that human being can free himself who conquers himself." But how to conquer oneself? Shri Swami Veda has been offering me teachings over the last four years. Blamed and humiliated by others so that I often wanted to hurt them, he never said an unfriendly or negative word. Often, I felt he was sad; but always he tried to understand and even lovingly supported his brothers and sisters, disciples and students.

The culmination of that conquest I experienced in the Maha Kumbha Mela. Swamiji's heart was overflowing with love, and from the heart of Swami Chidananda Saraswati (Muniji) issued so much love and devotion for him that I often felt tears in my eyes. When finally through the grace of the Himalayan Tradition, Swamiji was standing between the Shankaracharya and the Dalai Lama, and Muniji celebrated with all of us the Saumya Mantra, my heart felt a fullness like never before, because my longing was fulfilled to work together in a stream of mankind. It is an ever-flowing stream which does not distinguish between religions, cultures and differences, but which is living for the teaching of self-conquest as a necessary condition of peace for all human beings, sharing and respecting their own values and rituals, their honesty and authenticity.

Shri Swami Veda, the Shankaracharya, and the wonderfully humble and so powerful Dalai Lama invoked the presence of our Guruji and created a family of worldwide conquerors of their own little egos, guided by the love of the heart, by the deepest compassion, and by the voice of their conscience. The day after this joint ceremony, Swamiji invited the presence of the spirit of our Guruji through the recitation of the "Akanda Mandala Mantra" and gave wonderful initiations to eight brothers and sisters. The presence of our Guruji showed to me the conquest and the acceptance of Shri Swami Veda, and I remembered Swami Rama saying to me in 1994 at the Ashram in Rishikesh: "A man like Swami Veda, of his quality and wisdom, such an accomplished meditator you can search for in all India."

The experience of pure love and devotion, and the deepest respect for every living being vibrating from Shri Swamiji's heart all these days, and the deepest love and respect he received openly in public from the Shankaracharya, the wonderful Dalai Lama and Muniji, is evidence enough for me that the Himalayan Tradition has a worthy successor, whom I have had the pleasure and grace to serve for the last 20 years, and whom I will serve to the end of his life. Shri Swami Rama had always said that our path is the path of self-conquest; and Swami Veda has shown that he is presenting that path through his own conquest.

Seeing and experiencing the deep love Muniji showed Shri Swami Veda, my beloved brother Ingo from Berlin and I felt an experience of ourselves bathed in love, devotion and selfless service. On two occasions came the vision of our Guruji upon us, honoring us with grace and blessings. In deepest gratitude and reverence, and with all the love in my heart, I bow before my beloved elder brother and spiritual guide.

Wolfgang Bischoff

February 2001

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Copyright 2001 West-Art

PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin for Art, Politics and Science.

The Himalayan sage Swami Veda lectured on the subject of Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) in St. Paul, MN in July, 2009.

St.Paul/New York (mea) Something unusual happened many years ago when Swami Rama visited the Menniger Clinic in Kansas. The swami appeared, by external observation and by the readouts from the biofeedback monitors to which he was connected, to be fast asleep and he was snoring.  During this time, with Swami Rama sleeping, the researchers chatted amongst themselves.  Later, when he "awoke", Swami Rama was able to recount all of the conversations that occurred while he was "sleeping."  How did he do it?   Yoga Nidra.

Yoga nidra is sleep, but unlike the sleep most of us enjoy--sleep that is unconscious, yoga nidra is conscious sleep, meaning that the "sleeper" is completely aware although getting very deep rest.  Swami Rama was a master of Yoga Nidra, and so is his disciple Swami Veda Bharati.

This past weekend, July 17-19, 2009 Swami Veda Bharati and his crew of highly knowledgeable and skilled teachers offered a seminar on Yoga Nidra.   Held at the beautiful St. Thomas University, in St. Paul, in a large room, the seminar was attended by an international crowd of about 100 participants mostly from the USA and Canada, with a large contingent from the Minneapolis area.    Most of the participants had been studying with the Himalayan Tradition for many years, many were teachers, and some were relatively new.  

During this three day seminar, there were sessions by such wonderful teachers as Swami Ritavan--who led a long deep relaxation session, Maya (Margo Balog)--who shared knowledge and wisdom about proper body positioning, sitting, and movement to assist one in attaining the state of yoga nidra, and Stoma (Stephan Parker) and Swami Nityamuktananda both of whom shared knowledge and wisdom about what exactly Yoga Nidra is.  In addition to these, which would have been sufficient, Swami Veda Bharati gave two sessions, filled with wisdom, stories, transmitted an experience of Yoga Nidra to those attending.  

In his first lecture, Swami Veda mentioned how Yoga Nidra has become a very popular topic in the commercial yoga world, and is being taught by many people, but that most were not really teaching Yoga Nidra. The reason for this is that Yoga Nidra is a state of awareness, rather than a technique and can only properly be taught by one who is in that state of awareness. Unfortunately, according to Swami Veda, many or most who claim to be teaching Yoga Nidra are not teaching from that state of awareness.  

The sage from the Himalayas also talked about some of the benefits of Yoga Nidra, such as how one who is in that state can access all if his/her memory banks and create an entire literary treatise in his mind in one night, which might take years to then put down onto paper.  Learning can also be vastly accelerated when in the Yoga Nidra state and one gets very deep rest.    

In his second lecture, Swami Veda led the entire group in a relaxation leading to Yoga Nidra from Swami Rama's Path of Fire and Light, II.

I've been studying with Swami Veda for many years, and have practiced the preparatory techniques to Yoga Nidra, but for the most part the state has eluded me.  The lectures and experiences provided a deeper understanding of Yoga Nidra than I had previously.  

Although I did not experience the  Yoga Nidra state at this seminar, what I did experience gave me new inspiration and resolve to attain the goal mastering sleep. 

© PROMETHEUS 146/2009

PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin - News, Politics, Art and Science. Nr. 146, August 2009

Friends,


the AUGUST issue of Prometheus is now available at

http://meaus.com/002009-prometheus-146.htm

One of the articles is an interesting report on Swami Veda's recent
lectures on Yoga Nidra, written by one of the participants.


New articles are added every week, so do come back from time to time
to see what is new.


best regards to all,
John Zavrel
Museum of European Art
zavrel@...

The Himalayan sage Swami Veda lectured on the subject of Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep) in St. Paul, MN in July, 2009.

St.Paul/New York (mea) Something unusual happened many years ago when Swami Rama visited the Menniger Clinic in Kansas. The swami appeared, by external observation and by the readouts from the biofeedback monitors to which he was connected, to be fast asleep and he was snoring. The brain wave monitors in the adjacent room were registering that Swami Rama was producing solid delta waves (1-4 Hz). The brain produces this wavelength when one is in deep sleep that one cannot be easily aroused from. But he was able to later recount everything that was whispered softly in the room where he had been sleeping. How did he do it?   Yoga Nidra.

Yoga nidra is sleep, but unlike the sleep most of us enjoy--sleep that is unconscious, yoga nidra is conscious sleep, meaning that the "sleeper" is completely aware although getting very deep rest.  Swami Rama was a master of Yoga Nidra, and so is his disciple Swami Veda Bharati.

This past weekend, July 17-19, 2009 Swami Veda Bharati and his crew of highly knowledgeable and skilled teachers offered a seminar on Yoga Nidra.   Held at the beautiful St. Thomas University, in St. Paul, in a large room, the seminar was attended by an international crowd of about 100 participants mostly from the USA and Canada, with a large contingent from the Minneapolis area.    Most of the participants had been studying with the Himalayan Tradition for many years, many were teachers, and some were relatively new.  

During this three day seminar, there were sessions by such wonderful teachers as Swami Ritavan--who led a long deep relaxation session, Maya (Margo Balog)--who shared knowledge and wisdom about proper body positioning, sitting, and movement to assist one in attaining the state of yoga nidra, and Stoma (Stephan Parker) and Swami Nityamuktananda both of whom shared knowledge and wisdom about what exactly Yoga Nidra is.  In addition to these, which would have been sufficient, Swami Veda Bharati gave two sessions, filled with wisdom, stories, transmitted an experience of Yoga Nidra to those attending.  

In his first lecture, Swami Veda mentioned how Yoga Nidra has become a very popular topic in the commercial yoga world, and is being taught by many people, but that most were not really teaching Yoga Nidra. The reason for this is that Yoga Nidra is a state of awareness, rather than a technique and can only properly be taught by one who is in that state of awareness. Unfortunately, according to Swami Veda, many or most who claim to be teaching Yoga Nidra are not teaching from that state of awareness.  

The sage from the Himalayas also talked about some of the benefits of Yoga Nidra, such as how one who is in that state can access all if his/her memory banks and create an entire literary treatise in his mind in one night, which might take years to then put down onto paper.  Learning can also be vastly accelerated when in the Yoga Nidra state and one gets very deep rest.    

In his second lecture, Swami Veda led the entire group in a relaxation leading to Yoga Nidra from the practicum to Mantra 6 of Mandukya Upanishad, as given by Swami Rama in his book 'Enlightenment Without God'. The modern scientific definition of Yoga Nidra can be formulated as follows, according to Swami Weda: ' Yoga Nidra is a state of consciousness, where the brain is producing delta brain waves, but the subject is fully conscious'.

I've been studying with Swami Veda for many years, and have practiced the preparatory techniques to Yoga Nidra, but for the most part the state has eluded me.  The lectures and experiences provided a deeper understanding of Yoga Nidra than I had previously.  

Although I did not experience the  Yoga Nidra state at this seminar, what I did experience gave me new inspiration and resolve to attain the goal mastering sleep. 

© PROMETHEUS 146/2009

PROMETHEUS, Internet Bulletin - News, Politics, Art and Science. Nr. 146, August 2009