May 2013 Newsletter Contents
  (for instant access to the content item - click on the headline below)

• Guru and the Light Within by Swami Rama
• Intuition, Telepathy and the Sixth Sense by Dr. Dinesh Sharma
• The World Religions, A Numbers Game by Swami Nitya
• Ammaji’s Corner
• Health Benefits of Indian Spices
• Review of “Eye Full of Sky” - Poems by Lalitya Arya
• KHEL News
• Twitter Fan? See Swami Veda Quotes
• AHYMSIN e-mail directory

Guru and the Light Within

by Swami Rama
 

If you prepare yourself to know the higher knowledge, then you will deserve. To deserve means to increase your capacity. You want to put the entire ocean in a bucket. The ocean is there. You can have it, but you do not have the capacity. When you deserve, you will have the capacity. The Lord, the Reality, the Truth, is always within you. You simply have to become aware. You can make sincere efforts to work with yourself.

The light itself will guide you.

Don’t be disappointed with failures. When you start to make sincere efforts and start to practice, you will find light on the path. The light itself will guide you. The light of consciousness is within you. If you ignore that light, the guide outside you, the external teacher, will be of no use to you. He will make you a slave. Every individual has certain notions. He also lives with his notions. He creates a following and millions of people are swayed and misguided.

Do not depend much on guides. 
It is better for you to 
prepare yourself and remain awake

Do you know what a guide means? The word guru has been vulgarized. Such a pious word is being misused. I call it guide. Do not depend much on guides. It is better for you to prepare yourself and remain awake. The scriptures say to wake up from the deep sleep of ignorance. Remain fully awake, remain conscious, and go on learning. Never close the door of learning. The day you close the door of learning you become ego, ego, ego.

In the Himalayas the teacher examines the student and the student examines the teacher. When my master sent me to various teachers he told me, “The teacher who can sit still for a long time is a good teacher because he has practiced something. Listen to him. If the teacher changes his posture many times in five minutes, do not waste your time there.” There are certain signs and symptoms that have been explained by the great scriptures. The scriptures help the student to know who is a good teacher so he does not waste much time. Otherwise, what are we teachers doing?

Suppose you want to go to New York. You come to Swami Rama for directions and Swami Rama says to go this way. You meet a different Rama on the way and he says, “Oh, come on! He does not know anything. Go this way.” And the student is very sincere. Then another teacher says, “Both Ramas are fools. Better go this way.” By that time the poor fellow has wasted twelve years and he is nowhere.

The knowledge should be followed, 
not the individual personality of the teacher.

The word teacher means “knowledge.” The knowledge should be followed, not the individual personality of the teacher. The subject should be given prime importance, not the individual. Teachers have complicated things. Yoga science has suffered because of this. One teacher says, “This is my method.” Another teacher says, “This is my method.” The poor student is confused. After some time he finds that his mind, his individuality, and his pocket have been robbed.

When you become aware of the light within, and that light reveals the Truth to you, there are no chances of being misguided. Teachers come and go. From your external teacher just pick up that which is useful for you and leave that which is not useful. No doubt you need a teacher, a guide. I will never tell you that you should not seek and you should not learn from other people, or that you should not study books. Teachers only inspire you and make you aware of that Self-existence that you have forgotten. Their role is to make you aware of the Reality.

From your external teacher 
just pick up that which is useful for you 
and leave that which is not useful.

You do not need any new form. Christians should not become Hindu, Hindus should not become Buddhist, and Buddhists should not become anything else. They should remain as they are and not create any serious new problems for themselves. A known devil is better than an unknown devil. Remember this. Try to make your life happy wherever you are.

Go to the inner levels of your being 
and be guided by the light 
that is already within you.

Yoga science tells you to go to the inner levels of your being and be guided by the light that is already within you, that leads you in the darkness. If you understand the light within, when you are introduced to that light, you will not crave for any outer guidance. Learn to make your abode in darkness so that you can see the light, but not the superficial light. Superficial light creates problems for you and does not allow you to see the light within.

When you start treading the path you will never find any difficulty, for the light is already within you. The light within you is coming out. When I look at your faces I find that they are different because of the light that has the power of discrimination. That light can correctly judge and understand and know. That light is higher than any other light of the sun, the moon, and the stars. That is why human beings are superior to all these lights that you see outside yourself.

The purpose of a guide, guru, or teacher 
is to introduce you to that light.

In the light of the sun, in the light of the moon, and in the light of the stars there is no discrimination. The light within you has the power of discrimination. You can use that light to see the darkest corners of your inner chamber. For that you do not need outer guidance. The purpose of a guide, guru, or teacher is to introduce you to that light.

          Intuition, Telepathy & The Sixth Sense

                                      (about your vast mindfield)
 
Someone meets an accident, suffers injuries but doesn’t want to panic parents by giving news yet his or her mother already senses it thousands miles away. This person has no clue how?
 
One fine morning you think of a close friend and decide to call him later during the day but to your surprise he himself calls you and tells you that he was thinking of you since morning. You wonder how this happened.
 
You have a weird dream about some neighbour, known person or close relative and few days later you hear about his/her death or becoming seriously ill. You can’t understand the logic.
 
A’s grandmother, who used to love him most, suddenly died thousands miles away while he was recovering from post surgical anesthesia after an accident. He felt her coming, sitting on the bed, crying and holding his head in her lap complaining that why no one informed her about A’s accident. When A became fully conscious, he enquired about grand mother. He couldn’t believe that she had died earlier in the morning and there is no way she could have visited him. A is yet to resolve this mystery even after many years of that ‘experience’.
 
P came to live in a new neighborhood in the town where he got a new job. He had no interaction with neighbors as his busy office schedule allowed him just enough time to go, shower and sleep for a few hours in his apartment. On the third night he dreamt of a bleeding donkey with completely ripped open skin stopping in front of the fourth apartment to the left of his own condo. P woke up breathless and perspiring on a cold winter morning. It was 3.30 am in the morning. One hour later when P was trying hard to get another short nap, he heard a series of wailing voices in the neighborhood. Stepping out he got shocked to find that a man in his early forties had died of massive heart attack at the same time in the same apartment, where the bleeding donkey had stopped. P is still unable to resolve this riddle.
 
Mostly we brush such experiences as bizarre as we have no clue that why this happens but when we savvy the real capacity and power of the mind, we would not be that shocked or surprised.
 
Though mind is in the body yet it is not bound by time, space and speed like the rest of the body. Though it uses brain cells to express, contemplate and manifest yet the mind doesn’t live in the brain only. Mind can be present in each cell of the body and yet remain free from them.
 
Each mind has its own vast mind field which extends beyond time, space and matter. Waves from one mind field can travel to other mind fields in no time and feel many things. The waves of a disciplined, trained and evolved mind are more energetic, focused and strong. The healing waves of a Saintly and Yogic mind are known to know about, help and heal not just one or two but thousands.
 
Mind can travel in past and future, to other planets beyond galaxies and milky ways in no time. A disciplined, trained and evolved mind can accomplish even more ‘unthinkable’. Powered by the resolution of highly evolved and enlightened minds, souls re-incarnate on this planet and as well migrate to other worlds too, when their karmas are done here.  
 
An invisible mysterious world, which keeps sending us those ‘weird’ messages through dreams or ‘déjà vu’ feelings simultaneously co-exists with this visible world, we daily interact with. We can’t see this invisible world as the five senses of perception (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin) are to understand and explore this visible world only.
 
Intuition and telepathy are the sixth sense of perception and can be developed by training the mind to become meditative, focused, disciplined, quiet and free from distractions like anger, hate, jealousy, greed, ego and other similar negative traits and self destructive consumptions. When the sixth sense starts developing then the mysteries of the invisible world get revealed, gradually.

World Religions
                                                                                                                                           

 by Swami Nitya

Session 3: World-religions… a number game (globalization)

Let's go back to what we said in the 1^st session, how religions start. There is a Wise One and he has great spiritual insights, mystical experience, deep awareness of that Ultimate Reality beyond normal ken, which we call Spirit, in opposition to matter.

These wise Ones, from their experience and their perspective of existence try to make ordinary people understand, what they saw, what they experienced, furthermore they use language that can be understood by the people they talk to!

So far so good, but then there are two path, of how these became world-religions.

Let’s start with one:

The Wise Ones, usually imparted this knowledge to a few select people, (we can take the Rishis as example, or Buddha, or Jesus the Christ). They found, that what they saw in society which, of course, followed the then current ‘paradigms’, did not fit their experience. They expressed their malcontent; they showed the people they met… what was wrong with the leading paradigm and how there was a mis-match between their insights, their experience , their perception... and their thinking – and what was going on in society (i.e. most people).

Just like leading philosophers they pointed out untruth – and taught truth according to their experience.  And people understood, or not, but word spread to more and more people, even those that were not prepared to understand the deeper meaning of what the “ rebellious teacher “ taught. Many flocked around them and listened.

Now the teacher dies, of old age, of persecution , or what have you - and what happens? The people that heard the teaching... try to capture his words, his spirit and preserve it for “generations to come”. Next they collect stories that happened around these Masters, or what might have happened to these Masters and add them. Of course they only know the Master… not his childhood, or bio data - computers were not invented (neither were data-banks!)

So they make up likely stories, a mixture between that which had been heard, whispered and that which could be true and was meaningful in that culture etc. The whole bundle was then cast…i.e. written down. Now it was fixed! Nobody could doubt or change it. It was now “cast in stone”; i.e. this is the way it was...and you better belief it.  People heard the stories on their travels and took them home…. they even exchanged scripture...from one culture into the other… and gradually the canon grew and calcified.

Often, when it then reached the nobility, the influential group in society, even the kings – the whole “collection” made a quantum leap. Once a king declared the religion as his… it frequently became and was declared as “ his state religion…” which often meant , his subjects had to follow it... else one “want to have one’s head chopped off!”  A state- religion is truly fixed.

 Now of course this is a cartoon, but cartoons carry truth. This is in essence the history of many of the “World Religions”.

Go back… be clear. At the beginning there is a Wise One, who has insight….when this becomes fixed, embroiled and unchangeable, it becomes a religion.

Wait: the original content was a spiritual experience, even a personal “truth”, but now that the form is fixed… and backed up by power - it definitely becomes a religion (i.e. binding people to some structure, organisation). This means the personal truth of a moment in time, the experience of one or several individuals … is cast into an unchangeable form.

The same pattern we find in the most unexpected corners.  For example: the wise ones of ancient India, the rishis… so I am told, went so deep into meditation that they heard the vibration of energy that different objects are. Listen….can you hear…the sound vibration of the carpet? The rishis could, and they caught that sound… and it repeated it and from it came the word for “carpet”.

Please be aware that again this is a “teaching-cartoon”, not to be taken for the absolute truth – of a scholar. Happily in oral traditions this “language, created by sound vibrations, carried on over millennia; a living language. But at some point the grammarian comes, gets hold of it… and cast it in irrefutable rules and patterns of a language; meaning now language becomes calcified and stuck to such a degree, that one of India’s greatest poets of the Bhakti movement, Kabir could sing: “Sanskrit is the stagnant water of the lords private well ‘whereas’ the spoken language is the rippling water of the running stream”.

So language too can follow the same path, and become: something that binds the spiritual experience into a form, to be adhered to i.e. it becomes … a religion.

Anyway… back to the red thread, we are following with these articles:                                                      

There is an experience, a truth… which then is clad into words and socio –cultural frame of a particular area/country or people, for them to understand.

Now what happens? As soon as this is mixed with the power of rulers, or the zealous of conquerors….then not only me and my people have to accept what is said and written ... but others have too. Moreover, this is not just my private insight cast into a frame, my private religion, but worse, it becomes a power-tool to spread or enlarge my zone of power.

In the extreme concepts arise like: we, the ones who are part of this religion, are the chosen ones… who can understand and live this ways…and others are not, which makes them inferior...and,  even so much so, that I can take their land and kill them.                                                                                     

Or in a lesser version: others must believe what I believe… because only the way the truth has been phrased by my prophet can be the real expression. This had such strange forms in the past.

For example, indigenous people all over the globe were told, that their spiritual experience and expression is wrong…they have to leave it. So then, because now they have none, they need my saviour; my religion; my God.

Stories of Missionary cruelty abound across the globe.

As religions grew… their ideology of power over others grew too; power now took the place of truth. Many of the most powerful “World-religions” of the past, followed this crazy path.

But yes there are “less cruel variants” of such autocratic behaviour. For example after the last Tsunami and the conditions it caused, there is much evidence of religious associations offering help, medicines etc. “only ... if you follow my faith…”

It reminds me of dinosaurs. A dinosaur had a huge body, so there was enormous powerful movement, but a very small brain. This prevented him from adapting to the changes in the environment… sometimes they were first superseded by other versions of themselves, i.e. bigger versions; eventually they simply died out.  World Religions in my perception are on the same path. We are living in a time where the first step on this path is happening; the world-religions are being superseded by a new religion: Materialism. The next step … we await.

Now let’s look at a different path to become a World-Religion.                                                         

Start with going back to how the mind was shaped by climatic and social conditions… and in time generated a perception of Gods and religions… in correspondence to their experience; we talked about in the part of this series.                                                                       

The so called religions of Asia… had a different path… They became world religions… for very different reasons. If we take Confucianism and Taoism for example: they arose in China, a country with a huge population. By sheer numbers of people these have become world religions.

The Chinese people have always been traders, from ancient times  they travelled along the silk route, and all over the oceans; they migrated. So via commerce and simply by living and taking their so called religion with them… they spread it across the globe.

Hinduism is another case… but permit me to leave it out right now…suffice here to say, that like China,  Indians have travelled and settled around the globe bringing their faith with them.

Jainism is a religion that for a long time has shrunk because of the severity of its asceticism; not long ago, there were barely a million or so people adhering to the faith, but then recently they are increasing, probably due to the strong emphasis on non-violence... in a world that is suffocating in violence.

Buddhism is the real interesting different story. It has all marks of a world-religion… and yet it did not follow the path the western models did. But then one could argue that Buddhism isn’t really a Religion.

In my personal opinion, the amazing success of Buddhism in the global picture comes because it has remained flexible and appears sometimes as a religion, imbued with a certain cultural and its frame; sometimes it is a very abstract philosophy… and at other times it is simple lived spirituality... without any formal structure…or becomes so earth bound that it resembles a shamanic tradition.

When we look at a website on world religion, of course we find many, many... from the smallest...I have never heard of… to the largest. So “world- religions” as a word, as a technical term, can also mean: not those that have spread around the globe by missionary effort, but those that can be found on the globe. Well that then, in a global society becomes an almost meaningless term… because where else would be find these religions. Of course on the globe…we call earth.       

When we talk here of “world-religion” mostly it refers to those religions that have... reached sizable distribution across the globe; i.e. much beyond their original home-land; or culture.

According to Wikipedia, the most global religion is Christianity (with 33 % of the population adhering to it), with Islam following it with 21 % and Hinduism only a surprising 13% despite the vast population of India. The latter data has actually a “funny origin”. When the first consensuses where conducted in India, it had of course a question like: what Religion you belong to. And very few people living on the Indian landmass, entered Hinduism. According to the first few poles… very few people in India saw themselves as Hindus. And that is not that long ago. May be 100 years ago.

It is no surprise that the fastest growing religion is Islam. It has 1.36 billion members….another chart says…                                                                                                                                                         There are 2.30 billion Christians in the world; and even now, low and behold almost half belong to the Catholic Church, which even now is growing fast, especially in Africa and Asia.  Who would have thought?

If we just play a number game…after Islam, the next ones in line today are (what is today called) Hinduism with 900 Million and Buddhism 360 Million members.  The problem is not that the globe has “many religions”, nor that there are some powerful mass-religions… the problem lies in the understanding of religion itself.

Remember there are founders with experiences and insight, and then there are followers which cement what they understood - the wise one has said. (So now we already twice removed…from the experience); then there comes the organisation… who decides...what of that which the disciples have understood is supposed be propagated; and then that is made into an Absolute Truth; at least within the culture of that very religion.

Now when the religion spreads, this consideration of “Absolute Truth”... walks with them. Which leads to my culture, my religious form is better than yours. Here is where the conflict comes from. When I take the stand that my truth is Absolute…then I do not allow someone else to have their Truth. On the philosophical level… it is right ”Absolute” can only be “one”… and that has no form.. Because, it is absolute. So If a religion claims to have absolute truth, they mean the “only” truth...That’s when it gets dangerous, because it is exclusive and thus confrontational.

The further removed from the original experience… the more words and codes are needed. Someone said something like: The further away we move from God, the more words we need to convince ourselves and others that he/she exists.                                                                                   

That’s the problem. And now a crazy thought: This gets aggravated as long as one believes in the paradigm of matter!  Then we get religious materialism. My word is solid truth! My rules are solid truth. Religion and materialism are a deadly combination.

Let me paint a picture which will show there is another way. Conquering or persuading is not the only way. The other way, necessitates that we change our mind-set away from materialistic thinking…which includes the thought of the “survival of the fittest, strongest!”

In many spiritual traditions we have the image that the world is like a cosmic being; a cosmic humanoid. So this great cosmic being (let’s call it the Cosmic Christ, or cosmic Purusha etc.) is thought of by conditioned mind as a body (hence it includes the reference to body...human body moreover our body!                                                                                                                                    

Now change the vision; look in the body… not at the body! Look beyond the appearance of matter –i.e. body! Just like looking through a huge microscope at matter and see nothing but small particles…or even further …: seeing space with pure light or energy… In this way let’s look at the cosmic body.

Now the manifest, what we call physical body has trillions of cells every cell that is part of the human body is an independent, intelligent, sentient being that when given a proper environment, is self-sufficient. However for greater efficiency they have bunched together and crowed together under one skin forming … incredible varieties of clusters of cells that have taken on specific jobs. I.e. liver cells purify! Muscle cells move! Nerve- cells communicate etc. So although cells are cells they have special interests and they share as members of a certain community their task for greater efficiency in the entire body. They become specialised, have different cultures, with different abilities for greater efficiency of the common good.

A liver culture, a bone culture, a kidney culture – all are such different communities; working together, to help the total community, we can call body, to function more efficiently. Key is not competition but exchange of information!

Now transfer this to the idea of the “cosmic body” of the world…. We have all different ways, different cultures; societies of equally able human beings. Each society, each culture, even each religion… can take on a special way of life; enriching the rest.  They could all work together just as in the physical body, in order to help the total community of earthlings function more efficiently and evolve more intelligently.  Our cells can teach us how to co-operate!

Now imagine what happens in your body, when the liver cells refuse co-operation with the gallbladder; the lungs refuse co-operation with the heart. Instead the gallbladder -cells invade the liver and says: only the rule of bile goes. You have no right dear liver to produce anymore liver cells!

What if the alveoli in the lungs suddenly grow and invade the heart… and tell the heart “stop pumping blood... only alveoli are allowed to reign”.

Surely the body would not last very long. In fact the intelligent behaviour of the cells being lost is what we call cancer.

The earth-body, the cosmic body of over-all existence ; call it the global society…  had to live and is living  even now with rampant going “cells” as well as clusters of cells.

Whether conventional religions zeal or materialism… - collectively, we are actually behaving like what in our body is called cancer. This is vastly contributing to the suicidal path of humanity.

We have to switch and learn from our own body. Doesn’t it say in the Vedas (and many other spiritual books) “as above so below”. Our world according to many religious traditions including new sciences teach us to see, that the same patterns, the same laws apply in the body as well as in the world and the cosmos at large. Then live by it!

Cells in our body co-operate. Let societies and cultures learn to co-operate. Help the religions of the world to co-operate.

Only with such co-operation is there a future for anyone them; or better: any one of us! 

 Again I point to the lesson from the new sciences is, that it is not the survival of the fittest that leads to the greatest flourishing; it’s the survival of the one that can co-operate most intelligently with all others. To reach deep peace, to reach spiritual maturity is not achieved by one religion dominating others...but by harmony and co-operation… with the freedom to choose.

That means: not my way, not my tradition, not my culture, not my business, not my religion is stronger or better…

But love and tolerance in mutual co-operation...that is the strongest! That is what lasts and that is what evolves to the highest goal…. To return to the Source, of whatever name and cultural frame.

Ammaji’s Corner

 

 

by Lalita Arya

Director of KHEL Charities

By Lalita Arya © 2013

A KULHAR of CHAI

  A cup of Chai (photo by Sharada Bhajan)

(This Poem is dedicated to my younger sister, Sharada, who accompanied me on an incredible and amazing road trip in India to find our maternal ancestral family after almost 200 years of separation and many miles and continents apart)

© Lalita Arya

You must have drunk lots of cups of tea

Plain black tea, herbal tea, milk tea, masala tea

In lots of cups – dainty English teacups, huge American tea cups,

Heavy Indian glass and sometimes steel cups.

But have you ever tasted masala chai

In a kulhar – a mini earthern clay tea cup?

And that too from a dhaba –

A road side café – tea café?

Poured from a hot boiling kettle

Right at your car window

With the AC on full blast

On a decent motor-able highway

Driving through a little adorable town

In India?

With a crazy funny sister

By your side

Taking a pix of you as you try

To test the new exotic taste of tea

In this delicate earthen ware

While she drinks a diet coke from a can?

Laughing away at your boldness

In trying something so natural, so earthy

So delicious?  Have you?

SPICES

by Dr. Surya Pierce

Introduction: The following article is a continuation in a series on Spices by Dr. Surya Pierce. Dr. Surya has done much research on this subject and we deeply appreciate his sharing this knowledge with us.  In addition to what he has written I would like to add from my personal experience from childhood to grandmother-hood, I have tried turmeric (haldi) in several dishes - first dishes prepared by my own grandmother, then mother and several other members of my family. As a child we did not care for the taste, as it is a little pungent and bitter and very strong as a dye. Be careful not to get it on your dressy  outfits for an Indian wedding as its stain is very difficult to get rid of. Over the years I have found one of the best uses of haldi to be while cooking Indian daals, any kind of daals – lentils, channa (chick peas) mung, etc.  Ofcourse as Dr. Surya mentioned it is one of the main ingredients in any curry-spices mixture, being the basic of the three combinations of cumin, coriander and turmeric.

Tumeric

Botanical Name: Curcuma longa; Zingiberaceae

Sanskrit: haridra    Hindi: haldi      Cardinal tastes: bitter, pungent, astringent

Best biomedical evidence for: anti-inflammatory effects, treating osteoarthritis and dyspepsia, anti-cancer effects

Traditional uses: anti-inflammatory, anti-infective, vulnerary, blood purifier, food coloring, dye, skin tonic, carminative. Said to purify the subtle body and aid the digestion of protein.

Cautions: may increase risk of bleeding; avoid in pregnancy 

May also be effective for: preventing Alzheimer’s disease, lowering triglycerides

Turmeric is a key ingredient in Indian curries, providing the distinctive yellow-orange color. In ancient times this member of the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) was noted as a substitute for saffron, and is said to have similar properties. Turmeric’s earlier influence on Western cuisine is seen in its presence in many mustard (the condiment) recipes, providing both flavor and color. Its color not only enriches the appearance of food but has been used as a clothing dye. For example it is sometimes used to dye the robes of Buddhist monks and nuns.

It turns out that the primary pigment in turmeric, called curcumin, is also the likely source of its many health benefits. Curcumin has remarkable anti-inflammatory, immune system modulating and anti-cancer properties which have made turmeric a very active subject of scientific research. Curcumin has been shown to be at least as effective as a modest dose of the drug ibuprofen for treating osteoarthritis. It is probably also just as good for treating other types of joint pain. Unlike most anti-inflammatory drugs, which frequently cause dyspepsia (an “upset stomach”), turmeric has actually been shown to effectively treat dyspepsia. Safety of doses up to ~2 grams of dried turmeric daily (equivalent to ~2/3 teaspoon of powder) in divided doses has been well demonstrated.

There are many traditional uses and much lore about turmeric, and some of this corresponds with its known biochemistry. For example, it is traditionally used topically for healing wounds and skin diseases, likely owing to its ability to alter bacterial growth and modulate the immune system. It is also used traditionally for arthritis and musculoskeletal injuries, which is supported by its known anti-inflammatory effects. Some of its uses, for example to ward off evil spirits and subdue sexual urges, are harder to prove.

Turmeric may protect against the development of Alzheimer’s disease. It has been observed that Indian’s have a significantly lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, and many speculate that this is due to dietary factors such as turmeric. It appears that turmeric does not however treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, at least in the short term. Regardless many experts in integrative and holistic medicine are using this safe and possibly effective spice more generally for neuroprotection, that is, in circumstances when the nervous system is at risk for disease or injury.

Experiments and Advice:

*Try turmeric to treat minor aches and pains. It is safer and may be as effective as common pain killers. Turmeric is available in a variety of capsules and tinctures. There are also products that use curcumin extracts. Adding ~2/3 teaspoon of dried turmeric in your food throughout a given day is a good way to make your food medicine.

*Add turmeric to warm milk or milk tea. Any milk (cow, soy, almond) will do. May be sweetened with honey or sugar. ~1 teaspoon fresh or ~1/2 teaspoon dried turmeric per cup of milk is a reasonable amount.

*Try applying turmeric topically for skin conditions. For example, place a small slice of fresh turmeric root or a small pinch of powder directly onto a clean, minor skin abrasion (eg a paper cut), then cover with a bandage. Be careful as this may stain your skin or clothing.  

*Some say that turmeric should always be consumed cooked. Indeed, the dried powder is prepared by first boiling or steaming fresh whole rhizomes, which are then dried and ground.

*Add a pinch of dried turmeric powder to rice while cooking. This adds a nice color and subtle flavor.

*1 teaspoon of fresh grated turmeric is equivalent to ~1/2 teaspoon dried turmeric powder. But they are not quite the same in flavor or effect…

*Take turmeric with black or long pepper to maximize the effects. Piperine, the most active chemical in black pepper and long peppers, has been found to dramatically increases the absorption of curcumin. Add a sprinkle of pepper to all your turmeric dishes.

NOTE TO READER: While spices are indeed food products and “generally considered safe,” they are also potentially potent herbal medicines. If you are interested in taking spices for chronic or serious medical conditions or if you are taking other medications, you should always first consult your physician. Feel free to contact me for a list of citations, questions or concerns: suryapierce@gmail.com

Eyeful of Sky by Lalita Arya

by Joanne Sullivan (Divya)

 Many of us know Lalita Arya as Ammaji, the Mother who welcomed us into her house and her life for so many years. Now she has given us all a deeply personal gift—a book of poems. The book takes its title from a poem she wrote inspired by Kanyakumari. She tells us how the poem Eyeful of Sky was inspired:

• “There are few places on earth where one is fortunate to witness sunset and moonrise at the same time in the sky. I saw this phenomenon at Kanyakumari, India, a sort of land’s end, the apex of the triangle of the sub-continent, on whose two sides were the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and facing the vast Indian Ocean.”

• Indeed, there is a vastness to this small book. It contains worlds and the dots that dot the constellations of her life and the lives of people she has loved. Inside the lives of the Arya family, close friends, mountains, trees and deer, the Devi Herself lives and is very much present in this book. Eyeful of Sky spans Ammaji’s life from her youth and her encounter with a boa constrictor while waiting for a ferry during high rains, all fears assuaged by a gentle, wise stranger and replaced with compassion--- to her life-changing pilgrimage in 2012 at the sacred temples of Kamakshi, Kamakhya, Guwahati, Assam and Kalighat, Kolkata…. mysterious places of the Mother Power.

It is particularly special to me because as I walk through the rooms of this book, I am going up the front walk of their old house in Minneapolis, spiritual home to so many, going up the stairs to the altar, opening the door where Shankaracharya also lives - Na me dvesha ragau…Neither attraction nor aversion have I! - and divine force fields I can almost touch but not see or name. 

In the early days, theirs was a house whose upstairs was brimming with stillness and mystery while the apartment beneath the Meditation Room was filled with laughter and the escapades of children - and a kitchen at times bursting at the seams with hundreds of Dr. Arya’s students coming and going like family. We learned Shankaracharya shlokas which I still sometimes sing when I am cooking. I believe, as Ammaji and Panditji (later Swami Veda Bharati) taught us, that the food we make contains the vibrations of the cook.

The sacred flame and the smoke of incense at the temples of Kamakshi and Kalighat seep from the pages, and the book becomes a temple. Elsewhere she invites us into the family living room in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, which has been transformed into an altar for a Lakshmi puja that unfolds, casting out all darkness. You, the reader, are there at the house when Dr. Arya does not phone from Germany - uncharacteristic of him. He has suffered a massive heart attack on the other side of the world. Ammaji flies to Germany to care for her husband. There is a scramble to normalize the home front and a close student of her husband hurries from Dehradun to Delhi to live with their high school aged son. She boards the plane not knowing how long she will be gone, if her husband will survive and if so in what physical state.

Ammaji not only let us into her life, but lights the divine flame as she takes us by the hand from her school days to walks through “the fresh pine smell of green fir trees” near the homes of her children and grandchildren in Going for a Walk:

• Music plugged into my ears
• My feet beat rhythms to
• Bob Marley’s reggae guitar strings
• Or slow to Nagma’s ghazals ….
• I startle a grazing deer….
• It blinks and lopes gracefully
• Away….

One of my favorite passages was from Gangotri, a holy town in the Himalayas, the seat of the goddess Ma Ganga, close to where the River Ganges originates. It is one of the four important pilgrimage sites of the Char Dham.

(The) kids came running back to me, shouting, “Ammaji, Ammaji, come quickly and see this!” I had no idea what “this” was but I went after them as they stopped suddenly and pointed up to one of the mountains way into the sky. I looked up and my jaw dropped as I saw this vision of Shiva carved halfway up the mountain shining with ice crystals all the way to the tip of the mountain. While I gaped and wondered at the marvel of the sculptor, the kids ran ahead with glee. We finally arrived at the inn and after checking in I asked the receptionist if he knew who was the sculptor of the beautiful statue of Shiva way up high on the mountain. He looked at me in amazement and said, “There is no statue on the mountain.” I thought he was joking so I said “Come, let me show you.” When we went out and looked up all we saw was the plain mountain covered in snow! I again gaped and stuttering tried to explain when he laughed and said “Well, you are only partly lucky, you saw only him. Some people see his entire family.”

Here is a gleaming excerpt from that poem A Vision in the Mountains:

• I meditate upon the form of Shiva.
• Carved in ice as tall as the mountains
• Of Gangotri, who is that
• Sacred mouth of my Ganga River.
• Of brilliance radiating around this revelation
• A blue ice-ness sparkling
• With crystals.

• Not only does Ammaji give us her poems, gems in themselves, but also, on adjacent pages, the footprints of events that prompted many of the poems. She generously lets us see through her eyes as her life unfolds in these poems. At times, she dances over the pages as in Just Dance:

• Dance in the sun and let the light
• Engulf your ego.
• Dance in the night
• And be lost to it all.
• Just dance.

• At times there is deep prayer as in her poem Drowning, after her meeting with the Devi at Kamakhya:

• May I lie with my head in HER lap
• For all eternity.

• ______

Editor’s Note:

Eyeful of Sky by Lalita Arya can be purchased at https://www.createspace.com/3919855.   It is also available at Amazon as either a paperback or a Kindle edition, at Barnes & Noble as a paperback, and at other bookstores.

Lalita Arya is the founder of KHEL, a charitable organization. “KHEL provides equal opportunity education, support and employment, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion or sexual orientation. We believe that it is only through one’s own efforts that success is possible. KHEL gives future generations the necessary tools to change their lives.”  We invite you to visit the KHEL website: http://www.khelcharities.org/

Lalita Arya is also a mantra initiator in the AHYMSIN sangha and a member of the AHYMSIN Adhyatma Samiti, or Spiritual Committee.

KHEL NEWS – MAY 2013

  Mrs Kamli Bhatt

KHEL extends congratulations to Mrs. Kamli Bhatt on her re-election as City Councilor in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Mrs. Bhatt has served her district very well with devotion and service oriented qualities. We wish her all success in her future efforts to better the circumstances of the community from which she has been re-elected for another five years. KHEL’s school Lakshmi Devi Academy is situated in the district from which she has been re-elected.  Mrs. Bhatt was a former employee of KHEL and is the wife of  KHEL Manager Mr. Beni Bhatt. Mrs Bhatt is mother of 2 sons – one in college and one in primary school.

  Ammaji (Mrs. Arya) with Maya and Sharada

Ammaji visits Indresh Leprosy Colony: Just before leaving for the US, Ammaji visited the Indresh Leprosy Colony to check on the situation of the newly constructed toilets. This new project was possible through  donations from KHEL and others as the previous toilets also donated by KHEL many years ago had to be replaced. Ammaji’s sister from Canada and niece from the US, who were visiting her in Dehradun also accompanied her.

DEPARTMENTAL EMAIL DIRECTORY:

ASSOCIATION OF HIMALAYAN YOGA MEDITATION SOCIETIES INTERNATIONAL (AHYMSIN):

ahymsin@ahymsin.org (Email)

www.ahymsin.org(Website)

AHYMSIN Introduction Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrxLZw3z24s

SRSG MANDALA RECEPTION AND FRONT OFFICE:

Dr. Manju Talekar, Managing Director of SRSG

sadhakagrama@gmail.com (Guest information, reservations & bookings: Silvia Baratta)

dhyanamandiram@gmail.com (Accounts & book keeping, D.M.T. Office: Bhupendra)

SWAMI RAMA DHYANA GURUKULAM: vidyamandiram@gmail.com

AHYMSIN PUBLISHERS:

Bhola Shankar Dabral, Director

ahymsinpublishers@gmail.com (Publications and bookstore: Deepti)

HIMALAYAN YOGA TRADITION - TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM (HYT-TTP):

Chuck Linke, Director

Carolyn Hodges and Maryon Maass, HYT-TTP Office

www.himalayanyogatradition.com (Website)

info@himalayanyogatradition.com (Email)

hyt.ttp@gmail.com(Email)

Himalayan Yoga Tradition - Teacher Training Program:

Chuck Linke – Director

Stephanie Sulpy: US Office Manager and Treasurer

www.himalayanyogatradition.com (Website)

info@himalayanyogatradition.com   (Email)

Welcome to Swami Veda’s World-Wide Newsletter. Your photos and input are important to us, and we welcome news from any one of SVBs centers around the world. Send photos, and news items to the editor: dan@prideaux.com for inclusion in future editions. We hope you enjoy this edition, and we ask for your comments. Your friends may subscribe to this newsletter by filling in the data at www.swamiveda.org - as well as email address changes.