Guest guest Posted March 6, 2008 Report Share Posted March 6, 2008  ----- Arunachala Grace News - March, 2008 Ramana Maharshi BooksThe official Ramana Maharshi website has many books available for free download in PDF format. Books include the biography, 'Ramana Maharshi and the Path of Self-Knowledge,' and the renowned spiritual treatises; 'Self Enquiry,' and 'Who Am I?'. It has been said that all of Sri Ramana Maharshi's teachings are contained in the small, concise, 'Who Am I?'. To view and download visit linkSri NannagaruThe realised Advaitic Master, Sri Nannagaru is due to visit Arunachala during March and will be available to devotees and pilgrims during his stay. He is expected at his Ashram, Sri Nannagaru Ashram on March 15th and will stay for approximately 11 days. To learn more about Sri Nannagaru, you may visit his website Mahasivaratri Each month there is a day known as Sivaratri and once a year there is Mahasivaratri (maha=great); The Great Festival of Shiva. The dates of these occasions correspond to the phases of the moon and it is believed that the mind (which is adversely affected by the power of the moon) is less susceptible to low, animalistic forces and thus more tractable to the power of meditation and prayer. It is for this reason that Mahasivaratri is believed to be the one 24-hour period in the year which is of the greatest benefit. It has been stated in the scriptures that if a man fasts, stays awake and meditates for the whole of Mahasivaratri, it will give him his best chance to achieve mastery of the mind and attain liberation.Mahashivaratri always falls on the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight of Phalguna (February-March), and is dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva. (Mahashivaratri this year, 2008 falls on Thursday 6th March). On this day devotees sing Shiva bhajans, recite verses from scriptures, offer prayers in the morning and evening, and some observe fasting throughout the day. People visit Shiva Temples and in the case of Arunachala, premier Shiva site of South India, circumbulation of Arunachala Hill is observed by many.The name Shiva signifies a quality that means 'Auspicious' or 'The Auspicious One'. To a few, Shiva is Paramatman, Brahman, the Absolute, but many more prefer to see Shiva as a personal God given to compassion for his worshippers, and the dispenser of both spiritual and material blessings. Eternal Festival The Ribhu Gita The Ribhu Gita is a spiritual text extensively used by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. It was one of the first books he read after self-realization after he came to Arunachala and one whose message clearly accorded with what he had realized within himself. During his life it was recited at Ramanasramam and it is still read at Ramanasramam today. Ramana’s use and recommendation of this text has brought it into much wider visibility among those interested in his teachings and Advaita Vedanta. According to Annamalai Swami, “Bhagavan often said that we should read and study the Ribhu Gita regularly. In the Ribhu Gita it is said, “That bhavana ‘I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am Brahman, I am everything’ is to be repeated again and again until this becomes the natural state.â€The origins of the Ribhu Gita are uncertain. It is contained within the Sivarahasya, an ancient Sanskrit epic devoted to Siva. It has been compared to the better-known Bhagavad Gita, contained within the epic Mahabharata. Similar dialogues between Ribhu and Nidagha on the Self and Brahman are also found within the traditional 108 Upanishads, so it appears that the origin of the Ribhu Gita dates from the Upanishadic period, generally thought to be about 600 BC. The Ribhu Gita exists in two forms, the traditional Sanskrit version, and a Tamil version rendered in the late 1800s by Bhikshu Sastrigal, also known as Ulagantha Swamigal. The Tamil version follows the Sanskrit original in essential contents. It was rearranged by Ulagantha Swamigal and placed in eight-line verses of great beauty. The Tamil version was the one primarily used by Sri Ramana. Both the Sanskrit and Tamil versions have now been translated into English in complete translations. This was done by Dr. H. Ramamoorthy, a Sanskrit and Tamil scholar, and Nome, a Self-Realized sage of the United States.The Ribhu Gita is a book that is best read aloud, a few verses per sitting. It is in an ancient form designed to be chanted, and the way it is written is most conducive to reading aloud, even if reading to oneself. One can use this text with the Self-inquiry of Sri Ramana Maharshi, “Who am I?†The text inspires the removal of misidentifications attributed to the Self and be used to gain a firm experiential conviction as to the reality of one’s own Being. By tracing one’s identity to the Self, one gains the ability to abide as That which is self-evident. It is the One that can never be conceived or perceived. This is revealed by the reading of and meditation upon the text. [With thanks to Richard Clarke, Sarasvati and others] Nome Information Blue Tailed Bee-Eater The Blue-Tailed Bee-Eater is commonly found in Tiruvannamalai District flocking in open country and favouring in particular tanks and jheels, and wooded tracts. It is a pretty, slender bird coloured predominantly green; its face has a narrow blue patch with a black eye stripe, and a yellow and brown throat; its tail is blue and beak black. The sexes look alike. This bird can reach a length of 23-26 cms., including the two elongated central tail feathers. It has a call of: Te-Tew? Te-Tew? This birds’ nesting season extends from March to June and its burrows are excavated solitarily or colonially in dry loamy or sandy soil. Sites chosen include pond banks and sand hills. Eggs 5-7 pure white roundish ovals with both sexes sharing in feeding the young. The species roosts commonly in tall leafy tree, individuals sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder. The Blue-Tailed Bee-Eater forages by making fast flights from a treetop or powerline. It swoops towards the ground, or gains height rapidly with even wingbeats, glides towards its prey on out-stretched wings and then abruptly twists to take its prey. Which includes grasshoppers, cicadas, wasps, flies, bees, butterflies and dragonflies. Sometimes this bird forages high in the air, in continuous flight. A pretty bird,happily commonly seen around Tiruvannamalai. For Photographs Ginger Zingiber Officinale (Tamil=Inji) or Ginger, as is more commonly known in Western countries, is cultivated at Tiruvannamalai. Ginger is a tropical plant with green-purple flowers and an aromatic underground stem (called a rhizome). The rhizomes (which is the part of the plant that is used) are white to yellowish brown in colour and irregularly branched. The principal constituents of ginger are starch, volatile oil, and resin. The odour of ginger is due to the volatile oil, and its pungent taste to the resin.Ginger is used in Asian medicine to treat stomach aches, nausea, and diarrhea. Many digestive, antinausea, and cold and flu dietary supplements sold in the West contain ginger extract as an ingredient. Ginger is used to alleviate postsurgery nausea as well as nausea caused by motion, chemotherapy, and pregnancy. Ginger has been used for rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and joint and muscle pain. Studies suggest that the short-term use of ginger can safely relieve pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting. This herb is classified as a stimulant and carminative and is used frequently for dyspepsia and colic and to disguise the taste of medicines. Ginger may have blood thinning and cholesterol lowering properties, thus making it useful for treating heart disease. It is contraindicated in people suffering from gallstones as the herb promotes the release of bile from the gallbladder.The underground stems of the ginger plant are used in cooking, baking, and for health purposes. Common forms of ginger include fresh or dried root, tablets, capsules, liquid extracts (tinctures), and teas. Few side effects are linked to ginger when it is taken in small doses. Side effects most often reported are gas, bloating, heartburn, and nausea. These effects are most often associated with powdered ginger. Ginger Information Faith Faith“Hope has scarcely any relation to faith at all, and though many times more desirable than despair, nevertheless is a frail instrument indeed for moving the Subconscious Mind. Hope is a pessimist looking at things optimistically. Hope is a querulous wish for something better. Hope says evil is more real than good, with the timid reservation that everything might turn out all right anyway. Whatever we know to be a fact we have complete faith in, whether we understand how it works or not. You throw the lever on a switch with complete faith that the lights in the room will illuminate, yet the methods by which electricity is picked up in generators, transmitted over lines, distributed to your home and finally achieves the miracle of light by heating a tiny filament in a vacuum sealed by transparent glass are most probably little known to you. You know that the lights will go on when you throw the switch because you have tried it before and it works! Thus you have complete faith. .. . . Only by communion with the indwelling Self, the quiet assured place in the recesses of his being, will man come into the possession of true knowledge and thus complete faith. So, it is that one man can never insist with success that another man have faith, nor can any man insist that he himself have faith when he is beset by doubt and fear. Faith only comes through knowledge.†[u.S. Andersen] Commit“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decisions, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come this way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.†[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe] Campus Photographs Personalised Tours Arunachala Grace Network facilitates unique holistic visits to Arunachala. The experience, open to visitors coming from overseas, lasts 10 days and includes a customized, holistic treatment programme, visits to a private Nadi* Master, and an escorted trip to actualize the Remedies laid out by the Nadi reading. To discuss an individualized, personalized programme please contact: arunachalana at fastmail dot fm* Nadi Astrology (naadi jothidam) is a form of astrology practised in Tamil Nadu which is based on the belief that the past, present and future lives of all humans were foreseen by Hindu sages in ancient times and written on Palm Leaves. .. The Self Your true nature is always the undivided, nondual Brahman, Which is a mass of Being-Consciousness-Bliss, Motionless, ancient, still, Eternal, without attributes, Without confusions, without sheaths, Without parts, without impurity, Completely free from any illusion of duality, Full, peerless, and the One. [song of Ribhu, Chapter Two] Just as waves, bubbles, and foam appear on the ocean,The entire sapless phenomenal world of the moving and the unmovingAppears on the infinite Supreme Siva.Only those who, by relentless inquiry, attainThe doubtless realization that they are all,Of the nature of the one, complete Supreme Siva,Will be fully rid of the dreadful bondage of birthAnd will become of the nature of the impeccable Supreme Siva.[song of Ribhu, Chapter Two] ************************* The Self alone exists;and the Self alone is real.Verily the Self alone isthe world, the “I†and God.All that exists isbut the manifestation of the Supreme Being.[sri Ramana Maharshi] Self is only Being –Not being this or that.It is Simple Being.BE, andThere is the end of ignorance.[sri Ramana Maharshi] Snake Lesson Once upon a time, King Brahmadatta of Benares had a very valuable adviser priest. He came from a rich noble family. He was intelligent and full of knowledge. He was generous with all he had, holding nothing back. People thought of him as a kind and good person. By practicing the Five Training Steps, he trained his mind to avoid the five unwholesome actions. He discovered that giving up each unwholesome action made him better off in its own way: destroying life, since you have to kill part of yourself in order to kill someone else; taking what is not given, since this makes the owner angry at you; doing wrong in sexual ways, since this leads to the pain of jealousy and envy; speaking falsely, since you can't be true to yourself and false to another at the same time; losing your mind from alcohol, since then you might hurt yourself by doing the other four. Seeing how he lived, King Brahmadatta thought, ‘This is truly a good man.’ The priest was curious to learn more about the value of goodness. He thought, ‘The king honours and respects me more than his other priests. But I wonder what it is about me that he really respects most. Is it my nationality, my noble birth or family wealth? Is it my great learning and vast knowledge? Or is it because of my goodness? I must find the answer to this.’ Therefore, he decided to perform an experiment in order to answer his question. He would pretend to be a thief!On the next day, when he was leaving the palace, he went by the royal coin maker. The good priest, not intending to keep it, took a coin and continued walking out of the palace. Because the money maker admired the famous priest highly, he remained sitting and said nothing. On the following day the make-believe thief took two gold coins. Again the royal coin maker did not protest. Finally, on the third day, the king's favorite priest grabbed a whole handful of gold coins. This time the money maker didn't care about the priest's position or reputation. He cried out, ‘This is the third time you have robbed his majesty the king.’ Holding onto him, he shouted, ‘I've caught the thief who robs the king!’Suddenly a crowd of people came running in, yelling, ‘Aha! You pretended to be better than us! An example of goodness!’ They slapped him, tied his hands behind his back, and hauled him off to the king. But on their way, they happened to go by some snake charmers. They were entertaining some bystanders from the king's court with a poisonous cobra. They held him by the tail and neck, and coiled him around their necks to show how brave they were. The tied up prisoner said to them, ‘Please be careful! Don't grab that and don't coil that poisonous snake around your own necks. He may bite you and bring your lives to a sudden end!’ The snake charmers said, ‘You ignorant priest, you don't understand about this cobra. He is well-mannered and very good indeed. He is not bad like you! You are a thief who has stolen from the king. Because of your wickedness and criminal behavior, you are being carried off with your hands tied behind your back. But there's no need to tie up a snake who is good!’ The priest thought, ‘Even a poisonous cobra, who doesn't bite or harm anyone, is given the name “goodâ€. In truth, goodness is the quality people admire most in the world!"When they arrived at the throne room, the king asked, ‘What is this, my children?’ They replied, ‘This is the thief who stole from your royal treasury.’ The king said. ‘Then punish him according to the law.’ The adviser priest said, ‘My lord king, I am no thief!’ 'Then why did you take gold coins from the palace?’ asked the king. The priest explained, ‘I have done this only as an experiment, to test why it is you honour and respect me more than others. Is it because of my family background and wealth, or my great knowledge? Because of those things, I was able to get away with taking one or two gold coins. Or do you respect my goodness most of all? It is clear that by grabbing a handful of coins I no longer had the name ‘good’. This alone turned respect into disgrace!’The king pardoned his most valuable adviser priest. He asked to be allowed to leave the king's service in the ordinary world and become a forest monk. After refusing several times. the king eventually gave his permission. The priest went to the Himalayas and meditated peacefully. When he died he was reborn in a heaven world. The moral is: People prize goodness most of all. Dakshinamurthi Stotram - Part 2 Shiva is Paramatman, and related to the Absolute concept is Shiva as Yoganath, the Lord of Yoga, wherein he becomes teacher, path and goal. As such he is Adi Guru or Highest Guru in the form of Dakshinamurthi, the South-Facing Guru. “I bow down in salutation to the south-facing God, who is the repository of all knowledge, the physician for those who are struck with the disease of transmigration and the preceptor of all the worlds. I salute that south-facing God, who represents the import of the mystic syllable "OM" and represents the absolute reality, who is blemishless and of quietitude. Who sees within himself, the universe which is in him, by the illusory power (maya), similar to a city that is seen in a reflecting mirror, but which is manifested outside, as though, for a perceiver at the time of waking, his own self without a second, may this adoration be to him, that Lord incarnated as the preceptor; in physical form.Out of his own will, who like a magician or a great yogi displays this universe which was undifferentiated earlier like the sprout in the seed but later is rendered differentiated under different situations like the time, space and activities, all due to the play of illusory power – maya; to him be this adoration, the one who is the Lord incarnate as the preceptor, in physical form.†[Dakshinamurti Strotram]**********Maharshi: Lectures may entertain individuals for a few hours without improving them. Silence on the other hand is permanent and benefits the whole of humanity. Devotee: But silence is not understood. Maharshi: It does not matter. By silence, eloquence is meant. Oral lectures are not so eloquent as silence. Silence is unceasing eloquence. The Primal Master, Dakshinamurti, is the ideal. He taught his Rishi disciples by silence. Devotee: But then there were disciples for Him. It was all right. Now it is different. They must be sought after and helped. Maharshi: That is a sign of ignorance. The power which created you has created the world. If it can take care of you, it can similarly take care of the world also.’ [Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi]'To be contd next month Arunachala Website Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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