Vedanta

Vedanta (Devanagari: वेदान्त, Vedānta) was originally a word used as a synonym for that part of the Veda known also as the Upanishads. The name is a sandhied form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedas". Vedanta is considered to be source of all vedic literature. Original Vedanta contained four verses, later expanded to thousands. By the 8th century CE, the word also came to be used to describe a group of philosophical traditions concerned with the self-realisation by which one understands the ultimate nature of reality (Brahman). The word Vedanta teaches that the believer's goal is to transcend the limitations of self-identity. Vedanta is not restricted or confined to one book and there is no sole source for Vedantic philosophy.^[1] Vedanta is based on two simple propositions:

1. Human nature is divine.
2. The aim of human life is to realize that human nature is divine.

The goal of Vedanta is a state of self-realization or cosmic consciousness. Historically and currently, it is assumed that this state can be experienced by anyone, but it cannot be adequately conveyed in language.

via wikipedia: Vedanta

Quote of the day: Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious. -Brendan Gill

the wind at dawn has secrets to tell you. do not go back to sleep.

Art Whino exhibit during Art Basel

anahata

"Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have heart?"

Carlos Castaneda

Serve all, Love all

Astronomy happenings: The Leonid Meteor shower is happening until Nov. 21, but it already peaked on the 17th. Mercury joins Jupiter in the evenings on Nov. 22. The phenomenon of the Northern Lights takes place throughout the year, but the lights can be observed only against a night sky. Look for faint vertical bars of light in the northern sky.

One of my new favorite djs, dj mar mar, click to listen to tunes and mixtapes.

Cool website for travelers, Lonely Planet.

One of my new favorite periodicals EnlightenNext. (I may have mentioned this magazine before...but I've been reading it more lately and falling in love.)

An artist performing at the 930 club on Monday, and whom I also read an article about in the Sky magazine on the plane: Bebel Gilberto. The daughter of Joao Gilberto, the "father of Bossa Nova".

Meditation is the medicine of the mind

A few touristy pictures from SF so far. I am here looking at apartments to sublease for January and also looking for a job :) I met with my Ayurvedic teacher, Pratichi Mathur, whom I will start school with in January. It was an incredible meeting and I feel truly grateful and blessed to embark on my Ayurvedic journey and studies with her, and become part of an Ayurvedic lineage. Much of what she said was very synchronistic with what I have been feeling, and with what I learned at the ashram. I got the chance to visit her home and it was just so wonderful; she truly lives for others, selflessly.

The other pictures are from my walk down Market street. I walked through Union Square and the Financial District to the bay, it was beautiful. I like a city with tall buildings :) I love you DC but I love a cityscape too. The first picture was taken in my hotel room, the saying "be good" is painted on the wall. It reminds me of the sign in Sivananda Hall at the ashram, "Be good, do good." I love Guru Dev and all of his sayings. I'm looking forward to maybe returning to the ashram for a day or two in December. Seeing the "be good" reminder every day makes me happy, and also my hotel, even though in a sketchy part of town, is still pretty awesome. There's an alarm clock with an ipod doc, reclaimed wood used for the beds designed by a local designer, light fixtures constructed with reused glass bottles, and soaps in wall-mounted dispensers (no packaging waste).

I checked out a place in the Mission district yesterday afternoon as a potential room to rent, what a colorful eclectic neighborhood. Its similar in some ways to Columbia Heights. I enjoyed seeing all of the mosaics and murals on Valencia St., herbal apothecaries and healing centers. I wish I had taken more pictures but I wasn't in a "touristy" mood at the time. Although I enjoyed the neighborhood I don't think I'd want to live there, I will try to live closer to downtown...

I've also been reading the Celestine Prophecy. I'm so glad to be reading this book on this trip, I feel as if its very synchronistic. (I've been noticing a lot of these things lately!) Usually when I fly somewhere I always remember a book being associated with the trip that I read on the plane/in the hotel. This paring is an auspicious one. Some of my favorite quotes so far from the book:

"Years ago, when we had both lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, we had spent regular evenings together, talking. Most of our discussions were about academic theories and psychological growth. We had both been fascinated by the conversations and by each other."

"Working to establish a more comfortable style of survival has grown to feel completely in and of itself as a reason to live, and we've gradually forgotten our original question...We've forgotten that we still don't know what we're surviving for."

"Much has been written over the past several decades about the revolution in physics, but the changes really stem from two major findings, those of quantum mechanics and those of Albert Einstein.
The whole of Einstein's life's work was to show that what we perceive as hard matter is mostly empty space with a pattern of energy running through it. This includes ourselves. And what quantum physics has shown is that when we look at these patterns of energy at smaller and smaller levels, startling results can be seen. Experiments have revealed that when you break apart small aspects of this energy, and try to observe how they operate, the act of observation itself alters the results. This is true even if the particles must appear in places they couldn't possibly go, given the laws of the universe as we know them: two places at the same moment, forward or backward in time. The basic stuff of the universe, at its core, is looking like a kind of pure energy that is malleable to human intention."

Quote of the day:
Smile
Feel love
Consider the environment
Always do your best
Speak impeccably
Don't take things personally

Be yourself...

There is no better gift you can give the world then to be the person you dream you can be. Begin with yourself and watch the magic begin.

Image: Another taken on the recent hike I went on in the Blue Ridge Mountains <3

Thinking outside of the box

Think outside the box this holiday season. Instead of shopping at "big box" or national chain stores, shop instead at your local neighborhood stores. You'll find your neighborhood "mom-n-pop" shops have most everything you need for your holiday gift-giving and home decorating. And you're much more likely to discover some unexpected wonder or unique handmade treasure at a locally-owned shop.

Shopping at locally-owned independent shops also helps strengthen the local economy. Did you know that:

• A locally-owned shop returns 68% of its revenues to the local economy, whereas a national chain returns only 43%?

• Locally-owned shops employ more local residents and pay them substantially higher wages, in addition to having a broader range of jobs available?

• Local businesses buy more than twice as much from other local businesses, and also are more likely to use local banks and other service providers?

• Local businesses contribute more to the community through charitable giving, school funding, and other non-profit organizations?

Every dollar spent in a locally-owned shop is a vote for the health and welfare of your community and supports your neighbors in their livelihoods. This holiday season, think "outside the box" and support your locally-owned stores. Your neighbors thank you!

via the Mindful Hands Newsletter. Mindful Hands, a specialty shop for serene living, is located at 211 King St.

Oneness is achieved by recognizing yourself

Image: Ganesha at Chidambaram, Sri Gurudev's Mahasamadhi shrine at Yogaville, which is open for prayer and meditation.

Interesting articles I've read recently:

Jung at Heart The Red Book is a volume Jung composed during a state of "active imagination" --that is, of reverie or waking dream. As he said, he wanted to see what would happen when he "switched off consciousness." The result recalls an allegorical-mythological amalgam of Nietzsche's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", Blake's illuminated poems, Renaissance Neoplatonic dialogue, Eastern scriptre, Dante's "Inferno,", Yeats's "A Vision", and even the biblical book of Revelation. According to the editor, Sonu Shamdasani, "The overall theme of the book is how Jung regains his soul and overcomes the contemporary malaise of spiritual alienation. This is ultimately achieved through enabling the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and developing a new worldview in the form of a psychological and theological cosmogony."
When Jung emerged from this period of midlife crisis, he brought with him the first inklings of his most important contribution to psychology -- positing the existence of a collective unconsciousness common to all human beings. This primordial ocean within us affects our lives through various universal "archetypes." In Jung's view a successful life was all about balance, wholeness. If our lives erred too much in one direction, our unconscious would compensate for the inequality.
The now famous mythic pattern Jung introduced was later elaborated by such Jung-inspired scholars as Otto Rank, Lord Raglan, and Joseph Campbell (The Hero With a Thousand Faces). (paraphrased from the article linked above)

Protests at Sidwell Friends

Potomac Conservancy blames chemical runoff for intersex fish in the Potomac

When I was drinking coffee with my good friend Seungwon a few months ago he told me that this year was the 10th anniversary of when he started studying with his Zen master. I asked him what he had learned after 10 years, and, after a thoughtful silence he responded, "I have learned to have more confidence in my own decisions and trust my own self." I thought this was a great answer. With divine listening, you develop intuition and your connection to the source is strengthened. One has more self confidence in one's decisions. That you are making the decision the divine intended for you, becoming a transmitter of the divine light with confidence.

The Golden Present x3

The Golden Present is a collection of daily inspirational readings from Sri Swami Satchidananda's teachings. This morning I caught up on the past 3 days and these were the ideas I got from each day:
(above picture from the Cold Mountain hike)

Realize that nothing is yours. Things were given to you along the way. At a certain period things and people came to you. At a certain period they might go again. It's all just a carnival. It's always better to be humble, with our feet on the ground, so we don't fall. If you try to rise up and you slip, you will have a terrible fall. The person who is sitting on the floor need not be worried about falling down.

If you are really innocent and beautiful, you will send out a beautiful, innocent vibration.

Accept your karma with gratitude, even bad things be thankful that they are clearing your karma.

Also, from the tricycle daily email, a quote from another one of my gurus, Bhante G:

Ancient Pali texts liken meditation to the process of taming a wild elephant. The procedure in those days was to tie a newly captured animal to a post with a good strong rope. When you do this, the elephant is not happy. He screams and tramples, and pulls against the rope for days. Finally it sinks through his skull that he can’t get away, and he settles down. At this point you can begin to feed him and to handle him with some measure of safety. Eventually you can dispense with the rope and post altogether, and train your elephant for various tasks. Now you’ve got a tamed elephant that can be put to useful work. In this analogy the wild elephant is your wildly active mind, the rope is mindfulness, and the post is our object of meditation, our breathing. The tamed elephant who emerges from this process is a well-trained, concentrated mind that can then be used for the exceedingly tough job of piercing the layers of illusion that obscure reality. Meditation tames the mind.

- Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, from “On Practice: Breathing,” Tricycle, Spring 1995

This quote resonated with me because I feel like my mind is at the point where it is "screaming and trampling, and pulling against the rope for days." I originally assumed my meditations would get easier and better with the more time I spent here, but the longer I stay the more I am just homesick and wanting to get back to normal life. But this quote was perfect for me to get today, it makes complete sense at the stage I am at. I feel like with more practice and training, I can get over this hurdle and re-condition my mind back to that calm, easeful and peaceful natural state to help me "pierce the layers of illusion that obscure reality." Its going to take some time though. But each day, each breath, each moment can be put to good use. "Time is limited, so choose wisely," a good friend once wrote to me.

Another concept that I have been coming across repeatedly throughout my days here is the ego, the self, the true self, the divine nature. Alan Watts says that we all need to stop lying to ourselves because there is no ego, there is only the true self, your divine nature. The whole purpose of life is to realize your divine nature. Gurudev said, "Holding onto an ordinary notion of self or ego is the source of all our pain and confusion. The irony is when we look for this self that we were cherishing and protecting we can't even find it."

Here are some ideas I found important to reflect on that were discussed during our scripture classes so far: Find your center on a daily basis, its all in you, happiness will come from inner peace while pleasure comes from worldly desires which fade. Cultivate a calm, peaceful mind, be present. With expansion of the mind, your whole being is expanded, and you have a more equanimous energy...you lose the highs and lows. Look at the mind and watch the thoughts come up. Know day by day you are becoming the master and we are all from the same source, everything comes from the same source. When thoughts come up just say, its okay because that's my mind. It's not me.

The mind will stay calm and emotions will stay calm if you accept things that happen to you as God's will, God's reason for everything. Be who you are, the source created you uniquely, and what we all need to find is that essential nature, the deep peace. Everyone has natural gifts--figure out what they are and use them, it's your natural tendency. You either use them or you don't. Use them and everything will fall into place; figure out who you are in the cosmic sense as well as the duality sense. Develop radiance and spiritually resonate through your practice.

Yoga

Instead of talking about peace and joy, about God, we should do something to realize God. Keep the mind clean, the body clean, the life well-disciplined, the heart dedicated. This is Yoga. Stay away from anything that disturbs your peace, from anything that will bring disappointments, anxieties and worries.

Put others first. Only then will you really find peace and joy. If you want to live happily, if you want to be immortal, let every minute of your life be useful to the world. See that you bring peace and joy to everybody and no harm to anybody.

With that outlook on life, the whole world becomes a beautiful Yoga ashram. We don't need to "retreat" from the world because the world will "treat" us well. Don't worry about theology. Is there a god here or there? Did I live before? Am I going to live again? Think of the golden present.

Let the whole world know by your example that you are something beautiful and divine. Let your actions bring out that cosmic beauty. Lead a simple life, as natural as possible. Be like a child. This will not only take care of you, but your surroundings, your country, and ultimately the whole world. Go happily, joyfully, peacefully, and share this knowledge, this spirit, with the entire world. Share it with all who come close to you. -Sri Swami Satchidananda

Peace is your nature. Do not disturb it.

Went to Charlottesville this weekend, had so much fun :)

Currently reading The Joy of Pi :)

Wiki of the day: Nirvikalpa. Click the link for more definitions, here is one:

In Hinduism, when used as a technical term in Raja Yoga, the phrase nirvikalpa samādhi refers to a particular type of samādhi that Heinrich Zimmer distinguises from other states as follows:

Nirvikalpa samādhi, on the other hand, absorption without self-consciousness, is a mergence of the mental activity (cittavṛtti) in the Self, to such a degree, or in such a way, that the distinction (vikalpa) of knower, act of knowing, and object known becomes dissolved — as waves vanish in water, and as foam vanishes into the sea.^[3] The difference to the other samadhis is that there is no return from this samadhi into lower states of consciousness. Therefore this is the only true final Enlightenment.