Kabir

Early life of Kabir:

                    The story of Kabir is of tremendous beauty. It is said that he was born into a Mohammedan family. Nothing is absolutely certain, but he was abandoned by the parents and he was brought up by a Hindu family. But the suspicion was there always that he was born a Mohammedan, brought up by a Hindu. The parents had simply thrown the child on the bank of the river.Somebody found him and brought him up. Nobody would accept him. His name also shows that he was a Mohammedan; 

Kabir is one of the names of God given by the Sufis. Sufis have a hundred names for God – ninety-nine can verbally be communicated, the hundredth cannot be communicated verbally; that is understood only in deep silence between the Master and the disciple. Out of those ninety-nine names, one is Kabir. Kabir literally means ’the great, the vast, the infinite’. Kabir is not a Hindu name, certainly. His name was Mohammedan, his birth suspicious – who would accept him?

Search of a master:

                    He had knocked on many so-called gurus’ doors and they would not accept him because he was a Mohammedan, or even if he was not, at least his birth was suspicious, uncertain. He must have been an illegal child, maybe – why was he abandoned?And the so-called Masters were afraid; he was rejected.

Difficulty in finding a master:

               He wanted to become a disciple of the great Ramananda, a very famous Master, but he was afraid to go to him – maybe he would not accept him, just as others had not accepted him.

One day Kabir went to Ramananda's house and was asking him to accept him as his disciple. But he rejected him. so kabir was sitting outside of Ramananda's house.

 Playing trick:

                 Ramananda stayed in his cottage all day and only left it at about 3 o'clock in the morning to go down to the Ganges River to have a bath and perform his rites. Kabir had a knowledge of Ramananda’s daily habits and so he waited one night for Ramananda by lying on the steps of Panchganga ghat. When Ramananda accidentally stepped on Kabir on his way to bathe, he uttered ”Hey Ram! My God!.This became, for Kabir, the sacred mantra. Ramananda later gave him formal Diksha. Kabir grew among the ranks of important religious reformers in India.This is how he got initiated into disciplehood. It was only later on, when the sun rose, that Ramananda became aware that it was Kabir. Everybody knew about him, that he was knocking on every door asking to be initiated. Ordinarily it is the Masters who create devices to initiate the disciples, but in Kabir’s case it was Kabir the disciple who created a device to be initiated by the Master.

Tea-as part of meditation

              Bodhidharma (known as Daruma in Japan) was said to have been a pious sage from India who lived in the fifth or sixth century AD. He is credited with travelling from his native India to China to spread his Buddhist teachings (which eventually reached Japan); the Japanese consider him to be the founder of Zen (or Chan) Buddhism. One of the main practises of Zen Buddhism is meditation, which involves sitting still yet awake for long periods of time. This story tells of the origins of the first tea plant and also explains why, to this day, drinking green tea is such an integral part of Japanese meditation ceremonies.   
                Bodhidharma was the first man who created tea -- the name `tea' comes from the name TAI, because it was created on the mountain Tai.He lived on this mountain whose name was Tai.And all the words for tea in any language, are derived from the same source, tai. In English it is tea, in Hindi it is CHAI. That Chinese word tai can also be pronounced as CHA. The Marathi word is exactly CHA. Malayalm word is chaya.

Cannot be historical:

                           The way Bodhidharma created tea cannot be historical but is significant. It is said that Bodhidharma travelled to Northern China, where he entered a cave outside the Shaolin temple; here he vowed to meditate without sleeping for nine years in order to demonstrate the principles of Zen Buddhism and also to achieve enlightenment. He was meditating almost all the time, and sometimes in the night he would start falling asleep. So, just not to fall asleep, just to teach a lesson to his eyes, he took out all his eyebrow hairs and threw them in the temple ground. The story is that out of those eyebrows, the tea bushes grew. Bodhidharma plucked one of the leaves and chewed on it, he found the leaf had a stimulating effect that helped him stay awake and eventually complete his task.Those were the first tea bushes.

                       That's why when you drink tea, you cannot sleep. And in Buddhism it became a routine that for meditation, tea is immensely helpful. So the whole Buddhist world drinks tea as part of meditation, because it keeps you alert and awake.

A sacred place of pilgrimage

River Ganges:

                        In India it is said that no matter what sins may have been committed, if you take a bath in the Ganges you will be free from your sins. Someone who has committed theft, who has defrauded people, who has killed someone – how can he become freed of his sins by bathing in the Ganges?

Here two things need to be understood. 

Sin- not the real event:

                        The sin is not the real event but the memory is real. It is not the sin, the act of sin, that clings to you, but just the memory of it. If you have killed someone, the memory of it will haunt you like a nightmare throughout your life. Those who know of inner things say that whether a murder is committed or not is just part of a drama and is not very important.

                        Neither anybody dies nor can anyone be killed. But the memory of the sin weighs heavily on your chest like a stone. An act is committed and becomes lost in the infinite – the act is being taken care of by the infinite. The reality is that all acts are done by the infinite; you are unnecessarily becoming disturbed. If you committed a theft it was done through you by the infinite. If you killed someone it was done by the infinite through you. You are unnecessarily standing in between with your memory

of the act,and that memory is a burden on you.

Same concept in other religions:

                        This concept is also there in other religions too. In christianity, Jesus says, ”Repent, and I will take away your sins” – and someone who trusts in Jesus returns unburdened and purified. In reality, Jesus does not free you from your sins but from the memory of your sins. The memory is the real thing. Jesus only removes that. 

Symbolic act:

                         Similarly, the Ganges does not free you from your sins, but can free you from the memory of them. If someone really trusts the Ganges and believes that if he bathes in it he will be free of all sins – if his collective unconscious built up over thousands of years reinforces this, and if the society in which he is living also confirms his strong belief – then he will be.

                Bathing cannot make a person free from the sin as such, because the sin has already been committed – nothing can be done to the theft that has been committed or the murder that has been committed; nothing can be done about that – but when a person with such a belief emerges from the Ganges, his trust in its purity and power frees him from the feeling of guilt even though the bathing is only a symbolic act.

Permanent arrangement:

Hindus have found a more permanent arrangement, connecting confession with a river, not a person. The river goes on receiving confessions and forgiving people. The river is infinite, its flow is steady and permanent.Hindu seers entrust this phenomenon to a river, not to a person. If someone goes to a tirtha he will return free and unburdened; he will be free of the memory of his sin. It is the memory that is binding him and has become a bond. The shadow of the sin that follows you is the culprit. It is possible to be free from it, but there is one condition. The most important condition is that you have total faith – faith in the idea that this has been happening for thousands of years.

Music towards sensuality

                    In China there are specially constructed rooms in which prisoners can be brainwashed; the dimensions are predetermined, and changes in the dimensions made brainwashing difficult. After many experiments the exact height, width and breadth of such rooms are determined, and no sooner is a prisoner brought into the room that his mind begins to become affected. 

                  The exact time it will take before his mind becomes deranged and begins to deteriorate was also determined. A certain sound was created to speed up the process of deterioration, and if a particular place on his head was hammered, the deterioration would be even faster.

                   A water pot is suspended above the prisoner’s head, water slowly drips onto him in a particular rhythm. Drop by drop, the water falls on that place on his head for twenty-four hours. The prisoner is not allowed to move from that position; he cannot sit, he has to stand. Within half an hour he becomes so bored that the sound seems to become louder and louder, shattering, so much so he will feel as if a mountain is falling on top of him. 

                  That repetitive sound in the enclosure for twenty-fourhours, in that particularly designed room, will shatter a person’s mind; when he comes out he will not be the same person. In every way the technique will have broken him down.

Krishna Meera

Scripture of love:

                Meera is a launching place for pilgrimage. Her scripture is the scripture of love. Perhaps calling it scripture is not right.Meera herself IS devotion. We won’t find systematic argument. Fixed logic is not found there. 

Listen to Meera  intellectually:

               Meera has nothing to do with logic and intellect. Listen to Meera with feeling, with devotion.  Push aside logic, leave it to crawl along the bank. For a little while, let yourself go completely mad with Meera. This is the world of the mad. This is the world of lovers. Only then can you understand, otherwise you will miss.

Meera-one of the GOPIS:

                  The story goes back. Meera’s love for Krishna did not begin with Meera. This Meera is one of the GOPIS– devotees who was with Krishna. Meera herself has declared it, but the scholars can’t accept it, as there is no historical proof for it.It is pointless whether it is history or not.

                    Meera herself says it, the matter is finished. The question does not arise of someone else raising further doubts about it. And those who raise doubts like this, they won’t ever be able to understand Meera.

A lovely episode:

                 When Meera arrived at Vrindavan’s most famous temple, an attempt was made to stop her at the door, because entry to the temple was forbidden to women. The high priest of the temple had never seen women. Meera was a woman, so arrangements were made to stop her. But those people who were standing by the door to stop her, they were struck dumb.They forgot they were meant to stop her until Meera had entered inside.The breeze was as one wave – it went right in and reached the inner sanctum. The priest freaked out. He had been worshipping Krishna; the tray fell from his hands.

                   Women were not admitted to that temple.This drunken woman, this ecstatic Meera came, came as a wave – they too forgot for a moment, forgot completely what their job was. It was a thunderbolt. Once the EKTARA was playing inside and the crowd had gone in, then they became alert to what had happened. But the pundit did not plunge in. 

                    Meera came dancing in front of Krishna, but the pundit was not immersed. He said, ”Hey woman, do you understand that women are not permitted in this temple?

No other man existed:

                ”Meera listened. Meera spoke, ”I had thought that besides Krishna no other man existed. Are you also a man? I had understood Krishna was the only man and the rest of the world were his beloveds, that all were celebrating with him. So you, too, are a man? I hadn’t thought that there were two. So you are in competition?”

 
                      He was shaken. The pundit didn’t understand how to answer now. Scholars have answers to fixed questions, but this question had never been raised before. No one had asked it before Meera, no one had ever asked, ”Does there exist some other man? I have never heard of this. You are saying very strange things. Where did you get such arrogance? Krishna is the one man, the rest are all his beloveds.”

It must be so:

           Meera has dissolved Krishna so deeply into herself, then Krishna

too has a responsibility.Love with care and understanding. Make your friendships with awareness. Because this friendshipis no ordinary matter. Meera’s friendship was with Krishna, and if finally she merged into his image
then to me this seems to be completely right. It must be so. It is just so.

Krishna and his flute:

A laughing religion, a religion that accepts life in its totality is yet to be born.
And it is good that the old religions are dead, along with them, that the old God, the God of our old concepts is dead too. 

                 Every religion, up to now, has divided life into two parts, and while they accept one part they deny the other, Krishna alone accepts the whole of life. Acceptance of life in its totality has attained full fruition
in Krishna. That is why India held him to be a perfect incarnation of God, while all other incarnations were assessed as imperfect and incomplete. Even Rama is described as an incomplete incarnation of God. But Krishna is the whole of God.

 Albert Schweitzer criticism of the Indian religion:

               Albert Schweitzer made a significant remark in criticism of the Indian religion. He said that the religion of this country is life negative. This remark is correct to a large extent, if Krishna is left out. But it is utterly wrong in the context of Krishna. If Schweitzer had tried to understand Krishna he would never have said so.

Krishna and his flute:

Krishna  and his flute as a symbol is just the opposite of the cross. There is no sense in putting a flute on a grave; it needs throbbing lips and supple fingersto play it. It needs a singing and dancing heart, a soul brimming with joy and bliss to hold it.

                 It is not that life is without its hurts and pains; it cannot be. But if a person brings his focus only to the  hurt and pain and goes on accumulating them, he will soon cease to meet with any happy moments
in life.

                 Krishna chooses the flute for himself. It is necessary to bear in mind that while the flute is intrinsic to Krishna and his life – it symbolizes him. Krishna plays the flute for the love of it. Nobody has forced it on him; he has chosen it for himself. 

                

              Krishna’s flute symbolizing life’s benediction and man’s gratefulness to life for this blessing.Krishna has made his choice for happiness, for bliss. In fact, when life is so good and great, Krishna cannot but choose to be happy, and he says it with the flute.

Happy person is a religious person:

            And just as an unhappy person does not suffer alone, he makes many others unhappy, similarly a happy person becomes the source of happiness for countless numbers of people. So when Krishna plays his flute, its melody, its bliss, does not remain confined to him. Pleasure and pain, happiness and unhappiness are contagious; they are communicable from one to another they spread and escalate like wildfire.

                     So the one who decides to be unhappy is condemning the whole world to be unhappy. And the person who decides to be happy is going to bless the whole to be happy, he is going to add to the song and
music of life all over this planet. Therefore a happy person is a religious person; and an unhappy person is utterly irreligious.

                      Nothing except happiness, blissfulness, is a religious quality. In this sense Krishna is truly a religious person, whose whole being exudes nothing but happiness and bliss. And such a person can bless the whole of
mankind, he is a living blessing to the world.

 

                    

True meaning of VEL

         All Hindu gods have some asthras with them. In that the most important one of Lord Muruga is the "VEL", which is also called as Velayutham. Vel is the true representation of Lord Muruga.

True meaning of vel:

         Actually Vel is in a contour of sharp edge, wide upper part and very depth in its length. This  expansion, the breadth, the width actually represents the broadness of the mind. The sharp pointed end represents the sharpness of  knowledge. The length depicts the Depth of our thought and mind

          Thats why among hindus many people are having their names as vel, velayutham etc.... which really means a very intelligent talented person.  No one'll like to have their name as the name of some weapon. So it actually refers Lord Muruga and his wisdom of knowledge.

     Lord is full of wisdom. 

      Wisdom=Knowledge

       Knowledge=Vel 

         Vel=Lord Muruga.   

Vel as Asthra and Sasthra: 

                        Among Hindu Gods some have asthram and some have sasthram. But the speciality of Vel is it is used as both asthram as well as sasthram.

Asthra:

       The Asthras are the ones which are released from the hand.

Sasthra:  

       The Sasthras are hand held fighting equipments.

 

   

Chin mudra:

You have probably seen yogis holding their thumb and pointer finger together and extending their remaining 3 fingers out. This is chin mudra. Chin means consciousness in Sanskrit, and the purpose of this mudra is to remind the practitioner of the goal of yoga, the union of the individual soul with the supreme soul. Mudra means seal, and it is essentially an energetic and spiritual gesture that controls the flow of energy within the body. The fingers each have representations:

• Thumb: Supreme Soul
• Pointer: Individual Soul
• Middle: Ego
• Ring:karma
• Pinky:illusion
  
  

Ego, illusion and karma are the 3 impurities that the yogi is trying to remove from his life in order to unite their Individual Soul with the Supreme Soul and experience that divine, blissful state of union they strive for.The pointer surrenders to the supreme soul's leg. Doing chin mudra is a physical representation and reminder of this goal and serves to refocus and re-energize the practitioner. Try it and see how it makes you feel. Sit cross-legged, straighten your spine, close your eyes, bring both hands into chin mudra and rest your hands on your knees. Think pure thoughts and feel connected to the entire planet.

Scientific Meaning of chin Mudra:

 
The circle formed by the index finger and thumb represents the true
goal of yoga – the merging of the individual soul with the universal
soul, or the soul of God. The nail of the index finger is placed
into the first joint of the thumb. The last three fingers always
face down towards the earth in this mudra.

                    It is a gesture of receiving. When the finger touches the thumb a circuit is produced which allows the energy that would normally dissipate into theenvironment to travel back into the body, and up to the brain. 

                     When the fingers and hands are placed on the knees the knees are sensitised creating another pranic circuit that maintains and
redirects prana within the body. In addition placing the hands on
the knees stimulates a nadi, which runs from the knees up the inside
of the thighs and into the perinium. Sensitising this channel helps
stimulate the energies at the muladhara chakra. When the palms face
upwards in the chin mudra the chest and heart area are opened up.

Worship is immersion

In our country for thousands of years we have made idols and then immersed them in water. Many people feel it is strange and they have asked why beautiful  idols are made  and then after a few days just thrown into the water.

                     Why is the god Ganesha decorated ceremoniously and worshiped lovingly for a few days, and then immersed in water? – either thrown into the sea or a river or a lake. 

                                         This is mad! 

             But there is a  beautiful concept behind this immersion

 Real secret of worship

The real secret of worship is in making an idol and then letting it disappear... giving a shape and form to the idol and then letting it vanish into the formless. It is all symbolic – the act of making an idol of the goddess Kali, worshiping it, and then immersing it in water. 

              But we don’t worship in   the right way: we have made the idol, decorated it beautifully and looked after it, so then we are reluctant to let it go by immersing it.

              If we had really worshiped, worshiped in the deepest sense,
then the idol would have disappeared inside us, crystallized inside us, long before we let it disappear into the water.

              If the real worship had happened then there would have been no need to immerse the idol at all, it might have remained where it was but the heart of the worshiper would have been immersed into existence, into the divine. Then, if we had gone to immerse the idol it would have
been like throwing away a used cartridge; it would have done its work.

                    But the idol which we immerse is a loaded cartridge – unused and still alive. We have just loaded the cartridge and we have to immediately throw it away, so naturally we are unhappy about it. 

In earlier times, during the twenty one days of worship, the cartridge was fired, it had served its purpose during that time the immersion or disappearance of the idol had happened.

                              Worship is immersion.

You begin your journey from the idol, which is in front of you. Worship is the process by which youproceed. As you go ahead the idol is left behind, and only worship remains. 

If you stop at the idol you do not know what worship is. Whoever continues on to worship has recognized the idol, has known the root of worship and the real purpose of the idol.

Ancient Alchemy Expertise

Palani is the most sacred religious abode of Lord Daņdāyudhapāni. Attracting people in large numbers regardless of their religious faiths and breaking language barriers, The basic, and the foremost factor is the presiding deity, known as the mūlavar. It is a normal practice to sculpt the idols for all Hindu temples in granite stone. The main reason to choose granite is it's tensile strength. But other than this enormous strength, only granite stone contains all the five elements of creation, namely the pancha bhūtas. They are earth, water, fire, air and ether. 

Navapasana idol:

As an exception, in Palani the idol for the mūlavar or presiding deity is believed to be made out of an amalgam known as nava pāśaņam. In Sanskrit the word nava has two meanings. Nava means both 'new' and also 'nine'. Similarly the word bhāśaņa also has two meanings. Bhāśaņa means 'poison' and may also mean 'mineral'. 

The observations made by the researchers who delved into the ancient literature lends support to the theory that the siddha munivar Bhogar was the one who formulated this amalgamation of nava pāśaņam. The idol for the presiding deity was sculpted out of this nava pāśaņam. It is believed that this amalgam is a clever mixture of nine poisonous metals. By this amalgamation, the poisonous nature of all these metals was harnessed, hardened like granite and converted into a beneficial amalgam with medicinal and curative values. The idol for the presiding deity was subsequently carved out of this hardened amalgam.

To evolve such an unique amalgam reveals the alchemy expertise possessed by the siddha munivar Bhogar, the enormous spiritual heights achieved by him and the endless concern he had about the welfare of the followers devoted to Lord Murukan in future generations.

NAVAPASANAM:

"NAVAPASANAM"  a combination of Veeram, Pooram, Rasam, Jathilingam, Kandagam, Gauri Pasanam, Vellai Pasanam, Mridharsingh, Silasat
The amalgam is widely believed to have medicinal qualities and curative abilities." 

Medicinal values of NAVAPASANAM:

 
Everyday ablutions are performed. During Kartigai days it will be in hundreds. These ablution provide not only grace of Muruga but also cures for ills. When milk ablutions are performed, the milk after coming in contact with the Navapashana body of Muruga absorbs all its medicinal qualities. The beauty is that for a long time the milk is not spoiled. Similar is the case with sandal ablution.