NAMAH SHIVAYA

LISTEN TO THE OM NAMASHIVAYA BY SP BALASUBRAMANIAN AT THE FOLLOWING YOU TUBE PORTAL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3ohF40Nab4

Cost of a Miracle

Cost of a Miracle
A little girl went to her bedroom and pulled a glass jelly jar from its hiding place in the closet..
She poured the change out on the floor and counted it carefully.. Three times, even The total had to be exactly perfect.. No chance here for mistakes.
Carefully placing the coins back in the jar and twisting on the cap, she slipped out the back door and made her way 6 blocks to Rexall's Drug Store with the big red Indian Chief sign above the door..
She waited patiently for the pharmacist to give her some attention, but he was too busy at this moment. Tess twisted her feet to make a scuffing noise. Nothing. She cleared her throat with the most disgusting sound she could muster. No good Finally she took a quarter from her jar and banged it on the glass counter. That did it!
'And what do you want?' the pharmacist asked in an annoyed tone of voice. I'm talking to my brother from Chicago whom I haven't seen in ages,' he said without waiting for a reply to his question.
'Well, I want to talk to you about my brother,' Tess answered back in the same annoyed tone. 'He's really, really sick...and I want to buy a miracle.'
'I beg your pardon?' said the pharmacist.
'His name is Andrew and he has something bad growing inside his head and my Daddy says only a miracle can save him now So how much does a miracle cost?'
'We don't sell miracles here, little girl. I'm sorry but I can't help you,' the pharmacist said, softening a little.
'Listen, I have the money to pay for it. If it isn't enough, I will get the rest. Just tell me how much it costs.'
The pharmacist's brother was a well dressed man He stooped down and asked the little girl, 'What kind of a miracle does your brother need?'
' I don't know,' Tess replied with her eyes welling up. I just know he's really sick and Mommy says he needs an operation. But my Daddy can't pay for it, so I want to use my money.'
'How much do you have?' asked the man from Chicago
'One dollar and eleven cents,' Tess answered barely audibly.
'And it's all the money I have, but I can get some more if I need to....'
'Well, what a coincidence, ' smiled the man. 'A dollar and eleven cents---the exact price of a miracle for little brothers.'
He took her money in one hand and with the other hand he grasped her mitten and said 'Take me to where you live. I want to see your brother and meet your parents. Let's see if I have the miracle you need.'
That well dressed man was Dr. Carlton Armstrong, a surgeon, specializing in neuro-surgery. The operation was completed free of charge and it wasn't long until Andrew was home again and doing well.
Mom and Dad were happily talking about the chain of events that had led them to this place.
'That surgery,' her Mom whispered. 'was a real miracle. I wonder how much it would have cost?'
Tess smiled. She knew exactly how much a miracle cost..one dollar and eleven cents....plus the faith of a little child.
In our lives, we never know how many miracles we will need.
A miracle is not the suspension of natural law, but the operation of a higher law. I know you'll keep the ball moving!
Here it goes. Throw it back to someone who means something to you!
A ball is a circle, no beginning, no end. It keeps us together like our Circle of Friends. But the treasure inside for you to see is the treasure of friendship you've granted to me..
Today I pass the friendship ball to you. God is a friend of ours and this is what he says to you
Pass it on to someone who is a friend to you.
MY OATH TO YOU...
When you are sad.....I will dry your tears.
When you are scared...... .I will comfort your fears.
When you are worried..... .I will give you hope.
When you are confused.... ....I will help you cope..
And when you are lost....And can't see the light, I shall be your beacon.....Shining ever so bright.
This is my oath.....I pledge till the end.
Why you may ask?......Because you're my friend. The GOD.

Karadyan Nombu and Karva Chauth

On the day of Karadaiyan Nonbu, women worship Goddess Gowri and pray for longevity and welfare of their husband. Through this festival women try to emulate the devotion of Savithri and her love for her husband, Satyavan. Her bhakti to Goddess Gowri gave her the strength and wisdom to win back her husband's life from Yaman, the Lord of Death. Among the many festivals of South India, Karadaiyan Nonbu is more a renewal of the faith in the tradition.
Customs & Rituals
Karadaiyan Nonbu is observed on the day of the conjunction of the Tamil months Masi and Panguni. It is to remember the great battle won by Savithri - a mythological character - over the God of Death - Yama, not by arms or ammunitions but by her clever arguments to regain her husband's life. Married women observe fast till the auspicious time arrives, whether it is late evening or mid afternoon.
Regional Celebrations of Karadaiyan Nonbu
Karadaiyan Nonbu is a festival of special significance to married women all over Southern India including states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
The Karva Chauth
The fast of Karva Chauth is kept by Hindu women for the well-being, prosperity and longevity of their husbands. The origin of this festival is based upon a very sweet and noble idea. In earlier times, girls would get married at a very young age, and had to go and live with their in-laws in other villages far away from their own parents. If she had any problems with her husband or in-laws, she would have no one to talk to or seek support from.
Thus, there grew a custom where the bride would befriend another woman to share her joys and sorrows. Their friendship would be sanctified through a small Hindu ceremony right during the marriage. Once the bride and the woman became god-friends or god-sisters as they are commonly known, they would remain so all their lives and recognize the relation as such. They would also treat each other like real sisters.After becoming friends, they would share all their joys, sorrows and problems with each other. Thus, Karva Chauth started as a festival to celebrate this friendship (relationship) between the brides and their god-friends (god-sisters). Praying and fasting for the sake of husband came later and was secondary.
It was probably added, along with other mythical tales, to enhance the festival. In any case, the husband would always be associated with this festival, because the day of starting this holy friendship between two god-sisters was essentially the day of bride's marriage to him. Thus, praying and fasting for him by his wife during the celebration of her relationship with the god-friend would be quite logical.

Prayer To Ward Of Evil

There is a story of about a sea captain who in his retirement skippered a boat
taking day-trippers to Shetland Islands. On one trip, the boat was full of young
people.

They laughed at the old captain when they saw him say a prayer before sailing out,
because the day was fine and the sea was calm.

However they weren't long at sea when a storm suddenly blew up
and the boat began to pitch violently. The terrified passengers came
to the captain and asked him to join them in prayer.

But he replied,
"I say my prayers when it's calm. When it's rough I attend to my ship."

Here is a lesson for us......

If we can not and will not seek God in quiet moments of our lives,
we are not likely to find him when trouble strikes.
We are more likely to panic. But if we have learnt to seek him
and trust him in quiet moments, then most certainly we will find him
when the going gets rough.

A PRAYER A DAY KEEPS EVIL AWAY.
The picture of Ganesha shown here is from full glass temple at Malasia.To see the full view please click on the picture.

Mahadevi Akka

Mahadevi or Akka Mahadevi, sometimes called simply Akka, was born in Udutadi in the Karnataka region of India. At age 10, she was initiated as a devotee of Shiva, the pale-skinned god of destruction and rebirth, lord of yogis and ascetics. She worshiped Shiva in the form of Chennamallikarjuna, which means literally "Mallika's beautiful Arjuna."

It is said that Mahadevi was married by arrangement to Kausika, a local king. There were immediate tensions, however, as Kausika was a Jain, a group that tended to be wealthy and was, as a result, much resented by the rest of the population. Much of Akka's poetry explores the themes of rejecting mortal love in favor of the everlasting, "illicit" love of God, and this seems to be the path she chose as well.

She ran away from her life of luxury to live as a wandering poet-saint, traveling throughout the region and singing praises to her Lord Shiva. A true ascetic, Mahadevi is said to have refused to wear any clothing -- a common practice among male ascetics, but shocking for a woman.

In Kalyana, she met the famous Shaivite saints Basava and Allama Prabhu.

Akka spent the last of her days in the Srisailam area. Tradition says she died in her twenties, entering mahasamadhi (final divine union) with a flash of light.

My Master

MY MASTER
This is the message of Sri Ramakrishna to the modern world; Do not care for doctrines, do not care for dogmas, or sects, or churches, or temples they count for little compared with the essence of existence in each man, which is spirituality; and the more this is developed in a man, the more powerful is he for good. Earn that first , acquire that, and cricise no one, for all doctorines and creeds have some good in them. Show by your lives that religion does not mean words, or names, or sects, but that it means spiritual rea,lisation. Only those can understand who have felt. Only those who have attained to spirituality can communicate it to others, can be great teachers of mankind. They alone are powers of light.
The more such men are produced in a country the more that country will be raised and that country where such men are absolutely do not exist that country is doomed, nothing can save it.There fore my Master’s message to mankind is Be spiritual and realise truth for yourself.
Swami Vivekananda

JAYADEVA WRITES GITA GOVINDA

by Srila B.B. Tirtha Goswami Maharaja
President of the WVA
On the disappearance day of Srila Jayadev Goswami (13 Jan 2004), The following is an excerpt from the book "Sri Chaitanya: His Life and Associates" by Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Goswami Maharaj.
Jayadeva established the worship of a Narayan deity and in the waves of love which he felt for this deity, he began writing Gita-Govinda, with its incomparable ambrosia. It is said that though Jayadeva is responsible for all the moods and sentiments which appear in the Gita-Govinda, he had some reticence about writing that Krishna fell down at Radharani’s feet to beg her forgiveness when she was angry with him for having deceived her.
On that day, when he left the house to take his bath in the ocean, Lord Jagannath himself came in, disguised as Jayadeva, opened his manuscript and completed the verse he had started smara-garala-khandanam mama sirasi mandanam with the words dehi pada-pallavam udaram: "Place the noble sprout of your foot as an ornament on my head, it dispels the poison of love in separation." (GG 10.8)

Padmavati was surprised to see her husband back so soon from his bath and asked, "What are you doing here? You just left a minute ago." The disguised Jagannath answered, "I thought of something on my way. I was afraid I might forget so I came back to write it down."

Not long after Jagannath had left, the real Jayadeva returned. This time, Padmavati was really astonished to see him. She said, "You just left to go and take your bath. Just a few moments ago you were writing in your manuscript and then you left. How could you have finished and come back so quickly? I am beginning to wonder who that was and who you are?" Jayadeva was clever enough to guess what had happened and he went and looked at his unfinished text and saw the words that the Lord himself had written. His entire body was covered with horripilation and tears came pouring from his eyes. He called Padmavati and said to her, "You are so fortunate. Your life has been made worthy. You have had the good fortune to see the Lord himself. I am so lowly that I did not have that opportunity!"

Jagannath’s love for Gita-Govinda

There is a legend told in Jagannath Puri that there was a flower gardener’s daughter who had learned Gita-Govinda and would sing it with great emotion. Jagannath was attracted by her singing and would go to listen to her, only returning to the temple after she had finished singing.

One day, when the king of Orissa came to see the deity, he saw that the Lord’s body was covered in dust and his clothes were filled with thorns. He asked the pujaris the reason for the Lord’s disheveled condition, but no one could explain how it had come about. The servants of the deity were afraid that they would be punished, but that night, Jagannath appeared to the king in a dream and explained that no one was to blame for his soiled condition that day. He had gone to listen to the gardener’s daughter and that the dust and thorns had covered him when in the garden.

The king was astonished to have received such information in a dream and he immediately sent for the gardener’s daughter to be brought to the court in a palanquin. After making inquiries from her, he decided that she should sing for Jagannath in the temple, rather than obliging the Lord to leave the temple and get all dirty. Ever since that time, girls named deva-dasis have been engaged by the temple to sing Gita-Govinda for Jagannath’s pleasure.

Many other amazing and miraculous events surrounded the life of Jayadeva. He used to serve his deities Radha and Madhava in a trance of divine love. It is said that just as the devotee dedicates himself to the Lord, the Lord also dedicates himself to his devotee. One day, Jayadeva was thatch his roof under the unforgiving midday sun. Jagannath saw the discomfort of his devotee and decided to help him finish the work quickly by handing him the rope needed to bale the straw and removing the finished bundles and placing them on the roof. Jayadeva thought that it was Padmavati who was helping him in this way. But when he came down from the roof after finishing much earlier than expected, he saw no one there. He asked his wife and she told him that she had been busy elsewhere at the time. He was curious about what had happened, but struck with wonder when he went into the deity room and saw that Madhava’s hands were black from handling the straw. He was thus able to understand that it was Madhava himself who had come to help him thatch the roof. He fell down before his Lord and started to cry.

In the last twelve years of Mahaprabhu’s lila, he was absorbed in Radha’s mood and constantly relishing this hidden spirit of love. During this time, he would savor the songs of the Gita-Govinda.

Svarupa Damodar would sing songs that reflected the moods of the Lord whenever they arose, while Ramananda Raya selected verses from Vidyapati, Chandi Das and Gita-Govinda.

Day and night, Mahaprabhu ecstatically relished the songs of Chandi Das, Vidyapati and Ramananda Raya’s plays, as well as Krishna-karnamåta and Gita-Govinda in the company of Svarupa and Ramananda. (Chaitanya Charitamrita 2.2.77)

Jayadeva goes to Vrindavan

After this, Jayadeva wanted to see Vrindavan. He took leave of the king and queen and then, taking his deities, Radha and Madhava with him, set off on the long journey. Once in Vrindavan, he began to serve his deities in a spot near Keshi Ghat. When they heard Jayadeva sing the Gita-Govinda in his sweet voice, the residents of the dham were entranced. One merchant built a large temple for the deities on that spot.

It is said that Jayadeva lived in Vrindavan for many years and then returned to his birthplace in Kendubilva. Each day, he would make the long walk to the Ganges to take his bath there. One day, for some reason or another, he was unable to make it. Ganga Devi was so kind to him that she came personally to the village of Kendubilva so that he could take his bath in her waters. It is said that he died there in Kendubilva and every year a large festival is held there in his memory on the first day of the month of Magh.

There is a difference of opinions about where Jayadeva finished his life. Some say Puri, while others say that he returned to Kendubilva, and others say that he went to Vrindavan. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Goswami Thakur has stated his opinion that Jayadeva died in Jagannath Puri. Though some people say that Jayadeva returned to Kendubilva to spend his last days, there is no indication anywhere that his Radha-Madhava deities were brought there. In fact, these deities were taken by the king of Jaipur to a place named Ghati sometime after Jayadeva’s death and they are still being served in the Jaipur area. Jayadeva’s disappearance day is on the sixth day of the waning moon of the month of Paus

Simhavlokanam

Simhâvalokanam
(August, 1919-20, pp. 103-104)

Yoga and Nature
By Swami Ramakrishnananda

Books are nothing other than the records of men’s
experiences about Nature; so in reality Nature is our teacher. Whenever Nature teaches us,we become really learned and gain something thereby not only for ourselves but for others.
When young James Watt studied the action of steam in the boiling kettle before him, he
made a valuable contribution to the progress of the human race. When Benjamin Franklin
was flying the kite and detected the existence of electricity in the clouds, he gained a new
and most useful servant for man. Similarly by studying Nature George Stephenson was able to invent the locomotive engine. All these incidents clearly show that Nature is the book the study of which gives us the greatest return.
Our Indian Yogis, knowing this, deeply studied the book of Nature and ultimately
found out the methods which took them beyond Nature. Through the study of the inner
aspect of Nature they opened a channel of unlimited knowledge; they could subsist without food any length of time; and they gained supernatural powers which our modern science cannot even dream of. That a man can become practically all-knowing they seem to have at first learnt from studying the property of a convex lens. Ordinarily the solar rays have no burning power; but if brought together at the focus of the lens, they will begin to burn. This burning power is brought about by the convergence of the scattered rays of the sun to a single point. This fact suggested to the mind of the Yogi that because the mind is distributed through the senses and as such is scattered in all directions, it has only the ordinary power of knowing what is visibly going on in this world and of knowing that but very partially. If, however, he could call his mind back from all external pursuits and concentrate it on one idea or at one point, as in the case of the focused solar rays, then why should it not be able to perceive both these ordinary things and many extraordinary things also? He made the experiment and was successful. This intense increase in the power of the mind was learnt also from the current of a stream. If we build a dam across a flowing stream, keeping only a very small aperture in the embankment, the water which then comes out of that aperture has a thousand fold more power than the ordinary current of the stream. This suggested to them the idea that if by shutting up all other outlets of the mind, it is made to flow through one outlet, it must acquire powers unknown to it before: In this manner the Yogi discovered the extraordinary powers which mental concentration can produce.
T h e V e d a n t a K e s a r i ~ 2 9 0 ~ A U G U S T 2 0 0 9