This unusual article by Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh was originally published in Bhavan’s Journal in May of 1959

It would be easy to dismiss the question by saying: “Yes, after a prolonged period of intense austerities and meditation, while I was living in Swargashram, and when I had the darshan of a number of maharshis and their blessings, the Lord appeared before me in the form of Sri Krishna.”

But that would not be the whole truth, nor a sufficient answer to a question relating to God, who is infinite, unlimited and beyond the reach of the speech and mind.

Cosmic Consciousness is not an accident or chance. It is the summit, accessible by a thorny path that has steps, slippery steps. I have ascended them step by step, the hard way; but at every step I have experienced God coming into my life and lifting me easily to the next step.

My father was fond of ceremonial worship (puja) in which he was very regular. To my child-mind, the image he worshipped was God; and I delighted in helping father in the worship, by bringing him flowers and other articles of worship. The deep inner satisfaction that he and I derived from such worship implanted in my heart the deep conviction that God is in such images devoutly worshipped by His devotees. Thus did God come into my life first and placed my foot on the first rung of the ladder.

Growing up

As an adult, I was fond of gymnastics and vigorous exercises. I learnt fencing from a teacher who belonged to a low caste; he was a harijan. I could go to him only for a few days before I was made to understand that it was unbecoming of a caste Brahman to play the student to an untouchable. I thought deeply over the matter...

Read the rest of the article at The Atma Jyoti Blog.

We are updating our website and are looking to add a few testimonials and reviews to grace its lovely pages.  We are offering a couple FREE distance Reiki group sessions at 10pm CST this Wednesday 2/24/2010 and Sunday 2/28/2010 for all who would be willing to send us a review/testimonial of your experience afterwards as a thank you for your time and efforts. Sign up at http://www.virtualitystudio.com/free_reiki.html if you are interested and check back for future dates as they are added!

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Excerpted from HOW TO STARTLE YOURSELF:

And finally, the latest scientific discovery:       ©

           

            Two tiny glands have recently been discovered in human physiology, unknown till this century, named Moncrieffe’s Glands after their discoverer. They are extremely small, almost microscopic, and have not shown up either in autopsies nor surgery because they are virtually undetectable unless stimulated. They lie in the lower cheek area, normally about a centimeter above the corners of the mouth, and are only stimulated when these corners reach up to touch them. They are very powerful and normally have an immediate and noticeable effect on body chemistry.

 

            The familiar name for these glands is Jesticles, and upon stimulation they release a short burst of Jesticulate, a powerful endorphin, into the bloodstream. Absorption of Jesticulate is followed almost immediately by sharp optimization of the immune system, which can be measured instantaneously by the chemical IgA (Immunoglobulin) in saliva. This contrasts with system deterioration caused by negative emotions such as grief or rage, a subject extensively researched by the Heart-Math Institute, which used IgA analysis to measure immune-system response and susceptibility to a range of diseases.

 

            Further research is ongoing, but there would appear to be a significant human percentage in which proper stimulation of the glands has been lacking from infancy, causing  moderate to severe atrophy in adulthood.  Subjects may compensate for a shortage of Jesticulate though needlessly extreme behaviors, such as addictions, violent crime, risk-taking, power-seeking, war-mongering and other anti-social proclivities. Other subjects have shown determination in finding badly-situated or hard-to-reach glands by developing prodigious smiles, (such as one very well-known movie star).  Exceptional jesticulators appear to be virtually impregnable to disease or premature aging and death.

 

            Recent double-blind tests on volunteers have shown that optimum immunity is reached when the Jesticles are stimulated at least six times per 24 hours. Laboratory experiments have shown that overdosing to the point of health-risk is next to impossible because the Jesticles become depleted, though normally for a very short recovery term. Permanent euphoria is pronounced in those who average 15 or more stimulations, leading to a measurable condition known to produce a natural life-span extension of 23 per cent, as compared to those with an average stimulation rate of less than 4 per diem. 

 

I just thought you ought to know….  Christopher Murphy

 

They say that every great journey starts with a single step - well this is my first step. For many years I have been nudged along (by spirit) towards a path which I have tried to resist. It has been made clear to me that I have something to say, which many people will need to hear. This led to me publishing a book in 2009, which much to my surprise, has been very well received and has resulted in a flood of letters and e-mails from enthusiastic readers.When I said previously that this is a first step on my journey; it probably would be more correct to say that it was my first step into cyberspace.

I've been immersed in the realms of spirituality, in one way or another since I was a young child. My earliest memories have involved interaction with spirits and  throughout  my life I have learned to develop my connection with what I like to call Gentle Wisdom. That is the soul knowledge, which will always guide us in the right direction, if only we paid attention.

Some of you will be aware of this already - it's the little voice inside your head, which gives an immediate response to any set of circumstances in your life. It's your gut reaction and in too many cases, the first thing we do is over-rule it. What a loss that is! The good news is that we can train ourselves to pay attention to this treasure chest of information.I know this is true because I've already done so myself.

So, for me spiritual assistance is a little like the air I breathe - I don't have to see it, to know that it's there. I just ask for it and there it is.

When I submitted to the idea that I have to share my experiences with people, I wasn't entirely sure what the ultimate form of that concept might be and honestly, I still don't know. However that's what makes life worth living; the adventures, the sharing, the meeting of minds and souls.

More soon.

Betty

This is my first public blog and I wonder if anyone will read it?  It feels odd to put my feelings out into the huge mysterious world wide web. 

As my eyes burn from reading so much internet articles about healing, love and the magical I wonder why I feel held back in life.  Last night I had a dream that I missed my flight because I didn't know when it was and I had lost my passport.  It is indicitve of my lost feelings. 

I ponder if this is normal.  I have raging doubts about my choices in life in every aspect from relationships to money to school and work.  I worry about having made wrong choices.

I also wonder if it is normal to have such few friends when I have lived in this city for so long.  I have a few best friends, childhood friends, few casual friends, my boyfriend, sister and mom and thats about it. I have a hard time befriending people beyond the aquiantance level. 

I think also that reading so much 'self help' is not so self helping.  It amounts to too much information in my head and conflicting ideas.

Maybe I need to chill out on the worrying and figure out how to have more fun in my life.

If anyone has experienced or is experiencing the same thing, care to comment.

Thanks for reading.
Hopefully my entries get happier.
Haha   

The Buddha’s First Sermon (Annotated) Introduction This is the first and earliest of the surviving account of the teachings of The Buddha. All Black text indent text is from on the Buddha.net version of this sutra. All the rest  text is my annotation. And is just my ideas, doubt everything, be your own light:) Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dharma

Thus have I heard: On one occasion the Blessed One was living in the Deer Park at Isipatana (the Resort of Seers) near Varanasi (Benares). Then he addressed the group of five monks (Bhikkhus): 'Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. (What are the two?) There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy and unprofitable.

I see this as a contrast between the doctrines of nihilism and mysticism and The Buddha’s discovery of a path between the two doctrines.

The Middle Path Avoiding both these extremes, the Buddha has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana.

This passage is often over looked, but it states the objectives of The Middle Path and they are not simply the attainment of Nirvana but also of  vision, knowledge, calm, insight and enlightenment in itself.  So, the first stage of his enlightenment can be seen as the recognition of the extremes between nihilism and mysticism. The next stage is to see that there is a path between the two extremes and that this path leads to vision, knowledge, calm, insight and enlightenment.

And what is that Middle Path realized by the Buddha….? It is the Noble Eightfold path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. This is the Middle Path realized by the Tathagata which gives vision, which gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment, and to Nibbana.

The Noble Eightfold Path is the moral, mental, philosophical and spiritual path that is composed of practicing the techniques and intuitions of right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. That short passages above contain Buddhism, in a nutshell: Simply follow the middle path between nihilism and mysticism and get closer to vision, knowledge, calm, insight and enlightenment. Thats it! But there is more... The Buddha then goes on to explain why The Middle Path is the right path, and the answer is that it leads from suffering towards vision, knowledge, calm, insight and enlightenment. In other words, he is getting down into not just the prescription but the mediicn and cause itself. He starts:

The First Noble Truth Stated The Noble Truth of Suffering, monks, is this: Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, association with the unpleasant is suffering, dissociation from the pleasant is suffering, not to receive what one desires is suffering - in brief the five aggregates subject to grasping are suffering.

It is easy to equate Suffering directly with suffering in the senses we traditionally think.  But in the above passage we can also see how suffering is more complex. Its not just the pain and aging that is suffering but its inevitable failure to receive ones desires and the lack of the pleasant that is suffering. The last line “the five aggregates subject to grasping are suffering.” Captures the entire problem if suffering from the perspective of the Buddha’s new theory of mind as being made of five aggregates and how this illusionary ego will always be grasping for more. And that grasping is suffering. He goes on to show this in the Second Noble Truth:

The Second Noble Truth Stated The Noble Truth of the Origin (cause) of Suffering is this: It is this craving (thirst) which produces re-becoming (rebirth) accompanied by passionate greed, and finding fresh delight now here, and now there, namely craving for sense pleasure, craving for existence and craving for non-existence (self-annihilation).

The more we want the more we want. The more we need newness the more newness we need. Greed makes more greed. As long as there is an ego that craves the cravings will feedback into the ego and the world and make more and more suffering. This is the ultimate causes of suffering. It creates a cycle that will keep producing more ego and more suffering. The Third Noble Truth Stated

The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering is this: It is the complete cessation of that very craving, giving it up, relinquishing it, liberating oneself from it, and detaching oneself from it.

The Second Noble truth gave us the cause of the problem. The Third Noble Truth (above) tells us, simply and obviously, completely detach oneself from the cause of craving, that is to not let the ego, that illusion of the five aggregates, have any chance to grasp. I like to think that up until here we are like, OK, that makes sense, but now what? How can we end the cycle of negativity? The answer was already in terms of the Middle Path, ie, The Noble Eightfold Path, which is, the Fourth Noble Truth. The Fourth  Noble Truth Stated

The Noble Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering is this: It is the Noble Eightfold Path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Those are the four noble truths, the above is pretty much all of Buddhism in a single page. But such is their important we are told them again, not just to clarify, but to show method of how they should be approached. The First Noble Truth Realised

"This is the Noble Truth of Suffering": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This suffering, as a noble truth, should be fully realized": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This suffering, as a noble truth has been fully realized": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before.

Here he states the truth, as before, but then he goes on to say how it must be realised and that it has been realised. In other words he is saying don’t just accept the truth because it is his “light” (I take this to mean Dharma) but rather realise it  yourself. And how to realise it? He answers this clearly, realise it with vision, knowledge , wisdom, science under your own light.. So he saw the truth and then he realised it and then he realised it was “fully realised” which I think means he couldn’t doubt it. The Second Noble Truth Eradicated

"This is the Noble Truth of the Origin (cause) of Suffering": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This Origin of Suffering as a noble truth should be eradicated": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This Origin of suffering as a noble truth has been eradicated": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before.

Here The Second Noble Truth is stated but the method is different, it doesn’t use “realisation” but the idea of knowing one must eradicate the cause.  The Origin itself, the second Noble truth, the fact that suffering has a cause, must be eradicated. When he says erridcated he means literally remove it from the world. Suffering has an inevitable cause, this cannot be solved, it can only be eradicated. The Third Noble Truth Realised

"This is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, should be realized": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This Cessation of suffering, as a noble truth has been realized": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before.

The Fourth  Noble Truth Practiced

"This is the Noble Truth of the Path leading to the cessation of suffering": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This Path leading to the cessation of suffering, as a noble truth, should be developed": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before. "This Path leading to the cessation of suffering, as a noble truth has been developed": such was the vision, the knowledge, the wisdom, the science, the light that arose in me concerning things not heard before.

So what is being said here, is that these realisations and eradications are not enough. They must be developed and integrated into one singular path of practice, The Noble Eightfold Path developed and illuminated by vision, knowledge, wisdom and  science. Finally The Buddha brings this all together and back to the start. This passage can be read many ways:

As long as my knowledge of seeing things as they really are, was not quite clear in these three aspects, in these twelve ways, concerning the Four Noble Truths, I did not claim to have realized the matchless, supreme Enlightenment, in this world with its gods, with its Maras and Brahmas, in this generation with its recluses and brahmanas, with its Devas and humans. But when my knowledge of seeing things as they really are was quite clear in these three aspects, in these twelve ways, concerning the Four Noble Truths, then I claimed to have realized the matchless, supreme Enlightenment in this world with its gods, with its Maras and Brahmas, in this generation with its recluses and brahmanas, with its Devas and humans. And a vision of insight arose in me thus: "Unshakable is the deliverance of my heart. This is the last birth. Now there is no more re-becoming (rebirth)."

We saw above how the Buddha showed middle path away from the mystical life. I don’t think it is too preposterous to assume that when he speaks in the above passage about “recluses” and religious teachers and mythical beings he is making the same statement as with his first statement about the middle path away from self-mortification. He saw the path between nihilism and mysticism and then he realised it with certainty that The Four Noble Truths confirm his insight that there is no rebirth. Finally, the Suttra Ends:

This the Blessed One said. The group of five monks was glad, and they rejoiced at the words of the Blessed One.

there is no one in this town who can help me, no one who has experience with clairvoyant abilities or physic perceptions (that i know of). i just wanted to know if anyone could help me, or verify my experiences. i'm an intellectual person, but i have always had an esoteric way of viewing God and Spirit that has benefited me greatly. Lately my meditations have revealed to me a fear i have of perceiving higher energies, because i keep transferring images onto them that cause me discomfort. its a generic blockage. i'm sure i will help myself and be alright, but someone to talk with would be of great help

I believe that the Buddhism we have today is a corruption from the original teachings of The Buddha. My belives for this are manyfold but one area that is pertinent is the fact that the Buddhism we have today cannot be known to be authentic. This essay looks at the evidence for this.