AWAKENINGS

Prelude: Sage Uddalaka Aruni’s discourse with his son Svetaketu in Chandogya Upanishad gives an insight into the knowing of ultimate truth and the real Self. Svetaketu: Supreme Being is said to be nameless and formless? How can I know this principle? Uddalaka Aruni: Son, you might have seen many earthen pots of many forms having different names. There are also gold and steel articles of different forms and names. When you crush them, you will get the essence of the articles like clay, gold and steel. Though the forms and names are lost, the essence of the articles is revealed as clay, gold or steel. That revelation as to the nature of the mud or metals is the ultimate truth. Form and names are immaterial to know the Reality, which is the Supreme Being. Svetaketu: Father, you had told me about the non-living things. How about living things like human beings, animals and insects? Uddalaka Aruni: A man, a tiger or a fly is having different names and forms. But, when it dies, it loses its...

Introduction: Brihadaranya Upanishad meaning ‘Big Forest’ is a longest upanishad. It can reasonably be called as Yajnavalka’s Upanishad because many of the concepts and principles explained in this upanishad are as enunciated by the sage Yajnavalka. The dialogues about Creations, Brahman, Self, Birth, Death, Meditation, Gunas and Salvations are enunciated in this upanishad and symbolisms are very much evident therein. Yajnavalka’s dialogues with his consort Maitreyi and also with Gargi Vachaknavi, a woman saint in the court of Janaka are full of wisdom. The theories of DA(see below) and Neti, Neti (Not this, Not this -ariving at the Truth by negation) are also in this Upanishad. A few of these wonderful and lasting wisdom will be dealt with in a manner so that everyone could understand the in-depth meaning of these principles. In this article, the theory of ‘DA’ is explained. The two letters ‘DA’ denote Damyatta (Control pertaining to Devas), Datta (Charity pertaining to Men) and Dayad...

THREE Rs: Requests, Recommendations, Reactions and Remedies: Requests: The COBRA which stands for Combat Battalion for Resolute Action was formed to tackle the well armed and organized Naxal groups with 10000 strong men geared for guerilla warfare with latest equipments and outfits. The force had made demands, among other things, for the special reinforced helmets of 1000 as the initial supply for the force to the Home Ministry recently. Recommendations: The Home Ministry, on considering their requests, had restricted the supply just to 10 helmets only. The stand taken by the home ministry was based on the presumption that only ‘leaders’ needed the specially toughened helmets rather than all 900 personnel in a battalion. The Ministry had justified their stand on the view that personnel ‘leading’ an operation were more vulnerable to enemy fire as they tended to stand out and that Maoist groups were adept at spotting commanders to target them. The ministry had reiterated that there was...

Harvest No.2: Pope Benedict XVI’s Speech On Islamic Terrorism Late Pope Paul John II had advocated the massive campaign to convert Hindus into Christianity during his visit to India on the 9th November 1999 – the eve of Deepavali Festival and the present Pope Benedict XVI had chosen 12th September 2006 – the worst day of 9/11 for U.S. - one day after the terror attack of Twin Towers in New York to speak at West Germany about Islamic terrorism perhaps to harvest Muslims as converts. But his speech had immediately evoked widespread revolt throughout the Muslim world, which made Pope to tender regret and then even he had to apologize for his speech. Pope would not speak oft hand and his speech would have normally been gone through various stages with his experts and advisories who were supposed to approve the same. Yet, Pope had to retrace his words and forced to tender an apology, which is very rare. It is universally held that there is no violence approved by any religious sects. It is ...

Facts on Modi U.S. Visa issue had come to focus, when Leader of Opposition, L.K.Advani took up the matter with U.S.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who had called on him. Advani said to her: He had no complaints about the U.S. not granting a visa to Narendra Modi, since that comes under the jurisdictions of the American authorities and their sovereign rights. Rather his complaint was about the fact that when Modi himself had not applied for the visa, the U.S. authorities made it an issue from their side. Advani had conveyed to Rice that he found it difficult to accept that Modi, an elected leader in this country whose performance as the Chief Minister of Gujarat has been praised, was campaigned against by the U.S., when he did not apply for the visa. Advani quoted Modi as having told him that he did not apply for a visa. In fact, even earlier when Modi’s U.S. visa was cancelled, it was not applied for, since he had already had a valid visa on his passport. On that occasion, though M...

Popular Face One: Mr.Shivaraj Patil, Home Minister of India. On the 13th September 2008, there were five series of co-ordinated bomb blasts killing 20 people and injuring 90 others in busy markets across the Indian capital of Delhi. The bombs, the first of which exploded at 6.15pm, all went off within 45 minutes of each other and were centred on three main areas. Even in such a tragic occasion, Mr.Patil was more concerned about his appearance rather than to rush to the spot to oversee the rescue operations and to seize the situations from going out of control. It was proved by Television footings, Mr.Patil had changed his dresses three times consequently after the blasts ripping through New Delhi. The details are as under: 1. White Suit at 6.30 p.m. to attend Congress Working Committee Meeting. 2. Dark colored suit while giving bytes to TV cameras, after the blasts. 3. White colored suit to inspect the blast sites and to visit hospitals in the company of Sonia Gandhi. Even while the pe...

‘Solar Energy is a safe solution for our energy crisis and is environmental friendly’ may be a pleasant music for the ears. But in reality, it is otherwise, mainly due to the that commercial generation of solar energy needs vast area of lands apart from water for the periodical cleaning up of parabolic mirrors. As on date, there are two types for the generation of solar energy. 1.Photovoltaic panels. 2.Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) The first one is used for a limited power generation of heating water for bath, lighting a few streets or houses. Its power is user specific and cannot be useful during winter and rainy days. Cells in the Photovoltaic panels convert sunlight directly into electricity and these panels sit mainly on roofs and need little land. These are individual focus and could not be extended for mass generation of electrical energy. The second one contains parabolic mirrors, shaped as ultra long troughs, which concentrate sunlight into a long tube of molten salts that...