The One Self

All are deceived, do what the One Power dictates,
Yet each thinks his own will his nature moves;
The hater knows not ’tis himself he hates,
The lover knows not ’tis himself he loves.

In all is one being many bodies bear,
There Krishna flutes upon the forest mood,
There Shiva sits ash-smeared, with matted hair.
But Shiva and Krishna are the single God.

In us too Krishna seeks for love and joy,
In us too Shiva struggles with the world’s grief.
One Self in all of us endures annoy,
Cries in his pain and asks his fate’s relief.

My rival’s downfall is my own disgrace,
I look on my enemy and see Krishna’s face.

Sri Aurobindio (Collected Poems)

A renunciant couple were once proceeding through a thick jungle on a pilgrimage to an inaccessible shrine. The husband saw on the footpath a precious stone, shining brilliantly when the Sun’s rays fell upon it from between the leaves. He hastily threw some sand over it with the movement of his foot, so that his wife may not be tempted to pick it up and become a slave to the tinsel. The wife saw the gesture and chided the husband for still retaining in his mind, a distinction between sand and gold. For her, both were the same. This habit of judging and labelling others is a prevalent practice today. What can you know of the inner working of another’s mind?

– Sri Sathya Sai Baba

The greatest love you can experience is in communion with God in meditation. The love between the soul and Spirit is the perfect love, the love you are all seeking. When you meditate, love grows. Millions of thrills pass through your heart….If you meditate deeply, a love will come over you such as no human tongue can describe; you will know His divine love, and you will be able to give that pure love to others.

Paramahans Yogananda

Be thankful to the Lord, for He gave you Time, as well as action to fill it with. He gave you food, as well as hunger to relish it. But that does not entitle you to engage yourself in action indiscriminately. When you build a house, you install a door in it, don’t you?

What is the purpose of the door? It has dual objectives – to welcome all you would like to offer hospitality to, and to keep out all and sundry, so that they cannot walk in whenever they like.

So too, install a door in your mind. Select the impulses, the motives, and the incentives that appear in your mind and welcome them in. Keep out the demeaning, the debasing and the deleterious. Then, gradually you will be able to admit and experience the highest wisdom of the scriptures, the wisdom culled out of the crucible of experience.

Anubhava Jnanam

Many human beings say “I love you” one day and reject you the next. That is not love. One whose heart is filled with the love of God cannot willfully hurt anyone. When you love God without reservation, He fills your heart with His unconditional love for all.

That love no human tongue can describe….The ordinary man is incapable of loving others in this way. Self-centered in the consciousness of “I, me, and mine,” he has not yet discovered the omnipresent God who resides in him and in all other beings.

To me there is no difference between one person and another; I behold all as soul-reflections of the one God. I can’t think of anyone as a stranger, for I know that we are all part of the One Spirit. When you experience the true meaning of religion, which is to know God, you will realize that He is your Self, and that He exists equally and impartially in all beings. Then you will be able to love others as your own Self.

Paramhans Yogananda

Everything will improve in the future
if you are making a spiritual effort today.

~Swami Sri Yukteswar

I am not starved for want of food, but it is Janardana who deserves my reverence.
I have looked on God as one who sees everything, on bright and dark days, alike.
God is like a father with his child,
who both feels and gives pleasure at the same time.
Good acts and bad acts vanish.
Tuka says, ‘God’s glory alone is left.’

Sant Tukaram
________________________________________________________
Sant Tukaram was a prominent Varkari Sant (Saint) and spiritual poet during a Bhakti movement in India.

Sant Tukaram was initiated without any intermediaries as the other saints usually were. He dreamt that he was initiated by the Lord Hari himself dressed as a Brahman.

Tukaram continuously sang the praises of the Lord, he sang it in the form of abhangs which he wrote. These were in his mother tongue Marathi. The abhangs express his feelings and philosophical outlook. During his 41 years, Tukaram composed over 5,000 abhangs. Many of them speak of events in his life, which make them somewhat autobiographical. Yet, they are focused on God, Pandurang, and not Tukaram. His abhangs became very popular with the masses of common people. It was this very popularity that caused the religious establishment (the high caste Brahmins) to hate and persecute Tukaram. as, he was causing them to lose their power over the people.

There are many miracles attributed to Tukaram.

Without a worshipper, how can God assume a form and accept service?

The one makes the other beautiful, as a gold setting shows off a jewel.

Who but God can make the worshipper free from desires?

Tuka says, ‘They are drawn to each other like mother and child.’

– Sant Tukaram

The greatest man is he who considers himself to be
the least, as Jesus taught. A real leader is one who first
learned obedience to others, who feels himself to be the
servant of all, and who never puts himself on a pedestal.
Those who want flattery don’t deserve our admiration,
but he who serves us has a right to our love. Isn’t God
the servant of His children, and does He ask for praise?
No, He is too great to be moved by it.

Paramahansa Yogananda, “Sayings of Paramahansa
Yogananda”

And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened

. (Luke 11:9-10)

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

Gautam Buddha

Tejo Bindu Upanishad says:

Nimishardham na thisthanthi vrittim brahma mayeem vina
Yatha Thisthanthi brahmaadhyaah sukadhayah sanakaadh for a single moment should a person remain without the thought that “I am Brahman”. People like Brahma, Suka and Sanaka sages all remain with the thought of “I am Brahman”.

Any action has five components
Kartha – Doer
Chesta or Karma – Action
Karanam – Instruments
Adhisthaanam – Base or Substratum
Daivam – Vidhi or previous birth effects.

Raman Maharishi

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you If you do not act on upon them?

Gautam Buddha

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Gautam Buddha

Desires are silken threads of material pleasures which the spider of habit continuously spins around the soul to form the shrouding cocoon of ignorance. The soul must manage to cut through this stifling cocoon of ignorance to reemerge as the butterfly of omnipresence.

~ Paramahansa Yogananda

The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and a God seed into God.

Philokalia

Brahman cannot be realized by those Who are subject to greed, fear, and anger. Brahman cannot be realized by those Who are subject to the pride of name and fame Or to the vanity of scholarship.

Brahman cannot be realized by those Who are enmeshed in life’s duality.
But to all those who pierce this duality, Whose hearts are given to the Lord of Love, He gives himself through his infinite grace.

– Tejabindu Upanishad

O my Guru! If all the gods are wroth, and yet thou art satisfied with me, I am safe in the fortress of thy pleasure. And if all the gods protect me by the parapets of their blessings, and yet I receive not thy
benediction, I am an orphan, left to pine spiritually in the ruins of thy displeasure.

–Paramahansa Yogananda, “Whispers from Eternity”

There is a key for everything, and the key to Paradise is to love the poor.

– Hadith The Prophet Muhammad (SAW)

“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Jesus replied, “`You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: `Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:36-40

And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Luke 11:9-10

“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

(Mark 10:42-45)

Let not anyone else know how deeply you feel for the Lord. The Master of the Universe knows of your love; don’t display it before others, or you may lose it.

–Paramahansa Yogananda, “Man’s Eternal Quest”

This is the gist of all worship: to be pure and to do good to others.
He who sees Shiva in the poor, in the weak, and in the diseased, really worships Shiva.

And if he sees Shiva only in the image, his worship is but preliminary.
He who has served and helped one poor man seeing Shiva in him, without thinking of his caste or creed or race or anything, with him Shiva is more pleased than with the man who sees Him only in temples.

– Vivekananda
(Research: Sukhwani)
_______________________________________________
The Spiritual Nomad apologises for his long absence. Also he is overwhelmed by the response of the readers who missed the daily motivation. This has also convinced him that he is not imposing himself on his readers

Bereft of life, bereft of knowledge, bereft of power and will,how shall I
describe my state?

For I do not exist, only He exists.
I am deaf; the hearer is He.
I am blind; the seer is He.
I am mute; the orator is He.
I do not exist; only He exists.

– Shah Kamal,
(research: sukh wani)

As a great fish swims between the banks of a river as it likes,
so does the shining Self move between the states of dreaming and waking.

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
(Research: Sukh Wani)

Christmas

Through the transparency of my deepest meditation
I will receive the light of the Father passing through
me. I will be a son of God, even as Jesus was, by
receiving God fully through my meditation-expanded
soul consciousness. I will follow the shepherds of faith,
devotion, and meditation, who will lead me through
the star of inner wisdom to the omnipresent Christ.

–Paramahansa Yogananda, “Self-Realization Magazine”

Devotion

God says: “To the devotional call of that child of
Mine who struggles, prays, and meditates in order to
know Me in body, mind, and soul as the all-pervading,
ever-new Joy–as the ever-increasing Bliss of meditation–
I silently and deeply respond.”

–Paramahansa Yogananda, SRF Lessons

There is but One God, His name is Truth, He is the Creator, He fears none, he is without hate, He never dies, He is beyond the cycle of births and death, He is self illuminated, He is realized by the kindness of the True Guru. He was True in the beginning, He was True when the ages commenced and has ever been True, He is also True now.

Guru Nanak

Apne gum ki numaish na kar
Apne nasib ki azmaish na kar

Jo tera hai tere pas khud ayega,
Har roz usse pane ki khwaish na kar!

Taqdir badal Jayegi apne aap hi ai dost,
muskrana sikh le wajah ki talash na kar.

Guru Granth Sahib

Do not make a public display of your sorrow
Don’t test your destiny before it unfolds tomorrow

What is mine will come to me anyway
So I’ll not pine for it every day

Luck will change by itself in season
Learn to laugh without any reason

Guru Granth Sahib
(English Adaptation by Manohar Khushalani)

BLOOD vs MILK ?
A short story of SHREE GURUNANAKji

A rich man by name Malik Bhago gave his sweet pancake to Nanakji & at the same time a poor man Bhai Lalo also came to Nanakji to offer his dry chapati>
Nanak ji took the dry chapati & started having it when the rich man saw this he got wild & asked Nanakji why he did that.

Guru Nanak took Bhai Lalo’s dry chapati in his right hand and Malik Bhago’s fried sweet pancake in his left hand. When he squeezed the right hand the people present there saw drops of milk dripping from it. And when he pressed the left hand with the Malik Bhago’s fried pancakes, everyone saw blood trickling from it.

“Look Malik Bhago, wealth gathered by cruelty and corruption towards the poor is like sucking their blood which you have done. You had invited me to partake of blood, leaving food pure as milk. How could I accept it?” said Guru ji. Malik Bhago was silent then. Bhai Lalo on the other hand was the symbol of honesty and hard work. So according to Guru ji it’s better to earn little money with honesty than to amass a huge wealth by devious and crooked means.

The news spread that a Guru, who could challenge caste and authority, with such courage unknown before, travelled the countryside. More and more people came to listen to the enlightening words of Guru Nanak. Bhai Lalo was blessed by Guru Nanak Dev ji to spread the message of the Divine Name. He became a devout Sikh and preached the Guru’s gospel to the people of Saidpur.

Story on Guru Nanak researched by Arjun Govindani

Everything has its place, but when you waste
time at the cost of your true happiness it is not good.
I dropped every unnecessary activity so that I could
meditate and try to know God, so that I could day
and night be in His divine consciousness.
–Paramahansa Yogananda, “Self-Realization Magazine”

Hidden creatures good and bad always touch the heart. The touch of the angel is inspiration; Satanic touches temptations untold. Tarry with patience until your confusion is resolved and you know whom you rejected and who became the leader of your heart.
– Rumi
(researched by Sukh Wani)

Simplicity

We make too much of feeling, even admitting that
the right kind of feeling is very enjoyable. What does it
matter how you feel? Bear your lot as long as it is the
will of God that you should do so. Act rightly, and in
due time the right feeling of peace and joy will come.

–Sri Gyanamata, “God Alone: The Life and Letters
of a Saint”

Co-operation with countries in the Indus basin for building storage dams, flood control installations and power generation stations will help Pakistan.

Santosh Kumar

Manohar Khushalani

The floods in Pakistan may have abated but the havoc caused by them continues to mount. Nearly 21 million, or 13 per cent of Pakistan’s population, and 20 per cent of its area have been affected. About 1.85 million homes have been destroyed or damaged in a country where a large percentage of the population live as refugees. UN experts estimate that 2.7 million people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 5.3 million in Punjab and 4.4 million in Sindh need immediate humanitarian assistance.

The damage caused to agricultural land and livestock will take years to set right. Approximately four out of five people in the flood-affected areas depend on agriculture for their livelihood. An estimated 700,000 acres of cotton, 200,000 acres each under rice and sugarcane and 300,000 acres of wheat crops have been destroyed. This will severely affect the agricultural economy, which accounted for 20.4 per cent of Pakistan’s GDP last year. The cascading effects on industry and trade are bound to add to the economic woes.

Relief efforts

The political spillover is equally, if not more, worrisome. Relief efforts highlight the inefficiencies and corruption endemic in the Pakistani administrative set-up, magnified as they are in the eyes of the already disenchanted masses, especially the internally displaced. The fear is that fundamentalist organisations will extend their grip over the affected populace by filling the wide gaps in disaster relief left by the Pakistan Government and international relief agencies.

Even if Pakistan tides over the after-effects of these floods, can it prevent another such disaster? Pakistani meteorological data point to the unusually heavy rains in July-August in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces as the main cause of the floods. The precipitation map released by USAID corroborates this.

Indus River basin

The flood-affected areas are mostly along the main Indus River and its western tributaries — Swat and Kabul — and less so along the eastern tributaries — Jhelum, Chenab and Sutlej.

This should not, however, obscure the larger picture. More than 80 per cent of the total water flows in the Indus River system. The water originates from snowmelt and rainfall in the wider mountainous arc, which includes Afghanistan, India and China.

According to one estimate, the Kabul River accounts for 20-30 maf (million acre-feet) of total annual flows, the main Indus 100 maf, the Jhelum and Chenab 60 maf, while the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej add another 40 maf or so.

Floods are a cumulative effect of all these flows and are triggered almost annually, with constant siltation reducing the rivers’ capacity to hold these waters. Rising precipitation levels over the long term are likely to result in even more unmanageable discharges.

Historical records indicate that about 6,000 years ago, the Indus was more powerful and prone to flooding than today. Then, as the climate cooled some 4,000 years ago, a large part of it simply dried up. It is possible that global warming will reverse this trend.

Initially, storage dams such as Mangla and Tarbela were built to aid irrigation and control floods. But they are beset by silting problems as the Indus is one of the largest sediment-bearing rivers in the world.

Water storage capacity has already been reduced to 17.1 maf as against the original built capacity of 64.4 maf. And Pakistan has been singularly unsuccessful in building additional storage capacity to compensate for this, let alone provide for enhanced irrigation and flood control needs.

A major project, the Kalabagh dam, has failed to get off the drawing board for two decades because of internal bickering between the provinces. The result is that the existing dams are virtually unable to retain any water during the monsoons. It is evident that outflows equal inflows in almost all major reservoir locations, except for Marala, on the Chenab, which has been able to absorb some water.

International segmentation

Moreover, the international segmentation of the Indus basin rivers complicates the problem further. The mighty rivers follow their own course and do not recognise man- made political boundaries. Their upper reaches, except for the Swat, are largely beyond Pakistan’s political control. And with the two principal upper riparian states — India and Afghanistan — Pakistan has a troubled relationship.

With India it does have the Indus Treaty but the provisions basically partition the waters, giving those in the main river, Chenab and Jhelum, to Pakistan. There is no agreement at all with Afghanistan on the Kabul River. The result is that the flows in these rivers enter Pakistan unhindered by any storage capacities, even during floods.

Question of choice

Pakistan is, thus, at a fork in the road. It can either continue policies which underlie the present arrangements (or the lack thereof) and face similar or perhaps bigger flood disasters in future if anticipated climate change effects materialise.

Or it can chose to cooperate with countries in the Indus basin in building storage dams, flood control installations and power generation stations, which will help modulate flows and thereby benefit Pakistan’s agriculture, particularly its struggling farmers.

The attendant hydropower potential is also huge and can be tapped for the energy-hungry Pakistani economy as well as for cross-border sales to India. But for all this to happen, integrated basin management is required.

The big question is whether Pakistan’s rulers can change their confrontationist mindset to make this possible. And whether India and Afghanistan can think out of the box to adopt a more imaginative and generous approach towards what can be a win-win situation for the people of all three countries.

India’s largest desalination plan twas inaugurated in Chennai on Saturday the 31^st July. The facility will draw water from the Bay of Bengal, process it using the reverse osmosis technology and supply purified water to the city. The joint venture between IVRCL Infrastructures and Project Ltd and Befessa

Chennai Water Desalination Ltd RO Plant

of Spain, spread across 60 acres, has been built at a cost of  Rs 600-crore at Minjur. It can desalinate 100 million litres of water per day, sufficient for around 2 million people. Thus it would cater to half of Chennai’s population of about 4.5 million. What is most interesting is the fact that the plant will supply water to the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board at a cost of just about 5 paise per litre for the first 25 years. The competitive pricing is because the facility adopts an energy-conserving desalination process, According to CMWSSB officials yet another desalination plant with similar capacity is expected to come up in Tamilnadu by 2012.

Earlier, in January this year, Saudi Arabia’s national science agency announced a new initiative to build solar-powered desalination plants to reduce water and energy costs by 40 percent. For Saudi Arabia there had been no breakthrough in the cost of desalination. The gradual reduction in cost due to improvement in technology had been mostly offset by increased material and labor cost. The initiative will be carried out in several stages, and the first plant will be a small, 30,000 cubic meter per day facility in Al-Khafji. In comparison, the Shoaiba 3 project on Saudi Arabia’s west coast is the world’s largest plant, producing 880,000 m³/d .During the initiative’s second phase, a 100,000 m³/d plant will be built. Eventually a network of plants across the country.