The art of living permaculture project, bangalore, India

Presently a permaculture demonstration and training centre is being developed in Bangalore under the Art of Living Foundation Bangalore. The permaculture research institute of Australia has published a story in pictures about this site and it's progress as a good example of permaculture. You may watch the video on this link:    http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtube_gdata_player&v=KZKKIxW2OeY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DKZKKIxW2OeY%26feature%3Dyoutube_gdata_player

For more information you may contact Venkatesh Dharmraj at 

vdharmraj@ramaavenkatesh.com

Permaculture training

Presently a permaculture demonstration and training centre is being developed in Bangalore under the Art of Living Foundation Bangalore. For more information you may contact Venkatesh Dharmraj at 

vdharmraj@ramaavenkatesh.com

 From sincere Seeker to graceful receiver!

‘Sincere seeker’ is the Divine gospel for every seeker. That's THE TRUTH.

But what is the seeker seeking?  This is the million dollar question.   

What I sincerely ask you is - ‘after you sincerely seek, and when the giver from who you are seeking is ready to give – is already giving you what you are seeking for all the arduous and difficult times .... are you in fact ready to receive what is given?

“The sincere seeker’ or at least a ‘Sincere spiritual seeker’ is one who is earnestly looking for Truth or Reality.   They are people who are seriously going about within and without,  trying to discover something meaningful—something deeper (...Whatever it is the seeker is seeking...)  in life, with an open mind and an open heart, and would like to catch a glimpse of something deeper within... [Taken from search within .org]

What will the seeker do or is the seeker ready for when what he is seeking for comes to him and stands right before him?

Seeking is the first step... Don't ever mistake this...!!  Seeking is not an easy journey. It may take years or months or days or just a flash of second...!

Without seeking, you are on a wild goose chase... and the goose is never found on such a wild chase ...because the geese don’t need to be chased – they are right in front of you – already ready and willing to be yours!!

If the geese are just in front of you to be yours, how is that you are not receiving IT?

The real question is ‘ARE YOU READY TO RECEIVE IT?.'

Sincerely seeking is just the beginning of the beginning.....and you will seek with all the fervour and zeal and with the utmost sincerity and work very very hard for it.... Have you prepared yourself to receive it?

To be a ‘Sincere seeker’ is the first step and you will go through whatever you go through when you are seeking. And if you get exhausted seeking without being prepared to receive it -  then you remain a sincere seeker, without tasting the ambrosia of 'seeking'.

Without preparing yourself to be a graceful receiver you are in the wilderness seeking all through your life and struggling and working hard but never receiving it...  SIMPLE... You have never prepared yourself for receiving it!  Then how can you blame the giver???

Be a sincere seeker and at the same time be prepared yourself to be a graceful receiver!  That's the only way your seeking bears fruit and you can receive fruits of the Grace!!!

Contemplate!!!

Choice is yours!!!

Mental boundaries.

Recently I was having a pleasant conversation with a friend of mine who is associated with a charitable organization. Somewhere during the talk I casually said that I had heard this criticism about this organization being partial to a certain section of the society. That was all... and all hell broke out... This friend got angry and he not only questioned me but also called those, who criticized his organization, as mean and went on to defend his organization, it's people and it's work......

This set me thinking ... I wondered .....just one sentence about the organization and this person snapped instantly and all the pleasantness between the two of us ceased at that very moment and the situation turned grim!!

After I parted from him... my mind was a bit disconcerted and also set off a chain of thoughts about this incidence. Why such a reasonable person and a friend had snapped suddenly at the mention of the some thing he perceived as not acceptable about his organization?

My thoughts turned to similar incidences and the more I thought the more such incidences flashed in front of me about the conflict among different religious & political groups/institutions; between  people of one race and another;  about one State and another; between individuals holding one faith and another... So, the conflict seem to be present in, right from the largest of the organizations to the small groups and  even between individuals. 

This thought really perplexed me!

 The Human species- the most evolved, gifted with the best of  many mental faculties such as intellect & reasoning ...,  which species alone among the various specifies of animals, has many inventions creating amazing machines and made discoveries of the various aspects of this earth and the moon should snap and react to the smallest perceived provocations!? The reasoning seems take back seat while people snap instantaneously, with some small remark or a comment, perhaps may not even be intended to belittle or question the other's beliefs.

I set out to contemplate why this tendency exists in so many spheres of the human beings!... At that moment my thoughts were interrupted when my dog started fiercely barking and when I lifted my head and saw that the neighbors dog had come close to the main gate of the our house and the curious thing that I noticed was that my dog stopped barking as soon as the other dog went away from the gate.

This somewhat seemed to provide some answer to my quest - Forming territorial boundaries seems to be an inbuilt instinct all animals  possess.  Animals anyway are known to create physical boundaries and any trespass by another animal is resisted and the boundary is fiercely protected. But in this case  'Mere survival' seems to be the object of God when he created these subliminal animals that  perhaps would explain the territorial instint in animals.

Then the question that popped up in my mind was, why humans should continue to have this instinct despite being bestowed with the best mental faculties to deal with not only to survive but to lead more evovled life on this earth ?

My mind was contemplating whether the residue of this animals' territorial instinct may have been inherited that  subconciously created the subtle psychological boundaries in human minds?

Then I thought of the countries and their boundaries which are fiercely guarded by their huge army - billions are spent in this exercise - An obvious testimony for the  human physical boundaries! My mind exploded at this chilling thought !

I started wondering, is there any solution to overcome this little residual animalistic  instinct that may perhaps save human beings from this menace of "snapping" and "conflicts" that lead to wars, violence, breaking of relationships and even misunderstandings?

My thoughts turned to God to see if there is something that God has bestowed on humans to overcome this and perhaps it may be time to honorably use that gift to overcome this problem.

Suddenly I thought of the freedom of choice given by God only to the human species which I prefer to call it "free will",  if properly understood, will bring awareness to humans that it is in the exercise of that freedom to choose or free will, they determine who they turn up to be as human beings.

If it was not for the "free will" bestowed by God, then the actions of humans on this earth would just be mechanical acts and there would be no necessity to seek wisdom, pray and differentiate between the good and the bad because everything would be mechanical and there would be no choice at all!

I had read  this  - "between a stimulus and a response  there is a gap and in that gap one has to exercise his/her "free will"  in a  book  "Man's serch for meaning" by Victor Frankle. This may perhaps provide a solution to human "conflicts" that bring  misery and suffering to them.

 Actually this one sentence  inspired Stephen R Covey to write his best seller - 7 habits of highly effective people.

Then I thought about Free will and   Further I thought if we use this free will - No one or nothing can hurt or distract or disturb us - it's our own 'free will' letting the hurt and distraction enter us. 

Then  George Bernard Shaw's quote appealed to me - "The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react." 

Then the conclusion seems to come from one of Osho's quote which summed it all:

"Man has freedom to choose. And this choice can make you pathological or this choice can make you a Buddha. Now it depends on you, how you use your freedom."

So, to exercise or not the free will is yours!

Suspicion - .

We tend to suspect about many things and  about people and their motives. So, I decided to see and learn more about suspecion and it's effects and I came up with many quotes and among them I thought the following appealed to me and I have tried to collate them to bring out what does suspecion means and it's effects. I have not shown the author at the end of each quote, instead I have given credits at the end of this article so as to keep the continuity of the dialogue I this article. Here it is:

I began with the first quote:

"Suspicion is a mental picture seen through an imaginary keyhole." 

I felt this quote very aptly tells what suspecion means. Actually seeing though the key hole, one can see a limited space of what exists behind that key hole. Thus, you get a partial picture through seeing through a key hole. Therefore, in suspicion the judgement is fragmented because of the partial picture one sees to arrive at his/her conclusion.

The next quote tells us that the suspecision is detrimental as it disturbs our peace of mind and therefore eminently avoidable:

"Suspicion is far more apt to be wrong than right; oftener unjust than just.  It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness." 

So, I asked myself, with such deadly side effects should I even remotely think  of suspecting anything or anyone?! I told my self Naah!

The next quote so aptly states the futility of suspicion:

"Suspicion is very often a useless pain." 

If knowing well that suspicion cases pain, one still prefers to suspect,  then it is nothing short of a condition known as neurotic paradox - which means the person knows fully well that something is not be done because it causes pain but cannot help but doing it! I said let me be aware of this paradox and avoid suspecting!

Then the next quote gave a caution:

"Suspicion is ever strong on the suffering side." 

So, if you are the suffering  party, please avoid suspicion because the suffering mind looks for evidence to suspect and inevitably through the imaginary key hole comes up with something to convince you to suspect! I felt this should be a guiding principle to keep in mind when I am the suffering party.. Bleep bleep!

The next two quote  quotes made it clear that, suspicion becomes an impediment to acquire wisdom and takes away your chance to be wise.

"Suspicion is a great enemy to wisdom." 

"Ignorance is the mother of suspicion."  

So, I thought ignorance in itself is the enemy of wisdom and if ignorance is the mother of suspicion, it is better to keep it as far away as possible.

Then the last quote I thought gave a piece of sensible advise 

"There is nothing that makes a man suspect much, more than to know little; and, therefore, men should remedy suspicion by procuring to know more, and not to keep their suspicions to smother." 

Then I thought in order to overcome suspicion I should endeavor to know more.. and the most beautiful part of knowing more and striving to procure more will lead to  wisdom, which will as a natural consequence vanquish suspicion.

So, avoid suspicion like plague until you know more!! And the catch is when you know more you are wise and suspicion simply disappears!

* *Credits :

unknown.

Francis Bacon, Sr.

Hosea

Samuel Johnson
Publilius Syrus
Thomas Fuller
William R. Alger

You can write the stories of your past life but you can’t change even one tiny bit of that.

So instead… Begin a new one!!!

Whether we are young or old, whether our years number a few or many, we have a past and now we are here – right now, where we are.

Life begins with birth and all of us go through various phases of life – childhood, adolescence, adult hood. During our lives we go though myriad of events, situations and countless experiences, thoughts and emotions – some good, some not so good -some memorable and some forgettable. All these things are a natural consequence of the very laws of the nature.

Life is not a ‘Constant’, it is a continuous going by, being here and moving ahead. It could be said life is in ‘flux’ or ‘perpetual motion’.

At different points of time in our lives, we are in different geographical, social, financial and psychological environments. We experience life in different ways and meet different people who themselves are subject to the same set of experiences; experience their own situations and major and minor events in their lives. No one is exempt from this.

And during those different points of our lives, different perceptions are formed, changed, modified and destroyed and new ones formed. Just like our lives, perceptions too are not constant!

Over many millennia, the concepts of good and bad, right and wrong, moral and immoral and a host of other concepts have been formed and changed.

Even the scientific concepts – (which are empirical and tested and proved to be correct at the time they were accepted, have been changed and modified and new concepts have taken their place. These are accepted as true at this point of time, but as science progresses, it’s likely we will have new concepts replacing the current ones!

If this is the state of empirical concepts which are tested and proved to be correct, imagine now the position of the human concepts of good and bad, moral and immoral, right and wrong, correct and incorrect, that are socially accepted and ‘normal’ at this point in time, but it has not always been so – and will not be in the future no doubt.

In our life we go through a host of experiences some pleasant and some not so pleasant … they are like a video or movie recording available for replay. We can watch as many times as we wish, but we cannot change even one bit of what happened in the life that has passed…

So!!!! My questions are “Why carry the burden of the past and let it interfere with the present? Why carry the memories of the past as if they are happening in the present and be disturbed by them? Why remember the past miseries and cry now?”

It’s our past and it has passed.

We can write what is past as our story but no matter how much we may like to, we can’t change even one bit of it…

But what we can do and what we do  have,  is the choice to begin a new story while we have time on our hands…

So, why carry the burden of the past and waste the present time available to us…instead start a fresh and new story and celebrate the new life and its journey.

Written by Venkatesh Dharmraj

Edited by Grace Lee

 

Experiencing God!

God, Grace and blessings are almost synonymous with one another.  

Different Gods are accepted and worshipped as their creator and savior in different parts of the world ... But the common  thread   'God'  runs through the  acceptance and worship by the entire humanity.

Looking closer we discover that the most common thread that runs through the entire acceptance worship of God is that :

- The entire life on earth is the creation of one God.

- The God is present everywhere and in everything on this earth and -- - There is no place where God doesn't exist - he is omnipresent.

If that is what the entire humanity accepts and worships, then why we don't see God? Why we don't experience God? 

That which is accepted and worshipped by the entire humanity over millenniums can't be seen and can't be experienced is some what disappointing, since God ought to have been seen and experienced by all with such acceptance and worship over the millenniums! 

It is common knowledge that, some months of single minded working on a stone gets the worker to see some shape and experience the shape of what he/she is working on. 

If seeing and experiencing something which is worked on for as short a period as months lets the person see and experience it, then why God being accepted and worshipped by the entire humanity is not seen or experienced  by people and why only a few say they have seen God and experienced God?

Is God so tough and elusive that we can not see him and experience him?

Is God so unachievable despite millenniums of acceptance and worship by the humanity?

Has God discriminated to be seen and experienced by only a few people and not generally available to be seen and experienced by all?

My mind was saying that this somehow does not go well with the most worshipped belief that God exists in every thing on this earth and there is no place where God is not there and that God is omnipresent.

Then I sat  down  and contemplated, looked into many writings and went through noble quotes but still i didn't get a satisfactory answer and then  I went out for a walk ...but this thought lingered on in my mind .. As I stepped out -  I saw a tree, I gazed at the tree then I asked my self is this tree God? Then I saw a man passing by me and I saw him and he saw me .. He smiled and smiled back.. I again asked myself is this person God?.. My mind started racing and everything I saw .. I asked this question.. The sky,  the sun, the earth right below my feet, the flowers, birds, the people around... I asked the same question.. 

Then I walked a little ahead and it started drizzling and the first rain drops hit me and I experienced the droplets falling on my head and my face, I felt the coldness in the rain drops... My mind stopped!! I stood there soaking in the rain and it felt very good ...... 

... Then suddenly there was a flash and in that moment  I realized... Hey I am SEEING  God .. Right here..in this tree ..in the sky, in the sun, in the people around and I am experiencing God ..in the coldness of the rain drops and the wind that hit me... 

The rain stopped and I reached a huge banyan tree and sat underneath it and my mind began contemplating... God is not one thing  and is not in one form ... It's everything.. and in every form .. Experiencing God is the experience of rain drops on my face, experiencing  a smile of the person who passed by me... 

My mind settled down in calmness with the  realization that all of us are seeing God every moment... in the tree, the sky and every human around.. and all of us are experiencing God .. in the experience of the rain drops falling on the face, in the smile of someone who smiles at us.. Then I concluded that... It's our ignorance in recognizing a simple truth that God is omni-present and therefore, everything we see and every thing we experience is Seeing God and experiencing God... God is right there within us and around us... And what stops us from seeing and experiencing God is our ignorance to recognize it.. Those who recognize this simple truth are blessed and are known and called as enlightened! 

Seeing God and experiencing him is so simple and it is so simple to be enlightened!!. 

Whether we choose to be ignorant in recognizing this simple truth will makes us either ordinary or enlightened!