Jump to content

kabbadi_singh

Members
  • Posts

    78
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by kabbadi_singh

  1. We will now consider another aspect of Essene theology: VEGETARIANISM. The ancient Essene New Testament makes clear that JESUS WAS A VEGETARIAN, and that vegetarianism was a central aspect of his doctrine, an ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT OF DISCIPLESHIP. Vegetarianism was REQUIRED by Jesus of any person who wanted to become his disciple. In "Holy Twelve" we read: Jesus said: "Verily I say unto you, they who partake of benefits which are gotten by wronging one of God's creatures, cannot be righteous; nor can they understand holy things, or teach the mysteries of the kingdom, whose hands are stained with blood, or whose mouths are defiled with flesh. "God giveth the grains and the fruits of the earth for food; and for righteous man truly there is no other lawful sustenance for the body.... "Wherefore I say unto all who desire to be my disciples, keep your hands from bloodshed and let no flesh meat enter your mouths; for God is just and bountiful, who ordaineth that man shall live by the fruits and seeds of the earth alone." In another verse of the same manuscript, Jesus declares: "I am come to end the sacrifices and feasts of blood, and if ye cease not offering and eating of flesh and blood, the wrath of God shall not cease from you, even as it came to your fathers in the wilderness, who lusted for flesh, and they ate to their content, and were filled with rottenness, and the plague consumed them. "And I say unto you, though ye be gathered together in my bosom, if ye keep not my commandments I will cast you forth; for, if ye keep not the lesser mysteries, who shall give you the greater? "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." So, according to Jesus, vegetarianism is one of the "lesser mysteries" of the spiritual life, an ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT for becoming a disciple of Jesus, and a prerequisite to being trusted with the "greater mysteries" of the universe. In another verse from "Holy Twelve", Jesus makes clear that flesh-eathers are to be welcomed into our "outer-circle" church activities, but cannot participate in "inner-circle" activities until they become vegetarian: "A disciple of Jesus asked him a question, saying 'Master, if there come to us any that eat flesh ... shall we receive them?' "And Jesus said unto him, 'Let such abide in the outer court till they cleanse themselves from these grosser evils; for till they perceive, and repent of these, they are not fit to receive the higher mysteries.'" Of course, Jesus practiced what he preached: he was himself a vegetarian: Jesus said: "For of the fruits of the trees and the seeds of the herbs alone do I partake, and these are changed by the Spirit into my flesh and my blood. Of these alone and their like shall ye eat who believe in me, and are my disciples, for of these in the Spirit, come life and health and healing unto man." Those readers familiar with the New Testament story in which Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 persons with but a little bread and a few fish, might ask: "Didn't Jesus eat fish?" The answer is: NOT IN THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC NEW TESTAMENT! In the original, unadulterated version of the New Testament (The Gospel of the Holy Twelve), Jesus fed those 5000 persons with but a little BREAD AND GRAPES! The vegetarian teachings of Jesus were removed by merchants of death -- persons who earned money from the flesh of animals -- after they forcibly took over the early Essene-Christian church and established a State-run religion. :shock:
  2. About The Essene Church of Christ Brother Nazariah Our Teachings We use ancient Essene books which include many teachings of the Essene Jesus that were removed from the common New Testament, including: reincarnation, vegetarianism, and the feminine aspect of God. For More information Go to Articles on the Essenes , by Nazariah. The following quotations are from Jesus in The Essene New Testament: Jesus on reincarnation: "The soul is purified through many births and experiences." Jesus on vegetarianism: "Ye shall not eat the flesh of any creature, nor yet anything which bringeth disorder to your health or senses." Jesus on Father-Mother God: "Therefore shall the name of the Father God and Mother God be equally praised, for they are the great aspects of God, and the one is not without the other..." Our Church Essene Church of Christ was founded by Rev. Brother Nazariah. We hope to plant congregations of our church all over the world.
  3. Fatwas on Vegetarianism Many Muslim jurists have issued legal rulings that show vegetarianism is certainly permitted in Islam. Please see those below for a small sample of rulings from across the spectrum of Muslim jurists. Some fatwas on vegetarianism: Hamza Yusuf Hamza Yusuf on eating meat (from the audio tape "The Science of Shari'ah" - click here to buy ): "Meat is not a necessity in Shari'ah, and in the old days most Muslims used to eat meat, if they were wealthy, like middle class—once a week on Friday. If they were poor—on the Eids." "So traditionally Muslims were semi-vegetarians. The Prophet was, I mean, technically, the Prophet (SAWS) was in that category. He was not a meat-eater. Most of his meals did not have meat in them. And the proof of that is clearly in the Muwatta—when Sayyidina Umar says, 'Beware of meat, because it has an addiction like the addiction of wine.' And the other hadith in the Muwatta—there is a chapter called 'Bab al-Laham,' the chapter of laham, the chapter of meat. Both are from Sayyidina Umar. And Umar, during his khilafa, prohibited people from eating meat two days in a row. He only allowed them to eat [it] every other day. And the khalifa has that right to do that. He did not let people eat meat every day … he saw one man eating meat every day, and he said to him, 'Every time you get hungry you go out and buy meat? Right? In other words, every time your nafs wants meat, you go out and buy it?' He said, 'Yeah, Amir al-Mumineen, ana qaram,' which in Arabic, 'qaram' means 'I love meat'—he's a carnivore, he loves meat. And Sayyidina Umar said, 'It would be better for you to roll up your tummy a little bit so that other people can eat.'" "Now Umar, if there was a prophet after the Prophet, it would have been Umar. And that is really verging on prophecy, that statement. Because if you study the modern meat industry, you will find out that a lot of the famine in the world is a direct result of the overconsumption of meat in countries like the United States and Canada and Europe, because the amount of grain needed to produce 1 pound of meat, right, is much greater than the amount you need to produce grain itself. And beef in particular—I really recommend Rifkin's book Beyond Beef. It's an extraordinary book. And it's interesting 'Baqara' is also a chapter of the Qur'an ('kill the cow'), because beef-eating societies just have massive impact on the environment, on natural resources, on all these things. And traditionally the Muslims were not cow-eaters, they were sheep and lamb [-eaters] when they did eat meat." Mufti Ebrahim Desai A Muslim may be a vegetarian. However, he should not regard eating meat as prohibited. And Allah Taãla knows best. Was salaam. —Mufti Ebrahim Desai Fatwa Department Islam.tc Sayyid Fadhlullah Vegetarianism is halal. Meat is not compulsory. Any food is permissible provided it is not harmful. Muslims are free to eat whatever they want provided it is halal. "It is like wanting to eat a certain fruit and not the other." Sayyid Fadlallah —Summation of answer given by the Honorable Sayyid Fadhlullah during an online Q&A session, December 1, 2001 Wa Alaikum Salaam wa Rahmatullah, Muzammil Siddiqi You are right that the matter of halal and haram is only the authority of Allah (SWT) as we are not allowed to make any halal haram, we are also not allowed to make any haram halal. Allah has created some animals for our food as Allah says in the Qur'an in surat an-Nahl, “And cattle He has created for you. From them you drive wont and numerous benefits and of their meat, you eat.†(16:5-8) Muslims do recognize animal rights, and animal rights means that we should not abuse them, torture them, and when we have to use them for meat, we should slaughter them with a sharp knife, mentioning the name of Allah (SWT). The Prophet (SAAWS) said, “Allah has prescribed goodness (ihsan) in everything. When you sacrifice, sacrifice well. Let you sharpen your knife and make it easy for the animal to be slaughtered.†So, Muslims are not vegetarianists. However, if someone prefers to eat vegetables, then they are allowed to do so. Allah has given us permission to eat meat of slaughtered animals, but He has not made it obligatory upon us. —Muzammil Siddiqi Sheikh M. S. Al-Munajjid Wa`alykum As-Salaamu Warahmatullahi Wabarakaatuh. In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger. Welcome to the fold of Islam! We pray to Allah to make you a good Muslim. As for your question, there is nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or not eating animal products, but you need to be aware of the following: You should not think that these things are Haraam (forbidden), because Almighty Allah says: “O ye who believe! Make not unlawful the good things, which Allah hath made lawful for you, but commit no excess: for Allah loveth not those given to excess.†(Al-Maa’idah: 87) “Say: who hath forbidden the beautiful (gifts) of Allah, which He hath produced for his servants, and the things, clean and pure (which He hath provided) for sustenance? Say they are, in the life of this world, for those who believe, (and) purely for them on the Day of Judgment thus do we explain the Signs in detail for those who understand.†(Al-`Araaf: 32) “Say: see ye what things Allah hath sent down to you for sustenance? Yet ye hold forbidden some things thereof and (some things) lawful. Say: hath Allah indeed permitted you, or do ye invent (things) to attribute to Allah?†(Yoonus: 59) One should not think that it is better to abstain from eating these foods, that doing so will be rewarded, or that being a vegetarian is closer to Allah than not, and so on. It is not permitted to draw closer to Allah in this way. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who is the best of mankind and the closest to Allah, used to eat meat and honey and drink milk. When one of his Companions wanted to give up meat, he told him that this was wrong. Anas Ibn Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, reports that there was a group of the Companions of the Prophet, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, one of whom said, “I will never marry womenâ€; another said, “I will not eat meatâ€; a third said, “I will not sleep on a bedâ€; and a fourth said, “I will fast and never break my fast.†When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was informed about this, he praised and thanked Allah, then said: “What is wrong with the people who say such and such? I pray and I sleep; I fast and I break my fast; and I marry women. Whoever deviates from my Sunnah (way) does not belong to me.†(Reported by An-Nasaa’i). There is a great difference between not eating a certain kind of food because of not liking it, or one has been put off it—for example by seeing an animal slaughtered when one was a child, which may leave the person with a distaste for meat—and other similar reasons, and thinking that meat is Haraam by abstaining from it is an act of worship, as the Brahmins, monks and others do. Once this matter is clear in your mind, there is nothing wrong with not eating food that you do not like. We ask Allah to give you the strength to do good deeds and to protect you from every evil. It is only Allah Who guides to the Straight Path. (Based on a Fatwa given by Sheikh M. S. Al-Munajjid, www. Islam-qa.com) —Islam Online Fatwa Committee www.IslamOnline.net A member of Islamic Concern for Animals asked the following question of several leading ulema via their online question-and-answer sections: I am a convert to Islam, mash’a allah. I grew up as a vegetarian, I am an athlete, and feel very healthy and strong. Is it halal to be vegetarian? Ayatullah Sayyid Khamanei “Bismihi Ta`ala According to Islamic law (shar`) there is no objection to it. However, eating meat is permissible in Islamic law although eating too much is reprehensible (makruh). Wallahul`Alim.†Sayyid Nasrallah “In the Name of Allah There is no problem in that.†Ayatullah Shirazi “Being vegetarian is OK and halal, and in fact we have hadith in Islam that encourages us to eat less meat.†Why are you singling out 'Eid sacrifice? What about Christmas and Thanksgiving? We fully agree that Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other non-Muslim holidays entail a sacrifice of animals even exceeding that of any 'Eid. The article on our Web site was written by a Muslim to other members of the Ummah to explore animal sacrifice within Islam. We are equally concerned with the cruelty inflicted upon animals during the non-Muslim holidays. From islamveg site
  4. The following world religions embrace vegetarianism as part of their practice: Essenes, Seventh Day Adventists, Buddhist, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Many Eastern Orthodox Monks & Nuns, Most Western and Catholic Monastic Orders. A large majority of World Religions Embrace Vegetarianism as part of their practice: Essenes Modern & Ancient Seventh Day Adventist Buddhist Bahai Hare Krishnas Hindus Sikhs Jains Judaism All Eastern Orthodox Monks & Nuns Most Western Catholic Monastic Orders Quakers Others The Ancient Essenes Diet was Vegetarian The Diet of the early Nasarenes (Nazarene branch of Essenes): Epiphanius tells us: "The Nasarenes - they were jews by nationality...They acknowledged Moses and believed that he had received laws - not this law, however, but some other. And so, they were jews who kept all the Jewish observances, but they would not offer sacrifice or eat meat. They considered it unlawful to eat meat or make sacrifices with it. They claim that these Books are fictions, and that none of these customs were instituted by the fathers. This was the difference between the Nasarenes and the others. . . (Panarion 1:18 The Diet of the early Essene: Behold the grain which grows up into ripeness and is cut down, and ground in the mill, and baked with fire into bread! Of this bread is Maria and my body, which you see, made. And lo, the grapes which grow on the vine to ripeness, and are plucked and crushed in the wine press and yield the fruit of the vine! Of this fruit of the vine and of water is my and Maria's blood made . For of the fruits of the trees and the seeds of the plants alone do Maria and I partake , and these are changed by the spirit into Our flesh and Our blood. Of these alone, and their like , will you who believe in Us eat ; and be Our disciples, for of these, grown, prepared and eaten according to the dictates of the spirit , come life and health and healing to humankind. - Gospel of the Holy Twelve 32 The Diet of Modern Essene monasteries: "It Is Incumbent On Aumen's Holy Monastic Orders To Consume Only Food And Drink Produced By Consecrated Effort On Consecrated Soil Of Those Dedicated In Holy Refuge, As Done Anciently By Holy Essene Orders; And Let Sacrificial Offerings Of Penance Be Prayerfully Performed Whenever This Ideal Is Not Lived Up To." - Beni-Amin Rule 1 The Essenes were one of the three main religious sects in first century Palestine and Jesus is believed to have been a member of the northern group, centred around Mount Carmel. The Essenes were also known as Nazarenes, and Nazareth was one of their strongholds, although it should be noted that the term predated the place name. Members of the sect wore white and followed a vegetarian diet, as do the Carmelite order of Christian monastics, also known as White Friars due to their white overmantle, and it is interesting to note that current members of that order based at Mount Carmel openly claim that Jesus was an Essene and was raised on Mount Carmel, even though the Essene scriptures are excluded from the Bible as generally promulgated by the Church. The main Essene scripture is the Gospel of the Holy Twelve, rediscovered in 1888 and translated from the Aramaic by Rev. Gideon Jasper Ouseley. This version of the New Testament differs markedly from those generally accepted in that it portrays Jesus as a strict vegetarian, to whom other creatures flocked: "And the birds gathered around him and welcomed him with their song and other living creatures came unto his feet and he fed them and they ate out of his hands." The feeding of the human multitude is also reported, but the food involved is bread and grapes. Of the animals, it states: "These are your fellow creatures of the great household of God, yea they are your brethren and sisters, having the same breath of life in the Eternal. And whosoever careth for one of the least of these, and giveth it to eat and drink in its need, the same doeth it unto me." The Essenes believe in the sacredness and unity of all life and many passages in the Essene gospel refer to the doctrine of boundless love: for God, for humanity and for all creation: "Before all things is love, love ye one another and all the creatures of God, and by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples." Buddhist "The Dalai Lama has urged Buddhists everywhere to try to be vegetarians." - Don Brown, Spiritual Director, Kadampa Tibetan Buddhist Center Why do Buddhists advocate vegetarianism? The main reason is "mercy & Compassion", and because we "cannot bear to eat the flesh of living creatures." And our belief in karma tells us that we must eventually suffer the consequences of our evil actions. 1) The truth of suffering: as long as we are enslaved by our belief in superficial reality or Maya, nothing in our life will bring satisfaction. 2) The truth of the cause of suffering: the principle cause of suffering is ignorance that misperceives reality. Awareness of the ultimate reality (seeing the truth that exists beyond our egocentric projections) makes it impossible for delusions like anger and clinging attachment to arise and the process of negative Karma (immutable law of cause and effect) to be activated. 3) The truth of the cessation of suffering: because suffering has identifiable causes it can be stopped by stopping those causes. 4) The path to the cessation of suffering: there are Three Principal Paths to Enlightenment: renunciation of suffering and its causes (determination to be free), Bodhicitta (altruistic intention to awaken for the benefit of all), and the wisdom of realizing emptiness (ultimate truth). As in curing any ailment, first we must recognize that we have a problem (1st Truth), then we try to ascertain its causes (2nd Truth), and when we learn that it can be cured (3rd Truth), we seek to find and take the appropriate medicine or cure (4th Truth). Being a vegetarian is a good way to practice nonviolence and live in harmony with reality Sikhs Striving for an ethical Lifestyle Striving for an ethical life style serves as a helping factor on the path. This means that · we follow a vegetarian diet, i.e. to nourish ourselves without killing · we do not hinder the growth of our con- sciousness through the use of intoxicating drugs (including alcohol and nicotine) · we maintain the principles of truthfulness and universal love in thought, word and deed. Hare Krishnas The Krishna Consciousness Society is a preaching movement, and we preach by distributing prasadam and translated editions of the Vedic scriptures. The whole world is suffering from the miseries of birth, disease, old age and death, and Krsna consciousness solves all these problems. One of our prime objectives is to stop the ghastly slaughter of innocent animals. Here is an extract from our Back to Godhead magazine, which our devotees distribute on the street to the tune of 3/4 million copies a month world-wide: "The Vedic literatures acknowledge that in this material world one living being is food for another, but this does not allow for unrestricted violence or cannibalism or murder. Each living being has a quota allowed by God and he should not go beyond that. For example, if a tiger attacks a deer and kills it with his own claws, that is not considered a transgression of God's laws, but all the great scriptures of the world insist upon non-violence as standard for the human being. (Even if a human being takes his own life, that is a great sin and he has to suffer for it in his next life.) Humans should spare not only the lives of their fellow human beings but also the lives of animals. "Even a vegetable is a form of life (though a lower one). So while complete non-violence may be impossible, violence should be kept to a minimum. The Vedic scriptures prescribe that a human being should avoid animal slaughter and eat only simple foods such as grains, fruit, milk products, and vegetables. Although the vegetarian is also taking life, if he makes an offering of his food to God, he is relieved from the karma (the sinful reaction). Otherwise, as Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita (3:13): "Those who eat food for personal sense enjoyment verily eat only sin." Most Western Catholic Monastic Orders The Diet of the first "Catholic" monasteries. Following the original "Christian (Nasarene) teachings, early monasteries (and most modern ones) were vegetarian. "Making allowance for the infirmities of different persons, we believe that for the daily meal, both at the sixth and the ninth hour, two kinds of cooked food are sufficient at all meals; so that he who perchance cannot eat of one, may make his meal of the other. Let two kinds of cooked food, therefore, be sufficient for all the brethren. And if there be fruit or fresh vegetables, a third may be added. Let a pound of bread be sufficient for the day, whether there be only one meal or both dinner and supper. - Rule of St. Benedict 39 But let all except the very weak and the sick abstain altogether from eating the flesh of four-footed animals. - Rule of St. Benedict 39 The evidence for Jesus and His disciples being vegetarians can be found in "early church" documents. The early church historian and writer Epiphanius, in his Panarion, tells us that there were seven ancient Jewish sects and that two of them, the Nasarenes and the Ossaeans, were strict vegetarians. Sadducees, Scribes, Pharisees, Hemerobaptists, Ossaeans, Nasaraeans and Herodians."(Panarion 1:19) Epiphanius links the Hemerobaptists with the Scribes and Pharisees and the Ossaeans (Essenes) with the Nasaraeans. From this information we may deduce that the two Essene branches, spoken of by Josephus, were the Ossaeans and Nasaraeans.We know that Jesus was from the Nasarene sect because of His title - "Jesus the Nasarene" and from the prophecy in the Biblical Book of Matthew: "He (Messiah) shall be called a Nasorean."(Matthew 2:23) "The Nasaraeans - ... And so, they were jews who kept all the Jewish observances, but they would not offer sacrifice or eat meat. They considered it unlawful to eat meat or make sacrifices with it. (Panarion 1:18) The original New Testament teachings on animal eating. Epiphanius tells us that the earliest New Testament Book of Matthew, preserved among certain Hebrew speaking "Jewish Christians", speaks of the original anti meat eating stance of Jesus: They (Ebionites) say that Christ . . . came and declared, as their Gospel, which is called Gospel according to Matthew, or Gospel According to the Hebrews?, reports: "I am come to do away with sacrifices, and if you cease not sacrificing, the wrath of God will not cease from you." (Epiphanius, Panarion 30.16,4-5) The early "Jewish-Christian" teachings on the vegetarianism of Jesus. Epiphanius tells us again, in the Panarion, that Jesus, according to the original Hebrew Matthew preserved by the Ebionites, rejected the Passover lamb sacrifice: "Where will you have us prepare the passover?" And him to answer to that: "Do I desire with desire at this Passover to eat flesh with you?" (Epiphanius, Panarion 30.22.4) The cover up and alteration of original documents. Because the early corrupters of the true vegetarian religion of Jesus were so thorough in their cover-up, it is easier to find documentation for these events outside of Christendom where the early corrupters could not easily destroy valuable documents. One of these texts is called: The Establishment of Proofs for the Prophet hood of Our Master Mohammed' by 'Abd al-Jabbar. In it we read: The Romans (a1-Rum)reigned over them. The Christians (used to) complain to the Romans about the Jews, showed them their own weakness and appealed to their pity. And the Romans did pity them. This (used) to happen frequently. And the Romans said to the Christians: "Between us and the Jews there is a pact which (obliges us) not to change their religious laws (adyan). But if you would abandon their laws and separate yourselves from them, praying as we do (while facing) the East, eating (the things) we eat, and regarding as permissible that which we consider as such, we should help you and make you powerful, and the Jews would find no way (to harm you). On the contrary, you would be more powerful than they." The Christians answered: "We will do this." (And the Romans) said: "Go, fetch your companions, and bring your Book (kitab)." (The Christians) went to their companions, informed them of (what had taken place) between them and the Romans and said to them: "Bring the Gospel (al-injil), and stand up so that we should go to them." But these (companions) said to them: "You have done ill. We are not permitted (to let) the Romans pollute the Gospel. (71b) In giving a favorable answer to the Romans, you have accordingly departed from the religion. We are (therefore) no longer permitted to associate with you; on the contrary, we are obliged to declare that there is nothing in common between us and you;" and they prevented their (taking possession of) the Gospel or gaining access to it. In consequence a violent quarrel (broke out) between (the two groups). Those (mentioned in the first place) went back to the Romans and said to them: "Help us against these companions of ours before (helping us) against the Jews, and take away from them on our behalf our Book (kitab)." Thereupon (the companions of whom they had spoken) fled the country. And the Romans wrote concerning them to their governors in the districts of Mosul and in the Jazirat al-'Arab.Accordingly, a search was made for them; some (qawm) were caught and burned, others (qawm) were killed. (As for) those who had given a favorable answer to the Romans they came together and took counsel as to how to replace the Gospel, seeing that it was lost to them. (Thus) the opinion that a Gospel should be composed (yunshi'u) was established among them. They said: "the Torah (consists) only of (narratives concerning) the births of the prophets and of the histories (tawarikh) of their lives. We are going to construct (nabni) a Gospel according to this (pattern). Everyone among us is going to call to mind that which he remembers of the words (ajfar) of the Gospel and of (the things) about which the Christians talked among themselves (when speaking) of Christ." Accordingly, some people (qawm) wrote a Gospel. After (them) came others (qawm) (who) wrote (another) Gospel. (In this manner) a certain number of Gospels were written. (However) a great part of what was (contained) in the original was missing in them. There were among them (men), one after another, who knew many things that were contained in the true Gospel (al-injil al-xahih.), but with a view to establishing their dominion (ri'asa), they refrained from communicating them. Prof. Eberhard Nestle, an expert in original evangelical texts, comments on this situation in his Einf~hrung in die Textkritik des griechischen Testaments: "Learned men, so called Correctors were, following the church meeting at Nicea 325 AD, selected by the church authorities to scrutinize the sacred texts and rewrite them in order to correct their meaning in accordance with the views which the church had just sanctioned." The persecution of vegetarians and the burning of documents. After the Correctors rewrote the Bible the way they wanted it to be, which included taking out the portions where Jesus taught vegetarianism, ascetics and other such doctrines, those in power began a burning campaign of all original documents. Those found hiding such banned books were killed and their books destroyed. All vegetarians, according to a new church law, were forced to publicly eat meat at least once. Europe: The Middle Ages to the 18th Century St.Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) Original name Giovanni di Bernadone, Italian monk; founder of the Franciscan order of friars. He is remembered for his humility and love for all creation and according to legend he received the stigmata (1224). Feast day Oct.4. St.Francis was a vegetarian most of the time although he relied on the words of Christ in the Gospels for guidance in rules for his Order; and it is written in Luke: "Eat whatever is put before you." Therefore vegetarianism was omitted from his rule for the Franciscans; but his biographers, Thomas of Celano and St.Bonaventure, cite instances of St.Francis's meat-eating as exceptions to his normal meatless meals. - Extract from The Vegetable Passion by Janet Barkas, © 1975 (now out of print): Quotes: If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men. Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission - to be of service to them wherever they require it. - Quoted in the Life by St.Bonaventura All Eastern Orthodox Monks & Nuns The majority of days in the Orthodox calendar require fasting from meat and other items. Individuals with no respect for Church Tradition and a lack of knowledge of its genuine ethos might argue that one should eat whatever is put before him, even if this is on a fast day or violates the tradition of vegetarianism which is preserved even by Bishops. They do this at great personal peril, since they thereby defy the witness of the consensus of the Fathers. The witness of the Desert Fathers and various Saints demonstrate to us the ascendency of love over the law. Thus, Fathers who drank no wine would drink a cup put before them by a well-meaning host. Or, indeed, they would eat small amounts of cooked food offered to them on days that xerophagy, or the eating of dry, uncooked foods, was appointed. But this has no relationship to and does not justify monks eating meat "out of love"; nor does one violate the fasting rules set forth by the Church out of what is actually a spirit of gluttony covered by a thin layer of religious posturing. -Orthodox Tradition, Vol. V, No. 2. When you are asked to eat meat, as a monastic, or when you are offered non-Lenten food during a fasting period, as a layman, you should politely point out that such foods violate your dietary restrictions. Nothing more than this need be said. Anyone who would take offense at such a statement is simply not civilized. And, again, anyone who would use the excuse of "eating out of love" to indulge his hidden gluttony is not only defiling his own Faith, but is also setting a poor example for others. And it is this latter sin which is the greater violation of love. -Orthodox Tradition, Vol. V, No. 2. Many early Christians were vegetarian, including Clement of Alexandria, Origen, John Chrysostom, and Basil the Great. According to some early church writings, Matthew, Peter and James (the brother of Jesus and first leader of the Jerusalem church) were vegetarian. Early Christian Vegetarians The apostle Matthew partook of seeds and nuts and vegetables without flesh. Clement of Alexandria (The Instructor, book 2, chapter 1). Peter said, "I live on olives and bread to which I rarely only add vegetables." Pseudo-Clementine Homolies 12,6; also Recognitions 7,6. James, the brother of the Lord ... was holy from his mothers womb; and he drank no wine nor strong drink, nor did he eat flesh. Hegesippus, quoted in The Church History of Eusebius, book 2, chapter 23. Bahai Baha'is are not, as stated, an Islamic sect, but followers of Baha'u'llah (1817-1892) whom we regard as the most recent in a line of Great World Teachers which includes Mohammed, as well as Christ, Moses, Krishna, Buddha and others. Secondly, Baha'is are not necessarily vegetarians at the moment, although Baha'i writings state that, "The food of the future will be fruit and grains. The time will come when meat will no longer be eaten; our natural food is that which comes out of the ground. The people will gradually develop up to the condition of this natural food." Love and respect for animals is highly important to Baha'is and we can even learn from their example in the treatment of illnesses. Carrie Varjavandt, Secretary, Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Dundee. Hindus Why Hindus Don't Eat Meat Besides being an expression of compassion for animals, vegetarianism is followed for ecological and health rationales. Reasons In the past fifty years, millions of meat-eaters -- Hindus and non-Hindus -- have made the personal decision to stop eating the flesh of other creatures. There are five major motivations for such a decision: 1. The Dharmic Law Reason Ahinsa, the law of noninjury, is the Hindu's first duty in fulfilling religious obligations to God and God's creation as defined by Vedic scripture. 2. The Karmic Consequences Reason All of our actions, including our choice of food, have Karmic consequences. By involving oneself in the cycle of inflicting injury, pain and death, even indirectly by eating other creatures, one must in the future experience in equal measure the suffering caused. 3. The Spiritual Reason Food is the source of the body's chemistry, and what we ingest affects our consciousnes, emotions and experiential patterns. If one wants to live in higher consciousness, in peace and happiness and love for all creatures, then he cannot eat meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs. By ingesting the grosser chemistries of animal foods, one introduces into the body and mind anger, jealousy, anxiety, suspicion and a terrible fear of death, all of which are locked into the the flesh of the butchered creatures. For these reasons, vegetarians live in higher consciousness and meat-eaters abide in lower consciousness. 4. The Health Reason Medical studies prove that a vegetarian diet is easier to digest, provides a wider ranger of nutrients and imposes fewer burdens and impurities on the body. Vegetarians are less susceptible to all the major diseases that afflict contemporary humanity, and thus live longer, healthier, more productive lives. They have fewer physical complaints, less frequent visits to the doctor, fewer dental problems and smaller medical bills. Their immune system is stronger, their bodies are purer, more refined and skin more beautiful. 5. The Ecological Reason Planet Earth is suffereing. In large measure, the escalating loss of species, destruction of ancient rainforests to create pasture lands for live stock, loss of topsoils and the consequent increase of water impurities and air pollution have all been traced to the single fact of meat in the human diet. No decision that we can make as individuals or as a race can have such a dramatic effect on the improvement of our planetary ecology as the decision not to eat meat. History The book Food for the Spirit, Vegetarianism and the World Religions, observes, "Despite popular knowledge of meat-eating's adverse effects, the nonvegetarian diet became increasingly widespread among the Hindus after the two major invasions by foreign powers, first the Muslims and later the British. With them came the desire to be `civilized,' to eat as did the Saheeb. Those atually trained in Vedic knowledge, however, never adopted a meat-oriented diet, and the pious Hindu still observes vegetarian principles as a matter of religious duty. "That vegetarianism has always been widespread in India is clear from the earliest Vedic texts. This was observed by the ancient traveler Megasthenes and also by Fa-Hsien, a Chinese Buddhist monk who, in the fifth century, traveled to India in order to obtain authentic copies of the scriptures. "These scriptures unambiguously support the meatless way of life. In the Mahabharat, for instance, the great warrior Bheeshm explains to Yuddhishtira, eldest of the Paandav princes, that the meat of animals is like the flesh of one's own son. Similarly, the Manusmriti declares that one should `refrain from eating all kinds of meat,' for such eating involves killing and and leads to Karmic bondage (Bandh) [5.49]. Elsewhere in the Vedic literature, the last of the great Vedic kings, Maharaja Parikshit, is quoted as saying that `only the animal-killer cannot relish the message of the Absolute Truth [shrimad Bhagvatam 10.1.4].'" Scripture He who desires to augment his own flesh by eating the flesh of other creatures lives in misery in whatever species he may take his birth. Mahabharat 115.47 Those high-souled persons who desire beauty, faultlessness of limbs, long life, understanding, mental and physical strength and memory should abstain from acts of injury. Mahabharat 18.115.8 The very name of cow is Aghnya ["not to be killed"], indicating that they should never be slaughtered. Who, then could slay them? Surely, one who kills a cow or a bull commits a heinous crime. Mahabharat, Shantiparv 262.47 The purchaser of flesh performs Hinsa (violence) by his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its taste; the killer does Hinsa by actually tying and killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of killing: he who brings flesh or sends for it, he who cuts off the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells or cooks flesh and eats it -- all of these are to be considered meat-eaters. Mahabharat, Anu 115.40 He who sees that the Lord of all is ever the same in all that is -- immortal in the field of mortality -- he sees the truth. And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others. Then he goes, indeed, to the highest path. Bhagvad Geeta 13.27-28 Ahinsa is the highest Dharm. Ahinsa is the best Tapas. Ahinsa is the greatest gift. Ahinsa is the highest self-control. Ahinsa is the highest sacrifice. Ahinsa is the highest power. Ahinsa is the highest friend. Ahinsa is the highest truth. Ahinsa is the highest teaching. Mahabharat 18.116.37-41 What is the good way? It is the path that reflects on how it may avoid killing any creature. Tirukural 324 All that lives will press palms together in prayerful adoration of those who refuse to slaughter and savor meat. Tirukural 260 What is virtuous conduct? It is never destroting life, for killing leads to every other sin. Tirukural 312, 321 Goodness is never one with the minds of these two: one who wields a weapon and one who feasts on a creature's flesh. Tirukural 253 Jains The Jains, who are strict vegetarians, practise true Ahimsa to the extent that they literally will not harm a fly. Some Jains will sweep the path before them and wear gauze masks over their mouths so as not to harm small insects by inadvertently treading on them or breathing them in. According to Jain scriptures, All living things love their life, desire pleasure and are averse to pain; they dislike any injury to themselves; everybody is desirous of life and to every being, his own life is very dear. How does Jainism view the use of animals for food? In addition to the cruelties involved in actual killing animals for food, the lives of animals while living are also miserable. Dairy cows suffer a life of agony: the pain of constant pregnancy, milking machines on their teats, over working their milk producing gland system, and finally the slaughtering when unable to produce enough milk. Separating the cow and her calf in less than 48 hours after birth is another agony. Chaining these calves for life in a small crate and slaughtering them at tender age of four months is routine in the industry. Animals raised for food are mostly brought to this world by artificial insemination. Debeaking, branding, castration, dehorning, and much more pains are the facts of life for these animals. The process of raising animals for food denies the right of animals as living beings, treats them as slaves and inflicts cruelty upon them. By doing so, humans reject all the values, and become very insensitive. As one result, this breeds and invites crime and violence within the society. Looking at Jain values of Ahimsa, the scriptures list various sinful trades, sinful acts, and ways to limit the amount. Chandubhai Morbia Does vegetarianism place greater priority on animal rights than on human welfare? Not really. Vegetarianism is also a human welfare movement. By eliminating an animal-based diet and eating plant based healthy foods, humans reap many benefits. The following are a few examples. The incidence of heart disease, strokes, and cancer may be reduced by removing meat and dairy from the diet. A plant-based diet requires less resources and produces less waste which leads to a cleaner environment. Instead of raising animals for food and feeding large amounts of grain to them, that grain can be used to feed many starving humans. World hunger problems may be alleviated when we stop cycling grain through animals. So, what do the humans have to lose for animal rights? Look at this Jain teaching: 'Live and Let Live.' LIVE is human welfare, and LET LIVE is animal rights. They are complimentary. There is an attitude of caring and sharing. This is what vegetarianism includes; sharing this planet with animals and not harming them for human selfishness. Chandubhai Morbia Can one work to improve conditions for animals without being a vegetarian? Yes, one can. Many men and women, who were not vegetarian, started working towards improving the conditions of animals. They were born in non-vegetarian families and they were raised with animal flesh and dairy products as their main food. A stage came in their life when they realized what truly fair treatment toward animals would mean. They joined their hands with those who were saving and protecting animals. In the process, not only did they become kind to animals, but also to themselves. This way, many animal rights workers have become vegetarian at some time in their lives. If not, they are kind at heart, but still a slave to old habits of meat eating. Those who are born and raised vegetarian are lucky. Their minds, speech, and actions are nourished for kindness to animals and all other non-human life. Most individuals who are raised with those values will not harm animals, nor will they support any harm to animals. Chandubhai Morbia Here is a true life example -- My Transition to Vegetarian... I was born into a Russian/American family and raised as a typical American meat eater. My evolution into the animal and environmental rights movement has been gradual. A turning point for me occurred when I was 15 years old. A friend and I had just eaten hot dogs for lunch, and walked next door to a leather shop. I whispered to her that she shouldn't buy anything in there because it is all dead animals. The clerk behind the counter heard my comment to my friend and asked me if I ate meat. I was shocked. I had never made the connection before that moment. I never realized that the meat on my plate was anything but 'food'. As I realized, while standing in that store, that meat is dead animal, I replied, "No, I don't eat meat" to the clerk. My friend thought I had just lied to the clerk. I explained to her that from this moment on I would not eat meat. That was 26 years ago. My personal evolution continued when I saw the pain of a dairy cow being separated from her calf and realized that the male calves on this farm were being shipped to veal facilities. I then quit using dairy products. I am now a strong advocate of strict vegetarianism for our own health and the well-being of animals and the environment. Rae Sikora("Jivan Sanskar") Should the Jains use by-products of slaughterhouses? A slaughterhouse is a product of human greed and hi-tech combined for mass killing of animals. What are the products from these slaughterhouses? They are flesh, skin, bones, blood, fat, hair, feathers, etc. Sale of each such by-product contributes to the profits of the business. We can, and should live without any of these. None of them are necessary for happy and healthy life. If we consume them, we directly or indirectly pay for them, encouraging further slaughter. On the other hand, when we stop buying them, we send a message to the killing plant, "kill less animals, because we still have some unsold products." As our number increases it will result in a tremendous force to close some of the slaughterhouses. Chandubhai Morbia What is the equivalent of "Kosher" food standard in Jainism? "Kosher" is a set of Jewish procedures of handling animal products. Since Jains follow a strictly vegetarian diet, they do not need "Kosher" standards. However, to observe a compassionate diet to the maximum possible level, Jainism offers some guidelines to observe, as described below. First of all, meat, alcohol, eggs, honey, fish, etc. are not allowed in Jain diet. Many Jains consume milk even though it is an animal product, because it is not a direct animal product as meat would be. Traditionally, in the Indian society, cows were part of the family. They were treated humanely, taken care of until natural death in sanctuaries, and the baby calf was allowed to suckle all the milk until its needs were satisfied. Only the surplus milk was used for human consumption, so the principle of nonviolence was upheld. Neither calf was deprived of its need nor the cow had to undergo any tortuous life. But in the modern world cows are kept in factory farms and the milk has become a product of violence. Upon learning this, more and more Jains are now turning vegan. We support and promote veganism. The first Jain criteria, therefore, would be to avoid any food which involves violence. The main base of Jain diets is grains like wheat, rice, and barley. In America, we have also adopted corn and oats. We also have adopted a variety of foods like pasta, bread, pizza, pita, tostadas, etc. into Jain households. As with many other Asian countries, the traditional Indian diet was healthy, but affluence and modernization has led to high fat diets and unhealthy lifestyles. However, our traditions revolve around control of the senses. For example, many people voluntarily give up sweets, or other items for a certain time period. Jain traditions observe certain restrictions for fruits and vegetables. Although all Jains do not practice, many avoid taking roots, such as potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, etc. If you wonder why, here is the answer: to minimize violence. Because even if you pluck hundreds of oranges from a tree, you are not destroying the whole tree. However, when you pluck one single carrot, you uproot the whole plant. When so many vegetables are available without destroying a whole plant, why destroy some? Then there is one more reason. All roots have countless (Anantkay) souls under one body (skin). Our need that can be satisfied with one cupful of underground roots (which would have countless souls) could also easily be satisfied with countable peas or beans. So why kill so many more souls? Therefore, the second Jain criteria is not to eat root vegetables. You may observe that some fruits and vegetables have only one or few seeds, while some have many seeds. We believe that each seed represents a potential life. True, we have to eat something in order to survive, but we want to minimize violence by taking as few as possible of those multi-seeded fruits and vegetables. So that is the third Jain criteria of food choices. Dry beans are considered acceptable for Jains. They are a good source of proteins, vitamins, and other nutrients. Although there are no restrictions on beans, the process of sprouting can be an issue. Sprouting is a process in which life is activated in a seed that had otherwise become inactive. This is viewed as violence by some Jains. So they accept as the fourth Jain food criteria: no sprouted beans. There are many more minute criteria which are contained in the scriptures. However, very few Jains follow them. But, very few Jains would ever resort to eating meat. Another criteria about foods is that one must strive to eat before sunset. That gives plenty of time for the digestive system to do it its work. We are the creatures of day, so our systems want to shut down theirs functions after dark. So it would be good for our health also, to eat before sunset. Besides, many visible and invisible lives thrive at night times. By eating after sunset, we are at danger of consuming them. So the Jains try to eat early in the day. But this does not go very well with the modern industrialization. In northern hemisphere, away from equator, the days during winter are very short, and the sun sets very early. Even under these circumstances, many Jains would attempt to eat as early as possible, after sunset. Narendra Sheth Since animals kill each other in nature, why should the Jains be concerned about the abuse of animals; such as for example, killing them to eat? In nature, big fish eats a little fish because its mind is not developed as much as of human who can discriminate and restraint to a great deal. Humans can also rationalize what is right and wrong and so why should they support abuse or killing of innocent animals? Plus, there is a big difference between natural birth and human breeding; and even bigger difference between animals killing each other and mass killing by humans. The process of raising animals for food involves bringing them in this world by artificial insemination; separating mothers from their young ones; raising them in cages and confined spaces; feeding them unnatural food contaminated with chemicals, hormones, and antibiotics; and finally killing them at a young age. All these actions result in a desensitized attitude and the suppression of compassion at the conscience. As Jains, we do have to protect all kinds of living beings. There are different laws in the jungle than in human society. In the law of jungle, the strong ones eat the weak ones, but in the law of society, the strong one protects the weak one. Chandubhai Morbia What We Wear. What do the Jain principles teach about the wearing of silk, pearls, ivory, and other clothing and fashion items that involve animal products? All these items are produced by killing an animal. When we learn the processes used to obtain these products, it becomes obvious that they do not fit into the Jain lifestyle. Producing silk requires boiling silk worms alive. Producing fur coats requires the killing of fur bearing animals. Do not mistake leather as a useless by-product of meat production either. Leather coat, shoes, belts, and purses are made from animals bred specifically for smooth skins. Ivory is obtained by killing elephants. Wool production causes animal suffering in various ways. Many people believe that some pearls are manufactured in factories, and they are called "artificial" pearls. Actually, pearl is a product of pain. When a foreign particle gets into the body, if the oyster or fish can not get rid of it, then the creature in pain coats it with a special secretion. When solidified, that secretion becomes a pearl. In nature, a very few creatures would have to develop such pearls. Therefore the businessmen introduce foreign particles in the body, and force them to develop pearls inside. When ready, they kill them, and extract pearls, and sell them as "artificial" pearls. The larger the foreign particle, the more pain, and larger secretion, and larger pearl.... By using such materials, we become participants in Pranatipat (killing), Adattadan (stealing), and Parigrah (attachment for accumulation). As Jains, we believe in avoiding all Dravya Himsa (actual violence), as well as Bhav Himsa (psychic violence). So all the righteous Jains would reject wearing silk, pearls, leather, ivory, and similar clothing and fashion items. Just as we would not want anyone to take our life or that of our beloved ones, we shall not take or encourage anyone else to take life of others too. As Jains, we should live simple lives, without any showoff. We should not wear any fashion item that involves taking life. If we can not give life, we should not take either. Chandubhai Morbia Education and Medicine What about vivisection? Do the Jains accept this for improved human health? What is the Jain perspective? Does Jainism condone the use of animals for educational and laboratory experimental purposes? As all these actions involve cold blooded pre-planned killing, they are not condoned by Jainism. Human health can be improved by many ways: a healthy vegetarian diet, exercise, sanitation, yoga and prayers. These are only a few to mention. It is lot easier to prevent cancer, heart disease, etc. in the first place, then to find cures for them later. Narendra Sheth How do the Jains keep their priorities straight? Are they more concerned about animals than all these critical problems related to people? Balancing the priorities between suffering animals and suffering human beings is not difficult. Especially with the Jain philosophy. According to Jainism, all the living beings have souls, having equal potential to achieve ultimately the highest state of "Moksha". Besides, the animals in question here are Panchendriya (having all five senses), capable of feeling all the pains like us, the humans. Therefore the Jains have always lived their lives with equal compassion for animals as well as for humans. As vegetarians, they have enjoyed health equal or better than that of the non-vegetarians. They have avoided involvement in businesses that are harmful to animals, and yet prospered much above average. They have built hospitals for humans as well as for animals; provided food and shelter to the old, sick, and homeless humans and animals; and arranged for animal releases from slaughterhouses. A Jain's proprity would be to uplift his/her soul and while doing so he/she will avoid hurting animals and lower creatures to maximum possible way. Jains would also bring awareness in others that we should not make innocent, helpless animals suffer for our selfish needs. Jains would not neglect animal suffering until all the human suffering is over. Humans tend to solve one problem, while creating two new! (For example, by eating meat etc. humans have caused cancer and heart ailments. Should we sacrifice the animals for experimenting different drugs for such diseases?) It can take for ever, leaving that the poor helpless animals to suffer. It would be unfair. The animals can not speak for themselves, so we must speak up for them. Chandubhai Morbia Seventh Day Adventist "Everyone that useths milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." King James Version of The Holy Bible, HEBREWS: 5:13-14 Ellen White was one of the founders of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She was a vegetarian health reformer, and vegetarianism and other health teachings of the Adventists are due to her efforts. She believed that the human body represented God`s temple and therefore it should not be abused. She also denounced tobacco and alcohol. About fifty percent of Adventists today are lacto-ovo vegetarians. There are about 2 million Adventists throughout the world, with about a quarter of them living in the United States. The Seventh-Day Adventists are strong promoters of good health. They have their own publishing company and produce many books and other publications. They also have many hospitals, natural food stores, and vegetarian restaurants. In addition, they have an institution of higher education, Loma Linda University. Several studies have found that Adventists are significantly healthier than the general population. Vegetarians owe much to Seventh-Day Adventists, since much of what is now known about health effects of vegetarianism comes from their studies. - Richard Schwartz (Note from a reader: concerning the number of Seventh-day Advetnists in the world - we number over 10 million with only 11-12% in the United States.) Quotes: God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat. It was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken. There was to be no death in Eden. The fruit of the trees in the garden was the food man's wants required. - 1864 The majority of the diseases which the human family have been and still are suffering under, they have created by ignorance of their own organic health, and work perseveringly to tear themselves to pieces, and when broken down and debilitated in body and mind, send for the doctor and drug themselves to death. - 1866 The diet of animals is vegetables and grains. Must the vegetables be animalized, must they be incorporated into the system of animals, before we get them? Must we obtain our vegetable diet by eating the flesh of dead creatures? God provided fruit in its natural state for our first parents. He gave to Adam charge over the garden, to dress it, and to care for it, saying, "To you it shall be for meat." One animal was not to destroy another animal for food. - 1896 Let our ministers and canvassers step under the banners of strict temperance. Never be ashamed to say, "No thank you; I do not eat meat. I have conscientious scruples against eating the flesh of dead animals. - 1901 Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing. - 1902 Animals are becoming more diseased and it will not be long until animal food will be discarded by many besides Seventh-day Adventists. Foods that are healthful and life sustaining are to be prepared, so that men and women will not need to eat meat. - 1902 Vegetables, fruits, and grains should compose our diet. Not an ounce of flesh meat should enter our stomachs. The eating of flesh is unnatural. We are to return to God's original purpose in the creation of man. - 1903 The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked than are the physical ills. Flesh food is injurious to health, and whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and the soul. Think of the cruelty to animals meat-eating involves, and its effect on those who inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard those creatures of God! - 1905 Animals are often transported long distances and subjected to great suffering in reaching a market. Taken from the green pastures and traveling for weary miles over the hot, dusty roads, or crowded into filthy cars, feverish and exhausted, often for many hours deprived of food and water, the poor creatures are driven to their death, that human beings may feast on the carcasses. - 1905 It is a mistake to suppose that muscular strength depends on the use of animal food. The needs of the system can be better supplied, and more vigorous health can be enjoyed, without its use. The grains, with fruits, nuts, and vegetables, contain all the nutritive properties necessary to make good blood. These elements are not so well or so fully supplied by a flesh diet. Had the use of flesh been essential to health and strength, animal food would have been included in the diet appointed man in the beginning. - 1905 Those who eat flesh are but eating grains and vegetables at second hand; for the animal receives from these things the nutrition that produces growth. The life that was in the grains and the vegetables passes into the eater. We receive it by eating the flesh of the animal. How much better to get it direct by eating the food that God provided for our use! - 1905 Quakers Friends and Vegetarianism - by Andrew Linzey. Friends assert that there is that of God in every person. But do we restrict ourselves only to human beings? What about the other creatures on the earth? Do they not also have intrinsic worth? Why do many Friends regard eating animal flesh as a necessity? How can we justify continuing to support the enslavement, torture and slaughter of billions of farm animals? We are taught from early infancy that eating meat is a perfectly normal and natural human activity. But is this true? If we compare our anatomy with that of carnivores, we discover several significant differences. For instance, whilst carnivores are able to deal adequately with the large amounts of uric acid produced from the digestion of flesh, we cannot do so and it acts as a poison, giving rise to diseases such as rheumatism and arthritis. If meat eating were unnatural for human beings, it would be expected that vegetarians as a group would be healthier than their meat eating counterparts and in fact this is the case. Scientific studies, using representative samples of the two groups, demonstrate this conclusively. Gallstones, varicose veins, peptic ulcers and other “Western†diseases, are far more common among meat eaters, while vegetarians have 30 per cent. less incidence of coronary illness. There is absolutely no doubt that eating meat is not a necessary part of a healthy diet. That being so, how can anyone justify using vast areas of precious land for animal farming? To produce a similar quantity of food of the same notional nutritive value we need an area of land more than ten times larger in size for meat production than for crop growing. Friends are concerned about undernourishment and starvation in the financially poorer countries of the world. Yet meat eating is one of the main contributory factors responsible for perpetuating this state of affairs. A great deal of food is imported into the United Kingdom to feed our farm animals. If everyone were to adopt a vegetarian diet worldwide, there would be twice as much food released for human consumption than is needed to feed the world’s hungry. Farm animals consume 40 per cent. of the world’s cereals. Traditional farming practices can no longer satisfy the huge demand for meat. Farm animals are treated like machines, the only reason for their existence being a utilitarian one. Factory farming has become the norm and causes untold suffering and brutality. Pastoral farming has been the cause of massive soil erosion throughout the world. One of the main reasons for the destruction of tropical rain forests, with the very great loss of unique plant and animal life, is to make huge beef farms. The stripping of bark by goats in countries such as Ethiopia causes large-scale tree death with consequent soil erosion. Animal farming also involves huge demands for water. This tends further to lower the water table in areas of the world which already have a drop in rainfall due to deforestation, causing further drought and famine. If we want to eat meat, someone has to kill the animals for us. A visit to a modern slaughterhouse is a truly terrible experience. Any person who chooses to work there on our behalf cannot help but become dehumanised to a certain extent as a result. Farm animals have done no harm to us. We care for them, teach them to trust us, and then because of our desire for the taste of animal flesh we take their lives from them. John Woolman said “To say we love God as unseen and at the same time exercise cruelty towards the least creature moving by his life or by life derived from him is a contradiction in itselfâ€. It is not such a very big step from justifying the quite needless mass slaughter of simple sentient creatures to condoning the killing of human beings. We already have blood on our hands. Indeed killing animals for food could be said to be the primary form of human violence. As Albert Schweitzer said, “Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.†Friends have a long history of involvement in the alleviation of human suffering and concern for animal welfare. Are we truly sensitive to that of God in us if we refuse to extend that compassion to the other forms of animal life with which we share this planet? Can it be right to view the Peace Testimony from a purely anthropocentric standpoint? “I have no doubt,†said Thoreau, “that it is part of the destiny of the human race to leave off eating animals†— a sentiment expressed by many great peacemakers, including Tolstoy and Gandhi." Judaism Isaac ha-Levi Herzog, wrote: Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their own deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands...Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism...A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual leaders...has been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching. (Most Jews are not Vegetarians!) Hebrew Ani tsimchoni(t) - I am a (fe)male vegetarian. V'ani lo ochel(et) chalav o g'vinah. - And I don't eat milk or cheese. Ani lo ochel(et) dagim. - I don't eat fish Ani ohev(et) chayot, az ani lo ochel otam [accent on last syllables] - I love animals, so I don't eat them Islam Vegetarians The purpose of this site ( http://www.islamveg.com)is to show what many Muslims have long suspected: eating meat, dairy products, and eggs conflicts with Islamic teachings of kindness to animals. Not only that, animal industries are responsible for vast environmental pollution and destruction and also contribute to many deadly human diseases. (Most Muslims are not Vegetarians!) Moslem Druses of Lebanon are vegetarian.
  5. The Sikhism is like a school. The Guru Granth Sahib Ji is the principal and the only teacher in this school. Though anyone can take free lessons from the Holy Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the certified students learn more quickly, because they are the regular students. The regular students attend their classes. They take daily lessons. Every school has an admission system. Most of the schools publish an admission form. If someone wants to get admission, he has to fill up the form and submit it in the office. He has to appear in an interview. The interviewer asks some question and if he is satisfied, he admits the interviewee into his school. The school of Sikhism has its own procedure of admission. If someone wants to get admission into this school, he/she has to follow the procedure. He/she will have to appear for an interview. The 'Panj Piyare' (five beloved ones) are the interviewers in this school. The seeker of admissioin appears before them. They ask him/her some questions. If they are satisfied, they tell the rules of the school. If the seeker is ready to follow the rules, he/she can get the admission. But the procedure of admission is not completed yet. The five beloved ones prepare the 'Amrit', the nectar. This nectar is prepared and distributed to the seeker in a ceremony, which is called 'Amrit Sanchar'. The nectar is prepared in an iron bowl. The five beloved ones sit around it. Clean water and sweet puffs are put in the iron bowl. The five beloved ones recite the Gurbani (Jap ji, Jaap sahib, Swayyas, Chaupayee and Anand Sahib) one by one and keep stirring the water with a 'khanda' (double-edged sword). This is the Sikh baptism. Because this nectar is prepared using the 'khanda', so it is called 'Khande Da Amrit' (the nectar of double-edged sword). It is also called 'Khande Dee Pahul', 'Pahul Khandedhaar' and 'Khandedhaar Pahul'. This 'Khande Da Amrit' is distributed to every man and woman, who wants to get the admission into the Holy school of Sikhism, who wants to be the Sikh of Sri Guru Granth Sahib. When some people visit Takht Sri Hazoor Sahib, they find that the women are baptized by the kirpan (sword) instead of 'khanda' during 'Amrit Sanchar'. While baptizing the women, only Jap Ji Sahib, few stanzas from Jaap Sahib, and six stanzas from Anand Sahib is read. Only one beloved one (Panj Piyara) prepares the Amrit. This Amrit is called 'Kirpan Da Amrit'. Here, I want to make it clear that there are two types of 'Kirpan Da Amrit'. One is distributed to the women while baptism. Other is distributed to newborn baby. The 'Kirpan Da Amrit' distributed to newborn baby is not considered a baptism. It is distributed so that the parents can eat with their babies in a same utensil. It is considered a religious ritual. The distribution of 'Kirpan Da Amrit' to newborn is a very old tradition in some Gursikh Families. An Amritdhari person recites Sri Jap Ji Sahib and prepares the nectar in an iron bowl with a sword. (Some people recite only first five stanzas of Sri Jap Ji Sahib). Then he put some drops of it into the mouth of newborn using the sword as a spoon. My Nana Ji (the father of mother) himself prepared 'Kirpan Da Amrit', when I was born. I was distributed 'Kirpan Da Amrit' by my Nana Ji himself. It is an old tradition in our families and still kept alive. I do not find anything wrong in this tradition. Distributing this Amrit to newborn is not the baptism. When the child grows, it has to take 'Khande Da Amrit'. I was distributed 'Kirpan Da Amrit' when I was born, but later I was baptized through 'Khande Da Amrit'. Now, let us discuss about the 'Kirpan Da Amrit' as a baptism for the women. I am a Hazoori Singh (often called Hazooriya). I tasted the holy nectar (Amrit) at Takht Sri Hazoor Sahib. I myself saw that the women were baptized by a single beloved one. He prepared the nectar by a small sword. Though, it is said that Jap Ji, few stanzas from Jaap Sahib, and six stanzas from Anand Sahib is read while preparing 'Kirpan Da Amrit'; it is possible that only the Jap Ji Sahib is read practically. The people want to know what is its history. They want to know what is the logic behind it to baptize the women by kirpan instead of khanda. I think that the book 'Sri Hazoori Maryada Prabodh' represents the views of the people, who support 'Kirpan Da Amrit' for women. 'Sri Hazoori Maryada Prabodh' is written by Singh Sahib Joginder Singh ji, the then Jathedar of Takht Sachkhand Abichal Nagar Hazoor Sahib (He died some years ago). It was written and published in 1967. I used its first edition while giving references. In this book, the topic 'Kirpan Da Amrit Maayeeyaan Noon' (the nectar of sword for women) has been discussed (from page 235 to page 246). Singh Sahib Joginder Singh ji has given a reference to a book 'Khalsa Dharam Shashtar'. Singh Sahib Joginder Singh wrote that according to 'Khalsa Dharam Shashtar', it is an old tradition to distribute 'Kirpan Da Amrit' to the woman. At the beginning, only 'Charan Pahul' (the water, which is used to wash the feet of Guru) was allowed for women. But some Amritdhari (who tasted the nectar) men do not eat the food, which is cooked by non-Amritdhari, so it was thought that women should be distributed 'Kirpan Da Amrit'. The other reason given in the book is that without 'Kirpan Da Amrit', the women cannot get useful ideas to help their warrior husbands. This was the reason to distribute 'Kirpan Da Amrit' to the women. Actually, the writer of 'Khalsa Dharam Shashtar' is trying to say that even 'Kirpan Da Amrit' was not allowed for the women. The 'Charan Pahul' was the valid baptism for them. The writer did not tell that if 'Charan Pahul' was the valid baptism for the women, then who started the 'Kirpan Da Amrit'. He did not tell whether eating the food, which is cooked only by an Amritdhari, is based on the Gurbani or not. He did not tell whether such Amritdhari persons take the medicines prepared by non-Amritdhari people or not. It is the accepted fact that after March 30, 1699 A.D., when 'Khalsa Panth' was created, Guru Gobind Singh did not distribute anyone his 'Charan Pahul'. 'Khande Da Amrit' was a substitute for the 'Charan Pahul'. How was it possible that the women were still being baptized through 'Charan Pahul'? If someone still persists, he should tell that whose 'feet' were being washed to prepare 'Charan Pahul' after Guru Gobind Singh left his physical body. So, it is wrong to say that 'Charan Pahul' was a valid baptism even after the creation of Khalsa Panth or after 1708 A.D. (when Guru Gobind Singh left his physical body). According to the writer of 'Khalsa Dharam Shashtar', it is the God's will that there is difference in physical structure of men and women. There is difference in gents-jewellery and ladies-jewellery. There is difference in their activities, like the birth of child etc. So, there is difference in men's nectar and women's nectar. I think this is not less than a joke. The Amrit is not jewellery. It has to do nothing with physical structure. The Amrit is a necessity to get admission into the School of Guru. If oxygen is needed for physical body, the Amrit is needed for spiritual body. We cannot live physically without oxygen; we cannot live spiritually without the nectar. The physical body needs the water; the spiritual body needs the nectar. It does not make any difference if one has not any jewellery. The differences in physical structure do not make much difference. The men and the women take birth in a same way. Both of them die in a same way. Both of them fall ill in a same way. Both of them laugh in a same way. Both of them weep in a same way. Why is there a different way to prepare the Amrit? The men and the women drink the same water. Both of them use the same air to breath. Both of them eat the same food. Both of them take the same medicine when they fall ill. Why do they need different Amrits (nectars)? The writer says that the Amritdhari men keep the 'Khanda and Kirpan' on their heads. He says that the 'Khanda' and the 'Kirpan' is a pair, as a male and a female are a couple. I think the writer is talking about the 'Khanda Kirpan', which is like a badge. Here I want to say that all the Amritdhari men do not keep 'Khanda and Kirpan' (a kind of badge) on their turbans. Secondly, there are not only 'Khanda' and 'Kirpan' in that badge, but there is also a 'Chakar' (a round shaped weapon). If the 'Khanda' represents a male and 'Kirpan' represents a female, then what about the 'Chakar'? Whom does the 'Chakar' represent? And also, there are two swords in that badge. Does it mean a male should have two females? A 'Khanda' and two swords do not make a pair. And there is a 'Chakar' also. The writer has given a reference to 'Rahatnama Bhayee Chaupa Singh Ji. In reply to this, I would like to say that the 'Rahatnamas' are not the Gurbani. There are many things in the 'Rahatnamas', which cannot be accepted. Interestingly, S. Kartar Singh Khalsa, Jatha Bhindran (Mehta) quoted Bhayee Chaupa Singh differently, "Jo Sikh, Sikhani Noo Khande Dee Pahul Na Deve, So Tankhahiya" (The Sikh, who does not give 'Khande Dee Pahul' to Sikhani (Sikh-woman), is a culprit). (See: 'Khalsa Jeevan and Gurmat Rahat Maryada' written by Sant Kartar Singh Khalsa, Jatha Bhindran (Mehta), page 180, edition 1977). Thus, there is adulteration in the 'Rahatnama'. The writer says sarcastically that he, who supports 'Khande Da Amrit' to women, should pray before the God to transform a woman into a man. There is no need to pray for such a transformation. It is the God's own will that some are men and some are women. He has the power to transform the women into men and the men into women. The Gurbani says, "Naaree Te Jo Purakh Karaavai, Purakhan Te Jo Naaree. Kaho Kabeer Saadhoo Ko Pritam, Tis Moorat Balehaaree" (He, the God, who transforms the woman into a man and the men into women, says Kabeer, is beloved of the Saints. I am a sacrifice to His image). (Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 1252). There is another ridiculous argument against 'Khande Da Amrit' to women. The writers says that if a woman remains a woman, remains a wife and becomes pregnant as usual even after taking 'Khande Da Amrit', then what is the use of 'Khande Da Amrit'. A man remains a man and a woman remains a woman even after taking 'Khande Da Amrit'. If 'Khande Da Amrit' does not transform a male into a woman, then how can someone expect a woman to be transformed into a man? If we follow the Gurbani, 'Khande Da Amrit' can transform us into angels without any delay, "Balehaaree Gur Aapne, Diohaarhee Sad Vaar. Jin Maanas Te Devte Keeye, Karat Naa Laagee Vaar" (I am a sacrifice to my Guru a hundred times a day, who made angels out of human beings, and it was done without any delay). (Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 462). In 1967 A.D., the Deputy Jathedar of Takh Sri Hazoor Sahib demanded that the women should be distributed 'Khande Da Amrit'. A meeting of the high priests (Granthis) and some members of management was arranged. But they cannot decide anything. At that time, the supporters of 'Kirpan Da Amrit' asked some questions to the high priests and members of management. I do not know what answers were given at that time. But, if I am asked the same questions now, I have my answers. Let us see what were the questions: - Question: Will you allow the woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', to bow their head right before the door (of 'Angeethha Sahib')? My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Question: Will you allow the woman (who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit') to take 'Hukamnama' from Sri Guru Granth Sahib within the railing of the Holy Takht Sahib? My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Question: Can a woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', take 'Karhaah Prasaad' distributed for 'the five beloved ones'? My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Question: Can a woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', take part in 'Amrit Sanchar' as one of the five beloved ones? My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Even in Punjab, some people are against the participation of women in 'Amrit Sanchar'. I read in a magazine published by a self-styled saint, which said that according to 'Rahatnama', the five Singhs (Amritdhari males) are allowed to distribute the nectar. The magazine gave a reference of a 'Rahatnama', which says, "Paanch Singh Amrit Jo Devai. Taa Ko Chhakk Sir Dhar Pun Levai" (The nectar, which is given by the five Singhs, one should taste and then put it on head). The word 'Singh' (literary means lion) is used both for the Amritdhari men and women. In Sri Guru Granth Sahib, we see this line, "Singh Ruchai Sad Bhojan Maas" (The lion is always interested in meat). (Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 1180). If lion wants to eat meat, the lioness too has the same desire. Thus, here the word 'singh' has been used both for the lion and the lioness. In the Gurbani, the masculine word 'Sikh' has been used both for man and woman. Actually, there is only one man in this world. All other are the women. "Is Jag Maih Purakh Ek Hai, Hor Sagalee Naar Sabaayee" (In this world, there is one Man; all other beings are women. (Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 591). Question: The women are not allowed to prepare the holy food for 'Bhog' at Takht Sahib. Will you allow a woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', to prepare the food? My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Question: Can a woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', take part in 'Guru Kee Bauli Kee Sewa' (the service of step-well of Guru)? (There is a historic step-well at Sri Hazoor Sahib). My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Question: Can a woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', take part in 'Gaagar Dee Sewa' (service of metallic pitcher)? (Amritdhari men bring water in metallic pitchers from the river Godavari, for washing the Takht Sahib). My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Question: Will you allow a woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', to do the 'Chaur Dee Sewa' (to wave the holy whisk)? My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Question: Can a woman, who tasted 'Khande Da Amrit', take part in the holy procession as one of the five beloved ones? My answer: Why not? What is the problem to let her do so? Singh Sahib Joginder Singh has criticized the SGPC, Akali Dal, Bhasaurees (Panch Khalsa Diwan, Bhasaur) and Bhai Randhir Singh's group. He wrote that all these organizations are against the 'Raagmala'. He wrote that 'Bhasaurees' were against the 'Bhagatbani'. I think the SGPC is not the 'Panth' itself. It is an organization, whose members are elected by the Punjabi Sikhs only. There are other organizations too, like the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, which take care of the Sikh places. Secondly, the 'Raagmala' is read everywhere except Sri Akal Takht. Akali Dal is a political party. This party has non-Sikh members too. Now, there are many Akali Dals. A political party has nothing to do with a religious matter. Bhai Randhir Singh organized 'Akhand Keertani Jatha'. Most of the members of this Group do not read the 'Raagmala'. Other accept it the Gurbani. Bhai Randhir Singh was once a member of 'Panch Khalsa Diwan, Bhasaur'. I did not see any article against the 'Bhagatbani' and 'Raagmala' written by Bhai Randhir Singh. Even if he was against the Raagmala, it has nothing to do with 'Kirpan Da Amrit'. The 'Panch Khalsa Diwan, Bhasaur' is now lying in its tomb, though sometimes its ghost wanders here and there. Recently, a writer (now excommunicated) was possessed by this ghost. I hope that one day, this ghost will be caught and kept in a bottle forever. Thus, we reach on a conclusion that there should not be a separate 'Kirpan Da Amrit' for the women. 'Khande Da Amrit' is the only accepted baptism in Sikhism :shock: Please discuss.
  6. He died on his bed after scribbling down revolutionary mathematical formulas that bloomed in his mind like ethereal flowers -- gifts, he said, from a Hindu Goddess. He was 32 the same age that the advaitan advocate Adi Shankara died. Shankara, born in 788, left earth in 820. Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in 1887. He died in 1920 -- an anonymous Vaishnavite brahmin who became the first Indian mathematics Fellow at Cambridge University. Both Shankara and Ramanujan possessed supernatural intelligence, a well of genius that leaves even brilliant men dumb-founded. Ramanujan was a meteor in the mathematics world of the World War I era. Quiet, with dharmic sensibilities, yet his mind blazed with such intuitive improvisation that British colleagues at Cambridge -- the best math brains in England -- could not even guess where his ideas originated. It irked them a bit that Ramanujan told friends the Hindu Goddess Namagiri whispered equations into his ear. Today's mathematicians -- armed with supercomputers -- are still star-struck, and unable to solve many theorems the young man from India proved quickly by pencil and paper. Ramanujan spawned a zoo of mathematical creatures that delight, confound and humble his peers. They call them "beautiful," "humble," "transcendent," and marvel how he reduced very complex terrain to simple shapes. In his day these equations were mainly pure mathematics, abstract computations that math sages often feel describe God's precise design for the cosmos. While much of Ramanujan's work remains abstract, many of his theorems are now the mathematical power behind several 1990's disciplines in astrophysics, artificial intelligence and gas physics. According to his wife -- Janaki, who still lives outside Madras -- her husband predicted "his mathematics would be useful to mathematicians for more than a century." Yet, before sailing to England, Ramanujan was largely ignorant of the prevailing highest-level math. He flunked out of college in India. Like Albert Einstein, who toiled as a clerk in a Swiss patent office while evolving his Special Theory of Relativity at odd hours, Ramanujan worked as a clerk at a port authority in Madras, spending every spare moment contemplating the mathematical face of God. It was here in these sea-smelling, paper-pushing offices that he was gently pushed into destiny -- a plan that has all the earmarks of divine design. Ramanujan was born in Erode, a small, rustic town in Tamil Nadu, India. His father worked as a clerk in a cloth merchant's shop. his namesake is that of another medieval philosophical giant -- Ramanuja -- a Vaishnavite who postulated the Vedanta system known as "qualified monism." the math prodigy grew up in the overlapping atmospheres of religious observances and ambitious academics. He wasn't spiritually preoccupied, but he was steeped in the reality and beneficence of the Deities, especially the Goddess Namagiri. Math, of course, was his intellectual and spiritual touchstone. No one really knows how early in life ramanujan awakened to the psychic visitations of Namagiri, much less how the interpenetration of his mind and the Goddess' worked. By age twelve he had mastered trigonometry so completely that he was inventing sophisticated theorems that astonished teachers. In fact his first theorems unwittingly duplicated those of a great mathematician of a hundred years earlier. This feat came after sifting once through a trigonometry book. he was disappointed that his "discovery" has already been found. then for four years there was numerical silence. At sixteen a copy of an out-of-date math book from Cambridge University came into his hands. It listed 5,000 theorems with sparse, short-cut proofs. Even initiates in the arcane language of mathematics could get lost in this work. Ramanujan entered it with the giddy ambition and verve of an astronaut leaping onto the moon. It subconsciously triggered a love of numbers that completely saturated his mind. He could envision strange mathematical concepts like ordinary people see the waves of an ocean. Ironically, his focus on math became his academic undoing. he outpaced his teachers in numbers theory, but neglected all other subjects. He could speak adequate English, but failed in it and history and other science courses. He lost a scholarship, dropped out, attempted a return but fell ill and quit a second time. By this time he was married to Janaki, a young teenager, and was supporting his mother. Often all night he continued his personal excursions into the math universe - being fed rice balls by his wife as he wrote lying belly-down on a cot. During the day he factored relatively mundane accounts at the post office for 20 pounds a year. He managed to publish one math paper. As mathematicians would say, one branch of potential reality could have gone with Ramanujan squandering his life at the port. But with one nudge from the invisible universe, Namagiri sent him Westward. A manager at the office admire the young man's work and sensed significance. He talked him into writing to British mathematicians who might sponsor him. Ramanujan wrote a simple letter to the renowned G. W. Hardy at Cambridge, hinting humbly at his breakthroughs and describing his vegetarian diet and spartan needs if he should come to the university. He enclosed one hundred of his theorem equations. Hardy was the brightest mathematician in England. Yet, as he knew and would write later at the conclusion of his life, he had done no original, mind-bending work. At Cambridge he collaborated with an odd man named Littlewood, who was so publicly retiring that people joked Hardy made him up. The two, though living within a hundred yards of each other, communicated by exchange of terse, math-laden letters. Ramanujan's letter and equations fell to them like a broadcast from alien worlds. AT first they dismissed it as a curiosity. Then, they suddenly became intrigued by the Indian's musings. Hardy later wrote: "A single look at them is enough to show that they could only be written down by a mathematician of the highest class. They must be true, for if they were not true, no one would have the imagination to invent them." Hardy sensed an extremely rare opportunity, a "discovery," and quickly arranged a scholarship for the then 26-year-old Ramanujan. The invitation came to India and landed like a bomb in Ramanujan's family and community circle. His mother was horrified that he would lose caste by traveling to foreign shores. She refused to let him go unless it was sanctioned by the Goddess. According to one version of the story, the aged mother then dreamt of the blessing from Namagiri. But Janaki says her husband himself went to the namagiri temple for guidance and was told to make the voyage. Ramanujan consulted the astrological data for his journey. He sent is mother and wife to another town so they wouldn't see him with his long brahmin's hair and bun trimmed to British short style and his Indian shirt and wrapcloth swapped for European fashion. He left India as a slightly plump man with apple-round cheeks and eyes like bright zeroes. Arriving in 1914 on the eve of World War I, Ramanujan experienced severe culture shock at Cambridge. he had to cook for himself and insisted on going bare foot Hindu style on the cold floors. But Hardy, a man without airs or inflated ego, made him feel comfortable amidst the stuffy Cambridge tradition. Hardy and Littlewood both served as his mentors for it took two teachers to keep pace with his advances. Soon, as Hardy recounts, it was Ramanujan who was teaching them, in fact leaving them in the wake of incandescent genius. Within a few months war broke out. Cambridge became a military college. vegetable and fruit shortages plagued Ramanujan's already slim diet. The war took away Littlewood to artillery research, and Ramanujan and Hardy were left to retreat into some of the most recondite math possible. One of the stunning examples of this endeavor is a process called partitioning, figuring out how many different ways a whole number can be expressed as the sum of other whole numbers. Example: 4 is partitioned 5 ways (4 itself, 3+1, 2+2, 2+1+1, 1+1+1+1), expressed as p(4)=5. The higher the number, the more the partitions. Thus p(7)=15. Deceptively though, even a marginally larger number creates astronomical partitions. p(200)=397,999,029,388. Ramanujan -- with Hardy offering technical checks -- invented a tight, twisting formula that computes the partitions exactly. To check the theorem a fellow Cambridge mathematician tallied by hand the partitions for 200. It took one month. Ramanujan's equation was precisely correct. U.S. mathematician George Andrews, who in the late 1960's rediscovered a "lost notebook" of Ramanujan's and became a lifetime devotee, describes his accuracy as unthinkable to even attempt. Ramanujan's partition equation helped later physicists determine the number of electron orbit jumps in the "shell" model of atoms. ANother anecdote demonstrates his mental landscape. By 1917, Ramanujan had fallen seriously ill and was convalescing in a country house. Hardy took a taxi to visit him. As math masters like to do he noted the taxi's number -- 1729 -- to see if it yielded any interesting permutations. To him it didn't and he thought to himself as he went up the steps to the door that it was a rather dull number and hoped it was not an inauspicious sign. He mentioned 1729 to Ramanujan who immediately countered, "Actually, it is a very interesting number. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." Ramanujan deteriorated so quickly that he was forced to return to India -- emaciated -- leaving his math notebooks at Cambridge. He spent his final year face down on a cot furiously writing out pages and pages of theorems as if a storm of number concepts swept through his brain. Many remain beyond today's best math minds. Debate still lingers as to the origins of Ramanujan's edifice of unique ideas. Mathematicians eagerly acknowledge surprise states of intuition as the real breakthroughs, not logical deduction. There is reticence to accept mystical overtones, though, like Andrews, many can appreciate intuition *in the guise* of a Goddess. But we have Ramanujan's own testimony of feminine whisperings from a Devi and there is the sheer power of his achievements. Hindus cognize this reality. As an epilogue to this story, a seance held in 1934 claimed to have contacted Ramanujan in the astral planes. Asked if he was continuing his work, he replied, "No, all interest in mathematics dropped out after crossing over."
  7. A question to my sikh family. I would like to know are we soverign? Did Gurji give each sikh soverignity? Does this mean that we are each kings? If this is true that each one of us are soverign, then why are we not practicing that. Example I could go out with a spear and sword and all sort of shasters and the police should not arrest me if I am soverign. Please explain to this simple sikh. :?
  8. Comte Saint-Germain A Man Beyond His Time Many average, reasonable men can conceive wisdom only under the boring form of a sermon and think of the sage only in the semblance of a clergyman. For such men prudery, hypocrisy, and the most abject enslavement to ritual habit and prejudice must be the everyday virtues. When therefore it happens that a genuine sage, by way of amusing himself, mystifies his contemporaries, follows a woman, or lightheartedly raises his glass, he is condemned eternally by the army of short-sighted people whose judgment forms posterity. That is what happened in the case of the Comte de Saint-Germain. He had a love of jewels in an extreme form, and he ostentatiously showed off those he possessed. He kept a great quantity of them in a casket, which he carried about everywhere with him. The importance he attached to jewels was so great that in the pictures painted by him, which were in themselves remarkable, the figures were covered with jewels; and his colors were so vivid and strange that faces looked pale and insignificant by contrast. Jewels cast their reflection on him and threw a distorting light on the whole of his life. His contemporaries did not forgive him this weakness. Nor did they forgive him for keeping for an entire century the physical appearance of a man of between forty and fifty years old. Apparently a man cannot be taken seriously if he does not conform strictly to the laws of nature, and he was called a charlatan because he possessed a secret which allowed him to prolong his life beyond known human limits. His Lifestyle Saint-Germain seems also to have been free personally from the solemnity in which men of religion and philosophers wrap themselves. He enjoyed and sought the company of the pretty women of his day. Though he never ate any food in public, he liked dining out because of the people he met and the conversation he heard. He was an aristocrat who lived with princes and even with kings almost on a footing of an equal. He gave recipes for removing wrinkles and dyeing hair. He had an immense stock of amusing stories with which he regaled society. It appears from the memoirs of Baron von Gleichen that when Saint-Germain was in Paris he became the lover of Mademoiselle Lambert, daughter of the Chevalier Lambert, who lived in the house in which he lodged. And it appears from Grosley's memoirs that in Holland he became the lover of a woman as rich and mysterious as himself. At first sight all this is incompatible with the high mission with which he was invested, with the part he played in the Hermetic societies of Germany and France. But the contradiction is perhaps only apparent. His outward appearance of a man of the world was necessary in the first place for the purposes of the secret diplomacy in which Louis XV often employed him. Moreover, we often have an erroneous conception of the activities of a master. The possession of an "opal of monstrous size, of a white sapphire as big as an egg, of the treasures of Aladdin's lamp," is a harmless pleasure if these treasures have been inherited or have been made through the help of miraculous knowledge. It is no great eccentricity in a man to pull down his cuffs in order to show the sparkle of the rubies in his links. And if Mademoiselle Lambert had the ideas of her time on the subject of gallantry, the Comte de Saint-Germain can hardly be reproached for lingering one night in her room in order to open in her presence the mysterious jewelcasket and invite her to choose one of those diamonds that were the admiration of Madam de Pompadour. For pleasure in life drags a man down only when it is carried to excess. It may be that there exists a way by which a man may attain the highest spirituality and yet keep this pleasure. Moreover, on a certain plane, the chain of the senses no longer exists and kisses cease to burn; a man can no longer harm either himself or others by virtue of the power that the transformation has wrought in him. A Man Who Never Dies "A man who knows everything and who never dies," said Voltaire of the Comte de Saint-Germain. He might have added that he was a man whose origin was unknown and who disappeared without leaving a trace. In vain his contemporaries tried to penetrate the mystery, and in vain the chiefs of police and the ministers of the various countries whose inhabitants he puzzled, flattered themselves that they had solved the riddle of his birth. Louis XV must have known who he was, for he extended to him a friendship that aroused the jealousy of his court. He allotted him rooms in the Chateau of Chambord. He shut himself up with Saint-Germain and Madam de Pompadour for whole evenings; and the pleasure he derived from his conversation and the admiration he no doubt felt for the range of his knowledge cannot explain the consideration, almost the deference, he had for him. Madam du Housset says in her memoirs that the king spoke of Saint-Germain as a personage of illustrious birth. Count Charles of Hesse Cassel, with whom he lived during the last years in which history is able to follow his career, must also have possessed the secret of his birth. He worked at alchemy with him, and Saint-Germain treated him as an equal. It was to him that Saint-Germain entrusted his papers just before his supposed death in 1784. However, neither Louis XV nor the Count of Hesse Cassel ever revealed anything about the birth of Saint-Germain. The count even went so far as invariably to withhold the smallest detail bearing on the life of his mysterious friend. This is a very remarkable fact, since Saint-Germain was an extremely well known figure. In those days, when the aristocracy immersed itself in the occult sciences, secret societies and magic, this man, who was said to possess the elixir of life and to be able to make gold at will, was the subject of interminable talk. An inner force that is irresistibly strong compels men to talk. It makes no difference whether a man is a king or a count; all alike are subject to this force, and increasingly subject to it in proportion as they spend their time with women. For Louis XV and the count to have held out against the curiosity of beloved mistresses we must presume in them either a strength of mind that they certainly did not possess or else some imperious motive which we cannot determine. His Origins The commonest hypothesis about his birth is that Saint-Germain was the natural son of the widow of Charles II of Spain and a certain Comte (Count) Adanero, whom she knew at Bayonne. This Spanish queen was Marie de Neubourg, whom Victor Hugo took as the heroine of his Ruy Blas. Those who disliked Saint-Germain said that he was the son of a Portuguese Jew named Aymar, while those who hated him said, in the effort to add to his discredit, that he was the son of an Alsatian Jew named Wolff. Fairly recently a new genealogy of Saint-Germain has been put forward, which seems the most probable of all. It is the work of the theosophists and Annie Besant, who has frequently made the statement that the Comte de Saint-Germain was one of the sons of Francis Racoczi II, Prince of Transylvania. The children of Francis Racoczi were brought up by the Emperor of Austria, but one of them was withdrawn from his guardianship. The story was put about that he was dead, but actually he was given into the charge of the last descendant of the Medici family, who brought him up in Italy. He took the name of Saint-Germain from the little town of San Germano, where he had spent some years during his childhood and where his father had estates. This would give an air of probability to the memories of southern lands and sunny palaces which Saint-Germain liked to call up as the setting of his childhood. And it would help to account for the consideration that Louis XV showed him. The impenetrable silence kept by him and by those to whom he entrusted his secret would in this event be due to fear of the Emperor of Austria and possible vengeance on his part. The belief that Saint-Germain and the descendant of the Racoczis are one and the same is firmly held by many people, who regard him as a genuine adept and even think he may still be living. The Comte de Saint-Germain was a man "of middle height, strongly built, and dressed with superb simplicity." He spoke with an entire lack of ceremony to the most highly placed personages and was fully conscious of his superiority. Said Gleichen of the first time he met Saint-Germain: "He threw down his hat and sword, sat down in an armchair near the fire and interrupted the conversation by saying to the man who was speaking: 'You do not know what you are saying! I am the only person who is competent to speak on this subject, and I have exhausted it. It was the same with music, which I gave up when I found I had no more to learn.'" Indeed, many people who heard him play the violin said of him that he equaled or even surpassed the greatest virtuosos of the period, and he seems to have justified his remark that he had reached the extreme limit possible in the art of music. Saint-Germain was also an accomplished artist. One day he took Gleichen to his house and said to him: " I am pleased with you, and you have earned my showing you a few paintings of mine." "And he very effectively kept his word," said Gleichen, "for the paintings he showed me all bore a stamp of singularity or perfection which made them more interesting than many works of art of the highest order." However, he seems not to have excelled as a poet. There survive of his an indifferent sonnet and a letter addressed to Marie Antoinette (quoted by the Comtesse d'Adhemar) that contains predictions in doggerel verse. At the request of Madam de Pompadour he also wrote a rather poor outline of a comedy. The Alchemist By far the greatest obvious talents of the Comte de Saint-Germain were connected with his knowledge of alchemy. Yet if Saint-Germain he knew how to make gold, he was wise enough to say nothing about it. Nothing but the possession of this secret could perhaps account for the enormous wealth at his command, though he was not known to have money on deposit at any banker's. What he does seem to have admitted, at least ambiguously, is that he could make a big diamond out of several small stones. The diamonds that he wore in his shoes and garters were believed to be worth more than 200,000 francs. He asserted also that he could increase the size of pearls at will, and some of the pearls in his possession certainly were of astonishing size. If all that he said on this subject was mere bragging, it was expensive, for he supported it by magnificent gifts. Madam du Hausset tells us that one day when he was showing the queen some jewels in her presence, she commented on the beauty of a cross of white and green stones. Saint-Germain nonchalantly made her a present of it. Madam du Hausset refused, but the queen, thinking the stones were false, signed to her that she might accept. Madam du Hausset subsequently had the stones valued, and they turned out to be genuine and extremely valuable. His Amazing Youthfulness But the feature in Saint-Germain's personage that is hardest to believe is his astounding longevity. The musician Rameau and Madam de Gergy (with the latter of whom, according to the memoirs of Casanova, he was still dining about 1775) both assert that they met him at Venice in 1710, under the name of the Marquis de Montferrat. Both of them agree that he then had the appearance of a man of between forty and fifty years old. If their recollection is accurate this evidence destroys the hypotheses according to which Saint-Germain was the son of Marie de Neubourg or the son of Francis Racoczi II, for if he had been, he would not have been more than about twenty in 1710. Later, Madam de Gergy told Madam de Pompadour that she had received from Saint-Germain at Venice an elixir that enabled her to preserve, for a long time and without the smallest change, the appearance of a woman of twenty-five. A gift as precious as this could not be forgotten! It is also true, however, that Saint-Germain, when questioned by Madam de Pompadour on the subject of his meeting with Madam de Gergy fifty years earlier and of the marvelous elixir he was supposed to have given to her, replied with a smile: "It is not impossible; but I confess it is likely that this lady, for whom I have the greatest respect, is talking nonsense. We can compare with this the offer he made to Mademoiselle de Genlis when she was a child: "When you are seventeen or eighteen will you be happy to remain at that age, at least for a great many years?' She answered that she should indeed be charmed. "Very well," he said very gravely; "I promise you that you shall." And he at once spoke of something else. The period of his great celebrity in Paris extended from 1750 to 1760. Everyone agreed then that, in appearance, he was a man of between forty and fifty. He disappeared for fifteen years, and when the Comtesse d'Adhemar saw him again in 1775, she declared that she found him younger than ever. And when she saw him again twelve years later he still looked the same. While he deliberately allowed his hearers to believe that his life had lasted inconceivably long, he never actually said so. He proceeded by veiled allusions. "He diluted the strength of the marvelous in his stories," said his friend Gleichen, "according to the receptivity of his hearer. When he was telling a fool some event of the time of Charles V, he informed him quite crudely that he had been present. But when he spoke to somebody less credulous, he contented himself with describing the smallest circumstances, the faces and gestures of the speakers, the room and the part of it they were in, with such vivacity and in such detail that his hearers received the impression that he had actually been present at the scene. 'These fools of Parisians,' he said to me one day, 'believe that I am five hundred years old. I confirm them in this idea because I see that it gives them much pleasure -- not that I am not infinitely older than I appear.'" Tradition has related that he said he had known Jesus and been present at the Council of Nicea. But he did not go so far as this in his contempt for the men with whom he associated and in his derision of their credulity. This tradition originates from the fact that Lord Gower, who was a practical joker, gave imitations at his house of well-known men of his time. When he came to Saint-Germain, he imitated his manner and voice in an imaginary conversation that Saint-Germain was supposed to have had with the founder of Christianity, of whom Lord Gower made him say: "He was the best man imaginable, but romantic and thoughtless." About 1760, an English newspaper, the London Mercury, quite seriously published the following story: "The Comte de Saint-Germain presented a lady of his acquaintance, who was concerned at growing old, with a vial of his famous elixir of long life. The lady put the vial into a drawer. One of her servants, a middle-aged woman, thought the vial contained a harmless purge and drank the contents. When the lady summoned her servant next day, there appeared before her a young girl, almost a child. It was the effect of the elixir. A few drops more and I have no doubt the servant would have answered her mistress with infantile screams!" "Has anyone ever seen me eat or drink?" said Saint-Germain, as he was passing through Vienna, to a Herr Graeffer who offered him some Tokay. Everyone who knew him agreed in saying that though he liked sitting down to table with a numerous company, he never touched the dishes. He was fond of offering his intimate friends the recipe of a purge made of senna pods. His principal food, which he prepared himself, was a mixture of oatmeal. But is it really so surprising that the authors of memoirs depict Saint-Germain as retaining the same physical appearance during a whole century? Human life may have a duration infinitely longer than that ordinarily attributed to it. It is the activity of our nerves, the flame of our desire, the acid of our fears, which daily consume our organism. He who succeeds in raising himself above his emotions, in suppressing in himself anger and the fear of illness, is capable of overcoming the attrition of the years and attaining an age at least double that at which men now die of old age. If the face of a man who is not tormented by his emotions should retain its youth, it would be no miracle. Not long ago a London medical periodical reported the case of a woman who at seventy-four had preserved " the features and expression of a girl of twenty, without a wrinkle or a white hair. She had become insane as the result of an unhappy love affair, and her insanity consisted in the perpetual reliving of her last separation from her lover." From her conviction that she was young she had remained young. It may be that a subjective conception of time, and the suppression of impatience and expectation, enable a highly developed man to reduce to a minimum the normal wear and tear of the body. The Comte de Saint-Germain asserted also that he had the capacity of stopping the mechanism of the human clock during sleep. He thus almost entirely stopped the physical wastage that proceeds, without our knowing it, from breathing and the beating of the heart. His Careers Saint-Germain's activity and the diversity of his occupations were very great. He was interested in the preparation of dyes and even started a factory in Germany for the manufacture of felt hats. But his principal role was that of a secret agent in international politics in the service of France. He became Louis XV's confidential and intimate counselor and was entrusted by him with various secret missions. This drew on him the enmity of many important men, including, notably, that of the Duke de Choiseul, the minister for foreign affairs. It was this enmity which compelled him to leave hurriedly for England in order to escape imprisonment in the Bastille. Louis XV did not agree with his minister's policy with regard to Austria and tried to negotiate peace behind his back by using Holland as an intermediary. Saint-Germain was sent to The Hague to negotiate there with Prince Louis of Brunswick. Monsieur d'Affry, the French minister in Holland, was informed of this step, and complained bitterly to his minister for foreign affairs that France was carrying on negotiations that did not pass through his hands. The Duke de Choiseul seized his opportunity. He sent d'Affry orders demanding the extradition of Saint-Germain and have him arrested by the Dutch Government and sent to Paris. This decision was communicated to the king in the presence of his ministers in council, and Louis, not daring to admit his participation in the affair, blamed it all on his emissary. But Saint-Germain received warning just before his arrest. He had time to escape and take ship for England. The adventurer Casanova gives us some details of this escape; he happened to be in a hotel near that in which Saint-Germain was staying, and found himself mixed up in a complicated story of jewels, swindlers, duped fathers and girls madly in love with him -- a story, in fact, that was typical of the ordinary course of Saint-Germain's life. According to Horace Walpole's letters, Saint-Germain had been arrested in London some years previously on account of his mysterious life. He had been set free because there was nothing against him. Walpole, a true Englishman, came to the conclusion that "he was not a gentleman" because he used to say with a laugh that he was taken for a spy. He was not arrested a second time in England. Not long after this, he was found in Russia, where he was to play an important but hidden part in the revolution of 1762. Count Alexis Orloff met him some years later in Italy and said of him: "Here is a man who played an important part in our revolution." Alexis' brother, Gregory Orloff, handed over to Saint-Germain of his own free will 20,000 sequins, an uncommon action, seeing that Saint-Germain had not rendered him any particular service. At that time he wore the uniform of a Russian general and called himself Soltikov. His Prophecies It was about this period, the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI, that Saint-Germain returned to France and saw Marie Antoinette. The Comtesse d'Adhemar has left a detailed account of the interview. It was to her that he turned to obtain access to the queen. Since his flight to England, he had not reappeared in France, but the memory of him had become a legend, and Louis XV's friendship for him was well known. It was easy, therefore, for the Comtesse d'Adhemar to arrange a meeting with Marie Antoinette, who immediately asked Saint-Germain if he was going to settle in Paris again. "A century will pass," was his reply, "before I come here again." In the presence of the queen he spoke in a grave voice and foretold events that would take place fifteen years later. "The queen in her wisdom will weigh that which I am about to tell her in confidence. The Encyclopedist party desires power, which it will obtain only by the complete fall of the clergy. In order to bring about this result, it will upset the monarchy. The Encyclopedists, who are seeking a chief among the members of the royal family, have cast their eyes on the Duke de Chartres. The duke will become the instrument of men who will sacrifice him when he has ceased to be useful to them. He will come to the scaffold instead of to the throne. Not for long will the laws remain the protection of the good and the terror of the wicked. The wicked will seize power with bloodstained hands. They will do away with the Catholic religion, the nobility, and the magistracy." "So that only royalty will be left," the queen interrupted impatiently. "Not even royalty. There will be a bloodthirsty republic, whose scepter will be the executioner's knife." It is quite plain from these words that Saint-Germain's ideas were entirely different from those ascribed to him by the majority of historical authors of this period, nearly all of whom see in him an active instrument of the revolutionary movement. His terrible and amazing predictions filled Marie Antoinette with foreboding and agitation. Saint-Germain asked to see the King, in order to make even more serious revelations, but he asked to see him without his minister, Maurepas, being told of it. "He is my enemy," he said, "and I count him among those who will contribute to the ruin of the kingdom, not from malice but from incapacity." The king did not possess sufficient authority to have an interview with anybody without the presence of his minister. He informed Maurepas of the interview that Saint-Germain had had with the queen, and Maurepas thought it would be wisest to imprison in the Bastille a man who had so gloomy a vision of the future. Out of courtesy to the Comtesse d'Adhemar, Maurepas visited her in order to acquaint her with this decision. She received him in her room. "I know the scoundrel better than you do," he said. "He will be exposed. Our police officials have a very keen scent. Only one thing surprises me. The years have not spared me, whereas the queen declares that the Comte de Saint-Germain looks like a man of forty." At this moment the attention of both of them was distracted by the sound of a door being shut. The comtesse uttered a cry. The expression on Maurepas' face changed. Saint-Germain stood before them. "The king has called on you to give him good counsel," he said; "and in refusing to allow me to see him you think only of maintaining your authority. You are destroying the monarchy, for I have only a limited time to give to France, and when that time has passed I shall be seen again only after three generations. I shall not be to blame when anarchy with all its horrors devastates France. You will not see these calamities, but the fact that you paved the way for them will be enough to blacken your memory." Having uttered this in one breath, he walked to the door, shut it behind him and disappeared. All efforts to find him proved useless. The keen scent of Maurepas' police officials was not keen enough, either during the days immediately following or later. They never discovered what had happened to the Comte de Saint-Germain. As had been foretold to him, Maurepas did not see the calamities for which he had helped to pave the way. He died in 1781. In 1784 a rumor was current in Paris that the Comte de Saint-Germain had just died in the Duchy of Schleswig, at the castle of the Count Charles of Hesse Cassel. For biographers and historians this date seems likely to remain the official date of his death. From that day forward, the mystery in which the Comte de Saint-Germain was shrouded grew deeper than ever. His "Death" Secluded at Eckenforn in the count's castle, Saint-Germain announced that he was tired of fife. He seemed careworn and melancholy. He said he felt feeble, but he refused to see a doctor and was tended only by women. No details exist of his death, or rather of his supposed death. No tombstone at Eckenforn bore his name. It was known that he had left all his papers and certain documents relating to Freemasonry to the Count of Hesse Cassel. The count for his part asserted that he had lost a very dear friend. But his attitude was highly equivocal. He refused to give any information about his friend or his last moments, and turned the conversation if anyone spoke of him. His whole behavior gives color to the supposition that he was the accomplice of a pretended death. Although, on the evidence of reliable witnesses, he must have been at least a hundred years old in 1784, his death in that year cannot have been genuine. The official documents of Freemasonry say that in 1785 the French masons chose him as their representative at the great convention that took place in that year, with Mesmer, Saint-Martin, and Cagliostro present. In the following year Saint-Germain was received by the Empress of Russia. Finally, the Comtesse d'Adhemar reports at great length a conversation she had with him in 1789 in the Church of the Recollets, after the taking of the Bastille. His face looked no older than it had looked thirty years earlier. He said he had come from China and Japan. "There is nothing so strange out there," he said, "as that which is happening here. But I can do nothing. My hands are tied by someone who is stronger than I. There are times when it is possible to draw back; others at which the decree must be carried out as soon as he has pronounced it." And he told her in broad outlines all the events, not excepting the death of the queen, that were to take place in the years that followed. "The French will play with titles and honors and ribbons like children. They will regard everything as a plaything, even the equipment of the Garde Nationale. There is today a deficit of some forty millions, which is the nominal cause of the Revolution. Well, under the dictatorship of philanthropists and orators the national debt will reach thousands of millions." "I have seen Saint-Germain again," wrote Comtesse d'Adhemar in 1821, "each time to my amazement. I saw him when the queen was murdered, on the 18th of Brumaire, on the day following the death of the Duke d'Enghien, in January, 1815, and on the eve of the murder of the Duke de Berry." Mademoiselle de Genlis asserts that she met the Comte de Saint-Germain in 1821 during the negotiations for the Treaty of Vienna; and the Comte de Chalons, who was ambassador in Venice, said he spoke to him there soon afterwards in the Piazza di San Marco. There is other evidence, though less conclusive, of his survival. The Englishman Grosley said he saw him in 1798 in a revolutionary prison; and someone else wrote that he was one of the crowd surrounding the tribunal at which the Princess de Lamballe appeared before her execution. It seems quite certain that the Comte de Saint-Germain did not die at the place and on the date that history has fixed. He continued an unknown career, of whose end we are ignorant and whose duration seems so long that one's imagination hesitates to admit it. Secret Societies Many writers who have studied the French Revolution do not believe in the influence exerted by the Comte de Saint-Germain. It is true that he set up no landmarks for posterity, and even obliterated the traces he had made. He left no arrogant memorial of himself such as a book. He worked for humanity, not for himself. He was modest, the rarest quality in men of intelligence. His only foibles were the harm less affectation of appearing a great deal younger than his age and the pleasure he took in making a ring sparkle. But men are judged only by their own statements and by the merits they attribute to themselves. Only his age and his jewels attracted notice. Yet the part he played in the spiritual sphere was considerable. He was the architect who drew the plans for a work that is as yet only on the stocks. But he was an architect betrayed by the workmen. He had dreamed of a high tower that should enable man to communicate with heaven, and the workmen preferred to build houses for eating and sleeping. He influenced Freemasonry and the secret societies, though many modem masons have denied this and have even omitted to mention him as a great source of inspiration. In Vienna he took part in the foundation of the Society of Asiatic Brothers and of the Knights of Light, who studied alchemy; and it was he who gave Mesmer his fundamental ideas on personal magnetism and hypnotism. It is said that he initiated Cagliostro, who visited him on several occasions in Holstein to receive directions from him, though there is no direct evidence for this. The two men were to be far separated from one another by opposite currents and a different fate. The Comtesse d'Adhemar quotes a letter she received from Saint-Germain in which he says, speaking of his journey to Paris in 1789, "I wished to see the work that that demon of hell, Cagliostro, has prepared." It seems that Cagliostro took part in the preparation of the revolutionary movement, which Saint-Germain tried to check by developing mystical ideas among the most advanced men of the period. He had foreseen the chaos of the last years of the eighteenth century and hoped to give it a turn in the direction of peace by spreading among its future promoters a philosophy that might change them. But he reckoned without the slowness with which the soul of man develops and without the aversion that man brings to the task. And he left out of his calculations the powerful reactions of hatred. All over the country secret societies sprang up. The new spirit manifested itself in the form of associations. Neither the nobility nor the clergy escaped what had become a fashion. There were even formed lodges for women, and the Princesse de Lamballe became grand mistress of one of them. In Germany there were the Illuminati and the Knights of Strict Observance, and Frederick II, when he came to the throne, founded the sect of the Architects of Africa. In France, the Order of the Templars was reconstituted, and Freemasonry, whose grand master was the Duke de Chartres, increased the number of its lodges in every town. Martinez de Pasqually taught his philosophy at Marseilles, Bordeaux and Toulouse; and Savalette de Lange, with mystics such as Court de Gebelin and Saint-Martin, founded the lodge of the Friends Assembled. The initiates of these sects understood that they were the depositories of a heritage that they did not know, but whose boundless value they guessed; it was to be found somewhere, perhaps in traditions, perhaps in a book written by a master, perhaps in themselves. They spoke of this revealing word, this hidden treasure it was said to be in the hands of "unknown superiors of these sects, who would one day disclose the wealth which gives freedom and immortality." It was this immortality of the spirit that Saint-Germain tried to bring to a small group of chosen initiates. He believed that this minority, once it was developed itself, would, in its turn, help to develop another small number, and that a vast spiritual radiation would gradually descend, in beneficent waves, towards the more ignorant masses. It was a sage's dream, which was never to be realized. Saint-Germain's Philosophy With the co-operation of Savalette de Lange, who was the nominal head, he founded the group of Philalethes, or truth-lovers, which was recruited from the cream of the Friends Assembled. The Prince of Hesse, Condorcet, and Cagliostro were all members of this group. Saint-Germain expounded his philosophy at Ermenonville and in Paris, in the rue Platriere. It was a Platonic Christianity, which combined Swedenborg's visions with Martinez de Pasqually's theory of reintegration. There were to be found in it Plotinus' emanations and the hierarchy of successive planes described by Hermeticists and modem theosophists. He taught that man has in him infinite possibilities and that, from the practical point of view, he must strive unceasingly to free himself of matter in order to enter into communication with the world of higher intelligences. He was understood by some. In two great successive assemblies, at which every Masonic lodge in France was represented, the Philalethes attempted the reform of Freemasonry. If they had attained their aim, if they had succeeded in directing the great force of Freemasonry by the prestige of their philosophy, which was sublime and disinterested, it may be that the course of events would have been altered, that the old dream of a world guided by philosopher-initiates would have been realized. But matters were to turn out differently. Old causes, created by accumulated injustices had paved the way for terrible effects. These effects were in their turn to create the causes of future evil. The chain of evil, linked firmly together by men's egoism and hatred, was not to be broken. The light kindled by a few wise visionaries, a few faithful watchers over the well being of their brothers, was extinguished almost as soon as it was kindled. Legend of the Eternal Master Napoleon III, puzzled and interested by what he had heard about the mysterious life of the Comte de Saint-Germain, instructed one of his librarians to search for and collect all that could be found about him in archives and documents of the latter part of the eighteenth century. This was done, and a great number of papers, forming an enormous dossier, was deposited in the library of the prefecture of police. Unfortunately, the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune supervened, and the part of the building in which the dossier was kept was burnt. Thus once again a synchronous accident upheld the ancient law that decrees that the life of the adept must always be surrounded with mystery. What happened to the Comte de Saint-Germain after 1821, in which year there is evidence that he was still alive? An Englishman, Albert Vandam, in his memoirs, which he calls An Englishman in Paris, speaks of a certain person whom he knew towards the end of Louis Philippe's reign and whose way of life bore a curious resemblance to that of the Comte de Saint-Germain. "He called himself Major Fraser, wrote Vandam, "lived alone and never alluded to his family. Moreover he was lavish with money, though the source of his fortune remained a mystery to everyone. He possessed a marvelous knowledge of all the countries in Europe at all periods. His memory was absolutely incredible and, curiously enough, he often gave his hearers to understand that he had acquired his learning elsewhere than from books. Many is the time he has told me, with a strange smile, that he was certain he had known Nero, had spoken with Dante, and so on." Like Saint-Germain, Major Fraser had the appearance of a man of between forty and fifty, of middle height and strongly built. The rumor was current that he was the illegitimate son of a Spanish prince. After having been, also like Saint-Germain, a cause of astonishment to Parisian society for a considerable time, he disappeared without leaving a trace. Was it the same Major Fraser who, in 1820, published an account of his journey in the Himalayas, in which he said he had reached Gangotri, the source of the most sacred branch of the Ganges River, and bathed in the source of the Jumna River? It was at the end of the nineteenth century that the legend of Saint-Germain grew so inordinately. By reason of his knowledge, of the integrity of his life, of his wealth and of the mystery that surrounded him, he might reasonably have been taken for an heir of the first Rosicrucians, for a possessor of the Philosopher's Stone. But the theosophists and a great many occultists regarded him as a master of the great White Lodge of the Himalayas. The legend of these masters is well known. According to it there live in inaccessible lamaseries in Tibet certain wise men who possess the ancient secrets of the lost civilization of Atlantis. Sometimes they send to their imperfect brothers, who are blinded by passions and ignorance, sublime messengers to teach and guide them. Krishna, the Buddha, and Jesus were the greatest of these. But there were many other more obscure messengers, of whom Saint-Germain has been considered to be one. "This pupil of Hindu and Egyptian hierophants, this holder of the secret knowledge of the East," theosophist Madam Blavatsky says of him, "was not appreciated for who he was. The stupid world has always treated in this way men who, like Saint-Germain, have returned to it after long years of seclusion devoted to study with their hands full of the treasure of esoteric wisdom and with the hope of making the world better, wiser and happier." Between 1880 and 1900 it was admitted among all theosophists, who at that time had become very numerous, particularly in England and America, that the Comte de Saint-Germain was still alive, that he was still engaged in the spiritual development of the West, and that those who sincerely took part in this development had the possibility of meeting him. The brotherhood of Khe-lan was famous throughout Tibet, and one of their most famous brothers was an Englishman who had arrived one day during the early part of the twentieth century from the West. He spoke every language, including the Tibetan, and knew every art and science, says the tradition. His sanctity and the phenomena produced by him caused him to be proclaimed a Shaberon Master after a residence of but a few years. His memory lives to the present day among the Tibetans, but his real name is a secret with the Shaberons alone. Might not this mysterious traveler be the Comte de Saint-Germain? But even if he has never come back, even if he is no longer alive and we must relegate to legend the idea that the great Hermetic nobleman is still wandering about the world with his sparkling jewels, his senna tea, and his taste for princesses and queens even so it can be said that he has gained the immortality he sought. For a great number of imaginative and sincere men the Comte de Saint-Germain is more alive than he has ever been. There are men who, when they hear a step on the staircase, think it may perhaps be he, coming to give them advice, to bring them some unexpected philosophical idea. They do not jump up to open the door to their guest, for material barriers do not exist for him. There are men who, when they go to sleep, are pervaded by genuine happiness because they are certain that their spirit, when freed from the body, will be able to hold converse with the master in the luminous haze of the astral world. The Comte de Saint-Germain is always present with us. There will always be, as there were in the eighteenth century, mysterious doctors, enigmatic travelers, bringers of occult secrets, to perpetuate him. Some will have bathed in the sources of the Ganges, and others will show a talisman found in the pyramids. But they are not necessary. They diminish the range of the mystery by giving it everyday, material form. The Comte de Saint-Germain is immortal, as he always dreamed of being.
  9. According to a blessing Milarepa uttered towards the end of his life, anyone who but hears the name Milarepa even once attracts an instant blessing and will not take rebirth in a lower state of existence during seven consecutive lifetimes. This was prophesied by Saints and Buddhas of the past even before his lifetime. Milarepa is one of the most widely known Tibetan Saints. In a superhuman effort, he rose above the miseries of his younger life and with the help of his Guru, Marpa the Translator, took to a solitary life of meditation until he had achieved the pinnacle of the enlightened state, never to be born again into the Samsara (whirlpool of life and death) of worldly existence. Out of compassion for humanity, he undertook the most rigid asceticism to reach the Buddhic state of enlightenment and to pass his accomplishments on to the rest of humanity. His spiritual lineage was passed along to his chief disciples, Gambopa and Rechung. It was Rechung who recorded in detail the incidents of Milarepa's life for posterity. The narrative of his life has thus been passed down through almost a millennium of time and has become an integral part of Tibetan culture. In addition to Rechung's narrative of his life, summarized below, Milarepa extemporaneously composed innumerable songs throughout his life relevant to the dramatic turns of events of himself and his disciples in accordance with an art form that was in practice at the time. These songs have been widely sung and studied in Tibet ever since and have been recorded as the Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa. His faithful devotion, boundless religious zeal, monumental forbearance, superhuman perseverance, and ultimate final attainment are a great inspiration today for all. His auspicious life illumined the Buddhist faith and brought the light of wisdom to sentient beings everywhere. The Life of Milarepa Milarepa was born into the family of Mila-Dorje-Senge in the year 1052. His father was a trader in wool and had become wealthy by the standards of the time when his wife bore a son. The son was named Thopaga which means delightful to hear, and Thopaga, later known as Mila-repa (Mila, the cotton clad), lived up to his name as he had a beautiful voice and charmed his companions with his singing. The family lived in a large stone house that consisted of three stories held in place by a large central pillar and supporting columns - a mansion in comparison to the modest homes of his neighbors. The brother and sister of Milarepa's father had also settled in the area along with their families, and the clan would often congregate at the great stone house of Mila-Dorje-Senge. The family was well to do and generous and became the darling of all the relatives and neighbors in the area. They would often gather at the house to enjoy feasts. The gathering of friends and neighbors would often fawn over the small children - the young son Milarepa (then called Thopaga), and his sister, Peta who was four years younger. During this period the family enjoyed the admiration and attention of their neighbors, ate only the finest food and wore nothing but fancy clothes and jewelry. About this time the father, Mila-Dorje-Senge, became gravely ill and accepting his impending death, called together the extended family and made known to all that he wanted his entire estate and all possessions put into the care of his brother and sister until such time as Milarepa had grown and married Zesay, one of the neighboring girls who had been betrothed to him in childhood according to the tradition of the times. After the fathers death, however, Milarepa's greedy Aunt and Uncle who had been given charge of the property, divided the estate between them, dispossessing Milarepa, his mother, and sister Peta of all their worldly possessions. They were forced to live with them in the lowest accommodations and were given only coarse food and even made to work in the fields. Over the ensuing years their health suffered, their clothes were rough and tattered, the heads of the two children became invaded by lice. The mother and her two children who had formerly been the darlings of the village, now became objects of derision and abuse by all, who now spurned and ridiculed them. A Rock Monastery in Tibet "All worldly pursuits have but the one unavoidable end, which is sorrow: acquisitions end in dispersion; buildings in destruction; meetings in separation; births, in death. Knowing this, one should, from the very first, renounce acquisition and heaping up, and building, and meeting; and faithful to the commands of an eminent guru, set about realizing the Truth (which has no birth or death)." Milarepa When Milarepa reached his fifteenth year, his mother decided on a plan to recover the lost inheritance. She scraped together whatever resources she could borrow from neighbors and relatives and put on a feast, inviting all who had been present when her husband had died and made known his last wishes. As the assembled neighbors and relatives were feasting and drinking large cups of chang (fermented barley), she stood up and recounted all that her husband had said on his deathbed, reminding her husband's brother and sister that they were to be only caretakers of the estate. Now that Milarepa had attained his majority, she requested that all the property be restored to them But the greedy Aunt and Uncle now claimed that they had been the original owners and had only loaned the property to the Mila-Dorje-Senge family and thus, Milarapa and his mother had no real claim on the property. The aunt and uncle now began indignantly slapping Milarepa's mother and the two children, calling them ungrateful wretches to act thus after accepting the charity of living with them and eating their food. Thus they drove them out of the large stone house to let the mother and children fend for themselves. Some of the relatives and neighbors were sympathetic to Milarepa's family, but they were not sufficient in strength or numbers to oppose the clan of the Aunt and Uncle. And so it happened that the three were turned out of their own house. After that they lived meagerly, supported by the relatives of Milarepa's mother and charity from Zesay's family. The three were forced to work hard, exchanging their labor for a bit of food or a scrap of clothing. During this time they found no joy in their lives whatsoever. One day Milarepa happened to be singing loudly, proud of his voice, when his mother overheard him and was stung to the quick by his unseemly outburst of happiness. She immediately berated him for his transgression in the face of the relentless misery of their existence. She thought over the situation and decided to take action. She wanted him to learn the black arts of sorcery in order to wreak vengeance on their enemies, the greedy Aunt and Uncle. Milarepa agreed that he would apply himself under a good teacher if his mother provided him with fees for the apprenticeship and living expenses. In order to do so, She sold half of the small plot of property that had belonged to her side of the family before her marriage and sent Milarapa off with money. Before he took her leave she very solemnly told him that she would kill herself in his very presence if he returned without having learned sufficient magic to be able to wreak some havoc on their enemies. Milarepa traveled a distance away to a Lama who was known about the countryside as one who was proficient in the black arts. Along with some other young apprentices, Milarepa spent nearly a year learning mostly ineffectual magic rites with high sounding titles. At the end of the year, the pupils were sent off and told that if they applied themselves diligently they would succeed in their quest. Milarepa accompanied his companions for a time as they took their leave but then turned back to the Lama's house. Along the way, he collected a quantity of manure and dug a hole and buried it in the Lama's garden as a small gift to his teacher. The Lama observed this from his roof, and is said to have remarked that he had never had a pupil more affectionate and industrious as the young lad Milarepa was. The latter, went in to the Lama's presence and told him of his mother's vow to kill herself in his presence if he didn't learn some real magic. He then recounted his tale of woe in all its detail to the Lama who was greatly saddened by the story. The Lama decided to confer some real power on Milarepa but he wanted to make sure that the magic would not be used unjustly so he sent a fleet disciple to Milarepa's homeland to find out if the tale was true. On the disciples return, he agreed to show him the true and potent rituals for invoking the Tutelary deities to take revenge. Milarepa absorbed all the teachings thoroughly and carefully carried out the prescribed ritual for 14 days. At the end of the ritual the Tutelary deities appeared to him in a vision with the bloody heads and hearts of 35 of the relatives who had most ill-treated him. The Lama informed him that two of the guilty ones had been missed and asked Milarepa if he wanted their lives as well. He replied that he wanted them to be spared as witnesses to the power of his magic. Thus it came to pass that his two very worst enemies, the greedy Aunt and Uncle were spared from harm. From a phenomenal aspect, the sorcery took the form of a disaster that occurred at the family wedding. All the relatives and friends who had been most offensive to him had gathered at the great stone house to celebrate the wedding. There was a big commotion outside and some of the horses kept in the yard started kicking and running about violently agitated, until one of them ran into the main supporting column of the three story house with such force that the entire house came crashing down on the wedding party with tremendous noise and force killing everyone inside except for the Aunt and Uncle. All this was observed by some of those sympathetic to the Milarepa family who were just approaching the house. Milarepa's mother quickly learned of the catastrophe and was ecstatic with cruel joy. She came gloating over the destruction that her son had caused telling everyone what joy her son had brought to her aging heart by causing so much death and destruction. The relatives of the dead were quite upset at the tragedy and more so to learn of her gloating. They talked it over but were divided on whether to get together and kill her in revenge, or to go after her son Milarepa, who had directly caused the destruction. After due consideration they decided to find and kill the son. Soon word of their plans got back to the mother so she sent a message to her son, along with several gold pieces she got from selling the remaining half of her plot of land. In the note she described her joy at his success and requested him now to launch a powerful hail storm on the area, ruining the crops of their enemies and striking fear into their hearts so as to prevent further retaliation. Milarepa received the note from the pilgrim courier and gave the gold pieces over to the Sorcerer-Lama, requesting him to teach him the art of launching hail storms. Armed with his new magic, Milarepa traveled incognito back to his homeland and set up his ritualistic site on a hillside overlooking the valley of his homeland below. He began his incantations and soon dark clouds began to gather and then a succession of three powerful hail storms utterly ruined the entire barley crop of that year, a crop that had promised to be one of the heaviest in years. After the destruction, Milarepa retreated to a cave in the hillside to escape the cold wind and lit a fire for warmth. After a few hours he heard some of his former neighbors walking by the cave he had taken refuge in. They had guessed who was responsible for this fresh mischief and were immensely angered by the all destruction he had caused, first to the 35 people killed in the wedding party, and now to the season's rich harvest of barley - utterly laid waste. The men were talking amongst themselves, saying as they walked past the cave that if Milarapa fell into their hands at that very moment, their vengeance could hardly be satisfied by chopping his body into tiny bits; such was their anger. At that instant one of them spotted the fire and guessed that it was Milarepa himself taking refuge in the cave. They hurried quickly and quietly away to go gather a party to go after him. Meanwhile as soon as they had left, Milarepa made good his escape and journeyed back to the Sorcerer-Lama. Lone Rider in Tibetan Immensity "If you do not acquire contentment in yourselves, Heaped-up accumulations will only enrich others. If you do not obtain the light of Inner Peace, Mere external ease and pleasure will become a source of pain. If you do not suppress the Demon of Ambition, Desire for fame will lead to ruin and to lawsuits" Milarepa The Lama congratulated Milarepa on his success but by now Milarapa was deeply repenting all the evil deeds his mother had urged him to commit. He longed for religion and wanted to be delivered from committing further evil acts. He worried greatly over the heavy debts of karma he had incurred through his evil actions and could think of nothing else. He wanted to ask the Lama Guru for religious instruction but didn't have the nerve to broach the subject so he stayed on, faithfully serving the Lama and waiting for an opportune moment to bring up the subject of his salvation. The Lama now was called away to attend to one of his followers who had died after a short illness. The Lama returned lamenting that such an excellent man in the prime of his life had died so suddenly. He spoke on the transitoriness of life and the misery of this earthly existence and then started ruminating over his own life. He had spent his entire life up to that point practicing the art of dealing death and destruction and teaching those same black arts to many others. By doing so he had to take at least a portion of the karmic responsibility for all the evil acts that had come out of it. In his mood of deep remorse, he urged Milarepa to go and seek out a teacher of the Holy Dharma and at least deliver himself and maybe even the Lama into a higher state of existence in a future life. This was precisely the opportunity Milarepa had been waiting for. He prayed to be allowed to take to the religious life and his teacher readily agreed, giving him gifts and a letter of introduction to a well known Lama versed in a doctrine called "The Great Perfection". Milarepa went to the Lama and requested to be taught. The Lama gave him some meditation instructions and told him to go practice but after a few days, the Lama had an insight that he was not the proper teacher for Milarepa, so he sent him on to a very learned Lama he knew of named "Marpa the Translator". Marpa was known widely among other religious centers for his trips to India to procure sacred teachings which he had brought back to Tibet in large bundles of scrolls. Marpa had been initiated by the famed Naropa, a powerful Saint who had fully transferred his exalted state of enlightenment to his disciple Marpa. Naropa, Guru of Marpa 1016 - 1100 AD. He gained enlightenment under Tilopa. Tilopa is believed to have been an incarnation of Amitabha - the Buddha of Boundless Light. When Milarepa first heard the Lama utter the name "Marpa", he felt a thrill go through his body. Suddenly all his hairs stood on end and tears of joy started flowing from his eyes. He set out thinking of nothing else but the moment he would finally set eyes on his new guru. Meanwhile, the day before Milarepa arrived, Marpa the Translator had a dream in which his own Guru, the Great Saint Naropa appeared to him and gave him a five pointed dorje (i.e. sceptre) made of the precious gem lapis lazuli. The dorje, however, was slightly tarnished and Naropa urged him to wash the dirt off with an elixir of holy water from a golden pot until it shone in splendour and then to raise it up upon a Banner of Victory. In his dream Marpa saw that the dorje, once polished and raised up emitted a brilliant radiance that shone on all the sentient beings in the six Lokas (the physical and spiritual realms or worlds). In his dream, the spectacle of the radiant dorje was blessed with the benedictions of the Victorious Ones (previous humanity who had passed into the state of Buddhahood, or enlightenment). Marpa was a member of the Kargyutpa sect and one of the specialties of the lineage was to divine future events through the reading of omens. From the dream he knew that a momentous meeting with his chief disciple was about to take place and that his task was to expiate some evil karma by which the disciple had been tarnished and then to bring him to the state of enlightenment. Marpa left his house telling his wife Damema that he was going to plow his field that day, a thing he had never done before. Marpa walked down the road a ways and kept busy at the plowing until he spied Milarepa coming up the road towards him. As soon as Milarepa approached and laid eyes on the Lama Marpa, an inexpressible bliss gripped him and for a few moments he lost consciousness of his surroundings swept up in an ecstatic state. As soon as he had recovered he addressed Marpa as Reverend Sir and asked him where he might find the faithful disciple of the famous saint Naropa who was called Marpa the translator. Milarepa added that he wanted to learn the True Doctrine by which he might obtain Deliverance in one single lifetime. At this Marpa was inwardly pleased but he showed no emotion and only said that he would procure an introduction to the Lama Marpa if only Milarepa would finish the task of plowing the field. Marpa offered Milarepa some chang (barley beverage) as refreshment. Milarepa thanked him and drank the entire quantity of chang offered. Milarepa then plowed the field with enthusiasm and even when one of the disciples came to call him to the Lama's presence, Milarepa asked him to wait until he had finished plowing the field thoroughly and completely as requested by Marpa. Marpa took these two omens as signs of his new disciple's thoroughness and willingness to work towards the spiritual goal. After that initial meeting began a period during which Marpa held out the goal of spiritual instruction and kept Milarepa busy at strenuous physical labours building various stone edifices. By nature Marpa was outwardly a rough and tyrannical teacher but inwardly he was all love and compassion. By the previous omens and Milarepa's recounting of his evil deeds, Marpa knew there was a great deal of evil karma to be worked out so he pretended to be always short tempered and demanding with the sincere and faithful lad. He had Milarepa build a stone structure on a high rocky ridge only to have him tear it down again, and take all the rocks and boulders back to where they were found, telling him he had changed his plans and now wanted a new structure built in another place. This was repeated on three different ridges until finally he had Milarepa build a grand many storied edifice on yet a forth ridge. Throughout the tasks, Milarepa never lost faith that he would receive the instructions he was looking for and put forth a Herculean effort, moving stones that ordinarily could only be moved by the combined strength of three men. He put forth such strenuous effort that he wore his body out until his back was one great sore from carrying rocks and mortar. His arms and legs were all cracked and bruised. Yet he continued working on, every day hoping at last to be favored with some religious instruction. Out of sympathy with his wounds, Marpa showed him how to pad his back and allowed him to rest while his body healed, but never did he allow Milarepa to avoid any of the building work that he had set out for him to complete. Milarepa's Guru, Marpa the Translator of Lhobhrak 1012-1096 AD Marpa made the dangerous trek to India three times during his life, each time taking back esoteric Tantric and other teachings which he translated into the Tibetan Language During the years when all this building was going on, Marpa continued giving instruction to his other students. On several different occasions, various individuals among the disciples underwent initiations to receive the sacred instructions and Milarepa would try to join them but the Lama would drive him away with angry shouts and fierce beatings, causing him great mental distress. Each time Milarepa would be plunged into deep despair thinking that Marpa's actions were due only to the evil he had previously done. Sometimes Milarepa considered taking drastic action but each time he was on the verge of either taking his own life or running away, Marpa's wife, Damema, would give him sympathy and comfort, telling him the Lama would surely soon favor him with some instruction. Soon another opportunity for instruction presented itself with the grand initiation of some disciples into the Mandala rite of Gaypa Dorje'. Marpa's wife Damema secretly gave a rare colored turquoise which had been in her family to Milarepa as an offering of the initiation fee and then urged him to take his place once again with the other participants to the initiation. When the time came for the ceremony, Marpa approached Milarepa, carefully examined the turquoise and asked him how he came to possess it. Milarepa had to confess that the Reverend Mother (Damema) had given it to him. In reply Marpa merely told him that if he had anything of his own to offer he could stay. Thinking that maybe the Lama would soften and allow him to take initiation, Milarepa stayed on a while and waited. But this only made Marpa furious (at least outwardly) and he threw young Milarepa to the ground with great force and made as if to beat him with a stick. At this the young lad felt as if his heart was breaking, and weeping openly he left the house. The next day the Lama summoned him and asked him if his refusal to confer initiation on him had shaken his faith. Milarepa replied that he only considered that it was the result of his own evil deeds which had prevented him from taking his place in the ceremony, whereupon he burst into tears anew. At this, the Lama ordered him out in an angry voice, asking him how he dared try to blame the Lama for this by his weeping so in his presence. Again Milarepa was sunk into the utmost despair feeling as if his heart were being torn out. Milarepa went off by himself and thinking things over he concluded that the Lama never would confer on him the spiritual truths he was seeking and that he would have to seek them elsewhere. So he sought out Damema and told her of his plans to find another Guru. She reluctantly agreed that it appeared the Lama never would give him any instruction. Therefore she gave him some relics of Marpa's Guru Naropa as a gift and sent him off to another highly developed Lama, Ngogpa, who was of the same sect as Marpa. She wrote a note asking Lama Ngogpa to teach Milarepa some religious instructions and then sealed the note with Marpa's own seal. After a short journey to the Lama's monastery, Milarepa arrived just as Lama Ngogpa had reached an auspicious point in a lecture to a large number of his pupils. He was reading: "I am the Expounder and I am the Truth. I am the Teacher of the World. I am the Being who has passed beyond all states of worldly existence. I am the Blissful one." Just as he said these words, he looked up to see Milarepa prostrating before him in salutation. The Lama took this simple sign as an omen that Milarepa would one day become a master of all religious lore. As soon as Milarepa presented the Lama with Naropa's sacred relics and the note requesting instruction, the Lama was overjoyed to be so favored with such auspicious gifts and he then ordered a great celebration. Lama Ngogpa had heard about the Great Sorcerer (as Milarepa was called) staying with Marpa and had thought about sending for him. The Lama explained to Milarepa that many of his pupils had been waylaid and robbed of their meager possessions and supplies by the lawless inhabitants of one of the nearby provinces as they journeyed to and from the lamasery. He therefore dispatched Milarepa to launch a powerful hailstorm on the area. He promised Milarepa that as soon as this was accomplished, he would give him the instructions he sought. Now Milarepa bitterly repented his fate that instead of getting religious instruction, he was now being asked to commit still more evil acts. But he saw no way he could refuse so he set out for the province and set up his apparatus on a hillside and began the rites. Soon a large and violent storm gathered and let loose huge quantities of rain and hail. After the storm had passed he saw that the fields of grain had all been wasted, the hills around were deeply cut by ravines, and many of the domestic animals of the residents as well as even birds, rats, and other animals had perished in the storm. Finding a shepherd who had lost his entire flock, Milarepa made known to him that the people of the province had better refrain from robbing the religious pilgrims passing through the area or risk having more disastrous hail storms visited upon them. On hearing of this the people were profoundly impressed with the power of Lama Ngogpa and not only refrained from robbing the pilgrims in the future, but many of them became devoted followers and faithfully served him. Ice Shrouded Himalayas "If you lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit to serve others you will be. And when in serving others you will win success, then shall you meet with me; And finding me, you shall attain to Buddhahood." Milarepa Milarepa returned to the Lama in despair bewailing the fact that he came to the Lama searching for religious teaching but instead had been required to heap up even more sin. The Lama comforted him by telling him that all that had perished in the flood would in future times become themselves pupils on the path to Buddhahood. Lama Ngogpa now fulfilled his promise to Milarepa and initiated him into the sacred rite of the Mandala of Gaypa Dorje. Milarepa was then conducted to a solitary cave where he was walled up inside of it with a stone wall held in place with mud as mortar. Now he was to commence his meditation practices. A small aperture was left for handing in food and water. Milarepa followed the Lama's meditation instructions with great zeal but despite a prodigious effort on his part, he failed utterly to experience any kind of spiritual development. After a while the Lama came to him and asked him if he had experienced such and such to which Milarepa replied in the negative. The Lama was greatly puzzled as even the least advanced pupil should have had at least some measure of experiences by that point. Milarepa was inwardly alarmed by this and guessed that it was because he did not have Marpa's blessings. He was afraid to say anything though so he kept quiet and the Lama directed him to continue with his practices. At about this time, Lama Ngogpa received a summons from Marpa to join him for a great religious event. The letter also stated that Lama Ngogpa should return the "wicked person" who had taken refuge with him. The Lama went to Milarepa's cave and read the letter to him. At this Milarepa confessed that indeed, it was not Marpa that had sent him there for instruction, but his wife, the Reverend Mother Damema. The Lama then stated that in that case, they had been engaged in totally profitless work. Lama Ngogpa now collected all his pupils and taking a large number of objects and all his livestock as offerings in the ceremony, they proceeded to the residence of Marpa. When they were a short distance away, Lama Ngogpa sent Milarapa ahead to inform Marpa that they were near so that he could send some disciples back with refreshments (according to Tibetan custom). Milarepa hurried to Marpa's residence and first encountered Damema. They greeted one another with great joy like reunited mother and son. She then told him to go inside and pay his respects to Marpa. Marpa was on the top floor of the house and when Milarepa approached from one direction, Marpa turned in another. Milarepa approached him again and Marpa turned back in yet another direction. Then Milarepa informed him that though he was unwilling to accept his own obeisance, Marpa should at least prepare a reception for Lama Ngogpa's party who was now only a short distance away. Marpa became enraged at this and replied that when he himself had returned from India with a load of precious teachings, not even as much as a lame bird hopped out to greet him. At this Milarepa left to find Damema. The two, along with some of Marpa's disciples went back with a quantity of chang to greet Lama Ngogpa's party. Once the entire group had assembled, the religious consecration of the completed residence of Marpa's son was carried out. Then a few days later, Marpa conferred on Lama Ngogpa the final ear whispered teaching that he lacked - the Short Cut of the Immutable Path - through which it is possible to attain to Nirvana in a single lifetime. After this Marpa put on a great feast, including his own disciples and all those who had assembled there from far distant locations. During the feast, Marpa sat looking fiercely at Lama Ngogpa and suddenly pointing an accusing finger at him and glancing at his long staff he had by his side, he demanded that the Lama account for his inexcusable behaviour in granting teachings to the wicked and evil Milarepa. The Lama was terrified and replied to him that he had only carried out the instructions that Marpa himself had written in his letter, signed with his own seal and accompanied by the relics of Saint Naropa to show their authenticity. Marpa then turned on Milarepa and demanded to know where he got the relics of Naropa to give to the Lama. Milarepa shrunk in terror and felt his soul within sinking. He quickly passed from a state of extreme terror to one of extreme anguish, feeling once again as if his heart were being torn out. He began trembling and could scarcely talk for his terror. He felt compelled to inform Marpa that the Reverend Mother Damema had sent him to the Lama with the note and the relics of Naropa. At this Marpa turned fiercely to Damema to accuse her, but anticipating just such an event, she had already escaped the room and went into the chapel, barring the door behind her. Marpa then demanded that Lama Ngogpa return to his monastery and bring back the garlands and rosary of rubies that had once belonged to the great saint Naropa. The Lama left immediately to do so and encountered Milarepa outside who had also made his escape when the Reverend Mother had run out of the room. Milarepa was in a corner weeping from the deepest depths of despair and he asked the Lama to please ensure that he would get a proper birth in his next life with a chance to attain enlightenment. He explained that because of all the evil deeds he had committed he had not only had made himself suffer but had also involved the Lama and the Reverend Mother in his suffering. He had now lost all hope of attaining teachings in this life and in his despair, planned to take his own life on the spot. The Lama himself burst into tears at this and pleaded with Milarepa not to take his own life. He informed him that the Mystic Doctrine held that all the various bodily principles and faculties are divine and that to prematurely end the present life before it's natural period of dissolution was the greatest sin of all incurring the severest of punishments. Then Lama Ngogpa sought to comfort Milarepa as did many of the disciples who joined in to offer their own sympathies. But Milarepa remained in deep despair, bitterly repenting the black deeds he had previously committed that were now producing all his present suffering. Meanwhile all the anger seemed to drain out of Marpa and he became calm and mild and asked one of his disciples to go and bring Lama Ngogpa, Damema, and Milarepa back into his presence, but this made Milarepa even more despondent. He envied the others, called back to Marpa's presence, but as for himself, he knew that his teacher would only show fresh displeasure at him if he returned with the others. So he remained there still weeping with despair and Lama Ngogpa remained with him to soothe him and make sure he didn't do anything rash. Marpa now sent Damema to request Milarepa to return saying that he was now to be the honored guest. Damema went to him smiling broadly and told him that it appeared that Lama Marpa was now really going to favor him with some teaching. Milarepa very much doubted that this could be so but nonetheless returned with the others and all took their seats around Marpa. Now Marpa made a detailed recounting of all that had occurred from the time he first met his worthy disciple. He first said that he had set Milarepa at hard labor building various edifices to help absolve him of his sins. His own anger, he said was not common anger, but spiritual or religious anger and it had as its aim to incite repentance and contribute to the spiritual development of the recipient. If he had had the chance of plunging his spiritual son (Milarepa) into abject despair nine times he would have been able to cleanse him completely of all his sins. But owing to the misplaced pity and narrow understanding of his wife Damema, who had interfered with his plans, he was only able to do this eight times. However, the sufferings that Milarepa had undergone had cleansed him of his major sins and his other chastenings had cleansed him of most of his minor sins leaving him with only a residual amount of demerit to be worked off. Now Marpa announced that he was going to finally confer on Milarepa those initiations and teachings of his sect that bring liberation in a single lifetime and then he planned to shut him up in a cave to begin his meditations. Milarepa was not sure if he were dreaming or awake but if dreaming he wished the dream to continue and began to weep, not out of misery, but for the pure inexpressible joy that was now possessing his soul. He made obeisance to the guru Marpa and all those present admired Marpa for his stern and inflexible will while chastening Milarepa, and for his wisdom and mercy in working out his salvation. All were now beaming and smiling as they partook of the sacrificial cakes. The next day, Marpa erected the Demchog Mandala and through mantras, invoked the presence of the deities who presided over the succession of gurus in the Kargyutpa Sect of which Marpa was now the current youngest lineage holder. Milarepa now had the vision of the presiding tutelary deities invoked by the Mandala, thus receiving their benediction on his initiation. Then Marpa gave him instruction in the methods of meditation and explained the meanings of all the omens and events that had occurred since the initial meeting of the two. He told Milarepa that he in his turn would have disciples full of faith, intelligence, and energy, owing to his own patience, faith and acceptance in all the trials he had undergone during his cleansing period. Now Milarepa began his meditation training. Marpa shut him up in a cave with a supply of provisions. Milarepa used to start his meditations each day by putting a lighted lamp on his head. He would continue meditating until the lamp went out. After eleven months of this Marpa and Damema came to take him out of isolation and assess his progress. Milarepa was reluctant to take a break from his meditations because of the great progress he was making but he followed his Guru's dictates. Marpa now asked him what understandings he had obtained from his meditations. Milarepa first sang a song which he extemporaneously composed honoring his Guru and his wife and the teachings he had been given. In his song he requested that Marpa remain in the world until "The Whirling Pool of Being is emptied". After that he summarized his realizations. Milarepa's Initial Realizations I have understood this body of mine to be the product of ignorance, composed of flesh and blood and lit up by the perceptive power of consciousness. To those fortunate ones who long for emancipation it may be the great vessel by which they may procure Freedom. But to the unfortunates who only sin, it may be the guide to lower and miserable states of existence. This our life is the boundary mark whence one may take an upward or downward path. Our present time is a most precious time, wherein each of us must decide, in one way or other, for lasting good or lasting ill. One who aims only at his own individual peace and happiness adopts the lower path (Hinayana), but he who devotes the merits of his love and compassion to the cause of others belongs to the higher path (Mahayana). In meditating on the Final Goal, one has to discover the non-existence of the personal Ego, and therefore the fallacy that it exists (i.e. because everything in the universe with name and form is basically illusory in nature) To realize the state of non-existence of the personal ego, the mind must be kept in quiescence. In that state, thoughts, ideas, and cognition cease and the mind (awareness) passes into a state of perfect tranquility so that days, months, and years may pass without the person perceiving it; thus the passage of time has to be marked for him by others. The visions of the forms of the Deities which appear in meditation are merely signs attending the perseverance in meditation. They have no intrinsic worth or value in themselves. All the efforts put forth during this path must be made in a spirit of compassion with the aim of dedicating the merit of one's efforts to the Universal Good. There is a need of mentally praying and wishing for blessings on others so earnestly that one's mind processes also transcend thought. Just as the mere name of food does not satisfy the appetite of a hungry person but he must eat food, so also a man who would learn about the Voidness (i.e. Universal Awareness) must meditate so as to realize it, not just learn of its definition. After the recounting, Marpa was exceedingly pleased and told Milarepa that he had expected much but that his expectations had all been exceeded. Milarepa was then allowed to go back to the cave for more meditation. By now Marpa was getting on in years. Since he began teaching Milarepa, he had made two more trips to India to visit his Guru Naropa and receive the final texts he had not brought back in his earlier trips. Marpa now called together all his chief Lamas and disciples, including Milarepa, and gave to each those mystics texts that would be most valuable according to each person's line of development. Each also received some relic that had belonged to Naropa. To Milarepa was given the teaching of Tum-mo in which the ascending and descending flows along the spinal column are united to produce the vital heat so necessary for meditation in the cold and solitary caves of the Himalayas. Then all returned to their own province except Milarepa who continued for several more years of meditation in a cave under the direction of Marpa. Usually Milarepa never slept but meditated continuously, however one particular day he had slept for a long time and had a vivid dream wherein he saw the house he had lived in as a child all in ruins. He saw his sacred books within the fallen house being wasted by rain water, his old mother had died, and his sister was roving about the countryside with no attachments and no friends. In his dream he was weeping with great sadness and longing for his mother and sister and he woke up feeling very sad. He tried again to meditate but could not shed his sadness; instead the feeling grew stronger and stronger until he vowed to himself to go out into the world and try to find his family. So he pulled down the rock wall and went to see his guru Marpa. As he entered Marpa's quarters he found him asleep with the rising sun just lighting his head like a halo. Just at that moment, Damema came in with his morning meal. Marpa awoke, alarmed to find Milarepa had left his cave retreat. Milarepa explained that he was overcome with sadness thinking of his beloved mother and sister he had left behind many years ago. He explained to Marpa his great longing to see them once more. Although Marpa felt there was little chance in finding the mother alive and little merit in making the search, he agreed to allow him to go. But, he warned, the fact that Milarepa had entered his quarters and found him asleep was an omen that they would not see each other alive again in this life. Marpa was much grieved at heart thinking he would not again see his spiritual son alive but knowing this was the way of all the perishable things of the world, he requested Damema to deck the alter with offerings for their parting ceremony. He then gave Milarepa the final and highest initiation as well as the sacred ear-whispered tantric doctrines. These doctrines he gave only to Milarepa, among all his disciples. He charged Milarepa in his turn to hand them down to his most worthy disciple and so on for thirteen generations. Then in a final ceremony with the entire assembly of Lamas and disciples, Marpa occultly manifested himself in the forms of Gaypa Dorje and other of the tutelary divinities of the Kargyutpa sect and also other divine shapes and forms along with the various symbols associated with each deity such as bells, gems, lotuses, swords, etc. He then explained that these were various psycho-physical powers obtained after enlightenment and that they should never be manifested for an unworthy cause. This was his parting gift to Milarepa, and this, his spiritual son, greatly exalted in his heart to see that his Guru Marpa was veritably a Buddha himself. He vowed that he himself would gain such powers and show them in his turn to his own disciples. Marpa then told him that he could now depart since he had demonstrated the mirage like nature of all existing things. He instructed Milarepa to meditate in various caves made holy by previous saints in the locale of Mount Kailas, Lapchi Kang (Mt. Everest), and other sanctified places. He then gave to Milarepa a sealed scroll that was to be opened only on dire threat of imminent death. With great sadness, knowing they would not meet again in the present life, Milarepa took leave of his beloved Spiritual Father and Mother with the thought that they would all meet again in the celestial realms. He journeyed quickly to his homeland, crossing several high and dangerous mountain passes to get there. When he arrived he found things just as he had seen in his dream. His mother had died, his house was in ruins and all the neighbors were afraid to go near it thinking it inhabited by evil ghosts. His sister wandered homeless, none knew where. His field was choked with weeds. He entered the ruin that was his house and found a mound with grass growing thickly over it. Moving the dirt he found the bones of what he knew to be his mother. He had the unbearable thought that he would never see his mother again and a deep sadness gripped his soul. He wept bitterly in his loneliness. Remembering his Guru's teachings on the transient nature of reality, he laid down using the mound as a pillow and entered into deep meditation. He soon passed over into the samadhi state in which he remained for seven days. On returning to normal consciousness, he reflected that the world now had nothing left to tempt him or bind him to it. He vowed again and again to himself that the life of solitary meditation was the only path for him. Exchanging his house and land for some food, he left forever his former homeland and proceeded to the Draktar-Taso Cave, the first of many caves he was to inhabit over the remainder of his life. "Life is short and the time of death is uncertain; so apply yourself to meditation. Avoid doing evil, and acquire merit, to the best of your ability, even at the cost of life itself. In short: Act so that you have no cause to be ashamed of yourselves and hold fast to this rule" Milarepa Approaching Mt. Kailas There he settled in the spacious comfortable cave, not even sleeping, but meditating continuously except for a single break once a day to prepare a meal of flour and water mixed with whatever root or edible he might find. At about this time Milarepa gained proficiency in the yogic power of Tum-mo, the generation of the Ecstatic Internal Warmth, in which the body generates a great deal of heat. This allowed him to stay relatively warm through the cold Tibetan winters with nothing but a thin cotton covering whereas most people had to wear thick wool and leather hides. For this reason he came to be called Mila - repa or Mila the cotton clad. His daily routine of meditation continued for four years until his supply of flour ran out. This caused him great concern because he had vowed to himself not to return to the world for any reason - but with no food, he was afraid he might die without having attained liberation. He decided to walk about outside the cave in search of some kind of food. Not far from the cave he found a sunny spot with springs of fresh water, an expansive view of the area, with a large quantity of nettles growing all about. He made a soup of nettle broth and found it to be somewhat palatable. This was now to become his sole source of food for some time to come. He continued his meditations on his new diet, but without any nurturing food, his body soon became emaciated and the hair on his body began to take on a greenish tinge from the nettles. He became very weak and often thought of opening the scroll that Marpa had given him for a time of dire need. But he continued to make progress in his meditations. About this time some hunters chanced to be in the area after failing to find game. When they first laid eyes on Milarepa's pale green form, they fled in terror thinking he was not a man but some kind of evil spirit. But on assuring them he was indeed a human like themselves they lost their fear of him. They demanded that Milarepa share some of his provisions with them as they were out of food but Milarepa told them he had none to share. They did not believe him, so they searched the area and not finding any began to ill treat him. Three of them picked him up several times and dropped him causing him great pain but in his misery he only pitied them and shed tears thinking of the evil karma they were creating for themselves. The fourth hunter entreated the others to stop ill-treating him and leave him alone as he did indeed seem to be a real lama for showing such forbearance over his ill treatment. Before leaving, the fourth man requested Milarepa to remember him in his prayers since the man had done nothing to offend him, and then the group of them left, laughing boisterously. Later Milarepa learned that Divine retribution had overtaken them as they were arrested by the Governor of the province. The leader was killed and all but the fourth man, who had restrained the others from harming Milarepa, had their eyes put out. The meditation continued and Milarepa grew even thinner. The hair on his body took on a more greenish color. Again some hunters chanced upon his cave and also wanted provisions but seeing that he was living only on nettles, they left him the remainder of their own provisions and a large quantity of meat. Milarepa was very grateful to have some real food and he began to take some daily. The food gave him a sense of bodily comfort and spiritual zeal which he had not experienced in a long time and his meditations took on a new intensity. But eventually the food ran out and once again he fell back on his nettle broth for sustenance. Lapchi Kang Area (Mt. Everest) "Maintain the state of undistractedness and distractions will fly off. Dwell alone and you shall find a friend. Take the lowest place and you shall reach the highest. Hasten slowly and you will soon arrive. Renounce all worldly goals and you shall reach the highest goal." Milarepa Several more years passed in this way and Milarepa's long lost sister Peta heard tales from hunters that had stumbled across his camp. They informed her that her brother was there and looked on the verge of death from starvation. She was amazed to hear even that he was alive and took the news to Zesay, who had been betrothed to Milarepa in childhood. Between the two they agreed that the sister should first go to see him and find out if the rumors were true Approaching the cave, Peta was horrified to see the emaciated green body of her brother, with protruding bones and eyes sunk in his skull. At first she took it to be some strange being or ghost but recognizing her brother's voice, she ran to him crying and bewailing their fate. She expressed to him that they two were the most luckless people in the whole world. At this Milarepa explained that rather he was the most fortunate person in the world because he had attained to transcendent knowledge and Bodhi mind (the internal vision of a Buddha). But his sister felt he was only deluding himself. Peta had brought provisions and a supply of chang and after partaking of some food his mood was greatly elevated. However when he tried to meditate afterwards his mind was filled with a mix of pious and impious thoughts and he was unable to concentrate. A few days later both the sister, Peta, and his betrothed, Zesay, came to visit him bringing cured meat, flour, butter, and chang. They chanced to come upon him when he was out getting water and he had absolutely no clothes on since his wearing cloth had fallen into tattered pieces over the years. His sister told him that no matter how she regarded him he seemed not to be in any way a sane person. They both urged him to at least go out begging for supplies on occasion. Then they went to get some cloth to cover his body with. But Milarepa felt that the hour of death was uncertain. his Guru had told him that his only avenue of success in this life was through continued meditation. He himself was afraid that if he didn't reach enlightenment in this very life, he would be reborn in a lower state due to the evil he had committed early in life, and so he ignored their advice and persevered in his meditation. He finished the chang that Peta had brought and was eating well from the food left by Zesay but he found that his mind was now disturbed and his body was experiencing various pains. No matter how hard he tried to meditate he could no longer enter the samadhi state. Feeling there was no greater danger than not being able to continue with his meditations, he opened the scroll that Marpa had given him for just such a time of dire emergency. In the scroll he found the exact instructions needed for treating the present emergency and he immediately put the instructions into effect with the result that his meditations now increased as never before because of the healthy food he was now eating. The knot of the central spinal column along which the psychic energy flows was now cleared at the plexus (i.e. chakra center) below the naval and the psychic energy current rose up his spine in its fullness. He now experienced a supersensuous calmness and clearness that far exceeded in its ecstatic intensity any of the states he had previously reached. He attained to new heights of realization in which he saw that the highest state of Nirvana and the ordinary state of Samsaric consciousness were but opposite and inseparable states resting on the base of the Voidness of Universal or Supra mundane Mind (ie Ultimate Awareness). In his new realization he could clearly see that the samsaric or phenomenal existence results when the Universal Mind is directed along the path of self centered and self oriented awareness, and that the Nirvanic state of transcendence results when it is directed on the path of selfless or altruistic awareness. Milarepa Manifesting Occult Powers Greatly encouraged by this new development, Milarepa redoubled his zeal and began to develop the siddhis or yogic powers that accompany full enlightenment. His production of the inner vital heat also developed fully so that he could easily sit amongst the frozen snows and melt the ice into water. A few of the people he had encountered now knew about his siddhis (psychic powers) and so Milarepa determined to go to even more isolated caves to prevent a steady flow of people coming to him with selfish aims. As he was about to leave the area, his sister Peta came once again bringing him some cloth for him to fasten into a garment for his naked body. She remained a while and he tried to talk her into taking to a life of meditation with him. But the very thought was repugnant to her and she saw only his great deprivation. To her, he was the most miserable person on the earth and she felt that even though she had to beg for her own food and clothes, her life was far better than his. She tried to talk him into becoming a lama of the people so that they might bring him offerings in return for religious blessings. Milarepa saw that he would not be able to convert her to a religious outlook so he at least explained to her the doctrine of karma (i.e. the law of retribution) so that she would at least refrain from incurring any fresh debts from harmful actions. While Peta was visiting, their evil Aunt arrived, the aunt who had started the entire chain of events so many years back by seizing the property of Milarepa's widowed mother. Peta saw her approaching and tried to prevent her from reaching the cave by withdrawing the bridge that spanned the chasm to the other side, but the Aunt pleaded to be heard. Her brother, the evil Uncle who had conspired with her, had died, and she now deeply repented all she had done and so she had brought a yak load of supplies and found Milarepa by asking about in the villages until she was told a wandering monk resembling a green caterpillar had indeed been through the area. Milarepa finally agreed, although reluctantly, to talk to her and he delivered several religious discourses to her reminding her of all the sufferings and misery she had inflicted on them. In her state of misery, the Aunt took his teachings to heart and went on her way having been converted to a path that would confer eventual liberation. The sister Peta now also took her leave, having her mind somewhat turned to religion. Milarepa now removed to Lapchi-Kang (Everest) and continued his meditation amidst the snows and isolation there. Altogether he meditated in and made holy twenty caves covering the region from Mount Kailas and Lapchi-Kang in Tibet to far off Nepal. It is said that besides his many human converts he also brought to enlightenment some superhuman (ie non-embodied) beings as well, including the Goddess Tseringma (one of the twelve guardian deities of Tibet who reside at Mt. Kailas). The Goddess came to tempt him with her powers during his meditations and instead was herself liberated. During his travels over the 84 years of his life he met many worthy disciples that were destined to come under his tutelage. Highest among the disciples was Dvagpo Rimpoche (Gambopa). The most well known among them was Rechung who entreated him to tell in detail the story of his life (summarized in this narrative) which was recorded for the benefit of all sentient beings, even into the far future. These two disciples were respectively like the sun and the moon. The most exalted of beings met by Milarepa was a Maha-Purusha (Great Being) he had the excellent fortune of meeting - an Exalted Being mentioned by the Buddha himself as one of the guardians and protectors of the human race who live on through the centuries far from human habitation. Besides his two chief disciples, Milarepa had 25 additional highly accomplished disciples, both men and women, who became saints. Another hundred made such progress that they did not take rebirth. Another hundred and eight Great Ones obtained excellent experience and knowledge from meditation. A thousand sadhus and yogis, both men and women, renounced worldly life and lived lives of exemplary piety. Innumerable lay disciples formed a religious relationship with Milarepa so that the gateway to lower states of existence was closed to them forever. Thus did Milarepa radiate spiritual light like a beacon, drawing vast numbers of sentient beings forward toward the light of deliverance and dispelling in all directions the darkness of selfishness and ignorance. Buddha Statue in Tibetan Temple "The Guru, being like the Dharma-Kaya (aggregate of all enlightened beings) is like the expanse of the sky Upon the face of the sky, the Clouds of Good Wishes of the Sambhoga-Kaya (aggregate of overseeing deities in heaven worlds) gather From the Clouds in the expanse of sky, descend the flowery showers of the Nirmana-Kaya (Great Teachers incarnated on Earth) These falling on the Earth unceasingly, nourish and ripen the harvest of Saved Beings " Milarepa Link: http://www.cosmicharmony.com/Av/Milarepa/Milarepa.htm
  10. When king Bhartarihari went to palace from his 'Darbar', the queen inquired about the cause of his sadness. The king said, "There is nothing to worry." The queen persisted and the king said that he saw today an event which he had not seen before. My minister died today. When his pyre was lit, his wife placed his head in her lap and burnt herself along with him. Hearing this, the queen said, "How should a faithful woman behave according to you?" The queen inquired about the time of death of the Minister. The king told her that he died at 10 a.m. The queen again asked, "And when was he cremated?" "At 4p.m.", the king replied. The queen said, "How could she remain alive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.? The wife is faithful only if she gives up her life as soon as the husband dies." The king thought that the queen is telling a lie. She should be tested. The king went on thinking about this matter for two months. And then one day, he tore his clothes, sprinkled some blood on them and asked his minister to give these clothes to his wife with the information that the king had died during hunting. The minister came to the queen and said, "O, queen! these are king's clothes." The queen recognized the clothes and inquired about the details. The minister said, "It is not worth telling." The queen persisted and the minister said, "The king had an encounter with a lion and the lion killed......." And she collapsed and gave up her life the moment she heard the word 'killed'. The king came running. The doctors were called but it was too late. The king was sad that. He thought that he would not get so good a wife in the world now. The relatives said that they wanted a heir to the throne who could run the government. The king married again. He respected the second queen as much as the first one. One day a Saint gave the king an "amarfal" and said, "You will always remain young, O'king, if you eat this fruit." The king thought that he was already past the prime of his life and it would be of no use to become young now. He, therefore, gave this fruit to his wife and said, "Eat this fruit and you will always remain young." The queen said, "I shall eat it in the morning." The queen was in love with the mahout. She took the fruit to him and said, "By eating this amar fruit I will remain youthful while you will grow old and I won't like this. So take this fruit and eat it." The mahout said, "I was attending to elephants the whole day and lot of dirt is sticking to me. I shall take a bath & then eat it." This mahout in turn was in love with a prostitute. He went to her in the night and said, "This is amar fruit. Eat it. It will keep you youthful & beautiful." The prostitute also said that she would take it after the bath. Then this prostitute started thinking that if she ate this fruit, she would remain entangled in this lustful life throughout her life. She thought of the religious nature of the king and decided that she would offer this fruit to him so that he could practice religion and devotion to God for a long time. Thus within 24 hours the amar fruit was back to the king. The king asked the prostitute, "Who gave this fruit?" She said that the mahout had given it to her. On enquiry, the mahout said that the queen had given it to him. The queen said that she ate the fruit as soon as the king gave it to her. When the king threatened, the queen said that she loved the mahout and therefore gave the fruit to him. And the mahout admitted of his love for the prostitute and hence he gave the fruit to her. Then the king started accusing himself, "I may be cursed a lakh (100,000) times for I did not eat this fruit myself. And the queen be cursed crore (10,000,000) times for she gave up the love of a king for a mahout. The mahout in turn be cursed arab (1,000,000,000) times for he preferred a prostitute to the queen. Out of all, the prostitute fared well. The king thought about this episode and became sad. He gave up the kingdom and became an ascetic. In this way, the king Bhartarihari and his former wife set an example to follow. Kabir says, "Dharam Dass, Anurag is an ocean of love. The knowledgeable and the awakened are not afraid of the vast depth of its water. They dive and bring the pearls out of it. I am going to describe a book which contains the language of love. It is a huge ocean. You have to understand it and reach its depth. One who ties oneself to Naam or 'Word' of Guru, he forgets his family and ancestors." Kabir advises Dharam Dass that such an 'Anuragi' man or devoted man has no delusive attachment for his wife and son and to him all the things of the world appear as if they are a dream. A son was born to his wife in the dream. To (teeth) of 'Kaal'. When Kaal closes its jaw, we shall die. None except Sat Guru will be of help at that time. Tears roll down the eyes of a dying person. The relatives think that he is weeping because of their separation. They tell him that he is leaving them but he should tell them the whereabouts of the money kept by him. The poor fellow is being troubled by the messengers of death and relatives are after his wealth. Some men love the woman so much that they are prepared to give up their parents and relatives for her sake. Even they would sacrifice their lives for her. Ravan kidnapped Sita due to infatuation for her. Rama wept a lot due to separation from Sita. He inquired about his Sita from the trees and the birds, thousands of people were killed in the war that followed. But when war ended, you know the result. Kabir says that man has come alone and will go alone. Man weeps and makes requests for his selfishness. But in this way he can neither meet God nor enjoy this world. Ram & Krishna were house holders. Even Guru Nanak has extolled the householder's life and said," Ik nari so jati kahave." That man is the best who loves only his wife. Relatives and wealth are like a dream. The life is a drama & the world is its stage. Someone is born a king and another queen. Some one is mother & another her son. When his part is over, he dies and leaves the stage of this world. Therefore a man should meet God and to attain it, he should get the true Naam (Satnam). That Satnam he can have only from the saints. Children leave their mother who has sacrificed her life for their love. We forget our father/husband after a few days of their death. Kabir says that if man loves someone due to selfishness, then he forgets him the moment the work has been done. We hardly remember our father, mother, brother or friend. Only Satnam helps at the time of death if you be one with IT. Kabir is telling Dharam Dass that man loves his body the most and even this body does not go with him when he dies. All the things accumulated in the world are left behind. None can save a person from the messengers of Yama (God of death). Yes, a Sat Guru can save us from them but we don't love Him. We love a place which we have to leave but don't bother about the place where we have to go. We are busy keeping the body beautiful, knowing well that it will be left behind. But we don't care for the Sat Guru who will take care of us at the time of death and take us further on the path after death. Listen, I tell you one more fact that this truth is revealed only to the one who develops love for God in the heart. "Listen Dharam Dass, Sat Guru is the only force which can liberate us from this world as well as from the clutches of the messengers of Yama. Have faith that only Sat Guru can with her husband) & the brave soldier, then he too successfully goes inside to reach Daswan Dwar, take bath and become a fine soul. His condition is similar to that of a 'Sati' who has the aim of burning herself on the pyre of her husband. A man should remember the time of his death, attend satsang of his Guru and thus save himself from the suffering inflicted by Kaal. Thus he should finish the cycle of birth & death." Kabir says that only a brave disciple will tread this path. Therefore only a few can meet the beloved Lord. It means that such a disciple gets the Naam from his Sat Guru, practices it, proceeds step by step, reaches Daswan Dwar, takes bath, sees the light of twelve suns, becomes a pure soul and merges into his beloved Lord. Now Dharam Dass requests Kabir to tell him the method to become consciously dead so that this world ceases to exist for him. What is that stage when a man can be called consciously dead? Kindly tell me about it. O' nectar-rain-causing Lord, explain to me this method in detail by which a man attains God by becoming consciously dead. Kabir says, "Dharam Dass, what should I tell you? These are things beyond words." There is a sound which is always present inside the body and this sound has got no description. I cannot give you any example to explain these things which exist inside us. This tongue cannot describe this secret. Kabir explains to Dharam Dass further that Bhringi brings the insect to its home and makes its body look like itself (Bhringi). Both live in the same house. If the insect does not listen to the call of Bhringi, then it is thrown out of the house. The saints act similarly. Like Bhringi, the saints also want to make the disciple like them provided he trusts them. The saints initiate him on the path and get him practice repetition of Naam & meditation and then make him alike them. If iron is touched by Paras, then it becomes gold. But paras cannot convert iron into a paras. The saint, on the other anything after the death of his father, especially when his father had left so much money. Violating the teaching of Guru Nanak, he had, therefore, got all these meals prepared for feeding the pandits. Guru Nanak said, "Do you believe that the food fed to the pandits will reach your father?" Dunichand said, "That I don't know. But I have got rid of these people's criticism at least." Guru Nanak said, "Your father is dying of hunger." "How do I know that?", said Dunichand. Guru Nanak said, "Go a little distance into the forest and you will see a tiger sitting under a big tree. That tiger is your father in its present birth." The disciple said, "My father did a lot of meditation during his life time. Then how is it that he has become a tiger after death?" The Guru replied that it was because of his last wish. The meat was being prepared in the neighborhood when he was near death. The smell of the meat created a desire in him to at least taste it once as he had never eaten meant during his life time. And he had died immediately thereafter.
  11. Many of his disciples believe that the Mahavatar moves around in the interior recesses of the Himalayas accompanied by a group of highly evolved American, European and Indian disciples.
  12. Who was this person called in the West Babaji after his story was first told in Autobiography of a Yogi? Actually the name Babaji is somewhat generic and has been applied to many sages over the years. The word Baba means father and the suffix "ji" is one of respect. But the Babaji written about here is called by many names such as Mahavatar Babaji, Hariakhan Babaji, Babaji Maharaj (great king), Shiva Baba (denoting his close connection to God Shiva), also Bhagavan Sadashiva, Sri Sadashiva, Mahamunindra, and Sri Sri Baba. Hariakhan Baba Maharaj is a Great One, said to have been alive for thousands of years, dwelling in various caves in the Himalayas, appearing sometimes among men to accomplish some particular goal but always watching over the welfare of mankind from the sidelines. Though many people saw him in both the 19th and the 20th century, his appearance was always that of a young man in early manhood. He was tall and slender with a noble and dignified appearance and in nature was humble, kind and childlike. His complexion was light and his hair sometimes worn long and sometimes short. Details of his appearance varied even when he was observed by several people at the same time. He spoke little and seldom ate unless given food by devotees. He never slept, and when on the move, he walked very fast. His appearances and disappearances were always sudden and unexpected. He had great strength of body and was often seen lifting huge rocks. Sometimes he was seen with several Tibetan Lamas and in fact Babaji was often seen wearing a shirt and Tibetan cap over his head. He spoke a mixture of many languages including Nepali, Hindi, and Kurmachal languages. Whenever he talked to anyone from a particular region of India, he spoke to them fluently in their own native language. Nobody knows when he was born or where. He had all the known siddhas (Yogic powers) and occasionally performed miracles in a natural way according to the circumstances at hand. But mostly people were drawn to him because of the bliss they experienced in his presence. He appeared in many places in Northern India near the Himalayas between 1861 and 1924. At that time he was known by different names in the different regions and people didn't realize these were different names for the same person until a man named Mahendra Brahmachari had a vision of him in 1949. He subsequently became a devotee of Babaji Maharaj and spent thirty-five years traveling all over India, collecting the stories told about encounters with the great Babaji. He published these in India under the title Punya Smriti using the pen name Guru Charnasrit. There was also a book about him titled Hariakhan Baba, Known, Unknown by Baba Hari Dass published in America in 1975 by the Sri Rama Foundation. The stories that follow are just a few of the many recorded incidents about him and they present different facets of the great master. Initial Appearance at Hariakhan Jungle Around the year 1890, Hariakhan Babaji Maharaj first appeared publicly in a miraculous way and after that he was seen off and on until around 1924. Before and after that period there are accounts of him showing up in one place or another but usually to an individual or a small group. But within that time period, he was seen by thousands of people and the miraculous events that happened spontaneously around him daily were witnessed and recorded widely by people of that time. Many people think he permanently stays in the high mountains of the Himalayas around Nepal and that he appears occasionally to further some specific cause which only he knows. At the foot of the Himalayas in Northern India, there are many small cities and villages that spring up along the many rivers that descend from the Himalayas to the plains of India below. Back then the area was very wild and there were small clearings with villages of just a few hundred people intermixed between large expanses of jungle and forested areas. One such densely wooded area was called the Hariakhan jungle. On the outskirts of the Hariakhan jungle, to the south there was a cluster of houses which was called Hariakhan village. One night the people of the village were astonished when they looked up above the neighboring mountain and saw a single brilliant light shining from the mountain top. The mysterious light reappeared each night for several evenings. Then the same light disappeared from the mountain top and instead appeared near the village itself. The people gathered around to worship the mysterious light and as they came near, they saw a radiant body of divine luster before them. He appeared to be a young man with a pleasant benign face and a reserved dignified nobility about him. The villagers bowed to him and welcomed him with great respect. Because he was first seen by them in the Hariakhan jungle area, he was given the name Hariakhan Baba. The people naturally wanted the saintly Babaji Maharaj to stay with them in their village so they looked about for a suitable place for him to stay. They decided to put him up in the forest guard's house and since this official lived there by himself, it was agreed that Babaji would stay there. The guard, by name Dham Singh, was a very pious man and formed a close attachment to Babaji. Every day he gave Babaji a morning meal and as Babaji would sit quietly unmoving, he developed the habit of locking him within his house before he went off into the forest. He was afraid Babaji would either leave his house or someone would come and take Babaji away to another place. Since Babaji didn't seem to object to this the guard made this his daily routine. After a while some other of the village folk wanted to visit Babaji during the day time while Dham Singh was away on his rounds. They found the house tightly locked up and all the windows were barred so they broke the lock and went inside. But to their surprise, they could not find Babaji anywhere and after this day, he was not seen again by anyone there for over a decade. Then he was suddenly seen again sitting inside a cave in the depths of the Hariakhan jungle. Once in the month of January, Babaji was staying in the Hariakhan cave. A few saints heard about Babaji's yogic powers and decided to have the darshan of the powerful saint. They asked him various questions about Yoga and the scriptures, and then they decided amongst themselves to ask him for a wild fruit called Kaphal that grows only in the Himalayas during the late spring. But in January it is not available. Babaji realized their thoughts, came out of the cave and walked a short distance away. He returned with a branch full of Kaphal fruits and distributed the fruits to the saints. Gumani Becomes a True Devotee At the foot of the Himalayas along the Gautam Ganga River lay the tiny village of Dyola. In this village there lived an illiterate farmer who was called Gumani. Gumani was a very pious person. His wife was expecting a child and after the birth of the child Gumani underwent a strange transformation. He lost all interest in the world and household life and without telling anyone, he joined a group of travelers who were going to the town of Hardwar. There he joined an ashram which was run by a very saintly sanyasin. There Gumani devotedly served the visiting religious pilgrims who came to the ashram. The sanyasin who owned the ashram observed Gumani and was very pleased with his devotion, humility and truthfulness. After a while some visitors came who knew Gumani while he had been a farmer. They recognized him and told the head of the ashram about the situation he had left behind. His wife was very sad and had no one to plant the crops or take care of her or the child. Though the saintly sanyasin had become very attached to Gumani and his services, he realized the suffering his absence was causing and told him to return immediately to his home. But now that Gumani had made the break from his former life the thought of returning was very painful to him. He wept and begged to be allowed to stay, but the saint was firm and told him: "Gumani, go home and live like a hermit there. Meditate and worship God. You will find your guru at your own place." With great sadness, Gumani returned home and resumed farming as before but with the difference that now his mind was constantly fixed on God. Then one day when he was returning from his fields he saw a tall slim man with fair complexion standing under a tree near his house. The man was gazing steadily at him. Gumani went closer to him and saw that he had a beautiful radiance about his face and had very peaceful eyes. Gumani was afraid but he summoned the courage to ask: "Maharaj, who are you? Why are you standing here?" The man was Babaji Maharaj. He knew that Gumani was fearful of him so he walked slowly to the shade of another tree. Then Gumani recalled to mind the words of the saintly sanyasin at the ashram: "You will meet your guru at your own place". So Gumani bowed to his feet and thereafter surrendered himself completely to Babaji. He took Babaji into his house and began to take care of him with the utmost love and devotion. His body mind and heart were completely dissolved in his service to Babaji Maharaj. Gumani built a hut for Babaji to live in so he would not be disturbed by the rest of the family. At that time Babaji would take nothing to eat except the liquid whey which was prepared from the milk given abundantly by Gumani's cows. After a while Gumani decided to give up solid food too, and live only on whey just as his guru was doing. The villagers around did not know who Babaji was but because his speech was a mixture of various local languages, they thought him illiterate and somewhat crazy. They wondered why Gumani had taken in such a crazy and illiterate vagabond and also why he was emulating his example by taking only whey. Gumani ignored their remarks but one day he told Babaji very meekly, "Babaji Maharaj, my hunger remains unsatisfied by drinking only whey. I think you too must remain hungry just like me. Why don't you eat food?" When Babaji heard this simple speech full of devotion, he started eating food to fulfill the desire of his devotee. The villagers continued to regard Babaji as illiterate, stupid and crazy but slowly as they came into closer contact with him they began to sense his greatness and their attitudes completely changed. They began to love him as well and people started to gather at Gumani's house to be in the company of Babaji. Just as he had done at the ashram, Gumani began to take care of all his visitors. Gumani extended full hospitality to the visitors and his wife spent a good part of each day preparing food until, little by little, all his food stores were exhausted. His wife tried to restrain him from feeding all of the visitors who came to be with Babaji but Gumani continued to give everything he had to them. When there was nothing left in the house to eat, the wife left with her baby to go live with her parents. Gumani was now alone in his house but he was happy spending all his time serving Babaji Maharaj. Babaji too felt great love for his disciple. This continued for a year and then Babaji left to go to Almora. Gumani was now all alone in his house, with no wife or friends and not even any food stores or money left. He spent his time meditating on God or walking around his barren fields. One day as he was walking across his fields, he saw a man with a plow across his shoulders and was immediately reminded of the Avatar Krishna's brother Balaram, who had also carried a plow across his shoulders in the same manner. For Gumani, everyone was God, and when the man came near, he bowed to his feet with much reverence and devotion. The man stepped back with great surprise saying, "What are you doing? I am a poor laborer, wandering in search of a job. Why are you bowing to my feet?" Gumani replied, "You are my Lord Balaram, don't try to fool me. For me you are no less than God." The man said, "I have no house and no place to live. I am a very poor man. Believe me, I am searching for a job". So Gumani asked the man to come live in his house with him and told him he was welcome to stay as long as he liked. Gumani felt that the man had come to his house by the order of God, and he therefore served him with great respect and devotion. The rainy season was approaching and the man saw from the house that the land around had not yet been tilled or planted. He told Gumani he did not like to sit idle and would like to till his land for him. Gumani accepted his offer as God's desire and allowed him to do as he wished. Then the man plowed the land and sowed grain upon the fields. After completing the sowing, he disappeared from Gumani's house. When harvest time arrived it was found that the grain collected was more than fifty times what had been collected in past years. The entire house was filled with rice and there was rice in the granary as well. Seeing the plentiful crop, Gumani realized that the man who had sown his fields was none other than Babaji Maharaj himself, who had chosen to repay him for the grain Gumani had offered in serving Babaji's devotees. When Gumani's wife heard about the remarkable crop of rice in her fields she was very surprised and returned home to Gumani's house with her son. Gumani marked the years as they passed waiting for Babaji to return but after five years he decided that he should instead go looking for Babaji Maharaj. So he left immediately for Almora determined to live with him and serve him for the rest of his life. When after five years of separation Gumani was once again reunited with his master he burst into tears and dropped to the ground at his feet. Babaji told him he was just leaving to visit the Badrinath temple high on a peak in the Himalayas, and he invited Gumani to go with him. Gumani was very happy to be invited along on such an auspicious religious pilgrimage and readily agreed to go. Word got out of the pilgrimage and two men showed up and asked to go along. Babaji neither agreed nor refused to take them but kept his silence. When it was time to go, the men followed along behind them nevertheless. As the road got steeper it turned into a narrow trail until after a while they were treading along a ledge with a sheer rock wall on one side, and a deep precipice on the other. Babaji was walking rapidly ahead with Gumani and the two men further back behind him. Suddenly a huge lion came into view blocking the three men's path. The lion had it's tail raised up in a most furious manner. The men told Gumani they should make a hasty retreat but without waiting to see if he was with them, they turned around and ran back the way they had come. Gumani remained there, wanting to continue on after his master. Soon the lion grew calm, laid down and paid no more attention to him. He quietly stepped around it without hesitation or fear and caught up to Babaji. They continued on the steep path until they finally reached the Badrinath temple at the top where they worshipped, and then turned around and returned back to Almora. Babaji now told Gumani to return to his village and look after his family and to continue on with his meditation and worship. Although Gumani did not want to leave his beloved guru, he followed his order and returned back to his home and family. There he performed his worldly duties and his meditations as he had been obstructed. After one year he left his body in peace. By the grace of Babaji Maharaj, the illiterate and simple Gumani had become a true devotee of God and his story and reputation spread throughout the region. The hut that Gumani had built for Babaji to stay in is still preserved today in his native village A man who was well versed in religious scriptures once came to Babaji Maharaj and wanted to know what was meant by the "cosmic body of God." Babaji rarely spoke and characteristically kept his silence and continued to sit quietly. But after a while he said: "Close your eyes and worship God for some time, and then open your eyes." The man did as he was instructed. He closed his eyes and meditated on God for a while and then opened his eyes. As he looked around, everywhere he looked he saw Babaji Maharaj and everything he saw became Babaji Maharaj. Then Babaji said quietly: "No one can really define God by reading the scriptures." Strange Lights Appear at Siddhashram Besides staying in the Hariakhan area, Babaji also spent some time near the town of Almora. While he was staying there he asked some disciples where he might find a source of cold pure water. The devotees led him into a jungle area where there was a spring flowing slowly, drop by drop providing a small supply of cold water. Babaji pushed his finger into the area where the water was seeping and the water started gushing out in a steady stream. Because of the beauty of the place and the source of pure spring water, Babaji wanted to set up an ashram there. Some nearby villagers gave him some land and people started gathering at the new ashram which Babaji Maharaj called Siddhashram. The devotees would gather during the day to be with Babaji and at night return to their village homes. One night a devotee named Siromani Pathak stayed all night sleeping with Babaji in the hut that had been built for him. In the middle of the night, Babaji woke the devotee up and told him to look in the direction of the spring. When he did Siromani Pathak saw what appeared to be four bright flames of light hovering near the stream of water. The whole area was lit up by the light emanating from the flames. The flames lasted for some time and then disappeared. When Siromani asked Babaji about the lights he was told that because the place was very sacred, various gods came to the spot and were visible in the form of lights. Other people said that they too had sometimes seen strange lights in the presence of Babaji and they felt that they were very high saints coming to pay their respects. Once Maharaja Sindhiya, the king of Gwalior invited Babaji to come to his palace so that he and his wife might have his darshan. Babaji agreed and the king and his ministers met with him at the house of a local pandit. Then Babaji went to the queens palace and gave her darshan separately from the king. After Babaji left, the king wanted to talk to his queen about their encounter with the high saint. It came out in conversation that the queen had guessed Babaji to be around eighty years old but the king said he had appeared to him to be a youth of around eleven years. It was a common occurrence that Babaji would appear differently to different people. Miraculous Appearance at Katgharia Dedication For a while, Babaji Maharaj lived in a jungle called Kalichaur. The jungle was called this because there was a life size statue of the mother goddess Kali there carved in black stone. The jungle was full of wild and dangerous animals like snakes, tigers and wild elephants. Babaji lived in the jungle but would sometimes walk along the river banks or cross to the other side of the river to a village called Katgharia. Wherever he went the news went out that he was present and people would gather around him. His very presence filled the area with his purity and supernatural powers. People would forget their cares, pains, and miseries and become happy like children in his presence. Whenever the people congregated in this manner around him, they would spontaneously organize spiritual functions such as sacred singing (bhajan), feeding of the poor, or the burning of a sacrificial fire (yajna). Sometimes thousands of people would show up in Katgharia from neighboring villages to enjoy the spiritual festivities and return to their homes full of joy and happiness. Once an English commissioner was passing through Katgharia and observed the huge crowd that had gathered around the saintly figure of Babaji. He saw the spiritual glow emanating from the face of Babaji and he felt peace and happiness welling up within himself. He got down from his horse and went near to get a better look at him. Babaji directed his gaze at the man and for a while the man stood transfixed as if hypnotized. Later the man asked who Babaji was and he was told he was a very high saint who possessed supernatural powers. The commissioner was so impressed that he decided to donate a large plot of land in Babaji's name. The devotees built a temple and a small residence on the land. Many years later, after Babaji was no longer seen in the area, Sri Mahendra Brahmachari decided to build a large ashram dedicated to Babaji's memory. It was he who had taken it upon himself to collect Babaji's stories from all over the Indian countryside. Finally in 1958, the ashram construction was complete and a huge gathering had been invited to celebrate the opening. People had gathered from India as well as western countries and activities such as sacred music and fire ritual were being conducted. Food was distributed to everyone who attended. As the fire ritual (yajna) was in progress and people were singing or eating suddenly a divine light manifested itself and a celestial form was seen hovering a few feet above the ground. The form of Hariakhan Babaji Maharaj clad in the familiar shirt and Himalayan cap was recognized. A wave of joy went through the crowd and people began to dance ecstatically. Some lost consciousness through sheer emotion of the moment. A few years after this incident, the Kadamba tree where Babaji used to sit sprouted a small Pipal tree and then a Banyan tree. Now three auspicious trees are growing from the same trunk. It is said that those particular trees represent the three major forces (gunas) of the universe. The tree is now worshipped with great devotion. At one time a solar eclipse was predicted. Because of the auspicious occasion, many people in the small town of Ranibag planned to take a dip in the River Gatum Ganga which ran along the outskirts of town. Babaji Maharaj happened to be staying there near the Shiva temple. As generally happened in his presence a large group had gathered, anxious for the chance to take part in the ceremonial bath along with Babaji during the eclipse. A group of others had already planned to bathe at Kurukshetra where the famous battle recorded in the Mahabharata had taken place long ago. That place was made even holier as the site where the Avatar Krishna had delivered his discourse to his companion Arjuna as recorded in the Bhagavad Gita. As it turned out, part of the group remained in Ranibag and the other part proceeded to Kurukshetra. When the moment of the eclipse arrived, the group that had gone on to Kurukshetra were amazed and delighted to see Babaji in their midst, wading into the River Ganga along with them. When the group returned back to their homes in Ranibag, they were surprised to see that Babaji Maharaj had already arrived back from Kurukshetra. They asked the others when he had returned and were told that he had never left. He had remained in Ranibag to bathe with the people that had stayed behind. Thus they came to know that he had satisfied both groups by being simultaneously present in both places. Babaji Punished for Smiling During the summer of 1914, Babaji Maharaj had enlisted to help in the building of some military barracks in the Ranibag area. On many occasions he was seen working on projects such as this as an ordinary laborer. The workers were carrying rocks on their heads moving building materials by hand. At that time, the Minister of Education, one Pandit Jwala Datt of Almora happened to be passing through the area in his horse cart, on his way back to his home town. As he passed the line of laborers, he saw one of the men smiling at him. He was incensed that a mere laborer would act so familiarly with a man of his position. So he instructed his secretary to tell the laborer that he would be punished for his rude behavior. The secretary confronted the worker but the worker, who was of course the saintly Babaji, seemed completely unruffled. He merely told the secretary that he was smiling because the bell of the Badrinath temple had fallen down and many people were there trying to raise if back up again but there efforts were not working. Pandit Jwala Datt became even angrier at this and vowed to inflict his punishment if the story proved to be a lie. So he sent off a telegram to distant Badrinath to find out if the incident had happened. The reply came back confirming that the bell indeed had fallen down and people were trying to raise it back up. Pandit Jwala Datt was humbled by the experience and baffled by the apparent omniscience of the saint posing as an ordinary laborer. This event completely changed his outlook on life. Before he had been learned but egotistical. Now he became humble and very devoted to Babaji. He spent the rest of his life in religious devotion. The Proper Way to Meet a Saint Near Nainital at the foot of the Himalayas there is a lake called Khurpatal. At the site of the lake, a village had sprung up and the people there planted gardens and sold produce in neighboring Nainital for their livelihood. Babaji Maharaj occasionally would stay in this quiet town along the placid lake and people from the region would visit to enjoy the blessings of his noble and loving presence. Once while he was staying there a well educated young man learned of his presence and began to wonder about his identity. It was well known that Babaji had appeared to people unexpectedly in various places at widely scattered intervals of time. He was believed to be centuries old and quite a few thought he had been present for thousands of years. This man had heard that Babaji had been present at the battle of Kurukshetra which took place over 5,000 years ago. He reasoned that Babaji must really be Aswathama, one of the immortal warriors that had taken part in the battles. In the Mahabharata it is recorded that Aswathama was wounded on the top of his head and so the man concluded that this was probably the reason why Babaji Maharaj was habitually seen wearing a Tibetan cap or some other form of head covering. The man was excited to prove his theory so he proceeded to Khurpatal and sought out the presence of Babaji. As soon as Babaji saw the man he informed him that as it was very hot, he was going to bathe in the cool waters of the lake and so he requested the man to help him by carrying his possessions to the edge of the lake. The man was very happy at this because he knew that Babaji would remove his cap before entering the water and thus he could verify whether his suspicions were true. As they stood at the edge of the lake, Babaji asked the man to help him off with his clothes. As soon as the man touched Babaji, he was filled with an inexpressible bliss. In an ecstatic mood he helped Babaji into the water, bathed him and then dried and redressed him. As they were returning to the hut where Babaji was staying the man realized with great chagrin that in his blissful state he had completely forgotten to look for scars on the top of Babaji's head. But Babaji knew his thoughts all along and said to the man with great equanimity, "Whenever you go to meet a saint or high spiritual soul, go with much devotion and faith. If you have any doubts, ask him for their clarification. Only those who are blessed by God can recognize a saint. Those who have a pure heart and those who are humble and egoless attain the grace of saints." The man then realized the omniscience of the saint and instantly became a true devotee. In the winter of 1952 Baba Hari Dass was living in a room attached to a cave near a burial ground by the name of Ghati. The room was very cold in the winter and so he kept a fire burning inside the cave and meditated sitting close to the fire. It happened one time that as he was meditating, he lost consciousness and his body slumped to the left and his arm fell into the fire pit. When he came to awareness he saw the tall figure of Babaji Maharaj bending over him and removing his arm from the vicinity of the flames. Without a word, Babaji turned and left as quickly as he had come. Baba Hari Dass jumped up quickly in order to catch up with Babaji and bow to his feet but when he stepped outside Babaji had disappeared. Babaji's Great Disciple Lahiri Mahasaya One of the earliest appearances of Babaji was documented by one of his most important disciples, the great saint and yogi, Sri Shayama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya. Lahiri Mahasaya was born in 1828 and while growing up he was taught several languages including Sanskrit. As a young man he closely studied the vedas and eagerly listened to discussions of learned brahmins. Lahiri was full of good qualities and well liked by everyone around him. By the age of 33 he had married and gotten a government post and received news that was to change his life. He was told to report to the city of Rhanikhet which sits at the foot of one of the highest Himalayan peaks, Nanda Devi. Once there he was immediately taken with the beauty of the Himalayan foothills and spent his evenings hiking high up into the mountain fastnesses. One day while he was hiking he heard his name being called and followed the voice high up to a clearing surrounded by small caves. There he saw Babaji Maharaj who addressed him familiarly by name and welcomed him after his long absence. Although Lahiri didn't know who he was he felt drawn to his presence. Babaji explained that in Lahiri's former life, he had been his guru and that Lahiri had been his advanced disciple, meditating for decades under his guidance in one of the caves that surrounded the mountainous ledge. With a touch to his forehead, Babaji awakened his memory of that past life they had spend together. Then Babaji induced in him the highest or Nirvikalpa state of Samadhi in which the individual wave merges with the Universal ocean of consciousness and attains the state of Cosmic Consciousness. Lahiri remained in unbroken samadhi for seven days and then Babaji brought him back to his human awareness and explained to him that Lahiri Mahasaya had taken his present birth for a purpose and that he was to be instrumental in spreading the Yogic teachings of union with God to the greater world beyond the borders of India. Lahiri Mahasaya was given the task of setting the example of the ideal Yogi householder, maintaining job and family and living in the world, yet remaining peacefully poised in the bliss of inner awareness. The perfume of his spiritual greatness attracted dozens of followers. Lahiri spontaneously developed many siddhis or yogic powers and these further enhanced the faith and devotion of his many disciples. According to Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya was to be instrumental in bringing East and West together. This he did through the agency of his direct disciple Sri Priya Yukteswar Giri who in his turn was the Guru of Paramahansa Yogananda, well known in the West as the author of Autobiography of a Yogi. The disciple, Sri Yukteswar, wrote a treatise showing the parallels between the Christian (Western) and Hindu (Eastern) religions. At the urging of Sri Yukteswar, Paramahansa Yogananda in his turn moved to the West to California and introduced much of America to the Eastern Yogic science of union with God, independent of any specific religion. Thus was the practicality of the West blended together with the spirituality of the East. All this was foretold by Babaji in his initial meeting with Lahiri Mahasaya in 1861.
  13. Kabir says, "Listen, you have got priceless treasures in your body." You cannot get this treasure without the grace of Sat Guru because the Guru has got the key of this treasure. Guru in the form of 'Word' resides in us but He is locked inside and we are sitting outside. Therefore, how can we meet Him? Getting a key of 'Word' from the outside Sat Guru, then practicing It we can reach Him inside. We have to remove the darkness of 'Moh' from inside by the light of the teachings of the Guru. Only then shall we be able to see the priceless treasure inside. Kabir says to Dharam Dass "I am going to write the book "Anurag Sagar". Only a rare great soul will understand its secret or recognize its importance." Kabir says "I am going to write the book 'Anurag Sagar'. Very few people will understand its language. Such people will have the burning desire to meet God." Therefore I am going to describe everything of the inner worlds". The secret of Nirvan Pad or Sat Lok will be revealed in Anurag Sagar. Bowing at the feet of Kabir, Dharam Das begs, "Sat Guru, I have a doubt in my mind. Please remove it. The doubt is, what is Anurag or Love? How does one feel when Love or Anurag sprouts from within? How can we recognize a person who is Anuragi or Love-bitten? All look alike from outside. However some are so powerful that a word from them brings about punishment of death to a person. Devotees of God like Guru Nanak were tormented and put behind bars. How to find whether one is Anuragi (i.e. Lover of God) or not? Yes, at least I do understand that without love, separation, pain and burning desire, one cannot meet God." Kabir says, "Dharam Dass, you have asked the questions, now listen to the answers with full attention. The signs of a person in love with God are soothing. The deer loves sound. The hunter takes advantage of this and plays a sound of its liking. The deer comes running and places its head in the lap of the hunter. The deer has the least doubt that it has reached in the lap of the hunter and that the hunter will butcher it. It is not afraid of that. The love, the attachment of sound created detachment in the deer and it came running after the sound. This is an example of Anurag or love. This is a story from Lyalpur and its deputy commissioner who belonged to Sialkot. His old mother was fond of going to Baisakhi festival and dancing there. When Baisakhi festival came, she asked her son to take her to the festival as she was not sure of her lasting to live for the next festival. Deputy commissioner said, "Mother, you will start dancing on reaching the festival & this will bring shame (insult) to me." The mother said, "You take me there, I will not dance." But on reaching there, hearing the beat of the drum, she could not control herself and started dancing. The people were stunned to see this old lady dancing with such a force. Some one recognized her and said that she was the mother of the D.C. People caught hold of her and put her in the car. The moral of the story is that when a person is detached (from the surrounding), he looses her awareness/consciousness. This loss of consciousness is called Anurag or love. He is not afraid of social shame and his Guru's attention compels him to come running for a 'darshan'. This Anurag (or love) manifests in Sahaj state. Anuragi people are recognized of their own. The moth does go to the lantern whether it belongs to rich or poor. Reaching the lantern, it might burn itself. Anuragi (or lovers of God) are similarly attracted to the Saints and they come running to them. Kabir further says that the Anuragi gets initiation from a living saint, practices Naam, sees light inside and contacts his Guru in the form of sound current. Only the liberated one liberates. Guru Sahib says, "I have contacted a Guru who is a liberated one and He can also liberate me from this round of eighty four (i.e. births & deaths)." It means that I got initiation from a living Saint, practiced Naam and then 'Word'- manifested - Guru caught hold of me from the arm and took me along with Him. This is the sign of a Guru that He takes the disciple out of the darkness and shows him the light within.
  14. 'Anurag Sagar' is the most famous book of Kabir Sahib. Questions about the creation of universe asked by Dhani Dharam Dass, the main disciple of Kabir Sahib, have been given in this book. And in reply Kabir Sahib has given a complete description of the creation of universe. Kabir Sahib says that in the beginning God was in deep thoughtless meditation and there was nothing else except 'Him'. The five elements had not manifested. Neither was this universe, nor any soul. All this (manifested universe) was within God. Preface 'Anurag Sagar' is the most famous book of Kabir Sahib. Questions about the creation of universe asked by Dhani Dharam Dass, the main disciple of Kabir Sahib, have been given in this book. And in reply Kabir Sahib has given a complete description of the creation of universe. Kabir Sahib says that in the beginning God was in deep thoughtless meditation and there was nothing else except 'Him'. The five elements had not manifested. Neither was this universe, nor any soul. All this (manifested universe) was within God. This state has also been described by Guru Nanak as follows: ¥ÚUÕÎ ÙÚUÕÎ Ãé¢ÃêXWæÚUæH ÃÚUç‡æ Ù »»Ùæ ãéUXW×é ¥ÂæÚUæH Ùæ çÎÙé ÚñUçÙ Ù ¿¢Îé Ù âêÚUÃéH âé¢Ù â×æçà Ü»æ§ÎæH (¥æçÎ »ý¢à Âë. v®xz) He further explains that God thought of creating the universe and the 'Word' emanated from Him. This led to all the creation below Sat Lok. First of all, Satpurush created sixteen sons (sixteen manifestations or powers), Niranjan being one of them. Saints name him 'Kaal' or Brahm. He (Kaal or Brahm) worshiped Satpurush for 70 yugas and obtained in reward his right for a separate creation. Again he (Kaal) worshipped for 64 yugas and obtained a huge number of souls from Satpurush and in collaboration with primal Maya (Shakti) the three main Gods, Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh were created. To these four i.e. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh and primal force Maya, was given the control of all the creation below Sat Lok. He (Niranjan or Kaal) was then completely absorbed in the meditation of Satpurush and primal force Maya was instructed not to reveal his (Kaal's) identity to his three children Primal force Maya gave creation of this universe to Brahma, sustenance of the universe to Vishnu and destruction of the universe to Mahesh. After this Niranjan (Kaal) having created four Vedas and various religions through Brahma, started his own worship by all the souls. The souls were so beguiled that they forgot their real 'Home' and real 'Master'. The mind was associated with all the souls and they were so entangled in various 'Karam-Kand' (Rituals) that no soul of its own could escape to his real home. And the souls were governed by severe punishments. Satpurush was moved to see the souls in grief and first of all asked his enlightened soul (Kabir Sahib) to go and free the souls from the clutches of Kaal and bring them to Him. Under the orders of Satpurush, Kabir Sahib appeared as Sat Sukrit in Satyuga and counseled a few souls for the real worship of Satpurush. Kaal told Kabir Sahib that he (Kabri Sahib) could not enter his kingdom. Kabir Sahib said that he was going under the orders of Satpurush to awaken the souls and if he (Kaal) tried to stop him, he (Kabir Sahib) could destroy his kingdom in a moment. Hearing this Kaal said, "I am governing through your grace only. Before going, please promise that you will not show any miracle to the souls to follow you. You will hold satsangs (spiritual discourses) for enlightenment and for preaching. You may make any soul your follower if he accepts your sayings." And Kabir Sahib gave him this boon. Had this boon been not given, how easy it would have been for the saints to make the souls their followers by showing miracles. Kabir Sahib has described all the four yugas in this book. "Kaal Mat" (or the path of the Kaal) Kabir Sahib says "the true master initiated me to 'Naam', made me repeat it and took me to Daswan Dwar to take bath in 'Amritsar', taught me the technique to wash off the dirt to countless births and enabled me to see that form of God which we cannot see with our eyes or hear with our ears or reach Him with these feet or worship him with these hands." Kabir further says, "With the grace of Sat Guru, I have met God by concentrating upon word. I have merged in Him. The soul has become God just as a weather drop becomes sea by merging in it. Now the soul tastes the 'Amrit', the like of which does not exist on earth." Many things of this world like Sugar etc. are sweet, but their sweetness is nothing when compared to the sweetness of the 'Word'. "My Sat Guru is a Saviour, a see of mercy. But a few only recognize Him. He reveals the secret of Naam or word to him who recognizes Him. A diamond is valued only by a goldsmith." Once a potter found a diamond in the soil and he tied it around the neck of his donkey. He went to a shopkeeper along with the donkey. The shopkeeper asked the potter the source of this shining thing. The potter said he found it in the soil. The shopkeeper said "It is very beautiful. Please give it to me." The shopkeeper paid the potter ten rupees for the diamond and shopkeeper's wife tied it to the weighing balance. One day a goldsmith visited the shopkeeper. On seeing the diamond, he thought that it must be worth a crore of rupees. He paid the shopkeeper twenty rupees and took the diamond and in turn sold it for a crore rupees in the bazaar. Hence only a goldsmith could recognize a diamond. Therefore it is said: Similarly rare is the person who recognizes a Sat Guru having knowledge of the 'Word'. Only sixteen persons were initiated to 'Word' in Satyug and 22 in Treta yuga by Kabir. There is no such record for Dwapur yuga. But many persons recognized Satpurush in this Kalyuga. One who recognizes a Sat Guru, listens to his teachings with full attention, accepts Him from the heart and obeys his orders. During his tour, Kabir once met a sweet seller sitting proudly in his shop. Mercifully, Kabir said to him "Please come to Satsang." The shopkeeper asked his servant to give two jalebis (sweet) to this hermit. Kabir said "I don't want jalebis." Sweet seller inquired "Then what do you want?" Simultaneously he ordered his servant to give him a few coins also. Kabir said, 'I don't want money, too." The sweetseller said, "You want neither jalebis, nor money. Then what do you want? It is my time to attend to the customers. Why are you obstructing like this?" Kabir said "Time is very less. Please do come to Satsang." The shopkeeper asked his servants to push him away from the shop. And the servants did likewise. Kabir came to the shop after a few days and said, "Gentleman, now very little time has been left. Come to satsang." The sweetseller said to his servant, "Don't let such persons come to me. Of your own, push them away from sight." The servants turned Kabir out. After seven days, Kabir again came and requested the sweet-seller humbly to attend the Satsang. The servants tried to push him away. Being well-built, Kabir stuck to his place. Then a servant hit him on the head with an iron rod. Kabir's head was broken, the blood was coming out and his clothes were drenched in the blood. But Kabir remained humble and said "Seth Ji, now the time is really very less. Do come to the Satsang." The sweetseller paid no attention to him. After a week when Kabir came again, the sweetseller had already died. Kabir came to the sweetseller mercifully but he did not value his advice. The moral of the story is that only very few people recognize the saints in time, get initiation of the Word and then merge in the Lord through it. Saints come into the world to do good to us. They want to liberate us from this cycle of eighty four. We should not quarrel with them but should get enlightenment from them and act on their teachings. The sweetseller would have definitely benefited if he had recognized Saint Kabir. I will post more if you want me too.
  15. Thanks N30 veerji. I am glad to be here. May vahiguroo also keep you in chardi-kalah and also the other members on this forum. Gurfateh
  16. This is a translation of this book by Giani Gian singh ji. On the banks of the Attock, in the heavenly tract, Pothohar*, there is a village called Choi. In that village, in Sammat 1856, was born one Balak Singh, The Very Incarnation of God. Arorhra by caste, an Unshakable Devotee, He was ever Absorbed in God, Discarding all worldly pleasures. *Region between the two rivers Jhelum and Sind. In name a Child, He was The Very Patron of Prophets, The master of Heavens and The Abjurer of All Things Gaudy. The only Relation He Recognised was that with The Creator. Being One with God, He was The Destroyer of Evil. He Led a Life of Renunciation. Like a Lamp Burning within a pot He did not display His Greatness. He was Praised by all for His Love of God. He was an Ascetic without blemish. An Awakened soul, He was, to the Best possible extent ever in the company of Godly persons, Reciting Hymns, Singing Panegyrics and Delivering Discourses. In 1885 Bikrami, His elder brother moved to another village, Hazro, and set up a shop. Balak Singh followed, took Residence there and Earned His living by simple labour. His Fame spread, bringing Immeasurable Blessing to Hazro. The village prospered into another Ayodhya*. Its adversity disappeared. Exceedingly Fortunate were the village folk. Ever absorbed in the Love of God, they remained Awake in the company of Godly Persons. They dedicated their lives to the service of Saintly Persons. *Ayodhya, the Capital City where Bhagwan Ram took Avatar. The Spiritual Message that Balak Singh delivered was of Immense Benefit to men and women. It helped them swim across the vast 'Sea of Existence'. And, The Creator Himself has revealed His Word and charged Him to Spread it for the Purification of human life. Nevertheless, The Tenth Master Appeared in Person and Informed Him: "Ram Singh is My Incarnation, Partaking of an Element of Mine. I have, therefore, Entrusted Him, and none else, With My Authority." The Master?s Message was Clear and Firm. The Inevitable Occurred on Thursday Morning, The Fifth Moon of Magh, 1872 Bikrami. Very well known is the village Bhaini in Ludhiana district. On this village Ram Singh Descended like a God, Casting aside all the ills inhering in the 'Kal Jug'. Charged with Spreading The Idea of Godhood, He, Exuding Effulgence, Came to the childless household. His father Jassa, a carpenter by caste and mother Sada. Even while a Child, His Mind was Replete with Divine Presence. Dedicated to uplift of mankind, He, along with His playmates, was ever Absorbed in Him. And, When Grown-up He went to Lahore, Entered service in the Army,which He Thought was a Noble Vocation. He would Recite Gurbani , Sing Hymns, Feel Solitude and Share His Purse with the poor. In 1898 Bikrami, He, in His platoon, went to Hazro, on official duty. Saintly Persons held a great attraction for Ram Singh. Whatever Place He happened to Visit, He would Love to Call on Them. Balak Singh was Held in High Reverence. Like a cuckoo-fledgling brought up by a mother duck, Ram Singh Listened to and Joyfully Absorbed The Divine Eulogies. The Good Deeds previously Accumulated, bestirred Themselves and helped Him Absorb all The Spiritual Hues. Blessed by Fortune and Saturated with Love, He went all the way to Touch His Feet in Submission. Balak Singh Recognized God?s Element in Him. Satisfied that He was Deserving and Worthy to Receive. He, of His own Volition, Offered Him Nam. Nam, The Quintessence of The Four Vedas, Eradicates confusion, Instills non-involvement and Destroys painful failings. Balak Singh Implanted in Him Waheguru, The Supreme Mantra that Helps Accomplish all The Missions. None other is as Extensively Effective. There were some who would say that He has received the revealed word from a sayadani. Such an assertion was found wholly apocryphal, this is I say on personal testimony. It is Waheguru. The Mantra that Annihilates the dangerous and the susceptive ways of the 'Kal Jug', Brushes aside illusion and the cycles of births. Ram Singh was eagerly drawn to It. He would Receive it Repeatedly and Attentively. He Realised the utter futility of the world of affairs and Left it alone. He Led a Life of Positive Conduct and was ever Absorbed in Meditation. He was like The One Intoxicated, always in a State of Undisturbed Bliss. Never downcast, He Exuded Joy and was Free from earthly desires. His Senses under Control and The Mind Properly Disciplined, He would Look up, for Meditation, a Clean Place beside a river or a pond. The Chant of The Nam was on His Lips, His Body Practised Austerity, and His Mind was Completely Submerged in The-Beloved. He Spent nearly 20 years of Beatitude in Single-Minded Devotion, Austerity and Meditation. The 'ridh-sidh', the treasures, and the supernatural powers, were Revealed to Him as no more than the maid-servants of Nam. Such was The Impact of His Practice of Nam, that whatever He Uttered Proved True. The Heavens Themselves Spoke to This Great Man Charging Him to Spread Nam. The Giver of Enlightenment and The Wherewithal's of Life Spread the Faith of the Tenth Master among the people, and Made them realise that The Khalsa is Singularly God's Own. Charged with This Spectacular Mission, Ram Singh Set About Delivering Discourses. He Made people give up smoking and keep unshorn hair. Particularly Fortunate were those who Partook of the Nectar and Entered The Sikh Fold. His Fame Spread Apace. People in Multitude became His Disciples. Manifold Grew The Khalsa. HisDisciples, Soaked in The Bliss of Nam, gave up opium, hashish, poppy, liquor and various other intoxicants. They would not eat meat. They would not steal. They foreswore adultery and deception. They Practised Saintliness. The 'Sat Jug' had returned. Ram Singh Set up a hardware and drapery shop, with income barely sufficient to provide Him with Food and Clothing. He was visited by Throngs of Disciples. Huge were The Gatherings at His Doors. Whatever Offerings were made, all went to The Free Kitchen. Those who Received Nam from Him, immediately went into Eesctasy, forgetful of Their Turbans flying off their Heads. They would Divulge This Secret of Their Soul to none other; because of this, many called It Kalam.* *Kalam, muslim sermon. 'Nam' is not to be confused with the muslim kalam or revelation. 'Nam' is the Mantra Specifically Related to Sikh Doctrine. Thus His Holy Fame Spread Far and Wide; those who came to weigh, Found Him full and became His Disciples. He had a Huge Following of no less than 300,000 from Malwa*, Doaba**, Majha*** and Pothohar***. Like Akbar, the emperor, He Appointed 22 Governors known as Subas and Blessed Them with 'Speech' as Effective as His Own. Men and women would form themselves into choirs, play drums and melodiously Chant the Supreme Word of the Guru. * Region comprising district of Ferozepur, Faridkot, Nabha,(Punjab) Jind and Sirsa (Haryana) Patiala, Ludhiana (Punjab) * Region falling between the rivers Sutlej and Beas. ** Region comprising districts falling between the rivers Ravi and Beas. *** Region comprising districts falling between the rivers Jhelum and Sind (now in Pakistan). They would Perform Havan* and continuously Recite The Guru Granth**, Beginning to End, in Large Congregations. They would take a whole bath in the small hours and Engage in an Unceasing Chant of Waheguru. Men and women, without exception, would be clad in a speck-less, Holy White. They would keep a Woolen Rosary and Wear a Kachha (Shorts), a Kara (Steel Bangle) and a Karad (Small Sword) as Holy Symbols. They would not accept food nor drink from, nor would they marry into a family, outside The Fold, the nearest kin being no exception *Ceremonial fire kept burning by pouring on it ghee and certain perfumes for evoking spiritual advancement, prosperity, purification of mind, environment etc., and also for performing marriage ceremonies by circumambulating four times around it. **Guru Granth: Common Name of Aad Granth Sahib. They do not owe allegiance to the temples, the places of pilgrimage, the Puranas, the Sadhus or the Brahmins. They attach no importance to giving away charities* outside the fold. Charities and marital proposals are affectionately made and accepted within The Fold. All of them fondly cherish the desire for political power. They do not invite brahmins to perform marriage ceremonies or death rites. They perform Anand Karaj** - a Ritual discovered by them conforming to The Tradition of The House of The Gurus. They Regard Ram Singh Alone as Their Satguru, The Divine Incarnation and The Spiritual Guide. His Word is Accepted, without demur, by All. *The 'Charities' mentioned here are those given to the temples and not the poor or the needy. This Way of Life caused immense unhappiness to the brahmins. The Hindus and the muslims, in large numbers, mouthed denunciation. Whenever They(The Sikhs) visited Gurdwaras, They would Recite Shabads, throwing off Their Turbans in Ecstasy. Such a sight caused resentment. The pujaris, hurling abuse, would like to thrust upon them(The Kukas) their own notions, and not accept those of The Kukas. The Kukas thus became the talk of the town. They Grew Enormously in numbers and were Distinguished from the Hindus as well as the turks. Whichever Place Ram Singh Visited, Thousands came into His Fold. They Addressed Him with Deep Humility and made Handsome Offerings in cash. Whenever, on The Occasion of a Festival, He Visited Gurdwaras at Damdama Sahib and Mukatsar, He was Accompanied by a Huge Gathering of The Kukas. The Spectacle of Ascendancy and Grandeur Achieved by Ram Singh made the administrators and the clerics lose much of their peace. He was Eescorted by the deputy commissioner and the city chief of police with His Force in toe. They Offered due Respects and made proper arrangements for His Security. The people around, in their wisdom, made all sorts of comment. Ram Singh Wished to Offer Prayers Conducive to a Spirit of Unity. He, by His Conduct, Wanted The Prestige of The Panth to Grow. He Went to The Gurdwara to Offer His Holy Parshad*. The clerics, in a body, confronted Him with a clear injunction: You shall build banks around the holy tank in concrete as payment of a religious fine. Your followers shall not go into ecstasy and their turbans must not fall off. Ram Singh Said both these injunctions were beyond His Means to comply with. He was only too Ready to Make an Offering within His Capacity. Mahant Mangal Singh of Gurdwara Tamboo Sahib hit upon a plan to test the genuineness of His Offer. He was only too aware that no Kuka would ever wear a blue* dress. He brought a blue robe of honor for Ram Singh. He respectfully Accepted the robe, yet, the clerics were not reconciled. *Blue and black attires are refered to as 'Soormei Rung' and considered to be apparels of muslims and thus are not worn by Members of The Khalsa Panth. There was a similar uproar at Anandpur in 1922-23 Bikrami. He was Accorded a Warm Welcome by the government officials when He Visited Amritsar during The Diwali Festival in 1924 Bikrami. He Camped outside Chativind Gate with nearly 20,000 Kukas in Company. He Went to The Golden Temple with Abundant Offerings of Parshad, but again, the pujaris (clerics) acted malevolently. Some of them demanded thousands of rupees as bribe, while others insisted on imposition of a 'religious fine' as big as four to five lakh of rupees. There were some other conditions too: No Kuka shall take off his Turban while in Ecstasy, nor shall he call himself Your Sikh. And, he shall wear a blue dress. Replied Ram Singh: "These conditions can be Enforced by none but The Guru Himself. It is beyond Me to Change the very psyche of the people. You have only to prove that I have Committed any one of the four deadly sins* and I would pay the religious fine without demur." *Four deadly sins (1) Killing a brahmin. (2) Killing a cow. (3) Killing one's daughter or giving away one's daughter for money, (4) Accepting food from a corrupt or immoral person A lengthy wrangle ensued. Realising that the situation could further aggravate, Ram Singh Said His Prayers in front of the Gurdwara and Distributed Parshad. Reciting Hymns, all of Them Circumambulated The Gurdwara and Returned to Their Camps. The pujaris had behaved in a similar fashion towards the nirmalas. The meanly pujaris, acting like kanji* that splits milk, would oppose all attempts towards Unity of The Panth. *Kanji: A beverage prepared from black carrot by mixing salt and mustard. The pujaris persisted in their hostility towards Them. Nevertheless, both The Kukas and the nirmalas, Blessed by The Guru, Flourished. And now, listen, how The Kukas Sacrificed Their Lives in The Cause of Dharam(Religion) and Found Their Place among The-Martyrs-of-Faith(Shaheed). In between the second and the third decades of the (19th Century) Bikrami Sammat, cows came to be slaughtered in larger numbers and at various places. The Hindus felt miserable and helpless. They were not powerful enough to seek remedy with the Government. And, then The Courageous Kukas were Roused to Action. They Put a number of slaughterhouse butchers to Sword. Prominent Hindus at Amritsar and various other places were arrested and persecuted by the english government. When they were about to be executed, The Kukas, on Their Own, Came Forward, led evidence to prove that They and none else, had dealt the deadly blow. Happily, They went to the gallows and, from thereon, to the land of God Himself. After that, there was yet another act of rare Heroism at Malerkotla. There were about 60 Kukas who, having resolved to court certain death, dispatched the butchers and protected the cows. They were engaged by the armed forces of the muslim state of Malerkotla, but The Sikhs Repulsed them. The Patiala troops practised subterfuge, took false oath, persuaded them to their point of view and finally got them arrested. Absorbed in The Love of Shabad, They gladly Offered Themselves to be blown off by the cannon. They were, according to Them, Exceedingly Fortunate to Die for Their Faith. The kings and the chiefs, the courtiers and the english officers were all awe-struck by This Miracle of a Deed. The english, after deep deliberation, deported Ram Singh, then Found utterly Free from blame, to Rangoon. The various Subas were scattered in different directions and the ascendancy of the Panth was sought to be curbed. In the absence of Ram Singh, his brother, Budh Singh*, is now regarded as the Master and Leader of The Kukas. They worship Bhavani, Recite Bani and Chant Waheguru over and over again. They are Distinguished by their White Dress, White Woolen Rosary, Straight Turban and Flowing Beard. They Perform Havan, Recite Hymns from The Guru Granth. They are The True followers of Guru Gobind Singh, and cannot be diverted from Their Resolve to Establish a Government of Their own. Such are The Impenetrable Kukas known for Their worshipful ways. Gian Singh has narrated as he has witnessed them. Giani Gian Singh in his Panth Parkash, gives a fairly detailed account of the continuous executions of the Sikh warriors who were taken prisoners along with their leader, Banda Singh Bahadur. He says: "And, then, every day they were brought to Chandni Chowk. Twenty-five of them would gladly Offer Themselves to be killed. Everyone of Them would Desire to be Killed earlier than the others. They, the 'Fortunate' ones, Loved to be Martyred. They Recited aloud the Word of The Guru over and over again and with Gusto. They gave away their Lives Happily and Generously. They Said: We are leaving for Baikunth, the Heavenly Abode." And then, he departs from the narrative and tells us that he has learnt it from the writings of Khafi Khan, Ram Jas of Jaipur and Hari Charan of Meerut. Suddenly, he turns to similar executions of the Kukas in his own time. True to The Great Sikh Tradition, They had Happily laid down Their Lives Espousing a Noble Cause. They, too, had Embraced Death Reciting The Word of the Guru. Each one of Them was in a great hurry to be Present in The Heavenly Gur-Darbar. Giani Ji says : "The account of those Sikhs (The Bandais) has been set out in a number of books. But, now, I would speak to you, in truthful details of what I saw with my own eyes. During Nineteen Twenty-eight Bikarmi I came into contact with The Kukas. The butchers who had slaughtered cows were themselves slain by these Lion-Hearted Men of The Guru. Nearly sixty of them, Pure Souls, were arrested and were brought to Malerkotla in custody. The english(government) issued orders that they be blown off by cannon. They were delighted to hear of this order they were indeed overwhelmed with joy. Their exuberance shot into Their miens as They Recited Aloud The Word of The Guru. As moths rushing towards a lamp, unrestrained they made for the cannon. Their spirits in high transport, they hurried forward without a thought for Their Dear Lives. This I saw with my own eyes, People had gathered in a large number. They saw and were filled with wonder. Wedded to the Supreme Life-Style of The Sikhs, They were not afraid of Embracing Death by Arms. They could meet the enemy on The Battle-Field and be restrained from neither laying down nor taking life." :wink:
×
×
  • Create New...