Will we ever learn from the warning signs of Nature ?

Mad cow disease, Bird flu virus, SARS ... and now Swine flu ... the list will grow ... and the so called most intelligent species on earth is turning a deaf ear and blind eye towards these warnings .....

the list will grow.... as long as human's desire to satisfy the tongue with exotic things ... as long as humans continue to kill other living beings for food (not for survival, but to increase their own pound of flesh) ... as long as the food industry is driven only by economic equations .... Mother Nature wil react ... react badly....

So, what can we do about it ? Most of us may say .. 'I am a vegetarian ... these diseases will not affect me ...', but thats not true, once the pandemic is real, it can affect anyone..

But, I believe that we can do our bit in terms of preventing future outbreaks... educate ourselves as well as those around us... educate our children about these epidemics and the reasons for the same... so that they do not fall a victim to the business plan of these lobbies - the milk lobby (remember Operation Flood), the egg lobby (remember the campaign in Hindi ..'sunday ho ya monday, roz khao ande'.. meaning 'whether it is sunday or monday, eat eggs daily'), the chicken lobby, the meat lobby, etc..

Being in Singapore, I am a rare species at business lunches and dinners ... a Vegetarian... and invariably the question pops up .. Why ? I have started using these opportunities to slowly 'educate' the people around me ... I don't proactively tell anything, but if the question is asked, I ensure that I get atleast 10-15 min of airtime .. starting from religion and then moving on to health, environment and use these live examples of the epidemics ... not sure how may would change their eating habits .. but there has to be a starting point .. Rome was not built in a day ..

My appeal to you ... start thinking ... and start talking .. thoughts themselves have power and words have more power ... let our words reach as many ears as possible, when they hear from multiple sources, they would think of acting ... that itself is a huge step

If you want more tips how to counter the normal arguments, please read the document in the link below or just search the net for thousands of researched documents. If you are not able to access the document, email me.

http://circleoflife.org/education/sustainable/organic/how_to_win_arg_meat_eater.pdf

Pranams
Krishnan

Vegetarianism

Hi everyone, I'm back .... apologies for the long silence (hope you enjoyed less email traffic because of my non-blogging) .... as many of you know, I had moved from Dubai to Singapore early this year and was having a hectic time settling down and travelling on my new job ...

Singapore is a land of mixed cultures and there is no single identity or culture which you can call as Singaporean .... but some of the emerging trends are (a) marriages are reducing (if not late), (b) even if married, couples choose not to have kids, (c) vegetarians are a rare breed (except of course in little india) .... in fact there is better choice of (chinese/buddhist) vegetarian restaurants in some parts of china ... the only issue is that you should have a chinese-speaking friend with you to explain to the chef what you (do not) need .... but there are also some exclusive vegetarian restaurants where they serve only organically grown vegs.

The non-veg culture is percolating into the Indian families also and I heard one of my Indian colleague (jaati brahmana lady) telling ...." i feel left out when i go to a party since in do not eat non-veg, i even have to decline invitations.... hence i will force my son (who will be born soon) to eat whatever that moves so that he will be more succesful". .... what a pathetic definition of success !!

Except for some occasions (where I had to be content with fruits and salads and treat it as a precursor to fasting), my experience has been very positive in getting the maximum attention in company-sponsored lunches and dinners, since I get specially ordered/prepared veg dishes .... to the extent that my colleagues want to sit near me to get a taste of those special dishes...... and it happens very often on the plane (where special meals get served first) that the passesnger in the next seat looks over and asks the steward "... can i also have one of those dishes ?"

Pranams
Krishnan

'Forward' or 'Delete' - exercise your freewill

(The below is in response to a chain email depicting the poor educational qualifications of the ministers of Kerala. To avoid perpetuation of unverified data, I have not included the original message)

Wow, what a research !

the first question which comes to my mind is... is it all factual ? .. if I am not convinced that it is a fact, I don't forward, but hit that most important key on the keyboard ... DELETE.

but, for this one, I decided to do a bit of thinking and pen my thoughts .... 'cos you know, I am now a blogger ... at www.brahmayajna.blogspot.com ..... shall post this one also.

chain email perpetrators try all different topics to cater to different sentiments .... this maybe just one of them .... any mail which says forward to all .... take it with a pinch of salt.. they are intended to only multiply the email traffic.. just for mischief sake .... you can verify the international ones at this site .. http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/a/current_netlore.htm

even if they are facts .. who is responsible for electing these people? .. you and me .. we should have done this research prior to going to the polling booths ... if at all we are taking the trouble to exercise our voting rights ... if we are really bothered as to who is guiding / administering our state or country... we cannot afford to sit ashore and do fishing

having said that, think for a second ... who is the man behind the software on almost all of our PCs? what is his educational qualification?

to me... true education is not represented by the 3 or 4 lettered tail at the end of the name ... true and complete education ... PURNA VIDYA... is a way of life ... it is a never-ending process ... to make a complete human being ... and that is real 'saaksharata'... 'aksharam' means that which does not have 'ksharam' or death .... that is why the alphabets are called 'aksharam' in malayalam .... and 'saaksharata' is that which is associated with 'aksharam' ... the complete human being

even if they are facts .. relax.. the ministry is not 'aksharam' ... it is temporary.... more temporary than some of our thoughts and feelings ... some of you may feel like strangling me while reading this ...

beauty is in the beholder's eye .... and kerala is beautiful .. shyama sundara kera kedara bhoomi.... that's why gurudev's teachings are spreading like wildfire in kerala!

jai gurudev !

keralam vazhatte !

bharatam vazhatte !

loka samasta sukhino bhavantu.


Pranams
Krishnan
www.purnavidya.com

What governs our life the most ?

The normal response to this question would be.... children's school, their extra-curricular classes, spouse's preferences, office demands, parents' requriements, health ... etc. For the majority of the "mobile" people (atleast for those who drive.... cars) in Dubai or any other "modern" and "fast-growing" city, the response would be...... car parking. The very machine which is supposed to keep us "mobile" is immobilisng us now and governing our life.

The time at which we have to get in for work, the day and time for shopping,....... everything is decided by the availability of parking ... hence we reschedule and smile when we get a parking..... until more like-minded people also reschedule their timings..... and then we reschedule ours.... the day is not far when we may have to do night shifts in the office, because that is the time when free parking is available.. or work from home. I wonder how many business opportunities are being lost because of the parking syndrome.

I used to enjoy hot home-cooked meal for lunch, lovingly made by my wife Bindu, but not anymore. Because it takes me atleast 30 minutes for a 10-km drive home and when I rush back after a quick meal, I do not get parking space. So, I have to contented with a light (probably cold) lunch packed in the morning or from the sandwich store nearby. Thanks to the Vedanta lessons, I take solace under Sankaracharya's verses from Sadhana Panchakam "... swadannam na tu yachyatam vidhivasaat praptena santushyatam"

In earlier days (which are always "good old days"), taxis were easily available, but not anymore. Last month, I nearly missed my flight since I had to wait for about 45 minutes to get a cab in the peak evening hours. Ultimately, I had to request a person (who sprinted faster than me to get into an empty cab), stating that I may miss my flight, in order to get to the airport just in time. Thanks to his generosity and understanding, he kindly vacated the cab for me. Inside the cab, chatting with the driver, I was shocked to know that most of the cabbies who drive cars with manual gear are taking rest during peak hours, due to incessant pain in their left legs! (can't blame them, either). Hence, we can no longer leave our cars "in state" in our residential parking lot (if there is one) and think of taking a cab, to avoid parking problems.

....and when someone in the lift says... "the driving and parking problem is getting worse and the government is not doing anything about this....", we can only smile and probably think.. are we not part of the problem and contributing to it ?

..... oops ! Have to rush now, else I'll miss my "driving corridor" to reach office in 15 minutes.

But my rational mind says... don't rush for worry of missing the parking slot, otherwise you may get parked permanently elsewhere ... Wish you safe driving ... If you were fortunate to find a parking slot today, wish you many many happy returns of the day!

Nitya karmas & Veda adhyayanam

Hari Om.

This one is for the Tamil brahmin community ...................

Many of us keep complaining about the shortage of 'vadhyars' in India and also spend our energy debating the quality of available vadhyars. Are we not contributing to the current state of affairs ? Is it not our responsibility to act and salvage the situation ?

Most of us do not find enough time (15 mts !! x 2 times) to do sandhyavandanam (leave alone study of the vedas) and hence cannot insist that the boys in the family (if upanayana karma has been done at the appropriate age) also do sandhyavandanam regularly.

But, we insist that we need atleast 11 'good' vadhyars for our son's upanayanam and of course, the marriage of our children and grandchildren has to be performed in the traditional manner only, no compromises on that.

There is no other choice but to fully accept that it is our duty (as enjoined in the scriptures) to learn the vedas, perform actions as enjoined in the scriptures and pass on the knowledge. Moreover, we should also contribute in whatever way we can to sustain the already dwindling veda pathasalas.

Pranams
Krishnan

Back from India

Hari Om

got back from India on 28th after 30 days trip in Tamilnadu & Kerala.

enjoyed the rains in Kerala, the heat in Madras, the serenity in Pondicherry.

had a good share of the time for spiritual sojourn ... bahgavad gita parayanam at chinmaya mission thrissur, darshan at chidambaram, meditation at aurobindo ashram pondicherry and darshan at ramana maharshi ashram and arunachala temple on guru purnima day, guru puja by Swami Paramarthananda Saraswati at astika samajam alwarpet, visit to kalady (adi sankara's birthplace), sampoorna narayaneeyam parayanam and annadaanam at guruvayur on our father's birthday...

gave support to two upcoming vidyalayas .. one in guruvayur and other in vadakke samooha madom, thrissur .. this is the need of the hour ... feeding the poor is equally important but we also have to invest for passing on the knowledge in the vedas .... the veda pathasala in kalady is also doing very well ... there are very few people who are striving to take this forward by deoting their time... what surprised me is the high number of people (who have enough resources - money, health, time) sitting and commenting on the sad state of affairs ???!!

people wasting their time debating on the sabarimala episode.. some of them even losing faith just by reading newspaper reports .. can it be really called faith ?

as usual, the baggage had lot of books and CDs of spiritual discourses .. ended up paying excess baggage at the airport ... still worth it !

shall get back with more musings ...

Pranams
Krishnan

Welcome

Hari Om.

Welcome to the world of blog.

Shall pen my thoughts in this forum. Please feel free to comment.

Pranams
Krishnan