Yoga, Karma and Reincarnation

See a small video were I explain the very importatn basis of Yoga, Karma and Reincarnation

These subject are much more important and very different than what most people believe.

Newspaper article that was in the local newspaper on my book

Paru dans La Voix de l'Est, Granby, samedi 15 octobre 2008

In 2009 I will be celebrating 30 years of meditation

There are a number of known health benefits coming with the practice of meditation, such as lower blood pressure, better blood circulation, a resting heart rate that is lower, and easier breathing. On top of that, many people say they have more energy than they have had in years when they meditate regularly, as well as a more youthful appearance.


There has also been many studies to analyse these benefits scientifically. Here is a small sample (see the link to the original description):

The study, done in China, randomly assigned college undergraduate
students to 40-person experimental and control groups. The experimental
group received five days of meditation training. The control group got
five days of relaxation training. Both groups took tests that assessed
their attention and reaction to mental stress before and after their
training.

The experimental group showed greater improvement than
the control to dealing with stress. Stress was induced by mental
arithmetic. Both groups initially showed elevated release of the stress
hormone cortisol following the math task, but after training, the
experimental group showed less cortisol release, indicating a greater
ability to cope with stress. The experimental group also showed lower
levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue than the control group.

And the study was only for five days. Imagine people who have been meditating for many years.

Experiment it for yourself !

Myth buster

Many so-called followers of yoga and vedanta believe firmly that we are totally and eternally made of pure bliss : BUT TO SEEK HAPPINESS IS EVIDENCE OF THE LACK OF HAPPINESS

If we were eternally made of bliss we would never ever lack bliss

For some real ecology

The Only Diet for a Peacemaker Is a Vegetarian Diet

It is nice to hear a Catholic defending vegetarianism.



See the link



.

New blog for SanteGlobale.com

See the update on my wordpress blog
for SanteGlobale.com at http://santeglobale.com/wp/

I follow this blog

Today I joined an important blog written by Steven Rudolph : http://stevenrudolph.blogspot.com/.

He is one of the great pillars of jiva.com (see The Jiva Home Page), and a very good expert at presenting the essence of traditionnal vedic knowledge of india in a modern way.

Here is a part of his blog that I think describes his work nicely:

Here is an area where I think India will serve the US well (far better than as a destination for outsourcing)--helping to improve the quality of life by sharing a wealth of knowledge on the science of life, related to yoga, pranayam (breathing techniques), Ayurveda, meditation, etc. Such knowledge will help people find ways of balancing themselves physically, helping them get in tune with their bodies and to reduce stress and anxiety. It will help them stay healthy with inexpensive, natural healthcare, including herbal remedies and massage therapies. And spiritually, people will learn to find greater joy with what they already have in their lives rather than by acquiring more and more material goods.

Making this type of knowledge available in a current context with modern technology is Jiva's mission. We've been working for the past 14 years to create an array of tools, courses, and resources in the area of life-wellness based on Vedic wisdom. It seems that things are suddenly coming together--a tipping point of sorts, where our work may soon be of value to a much wider audience.

We're excited about the opportunity to share these assets and to be an active part of the balancing process. Get ready for some informative articles and videos in the coming days and weeks from Dr. Satya Narayna Dasa, Dr. Partap Chauhan, and our team members. In the meantime, let's remember:

E Pluribus Unum / Anekta Mein Ekta
(Out of Many One / Diversity in Unity)

Steve

Steven Rudolph

Faridabad, HY, India

Educator, Musician, Non-Resident American (NRA), Indophile, MI: Musical, Intrapersonal, MN: Educative, Creative : http://stevenrudolph.blogspot.com/.

GuyTetreault.com

My personnal web page GuyTetreault.com as been updated for the english section at http://guytetreault.com/gteng/

More on the subject of my french book

Myfrench book just published last week is a translation and anexplanation of a book done by my indian philosophy teacher :Satyanarayana das.

The title : Conte de l'Inde ancienne

For those who do not read french I will copy here parts of his articles on this subject.
I copy thm here in case you cannot see it on his web site : http://www.jiva.com/
(the original article was at this location: you can also see other articles there)

------

Best of Hitopadesha—Part - III
Good Company and Bad Company
by Dr Satya Narayana Dasa

The Backdrop
About 1,500 years ago the King of Iran got hold of a book that contained the secret of how to raise the dead by means of rasayana, an elixir of life. The book explained the procedure to extract the elixir from herbs and trees growing on the high mountains of India. Eager to sample this elixir, the King sent his chief minister on a quest for the prescribed herbs and trees.

In India, the minister was well-received and aided by the sages. He scoured the mountains for the herbs and trees to make the elixir. No mixture he made, however, could bring the dead back to life. Finally, the disappointed minister concluded that the information was false.

Greatly distressed about returning empty-handed and disappointing his king, the minister asked his hosts what to do. They led him to a famous philosopher, who once searched in vain for the same elixir, and in the end discovered that the elixir was actually a book.

The philosopher explained that the story about the elixir was allegorical. The high mountains in the story represented the wise and learned men of lofty intellect; the trees and herbs, which are the products of the mountains, indicated the various writings of those sages; the elixir itself denoted the wisdom extracted from the sages’ writings, which revived the dead intelligence and buried thoughts of ignorant materialistic men.

Relieved and elated, the minister begged a copy of the book from the philosopher, translated it, and returned to his king. That book we know today is a variant of the book of Hitopadesha.

The origins of this book are a little less known. Study of old hand-written manuscripts, however, reveals that Narayana Pandit, who lived in the fourteenth century Bengal province of India, wrote the book on the request of King Dhavalchandra. Traditionally, it was taught to the initiated students in gurukula (ancient Hindu residential school in India).

Hitopadesha, or “Good Instructions”, is famous for its wisdom and is one of the most popular books on ethics and polity. It uses the story-within-a-story format, with animals as the main characters. It is popular with children because of the fables, in which characters of animals are used to personify certain traits found in humans. I am happy to have been able to translate this book from its original Sanskrit couplets. This will surely expand the reach of Hitopadesha and help children and grown-ups alike by being a tool while taking decisions. It will also inspire them to overcome their daily problems.

Below is an extract taken from the first chapter of Hitopadesha. I have selected the forty-first couplet from this chapter. This is the third write-up of a series of total three articles that have been published in series.

“One’s intelligence is degraded by associating with uneducated people, remains the same by associating with equals, and is improved by associating with superiors.”

An Elucidation
Before I delve into the essence of the above statement let me throw some light on education. In the above statement ‘uneducated people’ do not necessarily mean people with low formal education. The meaning of the term ‘education’ has been used in its broader perspective. By ‘educated’ we mean people who are characterised by rich experience, unsurpassed learning and sublime culture. They are those people who live for fulfilling the five goals of life as discussed in my previous article (“The Four Goals of Life”, The Jiva Newsletter, Vol. 1, Issue 5, Sep. 2008). So, ‘uneducated people’ are those who do not exhibit any or all of the above qualities.

Mirror as a Metaphor for Man
A person’s mind reflects influence of people around it just like a mirror does nearby objects. A mirror, however, does not acquire the qualities of the objects it reflects; whereas the mind is influenced by the characteristics of persons with whom we associate. It is said, therefore, that a man is known by the company he keeps.

There is no denying the fact that man is indeed influenced by his company—be he a saint, a sinner, an ascetic or a thief. A man is like a cloth which
absorbs the dye it is soaked in.

In the epic Ramayana, Dvivida was a devotee of Lord Rama who fought against demon king Ravana’s army, yet later himself developed demoniac qualities due to the association of another demon Narakasura. As a result, in the other epic Mahabharata, Dvivida was killed by Lord Balarama for his abominable behaviour. In contrast, Narada was the son of a maidservant who became a great sage by holy association.

The mirror as a metaphor for the mind indicates that the effect of association is instantaneous, but people generally find it difficult to believe the almost instantaneous effect of association on the mind of another. Contemporary students of human nature are aware, however, that there is no exaggeration at all. For example, after studying human nature for more than fifty years, humanistic philosopher Erich Fromm made this observation about bad company:

“Bad company, on the other hand, is not only the company of merely trivial people but of evil, sadistic, destructive life-hostile people. But why, one might ask, is there danger in the company of bad people, unless they try to harm one in one form or another?

In order to answer this question it is necessary to recognise a law in human relations: There is no contact between human beings that does not affect both of them. No meeting between two people, no conversation between them, except perhaps the most casual one, leaves either one of them unchanged—even though the change may be too minimal to be recognisable except by its cumulative effect when such meetings are frequent.”

The Exception
The book Hitopadesha itself is a collection good instructions given by the learned man Narayana Pandit to the dull sons of King Dhavalchandra to turn them worthy of ruling the empire when they grew up. The king exhibited wisdom, therefore, in arranging Narayana Pandit for his dullards to have good association. One may argue that the boys’ association would negatively affect the learned brahmana (person with highest intelligence). While it is generally true that association influences both parties, there is no mutual exchange of influence in the case of one who is not weak-willed, but mentally strong and fixed in his own values. Otherwise ascetic saints would never grant their association to materialistic people. It is to be understood, therefore, that the learned brahmana would uplift the ignorant princes, while their company will have no ill effect on him.

Largest crystals discoverd on Earth

This picture looks too wonderful to be true but it is coming from National Geographic, so...

The beauty, harmony and symmetry of crystals is most pleasing to those who do a lot of meditation. I post this pictire in remembrance of a friend who is most expert in cristal meditation.

Massive beams of selenite dwarf human explorers in Mexico's Cave of Crystals
deep below the Chihuahuan Desert. Formed over millennia, these crystals
are the largest yet discoverd on Earth

Picture: Carsten Peter ©2008 National Geographic/Speleoresearch & Films

A wonderful meeting with a man of deep wisdom

Last week I attended a very interesting meeting at the department of theology at the University of Montreal to launch the latest issue of the Journal Scriptura.

Amongst all the very interesting people I had the chance to meet there I was particularly blessed to meet quite a wonderful man of God and Truth: Dr. Beck, director of the Pappas Patristic Institute.

I had the privilege to engage in a personal discussion with him for almost 2 hours where we could explore with great relish several topics: the cult of children since last century in the Western world, relations between the founders of Protestantism and the patriarch of Greek Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton and the universalism of the deep mystical and spiritual experience ... We could also make some interesting parallels between his conversion from Protestantism to Greek Orthodoxy (and its beautiful Byzantine liturgy) and my transition to vedantist Vaishnava tradition of India from my french canadian upbringing.

The focus of our discussion was the overwhelming beauty, joy and immeasurable wealth of wisdom now available for those who drink at the roots of the great traditions.

It was extremely pleasant conversation with someone able to be deeply open to all traditions while being so rooted in his own. I believe that his work and presentation platform for the Study of patristic is of the utmost importance to give deep wisdom to our modern world.

Please check out their nice website to see their many interesting programs : Pappas Patristic Institute.

India sagacious love

This picture shows one of the main reasons I love india

These noble trees seem to be shelter places for enlightment...
and they look like peaceful old friends filled with wisdom.


.

New web site I created

See the new website I created for my partner AndreeLeclerc.com showing all her resources in one place.

Her various web sites, her blogs and all important links

An important web site is born

www.whatsmynature.com


Check out this web site created by someone who is really dedicated to his subject.  Over the last 14 years, I saw Steve working hard to build various educational tools.  This one is most useful to find out one of the most important things at the center of our lives.

Here is Steve’s description of his project:

Greetings!

Over the past 14 years, I've become increasingly concerned about the way children are routinely forced into academic streams and careers that are at odds with their natures. Parents often guide their kids into professions they think are prestigious or lucrative without regard to whether the children are suited for that type of work. This nature-profession mismatch is a major cause of job dissatisfaction, which directly results in stress, depression, overeating, substance abuse, relationship problems, and so on.

To address this issue, I have created a new website called What's My Nature? (www.whatsmynature.com). It contains a 7-minute test that determines an individual's nature, and then suggests compatible careers.

Here's how it works:

• The site first identifies your dominant Multiple Natures (Protective, Educative, Administrative, Creative, Healing, Entertaining, Providing, Entrepreneurial, and Adventurous).

• It then determines your dominant Multiple Intelligences (Bodily, Interpersonal, Logical, Linguistic, Visual, Musical, Intrapersonal, and Naturalistic).

• Lastly, the site searches through our database of 500+ jobs, and identifies jobs that match your profile.

Just to give you an idea, the site identified my own profile as:

• MN: Educative, Creative
• MI: Musical, Intrapersonal

That's spot on. It then went on to identify 14 professions for me. And first on the list was Educational Curriculum Designer. How's that for accurate?!

Please check the site out and let me know what you think. After you take the test, be sure to save the results—and send them to me. I'd love to know what your profile is, and how accurate the job recommendation was. And please do pass it on to others—especially to youngsters who are figuring out their life paths.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Take care and enjoy!

Steve

Steven Rudolph | Director, Jiva | asksteve@jiva.com
Tel: 0129-408-8152 | www.jiva.com
Sector 21B, Faridabad, 121001 India

Do you know your nature? Find out in 7 minutes at www.whatsmynature.com!