Siddhuism

Siddhuism started in India when former cricketer Siddhu started giving his cricket Commentary.
Let me share some of his great quotes.

Statistics are like bikinis what they reveal is suggestive, what they hide is essential!

Spit on your hands! Take the black flag! And start slitting throats!

Wickets are like wives you never know which way they will turn!

Money is like manure. It is not good until it is spread around.

He looks like a brooding hen over a China egg!

One, who doesn’t throw the dice, can never expect to score a six.

It is very difficult to kill a man who is hell bent on committing suicide!

He is as innocent as a freshly laid egg!

When you are dining with the demons, you’ve got to have a long spoon!

If ‘ifs and buts’ were ‘pots and pants’ there would be no tinkers!

The ball went so high it could have got an airhostess on its way down!

This team is like bicycles in a cycle stand one falls and the entire row falls!

The scoreboard is running faster than an Indian Taximeter!

I lean on statistics like a drunken man leans on a lamppost, only for support, not illumination.

The batsman is like a three-wheeler. Sucks a lot of fuel, but cannot go beyond 30!

The Only Thing You Get In Life Without Trying is dandruff.

The wily fox is back it is an ill omen when a fox licks the lambs!

A big outcry but no outcome!

The Indians are going to beat the Kiwis! Let me tell you, my friend, that the Kiwi is the only bird in the whole world which does not have wings!

All that comes from a cow is not milk!

Experience is like a comb that life gives you when you are bald.

Just because a rose smells sweet, you do not use it in the soup!

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Being an ardent of Devotee of Swami Vivekananda, here is few gems from his teachings..
1. Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love’s sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.

2. It’s Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

3. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!

4.It’s The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.

5. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realised God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

6. Don’t Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.

7. Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.

8. Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.

9. Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.

10. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!

11. Nothing Is Impossible: Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.

12. You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.

13. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge… now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man ‘knows’, should, in strict psychological language, be what he ‘discovers’ or ‘unveils’; what man ‘learns’ is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.

14. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.

15. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.

To read more about Swamiji Vivekananda and teachings please visit http://www.vivekananda.org

Did you know ?

Swami Vivekananda was the first Indian to be invited to accept the chair of Oriental Philosophy at Harvard University.

Jamshedji Tata set up the Tata Institute or the Indian Institute of Science on the Swami’s advice.

India celebrates National Youth Day on his birthday

“One infinite pure and holy–beyond thought beyond qualities I bow down to thee” - SwamiVivekananda”
[Picture and quote courtesy of Vivekananda.org]

Today morning, my best friend Herath, Pathum from Srilanka pinged me in google talk and we had a conversation regarding a south indian J. Krishnamurti(May 12, 1895–February 17, 1986) one of renowned Indian philosopher, writer…… a thought in mind to write about this great person long ago.

I wish to continue this idea in my further article .

Let me post one of his famous speech taken place at Alpino, Italy, July 1933 .

“Friends, I should like you to make a living discovery, not a discovery induced by the description of others. If someone, for instance, had told you about the scenery here, you would come with your minds prepared by that description, and then perhaps you would be disappointed by the reality. No one can describe reality. You must experience it, see it, feel the whole atmosphere of it. When you see its beauty and loveliness, you experience a renewing, a quickening of joy.

Most people who think that they are seeking truth have already prepared their minds for its reception by studying descriptions of what they are seeking. When you examine religions and philosophies, you find that they have all tried to describe reality; they have tried to describe truth for your guidance.

Now I am not going to try to describe what to me is truth, for that would be an impossible attempt. One cannot describe or give to another the fullness of an experience. Each one must live it for himself.

Like most people, you have read, listened and imitated; you have tried to find out what others have said concerning truth and God, concerning life and immortality. So you have a picture in your mind, and now you want to compare that picture with what I am going to say. That is, your mind is seeking merely descriptions; you do not try to find out anew, but only try to compare. But since I shall not try to describe truth, for it cannot be described, naturally there will be confusion in your mind.

When you hold before yourself a picture that you are trying to copy, an ideal that you are trying to follow, you can never face an experience fully; you are never frank, never truthful as regards yourself and your own actions; you are always protecting yourself with an ideal. If you really probe into your own mind and heart, you will discover that you come here to get something new; a new idea, a new sensation, a new explanation of life, in order that you may mould your own life according to that. Therefore you are really searching for a satisfactory explanation. You have not come with an attitude of freshness, so that by your own perception, your own intensity, you may discover the joy of natural and spontaneous action. Most of you are merely seeking a descriptive explanation of truth, thinking that if you can find out what truth is, you can then mould your lives according to that eternal light.

If that be the motive of your search, then it is not a search for truth. It is rather for consolation, for comfort; it is but an attempt to escape the innumerable conflicts and struggles that you must face every day.

Out of suffering is born the urge to seek truth; in suffering lies the cause of the insistent inquiry, the search for truth. Yet when you suffer - as every one does suffer - you seek an immediate remedy and comfort. When you feel momentary physical pain, you obtain a palliative at the nearest drug store to lessen your suffering. So also, when you experience momentary mental or emotional anguish, you seek consolation, and you imagine that trying to find relief from pain is the search for truth. In that way you are continually seeking a compensation for your pains, a compensation for the effort you are thus forced to make. You evade the main cause of suffering and thereby live an illusory life.

So those people who are always proclaiming that they are searching for truth are in reality missing it. They have found their lives to be insufficient, incomplete, lacking in love, and think that by trying to seek truth they will find satisfaction and comfort. If you frankly say to yourself that you are seeking only consolation and compensation for the difficulties of life, you will be able to grapple with the problem intelligently. But as long as you pretend to yourself that you are seeking something more than mere compensation, you cannot see the matter clearly. The first thing to find out, then, is whether you are really seeking, fundamentally seeking truth.

A man who is seeking truth is not a disciple of truth. Suppose that you say to me, “I have had no love in my life; it has been a poor life, a life of continuous pain; therefore, in order to gain comfort, I seek truth.” Then I must point out that your search for comfort is an utter delusion. There is no such thing in life as comfort and security. The first thing to understand is that you must be absolutely frank.

But you yourself are not certain what you really want: you want comfort, consolation, compensation, and yet, at the same time, you want something that is infinitely greater than compensation and comfort. You are so confused in your own mind that one moment you look to an authority who offers you compensation and comfort, and the next moment you turn to another who denies you comfort. So your life becomes a refined hypocritical existence, a life of confusion. Try to find out what you really think; do not pretend to think what you believe you ought to think; then, if you are conscious, fully alive in what you are doing, you will know for yourself, without self-analysis, what you really desire. If you are fully responsible in your acts, you will then know without self-analysis what you are really seeking. This process of finding out does not necessitate great will power, great strength, but only the interest to discover what you think, to discover whether you are really honest or living in illusion.

In talking to groups of listeners all over the world, I find that more and more people seem not to understand what I am saying, because they come with fixed ideas; they listen with their biased attitude, without trying to find out what I have to say, but only expecting to find what they secretly desire. It is vain to say, “Here is a new ideal after which I must mould myself.” Rather find out what you really feel and think.

How can you find out what you really feel and think? From my point of view, you can do that only by being aware of your whole life. Then you will discover to what extent you are a slave to your ideals, and by discovering that, you will see that you have created ideals merely for your consolation.

Where there is duality, where there are opposites, there must be the consciousness of incompleteness. The mind is caught up in opposites, such as punishment and reward, good and bad, past and future, gain and loss. Thought is caught up in this duality, and therefore there is incompleteness in action. This incompleteness creates suffering, the conflict of choice, effort and authority, and the escape from the unessential to the essential.

When you feel that you are incomplete, you feel empty, and from that feeling of emptiness arises suffering; out of that incompleteness you create standards, ideals, to sustain you in your emptiness, and you establish these standards and ideals as your external authority. What is the inner cause of the external authority that you create for yourself? First, you feel incomplete, and you suffer from that incompleteness. As long as you do not understand the cause of authority, you are but an imitative machine, and where there is imitation there cannot be the rich fulfillment of life. To understand the cause of authority you must follow the mental and emotional process which creates it. First of all, you feel empty, and in order to get rid of that feeling you make an effort; by that effort you only create opposites; you create a duality which but increases the incompleteness and the emptiness. You are responsible for such external authorities as religion, politics, morality, for such authorities as economic and social standards. Out of your emptiness, out of your incompleteness, you have created these external standards from which you now try to free yourself. By evolving, by developing, by growing away from them you want to create an inner law for yourself. As you come to understand external standards, you want to liberate yourself from them, and to develop your own inner standard. This inner standard, which you call “spiritual reality”, you identify with a cosmic law, which means that you create but another division, another duality.

So you first create an external law, and then you seek to outgrow it by developing an inner law, which you identify with the universe, with the whole. That is what is happening. You are still conscious of your limited egotism, which you now identify with a great illusion, calling it cosmic. So when you say, “I am obeying my inner law”, you are but using an expression to cover your desire to escape. To me, the man who is bound either by an external or an inner law is confined in a prison; he is held by an illusion. Therefore such a man cannot understand spontaneous, natural, healthy action.

Now why do you create inner laws for yourself? Is it not because the struggle in everyday life is so great, so inharmonious, that you want to escape from it and to create an inner law which shall become your comfort? And you become a slave to that inner authority, that inner standard, because you have rejected only the outward picture, and have created in its place an inner picture to which you are a slave.

By this method you will not attain true discernment, and discernment is quite other than choice. Choice must exist where there is duality. When the mind is incomplete and is conscious of that incompleteness, it tries to escape from it and therefore creates an opposite to that incompleteness. That opposite can be either an external or an inner standard, and when one has established such a standard, he judges every action, every experience by that standard, and therefore lives in a continual state of choice. Choice is born only of resistance. If there is discernment, there is no effort.

So to me this whole conception of making an effort toward truth, toward reality, this idea of making a sustained endeavour, is utterly false. As long as you are incomplete you will experience suffering, and hence you will be engaged in choice, in effort, in the ceaseless struggle for what you call”spiritual attainment.” So I say, when mind is caught up in authority, it cannot have true understanding, true thought. And since the minds of most of you are caught up in authority - which is but an escape from understanding, from discernment - you cannot face the experience of life completely. Therefore you live a dual life, a life of pretence, of hypocrisy, a life in which there is no moment of completeness.”

Let me share one of the wonderful photos of Indian Hindu gods .

These photos are taken during Indian festival called Vaikunta Ekadashi on Dec 30th 2006 at ISKCON Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Photographer unknown.

Religion being the root cause of Indian heritage and strength. In modern India religion has become a tool to create social nuisance and also political in-secular paradigm.

I am posting these photos too late but still, the meaning behind these photo are everlasting blunder of Indian heritage,creativity and their hopes, belief since 5000 years.

Sri Srinivasa Govinda smiling

Sri Srinivasa Govinda’s Lotus Feet

Sri Srinivasa Govinda

Sri RadhaKrishnachandra

Sri KrishnaBalaram

See also…
ISKCON Temple - Bangalore

Let me share my all time favourite short story in the form of TV serial.

Malgudi Days by R. K. Narayan (October 10, 1906 - May 13, 2001)
I have already written an article about him. Check here.

Malgudi Days
Collection of Narayan’s short stories. All the stories are taken place in a fictional town called Malgudi.

It is one of my childhood favourite stories in those days.Since I was unable to understand novels much my interest was to read short stories.

Narayan’s stories are always very simple in nature, the characters look very natural and realistic.

In the end of 70s and beginning of 80s, Doordarshan (a public broadcast Terrestrial television channel run by Prasar Bharati, a board nominated by the Government of India) use to broadcast many famous stories from independent producers and directores to popularize telivision serials. Malgudi days was one of those successful collective programme.

Directed by Kannada actor Late Shankar Nag and produced by T.S. Narasimhan of the Padam Rag Films. The whole serial was shot near Agumbe in Shimoga District, Karnataka, The serial was shote with great artist of that time.

In this program, my preference is not only with the story but the title music , the cartoon.
The music was composed by T.S. Vaidyanathan and the cartoons drawn none other than R.K. Lakshman: Narayan’s own brother.

Let me sharing some stories of this TV serials from You Tube. Thanks to people who shared this.

Illayaraja is one of the world’s most prolific film music composers, having composed for over 750 films over an illustrious career spanning more than 28 years.

Birth and family;
He was born in a poor rural family in pannaiapuram near Madurai in Tamil Nadu, south India. His birth name is Gnanadesikan and his school records indicate his name as Rasaiya. His father Ramasamy’s premature death threw the family into severe poverty. His brother Ganghei Amaran (Amarsingh) is also a composer and a song writer.

Illayaraja is married to Jeeva and they have three children. Two sons Karthik Raja and Yuvan Shankar Raja, both are composers and daughter Bhavatharini is a singer and composer.

Past time;
He loves writing poetry and has written lyrics for some songs not only in Tamil but also in Hindi! He is highly spiritual and composed many devotional songs on Ramana Maharshi. He loves photography.

Music career;
Without much formal education, he completed a course in classical guitar (higher local) with a gold medal at the Trinity College of Music in London.

His film career started from the movie Annakilli. Illayaraja was instrumental in bringing about a fusion of Tamil folk and film music. He won the national Best Film Music Composer award three times for the Telugu movies Saagara Sangamam (1984), Sindhu Bhairavi (1986) and Rudra Veena (1988).

He is the first Asian to compose a full symphony for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO). His music is mainly associated with the ’80s, the decade during which he was most prolific. After his symphony, he was called by the name ‘Maestro’ Ilayaraja.

Illayaraaja is credited with a truly unique orchestration technique, which involves blending of western and Indian instruments. Normally, lyrics are written to suit his pre-determined tunes. This composing technique was used by him for the first time in India. Today it has become a norm.

His two fusion albums;
Beside his career in film music for Tamil, Telugu and other Indian films, he had written lyrics to fusion albums blending western classical music with Indian carnatic raagas.

How to Name it?
One of the tracks is based on Preludium in E by Johann Sebastian Bach
The whole idea behind the album was, ‘What if Bach and Thyagaraja had met in their age and combined to create a new genre of music’. Clearly, the album testifies to that proposal. The tracks are simply the best bits of fusion music ever composed. The album was dedicated to Carnatic composer Tyagaraja and Johann Sebastian Bach

Nothing But Wind;
It suggests that music is a natural phenomenon akin to wind.

He has developed good association with Carnatic musicians like Dr.Mangalampalli BalaMuraliKrishna and T.V. Gopalakrishnan. He has also got some flak from conservative Carnatic music fans for rewriting some of Tyagaraja’s compositions. He invented a raga by name Panchamukhi, which is looked at by some of the Carnatic Purists as faux and by the general crowd as an Achievement.

In 2002, his compostion “Rakkama Kaiya Thattu” from the movie Dhalapathi stayed at the top of BBC list of the best songs for quite a while, before finishing at 4th place.

He was the music composer for the Miss World 1996 Pageant, held at Bangalore. His latest hit is Mumbai Xpress (2005), with several strong elements that gave it a Jazz appeal.

His most recent work is that of the Thiruvasakam in Symphony.
This is an Oratorio of Thiruvasakam with Symphony orchestration. [Coming soon in my another article.]

Awards and Nominations;

* Presented with the Best Film Music Composer Award, an annual award, by the Government of India in the years 1984, 1986 and 1988.

* Presented with ‘Kalaimamani Award’, an annual award for excellence in the field of arts, by the Government of the State of Tamil Nadu, India.

* Presented with the Award of Governement of the State of Andhra Pradesh, India, for excellence in music.

* Conferred the title ‘Isaignani’ (wisest in the field of music) in the year 1988, at Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, India.

* Conferred the Degree of Doctor of Letter (Honoris causa) in March, 1994, by the Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, India.

* Conferred the Cultural Doctorate in Philosophy of Music, in April, 1994, by the World University Round Table, Arizona, U.S.A.

* Award of Appreciation presented in the year 1994, by the Foundation and Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America.

* Bestowed with the honorary citizenship and presented with the key to the Teaneck Township, by Mr. John Abraham, Mayor of Township of Teaneck, New Jersey, U.S.A., in June 1994.

* Presented with the Award of Governement of the State of Kerala, India, in the year 1995, for excellence in music.

* Conferred the Degree of Doctor of Letter, in the year 1996, by the Madurai Kamarajar University, Tamil Nadu, India.

* Presented with the Lata Mangeshkar Award for Excellence in Music, constituted by the Government of Madhya Pradesh, India, for the year 1998.

His Other Albums;
* Thiruvasakam
* How to name it?
* Nothing But Wind (Flute played by Hariprasad Chaurasia)
* Rajavin Ramanamaalai
* Illayaraja’s Geethanjali
* India 24 Hours

His Literary Works;
* Sangeetha Kanavugal (Musical Dreams - about European tour)
* Vettaveli thanil kotti kidakkuthu (Poems)
* Vazhithunai
* Gnagna Ganga
* Paal Nila Paathai
* Unmaikku Thirai Yethu?
* Yaarukku Yaar Ezhuthuvathu?
* En Narambu Veenai

This Article was posted in my old website… TheGClef

George Uglow Pope popularly known as Rev. G.U. Pope or G.U. Pope is a Christian missionary who spent many years in Tamil Nadu and translated many Tamil texts into English. His popular translations include Tirukkural and Tiruvachagam.

Thiruvasagam. Written by Mannikkavasagar, one whose words are like gems wrote the eighth ThirumuRai consisting of ThiruvAchakam, ThiruvempAvai and ThirukkOvaiyAr. He was born in ThiruvAthavUr in the late 8th or early 9th century A.D. He was a minister in the PAndya Kingdom but when he was sent to purchase horses for the army, he spent all the money in religious pursuits. Lord Sivan is supposed to have blessed him with his grace and saved him from the wrath of the King.

Maestro Illayaraja The famous Music composer of south india, attempted to compose this Tamil script into a magnificant western musical form called Oratorio . Its really superb master piece by this great leagend. In this music he composed 2 song in form of western March and in Ballet form.
In second song Illaraja tryes to combine the Manikkavasagars tamil script with G.U. Popes English Translation into one and make it wonderful Song.

The Album contains six tracks.

1. Poovaar Senni Mannan ( Singer : Illayaraja & Chorus) :
The album starts with the song ” Poovaar Senni Mannan”, which has booming chorus and soulful singing by Illayaraja.
A great start to the Album. In western this is called as March. Manikkavasagar calls those people who want to follow hime to reach lotus feet of the lord.

2. Pollaa Vinayen ( Singers : Illayaraja,Ray Harcourt) :
This is the crown jewel of the Album. Its a lengthy piece with lyrics in both English & Tamil. Tamil lyric by Mannika vasagar and English: a translation of original lyrics. Translatted by Rev. G.U. Pope.
Stunned composition and excellent orchestration. Raja oozes with emotion in this song.

3. Pooerukonum Purantharanum ( Singers : Illayaraja,Bavatharini) :
A melodious song with a strong carnatic base. A typical Raja’s unique duet.

4. Umbarkatkarasaey ( Singer : Illayaraja) :
Another Soulful number. Wonderful singing and excellent orchestration. Here poet expresses his feeling after hugging the Lord. In this song, Manikkavasagar asks the lord who is already in his captive, how he will be seen in other places.

5. Muthu Natramam ( Singers :Unnikrishnan, Madhu Balakrishnan,VijayJesudas,Manjari,Asha,Gayathri & Chorus) :
A very “crispy” song with wonderful chorus. This song is almost like a Western Ballet.

6. Puttril Vazh Aravum Anjen :
Raja’s tribute to Manickavasagar. The song has nice “wordy” interludes in the beginning . Poet express his feeling of his fear. The starting stanza depects the emotion of the poet to the sumeet.

The “Thiruvachagam” is a must buy for music lovers and hope Raja continues such musical endeavors in the future.To paraphrase one of raja’s film songs ” Raja Kayya vecha adhu raanga ponadhillai”.This is definitely a stunning fusion of Western Classical & Carnatic music. I bow to his genius.

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