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Sunday 30 August 2015

YAMA [SOCIAL ETHICS] AND NIYAMA [PERSONAL ETHICS] : ETHICAL PRACTICE FOR ENLIGHTENED LIVING


2015-35  Yama [Social Ethics] and Niyama [Personal Ethics] :

Ethical Practice for Enlightened Living




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Yama and Niyama are the basic rules of conduct [social and personal] for enlightened living. They are the first two limbs of the Ashtanga [eight-limbed] Yoga according to Patanjali's Yoga Sutras [2.30 and 2.32]*. 
Yama [abstinences or external discipline] include non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, non-excess and non-covetousness
Niyama [observances or internal discipline] include purity, contentment, self-discipline, self-study, and surrender to indwelling omnipresence.
Yoga is rooted in the notion of developing a positive personality. Therefore ethical discipline or the practice of correct conduct is necessary for success in yoga. This is the basis of yama and niyama, the two moral backbones of yoga. They define the attributes to be practised in everyday life by a spiritual aspirant.



अहिंसा  सत्य अस्तेय  ब्रह्मचर्य अपरिग्रहा  यमाः  [2.30]
ahiṁsā satyā 'asteya brahmacaryā 'aparigrahā yamāḥ 

शौच सन्तोष तपः स्वाध्याय एस्वर प्रणिधानानि नियमाः [2.32]
śauca santoṣa tapaḥ svādhyāyā e'śvara praṇidhānāni niyamāḥ 

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Yama and Niyama: Conscious Relationship with the World and Yourself:
[Click Here]


10 Yama and 10 Niyama of Hinduism: [Click Here]

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Enlightened Living by Swami Venkatesananda:
[Commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali] pdf:[Click Here]



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Sunday 23 August 2015

JAMES ALLEN: THE SECRET OF HEALTH, SUCCESS AND POWER

2015-34  James Allen: The Secret of Health, Success and Power
[from James Allen's "Poverty to Power" Part I The Path of Prosperity: Chapter 5]



The secret of health, success and power

To dwell continually in good thoughts, is to throw around oneself a psychic atmosphere of sweetness and power which leaves its impress upon all who come in contact with it. 

Where there is sterling faith and uncompromising purity there is health, there is success, there is power. In such a one, disease, failure, and disaster can find no lodgment, for there is nothing on which they can feed. Even physical conditions are largely determined by mental states, and to this truth the scientific world is rapidly being drawn.

Disease comes to those who attract it, to those whose minds and bodies are receptive to it, and flees from those whose strong, pure, and positive thought-sphere generates healing and life-giving currents. 

If you are given to anger, worry, jealousy, greed, or any other inharmonious state of mind, and expect perfect physical health, you are expecting the impossible, for you are continually sowing the seeds of disease in your mind. Such conditions of mind are carefully shunned by the wise man, for he knows them to be far more dangerous than a bad drain or an infected house. 

If you would be free from all physical aches and pains, and would enjoy perfect physical harmony, then put your mind in order, and harmonize your thoughts. 

Think joyful thoughts; think loving thoughts; let the elixir of goodwill course through your veins, and you will need no other medicine. Put away your jealousies, your suspicions, your worries, your hatreds, your selfish indulgences, and you will put away your dyspepsia, your biliousness, your nervousness and aching joints. If you will persist in clinging to these debilitating and demoralizing habits of mind, then do not complain when your body is laid low with sickness. 

To follow, under all circumstances, the highest promptings within you; to be always true to the divine self; to rely upon the inward Light, the inward Voice, and to pursue your purpose with a fearless and restful heart, believing that the future will yield unto you the meed of every thought and effort; knowing that the laws of the universe can never fail, and that your own will come back to you with mathematical exactitude, this is faith and the living of faith.

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James Allen's Secret of Health, Success and Power: text [Click Here]

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YouTubeAudio: James Allen's "Power of Purpose": [Click Here]





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Sunday 16 August 2015

JAMES ALLEN: THE WAY OUT OF UNDESIRABLE CONDITIONS

2015-33  James Allen: The Way out of Undesirable Conditions
[from James Allen's "Poverty to Power" Part I The Path of Prosperity: Chapter 3]


James Allen [1864-1912]
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He who puts his hand in the fire must suffer the burning until such time as it has worked itself out. Neither curses nor prayers can avail to alter it. Hatred, anger, jealousy, envy, lust, covetousness, all these are fires which bum. And whoever even so much as touches them must suffer the torments of burning.

Love, gentleness, good-will, purity, are cooling airs which breathe peace upon the soul that woos them. Being in harmony with the Eternal Law, they become actualized in the form of health, peaceful surroundings, and undeviating success and good fortune.

A thorough understanding of this Great Law which permeates the universe leads to the acquirement of that state of mind known as obedience. To know that justice, harmony, and love are supreme in the universe is likewise to know that all adverse and painful conditions are the result of our own disobedience to that Law.

Such knowledge leads to strength and power, and it is upon such knowledge alone that a true life and an enduring success and happiness can be built. To be patient under all circumstances, and to accept all conditions as necessary factors in your training, is to rise superior to all painful conditions.

The cause of all power, as of all weakness, is within; the secret of all happiness as of all misery is likewise within. There is no progress apart from unfoldment within, and no sure foothold of prosperity or peace except by orderly advancement in knowledge.

You say you are chained by circumstances; you cry out for better opportunities, for a wider scope, for improved physical conditions, and perhaps you inwardly curse the fate that binds you hand and foot. It is for you that I write; it is to you that I speak.

Listen, and let my words burn themselves into your heart, for that which I say to you is truth: You may bring about that improved condition in your outward life which you desire, if you will unswervingly resolve to improve your inner life.

I know this pathway looks barren at its commencement, but if you undertake to walk it; if you perseveringly discipline your mind, eradicating your weaknesses, and allowing your soul-forces and spiritual powers to unfold themselves, you will be astonished at the magical changes which will be brought about in your outward life.

As you proceed, golden opportunities will be strewn across your path, and the power and judgment to properly utilize them will spring up within you. Genial friends will come unbidden to you; sympathetic souls will be drawn to you as the needle is to the magnet; and books and all outward aids that you require will come to you unsought.

Perhaps the chains of poverty hang heavily upon you, and you are friendless and alone, and you long with an intense longing that your load may be lightened; but the load continues, and you seem to be enveloped in an ever-increasing darkness.

Perhaps you complain, you bewail your lot; you blame your birth, your parents, your employer, or the unjust Powers who have bestowed upon you so undeservedly poverty and hardship, and upon another affluence and ease.

Cease your complaining and fretting; none of these things which you blame are the cause of your poverty; the cause is within yourself, and where the cause is, there is the remedy.

The very fact that you are a complainer, shows that you deserve your lot; shows that you lack that faith which is the ground of all effort and progress.

There is no room for a complainer in a universe of law, and worry is soul-suicide. By your very attitude of mind you are strengthening the chains which bind you, and are drawing about you the darkness by which you are enveloped.

Alter your outlook upon life, and your outward life will alter. Build yourself up in the faith and knowledge, and make yourself worthy of better surroundings and wider opportunities.

Be sure, first of all, that you are making the best of what you have. Do not delude yourself into supposing that you can step into greater advantages whilst overlooking smaller ones, for if you could, the advantage would be impermanent and you would quickly fall back again in order to learn the lesson which you had neglected.

Perhaps you are living in a small cottage, and are surrounded by unhealthy and vicious influences. You desire a larger and more sanitary residence. Then you must fit yourself for such a residence by first of all making your cottage as far as possible a little paradise. Keep it spotlessly clean. Make it look as pretty and sweet as your limited means will allow. Cook your plain food with all care, and arrange your humble table as tastefully as you possibly can.

If you cannot afford a carpet, let your rooms be carpeted with smiles and welcomes, fastened down with the nails of kind words driven in with the hammer of patience. Such a carpet will not fade in the sun, and constant use will never wear it away.
By so ennobling your present surroundings you will rise above them, and above the need of them, and at the right time you will pass on into the better house and surroundings which have all along been waiting for you, and which you have fitted yourself to occupy.

Perhaps you desire more time for thought and effort, and feel that your hours of labor are too hard and long. Then see to it that you are utilizing to the fullest possible extent what little spare time you have.

It is useless to desire more time, if you are already wasting what little you have; for you would only grow more indolent and indifferent. Even poverty and lack of time and leisure are not the evils that you imagine they are, and if they hinder you in your progress, it is because you have clothed them in your own weaknesses, and the evil that you see in them is really in yourself.

Endeavor to fully and completely realize that in so far as you shape and mould your mind, you are the maker of your destiny, and as, by the transmuting power of self-discipline you realize this more and more, you will come to see that these so-called evils may be converted into blessings.

You will then utilize your poverty for the cultivation of patience, hope and courage; and your lack of time in the gaining of promptness of action and decision of mind, by seizing the precious moments as they present themselves for your acceptance.

As in the rankest soil the most beautiful flowers are grown, so in the dark soil of poverty the choicest flowers of humanity have developed and bloomed. Where there are difficulties to cope with, and unsatisfactory conditions to overcome, there virtue most flourishes and manifests its glory.

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James Allen's "From Poverty to Power" - Full Text pdf; [Click Here]







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Sunday 9 August 2015

MICHELANGELO, THE ITALIAN SCULPTOR, PAINTER, POET & ARCHITECT






Michelangelo [1475-1564]
Michelangelo [1475–1564], was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. 
Considered as the greatest living artist in his lifetime, he has since been held as one of the greatest artists of all time. His versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
A number of his works in painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. His output in every field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century.
Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Pieta [1499]



David [1504]

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Creation of Adam [1512]

The Last Judgement [1541 ]
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Michelangelo's Complete Works - SlideShow: [Click Here]

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YouTubeVideo: Biography - Michelangelo - Artist and Man: [Click Here] 


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Sunday 2 August 2015

LEONARDO DA VINCI, THE ITALIAN POLYMATH

2015-31 Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian Polymath


Leonardo da Vinci [1452-1519]
Leonardo da Vinci, [1452–1519] was an Italian polymath. He was a painter, sculptor, architect, scientist, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, astronomer, cartographer, botanist, historian and writer.

He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived in the Western world. He is referred to as the Father of paleontology alongside Georges Cuvier

His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". 

Leonardo da Vinci is most known for his enduring works "The Last Supper" and "Mona Lisa." 
The Last Supper [1495]


Mona Lisa [1504]

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YouTube Video: Top 20 Leonardo da Vinci Paintings:[Click Here]




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YouTube Video: Top 7 Leonardo da Vinci Inventions:[Click Here]


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YouTube Video: Leonardo's Machines in Motion:[Click Here]


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YouTube Video: Mona Lisa's Secrets - Leonardo's Sacred Geometry:
[Click Here]


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