Mindsparks Of The Enigma

Mindspark : Nanban

2012-01-19T23:57:00.000-08:00

Nanban(2012)

Director : Shankar

Screenplay : Shankar,Madhavan Karky

Story : Rajkumar Hirani,Abhijat Joshi,Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Music : Harris Jayaraj

Cast : Vijay,Jiiva,Srikanth,Sathyaraj,Satyhan,Ileana,S.J Suryah

Language : Tamil

Distributor : Gemini Film Circuits

Running time : 188 minutes

Rating : PG-13

'3 Idiots' is a masterpiece by all means and i’m proud of the fact that the film remains the highest grossing film in all of India to date and not some mindless rubbish masala.The biggest stars of that film is its story and screenplay,which should be the case with any movie being made out there,if you ask me.Rajkumar Hirani,with all goodwill and inspired talent that he possess, has managed to create an interesting and entertaining screenplay which can be readily adapted into any language anywhere in the world but being the box-office phenomenon and epitome of filmmaking excellence ‘3 Idiots’ was and still is,most filmmakers would shy away from the idea of remaking it in their respective native setting,fearing whether their take would match up to the original but one man instead rose up to the challenge and lapped it up like the pro he is...Shankar!!!!!!!!!!!

It puzzled me at first of why a hugely successful director like him who NEVER made a film where he didn’t have full creative control over the screenplay would want to direct a remake,that too with a frame-by-frame approach?Come on people,its always been other directors imitating and emulating Shankar,not vice-versa,and most fail as that man has developed for himself a practically inimitable style of filmmaking.So why the paradigm shift with Nanban?The answers came bombarding my mind like rays from a plasma gun hitting a granite plate.That man felt very very close to the film,from my POV,it appealed to him personally in a big way,that’s why!!!!!Now what makes me say this?Consider these points/trivia :-

1) 1 ) The core theme or message in ‘3 Idiots’ is about pursuing one’s PASSION, make a living and carving a career out of their heart’s desire.Strive for excellence,never settle for less and success will follow suit.Shankar is a famous living example of this adage as each of his films is made with a penchant for excellence(and he never settles for less,if he needs Rs165 crore to make a movie the way its SHOULD ME MADE,then Rs165 crore it is or else forget about it,Mr.Producer !)

2) 2) The setting of the film is at an engineering college(IEC).Shankar himself is an engineering undergraduate with a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering.I strongly believed that he identified very closely with Madhavan’s character in the original-engineering student with his heart elsewhere,wildlife photography,to be precise.In Shankar’s case,its obviously filmmaking (which also brings another revered filmmaker to mind,also a Mechanical Engineering graduate,also made wildlife photography the passion of his protagonist in his film,its none other than the genius dude Selvaraghavan with his recent masterpiece ‘ Mayakkam Enna’.J)Another one on the “Mech.Eng list’ is Gautam Vasudev Menon,and ehem..there’s also another ‘in the making’..hehe..err..nevermind,we leave that aside now !:p

3) 3) Another core message of the film is OPTIMISM,with Aamir Khan’s Rancho/Phunsukh as the torchbearer of the adage ‘All Is Well’.All of Shankar’s film are highly optimistic,from Gentlemen to Endhiran,never has he made a film without the protagonist’s grand triumph in the finale.And since he also wrote the screenplay of almost all of his films,its clear that it reflects his own values and attitude towards his career and life in general(hence ALL the box-office collections of his movies happens to WELL,very WELL in fact !)

4) 4) Shankar’s films has common thread-an everyman(or a group of everyman,like ‘Boys’ and this),sick of the injustice,incited on a personal level, rising up the challenge to seek justice and then triumphantly revolutionises the society ).Despite the absence of the towering heroism or super-underdog set against a gross malaise or decay of the society,’3 Idiots’ effectively highlights the ill-driven education system in India(also most parts of Asia,especially) which is obsessed with results with its ‘by-the-book’ approach of education,completely ignoring the creative freedom of learning.Also,the film endearingly portrays the dilemma of most Asian societies with their highly-biased perception on the idea of ‘ideal career or profession’,i call it the EML(Engineering,Medicine&Law) syndrome.For Shankar,the character of Ranchodas Chanchad perfectly fits the bill of his ‘grand protagonist’ ,albeit in a subtle but definitely powerful manner.

Having said all that,i must reiterate that whatever i wrote above is my personal perception of why Shankar chose to remake this film especially amongst hundreds of other Hindi blockbusters.Of course,its also obvious why,of all directors,with dudes like M.Raja around,who’s famous for making remakes didn’t take up the challenge even with the awareness that they already have a winning screenplay capable of winning millions of hearts.Why?Its simple.It takes a local giant to remake a fellow giant.What’s fortunate is that on top of the undisputable box-office track record that Shankar holds,he coincidentally happens to be the best man for the job(based on my trivia above!).One of the hallmarks of a great director is his/her critical judgement on casting and despite my initial doubts of Shankar’s choices of actors for ‘Nanban’,i walked out of the cinema with a smile and felt that all the choices he made was fully justified.Vijay actually suited the role perfectly,something which didn’t strike a chord with me the first time i came to know that its him who’s gonna fill Aamir’s Khan’s shoes.All i can i say is that Vijay lived up to his title of ‘Ilaya Thalapathy’,well,its a youth-oriented subject,speaking from a director/producer point of view ,in terms of marketability factor,there can be no wiser choice than to cast the local ‘Godfather Of Youths’(who really looks believably young considering his age) in the hugely positive and impactful main role which he justified the best he could.As for Srikanth,he also kept up,but didn’t quite match up to Madhavan’s take in the original whereas Jiiva fared much better,i would say as well,sometimes even better at times to Sharman Joshi in his role.Satyaraj,being the excellent character actor he is,did a fantastic job as the Tamil Virus.Special praise must go to Satyan as he really gave one of his best performances of his career as Silencer.As for Ileana,she did what she could matching Kareena’s performance expression by expression just like the film itself remade carefully frame by frame.Of course i enjoyed the cameo by S.J Suryah,it was a delight to see him with his over-the-top histrionics on screen again

As for other aspects,a Shankar’s film is not complete without his trademark lavish song picturizations,which sets him a notch higher than his contemporaries in this department.And for the rest,cinematography,music,art direction and editing is typically what you can expect from a Shankar’s film,rarely disappointing.All in all,all is well...hahaha..to be honest,with all these elements in place,its very hard to go wrong ,and thankfully,it never does.In a nutshell,its definitely a welcoming breeze of fresh air for Tamil filmgoers who haven’t watched ‘3 Idiots’ and a nostalgic trip down memory lane for those who have,only its in their local flavour.Go watch it and get inspired people !

From the heart with love and passion,
Amreish Siman

2012-01-17T04:16:00.000-08:00

Swamy Ramalingam(Vallalar) described his journey up antahkarana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antahkarana) in a thirty-two verse poem which begins by describing the spine as a mountain of light,the mythical mount Meru,abode of Gods,Olympus Of The East.

In the Hall of Solid Gold goes...

What visions I saw.
What wondrous visions !---Oh Mother
What wondrous visions !

Kannihal (stanzas):

1) A mountain of light appeared.
There was a street in it.---Oh Mother
There was a street.

2) I went along that street
and in the middle of it
there was a platform.---Oh Mother
There was a platform.

3) I mounted the platform
There I discovered a hall---Oh Mother
There was a hall.

4) I searched the hall
and found a mansion
rising above it.---Oh Mother
There was a mansion.

5) All of its seven levels
were filled with wonders.
How can I describe it?---Oh Mother
How can I describe it?

6) In one story
there was a glittering pearl-white stone.
It turned into a blue sapphire.---Oh Mother
It turned into a blue sapphire.

7) On another world plane
that blue-black stone
transformed itself into red coral.---Oh Mother
All became fruitful.

8) On another plane
the green emerald
became a red ruby.---Oh Mother
It became a red ruby.

9) After that level
I saw a giant pearl
Become a diamond jewel---Oh Mother
It became the great jewel.

10) In a different plane
I was confronted with
a vast mass of coral
changing into moonstone.---Oh Mother
Changing into moonstone.

11) The next level I speak of
is decorated
with a multifarious array of jewels.
These turned to gold.---Oh Mother
These turned to gold.

12) In another place
All the gems I've spoken of
Became crystal.---Oh Mother
Became crystal.

13) Above the seven levels! 1
There was a pillar
A most agreeable golden pillar.---Oh Mother
A creative golden pillar.

14) The time when I saw
the golden pillar and climbed,
I saw a freshness...;
How can I describe it?---Oh Mother
A freshness...; How can I describe it?

15) While climbing there
I viewed a sort
that can't be spoken of.
Of boundless measure!---Oh Mother
Of boundless measure!

16) There and there...;
were Shaktis
in the thousands and thousands
They were coming!---Oh Mother.
They were coming!

17) I was not deceived
by the delusions that assailed me
But attained a special state of grace.---Oh Mother
I attained the special grace.

18) By the ways of the adept
I climbed that great pillar
And saw its jeweled peak.---Oh Mother
And saw its jeweled peak.

19) Above the jeweled peak
There stood the mountain's summit.
It was then that I saw it.---Oh Mother
It was then that I saw it.

20) Above the mountain&'s peak
In 1008 carat gold
Was the temple!---Oh Mother
Was the temple.

21) I saw the temple,
and there was its towering gate.
Without hesitating, I went inside.---Oh Mother
Without hesitating, I went inside.

22) Inside the towering gate
were Shaktis and Shaktas
in the tens of thousands, many tens of thousands.---Oh Mother
Tens of thousands, many tens of thousands.

23) There they were colored...;
colored white and colored red
of the colors five they were.---Oh Mother
of the colors five.

24) There they all asked
"Who is this here?";
I went beyond.---Oh Mother
I went beyond.

25) Having gone beyond
I came to the sacred doorway.
Where there were five Shaktis.---Oh Mother
Where there were five Shaktis.

26) These other Shaktis stood
to show the path above.
I reached the jeweled doorway.---Oh Mother
I reached the jeweled doorway.

27) Contemplating in that doorway,
there was a woman and a man...;
Two of them were there.---Oh Mother
There were two of them.

28) I drew near that holy entrance
and there they revealed...?
I looked out with love.---Oh Mother
I looked out with love.

29) The Mother of Bliss
was at Heaven's Gate!
My Mother!---Oh Mother
My Mother!

30) I looked upon her,
received her grace,
and dined on nectar.---Oh Mother
I dined on nectar.

31) With her support and grace,
I saw the sanctum
of the Dancing King!---Oh Mother
I saw the sanctum!

32) I entered the sanctum
and attained all that can be attained!
Only God knows!---Oh Mother
Only God knows!

source : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Swami-Ramalingam-the-Vallalar/133695419990049

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

What is Karma?

2011-08-16T04:43:00.000-07:00

How to understand what is karma all about ?The information below enlightens us of what,why and how karma works in a simple but easily understandable way.

Meaning :-

Karma literally means "deed" or "act" and more broadly means the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction which governs all life. Karma is a natural law of the mind, just as gravity is a law of matter.

Explanation : -
Karma is not fate, for man acts with free will, creating his own destiny. The Vedas tell us, if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. It is the interplay between our experience and how we respond to it that makes karma devastating or helpfully invigorating. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate reaction. Not all karmas rebound immediately. Some accumulate and return unexpectedly in this or other births. The several kinds of karma are: personal, family, community, national, global and universal. Ancient rishis perceived personal karma's three-fold edict. The first is sanchita, the sum total of past karmas yet to be resolved. The second is prarabdha, that portion ofsanchita to be experienced in this life. Kriyamana, the third type, is karma we are currently creating. The Vedas propound, "Here they say that a person consists of desires. And as is his desire, so is his will. As is his will, so is his deed. Whatever deed he does, that he will reap."

Question : Is There Good Karma and Bad Karma?

Answer : -

In the highest sense, there is no good or bad karma. All experience offers opportunities for spiritual growth. Selfless acts yield positive, uplifting conditions. Selfish acts yield conditions of negativity and confusion.
Karma itself is neither good nor bad but a neutral principle that governs energy and motion of thought, word and deed. All experience helps us grow. Good, loving actions bring to us lovingness through others. Mean, selfish acts bring back to us pain and suffering. Kindness produces sweet fruits, called punya. Unkindness yields spoiled fruits, called papa. As we mature, life after life, we go through much pain and joy. Actions that are in tune with dharma help us along the path, while adharmic actions impede our progress. The divine law is: whatever karma we are experiencing in our life is just what we need at the moment, and nothing can happen but that we have the strength to meet it. Even harsh karma, when faced in wisdom, can be the greatest catalyst for spiritual unfoldment. Performing daily sadhana, keeping good company, pilgrimaging to holy places, seeing to others' needs; these evoke the higher energies, direct the mind to useful thoughts and avoid the creation of troublesome new karmas. The Vedas explain, "According as one acts, so does he become. One becomes virtuous by virtuous action, bad by bad by bad actions.

source : artha dharma concept builders

With love and regards,
Amreish Siman

Review : Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

2011-08-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

Film : Rise of The Planet Of The Apes (2011)
Director : Rupert Wyatt
Writers : Pierre Boulle,Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver
Cast : James Franco,Freida Pinto,John Lithgow,Tom Felton,Brian Cox and Andy Serkis
Language : English
Running time : 105 mins
Rating : PG 13
Distributor : 20th Century Fox

Films which revolve around human evolution have always intrigued me since the days i've started watching movies.One of the earliest films i remember watching as a kid(circa late 1980's) which touched on the subject of intellectual development was well,the original Planet Of The Apes(1968) starring Charlton Heston.Something in that film sent the jitters down my spine,i remember actually believing that our planet was actually colonized by those apes in the film !Yes,silly ol' me bought that but when i contemplate now on what exactly led me to believe it(well,i watched Predator as well around the same time but i still went wandering into forests WITHOUT worrying about some ugly mother****er from space jumping on back from an oil-palm tree! ),i realized it was the sheer idea that our existence and position as the reigning inhabitants of Earth is indeed vulnerable and easily overruled by an emergence and uprise of a superior species of beings.Most people tend to overlook this scary scenario,blinded by a believe that their status as the 'most intellectually advanced species' grants them unrivalled invincibility.Nature,on the other hand never fails to prove them wrong.

This is one of those thought-provoking films which explores the 'mostly ignored' scenario brilliantly.Despite the title,which suggests it to be a prequel of the Planet Of The Apes franchise or the rather flaky remake by Tim Burton,it is neither.Instead this is a stand-alone film in its own right.Smartly written and deftly directed by a new director,Rupert Wyatt( pic below),the film starts off with an ambitious scientist,played by Franco who's on the verge of producing a powerful new drug which could be one of the greatest medical discoveries of mankind(as it is with all other discoveries made in Hollywood big-budget sci-fi extravaganzas),this time the cure for Alzheimer's disease.What exactly the drug does is that it helps create new neurotic nerves in the damaged brain,hence rejuvenating the entire memory system,in other words,it sorts of makes an intellectually-challenged person become more intelligent by boostin' up their brain.And like every other drug,we have to test it first on animals before we can test it on humans and what other animal on Earth is our closest cousin both in physical resemblance and mental capacity than a chimpanzee?Enter Caesar,the 'chosen' ape who got the honor of being the test subject.What happens after that is of the course the unexpected !What is a movie without its conflicts right?And the film does present its conflicts really well which i suggest is best left for you to discover at the cinemas.

Besides the fine direction and screenplay,the other high points of this film is the CGI by Weta Works(LOTR,King Kong) which i must say is one of the best 'mass motion capture' effects work ever done in a feature film.Since Gollum,Caesar(also played by Andy Serkis) goes down in film history as the most emotional and expressionistic CGI character ever created.( Arnie and Seagal have lots to learn from them :p).For a US$93 million film,the quality is admirable although its quite apparent how and where the filmakers saved the budget from bloating,they did it by hiring a medium salaried cast and doing away with minimal but cleverly done production design.Special mention goes to the seasoned thespian John Lithgow who delivers a heart-wrenching but brief performance as Franco's father who is suffering from a brain degeneration disease,even after a long absence from the big screen,the man still remains a scene-stealer.Nothing much can be expected from the rest of the cast as Franco and Pinto does a pretty average job although it was nice to see Harry Potter alumni Tom Felton all grown up and nasty,the guy looks like he's on his way to a great future playing cold-blooded villains wearing that evil sneer he displays brilliantly here.What makes the entire experience more compelling is the eclectic score by Patrick Doyle which breaths life into each scene automatically elevating the film from being a mere ape-on-a-vendetta fare to a truly effective film experience.

Coming back to the frightening theory of 'what if an ape gets smart and start busting your ass?',much is to be learned from this film,the loudest message being 'don't play God'.Everything in this world exists for a reason.We humans are created as the dominant species on Earth for a good reason and apes and other animals and beings are created the way they are for a good reason as well.For no reason should we ever attempt to foil the perfect equilibrium that is sustaining the entire system of being.Any form of imbalance applied to the exacting system will always produce destructive results of catasthropic proportions as clearly
depicted in this film.Another significant lesson to be learned here is the sheer power of evolution.(spoiler alert!)Brain-enhancing drugs alone was not responsible for the human-like cognitive thinking and learning abilities which Caesar possessed leading him to stage the greatest revolution of apes against humans,environmental conditioning plays a crucial part as well.Raised by humans in a human home and treated almost like a fellow human,he grew up believing that he's not much different from us,eating the same food,vulnerable to emotions except that he walks with ALL his limbs,has more hair and can't speak the
human language(except the epic word No!).This also means he naturally has the yearning for the ultimate element every human aspires for which is freedom hence the paradigm shift of his attitude as circumstances around him begins to change.

What i've concluded from this film(and others dealing with the same subject) is that the existing current hierarchy of all Earth beings is best left the way it is.We humans have earned our positions as the superior species on Earth by working our way up in the ladder of evolution and instead of messing around playing God in the name of science,we should seek inspiration from finer elements of nature which are just there in abundance waiting to be discovered and utilized for the betterment of mankind.
Go subtle,go deep and unleash the giant inside.Stop 'monkeying' around and go watch this film to un-monkey yourselves ! :-)

Review by
Amreish Siman

Review : Source Code

2011-04-29T02:23:00.000-07:00

Film : Source Code (2011)
Director : Duncan Jones
Writer : Ben Ripley
Distributor :
Cast : Jake Gyllenhaal,Michelle Monaghan,Vera Farmiga,Jeffrey Wright and Russell Peters
Language : English
Running time : 93 minutes
Rating : PG-13

Sci-fi fantasy,my cuppa tea.Now what do we have here?Thoughts were running in my mind the first time i'm aware of this film.Minority Report counter report?The Matrix revisited?Or Inception extracted?The answer,a bit of all of that here and there plus a sweet homage to one of my favourite TV series from the late 80's and early 90's,Quantum Leap all cleverly cooked up to serve a refreshing new dish.One thing i absolutely love about sci-fi films is that they open us up to whole new realms of life.They present us awe-inspiring dimensions of either parallel worlds almost similar to ours or radically different ones usually populated with beings with either far superior intelligence or bone-chilling savageness.The world of sci-fi blossoms at an exponential rate,which is the primary nature of our universe,the macrocosmos and the individual human mind,the microcosmos.For all we know,science fiction may not be fiction at all,in fact i believe it is the gateway to the deepest secrets of the universe's clockwork.Lately,scientists around the world have been giving greater attention to metaphysical science and spirituality and the trend spills onto motion pictures of late as well,the notable ones being Inception and The Adjustment Bureau.This films comfortably slips into the special category as well.

Director Duncan Jones(son of David Bowie),relatively a new face,best known for directing the 2009 British film,Moon,an admirable independent effort heavily inspired by 2001:A Space Odyssey(1968) has successfully strecthed his wings here as this film marks his debut into studio financed Hollywood mainstream fares.The ambiguos plot centres on a revolutionary military backed experimental mind science programme where the scientists have discovered that the human brain retains the last eight minutes of memory after the brain's owner is pronounced medically dead.The 'pilot' candidate for the programme happens to be a helicopter pilot Lt Colter Stevens(played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who's severely injured in the line of duty and considered dead with only his brain still functioning.He's kept alive in a special oxygen chamber where special pulse sensors are directly wired onto his brain while his severely bomb-mauled body with exposed internal organs are carefully protected by a special shield.Following a deadly terrorist attack on a Chicago-bound train which killed all passengers on board,the military decided to test the programme's efficiency by identifying the memory clockwork,synapse as its referred to in the clinical jargon( refer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapse) amongst the dead which matches the closest with Stevens and found the individual,Sean.Stevens initially doesn't know anything about this because he's completely unaware that he's actually dead and he's in the perception that's he still stuck in the warzone in Afghanistan,stuck in his helicopter's cockpit which was his own last eight minutes of memory.Eventually he learns of the actual situation and the mission which he's assigned to,which is to wire into Sean's last eight and find clues which leads to the bomber.

The film wastes no time getting into the point,no lengthy plot establishment is found here.Our hero is thrown into the thick of the action without even being briefed of his mission and unravels while he's at it which effectively conveyed the urgency of the situation,which is to locate the whereabouts of the highly lethal terrorist before he unleashes his magnum opus,which was to blow the entire city of Chicago.The best thing about the film is our hero here is as clueless as us,the audience and we're automatically sucked into the flow of the story virtually following him and naturally emphatizing with him along the way,a feat successfully achieved by the makers.Another notable thing about the film is its the sense of futility of issues in the past conveyed here through the plot setting,which is NOT a fiasco of time-travelling from the future to alter the past and save the ill-fated present but rather an attempt of salvaging what is possible from the definite past via ground-breaking present-time medical science to protect the future from greater calamity,meaning the past has happened and cannot be changed,all we can do is to learn what we can,identify the mistakes and amend the present to pave way for better future.Kudos to ben Ripley,the writer who brillaintly wrapped up this great and timeless truth in an exciting sci-fi package.Besides the science and philosophy,the film also manages to capture the complexity of human emotions of love,compassion depicted in the way Stevens inability to accept that the beautiful woman who happens to be the girlfiend of his 'partner in mind',the guy whose memory he's accessing is already dead and there's actually nothing he can do about it.Besides that,the general paranoia of all Middle-Eastern( with or without the beard) people being terrorists is effectively depicted here,all packaged with a tight screenplay,great score and all-round good acting from the cast except Jeffrey Wright's turn as the scientist-in-charge which was a tad lifeless.Also i felt the film was rather too short,clocking in a hasty 93 mins.

Despite revealing a large part of the plot,there's still plenty of goodies layered in the story which i believe is best left for you to unravel and contemplate on,sorry again for the spoilers,but you may want to( if you haven't) watch films like Groundhog Day(1993) and Run Lola Run(1998),which explores the similar theme of repetitiveness experienced by the protagonists,finding themselves the same situation at the same time and same location over and over again with new discoveries each time as they're 'reincarnated'bringing forth the collective memories together.Now this is veering into the metaphysical and spiritual realms already,touching on the subject of reincarnation and eternity,which i feel is best left for you to decide as per your beliefs.Instead of rounding up as a purely sci-fi film,the film concludes with an open-ending,like i said opening gates for infinite possibilities way beyond the established boundaries of basic science into the realm of parallel universes or alternate realities which simply makes the film stand a notch higher than others of the same genre.I'd say this is so far one the year's best films and ranks as one of my all-time personal favourite.Never to missed!

Rating : A-

Reviewed by
Amreish Siman

The Inner Emptiness

2011-04-15T08:35:00.000-07:00

Question to Osho :-

Wherever I am, I’ve been feeling like I’m in the wrong place. It feels really strange….

Osho answers :-

“As I see it, almost everybody is in the wrong place. The person who would have been a tremendously happy doctor is a painter and the person who would have been a tremendously happy painter is a doctor. Nobody seems to be in his right place; that’s why this whole society is in such a mess. The person is directed by others; he is not directed by his own intuition.

Meditation helps you to grow your own intuitive faculty. It becomes very clear what is going to fulfill you, what is going to help you flower.And whatsoever it is — and it is going to be different for each individual… That is the meaning of the word “individual”: everybody is unique. And to seek and search your uniqueness is a great thrill, a great adventure.

Your question is significant in many more ways too, because it is not only a question of finding the essential in the individual. In life also we are burdened with the unessential, in religion too, in every dimension. The religious person goes on doing certain rituals which are taught by others to him. He never finds his own religiousness, a quality which can not be imposed on you, a quality which can only be helped to grow in you.It is not like a plastic flower that can be given to you from the outside, by the priest. It is a real rose flower, and for that you have to be very alert, very aware.

The Christian goes to the church every Sunday. It is a formality; it does not make him religious, but it gives him a false sense of religiousness. The Hindu goes on chanting the Gita. It does not make him religious at all; on the contrary it prevents, because by reciting the Gita he becomes very knowledgeable. He becomes a parrot or a computer. He can recite the whole Gita, but he understands nothing because he has not experienced anything. He knows words but he has not encountered the meaning of those words.

People go on being imitative. For example, Mahavira lived naked; that was his individuality. Nobody else is supposed or expected to live naked, unless one finds it an inner, intuitive vision, unless one finds that that is the only way he can be true to his self. Then it is another matter. But the Jaina muni, the Jaina monk, practices nudity — just an imitation, a carbon copy. And remember- Imitation is always ugly because it creates a false person; it never gives you authenticity.

Mahavira was naked not because anybody had told him to be naked. He felt the immense urge to be just like a child and he followed his urge, and he suffered for his urge. He was chased from one village to another, mad dogs were put after him, he was stoned, because people thought he was destroying their morality, that he was a dangerous man.In an orthodox country like the India of twenty-five centuries ago, a man walking naked would have been certainly a nuisance to people, to their conventional way of living, to their traditional style of thinking. Krishna has not lived naked, Rama has not lived naked, no Hindu avatar has lived naked. This man is destroying the whole tradition, culture, religion. Of course he has to be punished. But Mahavira was immensely blissful.

The Jaina muni does not seem to be blissful at all because he is simply an imitation. He is really torturing himself, forcing himself to be naked, because in his mind now the greed has arisen: unless he looks like Mahavira he is not going to attain the ultimate liberation.Now nakedness has become an essential thing, which it is not. Nakedness is not an essential thing. Buddha attained without being naked, Jesus attained without being naked, you can attain. And I am not saying that Mahavira did not attain by being naked. He attained, but these are individual things.

Buddhist monks go on following the Buddha. They sit the same way, they talk the same way, they behave the same way. That is not going to help at all. That is not going to make you religious. That is not going to make you another Buddha. You are being simply stupid. And the more stupid you are the better you can imitate, because imitation needs no intelligence. In fact, only a mediocre mind can be imitative.The more intelligent you are, the more you want to be simply yourself, whatsoever it is.

Now the whole thing goes non-essential. For Buddha it was essential to sit that way; that was his intuitive feeling. When Buddha dropped the ideas imposed on him by others, his followers left him. He had five followers -before he became very famous he had only five followers; that is before he became enlightened.Those five followers were very devoted to him for the simple reason that he was going just like any other Hindu ascetic, only with great stubbornness, doing all kinds of austerities, following all kinds of rules and regulations given in the scriptures. He was so particular about everything that these five followers thought that he was the greatest Master.

Then one day he understood the whole stupidity of it: he is not following his own intelligence, he is simply following others who may be right, may not be right. One thing is certain: that they were a different kind of people and he is not of that kind. He was suffering, but he was thinking that it is necessary to suffer this; this pain is necessary to grow. The day he realized it he dropped all ascetic practices; he relaxed.That was the first time he ate in the night and he ate food offered by an untouchable woman. All five followers immediately left him, thinking that he had gone astray. First, eating in the night is not right; secondly, the food offered by an untouchable, a poor woman, is not acceptable to a holy man. He is no more holy. And that very night Buddha became enlightened.

Those five fools missed his enlightenment. That very night he became enlightened. And he became enlightened for the simple reason that for the first time he relaxed into his being and simply followed his essential core.All religions are destroyed by the non-essential. Your whole life is destroyed by the non-essential. But nobody else can decide for you what is essential and what is non-essential. Remember that I cannot say exactly, “This is essential and this is non-essential.”

Each individual has to discover it. Each individual has to be a light unto himself or herself.All that I can suggest is: be silent so that you can hear the still small voice of your heart. And it is always speaking, but you are so noisy you go on missing its message.”

source : oshotimes

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

Is A Harmonious World Possible ? : Part 1

2011-03-30T05:22:00.000-07:00

"The yearning for a utopia is basically the yearning for harmony in the individual and in the society. The harmony has never existed; there has always been a chaos.

Society has been divided into different cultures, different religions, different nations – and all based on superstitions. None of the divisions are valid. But these divisions show that man is divided within himself: these are the projections of his own inner conflict. He is not

one within, that's why he could not create one society, one humanity outside. The cause is not outside. The outside is only the reflection of the inner man.

Man has developed from the animals.

This is profoundly supported by modern psychoanalysis, particularly Carl Gustav Jung's school, because in the collective unconscious of man there are memories which belong to animalhood.

If man is taken deep into hypnosis, first he enters the unconscious mind, which is just the repressed part of this life. If he is hypnotized even more deeply, then he enters into the collective unconscious, which has memories of being animals. People start screaming – in that stage they cannot speak a language. They start moaning or crying, but language is impossible; they can shout, but in an animal way. And in the collective unconscious state, if they are allowed to move or they are told to move, they move on all fours – they don't stand up.

In the collective unconscious there are certainly remnants that suggest that they have been sometime in some animal body. And different people come from different animal bodies. That may be the cause of such a difference in individuals. And sometimes you can see a similarity – somebody behaves like a dog, somebody behaves like a fox, somebody behaves like a lion.

And there is great support in folklore, in ancient parables like Aesop's Fables, or Panchtantra in India – which is the most ancient – in which all the stories are about animals, but are very significant for human beings and represent certain human types.

And man still carries much of the animal's instinct – his anger, his hatred, his jealousy, his possessiveness, his cunningness. All that has been condemned in man seems to belong to a very deep-rooted unconscious. And the whole work of spiritual alchemy is how to get rid of the animal past. Without getting rid of the animal past, man will remain divided. The animal past and his humanity cannot exist as one, because humanity has just the opposite qualities.

So all that man can do is become a hypocrite.

As far as formal behavior is concerned, he follows the ideals of humanity – of love and of truth, of freedom, of non-possessiveness, compassion. But it remains only a very thin layer, and at any moment the hidden animal can come up; any accident can bring it up. And whether it comes up or not, the inner consciousness is divided. This divided consciousness has been creating the yearning and the question: How to become a harmonious whole as far as the individual is concerned? And the same is true about the whole society: How can we make the society a harmonious whole – where there is no war, no conflict – no classes, no divisions of color, caste, religion, nation?

Because of people like Thomas Moore, who wrote the book Utopia, the name became synonymous with all idealistic goals – but they have not grasped the real problem. That's why it seems their idea of a utopia is never going to happen. If you think of society as becoming an ideal society, a paradise, it seems to be impossible: There are so many conflicts, and there seems to be no way to harmonize them.

Every religion wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized.

Every nation wants to conquer the whole world, not to be harmonized.

Every culture wants to spread all over the world and to destroy all other cultures, not to bring a harmony between them.

So utopia became synonymous with something which is simply imaginary. And there are dreamers – the very word "utopia" also means "that which is never going to happen." But still man goes on thinking in those terms again and again. There seems to be some deep-rooted urge.... But his thinking is about the symptoms – that's why it seems to be never going to happen. He is not looking at the causes. The causes are individuals.

Utopia is possible. A harmonious human society is possible, should be possible, because it will be the best opportunity for everyone to grow, the best opportunity for everyone to be himself. The richest possibilities will be available to everyone. So it seems that the way it is, society is absolutely stupid. The utopians are not dreamers, but your so-called realists who condemn utopians are stupid. But both are agreed on one point – that something has to be done in the society.

Prince Kropotkin, Bakunin, and their followers would like all the governments to be dissolved – as if it is in their hands, as if you simply say so and the governments will dissolve. These are the anarchists, who are the best utopians. Reading them, it seems that whatever they are saying is significant. But they have no means to materialize it, and they have no idea how it is going to happen. And there is Karl Marx, Engels, and Lenin – the Marxists, the communists, and different schools of socialism, connected with different dreamers. Even George Bernard Shaw had his own idea of socialism, and he had a small group called the Fabian Society. He was propagating a kind of socialist world, totally different from the communist world that exists today.

There are fascists who think that it is a question of more control and more government power; just the opposite pole of anarchists, who want no government – all the source of corruption is government. And there are people, the fascists, who want all power in the hands of dictators. They say that It is because of the democratic idea that the society is falling apart, because in democracy the lowest denominator becomes the ruler. He decides who is going to rule; and he is the most ignorant one, he has no understanding. The mob decides how the society should be. So according to the fascist, democracy is only mobocracy, it is not democracy – there is no democracy possible.

According to the communists, the whole problem is simply the class division between the poor and the rich. They think that if all government power goes into the hands of the poor and they have a dictatorship of the proletariat – when all classes have disappeared, and the society has become equal – then soon there will be no need of any state.

They are all concerned with the society. And that is where their failure lies.

As I see it, utopia is not something that is not going to happen, it is something that is possible, but we should go to the causes, not to the symptoms. And the causes are in the individuals, not in the society.

For example, in seventy years, the communist revolution in Soviet Russia was not able to dissolve the dictatorship. Lenin was thinking that ten or fifteen years at the most would be enough, because by that time we would have equalized everybody, distributed wealth equally – then there would be no need for a government.

But after fifteen years they found that the moment you remove the enforced state, people are going to become again unequal. There will be again rich people and there will be again poor people, because there is something in people which makes them rich or poor. So you have to keep them in almost a concentration camp if you want them to remain equal. But this is a strange kind of equality because it destroys all freedom, all individuality. And the basic idea was that the individual will be given equal opportunity. His needs should be fulfilled equally. He will have everything equal to everybody else. He will share it.

But the ultimate outcome is just the opposite. They have almost destroyed the individual to whom they were trying to give equality, and freedom, and everything good that should be given to individuals. The very individual is removed. They have become afraid of the individual; and the reason is that they are still not aware that however long the enforced state lasts – seventy or seven hundred years – it will not make any difference. The moment you remove control, there will be a few people who know how to be rich, and there will be a few people who know how to be poor. And they will simply start the whole thing again.

In the beginning they tried... because Karl Marx's idea was that there should be no marriage in communism. And he was very factual about it: that marriage was born because of individual property. His logic was correct. There was a time when there was no marriage. People lived in tribes, and just as animals make love, people made love. The problem started only when a few people who were more cunning, more clever, more powerful, had managed some property. Now they wanted that their property, after their death, should go to their own children. It is a natural desire that if a person works his whole life and gathers property, land, or creates a kingdom, it should go to his children. In a subtle way, through the children, because they are his blood, he will be still ruling, he will be still possessing. It is a way to find some substitute for immortality, because the continuity will be there: "I will not be there, but my child will be there – who will represent me, who will be my blood and my bones and my marrow. And then his child will be there and there will be a continuity. So in a subtle sense, I will have immortality. I cannot live forever, so this is a substitute way." That's why marriage was created; otherwise it was easier for man not to have any marriage, because marriage was simply a responsibility – of children, of a wife. When the woman is pregnant, then you have to feed her.... And there was no need to take all that responsibility. The woman was taking the whole responsibility. But the man wanted some immortality, and that his property should be possessed by his own blood. And the woman wanted some protection – she was vulnerable. While she was pregnant, she could not work, she could not go hunting; she had to depend on somebody. So it was in the interest of both to have a contract that they would remain together, would not betray in any sense, because the whole thing was to keep the blood pure.

So Marx's idea was that when communism comes, and property becomes collective, marriage becomes meaningless because its basic reason is removed – now you don't have any private property. Your son will not have anything as an inheritance. In fact, just as you cannot have private property, you cannot have a private woman; that too is property. And you cannot have a private son or daughter, because that too is private property. So with the disappearance of private property, marriage will disappear. So after the revolution, for two or three years, in Russia they tried it, but it was impossible. Private property had disappeared, but people were not ready to drop marriage. And even the government found that if marriage disappears, the whole responsibility falls on the government – of the children, of the woman....

So why take an unnecessary responsibility? – and it is not a small thing. It is better to let marriage continue. So they reversed the policy; they forgot all about Karl Marx, because just within three years they found that this was going to create difficulty, and people were not willing. People were not willing to drop private property either – it was forcibly taken away from them. Almost one million people were killed – for small private properties. Somebody had a small piece of land, a few acres, and because everything was going to be nationalized.Although the people were poor, still they wanted to cling to their property. At least they had something; and now even that was going to be taken out of their hands. They were hoping to get something more – that's why they had had the revolution, and fought for it. Now what they had was going to be taken out of their hands. It was going to become government property, it was going to be nationalized.And for small things – somebody may have had just a few hens, or a cow, and he was not willing... because that was all that he had, a small house and he was not willing for it to be nationalized. These poor people – one million people were killed to make the whole country aware that nationalization had to happen. Even if you had only a cow and you didn't give it to the government, you were finished. And the government was thinking that people would be willing to separate... but this is how the merely theoretical and logical people have always failed to understand man. They have never looked into his psychology.

This was true, that marriage was created after private property came into being – marriage followed it. Logically, as private property is dissolved, marriage should disappear. But they don't understand the human mind. As property was taken away, people became even more possessive of each other because nothing was left. Their land has gone, their animals have gone, their houses have gone. Now they don't want to lose their wife or their husband or their children. This is too much. Logic is one thing... and unless we try to understand man more psychologically and less logically, we are always going to commit mistakes. Marx was proved wrong.

When everything was taken away people were clinging to each other more, more than before, because now that was their only possession: a woman, a husband, children.... And it was such a gap in their life; their whole property had gone and now their wife was also to be nationalized. They could not conceive the idea because their mind and their tradition said, "That is prostitution." Their children had to be nationalized – they had not fought the revolution for this.

So finally the government had to reverse the policy; otherwise in their constitution.... In the first constitution they had declared that now there shall be no marriage; and the question of divorce did not arise. Just within three years they had to change it.

And in Russia then marriage was stricter than anywhere else. Divorce was more difficult than anywhere else, because the government did not want unnecessary changes. That creates paperwork and more bureaucracy. So the government wants people to remain together, not to unnecessarily change partners. And divorce creates law cases about the children – who should have them, the father or mother; it is unnecessary. The government thinks of efficiency – less bureaucracy, less paperwork – and people are creating unnecessary paperwork, so it is very difficult to get a divorce. And as time passed, they found that there was no way to keep people equal without force. But what kind of a utopia is it which is kept by force? And because the communist party has all the force, a new kind of division has come into being, a new class of the bureaucrats: those who have power, and those who don't have any power.

It is very difficult to become a member, to obtain membership of the communist party in Russia, because that is entering into the power elite. The communist party has made many other groups – first you have to be a member of those groups, and you have to be checked in every way. When they find that you are really reliable, absolutely reliable, trustworthy, then you may enter into the communist party. And the party is not increasing its membership because that means dividing power. The party wants to remain as small as possible so that the power is in a few hands. There is now a powerful class. For seventy years the same group were ruling the country, and the whole country was powerless.

The people were never so powerless under a capitalist regime or under a feudal regime. Under the czars they were never so powerless. It was possible for a poor man, if he was intelligent enough, to become rich. Now it is not so easy. You may be intelligent, but it is not so easy to enter from the powerless class into the class which holds power. The distance between the two classes is far more than it was before. There is always mobility in a capitalist society because there are not only poor people and rich people, there is a big middle class, and the middle class is continuously moving. A few people of the middle class are moving into the super-rich, and more people are moving into the poor class. A few poor people are moving into the middle class; a few rich people are falling into the middle class, or may even fall into the poor class... there is mobility. In a communist society there is an absolutely static state. Classes are now completely cut off from each other. They were going to create a classless society, and they have created the strictest society with static classes.

( to be continued )

source : Osho, Light on the Path, Talk #11

With love and passion,

Amreish Siman

The Mystery of Hanuman : Part 1

2011-03-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

Once Shiva and Parvati, ever the adventurous lovers, decided to transform themselves into monkeys and indulge in amorous games in the dense Himalayan forests. During a climactic moment, the seed of Shiva found its mark and impregnated Parvati. Since they were in simian form it was but natural that the offspring born of such a union too would be a monkey. Not desiring to go against the laws of nature, Shiva directed the wind god Vayu to carry his semen from Parvati's womb, and deposit it into that of Anjana - a female monkey, who at that very moment was praying for a male child.

Another slightly variant version of this story in the Shiva Purana states that when Vishnu once disguised himself as the heavenly beauty Mohini, her charms so impressed Shiva that he could not restrain his seed. Vayu then carried the seed and deposited it into Anjana's womb. There was no question of Shiva's potent discharge resulting in an offspring less than extraordinary and the child conceived under such exceptional circumstances was bound to be especial, and so it was. The resulting bundle of joy was none other than Hanuman, one of the most celebrated and worshipped figures in Indian thought.

Two exceptional traits further marked his birth. The first was that unlike ordinary children, Hanuman was born wearing a loincloth. This was an early pointer to his life-long pursuit of a celibate, almost ascetic lifestyle. The other significant occurrence was the presence of elaborate earrings adorning his ears. The latter has an interesting piece of legend explaining it:

At the time of Hanuman's birth, the undisputed leader of the monkey-world was Vaali, a strong and powerful ape. When Vaali came to know that Anjana was pregnant with a child who was bound to develop into a powerful rival, he decided to end matters in Anjana's womb itself. He created a missile using five metals: gold, silver, copper, iron and tin. When the unsuspecting mother was asleep, he directed the missile into her womb. A normal child may have succumbed to this dastardly attack, but not one born of Shiva's fiery seed. The missile as soon as it touched Hanuman's body melted, and transformed into a pair of earrings. Thus wearing the trophies of his first battle, fought while still in his mother's womb, Hanuman gloriously entered this world.

Indeed, having both Shiva and Vayu as his illustrious fathers, he was no ordinary child. Hanuman was restless, spirited, energetic and inquisitive. He was obviously endowed with awesome strength and the scriptures abound in tales expounding on his remarkable feats. Once for example he mistook the sun for a ripe fruit (monkeys are naturally lured by red ripe fruits), and rushed towards the sky in an attempt to grab it.On his way however he saw Rahu the dragon making his way to devour the sun and thus cause an eclipse. Mistaking him to be a worm, the restless Hanuman dashed towards Rahu and attempted to catch hold of him. Rushing for his life, Rahu sought shelter in the refuge of Indra, the lord of the skies. Indra picked up his deadly thunderbolt, mounted his white elephant named Airavata and made off in search of Hanuman, seeking to restrain his seeming impudence. The clouds rumbled and lightning thundered across the vast skies in an expression of Indra's wrath. But neither this scary scenario, nor the mightily armed Indra on his high mount, was sufficient enough to induce even a trace of fear in the heart of Hanuman. On the contrary, the spectacle only served to fuel his excitement and mistaking Airavata for a toy, he made a grab for the pachyderm, seized its trunk and leapt on its back. Taken aback by the child's spirited and playful defiance, Indra stuck at Hanuman with his thunderbolt, and the wound thus inflicted hurtled him speedily down to the earth. His father Vayu immediately sprung to his rescue and caught him in mid air.The sight of his beloved son lying helpless in his arms infuriated the wind-god. He drew in a mighty breath and sucked away all the air from the cosmos. "Let all those who have harmed Anjana's son choke to death," he thought out aloud. Predictably there was panic in the cosmos. Without air, life on every level was threatened. The gods, realizing their folly, went in unison to Vayu and asked for his forgiveness. To make amends they showered the following blessings and powers on the monkey child:

a). Brahma: "May you live as long as Brahma himself lives."

b). Vishnu: "May you live all your life as the greatest devotee of God."

c). Indra: "No weapon of any kind will wound or hit your body."

d). Agni: "Fire will never affect you."

e). Kala: "May death never court you."

f). All the Devas (gods): "None will ever equal you in strength and speed."

Brahma concluded the session by bestowing on Hanuman a power greater than even Vayu and Garuda, and endowed him with a speed faster than even the mightiest wind. Thus pacified, Vayu restored air into the cosmos and Hanuman was returned to his parents.There was one catch however. It was decreed that Hanuman would remain blissfully unaware of his own prowess, unless, during the course of a meritorious deed, his memory would remind him of his superhuman ability. It will be seen later how this apparently insignificant matter lays bare the symbolical significance of Hanuman.

Hanuman's Education

As he grew up, Hanuman sought to educate himself and for this purpose he chose Surya the sun god as his guru saying: "You see everything there is to see in the universe and you know everything there is to know. Please accept me as your pupil." Surya hesitated. "I don't have the time," he said. "During the day I ride across the sky, and at night I am too tired to do anything."

"Then teach me as you ride across the sky during the day. I will fly in front of your chariot, facing you from dawn to dusk." Impressed by Hanuman's zeal and determination, Surya accepted him as his pupil. Thus Hanuman flew before the chariot of the sun god, withstanding the awesome glare, until he became well versed in the four books of knowledge (the Vedas), the six systems of philosophies (darshanas), the sixty-four arts or kalas and the one hundred and eight occult mysteries of the Tantras.Having become a master of all that he set out to learn, it was now time for Hanuman to pay for his education (guru-dakshina). Surya asserted that watching the devoted pupil study was payment enough for him but when Hanuman insisted on giving something to express his gratitude, the sun god asked him to look after the welfare of his son Sugriva, who was the stepbrother of Vaali, the king of monkeys.

Before Vaali became the lord of apes, a simian named Riksha ruled over them. Once it so transpired that Riksha fell in an enchanted pool and turned into a woman. Both the sky-god Indra and the sun-god Surya fell in love with her and she bore each of them a son. Indra's son was her first born Vali while Sugriva her second offspring was the son of Surya. After bearing the sons, Riksha regained his male form.When Riksha died, in accordance with the law of the jungle, the monkeys fought each other for becoming the leader. Vaali successfully killed or maimed every other contender to the throne and became the undisputed ruler of the monkey world. As one who had successfully earned his dominant place among the apes, Vaali was not obliged to share the spoils of power with anyone, but being of a magnanimous nature he shared everything with his younger brother Sugriva. It was in these circumstances that Hanuman entered the companionship of Sugriva who later became the king of monkeys himself. It was under Sugriva that the massive army of monkeys helped Lord Rama reclaim his wife who had been abducted by the demon Ravana

Hanuman The Selfless

A pair of lovebirds, reveling in their natural freedom, was soaring the boundless skies. Fate however had scripted a cruel ending to their mating. A hunter's arrow found its mark and the devoted female lost her male. She did not however escape from the scene but rather lingered on, circling over the lifeless form of her mate. Witnessing this poignant episode inspired the accomplished sage Valmiki to poetry and what came out of his heart was the Ramayana, one of the greatest epics the earth has had the good fortune to inherit. Indeed, Valmiki's poem became renowned in the three worlds as it struck a chord in every heart that heard it.

One day Valmiki came to know that the great Hanuman too had penned the adventures of Rama, engraving the story with his nails on rocks. A curious Valmiki traveled to the Himalayas where Hanuman was residing to partake this version. When Hanuman read out his narration, Valmiki was overwhelmed by its sheer power and poetic caliber. It was truly an inspired piece. Valmiki felt both joy and sorrow. Joy because he had had the chance to hear an exceptionally beautiful poem, and sad because it obviously overshadowed his own work.When Hanuman saw the unhappiness his work had caused Valmiki he smashed he engraved rocks destroying his creation forever. Such was Hanuman's selflessness. For him, narrating the tales of Rama' s adventures was a means to re-experience Rama, not a ticket to the hall of fame.

Hanuman's name too illustrates his self-effacing character, being made up of 'hanan' (annihilation) and 'man' (mind), thus indicating one who has conquered his ego.

Hanuman and Yoga

If yoga is the ability to control one's mind then Hanuman is the quintessential yogi having a perfect mastery over his senses, achieved through a disciplined lifestyle tempered by the twin streams of celibacy and selfless devotion (bhakti). In fact, Hanuman is the ideal Brahmachari (one who follows the path of Brahma), if ever there was one.

He is also a perfect karma yogi since he performs his actions with detachment, acting as an instrument of destiny rather than being impelled by any selfish motive.

Hanuman - The First to Teach Pranayama and the Inventor of the Surya Namaskaram

Pranayama is the ability to control one's breath so that the inhalation and exhalation of air is rhythmic. Vayu, the god of air and wind, first taught pranayama to his son Hanuman, who in turn taught it to mankind.

The Surya Namaskaram (salutation to the Sun) too, was devised by Hanuman as a greeting for his teacher Surya.

Hanuman and Sorcery

The villain of the epic Ramayana was the mighty demon Ravana. When he carried away Sita, her aggrieved husband Rama, accompanied by Hanuman and a massive army of monkeys laid siege on Lanka, the capital of Ravana's empire. As the battle progressed, the demon lost all his brothers and sons and it became clear that he was headed towards defeat. Finally, he sent for his only surviving son Mahiravana, a powerful sorcerer who ruled over the underworld (patala loka). Mahiravana was a great devotee of Goddess Kali from whom he had obtained vital occult secrets. Initially Mahiravana did not wish to join the fight against Rama since he felt the latter's cause to be just. But understanding his weakness for ritual magick Ravana addressed him thus: "Think of the powers the Goddess Kali will grant you when you offer to her the heads of two handsome and virile youths like Rama and Lakshmana." Needless to say, Mahiravana agreed.

The great sorcerer Mahiravana managed to kidnap both Rama and his brother Lakshmana while they were sleeping. He left behind, in place of their bed, a dark trail stretching deep into the bowels of the earth. Hanuman immediately dived into the tunnel and made his way to patala, the subterranean kingdom of Mahiravana. There he found the two brothers tied to a post, their bodies anointed with mustard oil and bedecked with marigold flowers, ready to be sacrificed. Near them, Mahiravana was sharpening the sacrificial blade and chanting hymns to invoke the goddess.

Hanuman taking the form of a bee whispered into Rama's ear, "When Mahiravana asks you to place your neck on the sacrificial block, inform him that being of royal lineage you have never learned to bow your head. Tell him to show you how." Mahiravana fell for the trap. No sooner had he bowed his head in the ritually prescribed manner than Hanuman regained his form, seized the blade, and decapitated the sorcerer. Thus did Hanuman turn the tables and sacrificed the demon himself to Mother Goddess Kali. Impressed, she made Hanuman her doorkeeper and indeed many temples of the goddess are seen to have a monkey guarding their doorways. Further, to this day, Hanuman is invoked in any fight against sorcery, and amulets and charms depicting him are therefore extremely popular among devotees.

Hanuman and Astrology

Mahiravana's death filled Ravana's heart with fear. He consulted the court astrologers who studied his horoscope and decreed that the alignment of celestial bodies was not in his favor. Now, Indian astrology is governed by nine planets, known as the navagrahas. Ravana thought that by changing the alignment of these heavenly bodies he would be able to alter his destiny. Mounting his flying chariot he rose to the skies, captured the nine planets, and herded them to his capital in chains. He then began a series of rituals which if successful would force the planets to realign themselves in his favor. When Hanuman came to know of this ritual, he assembled and led a band of daredevil monkeys to Ravana's sacrificial hall, intending to disrupt the proceedings. They found the villain sitting beside a fire altar with his eyes shut in profound meditation, mouthing mantras. The group of simians let out a loud war cry and rushed into the hall. They snuffed out the sacred fire, kicked off the ceremonial utensils and wiped off the occult diagrams (yantras) painted on the floor. Unfortunately none of this roused Ravana from his deep trance and he continued chanting the holy formulas. Hanuman realized that Ravana would have to be stopped at any cost, otherwise the villain would succeed in changing the course of destiny.Towards this end he devised a mischievous plan, and ordered his lieutenants to enter the female chambers and scare away Ravana's many wives. The monkeys did as instructed and attacked Ravana's queens and concubines, pulling their hair, scratching their faces and tearing away their clothes. But it was all to no avail; the immovable Ravana did not stir.

At last the monkeys confronted Mandodari, the chief wife of Ravana. They bared their teeth, beat their chests and began to grunt menacingly. Terrified, Mandodari lamented, "Woe is me. My husband meditates while monkeys threaten my chastity." Her words ashamed Ravana to open his eyes and rush to her defence. Thus having successfully distracted Ravana, Hanuman ran back to the sacrificial hall and liberated the nine planets held captive there. For having successfully aborted Ravana's misplaced attempts to subvert fate, Hanuman won the eternal gratitude of the grahas and is thus believed to exercise considerable power over them. Correspondingly, he is worshipped by his devotees whenever they perceive their troubles to be a result of the unfavorable configuration of celestial bodies. Indeed, Hanuman is often shown trampling under his feet a woman who is said to represent Panvati, a personification of baneful astrological influences.

Another interesting legend deals specifically with the planet Saturn (Shani). Perceived to be an unfavorable influence, it is believed that Saturn visits each individual at least once in his/her lifetime for a period of seven-and-a-half years. As fate would have it, Saturn descended on Hanuman when he was busy building a bridge over the ocean to help Rama and his army cross over to Lanka. Hanuman requested the planet to postpone his visit till he had successfully assisted Rama in regaining Sita. But Saturn was adamant and Hanuman had to bow against the will of nature. He suggested that Saturn sit on his (Hanuman's) head as his hands were engaged in serving Rama and his legs were too lowly for Saturn.Saturn happily settled on Hanuman's head and the mighty monkey continued with his work, piling heavy boulders and stones on his head in an apparently casual manner and carrying them to the construction site. After a while Saturn found it impossible to bear the load of the heaped boulders any longer and wished to climb down. Hanuman insisted that he complete his mandatory seven-and-a-half years but Saturn pleaded for release saying that the seven-and-a-half minutes he stayed on Hanuman's head felt like seven-and-a-half years anyway. Thus speaking Saturn took leave of Hanuman and since then worshippers of this monkey god rest assured that the unavoidable ill effects of Saturn's sade-sati (seven-and-a-half year's stay) can be whittled down by a true devotion to Hanuman.

Hanuman and the Mother Goddess

We have seen above how Hanuman serves as a favorite of the Mother Goddess. But the attribute of Hanuman, which impresses the goddess most, is his brahmacharya. Indeed Hanuman never threatens the world with his virility unlike say Shiva whose virility often has to be restrained by goddess Kali. Accordingly, Hanuman gains her unparalleled appreciation.

source : http://www.exoticindiaart.com

With love and passion,

Amreish Siman

Review : True Grit ( 2010 )

2011-03-07T03:23:00.000-08:00

Film : True Grit (2010)

Writers/Directors : Joel & Ethan Coen

Producers : Joel & Ethan Coen,Steven Spielberg ( executive producer )

Distributor : Paramount Pictures

D.O.P : Roger Deakins

Cast : Jeff Bridges,Hailee Steinfeld,Matt Damon,Josh Brolin and Barry Pepper

Language : English

Running time : 110 minutes

Rating : 18

I'm not really a fan of westerns but my old man is one,like most men his generation.In fact,he was responsible of introducing me to this famed genre of films,especially in his era ( circa 60's & 70's) when tough men like John Wayne,Clint Eastwood(still does),Charles Bronson and the the rest of 'em cowboys saw their heyday.They were held up so greatly by my father's generation of movie-goers back then and their legacy continues to grow over time.There is something about these men that kept an entire generation of men in complete awe and adoration watching them in action.I didn't understand what was the fuss all about seeing a man in a hat on a horse shooting another one half-drunk but i do know now,or at least i think i can reason it out.Cowboys,in my opinion,are the perfect personification of the exaggerated machismo,with an overdose of masculinity(Brokeback aside:p) and male chauvinism portrayed to the hilt by those stately male actors mentioned above,all to the delight of men worldwide.They identified with these characters,to be more blunt,it satiated their male ego,the 'lion' in them felt at home.More than comic book superheroes whom urban men with a more pronounced sensitive side mostly identifies with,the rural and suburban working class men,who by large,made up the majority mostly had a fantasy to live free and die hard,guns and whiskey on their fingertips riding across the country gallantly on a majestic stallion.I mean these guys were practically invisible and since emotional vulnerability amongst men was widely considered a glaring weakness,these men stood really tall in the eyes of their kinsmen once.

Most westerns had a standard plot,much like Bollywood and Kollywood films,not much difference from one another,they have what i call SPS (Standard Plot Structure).Its either a manhunt,a tale of vendetta,a rescue mission or treasure hunts.I can't really typecast because as i mentioned,i'm not a fan of westerns although one particular film is actually made it to all-time favorite list,Eastwood's timeless masterpiece,Unforgiven(1992).That film challenged the entire western clockwork,the invisible macho men act altogether because it portrayed the rarely depicted tale of redemption.The hero here is a melancholic lonely has-been rider,who spends his days in deep remorse over his violent past,brilliantly portrayed by Eastwood himself,together with Morgan Freeman and the scene-stealing Gene Hackman,the film also boasted gorgeous,lush visuals with an equally sweeping score.It was a 'rich' film in every sense of the word and was deservedly honored,both critically and commercially.One of those rare films which stood and will always stand the test of time,primarily,i'd say due to the theme of redemption.

Having said all that,i went for this film mainly because of the Coens,a fan of them i am,ever since Fargo(1996) and the irresistible combo of Bridges,Damon and Brolin,plus the mind-numbing 10 nods from the Academy(went home empty-handed though).And mind you,this is actually a remake,the original,which in turn was adapted from a novel by the same name starred,well,since it was made in 1969,the 'man' himself,John Wayne.I didn't have iota of awareness of the existence of the original one until this came out and i was pretty surprised because these guys are widely acknowledged as genius innovators.Why would they do a remake then?Their films have a distinct style and over the years,they've perfected their craft and most recently reached the pinnacle of their careers( showered with Oscars) with the brilliant and innovative modern western,No Country For Old Men,also starring Brolin.

With much curiosity and excitement,i sat through the film and walked out a satisfied man.Two reasons.One,the Coens maintained their mettle.Two,it gave me every reason why i must never ever give up filmaking.Never did i ever thought a western could be this entertaining !All the credits goes to the Coens of course,well,almost because it would have never quite worked the way it did without the delightful turn from Jeff Bridges,playing a retired,drunk and slothful U.S Marshall with gleeful idiosyncrasy and the truly praiseworthy(and well-rewarded) performance of the young lead,played by 14-year old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld,whose hyper-wit and guts reminded me of then-young Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (1976) and Anna Paquin in The Piano (1993).Complimenting both performances wonderfully was a nuanced and fine turn from Matt Damon in the role of a Ranger.With a relatively simple plot line of a headstrong and iron-willed young girl seeking revenge over her father's murder,the Coens weaved an immensely likable screenplay with brilliantly written dialogues delivered flawlessly by the cast,really,never have i seen a western's lines written as entertainingly as this,keep this in mind and be your own judge when you watch it,chances are high that you'll be smiling !

Despite being a western centered on revenge,the film's mood was generally light,this is a specialty of the brothers,toasting an otherwise melancholic and heavy subject with their trademark dark humour,like what they did with Fargo and The Hudsucker Proxy(1994).And the treatment worked wonders,it injected a whole new twist to whole genre itself.The technical aspects were never neglected as it effectively served to elevate the overall output to be more wholesome with awesome cinematography,sound and costume in check.Having said all that,this film may not be the best from the Coens,but it surely is among their finest five.Why did i say watching this film further fueled my dreams?Because it exemplifies that with an innovative mind and finely tuned senses,one is capable of marrying film genres and amalgamating crucial elements resulting in a great piece of cinema which works like magic on screen.In the hands of an innovator,questions of authenticity will never arise,like this one.Remember Titanic?There were various films before Jim Cameron's version but mention it now,only one film springs to mind,his.Similarly,i have a feeling this 'remake' will eventually upstage its 'original' in the passage of time.A little reflection before i conclude,what does it take to possess an authentic grit?Fearlessness?Maybe.Soaring will?Perhaps.For me,its the ability to wither the hampering waves of a sorry past and march valiantly against all odds handsomely to the pinnacle of sweet smelling success.What's yours?Go find out what being tough is all about,without too much weight on the head !

Rating : A

Reviewed by

Amreish Siman

Unity through Educare : Discovering Your True Self For The Betterment of Mankind

2011-03-01T03:12:00.000-08:00

Education is not a subject on which anybody and everybody should talk.Today, education has become more outward and worldly. Today, there are millions and millions of people who have pursued such worldly education in India. In what way the society is benefited by such people? Everyone is concerned with his own selfish interest. There is none who cares for public interest and welfare. No one is bothered about how society is and in what condition it is, or what difficulties people are undergoing. When they speak in public they give long rhetoric about helping the poor, but when it comes to action, they are nowhere near. You all know in what state the world is today. Wherever you turn, you see sorrow and suffering. Peace and happiness are not to be found anywhere.

Every country claims progress and achievement in different areas. These claims are hollow in nature as peace and happiness cannot be found anywhere. If we enquire into the truth, every country is steeped in difficulties and is in some crisis or the other. No government makes a sincere effort to understand the difficulties faced by poor people. It is very difficult to determine who is poor and who is rich. All are ‘poor’ in one sense. Then who are the rich people? Those who put into practice what they say. It is said,“Manasyekam vachasyekam karmanyekam mahathmanam”. It means that those whose thoughts, words and deeds are in perfect accord are “mahatmas” (great souls). Such people are very rare. In fact, countries like Russia and America, which are considered to be super powers, are causing great harm to the poorer countries. They do not even regret for their mistakes. They are unable to realise how the people of the under-developed and developing countries are suffering. For example, the people in Iraq underwent untold suffering. But, none cared to bother their suffering. No doubt, that in every country, there are rich and poor people. Strangely, it is the rich people who are taken care of and provided with help. No one comes to the rescue of the poor people or provide succour to them. Hence, first and foremost, the poor and the downtrodden should be protected.

Every devotee must cultivate love and compassion. It is said, “Thyagenaike amruthathwamanasuh” (it is only by sacrifice that one can attain immortality). It is only a person with the quality of sacrifice can experience bliss. Those with the ego-centric feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ can never be happy in life. Where there is the feeling of ‘I’ there comes ego. Those who cultivate the feeling of ‘mine’ and ‘my people’ develop attachment. One should never develop the feeling that only my country should prosper. One should develop a broader outlook and pray, “Lokah samasthah sukhino bhavanthu” (May the whole world be happy!).

Those who develop the narrow-minded feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ undergo a lot of suffering. This is due to the secular education that they have acquired. Worldly education does not go beyond one’s own selfish interest. We should love all and serve all. Today the rich have lost the qualities of ‘papa bheeti’ and ‘daiva preeti’ (fear of sin and love for God). If only you cultivate these two qualities, you can achieve anything in life.

We must bring down our selfish interest to a certain extent. One has to gradually give up selfishness. We have to make full use of our education and energies for the benefit of the society. If there are no poor people, you cannot even be sure of your food; for it is they who toil in the fields and factories to produce the grains and goods for the consumption of people in the society. While the rich enjoy the comforts of life, the poor sweat to keep their body and soul together. Every individual in a society has his own rights, the right to live, etc. Hence, we must take care of the poor people also and provide them with certain basic necessities. For utilising their services, we must also serve them in return. Today those who are highly educated and those who are holding positions of power are steeped in utter selfishness. It is only they who exhibit mean mentality.

Today, everyone wishes to fulfil his selfish interests at the cost of others. No one acts with a pure heart and good intention to help others. A human being is expected to have the qualities of Sathya (truth), Dharma (righteousness), Santhi (peace), Prema (love) and Ahimsa (non-violence). Devoid of these qualities, he is not a human being at all. How can a person with demonic qualities be called a human being? Hence, first and foremost one has to cultivate human qualities. No one has a right to enjoy when his fellow-human being is suffering. All are God’s children only. To whomsoever you cause suffering, it will affect you. Hence, you have to conduct your life with devotion to God and love for all human beings.

All should remain united. Where there is unity, there shall be purity. Where there is purity, there is divinity. You all have to lead your lives keeping in view these three aspects of unity, purity and divinity. You should not remain unconcerned with others’ difficulties and suffering. Treat their suffering as your own. The one God dwells in the hearts of all people. “Easwarah sarvabhuthanam”. God is immanent even in ants and mosquitoes. There should be compassion in your heart. But, this has become a rare quality these days. Instead, we find ‘come-fashion’ everywhere. How can then equality prevail in society? Show at least an iota of humanity. He who has such a human quality will become a person with compassionate heart in the real sense.

Lust, anger, hatred, jealousy, pride, etc., are animal qualities. The real wealth of a human being is noble qualities like love, compassion, righteousness, sacrifice and truth. It is only when a person has these human qualities that he can be considered a human being. Unfortunately, today people are human only in form, but qualities are those of animals. What is important is not the form, but qualities.

You cannot be sure when difficulties will confront you. Every action (karma) has its reaction, resound and reflection. If you hurt others, surely it will have its reaction. It is only when you recognise this truth and conduct yourself accordingly that you can be called a true human being. You talk to any student of our institutions, even primary school children will explain to you the human qualities very clearly. The human values have therefore to be cultivated right from childhood. The boys and girls should grow in human values. Even elders can learn from such students.

Now, about Truth. From where did Truth come? It has not sprouted from the earth nor has it descended from the sky. Its origin is not North, South, East or West. Truth is firmly installed in one’s own heart. If you develop your inner vision, you can surely recognise truth there. Where there is truth, there righteousness is. When truth and righteousness go together, love emerges from the heart. From love comes peace. When peace and love go hand in hand, non-violence reigns. We have to understand the inter-relationship between the five human values, namely, Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Love and Non-violence. All these human values are embedded in our own inner being.

A human being is God, verily. That is the reason why God is portrayed in human form. If God were to reveal His true identity, He would declare, “I am Brahman”. He would not say “I am so and so”. All the names of individuals are only those given to the human body by their parents. They are not God-given. God has given only one gift, that is Atma. That is, “Mamatma sarvabhuthantharatma” (the one Divine Self permeates all beings). You observe the ants. They move in a line up and down. While doing so, they greet each other happily. If a cow has given birth to a calf, it does not join the flock leaving the young calf alone. The cow recognises the cry of the calf, even from a distance. The calf cries “Amba! Amba! And the mother cow responds. Such is the relationship among animals and even in birds.

In the Ramayana story, a hunter saw two birds happily spending their time in each other’s company, perched on a tree. The hunter shot an arrow and killed the male bird. Unable to bear the separation from her beloved, the female bird also died soon thereafter. Sage Valmiki who witnessed this pathetic scene uttered a sloka, even without knowing it. It came spontaneously from his mouth. That soka (grief) became the inspiration for the great epic Ramayana. Thus, the birds and animals also love each other. How then can a human being lose such a noble quality of love? Today there are many things that a human being can learn from birds, animals and even beasts. But, the human being is least bothered to learn these lessons. I have been teaching many good things since decades; but you don’t listen. Even if you listen, you don’t put them into practice.

If somebody abuses you, you feel sad. Don’t you know that he also feels in the same way when you abuse him? Praise or criticism, treat them all as part of the divine leela. When you develop such a sense of equanimity, you will come up in life. Today, even rich people are crazy for money. But, they do not show the same enthusiasm for God. People have lost self-confidence, totally. “Where is Atma? What is Atma?” People ask hundred and one questions. They do not at all understand that the Atma they were questioning about is very much immanent in them.

People say, “this is my handkerchief”. It means ‘I’ is separate and ‘handkerchief’ is separate. Similarly when you say ‘my body’, you are different from your body. What is this ‘my’? You say ‘this is mine’. But, who are you? You do not know the truth about yourself. When you know yourself, it amounts to knowing everything. If you do not know yourself, you cannot know others. Hence, sit calmly and peacefully in some corner and try to enquire into the nature of your own self. That is real dhyana (meditation). Meditation does not imply contemplating on God. Know about yourself, in the first instance. God is in you, with you, around you, above you and below you. YOU ARE GOD. Whenever someone enquires “Who are you?”, say “I am God”. Don’t say, “I am so and so.” How happy you will feel when you consider yourself as God! Even those who listen to your reply will feel happy.

Education does not mean simply imparting knowledge. We learn many things from the text books. But, we may not be able to understand their real meaning. First and foremost, enquire into yourself “Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Then you will get the real answer. Are you the mind? Or intellect? Or chittha? Or ego? Or body? You are none of these. No doubt the body, mind, intellect, etc., are all gifts of God. You have, of course, to respect them and value them. It is not enough if you read various texts and feel happy and contented that you have gained vast knowledge. Yesterday, one boy came to me and informed, “Swami, I have completed parayana of Sri Shirdi Sai Satcharithra.” When I enquired whether he had read the book fully, he replied that he had completely read the book without leaving a single letter. Then I enquired, “how many teachings of Baba contained in that book are you practising?” He replied, “None, Swami,” Then, what for is this reading? For turning pages? Not at all. There should be a transformation in your heart. Then only your parayana (reading of sacred texts) will be sanctified.

Devotees undertake several kinds of sadhana. But, they are not sadhana in the real sense. If you wish to see ‘reality’, you have to develop an inner vision. If you open your eyes and see the outside world, you will see a number of heads. On the other hand, close your eyes and look into yourself. Then you will see none but yourself. Hence, develop an inner vision. You enquire into yourself “Who am I?” Immediately reply comes from within “I am I”. That is the correct answer. People say “I am so and so; I am an American,” etc. These are not the real answers to the question “Who am I?” These are all outward names for identification in the external world. They are not important. What is important is self-enquiry. Then you will realise the Truth.

Srinivasan(All India President of Sri Sathya Seva Organisations) who spoke earlier eulogised education. What he said related to worldly education. I do not agree. It should relate to you. Then only the concept of ‘I am I” can be realised. Tomorrow, I will provide answers to some of your questions that bother you in your daily life. I am sure very soon you will realise Divinity. I do not wish to speak about modern education. That everybody will do. Reading books and gaining worldly knowledge is not great. This is only bookish knowledge. You must gain knowledge of your own self (inner being). That is real knowledge. That is changeless and eternal. Truth is only one, not two. Truth is God. Righteousness is God. Peace is God. Love is God. Know this. “Love is God; live in love”. If you cultivate such selfless and divine love, you can achieve everything in life.

“God is one; goal is one”. If you develop firm faith in this maxim, you can understand everything. Your experiences and enjoyment in this material world are not important. They are not true. Behind these momentary experiences, there are some eternal values to be cultivated; some human qualities to be developed. These values and qualities have to manifest from within, not in the outside world. That is Educare. Educare means bringing out the latent qualities and values from the core of our inner being. The books you read in the outside world relate to education. But, this is ‘Educare’. What is needed today is ‘Educare’. If people develop ‘Educare’, all will be united.

Take it from Me – in about 25 to 30 years’ time the entire world will become one. There will be only one caste, one religion, and one God. What is needed is such unity. Today, there are several differences between individuals on the basis of caste, creed, religion, language, nation, etc. Such differences should disappear and unity should prevail. The Veda has emphasized this unity in the declaration “Ekam Sath Viprah Bahudha Vadanthi” (Truth is one, the wise say it in different ways). That is the real world we are visualizing.

source : Sri Sathya Sai Baba's Divine discourse at the Sri Sathya Sai World Education Conference,July 20,2008

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

Review : Sini Ada Hantu

2011-02-24T06:14:00.000-08:00

Film : Sini Ada Hantu (2011)

Director : James Lee

Producer : Gayatri Su-Lin Pillai

Cast : Alvin Wong,Baki Zainal,Fasha Sandha,Beto Khusairy,Pete Teo,Eira Syazira,Kuswadinata,with Patrick Teoh and Mano Maniam.

Language : Malay,Cantonese,a little Hakka,Japanese and Tamil

Running time : 98 mins

We Malaysians are unbelievably obsessed (some possessed as well :p) with horror films.Any horror film of any language is a staple diet for the average local film goer,be it Korean,Japanese,Indonesian and especially Thai,they lap it up like streaming hot chocolate !

Lately,there's a frenzy on local horror comedies,judging by the very recent phenomenal success of Ngangkung and Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah,both grossing more than RM7.5 mil,a feat never achieved by any other local film ever before.Those figures says a lot about the taste of the majority.

Enter James Lee,a force to be reckoned with in the independent circle into the scene.With one horror film under his belt,Histeria,he's back to serve us this.Marketed as a ' potpourri of popular local ghost stories',i went in expecting a peek-a-boo laughfest of a horror film like the two above-mentioned hits and started out something like one too.Lee picked two relatively unknown actors,Alvin Wong (Chinese) & Baki Zainal (Malay) to play the leads,as van drivers working in a company owned by Rama(Indian),establishing the 1Malaysia right from the start as a noble attempt to truly Malaysia-nise the film.

The plot is simple.The two are forced to deliver a coffin to the deceased's house on a last minute assignment by the boss with triple pay benefits,an offer the two find too hard to refuse hence they agreed.As an effort to stay awake,the two began belting out a series of ghost stories,popular ones as per their respective cultures which would otherwise turn to be a boring chilly night journey.

We are then taken into three ghost stories within the film,'Hantu Pokok Pisang',Hantu Nombor Ekor' and 'Hantu Asrama',each representing a popular folklore,with the real-time journey serving as the fourth story.Sufficient research was done for each segment and the performances from most of the cast was good except a few who simply wasn't 'there'.( spoilers ahead !).By trying not to reveal much,i'd say the all three ghost stories are good,with my personal favourite being the second,backed by Pete Teo's man in crisis act,and then there's the climax of the third story in the dorm's toilet which was really very well-done.Rounding of my favourite scenes is the best of all,the 10 minutes plus climax where the two leads displayed great comic timing with excellent facial expressions which pretty much salvaged the film from being slumping into the mediocre slot.

The pace and feel of the film is typical of other James Lee films,unfolding relaxedly but never to the extent of challenging the audience's patience although at times it was a tad too draggy.Being a horror film,the lighting was as expected,brooding and 'cold',the third narrated story displaying the best utilization.The dialogues were uneven though,the best chunk( and most )of it between the two leads,who deserve a special mention here for their fresh and natural tongue-in cheek performances which really delights the screen,especially in the above-mentioned delighting climax which drew roaring laughter from the audience.The utilization of music was mostly appropriate although at times it felt out of place and a little too loud.One thing which really let me down was the under-usage of the veteran big-names especially Patrick Teoh,i really expected more of him here and it could've been done actually.

Overall,i'd say this is a respectable effort,considering James' vision of making this is a truly Malaysian horror fest,and with a budget of half a million ringgit,the result is an entertaining piece of local cinema with strong moral values ingrained appropriately.

Rating : B

Reviewed by

Amreish Siman

Origins Of The Indian Caste System

2011-02-21T05:23:00.000-08:00

Referring to the article "Who are the 'Paraiyars', really?" by Universiti Sains Malaysia vice-chancellor Professor Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak (NST, Feb 6),here's a really interesting take on the origins of the Indian caste system.

He shed new light on the "Paraiyars", after making references to a book by Abbe Dubois. It was a good attempt to explain the issue but some content are misleading ( please see below for the misinformation)

All those who had argued about this subject, whether Indians or non-Indians, have not explained it clearly enough for the nation to understand this issue of "Paraiyars". Many are not clear about the caste system where the word "pariah" is said to originate.

One would be surprised to know that the caste system does not exist in Hinduism. In Hinduism, there is a system known as the "varnashrama", which divides society into four natural groups -- Brahmana, Kshatriya,Vaishya and Shudra -- depending on individual characteristics and disposition.

Every human has certain tendencies by natural inclination and choice. These are divided into four divisions known as " varna " (colour). It does not relate to skin colour but to a person's aura or consciousness.

After reading a student's aura and his tendencies, the master would decide which job would suit him most, where it would allow the student to serve society in a harmonious way and not frustrate him.

A student is placed in the varnashrama of either the Brahmana also known as Brahmins (intellectuals, academics, priests), or Kshatriya (rulers, administrators, soldiers) or Vaishya (businessmen, farmers, bankers, those engaged in commerce) or Shudra (ordinary workers, those engaged in physical labour, dancers, singers).

It was never a condition that birth determines a student's division. This was a system of self-discovery and development in assisting a person to find his place in society, where he could contribute to it by doing a job in accordance to his nature.

This system is sanctioned by a book that no one commenting on the issue had referred to, namely the Bhagavad Gita, where Sri Krishna talks to the warrior Arjuna at the battlefield of Kurusethra.

It states: "According to the three modes of material nature and the work ascribed to them, the four divisions of human society were created by Me" (4.13).

"By following his qualities of work, every man can become perfect... By worship of the Lord, who is the source of all beings and who is all pervading, man can, in the performance of his own duty or occupation, attain perfection" (18.45-6).

Clearly, no one is forced into the work he dislikes. Neither is birth a criterion for determining the division he would enter for work purposes. The underlining principle in Hinduism is that work is worship and one is allowed to change the division one is in.

For example, if a soldier has had enough of battles and wants to become a priest, he will leave his Kshatriya division and enter the Brahmin division. It's as simple and flexible as that. This system allowed everyone to work according to his nature and bring happiness to himself and society. It was never meant to divide society according to materialistic divisions. The sole object was to unite people in a cooperative society in the service of God. Every individual in the divisions had equal rights.

From the above verses, there is no mention of "pariah". So what happened then?

As time went on, the varnashrama system was abused by the Brahmins, who made it a condition that those born of a parent who worked in a particular division would remain there. Switching from one division to another was not permitted. In that way, the Brahmins gained control over power and money.

This new condition was against the teachings of Hinduism. Some Brahmins and Kshatriyas opposed these new conditions. However, by this time, India was invaded. These invaders not only massacred people, but burnt down great libraries that contained most of the information regarding the varnashrama.

A new materialistic caste system was born. When the British arrived in India , they saw the system as an opportunity to divide society further to suit their interest and twisted it with a view of converting the Hindus.
The British then created another theory -- the Aryan theory -- which stated that European nomads came by chariots and conquered India and later composed the Vedas.

The Misinformation :-

1) Dzulkifli touched on the origin of the word Brahmin, but it was misleading. First, the Brahmins are not followers of Brahma. They, and all other Hindus, pray to the one supreme God known to them as "Brahman". Brahma and Brahman are different entities.

2 ) Second, he said the Aryan Brahmins carried out "conversion" and those who refused to convert were "cast out". This is misleading.

3 ) Scientifically speaking, there are no Aryan or Paraiyar races. The three primary races are Caucasians, Mongoloid and Negroid.Both the so-called "Aryan Brahmin" and "Paraiyars" are related branches of the Caucasian race, which is in the same Mediterranean sub-branch. Biologically, they are of the Caucasian race.

4) "Aryan", or its correct term "arya", was discovered in the Vedas of the Hindus. The term "arya" means noble or spiritual and it never meant a race of people. Those who followed the noble Vedic way of life or arya dharma may be termed as arya. It is a term of respect, something similar to a "datuk".

During the 19th century, many Europeans believed that they belonged to a superior race and their religion was the best. With the racial theory of man in vogue, they thought that the fair-skinned Indians were different from the dark-skinned Indians.

At that period, similarities were discovered in Sanskrit and the European languages. Therefore, they thought that since Sanskrit was related to their languages, it must have come from a white race and not the darker-skinned Indians (compared with the Europeans). It was a linguistic theory adopted by the British to hold power. They began interpreting the Vedas in the same racial manner. The forces of light against darkness were interpreted as white race against dark race.

Hence, their theory of an Aryan race from Europe that invaded India and gave them the Vedas. Terms were mistranslated to suit the British objective, which was to convert Hindus and to justify their rule.
Many archaeologists and researchers forwarded theories of the location of this Aryan homeland but it kept changing. An exact time period when the so-called Aryans came to India was never established.

This was also because, to the Europeans, the world was created at 9am on Oct 23, 4004 B.C. The great flood of Noah occurred in 2500B.C. So the philologist Max Muller and the rest gave the Aryan invasion date at 1500 B.C. In short, everything was mere speculation which, unfortunately, became part of Indian history.
New archaeological and scientific studies indicate that the Indus civilisation that preceded the Aryans, was Vedic and centred, not on the Indus , but on the banks of the Saraswati river and its language was Sanskrit.

The Rig Veda praises the Saraswati river in its hymns. The river dried up around 1900 B.C., which means Hinduism and those who composed the Rig Veda were there before 1900 B.C. and if the Aryans arrived in India about 1500 B.C., how did they know about this river and build their culture on its banks if the river did not exist any more?

The latest studies also indicate that the Indus sites were wiped out not by war or invasion but by a drought. The skeletons unearthed there showed no signs of injuries caused by war but by starvation or dehydration. This was the drought that wiped out civilisations in Sumeria and Mesopotamia .

Similarly, in Mohenjo-Daro , there was an absence of any signs of war, like extensive burning or weapons or any remains of armour-clad soldiers. Interestingly, evidence of temples and seals of Shiva and Vishnu exist which mean that the Vedic religion had been part of these people and not brought by any Aryan Brahmins.

In short, scholars are rejecting the invasion theory based on this emerging evidence.

Coming back to the "Paraiyars", they were indeed once land owners who lost their land, advisers to the kings, farmers, musicians, singers and members of the manual workforce who were suppressed by the British in the light of their divide-and-rule policy. They were exploited by the British and later, "Paraiyars" was mispronounced as "paria" just like Singapura became Singapore, Pulau Pinang became Penang, Mumbai became Bombay and orang utan became rang a teng.

The term "pariah" signifies colonial oppression of farmers, musicians, singers and the manual workforce.

source : ARIFF SHAH R.K.

The Management Committee of

Shree Lakshmi Narayan Mandir
(Sanatan Dharam Sabha Kuala Lumpur)

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

The Power Of Your Intentions

2011-01-10T03:49:00.000-08:00

How powerful are your visualizations?And the intentions behind it? Well, according to some of the latest research they are very powerful and can have a significant effect on your life and results when you learn the right process for setting your intentions and connecting with the infinite intelligence that governs all of life.

We are finding scientific evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are in fact creating our own reality and results, and the whole process begins with your conscious and unconscious thoughts.
For years I have been studying and applying the best that science has to offer us and here is a great way for you to apply some of what I have learned to manifest whatever you desire.
Upon waking from sleep, sit quietly with your eyes closed. First begin with a few deep breaths to get centered by inhaling in through your nose and exhaling through your nose 5-10 times. As you do this, release all tension and thought as you relax into an alpha brain wave frequency. The alpha frequency is a lower-frequency brain wave ( http://www.mindpoweruntold.com/2010/04/alpha-brain-waves.html ) to send your intentions into the quantum field of all possibilities. When we are in an awakened state, we are mostly in a faster brain wave frequency called beta. Beta frequencies are conducive to day to day activities and work but are not the most conducive to manifesting your intentions.

Think of your brain as a radio that can receive and send out signals. When you enter an alpha frequency you are “switching” stations from receiving to sending mode when you focus on a very clear intention. Alpha can also be accessed to receive messages and thoughts from the quantum field, the part of the universe you cannot see with your eyes. If you’ve ever been in the shower and a great idea has popped into your brain, chances are you were in an alpha brain wave state.
Let’s start with the world of quantum physics. First and foremost, quantum physics is the study of how the very small world, one we cannot see with our eyes, operates. Since we live in two worlds—one that we can see—and one that we cannot, it’s important for us to know what these two worlds offer us. Scientifically we now know that even though we cannot see any connection, both worlds are totally interconnected at every level.Newtonian physics helps us understand how to navigate the known physical world, and quantum physics helps us to understand the very intelligent non-physical world in which everything is connected to everything else, and from which and all known physical “things” are manifested.What we’ve discovered in this new realm of quantum research is that whatever we focus on and emotionalize often, is what we will attract and actually see in the quantum field of all possibilities, or better yet, probabilities.
As weird as this may sound, this is now being proven without a shadow of a doubt. What this means is that the more clearly focused we are on exactly what we want, the easier and faster we’ll manifest everything we need to make it a physical reality.
Since all material things move from the non-physical to the physical reality, our vision and goals are paramount in the process of achievement. Our vision and focus acts like a magnet that attracts and connects the pieces together.

Alpha brain waves

Another thing to keep in mind is that the universe operates by natural laws, exact precision, and perfect order. Our vision, then, must also be precise and exact in our mind in order for whatever we need to be attracted and shown to us by the intelligent forces that govern all of creation. When we focus our brain on what we want, we actually increase the amplitude of the cellular vibration and cause the “attraction” factor to really take shape.
When we choose a vision or goal that is bigger than our current reality, we are in essence creating a gap or a vacuum between what we want and where we currently are. We know from natural law that nature fills a void or gap in the fastest and most efficient ways possible.
You too, will attract exactly what you need to realize your dreams when you really start to believe and feel your vision becoming a reality. It’s the clear and consistent vibration of your vision that brings forth your needs. You provide the seed, the universe provides the resources.

Ok, so now that you have your clear vision, decide in advance what is your intention. It can be an answer to something you need or a person you want to attract or manifest something like money or a soul mate. Once this choice is made and you are in an alpha state, simply focus on the end result you want and make it as real as possible by imagining that your intention has happened already.
While you are imagining, get totally into the emotional feeling that your intention has already occurred and then let it go. This is the part most people have a hard time with because they want immediate evidence that something is happening. The universe will show you evidence when your belief in the universe’s power matches your intention. In other words, you will see it when you believe it, not the other way around. Believe, and the belief will become your reality.Your clear vision is your seed. Choose it wisely and precisely, and riches beyond your imagination in every area of your life shall be yours.
This is a daily ritual that the best manifestors in the world do everyday and it will change your life.

Here’s to your success. I wish that all your dreams come true!

source : http://www.johnassaraf.com

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

The 5 Secrets Of Self - Made Millionaires

2010-12-27T01:35:00.000-08:00

They’re just like you. But with lots of money.

When you think “millionaire,” what image comes to mind? For many of us, it’s a flashy Wall Street banker type who flies a private jet, collects cars and lives the kind of decadent lifestyle that would make Donald Trump proud.

But many modern millionaires live in middle-class neighborhoods, work full-time and shop in discount stores like the rest of us. What motivates them isn’t material possessions but the choices that money can bring: “For the rich, it’s not about getting more stuff. It’s about having the freedom to make almost any decision you want,” says T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. Wealth means you can send your child to any school or quit a job you don’t like.

According to the Spectrem Wealth Study, an annual survey of America’s wealthy, there are more people living the good life than ever before—the number of millionaires nearly doubled in the last decade. And the rich are getting richer. To make it onto the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, a mere billionaire no longer makes the cut. This year you needed a net worth of at least $1.3 billion.

If more people are getting richer than ever, why shouldn’t you be one of them? Here, five people who have at least a million dollars in liquid assets share the secrets that helped them get there.

1. Set your sights on where you’re going

Twenty years ago, Jeff Harris hardly seemed on the road to wealth. He was a college dropout who struggled to support his wife, DeAnn, and three kids, working as a grocery store clerk and at a junkyard where he melted scrap metal alongside convicts. “At times we were so broke that we washed our clothes in the bathtub because we couldn’t afford the Laundromat.” Now he’s a 49-year-old investment advisor and multimillionaire in York, South Carolina.
There was one big reason Jeff pulled ahead of the pack: He always knew he’d be rich. The reality is that 80 percent of Americans worth at least $5 million grew up in middle-class or lesser households, just like Jeff.
Wanting to be wealthy is a crucial first step. Says Eker, “The biggest obstacle to wealth is fear. People are afraid to think big, but if you think small, you’ll only achieve small things.”
It all started for Jeff when he met a stockbroker at a Christmas party. “Talking to him, it felt like discovering fire,” he says. “I started reading books about investing during my breaks at the grocery store, and I began putting $25 a month in a mutual fund.” Next he taught a class at a local community college on investing. His students became his first clients, which led to his investment practice. “There were lots of struggles,” says Jeff, “but what got me through it was believing with all my heart that I would succeed.”

2. Educate yourself

When Steve Maxwell graduated from college, he had an engineering degree and a high-tech job—but he couldn’t balance his checkbook. “I took one finance class in college but dropped it to go on a ski trip,” says the 45-year-old father of three, who lives in Windsor, Colorado. “I actually had to go to my bank and ask them to teach me how to read my statement.”
One of the biggest obstacles to making money is not understanding it: Thousands of us avoid investing because we just don’t get it. But to make money, you must be financially literate. “It bothered me that I didn’t understand this stuff,” says Steve, “so I read books and magazines about money management and investing, and I asked every financial whiz I knew to explain things to me.”
He and his wife started applying the lessons: They made a point to live below their means. They never bought on impulse, always negotiated better deals (on their cars, cable bills, furniture) and stayed in their home long after they could afford a more expensive one. They also put 20 percent of their annual salary into investments.
Within ten years, they were millionaires, and people were coming to Steve for advice. “Someone would say, ‘I need to refinance my house—what should I do?’ A lot of times, I wouldn’t know the answer, but I’d go find it and learn something in the process,” he says.
In 2003, Steve quit his job to become part owner of a company that holds personal finance seminars for employees of corporations like Wal-Mart. He also started going to real estate investment seminars, and it’s paid off: He now owns $30 million worth of investment properties, including apartment complexes, a shopping mall and a quarry.
“I was an engineer who never thought this life was possible, but all it truly takes is a little self-education,” says Steve. “You can do anything once you understand the basics.”

3. Passion pays off

In 1995, Jill Blashack Strahan and her husband were barely making ends meet. Like so many of us, Jill was eager to discover her purpose, so she splurged on a session with a life coach. “When I told her my goal was to make $30,000 a year, she said I was setting the bar too low. I needed to focus on my passion, not on the paycheck.”
Jill, who lives with her son in Alexandria, Minnesota, owned a gift basket company and earned just $15,000 a year. She noticed when she let potential buyers taste the food items, the baskets sold like crazy. Jill thought, Why not sell the food directly to customers in a fun setting?
With $6,000 in savings, a bank loan and a friend’s investment, Jill started packaging gourmet foods in a backyard shed and selling them at taste-testing parties. It wasn’t easy. “I remember sitting outside one day, thinking we were three months behind on our house payment, I had two employees I couldn’t pay, and I ought to get a real job. But then I thought, no, this is your dream. Recommit and get to work.”
She stuck with it, even after her husband died three years later. “I live by the law of abundance, meaning that even when there are challenges in life, I look for the win- win” she says.
The positive attitude worked: Jill’s backyard company, Tastefully Simple, is now a direct-sales business, with $120 million in sales last year. And Jill was named one of the top 25 female business owners in North America by Fast Company magazine.
According to research by Thomas J. Stanley, author of The Millionaire Mind, over 80 percent of millionaires say they never would have been successful if their vocation wasn’t something they cared about.

4. Grow your money

Most of us know the never-ending cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. “The fastest way to get out of that pattern is to make extra money for the specific purpose of reinvesting in yourself,” says Loral Langemeier, author of The Millionaire Maker. In other words, earmark some money for the sole purpose of investing it in a place where it will grow dramatically—like a business or real estate.
There are endless ways to make extra money for investing—you just have to be willing to do the work. “Everyone has a marketable skill,” says Langemeier. “When I started out, I had a tutoring business, seeing clients in the morning before work and on my lunch break.”
A little moonlighting cash really can grow into a million. Twenty-five years ago, Rick Sikorski dreamed of owning a personal training business. “I rented a tiny studio where I charged $15 an hour,” he says. When money started trickling in, he squirreled it away instead of spending it, putting it all back into the business. Rick’s 400-square-foot studio is now Fitness Together, a franchise based in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, with more than 360 locations worldwide. And he’s worth over $40 million.
When extra money rolls in, it’s easy to think, Now I can buy that new TV. But if you want to get rich, you need to pay yourself first, by putting money where it will work hard for you—whether that’s in your retirement fund, a side business or investments like real estate.

5. No guts, no glory

Last summer, Dave Lindahl footed the bill for 18 relatives at a fancy mansion in the Adirondacks. One night, his dad looked out at the scenery and joked, “I can’t believe we used to call you the black sheep!”
At 29, Dave was broke, living in a small apartment near Boston and wondering what to do after ten years in a local rock band. “I looked around and thought, If I don’t do something, I’ll be stuck here forever.”
He started a landscape company, buying his equipment on credit. When business literally froze over that winter, a banker friend asked if he’d like to renovate a foreclosed home. “I’m a terrible carpenter, but I needed the money, so I went to some free seminars at Home Depot and figured it out as I went,” he says.After a few more renovations, it occurred to him: Why not buy the homes and sell them for profit? He took a risk and bought his first property. Using the proceeds, he bought another, and another. Twelve years later, he owns apartment buildings, worth $143 million, in eight states.

The Biggest Secret? Stop spending.
Every millionaire we spoke to has one thing in common: Not a single one spends needlessly. Real estate investor Dave Lindahl drives a Ford Explorer and says his middle-class neighbors would be shocked to learn how much he’s worth. Fitness mogul Rick Sikorski can’t fathom why anyone would buy bottled water. Steve Maxwell, the finance teacher, looked at a $1.5 million home but decided to buy one for half the price because “a house with double the cost wouldn’t give me double the enjoyment.”

source : Reader's Digest,SHINE

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

The Power

2010-12-22T11:07:00.000-08:00

To celebrate the end of the year, and to guarantee that 2011 is your absolute best year yet, this Secret Scrolls contains one of the life-changing revelations from the book The Power, and one of the most powerful processes you can do in your life.

Whether you realize it or not, you bring everything to you through the power of your imagination. The power of imagination is not something you have to acquire; you have it already! You think in images even if you aren't aware that you do, and you use imagination or imaging every single day of your life. When you think about the past you are imagining. When you think about the future you are imagining. And as you imagine and concentrate on anything with feeling, you are bringing it to you.

When you worry about something, you are using your immense power of imagination negatively. You are imagining the worst, and as you imagine the worst, you are bringing it to you. When you are excited about something, you are using your power of imagination positively. You are imagining the best, and as you imagine the best, you are bringing it to you.

Using the power of your imagination is something that comes to you naturally, but I want you to understand something about your imagination that will change your life: Whatever you can imagine already exists! You simply can't imagine anything unless it exists already, because when you imagine something you are actually tuning into a particular frequency, and if that frequency didn't exist in the Universe you wouldn't be able to tune into it. So when you imagine yourself with something you want you are tuning into a real thing that already exists, and you are looking at the very frequency of you with your desire!

Now I am going to take you step by step through a revolutionary process using your imagination from the book The Power.

First, imagine something that you really want. It could be money, health, a particular job, a partner, a vacation, happiness, or anything else. Imagine yourself with your desire; close your eyes and really get the picture of yourself with your desire.

Pay special attention to what you see about yourself in your imagined picture. Notice how you are talking. Notice how you are moving. Notice how you are walking. Notice how you are acting. Notice how you are feeling. Look at everything about yourself in your imagined picture, but in particular, notice how happy you are! Capture every detail that you can, and open your eyes.

Understand that the picture you just imagined of yourself with your desire exists already! You know it exists because if it didn't exist how could you tune into it? How could you see it in your imagination? When you imagined yourself, you were looking at the actual real version of you with your desire!

Can you see the difference between yourself right now and your imagined picture of yourself? Because your job is to become as much like the version of yourself in the picture as you can! Walk like that now. Talk like that now. Act like that now. Feel the same as that, now. Become as happy as that person, now. Be that person, now! When you become the person in your imagined picture you have shifted yourself to the frequency of your desire, and it must and will appear. Your imagination is showing you precisely the person you need to become. It is showing you what you look like and how to act and feel so that you can copy it and become that person!

To help you become more and more like the person in your imagination, practice closing your eyes and seeing yourself in the imagined picture with your desire as many times as you want. Seeing the imagined picture of yourself will continuously remind you how you need to be, feel, and act. Then come out of your imagination and go about your day doing your best to act and feel like that person, now. You will be amazed at how little copying it takes before you see the evidence that your desire is coming.

This is one of the most powerful processes you can ever do to make your desires appear with lightning speed. This process is based on the physics of the Universe. Use it! Practice it! You have The Power to your life; every force in the Universe will do anything for you, but you have to use The Power that you have!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, and may joy be with you in every moment.

Source : Rhonda Byrne from The Secret and The Power..

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

The 3 Great Truths of the Mahabharata

2010-09-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

In one of Swami's early visits to Venkatagiri in Andhra Pradesh, Swami Sathya Sai Baba gave a wonderful Discourse on the great Truths of the Mahabarata, The Divine Discourse is wonderful, following are some excerpts :

" If the Puranas are described as constituting an Upanga of the Vedas, the itihasas(the epics) are so highly thought of as to be placed on an equal footing with the Vedas. The Mahabharata is indeed called the fifth Veda ("pancamo Vedah").

The Mahabarata teaching everyone three great truths that are

1 ) Devotion

Bhakti of Arjuna to Lord Krishna, Arjuna never ever even once went against anything that Sri Krishna ever told him or commanded him, his was the great form of Devotion, many many times During the Mahabarata war on the battlefield, when the war was in full swing, Krishna would suddenly take his chariot away and go far away, Arjuna never questioned Krishna even once,that is why Krishna told all the great truths in the form of Bhagawad Gita to Arjuna only.

In the history of the world, the greatest Form of Devotion is seen in Arjuna, Krishna was everything for Arjuna, that is why Arjuna lost all his warrior skills when Krishna went back to Vaikunta. Krishna gave Sudama Riches, gave Yashoda his Love, showed many many people his greatness, but gave himself to Arjuna, That is why Swami says when you have great devotion and love for the Lord, He Gives himself to you, He becomes you. You become Him.

2) Dharma

The Second Great Truth of the Mahabarata is Dharma.

Dharmaraja, Yudhistira,Dharmateja was the centre of everything that was Dharma in this world, He never ever Wavered from the path of Dharma, the Pandavas suffered humiliations like no others in their lives, but Dharmaraja never wavered from the path of Righteousness, His is the greatest example of what a righteous man should be, he is the great example of Truth and truthfulness, everyone should follow his ideals.

3) Sacrifice

The Third Most Wonderful Truth of the Mahabarata is Sacrifice -

Thousands of kings and princes, hearing of Drona's skill, came to Hastinapur with the purpose of learning from him. Among them was Ekalavya, son of Hiranyadhanus, king of the Nishadas.Drona, prudent in dharma, refused to accept a Nishada as his pupil. But Ekalavya bent his head at Drona's feet and went to a forest where he made a clay statue of Drona.Worshipping the statue as his acharya, Ekalavya started practicing the use of weapons before it without fail, every day.

Dronacharya's main ambition was to make Arjuna the greatest archer of all times, he gave special training to Arjuna, showed great interest in him, one day during an expedition in the forest, the leading dog in the hunting pack was missing, they found it with its mouth open and seven arrows in it, everyone was dumb struck, who was the great archer who did this, Dhrona himself had never seen anything like this before.

Suddenly a Nishada appreared and Dhrona knew that he was not an ordinary man but someone driven with a strong will to suceed, The Young Boy led him to a statue in the clearing in the Forest and everyone was shocked to see Dhronacharya's Statue there, Dhronacharya understood everything , He also understood that while this boy was alive, Arjuna could never become the greatest archer, so as a Guru Dakshina he asked for the Thumb of the Right hand of Ekalavya, It was given to him without Ekalavya even Blinking his eyes.

Do any of you hear Ekalavya's name again in the Mahabarata ?, But his greatest Sacrifice is known even today, Ekalavya knew that Dronacharya was asking him the Dakshina because he never wanted him to shoot an arrow,all his years of Lonely practise would be nothing, But He sacrificed everything for His Master. He sacrificed whatever he had to Dhronacharya. This is Supreme sacrifice, Everyone's sacrificing something in the Mahabarata had some selfish Motive, Ekalavya's was totally unselfish that is why we remember him till this very day.

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

The Nature Thought Of Energy

2010-08-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

Your thoughts are the currencies with which you exchange energy with the universe. Do you believe that your thoughts have energy?
Do you believe that a place or an object can retain the energy of the people that have come into contact with it?

If you have ever entered an old home and sensed the presence of its previous occupants, or held an antique item in your hands and felt the history of it, then you know the answers.

Scientists are just beginning to accept the truth about thought energy, and have begun to study what many have known for centuries. In fact some of today’s leading scientists in areas of physics, biology, psychology and many other fields are starting to recognize the importance of thought energy.

Positive thought energy in the form of collective meditation has been scientifically proven to reduce violent crime!

In 1993 a study encouraged by one the world’s leading physicists was undertaken in Washington D.C to determine if focused meditation could have an effect on that city’s crime rate. The results were astonishing. During the weeks that several volunteers meditated, crime rates fell dramatically by 25 percent! This was no accident. This was scientifically validated and proven to be an effective means of countering the criminal inclinations of a very large group of people…an entire city in fact.

All life is energy.

Thoughts have energy.

Negative thoughts create negative events.

Positive thoughts create positive results.
The energy of thought is either stored in physical structures or is transmitted into the universe, it never dies
.
Consider what this means.
Think about the ramifications.
Where did the clothes you are wearing come from, who made them?
Were they manufactured by depressed and impoverished people working in appalling conditions for weeks to make the same amount of money that you spend on a cup of coffee in the morning?
Who built the car that you drive?
Was it built by disgruntled and tired factory workers? Where some of those workers alcoholics? Did some of them leave work, go home, beat their wives and children and build your car the next morning?
Who built the house that you live in?
Who came into contact with the food that you ate today?

Starting to get the picture?
Everything we come into contact with can hold the thought energy of other people.
Even the air that we breathe carries the thought energy of those it surrounds !

What were the thoughts that have been injected into every part of your life?
How much has the thought energy of others affected you?

Every thought interacts with the energy of the universe.
Negative thought looks for other negatives thought energies to bind with.
Eventually a matrix of negative thought energy is created and forms a thought wave.
These powerful negative thought waves manifest themselves in our lives in the form of poverty, crime, war, plagues and natural disasters.
Negative energy creates a vacuum, it detracts from the life giving nature of the universe.
Negative thought waves come in many sizes and have been known by many names, bad luck, misfortune, disaster, evil, curses, etc.

Call them what you will, the source of their energy is the same. The source is us !

Positive thought energy also seeks out other positive energies.
If you are a source of positive thought energy, positive and beneficial energy will return to you in many wonderful and unexpected ways.
Positive thought energy creates a surplus; it is the surplus of positive thought energy that allows for the creation of life.

You are the source and creator of all things !
Everything that happens in your life has a direct connection with the type of energy that you are charging the universe with.

Remember this !!You alone are responsible for the type of energy created by your life !!

Becoming aware of the power of your own thoughts is the most important step in understanding how to handle the adverse influence of the negative thought of others.
Knowing the value of positive thought energy allows us to become sensitive to negative energy.
We begin to notice it in our own speech, we see it in our relationships, and we notice it in others.

Being aware is the key !
Once we are aware of the negative thought energy in our lives we can take measures to eliminate it and replace it with beneficial, healing energy.
It is as simple as noticing it and dismissing it with our minds.
A thought enters our mind that we recognize as negative, we simply dismiss it.
By dismissing negativity we take away its power by not allowing it to manifest further negativity in our lives.

There are of course many other techniques available to combat negative thought energy and create positive abundance in our lives; including focused meditation among others.
The critical first step however is simply being aware of the existence and effects of these energies.
Hopefully this brief article has helped you to allow that first step to be taken.

Have a blessed day people and be careful of what u think every moment !!

With warm regards,
Amreish Siman

source : Jeffry R. Palmer Ph.D. – Metaphysician, Thought Energy Consultant and Syndicated Columnist, Is the author of "Judo for the Soul - The Art of Psychic Self Defense", as well as several articles and papers relating to metaphysics, spirituality and paranormal phenomena. Further information about Mr. Palmer, his books and articles can be found at: http://the-psychic-detective.com

Why Should You Be Aware Of Quantum Physics ?

2010-08-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

Nobel Prize winning physicists have proven beyond doubt that the physical world is one large sea of energy that flashes into and out of being in milliseconds, over and over again.

Nothing is solid.

This is the world of Quantum Physics.

They have proven that thoughts are what put together and hold together this ever-changing energy field into the ‘objects’ that we see.

So why do we see a person instead of a flashing cluster of energy?

Think of a movie reel.

A movie is a collection of about 24 frames a second. Each frame is separated by a gap. However, because of the speed at which one frame replaces another, our eyes get cheated into thinking that we see a continuous and moving picture.

Think of television.

A TV tube is simply a tube with heaps of electrons hitting the screen in a certain way, creating the illusion of form and motion.

This is what all objects are anyway. You have 5 physical senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste).

Each of these senses has a specific spectrum (for example, a dog hears a different range of sound than you do; a snake sees a different spectrum of light than you do; and so on).

In other words, your set of senses perceives the sea of energy from a certain limited standpoint and makes up an image from that.

It is not complete, nor is it accurate. It is just an interpretation.

All of our interpretations are solely based on the ‘internal map’ of reality that we have, and not the real truth. Our ‘map’ is a result of our personal life’s collective experiences.

Our thoughts are linked to this invisible energy and they determine what the energy forms. Your thoughts literally shift the universe on a particle-by-particle basis to create your physical life.

Look around you.

Everything you see in our physical world started as an idea, an idea that grew as it was shared and expressed, until it grew enough into a physical object through a number of steps.

You literally become what you think about most.

Your life becomes what you have imagined and believed in most.

The world is literally your mirror, enabling you to experience in the physical plane what you hold as your truth … until you change it.

Quantum physics shows us that the world is not the hard and unchangeable thing it may appear to be. Instead, it is a very fluid place continuously built up using our individual and collective thoughts.

What we think is true is really an illusion, almost like a magic trick.

Fortunately we have begun to uncover the illusion and most importantly, how to change it.

What is your body made of?

Nine systems comprise the human body including Circulatory, Digestive, Endocrine, Muscular, Nervous, Reproductive, Respiratory, Skeletal, and Urinary.

What are those made up of?

Tissues and organs.

What are tissues and organs made of?

Cells.

What are cells made of?

Molecules.

What are molecules made of?

Atoms.

What are atoms made of?

Sub-atomic particles.

What are subatomic particles made of?

Energy!

You and I are pure energy-light in its most beautiful and intelligent configuration. Energy that is constantly changing beneath the surface and you control it all with your powerful mind.

You are one big stellar and powerful Human Being.

If you could see yourself under a powerful electron microscope and conduct other experiments on yourself, you would see that you are made up of a cluster of ever-changing energy in the form of electrons, neutrons, photons and so on.

So is everything else around you. Quantum physics tells us that it is the act of observing an object that causes it to be there where and how we observe it.

An object does not exist independently of its observer! So, as you can see, your observation, your attention to something, and your intention, literally creates that thing.

This is scientific and proven.

Your world is made of spirit, mind and body.

Each of those three, spirit, mind and body, has a function that is unique to it and not shared with the other. What you see with your eyes and experience with your body is the physical world, which we shall call Body. Body is an effect, created by a cause.

This cause is Thought.

Body cannot create. It can only experience and be experienced … that is its unique function.

Thought cannot experience … it can only make up, create and interpret. It needs a world of relativity (the physical world, Body) to experience itself.

Spirit is All That Is, that which gives Life to Thought and Body.

Body has no power to create, although it gives the illusion of power to do so. This illusion is the cause of much frustration. Body is purely an effect and has no power to cause or create.

The key with all of this information is how do you learn to see the universe differently than you do now so that you can manifest everything you truly desire.

You are born with the power to manifest the unmanifest.Believe in this and you'll begin to witness miracles happening in your life !!

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

source : http://www.johnassaraf.com

Compositions Of A Film

2010-07-26T05:09:00.000-07:00

The basic need to represent a three dimensional reality on a two dimensional surface is certainly not new in the visual arts. What separates film from the other visual arts is that it is kinetic. The filmmaker is composing motion.

Composition of movement in time can be broken down into several dynamics. Movement of the camera is called intraframe movement. Screen sizes and angles of view can be manipulated in this way. Interframe movement is created by editing, cutting from one angle to another or from long shot to close up. The combination of camera movements and editing becomes a truly powerful system for manipulating the film reality. Whether static or moving, the frame represents spatial depth, or three dimensions, on a 2 dimensional screen.

We’re told by those who have studied the psychology of perception that shadows are one of the clues by which the brain recognizes spatial depth. The fact that the projected image is always seen as a window into a 3 dimensional world is one reason for the filmmaker’s use of these dark and light areas for ‘designing in depth.’

The figurative painters and engravers of graphic illustrations in the 19th century are worth study by filmmakers. Gustav Dore’s work is an example. He used a formula enormously effective in emphasizing design in depth. In the foreground a subject might be lit strongly, with an emphatic key light and strong modeling. But behind this would be figures more or less in silhouette, in shadow and 2 dimensional. These, in turn, would be outlined against a brighter area in middle distance, a part of light illuminating features of architecture or figures in an area of light. These were again silhouetted, light against dark, against a further background of shadow, gray but still dark. Each recessive plane contrasts with the one beyond it or in front.

The Spanish painter Francisco Goya wrote some 200 years ago. “I see (in nature) only forms that advance, forms that recede, masses in light and shadow.”

Composing in depth isn’t simply a matter of visual richness. It has value in the narrative of the action, the pacing of the scene. Within the same frame, the director can organize the action so that preparation for what will happen next is seen in the background of what is happening now. While our attention is concentrated on what we see nearest to us, we are simultaneously aware of secondary activities that lie beyond, and sometimes even of a third plane of distant activity the dramatic density of the scene is much greater.

Designing the blocking of the actors, the framing of the shot, with this sort of thing in mind and the cinematographer with a grain of sense will instantly realize your intention. He will use light to assist the eye path of the audience and to give dramatic depth to the scene. Composition, both in framing and lighting, directs the viewer’s eye to the appropriate part of the scene.

However,It is the unfortunate for a lot of filmmakers that they are not in charge when their work is being projected. A visit to a local theatre can at times be a heart breaking experience, let alone seeing one’s film on television.In spite of this uncertain future, the film crew puts all its talents and skills into producing a well-composed picture.

source : http://malaysianfilmmakers.blogspot.com/

With love and passion,

Amreish Siman

Review : Inception

2010-07-20T01:56:00.000-07:00

Film : Inception (2010)

Director & Writer : Christopher Nolan

Producer : Emma Thomas,Christopher Nolan

Music : Hans Zimmer

Cast : Leonardo DiCaprio,Ken Watanabe,Joseph Gordon-Levitt,Ellen Page,Tom Hardy,Marion Cotillard,Cilian Murphy,Tom Berenger and Michael Caine

Language : English

Running time : 148 mins,PG-13

'Why did he make this film,people ?'...'Because we gotta watch it'...'He didn't waste the money,did he?'...'Because he's the director Hollywood deserves,the one it bloody needs right now!'...'So,we'll watch his films'..'because he can inspire us'..'because he's not a director'..'he's a master filmaker..a mindful craftsman...THE CREATIVE GENIUS...

Most filmakers make films,some directors make movies,but a creative genius will craft a masterpiece,this is one.Christopher Nolan who gave us the best comic-book inspired live action film ever made two years ago and extracted one of the finest performances from an actor who literally gave his life for the role returns with an original concept,an idea so intricately imagined and constructed,it requires maximum utilization of grey matter to just attempt comprehending the entire fiasco and if you thought that could've been said in a simpler,easily understandable way,then don't watch this film because this is not anywhere near Transformers,with explosive ka-boom metal mayhem with kindergarten screenplay,that's Michael Bay's territory,if you're still there,come out please.

This film falls under the category of mind**** genre,which means if you've been watching too much Stallone/Arnie/Van Damme/Vijaykanth films,you'll be sitting in the cinema with a Keanu Reeves expression,which is only one...DUH? This film runs along the theme of,most notably The Matrix Trilogy(1999,2003),2001: A Space Odyssey(1968),Minority Report(2001),Virtuosity(1995),The Machinist(2004),Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind(2004),Vanilla Sky(2001) and Shutter Island(2010,also the brilliant DiCaprio,click http://mindsparkenigma.blogspot.com/2010/04/review-shutter-island.html ).If you have watched these films,you'll understand why i believe Inception is a delicious potpourri of all these classics taken one notch higher with Nolan's genius insight.If you have missed some,i say go watch it because it will help fill in the blanks if u leave the theatre dazed and confused.

The film centres on the brilliantly inspired idea of 'extraction' of ideas from a person's mind via dreams and is depicted in an corporate espionage setting with a elite team(Joseph Gordon-Levitt,Ellen Page,Tom Hardy),each with a specific skillset,ala A-Team,Ocean's Eleven and films of that kind.The job of the dream team is literally hack into the target's dream and steal their thoughts,specifically highly valuable secrets deeply embedded in their sub-conscious minds to make a living.
Led by Dobb,played by DiCaprio,who like any other leader of smartass misfits in high-tech heist movies,is calling it quits and wants a normal life(did you noticed that almost all heist movies has this plot?,the i'll-do-it-one- last- time for my family/ex-boss loyalty/redemption stuff ),but hey,its Nolan's film,so cheesiness is out of the question !And for the one last mission,the boss,Saito(Ken Watanabe with a funny Jap accent) requires the team to do the opposite,which is to plant the idea/thought instead of extracting it,a process called inception,like planting a seed( pregnancy through in-vitro technique is where the word inception is used widely).The motive here is greed and monopoly,where high-profile corporate tycoon filthy play are abound.The idea is to plant an idea/thought in its rawest and infantile form so that it germinates and develops naturally as if it was an original motivation.The victim is the heir to a dying,super-wealthy tycoon,Bob Fischer(Cilian Murphy,with the same chilly look from Batman Begins) and the raw idea is one that will influence him to turn the tables on the wealth distribution of his father's assets so as to favor Saito to seize total monopoly of the world's energy business.What a plot,eh?

Now,this film could've easily been a straight metaphysical- heist film but what makes it stand tall is the complex psychological aspect of it.Leonardo DiCaprio,again,for the third consecutive time finds himself married with a woman with a fractured psyche,there was Revolutionary Road(2008),with a suicidal Kate Winslet(far cry from i jump,you jump melodrama from them in Titanic) and Shutter Island,with a alcoholic child-drowning Michelle Williams( ex-wife of the late Heath Ledger) and here its the beautiful Mal(Marion Cotillard from Public Enemies),a woman 'lost' in her own dream world,an Alice who went too deep into the rabbit-hole she's unable to distinguish illusion from reality,their relationship is portrayed in such a poignantly tragic manner it is heart-wrenching to watch.DiCaprio played his role to such perfection that he's now an expert in playing tragic-deep- loving- husband-of psychologically -troubled-on-screen-wives-with-a-hard-grasp-on-reality-as-a-result-of-intense-guilt-and-regret,nobody else can depict it better than a Scorpio man,and Leo is actually a Scorpio..hahaha..the guy is damn good and so is the rest of the cast actually,only downside is the under-utilization of the legendary Michael Caine,who is a staple face in Nolan's films(The Prestige,Batman films).

Technically,the film is a marvel.The cinematography is lush and awe-inducing and the visual-effects are grandiose,there's superb scene(spoiler alert!)where streets fold depicting the sheer creative power of the mind to imagine and manifest almost anything.There's even a revolutionary fight scene in zero-gravity which left me wondering how on Earth did Nolan filmed it !The powerful pulsating score by Hans Zimmer envelops each scene and elevates the impact and feel of the film perfectly,the score is uncharacteristically loud at times,which i notice is Nolan's trend(watch Insomnia,The Prestige,Batman films),his logic to up the volume in particular scenes is Hitchcock-inspired,even Shymalan does it.

The best thing about this film is not the above mentioned achievements,the real success here is Nolan's triumphant attempt to creatively depict how the subconscious mind works and the sheer power of thought.The way emotionally-entangled memories embeds itself so deep in our sub-conscious minds that its almost impossible to eradicate is shown brilliantly in scenes where Mal and the kids appear abruptly at the most unexpected circumstances much to the shock and disbelief of Dobb.The sub-conscious mind is a free entity,it cannot be controlled,once an idea/thought/memory is implanted...ahem..sorry...INCEPTED into the sub-conscious,it will germinate and evolve on its own depending on how much power do you feed it,meaning how attached or how deeply you feel or felt about the thought in the first place,if it was an idea or memory which deeply moved,affected or was experienced by you,chances are the frequency of the idea/thought popping out to the conscious mind is very high,just like Dobb.So,be very careful of what you think because you are what you think,you become what you think,such is the power of thoughts.If you thoughts are predominantly negative,then be prepared to face the consequences and expect screw-ups upon screw-ups because you simply asked for it !So,might as well we flood our minds with positive,uplifting and beautiful thoughts because its free !You don't have pay to think,do you?So,think....think big..just like Christopher Nolan did....Inception was his idea...it was a 12 year-old idea,he first presented the story to Warner Bros after he did Memento,originally scripted for a much smaller scale film like his 'Insomnia',but the stupendous success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight opened gates for him to blow-up the scale to a US$160 million film,allowing him to create this masterpiece the way it deserves to be made.

What is the moral of the story here?Christopher Nolan incepted the idea of 'Inception' in his own sub-conscious mind and waited patiently for 12 years until he proved his box-office mettle and for technology to advance and then delivered his baby,a handsome,pricelessly beautiful baby for the world to adore,appreciate and love.Its safe to say he has firmly cemented his place as one of the finest filmakers in the world today,filling in the space left by well...my grandfather,the late Stanley Kubrick :)

Go get enlightened if you haven't !!

Rating : A

Reviewed by
Amreish Siman

The Relationship Between Director & Director Of Photography

2010-07-14T04:48:00.000-07:00

Ideally the cinematographer’s relationship with the director is a symbiotic one. The cinematographer embraces the director’s vision and uses his visual talent and technical knowledge to capture the director’s inner thoughts and put them on the screen. Needless to say, the process of choosing a cinematographer is of no small importance to the director.

It is my impression that most of the cameramen have developed a highly personal style. They have an individual character that becomes their stock in trade.

Often a director will screen several films shot by a prospective cinematographer.

In effect, I believe you have to trust the taste and temperament of the cameraman as you see it in his previous work. Obviously, you should take care to see a number of his films to see how he handles different genres; to see what range he has.

BLACK-AND-WHITE AND COLOR

A cinematographer cannot separate the problem of light from the problem of color. Through the film stock he is using, through the filters on lights and lenses, and through the printing in the lab, he cooperates with the art director in the orchestration of colors or in the modulation of the gray scale in the black-and-white films.

I’ve always felt that melodrama and satire have characteristics in common. Ideally, I would prefer to shoot both of these genres in black and white. Distributors nowadays declare that black-and-white movies are unsalable. A compromise may be the kind of cinematography where there is a very emphatic range of tonal values, black to white, at the expense of hue values; strong directional lighting of chiaroscuro, which underlines the architectural structures at the expense of the local colors of the surface.

There are personal idiosyncrasies when it comes to particular colors, for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

With love and passion, Amreish Siman

Source : http://malaysianfilmmakers.blogspot.com/

The Creative Intuition

2010-07-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

Some individuals seem to have an intuitive sense, as they begin their creative work, about what their final product will be like. Indeed, evidence from several sources confirms the role of intuition in the creative processes of artists and scientists; among these sources are autobiographical testimonies, analyses of historical evidence, psychometric assessments, and experimental studies

In combination, this evidence supports the notion that early intuitions may guide decision making in the process of attaining creative results. But at least three issues remain. First, there may be various forms of intuition.

Second, there may also be various forms of creativity. Third, it

might well be the case that only certain forms of intuition are related to certain forms of creativity. It is important to develop a clear conceptual framework for distinguishing various forms of intuition as well as for explaining whether and to what extent they interact with one another and with various forms of creativity.

It is also relevant to distinguish intuition from insight, although the 2 phenomena sometimes overlap. Intuition entails vague and tacit knowledge, whereas insight involves sudden, and usually clear, awareness. In the context of creativity, intuition may precede insight. (See INSIGHT)
Earlier intuition was defined as a tacit form of knowledge that orients decision-making in a promising direction. In the context of innovation, a promising direction is one that leads to potentially creative outcomes. For example, Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and medicine refer to their own scientific intuition as “a metaphorical seeing of the phenomenon searched for, an anticipatory perception of its shape or its gross structure.”

In time line between an early intuition and its final articulation might very from a brief period to many years, depending on various factors, such as the nature of the problem or the subject’s knowledge base. Jean Piaget, for instance, commenting on the creative process of Charles Darwin, said that he found two results most interesting: the time that Darwin needed to become aware of ideas already implicit in his thought, and the passage from the implicit to the explicit in the creation of new ideas.In fact, Darwin seems to have implicitly prefigured some of his most relevant ideas in his early writings. Highly creative individuals in other domains, such as Pablo Picasso (visual arts),Sigmund Freud (psycho-analysis), Albert Einstein ( modern science),and Stanley Kubrick ( filmaking) appear to have moved along their own creative processes in a similar sequences – starting off with generative intuitions and ending up with more explicitly articulated products after long periods of persistent work (See FREUD, SIGMUND,KUBRICK,EINSTEIN )

This leads us to a further question. If some individuals have an early intuitive sense about their final product will be like, why does it take them any longer to reach the ultimate goal? In other words, how can we explain a creative process in which the beginning is in a way also the end, given that we have a tacit estimate of the end state right from the start?
Perhaps the creative process unfolds as a developmental sequence of representational changes, from vague, syncretic, and implicit forms of knowledge into more differentiated, integrated, and explicit ones. In more technical terms, it is conceivable, at least, that the creative process might operate as a developmental translation – from an implicit code of associative strengths among neural units into an explicit code of symbolic rules. In this cognitive system, implicit neural networks might precede and
constrain the generation of symbolic rules.

INTUITION AS CONSTRAINT

A number of scholars hold that divergent thinking (multidirectional and open ended) is the essential feature of the creative process. But, we may wonder, what prevents divergent thinking from becoming mere rambling as the person considers an infinite sequence of potential alternatives? (See DIVERGENT THINKING)
As we all know, any creative process involves a long series of choices: each decision one makes will affect future options, and one’s alternatives at any given will depend on previous decisions. If individuals had to consider each option that arises in any creative search, the growth of alternatives would become astronomical. In other words, the sequence would lead to what cognitive scientists call a “combinatorial explosion,” and it is very unlikely that the creative process would get to the desired result in any reasonable amount of time.
Creative intuitions may fulfill an important cognitive function: By setting the preliminary boundaries for promising exploration, these initial intuitions may keep the creator’s divergent thinking from generating a combinatorial explosion. That is why creative intuition may be technically defined as a tacit form of knowledge that broadly constrains the creative search by setting its preliminary scope.
Although cognitive scientists have widely acknowledged the need to check a combinatorial explosion in a problem space, they have not considered intuition as a potential constraint for the creative search. Instead, they have focused on heuristics.
Creative intuition may fulfill a similar role to that of heuristics by making the search for possible solutions more selective and efficient. Heuristics, however, are explicit rules of thumb, or particular strategies that, for example, deliberately move away from an old path and look for conflicts and resolve them. Conversely, creative intuitions appear to be implicit rough estimates of the final solution or goal, and advances in this problem space might be measured in terms of how close the subject is to achieving a clear symbolic representation. (See HEURISTICS)

Creative intuition has always been difficult to define, explain, and measure. Conceptualizing it in terms of search in a problem space may be a valid and operational alternative for investigating this phenomenon. But it still leaves many questions unanswered.

With love and passion,

Amreish Siman

Source : Encyclopedia of Creativity, Volume 2 By Mark A. Runco, Steven R. Pritzker

Publisher: Academic Press (9 Aug 1999) &
http://malaysianfilmmakers.blogspot.com/

Quote Of The Day

2010-06-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

QUOTE OF THE DAY

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt
26 th US President

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

Startling Discovery ! The Decreasing Speed Of Light

2010-06-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

DANGEROUS “DISCOVERY”
by Jonathan Gray

Have you heard of the "atomic clock"? The atomic clock measures time by the speed of radioactive decay. And this has given ages of billionsof years for the earth. But has this ever dawned on you? If light was once 10 billion times faster than now, then radioactive decay was faster to the same magnitude. A correction, once made, dates our earth as young! Latest research threatens not just dating, but other accepted theories, as well. Modern physics is now considering a theory that could throw into confusion virtually all of the accepted temporal paradigms of 21st-century science, including the age of the universe and the billions of years necessary for evolution. Further, it raises the distinct possibility that scientific validation exists for a (gasp) literal interpretation of the seminal passages of Genesis. Goodbye Scopes trial. The theory is deceptively simple: The speed of light is not constant, as we've been taught since the early 1930s, but has been steadily slowing since the first instance of time. If true, virtually all aspects of traditional physics are affected, including the presumed steady state of radioactive decay used to measure geological time. It’s an intriguing story – and like many revolutions in science, it begins with observations that just don’t fit currently accepted scientific dogma.

HOW THE DISCOVERY OCCURRED

Early in 1979, an Australian undergraduate student named Barry Setterfield, thought it would be interesting to chart all of the measurements of the speed of light since a Dutch astronomer named Olaf Roemer first measured light speed in the 17th century. Setterfield acquired data on over 163 measurements using 16 different methods over 300 years. The early measurements typically tracked the eclipses of the moons of Jupiter when the planet was near the Earth and compared it with observations when then planet was farther away. These observations were standard, simple and repeatable, and have been measured by astronomers since the invention of the telescope. These are demonstrated to astronomy students even today. The early astronomers kept meticulous notes and sketches, many of which are still available.

STARTLED BY THE DISCOVERY

Setterfield expected to see the recorded speeds grouped around the accepted value for light speed, roughly 299,792 kilometers /second. In simple terms, half of the historic measurements should have been higher and half should be lower. What he found defied belief: The derived light speeds from the early measurements were significantly faster than today. Even more intriguing, the older the observation, the faster the speed of light. A sampling of these values is listed below:
* In 1738: 303,320 +/- 310 km/second
* In 1861: 300,050 +/- 60 km/second
* In 1877: 299,921 +/- 13 km/second
* In 2004: 299,792 km/second (current accepted constant)

Setterfield teamed with statistician Dr. Trevor Norman and demonstrated that, even allowing for the clumsiness of early experiments, and correcting for the multiple lenses of early telescopes and other factors related to technology, the speed of light was discernibly higher 100 years ago, and as much as 7 percent higher in the 1700s. Dr. Norman confirmed that the measurements were statistically significant with a confidence of more than 99 percent. Setterfield and Norman published their results at SRI in July 1987 after extensive peer review. It would be easy to dismiss two relatively unknown researchers if theirs were the only voices in this wilderness and the historic data was the only anomaly. They are not. OTHERS AGREE: LIGHT HAS SLOWED Since the SRI publication in 1987, forefront researchers from Russia, Australia, Great Britain and the United States have published papers in prestigious journals questioning the constancy of the speed of light. During 2002 and 2003, Dr. Joao Magueijo, a physicist at Imperial College in London, Dr. John Barrow of Cambridge, Dr. Andy Albrecht of the University of California at Davis and Dr. John Moffat of the University of Toronto have all published work advocating their belief that light speed was much higher – as much as 10 to the 10th power faster – in the early stages of the "Big Bang" than it is today. (It's important to note that none of these researchers has expressed any bias toward a predetermined answer, biblical or otherwise. If anything, they are antagonistic toward a biblical world-view.) Dr. Magueijo believes that light speed was faster only in the instants following the beginning of time. Dr. Barrow, Barry Setterfield and others believe that light speed has been declining from the beginning of time to the historic near past.

THE REAL ISSUE

Dr. Magueijo has stated that the debate should not be whyand how the speed of light could vary, but what combination of irrefutable theories demands that it be constant at all. Setterfield now believes there are at least four other major observed anomalies consistent with a slowing speed of light: 1. quantized red-shift observations from other galaxies, 2. measured changes in atomic masses over time, 3. measured changes in Planck's Constant over time, 4. and differences between time as measured by the atomic clock, and time as measured by the orbits of the planets in our solar system. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the quantized red-shift data. The red shift refers to observations by astronomers of the light emitted by galaxies. Early astronomers noticed that galaxies considered to be most distant from the earth had light spectra shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. In 1929 astronomer Edwin Hubble compared the galaxies' spectra with their presumed distances (calculated using different methods), and showed that the amount of "red shift" was proportional to the calculated distance from Earth. Hubble and others postulated that the "red shift" was caused by the velocity of the galaxies as they receded from Earth and from each other – the farther away the galaxy, the faster the velocity, the more the observed Doppler red shift. Galaxies whose observed light is seen as shifted into the far red are considered to be moving at amazingly high speeds away from us. Hubble’s theory of the expanding universe demands an even distribution of red-shift data. Dr. William Tifft, now retired from the University of Arizona, measured and recorded red-shift data for over 20 years. Dr. Tifft found that the red-shift data were not random at all, but grouped into quantum bands. Quantum red-shift data simply does not fit in the comfortable world of classical physics. Where it does fit, like it was made for it, is in the Setterfield Hypothesis. According to Setterfield and others, declining light speeds would cause changes in the quantum states of atomic structure within these galaxies, leading to quantum shifts in the light emitted – precisely what Dr. Tifft and others detected. Setterfield believes that the speed of light was initially about 10 to the 10th power faster than it is today. After the creation of the universe, light speed declined following a curve approximating the curve of the cosecant squared. He believes that light speed reached a point where it is asymptotic since the mid 1960s. Though reasonably constant, he believes the speed still varies in waves – sometimes higher and sometimes lower than the accepted standard. Intriguingly, recent observations of the signals received from the aging satellites Galileo, Ulysses and Pioneer are also in the category of speed of light anomalies. An unexplained Doppler frequency shift has been detected from all of these satellites, even though the satellites' distances from the Earth are only about 20 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun – way too close for a traditional Doppler shift to occur in the electromagnetic spectrum. NASA scientists have attempted with little success to attribute the anomalies to an unknown acceleration. Setterfield suggests that equally plausible explanations are variations in c.

RESISTANCE FROM SCIENTIFIC “ELITE”

It’s important to recognize the resistance that the current hierarchy of science has to the possibility that light speed may not be constant. Dr. Joao Magueijo was forced to wait for over a year between submission of his initial work on varying light speed and publication. Setterfield, Dr. Tifft, Dr. Paul Davis, Dr. John Barrow and others have been subjected to peer review which borders on ridicule. Dr. Tifft's discussion of red-shift anomalies was published with seeming reluctance in the Astrophysical Journal in the mid 1980s with a rare editorial note pointing out that the referees "neither could find obvious errors with the analysis nor felt that they could enthusiastically endorse publication." After Dr. Tifft's initial publication, several astronomers devised extensive experiments in attempts to prove him wrong. Among them, two Scottish astronomers, Bruce Gutherie and William Napier from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, observed approximately 300 galaxies in the mid 1990s. They found to their surprise confirmation of quantum banding of red-shift data. They also had difficulty publishing their data. It has been reported that the prestigious Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics refused publication until an additional set of observations from 97 other spiral galaxies was included. A Fourier analysis of the 302 early data points, and the subsequent total of 399 data points strongly confirmed the quantum shifts. Despite this – and additional observations by Bell in 2003 – many scientists are still reluctant to give up on the theory that red shifts are solely caused by Doppler shifts. And have continued to claim that the red-shift quanta results by Tifft and others are due to sloppy research or insufficient data. It's intriguing to note that the first measurement of light speed by Olaf Roemer in the late 17th century was an attempt to disprove the Aristotelian belief that light speed was infinite. Despite overwhelming and repeatable evidence, over 50 years passed before the scientific hierarchy of the time accepted evidence which, in retrospect was clear, compelling and unimpeachable. The point is this. When something is proved to be true beyond reasonable doubt, do not expect the scientific world to automatically accept it. History shows they will continue to stubbornly resist. Did you know that even after modern explorers proved the earth to be round, a flat earth continued to be taught in the schools of Europe for the next 200 years! Why am I doing this now? Because of the tremendous benefit you will derive from the discovery of what our planet really was like in the days of our earliest ancestors. It is not what you may think. I just don't want you to miss out on such a shattering discovery.

May the Force be with us !!

With love and passion,

Amreish Siman

My Theory On The Decreasing Speed Of Light

2010-06-30T07:25:00.000-07:00

A sudden intuition hit me as i came across an interesting article by Jonathan Gray on the recent findings by scientists around the world that the speed of light is found to be significantly decreasing over the years since it was first measured by Olaf Roamer in the 17th century( for full article,pls visit ( http://mindsparkenigma.blogspot.com/2010/06/startling-discovery-decreasing-speed-of.html).By having a keen interest in science,especially in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics,i read on enthusiatically startled by the findings.Also over the last recent years,i've began to explore spirituality and did plenty of soul-searching and it lead me to many sources of spiritual knowledge from various spiritual masters which transformed and moulded the way i look at life completely,for the better of course.And ever since till now,whenever i come across any piece of information of any findings,events,news and by active observation of people and my surroundings,i've developed an uncanny ability to view all data input from a spiritual point of view and slip into long hours of contemplation and analysis which resulted in astounding surge of universal knowledge which have gifted me great level of awareness and sensitivity to view the world we live in a distinctive manner.Simply put,i see the big picture,thanks to the Divine intervention.Now,what has my micro 'enlightenment' has got to do with the decreasing of the speed of light?I've mentioned that i've came across various forms of spiritual knowledge in the recent years,and one source in particular contained extensive and detailed explanation about the concept of spirituality,and assessed it thoroughly with a remarkable amount of R & D with an universal approach without sidelining any spiritual organization or master.According to them,our universe consists of 3 basic elements,these are subtle elements.The gross or physical elements that we can see,feel and touch are the five we all know - air,water,fire,land and sky,which make up the physical world,so we may think but the 'world' we came to know is just a tiny fraction of the universe.There are millions of subtle worlds right now,right here in front of us which we can't see except a fraction of the population who are gifted with the SIXTH SENSE,which i call divine intuition or extra sensory perception( for detailed info,visit http://www.spiritualresearchfoundation.org/articles/id/spiritualresearch/spiritualscience/sixthsense)These gifted elite group are able to see things most of us,including me can't.A large group of this select few belong to this foundation called SSRF( Spiritual Science Research Foundation) which is the source i'm talking about.The three subtle elements are :-

RAJA - Action and passion.(a person who consists majority of this element is Rajasik)

TAMA - Ignorance. ( a person who consists majority of this element is Tamasik)

SATTVA - Purity and knowledge - a person who consists majority of this element is Sattvik)(http://www.spiritualresearchfoundation.org/articles/id/spiritualresearch/happiness/benefitsofspiritualpractice/personalitydevelopment_trigunas_d

According to Hinduism,the universe has three stages of existence,CREATION,SUSTENANCE and DESTRUCTION we are living in the era of KALIYUGA,the fourth and final era of the SUSTENANCE stage,in other words,we are living in a world which is on the brink of Doomsday.As per their research,the earlier eras of SATYAYUGA,TRETAYUGA and DWAPARYUGA consisted more of Sattva element,Satyayuga being the most and gradually decreasing as the eras passed where now in Kaliyuga,the predominant element is Raja and Tama,meaning the world we live in now is far less sattvik than it was once,and that simply translates to pollution and impurity,in the spiritual sense.

Now,my theory of what could possibly decrease the speed of light is this - Since the predominant subtle elements of today's world is Raja and Tama,which is are largely negative,and Sattva being the divine subtle element,my mindspark of the day said its because the steadily decreasing element of Sattva as years pass on,light which is a pure divine energy is proportionately slowed down as the universe is now densely made up of Raja and Tama,hence the results of the findings by scientists.

But western scientists do not take this into account because its not verifiable by modern physical science because there is simply no equipment to measure these subtle elements,it can only be felt by the elite group with advanced sixth sense.They will continue to debate and conduct experiments after experiments and tons of research only to reach a dead end unless they adapt an unorthodox,or shall i say re-evaluate their beliefs accepting Divine Intervention and Will as part of their research which is highly questionable.The only way to look at it,being a firm believer of the spiritual and metaphysical realities of the universe,is by adapting a more refined spiritual approach towards life,which i myself haven't even really begun in the REAL sense.

But i constantly live in gratitude and thank God every possible moment for every experience in every sense maintaining a positive outlook in life because i realised we are spiritual beings here on Earth for a temporary human experience,not human beings on Earth for a temporary spiritual experience ;)

May the blessings be !

With love and passion,

Amreish Siman

Review : Raavanan

2010-06-22T23:26:00.000-07:00

Film : Raavanan (2010)

Director : Manirathnam

Studio : Madras Talkies

Writers : Manirathnam,Suhasini

Music : AR Rahman

Cinematography : Santhosh Sivan,Manikandan

Cast : Vikram,Aishwarya Rai,Prabhu,Karthik,Prithviraaj,Priyamani,Munna,John Vijay

Tamil 127 mins

I have never reviewed director Manirathnam's films before but i've watched almost all of his films and needless to say,he and his films are in their league of their own.Noted for their offbeat storyline,superb performances,mouthful screenplays,to-die for cinematography and beautiful music,heck,the recipe is more than complete! What else is needed to make a great film? My favourites are Mouna Ragam,Alaipayuthey,Iruvar,Nayagan & Thalapathi.Who doesn't like his films anyway?Now,Raavanan,being his second film to be inspired from a Hindu epic,with Thalapathi being the first loosely based on Mahabaratha,this effort of his is more directly adapted since the title itself says it all.I shall write this review from a point of view of both a film enthusiast and an aspiring filmaker myself.

The Review :-
The maestro successfully adapted yet another epic and played it well in contemporary setting.What i love most about this film is the lush and jaw-dropping cinematography by Santhosh Sivan( Roja,Iruvar).He managed to capture and deliver the feel of the movie - wet,green,cold,exotic,raw and ethereally beautiful with crisp perfection,my God,if u reaaly lose yourself in the film,i bet you can smell the rain,shiver in cold like Ragini (Aishwarya Rai) and feel the sense of liberation felt by Raavanan(Vikram),all this even without watching3D,probably u'd catch a cold if watched it in 3D ! Like all his previous films since Roja(1992),the now Oscar Nayagan A.R Rahman delivers the sound to compliment the sight,and as usual,the man can do no wrong.Beautiful music accompanies the film like Samwise Gamgee did for Frodo Baggins,so spot on it blends magnificently,the songs transitions are never unnecessary,it flows with the story just like his previous films - Veera ,Usure Poguthey,Kaattu Sirikki are just awesome.Now,the performances,with a cast like this,the director who fails to milk the best out them,deserved to be shot to death !Not Maniratham,the guy's a perfectionist,hence those who sign up for his films are well aware of this and they deliver,so did the cast here.I realised something interesting here,the characters here are tailor-made for the actors playing them because almost all of them have played almost similar characters before.Check this out - Vikram as Raavanan is a blend of his Pithamagan,Sethu & Bheema
- the mannerisms,body language,body,facial features,diction gives a feeling of deja-vu and u'd be thinking nobody else could've done the role but Chiyaan himself !Sita,reputedly the most beautiful woman who ever walked the face of Earth,is played by Aishwarya Rai,again to such perfection which surely will get her nominated for an award - strong willed,brave,sensitive and goddess like beauty with glowing skin and captivating eyes packaged in a full and sensuous body,who else but Mrs.Abhishek?Beauty alone is not sufficient,Maniratham picked her because of her performances in Kandukondein Kandukondein and Bride & Prejudice.Watch those two films if u haven't and judge.Prithviraaj,tall,handsome,determined with sharp eyes and a calm,commanding voice is a good fit for Rama.He has played this character before people,in Satham Podathey - husband in determined pursuit for his kidnapped wife and wins with his sharp intelligence and relentless effort only here he adapts a no-nonsense,much more serious toned character with a shade of darkness in him without the moustache !Bingo,u've got ur Rama and it worked !For the supporting roles,its a good blend of old and new faces.First up is Karthik,yes good 'ol Karthik,one of Manirathnam's earliest heroes,those days in Mouna Ragam(1986) and Agni Nakshathiram ( 1988).He's back here playing a loosely based character of Hanuman,a forest officer,how apt eh Mr.Maniratham??How do u adapt such a grand,larger than life,powerful and commanding character into modern setting?By making him a drunkard,tree-hopping,hapless forest officer?What the heck?But Mani being Mani,he must have his reasons i guess but why Karthik for the role?Because he can play comedic roles with perfect comic timing and funny dialogue delivery energeticly like his Mouna Ragam and Ullam Kollai Poguthey characters.And he plays it to perfection!Excellent choice.Prabhu,our fat,jovial and hearty son of Sivaji is playing a fat,lovable,hearty Singarasan,brother of Raavanan,a hint of Kumbakarnan.Why him?Because he can play it,think an old Chinnathamby cooking,eating and playing around but is violent and u have it !The younger brother role,played by new actor Munna,who i suppose is Vibhisana,is a good fit too.Priyamani,who plays the younger step-sister to Raavanan,Vennila is an obvious choice,who can can play a deep-voiced,brave sister role to bandit brothers?The tough girl from Paruthi Veeran can,and there u have it,brutally gang-raped and dies in the end,just like Muthazhagi.

So,what i'm saying is the master knows to play his cards well.He just knows who to pick to play his characters,who to hire to translate his story to visuals,who to rely on to bring life through sound for the visuals and his good ol'self to put the pieces together for a beautiful contemporary love epic with familiar but complex characters interwoven with great music and eye-candy cinematography.

Personally i'm both happy and disappointed,happy to see Aishwarya Rai delivering the Tamil dialogues herself,happy to see both veteran Karthik and Prabhu together again after 22 years since Agni Natchathiram,happy that Manirathnam adapted the story frm Ramayana,happy that so much painstaking effort is put by a lot of people to realise a project of a genuine maestro and happy that my dream to be a filmaker is constantly reinforced by the fact that they are filmakers and films that are worthy to be adored and admired by the world and i am fortunate enough to have such a dream in the first place which makes my life worthy.And i'm damn happy that Manirathnam didn't do a direct page-to page adaptation of Ramayana,thank God for that because.....you'll know one day :)

Disappointments are few..the film could've explored Raavanan's complex ten-headed clockwork better,it should have been one of the film's main plot and the characters of Rama and Hanuman could've been better written.Lastly,the screenplay is slightly disappointing at some points.Other than that,its yet another glorious feather in Manirathnam,AR Rahman,Vikram,Aishu and everyone else's cap.Hats off for the entire team !!

By the way,this is not the last adaption of Ramayana u'll get to see in your lifetime...the real live-action adaption is on the way....and its gonna take the world in a storm!! Patience is virtue,people :)

Reviewed by Amreish Siman

The Seed

2010-04-29T02:54:00.000-07:00

'If i don't start now,then when?Aged 16,light years ago i planted a seed deep under the ground and childishly(or maybe its meant to be) whispered that it should only begin sprouting 13 years later. All these while it was germinating and has actually been growing beneath the surface feeding on the nutrients available but never grew out of its skin somehow obeying a childish order of a 16 year old kid who's now a 29 year old man.As per order,the seed now is prepared to rise above the ground to see the light of day,plunging the 29 year old man into an obsessive jittery seeping into every pore of his consciousness,knocking him off his comfortable axis, begging him for sunlight.The energy from the seed is soaring but he's been trying to contain and pacify it which is working against him threatening his current course of life much to his disbelief and dismay.Now,who planted the seed?Who gave the 13 year order?If he remains deaf to the calling of his own creation,he's bound to be consumed by his own fire of extinction.Its time.Its high time! AWAKE ! RISE ! ACT !

With love and passion, Amreish Siman

Ancient Atomic Warfare in the times of Ramayana,Mahabaratha and Atlantis

2010-04-28T03:28:00.000-07:00

Article by David Icke

These verses are from the Mahabharata (written in ancient Dravidian, then later in Sanskrit) and describe horrific wars fought long before the recorder's lifetime.

* Various omens appeared among the gods: winds blew, meteors fell in thousands, thunder rolled through a cloudless sky.

* There he saw a wheel with a rim as sharp as a razor whirling around the soma... Then taking the soma, he broke the whirling machine...

* Drona called Arjuna and said: "Accept from me this irresistible weapon called Brahmasira. But you must promise never to use it against a human foe, for if you did it might destroy the world. If any foe who is not a human attacks you, you may use it against him in battle. None but you deserves the celestial weapon that I gave you."

This is a curious statement, as what other kind of foe different from a human might there have been? Are we talking about an interplanetary war?

* I shall fight you with a celestial weapon given to me by Drona. He then hurled the blazing weapon...

* At last they came to blows, and seizing their maces struck each other.they fell like falling suns.

* These huge animals, like mountains struck by Bhima's mace, fell with their heads broken, fell upon the ground like cliffs loosened by thunder.

* Bhima took him by the arm and dragged him away to an open place where they began to fight like two elephants mad with rage. The dust they raised resembled the smoke of a forest fire; it covered their bodies so that they looked like swaying cliffs wreathed in mist.

* Arjuna and Krishna rode to and fro in their chariots on either side of the forest and drove back the creatures which tried to escape. Thousands of animals were burnt, pools and lakes began to boil... The flames even reached Heaven... Indra without loss of time set out for Khandava and covered the sky with masses of clouds; the rain poured down but it was dried in mid-air by the heat.

Several historical records claim that Indian culture has been around for literally tens of thousands of years. Yet, until 1920, all the "experts" agreed that the origins of the Indian civilisation should be placed within a few hundred years of Alexander the Great's expedition to the subcontinent in 327 BC. However, that was before several great cities like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro (Mound of the Dead), Kot Diji, Kalibanga and Lothal were discovered and excavated. Lothal, a former port city now miles from the ocean, was discovered in Gujarat, western India, just in the late 20th century. These discoveries have forced archaeologists to push back the dates for the origin of Indian civilisation by thousands of years--in line with what the Indians themselves have insisted all along.

A wonder to modern-day researchers, the cities were highly developed and advanced. The way that each city was laid out in regular blocks, with streets crossing each other at right angles and the entire city laid out in sections, gives archaeologists cause to believe that the cities were conceived as a whole before they were built--a remarkable early example of city planning. Even more remarkable is that the plumbing/sewage systems throughout the large cities were so sophisticated--superior to those found in Pakistan, India and many Asian countries today. Sewers were covered, and most homes had private toilets and running water. Furthermore, the water and sewage systems were kept well separated.

This advanced culture had its own writing, which has never been deciphered. The people used personalised clay seals, much as the Chinese still do today, to officialise documents and letters. Some of the seals found contain figures of animals that are unknown to us today, including an extinct form of the Brahman bull.

Archaeologists really have no idea who the builders were, but their attempts to date the ruins (which they ascribe to the "Indus Valley civilisation", also called "Harappan") have come up with something like 2500 BC and older, but radiation from the wars apparently fought in the area may have thrown off the date.

The Rama Empire, described in the Mahabharata and Ramayana, was supposedly contemporaneous with the great cultures of Atlantis and Osiris in the West.

Atlantis, well known from Plato's writings and ancient Egyptian records, apparently existed in the mid-Atlantic and was a highly technological and patriarchal civilisation.

The Osirian civilisation existed in the Mediterranean basin and northern Africa, according to esoteric doctrine and archaeological evidence, and is generally known as pre-dynastic Egypt. It was flooded when Atlantis sank and the Mediterranean began to fill up with water.

The Rama Empire flourished during the same period, according to esoteric tradition, fading out in the millennium after the destruction of the Atlantean continent.

As noted above, the ancient Indian epics describe a series of horrific wars--wars which could have been fought between ancient India and Atlantis, or perhaps a third party in the Gobi region of western China. The Mahabharata and the Drona Parva speak of the war and of the weapons used: great fireballs that could destroy a whole city; "Kapila's Glance", which could burn 50,000 men to ashes in seconds; and flying spears that could ruin whole "cities full of forts".

The Rama Empire was started by the Nagas (Naacals) who had come into India from Burma and ultimately from "the Motherland to the east"--or so Colonel James Churchward was told. After settling in the Deccan Plateau in northern India, they made their capital in the ancient city of Deccan, where the modern city of Nagpur stands today.

The empire of the Nagas apparently began to extend all over northern India to include the cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Kot Diji (now in Pakistan), as well as Lothal, Kalibanga, Mathura and possibly other cities such as Benares, Ayodha and Pataliputra.

These cities were led by "Great Teachers" or "Masters" who were the benevolent aristocracy of the Rama civilisation. Today they are generally called "Priest-Kings" of the Indus Valley civilisation, and a number of statues of these so-called gods have been discovered. In reality, these were apparently men whose mental and psychic powers were of a degree that seems incredible to most people of today. It was at the height of power for both the Rama Empire and Atlantis that the war allegedly broke out, seemingly because of Atlantis's attempt to subjugate Rama.

According to the Lemurian Fellowship lesson materials, the populace surrounding Mu (Lemuria, which predated the other civilisations) eventually split into two opposing factions: those who prized practicality and those who prized spirituality. The citizenry, or educated elite, of Mu itself was balanced equally in these two qualities. The citizenry encouraged the other groups to emigrate to uninhabited lands. Those who prized practicality emigrated to the Poseid Island group (Atlantis), and those who prized spirituality eventually ended up in India. The Atlanteans, a patriarchal civilisation with an extremely materialistic, technologically oriented culture, deemed themselves "Masters of the World" and eventually sent a well-equipped army to India in order to subjugate the Rama Empire and bring it under the suzerainty of Atlantis.

One account of the battle, related by the Lemurian Fellowship, tells how the Rama Empire Priest-Kings defeated the Atlanteans. Equipped with a formidable force and a "fantastic array of weapons", the Atlanteans landed in their vailixi outside one of the Rama cities, got their troops in order and sent a message to the ruling Priest-King of the city that he should surrender. The Priest-King sent word back to the Atlantean General:

We of India have no quarrel with you of Atlantis. We ask only that we be permitted to follow our own way of life.

Regarding the ruler's mild request as a confession of weakness and expecting an easy victory--as the Rama Empire did not possess the technology of war or the aggressiveness of the Atlanteans--the Atlantean General sent another message:

We shall not destroy your land with the mighty weapons at our command, provided you pay sufficient tribute and accept the rulership of Atlantis.

The Priest-King of the city responded humbly again, seeking to avert war:

We of India do not believe in war and strife, peace being our ideal. Neither would we destroy you or your soldiers who but follow orders. However, if you persist in your determination to attack us without cause and merely for the purpose of conquest, you will leave us no recourse but to destroy you and all of your leaders. Depart, and leave us in peace.
RUINS OF ATLANTIS

Arrogantly, the Atlanteans did not believe that the Indians had the power to stop them, certainly not by technical means. At dawn, the Atlantean army began to march on the city. From a high viewpoint, the Priest-King sadly watched the army advance. Then he raised his arms heavenward, and using a particular mental technique he caused the General and then each officer in order of rank to drop dead in his tracks, perhaps of some sort of heart failure. In a panic, and without leaders, the remaining Atlantean force fled to the waiting vailixi and retreated in terror to Atlantis. Of the sieged Rama city, not one man was lost.

While this may be nothing but fanciful conjecture, the Indian epics go on to tell the rest of the horrible story, and things do not turn out well for Rama. Assuming the above story is true, Atlantis was not pleased at the humiliating defeat and therefore used its most powerful and destructive weapon--quite possibly an atomic-type weapon!

Consider these verses from the ancient Mahabharata:

...(it was) a single projectile

Charged with all the power of the Universe.

An incandescent column of smoke and flame

As bright as the thousand suns

Rose in all its splendour...

..it was an unknown weapon,

An iron thunderbolt,

A gigantic messenger of death,

Which reduced to ashes

The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

..The corpses were so burned

As to be unrecognisable.

The hair and nails fell out;

Pottery broke without apparent cause,

And the birds turned white.

After a few hours

All foodstuffs were infected...

...to escape from this fire

The soldiers threw themselves in streams

To wash themselves and their equipment.

In the way we traditionally view ancient history, it seems absolutely incredible that there was an atomic war approximately 10,000 years ago. And yet, of what else could the Mahabharata be speaking? Perhaps this is just a poetic way to describe cavemen clubbing each other to death; after all, that is what we are told the ancient past was like. Until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, modern mankind could not imagine any weapon as horrible and devastating as those described in the ancient Indian texts. Yet they very accurately described the effects of an atomic explosion. Radioactive poisoning will make hair and nails fall out. Immersing oneself in water gives some respite, though is not a cure.

Interestingly, Manhattan Project chief scientist Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer was known to be familiar with ancient Sanskrit literature. In an interview conducted after he watched the first atomic test, he quoted from the Bhagavad Gita:

'Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.'

I suppose we all felt that way.

When asked in an interview at Rochester University seven years after the Alamogordo nuclear test whether that was the first atomic bomb ever to be detonated, his reply was:

Well, yes, in modern history.

With love and passion, Amreish Siman

Food for thought : A conscious reflection on 9/11 WTC Attacks.

2010-04-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

By: Lawrence Stephen Maxwell

Four planes that were supposed to go to particular destinations did not go to those destinations. Three of the planes hit buildings. One of them crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. No ones knows what happened because EIGHT (8) indestructible black boxes (2 on each flight) were destroyed or reportedly damaged beyond possible restoration. Guess that is why they are referred to as indestructible. The crash in Pennsylvania did not even cause an explosion. Even if it had, the boxes are designed to withstand twice the maximum heat that can be generated by a jet fuel fire. Why didn't they show us the destroyed boxes?

Do you think the guys who actually found them would talk to anyone? Or are they still alive to discuss what THEY saw with their own eyes? Paper passports of two (2) of the alleged hijackers survived just fine and were supposedly found in the burning rubble of the Pentagon crash, and another three blocks from the WTC.......three blocks. I would bet good money to anyone who thinks he could contrive a way to launch a passport a distance of three city blocks.

We have been told that seven cell phone calls were made from the planes. Not ONE of the callers described the hijackers as Arabic, Saudi, Muslin, Iranian or anyone from the Middle East. Barbara Olson, writer, author, investigative reporter, famous commentator, attorney, and wife of the Solicitor General of the United States (Mr. Olson being George W's lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore), did not describe the hijackers to him as being from the middle east. She was trained to be observant and mentally record details, yet there has been no report that she described the hijackers at all. Are we to believe she didn't describe them, or did she describe them and we just aren't being told? And if we aren't being told, is it because her description doesn't match the profile being fed to us?

And are we to believe the Solicitor General forgot to ask her to DESCRIBE the criminals? I guess we are to accept that this is obviously an insignificant "fact" that the most high-powered-lawyer in the United States would understandably forget to ask.

Do you really think that a few 120 pound middle-easterners overtook eight pilots, and their crew members and passengers, using razor-blade boxcutters? Do you really think a commercial pilot would give up his plane under threat from ANYONE with a boxcutter? How many hijackings have you ever heard of where the hijackers brought their own pilot? And four times in one day?

And if you were going to do this deed, wouldn't you have a driver's license in your own name, get your pilot's license in your own name, and leave your calling card everywhere you went, being rude and obnoxious so everyone would notice you?

Explain to me how all of the defense systems were disabled? How did four planes, that were not on their computerized flight paths, fly around for more than an hour and a half without alarms going off all over the place? When their altitudes and positions CEASED TO BE VISIBLE ON RADAR, why weren't people (air traffic controllers) alarmed?

As close as Boston and Dulles are to D.C., why would disappearing planes NOT be a cause for alarm? Why was it more than an hour AFTER the WTC crashes that fighters were scrambled? Was the Air Force sleeping at 7:45 AM on a Tuesday morning when the planes were supposedly hijacked, and deviated from their designated flight paths?

Are we supposed to believe that when a transponder is turned OFF that no one is alerted that the plane is no longer being tracked by altitude; and that such a thing could occur to four planes almost simultaneously in the same geographical region, dangerously close to the seat of government, and NO ONE was alerting the media, the defense department, or anyone?

Am I supposed to believe that no one even had a clue for an hour and a half from the time the first plane left its flight plan until smoke started coming out of a WTC tower? And when the first plane hit the tower, no one knew that three other planes were missing, and thought it prudent to call the media or government officials and tell them that three other planes were missing and that other locations might not be safe?

I have talked to three pilots who have told me in their own words and understandings that what we are being told happened, could NOT possibly have happened.

What I DO KNOW is that we are not hearing much TRUTH. And 110 story buildings do NOT collapse because a plane hits them. The second plane nearly missed the building, only going through the corner. Most of the fuel burned in an outside explosion. It collapsed first, long before the tower that the plane completely entered. The refined Kerosene (a/k/a jet fuel) burned up fairly quickly. The stuff burning from that point on was desks, paper, plastics, carpet, etc. That fuel did not generate 2000-degree heat that would compromise 6 tubular steel columns in the center of the building designed SPECIFICALLY to keep the building from collapsing if hit by a Boeing 707 that, because it was older and less efficient, carried MORE fuel that the 757 and 767 that hit the towers. The structural engineer who designed the WTC Towers explained how the towers were designed to withstand a hit by a commercial jet -- and he did explain this to an international coalition on Terrorism in Frankfurt, Germany on Wednesday before the event.

And 53 minutes after Tower 2 was hit the tower just imploded because it was on fire? Yeah right! I discussed this with a structural engineer who investigated a HOTEL in Los Angeles that he said was 30 stories and it burned from the ground floor up. It burned for nearly a week. The fire totally destroyed everything on all 30 floors. The estimated temperatures were 2200 degrees because of the natural gas and other fuel that was the catalyst for the fire. The concrete and infrastructure did not budge. It cost more than a million dollars to TEAR IT DOWN. The 30 floors above the first floor did NOT cave in on the first floor when the support structure go hot. And he reviewed the architecture on the WTC and said the type of steel and the type of construction for the WTC was double the strength of the LA hotel.

Just like in OKC, people reported hearing multiple EXPLOSIONS before the WTC collapsed. I have video of people who were interviewed after the collapses and they said they heard a series of explosions (not floors collapsing) and then the buildings came down. The media dismissed it as exploding main gas lines. Gas mains on the 104th floor? Yeah right! We know that there would NOT be any safety mechanism in place that would have shut off gas flow throughout the buildings in the case of fire -- 53 minutes after a plane hit the building. Guess it was a big gas valve and it could not be vented to the outside air after it was shut off. If that is true, I have better safety measures in my own house than the WTC had. And why would they need safety mechanisms in place? It isn't like anyone has ever tried to blow up those same two towers before.

The strength of the WTC towers was in the 6 Tubular Steel Columns in the CENTER of the buildings, not the steel structure on the outside like most construction. The buildings were literally, according to the builder, designed NOT to pancake in the event of a Boeing 707 crashing into them. But they collapsed. It took 53 minutes for Tower 2 and 88 minutes for Tower 1 -- to simply COLLAPSE. Excerpts of his speech in Germany were posted to the Internet five days before the planes hit the towers.

My take? Americans are not very bright. Americans don't think. They accept what they are told. They don't TEST what they are told. They are lazy, and naive to the point of being undeserving of liberty. And for that reason they will sacrifice liberty for what they perceive to be security. And as long as the talking-heads can convince the general public that the federal government can PROTECT THEM, the sheeple will patriotically give up every right they have if it makes them feel safe -- while singing GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Copyright October 2001

Lawrence Stephen Maxwell

With love and passion, Amreish Siman

Review : Shutter Island

2010-04-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

Film : Shutter Island
Director : Martin Scorsese
Writer : Laeta Kalogridis,Dennis Lehane ( novel)
Cast : Leonardo DiCaprio,Ben Kingsley,Mark Ruffalo,Michelle Williams
English
138 mins

Martin Scorsese has never made an all out film about madness or psychological disability until this one.Again,DiCaprio teams up with Scorsese for the fifth time and their combo is always rewarding for filmgoers as its always a winning collaboration.The subject matter here isn't very heavy but its packaged in such a richly enjoyable manner which is a feast for the senses.Both visual and mentally stimulating,this film requires absolute attention or prepared to be left in the dark halfway through.

Neither a murder mystery nor a supernatural horror,this film is a masterfully crafted depiction of one man's inner turmoil writhing in deep regrets of his painful past reminiscent of The Machinist(2004) starring Christian Bale which was a really haunting film.The film starts off with DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo as US Marshalls on duty to Ashville,a mental asylum isolated from the world in Shutter Island to investigate a case of a missing inmate.DiCaprio's character is introduced as turbulent and aggresive and remains such throughout until the end,you'll understand why if watch it,if i reveal too much,it'll kill the fun of watching it.

The film then begins to take on many facets - it may appear to be a government -linked conspiracy thriller,maybe a medical conspiracy backed by greedy corporations/government,a psychological supernatural horror or even a murder mystery ala Hitchcock or Midsommer Murders on Hallmark!What exactly it is?You find out yourself !Its quite hard on the brain though as the details are mind-numbing,thankfully,the film is a visual feast,the cinematography,art direction,editing and most importantly the score is immaculate.Its been a long time since i came across a music score which compliments the visuals so perfectly,a few comes my mind,especially Psycho (1960),The Exorcist ( 1973) and The Omen,all which are famous classic horror masterpieces.The color scheme is mostly grayscale in the present timeline and cheery 50's for the flashback scenes which is an interesting combo.Sitting through all of its 138 mins running time would've been a challenge if not for the above technical mastery and the under the hands of a maestro like Scorsese and performer as intense and captivating as DiCaprio,it was a hugely involving experience.

An interesting revelation which enlightened me as i was watching the film are the spiritual connotations that clicked in me towards the climax.The character's karma is massive and him being a soldier,most of whom don't have and never had the chance of developing their spiritual self,are bound to spiral into deep dark wells of psychological trauma never again to see the light at the end of their tunnels ever again.Why?Its only through spiritual or universe-connected intellects that a man/woman can free themselves from the doom brought on by mortal attachments which gives rise to anger,jealousy,greed,self-hatred and other vicious traits in them.In this case,DiCaprio's character is an emotionally sensitive man who has love in him but not the divine love and awareness of mortal life which a soul as heavily karmic ridden as him should have to live through this harsh lifetime of his.His inability to accept the pain(Buddha) and move on has led him to imprison himself in the eternal jail of his own mind.
A powerful film which will resonate in your mind for a long time.
Now playing nationwide - GSC : MidValley,Berjaya Times Square, Utama,Pavilion,Alamanda Putrajaya
                                        TGV : Suria KLCC,Jusco Bukit Tinggi,Sunway Pyramid,Tebrau City.
Rating : 4 1/2 stars.

Review by
Amreish Siman

Succeeding in your business !!

2010-03-09T10:19:00.000-08:00

Succeeding in your own business!

Virtually anybody can succeed with their FocusA business even for the beginners and yet the majority fails with them. Why? As from our analysis, there are three main reasons:

1. Not really getting started: Often, people sign-up and join for business think that is all there is to it and that the money will come rolling in - which is extremely wrong! As with anything, getting started is the hardest part, which also requiring planning and organisation. Get this part right and the momentum you create will push your business forward in leaps and bounds.

2. Half-hearted approach: Many people give it a try a while ago but it did not work out in the way you expected. These kind of people are just looking for an excuse to fail. It's the same with your business as you will have falls but it's all part of the learning curve. You will learn more from these slight setbacks and don't worry as we're here to work as a team to guide you thru out the journey in this business.

3. Belief: This is the biggest difference between successful people and the vast majority people, no matter what walk of life they come from. Everybody has dreams, goals and ideas. Simple believe in your business and other people will believe and your business will thrive for sure.

Getting Started: Once you have made the decision to start your own business like me, keep focused on what motivated you to start it in the first place. This will provide the drive to push your business forward. We're here to teach and coach you for a successful business in FocusA.

Just a final thought - "What is you were to take the action required today? What might your lifestyle be like in a year?".

Be your own boss just like me with the FocusA business where I work on my own!

For further details on how to start this business, kindly contact me at 017- 2000613 or email at amreishsiman@yahoo.com

Sucess is definitely Ours!

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

Why Network Marketing ?

2010-03-09T10:11:00.000-08:00

Why Network Marketing?

Why are many people starting their own businesses nowadays? There are dozens of answers such as: more security, a more satisfying lifestyle, greater financial opportunity and the opportunity to live a life of greater impact. Only a generation or two ago, going into business for us was considered risky and the safest route was to get a good job in a large firm. But now, working for a traditional company has become the risky option, and working for ourself has become the new job security.

Today "Network Marketing" has emerged as the last real chance in the free enterprise system for the average person like us without large capital to become financially free. In network marketing, we have no office politics, favoritism or limits. People can go as high as they wish to unlike the corporate wolrd where people compete to go the high level. In network marketing, we become successful by helping other people reach success.

Everyone has equal opportunity for success. When we have a system to follow it is much easier for more people to reach success. But we have remember that many people fail in every business and in network marketing, we are bringing in a lot of people that have ever been their own boss. So there is a learning curve for that, and it is one of the reasons why a system is so important to have in place.

So in order to be successful in the network marketing, we have to set aside at least 10-15 hours in a week, work on self-development everyday, learn the system of our business and follow it religiously and never give-up. Once we decide to work in this exciting profession, we are in for a career of unlimited financial opportunity and the chance to make a meaningful difference in the lives of the people we care most about.

For more details, kindly call me at 017 - 2000 613 or email at amreishsiman@yahoo.com

Your Success, Our Achievement !

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

Webucation - The Next Millionaire Making Industry !!

2010-03-09T10:06:00.000-08:00

Money-making thru "Webucation

"Webucation" is the "Next Great Growth Opportunity". "Make-Money" through webucation. According to Forbes Magazine in the year 2000, Peter Drucker predicted that the Internet would become the most important teaching tool of the 21st Century.

You can read his prediction in the 2000 Forbes cover story, "Webucation is the Next Great Growth Opportunity". People are only now grasping his vision of electronic learning.

If you want to be an entrepreneur looking for a fresh and exciting industry in which to flourish in, I suggest webucation. From my entrepreneurial point of view, there is no more profitable field to be in.

For information on learning how to make money through webucation that is the FocusA programme, please contact me at 017-2000 613 or email at amreishsiman@yahoo.com

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman

Greatest Film Ending Series - The Matrix

2010-01-14T06:13:00.000-08:00

The Matrix (1999)

Greatest Film Ending Series - 2001 : A Space Odyssey

2010-01-14T05:05:00.000-08:00

This is a series of my favorite and to my opinion as a film enthuasiast,the greatest film ending scenes
I begin the series with my all-time number one film,2001 : A Space Odyssey (1969) by Stanley Kubrick.

Review : Avatar

2010-01-13T20:56:00.000-08:00

Film : Avatar (2009 )
Director : James Cameron
Writer : James Cameron
English
162 mins

The king of the world returns after 12 years to again dazzle us with his latest visual spectacle.He has obviously topped himself with this.James Cameron is a great example of aging with grace and wisdom.

This guy is known primarily for two things,all of his films has groundbreaking special effects and are mega-budgeted.With Avatar,he has for the record third time,claimed throne to helm the most expensive film ever made,he did it in 1992 with Terminator 2,again he broke his own record in 1997 with Titanic and now swallowing US$340 million in production costs,he claimed top spot again with Avatar.The best part is,the fella's films not only costs a fortune,it breeds fortune several times the amount he spent and all of his films are awesome eye-candy.

And folks,Avatar is the best eye-candy of a film i've ever watched.This is yet another landmark film in CGI effects and motion capture technology.This films employs the best in class visual effects done for the first time by both ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) and Weta Works,so dazzling its definitely gonna bag the effects Oscars - all three,Visual,Sound and Sound Editing.Now what really surprises me is the central spiritual theme of the film.Something has happened to Cameron over the past 12 years.Since he didn't make any film,he was reportedly spending his time doing deepsea explorations and filming underwater documentaries,probably he could've experienced an 'other-worldly' encounter ala 'The Abyss',which is also his film.And that experience has left him dumbfounded,awakening his consciousness leading him to embark on a spiritual calling,surrendering himself to Mother Nature,Eywa as she's called in this film,our Mata Gayatri,Shakti.

The spiritual connotations and overtone is universal and will be extremely relevant to those who can interpret it.This film works in various levels,it works as science-fiction film,an all-out action film,it delivers a strong message on the growing neglicence of corporate and individual on environmental awareness and the devastating effects as a results,most importantly,its a beautifully told love story between man and nature and how spiritually connected we really are with our environment.The great spiritual truth that the physical body is a just a vehicle,and the real 'driver' and 'co-driver' is the soul and mind respectively is brilliantly depicted with science & technology as a backdrop.I've had a remarkable experience watching this film.Visually breathtaking,i ' surrendered' myself to the entire 160 mins plus of the film.I believe such a planet like Pandora most certainly exists,not at a scientific measurable distance,but in higher spiritual realms,the Na'vi's are very united and connected among themselves.Why?Because they're one with nature,they live their lives along with nature,they never go against it.What a blissful existence !We need not to be like the Na'vi's,at least we can emulate their way of life when it comes to harmonising with nature,which would increase our 'shelf life' on Earth.This message in the film is the strongest and the most significant to me.

Last but not least,MONEY!!!!!!!!!Truckloads !!Truckloads!!Make no mistake,Jim Cameron is not a charity filmaker.The figures are astounding,officially as i write this,it has grossed a jaw-dropping US$442 mil domestic(US not kampung) box-office and internationally US$ 1.38 BILLION,behind only,well,guess what?Titanic,which is our friend's film aso la,bugger Cameron is laughing all the way to the bank.To find out more,pls visit Box Office Mojo at my links.

Rating : 5 stars.

* Nominated for 4 Golden Globe Awards

Best Picture - Drama

Best Director - James Cameron

Best Original Score - James Horner

Best Original Song

Review by

Amreish Siman

Happy Ponggal !!

2010-01-13T18:20:00.000-08:00

Dear people,

Today marks my debut into the world of blogging.For the longest time i've had this yearning to blog and i've chosen today because of its significance,Ponggal festival.The Ponggal festival is originally celebrated in TamilNadu,India by farmers as a thanksgiving celebration to Mother Earth and Lord Surya for blessing them with good harvests over the year.It marks the beginning of the auspicious month of Thai.The popular adage goes 'தை பிறந்தால் வழி பிறக்கும்(Thai piranthal vaali pirakkum)' means ' the birth of Thai will open paths to new opportunities in life '.Its a four day celebration beginning on the last day of the month of Marghali( Bhogi Pandigai ) until the third day of Thai ( Thai Ponggal,Maatu Ponggal and Kanni Ponggal )according to the Hindu calendar.
I'd like to share a piece of interesting info i've found on the Internet,its about the cultural significance and epic references of the Thai Ponggal festival ;-

The Puranas say that on this day Sun visits the house of his son Shani, who is the devata of Makara Rashi. These father & son do not ordinarily get along nicely, but in spite of any difference between each other Lord Sun makes it a point to meet each other on this day. Father in fact himself comes to his son’s house, for a month. Hence this day symbolized the importance of special relationship of father & son. It is the son who has the responsibility to carry forward his father’s dream and the continuity of the family.

• It was on this day when Lord Vishnu ended the ever increasing terrorism of the Asuras by finishing them off and burying their heads under the Mandar Parvat. So this occasion also represents the end of negativities and beginning of an era of righteous living.

• The great savior of his ancestors, Maharaj Bhagirath, did great Tapasya to bring Ganga (or Ganges) down on the earth for the redemption of 60,000 sons of Maharaj Sagar, who were burnt to ashes at the Kapil Muni Ashram, near the present day Ganga Sagar. It was on this day that Bhagirath finally did tarpan with the Ganges water for his unfortunate ancestors and thereby liberated them from the curse. After visiting the Patala for the redemption of the curse of Bhagirath’s ancestors Ganga finally merged in the Sagar. Even today a very big Ganga Sagar Mela is organized every year on this day at the confluence of River Ganges and the Bay of Bengal. Lakhs take dip in the water and do tarpan for their ancestors.

• Another well-known reference of this day came when the great grandsire of Mahabharata fame, Bhishma, declared his intent to leave his mortal coil on this day. He had the boon of Ichha-Mrityu from his father, so he kept lying on the bed of arrows till this day and then left his mortal coil on Makar Sankranthi day. It is believed that the person, who dies during the period of Uttarayana, becomes free from transmigration.

So this day was seen as a sureshot Good Luck day to start your journey or endeavors to the higher realms beyond.

Thiruvalluvar Day {திருவள்ளுவர் தினம்}
Thiruvalluvar Day is celebrated on the day after Pongal pandigai. Great sage & poet Thiruvalluvar, believed to have born 30 (thirty) years before Jesus Christ. (Refer http://www.tn.gov.in/literature/thiruvalluvar/thiruvalluvar.htm) Government of Tamil Nadu has created a Tamil Calendar and it is dated from that period and referred to as “Thiruvalluvar Aandu” (Year). Thirukkural, written by poet Thiruvalluvar, is the masterpiece of Tamil literature with the highest and purest expressions of human thought. It is written in the form of couplets (two line poems) expounding various aspects of life. It contains 1330 couplets, divided into 133 chapters of 10 couplets each. Thirukkural's immortality and universality are unquestionable. Its ethics and values are applicable to all religions, countries and time. It has been translated in over 60 languages of the world. Government of Tamil Nadu and various organisation conducts programs on this Thiruvalluvar Day to honour the great sage and poet Thiruvalluvar.

Thus ladies and gentlemen is the reason why i've chosen today to launch my new avatar of 2010,BLOGGER.
A new leaf has turned,another feather to my cap has been added.A new path has been chartered,as the adage goes,'Thai piranthal vaali pirakkum'.

The path has now opened for me to catapult myself to greater heights in life.

Like the pouring milk from the pot,may your lives be enriched with pure love and compassion.
Health,wealth,prosperity,wisdom,happiness and joy will follow suit in abundance :)

May the blessings be !!

With love and passion,
Amreish Siman