Wednesday, January 26, 2011

ANCIENT CIVILISATION INDEED

ANCIENT CIVILISATION INDEED

Subject: Gramophone



First Recording Ever Made





HMV had once published a pamphlet giving the history of gramophone record. Gramophone was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in the 19th century. Edison, who had invented many other gadgets like electric light and the motion picture camera, had become a legend even in his own time.



When He invented the gramophone record, which could record human voice for posterity, he wanted to record the voice of an eminent scholar on his first piece. For that he chose Prof. Max Muller of England, another great personality of the 19th century. He wrote to Max Muller saying, "I want to meet you and record your voice. When should I come?" Max Muller who had great respect for Edison asked him to come on a suitable time when most of the scholars of the Europe would be gathering in England.



Accordingly Edison took a ship and went to England. He was introduced to the audience. All cheered Edison's presence. Later at the request of Edison Max Muller came on the stage and spoke in front of the instrument. Then Edison went back to his laboratory and by afternoon came back with a disc. He played the gramophone disc from his instrument. The audience was thrilled to hear the voice of Max Muller from the instrument. They were glad that voices of great persons like Max Muller could be stored for the benefit of posterity.



After several rounds of applause and congratulations to Thomas Alva Edison, Max Muller came to the stage and addressed the scholars and asked them, "You heard my original voice in the morning. Then you heard the same voice coming out from this instrument in the afternoon. Do you understand what I said in the morning or what you heard in the afternoon?"



The audience fell silent because they could not understand the language in which Max Muller had spoken. It was `Greek and Latin' to them as they say. But had it been Greek or Latin, they would have definitely understood because they were from various parts of Europe. It was in a language which the European scholars had never heard.



Max Muller then explained what he had spoken. He said that the language he spoke was Sanskrit and it was the first [] Mantra [] of Rig Veda, which says "Agni Meele Purohitam". This was the first recorded public version on the gramophone plate.



Why did Max Muller choose this? Addressing the audience he said, "Vedas are the oldest text of the human race. And Agni Meele Purohitam is the first verse of Rig Veda. In the most primordial time when the people of Europe were jumping like Chimpanzees, from tree to tree and branch to branch, when they did not know how to cover their bodies, but with fig leaves, did not know agriculture and lived by hunting and lived in caves, at that remote past, Indians had attained high civilization and they gave to the world universal philosophies in the form of the Vedas.

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Hindu Terrorism!! A perspective from a westerner's eye....

Hindu Terrorism!! A perspective from a westerner's eye....
Hindu Terrorism? A perspective from a westerner's eye....

By Francois Gautier



Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for the Malegaon blasts may tend to prove? Well, I guess I was asked to write this column because I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents — a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I'll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents' ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro).





In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India, doing photo features on Kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world—Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans.

In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions. You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like SIMI, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups—often Dalits and tribals—some of who have converted to Christianity and others not. However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the 'vengeance' bombings of 1993 in Bombay, which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay.

I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa. Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed. So sometimes, enough is enough.

At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus—whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards—erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat. It happened in Jammu, then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, and Malegaon. It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard.

There are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists?

Francois Gautier
Jai Gurudev,

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two schools of thought

2 schools
There are two schools of thought. One is you visualize dream and work for it. Other school of thought says surrender everything to God, whatever God gives you is the best, and God will take care of everything for you. Where is the compatibility? They appear to be completely opposite. One is your own visualization, your own dream and your perseverance, and another is having trust in God and leaving everything on God. They appear to be incompatible but I would say they are very much compatible

Discretion
The way you act, God awards the fruit of the action accordingly. If you steal, God will come to you as a policeman. Your actions, good or bad, decide your experience of joy and sorrow. Joy and sorrow are the outcomes of your discretion; it depends on your discretion in performing actions. It is ok if you drink one glass of milk. But what happens if you drink three kilos of milk? Without the use of discretion, nectar can turn to be poison.

Karma dissolves
You sowed a coconut tree two years back and it has grown today. Same way, until the impression of your previous done karma is there on your mind, that karma manages to exist. That impression can only be erased through meditation, pranayama and service. All this is there on the mind only. Karma is nothing but an impression on the mind. When you wake up and see that mind is a part of you and it is your mind, but you are not your mind, and you have an untouched existence which is much greater than your mind, then all karma automatically dissolves.

Ego and self confidence?
Ego is feeling uncomfortable in the presence of someone else. Self confidence is, feeling at home. Ya? Being natural is antidote to ego, and being natural is so complementary to confidence. It goes with confidence and is inseparable from confidence. When you are confident, you are natural. If you are natural, you are confident.

Consciousness
Q: What happens to the consciousness of a person when it dies? Does it enter another body or get dissolved in the universal consciousness?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is both. A part of the consciousness is all pervading and a part remains. It is like the air in the balloon, it is trapped in the impressions, and then it comes back

AP AMC

Information received from Banglore Ashram, Swami Suryapadji will be conducting the TELUGU AMC at the ASHRAM, request all those who have done, who are doing now and thinking about doing, just do it.

saboodana- VEG or NonVeg???????

Kindly take unmost care in eating S A B O O D A N A DURING FASTING IT IS KNOWN TO BE NON-VEGETARAIN
AS PER BELOW MAIL, TAKE CARE AND BE BEFORE TAKING INTO FASTING ACCOUNT.

SEND TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS...SOME SORT OF VERIFICATION FROM SOMEBODY...A GREAT HELP!!!

Below is rough translation on an article from one Nainmal Surana published in
Dakshin Samachar on March 31, 2010.

In Tamil Nadu, near Salem area on the road from Salem to Coimbatore there are many
saboodana factories. We start getting terribly bad smell when we are about 2 kms away
from the factories.

Saboodana is made from roots of Sabo tree which looks like sweet potato. Kerala has this root available in plenty, each root weighs about 6kgs. Factory owners buy these roots in bulk during season, put them in
pits dug and prepared specially measuring approx 40ft x 25ft. in open ground and the roots are allowed to rot for several months. Thousands of tons of roots rot in pits. There are huge electric bulbs throughout the night where millions of insects fall in the pits.

While pulp is rotting, water is added everyday due to which 2 long white colour insect is
automatically born . The walls of pits are covered by millions of insects ( eels ) factory these are then crushed in the factory.

The pulp is thus ready from roots and millions of pests and insects crushed and
pasted together. This paste is then passed through round mesh and made into small balls
and then polished. This is saboodana.



Many people dont eat Saboodana , as it is non-vegetarian and may be harmful too.