Combining ancient wisdom with modern inspiration
Ramana Maharshi
Happiness of Being is a new website developed by Michael James and dedicated to the great Spiritual Master Ramana Maharshi .
"Happiness lies deep within us, in the very core of our being. Happiness does not exist in any external object, but only in us, who are the consciousness that experiences happiness. Though we seem to derive happiness from external objects or experiences, the happiness that we thus enjoy in fact arises from within us."
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn, The humble sheep a threat'ning horn: While the Lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.
By: Wiliam Blake
Photo by Phoolanjaya Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
Sri Krishna
Here is a play recently performed for Sri Chinmoy and his students. Its aim is to illustrate how misunderstandings between religions are an ancient challenge for humanity, but as Sri Chinmoy teaches, there is hope for the oneness of all humanity, and that historical figures such as Sri Krishna, Mirabai and Akbar The Great can inspire us and show is the way.
View: Play of Mirabai and Akbar
Script by Sumangali Morhall
selected scenes
[Enter Mirabai and her statue of Krishna]
Narrator:
[Mirabai?s music starts]
[Enter Mother & Father. Mirabai still sings]
Father [furious]:
An article about a world record set by Ashrita Furman for balancing the longest pole on your chin.
Aspendos ? what magic and charm are to be found in that name! Fifty kilometres east of Antalya, on Turkey?s Mediterranean coast, lies this masterpiece of the ancient world. In AD 162, out of the granite bedrock, the Roman architect Zeno crafted an amphitheatre which could seat 12,000 spectators ? a perfect acoustic and visual shell. From tiers of ascending marble seats, people could watch dramas, pageants and heroic athletic feats.
On December 13th, that glorious spirit was rekindled by a visitor from New York whose name is synonymous with deeds of Herculean proportions. Since 1979, Ashrita Furman has established 126 Guinness World Records in categories such as pogostick jumping, somersaulting, ball balancing, hopping, skipping, juggling and many more.
Ever in search of striking backdrops for his records, Ashrita chose Aspendos as the venue for his most recent record attempt: to balance the tallest object on his chin. The previous record was a 13 metre pole. Ashrita had brought with him to Turkey a telescopic fibreglass pole that could be opened out in sections to the height he desired.
He decided to do a warm up attempt with 15 metres (50 feet). To the tapered tip of the pole, he attached the distinctive red Turkish flag with its golden crescent moon and star. His assistants brought the pole to a vertical position and lifted the base to his chin. There it swayed and bent in the wind like a slender bamboo tree. At the very top, the Turkish flag was flapping wildly, dragging the pole even further from the centre. For a few seconds, Ashrita was able to balance the pole on his chin, but then he abandoned the attempt.
It seemed that a wind tunnel was being created on the stage of the amphitheatre by the entranceways on either side. Ashrita decided to remove the flag and try again. This time, in spite of the wind, he managed to achieve a point of perfect balance on his chin and the pole stayed aloft for 15.19 seconds.
According to the conditions pre-set by Guinness for the records, the pole had to remain upright and without any support for a minimum of 10 seconds. Ashrita had just set a new world records, but he still longed to fulfil his original vision of raising the Turkish flag inside this exquisitely preserved monument.
He expanded the pole to a height of 54 feet and reattached the Turkish flag to its apex. Among those who were deeply moved by this gesture was the Mayor of the surrounding district of Belkis who was present at this most unusual event with some of his staff members.
Once more the pole was raised to a vertical position and placed on Ashrita?s unprotected chin. One can only imagine the tremendous pressure it exerted and also the strain on his neck muscles. Ashrita gave the signal for his assistants to release their grip on the pole and there it remained, in perfect symmetry and balance, for a long 13.78 seconds to establish a new world record (pending certification by Guinness)
Ashrita immediately dedicated the record to his spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy, whose philosophy of self ? transcendence has inspired him to undertake so many outstanding feats. He also offered the record as a symbolic salute to the nation of Turkey, which stands at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. For millennia, Turkey has enriched the life of humanity with its culture and history.
Ashrita?s record struck an immediate chord with the Turkish people and photographs of it appeared in newspapers across the region. Sri Chinmoy celebrated Ashrita?s success at a special event in Antalya and made the following most significant comment:
?Again and again Ashrita is proving to the world that impossibility has no reality in it. Impossibility is empty of reality.?
It is, indeed, a philosophy that the ancients would have been proud to uphold!
Dr Vidagdha Bennett
December 14th, 2006
Antalya, Turkey.
"When God fulfils your desire, you are all gratitude. When God does not fulfil your desire, if you can become all gratitude to Him, then God Himself is bound to come to you, not only to replace and fulfil your desire, but to give you what He has and what He is: Infinitude."
O ye who travel the meridian line,
May the vision of a new world within you shine.
May eyes that have lived with poverty’s rage,
See through to the glory of the awakening age.
For we are all richly linked in hope,
Woven in history, like a mountain rope.
Together we can ascend to a new height,
Guided by our heart’s clearest light.
When perceptions are changed there’s much to gain,
A flowering of truth instead of pain.
There’s more to a people than their poverty;
There’s their work, wisdom, and creativity.
Along the line may our lives rhyme,
To make a loving harvest of space and time.
Copyright Ben Okri, 1999
By: Ben Okri
More Poems of Ben Okri
Photo by Phoolanjaya Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
March 15, 1959) is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Having spent his early childhood in London, he and his family returned to Nigeria in 1968. He later left for England, embarking on studies at the University of Essex. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Westminster (1997) and the University of Essex (2002), and was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2001.
Since publishing his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa’s greatest writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize, making him the youngest winner of that prize. He has also been described as a magic realist, although he has shrugged off that tag. His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works. He writes about both the mundane and the metaphysical, the individual and the collective, and his writing enthrals the reader, drawing him/her into a world with vivid descriptions.
Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre for the International PEN, an association of writers with 130 branches in over 100 countries. He is also a member of the United Kingdom’s Royal National Theatre.
From: Wikipedia - open source
We are the miracles that God made
To taste the bitter fruit of Time.
We are precious.
And one day our suffering
Will turn into the wonders of the earth.
There are things that burn me now
Which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear the poverty
And are able to sing and dream sweet things.
And that we never curse the air when it is warm
Or the fruit when it tastes so good
Or the lights that bounce gently on the waters?
We bless the things even in our pain.
We bless them in silence.
That is why our music is so sweet.
It makes the air remember.
There are secret miracles at work
That only Time will bring forth.
I too have heard the dead singing.
And they tell me that
This life is good
They tell me to live it gently
With fire, and always with hope.
There is wonder here
And there is surprise
In everything the unseen moves.
The ocean is full of songs.
The sky is not an enemy.
Destiny is our friend.
By: Ben Okri
Photo by Phoolanjaya Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
What is Love?
It is something that has
Infinite possibilities
To enlarge and expand.
Love is the inner bond,
the inner connection, the inner link between man and God,
between the finite and the infinite.
We always have to approach God through love.
Without love, we cannot become one with God.
What is love?
If love means possessing someone or something then that is not real love;
that is not pure love.
If love means giving and becoming one with everything,
with humanity and divinity, then that is real love.
Real love is our total oneness with the object loved and with the possessor of love.
Who is the possessor of love? God
By: Sri Chinmoy
From: Quotes on Love
Photo by Ranjit Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
I have wrapped the wide world in my wider self
And Time and Space my spirit’s seeing are.
I am the god and demon, ghost and elf,
I am the wind’s speed and the blazing star.
All Nature is the nursling of my care,
I am its struggle and the eternal rest;
The world’s joy thrilling runs through me, I bear
The sorrow of millions in my lonely breast.
I have learned a close identity with all,
Yet am by nothing bound that I become;
Carrying in me the universe’s call
I mount to my imperishable home.
I pass beyond Time and life on measureless wings,
Yet still am one with born and unborn things.
By: Sri Aurobindo
Photo By: Phoolanjaya from: Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
Great God, I ask for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself,
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye.
And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe’er they think or hope that it may be,
They may not dream how thou’st distinguished me.
That my weak hand may equal my firm faith
And my life practice what my tongue saith
That my low conduct may not show
Nor my relenting lines
That I thy purpose did not know
Or overrated thy designs.
Photo from: Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
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