25 February, 2017

Rudraksha and Ek (one) mukhi Rudraksha




This is the first part of the two part series on Rudraksha both articles together cover the following topics:


Information about Rudraksha plus some information about the Kohinoor diamond and the Indian Vedic cows, about Kriya yoga and finally some criticism about sadhguru jaggi vasudev



Article last updated on 01st march 2017



Rudraksha English names: Blue Marble Tree, Bead Tree, Lily of the Valley Tree, Blue Olive Berry, Blue Fig, Ash Quandong, Fairy Petticoats, Native Olive, White Boree, Fringe Bells Ultrasum-Bead tree,

Sanskrit: Rudraksha;   Hindi: Rudrak; Tamil: rudrakshi Telugu: aakkam, Rudra-challu Bengali: rudrakya; Oriya: Rudrakhyo; Malyalam: Rudraksham;  Kannada: Tamarai; Assam: Rudrai,



When I travel I bring back devotional items like bhasma from akhand dhuni (ashes from eternal fire maintained in certain ancient temples or by sadhus),Ganga jal also items like rudraksha, chandan, bhojpatra etc after offering them at ancient temples and distribute them as Prasad



Many people want a one mukhi round rudraksha, let me tell you something about it



One mukhi rudraksha
Ek mukhi rudraksha


The common one mukhi rudraksha called ek mukhi are available in half-moon, cashew-nut shaped



The correct round type of one mukhi rudraksha are so rare that no one has seen them and those that are available at exorbitant rates are mostly fake



The royal family of Nepal-- Shah dynasty has a few of them, the king of Nepal presented one to our ex-prime minister Indira Gandhi; we all know what happened to both these families the Shah dynasty slowly lost all their powers and finally most of the family members were massacred and the same fate came over Indira Gandhi and her two sons 




One mukhi round rudraksha are best kept in temples or with spiritually elevated persons, ordinary people should not aspire for it, you see some birds have extremely powerful wings which helps them to migrate across continents, hunt etc. but powerful wings are developed very gradually as the bird learns to fly, if very strong wings are developed initially the bird will not be able to handle the speed generated and kill itself



Similarly we receive the sacred devotional items as and when we are prepared for it  



Coming back to the first point, maybe that is why Maharaja Ranjit Singh had willed that the Kohinoor diamond would not be kept with the royal family anymore and that it should be given to the Jagannath Temple in Orissa but the British rulers took it by force; at least Queen Victoria had the wisdom and she wrote in her will that the Kohinoor should only be worn by a female queen. 



Often I wonder that behind so much Pomp, such magnificent and splendid appearance, grandeur the members of the British royal family are nothing but plunderers, mass murderers.


Please click on the link to read

http://bhoj11.blogspot.com/2012/07/in-spite-of-world-history-we-have-to.html


In spite of the worldhistory we have to stay in love.



The writer and historian William Dalrymple has researched that before the Kohinoor reached the British, it had already passed through a number of hands, all of which were not “Indian”; he says “I think there is no doubt about that British took away the diamond by force, It is complete nonsense that it was gifted by Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Sikhs. Maharaja Ranjit Singh kept it with him his whole life. It was during the regency of his son Duleep Singh that the diamond was taken away.”


He adds further that “The diamond did not come peacefully to Ranjit Singh either. Indians claim that Shah Shujah gave the diamond to Maharaja Ranjit Singh. But Shah Shujah’s autobiography clearly mentions that his son was tortured by Maharaja Ranjit Singh before he took away the diamond….. So if the British took it by force, so did the Indians.”


The only difference is that Raja Ranjit Singh brought back by force what originally belonged to India



Some information about rudraksha


Family:  elaeocarpaceae
Genus: elaeocarpus----there are 350 species of elaeocarpus, And there is much confusion in their botanical names; the most common names of species of round Rudraksha are Elaeocarpus ganitrus and Elaeocarpus angustifolius



Rudraksha is not a fruit, it is found inside a fruit and is an Endocarp that is the covering of a seed, if you cut a Rudraksha you will find seeds inside hence they are called beads or some call them stones; I will explain the various stages of growth later




Rudraksha are classified as per their mukhis


A mukhi or dhari or facet or cleft is a line from the top to the bottom of the Rudraksha



This is a 4 mukhi Rudraksha because it has 4 lines





A 7 mukhi Rudraksha has 7 lines




12 mukhi



15 mukhi


One important thing is that inside the Rudrakash bead there are compartments which hold one seed each example a five mukhi bead will have five clefts or lines visible outside and five internal compartments which hold one seed each hence a five mukhi rudraksha will have five seeds, a ten mukhi bead will have ten clefts and ten seeds, etc.  So the number of internal seeds should be the same as the number of mukh in any rudraksha.




In this image an eight mukhi bead is cut into two and you see eight compartments each will have a seed inside, the middle big hole is the central hollow from which we pass the thread, wire or chain  


This 5 mukhi bead has five seeds inside






However, you will see that the 14 mukhi bead on the right only 6 compartments are fully developed, 2 are semi developed and rest 6 are hardly developed, so it is very difficult to make out the correct formation of compartments seeing a X-ray of the bead, like in the image of a 10 mukhi bead below one compartment is not developed







And in many beads, particularly those beyond eight mukhi, it has been observed that the seeds often gets overlapped or in some cases some of the seeds do not attain complete growth; hence it is difficult to identify a genuine bead by looking at its X-ray




Various stages of growth



The Rudraksha tree flowers, not all flowering trees produce fruits; it takes many years for the tree to bear fruits




Flowers of Elaeocarpus ganitrus on left and flowers of Elaeocarpus angustifolius on right





Unripe green coloured fruits


Rudraksha bead inside the unripe fruit



Ripe fruits are blue in colour



Ripe fruits fall to the ground



When the blue cover is removed the Rudraksha bead appears






If the blue cover is not removed in time; the cover hardens and turns black; then it is very difficult to remove the cover, the hardened fruit has to be dipped in water and the cover rubbed with a hard brush



Later on the Rudraksha bead has to be cleaned and dipped in oil for a few days





Different types of Rudraksha



Rudraksha trees are found in many places worldwide but Rudraksha beads are available from 3 countries


Nepal: the best quality

Indonesia also called Java beads: second best

India: not a good quality


Nepal beads are round, well developed with a high density, Indonesia beads are smaller in size and not as developed compared to Nepal beads, Indian beads have a low density



 Nepal bead is on the left and Indian bead on right



Indonesian bead on the left and Indian bead on right



India had good quality of Rudraksha trees but they were cut down by the British rulers as the light and strong white wood which is a good quality timber was excellent to make aeroplane propellers during World War 1; after that no one made any efforts to replant these trees as no one cares for our Vedic culture everyone wants to make fast money, it is a pity that only few of our Vedic humped cows which produce A2 nontoxic milk are left, Vedic cows have a surya nadi because of which Gold is produced not only in their milk but also in their urine; scientist have proved this by abstracting Gold from their urine, please click on the links to read articles








It is such a shame that India where there was once the Vedic way of living is the biggest exporter of beef and all the fake Rudraksha which are available in the market are made in India



Please click on the link to read the article on Vedas



A Pilgrimagecalled Life---part 2





Spherical (round) big size Rudraksha with natural hole are the best




Other types of Rudraksha are


I will explain about following types of Rudraksha


Haridwar / Dehradun Rudraksha
South Indian type Rudraksha
Flat elliptical shaped South Indian Bhadraksh
Gaurishankar
Sawar
Trijuti
Ganesh rudraksha
Nandi rudraksha, Dwi Ganesh.
Gupt mukhi




Haridwar / Dehradun Rudraksha



Commonly known as Indian oval three mukhi Rudraksha they are oval in shape with less density and they do not have a proper centre hole, the bead has to be drilled to create a big hole for the thread to pass; belonging to the species Elaeocarpus serratus; 90% of beads under this species are three mukhi, rest are two mukhi and very rarely a one mukhi is produced


Unlike the round Rudraksha bead, the oval Indian bead has only one seed inside for three, two as well as one mukhi



In the above photo I am wearing the Indian oval beads (Auroville meditation centre in the background) (click on the photo to enlarge it); I received them from the Keshav ashram at Haridwar who have a more than 100 years old Rudraksha tree planted by lahiri mahasaya, also some of lahiri mahasaya’s ashes are kept in this ashram




It is indeed commendable that this ashram is not turned into a commercial joint like most ashrams; such a huge area has been kept in its pristine green form; they do not sell the Rudraksha beads but give them for free to all who visit the ashram



The Indian Rudraksha tree at the ashram




Swami Keshvanand


Ashram



Accommodation is excellent; they have constructed only 4 rooms



Ashram is right on the bank of the Ganga




I collected a few unripe beads which had fallen to the ground





I would like to add a note about Kriya yoga; A person who was doing aura photography told me that practices like Kriya yoga where you pull up your Kundalini Shakti (energy) can be dangerous as our lower chakras are not purified first.


I often think that why so many Gurus who teach Kriya yoga or practice Kundalini yoga are themselves not in the best of health, many have suffered from cancer, ill health, sudden death etc


All the Kriya yoga gurus teach a different method; which itself proves that the original authentic teachings have been lost over the years


My search for a guru had taken to me to Varanasi (Benares) where I met Shibendu Lahiri, the great grandson of Lahiri Mahasay, I found him to be an insane person





South Indian type Rudraksha


Half-moon, crescent moon or Cashew-nut shaped 







These beads are straight and not moon shaped


Species: Elaeocarpus tuberculatus: Mostly available in one mukhi called as One mukhi Chandrakar (half-moon), Cashew-nut shaped, crescent moon shaped are considered as an alternative to one mukhi round Nepal variety. (Sometimes two, three and four mukhis are also available in this shape) However, the beads are not having the properties – like the natural hole, texture, density and shape of the original one mukhi rudraksha. In terms of internal structure, it has just one wide compartment. Even the two, three or four mukhi Chandrakars too have only one compartment inside which is contrary to the accepted norm of recognizing the mukh in a typical Roxb (round) variety. For wearing, it is clamped using a specially designed cage and hole is never drilled.




There are many trees of this species in South India and they are available for a very cheap rate; but because of the advertisements and promotions the price has been hiked up




Flat elliptical shaped South Indian Bhadraksh






Species: Elaeocarpus tuberculatus; available in two mukhi only, they are flat without a natural hole, light in weight and not so thorny; they are not considered as Rudraksha beads and are called Bhadraksh





Gaurishankar



We come across two fruits which are joined together, so rarely two Rudraksha fruits join together on the tree and the resultant bead is a joint bead, here mukhis are counted together, some gaurishankar have 21 mukhis, they mostly have one common hole but some have two separate holes

Most of gaurishankars available are fake; one indication to judge a genuine bead is that the beads should not join close to each other in a flat way and the joint should emanate from inside the bead and not merely peripherally.



Sawar




Sawar means a rider; very rarely a bead of one mukhi rides over another bead (similar to gaurishankar), again most available are fake, as dealers separate the one mukhi and sell them at a high price


  
Trijuti




Trijuti also known as Tribhagi, Gauri Path or Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh are three beads joint naturally together

Trijuti with nearly equal spacing and uniform bead size is an absolute rarity.

Again most beads available are fake




Ganesh rudraksha





Some people get obsessed with the image of Ganesh in rudraksha to such an extent that they look for the contours (an outline representing or bounding the shape or form of something) on the surface of any rudraksha resembling the trunk of the elephant God Lord Ganesh.
So any projection in a Rudraksha is counted as a Ganesh Rudraksha




Ganapati was mentioned in the Vedas; but the idol with the elephant head and human body does not find any mention in the Vedas,
I will write about it in the blog series “A pilgrimage called life” and the truth I will write may disappoint some people





Nandi rudraksha, Dwi Ganesh.


Similar to Ganesh Rudraksha but with two trunk-like protrusions on two sides of the bead





Gupt mukhi


A rudraksha bead without mukhis, that is without lines formed



End of part 1; article will be continued in part 2







18 February, 2017

A Pilgrimage called Life---part 2


Vedas



Vedas are the highest revelation possible on Earth


They are divided into three parts

1)    The magical words / formulae  with which one can control the elements of nature and also establish connections to higher dimensions

2)  procedures to carry out fire ceremonies

3)  The Knowledge part


Beginning of the Vedas are magical words /sounds/ formulae which do not belong to any language, hence can never be written down, they are the science of sound in its highest form, the science of sound is certainly one of the most complicated of all sciences.


A person reciting these sounds can bring about a change in nature, communicate with higher dimensions and receive the blessings of Heaven and Earth and the results are such that ordinary people consider them miracles 


Please click on the link to read:

 

Vedas-----Thelanguage of the Birds

 





In the image Maa Saraswati who is also known as Vedmata (Goddess / mother of the Vedas) is holding the Vedas in one hand and the veena (musical instrument) in other hand signifying that the words of the Vedas are the magical sounds


In the video children taught to recite Vedic sounds (whatever little is known today is passed on to the next generation)







Next the Vedas describe the procedures to carry out fire ceremonies called yagya’s, the balancing of the elements the science of colours is all given and explained (by the way; unlike other religions where the male priest conducts the ceremony the Vedic fire ceremony is conducted by the husband and wife together and the fire is lit by rubbing two pieces of wood)




Husband and wife together lighting the fire for the ceremony by rubbing two pieces of wood



Then comes the knowledge part which is in the form of Vedanta mainly the Upanishads they were written and continuously updated; they are the knowledge of the entire Universe.



The Vedanta and after that the Purans (which explained the philosophy / knowledge of the Vedas in story forms) have all the possible knowledge starting from cosmogony (the origin / creation of the universe), cosmology, genealogies of gods, goddesses, medical science, astronomy, astrology, grammar, ethics, mineralogy, music, architecture, nuclear physics, environmental science, mathematics, geometry, you name it and the ancient scriptures contain full knowledge on the subject, example interesting facts like the distance between the Earth and the Sun is 108 times the Sun's diameter, the distance between the Earth and the Moon is 108 times the Moon's diameter and also the diameter of the Sun is 108 times that of the Earth (just by the way the radius of the moon is 1080 miles)








This is what some famous people have said about Vedas being the highest science; millions of such quotes are available on the Internet



Voltaire: “I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, - astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc... It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry...But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins' science not been long established in Europe”


In his book "Superiority of the Vedic Religion", W. D. Brown writes: "….It is a thoroughly scientific religion where religion and Science meet hand in hand."


Dr Carl Sagan: “The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology.


Friedrich Schlegel wrote in a letter to Tieck that India was the source of all languages, thoughts and poems, and that "everything" came from India


Oppenheimer: “What we shall find in Modern Physics is an exemplification, an encouragement and a refinement of old Hindu wisdom.”


John Wheeler: “I like to think that someone will trace how the deepest thinking of India made its way to Greece and from there to the philosophy of our times.”


Erwin Schrödinger: “….all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.”


W. Heisenberg: "After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense."


Brian David Josephson: "The Vedanta and the Sankhya hold the key to the laws of mind and thought process which are co-related to the Quantum Field, i.e. the operation and distribution of particles at atomic and molecular levels."


Ean-Sylvain Bailly: “The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school ... The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and - even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge.”


Alfred Brush Ford the grandson of Henry Ford: "For me the most important thing is to spread the Hindu knowledge about the soul. This is more important than any other knowledge and is my main priority.”


Niels Bohr: “This life of yours which you are living is not merely apiece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as "I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world"


Wheeler Wilcox: "India - The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life, but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics, airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas."


Sir W. Hunter: "The surgery of the ancient Indian physicians was bold and skilful. A special branch of surgery was dedicated to rhinoplasty or operations for improving deformed ears, noses and forming new ones, which European surgeons have now borrowed."
William James: "From the Vedas we learn a practical art of surgery, medicine, music, house building under which mechanized art is included. They are encyclopaedia of every aspect of life, culture, religion, science, ethics, law, cosmology and meteorology."


Arthur Schopenhauer: "Vedas are the most rewarding and the most elevating book which can be possible in the world."


Joseph Davey Cunningham: “Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book.”


Marcus Leatherdale: “You’d have to be brain dead to live in India and not be affected by Hinduism. It’s not like Christianity in America, where you feel it only on Sunday mornings If you go to church at all. Hinduism is an on-going daily procedure. You live it, you breathe It.? Hinduism has a playful aspect which I’ve not experienced in any other religion. It’s not so righteous or sober as is Christianity, nor is it puritanical. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy India. I wake up in the morning, and I’m very content.”


P. Johnstone: "Gravitation was known to the Hindus (Indians) before the birth of Newton. The system of blood circulation was discovered by them centuries before Harvey was heard of."


B.G. Rele: "Our present knowledge of the nervous system fits in so accurately with the internal description of the human body given in the Vedas (5000 years ago). Then the question arises whether the Vedas are really religious books or books on anatomy of the nervous system and medicine."


Emmelin Plunret: "They were very advanced Hindu astronomers in 6000 BC. Vedas contain an account of the dimension of Earth, Sun, Moon, Planets and Galaxies."


 The book “Great Minds on India” By Salil Gewali is a collection of the thoughts and views of the world-renowned people on India's cultural


Schroedinger, Niels Bohr, Oppenheimer and John Wheeler were Upanishad scholars



How many so-called Hindus talk to their children about the greatness of the Vedas?




It is wrong on part of Indians who say that others stole from Vedas


If you goggle calculus you will get a prompt “calculus thief” which says that Isaac newton stole the knowledge of calculus from the Vedas, some claim that what is now known as Pythagoras theorem is also stolen from the Indian scriptures, the list is endless


Nothing is created in the mind everything is invited


H P Blavatsky writes about the founder of the Arya Samaj Swami Dayanand Saraswati’s thoughts on Vedas, I quote “He does not claim that the Vedas are a heavenly revelation, but simply teaches that every word in these scriptures belongs to the highest inspiration possible to the earthly man, an inspiration that is repeated in the history of humanity, and when necessary, may happen to any nation…..…”


So it is possible that others outside the Indian subcontinent were also guided with similar knowledge


And even if they learned it from the Vedas and gave their own name to it and took credit for it; ultimately it has benefited mankind in general


The greatest revelations like the Vedas are for the entire human race and cannot be limited to political boundaries



Our Earth was specially designed to harbour intelligent life forms and higher entities bless us with wisdom and the resources necessary example Scientist have proved that Earth's gold and platinum arrived in a meteor shower that lasted 200 million years and NASA has also proved that our DNA has also arrived from space


Please click on the link to:


Shivlingthe symbol of the formless God 

 

 

Vedic way of life


Now when the highest possible science of sound was revealed to mankind with which he could control the elements of nature and also establish connections to higher dimensions along with all the knowledge of the universe; there was no need for any religion and hence in ancient times there was only the Vedic way of life called Sanatan Dharam सनातन धर्म the eternal dharma or eternal order, eternal law
(Dharma means the righteous spiritual path)



Part 3 of this series will be on Collective Consciousness and Religion, before that I will publish a blog on one mukhi rudraksha