8 July 1947

A day that will live in infamy. No, not that day. On this day in 1947 the US Army Aircorps published a press release announcing they had recovered a "flying saucer" at Roswell, New Mexico. Hours later they retracted their statement, claiming it was only a weather balloon. Over the years the US government has come up with four "official" stories of what crashed at Roswell, each supposedly debunking the previous one. This alone is proof the government is hiding something, if they keep admitting they were lying and come out with a new "official" story of what crashed. It was a MOGUL balloon, of which many crashed and ranchers regularly called the Roswell air base to come and pick up, but this time it was different somehow and the ranchers thought this particular balloon was a flying saucer. Next, the three alien pilots who crashed, one of whom was still alive and moving around, were said not to be 4 foot tall aliens, but 7 foot tall plastic crash dummies which wouldn't be used until several years after the Roswell crash (after 1951), so I guess the Army Aircorps was testing a time machine. I'm waiting for the fifth "official" story, just to see how stupid the government thinks we are. As more and more countries begin releasing at least some of their formerly classified UFO files I'm left to wonder when the United States will follow suite. Maybe not full disclosure, but at least admit you're hiding something. We're not fools, even if we tend to act like fools to get attention.

In the World, Not Of It

From The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna



Wednesday, June 25, 1884



    MASTER: ...."What is the use of making pilgrimages if you can attain love of God remaining where you are? I have been to Benares and noticed the same trees there as here. The same green tamarind-leaves!

    "Pilgrimage becomes futile if it does not enable you to attain love of God. Love of God is the one essential and necessary thing. Do you know the meaning of 'kites' and 'vultures'? There are many people who talk big and who say that they have performed most of the duties enjoined in the scriptures. But with all that their minds are engrossed in worldliness and deeply preoccupied with money, riches, name, fame, creature comforts, and such things."

    The Master was about to take his leave. The pundit and his friends bowed low before him.

    It was not yet dusk, and Sri Ramakrishna returned to Ishan's house with the devotees. The Master took his seat in the drawing-room with Ishan and his sons, a pundit, and a few devotees.

    MASTER (smiling, to Ishan): "I said to Pundit Shashadhar: 'You have hardly set your foot on the tree, and yet you aspire to lay hold of a big bunch of fruit. First of all practise some spiritual discipline; then you may teach others.'"

    ISHAN: "Every preacher thinks that he enlightens others. The glow-worm also may think that it illuminates the world. Imagining this to be the glow-worm's feeling, someone said to it: 'O glow-worm, how can you bring light to the world? You only reveal the intensity of the darkness.'"

    MASTER: (with a smile): "But Shashadahr is not just a scholar. He also has a little discrimination and dispassion."

    The Master was about to leave for Dakshineswar. Ishan and the other devotees stood around him while he gave Ishan various words of advice.

    MASTER: "A devotee who can call on God while living a householder's life is a hero indeed. God thinks: 'He who has renounced the world for My sake will surely pray to Me; he must serve Me. Is there anything very remarkable about it? People will cry shame on him if he fails to do so. But he is blessed indeed who prays to Me in the midst of his worldly duties. He is trying to find Me, overcoming a great obstacle – pushing away, as it were, a huge block of stone weighing a ton. Such a man is a real hero.'

    "Live in the world like an ant. The world contains a mixture of truth and untruth, sugar and sand. Be an ant and take the sugar.

    "Again, the world is a mixture of milk and water, the bliss of God-Consciousness and the pleasure of sense enjoyment. Be a swan and drink the milk, leaving the water aside.



(Pages 307-309)



Here Sri Ramakrishna makes two very good points about the search for God (the journey without distance):



1. God is everywhere. One does not need to visit some holy place, some temple or church, or make some grand physical journey to commune with God. All that matters is love. "Love of God is the one essential and necessary thing." People can make grand gestures of visiting holy sites to pray and yet have it all just be a show to win fame and recognition, whereas someone who is filled with the love of God can find God while going for a walk in the woods or helping a poor beggar on the streets.



2. One does not need to renounce the world to find God. Indeed, it is a truly great feat to find God while retaining one's worldly duties. Anyone can sell their possessions, become a monk, and meditate for twelve hours a day. That's no challenge at all. What is really difficult is to take the time to practice while not renouncing the world. Turning everyday activities into opportunities for consciousness growth, such as washing the dishes, maintaining ethical practices at work, and helping your aging parents. As Jesus said, be in the world but not of it (John 17: 14-16, though the exact phrase does not appear in the text, it is a nice, concise summary). You have a greater opportunity to grow in compassion and to see the universal love of God that permeates everyone by completing your duties in the world while remembering that you are not this little, limited, physical body born of the world.

A good example of this is Lahiri Mahasaya, the householder-yogi who reintroduced the lost art of Kriya Yoga to the world.

Western Mysticism

Here is a video on western mysticism from 3D Dialogue. Professor Robert Carter is the guest.

Prahlad Jani - Results

After some searching the results of the tests have been discovered. After fifteen days of taking no food or water Prahlad Jani remained in perfect health. He was observed by three cameras non stop, and studied by 35 scientists. He passed no stool or urine, which Dr. G. Ilavazhagn, head of the study, said is unprecedented and unexplainable. From the article:



Doctors have not found any adverse effects in his body from hunger or dehydration. They think that yoga exercises may have caused Jani’s body to undergo a biological transformation. The researchers said tests found that his brain is equivalent to that of a 25-year-old.



In fact, according to the Daily Mail, the doctors said that after fasting for two weeks, Jani was healthier than the average 40-year-old.



The team of scientists will look over the results of the study for the next two months to draw conclusions.



-Dee

Prahlad Jani Strikes Back

An article from the UK Daily Telegraph by Dean Nelson reports of a new study on Prahlad Jani - an 82 year old fakir who claims to have eaten or drunk nothing in 70 years. You might recall in 2003, Dr. Sudhir Shah at the Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad kept Prahlad Jani in a locked room for ten days under which time he was made sure he ate or drunk nothing. Now India's Defense Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences is conducting another study to discover ways people in disasters and soldiers on the battle field can survive longer without food. As of 28 April he had been under observation for six days without any adverse effects. The study was expected to continue for 15 days (concluding 7 May, which has passed). I have not yet seen the results of the study and will keep you informed.



-Dee

Making Modern Memorials

Sociologist Nathan Glazer explains in an essay about the National Mall in Washington, D.C., titled "Monuments, Modernism, and the Mall", what the deal is with toilets, giant clothespins, and wasted heaps of metal. Presented here is a section of that essay, taken from an anthology, The National Mall: Rethinking Washington's Monumental Core, edited by Mr. Glazer himself and Cynthia R. Fields. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.





There are many traditional forms and emblems that are not yet, I would think, exhausted and do serve to communicate something to people. In any case, the new forms of modern art and modernism either have their own kitschy meaning, like flat roofs or metal beams agonizing with each other, or mean nothing at all. Perhaps the sophisticates can distinguish one construction of beans from another, one set of whorled metal sheets from another, so that one might mean triumph and another defeat, but most of us can't and are left to say, "Huh?"



    I find an exquisite summary of the dilemma of modernism and memorials in a 1992 book by Harriet Senie, Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy. In the two first sentences, she writes: "The problems endemic to public art in a democracy begin with its definition. How can something be public (democratic) and art (elitist)?" The implicit and taken-for-granted assumption is that art must be elitist and therefore will be incomprehensible to a democratic public. What a strange, what a modern, assumption! Would Michaelangelo or Bernini or Lutyens have ever had such a thought? They would not have contemplated such a thought not because their publics were better educated than we are today (they might have been) but because they took it for granted that they were distinguished from their fellows by their skill and genius, not by their assumptions and values and ideals.



    One way the contemporary artist overcomes the problem is by turning his or her art into a joke. So on the dust jacket of the book Contemporary Public Sculpture, one will see an enormous clothespin erected in front of the huge Philadelphia City hall, which was built in Second Empire style. The sculpture is by Claes Oldenburg, who has proposed many such modern monuments and built a few. Alexander Calder's mobiles and stabiles are gentler jokes. One can see one on the west side of the National Museum of American History, a homage to Gwendolyn Cafritz, a benefactor of Washington art. This will work to some extent; it will not work, however, for a serious monument or memorial to note events or people that we do not consider matters for amusement.

Michael Tymn

Michael Tymn's blog location has changed after Gaia shut down. He is now writing on the White Crow Books site. I have updated the links section accordingly.