Message of Condolence

From The Dalai Lama:

April 25th 2011

I am saddened by the passing away of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the respected spiritual leader. I would like to convey my condolences and prayers to all the followers, devotees and admirers of the late spiritual leader.

The Dalai Lama

(The Urban Mystic does not know when regular posting will begin again, or when anything will resume regularity for that matter.)

Love All, Serve All

So many questions. I was sick and confused yesterday. Terrified of flying and drowning I was looking forward to the day that, in spite of those fears, I could afford to go to Prashanti Nilayam to have Baba's darshan, reassured in his earlier statement that he would be around another ten years.



Why did Baba choose to leave more than a decade early? Was his mission finished, or did he see the world falling apart as evidence that humanity no longer wished to listen to his message?


I know Baba produced often several Shiva Lingas every year as part of a big celebration (Lingodbhava). What did they do with them all? Is there a warehouse full of them somewhere or do they give them away?



Who will run Prashanti Nilayam now? Who will run the Sri Satya Sai Central Trust, estimated to hold assets worth $8 billion? Looking back at other gurus who started organizations, Yogananda, Ramakrishna, their organizations quickly became corrupt after their founders were no longer around to supervise everything. Will the same thing happen to Baba's organization? Will the millions helped by his charitable projects be neglected in coming years?



I made this picture late last night. Believe it or not, this is the first time I have ever drawn Swami.

The Mahasamadhi of Sri Satya Sai Baba

Official Release:



Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is no more with us physically. He left his earthly body on 24th April, 2011, at7:40 a.m. due to cardio-respiratory failure.



Bhagawan Baba’s Body will lie in state at Sai Kulwant Hall for two days (Monday and Tuesday). Arrangements will be made for Darshan after6:00 p.m. today, at Sai Kulwant Hall.



We appeal to all not to rush to the hospital, but to remain calm and have Darshan in an orderly manner.



- Director, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Prasanthigram.

The Miracle of Pure Love

I just got finished watching a 45 minute video from Radio Sai called "The Miracle of Pure Love" detailing Sri Sai Baba's charity work over the past several decades. I and many others are very concerned over Swami's health, which is very bad. He is in the hands of the best doctors available, in the hospital he built two decades ago this November.



The two Super Speciality Hospitals provide medical care completely free of charge to millions. According to the video during the last fiscal year the two hospitals provided three billion Rupees of medical care free of charge ($67.7 million or £41 million). My question is, where does all that money come from? That's a crap load of money, and as far as I can tell it all comes from donations, from the government (electricity is provided for free), from computer and medical equipment companies, and devotees all over the world.



Coupled with the university, the water projects, and numerous other endevours, how could anyone NOT like Baba? How could someone like Robert Priddy become a vicious, hate-filled man when he found out his "die-mind" ring was a zircon? How could former devotees come out with phony, unsubstantiated charges against Swami? Where does the hate come from against someone who has done so much good to so many millions of people? It doesn't matter whether you believe in Swami or not, he's done more good than all of his critics combined, and that alone is worthy of admiration. There are times I just don't understand the world, or maybe I don't want to understand it. It's times like this that we need Swami more than ever.



-Dee

Cape-A-Bility!

Ad agency Workforce Central Florida spent $73,000 of YOUR money on a campaign to design a cartoon character "Dr. Evil Unemployment" and $14,000 of YOUR money buying 6,000 capes to give to unemployed people. They call it the "Cape-A-Bility Challenge." Wow! It is literally impossible for someone to write this. This could NEVER have been a fictional story. No writer, no matter how talented, could EVER assume someone would do something anywhere near this asinine. There are 20 million unemployed people in the country, and these assholes spend tax money on this? I don't want a fucking cape. I don't want to vanquish a foam cutout of a fictional character who isn't responsible for anything. The agency pulled the plug on the campaign because it was "too out-of-the-box."


Dr. Evil Unemployment




The REAL Evil Mastermind Behind Unemployment

Two Happy Stories

These two stories have been in the stack for months. What with the world going mad and all I've dug deep into the stack to find two stories that are not depressing (I was originally going to do something on income tax).



The first story comes from The Seattle Times, October 2010. A man from Ballard (which I assume is a neighborhood in Seattle), Kenny Johnson, was pulling out of his driveway when he witnessed a car accident. No one went to help the people trapped inside the burning car, a man and his daughter. Kenny went in the car and pulled the two to safety because he's a real hero (not an anti-hero or a tv hero or someone out for revenge). The girl, three year old Anna Kotowicz, survived with relatively unharmed. Her father, 37 year old Andy Kotowicz, died in the hospital three days later.



Several days later Kenny was sleeping beside his wife when, in the hours known as wee, a man appeared in the room standing over him. It was Andy, and he had a message for Kenny to deliver to his wife and daughter, and another message to give to his co-workers. He would go on to deliver the messages, which were well recieved.



The second story comes from HotAir.com, 19 November 2010. The story recounts events from three years ago, when then four year old Colton Burpo was in surgery for a burst appendix. During the operation he had a perfect example of a Near Death Experience, seeing what his parents were doing while outside his body. These veridical perceptions were accurate and represent knowledge Colton could not have gained had he not really witnessed his parents from outside his body.



Colton later visited Heaven where he met his grandfather, whom he had never known, as a young man. He was later able to identify his grandfather in a photograph that his father had to go searching for. Colton also met with his sister, who had died before she was born. His parents had not told him of the miscariage, and were quite surprised by their son's knowledge.



The author of the second story needs to take a few more lessons in journalism (a lot more), but otherwise, another wonderful and uplifting story for us during these very troubling times.

The World Gone Mad: Addendum B (200th Post)

From The New York Times: Egypt was better with Mubarak! Wow!
I fucking told you! From the article by Michael Slackman:



But now that moment has passed, damped by the recognition that for many people life today is even harder than before, especially for the poor and for those who survive on tourism — like the army of taxi drivers who are forced to battle ever worsening traffic for ever fewer passengers.



“No one is joking,” said Mohamed Saleh Mohamed, as he navigated a taxi through downtown Cairo’s congested streets recently. “There is no happiness, no work. The country is a mess.”



The sudden turn from humor points to a sense of revolution fatigue that has swept over a nation where people had hoped for overnight change only to awaken to the myriad challenges facing them.



Who warned you of that? Who warned you? Who said the Egyptian people have no idea how to govern themselves and Mubarak should have been allowed to serve out his term while a new government was worked out?



The glow of people power that toppled the president has not vanished, but it has dimmed. After 30 years of predictable discomfort, the public is not accustomed to so much uncertainty.



There are signs of increased sectarian tensions. The economy is in deep trouble. The crime rate is rising. The military is suddenly not looking like such a good guy any longer, accused of using beatings, torture and military tribunals to silence critics. And there are far too many reminders of the past, like the state security apparatus that, though renamed, is effectively functioning as before with mostly the same personnel.



Who said the country would fall apart once Mubarak was gone?



The surge of revolutionary humor was already beginning to slow, many people said, when Egyptians voted on a referendum to the Constitution that would speed up the election of a parliament and president.



The vote served as a wake-up call to many secular, liberal activists involved in the revolution, who had campaigned against the referendum because they thought they needed time to build organizations to compete with established groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.



When the referendum passed, there was an uptick of humor — sarcasm, really — that was not unifying, indicative of re-emerging divisions: “Businesses should turn to importing ankle-length galabiyas, beards and head scarves from China,” went one quip, a reference to religious garb.



“Women will not be allowed to vote, as their voices are considered obscene,” went another.



Who warned of the Muslim Brotherhood taking over post-Mubarak and instituting sharia law? Me and Harvard professor and economist Niall Ferguson. I don't like to gloat, but, Wow! I sure called this one. While all the liberal racists and know-it-all teenagers who inhabit the internet were cheering on the face-space democratic revolution I was posting a little watched video saying that this could only lead to ruin. And I was right. And you were wrong! Winner! Winner! I am a winner!