spirituality

I was over at my cousin's house this weekend, and he was joking about how it was 'peanut butter jelly time.' Of course in this age of Myspace and crappy hip hop on pop radio, I have no idea what these kids are laughing about nowadays. But luckily, my cousin keeps me in the loop. So even though I'm proly like a year late, I can still be cool for a few minutes. Here's what he was talking about, an 8-bit dancing banana with maracas. And apparently it was spoofed on Family Guy. Marketing genius.

This weekend my girlfriend surprised me and came into town for my birthday. CRAZY! We hung out with some friends the day before my birthday, went out to dinner with my family on my birthday, and just hung out. We went to the temple by my parents house together, and sunday morning went to the mass at the catholic church down the street from my house. It's a beautiful church, and was a nice, pretty, summer morning. The priest spoke about the eucharist, defined by wikipedia as:

"the rite that Christians perform in fulfillment of Jesus' instruction, recorded in the New Testament, to do in memory of him what he did at his Last Supper. Jesus gave his disciples bread, saying 'This is my body,' and wine, saying 'This is my blood.' Christians generally recognize a special presence of Christ in this rite, though they differ about exactly how, where, and when Christ is present. The word 'Eucharist' is also applied to the bread and wine consecrated in the course of the rite."

He talked about how the bread and wine Catholics drink at the end of mass doesn't merely represent Jesus Christ, but is Jesus Christ. And by taking his sacrament, baptised Christians are accepting the blessings of their union with Jesus Christ. In everything he talked about, I saw some similarities between eucharist and Hindu prasad. Before I went ahead and assumed they were the same thing, I did a little research. Here's a paper criticising churches for allowing non-baptised christians to take eucharist, explicitly describing how it's not the same as prasad:

"The ruling metaphor of holy communion has always been that of the last supper of the Lord with His chosen disciples, His intimate students... the eucharistic elements have never been understood to be analogous to hindu prasad of tibetan buddhist tsog, which is ritually sanctified food to be eaten by all preset as a blessing, nor is communion like the antidoron (blessed bread) given to all after communion in orthodox christian communities."

There are two main differences between eucharistic food and prasad that I can gather here—what the food represents and who it is meant for, which leads to further differences in who we are in relation to God. Prasad is food that has been blessed by God, we eat it in thanks, and take God's blessings. Eucharistic food represents Jesus Christ himself. The more complicated difference lies in who the food is meant for. Hinduism believes that all living creatures, be they good or evil, man or animal, are all children of God. Our atma (soul) is a small part of God him/herself, and no matter what actions we take in this life, we can always look to him/her for guidance and support. Because of this, yes, prasad is meant for all who's present, be they hindu, muslim, sikh, jewish, catholic, atheist, or what have you. If they wish to take prasad with an understanding of what it is and what it represents, they may do so. But the 'understanding of what it is and what it represents' is not formal, because the nature of hinduism doesn't have all-encompassing overall procedures indoctrinating it's followers into different level of intimacy with God. We do have rites that represent intimate interactions with God, but it's not as much saying 'after you do this, you're down,' nothing as formal as the catholic church. Eucharistic food, since it's meant to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, is meant only for those who have a more formal understanding of what it represents through being confirmed. Unless you're a confirmed catholic, you're not supposed to take the eucharist. This is because only those that have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ are allowed to take it, which implies that by nature, we're not all automatically closely connected to God. It's more something that nurtured within us through learning and teachings.

It's interesting to respectfully learn difference between mine and other people's belief systems. Not to say one is better than the other, cause in the end however we choose to connect with the divine to be better people is good. No one way is better than another. But interesting nonetheless.

Today is a holiday called Guru Purnima, a celebration of our teachers. If you do a Google search on "Guru Purnima", you'll find a lot of heavily spiritual discussion on the significance and meaning of the holiday. But for me, I call my music teachers "Guru." Not because I consider them God, at least any moreso than I consider all living creatures to be a living part of the divine. But because they bless me with knowledge about music, the world, and myself; and for me, the process of learning is spiritual in and of itself.

So I'd like to observe this day by paying respects to my musical gurus, Rajanji and Khansahib, as well as anyone else I have crossed paths with that has helped me learn more about myself and the world. Shubh Guru Purnima!

Navaratri’s starting next week, and BBC’s got on nice little article about it. My family’s been fasting during the nine days of Navaratri for as long as I can remember, and recently I’ve been doing the fasting more rigorously with my parents. It’s interesting how I learn more and more about fasting, and why we fast, every year. Not in the sense that my fasting becomes more strict at all, but in the sense that I’m more in tune with why I’m fasting, and how that affects my relationship with God. We’ll see what I learn this year.

Check this out, too. The Guru Granth Sahib translated in English. It's on.

I’m currently reading the Ramayana. I’ve heard the stories of the Ramayana through friends and family, but I’ve never actually sat down and read it. So it’s been cool, there’s so much detail, and so much depth to the story than I’ve ever been exposed to. Check out this exerpt I read last night on my way home from work. At this point in the story, Ram and his brother Lakshman are walking with Vishwamitra, a sage that’s asked Ram’s father to allow him to take Ram to all the sacred places the Rakshasa’s have been raiding to get rid of them and return the spaces to their sanctity. At this particular point, Vishwamitra’s at the end of explaining his family’s history to Ram and Lakshman:

“...and my generous sister Kushiki assumed the form of a river for the welfare of all creatures. My sister is now a noble river issuing from the Himalayas. Out of affection for my sister, Kushiki, I lived in the vicinity of the Himalayas. It was for the purpose of completing the sacrifice that I came to Siddhasram. I have told you the history of my life. Now you retire to sleep. The trees stand motionless, the birds of the air and beasts of the fields are hushed in silence. The sky is illuminated with bright stars like blooming eyes.” Ram and Lakshman then retired to sleep.

How pretty is that? Since reading that, I’ve been thinking about how our ancestors were so in tune with our surroundings, and how nature around us reacted to us and things, and how we react to nature around us. Looking at our surroundings with open eyes like that is such a beautiful thing, and speaks volumes about how we are all drops of water, working together to create waves.

Over the past few days, whenever I’ve passed under the 90/94 overpass on Fullerton, I’ve seen people crowded under the north side of the overpass, in the little accident recovery site. The first time I saw the crowd, I thought there had been a bad accident, so I just tried to move on so as not to cause traffic to back up anymore than usual. After seeing the crowd still there days later, I figured something was up. Saturday night after the Kushal Das/Vishwa Mohan Bhatt concert, I was driving back to the hood with my friend Sarwat, and we passed under the overpass again, and I asked her what was up with the crowd. She said a few weeks ago, someone saw a salt stain on the walls of the viaduct, and said it looks like the Mother Mary. Word slowly got around, and over the past few days people started flooding to the wall, to light candles, leave flowers, and pray in front of the image on the wall. Sunday night I went to Cub Foods to pick up some tomatoes, and since I was passing by I figured I might as well stop to check it out. Sure enough, the salt stain looked a lot like Mother Mary, with her head covered, looking down, with her hands in a prayer position.

That picture only shows a few candles in front of the image, but by the time I had seen it, there were proly 150 candles in front of the image, including a ton of flowers, posters of the pope and Jesus on either side of the image, and a few big flags put up next to her. The police had barricaded a line off, so people could single-file style go up to the image and get a closer look, or pray. There were probably about 50-60 people there when I went, and the tone of the crowd was mixed. It seemed some people for sure believed this was a sign of God “telling us something,” others seemed somewhat confused, trying to figure out if they should believe something spiritual had happened in this viaduct, or if they should discount it as one of thousands of salt stains on the walls of overpasses in Chicago that could resemble anything, if you believed in what you saw.

Either way, the image brought a bunch of people together in a peaceful, warm, unified way. rich people, poor people, deep religious people, people still trying to figure it out, all collected under the overpass to get a glimpse of what “everyone was talking about.” That’s a beautiful thing, and God does things like this everyday, we often just don’t listen. At Fullerton just east of western, people started letting themselves listen. If God is everywhere, and in everything, is all-powerful, all knowing, and exists in all facets of the universe at all times, its no wonder he’d be found manifested in the most random of places. He always is, we just rarely choose to pay attention. It's a powerful things when so many people recognize God’s magnificence in one place at one time.

Jai Shri Krishna

Insha Allah

May God’s blessings be with you

Check this. This is a prayer I’ve been getting into the habit of saying, and I looked up what it means:

Karpur gauram karunaa avataaram,
Sansaar saaram bhujgendra haaram,
Sadaa vasantam hridayaarvinde,
Bhavam Bhavaani sahitam namaami

I bow to the camphor-hued, white complexioned one (Lord Shiva),
who is the Incarnation of compassion,
Who is the very essence of life;
Who wears snakes as garlands,
whose eternal abode is in the heart of the devotee,
I bow to Him (Lord Shiva) and His consort Bhavaani (Parvati)

I read that, and something just struck a chord with me. Maybe it's what I’ve been praying for lately, or maybe it's that I’ve been thinking about God a lot lately, or maybe it's me getting more in the habit of whole-heartedly praying when I do, moreso than I have been over the past year or so. But that prayer’s beauty right there. How come when I’m thinking of ways to praise things, be it God or even my friends, I can never think of ways to express myself like that prayer does? I guess that’s why I play an instrument and I’m not a singer, words and language aren’t my strong point. Its all Microsoft Word’s fault, too, but I’ll leave that little rant-to-be for another post.

This weekend was pretty cool. Friday, checked out the Funkadesi show for a tsunami benefit. Good show, but the place was PAAAAAACKED. Everyone there was saying ‘oh, its always like this.’ But seriously, I could barely move. I was chillin with Ruby after the show, and we were talking to this girl that was talking about how she’s “an amazing bhangra dancer,” and I “should never dare compete with her.” Uh, hello? Did she know who she was talking to? I’m all about the love of the dance, so I was trying to take the whole competitive aspect out of the conversation, but she just kept going on and on about how I “had no idea”. I very well may not have any idea, but dude... I kept my mouth shut, cause I’m not all about touting my skills until it's time to actually use them. The only things I really said to her was she was talking awfully tall to someone she didn’t know very well, and she’d better sloooooow down... When I do see her in a circle sometime, my actions will speak much louder than my words ever could, so we’ll have to wait and see. In the immortal words of Dhrubajyoti: It's fucking on.

What I’m listening to right now:

Social Distortion—White Light, White Heat, White Trash —I was never a HUGE Social D fan when they were big, I think this is the only album of theirs that I own. I think before this album came out in 96, they had already taken a hiatus for like four years to do a few various solo albums, and this was their big ‘we’re back together’ album. There’s a handful of good songs on this album, but as a whole it's nothing to write home about. The opening track ‘Dear Lover’ ROCKS, and the hidden tracks is a cover Rolling Stone’s ‘Under My Thumb,’ while also ROCKS. Everything in between is decent rock/punkish with some Bad Religion sounding nuances. It's not bad.

The week begins… This weekend I didn’t do too much of anything. Navratri, my family’s annual nine-day religious holiday, started Friday. So along with the beginning of the holiday came the beginning of the nine-day fasting. So I was pretty tired all weekend. Each day we restrict ourselves to fruits and nuts all day, and then we have one meal at night. But on Saturday we were only to drink juice all day without any meal. So that pretty much shot all my energy all weekend. So I spent a lot of time at home working on the new design for the site you’re viewing right now. It’s on.

Saturday morning I got up early and went to this leadership, outdoorsy, team-building retreat for work, and that was AWESOME. For the second half of the retreat we partnered up and had to go on this high-ropes course 2-3 stories above the ground. That was sweeeEEEEeeeet. I was telling my mom about some of the activites we had to do up there, and she was like ‘I don’t know how you do these thing. If it were me I would have just AHHH!’ in her unique accent. Lol, that was funny.

Anyway, I won’t be the one left behind, cause I can’t be the king of the world if I’m slave to the grind. (c) Skid Row.