Awake

-Are you a God?
- they asked the Buddha.
- No.
- Are you an angel, then?
- No.
- A saint?
- No.
- Then what are you?
-
I am AWAKE.



Einstein

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure of
the universe"-Albert Einstein-


Om Mani Padme Hum

Matthew 25:40

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Matthew 7 1-6


1. Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
6. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Update on Mini-Stroke??? Ear Infection??? Stress Test

Had a stress test today, pure hell....  First they put 12 or 13 adhehive contacts on you so they can connect a bunch of wires, then take blood pressure, mine is down from where it was, then they do an echo test of the heart to establish a base point I think. Then I got on the treadmill, started out comfortably, then faster and then faster still, I was walking fast, nearly running, heart beat was up to 110 or so, and I was out of breath and had to stop. Since this wasn't working they had me lay down and installed an IV in my arm for some kind of drug, first saline then the drug, after awhile I felt pressure in my neck, and could feel my heart beating faster and faster. The cardiologist was there then and told me to lift my legs up and down, and wave my arm, I felt silly, and probably looked worse, but getting more and more tired, light headed, out of breath, and about ready to pass out eventually my heart beat got up to where they wanted it and they did another echo test.  I got dressed, stumbled out to my van, and drove home, still out of breath and light headed for lack of a better description. Not fun, when they say stress test, they should put emphasis on stress.

Lee Murray

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

A Neanderthal may be, your ancestor, and mine...

Saw a program today, unfortunately didn't write down the name, but it was about the possible, and probable, interbreeding of Neanderthal and "Modern" Humans. Below is an article that has much of the same information.  It seems to me that another word can be used to describe what happened, and that is that we are a mutation of Neanderthal, and early Homo Sapiens, who allegedly, while both human, were different races. Another article I read suggests that for Neanderthal hybridization to have occured and come down to us in our DNA would only have required a single instance of sex between the two, a single Adam and Eve. As it says in this article though, people, and both WERE people, being people, I'd guess it happened more than once, much more.

N.Y. Times April 25, 1999

Discovery Suggests Humans Are a Bit Neanderthal
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD


Neanderthals and modern humans not only coexisted for thousands of years long ago, as anthropologists have established, but now their little secret is out: they also cohabited.
At least that is the interpretation being made by paleontologists who have examined the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a young boy discovered recently in a shallow grave in Portugal. Bred in the boy's bones seemed to be a genetic heritage part Neanderthal, part early modern Homo sapiens. He was a hybrid, they concluded, and the first strong physical evidence of interbreeding between the groups in Europe.
"This skeleton demonstrates that early modern humans and Neanderthals are not all that different," said Dr. Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. "They intermixed, interbred and produced offspring."
Although some scientists disputed the interpretation, other scientists who study human origins said in interviews last week that the findings were intriguing, probably correct and certain to provoke debate and challenges to conventional thinking about the place of Neanderthals in human evolution.
Neanderthals and modern humans presumably were more alike than different, not a separate species or even subspecies, but two groups who viewed each other as appropriate mates.
Recent DNA research had appeared to show that the two people were unrelated and had not interbred. Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia from 300,000 years ago until the last of them disappeared on the Iberian peninsula about 28,000 years ago. In the prevailing theory today, modern humans arose in Africa less than 200,000 years ago and appeared in great numbers in Europe, starting about 40,000 years ago.
The new discovery could, at long last, resolve the question of what happened to the Neanderthals, the stereotypical stocky, heavy-browed "cave men." They may have merged with modern humans, called Cro-Magnons, who appear to have arrived in Europe with a superior tool culture. In that case, some Neanderthal genes survive in most Europeans and people of European descent.
The skeleton of the boy, buried with strings of marine shells and painted with red ocher, was uncovered in December by Portuguese archeologists led by Dr. Joo Zilhao, director of the Institute of Archeology in Lisbon. The discovery was made in the Lapedo Valley near Leiria, 90 miles north of Lisbon.
Realizing the potential significance, Dr. Zilhao called in Dr. Trinkaus, an authority on Neanderthal paleontology, who went to Lisbon and examined the bones in January.
The boy, who was about 4 years old at death, had the prominent chin and other facial characteristics of a fully modern human. But his stocky body and short legs were those of a Neanderthal. Dr. Trinkaus compared the limb proportions with Neanderthal skeletons, including some children. He said he was then sure of the skeleton's implications.
"It's a complex mosaic, which is what you get when you have a hybrid," Dr. Trinkaus said. "This is the first definite evidence of admixture between Neanderthals and European early modern humans."
The age of the skeleton, determined by radiocarbon dating, showed that full Neanderthals had apparently been extinct for at least 4,000 years before the boy was born. "This is no love child," Dr. Trinkaus said, meaning that this was not evidence of a rare mating but a descendant of generations of Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon hybrids.
Dr. Trinkaus and Dr. Zilhao have completed a more detailed scientific report to be published soon in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DNA tests on the skeleton have not yet been done.
Other Neanderthal specialists reacted favorably to the discovery. Dr. Fred H. Smith of Northern Illinois University in De Kalb called it "very convincing and absolutely right."
Dr. Smith noted that he had come upon other skeletal material in central Europe that raised the possibility of interbreeding between the groups. Though most scholars in the field will probably accept the possibility of interbreeding, he said, a significant number will probably not.
The more ardent exponents of the out-of-Africa hypothesis of modern human origins may be holdouts. They have argued that early modern humans all emerged from Africa and wiped out the Neanderthal population in Europe. Whether the relationship was fraternal or genocidal has been much debated. But many have argued that the two groups were distinct, with humans displacing and probably slaughtering their rivals.
Dr. Chris Stringer, an expert on Neanderthals at the Museum of Natural History in London, who is a leader of the out-of-Africa forces, said that he was willing to consider the Portuguese findings with an open mind. He told The Associated Press that the current evidence was not sufficient to convince him of Dr. Trinkhaus's hybrid interpretation.
An alternative theory, known as regional continuity, holds that the earliest human ancestors arose in Africa and spread around the world more than a million years ago. Modern humans then emerged in different regions through separate evolution and interbreeding. A leading advocate of this theory is Dr. Milford Wolpoff, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
"This find should be devastating to the out-of-Africa people," Dr. Wolpoff said. "It shows their theory doesn't work, at least in Europe. And it shows that fundamentally, Neanderthals are the same species we are and they contributed their genes to European ancestry."
By now, scientists said, only a small fraction of Neanderthal genes have survived, the European gene pool having been further mixed through migrations during the spread of agriculture and invasions from the east.
But Dr. Wolpoff cautioned that it would take more than one skeleton to tell the effects of interbreeding apart from ordinary evolutionary changes, the result of genes modifying in response to environmental stresses.
Dr. Alan Mann, a specialist in human evolution at the University of Pennsylvania, called the Portuguese hybrid skeleton "some of the most important data we ever got about Neanderthals in human evolution," but said he was not sure that interbreeding had been established.
Dr. Trinkaus said the discovery "refutes strict replacement models of modern human origins" and also seemed to undermine interpretations of recent DNA research. Two years ago, Dr. Svante Paabo of the University of Munich in Germany, reported that a study of the genetic material DNA from Neanderthal remains and living humans indicated that Neanderthals did not interbreed with the modern humans.
At the time, scientists said the DNA results reinforced the idea that Neanderthals were a separate species from modern humans. If the new findings are correct, though, the two groups were probably more like different races of the same species.
"The problem with the DNA research was the interpretation," Dr. Trinkaus said. "It's demonstrably wrong. All that they showed is that Neanderthal biology is outside the range of living humans, not modern Homo sapiens back then."
Dr. Alan Templeton, an evolutionary geneticist at Washington University, said that some hybridization occurs without the effects showing up, for example, in mitochondrial DNA, which is passed only through the mother. "But if you look deep enough in evolutionary time, you find a lot of interbreeding," Dr. Templeton said. "That is what humanity is all about: we interbreed a lot."

Another thing they talked about in the program was that there is a gene in our DNA that is likely the reason that we talk, that communication is what makes us special. The researchers were very surprised to find the exact same thing in the Neanderthal DNA. One of them commented that unlike the popular impression of a grunting and growling primative, the Neanderthals may have been as verbally communicative as we are.
We have the unfortunate arrogance to think that people that lived thousands of years ago, were dummies, little more than animals, and I'm sure there were many who were, just like today, but the Neanderthal brain was bigger than ours, they could talk, and I'm sure there were many who were as intelligent or perhaps more intelligent than we are. Just my opinion.
 
Lee Murray
 
 
 

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Update on Mini-Stroke??? Ear Infection??? Latest info

Went in today, another blood test after 2 weeks on blood pressure medicine. Didn't see Neurologist, saw Cardiologist, good news blood pressure good. Bad news going to have surgury, at some point to close the hole in my heart, the one I was probably born with. Fortunately sounds like minor operation, going up through an artery and putting an umbrella, she called it, in to close the hole. First before they schedule that I have to see a neuro-surgeon in May. The nurse did say that the CT Angiogram looked normal. So far so good...I guess.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

The Doctors I'm Seeing at Hamilton Comm. Hospital for this Whatever It Is


Michael Jastremski , M.D.     
The first Dr. I saw in the ER.
Emergency Medicine Director
Emergency Services/Medical Affairs
315-824-6090
Certified by: American Board of Internal Medicine, American Board of Emergency, and Subspecialty Certification in Critical Care Medicine
Residency: SUNY Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, NY
Fellowship: University of Pittsburgh
Med College: SUNY Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse, NY - 1973
College: Hartwick College, Oneonta, NY - 1969


Eufrosina Young, M.D.              
The second Dr. I saw, a Neurologist
Hamilton Family Health Center of CMH
164 Broad Street, Hamilton
315-648-5785
Certified in Clinical Neurophysiology, Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
Residency: North Shore University Hospital (of New York University), Manhasset, NY - 2001
Med College: University of the East, Quezon City, Philippines - 1994
College: University of the Philippines - 1990


Carina Alfaro-Franco, M.D.         
The third Dr. a Cardiologist.
Community Memorial Hospital
164 Broad Street
Hamilton, NY 13346
315-648-6408
Board Certified in Cardiovascular Disease. Board Certified in Internal Medicine
Residency: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX – 1994
Med College: University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas – 1991
College: University of Houston, Houston, TX – 1978

Latest Update Stroke or Ear Infection

In the last update, I said that the Neurologist told me that they'd ruled out stroke, multiple TIA, brain tumor, MS, etc. and due to the results of the MIA they thought there might be restricted blood flow in the arteries in the back of my head, going to the brain, that was causing the problems. Well I had the CT Angio that they scheduled a week ago last Friday, still haven't heard anything. Except went to MD for first visit last week, speaking to the Nurse Practioner, asked her and they have the preliminary report, she said it says no narrowing or aneurism.  So I was feeling pretty good, until I got a letter from a Neuro surgeon in Syracuse telling what to bring to my appointment mid May. That's it for now, I see the Neurologist on Tuesday and intend to ask what's going on.

Lee Murray

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Guns, What's the deal in movies and TV???

First let me say should there be a misunderstanding about what I'm going to say. I'm not anti-gun, I'm a Benefactor level, Life Member of the NRA.  What I AM though is anti-stupidity. Watching shows on tv and movies I see a LOT of stupidity related to the guns. 
First of all it seems like everybody, cops and criminals has never been taught to only pull a gun if you intend to kill with it, and never point a gun at something unless you're prepared to kill it. They're whipping their guns out and waving them around at the slightest, heck, at no provocation.  They're always shooting at cars in traffic, and toward crowds of people. They shoot at doors, windows, cars, people whatever, but whatever it is it always stops the bullets. Well, except for the scene in The Gauntlet, where Clint Eastwood and Saundra Locke were in her house and the Police surrounded it and opened fire in a barrage. Bullets were pentetrating in that scene, finally the house just collapsed, probably quite realistic, for a change.  Bullets penetrate and will injure or kill, beyond the intended target. Let's talk about misses, actors are constantly firing everthing from pistols to machine guns, especially machine guns, and missing the target. Apparently no one ever told them that the bullets don't just drop out of the air a few feet away harmlessly. Even the lowly .22 can kill at nearly a mile, it's unlikely, but now think what a .38, 356 or 44 Magnum, or a rifle or machine gun can do.  True they're only accurate to a certain distance, but that doesn't mean they can't still kill far beyond that.
I think most actors have never even held, let alone fired a real handgun or rifle, but if they're going to use one they should. They should have the writers and directors also learn what a gun is capable of in the real world, and maybe we'd see less irresponsibility.

Lee Murray

My Comment to post on Web Owls - Prehistoric Civilization w/link to original article

Found an article on prehistoric civilizations on Web Owls Blog Archives Prehistoric Civilization, talking about the ancient city of Catel Huyuk. a temple city in Anatolia, to quote the blog "the central hub of a Neolithic civilization. It was written and signed by Digsalot 5/15/06.

Link to Catel Hoynuk Article by Diggs with my comment

Below is my comment on the article, which you'll also find with the article when you click the link, when Web Owls moderates it.

My Comment, with a couple of edits:
Interesting, as far as it goes. But those of us who actually believe there were ADVANCED prehistoric civilizations, focus on the time before the end of the last ice age, and the flood that followed, meaning more than 10,000 years ago, Catel Hoyuk came two to three thousand years later. My opinion, and it's only that, understand I'm no expert and don't pretend to be one, is that this is an early, (earliest? maybe, maybe not), effort by either a whole new version of post flood/destruction human being, or as I think a mutation of the earlier version that somehow survived. The legends, and myths say that humanity was destroyed, except for whichever Hero and their families, and the civilization that we know today evolved from them. It seems reasonable that if most people were killed and their lands flooded in days, if not hours, destroying buildings, vehicles, roads, and pretty much everything else, water levels are estimated to have risen 300 feet or possibly more, if there were survivors they'd be in a state of shock, but would try to reclaim as much of their life as they could, they would pass knowledge on to their kids, and their kids kids, but if modern people are any example, in three or four generations it would have become crap, except for the oddball here and there. Think about the game telephone we all played in kindergarden, the story starts on one end and is completely different, and/or distorted by the time it gets to the other end. Now imagine the same thing with lots of people and generations. It's conceivable that those we know as "cavemen," (so easy a caveman can do it), were survivors or later generations of survivors, who had nowhere else to live, and had to be hunter gatherers to eat, but knowledge was passed on, beyond the understanding of most, but here and there were guys and gals just a little smarter, even a lot smarter, possibly the occasional genius managed over centuries, to slowly relearn.
But think about us, "moderns," through the 1200/1300's most people were little different than those living BC, iron and rudimentary steel was probably the biggest difference, through the 1800's still not a lot of difference, through the 50's and 60"s when I was a kid take away TV and we could as easily been living in the twenties. Most people are who I'm talking about. The truth is and most knowledgable people will agree, people who lived 50, 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000 or 50,000 years ago were just as smart as we are today, if you brought one here today, you'd be amazed how quickly they'd catch up.
The ADVANCED part started for most of us when HP came out with the first battery powered calculator in the 60's and all bets were off. We have been a truely advanced civilization, in our own eyes at least, for really 40-50 years, maybe more generous 60 years.
So to call this city the earliest prehistoric civilization, or the cosmopolitan central hub of Neolithic civilization is a stretch at best. A possibly earlier city has been found in India, and there are others I'm sure waiting to be found. As a last word to those who ask if these civilizations existed where is the evidence, the buildings, etc? Check out the program After People, I think it's called and see how much of our own is left after 1000 years.

Lee Murray

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Ghosts... Real? Not?

Looking for Overhaulin' today on Discover I came across a program called Ghost Team, or something similar. It was about a team of people who went to haunted places were there were supposed to be ghosts and set up equipment to catch the ghosts. The only thing I remember is one of the guys, fat, beard, baseball hat, poorly dressed, standing in a room shouting at the ghosts: come out, what are you afraid of? He kept shouting, words to that effect until disgusted I changed channels.
Ghosts, do they exist? Truthfully, I think yes, but not in the style of Caspar, or Marley. I think more in the sense of Ghost, who was that? Patrick Swayze? I think when someone passes away, they may not want to move on, or can't for some reason, may not even believe they're dead, and so they hang around.
From what I've read and been told the major difference between us, and the dead is that they are vibrating at a higher speed. Everything vibrates at a certain level, minerals, plants, animals, etc.  If you develop the ability to raise your physical vibratory level, in theory you should be able to move between physical and astral, where the ghosts would be, for instance.  Pretty much everybody visits the astral while asleep, and many can astral travel while conscous, but moving the physical body from one level to another and back, seems that would be the domain of the Masters.
Of course I've barely scratched the surface, and there's a lot more to it, but I think I've got the gist of it.

Lee Murray

Monday, April 19, 2010

Think Of The 10's, 100's, 1000's Of Lives That Could Be Saved. Why?

I was just watching a program on the Science channel. They were talking about the possiblity, and the practicality of time travel.  At the end one of the scientists said that one use for a time machine would be that we could use it for forwarning about potential disasters. Then he said, "think of the thousands of lives that could be saved."
My immediate reaction is, Why?  Why would we want to save those lives? What's the point? It's their time to go home, to die. I understand it seems cold and unfeeling. I understand that many, most, maybe all readers would say Yeah, sure, until it's your life then you'd change your mind.  But no actually I'd take exactly the same position about my own life. 
The concept of being born to live a life and then to die, ceasing to exist and dropping into a black hole, is pure unadulterated stupidity.  We humans, and for that matter all forms of life, recognized or not, from mineral, if that's in fact the lowest form, I don't know, are energy plain and simple. Energy can't be destroyed, at least that's what they taught me at Buena Park High School. It can be renewed, reconfigured, whatever, but not destroyed. Meaning that reincarnation is a fact, there I said it, a fact. I believe that not one of us dies, ie goes home, until our sentence in this world, self imposed or otherwise, has been served.  You CAN NOT die before your time, is that plain enough. 
Many philosophies and philosophers, have said that prior to birth we all lay out a game plan, consisting of the famous 5 - who, what, why, where, and when. Who you are, meaning parents, relatives, friends, enemies, are all pre-planned. What you are, good/bad, student/dropout, job/profession, crooked/honest, rich/poor, jock/nerd, types of activites, etc., are all pre-planned. Why you are, planned or accident, that's all that comes to mind, are pre-planned. Where you are, could possibly be where in time as well as space, born in the US, Europe, any civilized part of the world, or pick any third world hell hole, which isn't to say that can't be found in the US or Europe if that's your plan, or that you couldn't rise to the top in that hell hole. It's all pre-planned. Then we come to when, which I believe can be anytime. Literally any time in the past or future, can become your present, if that's what you plan.
Of course we all like to believe that we have free will, and pre-distination is a lot of crap, and maybe we do. I believe that free will is a fact, that our lives are laid out prior to our birth and we have free will during life to make decisions that may alter our lives but never to the point that we move outside the plan.
Back to the topic, NOBODY dies before their time.  So to save those thousands of lives that the scientist was talking about is 1 impossible, 2 if possible throws the whole system out of wack. We can all, everyone of us, look back and remember something that happened to us and should have killed us.  But it didn't, because it wasn't supposed to, it wasn't our time.  Maybe we were sick, or hurt, in the hospital, whatever, or maybe we walked away without a scratch, that was the plan.
Most if not all of the philosophies and philosophers teach that the reason we come here again and again is to learn, what I don't have a clue, but something.  Others say its punishment or reward, others say we're enraptured by the sensations of the flesh. Who knows really, it could be any, all, or none. Why isn't important anyway, to us, at least right now. What IS important is there's no reason to fear death, first because we can't die before it's time, second because we don't cease to exist when we do, period.

Lee Murray

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Antidiluvial Civilizations an article written by Harry Young for Sunrise Magazine about a new book by Graham Hancock

Once again, I'm just presenting the article without comment since it says what I might say, better than I could, in my opinion.
Lee Murray
Bridging the Myth and Science of the Flood       By Harry Young
Myths from around the world tell of a time in earth's history when great civilizations and vast expanses of land were consumed by cataclysmic floods. Who were the people who formed these civilizations, where and how did they live, what happened to their cities and settlements and the lands they lived on? In his latest book, Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization (Crown Publishers, New York, 2002; 760 pages, photographs, ISBN 1400046122, hardback, $27.50), Graham Hancock explores these mysteries. Expanding investigations chronicled in Fingerprints of the Gods and Heaven's Mirror, he lays out evidence based on modern scientific research, comparative mythology, religious and spiritual observances, firsthand diving exploration of underwater megalithic structures, and ancient maps to demonstrate the likelihood that a technically advanced civilization unrecognized by modern science --capable of navigating the globe and with a profound understanding of architecture and building, astronomy, and geography -- existed before and during the last Ice Age and was wiped out by global flooding.
 Only in the last fifty years, since the invention of scuba diving, has systematic marine archeology been possible. Due to limited funding and the enormity of the world's oceans, marine archeologists have barely begun to investigate the millions of square kilometers of coastal shelf inundated since the end of the last Ice Age. When they do, shipwrecks are their most common quarry, not signs of antediluvian civilizations, "for the traces, anywhere and everywhere around the world, of submerged structures do not make sense within the current paradigm of history." As a result the underwater world represents a void in our knowledge of our planet and of ourselves. Myths, however, have much to say:
 Descriptions of a killer global flood that inundated the inhabited lands of the world turn up everywhere amongst the myths of antiquity. In many cases these myths clearly hint that the deluge swept away an advanced civilization that had somehow angered the gods, sparing 'none but the unlettered and the uncultured' and obliging the survivors to 'begin again like children in complete ignorance of what happened . . . in early times.' . . . The academic consensus today, and for a century, has been that that the myths are either pure fantasy or the fantastic elaboration of local and limited deluges -- caused for example by rivers overflowing, or tidal waves. -- p. 20
 Looking for evidence of ancient cataclysmic floods, Underworld explores up-to-date geological and climatological research on what may have happened during the last 17,000 years. Central to Hancock's investigation are inundation maps created by Dr. Glen Milne of Durham University which show vast tracts of mostly coastal land which were submerged by three waves of cataclysmic flooding between 17,000 and 8,000 years ago. The area of land -- the best quality habitable land of that time -- lost to the sea was huge: 5 percent of the earth's surface or 25 million square kilometers. While such maps cannot be 100 percent accurate, Hancock believes they are accurate enough to support his theories.




















Finding an accurate model of the behavior of the oceans during the peak meltdown period at the end of the last Ice Age (approximately 14,000 to 7,000 years ago) is difficult. Experts disagree over the sequence, chronology, and consequences of events, and even the terminology used. For the purpose of the Underworld inquiry Hancock uses the term "the last Ice Age" to refer to the period between 125,000 and 17,000 years ago; and the term Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to signify the period between approximately 22,000 and 17,000 years ago when the ice sheets were at their maximum. At this time most of northern Europe and North America was under ice several kilometers thick, containing so much water that the global sea level was between 115 and 120 meters lower than it is today. Many areas of land habitable today were uninhabitable before the flood and vice versa, especially around low-lying coasts.
 The many cycles of the Ice Age correlate with the obliquity and precession of the earth's axis and the changing eccentricity of its solar orbit. These with other factors such as volcanism, asteroidal or cometary impacts, radical thaws and freezes, and geodynamic changes in the earth's crust or mantle are considered by science sufficient to explain the patterns of global glaciation and deglaciation. The effects of these forces were immense and devastating. The earth, like a huge sphere of gel, is malleable, and pressure on one area causes an indentation that forces the surrounding area to rise. Such isostacy occurs when ice caps weigh down on the earth's crust. When the ice melts, the pressure lessens and the bulge surrounding the indentation rebounds and eventually retains its original level. Thousands of billions of tons of ice weighed on the continental landmasses of North America and Europe at the time of the LGM 17,000 years ago. The water forming this ice came originally from oceans, so just as the ice pressed the continents down, correspondingly the ocean beds rose as the water burden above lightened.
Although there is scientific proof from core samples and in the coral record that sea levels once rose very rapidly, the scientific majority still hold that the 120 meter sea-level rise in the last 10,000 years of post-glacial flooding represents a non-cataclysmic rising process of about one meter per year. Flood myths say differently, as do experts such as the late Cesare Emiliani, Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Miami, and John Shaw, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Alberta, whose work, among others, Hancock draws on to form a synthesized theory. He describes the melting of the ice sheets, and ensuing floods and earthquakes unimaginable by modern standards. For instance, in Canada meltwater flooded around a giant ice barrier into Hudson Bay, the Arctic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico with a force of around ten million cubic meters per second -- enough to drain Lake Ontario in four days.

               The world at the Last Glacial Maximum. Darker tint shows extra land above sea level.
Research since the 1970s suggests that there were three global super-floods: 15,000 to 14,000 years ago; 12,000 to 11,000 years ago; and 8,000 to 7,000 years ago. The second period ties in with the date Plato ascribed in the Timaeus and Critias to the destruction by earthquakes and flooding of Atlantis, and with the Tamil myth of the submerging of the fabled land of Kumari Kandam. There is also strong evidence that nearly half the total meltwater released at the end of the last Ice Age was concentrated into these three relatively short periods. Such events would have had a momentous impact on the human inhabitants at that time, leaving a marked impression on oral tradition, the original transmitter of all ancient myths.
Contrariwise, modern archeology tells us its story of civilized humanity based on numerous conflicting theories and interpretations of data, and scant material evidence from archeological sites covering a tiny area of the earth's surface, almost all of which are on land. Current mainstream thinking puts fully evolved humans on earth 100,000 years prior to the beginning of the first floods and cataclysms of around 17,000 years ago -- long enough for high civilizations to have developed. A dearth of land-based evidence is no proof that they did not. Land-based evidence does exist, however, although interpretation is one major barrier to realizing what it signifies.
One main section of Underworld concentrates on India: its ancient inhabitants and spiritual traditions, specifically the Indus Valley civilization and the Vedas. Since the 1890s scholars have thought the Vedas were composed by Indo-European invaders -- the Aryans -- and codified by them around 1500 BC. This theory was almost entirely based on the misinterpretation of a few dozen skeletons found in the ancient Indus Valley. Another cornerstone of the now controversial Aryan Invasion Theory is the similarity between Sanskrit (the language of the Vedas) and ancient and modern European languages such as Latin, Greek, English, Norwegian, and German. However, in the last ten years the Aryan Invasion Theory has fallen apart. The generally accepted proposed codification date of 1200 BC, first established by Max Muller in 1890, does not signify either the Vedas' date or era of origin. Many researchers now accept that their composition lies long before in India's oral tradition and that they could be the creation of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization, inferring that there was a movement of language from India to Europe rather than from Europe to India.
 The Vedas themselves, however, contain an account of their creation: the story of Manu, India's Noah. Hancock draws close ties between the story of Manu, that of the Sumerian flood survivor Ziusudra, the ancient yuga theory of the cyclical destruction and rebirth of worlds, and the Seven Sages, a group of "wise men" whose duties include the preservation of the knowledge contained within the Vedas: 
 the ancient traditions of India itself . . . explain that Manu and the Seven Sages retreated to the Himalayas from a place that was not the Himalayas at the time of a terrible oceanic flood, and that they brought with them from their antediluvian homeland not only the Vedas but also all the 'seeds' that would be necessary to re-establish permanent food-producing settlements. -- p. 174
 Hancock goes on to speculate, based on analysis of mythological and scientific evidence concerning glaciation and flooding in the Himalayan region, that "the sages who composed at least some of the verses of the Vedas could have been in the Himalayas 12,000 years ago to witness the end of the Younger Dryas," a sudden unexplained global climactic freezing. But this "does not fit in at all with the much later date that scholars habitually assign to composition of the Rig Veda" (p. 196). Speculating further, the author explores the profound reasons underpinning civilization. Although the modern West is dominated by material and economic theories of human life, India with its vibrant spiritual culture . . . raises the possibility that the real origins of civilization could be very different -- not driven by economics but by the spiritual quest that all true ascetics of India still pursue with the utmost dedication. . . .
 And since archaeologists are now in universal agreement that there is an unbroken continuity of culture from Mehrgarh I [a prehistoric city in Baluchistan, located 500 km from the Pakistani coast] around 9000 years ago all the way down to the great cities of the Indus-Sarasvati civilization around 4500 years ago, shouldn't we expect signs of the same yogic ethic to turn up there? -- pp. 196-7
Graham Hancock pursues these signs in ensuing chapters.
The first of Underworld's many accounts of underwater expeditions begins in India as the author, collaborating with divers from India's National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), dives at the northwest coastal town of Dwarka, sacred to Krishna. Sunken ruins lie off the coast, but it is difficult to match the date of the archeology (1700 or 1800 BC) to the Indian traditional date of 3100 BC when ancient legend holds that Dwarka became submerged and Krishna's death commenced the kali yuga. Ruins dating to and before that time are found only in deeper water. Hancock and NIO divers also explored a mysterious U-shaped masonry structure at a depth of 23 meters, 5 km off Poompuhar in the Bay of Bengal. Inundation maps suggest that it would have been submerged about 11,000 years ago. Subsidence may account for this object's extreme depth, but without further research its origin, location, and purpose remain a mystery. Hancock also investigates the myth of Kumari Kandam, an antediluvian civilization said to have existed thousands of years ago around south India. It is believed to have been a great center of learning with magnificent academies which may have left a legacy of cartographic and astronomical knowledge which exists today in the ancient Indian texts. Interestingly, the author spoke to local fishermen who described often diving to free their nets caught on underwater temples with columns, pyramidal pagodas, and buildings with doorways.
 In the Postscript are details of the remarkable find in May 2001 of what looks like two underwater cities, one extending for 9 km underneath the Gulf of Cambay in North West India at depths of between 25 and 40 meters and at distances of up to 40 km from shore. Detected using side-scan sonar, the images produced reveal clear foundations to geometrical structures and walls rising 3 meters above the sea bed. Both cities lie along the courses of ancient rivers, and remains of a suspected 600 meter long dam have been discovered. Man-made artifacts have been retrieved by dredging, including what may be jewelry, stone tools, pottery, and figurines which carbon dating indicate are 9,500 years old. Inundation maps give the date of submergence as between 7,700 and 6,900 years ago, but the cities and culture that built them are likely to be considerably older.
Another flooded kingdom Underworld explores is Malta. Among the many ruined monuments are the underground Hypogeum and the Gigantija, Hagar Qim, and Mnajdra temples. Conventional wisdom puts their construction somewhere between 5,600 and 4,500 years ago. All the temples contain massive stone blocks, weighing some 15 tons or more, and are thought to be the earliest free-standing stone monuments in the world. Mnajdra is a solar temple with accurate solar alignments incorporated into its design. The size and sophistication of these temples would imply that their architects and builders had long experience with such structures. It is generally accepted that man appeared on Malta somewhere between 5,200 and 7,200 years ago (when it was an island) and developed its culture gradually. The problem with these chronologies is that there is no archeological evidence on the relatively small island of Malta of "civilization history" documenting ever more sophisticated construction techniques.
Anomalies surrounding many Maltese land and underwater temples, and a series of man-made grooves called "cart-ruts" cut into limestone bedrock on land and under water, all point to a mystery: who built these features and when? Malta is too isolated and small as it is now to have supported and sustained their development and construction. A solution lies in the inundation maps, which show islands of the Maltese archipelago connected to Sicily by a land bridge until 16,400 years ago, allowing settlers to arrive at Malta. The land bridge narrowed and eventually became submerged, leaving one large island which was finally inundated 10,600 years ago to leave the present group of Maltese islands. The inundation is undisputed by scholars; however, the chronology of settlement and its circumstances are. Hancock offers an alternative hypothesis: that there was a very long process of cultural development going on before and during the inundation on what is now Malta and the lands now submerged around the Maltese coast, with the rising sea covering up a large amount of evidence of a much larger civilization than current academic thinking allows.
Curiously, the large island that formed as the Maltese land bridge drowned is featured on some maps drawn in the 1400s, and referred to as Gaulometin or Galonia leta, but it is the wrong shape and geographically misplaced, which is at odds with the usually accurately-represented Mediterranean region. Hancock suggests that what have previously been deemed by cartographic scholars as coastline and island-group inaccuracies around the world may actually be accurate accounts of coastlines belonging to epochs before and during the Ice Age meltdown period. It is well known that most medieval mapmakers were copyists reproducing older maps. Some older maps -- for example, those of Ptolemy -- were originally researched and drawn at the Library of Alexandria in Egypt. The author asks, "is it possible that he . . . was drawing on antediluvian sources," as it is known that Ptolemy based his maps on those of the Phoenician Marinus of Tyre, who in turn drew on even earlier mapmakers for inspiration.
Continuing an investigation of ancient maps from Fingerprints of the Gods, Hancock argues that mapmaking was a tradition in the ancient world which over the millennia up to Ptolemy's time, rather than undergoing refinement, may have been in a state of "decline, degradation and accumulated errors introduced by many different hands into a far older and once superior map-making tradition" (p. 469). Certainly the new science of inundation mapping has opened up research possibilities. For example, the Reinal map of 1510 appears to show the west coast of India as it looked more than 15,000 years ago as well as islands which existed 11,500 years ago that are under water today. Hancock demonstrates Marco Polo's belief that Ceylon was once connected to India, was one third larger in the past, and was submerged. He examines the relationship between the Irish folk legend of Hy-Brasil off the west coast of Ireland, said to have been submerged thousands of years ago, its position on medieval maps, and an area called Porcupine Bank which was exposed land 21,000 years ago. Using inundation and medieval map comparisons, he suggests that the fabled islands of Antilia and Satanaze are really Taiwan and Japan as they looked 12,500 years ago. In summary he writes:
I propose that the consistent patterns of map anomalies that we have documented -- from Hy-Brasil to India to Japan -- bear mute witness to an ancient science of cartography and navigation that explored the world and charted it accurately over a period of several thousand years during the post-glacial meltdown. -- p. 669
Hancock's complementary land investigation led him to encounter the Japanese Jomon people in an attempt to unravel the mysteries of four Japanese underwater sites: Yonaguni, Kerama, Aguni, and Chatan. It is unclear whether any of these sites are man made, although a case for human intervention is well presented in Underworld. The Jomon seem to have emerged suddenly in Japan around 16,500 years ago, as dating of their pottery attests. Archeology shows they had good architectural and building knowledge (incorporating astronomical alignment designs) as well as developed spiritual ideas and religious practices. The Jomon were not wiped out by invading peoples but merged seamlessly, it appears, with another migrating culture known only as the "Yagoi." Today's Japanese culture is the descendent of this ancient cultural merging, which implies that the Jomon culture and its ideas still live on. The underwater ruins exemplify a hitherto unknown and perhaps extraordinary phase in their history.
















Iseki Point, Yonaguni
Japan was not covered by an ice cap, had naturally precipitous coastlines and few low-lying plains, meaning that it largely escaped the ravages of the Ice Age cataclysms. If Japanese mythology is grounded in the myth-memories of the Jomon, it is not surprising that Japan has no indigenous flood myth. Underworld presents the idea that the Jomon lost their "beachfront" properties only, including coastal temples and other sacred and functional sites that now lie 30 meters under water. The recurring Japanese myth of the Kingdom of the Sea King connects closely with Japan's undersea ruins in two ways: that of the kingdom remembered as an island, and as an underwater sanctuary of walls, palaces, and mansions. In Hancock's words,
 "could it be a memory that great structures with 'turrets and tall towers of exceeding beauty' once stood above water but are now beneath waves?" (p. 594).
 The travelogue style of Underworld allows Graham Hancock to connect on a human level with the reader and to expose the many barriers to his work, such as bureaucracy and the lack of marine archeological reference material pertaining to underwater monuments. There are many examples cited of mainstream science skimming over important demonstrable facts and misrepresenting evidence relating to and synergizing mythology, religious and spiritual philosophy, astronomy, archeology, geology, and physics, for the purpose of keeping the established textbook theories of human and planetary evolution alive. Underworld challenges orthodoxy with well-thought-out arguments, in a warm, down-to-earth, and ever-optimistic although sometimes healthily skeptical mood, and the reader is often reminded that it is written not by an expert but by an investigative journalist who is not putting forth new dogmas but simply presenting the growing body of evidence that human history on this planet is much more complex than, and vastly different from, what was previously understood. Important, eclectic, and vast in scope, Underworld represents what the author appeals for in its closing pages: "research, research and more research," for the purpose of getting closer to finding our true origins.
(From Sunrise magazine, April/May 2003; copyright © 2003 Theosophical University Press)

Monday, April 12, 2010

New Update Mini Stroke or Ear Infection -- MIR this AM

Went this AM for the MRI, they also did an MRA and ANOTHER fasting blood test. The MRI/MRA was facinating. First time I've ever done it. They put you on a table and put headphones over your ears, she asked what music I wanted, I of course said Rockabilly, but the best they had was late 50's early 60's rock and roll, oh well, finally a framework goes over your head and shoulders. Then you're slid you into a chamber, and it starts, They tell you not to move. I remember thinking this is what it's like inside a jackhammer. But, once you're used to it it's kind of peaceful. I was in there about 30 minutes or so, didn't move at least I don't think I did. I meditated on a blue line that ran right in front of me, lengthwise along the top of the tunnel. When it was over went and got blood drawn, fun, fun, fun...
The neurologist Dr Johnson called me at home, so I figure it's possibly bad even though she played it down, otherwise why would she call personally. She said she looked at the MRI, and it wasn't a stroke, that was the good news, so now ear infection, brain tumor, MS, and stroke have all been pretty much eliminated. But the bad news was that while the MRI was ok, the MRA wasn't. Apparently there's an artery or vein that goes to the back of the brain. She said that it didn't appear to be allowing the blood through as it should. So now I have to have what's called a CT Angiogram I think she said. They inject dye into the blood and follow it with a CT. If that's the problem, she said it requires an operation, meaning I guess they open up my head.
So that's where it stands until they scedule the test and I go for another CT. It is interesting, and I said earlier even this is better that it having been MS, even this can be fixed, MS can't. So I figure I'm still ahead....

Lee Murray

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Self Realization Fellowship in Fullerton

I noticed that my blog had been visited by someone at the Self Realization Fellowship, I feel honored. I remember briefly, (two or three visits during meditation), attending the temple on Chapman and Harbor in 1970. Just back in California, I was living at a boarding house just down the street across from the FJC library.
I'd just read the Autobiography of a Yogi. It was one of the things that greatly influenced me, starting me in the direction I've gone. Paramahansa Yogananda was a great man. I still have the book, thirty som years later...  Unfortunately at that time, I was young, 22 or 23, new to this, and expecting more than I found, and not finding it.  Kind of like going to a church service and expecting it to be like when Jesus preached.  
So I stopped going. Sometimes over the years I regretted it, thinking I'd lost an opportunity. Very similar to the feeling I have about leaving the Rosicrutians some years later.  Back then I had the feeling that I could learn on my own faster and better, and didn't need the restrictions that seemed to be a big part of these organizations, do this, don't do that. I didn't realize then, finding out the hard way in some cases, that those restrictions are usually there for a reason. Yes, I've made some progress, yes, I've learned, but have I learned all I might have, probably not.  Hopefully I'll do better next time.

Lee Murray

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Hatha Yoga - Techniques That Have Been Alleged to Make You Healthier for Eons

Due to a question asked by a reader, as well as my recent health problems, I'm re-reading The Hatha Yoga Pradipike. Through my twenties the Hatha asanas were increasingly difficult, finally to the point of abandonment, I think at 62 with heart problems, the techniques are probably way too much for me, but they may help someone else. So here they are: Pranayama, and the six karmans that should precede for those in poor condition, like me.  I've always thought that assanas should be unnecessary to doing pranayama, but maybe not, it's never taught that way, that I was aware of anyway. Keep in mind that like any Yoga exercise, these seem simple enough and easy, but they can be dangerous, possibly fatal, and unless you're already experienced and have been trained by a qualified teacher, you should not move forward with these, or any other yoga exercises, until you find a qualified teacher. For what it's worth, I spent years in my late teens and twenties doing yoga, Raja and Hatha, but left it behind as life got more complicated, today even with that experience I wouldn't consider doing Pranyama, by myself.
This book, drawn on his own experience and older, now probably lost works, was written in the 1500's by an Indian Yogi named Svatmarama. This is an English translation from the Sanskrit by Brian Akers, and published by YogaVidya.com, at whose website you will find a downloadable PDF copy, of course it's not the whole book. You can also buy at book stores, (I think I bought mine at Barnes and Noble), or at Amazon.com. For it's size, it's not cheap at around 25. US, but for the knowlege alone it's worth many times that, if you use the techniques to regain, or improve your health, it's priceless.

Chapter Two
Pranayama


After mastering asanas the yogi possessing self control and eating a suitable moderate diet should practice pranayama as taught by his Guru.
When the breath is unsteady, the mind is unsteady. When the breath is steady, and the yogi becomes steady. Therefore one should restrain the breath.
As long as there is breath in the body, there is life. Death is the departure of breath. Therefore one should restrain the breath.
When the nadis are dirupted by impurities, the breath doesn't enter the middle (the Sushumna). How can umani exist? How can the goal be attained?
The yogi is fit to control the prana only when all the nadis disrupted by impurities become pure.
Therefore always do pranayama with a sattvik mind so that impurities in the Sushumna nadi attain purity.
The yogi having assumed Padmasana should inhale prana with the moon (the left nostril or Ida), After holding as long as possible, he should exhale with the sun, (the right nostril or Pingala).
He should fill the interior slowly by inhaling prana with the sun. After holding in the prescribed manner, he should exhale with the moon.
He should inhale through the one with which he exhaled, hold with effort, then exhale slowly and without force through the other.
If prana is inhaled through the Ida and retained, it should be exhaled through the other.  If the breath is inhaled through the Pingala and retained, it should be exhaled through the left. The nadis of yogi's who regularly practice in this manner of sun and moon become pure after three months.
Gradually increase the kumbhakas to eighty four times a day - morning, midday, evening, and midnight.
In the beginning there will be sweat, in the middle there will be trembling. In the end one obtains the goal. Therefore one should restrain the breath.
Rub the body with water born of fatigue to make it firm and light.
Food containing milk and ghee is recommended for the initial phase of practice.  The adoption of such a rule is unnecessary after one's practice is established.
Just as the lion, elephant, or tiger is tamed step by step, so the breath is controlled. Otherwise it kills the practitioner.
Correct pranayama will weaken all diseases. Improper practice of Yoga will strengthen all diseases.
Irritation of the breath causes hiccups, asthma, coughing, headaches, earaches, pain in the eyes, and various diseases.
Exhale the breath very properly. Inhale it very properly. Retain it very properly. Thus one obtains success.
External signs appear when the nadis are pure. The body will definitely be lean and bright.
Retention of the breath as desired, stimulationof the digestion, manifestation of the nada, and good health come from purifying the nadis.
One having too much fat and phlegm should first do the six karmans. But one who doesn't need, not do them since his humors are equable.
These are the six karmans: Dhauti, Vasti, Neti, Trataka, Nauli, and Kapalabhati.
These six karmans - purifying the body, producing remarkable qualities - are to be given only to the worthy. They are honored by the best yogi's
Slowly swallow a wet cloth which is four fingers wide and fifteen hands long in the manner instructed by one's Guru. Draw it out again. This is called Dhautikarman.
Coughing, asthma, enlargement of the spleen, leprosy, and twenty other phlegm diseases vanish because of the power of Dhautikarman. In this there is no doubt.
Assume Utkatasana in water as deep as the navel. Insert a tube into the anus. Contract the anus. This cleansing is Vastikarman.
Enlargements of the glands, spleen, and abdomen - and all diseases arising from wind, bile, and phlegm - perish due to the power of Vastikarman.
Vastikarman in the water, when regularly practiced gives clarity to the body constituents, the senses, and the mind. It gives luster to the body, stimulates the gastric fire, and eliminates all defects.
Insert a very smooth thread nine inches long into a nasal passage and withdraw it from the mouth. This is called Neti by the masters.
Purifier of the skull and giver of divine sight, Neti quickly destroys the flood of diseases originating above the collarbone.
Gaze with motionless eyes and concentration at a minute point until tears flow. This is called Trataka by gurus.
Trataka removes eye diseases. It is a closed door to lethargy and so on. Strive to keep it secret  - as if it were a gold box.
Lower the shoulders. Revolve the stomach left and right with the speed of a strong whirlpool. This is called Nauli by the masters.
This Nauli is the crown of Hatha practices. It kindles a weak gastric fire, restores the digestion, etc., always brings happiness, and dries up all defects and diseases.
With fat, phlegm, diseases, impurities, etc., removed by the six karmans, one should do pranayama. One will succeed without strain.
"All impurities dry up by pranayama alone."  Speaking thusly the other karmans are not approved of by some teachers.
Those who have the nadis under control from gradual practice raise the apana wind in the esophogus and vomit the stomach's contents. This is called Gajakarani by knowers of Hatha.
Even Brama and other gods engaged in pranayama because they feared death.  Therefore one should practice pranayama.

As long as the breath is retained in the body, as long as the mind is calm, and as long as the sight is in the middle of the brows, where is the fear of death?
The breath splits open the mouth of the Sushumna and enters easily once all the nadis are purified by restraining prana correctly.
Steadiness of mind is born when the breath moves in the middle. This state of mental steadiness is manonmani.
Those knowing the procedures do various kumbhakas to achieve it. From the practice of various kumbhakas, one obtains various powers.
These are the eight kumbhakas: Suryabhedana, Ujjayi, Sitkari, Shitali, Bhastrika, Bhramari, Murccha, and Plavini.
A bandha named Jalandhara is to be done at the end of inhalation. Uddiiyana is to be done at the end of kumbhaka and the beginning of exhalation.
The prana will enter the Brahma nadi when contraction of the throat, contraction beneath, and retraction in the middle are done.
Having raised the apana upwards, the yogi should guide the prana below the throat. Being liberated from old age, he will be a youth of sixteen.
Form an asana on a comforable seat. Slowly draw in outside air, through the right nadi.
Form the kumbhaka to the limit - from the hair to the toenails. Exhale the breath very slowly through the left nadi.
This most excellent Suryabhedana is to be done again and again. It cleanses the skull, destroys the wind diseases, and removes worm diseases.
Close the mouth. Slowly draw the breath through both nadis so it resonates from the throat to the heart. Form the kumbhaka as before. Exhale the prana through the Ida.
This kumbhaka called Ujjayi can be done walking or standing. It removes phlegm diseases in the throat, increases digestive power in the body, and destroys dropsy and diseases of the nadis and of all bodily constituents.
Inhale making the sound "seet" in the mouth, then exhale only through the nose. By engaging in this practice one becomes a second God of Love.
Respected by all yoginis, maker of creation and destruction, neither hunger nor thirst, nor sleep, nor even lethargy will appear.
The Sitkari will develop the body's vitality. The Lord of Yogis will be completely free of all disabilities on earth.
Draw in air with the tongue. Practice kumbhaka as before. Slowly exhale the air through the nostrils.
This kumbhaka named Shitali destroys enlargement of the glands or spleen, other diseases, fever, bile, hunger, thirst, and poisons.
Place both clean soles of the feet above the thighs. This is Padmasana, destroyer of all evils.
Form Pa\dmasana correctly, neck and belly aligned.  Close the mouth. Expel the prana through the nose so it resonates in the heart, throat, and up to the skull. Then quickly inhale air up to the lotus of the heart (the Anahata Chakra).
Exhale and inhale in the above manner again and again. Just as a blacksmith works the bellows with speed, move the breath in ones own body with the will.
When there is fatigue in the body, inhale though the sun and quickly fill the belly with air. Hold the nose firmly without the middle and indeex fingers. Do kumbhaka in the prescribed manner. Exhale through the Ida.
This removes diseases of the wind, bile, and phlegm. It increases the fire in the body and awakens the kundalini quickly. It purifies, gives pleasure, and is beneficial. It destroys the obstructions of phlegm, etc., that exist at the mouth of the Brahma nadi.
This kumbhaka called Bhastrika is to be done with great regularity. It splits the three strong knots that form in the body.
A quick and resonant inhalation sounding like a bee; a very slow exhalation sounding like a female bee. Thus a certain bliss and delight are born in the minds of good yogis from doing Bhramari.
At the end of inhalation, hold Jalandhara tightly and slowly exhale. This one named Murccha clears the mind and gives happiness.
Move a large amount of air inside, filling the belly. Float happily like a lotus leaf, even in bottomless water. This is Plavini.
Pranayama is said to be of three kinds: exhalation, inhalation, and kumbhaka. Kumbhaka is thought to be of two kinds - Sahita and Kevala. Until such time as Kevala is mastered, one should practice Sahita.
Abandon exhalation and inhalation. Hold the breath comfortably. This pranayama is the one called Kevalakumbhaka.
Nothing in the three worlds is hard to win by one who masters Kevalakumbhaka without exhalation, or inhalation.
One made powerful by Kevalakumbhaka, from holding the breath as desired, obtains even the state of Raja Yoga. In this there is no doubt.
Through kumbhaka the kundalini is awakened. Through awakening the kundalini, the Sushumna is unblocked - and success in Hatha is born.
Raja Yoga will not be complete without Hatha, nor Hatha without Raja Yoga. Therefore practice the pair to perfection.
Make the mind without objects at the end of the retention of the prana in kumbhaka. One should reach the state Raja Yoga by engaging in this practice.
These are indicators of success in Hatha: leanness of body, clearness of face, distinctness of nada, very clear eyes, health, victory over bindu, lighting of the digestive fire, and purity of the nadis.

Thus ends the Second Chapter of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika....

Let me end by saying that while I considered myself unsuccessful in yoga, I did have when I quit, many of the indicators of health, I was thin, clear skin, bright eyes, healthy, the others I don't know. So I think it does work, even in my forties people guessed my age as in the twenties. I have from my mid fifties on started to show my true age and lose my health. As decribed in other posts I have recently been hit hard, just before my 62nd birthday, and according to the Dr. I was born with the small hole found in my heart, but never had a problem or even knew it was there until now. I never saw a Dr., except for removing tonsils, and TB xrays as a kid, then for broken ankles, and a hernia repair, since my teen years. I do attribute that to doing Yoga, (and meditation, which I never stopped), if I had kept it up, and been successful perhaps I could have been on the level described in this book, I know it does happen.  We've all heard the stories.
As I said earlier, get a teacher before you do this, if you don't have one....

Lee Murray




Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Update on Mini-Stroke??? Ear Infection???

To recap briefly, 12/11/09 cooking bacon and changing light bulb under hood on stove. Got dizzy, light headed, nauseous and threw up. A couple days later skin on right side of face went shot of novocain numb, and couldn't swallow except with difficulty choking easily. Since I wrote the original post on 1/16/10 there have been changes, improvements, different diagnosis'...
To start the difficulty swallowing and choking on food finally pretty much went away around the end of January. The numb skin is better, less but still numb. It starts at the nape of my neck, comes over my head down my face through the nose to my chin. My head is split right through the middle, right side numb, the left side normal.  I got several opinions from friends that it was a TIA, a stroke, a brain tumor...
I broke down and got medical Insurance, and found it incredibly difficult to find a doctor.  I had a list from the insurance company and called them. Nobody was taking new patients. Finally one considered taking me on, so I filled out a bunch of paperwork about two or three weeks ago, and they finally called two days ago with an appointment the end of this month, on the 28th. It's nice to see the medical profession doing so well that they don't need, or want, new customers (patients).  Anyway, tired of waiting, I went to the hospital in Hamilton last week. Everyone was very nice, I saw the ER doctor, after talking to me and doing a cat scan and blood tests, he came back and said not to over-react, but they had found several ???? infarctions in the pictures of my brain. That he didn't  think it was a stroke or a brain tumor, that based on the infarctions it might be MS. That I should make an appointment with the Neurologist, get a MIR which will give better pictures, and not to worry... Right, don't worry.
So I called, made an appointment, and saw the Neurologist yesterday. After talking to me, doing some simple tests, watching me walk, etc. She told me that in her opinion, it wasn't MS, that I'd had one or more TIA's. She'd looked at the pictures from the CT scan and it was too unclear to say what the problem was for sure.
So I'm now taking more tests, before I left the hospital I had two ultra sounds, one of the arteries in my neck, and one of my heart. The one of my heart showed a possible small hole, I think she said in the atria wall, which if it's there, could possibly have allowed a clot to pass through, maybe causing the ATI, if that's what happened to me.  The MIR is being set up, who knows what else. So far they've told me to keep taking the baby aspirin, which I prescribed myself in December when this started.
So now I go back today for more tests, some kind of bubble test ultra sound, and to see a cardiologist.  The good news is it's a heart problem. As I said to a friend, a heart problem can be fixed, MS can't, so I'll take a heart problem. So that's where I'm at now

Monday, April 5, 2010

2012 Fact or Fiction???

Just a short post to ask what you think about the hysterics about 2012? Dozens of books, websites galore, and TV shows coming out my ears, all talking about the Mayan Long Count Calender, the various disasters, the others that have made similar or the same predictions. Personally I think the best thing that could happen for the planet is the elimination of humanity, or at the least a serious thinning of the herd, but hey, that's just me, no big deal.  There is supposed to be a galactic alignment and other stuff that may create some problems.
But, what do you think, 2012 is the end of the world or age, OR another Y2K with lots of noise, worry, and then a big nothing?

Lee Murray

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Another article about the Ancient City discovered offshore in western India

I'm posting this article without further comment, it says anything I might add as well or better than I could.

This article on the incredibly ancient sunken city recently found off the gulf of Cambay in India was published through courtesy of the author Linda Moulton Howe of www.earthfiles.com , an excellent site where this article and many others on relative topics can be found.


Sunken City Off India Coast - 7500 B. C.?
© 2002 by Linda Moulton Howe

The underwater archaeological site that could be more than 9,000 years old is about 30 miles west of Surat in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) in northwestern India.

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February 16, 2002 Surat, India - A month ago in mid-January, marine scientists in India announced they had sonar images of square and rectangular shapes about 130 feet down off the northwestern coast of India in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay). Not only are their sonar shapes with 90-degree angles, the Indian Minister of Science and Technology ordered that the site be dredged. What was found has surprised archaeologists around the world and was the subject of a private meeting two weeks ago attended by the Indian Minister in charge of investigating the underwater site about thirty miles off the coast from Surat.

An American who traveled to that private meeting was Michael Cremo, researcher in the history of archaeology for the Bhakti Vedanta Institute in India and author of the book Forbidden Archaeology. I talked with him today in India about the dredging operation, what the ocean engineers found and the implications of first carbon dating of artifacts at more than 9,000 years.

Interview

Michael Cremo, Researcher of Ancient Archaeology and Author, Forbidden Archaeology: "Within the past few months, the engineers began some dredging operations there and they pulled up human fossil bones, fossil wood, stone tools, pieces of pottery and many other things that indicated that it indeed was a human habitation site that they had. And they were able to do more intensive sonar work there and were able to identify more structures. They appeared to have been laid out on the bank of a river that had been flowing from the Indian subcontinent out into that area.
According to the news releases, they have done a radiocarbon testing on a piece of wood from the underwater site that is now yielding an age of 9,500 years which would place it near the end of the last Ice Age.
Yes, those are the indications that are coming. There were actually two radiocarbon dates: one about 7500 years old and another about 9500 years old. The 9500 year old one seems to be the strongest one. That's the one they are going with. This was announced by Minister Joshi (Murli Manohar Joshi is Indian Minister for Ocean Technology) at this meeting I attended in Hyderabad, India. He said there is going to be more work going on. It's difficult because it's very difficult to see down there. There is a very swift current. So, it's going to have to be a pretty massive effort, but he said the government of India is willing to put the resources behind it to do whatever it takes to further confirm these discoveries.
I also spoke in Hyderabad with an independent archaeologist not connected with the Indian government, but who has a deep interest in these discoveries and he says they are still going to have to send divers down there. Up to this point, they have not sent divers down. The information they have is based on the sonar readings and the dredging they have done. Eventually, they are going to have to find a way to get people down there to take a closer look at this. I think this effort is going to go on.
Now, another American archaeologist, Richard Meadows of Harvard University, is proposing there should be an international effort here. On the surface that sounds like a good idea, but it also may be an effort of American archaeologists and others to control the project. I don't think they want to see a civilization being as old as it appears to be according to these new finds at 9500 years ago. So, I would hope the Indian archaeologists and government would be very cautious about letting outsiders in there who might have a different agenda and who might try to control what gets let out about this very important discovery. It could be quite revolutionary.

Cultural Background of People At Underwater Site?

Even if we don't know what the cultural background of the people is, if it does happen to be a city that is 9500 years old, that is older than the Sumerian civilization by several thousand years. It is older than the Egyptian, older than the Chinese. So it would radically affect our whole picture of the development of urban civilization on this planet.
Now, if it further happens that additional research is able to identify the culture of the people who lived in that city that's now underwater. If it turns out they are a Vedic people - which I think is quite probable given the location of this off the coast of India - I think that would radically change the whole picture of Indian history which has basically been written by western archaeologists.
India's Vedic Culture - Was It Really Older Than 3500 Years?


The most archaic Sanskrit (Devanagari) is that of the Vedas, multiple books written in thousands of hymns and verses arranged in song cycles. The Vedas say that "God-men" brought Sanskrit to Earth men as a language of musical tones. Above on the left is a comparison of the numerals 1 through 10 in Devanagari Sanskrit compared to Arabic. On the right are some examples of Devanagari vowels and diphthongs. Sources: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition © 1993 and Sanskrit Keys to the Wisdom Religion © 1968 by Judith Tyberg.
Ever since the 19th Century, there has been a huge debate about the actual history of India. When the Europeans first came there, they noticed that the people in India who had the Sanskrit language as the main language of their literature - they noticed that the European languages were similar (in word concepts), so that meant the Europeans and East Indians had to be related. The 19th Century scientists also noticed that the Sanskrit culture or Vedic culture, as it is sometimes called after the ancient Indian literature, Vedas, which means knowledge. So sometimes the ancient Indian culture is called the Vedic culture or Vedic civilization. The literature is called the Vedic literature. So, the scientists noticed that it appeared to be older than the European cultures. Since the European languages were related to the Indian language Sanskrit of the Vedas that could only mean that the European peoples had to have come out of India somehow and then gone to Europe with their languages that differentiated into Russian, English, Spanish, German and the rest of them. The European investigators didn't like that idea because it would have given the Vedic culture a position superior to their own. So, these early cities in the Indus Valley like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro have been identified by archaeologists such as Richard Meadows and others as being non-Vedic. They think the Vedic culture came into India maybe 3500 years ago.
Isn't that inconsistent with the concept of the Vedas of the Krishna character who comes and says the universe is teeming with life and appears to have knowledge about other habitations in the cosmos and is talking from an age that would go back at least 9,500 years?
Oh, absolutely, Linda. In these ancient Sanskrit writings, there is no hint at all that the culture came from anywhere else.
And if they are the prime source and if the Vedic literature can be taken literally, then it implies that there were cities there inhabited at least several thousand years ago.
Yes, and there has been other research going on in that area. For example, the Rg Veda, which is one of the earliest Vedic literatures, talks about a mighty river called the Saraswati that flowed from the Himalayan mountains down to the Arabian Sea, down in that area of northwestern India. And such a river doesn't exist there today. So, what happened is that people thought therefore the Rg Veda cannot be talking about India. It has to be talking about some other place outside of India where there was some kind of river.
But what happened that is quite interesting a few years ago is that archaeologists in India started studying the satellite photographs from American satellites like LANDSAT had been providing and they noticed there was a dry river channel that began up in the Himalayas, a huge river that went down almost to that Bay of Khambaht (Cambay) we are talking about (the location of the underwater city site). And then later, they found that on the banks of that river there were 800 to 1000 urban sites, archaeological sites.
So, it does appear that what the Rg Veda was talking about, a mighty river lined with cities in India over 5,000 years ago - that has to be true. The last time that river had water in it was over 5,000 years ago?
Is there a possibility that there could have been some sort of non-human co-habitation on the continent of India let's say 50,000 years ago that could explain all of the Vedas?
Yes. In Kashmir, the valley of Kashmir, it appears it was many years ago a lake. Now, there is an ancient Sanskrit manuscript that tells of a lake that existed in that area, so that account is there in some ancient writings. Now, according to modern geological reporting, about 40,000 years ago Kashmir was indeed a lake in the valley of Kashmir in northern India. It was covered by a huge lake and it was blocked on the southern end by a little range of mountains. And at a certain point, something happened and it broke open and the lake drained out. That happened about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. So, it is interesting that you've got this ancient historical record that talks about this lake. And if it is to be taken literally, then it means that somebody must have seen this lake as it existed 50,000 years ago and wrote about it."

More Information

Harappan Civilization (ca. 3000 - 1500 B.C.)

Until the recent Bay of Khambaht discovery, one of the oldest, advanced urban centers in India investigated by archaeologists is Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in present day Pakistan along the Indus River. Will anything in the Bay of Khambaht discovery resemble the structures of the very ancient and mysterious Harappan Civilization?

Harappa archaeology dig in Indus River valley showing heights and depths of structures, many built on mounds 3500 years ago. Source: North Park University, Chicago, Illinois.

Excavated walls of a Harappan urban city, one of the most mysterious cultures of the ancient Indian world more than 3,000 years ago. The people were literate and used the Dravidian Sanskrit language, only part of which has been deciphered today. The artifacts from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley of Pakistan are extraordinary in beauty and detail. Source: North Park University, Chicago, Illinois.

Some Details from Harappan Urban Sites:

Mysterious white rings made of brick dot the landscape where Harappan people lived, but archaeologists do not know the function. One guess is platforms for spreading and drying of grains. Source: North Park University, Chicago, Illinois.

The first objects unearthed from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were small stone seals inscribed with elegant depictions of animals, including a unicorn-like figure in upper left, and marked with Indus script writing which still baffles scholars. These seals are dated back to 2500 B. C. Source: North Park University, Chicago, Illinois.

This seal is a close-up of the unicorn-like animal found in Mohenjo-daro, measures 29mm (1.14 inches) on each side and is made of heated Steatite. "Steatite is an easily carved soft stone that becomes hard after firing. On the top are four pictographs of an as yet undeciphered Indus script, one of the first writing systems in history." Image source Dept. of Archaeology and Museums, Govt. of Pakistan..

Book: Forbidden Archaeology by Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson

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Credits
Copyright © 2002 Linda Moulton Howe
All Rights Reserved.





Friday, April 2, 2010

Nine Hours to Rama - The Murder of Mahatma Gandhi - A movie - A Life

An excerpt from a Wikipedia Article on the Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Assassination
The Martyr's Column at the Gandhi Smriti, (Birla House), the spot where Gandhi was assassinated.After the failed attempt at Birla House, Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte returned to Pune via Mumbai (Bombay). With the help of Dr. Dattatraya Parchure and Gangadhar Dandavate, Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte purchased a Beretta Semi-automatic firearm and eleven rounds of ammunition at Gwalior and reached Delhi on January 29, 1948, checking into the Retiring room No. 6 at Delhi Railway Station. On January 30, 1948, at 5:17 p.m., Nathuram Godse got close enough to Mahatma Gandhi and shot him three times in his chest at point-blank range.
Shri Dharam Jit Jigyasu gave an account of the events to Muni Jaitly, his grandson, in 2000. He was standing next to the assassin, Nathuram Godse, when all who were present kneeled before Gandhi to greet him.
Godse shot Gandhi three times. Dharam Jit Jigyasu heard Gandhi utter the words, "Hai [Oh] ... Hai ... Hai " as he hit the ground
Controversy over last words
The last word(s) uttered by Mahatma Gandhi are still a matter of debate. Venkita Kalyanam, former personal assistant to Mr. Gandhi, said that he was present at the spot and that Gandhi said "oh God".
...suddenly a man, who was later identified as Nathu Ram Godse took steps out of the crowd and fired three shots at Mahatma. Bullets hit him on the stomach and chest. Mahatma fell down saying Ram-Ram...
– Nand Lal Mehta, in the First Information Report recorded on January 30, 1948, at 9.45 p.m.
In the First Information Report[4] there is no statement that any doctor was called. There has been no explanation of why he was not rushed to hospital and was instead taken to Birla House, where he died later.
Conspirators
Nathuram Vinayak Godse
Narayan Dattatraya Apte
Vishnu Ramkrishna Karkare
Madanlal Kashmirilal Pahwa
Shankar Kistaiya
Gopal Vinayak Godse
Digambar Ramchandra Badge
Dattatraya Sadashiv Parchure
Gangadhar Dandavate
Gangadhar Jadhao
Suryadeo Sharma
Z

End

Second exerpt from Wikipedia (a different Article)

On 30 January 1948, Gandhi was shot while he was walking to a platform from which he was to address a prayer meeting. The assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a Hindu nationalist with links to the extremist Hindu Mahasabha, who held Gandhi responsible for weakening India by insisting upon a payment to Pakistan. Godse and his co-conspirator Narayan Apte were later tried and convicted; they were executed on 15 November 1949. Gandhi's memorial (or Samādhi) at Rāj Ghāt, New Delhi, bears the epigraph "Hē Ram", (Devanagari: हे ! राम or, He Rām), which may be translated as "Oh God". These are widely believed to be Gandhi's last words after he was shot, though the veracity of this statement has been disputed. Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the nation through radio:
"Friends and comrades, the light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere, and I do not quite know what to tell you or how to say it. Our beloved leader, Bapu as we called him, the father of the nation, is no more. Perhaps I am wrong to say that; nevertheless, we will not see him again, as we have seen him for these many years, we will not run to him for advice or seek solace from him, and that is a terrible blow, not only for me, but for millions and millions in this country." - Jawaharlal Nehru's address to Gandhi
Gandhi's ashes were poured into urns which were sent across India for memorial services. Most were immersed at the Sangam at Allahabad on 12 February 1948 but some were secretly taken away.  In 1997, Tushar Gandhi immersed the contents of one urn, found in a bank vault and reclaimed through the courts, at the Sangam at Allahabad. On 30 January 2008 the contents of another urn were immersed at Girgaum Chowpatty by the family after a Dubai-based businessman had sent it to a Mumbai museum. Another urn has ended up in a palace of the Aga Khan in Pune (where he had been imprisoned from 1942 to 1944) and another in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Los Angeles. The family is aware that these enshrined ashes could be misused for political purposes but does not want to have them removed because it would entail breaking the shrines.

End

Let me say, right in the beginning, I was born 10 days before Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi was murdered, on January 20, 1948, he was murdered on the 30th. I am neither Indian, nor Hindu, (but was a practicing Buddist for years of the 70's and retain much of that in my current life). I said that so that people would understand that I don't pretend to know everything, or anything, other than what I've read and believe, and that it's simply my opinion when I say with conviction, that the Mahatma was definitely a saint, in every sense of the word, even more he was possibly, probably, a savior on a level with Jesus, Budda, Mohammed, and many others of whom we know nothing.
I saw a movie today that I've watched probably fifty times since the first time I saw it, in my twenties. It was 9 hours to Rama. It is a fictionalized account of the nine hours (with flashbacks) leading up to the murder. I have excerpted above two Wikipedia accounts of the actual event.  But knowing the movie is fictional to a large degree, doesn't matter.  It still, every time I see it, brings tears to my eyes when the Mahatma is shot and falling, his murderer is struck with horror at what he's done, as Gandhi looks at him and says "I forgive you my brother.  Hey Ram..."  Nobody knows for sure, or if they do aren't telling, what he did or didn't say. All I know for sure is that a great, great soul left this world and went home.

Lee Murray