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.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

3/2012 Newest Update on Mini-Stroke??? Ear Infection??? Latest info again...again...again

Just to bring up to date, haven't seen a Dr. since moving to Calif., and feeling ok, pretty much. I took myself off the blood pressure and cholesterol meds, ie Lisinopril and Simvastatin. Did this around June 2011, and much of the dizziness went away. Yes I still have some balance issues, especially getting up quickly or getting out of bed, but can't remember a dizzy spell in a long time. So now I'm strictly on herbs, self prescribed of course :), I recently tried Fenugreek, an herb from India that based on what I read would help with heart and diabetic issues, but I think I'm not seeing any result and dropping it, we'll see.  Check these out for yourself, maybe they, or others, will help you with your medical problems.  I won't go into the problems with prescribed medication, beyond the fact that a great deal of it comes from herbs, I've mentioned my reaction to the two that were prescribed for me, if you watch the tv ads the list of dangerous side effects are long and scary. Which is not to say that Dr's prescribing these dangerous and harmful medications is wrong or evil, it's just that they're trained to do this, treating symptoms rather than the disease. I'm saying this badly, but check it out on line and see for yourself.

Here's what I'm using now:

Aspirin 325mg - Blood Thinner

Bitter Melon - Diabetes  (India)
Black Seed  - Diabetes (India)
Gymnemia Sylvestre - Diabetes (India)

Cinnamon - Blood Thinner, Diabetes, Cholesterol
Garlic - Blood Pressure, Cholesterol
Apple Cider Vinegar - Diabetes, Cholesterol, Heart, Clean Arteries

Fish Oil - Heart, Blood Pressure, Cholesterol
Ginkgo Bilboa - Memory, Circulation,
Ginseng - Diabetes, Circulation,
Kelp - Adds Iodine To System To Increase Thyroid Activity
B-Complex Vitamins
Centrum Vitamins

Just added:
Manganese  - A trace element
Fo-Ti (aka Ho Shou Wu) -  Cholesterol, Blood Pressure, Re-Grow/Re-Color Hair (China)
Cayenne Pepper -   Stop Heart Attacks, Heart, Clean Arteries, Heal Hemorrhoids, Ulcers, Circulation, Cholesterol

Considering:
Grape Seed Extract
Coconut Oil

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Despite Their Differences-This Man Was A Hero To Mahatma Gandhi - His Name Was Bal Gangadhar Tilak

Many of us, students of India, believe that the Mahatma was the first, that it was he that began the drive of the Indian people toward freedom from the misery of Britain's despotic rule. He wasn't the first, or the second, but from what I've read this singular man, the Lomanya Tilak, may well have been the first to demand freedom for his, and Mr. Gandhi's, people.  The British colonial authorities derogatorily called him "Father of the Indian unrest".
About two years after the death of Mr. Tilak, in 1922, when the Mahatma was about to be sentenced to prison, for 6 yrs, he said to the judge, "since you have done me the honor of recalling the trial of the late Lokmanya Gangadhar Tilak, I just want to say that I consider it the proudest privilege and honor to be associated with his name."  Mr. Tilak forged the use of passive resistance as a means of overthrowing British rule of India. He had earned the title of Lokmanya, meaning Beloved Leader of the People, when imprisoned by the British, in 1897 for seditious writings.
Mr. Tilak was a scholar of Indian history, Sanskrit, Hinduism, mathematics and astronomy. He was born on July 23, 1856, in a village near Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, into a middle class Chitpavan Brahmin family.  Mr. Tilak strongly criticized the government for its brutalism in suppression of free expression, especially in face of protests against the division of Bengal in 1905, and for denigrating India's culture, its people and heritage. He demanded the British immediately give the right to self-government to India's people.
But while Mr. Gandhi admired Mr. Tilak, even considered him a hero, he had to contend with Mr. Tilak being a critic of Mahatma Gandhi's strategy of non-violent, civil disobedience. Although once considered an extremist revolutionary, in his later years Mr. Tilak had considerably mellowed. He favored political dialogue and discussions as a more effective way to obtain political freedom for India, and did not support leaving the British Empire. However, Mr. Tilak is considered in many ways to have created the nationalist movement in India, by expanding the struggle for political freedoms and self-government to the common people of India. Mr. Tilak was considered the political and spiritual leader of India by many, and Mr. Gandhi is considered his successor. When Mr. Tilak died in 1920, Mr. Gandhi paid his respects at his cremation in Bombay, along with 200,000 people. Mr. Gandhi called Mr. Tilak "The Maker of Modern India".
The British authorities charged Mr. Tilak with sedition, but rather than an Indian prison, he was imprisoned from 1908 to 1914 in Mandalay, Burma. He re-joined the Indian National Congress in 1916 and getting back in the fight, helped found the All India Home Rule League in 1916-18 . He wrote many books on Indian culture, history and Hinduism like The Orion or Researches into the Vedas (1893), Arctic Home in the Vedas, Geetarahasya and others.  Mr. Tilak received Bachelor of Arts degree from The Deccan College, Pune in 1879 and L.L.B. from the Elphinston College, Mumbai in 1882. He was among the founders of the New English School, Pune (1881) of which Prof Chiplunkar became the Principal.
He had a genius for organisation. With Mr. Agarkar, the then foremost social reformist, he started the newspapers 'Kesari' and 'The Maratha' in 1881 and in 1890's. He started the annual celebration of 'ShivajiFestival' and 'Ganapati Festival' which served a platform for people to join in the nationalist movement against the British. Soon, regarded as the undisputed leader of Maharashtra he was honored with the title 'Lokamanya' in 1893 which became synonymous with him in the 1900's. As the nation fumed over the partition of Bengal (1905), Mr. Tilak assumed the national leadership, with his extremist attitude, and stated his position unequivocally as "Swarajya (self rule) is my birth right and I shall have it."  This apparently became his motto.
The next three years saw meteoric rise in his stature. The British powers which had long since considered him their chief concern, had sent him to prison twice already, and decided on a firmer measure. Much has been said of his trial of 1908. He utilized his time in prison in scholarly pursuits and wrote "GitaRahasya", a commentary on the Gita. He returned to Indian political scene in 1915. The political situation was fast changing under the shadow of World War I. Mahatma Gandhi's star was on rise with Satyagraha at Sabarmati in 1914.

The British charged Tilak in 1918. He fought those charges both in India and England, and was judged guilty. Amidst rumors of yet another sentence, he headed the Home-Rule commission in England to debate India's constitutional demands. By that time, Gandhi had made preparations of the first nation wide non-cooperation movement and, perhaps, it was to make way for Gandhi that Tilak left for England. Tilak was, probably, the only leader who could have put brakes on Gandhi. Both had conflicting approaches. Gandhi had the courage to address and solve the issue of untouchability once and forever. He, unlike Tilak, was a fluent speaker in Hindi and could thus reach the masses more easily. It is no secret that he had little respect for Tilak's real politic and Tilak hated adopting means which killed self pride of the masses. Whereas Gandhi preached, "Overcome hatred with love", Tilak pooh poohed moderates saying, "There is no empire lost by a free grant of concession by the rulers to the ruled." In both world wars, Gandhi encouraged Indians to fight for the British Empire unconditionally whereas Tilak held that if Indians were to remain slaves then it mattered little whether they joined army or not. The Mahatma was modern with novel methods. His was a welcome arrival both for the Moderates who needed an answer to the Extremists and Tilak, in particular, and the British who would rather acknowledge and have a saint as the foremost adversary.
Tilak's followers, Dadasaheb Khaparde and N.C. Kelkar being the most prominent among them, supported Gandhi but none could have his say in the new order. Aurobindo Ghosh had retired to an ascetic life and Savarkar was serving two life sentences in Andaman. The Lokamanya had no worthy successor. Tilak's health continued to deteriorate rapidly at end of July 1920 and he went delirious and was unconscious for 3 days. His last words in the final momentary recovery were, "This happened in 1818 (End of Peshwai) and this in 1918. A hundred years' history - what a life of servitude...Unless Swaraj is obtained, India shall not prosper. It is necessary for our very own existence."  Tilak tried to breathe life into the moribund nation through four mantras.


 
  • Boycott of foreign goods
  • National Education
  • Self Government
  • Swadeshi or self reliance.

He realized that mere protest against British rule was not going to help and insisted on native production and reliance. "We have no arms, but there is no necessity. But our strong political weapon is boycott (of foreign goods) Organize your powers and then go to work so that they cannot refuse you what you demand" - he told the masses. It's strange that somehow the British read treason in these words.

He wrote scathing articles over inhuman punishment meted out to the nationalist youth who protested the Division of Bengal (VangaBhanga). Indian newspapers were not to criticize the British policy in those days and two articles titled "Has the Government lost its head ?" and "To Rule is not to wreak vengeance" appearing in Kesari landed him in jail, after a namesake trial. For the first time in British history, intellectuals in England (including the great orientalist, Max Muller) were able to convince the Government that the trial was unfair. But the second time (1908) was no different. Tilak advocated his own case and when the judgment of six years of black-waters (kalapani) imprisonment was pronounced, he gave the famous statement: " All I wish to say is that in spite of the verdict of the jury, I maintain my innocence. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of men and nations. It may be the will of Providence that the cause I represent may prosper by suffering than by remaining free" At 52, a diabetic and ailing Tilak wrote his famous commentary "Geeta Rahasya" on Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred book of Hindus. He stressed that Gita taught action (karma), nothin g but action. Religion or spiritual message were secondary and the need of the hour was to arise and fight. This was Lord Krishna's message to Arjuna.
The following obituary was written by Gandhi after the death of Bal Gangadhar Tilak on August 1, 1920.

LOKMANYA


Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak is no more. It is difficult to believe of him as dead. He was so much part of the people. No man of our times had the hold on the masses that Mr. Tilak had. The devotion that he commanded from thousands of his countrymen was extraordinary. He was unquestionably the idol of his people. His word was law among thousands. A giant among men has fallen. The voice of the lion is hushed. What was the reason for his hold upon his countrymen? I think the answer is simple. His patriotism was a passion with him. He knew no religion but love of his country. He was a born democrat. He believed in the rule of majority with an intensity that fairly frightened me. But that gave him his hold. He had an iron will, which he used for his country. His life was an open book. His tastes were simple. His private life was spotlessly clean. He had dedicated his wonderful talents to his country. No man preached the gospel of swaraj with the consistency and the insistence of Lokamanya. His countrymen therefore implicitly believed in him. His courage never failed him. His optimism was irrepressible. He had hoped to see swaraj fully established during his lifetime. If he failed, it was not his fault. He certainly brought it nearer by many a year. It is for us, who remain behind, to put forth redoubled effort to make it a reality in the shortest possible time. Lokamanya was an implacable foe of the bureaucracy, but this is not to say that he was a hater of Englishmen or English rule. I warn Englishmen against making the mistake of thinking that he was their enemy. I had the privilege of listening to an impromptu, learned discourse by him, at the time of the last Calcutta Congress, on Hindi being the national language. He had just returned from the Congress pandal. It was a treat to listen to his calm discourse on Hindi. In the course of his address he paid a glowing tribute to the English for their care of the vernaculars. His English visit, in spite of his sad experience of English juries, made him a staunch believer in British democracy and he even seriously made the amazing suggestion that India should instruct it on the Punjab through the cinematograph. I relate this incident not because I share his belief (for I do not), but in order to show that he entertained no hatred for Englishmen. But he could not and would not put up with an inferior status for India in the Empire. He wanted immediate equality, which he believed was his country’s birthright. And in his struggle for India’s freedom he did not spare the Government. In the battle for freedom he gave no quarter and asked for none. I hope that Englishmen will recognize the worth of the man whom India has adored. For us, he will go down to the generations yet unborn as a maker of modern India. They will revere his memory as of a man who lived for them and died for them. It is blasphemy to talk of such a man as dead. The permanent essence of him abides with us forever. Let us erect for the only Lokamanya of India an im-perishable monument by weaving into our own lives his bravery, his simplicity, his wonderful industry and his love of his country. May God grant his soul peace.

Young India, 4-8-1920

This obituary appeared on the first page of Young India.


Lee Murray


 

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

To Some Working Poor In India, Home Is A Parking Lot

Read carefully you in the USA, the way the government, and our leaders, not to mention the banks, and employment, or more to the point unemployment, are going this could easily be us in the future. In fact there are already millions of homeless in this country with more every day. Read and see where the 99% are headed if things don't change.


By TIM SULLIVAN 
Associated Press

Link to Original Article 

NEW DELHI (AP) — There is almost no movement in the pre-dawn cold, when the winter fog sits low over the old city and the only light comes from distant street lamps. The parking lot is silent, except for the occasional hacking cough.

So it takes a while to realize there are nearly 100 people in the square of dirt on the edge of the cotton-sellers' district in the Indian capital. All are asleep in handmade wooden cots jammed one against the other. Dozens more people sleep around a battered empty fountain nearby.
In a few hours, workers will haul away the cots and Meena Bazaar Park No. 2 will fill with cars. By 9 a.m. the overnight community will have disappeared. Its residents will carry their meager possessions in plastic shopping bags until nightfall, when the lot once again will turn into a makeshift outdoor motel.
This is home. Some stay for one night. Others remain for decades, raising children who in turn raise their own children here.
For thousands of people struggling at the bottom of India's working class, this bleak vision and the handful of places like it scattered across New Delhi are 60-cent-a-night refuges.
Every day, thousands of new residents arrive in this constantly growing city, part of a nationwide wave of urbanization bringing tens of millions of migrants from India's poorest states. In New Delhi, most of the new arrivals go into the city's sprawling slums, or into the maze of crumbling concrete neighborhoods where rents are cheap.
But many come here. Even a tin shanty can cost upward of $75 a month in New Delhi, an amount that would take many of the parking lot's residents weeks to earn. Few of them hold regular jobs, or earn more than $4 a day.
Then there are the identity documents that police demand in regular sweeps through the slums. Anyone without proper paperwork, whether an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh or an Indian with excessively tattered documents, faces constant demands for bribes.
The police rarely bother with Meena Bazaar Park No. 2, a place so cheap it largely operates off the legal radar.
The people asleep in the parking lot are day laborers, professional beggars and itinerant peddlers who sell costume jewelry from vinyl suitcases. They are rural dreamers looking for better lives, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and small-town boys who fled their homes after falling in love with the wrong girls. There are pious Muslims and once-proud men stumbling into opium addiction.
While most residents are men, there are also babies and old people and a litter of puppies huddled in one man's blanket. They warm up by burning piles of garbage, and the stench of charred plastic clings to their clothes.
"I need this place," said Satpal Singh, a 24-year-old who earns $3 a day as a waiter during the city's tumultuous wedding season. "Where am I going to find a house in this city?"
The son of a tenant farmer, Singh came to New Delhi 10 years ago because he couldn't find work in his home village, in a poverty-ravaged area about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. Like many residents, he spends part of the year in New Delhi, working when he can, and goes back to his home village when the jobs trail off.
If the parking lot doesn't seem much like a home, Singh insisted it's not that bad. "I've been here for a long time, so I'm used to it," he said. Plus: "For just 30 rupees (60 cents) a night I even get a blanket."
It was a cold morning, and Singh spoke with just his head poking out from beneath a thick, cotton quilt. He was strangely oblivious to the cigarette smoke drifting from under the quilt at the foot of the cot.
Eventually, another man's head appeared, the hair greasy and mussed, and a cheap cigarette held between his lips.
It was Mohammed Rasheed, also 24. The two longtime friends share an easy camaraderie, as well as a bed on the coldest nights. It keeps them warmer, and cuts the cost to just 30 cents a person.
It's how things work in the community of migrants.
"I know these people," Singh said, nodding toward the beds around him. "We eat food together. We sleep here together. We know each others' stories."
But few people would choose to live here if they had another choice, particularly the families. Parents have to take young children with them to work, often leaving them to play on construction sites or in alleyways. If there is no money for school, children are often sent to work before they even reach adolescence.
"This is not a place for a family," said Mohammad Muzaffar, who came to the parking lot 15 or 20 years ago — he's not sure how long it's been — and is now raising two toddlers there with his wife, Reshma. But Muzaffar, who works as a wedding-season waiter and a rickshaw driver, has no identity papers. He sees no way to get his family into an apartment.
"We are poor people," Reshma said, explaining why their children will grow up there. "We don't have anything."
No one seems to know how long these outdoor motels have been around. Many of the city's housing advocates do not even know they exist, given the way they disappear after daybreak.
But their need is essential.
With India's surging economy drawing ever more rural residents to its cities, the country's housing shortage has become critical.
A 2010 study by the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that India then faced a shortage of 25 million urban households, a number that could leap to 38 million by 2030. More than 8 million people — or about half of New Delhi's 16.7 million people — are believed to live in slums.
"There isn't a mechanism to house the people who are coming," Ajit Mohan, one of the report's authors, said in an interview. "You have to plan for something like this five, 10 or 15 years in advance, and that's not going on."
Government officials, he said, "haven't embraced affordable housing as something they have to deliver."
So places like the Meena Bazaar camp have sprung up to feed the demand.
In summer, thousands of people crowd New Delhi's outdoor motels. In winter — New Delhi winters get surprisingly cold for such a hot climate, with temperatures sometimes falling to just above freezing — the crowds thin out as people return to their home villages or find warmer places to sleep.
Eventually, the lucky find better places to live. But no matter how many people move out, there are always more ready to move in

Monday, March 5, 2012

The 5 Dumbest Things You Can Do If You Have Too Much Debt - THEY say

8/15/112 I'm making some changes, see if you can tell what...LM

The 5 Dumbest Things You Can Do If You Have Too Much Debt

If you’re struggling with too much debt you’re not alone. It seems as if the whole nation has a borrowing hangover. For years, credit was easy and many people became overextended. But, we now live in an era of austerity and it’s time to get our affairs in order.

The first advice of experts in the field is to be sure you don't make your situation worse by making common mistakes. In particular the five strategies you may want to avoid:

Paying only the minimum payment on your debt, as this will result in the amount you owe actually growing, and your problems will only become worse. They're right here, although for many people the minimum is all they can pay, for some even this is too much. But the truth is that much as they preach against making only the minimum payment, they're hoping and praying this is all you do pay each month, because they know that you'll be paying the rest of your life and thousands more in interest. It's the key, together with dependence on your cards, to making you a slave. That's right a slave to the banks.

Relying on friends and family, as this can damage relationships with the most important people in your life. This goes without saying really. You borrow money that you can't pay back. It ruins friendships and families.

Unscrupulous credit counselors that demand cash upfront, or high fees for help they promise, but don't deliver.  Another one that goes without saying. THESE PEOPLE ARE THIEVES!!!! They sound good, they tell a great story, they even make good sense. But they're thieves, trying to get your money. You're already having financial problems, can't make your payments, house being forclosed, whatever, and somebody calls offering to solve your problems if you agree to pay a couple to a few thousand dollars, does that make sense? It does if you're that company or that telemarketer, they get your money, all you get if deeper in debt, as Tenessee Ernie Ford sang, you'll owe your soul to the company store...

Using new high-interest loans to pay off lower interest rate loans--while it may be easier to just have one payment, it will actually increase the amount you have to pay back. I did this, it doesn't work, period.

Declaring bankruptcy - avoid if you can, especially when debt settlement may work for you...  AVOID THIS??? Not if you have half a brain. This is the answer to getting your freedom back. Stop being a slave. Every debtor in the USA should file bankruptcy today. Crowds of protestors can stand outside holding signs until doomsday but if you really want to break the banks, those friendly organizations that're flushing this country, this world, down the toilet, everybody that can should file Chapter 7 BK now. I did it and so can you, if you have more bills than you can pay, you have no job or little income, you're upside down on your mortgage or in forclosure. Are you trying to pay your bills and can't, or dodging bill collectors hoping that you'll come up with the money to get back on track somehow? File Chapter 7 BK, or Chapter 12 if you want to set up a payment program through the court. To find out for sure if it's for you, hook up with the best lawyer you can find and talk to him or her, explain your circumstances, and find out for sure what your options are. But, as I said, forget picketing if enough people file BK it'll break those bastards by hurting them where they'll feel it. A friend's always quoting Eddy Murphey's character Billy Rae Valentine in Trading Places where he says: "Yeah. You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people."  That applies to banks too. Draw your money out, and file bankruptcy, break the bastards.

Debt Settlement is a scam, a lie, they'll take your money and you'll get nothing but further in debt.  Don't do it file BK instead and instantly get out of debt, wiping the slate clean. There is a downside but the upside is you'll be debt free.  Find a lawyer and check it out.

Lee Murray