Sat Nam Yoga and Music Festival begins

SatNamFest.com; Wisdom Quarterly

JOSHUA TREE, California - Charismatic, white turban wearing Sikh master and businessman-guru Yogi Bhajan (founder of Yogi Teas, most of which sadly are now infused with excito-toxic chemical flavorants called "natural flavors" only because they mimic something that exists in nature) brought Kundalini Yoga to America and popularized it.

He established many students (Sikhs, "warrior-saints"), converting many teachers and disciples to Sikhism, a blend of Islam-influences from the west and the Hinduism and other dharma-based traditions of the East.

Yoga means "union," particularly denoting union with the divine, however one defines the ineffable. It is usually defined by the access point, the breath. So working to unite the little self with the transcendent self, bringing together heaven and Earth, is the goal of this path or dharma.

(SpiritVoyage) Sat Nam Fest introduces The GuruGanesha Band. It is "a unique blend of raga, kirtan, and rock..." noted for effortless grace and mellifluous acoustic guitar work. Guru Ganesha's journey gradually brought him back to his first love, the electric guitar.

Kundalini Yoga Master Gurmukh is the American superstar of the tradition and the Los Angeles representative of the movement. She founded an expansive yoga studio complex, Golden Bridge, in West Los Angeles then moved it to a much bigger building in Hollywood.

We get little calls in our life to awaken from the slumber of illusion.
Gurmukh talks about some of her calls, which put her on the path.

Kundalini is a super feminine-friendly version of yoga, less about form and more about moving energy and awakening kundalini, the serpentine force at the base of the spine seen and described by many Indian rishis.

Now there is an established annual festival, the "Truth Name" (Sat Nam) Fest, that brings together this popular form of the increasingly popular spiritual exercise known in gyms across America simply as yoga and one 1960's American spiritual movement that helped make it popular.

• Liz's Sat Nam Fest Experience: Day 1 Recap
• Liz McCollum (April 13, 2012) Not yet at the Sat Nam Fest? You should be! If you can't be, here's what you missed on Thursday.
• Spirit Voyage's Free Music Friday: Mayray Govinda
• (April 6) Sat Nam Fest artist Jai-Jagdeesh and Spirit Voyage wish everyone a happy Free Music Friday!
• Snatam Kaur featured in LA Yoga Magazine!
• Ramdesh Kaur (April 4) LA's favorite free yoga magazine contains a List of Festivals including the Sat Nam Fest. The magazine focused on Snatam Kaur. "Snatam Kaur is a precision ballet; complicated with a gracious, polished intensity."
• Sat Nam Fest special (Spirit Voyage radio with Ramdesh)
• Kathryn Livingston (April 6) examines the possibilities of this spiritual festival focusing on God [EDITOR'S NOTE: Sikhism is monotheistic looking toward Brahman, the ultimate reality, expressed as sat-chit-ananda, the three qualities of the experience of GOD: truth, expanded consciousness, and pure bliss] and the divine dance. As the anticipation and excitement grows for upcoming Sat Nam Fest, look back on the outpouring of creativity, love, and fun at the last festival. More
  

"Mind-reading" experiment highlights brain

"Mind-reading" experiment highlights how brain records emories

(ScienceDaily) It may be possible to "read" a person's memories just by looking at brain activity, according to research carried out by Wellcome Trust scientists.

In a study published in the journal Current Biology they show that our memories are recorded in regular patterns, a finding that challenges current scientific thinking.

Demis Hassabis and Professor Eleanor Maguire at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have previously studied the role of a small area of the brain known as the hippocampus, which is crucial for navigation, memory recall, and imagining future events.

Now the researchers have shown how the hippocampus records memory.

When we move around, nerve cells (neurons) known as "place cells" located in the hippocampus, activate to tell us where we are.

Hassabis, Maguire, and colleagues used a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner, which measures changes in blood flow within the brain, to examine the activity of these places cells as a volunteer navigated around a virtual reality environment. The data were then analyzed by a computer algorithm developed by Demis Hassabis.

"We asked whether we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what the participants were thinking, or in this case where they were," explains Professor Maguire, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow.

"Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words, we could 'read' their spatial memories." More

VIDEO: Brain scans of the future

Psychologists have found that thought patterns used to recall the past and imagine the future are strikingly similar. Using functional magnetic...

• Scientists use medical physics to spot disease in blood vessels
• Cognitive scientists use fMRI to watch brains while eyes search
• Vision researchers test theory on visual orientation
• Traces of the Past: Computer algorithm able to "read" memories
• Sleep makes memories stronger, helps with creativity
• Where unconscious memories form
• Motion determines how an experience is stored in memory
• Different signal paths for activation of memories

Mind and Brain

• Memory
• Intelligence
• Brain Injury
• Neuroscience
• Language Acquisition
• Educational Psychology

Strange Science (Reference)

• Amnesia
• Memory bias
• Functional neuroimaging
• Limbic system

The Mind, The Mind

Ven. Nyanaponika Thera, The Book of the Ones (AN I) BPS, Wisdom Quarterly edit

New enormous golden Buddha in Ang Thong, Thailand (Woottamee/Flickr.com)

The Numerical Discourses (Anguttara Nikaya, also called the Gradual Sayings) begin with "The Mind." The Buddha -- who knew many things, perhaps all that it is possible to know -- knew of nothing more beneficial than the well developed mind of a meditator:

The Mind I

No other thing do I know, O meditators,* that is so intractable as an undeveloped mind. An undeveloped mind is, indeed, an intractable thing.

No other thing do I know, O meditators, that is so tractable as a developed [by "meditation," bhavana] mind. A developed mind is, indeed, a tractable thing.

No other thing do I know, O meditators, that brings so much suffering as an undeveloped and uncultivated mind. An undeveloped and uncultivated mind indeed brings much suffering.

No other thing do I know, O meditators, that brings so much happiness as a developed and cultivated mind. A developed and cultivated mind indeed brings happiness (I, II, 1-10; selected).

"Mind" (citta), when seen in meditation, is in the area of the heart.

No other thing do I know, O meditators, that brings so much harm as a mind that is untamed, unguarded, unprotected, and uncontrolled. Such a mind indeed brings much harm.

No other thing do I know, O meditators, that brings so much benefit as a mind that is tamed, guarded, protected, and controlled. Such a mind indeed brings much benefit (I, Iv, 1-10; selected).

The Mind II

No other thing do I know, O meditators, that so quickly changes as the mind -- inasmuch that it is not easy to give an illustration for the mind's quick change [mind as cittas or "moments of consciousness" that rapidly arise and vanish] (I, v, 8).

Luminous, O meditators, is the mind. ["Luminous," or pabhassaram, meaning bright, pure; "mind," or citta, refers here, according to the commentary, to the subconscious mind (bhavanga-citta), namely the life-continuum, a term from the Abhidharma]. And it is defiled by adventitious defilements [greed, hatred, delusion, which arise, according to Buddhist psychology, during the part of the cognitive process called "impulsion," javana.]

Luminous, O meditators, is the mind. And it is free of adventitious defilements (I, v, 9-10). [The commentary explains that defilements do not arise simultaneously with the subconscious "life-continuum," or bhavanga, but they "arrive" later at the impulsion phase.**]

The heart, or the blood as it passes through it, appears to be the seat of mind (cittas).

Loving-Kindness

Meditators, if for just the time of a finger snap a meditator produces a thought of loving-kindness, develops it [to the level of jhana, zen, ch'an, or "meditative absorption"], gives attention to it, such a person is (rightly) called a meditator. Not in vain does one meditate. One acts in accordance with the Buddha's dispensation. One follows his advice and eats deservedly of the donations of support made by others in the country. [Literally, it is "not in vain" that one practices and that the giver has given to someone worthy of gifts.]

Good and Bad

Meditators, whatsoever states [things, phenomena] are good [skillful, wholesome, profitable, wished for, beneficial, producing happiness when their results come to fruition], have a part in what is good, are on the side of the good -- all these have mind as their forerunner. Mind [namely, wholesome intention] arises as the first of them, followed by good states (I, vi, 7.9). [Bad -- or what is unskillful with fruits that are unwished for, painful, and difficult to bear -- results from "negligence," the absence of mindfulness, whereas good from "heedfulness" or appamada.]

Wisdom: the Highest Gain

Insignificant [by comparison], O meditators, is the loss of relatives, wealth, and fame. The loss of [liberating] wisdom is the greatest loss.

Insignificant, O meditators, is any increase of relatives, wealth, or fame. The increase of wisdom is the highest gain.

Therefore, O meditators, should you train yourselves thus: "We will grow in the increase of wisdom." O meditators, thus should you train yourselves (I, viii, 6-10).

• More definitions: BUDDHIST DICTIONARY (Nyanaponika)

*The word being translated is "monastics" (bhikkhus), but the Buddha is not speaking to them alone. The message he is imparting is to all practitioners -- nuns, devas, laypersons, and those in various stages of enlightenment. So we, preferring to move away from customary patriarchal and historically sexist language whenever the Buddha is not in any way limiting his comments to a specific gender, utilize "meditators." This indicates that this message was delivered to all who practice and seek to cultivate the teachings (Dharma).

**The subcommentary says that, strictly speaking, no defilement of a luminous mind takes place because the luminous subconsciousness and the defilements do not co-exist. The defilements arise at a later stage of the fully conscious process: The figurative expression of a "defiled mind" has been used in the text for indicating that reference is here to the same mental continuity (eka-santati).

The fact that this expression luminous mind does not signify any "eternal and pure mind-essence" is evident from the preceding paragraph of this text n which the mind is said to be something extremely fleeting and transitory.

Is Time Real?

Yes. Therefore, there is no time to delay. Enlightenment (the realization of the Truth that sets one free) is easy. It can be accomplished in three steps:

• Freedom from remorse (blamelessness, ahimsa, sila)
• Concentration (samadhi in terms of jhana) based on a clear conscience
• Insight (examining rupa-nama: ultimate materiality and mentality)

This path to freedom from suffering -- nirvana, liberation, emancipation, salvation -- is possible because the Dharma still exists in the world. It is extremely rare that the Dharma is present here at all. How much time does anyone have?

Time

(Pink Floyd)

.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day

You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.

Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town

Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.

You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again.

The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.

Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way

The time is gone, the song is over,

.

Thought I'd something more to say.

"Scientists prolong 2008 with 'leap second'"

AT THE GREENWICH PRIME MERIDIAN, England – Eager to say goodbye to the worst economic year since the Great Depression? You'll have to wait a second.

That's because the custodians of time are preparing to tack a "leap second" onto the clock on Wednesday to account for the minute slowing of the Earth's rotation — meaning champagne toasts and Auld Lang Synes will have to come a second late.

The leap second has been used sporadically at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich since 1972, an adjustment that has kept Greenwich Mean Time the internationally agreed time standard. More>>

VIDEO: 2008 will be an extra-long year (AP)