Shadow Dancing with Mind: April 2015

Apr 16, 2015

HAIKU MASTER SERIES: Ishu and Teishitsu

Haiku Master Series II

A series on discussing Haiku Masters and their poetry….

Matsue Shigeyori [Ishu] (1596 – 1670)

Hey there, wait a moment,

Before you strike the temple bell

At the cherry blossom

In Japan, the lifespan of a cherry flower is only three days and poet Ishu (a disciple of Teitoku and first teacher of Onitsura) fears the bell’s reverberations will cause the petals to fall sooner then they should.

Yasuhara Teishitsu (1609 – 1673)

Look at that! and that!

Is all I can say of the blossoms

At Yoshino mountain.

Basho called this “the finest hokku ever written”. Mt. Yoshino, a large hill in Southern Japan, has four groves of 100,000 white mountain cherry trees. For three days in early April, the hill billows with intense whiteness.

Teishitsu is one of the five stars or disciples of Teitoku. Teishitsu destroyed all but 3 of his 3,000 haiku poems. Though it’s said that some more are still available.

TEXT Curtsy : The Classic Tradition of Haiku
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Hope you have liked the second post in the Haiku Master Series, to read the first one, please click here...

Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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First Haiku Master Series Haiku Master Series III

34th Edition of Shadow Dancing With Mind

In fifth year of blogging, this is the first edition in the year 2015 and 34^th in the series of compilations of my travels, thoughts, haiku, books and happenings around the town. It’s been a fulfilling journey with my blog being awarded the top Indian blogger last year in Spirituality section as well as so many people have followed the blog with hit count of more than 400K. So thank you for continuing to like what I write and share with every one. Hope this edition gives you as much pleasure as it gives me to revisit these pages.

BOOK CLUB READING:

Floraby Gail Godwin

A book about self obsessed child, Helen who is not able to look beyond her own nose to see what's happening around her and still able to hold on her own, when her mainstay of the life, Grand Mother dies. In the small cottage she comes to live with her relative Flora, while her father is working elsewhere... This is a story about her summer days with Flora, who is quite unassuming and her coming of age.

Click here to read more…

VILLAGE DIARY:

A Travel and spiritual account from my ancestral village…

PART 1: 7 days of rituals

An amazing celebrations of Ram Navami with the Bhagwat Paath, I am back in Chennai after a week of rituals, story telling, meditation and mantra chanting but still the hangover continues..

Click here to read more…

PART II: The other side

Here is what I have captured of the other side of the beautiful and lovely village life in my recent trip to our ancestral home - a village called Godriya, in Kushinagar, where Lord Buddha attained Nirvana.

Click here to read more…

HINDU LIT FOR LIFE

An Annual Literary event in Chennai

The Hindu has been doing a great service to the literarily inclined Chennaites for last five years and each year has seen it grow in its stature and quality.

- Day 1: A Walk Among the Galaxy of Stars

Click here to read more…

- Day 2 and 3: And the winner is...

Click here to read more…

HAIKU MASTER SERIES - Sōchō& Sōgi

A series on discussing Haiku Masters and their poetry

Click here to read more…

THOUGHTS THIS WEEK:

3Weeks of Transformation

A week contains full 168 hours of action, divide that into predefined activities according to your nature as well as your need and then, if you can act accordingly, you can transform yourself into achieving any thing and any kind of success.

Click here to read more…

Chennai- A blend of the Traditional and Modern

Arriving temporarily from Delhi, in the year 1994, in a sleepy town and then having stayed back to create a life around work and business, I have seen the city grow and I find that it is still, in it’s soul, a traditional city.

Click here to read more…

GOOGLE PLUS 10K CLUB, 3.7 Million Views & 400K hits

Being a common man, with some common ideas, thoughts and things to share, it's a pleasure to see that there are so many people want to read what I write; share my passion and travel with me through various images, photographs and my words.

Click here to read more…

Hope you have liked this edition of my Shadow Dancing With Mind. Please do let me know if you have any thoughts, queries and suggestions. You can also connect with me at the following coordinates…

Twitter: VerseEveryDay

Google Plus: Shashi S

Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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33rd Edition 35th Edition

Apr 5, 2015

VILLAGE DIARY II : THE OTHER SIDE OF BHAGWAT PURAAN PAATH

IT'S ALL IN THE GENOME...
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Here is what I have captured of the other side of the beautiful and lovely village life in my recent trip to our ancestral home - a village called Godriya, in the vicinity of the place where Lord Buddha attained Nirvana. It was fun to see that our kids also enjoy the place like we all brothers have done over the years... as Puneet always says, its all in the genome....

So walk with me and I hope you will enjoy the journey.

On the way to Gorakhpur from Lucknow...

From Gorakhpur to our village in Kushinagar has a stopover too...
no we did not ran like Animan loves doing, but it was about a
changeover...

The way leading to our ancestral home

As we reached, we were greeted by one of the most beautiful sunset...

And then the time to join in the Bhagwat Paath and party

... and the morning sunrise was even more soothing... from the rooftop

And all set to explore the places around our village, specially the Bansi river

The sugarcane is all cut from the fields, and now being processes to make
Gur

Reaching the no man's land between UP and Bihar border, early in the
morning is an exhilarating experience. Animan is doing the SRK thing..

A window to nature....

While we were not the only one out experiencing it all...

Then there were things to do... miles to go

Kids to take care of...

Another day, another part of the nature....

A closure to our week of fun and spirituality, with a visit to Buddha
Shrine in Kushinagar, where he attained nirvana

The time for one more last selfie...

Finally leaving you with some of the interesting images from the journey....

And then the Purnaahuti... Homam to close the week long Bhagwat Puraan

lose the week long Bhagwat Puraan

It was a real pleasure to the part of my mother's life long desire to hold this Bhagwat Puraan paath... Wish we all could do this again.

I hope you have enjoyed the journey with me... if you would like to know more about the Bhagwat Paath, please do check out my previous post....

Shashi

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

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VILLAGE DIARY - BHAGWAT PAATH

Apr 4, 2015

VILLAGE DIARY : BHAGWAT PURAAN PAATH AND IT'S ALL IN THE GENOME

Bhagat Puraan Paath - 7 days of rituals and to cap it all some memories from there...

An amazing celebrations of Ram Navami with the Bhagwat Paath my mother wanted to do for ages, so my younger brothers K K The King and Animesh got together and made it happen. So I went to my ancestral village on 23rd March and I am back in Chennai after a week of rituals, story telling, meditation and mantra chanting but still the hangover continues.. it was an amazing time to connect with the soil of our birth, where we have had spent our childhood...

Baal Krishna

WHAT IS BHAGWAT PAATH?

The Bhagavata takes the form of a story recounting Vyasa's work being recited for the first time by his son Shuka to the dying King Parikshit, who owes his life to Krishna. Longing to hear of Krishna before he dies, Parikshit hears the Bhagavata recited by Shuka, including questions by the king and replies by the sage, over the course of seven days.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Devanagari: भागवतपुराण, also known as Śrīmad Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam or Bhāgavata, literally meaning Divine-Eternal Tales of The Supreme Lord) is one of the maha (Sanskrit: 'great') Puranic texts of Hinduism, with its focus on bhakti (religious devotion) to Supreme God Vishnu (Narayana), primarily focusing on Krishna. The Bhagavata Purana includes many stories well known in Hinduism, including the various avatars of Vishnu and the life and pastimes of his complete incarnation, Krishna or Svayam Bhagavan. It was the first Purana to be translated into a European language, with three French translations made also between 1840 and 1857.

Krishna giving the Bhagwat Geeta paath to Arjuna @ Rishikesh 2014

TEXT SOURCE : Wikipedia, to read more click here...

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Thinking about those days spent so beautifully does not cover it... so I will leave you with some images... and of course the videos

So here it goes... let me start with the symbolism...

Invoking the Sun god before the homa...

To begin with there's our Durga Ma, who has been with us over the ages, helping, supporting and guiding us, where ever we are...

Our ancestral temple of Durga ji... where we all performed the final Homa

And the place across the canal, from where She came to our house centuries ago.... The original Swayambhu Durga Ji sthan (The self appearing Goddess Durga place) we are now reconstructing as another temple...

The Durga Temple across the fields...

And the beauty surrounding it...
There are hundreds of peacock around the Durga temple that we have made
across the village where we have our fields...

Now with this introduction and giving you the feel about the place, let me come back to the Bhagwat Paath....