Dear All,

This is a thread full of challenges! Tread carefully and only if you have been working-out, on your SELF!

For some reason, two words have often bewitched me, enticed me and intrigued me. These were like two examples of the inadequacy of crystalizing experienced into the expressed! Like, we are almost there but did not quite get it!

Shalimar and Shangrila!

Both are places of beauty, if both can indeed be called places in space-time.
Both can be a realization of beauty, if beauty alone captures for us the Grand View!
Both can be a sense of timelessness, if time could be surpassed, gotten over with and viewed beyond!!

But for some reason, I will call it reason and not inadequacy, because inadequacies are the speedbumps in our journey of life that remind us to slow down (if we are observant!) or jolt us (if we are not watching, and bring us to the here and now or really to the SELF!!) -- to me personally ...

Shalimar had always represented the beauty in physical world, whereas Shangrila was its beautiful twin sister that embraces us in the spiritual reality, when we dare enter it...

There are no wars and strifes and conspiracies in Shangrila, but there may be on the path to IT (As James Redfield tried to capture! Frankly, he should have stopped writing after The Celestine Prophecy. Please note, I am not trying to criticise him, who to me represents the J.R. Rowlings of Spiritual fiction (but meaningful) if only we could give an award to him and Deepak Chopra (Have you read, "Buddha"? WOW!!)

But there are wars in and around Shalimar from what I hear. The evil inside us humans is very powerful and will destroy each Shalimar and has in the past, but they have yet to get to Shangrila! And that is what the struggle between Good and Bad has been about, if you think a bit, without your trigger-happy finger twitching epileptically on the REPLY button!

We see that daily on this forum and everywhere, when ideas get attacked too quickly, too superficially and to those who are paying attention, rather immaturely! (present poster included!)

This forum is about growing and evolving, in my opinion. I want to TEST if in this thread we can show the best of each of our selves or even our SELVES if you are truly connected! Let us take a vow to NOT criticise, but only post a response if we feel absolutely humble and curious and not in the 'all knowing' frame that all of us get into from time to time.

The challenge is simple: Can we all do it? Consistently??

As I go away to attend and pay my respects at the first annual combined memorial service (in a few hours) for my dear departed Mother and Eldest Brother who died in August 2006 (She on the 3rd and He on the 8th), my thoughts remain with this forum, this school which to me offers the second glimpse in my short lifetime in a collective sense of both: Shalimar and Shangrila. This *second coming* comes nearly 16 years after the first one, nearly a jupiter cycle ago!

<<A special request to moderators and owner if I may and if you can comply: Please do not jail any response unless obscene and criminally illegal for the next two weeks. I really want to see if we brothers and sisters on this forum have really attained or achieved anything...>>

Thanks and looking forward to interacting with you in a few days or so.

Thanks and affections for all that you have given me so far, often without asking or expecting ...

Until we meet again...

Your loving nemesis,
Rohiniranjan

The nemesis is right, the nemesis to ignorance!

As one sits reads through this thread on the Krishna Ekadashi of Sravana , if one accepts the North Indian system with Moon ready to conjoin with Sun in Karka, with Guru enhanced by Sun in trine, just coming out of retrogression in the fourth pada of Anuradha nakshatra in Vrishchika rashi, to lead us through with wisdom and direction; coupled with a retrograde Shukra in near conjunction with Shani, combining perseverence and tapas with commitment and passion....

The nemesis is right and the nemesis is needed....
Votive

Respected RohiniRanjanji,

A great piece of correct self evaluation.. I mean the loving nemesis...!

Just had a hearty laugh for a few seconds. Couldn't stop from commenting.

Respectfully,

RishiRahul

Are Shalimar and Shangrila are different or just mirror images?
For billions of ordinarly folks like us its the quintessential mirage.
The limits defined and unattainable since they are just defined and do not exist physically.....
The BALANCE, the key as is with any stringed musical instrument.
Veena ke taar ko itna bhi mat kheencho ki woh toot jaye
Veena ke taar ko itna bhi dheela mat karo ki woh besuri ho jaye!

In the diamond shaped chart, if "I" am placed at the intersection points of all the four kendra, then Shalimar is respelendently visible at the Zenith, the midheaven or the Tenth house while the Shangrila beckons quietly yet insistently to disappear in its mysty way in the fourth house. Can we ever reach either, perhaps unlikely, till the Lagna exists for what has begun with time will end with time.

Votive