Nonduality"
Nonduality.com Home Page

Click here to go to the next issue

Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nonduality Highlights each day

How to submit material to the Highlights

#3652 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - Editor: Jerry Katz

 

The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights

 

 


 

 

The 8 man band Advaita is featured. They are into ... Advaita!

 

Also Vince Flammino, a bald, lazy guy suffering anxiety, is nonduality's latest poster child. I'm glad I don't possess any of those qualities.

 

And Gertrude Baines died at the age of 115. She ate fried chicken, bacon, and ice cream, and watched Jerry Springer to her dying day, while directing people to God. "Yum," as Mark Otter would say.

 

 


 

 

No boundaries, just one with the music

 

 

BANGALORE: Whatever reasons bands may give for their coming together, they don’t mount to making a marked difference, as long as their produce doesn’t sound good. For Advaita, the reason that holds them together and the harvest of their efforts, point towards novelty. And that’s perhaps what makes them stand out as a band - their sounds are distinctive and they borrow a name from ancient Indian philosophy – advaita, meaning non-duality (which they say they go by).

 

When the eight men come together on stage as they did at Kyra on Sunday, music takes the front seat in a manner that truly justifies what John Leckie (producer for Radiohead, Muse) once told about them in an interview, “I’m sure Advaita will bring home a Grammy, one day!” Call them Indian Ocean juniors, Colonial Cousins exemplified or Pink Floyd gone desi, they can rightly be dubbed the young new find of Indian music.

 

For the eight men (boys as they started out) from New Delhi, the year 2004 was when the story began. “We were all from different bands. And in the music circle in Delhi, everyone knows each other. We thought of coming together and experimenting with each of our sounds,” says Anindo Bose, keyboardist. And each of their sounds is different, but it melts together in a manner that traverses the concept of the overrated term, fusion.

 

Call it an organic blend of sounds and cultures and they’ll be a happy lot. Ujwal Nagar redefines Hindustani vocals, Abhishek Mathur stays sturdy behind the guitar, Chayan Adhikari lends the Leslielike western vocals, Mohit Lal makes Zakir Hussain a jealous man with his tablas, Suhail Yusuf Khan takes Sarangi to the fore like never before, Aman Singh Rathore gives the drums a definitive rhythm and Gaurav Chintamani looks happily married to his bass guitar.

 

They are also lucky musicians. For, winning a competition organised by the British Council, grabbed them a chance to work with producer John Leckie also giving them a platform to showcase their talent Europe where they embarked upon a five-city tour spanning two weeks.

 

Performing tracks from their debut album, Grounded in Space, the band not only enthralled the city but perhaps also opened a new avenue for performers with a calling for parallel thinking. “We’ve never performed in Bangalore before. The response has been good and we want to come back,” exclaims an enthused Abhishek.

 

Adds Anindo, “We want to do more with our music - perhaps introduce more electronic sounds and even take a deep, dark route.” Deep, dark and innovative is probably their new undertaking, but what the eight men hold good, more than anything else apart from music is spirituality. “We believe that everyone is part of the same energy, the same universe. That’s the concept of oneness. That is advaita,” explains Anindo. A wise man once said, ‘Young minds think different.’ Advaita reiterates the same with zest. But more importantly with oneness, holding on to what they ultimately believe in.

 

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=No+boundaries,+just+one+with+the+music&artid=6XL6U6gzN5E=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=ngGbWGz5Z14=&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==&SEO=John%20Leckie,%20Advaita,%20Abhishek%20Mathur,%20Suhail%20Yusu

 

 


 

 

http://tryresting.blogspot.com/

 


Vince Flammini
Gender: Male
Location: Springfield : Illinois : United States


About Me


I am 49, and very ordinary. This may be disappointing to those looking for something spiritual and special. I wear regular clothes, am near-sighted, am not able to manifest unbounded financial abundance, am married, have two great dogs and three cats, a kind-of-messy house with limited curb appeal (not due to my wife), more than my share of debt, and a couple of jobs. I have tried just about every method of meditation known (and don't do any of them now), take medication for high cholesterol and anxiety, and I shave my head - not for spiritual reasons - but because I'm going bald. I still get angry, can be pouty, am sometimes unreasonable and overly critical, can be loving and compassionate and lazy, and I don't want to die. I also know that what I am has nothing to do with any of these things and, I see that this description is temporary at best. I am happy to talk with you about any nondual/advaita-ish questions (as well as questions about plain old suffering and life in general) as many have done for me. Just email me at
vflam2@gmail.com. Phone conversations are possible as are in-person meetings if you live in the area or are passing through.

 


Leave "Stuff" Alone!


Look, it just doesn't matter what kind of "stuff" comes floating into awareness. The "stuff" could be thoughts you might describe as beautiful or ugly or frightening or lovely or kind or...anything! The "stuff" could be sensations that are yummy or painful or weird or tingly or numb or...anything! It doesn't matter what the "stuff" is - leave it alone!

 


If you are similar to me, thought probably immediately jerked into high gear with all kinds of objections to this simple idea..."how could I possibly leave things alone?" or "he doesn't understand my life, I have responsibilities and troubles that need to be dealt with..." or "oh, doesn't he think he's spiritual; he should just walk in my shoes for a while" or "that's crazy - there are things that need to be addressed" or "but how will I solve these very pressing problems?" and on and on and on.

 


Yep. I know. Do you think for a second that those kinds of thoughts don't arise in my equally crazy mind!? Let me assure you, they do. But, so what? Who cares? No, I mean really - who cares? Here is a clue: it begins with a "t" and ends with a "t" and has a "hough" in the middle. Uh huh. You got it.

 


Leave the "stuff" alone and see that the Basic State, the Natural State, the Stateless State, the Un-State, Nirvana, Bliss, Being, Emptiness, Fullness, Awareness, God, Source - call It what you will - is there around, in, through and beyond all the mish-mash mess of stuff that we often mistake for the whole of life. It is right there-here-now! It never goes anywhere - ever ever ever! That is what "you" are (me, too)!

 


Relax. It's done. Over. Kaput. Finished. Nothing more needs to be done or sought or discovered or understood. All that stuff is more "stuff" too!

 


Leave "stuff" alone every chance you get and see what happens...

 


Start with whatever thought just occurred to you when you read that. I know; more "stuff," huh?

 

--Vince Flammini

http://tryresting.blogspot.com/

 


 

 

World's oldest person dies in Los Angeles at 115

 

 

LOS ANGELES – Although she liked her bacon crispy and her chicken fried, she never drank, smoked or fooled around, Gertrude Baines once said, describing a life that lasted an astonishing 115 years and earned her the title of oldest person on the planet.

 

Baines was born in Shellman, Ga., on April 6, 1894, when Grover Cleveland was in the White House, radio communication was just being developed and television was still more than a half-century from becoming a ubiquitous household presence.

 

She was 4 years old when the Spanish-American War broke out and 9 when the first World Series was played. She had already reached middle age by the time the U.S. entered World War II in 1941.

 

Throughout it all, Baines said last year, it was a life she thoroughly enjoyed.

 

"I'm glad I'm here. I don't care if I live a hundred more," she said with a hearty laugh after casting her vote for Barack Obama for president. "I enjoy nothing but eating and sleeping."

 

Her vote for Obama, she added, had helped fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing a black man elected president.

 

"We all the same, only our skin is dark and theirs is white," said Baines, who was black.

 

The centenarian, who worked as a maid at Ohio State University dormitories until her retirement, had outlived all of her family members. Her only daughter died of typhoid at age 18.

 

In her final years, she passed her days watching her favorite TV program, "The Jerry Springer Show," and consuming her favorite foods: bacon, fried chicken and ice cream. She complained often, however, that the bacon served to her was too soft.

 

"Two days ago, when I saw her, she was talking about the fact that the bacon wasn't crisp enough, that it was soggy," Witt said.

 

The title brought with it a spotlight of attention, and Baines was asked frequently about the secret to a long life. She shrugged off such questions, telling people to ask God instead.

 

"She told me that she owes her longevity to the Lord, that she never did drink, she never did smoke and she never did fool around," Witt said at a party marking her 115th birthday.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_oldest_person

top of page