THE JYOTISH JUKEBOX! for Light, Love and Laughter
This is a proposal for a human values entertainment web site for Sai devotees.
How can we spiritualise entertainment?
For most people entertainment includes reading (books and magazines), watching movies and listening to music. Whilst we can read Sai literature, watch Swami's beautiful form in motion, and listen to uplifting bhajans, many of us live in a world where we have to balance this with navigating through the reality of life as it is, and exposing ourselves to other forms of entertainment too.
Or, perhaps, we hope to expose ourselves to, and incorporate, the fullness of life experiences without judgement, but rather understand and spiritualise the life with a meaning of life, love and laughter based on Swami's teachings.
For this purpose, I believe it would be useful to develop an inter-active web-site whereby devotees can enjoy these pastimes within the context of swami's teaching and values.
What are the 5 values?
By elaborating on the above association by 5 theme, a practical and inter-active entertainment portal can be developed for the above-mentioned 3 aspects of enter-taint-ment,
i) Mind the Magazine (books)
ii) Movies
iii) Music,
to be categorised into 5/10 values/themes:-
i) Sathya or Truth Versus A-sathya or falsehood (eg. espionage)
ii) Prema or Love & Laughter (comedies) Versus A-prema or hate
iii) Shanti or Peace Versus A-shanti or War (eg. mental violence)
iv) Dharma or Right action Versus A-dharma or wickedness
v) Ahimsa or Non-violence Versus Violence (physical violence)
Through recognising the theme of the book, plot of the movie or piece of the music, this allows the enter-taint-ment to enter the person's consciousness with insight, and thereby the discrimination to transform the 5 sense experience into wisdom rather than be tainted and left as a debris of ignorance in the subconscious mind. Much like swami's teaching, through the contrasts between knowledge and ignorance, right and wrong, light and darkness, the 3 mediums of entertainment become more enlightening when experienced through contrasting the values, and through the lens light of understanding.
How would the Web Site be designed and operate?
The web site could be designed with the Sarva Dharma stupa with the a 5 petalled lotus at the top represented by the 5 values and perhaps a Sun above pouring down its 3 rays. Each ray could represent Books, Movies and Music.
By clicking onto one of these 3 rays, a sub-portal is opened with a pentagram on the page with the 5 values at each point. By clicking on one of these (ie. for a movies eg. for Truth), another sub(sub)portal opens for the list of movies under the title of "Truth" or "Lies".
The site should can have a search engine for each one of these sub-portals and/or sub(sub)portals. In addition, there can be a "torrent" down loading site or an "amazon" search engine.
Lastly, the site can be made inter-active with the devotees giving there own 5 star rating after reading, listening or viewing the "media" under the value category as well as suggestions for the site; its content as well as media material.
Of course, as in "wikipedia", material can be posted, edited and categorised by the devotees managing the site. Each item (whether movie, music or magazine/book) can also have the feed-back synopsis of the user's with their 5 star rating.
For more related idea please see the links:-
Jyotish & Education Link
http://jyotish-vedicastrology.blogspot.com/
JiVa - Cafe Soul Link
http://jiva5lotus.blogspot.com/2010/05/jiva-5-lotus.html
Dharmo-cracy Site
http://dharmo-cracy.blogspot.com/
4 SUGGESTION FOR PRASHANTI ASHRAM GROUNDS (empty areas)
1. SOUTH WEST CORNER (Field 1) - a Japanese Zen Garden Lake
2. NORTH WEST CORNER (Field 2) - a Grove Garden (Mango, Fruit & Nut trees) along the side of the ashram wall (ie. permi-culture and organically grown)
3. BETWEEN NORTH WEST BLOCKS & GROVE GARDEN (remainder of field 2) - safe (soft "cushioned" ground surface) play ground for children to play and meet other children (of same age groups and different cultures)
4. LEFT SIDE OF CORNER field 2 - Small football sand field for boys to play together on
About Me
- JiVa
- In India, a jiva is the immortal essence of a living being (human, animal, plant etc.) which survives physical death. It has a very similar usage to atma, but whereas atma refers to the self, jiva is used to denote a living entity specifically. The concept of the jiva is similar to the concept of the soul as presented in Abrahamic religions. The word itself originates from the Sanskrit Jivás, with the root jīv, to breathe. It has the same Indo-European root as the Latin word Vivus: (Wikepedia). Also, in Chinese, the word Chi (o Ki) means the same as "Ji"; that is the life force & both are tied up with the breath that animates the consciousness. Metaphysically, the soul inhabits the womb in the 5th month; man, with his 5 senses/limbs, is related to this number. The 5th day of the week from Sunday is Thursday or Guru day & corresponds to the planet Jupiter (in myth, to Indra, Zeus or Thor); the 2nd hara chakra in yoga. The Club Jiva Cafe - de la soul aims to use the metaphysics of nature (with its 5 elements) ; symbolism of the soul to appreciate the unity in diversity between cultures through its unique synthesis of soulful music, food & sacred space.