An unofficial, eclectic, mostly tangential, view of aspiring devotee life. Best viewed with Sense of Humor 8.0 or higher. The cows may come, the cows may go, but the bull is always here.
Last week India finally held its national solar auction, the first in two years, seen as the least risky of several national and state-level solar auctions held over the past few years.
Demand was as heated as expected: 58 bids were received pledging to develop more than 2.1 GW of solar energy capacity, nearly triple the 750-MW that state-run Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI) was offering. Here’s the full list of eager developers, which includes Azure Power India (200 MW), Welspun Energy (160 MW), Goldman Sachs-backed local developer ReNew Solar Power (50 MW), First Solar (30 MW), and a handful of state-run utilities. Part of the spur behind the activity was the government’s promises to cover as much as 30 percent of project costs; part of the delay was the adjustment of payout period from one year to five years. And perhaps part of the huge interest was the delay of the auction to help clarify some of its structure and sooth investor and developer concerns.
More than half of the bids (36 bids for 700 MW) proposed to take advantage of the domestic content requirement (DCR), more than double what SECI expected. Developers appear to be hedging reliance upon domestic suppliers’ ability to support projects by de-emphasizing those requirements in favor of Viability Gap Funding (VGF), points out Bridge to India’s Jasmeet Khurana.
Another positive takeaway is that more than half (60 percent) of the bids in terms of capacity would end up being managed as an independent power producer (IPP), a big increase in their level of participation. Pure-play solar IPPs don’t enjoy some advantages of tax incentives such as accelerated depreciation, but separating such tariffs is giving pure-play IPPs a more level playing field, he added.
When I was getting the YouTube address for Pete Seegar chanting Raghu[ati Raghava Rajarama I saw a lot of more traditional versions so I thought for my readers who weren’t familiar with it to post one of them.
Then I got obsessed with it and was playing it over and over again which was a pain because I had to keep hitting start. So I searched on “YouTube” ” loop” and found a lot of places you can do it.
You paste the 11 character YouTube video identifier in the box on the right (everything after the = in the YouTube url) and you are off to the races, it endlessly loops it or maybe you can set how many times to loop it but I didn’t get that far.
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram is a popular bhajan (Hindu devotional song) that was a favorite of Mahatma Gandhi. It is also a favorite amongst devotees in New Vrindaban.
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram
Sitaram, Sitaram,
Bhaj Pyare Mana Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram
Ishwar Allah Tero Nam,
Sabako Sanmati De Bhagawan
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram
Mukhmen Tulsi Ghatamen Ram,
Jab Bolo Tab Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram
Hathose Karo Gharka Kam,
Mukhase Bolo Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram
Bansivala Hay Ghanshyam,
Dhanushya Dhari Sitaram
Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram
Patita Pavan Sitaram
The song starts with the praise of Raja Ram (Lord Ram). Lord Ram is an incarnation of Vishnu (the preserving aspect of Brahman). Lord Ram is an embodiment of Dharma (Right duty, righteousness) and Virtue.
Raghupati Raghav mean one who has attained all spiritual knowledge, who is strong and firm in righteousness, who is radiant like the thousand suns and who has viveka (spiritual discrimination) and vairagya (dispassion for worldly thing). Such is Raja Ram.
Patit Pavan means the uplifter of those who have fallen from the path of righteousness and virtue. So, we call upon Mother Sita and Raja Ram who are the uplifters of the fallen. Mother Sita is the daughter of Earth. She signifies selfless Love and purity. Mother Earth gives us everything she has without asking anything in return. Mother earth is always pure and everything we get comes from that purity.
Bhaj Pyare Tu Sita Ram means — O beloved Lord Ram and Mother Sita we praise you for what you are and what you signify.
Ishvar Allah Tero naam means — People call you by many names, some call you God “Ishvar” while some call you Allah, but you are the one and only Holy Spirit that is within us all and we are all within you.
Sabko Sanmati De Bhagvan means — Bless everyone with this very wisdom that we are all the product of the same Holy Spirit and that all of us strive towards the path of righteousness and virtue.
Hope that you will find peace and joy in singing this bhajan. We will get utmost spiritual benefit of this devotional song if we can remember its meaning and significance while singing.
Shri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram
(this is funnier in an email with large text size and you have to scroll down to see the picture)
Please remember, now that it’s winter, animals seek out the heat of vehicles to stay warm. Before starting your car, please check around the wheels and engine for these cold animals. You may not even notice they are there.
This is how our cat James came into our family — Madhu found him curled up as a kitten in his engine compartment.
“The life of contemplation in action and purity of heart is, then, a life of great
simplicity and inner liberty. One is not seeking anything special or demanding any
particular satisfaction. One is content with what is.”
Thomas Merton. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. William H. Shannon,
editor (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2003): 66.
” Materially, everyone wants to satisfy his senses, and he wants God to be the order supplier for such satisfaction. The Lord will satisfy the senses of the living entities as much as they deserve, but not to the extent that they may covet. But when one takes the opposite way — namely, when one tries to satisfy the senses of Govinda without desiring to satisfy one’s own senses — then by the grace of Govinda all desires of the living entity are satisfied.”
This is me with my three oldest children around 1982. This was taken in the upstairs of the old barn at Bahulaban that we lived in until moving into the RVC temple in 1983.
A devotee should not see anything as being separate from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna. Ether, fire, air, water, earth, the sun and other luminaries, all living beings, the directions, trees and other plants, the rivers and oceans -- whatever a devotee experiences he should consider to be an expansion of Krsna.
Thus seeing everything that exists within creation as the body of the Supreme Lord, Hari, the devotee should offer his sincere respects to the entire expansion of the Lord's body.
Chaitanya Caritamrta Adi 1.106:
"Essential truth spoken concisely is true eloquence."
Rabindranath Tagore:
A mind all logic
is like a knife all blade.
The hand that uses it will bleed.
Albert Einstein:
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Marcel Proust:
The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes but in having new eyes.
David Packard
Take risks. Ask big questions. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes; if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not reaching far enough..
Claude Debussy:
Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.
Thomas Merton:
There comes a time when it is no longer important to prove one’s point, but simply to live, to surrender to God and to love.
Albert Einstein:
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Jack Rebney (the Winnebago man):
I don't want any more bullshit from anyone and that includes me.
Great Book To Have
Click on image to learn more
Help Support This Blog
If you are going to buy something from Amazon.com, click through on the Bhagavad Gita above and then find the item and make your purchase. I will get a small commission. This comes out of their marketing budget and doesn't increase your cost.
Thanks in advance.
Click here to see where this blog is written.
View From a New Vrindaban Ridge 