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Tuesday 20 March 2012

UGADI - Telugu New Year's Day


Celebrated by : Telugu People
Marks : The Beginning of the new year
In the month of : March/April
Ugadi is the New Year's Day for the people of Andhra Pradesh and also for the Telugu people all over the world. Those who live north of the Vindhya hills observe it as "Barhaspatyamana". People living to the south of the Vindhya hills observe it as "Sauramana" or "Chandramana".
A Unique Ritual
There is a peculiarity about the practices of the various sects of Brahmins; one who is not conversant with them finds it difficult to understand their meaning. Even though they are all Brahmins certain differences in their lineage may be traced among them. These become manifest in their distinctive calendars where the dates and months vary. Some have calculations according to the solar system, and others according to the lunar system; with the result that despite all being Brahmins the New Year differs among different sects. Thus there is a Telugu New Year's Day, a Tamil New Year's Day, and a New Year's distinct from these in the almanac of North India.
Ugadi
According to Chandramana, Ugadi is celebrated on the bright fortnight ('Shukla Paksha') of the first month ('Chaitra Masa') in the first season of the year i.e. Spring ('Vasanta-Ritu'). As all these important elements are present, this day has special significance marking the commencement of a New Year.
Significance
The name "Ugadi" came from Yuga + Aadi which means "Beginning of a New age. It is believed that the creator of the Hindu pantheon Lord Brahma started creation on this day - "Chaitra Suddha Padhyami" or the Ugadi day. Also the calculations of the great Indian Mathematician Bhaskaracharya proclaim the Ugadi day as the beginning of the New Year, New month and New day. The onset of spring also marks a beginning of new life with plants acquiring new life, shoots and leaves. The vibrancy of life and verdant fields, meadows full of colourful blossoms signify growth, prosperity and well-being.
With the coming of Ugadi, the naturally perfumed Jasmine's spread a sweet fragrance, which is perhaps unmatched by any other in nature's own creation. While large garlands of Jasmine are offered to Gods in homes and temples, Jasmine flowers woven in clusters adorn the braids of women.
Predictions Of The Year
Ugadi marks the beginning of a new Hindu lunar calendar with a change in the moon's orbit. On this day, people chant mantras and the pundits make predictions for the coming year. Traditionally, the "Panchangasravanam" or listening to the yearly calendar was done at the temples or at the Town square but with the onset of modern technology, one can get to hear the priest-scholar on television sets right in one's living room.
Preparing For The Occasion
Preparations for the festival begin a week ahead. Houses are given a thorough wash. Shopping for new clothes and buying other items that go with the requirements of the festival are done with a lot of excitement.
Ugadi is celebrated with festive fervour in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. While it is called Ugadi in Andhara and Karnataka, in Maharashtra it is known as "Gudipadava".
On Ugadi day, people wake up before the break of dawn and take a head bath after, which they decorate, the entrance of their houses with fresh mango leaves. The green mango leaves tied to the doorway signify a good crop and general well being. It is noteworthy that one uses mango leaves and coconuts (as in a 'Kalasam', to initiate any puja) only on auspicious occasions to propitiate gods.
People also splash fresh cow dung water on the ground in front of their house and draw colourful floral designs. This is a common sight in every household. People perform the ritualistic worship to God invoking his blessings before they start off with the New Year. They pray for their health, wealth and prosperity and success in business too. Ugadi is also the most auspicious time to start new ventures.
Special Delicacies
It is a season for raw mangoes spreading its aroma in the air and the fully blossomed Neem tree that makes the air healthy. Also, jaggery made with fresh crop of sugarcane adds a renewed flavour to the typical dishes associated with Ugadi.

 
"Ugadi Pachchadi" is one such dish that has become synonymous with Ugadi. It is made of new jaggery, raw mango pieces, Neem flowers and new tamarind. The inner significance of this preparation is to indicate that life is a mixture of good and bad, joy and sorrow and all of them have to be treated alike.
All experiences have to be treated with equanimity. Every one should make a resolve that he will face calmly whatever happens in this year, accepting it with good grace and welcoming everything. Consider everything as for one's own good. Men should rise above sorrow and happiness, success and failure. This is the primary message of the Ugadi festival.
In Andhra Pradesh, eatables such as "Pulihora", "Bobbatlu" and preparations made with raw mango go well with the occasion. In Karnataka too, similar preparations are made but called "Puliogure" and "Holige". The Maharashtrians make "Puran Poli" or sweet 'Rotis'.
Ugadi DecorationKavi Sammelanam
Kavi Sammelanam or poetry recitation is a typical Telugu Ugadi feature. Ugadi is also a time when people look forward to a literary feast in the form of Kavi Sammelanam. Many poets come up with new poems written on subjects ranging from Ugadi to politics to modern trends and lifestyles.
Ugadi Kavi Sammelanam is also a launch pad for new and budding poets. It is generally carried live on All India Radio, Hyderabad and the Doordarshan - Hyderabad, following "Panchangasravanam" (New year calendar) narrating the way the New Year would shape up in the lives of people and the state in general. 'Kavis' or poets of many hues - political, comic, satirical reformist, literary and melancholic make an appearance on the Ugadi stage.
Ugadi is thus a festival of many shades. It ushers in the New Year, brings a rich bounce of flora and fills the hearts of people with joy and contentment.

Wednesday 7 March 2012

True Meaning of Holi



Holi Dahan - Burning of Desires
Holi heralds the end of winter and the onset of spring. It is also pointed out as an instance of the conquest of base instincts of man and Holi is a celebration of this conquest. The Holi fire connotes this event in Hindu mythology of the conquest of lust by Shiva. For this reason, Shiva is also known by the names Kameswara, Maara Ripu or Madana Ripu indicating one who has conquered carnal desires.

On Holi day, Hindus remember the life of a pure devotee, Prahlad and keep his spiritual ideas alive. In other parts, it is celebrated as the day of Kaama dahan (burning of desires). Madana Utsava is the vernal festival honoring Madana. Madana Trayodashi is the 13th day in the day in the bright half of Chaitra when the festival in honor of Madana is observed. Madana Chaturdashi is the fourteenth day in the bright half of Chaitra honoring Madana.

                                    


Lord Krishna teaches detachment
Sri Krishna relates to Arjuna in Bhagavadgita (Ch.2.62 & 63), on the battlefield of Kurukshetra (a place near Delhi) in Mahabharata that:

Dhyayato vishayaan pumsah, vangas teshupa jaayate
Sangaat sanjaayate kaamah, kaamat krodhobhi jaayate
Krodhad bhavati sammohah, sammohat smriti vibramaha
Smriti bhramsaad buddhi nasho, buddhi maashaat pranasyati

While contemplating material and sensual objects, persons become attached to them. Such attachment develops lust and lust generates anger. Anger leads to delusion and delusion to mental bewilderment. When the mind is bewildered, intelligence and discretion is lost. Loss of intelligence and discretion leads to downfall of the person.

Lord Shiva Conquers Lust - Kaameswara
Another story relates to Shiva who was in a deep trance in his Tapas (penance). Kaama or Manmatha or Madana is the son of Krishna and Rukmini. His wife is Rati. Lord Indra, the king of the Devas wanted a commander to lead their forces in their war with the demon Tarakasura. Taraka was the son of Vajranga and Varangi. He propitiated Lord Bhrahmadeva by a severe penance on the Pariyatra mountain. When Brahma appeared before him, he asked as a boon (vara) that he should not he killed by anyone other than a seven day old child. Brahma granted him the boon.

Misusing this boon, Taraka began to oppress the gods. They were obliged to approach Brahma for help to destroy Taraka. Brahma told the devas that only an offspring of Shiva could destroy him. For this they sought the help of Kaama or Maara or Manmatha, the god of love in Hindu mythology to Shiva to drag him out of his meditation and generate an issue with Parvati. This alone could vanquish Tarakasura. Kaama agreed to undertake this mission.

Maara shot his arrows at Shiva but he was not perturbed from his trance. Maara shot a powerful arrow in a final effort to perturb Shiva. At this, Shiva was offended and opened only his third eye (Phaala Netra) and Maara was burnt and turned to ashes instantly. Subsequently, at the beseechment of Rati and the devas, Shiva restored him from the ashes in the form of Pradyumna. His intimate friend is Vasanta or the Spring. His son is Aniruddha. He is armed with a bow and arrows, the bow string being a line of bees and the arrows being a string of flowers of five different plants. Shiva and Parvati created Kaartikeya to destroy Tarakasura. Later, Kartikeya was born and slew the demon Taraka on the seventh day of his birth.

Holi also means "sacrifice". Burn all the impurities of the mind, such as egoism, vanity and lust, through the fire of devotion and knowledge. Ignite cosmic love, beauty, goodness, righteousness, joy, freedom, mercy, generosity, selflessness, truthfulness and purity through the fire of practical spirituality. This is the real spirit of Holi. Rise from the mire of stupidity and absurdity and dive deep into the ocean of cosmic divinity.

The call of Holi is to always keep ablaze the light of God-love shining in your heart. Inner illumination is the real Holi. The spring season is the manifestation of the Lord, according to the Bhagavad Gita. Holi is said there to be His heart.




Ref: V.S.Apte: The Student's Sanskrit-English Dictionary. 2nd Ed. Pub.by Motilal Banarsidas, 1988.

Friday 2 March 2012

Children

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. 


Kahlil Gibran

Intuitive Mother & Women

It is not necessary for a woman to have a child to be or feel as a mother. MOTHERHOOD IS NOT A BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION. MOTHERHOOD IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL, SPIRITUAL FUNCTION. Motherhood is the power to present right conditions to make virtues grow, to cause great works to be accomplished, to make creativity bloom and to make the race of man survive in progressive unfoldment and beauty.

In the heart of each woman, one can see a mother.

She may be a woman who gave birth to a mighty movement, or inspired great men to perform heroic deeds; or she herself performed heroic acts, or conceived visions for the advancement of all humanity; or she became a mother of art and beauty.

One of the supreme duties of a woman is to be an ideal mother, but when the children have grown to need less care from the mother, the mother must step into the world of politics, education, communication, arts, sciences, religion, and economics. She can bring great beauty, wisdom, and experience into these fields, or she can continue her studies along specialized lines.

The most important labor for a woman is to raise her focus of consciousness from her emotional nature to here intuitional nature without creating a gap between them.

The emotional world of a woman is full of attachments when she develops her mind at the expense of her intuition. These attachments make her translate the world around her through her own feelings and thoughts. She projects her feelings on all phenomena around her. This makes her self-centered, demanding, self-conscious, and even rejectful of others. She senses the viewpoints of others and understands them, but rejects the persons.

If she succeeds in raising her focus of consciousness from the emotional to the intuitional plane, the attachments break, and a spirit of inclusiveness and universalism dawns in her consciousness. This is the natural path for a woman. She gives out all that she collected, all that she was serving to make her feel separate. Now in the process of giving things she feels inclusive and universal.

When a woman is stuck in her emotional attachments and does not have intuitive flashes, she becomes a victim of man. She is not only exploited, but also exploits. Millions of women are manipulated by man, who uses his lower mind to misuse women for his own advantage. If a woman is stuck in her emotional nature, she has a strong tendency to depend on the man who has mind.

When the woman develops her mind, she has a tendency to take revenge on the man in many forms. Her liberation is not through her mind but through her intuition. An intuitive woman is highly spiritual, progressive, free, and inclusive.

An emotional woman is the slave of her attachments. She is religious, but she is fanatic and separative. She leaves religions when she develops her mind, and she becomes spiritual when she becomes active in the intuitional light.

Man attacks the emotions of woman to conquer her. Woman attacks the instincts, urges and drives of the physical nature of man to enslave him.

An intuitive woman is not caught in these games. She has a great task. Her task is to save her child and to make him grow healthy and beautiful. HER CHILD IS HUMANITY. Her glory is the CULTURE of her child.

-Torkom Saraydarian(Woman, Torch of the Future)

New Mother Guides

After the baby is born, ther are a few guides for the new mother to follow, which need to be carried out by her with love and understanding.

1. The baby was to be breast-fed for 2 years or more, if at all possible.

2. No breast-feeding the baby if the mother had any emotional problem, anger, fear, irritation, hatred, etc. She was to be calmed down through advice, meditation, prayer, rest or walk in nature. When she felt better, then she could feed the baby. It was thought that the mother's milk contained the mother's emotions and thoughts which were then transferred to the baby. It was suggested that she read inspiring books or listen to beautiful music at the time of feeding the baby.

3. She was instructed not to relate to people who gossiped and criticised, or those who made ugly remarks about others.

4. She was to do no heavy labor and not too much travelling, but keep herself busy with the baby and various domestic chores.

5. She was to keep the baby really clean, bathing him or her in lukewarm or even cold water.

Mental development starts from pregnancy, and it is possible to have heroes and geniuses if the below points are carefully taken into consideration:

It will be a blessing for the child if the pregnant mother occupies her mind with lofty thoughts; checks her motives; is careful about her conversations; keeps herself in the line of Beauty, Goodness, Truth, and joy; is careful about her emotions and relationships; avoids watching television programs full of violence and crimes, and, instead, relaxes and enjoys herself in Nature or with inspirational music, books, and creative activity; and, finally, keeps company with loving and joyful people. Mothers will be surprised to see great beauty and integrity in their children when they start them in the right way and then watch the steps of their children.

- Torkom Saraydarian.

Characteristics of a New Age Woman !!!


The first characteristic is inclusiveness. An intelligent woman realizes that inclusiveness is the path of survival, that her children will be killed century after century if we follow the old ways of separatism.

We must have inclusiveness in our thinking, our speech, our manners, our plans, our decisions, and our ways of living. Everything that is against inclusiveness must be renounced if we want to create harmony between ourselves and the coming New Age waves of energies. One of these energies is inclusiveness....

The serious woman realizes that all people are her children. How can she bring these children together in harmony so that she creates a symphony, instead of clashes, hatred, anger, jealousy, revenge, greed, destruction? This is the job of the New Age woman….

If women stand together, they have the greatest force in the world. In twenty to fifty years time, we will see that women will speak with one voice - if they are not trapped in sexual license, in prostitution, in vices, drugs, and selfishness. Negative forces are working to make women slaves and thus prevent improvement in the quality of living that women will make when they are truly free.

If you watch the mass media, you will see that many traps are made to keep women slaves of materialism. The image of woman is misused in television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Her image is used to make money; that is all. If they put a naked woman in a magazine, it is because they want to sell products.

By destroying the morality of woman, they can build empires of materialism. But every time woman is humiliated and her beauty is not recognized on a higher level, that civilization or country falls. If we read carefully the history of humanity, we can see the signals of destruction that appeared in every great nation before it collapsed. The first signal was that women began to decline in their values, standards, and goals. Women can end the destruction of civilizations if they stand together, demanding the highest for all life....

The history of a nation can be seen clearly if we observe and analyze our own life or the life of a person who is becoming successful, then expanding, then going downhill. Why is this happening? A nation is the reflection of individuals.

An interesting phenomenon happens in the mind and brain when a new idea is given and emphasized. Suddenly one can see the formation of a great army. In the brain and mind, all separative thoughts that are accumulated in the genes through the ages, immediately dress as if in a drama and then perform. They surface and say, "I am this; I am that," and fight over the new idea.

If a person is born for the New Age - meaning that for ages this person has been striving for virtue and for new and greater ideas - then for him discovering New Age ideas will be like finding an old jewel that was lost. There will be no negative reaction.

When you find many reactions surfacing in your mind, it means that you have not prepared for the New Age, and you were the victim of society, of separative persuasions, of separative and destructive thoughts. Those who victimized you take your brain and beat it repeatedly, eventually making you dumb and accepting of everything they say to you.

Once you search for the flower of inclusiveness, it will start to grow within you. Try to develop that flower in your garden instead of the weeds of separatism….

The second characteristic of women in the New Age is an urge and ability to create peace. International peace, national peace, home peace, and personal peace can be developed artistically and intelligently in conversations, in writings, in relationships, and in emotional responses and reactions.

Women must have inner peace and not be irritated. When one irritates a woman, he destroys that woman. An irritated mother cannot be a good mother; an irritated mother destroys her children. If an irritated mother breast-feeds her child, she poisons his mind, heart, and body. If an irritated woman goes to the office, she will react negatively under pressure. When one irritates a woman and agitates her emotions, he creates troubles in her home and business, which can affect the family income, the health of the children, and the woman's social relationships. Women must be peaceful as much as possible. It is peaceful women who bring peace into the family and into the world.

Women must come together and create peace within themselves, among themselves, and in their families. If they see that men are totally out of their senses, women must bring them back to their senses with the graceful means they have within….

Women who manage their homes practically by making the home a happy and peaceful place, when they are ready, can also step into politics and inspire the leaders of nations to think in terms of peace, cooperation, and the future. Women learn many political techniques through creating peaceful, cooperative relations in their homes.

In all her expressions, a New Age woman emphasizes inclusiveness and peace. These energies are fundamental for the survival of the world.

There should be courses in universities about inclusiveness and peace, New Age women will learn and teach these principles. When we teach engineering, we have engineers. When we teach inclusiveness and peace, we have people who will take on the responsibility of living a life of inclusiveness and peace and work for a peaceful world.

The third characteristic of New Age women is illumination, enlightenment. In many cultures of the passing age, a woman was considered a slave, a puppet who dressed and danced and otherwise performed to satisfy the sexual urges of man and to bear children and raise them. Most women were kept ignorant, and their freedom was very limited. Women are still in slavery today whenever they are used for advertisement and prostitution, or as machines to give birth to and raise children against their will.

In the New Age, women will change these conditions prevalent in many countries and restore their dignity, value, and beauty. Only through liberated women will the world enter into a cycle of inclusiveness, peace, and enlightenment.

Future generations will profit highly if their mothers are educated, experienced, and enlightened. Education is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is far greater and deeper than education. Education often promotes the will of tradition, politics, and various interests. But enlightenment causes people to see the reality, the cause, and the purpose of education.

An enlightened woman can see those forces that are destructive and that prepare a dark future for her children and for the world. Education often hides reality. But an enlightened person can see beyond the partial interests and see the direction that must be followed.

Enlightenment comes when a woman subjects herself to many - even opposing - currents of ideology, philosophy, and interpretation of world events, and tries to find the real cause of them. "Old Age" women were subject to the imposition of an ideology. In the New Age of liberty, women must study many ways of approach so that they continually choose of their own free will and protect themselves from being used by separative interests.

An enlightened woman will not let her body and beauty be used to sell commodities. She will not be deceived. Her enlightened mind will recognize such traps and their effects and will choose the way of nobility and self-control.

Because of the efforts of enlightened women in the past, we have many women working in very responsible positions in every nation. However, the ratio of women to men in these positions is so small that a great effort must be made to give equal opportunity to women to increase their numbers in responsible positions in every occupation that benefits humanity.

To advance in positions of responsibility, a New Age woman must have a plan that includes all aspects of her life. She must plan for such aspects as:

a. education b. marriage/relationships/sex c. work d. whether or not to have and raise children e. when and how she will advance on the ladder of society f. in what field she will serve humanity

All these factors must be clear to her so that she systematically plans her life to step into politics, business, religion, science, economy, arts, or education. If she organizes her life intelligently, she will be able, even if she is married and raising a family, to earn college degrees and prepare herself for larger-scale work when her children are grown.

Women must never stop educating themselves, in any condition, if they want to work in leadership positions in the world. But if they do not plan their lives and accidentally become pregnant when they are not married or not prepared to raise a child, or if they ruin their lives with drugs, alcohol, and premature sex, their liberation will be delayed for many hundreds of years.

The fourth characteristic of New Age women is purity and cleanliness: purity of mind, of speech, of heart; cleanliness of body, clothes, home, and environment. The New Age woman must radiate beauty, and she cannot be beautiful if she does not have purity and cleanliness. One of the greatest lessons she can give to her children is the image of cleanliness and purity in all aspects. If children see how their mother is clean and neat in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in her dressing, and in her daily affairs, they will remain impressed throughout their lives and will themselves be clean.

The New Age woman understands that she can affect the condition of the world by raising beautiful children who are equipped with New Age ideas and visions.

The fifth characteristic of New Age women is a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. This sense is related to inclusiveness and is a very practical virtue. Women must study and understand the meaning of this sense and teach it to their children. The sense of brotherhood and sisterhood implies that woman relates herself to the rest of humanity as a sister, as a mother, and tries to teach humanity the beauty of sharing all that is precious on earth and in other human beings. She teaches everyone she meets that the planet is one home and belongs to every one of us - to all animals and trees and to all living forms equally.

The sixth characteristic of New Age women is a love of labor. The New Age woman has a tremendous amount of psychic energy. She never gives up. She is steady on her path, persevering, patient, and focused in labor - labor that brings humanity more beauty, goodness, light, health, joy, and prosperity; labor that leads human beings into harmonious relationships; labor through which she tries to bring into the world New Age values and visions.

A New Age woman never wastes time in her home. She is industrious in society. She is honest in her job. She is honest, positive, and righteous in her relationships. She conquers all obstacles step-by-step through her labor and through the high quality of her understanding and truthfulness....

The seventh characteristic of New Age women is beauty and gracefulness. Gracefulness brings integrity and harmony into the nature of those who experience such a woman. The children and friends of a graceful woman feel an urge to release beauty in their hearts and to live a life of value and dignity.

A graceful wife, sister, mother, daughter, or friend is a fragrant flower of rare quality. A man's heart feels great joy in the presence of a graceful woman.

The eighth characteristic of a New Age woman is striving toward spiritual heights. A New Age woman never gives up. If in the past she was manipulated, beaten, deprived, or led into dark paths of life, she awakens to her real values, stands up, and proceeds toward spiritual heights.

She feels that the present human condition is but a stage of evolution. She feels that she can transcend herself and enter the path of perfection as many Great Ones have done before her, Those Who have testified that it is possible to surpass human evolution altogether and continue a superhuman evolution.

As she advances in her spiritual path - the path of purity, beauty, intuition - she becomes a greater source of wisdom and leadership.

A woman who is in contact with higher intelligences and higher centers of the Universe can inspire humanity with universal and Cosmic values. To bring new values into life, women need to climb greater heights and contact greater light and greater freedom.

The ninth characteristic of New Age women is continuity of consciousness. Women can make this breakthrough faster than men due to their intuitional nature.

Through continuity of consciousness, a woman will work not ten to fourteen hours but twenty-four hours a day, even in her so-called sleep. When asleep, she will be able to contact higher intelligences, higher mysteries, and will record them in her brain, bring them down to normal consciousness, and offer them as a gift for humanity.

Through continuity of consciousness, women will serve in the subjective planes; they will teach humanity greater principles and will learn in the Universe. They will be able to travel without their bodies to great distances around the world and deliver the message of beauty, joy, and solemnity.

The tenth characteristic of New Age women is creativity. A New Age woman will not only work in the fields of art and culture, but she will also be creative in her ideas, thoughts, speech, and actions. To be creative means to be able to manifest beauty, to meet the needs of people on all levels, challenging them to live better lives and to bring harmony and cooperation through the light of a great vision.

The eleventh characteristic of New Age women is economy. The New Age woman never wastes her energy, sex, body, time, money, or mind so that she can use them for a great cause, for progress, unity, and synthesis. The New Age woman saves her money, electricity, water, gas, telephone, and food and takes care of her furniture and clothing so that nothing is wasted. To waste means to steal from Nature.

The twelfth characteristic of New Age women is compassion. Compassion is the ability to understand both sides of a question and reach a decision that will bring the highest good for both sides….

Compassion is the ability to balance two extremes and enable them to come to an agreement on the path of righteousness. Women will use compassion, especially in relation to world problems.

Women are a barometer of the success and failure of a nation. If women fall from maternal virtues and cheapen their lives in drugs, prostitution, crime, gambling, and luxury, they symbolize the downfall of the family and the nation.

It is very interesting to observe how women are under more attacks than men. Subjectively, women are the targets of all those who want to exploit humanity because if they conquer women, all on earth will fall into their hands. If women are alert, nothing can be lost.

Women and men of all ages must avoid watching any movie that contains crime, violence, or the prostitution of human morals. When people sleep after watching such movies, their sense of right human relations is less accurate, their intelligence and reasoning are more distorted, and their inner strength or striving is weakened.

Such movies control their minds, emotions, and bodies and build points of association in their vehicles. With such points accumulated within, people become like machines, full of push buttons. Any time a button is pressed, their mood tunes in with the memory of the violence and crime they saw perhaps years before, and the old effect repeats itself, further decreasing their creative intelligence and potential. This has caused widespread crime and violence....

Women's imaginative faculty is far more advanced than men's, and because of this powerful imagination, women create faster results in matter, the body, and the environment. A woman's imagination is almost reality for her. For a man, imagination is a game. But for a woman, imagination is an experience with the object of her imagination….

The New Age woman is an example of morality.

No woman can be sexually healthy if she has no high moral principles. Morality gives her endurance, power, strength, insight, the sense of righteousness, and clarity of mind. It enables her to challenge man into a right direction of life.

Without morality the home cannot stand unified under outside pressure; it falls apart. The morality of a woman, like a great magnet, attracts the man who was wandering on dark paths. The morality of a mother is a great source of inspiration to her children.

The morality of a woman makes her stand against evil and endure during times of great pressure and crisis. The ancients used to say that tension and crises multiply the energies of a virtuous woman. Throughout ages, the greatest and deepest inspirations have come through women.

Woman knows the value of life because she gives birth to life. Woman is sacred because woman is the symbol of future generations. The New Age woman not only gives birth to her child with her highest visions but also nourishes that child with her own milk and love. With beautiful and heroic stories she inspires and leads her child toward great achievement. She is sacred because she is the one who suffers for the continuation of life and for better conditions in the future….

- Torkom Saraydarian (Sex, Family, and the Woman in Society)