By: Gul Agha
Jewish & Christian Bibles in Sindhi, published in 1870. We have now lost Jewish Sindhi songs to history.. don’t know what shape the remains of the synagogue in Karachi، Sindh and other cities are (possibly unrecognizable, as thousands of other temples in Sindh).
Courtesy: Gul Agha’s facebook wall, July 2012.
Discovering the Real Birthplace of Islam
Please click the link below to watch the documentary
https://gloria.tv/video/agon3t8peViDMAEe24Zhc8CT6
Courtesy: Gloria.tv
کاهوڙي کجن
Late Dr. Arbab Khawar
اعجاز منگي
اها وطن دوست انقلابي پارٽي پارٽي ڪٿي آهي؟
ڪٿي آهي، ان پارٽيءَ جو پرچم؟
جيڪو ڪفن بڻجي سگهي، سنڌ جي ان انقلابيءَ جو!
توڙي جو اڄ لاڙڪاڻي ۾ “ٻيڙيون ٻڌڻ وارن جي يونين” موجود ناهي پر هن جي وڇوڙي تي روهڙيءَ جي “لوڪوشيڊ” ۾ پراڻيون انجڻيون زنگيل ماٺ ۾ ماتم ڪري رهيون آهن.
آڻيو! ڪٿان ته آڻيو……!
Courtesy ⇒ Youtube
By Ann Schulte
Earlier this month we shared the story of Sasha Eliasson, the man who died twice last year—and lived to tell the world about it. The first time he died, Eliasson was left with no vital signs after the damage from a terrible motorcycle accident caused his body to shut down. His second death was during surgery several months later. Both of the clinical deaths lasted about two minutes time before doctors revived him.
When we shared his story it received more than 500,000 views from our readers, fascinated by his first-hand account of death.
“Death is death. Once you’re dead, that’s it. It’s over,” Eliasson said during his firstReddit AMA earlier this year. Instead of the “light at the end of a tunnel,” he said he felt only black emptiness—as if in a dreamless nap.
These words created controversy. By sharing his experiences with death, and his interpretation of the afterlife—or lack thereof—Eliasson has faced criticism, doubt, and even personal attacks for his claim that he experienced no afterlife.
Read more ⇒ First To Known
Learn more ⇒ http://firsttoknow.com/the-man-who-died-twice/?&utm_source=facebookshare
One perspective on sex differences in libido.
“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
In recent weeks there has been a flurry(link is external) of interest(link is external) surrounding the topic of female sexual desire, stemming largely from the publication and surrounding publicity of a book called What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire (link is external)by Daniel Bergner(link is external). Bergner followed the book’s publication with a widely read New York Times Magazine piece(link is external) focused on the medical treatment of women with low libido.
What has feminism done to shatter the patriarchal “women and children first” mentality, and elevate men to status as full human beings deserving of empathy and human rights? What has it done to reinforce and legally entrench the mentality that everyone, including men themselves, should put men last?
Courtesy: Karen Straughan
Urdu document passed to U.S. media by Pakistani with links to the Taliban
Preparations underway to attack India as a way of enticing U.S. into battle
Urges Taliban factions to join with ISIS in bid to form a worldwide caliphate
Worldwide caliphate will ‘behead every person that rebels against Allah’
U.S. intelligence officials say they believe the document is authentic
By ELAINE O’FLYNN FOR MAILONLINE
A recruitment document understood to be written by ISIS militants has revealed the terrorist group’s plans for all-out war to bring about ‘the end of the world’.
The Urdu document, passed to the American Media Institute by a Pakistani citizen connected to the Taliban, reveals the scale of the ambition of ISIS, including targeting India to provoke the U.S. to intervene.
It details how they are urging the units of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban into one army with ISIS, and asking al-Qaeda to join ISIS to forge a caliphate.
See more » Daily Mail
Learn more » http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3178327/Islamic-State-secretly-planning-provoke-end-world-attacking-India-try-entice-USA-war-document-reveals.html?ito=social-facebook
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3178327/Islamic-State-secretly-planning-provoke-end-world-attacking-India-try-entice-USA-war-document-reveals.html#ixzz3hJbipsC8
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An absolute militarized state and country dominated by ethnic Punjabi Muslims, Pakistan has a history of internal wars that it has been fighting against Sindhi, Baloch, Pashtun and Siraiki people since March 27, 1948. These wars have no full-stop even after seventy-two years after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Almost all military operations and interventions carried in Sindh, Pakhtunkhuwa and in Siraiki South Punjab as well as invasion of Balochistan and parts of Kashmir had unavoidable deep connections with the land and land related interests.In fact, Pakistan Army is the largest land mafia in Pakistan, and unethically and due to illegitimate use of power, it possesses and keeps on occupying the prime land in Sindh, Balochistan, Pakhtunkhuwa, Siraiki South Punjab and occupied Kashmir.
Eying the land resources of Sindh
Sindh is natural resources rich land in South Asia having one of the oldest sea-ports in the region. Karachi, the capital city of Sindh, is the only cosmopolitan in Pakistan. The military has a history of occupying millions of acres urban and agriculture land; school and hospital buildings; and having shares, contracts and employments in the oil, gas, and coal resources of the province.
Recently it has started occupying the bulky land in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur cities for the mammoth human settlements there in a bid to ethnically cleanse the Sindhi from the cities and re-settle 20 million ethnic Punjabis there. By doing this, the land locked Pakistani Punjab province wants to ensure resisting possible freedom of Sindh.
The military has recently launched the controversial residential and commercial project Bahriya (Naval) Town in Karachi based on over one hundred thousand acres land in and around coastal Karachi. Another series of projects is also being planned in the Malir district of Karachi that also is based on over one hundred thousand acres land.
If the intended settlement of these projects is estimated, at least ten new seats in Sindh Assembly, National Assembly and Senate of Pakistan would be created by the new non-Sindhi settlers.
No end to movement
When Sindhi nationalists announced a movement against land occupation by the armed forces, the military retaliated. Over one hundred activists of various Sindhi nationalist parties were killed and around 2000 were either detained or enforcedly disappeared during August – December 2014. Recently, a civil society movement Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) announced launching movement against Malir projects; suddenly his car was crashed accidentally in which PFF leader Tahira Ali Shah was killed and Mohammad Ali Shah got severe injuries.
Sadhguru answers a question from filmmaker Shekar Kapur about stress. Sadhguru looks at how stress does not occur because of the nature of our activity or situations we are in. It is an inability to manage our inner situation.
Courtesy: Sadhguru
The Film explores the history of the Parsi community, its relationship to the Indian state and association with the city of Mumbai. It strives to understand the Zoroastrian faith, and the philosophy to live, laugh and love, which is the backbone of the Parsi way of life, and what makes it so endearingly unique and beloved. As the community is plagued with anxieties over its dwindling numbers, it looks at current debates on issues of inter-faith marriage. On the whole, It is an attempt to understand a community which has always been numerically small, yet, culturally and socially formidable.
Read more » http://www.sciencedump.com/content/6-times-earth-turned-against-life-and-won
In the future, clean alternatives such as harvesting energy from electromagnetic waves may help ease the world’s energy shortage
For our modern, technologically-advanced society, in which technology has become the solution to a myriad of challenges, energy is critical not only for growth but also, more importantly, survival. The sun is an abundant and practically infinite source of energy, so researchers around the world are racing to create novel approaches to “harvest” clean energy from the sun or transfer that energy to other sources.
A philosophical treatise against the practice of forced labor for income. An abridged reading of ‘The Abolition of Work’ by Bob Black.
Courtesy: http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/workers-of-the-world-relax/
Courtesy: Youtube
Sufism and the layers of the heart
A Sufi is someone who has made a total commitment to return to the One by traveling the path of the heart, the path of love. Sufis are experts on the inner landscape of the heart. Sufis say it is only in the awakened heart that we can begin to taste and experience our true divine nature. The great Sufi mystics of the past gave us a model or map of the heart’s road that leads back to the Source. Early writers such as al-Hakim al –Timiridh describes four primary layers of the heart, and subsequent writers elaborated on the 28 “stations” or subdivisions of the four primary layers of the heart.
For the sake of simplicity, I have found the “four-layers of the heart” model to be an extremely useful and timeless spiritual perspective on all aspects of my life, especially for understanding relationships. Put simply, the four layers of the heart are as follows:
Layer 1: the uppermost layer of the heart, or the ego self. Layer 1 is where the ego is rooted in the heart; it is the emotional underpinnings of the ego. We all need a healthy ego to function in the world but the downside comes from the ego needing to be in control, to dominate, criticize, put itself first, to grasp and horde. The Sufi word for the lower tendencies of the ego is “the nafs”. The ego uses emotions from the surface layer of the heart—such as anger, jealousy, fear—to fuel and justify its limited and separative view of itself and the world.
The ego also has a higher side—the rational mind with its capacity for logic and objectivity. The rational mind can hold and reflect a certain degree of spiritual light, according to the Sufis, if it is connected to the deeper layers of the heart.
Layer 2: the inner heart. In Arabic, the word for heart is “qalb” which means “that which turns”. This definition is profound because the heart does seem to turn. Sometimes it feels OPEN and full, other times it feels contracted and empty—oftentimes for no reason we can identify. Sometimes the heart faces the world and is overly influenced by externals that disturb it; other times the heart faces the Source within and finds itself at peace despite whatever is happening on the outside.
In Layer 2, the heart begins to FREE itself from the demands of the grasping ego. It is in Layer 2 that the expansive feelings of unconditional love, joy, compassion, awe, prayerfulness, gratitude, the appreciation of beauty, serenity and contentment are experienced. Greater sensitivity and the ability to attune to subtle shifts in feeling, atmosphere, mood (your’s or others’) come in at this layer.
Layer 3: the soul. This layer is less personal than Layer 2 and even further removed from an ego-based perspective. Sufis teach that it is in the soul where our spiritual jewels or divine qualities reside in seed form. The divine qualities are the archetypes that find expression in the world in manifold ways. Expressions of power, love, wisdom, justice and patience are examples of the divine qualities made manifest, although usually they are distorted by the personal heart and the ego. There is a deep stillness and profound silence to be experienced in the depths of Layer 3 that contrasts with the waves of emotion closer to the surface in Layer 2 of the heart.
Layer 4: the secret. What is the secret? According to the Sufis, it is the truth of our oneness or unity with the Divine. It is difficult to use words to describe this experience. At Layer 4, the bubble of the separate self dissolves and transforms into the Ocean. All definitions of ourselves—“I am this”, “I am that”—are experienced as temporary illusions that veil us from the reality of our true Self.
Each layer of the heart has a corresponding inner “voice” that whispers advice in our ear and urges us to take certain ACTIONS
based on its own perspective. Sufi learn to discriminate between these voices, to distinguish between the voice of the “nafs”, for instance, and the voice of the deep heart.
So how can this Sufi map of the heart be APPLIED to relationships?
When in relationship, particularly in romantic relationships, the first three layers of each person’s heart, consciously and unconsciously, come into contact. When in the throes of “falling in love”, the average person experiences feelings from Layer 2 at a deeper level than he/she usually does on their own. Those expansive feelings tend to recede after a few months because they are dependent on an outside source. Then the relationship gradually settles into default mode, an arrangement where person A’s heart Layer 1 is relating to person’s B’s heart Layer 1. In other words, ego to ego.
That can WORK as long as each person’s ego needs—for affection, passion, attention, security, material goods, laughter, excitement, whatever— are getting mostly fulfilled. But let something important change in that formula and then there’s trouble. “My needs are no longer getting met in this relationship” goes the old refrain. “You’re not the same as you used to be.”
Partners who are listening to the voice of their “nafs” will blame, punish the other in various ways, manipulate, dominate, submit, threaten and strive to control the emotional climate and amount of intimacy permitted in the relationship.
Sufis are taught how to ACCESS the deeper feelings in the 2nd layer of their hearts without relying on another person or “falling in love” to awaken that capacity. Every heart is thirsty for love but once you realize that the Source of the love is within you, then you stop seeking or demanding it from another person. That doesn’t mean Sufis become self-sufficient, no longer INTERESTED in relationships.
The shift that occurs is that a Sufi SHARES the love with a partner that he/she is already getting internally from the Source. When both partners are able to do that, then there is a qualitative difference in the nature of the relationship–it’s lighter, sweeter, deeper, more expansive, with much less conflict of wills than in ego-based relationships.
A Sufi not only feeds the heart of his/her beloved but also strives to be a “container” during the times when the partner’s heart is contracted with difficult feelings. This means staying grounded in one’s own inner connection to the Source while “being there” for the other. Sufis learn the art of intuitive listening and the deeper skill of literally feeling into the heart of another person.
When your partner is talking, you listen not only to the words but, with inner ears and inner eyes, to the condition of the partner’s heart. Healing love energy can be sent into the specific places in the other person’s heart where there is pain. This is done without giving advice which usually comes from the head and not the heart. I recall a trained Sufi healer and friend saying to me once, as I was SHARING some difficult feelings, “Joe, when I look into your heart, here is what I see.” And then she told me what she saw and it was totally accurate but not at all evident from the words I was speaking. I never felt so understood.
In this kind of relationship, person A’s heart Layer 2 is primarily relating to person’s B’s heart Layer 2. In other words, deep heart to deep heart. The exchange of love is much more unconditional because the giving is not dependent on what you are receiving from the other person, but rather it is a sharing of what is received from the Source.
Partners listening to the voice of their deep heart will strive to understand, nurture, forgive, provide support, be generous with appreciation, and express their love in novel and creative ways. A Sufi friend of mine occasionally arranges surprise holidays for he and his wife–she doesn’t know where they are going until they get on the plane. Is it possible to actually see and experience your partner’s soul, to see beyond their personality to the spark of divinity that lies at Level 3 of their heart? This is what the great spiritual masters through the ages do. They are not interested in your personality, they are only interested in watering the seeds of your divinity that they can see in your soul. This ability is latent in all of us.
Of course you will only see in others what you see in yourself. Although there are certain moments when insight into the soul of another comes as a gift– I have spoken to mothers who say that during pregnancy or shortly after birth, they became aware of their child’s soul, the unique divine essence inhabiting the physical body of the child. Some could see the beautiful light that the child’s soul carried with it into the physical plane.
Two people can live together for decades and never really know each other’s deep heart or soul. One way to do this is during meditation when you are feeling connected to your own soul. Then spend a few moments traveling inwards and try to “see” your partner’s soul. A Sufi teacher I know conducted family workshops where one of the exercises was for the parent to do that and to send love to their son or daughter’s (who were not present) soul. It was not uncommon for a mom or dad to report back later that their teenager, who they had been in conflict with, had run up to them upon returning home and say with a big hug “I love you, mom!”, “I love you, dad!” You can communicate with your partner’s or to a family member’s soul. You just have to connect to your own soul first and then move around in the borderless world of the 3rd layer of your heart to connect to the soul of a loved one.
Partners listening to the voice of their soul at heart Level 3 will support and encourage their partner’s spiritual growth. They meditate together, read inspiring spiritual literature to each other such as Rumi poetry, attend workshops with a spiritual theme together, do community service together or simply delight in the sparkle in their beloved’s eyes that comes from his or her’s joyful connection to the Source.
Sufis marry for the sole (soul) purpose of supporting each other on their journey Home. Experiencing the 4th layer of the heart, the secret, is an individual achievement. The 4th layer of the heart is deepest place within us that no one else can enter except the Real Beloved. You can’t take another person there or go there with them. Two souls can temporarily merge as one in sexual union or at other times but that is not the final goal. Sufis understand this and therefore do not place unrealistic expectations on their partner. Unending union with the partner is not the goal; whereas unending union with the Real Beloved is. Knowing this fosters a healthy sense of spiritual independence rather than co-dependence.
Partners listening to the silent voice of the secret at heart Layer 4 keep that part of themselves hidden from everyone except the Real Beloved. No other human being can go there. It’s the secret garden. In Sufi relationships, everything is given but something essential is withheld. That is why they WORK—because Sufis are married not only to each other but to the Real Beloved within.
What if one partner is a Sufi, and the other person isn’t a Sufi? Will it still work?
Love is self-communicative. The partner with a Sufi perspective can awaken the other’s deep heart and touch his/her soul with or without their conscious knowledge or PARTICIPATION. Research at Heartmath has demonstrated that the heart of a person feeling love or appreciation sends out frequency waves that alters the brain and heart rhythms of another person within a measureable distance of five feet (the distance is probably greater, the physical equipment is limited to a short range).
“Love has to spring spontaneously from within; it is in no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; but while love cannot be forced upon anyone, it can be awakened through love itself. Love is essentially self-communicative; those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. Those who receive love from others cannot be its recipients without giving a response that, in itself, is the nature of love. True love is unconquerable and irresistible. It goes on gathering power and spreading itself until eventually it transforms everyone it touches.
Courtesy: YogiTimes
Read more » http://www.yogitimes.com/mobile/article/sufism-relationships-four-layers-of-heart
Doctor says public health’s efforts to stop resurgence ‘abysmal failure’
By CBC News
Rates of rickets continue to rise among aboriginal children in the North, a trend that has researchers increasingly concerned.
Dr. Leanne Ward, who works with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, did a 2007 study examining rates of rickets in aboriginal children in the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut and Alaska between the ages of one and two.
The study found incidences of rickets that were six to 12 times higher than the rest of Canada, a trend that Ward says hasn’t changed.
Rather than respecting the right of atheists to disbelieve, christians are constantly forcing them to fake it
Why do so many religious believers want atheists to lie about our atheism?
It seems backward. Believers are always telling atheists that we need religion for morality; that we have to believe because without religion, people would have no reason not to murder and steal and lie. And yet, all too often, they ask us to lie. When atheists come out of the closet and tell the people in our lives that we don’t believe in God, all too often the reaction is to try to shove us back in.
In some cases, they simply want us to keep our mouths shut: when the topic of religion comes up, they want us to tell the lie of omission. But much of the time, they actually ask us to lie outright. They ask us to lie to other family members. They ask us to attend church or other religious services. They sometimes even ask us to perform important religious rituals, like funerals or confirmations, where we’re not just lying to the people around us, but to the god they supposedly believe in.
Why would they do this?
Read more ⇒ SALON
See more ⇒ http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/christianitys_faith_based_freakouts_why_atheism_makes_believers_lose_their_minds_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
By Nico Hines
By entering into a nikah mut’ah, a temporary marriage for as little as an hour, sex between two lovers suddenly becomes legit in the eyes of Allah, at least according to some generous Shia interpretations. Plenty of other scholars argue that the practice, which was laid out in the Quran, had already been rejected during Muhammad’s lifetime.
To Kamillah, a London escort with 80,000 Twitter followers, nikah mut’ah is merely an optional extra available for less than $100. On an extraordinary online photo page, she puts Kim Kardashian’s butt to shame in a “break the Internet”replica shot. Her backside and just a hint of her left breast are obscured only by baby oil, while her head is modestly covered by a traditional veil.
Indeed, the $450-an-hour escort wears a veil or hijab in most of the photographs on her booking site, even when a nipple is squarely in the center of the frame. Thus, civilizations collide in 21st-century London.
Among the reviews on the Trip Advisor-style site, a satisfied customer concludes: “Allahu Akbar! Had the best mutah experience everr.”
Another recent client was an undercover reporter for The Sun newspaper. Using the name “Fairuza,” Kamillah told him that her quickie marriage, quickie divorce service was in great demand. “It’s very popular,” she explained.
The biggest concern for Kamillah, who says she is half-Iraqi, half-Iranian, was apparently the fear that Romanian and Eastern European call girls were muscling in on her turf by pretending to be Middle Eastern and offering the same ceremony.
While there is a debate among Shia clerics about the permissibility of mut’ah, it is completely outlawed for Sunnis. Kamillah told The Sun: “I did it with one Saudi who converted to Shia Islam only so he could do mut’ah. He did it just for that reason.
“He was in London for two months. I was his wife for the two months. I lived with him and I wasn’t allowed to be with any other man. He paid very good money. He is coming back next year and we’ll do it again. It’s common for Arabs to do it.”
Nikah mut’ah is used in varying degrees of openness all over the Shia world. Iranian officials suggested last year that it should be used more frequently by Westernized couples who wanted to avoid committing adultery—a crime punishable by death.
In Britain, young Muslims are coming to similar conclusions, not just for sex but if they want to experience a Western boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, which is otherwise haram, or sinful. Omar Farooq Khan, former president of the Islamic Society at Bradford University, told the BBC Asian Network that the practice had become common on campus and was seen by many as halal, or permissible. “Definitely nikah mut’ah is on the rise now…Students are educated people so obviously they look around for a solution to their problems from an Islamic perspective,” he said.
Read more » The Daily Beast
See more » http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/25/the-muslim-call-girl-who-ll-marry-you-first.html
Citizens Media Alternative Voice Junction 