Angelina Jolie meditates, contemplates, and waxes philosophical in Cambodia.
(KJ09) 3-D animation of the central temple in the massive city and suburbs of Angkor, Cambodia. Angelina Jolie appears at Min. 4:50 and talks of her son, the U.S. wars on Vietnam and Cambodia and how it now taught in American schools.
Jolie's adopted son is Cambodian, and she is the United Nation's "Goodwill Ambassador," and even a dual citizen of the U.S. and Cambodia. Her interest and/or karma brought her to the Theravada Buddhist nation when she was working on the "Tomb Raider" franchise as the character Lara Croft, which sealed her worldwide fame as a stunningly beautiful and eccentric celebrity.
But what's the real story of Angkor, Angkor Wat, and the ancient Khmer Buddhist and Hindu empire of modern Cambodia? Some power took Buddhism and Hinduism from Afghanistan deep into the jungles of Southeast Asia and across the sea to Indonesia in the south, leaving some of the largest and most magnificent Buddhist temple complexes in the world. The largest is at Borobudur, Indonesia, but the extent of Angkor, Siem Reap, and other lost temples in Cambodia are massive beyond belief using more stone than was used for the pyramids of Egypt.
Angkor Wat (National Geographic)
Jolie's Cambodian tats
(National Geographic) Where Lara Croft raided tombs in fantasy, there really are magnificent Buddhist and Hindu temples sunk in jungle thickets once hidden to the world. Now some are exposed, as others remain lost in the jungles of Southeast Asia and the former Khmer empire that extended east of India to Vietnam.
Siri was not blond like Marvel's Goddess Thor until Scarlett Johannson made her so in "She."
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"Who are you?" I ask Siri, attempting to unravel some of the mystery behind the iPhone 4S virtual assistant by going directly to the source. No such luck. "Who I am isn't important," she tells me.
And so I went to one of Siri's makers, Gary Morgenthaler, venture capitalist, Siri investor, and Siri board member, for a better answer to the question, Who is Siri?
Let's start with her name. Like any doting parent, Morgenthaler and the founding team behind Siri, especially CEO Dag Kittlaus, felt the newborn's existence was of such significance that she warranted a very special moniker. And so they turned to baby name books.
[The Hindu Goddess Siri]
Is "Siri" (Inc.) based on Lakshmi or Freyja?
The team put together a shortlist of potential names, but Siri stood out.
Siri, a variant of Sigrid, is a Scandinavian and Norwegian girl name that means beautiful or fair victory.
The Indian name Siri is associated with Goddess Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity.
Siri, to those who gave her life, became an amalgam of those meanings; they defined her appellation as, "beautiful woman that leads you to fair victory and wealth." [Obviously, they overlooked some of Siri's more colorful meanings.] More
The devi or goddess Lakshmi represents wealth and prosperity, material and spiritual. The word lakshmi (laxmi) is derived from the Sanskrit laksme, meaning "goal."
Lakshmi, therefore, represents the goal of life, which includes worldly as well as spiritual prosperity. In ancient Vedic and more recent Hindu mythology, the Goddess Lakshmi, who is also called by the honorific Sri, is the divine spouse or consort of Lord Vishnu, whom she provides with wealth for the maintenance and preservation of Great Brahma's creation (this world-system).
Sri Lakshmi is depicted in female form. [In Buddhism devas are transformational beings capable of adopting whatever form they please as Alexander Pope notes of Greco-Roman-Europeanfairies (woodland dryads)]:
The graver Prude sinks downward to a Gnome, In search of Mischief still on Earth to roam.
The light Coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair, And sport and flutter in the Fields of Air.
Know farther yet; Whoever fair and chaste
Rejects Mankind, is by some Sylph embrac'd:
For Spirits, freed from mortal Laws, with ease
Assume what Sexes and what Shapes they please.
...When kind Occasion prompts their warm Desires, When Musick softens, and when Dancing fires?
'Tis but their Sylph, the wise Celestials know, Tho' Honour is the Word with Men below....
Lakshmi is shown with four arms and four hands. She wears red clothes with a golden lining and is standing on a lotus. She has golden coins and lotuses in her hands. Two elephants (sometimes four) are shown next to her, symbolism conveying the following spiritual themes:
Her four arms represent the four cardinal directions in space and symbolize omnipresence and omnipotence of the goddess. The red color symbolizes activity. The golden lining (embroidery) on her red dress suggests prosperity. The idea conveyed here is that she is always busy distributing wealth and prosperity to devotees. The lotus pedestal signifies that while living in the world, one should enjoy its wealth but not become obsessed with it. Such a living is analogous to a lotus that grows in dirty water but is not wet or defiled by it.
Her four hands represent the four ends of human life: dharma (duty, social obligation, righteousness), kama ([Buddhist chanda] genuine desires beyond the sensual), artha (wealth), and moksha (liberation from death and rebirth). Whereas the front hands represent activity in the physical world, the back ones indicate the spiritual activities that lead to spiritual perfection.
Since the right side of the body symbolizes activity, a lotus in the back right hand conveys the idea that one must perform his or her duties in the world in accordance with dharma [a Vedic idea distorted by the Indian caste system]. Fulfilling one's real duties as a human being on a spiritual quest leads to moksha (liberation), which is symbolized by a lotus in Lakshmi's back left hand. Golden coins falling on the ground from her front left hand illustrate that she provides wealth and prosperity to her devotees. Her front right hand is shown bestowing blessings... More
Does the heart learn love from heartache? (weheartit.com)
Attachment, addiction in Requiem for a Dream
“We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It's easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in the sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven't even met yet. Probably. They all count.But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you'll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there's still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it always happens eventually.
“This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of those lovable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. You will remember having conversations with this person that never actually happened.
“You will recall sexual trysts with this person that never technically occurred. This is because the individual who embodies your personal definition of love does not really exist. The person is real, and the feelings are real -- but you create the context. And context is everything. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they're often just the person you happen to meet first time you really, really want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.”
WOW: (JH) What NASA's Otto Binder, Maurice Chatelain, and shamans reveal
Devas play among blades of grass and woodland groves (myheartsisters.org)
The Fairy Faith (In Search of Fairies - documentary)
A deva(Sanskrit देव) in Buddhism is one of many different types of non-human light beings who share the characteristics of in general being more powerful, longer-lived, and more contented than human beings.
Burmese space-nats (article.wn.com)
Synonyms in other languages include English fairy or sprite or angel, Tibetan lha, Japanese ten, Thai Thevada (from the Pali devata), Mongolian tenger (тэнгэр), Chinese tiān (天), Khmer tep (ទេព) or preah (ព្រះ), Burmese nat, Korean cheon, Vietnamese thiên.
The concept of devas was adopted in Japan partly because of the similarity to the Shinto religion's concept of kami.
Other words used in Buddhist texts to refer to similar supernatural beings are devatā "deity" and devaputra (Pāli devaputta) "son or offspring of the devas." which refer to devas born in space, leading to the loose English translation "angel" or "being of light." Bhumi-devas live on Earth, particularly in quiet woodlands.
Powers
Burmese deva or nat (WQ)
From a human perspective, devas share the characteristic of generally remaining invisible to the physical human eye, having its luminosity extend beyond the range of ordinary human sight on the light spectrum. Shamans and children can often see them due to their greater innocence and sensitivity, something that is lost if and when they become enmeshed in the world.
The presence of a deva can, however, be detected by humans who have opened the "divine eye" (divyacakṣus, dibbacakkhu), an extrasensory power by which one can see beings existing on other planes.
Their voices can also be heard by those who have cultivated divyaśrotra (Pali dibbasota), a similar power of the ear. (The external ear does not become more sensitive so much as the internal portion of the brain, mind, or ear-sensitivity does).
Most devas are capable of constructing illusory forms by which they can manifest themselves to beings existing on lower planes, such as Earth. Higher and lower devas even have to do this between one anothers' planes.
Devas do not require the same kind of sustenance as do humans, although the lower kinds do eat and drink. Higher devas shine with their own intrinsic luminosity. Humans also give off light, scientists have confirmed, but it is usually very weak.
Devas are also capable of moving great distances quickly and of flying through the air, although lower devas sometimes accomplish this through magical aids such as a flying "chariot," "mansion," or extraterrestrial craft (vimana).More
(Japanese devas) BENZAITEN, BENTEN: River Goddess, Water Goddess,Bestower of Language and Letters, Goddess of Wealth and Good Fortune,Patroness of Music, Poetry, Learning, and Art,Defender of Nation, Protector of Buddhist Dharma.Origin = Hindu River Goddess Sarasvatī (サラスヴァティー). Every major city in Japan has a shrine or temple dedicated toBenzaiten. Her places of worship number in the thousands andare often located near water, the sea, a lake, a pond, or a river.She is one of the nation's most widely venerated deities. More
Sacred Hopi Kachina figurines, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, USA (heard.org)
Don't look! Kachinam or "friends" (Laurel Morales)
The Hopis say Katsina masks, which are embodiments of devas, cannot be sold. These fantastic artifacts invested with life are usually given to a young girl at a public ceremony as a blessing and part of her education.
But in France, a judge will decide today whether 32 Hopi artifacts can go up for sale at an "art" auction. However the Hopi tribe, indigenous Native Americans or First Nations people, say those objects contain the spirits of ancestors, and selling them as commercial art is illegal.
The question "What is Art?" can have an open-ended answer. But what if that art is a really important part of one's own culture? A French judge will decide whether they can go up for sale at an art auction.
Laurel Morales is a reporter for Fronteras (frontiers, borders) based in Flagstaff, Arizona. She explains the details and whether this case may end different than a similar suit earlier this year. LISTEN
(KJ09) 3-D animation of the central temple in the massive city and suburbs of Angkor, Cambodia. Angelina Jolie appears at Min. 4:50 and talks of her son, the U.S. wars on Vietnam and Cambodia and how it now taught in American schools.
