Advaita Vedanta and Deities

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Thanks Prashna! I'll look forward to hearing them. (I don't know Bengali at all, but I know R used to sing these songs and dance to them.)

edited for typo.

V

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Namaste Prashna

so sorry not to have thanked you earlier for this wonderful picture of Ma Kali. this is from Sri Ramakrishna's temple I think. In Sri Mata Amritanandamayi's temple in Kerala this same image is installed. Apparently she sent for craftsmen from Calcutta to replicate it for her. I love this Kali.

And the song too.

I'm still not online at home but willbe (hopefully) from next week.

In Tiruvannamalai now it's the Karthigai Deepam festival, which culminates on 3rd December with the lighting of the beacon on Holy Mount Arunachala. First time in nine years that I'm not there to participate. I am very feeling as my Indian friends would say.

Hari Om
Sunanda

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Oh,

This PC has Trend protection. The link for the music, given by Prashna, brought up a warning: "Warning: Dangerous Web Site. Close the browser window and do not attempt to reopen. Spyware."

I don't know if it's being over-cautious, but I've never had that so strongly and will have to give it a miss.

V

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Hi venetian,

You are absolutely right to give the warning.

I found this site to be extremely annoying for the large number of pop-ups that it employed. And some of those are difficult to eradicate. And I have had some training in software technology!

These days most people have broadband and with that comes the added risk of virus attacks and other spyware. So if anyone is reading this, may I amplify on venetian's warning.

You absolutely need a good firewall, anti-virus, anti-spy, anti-popup and anti spam software. In that order I think. I myself have the ntl netguard security suite, which incorporates the first four. In addition I use google bar on my IE6 which has another pop-up blocker. Also I use Zone Alarm fire wall. Only the free version although the paid full version is much better.With all these installed, I have not had any problems with my 2Mb/s ntl broadband.

It is worth getting the very best security suite installed in your PC. The consumer magazine Which? reviews are pretty good, I find. I think the full Zone Alarm security suite plus the Google bar with built in pop-up blocker should be adequate for most people.

Whether you visit this site or not, a good security suite is essential these days, if you do any internet banking for instance.

Regards.

Prashna

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Hi venetian and all,

Just a footnote:

The Which? is excellent but needs a subscription or a visit to the local library. Here is a free resource that should be useful I certainly find it to be so useful that I have made it my homepage. Here it is:

[link= http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm#2 ]http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm#2[/link]

Membership is free.Many useful software reviews; regularly updated; absolutely priceless.

The best free antivirus section is numbered 2. Have a look.

Regards.

Prashna

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Hi Sunanda,

You are most welcome.

I think so too, ie this pratima is the famous one in Dakshineswar. I saw that one for the last time so many years ago that I cannot be absolutely certain. But what I do know is this.

I searched high and low across the internet for the very best image I could find, that is as I visualise her. This was an exact match. I was so delighted thatI had to share.

Of course, since childhood, I must have seen at least several hundred images of Ma Kali. Also the village I come from has the temple dedicated to RudraKali, hence the name RudraNagar. This image is also closest to the one there.

The somg is Rampradi, I think. A favourite of mine.

Regards.

Prashna.

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Hello Prashna

Very briefly, since you've already returned to the topic:

I just wondered if it would be a good idea if you were to put an edit line in your post # 30, immediately under the link that seems to be a bit "dodgy". I didn't even dare go there!

Thanks for the other link, to the techsupportalert site, I've copied that one.

FYI, IE7 which I recently downloaded, has some new protection goodies built in. And there's a new version of AVG Free up for grabs ... in fact the previous version expires shortly.

Holistic

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Considering it's free, AVG is pretty good. I have it on an old laptop and have upgraded to the new one.

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Hi venetian,

I am very sorry to trouble you again. But PC security is so critical these days that I feel I must.

First, let me say that your trend anti-virus (is it PC-cillin?) is pretty good. Though judging from the site I gave a link to before, Kaspersky, F-secure or better still a layered system is best. That is what I use myself, and intend to continue using in future.

On the ground of costs, the complete ZoneAlarm security suite can be obtained for about $30 ie less than £20 per year. To get that, you first download the ZoneAlarm free version and stay with the free version until you get the half-price offer from ZoneAlarm! Simple as that.

Now what I came back for. I assume that you are using Windows 2000 or XP as your O/s. Either provide a choice of user identities. Most people simply stay as the main user, ie in Administrator mode. This is highly DANGEROUS. Because in that mode a hacker could get control of your PC and take control. Because it gives full access to the O/s and allows any changes to be installed.

MS recommends that normally users should NOT be logged on in administrator mode. I have created a separate user for myself as a 'Power user' on my PC. That is how I normally log in and stay safe. Only once a day I log in using the administrator mode to update my anti-virus and other security measures. I get out of that mode as soon as the updates are done or as soon as I have finished installing a new software.

It's a bit more trouble, but it's worth it. That's how I stay safe.

Regards.

Prashna

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Hello Prashna

You may perhaps have missed my suggestion to put a small warning in your post # 30, so I have done that for you ... an edit line immediately below the link:

[link= http://www.healthypages.net/forum/fb.asp?m=398272 ]http://www.healthypages.net/forum/fb.asp?m=398272[/link]

Best to be on the safe side!

Holistic

RE: Advaita Vedanta and Deities

Thank you Holistic,

for putting in that warning. You are right, I missed your msg. 36, otherwise I would have done it myself.

The reason that I did not put that warning in the first place is that it did not even occur to me. You see, I had alreadyapplied layered protection on my PC. So it was only a minor irritation which I could counter with relative ease. And the benefits outweighed the inconvenience by far. I listened to the songs and Samskrit mantras available for free on that site for hours, without any ill effect whatsoever.

But then I had applied triple layer protection as follows:

1. Full security suite from ntl,netguard, inc. firewall, antivirus, anti-spy, pop-up blocker and privacy manager.renewed every three hours.
2. Zone Alarm free firewall and Google toolbar to block pop-ups automatically. This is available free from
[link= http://toolbar.google.com/T4/?utm_source=en-et-more&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=en ]http://toolbar.google.com/T4/?utm_source=en-et-more&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=en[/link]
3. Using the PC only in 'Power user' mode and NOT operating it in the 'Administrator' mode, as far as possible. That last is very important and most people including my sons do not do it.

I actually had a fourth layer as well, the AVG free antivirus. But it started interfering with my ntl netguard too much. Since the ntl netguard is much better,I disabled the AVG.

The AVG is very good otherwise, as the site that I provided links to explains.

Now, it doesn't matter if people never link to the site I referred to.

Still that does not make the security measures any less essential. My ntl netguard just now popped up to inform me that it had just removed a spyware cookie as I am typing this. logged on tothe Healthy Pages site.

So I am afraid the threat has become everpresent, whatever you do.

I have only outlined some methods to counter it.

Regards.

Prashna.