'The Story of India' is a BBC TV documentary series, written and presented by historian Michael Wood, about India's 10,000 year history of cultural richness and mystique. The world's largest democracy and a rising economic giant, India is now as well known across the globe for its mastery of computer technology as it is for its many-armed gods and its famous spiritual traditions. India is the world's most ancient surviving civilization, with unbroken continuity back into prehistory. A land where diverse cultural traditions and people coalesce as ONE, India !


Like other great civilizations—Greece or Egypt, for example—over the millennia it has enjoyed not just one but several brilliant golden ages in art and culture. Its great thinkers and religious leaders have permanently changed the face of the globe. But while the glories of Rome, Egypt, and Greece, have all been the subject of TV portraits, as yet there has been no television story of India on our screens. This series sets out for the first time to do that: to show a world audience the wonders of India; the incredible richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes; and the intense drama of its past, including some of the most momentous, exciting and moving events in world history.

India's history is a ten thousand year epic but for over two millennia, India has been at the center of world history. It has seen successive invasions from Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan to Tamburlaine and the British, all of whom left their mark but all of whom succumbed, in the end, to India herself. For all that time India has been famous for its spiritual traditions; it gave birth to two world religions, one of which—Buddhism—had a profound impact on all of East Asia, China, Japan and Korea, and in modern times has found root even in the US and Europe. The subcontinent is home to one of the world's greatest—and least understood—artistic traditions and to an extraordinary spectrum of music, dance and literature. India was also, and still is, a great center for technology and science, inventing—for example—the decimal system with zero, which is the basis of all modern science, mathematics and economics. India gave birth to some of the most remarkable characters in world history, including the Buddha, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, and the Moghul emperor Akbar the Great, not to mention the likes of Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi.

Now, in the era of globalization, India has once again become a leading player in the world. Home to more than one billion people it is a land of amazing contrasts: it contains both the high tech brilliance of Bangalore's Silicon Valley and the archaic splendour of the Kumbh Mela festival, where 25 million pilgrims come to bathe in the sacred river Ganges on a single night. While moving at high speed into the 3rd millennium, India alone, of all the civilizations on the face of the earth, is still in touch with her ancient past.

In this landmark six-part series for PBS and the BBC, Michael Wood embarked on a dazzling and exciting journey through today's India, "seeking in the present for clues to her past, and in the past for clues to her future".


References :

PBS : The Story Of India
MysticXpressions


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'Atom : The Illusion Of Reality' is a BBC Documentary on the nature of reality, the emptiness of an atom and all matter, parallel universes where different versions of us exist and the seemingly emptiness of space which really isn't empty at all.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores how studying the atom forced us to rethink the nature of reality itself. Al-Khalili shows how the world we think we know turns out to be a tiny sliver of an infinitely weirder universe than which we could have conceived.

An Excerpt from Peter Russells 'Science To God' ...

Chapter 4. The Illusion Of Reality

The new metaparadigm is based on the premise that consciousness is a primary quality of reality. And it can be considered primary in two distinct ways. The first I have just outlined: the faculty of consciousness, the capacity for experience, is present in all things. The second way in which consciousness is primary is the fact that we never directly experience the world around us. All we ever know are the contents of consciousness, the thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations that appear in the mind. This one fact leads to a radical rethinking of the relationship between consciousness and reality.

The idea that we never experience the physical world directly has intrigued many philosophers. Most notable was the eighteenth-century German philosopher Immanual Kant, who drew a clear distinction between the forms that appear in the mind–what he called the phenomenon (a Greek word meaning "that which appears to be")–and the world that gives rise to this perception, which he called the noumenon (meaning "that which is apprehended"). All we know, Kant insisted, is the phenomenon. The noumenon, the "thing-in-itself," remains forever beyond our knowing.

A century earlier, the British philosopher, John Locke, had argued that all knowledge is based on perceptions, caused by external objects acting on the senses. But whereas Locke thought that perception was passive, the mind simply reflecting the images received by the senses, Kant proposed that the mind is an active participant in the process, continually shaping our experience of the world. Reality, he saw, is something we each construct for ourselves.

Unlike some of his predecessors, Kant was not suggesting that this reality is the only reality. The Irish theologian, Bishop Berkeley, had argued that we know only our perceptions, and had then concluded that nothing exists apart from our perceptions, –which led him into the difficult position of having to explain what happened to the world when no one was perceiving it. Kant held that there is an underlying reality, but we never know it directly. All we can ever know is how it appears in our minds.


The Image In the Mind

Remarkably, Kant came to these conclusions without any of our current scientific knowledge, or any understanding of the physiology of perception. Today we know a lot more about how the brain constructs its picture of reality.

When I look at a tree, light reflected from the tree forms an image of the tree on the retina of my eye. Photo-sensitive cells in the retina discharge electrons, triggering electro-chemical impulses that travel down the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain. There the data undergoes a complex processing that detects shapes, patterns, colors and movements. The brain then integrates this information into a coherent whole, creating its own reconstruction of external world. Finally, an image of the tree appears in my consciousness. Just how my neural activity gives rise to a conscious experience is the "hard problem" we touched on earlier. But even though we have no idea how an image appears in the mind, it does happen. I have the conscious experience of seeing a tree.

Similar activities take place with the other senses. A vibrating violin string creates pressure waves in the air. These waves stimulate minute hairs in the inner ear, which send electrical impulses on to the brain. As with vision, the raw data are then analyzed and integrated, culminating in the experience of hearing music.

Chemical molecules emanating from the skin of an apple trigger receptors in the nose, leading to the experience of smelling an apple. And cells in the skin send messages to the brain that lead to experiences of touch, pressure, texture and warmth.

In short, all that I perceive–all that I see, hear, taste, touch and smell–has been reconstructed from sensory data. I think I am perceiving the world around me, but all that I am directly aware of are the colors, shapes, sounds and smells that appear in the mind.

Our perception of the world has the very convincing appearance of being "out there" around us, but it is no more "out there" than are our nightly dreams. In our dreams we are aware of sights, sounds and sensations happening around us. We are aware of our bodies. We think and reason. We feel fear, anger, pleasure and love. We experience other people as separate individuals, speaking and interacting with us. The dream appears to be happening "out there" in the world around us. Only when we awaken do we realize that it was all just a dream–a creation in the mind.

When we say "it was all just a dream" we are referring to the fact that the experience was not based on physical reality. It was created from memories, hopes, fears, and other factors. In the waking state, our image of the world is based on sensory information drawn from our physical surroundings. This gives our waking experience a consistency and sense of reality not found in dreams. But the truth is, it is as much a creation of our minds as are our dreams.


Source : Peter Russell


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Most world governments today are aware of the source of all the technological advancements made in the recent years and how much of this life changing information is actually released to the masses through the controlled mainstream media. With all the frequent UFO sightings and the public release of UFO files by the concerned governmental authorities of France, UK, Brazil, Russia, Sweden, Denmark & Uruguay the cover is blown, the secret is out ! 'Secret Space' investigates the NASA cover up of the UFO phenomena and it's occult connections with secret societies and their hidden agendas.


A feature length 2 hour documentary exposing the hidden history of NASA, and the organisation's links to The Illuminati network of Secret Societies. This film exposes NASA's secret space programme controlled by senior Occultists. We analyse UFO footage filmed by NASA astronauts whilst aboard the Space Shuttle and ask if NASA has secretly made contact with extraterrestrials.

Featuring David Icke, Jaime Maussan, Marcus Allen, Valery Uvarov and Chris Everard.


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The Life of Gautama Buddha is the story of Prince Siddhartha's journey transcending the illusions of the world towards achieving Enlightenment, having truly awakened to the spiritual essence of creation, hence the name 'Buddha' which means 'The Awakened One'. 'The Life Of The Buddha' is a National Geographic Documentary about Prince Siddhartha Gautama who lived in India two and a half thousands years ago, and the events of his life which make one of the greatest stories ever told.



THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH

When the Buddha gave his first sermon in the Deer Park, he began the 'Turning of the Dharma Wheel'. He chose the beautiful symbol of the wheel with its eight spokes to represent the Noble Eightfold Path. The Buddha's teaching goes round and round like a great wheel that never stops, leading to the central point of the wheel, the only point which is fixed, Nirvana. The eight spokes on the wheel represent the eight parts of the Noble Eightfold Path. Just as every spoke is needed for the wheel to keep turning, we need to follow each step of the path.


1. Right View. The right way to think about life is to see the world through the eyes of the Buddha ... with wisdom and compassion.

2. Right Thought. We are what we think. Clear and kind thoughts build good, strong characters.

3. Right Speech. By speaking kind and helpful words, we are respected and trusted by everyone.

4. Right Conduct. No matter what we say, others know us from the way we behave. Before we criticize others, we should first see what we do ourselves.

5. Right Livelihood. This means choosing a job that does not hurt others. The Buddha said, "Do not earn your living by harming others. Do not seek happiness by making others unhappy."

6. Right Effort. A worthwhile life means doing our best at all times and having good will toward others. This also means not wasting effort on things that harm ourselves and others.

7. Right Mindfulness. This means being aware of our thoughts, words, and deeds.

8. Right Concentration. Focus on one thought or object at a time. By doing this, we can be quiet and attain true peace of mind.


Following the Noble Eightfold Path can be compared to cultivating a garden, but in Buddhism one cultivates one's wisdom. The mind is the ground and thoughts are seeds. Deeds are ways one cares for the garden. Our faults are weeds. Pulling them out is like weeding a garden. The harvest is real and lasting happiness.





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