Judging by the number of web sites dedicated to orbs, they fascinate many people. And yet, if you ask any serious paranormal researcher, they will dismiss most, if not all, orbs as photographic artifacts. Indeed, many of the web sites dedicated to orbs admit as much. So why do orbs continue to exert such interest?

One reason must be that they are relatively common and easy to produce. For every picture apparently showing a ghost, there must be thousands featuring orbs.

If someone shows you photos with ‘orbs’ and insists they’re angels or some divine phenomena, check the site above.  Or look at the Wikipedia entry.  Hell, just run a Google search and you’ll find dozens of websites not just debunking such photos but showing exactly how anybody can shoot them with nothing more than a cheap digital camera and easy-to-duplicate conditions.

In virtually every instance of people swearing they’ve captured pictures of angels or ghosts or half-phased plasma aliens or whatever, I can just about guarantee the following*:

• The camera is a short focal-length small digital camera (not a D-SLR or 35mm film camera)
• The picture was taken in low light conditions or at night
• There is dust, rain, smoke, or fog in the air (usually it’s dust)
• Flash was used (and on these small cameras, the flash unit is right next to the lens, providing maximum perpendicular reflection)

(*Notes: It is possible to create orb photos without flash, but these are more rare, requiring a strong light source (such as the sun) behind the camera.  Occasionally you can get lens flares or dust reflection images with SLR-style and larger cameras, but it’s harder and the fact it’s just an optical artifact is more patently obvious.  The odd semi-discernible patterns in the small camera-produced orbs are actually caused by the LCD chip and how it translates incoming out-of-focus photons into a recorded digital image; they’re not magical floating Om symbols or sacred geometry yantras.)

Seriously, if you show me a picture with a crowd at night, in the middle of a bark-shred covered field, and a bunch of reflection orbs above them, don’t expect me to dispense with my college-level education in photography, optics, physics, and the simple application of Occam’s Razor.  You’re just shooting a large cloud of dust particles, thrown up in the air by all those people shuffling around.  If it’s a big party or gathering, there will also be moisture from people’s breath and perspiration, rising in the heat generated by dozens of human bodies in close proximity.  The closest dust particles look big because they’re close and the most out-of-focus.

It’s not magic or a miracle — it’s science.  Not just an unproven hypothesis either, but a rational explanation which is demonstrable in a repeatable fashion using rigorous scientific methodology.  I trust the scientist who not only can explain to me why these orb images occur, but also why they have the specific features and visual artifacts they commonly display.

The other day I joked to my spouse that I ought to take my little Olympus digi-cam to the immense cattle pens near Coalinga, California, next to I-5.  Vast acres of bovines raising a cloud of dust so extensive it creates traffic hazards on the nearby highway if the winds are right (or wrong).  (It’s also a place where you really, really want to have your vehicle’s ventilation system set to recirculate… trust me on this.) “Oooh, look! Hundreds of angels for each cow!”  Yeah right…must be morbid angels, because that’s a beef processing facility.

Insisting such photos are full of angels or spirits hugely undermines a person’s credibility with those, like myself, who know how stuff actually works. You might as well be trying to persuade me that a team of giant invisible swans hauls the sun across the sky each day.  You want to believe it, go ahead — but don’t expect me to buy into your fantasy or to act like I’m amazed.

Furthermore, when someone espouses this kind of junk-science / pseudo-spiritualism as evidence supporting their belief systems, I am very unlikely to give credence to anything else this person might say, especially with regard to the rest of their non-scientific philosophical, religious or spiritual ideas, however sensible, enlightened or profound.

Why?  Because if someone insists I accept the miraculous origins of their ‘angel-orb’ pictures, despite the otherwise perfectly rational and scientifically provable explanations, how can I trust anything else they say?  I’ll be asking myself, ‘Are they just as credulous about their beliefs?  How do I know it isn’t all just something ridiculous they chose to believe without question, understanding, or proof?  Or maybe they’re just making it all up to see how much rank foolishness I’ll swallow…’

I can forgive an honest mistake or someone reaching the wrong conclusion because they did not have all the information.  But to continue to insist something is a miracle, magical, or paranormal in the face of obvious, rational evidence of ordinary-world science displays a degree of willful self-ignorance I simply won’t abide or tolerate.  I’ll tell you you’re wrong and why; if afterwards you still insist you’re still right, I’ll conclude you’re an idiot.  I may be kind enough not to tell you so to your face, but I guarantee it will be what I’m thinking.

If you’ve wandered here and happen to be one of the fervent angel-orb believers, and haven’t turned away in offended anger already, please allow me to pose a few questions to ponder:  First, exactly who told you the orbs were absolute evidence of something supernatural?  Are they an actual authority on the matter and can they prove their claims, or might they too have been misled by bad information and a desperate desire to believe in something ‘magical’ despite ample physical evidence to the contrary?  Secondly, do your deeply held spiritual beliefs truly depend on believing something that is easily debunked by anyone with the curiosity to perform a simple experiment and a willingness to learn a little about the physics of optics & digital cameras?

With so many actual, genuine miraculous events in the world, we really don’t need to make ourselves look foolish, uneducated, and disreputable by ignoring rational, accurate scientific explanations for ordinary, non-miraculous phenomena.  Even if it looks pretty.  Or happened in a place, at a time, when far more subtle and powerful miracles occurred well away from the error-prone reach of cheap digital cameras.

Since returning to the U.S. at the end of March, my spouse and I have helped co-found a new Sai community organization in the greater Albuquerque NM area (including most of New Mexico) — called “Faith and Patience.”  (URL: http://www.faithandpatience.com)

In the last month, a new information ‘bulletin board’ site went online, and is the place to go if you want to know about upcoming events, classes, and weekly spiritual discussion get-togethers.

We just attended a long fire puja (ceremony) with a few of our new good friends here in the Albuquerque area.  Good fire, too.  I give great thanks to my own teacher, Sri Kaleshwar Swami, for the invaluable gifts he’s given me — most of all, a far happier life.

Namaste, friends,
Becca

http://www.rebeccamorn.com/mind/?cat=15

And there’s another post I put up, about Enjoying an Ashram Stay, which I wrote last year.  It’s chock full of useful tips on what to bring and what to buy.

We ourselves — Stephanie and I — aren’t going to the Guru Purnima program this year, in large part because we just got back to the States after 3 years at the ashram.  Not only haven’t we completely moved in to our new house, we’re in the process yet of building a new spiritual community in New Mexico, with the blessings and encouragement of our teacher, Sri Kaleshwar.

They also have a great stainless steel neti pot, and related supplies.  If you click through either of those links and decide to buy something, I get a small amount of money back at no cost to you.

(Note these are my own recommendations, and not from my Swami…)

Been busy of late…but also some news to share:  We’re gonna be moving back to the States in about a month.  It truly has been great and an amazing adventure over here in India, but it’s also come time to recognize — with our Swami’s encouragements and blessings — that it’s time to start putting stuff into practice.  To get the work done.

So…I owe a post on the whys and wherefores and all that.

Today, we check out, go hang at the house of a dear, dear friend for a few hours.  After that, drop off the car, then it’s over to the Amtrak station where we’ll pick up the Southwest Chief bound to L.A.  It was a splurge, but we sprung for 1st class accommodations — full sleeper compartment — for both that leg and the one following (L.A. to San Jose) on the Coast Starlighter.

Should be fun, as it’ll be my first train trip ever.

Literally — the flight leaves at about 6am from Bangalore, connects through London, and ends at San Francisco.  On the clock, it’ll be around 4pm when we hit the ground, but actual flight time is 24 hours.  (Of course, we reverse this on the way back east, leaving on one day, arriving three later, with a sun-loss of that same half-day.)

We love India…but we also miss our other home, back in the States.  It was about this same time last year that we went back for about a month; this year, we’re going to stay 7 weeks.  And instead of sticking almost entirely to one place, we’ll be wandering a bit more.  A little time in Sunnyvale with some friends, then off to Albuquerque to visit family and other friends, then back to our favorite medium-term lodging place, Fern River Resort in Felton, CA.  Then back to Sunnyvale, and finally back once more to India to continue our extended education in spirituality, meditation, and Indian culture (both ancient and modern).

Had anyone suggested three years ago (Oct ’05), that I would spend the bulk of my time between then and now in India, studying at an ashram, I’d have said they were nuts.  Sure, I’d always wanted to travel, see the world, experience new things — but for most of my adult life, stuff always got in the way.  When I had time, I had no money.  When I had money, I had no time.  I’ll also admit to a certain timidness, worried that I wouldn’t know how to handle myself in strange new places.

So far, we’ve done all right though.  Made a few mistakes; made more than enough friends to outweigh the lapses.  For instance, the hotel staff at the Ballal Residency Hotel where we’re staying right now (in transit) calls us “family”, and not only ask after our health and well-being, they really take care.

Still, when you’re away from what you know, your home culture, for long enough, you begin to crave things.  I want to be able to drive myself places (no way could I handle a car here — they drive like crazy people).  To go walking deep in forests, alone.  To eat familiar foods (for instance, I have a huge craving for a cheese omlette, maybe with tomatoes and/or mushrooms…Rocky’s Diner, here I come).

Today, we’ve been taking it relatively easy.  Taking care of a few loose ends, such as getting luggage tags & straps.  On a lark, we also bought a dozen premium donuts to bring back for the Ballal hotel reception staff, just to say thanks.  (They’ve already helped us out in so many ways, the most recent of which being to get prints-outs of our BA boarding passes.)

This time tomorrow, we’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of London, approaching it, I think.  A half an experienced day after that, we’ll be touching down in America.  Even though we were last there in November of last year, it’s still going to feel strange, I’m sure.

May peace win over war, love over hate, compassion over anger.  We are all one.

To recap:  My partner of 10 years (Stephanie) and I first visited Sri Kaleshwar’s ashram in Penukonda for about 4 weeks back at Shiva Rathri 2006.  It was then we decided to go ahead and get an apartment, and to sign up for the inaugural year of the ‘Soul University‘ program, which ran from Guru Purnima (July, roughly) 2006 to Guru Purnima 2007.  Although we’d gotten quite a lot of instruction on Sri Kaleshwar’s teachings from two of his senior students, Alx and Jonathan, back in the States, the first year was some repetition on that for us, but also quite a bit more that was new.  Plus, we went much further in formal meditation programs (sometimes called ‘processes’) than before.

For our second year (again GP to GP 08), Stephanie and I opted to take the new 2nd year Sadhana (meditation) program — only those who’d completed the 1st year or had equivalent experience qualified for it.  We found the experience interesting, but not quite what we’d expected.  Plus, we’d both gotten involved with rather more ashram project work (seva) than apparently was expected of sadhana program participants.  (More after the break…)

When it was running, the sadhana program consisted mainly of meditation in certain places around the ashram, using certain mantras (prayers), for a prescribed number of hours a day.  Unlike the first university year, which was two semesters, the 2nd year was broken into three trimesters.  We had the largest number of 2nd year sadhana people in the 2nd trimester, and during this time, we also had a good many ‘satsangs’ — spiritual discussions with the whole group, plus often one or two of Swami’s most senior students.  Those meetings were really wonderful, and most helpful.

Then the 3rd trimester came along, and due to various reasons, we were down to just four in the sadhana group.  At one memorable point in May, one of our group went back to Germany for a while, and the last three — myself, Stephanie, and one other lady — took a group trip to Singapore and back (for visa requirements).  We called it "the first ever Sadhana Group Field Trip."  Then it turned out that all three of us were also meditating at the same time, the evening of our flight back to Bangalore — and I called it, "The Mile High Sadhana Club."

Our group was small, but our ‘group-ism’ strong, and we thought we’d get back into the swing of our daily meditations together — but it didn’t stay that way.  Swami had a talk one night, and before we knew it, everyone at the ashram — 1st year ‘knowledge university’, 2nd year ‘sadhana university’, and the seva yoga folks (those who are staying, but mostly helping out with work tasks) — were all thrown in together to begin a huge series of meditation processes.

Some days, we’d start well before dawn and wouldn’t finish until 10pm.  When some of our guest visitors came during this past GP and commented they’d heard how busy we all were and how tired we must be, Stephanie quipped, "We passed ‘tired’ two months ago."

A busy, crazy time, full of activities — including helping to get the ashram ready for the biggest Guru Purnima program ever — but it was also an amazing time for developing group relationships.  To really pull together like a big family, a community of mutually supportive souls.

I’ve had good, close friends before.  But for example, if I disappeared into my room to work on some project and didn’t really get out for a few days, people would ask after me.  When I’d finally venture forth, I’d actually hear, "Hey, we missed you!" — and be touched by the honest affection and kind regard.  The last time I remember anything even remotely like this was back in the mid 1970s, growing up in a small suburban neighborhood north of Pittsburgh, where everybody knew everyone else on the street.  Where the one or two neighbors who refused to interact with the others were seen as oddities…only later, in my own adult life did that ‘non-interaction’ become the norm for American culture, at least in the places where I was living.

Yes, absolutely, it’s a pure adventure being here in India, immersed in this way of life so very different from what I knew before.  It is also a huge blessing and privilege, being able to learn directly from a spiritual master like Swami, especially when so many others have to make do with what they read in books or hear secondhand or even further down the line from the men and women who really knew what they were talking about.  But one of the best and most unexpected benefits has been — for me anyway — a solid sense of community, of friendships.  I know, not everybody has that experience here, but I have, and so has Stephanie.  Sure, we also know that when the time comes and we all head our separate ways back into the world, it’s quite likely I’ll never speak to some again.  Our paths won’t cross.  However, that does not in any way detract from the ‘now’ of having that connection, soul-to-soul, with fellow seekers of spiritual truths.  Every relationship is temporary, an unavoidable truth.  My life here, on this planet, this lifetime, has been deeply enriched for having known these people, in this place — the Sri Sai Mandir ashram in Penukonda.

So… Stephanie and I were super-busy, as I said.  Me, especially, helping with a number of video and photography projects, which chewed up an unbelievable amount of time.  And writing projects.  Then Guru Purnima 2008 came and we were even busier.  The ashram was pretty much filled to capacity for about ten days.

We waited until the 25th before heading to Bangalore for much-needed rest.  If you’re a regular reader of my blog here, you might note my posts about the terrible bombings…  In a way, because we wanted to be cautious, that actually led to us getting more rest-and-relaxation time staying at the Ballal Residency hotel than would be normal for us while in the city.  Usually every day we’re running here and there to take care of errands, shop for this or that, run down some hard-to-find item, and so on.  Instead, we sat, did a whole lot of nothing and quite a lot of just talking about our future.

As ever, we know that with our lives, making super long-term plans tends not to be a good idea.  We thought we were going to settle into our lives and our house in the woods in Boulder Creek, CA, for a number of years.  Decades even.  But no — we sold it (at a really good time), banked the proceeds as a nest egg, and decided to see what the wider world held for us.

Now, already starting our 3rd year at the ashram, we’ve shifted gears again.  The first year was getting settled and learning the knowledge.  The second year went deeper into the meditation.  Now, for this coming year, we’ve decided the thing to do is to throw ourselves more into the ‘seva’ — the work here.  Both of us are finding our place, trying to offer what we do best and love doing most.  In Stephanie’s case, it’s teaching and photography.  Me, I prefer writing (if you hadn’t guessed by now…), and I don’t mind helping some with technical issues, but unlike the last year, I’m hoping now to make it maybe 80% writing and 20% technical help, as opposed to 5% and 95% respectively.

As a tentative plan, it seems to make sense anyway, and subject to change should the conditions require it, of course.  In addition, I’ve gotten the notion that I should try very hard to set aside some time for my own projects.  Blogging, perhaps — but more of what I have in mind is actual projects.  Like maybe poetry, essays, or even get a book manuscript going.  If I can get the discipline to work steadily on a project here, despite all the distractions and demands on my time, I figure I can do it anywhere.

Somewhere along the way between now and this time next year, maybe we’ll know what’s right for us, going forward.  One thought we’ve had is that it might be time to start the ‘resettling’ process, back in the States.  That is, to think about finding a place to settle down again.  Someplace where Stephanie can teach and help heal the wounded souls to whom she’s drawn.  A place where I can ponder and write, and write some more.  Maybe we’ll get a dog.

So…back here in Penukonda though…what’s it like now?  Well, we went from the hyper-busy time to a brief "catch our collective breath" time — but that was only about a week or two.  Now, all of a sudden, it’s as if so very many of us here have regained our energy, our "can do" optimism about getting things done.  Many, many new projects are underway, and I’m hearing people speak with a renewed sense of purpose. 

The new year of ‘soul university’ is once again about to begin, and it’ll be interesting to see it this time from a different angle — not being a participant but rather as an observer (and helper).  At the moment, despite all the projects getting started, it’s also still rather quiet around here.  Once again, it’s possible to go into the Baba temple (mandir) and see only two or three people in there, or none at all.  I can sit in the garden (provided it’s not raining, as it has been doing heavily at times the last week) and be completely alone.  Have to admit, I think August is one of my favorite times here — partly because the temperature is so much more reasonable for folks like myself, but also partly because it’s so quiet and peaceful.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating:  There’s a whole world of difference between being at the Penukonda ashram during a program (Shiva Rathri, Guru Purnima, Navarathri, or Christmas) and being here during non-program times.  Perhaps this metaphor might work:  Being here for a big program is like having a huge truckload of roses dumped on you, and then you have to go back home and try to remember what happened, what the experience was like.  "Oh, I remember a flood of crimson red, soft petals hitting my face, and an intense sweet perfume…then it was over.  It’s all a blur."

When you’re here for longer than just a week, ten days or two weeks — well, there could always be that deluge of roses, but more often, it’s like there’s just a few, and you have the time to stop and savor them.  "Ah, this rose, just so.  The petals curled around each other — I remember exactly the shape.  And the gorgeous fragrance…"  To really imprint the sensations deep in your memories.  My own single most intense recollection of my time here at the ashram was one afternoon in June of last year, when I was alone in the main garden.  Everything was 1000% perfect, yet it was also a perfectly ordinary day.

If you visit a place, for the first week you’re just adjusting to arriving there.  For the second week, you’re used to it, but finding a routine, a pattern to your daily schedule.  By time you get to the third week, you can really enjoy the fragrance, the beauty of it.  You start waking up to expect to be in that place, rather than in your bed back home.  And by the fourth week, the experience is changing you irrevocably  Rather than remembering a brief trip — a ‘spiritual vacation’, really — instead, for the rest of your life, you’ll remember it and describe it to others as "my time at the ashram" or "my time in (fill in the blank)".  It stops being a ‘visit’ and becomes something else entirely.

If you stay even longer…well, it starts providing fodder for endless stories to tell.  Like lately, our epic battles with the packs of monkeys…  For the moment, let’s just say that a Super Soaker water gun can be a gal’s best friend.  With that, I’ll end for now.  It’s nearly time to head over to the temple for bhajans.