IDEAS is the "Institute for Development of Effective Applications of Spirituality", a new age look at rationalism, religion and spirituality with a focus on synthesizing them and buildng a one world philosophy.

It believes, as the Universal Life Church does, that we are all children of the same universe.

Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get at a man through his own religion and not through yours.
George Bernard Shaw

I believe that there is a balance between religion and science, spirituality and atheism, God and Man. In 2015, I spent 4 hours choosing the best quotes from wikiquote and made this page on religion. I also, before I started writing poetry, made this list of 128 attributes of the divine. I then spent a few years wrestling with the problem of religion, then turned to writing poems on spirit, a one world philosophy, more dedicated to the work of Mother Sri Aurobindo, some devotional and finally a series of prose on evolution and the new age of illumination.

Friar Imran (sometimes known as Shasa), July 2022

Religion is like learning to ride a bicycle. Once you learn to love GOD, you are pedalling away on your own. Once you start loving your fellow beings, you start to take the training wheels off. When there is no distinction in creed, race, status and ability is when you are certified as having taken the training wheels off.

You then get to lose your religion and start to appreciate bikers from other streets, variations of the bicycle like buses, trains, tractors and aeroplanes - not to mention space vehicles and travelling at the speed of thought.

Imran aka Shasa Ferret, 20 Nov 2013, Bellevue America.

Some quotes to set your thinking.

1. Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "All right, you can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price: you lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."
   Henry Drummond, Inherit the Wind

2. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. - Albert Einstein

3. Indian religion has always felt that since the minds, the temperaments and the intellectual affinities of men are unlimited in their variety, a perfect liberty of thought and of worship must be allowed to the individual in his approach to the Infinite.

4. Christianity taught us love, Buddhism spiritual discipline, Hinduism spiritual democracy and Islam social order.~ Shasa

5. Grant him the understanding that each man is free to choose his religion, that none is superior to the other, that each man understands the will of God according to his own nature and the truth of his being.~ Shasa

6. Dear Theist, I hope someday you'll understand my love for God. It's no different than my love for Life, and all that is in it. My religion is no different from yours - it's just that I can understand yours, but you can't mine. And because you can't understand it, you don't think its the same as yours. And since your so sure your's is correct, you think mine is wrong. Sweetheart, its all the same - religion just means love of life! - ~ Shasa, 2005

7. Truth is everywhere and cannot be our sole monopoly; we are beginning to look at other religions and philosophies for the truth and help they contain and no longer merely in order to damn them as false or criticise what we conceive to be their errors. But we are still apt to declare that our truth gives us the supreme knowledge which other religions or philosophies have missed or only imperfectly grasped so that they deal either with subsidiary and inferior aspects of the truth of things or can merely prepare less evolved minds for the heights to which we have arrived. And we are still prone to force upon ourselves or others the whole sacred mass of the book or gospel we admire, insisting that all shall be accepted as eternally valid truth and no iota or underline or diaeresis denied its part of the plenary inspiration. ~ Essays on the Gita

It is with these thoughts that our programs are designed and which guides our interactions. We believe firmly in a life beyond man, as foreseen as the "Kindgom of Heaven" that the Abrahamic religions proclaim.

Personally, I've been smitten by Sri Aurobindo, his works, his legacy and the proponents of Aurobindonian thought.

In time, Tolkienese philosophy will be expounded here.

Remember, as atheism and rationalism keep gaining ground, that, I believe, as scripture says:

Would Ye measure the distance between the stars and forget He that holds them in the palm of His hand.

Unspoken Prayer by Shasa (Imran) in Nov 2015

Dear God, give man the fortitude to listen to the words of peace and love in his heart and not be swayed by the evil forces that abound in the world around him and incite him to commit acts against the very principles that his religion and beliefs are founded upon. Grant him the understanding that each man is free to choose his religion, that none is superior to the other, that each man understands the will of God according to his own nature and the truth of his being. If he must talk of his religion, let it be with an openness to understand his brother?s religion as well, for as Lord Krishna says - All paths lead to me. Let us hold hands and stand against the spread of ignorance and conflict. Let us embrace one another and truly accept each other?s faults and limitations as our Lord accepts us.

A minutes silence for contemplation and thoughts for world peace.

Rolling the Dice

While it is true that God does not play dice with the universe and that there is somewhere a method and intelligence amidst all the madness, the story is obfuscated from us for the delight of facing each new thought, feeling, idea and experience with ever fresh eyes. Such is the manner of the Lila or Cosmic play. So lets dance the Divine Ball be a part of the Daivic Cycle and be intimate with it's expression... That said, let us very randonmly list these thoughts that may trigger more random learnings and insights.

Random Selections

1. Faith seen from the eyes of a youth.
2. The condensed wisdom of the Upanishads.
3. The acceptance of the process of evolution, the divine in all, and the true meaning of the Eternal Law or Sanatana Dharma and it's treatise on Metaphysics.
4. Nature and her seemingly crude ways seen from the standpoint of the Divine Plan, her never making mistakes as vindicated by a Theodicy that has had revealed unto it the Uttamam Rahasyam.
5. The mysteries that abound on a starry starry night.
6. Thoughts on the Ages and Periods in our history to help us enter more fully into the story as we harmonize it's schools of thought.
7. A wizened and grizzly adventurer voyaging on the sea of Philosophy.
8. A swan bringing the message to integrate and harmonize our head, heart and hands.
9. A Prophet sharing wisdom on the topic of Children.
10. A painter designing the heavens themselves and it's gardens.
11. The Upanishads reminding us of our power supreme that wove the necklace of the suns by Yoga and that can create and destroy worlds with a breath.
12. A lay reminding us of what love can dare to do when we are united in intent and body with the Divine.

Even more Random Insights from the Friary

1. Delight in everything we see and do and learn, slowly of mindfulness and patience, daring to walk boldly towards our Divine Destiny that's waiting if only we throw all our melancholy, meanderings and diffused thoughts away.
2. Guru is the process never the one who guides... and we only have to look to our past to know how far we have come and look with our hearts to the stars to find the way. There is also a bunch of heroes whose names we can take, that give us courage.
3. There is never ONE guru rather wisdom brimming all around and permeating the atmosphere. We just need to cut through the clutter and embrace change and all our aspects.

The Metaphysics of Quality

Two young boys lives were changed by the book "Lila: An Enquiry into Morality". Just to reinforce the universality of its philosophy, one was of Christian origin, brought up a Buddhist and one a half Hindu half Muslim who used to believe he was pagan - both thinkers and very passionate about "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and basic human kindness.

Robert Maynard Pirsig whose Zen was revolutionary and whose Lila became the subject matter of doctorates in Philosophy in the United Kingdom has left us this legacy. The first student to receive said PhD was Anthony Mc Watt and here is his thesis / Critical Analysis

Morality, Idealism, Religion and Yoga

"Morality, Idealism, Religion and Yoga: The meaning of Spirituality" is a compilation by AS Dalal from the works of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. A brilliant book that helps put things in perspective, it proclaims boldly on page 56 that "All Religions have helped Mankind".

Renaissance in the Last Frontier

The last frontier is a barricade between love and our prejudice and hatred. Here is needed a resaissance - the French word for rebirth / revival. Battle is being waged in the Little Kingdom and our very future is in jeopardy. Here are some of the valiant ones:

• Resaissance, helping us shake off the hangovers of the dark ages is a journal edited by Dr Beloo Mehra where Imran sometimes features.
• Auroville, the City of Dawn is a site of spiritual and material researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
• Holden Village welcomes all people to form and renew their relationships with God, the Earth, and each other.
• Our Mother begs us let go the delusion in religion, beating it back with logic and compassion.
• Good Country is a virtual country that implores us all to come make the world work.
• Common Planet which, finally, has a solution to the problems that vex us so.
• World without Hate is busy making Peace Ambassadors out of Children.
• Love for Life was established to fight anarchy and establish a "Kindom" instead.
• Captain Planet Foundation engages with and empowers young people to be problem solvers for the planet.
• Redford Center advances environmental solutions through the power of stories that move.

Join any one of the 1000 loving movements and help catalyse change.

Hinduism or rather #OldIndicWisdom

This playlist of 10 videos recorded at Eton College covers all the fundamentals of Hinduism in an academic manner. Please check out these videos and share with your youngsters.

It studies the major aspects of Hindu philosophy in depth and its relevance in the modern and rationally oriented world of today.

Kindly check out the 10 videos here by hindu-academy.com, sent in Feb 2021.

See also their book Hinduism in Schools which ought to be registered for.

Thus Spake The Christ

Notes on Christianity by Imran

1. It is said that the Christ's message is most faithfully enshrined in the Gospel of Saint Thomas.
2. Also, that he Lived in India, somewhere near Srinagar, Kashmir.
3. Because English has become the "Lingua Franca" of the world and their Missionary's Fervour to spread Christianity awoke Jesus' timeless message in cultures across the world, I believe "There was never law, or sect, or opinion did so much magnify goodness, as the Christian religion doth."

Pluralism and a Genuine Enthusiasm for All Religions

1. Swami Vivekananda: The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me.", Introduction speech at the World Parliament of Religions, 1893
2. Upon the banner of every religion will soon be written in spite of resistance: "Help and not fight," ___ "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension." - Swami Vivekananda Again.
3. Jiddu Krishnamurti: Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.
4. Khalil GIbran: Oh Liberty, awaken but one heart with the rustling of thy wings, for from one cloud alone comes the lightning which illuminates the pits of the valleys and the tops of the mountains. Disperse with thy power these black clouds and descend like thunder and destroy the thrones that were built upon the bones and skulls of our ancestors.