Blog | davidsmith208

Useful Ai time locations

Yes — that is exactly the recording. And I think you’ve stumbled onto an exceptionally good way for us to explore Alain. It is Jehan Alain: Complete Organ Works, performed by Jean-Baptiste Robin, released by Brilliant Classics. It is essentially the complete organ repertoire in about 3½ hours, and the YouTube upload gives you the track timings. What’s especially useful for you is that the quiet pieces are scattered throughout this recording, so we can use the YouTube recordin

davidsmith208

2 days ago2 min read

Alain pieces

Yes. Given what you are looking for—quiet, contemplative, mystical Alain rather than the spectacular Litanies/Trois Danses, and pieces that you could actually learn on a pipe organ or adapt to your synthesizer setup—I would start with a surprisingly small group. Jehan Alain’s catalogue includes a number of very short pieces, and several are only a page or two. IMSLP lists the complete organ repertoire and is particularly useful for identifying these shorter works. My first ch

davidsmith208

2 days ago4 min read

Jehan Alain

Yes — I found the program you mean, and I think the name got slightly garbled in your question. It is Jehan Alain, not “John Olan.” And Pipedreams program #2632, “Alain On Alain (Part 2),” aired August 10, 2026. It specifically features his sister Marie-Claire Alain discussing her older brother Jehan and his music. Pipedreams #2632 — Alain On Alain (Part 2)⁠ Jehan Alain (1911–1940) Jehan Alain was a remarkably gifted French composer and organist who died at only 29. He was ki

davidsmith208

2 days ago3 min read

I cannot

Yes. This is a particularly good Masnavi story to analyze because Rumi is doing something more subtle than simply telling a funny anecdote. Dalqak’s apparent stupidity is actually a device for exposing the stupidity of everyone around him—and eventually the danger of mistaking the means for the destination. The story begins with the Sayyed, the ruler of Termez, needing someone to make an urgent journey to Samarkand. He offers an extraordinary reward. Dalqak hears the proclama

davidsmith208

4 days ago5 min read

The utterance of Ram?

Yes — and this one is particularly interesting because Rarankar appears to have a much more complicated history than simply being a Sikh word. Your instinct to ask whether it means something like “the utterance/sound of Raran” is worth pursuing, but I would separate the historical word from the later Sant Mat cosmological interpretation. 1. First: Rarankar is not a standard Sikh-scriptural word The evidence I can find indicates that Rarankar / Rarankaar (ਰਰੰਕਾਰ) is not a word

davidsmith208

5 days ago4 min read

The Om Naam cluster

Yes. And I think we can continue the same historical/quantitative lexical method we were using with the Dhammapada and then the Guru Granth Sahib: separate root meaning → historical usage → frequency/context → Sikh theological specialization, rather than simply accepting a later English translation. The particularly interesting thing about Sat Nām / Sat Nām(u) is that your intuition—“true name”—is linguistically legitimate, but probably too narrow to capture what the phrase i

davidsmith208

Aug 114 min read

Swim Sauna Pickleball

Yes — I think your new routine is quite good, especially because you are treating the activity before pickleball as preparation rather than trying to make it a second hard workout. The pattern you have now is: Sunday: walking through the tree grove → tennis serve practice → pickleball Monday: 5:30 AM swim → sauna → 7 AM pickleball Tuesday (today): gym + sauna or swim + sauna → pickleball What the new routine is doing physically The important change is that you’re getting move

davidsmith208

Aug 112 min read

Soham hamsa I am that Swan

Yes. And this one is especially interesting because So’ham / Soham / Sohang provides a very clear linguistic bridge from Sanskrit/Upanishadic usage into the Sant and Sikh vocabulary—but there are some important complications if we want to be historically and linguistically rigorous. 1. Start with the Sanskrit The classical form is: सोऽहम् — so’ham It is normally analyzed as: saḥ / so = he, that one, that aham = I asmi = am — often understood rather than expressed in the compr

davidsmith208

Aug 105 min read

Niranjan

Yes — and I would make one small correction to the way you phrased the previous point. Oṃkāra can be interpreted as “the utterance/expression of Oṃ,” and “doing/making Oṃ” is a useful literal intuition, but it shouldn’t be taken to mean that kāra independently means “to make Oṃ.” It is a grammatical/derivational formation from the root associated with making/doing, and Oṃkāra became the name of the sacred syllable and its utterance. Your new pair — Jyoti Niranjan and Kal Nira

davidsmith208

Aug 105 min read

Do or make Om by saying Onkar

Yes — there is a real historical and linguistic connection between Oṃ/Aum, Oṃkāra/Oṅkāra, and the Sikh Oṅkār, although the later religious meanings are not identical. And your question about -kār is particularly interesting. 1. Start with Oṃ / Aum The Sanskrit sacred syllable is ॐ, conventionally transliterated oṃ, and often written AUM in English. There are actually two levels here: oṃ is the ancient sacred syllable itself. A-U-M is the traditional phonetic/interpretive anal

davidsmith208

Aug 104 min read

John Main Seminar DC

Exactly. And I think your distinction is important: you don’t need to go to Washington to “find God.” The practice itself is portable; John Main’s whole emphasis was that the real monastery is interior and that meditation is something you carry into ordinary life. But the 2026 John Main Seminar is a genuinely unusual historical opportunity, not merely another spiritual conference. It is the centenary year, and the seminar is September 17–20 at American University in Washingto

davidsmith208

Aug 92 min read

John Main 100 years

Yes. I searched specifically for the John Main → Laurence Freeman → World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) lineage, rather than the much broader category of Christian meditation. That distinction matters, because Centering Prayer and other contemplative groups are related but are not the same lineage. The striking thing is that the true legacy centers are concentrated in a few places, and one of them is very close to your interests: Montreal. The primary John Main le

davidsmith208

Aug 96 min read

Discrimination and Detachment

Yes. The two terms are worth separating very carefully, because viveka and vairāgya don’t quite mean “discrimination” and “detachment” in the ordinary English sense. Their Sanskrit morphology gives you a better sense of what the traditions are trying to accomplish. 1. Viveka — विवेक (viveka) The basic verbal root is √vic, “to separate, distinguish, discriminate, discern.” So, linguistically: vi- + √vic → viveka The prefix vi- has the sense of separation, distinction, differen

davidsmith208

Aug 94 min read

You ordered it, so answer now this prayer!

Yes — there is a very good conceptual connection, although I would distinguish what Rumi is saying in that particular passage from the stronger doctrine of predestination that you are drawing out of it. Rumi’s line around 2325–30 is essentially an argument of “You commanded me to ask, therefore answer what You yourself commanded.” The logic is beautifully paradoxical: God creates the prayer → God commands the prayer → therefore the fulfillment of the prayer is also already co

davidsmith208

Aug 83 min read

The frustrating treasure scroll

Yes. I think the reason you found this section confusing is that the “treasure scroll” is only the literal beginning of a much larger spiritual argument. Rumi introduces the scroll as an actual object in a story, but then he progressively turns the treasure into a metaphor for the seeker’s relationship with God. The relevant passage begins around 1907, with the explicit heading “Story of the treasure-scroll”. What is the “frustrating treasure scroll”? Literally, it is a writt

davidsmith208

Aug 87 min read

Shiva Sutras

Page 68 What causes the illusion? The illusion is caused by certain elements of creation, which cover and conceal our true nature. These elements are described in detail in the commentary to sutra 3 of the first chapter. The first element of concealment is Máya. Maya means illusion. Maya veils the unity of existence and causes us to experience separation. It works through the following five elements— Kalaa, which causes us to identify with the body and not with Universal Co

davidsmith208

Aug 72 min read

Health benefits sunrise

Yes. Interestingly, modern chronobiology (the science of biological clocks) and several ancient contemplative traditions point in the same general direction, though for different reasons. 1. Sunrise light and circadian rhythm (strong scientific evidence) The strongest evidence concerns exposure to natural light shortly after waking. Morning sunlight entering the eyes (you do not need to stare at the Sun) stimulates specialized retinal cells that signal the brain’s suprachiasm

davidsmith208

Aug 33 min read

Sunrise worship

Yes. While we should be careful not to assume that every monument aligned to the sunrise was used for meditation in the modern yogic sense, there is widespread archaeological evidence that many ancient cultures intentionally oriented monuments, temples, and ceremonial spaces toward the rising sun. Sitting quietly facing the dawn could easily have been one element of rituals in some of these traditions, although direct evidence for cross-legged meditation is rare outside South

davidsmith208

Aug 33 min read

The Siva Samhita

Yes. In the passage you quoted from the Shiva Samhita, the key point is not that the householder must renounce family or worldly life, but that they should renounce attachment while continuing to fulfill their responsibilities. The verses you quoted make several interesting claims: “Householders… achieve perfection through worshiping the Lord.” The text explicitly rejects the idea that only monks or ascetics can attain the highest goal. A sincere householder has the same pote

davidsmith208

Aug 22 min read

Nadabindu upanishad

Yes. These verses are among the clearest descriptions of nāda-yoga in any Upanishad. They are also closely paralleled by the later Hatha Yoga Pradipika, suggesting this imagery became a standard description of inner sound meditation. Here’s a word-by-word analysis of the key verses. Verse 31 The Sanskrit contains words such as: Yogī (योगी) — the practitioner Siddhāsana (सिद्धासन) — the accomplished meditation posture Vaiṣṇavī Mudrā (वैष्णवी मुद्रा) — a specific meditative mud

davidsmith208

Jul 302 min read