The Eleven Karmic Spaces by Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati to Receive National Award
Tues. May 7 - The Eleven Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom from the Patterns That Bind You by the late Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati of Sebastian, Florida will receive the Gold Medal in the New Age (Mind-Body-Spirit) category at the 17th annual 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Author, artist, and humanitarian, Ma Jaya founded Kashi Ashram, an interfaith spiritual community, in 1976.
More than 5,000 entries were submitted by the nearly 2,500 independent authors and publishers who participated in the contest, which was presented by the Jenkins Group.
The awards ceremony to honor the medalists will take place on May 29th in New York, on the eve of the Book Expo America convention.
The 11 Karmic Spaces was published only weeks before Ma was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She passed away on April 13, 2012 at Kashi, her home of 36 years. When asked what she hoped readers would gain from reading her book, Ma said, “I want them to always be tender, first and foremost to themselves; to learn how to hesitate and not lash out in anger; and to learn how to accept love, thus loving themselves. I want them to learn about the traps they always fall into so they can be avoided. They can learn about other people and the spaces they may be in, and become more compassionate. I want them to always remember the power of prayer.”
The "IPPY" Awards, launched in 1996, are designed to bring increased recognition to the deserving but often unsung titles published by independent authors and publishers. Established as the first awards program open exclusively to independents, over 4,500 "IPPYs" have been awarded to authors and publishers around the world. Independent spirit and expertise comes from publishers of all sizes and budgets, and books are judged with that in mind.
Independent publishers are extremely diverse, in both style and geography. Last year’s IPPY competition attracted 3,741 entries in the national categories, 1,072 regional entries and 390 e-book entries. The medalists represented 44 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, seven Canadian provinces, and ten countries overseas.
“Independent publishers are growing in number, and the quality of their work is increasing,” said awards director Jim Barnes. “One element driving the high rate of excellence is participation from university presses. This year, 29 medalists came from university presses and 9 came from museums. Their elevated level of writing, editing, design and production raises the bar and inspires us all.”
For more information on The 11 Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom from the Patterns That Bind You, hit control-click here: http://www.kashi.org/
Swami Anjani, Director of Community Relations, Kashi Foundation
772-589-1403 ext. 112 www.kashi.org
The book is available at all online booksellers and in eBook form.
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IPPY Award Winners Announced for 2013 – “Independent Spirit Abounds”
(May 8, 2013 – Traverse City, MI) "Hope springs eternal in the human breast," wrote Alexander Pope, and such is the hopefulness of authors and publishers for their newly created books. The annual springtime announcement of the Independent Publisher Book Awards has been made, and the medal-winning books will be celebrated on May 29th during the annual BookExpo America publishing convention in New York.
Conducted each year to honor the year's best independently published books, the “IPPY” Awards recognize excellence in a broad range of subjects and reward authors and publishers who “take chances and break new ground.”.........more
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Book Review: When “Karma” Stops Us From Deciding Our DestiniesDevadatta Kali (David Nelson) on March 2nd, 2012Source
Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati is the spiritual head of Kashi Ashram, an interfaith community she founded in Florida in 1976. Her spiritual teaching derive from universal principles underlying the world’s great religious traditions. Along with the typically Hindu emphasis on meditation, self-knowledge, and seeing beyond appearances into the heart of reality, there is the Buddhist emphasis on putting compassion into action, on doing something to relieve suffering wherever it is found. At the same time, owing to her own heritage, Ma’s outlook is also Jewish to the core with an ardent emphasis on social justice. Ma Jaya is more than a spiritual teacher or guru. She and her service organizations have been active for several decades in calling attention to the plight of various groups and addressing their needs – among them the homeless population, low-income seniors, Ugandan orphans, the LGBT community, and people living with HIV/AIDS.
The Sanskrit word karma means “action” or “deed,” so it is not surprising that it should be the subject of Ma Jaya’s book, The Eleven Karmic Spaces: Choosing Freedom From the Patterns That Bind You (Kashi Publishing, 2011).
Karma fits in both with the ideal of social justice and with inner development. The author approaches every aspect of her topic with deep insight and immense practicality. In the opening pages she tackles the question, What is karma? Is it a system of reward and punishment? Is it paying for what you’ve done? Does it give the satisfaction of seeing others pay for what they’ve done? Is it fate or destiny? She makes quick work of all those popular notions and then points out the futility of speculating over “why this?” or “why that?”
With that out of the way, she turns to the substance of the book, already given in the subtitle: “choosing freedom from the patterns that bind you.” What follows is a penetrating analysis of human nature, human behavior, and human interactions.
So what is karma? At any given moment every person is the sum total of all previous attitudes, actions, and interactions. If karma is some sort of fate or destiny, it is one that we ourselves have created. Undoubtedly we find ourselves living with the results of our previous actions, but at the same time, at every moment, we have the power to change our behavior and to forge a new destiny for the future. Why don’t we exercise that power?
The author explains with her own metaphor of the “eleven karmic spaces.” She likens these to the mail slots behind the desk in an old-fashioned hotel – narrow, enclosed, somehow inviting, maybe even comforting. We fail to recognize them as traps. Through our self-created attitudes and patterns of behavior, we box ourselves in. As with those mail slots (also called “cubbyholes”), the only way out is the way we got in. The book is filled with examples from real life, provided by the author and her students.
Each of the eleven karmic spaces has it own chapter, which explores the nature, workings, and consequences of jealousy, anger, pride, indifference, the ego of self-thought and self-indulgence, lack of awareness, intent, worldly desires, abuse of power, the desire to be right, and attachment. To understand them is to have power over them. Beyond these self-imposed limitations lies freedom.
On one level this is a book about how to set things right in your life, how to have happiness and fulfillment in this world. The guidance works, but why stop there? Beneath the apparent practicality, layer upon layer of deeper wisdom will reveal itself to the thoughtful reader. There may be a temptation to read quickly, and the simplicity of style certainly makes that possible. But this is a book to be read and reread, slowly and attentively, and then lived. The goal is not just a better life – that is only the first step – but true self-knowledge. Particularly through selfless service to others, the practitioner of karma yoga will learn to shed the small, ego-based self and recognize a higher, divine identity; call it Self, God, Brahman, Christ-Consciousness, Ein Sof, or Ultimate Reality. Whatever you call it, if that infinite Oneness is the ultimate simplicity, then the closer one gets, the simpler everything becomes. That is the sort of simplicity that the thoughtful reader will find in this book. In Ma’s own words, it is “an instruction manual to help you find your soul.” And what does that mean? Certainly not an escape from this world, but a complete integration of the inner and the outer life.
Devadatta Kali (David Nelson) joined the Vedanta Society of Southern California in 1967 and spent several years in their monastic community. He has lectured at several interfaith gatherings, including the Parliament of the World’s Religions. His books include The Veiling Brilliance: A Journey to the Goddess; In Praise of the Goddess: The Devimahatmya and Its Meaning; and Svetasvataropanisad: The Knowledge That Liberates.
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http://www.sikhnet.com/news/11-karmic-spaces