Jiva with Dad - Age 6

On the swing with Mom

4 Years Old	3 Years old - Birthday Card Picture
To cool for school?	Jiva with his "unknown" friend

Jiva means "spirit soul" in ancient Sanskrit,

Suryawongse is Thai derived from Sanskrit meaning "The family line from the Sun god, Surya."

The Vedic Sanskrit Meaning of JIVA



(Why we named our son Jiva)
by
Richard & Kanitha Brown

Jiva (pronounced: jeevaa), according to the Sanskrit-English Dictionary by Prof. Vaman Shivaram Apte, Sri Jainendra Press, Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi-7, India. (1970), is by definition: "Living, existing, the principle of life, soul. The individual or personal soul enshrined in a material body and imparting to it life, motion and sensation. (Jiva-atma or the tiny spirit souls as differentiated from Param-atma, the 'Supreme Soul' or God in His expansion eternally residing within the hearts of all jiva-atma spirit souls as witness").

And "Jiv" (pronounced: jeev), as a 'pet-name', means, "To live, be alive," and another meaning is "to see without envy," and also "to nourish, nurture, bring up."

The "jiva-atman" is by nature all-spiritual and each soul possesses in minute quantity the same primary qualities of Paramatma or God, viz., SAT or eternity, CIT or consciousness, and ANANDA or bliss. The jiva souls emanate from one of God's innumerable energies called the "Jiva-shakti," and each jiva soul can choose either to reside in the Spiritual World within nirvana (the Brahma-jyoti or spiritual sky), or they can choose to enter the material, external existence (Maha-Maya) which is symptomized by endless repetition of birth, death, old age and disease (samsara-chakra) through 8,000,000 forms of life until reaching the most desirable "human birth" of which the Vedas list 400,000 varieties.

The HUMAN form of life or birth is the most desirable because it is only in human birth that the jiva-souls can reawaken their previously dormant "buddhi" (discrimination between MATTER and SPIRIT). A jiva in human form has this special power whether they use it or not. It is by proper use of our human buddhi that the jiva can rise up to the point of becoming freed from the miserable cycle of material existence, and entering the Spiritual World which is also Sat, Cit, Ananda by nature and therefore most compatible for eternal residence of the jiva-souls; this is the highest goal of life or Param-purush-artha (one's supreme attainment).

We sincerely pray that by our son's being named "Jiva" he will one day attain the self realization that he IS jiva-soul and NOT the temporary material body. The Vedas state that one should not have children unless one could save their children from the miserable "Samsara-chakra" of repeated material BIRTH, DEATH, OLD AGE, and DISEASE.

Jiva means, "I am not this temporary material body; I am spirit soul."

FULL NAME: Jiva Suryawongse Brown

BORN: Jan. 13, 1997