Posts

Showing posts from 2019

Swami Satchidananda,

Image
1969, Addressing People During Opening of The Woodstock Music Festival In Bethel, New York   About Swami Swami Satchidananda , (22 December 1914 – 19 August 2002) was an Indian religious teacher, spiritual master and yoga teacher, who gained fame and following in the West. He was the author of philosophical and spiritual books. He updated traditional handbooks of yoga such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the  Bhagwad Gita for modern readers. After study at agricultural college, he worked in a family business. At the age of 23 he became a manager at India's National Electric Works. He married and had two sons. He briefly served with the Indian defense forces and was a WW2 veteran who saw combat. His wife died five years after their marriage. After the sudden death of his wife, Ramaswamy travelled throughout India, meditating at holy shrines and studying with revered spiritual teachers. He discovered his  Guru, Sivanand Sarasvati founder of the  Divine Life Society

Chanakya on Managing a Team (1)

Image
Chanakya was an Indian teacher, moralist, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kau ṭ ilya or Vishnugupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise, the Arthshstra.  As such, he is considered the pioneer of the field of politics & economics.  His other famous work is ‘Chankya Niti’. But here I focus on another of his works called Chankya Sutra. It is a book to advise the kings on management of their daily affairs. The book contains 531  sutras .  The sutra system of teaching or dealing with a body of knowledge is unique and prevalent since at least 7000 years in India. The other terms that can be used in place of sutra are – maxims, aphorisms, theories or ‘principles’. Patanjali Yog-sutra, Kam-sutra, Narad Bhakti Sutra, Vedant Sutra, etc are some other examples of this style of writing. Sutra would contain knowledge in a capsule form – easy to be told as well as memorized by pupils. It was an easy way to internalize

Ruins of Hindu Mittani Empire in Iraq

Image
In Iraq 3,400-Year Old Ruins of Mittani Empire were discovered. Mittani rulers were Hindu. A 3,400-year-old palace emerged from a reservoir in the  Kurdistan  region of Iraq after water levels dropped because of drought.   The discovery of the ruins in the  Mosul Dam  reservoir on the banks of the Tigris River inspired an archeological excavation. The dig that may improve understanding of the Mittani Empire, one of the empires of the Ancient Near East.  It was one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the region in recent decades. The palace would have originally stood just 65 feet from the river on an elevated terrace. A terrace wall of mud bricks was later added to stabilize the building, adding to to the imposing architecture.   Ivana Puljiz, an archeologist from the University of Tübingen's Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, describes the palace, known as Kemune, as a carefully designed building with mud-brick walls up to two meters (6.6 fe

Ten Things About Krishna You Should Know.

Image
    1.      Shri Krishna remembers everything of His many, many past "births," whereas a common man cannot remember what he has done even a few hours before. 2.      Whenever He appears, He does so in his spiritual body. Neither His body nor His intelligence ever deteriorates or changes. Therefore, it is clear that in spite of His being in the material world, He is the same unborn, eternal form of bliss, knowledge & joy (sat-chit- anand). In the material world, the living entity has no fixed body but transmigrates from one body to another. The Lord, however, does not do so. 3.      Factually, His appearance and disappearance is like the sun's rising, moving before us, and then disappearing from our eyesight.  4.      Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice and a predominant rise of irreligion – at that time he descends.  5.      Despite the fact Lord Krsna grows from childhood to boyhood and from boyhood to y

Birth Place of Buddhism

Image
Important Buddhist sites in India. A pictorial presentation. BODH GAYA   The site of the enlightenment of Gautam Buddha  under a tree and top site in the list of world heritage sites in India.  The Mahabodhi Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is an ancient, but much rebuilt and restored, Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, marking the location where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment.         KUSHINAGAR       Kushinagar is a pilgrimage town in the Kushinagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is an important Buddhist pilgrimage site, where Buddhists believe Gautama Buddha attained Parinirvana after his death.  SARNATH     It is the site of the Buddha's Dhamma-cakka-pavattana Sutta, which was his 1st teaching after attaining enlightenment, in which he taught 4 noble truths:  World is full of suffering,. Desire is the cause of suffering. Sufferings can be ended by removing desires. Desires can be kil