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Showing posts from September, 2019

Swami Satchidananda,

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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)

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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

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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