Source OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA, October 13, 2012 (Contra Costa Times): Five years after a few pioneering families began trickling into East Oakland and Alameda, a burgeoning Bhutanese exile community is happy to have left refugee camps in Nepal but still struggling to adjust to Bay Area life, according to the first report to survey their well-being. “The community is still trying…
Source The more we are conscious of God’s presence in daily life, the more intense is the fullness of the joy we experience. God means infinitely more to our existence than the light of the sun means to the plants and trees.— Swami Omkarananda, (1930-2000), founder of Omkarananda Ashram, Rishikesh
Source KUMBAKONAM, INDIA, October 15, 2012 (India Times): The Union minister for culture, Kumari Selja on Sunday visited famous temples around Kumbakonam and said that the culture ministry has included five sites in Tamil Nadu, including the famous Lord Sri Ranganathar temple in Srirangam, in the tentative list for UNESCO world heritage status. She was on a heritage tour to…
Source New Delhi/Faizabad/Ramgarh, Oct. 16 (Asian News International): Devout Hindus queued up at various temples across India to mark the beginning of the nine-day long festival of Navratri, which is held in honor of the Goddess Durga which is observed twice a year, once in April and the second time in October. A majority of Hindu devotees fast during these…
Source Man arrives at immortality by breaking beyond the limitations not only of his physical self, but of his mental and his ordinary psychic nature into the highest plane and supreme ether of the Truth: for there is the foundation of immortality and the native seat of the triple infinite.— Sri Aurobindo (1879-1950)
Source COIMBATORE, INDIA, October 1, 2012 (India Times): It was a defining moment for Coimbatore’s dalits when several of them entered the 120-year-old Mariamman temple at Kalapatti for the first time on Sunday with the support of the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF) and Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) activists. Located three miles away from Coimbatore airport, the…
Source MASSACHUCETTS, USA, October 12, 2012 (Harvard Business Review, article by Peter Bregman): This morning, like every morning, I sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, rested my hands on my knees, closed my eyes, and did nothing but breathe for 20 minutes. People say the hardest part about meditating is finding the time to meditate. This makes sense:…
Source Like a tortoise withdrawing five limbs into its shell, those who restrain the five senses in one life will find safe shelter for seven.— Tirukkural 126
Source KOLKATA, INDIA, October 12, 2012 (ANI): A festive fever has gripped West Bengal, with artisans decorating makeshift temples and giving final touches to statues of the Hindu Goddess Durga ahead of the popular Durga Puja festival. Agradut Uday Sangha’s Durga Puja pandal in Bhawanipur in Kolkata is planning to make Swami Vivekananda’s statutes with an aim to pay tribute…
Source KATHMANDU, NEPAL, October 11, 2012 (Indo-Asian News Service): The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-Maoist) has lifted its two-week-old ban on Indian films in Nepali theatres, the group announced Thursday. The ban has been lifted due to the upcoming Hindu festival Dashain, Xinhua quoted CPN-Maoist as saying. The Indian Embassy here had urged the breakaway group of UCPN-Maoist, which is…