Religion News Service UNITED STATES, June 2011: A UFO sect that believes human beings were created by extraterrestrials will host World Swastika Rehabilitation Day on Sunday (June 26) in an attempt to reclaim the swastika from the Nazis as an emblem of peace. Raelians, whose symbol consists of a swastika that intertwines with two overlapping triangles to form a star,…
Source BANGALORE, INDIA, July 4, 2011: Yoga is no longer a traditional fitness workout. The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (Nimhans) not only has a 45-minute yoga package to treat psychiatric disorders like depression and schizophrenia, but has started comparing its curative effects with general medicine. Doctors at Nimhans say their studies reveal evidence of biological changes in…
Source LANHAM, MARYLAND, June 25, 2011: Sacred Spaces is a series on the Belief Blog. In this installment you are taken inside the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple near Washington, DC. On a cool spring evening just outside Washington, a steady stream of worshipers arrive at Sri Siva Vishnu Temple for prayers. The temple brings together the burgeoning Hindu population near…
Japan Making a Better Use of Ayurveda VARANASI, INDIA, July 2011: According to Dr. U.K. Krishna, who has been practicing and popularizing ayurveda in Japan for the past two decades, the country is already on its way to accept ayurveda, the traditional Indian medicine system, as holistic medicine system. “The past two decades have witnessed the spread of ayurveda from…
Source Peace has three dimensions. Peace within ourselves, peace among nations and peace with nature.— Dada J.P. Vaswani, head of the Sadhu Vaswani Mission
HPI INDIA, July 4, 2011 (By Sri Dr. S.P. Sabharathnam, one of the world’s foremost expert on the sacred Agamas and a consultant to Hinduism Today). The huge treasure unearthed in the Anantapadma Nabha Swami Temple should be handled very, very carefully. What the temple authorities should have done first is the systematic performance of Svarnakarshana Bhairva Yagna and Nidhipati…
Source USA, July 11, 2011 (by Vasudha Narayanan, Director of the Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions , University of Florida, for the Huffington Post): One of the thousand names given to the Hindu God Vishnu is Sri-nidhi — he whose treasure is the Goddess of Fortune. “Treasure” and “fortune” were words that were used to describe the recent…
Source WASHINGTON, DC, July 11, 2011 (by Aseem Shukla, co-founder of HAF, for the Washington Post): India as a land of stunning contradictions is as much a tired cliche as it is true. But what to make of the priceless treasures? Why would the government demand that the vaults of the private Padmanabhaswami temple be opened? And what to do…
Religion News Service WASHINGTON, July 2011 (RNS): A group of clergy and lawmakers is trying to overturn a nearly decade-old policy that allows faith-based organizations that receive federal funds to hire and fire employees onthe basis of religion. Critics say President Obama has reneged on a campaign promise to repeal the policy, which was put into place by President Bush…
Source WASHINGTON, Jul 6, 2011 (IPS News): Heat waves clearly can destroy crop harvests. The world saw high heat decimate Russian wheat in 2010. Crop ecologists have found that each one-degree Celsius rise in temperature above the optimum can reduce grain harvests by 10 percent. But the indirect effects of higher temperatures on our food supply are no less serious.…