The way I see it

Image is taken from Guns, Germs and Steel Origin of humans in Africa from the African ape about 7 million years ago. Homo erectus was the first one to reach Java island around 1 million years ago. Humans in Europe = 1/2 million year ago called as Home Sapiens. Neanderthals in Europe from 130,000 to 40,000 years ago. Cro-Magnons around 40000 years ago. They were very similar to modern humans. Home erectus -> Home Sapiens -> Neanderthals (western Europe)->Cro-Magnons Great Leap Forward -> 50,000 years ago. Colonization of Australi/New Guinea -> 40,000 years ago. They must have come from south east asia using some form of watercraft. Siberia was colonized around 20,000 years ago by north European people. Then around 12000 B.C. Alaska was colonized and from there humans went down to South America within a couple thousand years. The entire American continent was colonized by 11000 B.C.

This is from one of the podcasts by Swami Tyaganandaji from the Boston Vedanta Society. He talks about four spiritual exercises that we must do every single day in order to practice Vedanta in our daily lives. They are: 1. Forget the good that we have done to others. 2. Forget the bad that other people have done to us. 3. Always remember that everything is impermanent. 4. Always remember that God alone is Real. Beautiful! Thank you Swamiji.

In Marathi we have a saying which goes: "Sant jana yeti ghara tochi Diwali, Dasara". It gets translated as: "The day a holy man comes to your house, it should be celebrated like Diwali or Dasera". Last Monday September 13th, I got an opportunity to celebrate early Diwali and Dasera! I had the good fortune of welcoming my Guru to our house. There were lights, flowers, rangoli, fragrance, food around and we all were blessed by his presence. I can never forget this day in my life. Jai Gurudev...