The way I see it

Visiting my blog site after a long time. The last post I wrote was in 2012, four years back! I was wondering how much life has changed since then. I have changed so much and it's fun to read my older posts. I can see why I am what I am today from those posts,like breadcrumbs. I am a Mom of 2 boys now and that dominates most of my life. I am a Software Engineer and take tremendous joy in my professional life. God knows how much I have struggled with that and here I am today, very much at peace with what I do for a living. And with all these changes I am still that person who wants to evolve, who wants to grow spiritually and who wants to be her best self. I am still that girl who is drawn to religious practices and spiritual traditions from all over the world. My area of study had been Vedanta for all these past years but I have found a new tradition - Wicca. I am busy devouring it right now. Finding books and reading them and understanding what it means to be a witch. It's a...

Hindu scriptures always emphasize the importance of understanding ones duty and then following it selflessly. So what is our highest duty or duty to the Lord? It is to purify the body-mind complex, our prakriti, so that the Divine spirit can express Itself completely through it. This purification is the aim of my life, my highest duty.

Over the years now I have been watching both Hollywood and Bollywood movies and have enjoyed watching both the styles of movie making. There are of course several differences in hollywood and Indian movies and I am not the right person to elaborate those. But one thing did strike me a few weeks ago. There was a common thread in Hollywood movies which was rarely seen in Indian movies. It seems to me that movies made in USA do not trace the lives of their characters till the end of the particular story that they are exploring in the lives of the characters. For example, in the movie "Primal Fear", Richard Gere finds out in the end that he was being cheated and lied to by his client and the movie just ends there. It was a great ending, no doubt! The same movie was remade in Bollywood and they had to trace the story to the end where the lawyer takes his revenge with his client and all is well in the end. To put it in other words, every action will result in a reaction and Indian ...

I was thinking of the Vedanta concept of God being everywhere. He being the essence of everything that exists and that does not exist. The soul (or sanskrit "Purusha") is present in every being and non-being. While I was thinking about this, something suddenly came to my mind. Consider a painter or an artist who has created a beautiful painting. Won't you say that this painting is a part of that artist? The painting is a reflection of the artist's nature, his mood, his state of mind, an expression of himself. And all this gets poured into that art form when he creates it. So the essence of every art form lies somewhere in the artist himself. Isn't that similar to God and his creation? He creates everything out of himself and no doubt everything will have His essence, His presence in it. As if He has put life into everything. The artist creating magnificent forms pouring out his soul, his essence in everything that he touches. The result is this magnificent uni...

Last weekend (Jan 30th), Swami Atmarupananda was here in Phoenix. He is a monk in the Ramakrishna order. I took some notes at his lecture on Sadhana or spiritual discipline. So I am presenting his thoughts as I understood them, for my own benefit and for whoever else that might benefit from it. Here it is. A serious spiritual life starts with the urge to find answers to the basic questions of life. Lets first understand what Sadhana (spiritual discipline), Sadhaka(aspirant) and Sadhya(goal) mean to each one of us. We have to first ask ourselves what is my goal in spiritual life? What is it that I am seeking? Our nature will determine what our goal will be in spiritual life. The sadhaka should then try to answer the question of "who am I"? This can be answered by understanding ones own temperament, whether I am devotional or action oriented or want to work with my mind, etc. Once we understand what our inclinations are we can be more clear about our goals and finally what pa...

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.