Source MILPITAS, CALIFORNIA, March 11, 2015 (Mercury News): An estimated 10,000 Indian-Americans from all over the Bay Area congregated Saturday at Cardoza Park in Milpitas to celebrate the start of spring with the Festival of Colors, Holi. The free festival, organized by the Federation of Indo-Americans of Northern California and Fremont Hindu Temple to celebrate Holi, drew in families, devotees…
Source There are two great forces in the universe, silence and speech. Silence prepares, speech creates. The strength of noise and activity is great. But infinite is the strength of stillness and silence, in which great forces prepare for action. To be capable of silence, stillness and illuminated passivity is to be fit for immortality.— Sri Aurobindo (1879-1950)
Source NEW YORK, USA, March 9, 2015 (by David Gellesfeb, New York Times):On a recent wintry afternoon, Mark T. Bertolini, the 58-year-old chief executive of Aetna, the health insurer, was sitting in his Hartford office wearing a dark suit and a crisp, white, French-cuffed shirt. But instead of a necktie, he wore a shiny metal amulet engraved with the Sanskrit…
Source INDIA, March 9, 2015 (by Vikas Pathak, Hindustan Times): It may soon be right side up for history writing in India with a new team taking charge at the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) last week, comprising scholars who have worked on topics such as Ram and Ayodhya, and written on Hindu Gods and sacred animals. The new…
Source The intellect in its capacity to contain Truth is a very limited tool, while faith is very broad, accommodating and embracing faculty. The mystery of life and beyond life, of Siva, is really better understood through faith than through intellectual understanding.— Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (1927-2001), founder of Hinduism Today
Source UNITED KINGDOM, March 4, 2015 (The Guardian): For a century, the East India Company (EIC) conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant. In August 1765, the young Mughal emperor Shah Alam, exiled from Delhi and defeated by East India Company troops, was forced into what we…
Source KERALA, March 6, 2015 (Daily Pioneer): Millions of women from Kerala, other states and even from outside the country on Thursday cooked Pongala (rice-jaggery pudding). One huge group did so on open hearths on the streets of Thiruvananthapuram and offered it to the Goddess of the Attukal Devi temple, known as Women’s Sabarimala, virtually turning the State’s capital city…
Source INDIA, March 4, 2015 (Scroll.in): Meat-eaters in Maharashtra have harshly criticized the state government for imposing a ban on beef. But a bigger, more organized opposition is in the wings as beef traders and retailers across the state prepared on Tuesday to rally against the move. On March 2, 20 years after the state assembly first cleared the Maharashtra…
Source KENT, WASHINGTON STATE USA, March 4, 2015 (by Kipp Robertson, Mynorthwest): When the priest of the Sanatan Dharma Temple in Kent arrived Feb. 27, glass was shattered everywhere. The word “fear” was spray painted on an outside wall of the temple.It was the second Hindu temple hit by vandalism in less than two weeks. The vandalism is going to…
Source Many people are afraid of silence. They have to be doing something all the time. Many people also are afraid of being alone. But actually no one ever is alone. He’s always with his great divine Self. Every person has a great, divine Self within him, an absolutely perfect, shining, sublime being of light. The voice of this being…