Source BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, October 13, 2013 (Times of India): Organizers clearing debris from broken puja pandals, government officials clearing roads of snapped branches of trees and people queuing up before water tankers summed up the scene at Bhubaneswar and Cuttack a day after severe cyclone Phailin made landfall near Gopalpur. Puja pandals (temporary road-side temples set up for a festival)…
Source O Mother! Let all my speech be your prayer; let all my crafts and technology be your worship and be the mystic gestures of my hand, adorning you. May all my movements become your devotional circumambulations. May everything I eat or drink be oblations to you. Let my lying down in rest and sleep be prostrations to you. Mother!…
Source INDONESIA, October 9, 2013 (India TV News): Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country with the ethnic group Javanese in majority. The group of islands has been a trade hub and the local rulers have traded with China and India since the 7th century. Local rulers gradually absorbed Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The influence of Hindu and Buddhist…
Source JOHANNESBURG, October 8,2013 (Times of India): South Africans are increasingly embracing Indian culture, opening up historical venues to Hindus to celebrate religious events. “The way in which other communities have embraced Hindu cultural activities is a direct result of the Rainbow Nation ideal of former President Nelson Mandela,” said the Chairman of the Gauteng chapter of the South African…
Source Do you realize now the sacred significance and the supreme importance of the guru’s role in the evolution of man? It was not without reason that the India of the past carefully tended and kept alive the lamp of guru-tattva. It is therefore not without reason that India, year after year, age after age, commemorates anew this ancient concept…
Source NEW YORK, NEW YORK, October 9, 2013 (A Journey Through NYC Religions): Anantanand Rambachan is professor of religion at St. Olaf College, Minnesota. This article is taken from his keynote address to the Hindu Caribbean Conference of America in New York on October 6, 2012. The abolition of the slave trade created a labor shortage that threatened the survival…
Source Just as a big banyan tree sprouts from a tiny seed, so the wide universe with names and forms sprouts forth from the heart.— Sri Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), South Indian mystic
Source NEW YORK, NEW YORK, October 5, 2013 (by Prof. Gregory Berns for the New York Times): For the past two years, my colleagues and I have been training dogs to go in an M.R.I. scanner — completely awake and unrestrained. Our goal has been to determine how dogs’ brains work and, even more important, what they think of us…
Source KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, October 7, 2013 (PRWEB): The sixth Asian Vegetarian Congress which opened here today was told that the global population has the power to help reduce global warming by turning towards a vegetarian diet that would help make a difference to the planet. In his keynote address, prominent Asian Entrepreneur, Dato Sri Vijay Eswaran, said limiting or…
Source PUURS, BELGIUM, October 3, 2013 (Wall Street Journal): HPI Note: From what we see of these events on YouTube (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JlZx2oFFlU), they are a mix of rave and Holi traditions and have little to nothing to do with religion. Holi fell in March in 2013. Teens and 20-somethings congregated in this Belgian hamlet on Aug. 31 to celebrate Holi,…