In today's culture war pitting secularism versus religion, Eastern religions usually get a free pass from atheist authors and other foes of faith. But that doesn't mean that Hindus can afford to rest on their laurels. Several new books from Hindu experts and advocates seek to dispel misconceptions, including negative ones, about the ancient Indian tradition.
The Sanskrit word “Karma” found its way into the English dictionary long ago so today even the most conservative American has a sense of what it means. Since then John Lennon sang: “Instant Karma Is Going To Get You,” and bumper stickers mock: “Don’t let your Karma Run Over My Dogma.“ But Karma is no joking matter.
You know when people are drinking coffee at intermission that something is wrong. The audience that attended the April 19 presentation of "SatyaGraha" sincerely wanted to understand and be attentive to this opera but, like me, they found themselves fighting off sleep while desperately trying to follow along with few and poor tools to do so.
Environmentalism has certainly been on people’s minds lately. Governments around the globe are teaching their constituents about the need to conserve resources. School children are taught the three R’s – reduce, reuse, recycle. And of course advertisers are keen to tout the environmental benefits of whatever product they are trying to peddle.
A couple from Chennai decided to live simply - by a stream in a one-room hut. The man, Magari, would forego his occupation of hunting while his wife Madhavi would cultivate Tulasi instead of selling baskets. Magari would also give up non-vegetarian food.
Those Denizens of Cyberspace who are either young, young at heart or have teenagers will undoubtedly have heard of World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment, or WoW as its commonly known amongst those initiated in its mysteries. WoW is not the latest of what is called MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) but it is certainly the most popular.
I was invited to travel to Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria, very far from the Kenyan coast on the Indian Ocean. Kisumu was from all the accounts I had heard a pretty disagreeable place. In the early years, I had read in advance of my journey, that apart from the endemic sleeping sickness, bilharzia, malaria and the nasty malarial complication known as "blackwater fever", the climate was sweltering and municipal hygiene primitive.
The 2008 Mayapur GBC annual meeting ratified as official ISKCON policy the presence of multiple ISKCON centres in the same city. Conceived in New Vrindavan, June 2007, at the special GBC meeting for strategic planning, the “urban proliferation proposal” earned unanimous support from the brainstorming GBCs, hungry for greater ISKCON effectiveness.