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Showing posts from October, 2012

Why Do We Celebrate Festivals?

There are so many festivals in the Hindu pantheon that we feel every single day is a feast. We celebrate our own birthday and expect everyone to remember it and bring some presents. We hope that they will cut a cake and take us out for a treat. If no one remembers it we feel terrible and want to shut up the world. Festivals are the way of celebration and activity which brings us closer to the truth. Celebrations of these festivals are ways of appeasing the Gods and thanking those involved with the act which leads us to that celebration. But we get lost in rituals and forget the real meanings of it. Just the way everyone celebrates Navratri, Thanksgiving, Holi and every other festival whose main purpose is lost and its only about fun, laughter, drinking, eating choicest foods, dirty dancing, taking the girls out and every possible misuse that we can do of such a grand celebration. Just as Dusshera is the triumph of good over evil, similarly is Divali, Holi and so on. But what d

Myths-Stories For Simple Minds!

When we look at our mythological stories we wonder sometimes whether we are telling our kids the truth or are we telling them lies. They sound so unreal and full of unbelievable stuff. Take the case of Ramayana where we get to meet a Demon King from Lanka with ten heads. No archaeological fact can support that kind of creature. If that were the case then we should have found some sort of mummified bodies, remains of some bones, some sort of evidence which would firm up our belief in these tales from the past. If there were demons with bodies as tall as the skyscrapers then these should be available to us in the form of remains like bones or body tissues or some evidence somewhere which can lead us to them. If there were other species like demons then we should find them in other than the homo sapiens species. But does any data account for them? We still find remains of dinosaurs and other creatures but not a single shard of evidence of any kind for the demons mentioned in our myt

Sakshatkar-Direct Perception?

Someone asked me if we can have direct perception of the Lord Himself and I answered that it cannot happen in the way you think about it. First let us understand what kind of God you are thinking about first and foremost. Is He the One you see in the temple or places of worship or is He the One you do not know anything about? So let us start from the beginning as to what you believe in. There are people who perform miracles and magic tricks and then our belief sticks to them. Producing ash or gold chains, walking over water, giving you magic amulets or gems, getting special favors, etc., are a few tricks performed by charlatans and our belief sticks to them. If that were the case then even Chris Angel would be God! He walks on water, produces objects out of nowhere, floats in the air, disappears in thin air and walks through walls. If someone has to give proof of them being God, then that one is not God at all but some person impersonating Him. Magic tricks can be performed by