BookTalk: Figure carving - the ethnic style

Quick links 

In Today’s book talk I am going to discuss about my book “Figure carving = the ethnic style”.

Show us the way

Quick links 

When you are on a spiritual journey it is important that you know how to proceed towards your destination. There may be several paths. Some may be easy, some extremely difficult. And some, that may take you just in the opposite direction!

What do these mystic sounds mean?

Quick links 

There are strange combination of mystic sounds in the beginning of some chapters of Quran. No one knows for sure what those sounds really mean or why they are there in the beginning. A devout Muslim just chants them with devotion without worrying about what they mean.

Path of complete surrender

Quick links 

“As-salamu alaykum”

Probably you are surprised to hear some non English words in the very beginning!. These are Arabic words meant to convey peace to the other person – a beautiful way of greeting each other. Salaam means peace.

We are 'that'!

Quick links 

For the past several episodes, we were discussing how father Uddalaka tries to explain the unity of whole existence to his son Swetaketu.

Uddalaka arrives at his conclusion by systematically following the modern scientific approach – observation, experimentation and reasoning.

BookTalk: Buddha’s Soul

Quick links 

In Today’s book talk I am going to talk about my book “Buddha’s Soul’.

Forward reasoning

Quick links 

In the previous episodes, we saw how father Uddalaka traces the origin of the existence by backward reasoning. He continues, to show the same unity among all the existence by forward reasoning as well.

Material things are not everything

Quick links 

In the previous episode, we saw how father Uddalaka traces the origin of all material things to three basic components – Satva, Rajas and Tamas.

Various combinations of these three basic constituents result in various material forms that we see around us.

Our worldly science seems to say that material things are everything. But Upanishads disagree.

Two way inferring

Quick links 

The purpose of the story that we started discussing, namely the story of Uddalaka and Swetaketu was to declare the oneness of ‘everything’.

How do you say two things are same even though they appear to be different?

The God can think!

Quick links 

I am just using a catchy title. By God I am referring to that root cause for the existence of this world. The Upanishads refrain from calling it by any name and they just refer to it as ‘Tat’ or ‘Sat’ - literally meaning ‘That’ or ‘Existence’.

Interestingly, many ancient scriptures – whether it is Bible or Quran or even the Upanishads have almost identical definition for God. They define God (or the ‘Tat’ in the Upanishads) as the one from which this world has emerged, the one that sustains whatever exists, and the one into which everything returns.

BookTalk: How and why of Yoga

Quick links 

“I read this book with keen interest …. The author has succeeded in providing a comprehensive account on how Yoga can be effectively utilized in alleviating stress in a way common man can understand. The author has critically analyzed the role of mind-body interaction in the genesis of stress, and how Yoga helps in normalizing it…”