Makar Sankranti is a festival held in celebration of the sun’s taking a northerly course in the heavens. This turn in the sun’s course takes place exactly at the point of time when he enters in the sign of ‘Makara’ of Capricorn. The precise moment varies from year to year. In the year 1914, for instance, the exact time of the sun’s change of course was 12 hours, 8 minutes, 18 seconds, Calcutta time. The Sanskrit term ‘Makara,’ however, does... Read more
A great post from the Isha Blog on honey. Reproduced with permission. Honey has always been a very popular culinary delicacy as well as an important medical remedy for many millennia. Across the globe, our ancestors seemed to be well aware of the many health benefits of honey. Its earliest known use as a medicinal prescription is found in Sumerian clay tablets that may be almost 4000 years old. Almost 30% of the Sumerians’ medical treatments included honey. In India,... Read more
An interesting post on the science of sleep in Indian culture, from the Isha Blog. Reproduced with permission. In India, you were told that you should not place your head to the north while sleeping. Why? First, let’s look at the way your body is engineered. Your heart is not located half-way down, it is placed three-fourths of the way up because pumping blood up against gravity is more difficult than pumping it down. The blood vessels which go upward... Read more
Sadhguru looks at why joy is our fundamental responsibility and answers a common yet pressing question for many, “How to be happy in life”. He gives us 10 tips towards making this a reality. Sadhguru: When you are fundamentally joyous, when you do not have to do anything to be happy, then every dimension of your life – the way you perceive and express yourself and the world – will change. You will no longer have vested interests because whether... Read more
The Makar Sankranti festival is celebrated as a very important festival in India. Sankranti literally means ‘movement.’ Everything that we recognize as life is movement. Fortunately, people who came before us have moved on, and people who come after us are waiting for us to move on – don’t have any doubts about this. The planet is moving and that is why it churns up life. If it were still, it wouldn’t be capable of life. So there is something... Read more
A beautiful post by Sadhguru from the Isha Blog. Reproduced with permission. Every culture is valuable to that particular population largely for emotional and territorial reasons. But the significance of Indian culture is that it is a scientific process towards human liberation and well-being. No other culture has looked at a human being with as much depth and understanding as this culture has. No other culture has looked at it as a science and created methods to evolve a person... Read more
An interesting post by Sadhguru about Hatha Yoga. Unfortunately in the western part of the world, if you utter the word “yoga,” people think you must twist yourself out like rubber bands or stand on your head. Yoga is not an exercise form. The word “yoga” means union. Today, modern science has proved that the whole existence is just one energy. So if all this is one energy, why is it that you are not experiencing it that way? If... Read more
From Sadhguru.org In the Indian culture, at one time, there used to be 365 festivals in a year. In other words, they just needed an excuse to celebrate everyday of the year. These 365 festivals were ascribed to different reasons, and for different purposes of life. There were to celebrate various historical events, victories, or certain situations in life like harvesting, planting, and reaping. For every situation there was a festival. But Mahashivratri is of a different significance. The fourteenth... Read more
PDF Download Today, humanity is caught up in the mad complexity of the mind and there is an urgent need to rediscover simplicity and innocence. Here, the contemporary mystic Osho brings to life the inherent and timeless wisdom of traditional Zen stories, showing that Zen is a way of dissolving philosophical problems, not of solving them — a way of getting rid of philosophy, because philosophy is a sort of neurosis. Zen is for those intelligent enough to understand the... Read more
PDF Download In these talks, Osho introduces his audience to Zen, with its emphasis on being alert and attentive to the simplest acts of ordinary life as a way to experience meditation. Zen stories serve as a starting point for several talks in the series, illuminating the nature of that rare human capacity to transcend the limits of the rational mind. Read more
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