Doing volunteer work to help others is called seva and I have not been doing as much of it as I would like to. Life gets busy and finding opportunities to volunteer can end up falling off the priority list. But seva is really important. It connects us to our communities and it helps us get out of our heads and stop wallowing in our inner struggles. Not to mention it actually helps others. For people like me who tend... Read more
I was intrigued by the previews for Cloud Atlas, which seemed to promise a story of reincarnation, but I heard mixed things when it came out. I rented it recently and I am really glad that I did. I absolutely loved it. Just the weaving of the stories alone was masterful. Take it from a trained novelist, that is not easy to do! The same actors played different embodiments of the same soul and there was variety in those experiences... Read more
Believing, as I do, that all religions have a core of peace and love for all humanity, I asked some people of Christian and Muslim faith to talk to me about the ways in which those religions encourage peace. Not everyone agreed with my conclusion! David French wrote a post in response to my question to say that it was wrong to equate the amount a religion is peaceful with how true it is. He says Christianity is not a... Read more
I don’t want our wedding ceremony to be too long, particularly since it’s outdoors in the heat of summer. Readings weren’t something I was considering. But I’ve been hearing about different ceremony ideas lately and some of them talk about readings, which got me wondering about what kind of Hindu readings there might be. And then my father told me that he had something that he had always planned to read at my wedding. He pulled out a well-folded piece... Read more
Ravi Shankar, also known as Sri Sri, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Guruji, or Gurudev, is an advocate for non-violence. He believes in peace and in using meditation to achieve it. Born in 1957, he is quite a young guru. Background The name Ravi Shankar is actually his birth name, and the “Shankar” is for Shankara! Ravi Shankar was involved with the Maharishi, the guru who is usually credited with bringing meditation and Indian Advaitan philosophy to the west (It is... Read more
There are times when I feel exhausted from having to monitor myself and make sure I’m not accidentally being racist (and sometimes I still fail). There are times when I am so tired of hearing about how privileged I am and how much responsibility that gives me . Can’t we all just forget it and get along? Do people really have to take offense? And then I remember that no matter how annoyed I may feel about having to be... Read more
Last week I did my own meditation challenge. For me, I know I want to be meditating, but there’s always something else to be doing. Taking twenty to thirty minutes once or twice a day seems like such a small commitment, yet in practice it feels overwhelming. Not having time is my big excuse. So to counteract that, I went for tiny bursts of meditation. Seriously tiny! Monday I meditated for one minute. This was definitely too short a time.... Read more
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.“ I hate to break it to you, Google trends, but anyone who is searching for the “karma sutra” has got a problem! Okay, I can see why some people might get these words confused. After all, in the west we hear a lot about the concept of karma and not at all about kama. These are two different words. In case you are one... Read more
No matter the meditation, the point is to be not thinking (what you’ve been is not on boats). That’s what makes it meditation (also, that’s what makes my shirt that says Meditation: It’s Not What You Think hilarious!) But it’s hard work. It’s really, very difficult. You close your eyes, you focus on your breath, and you wonder if you remembered to put your credit card back after you got gas today. Then you feel a bad itch on your arm. Then... Read more
The dirty little secret about meditation, presence, and mindfulness is that it’s hard work! Somehow we seem to think that “doing nothing” should come really easily and so we tend to get easily frustrated and give up when we struggle to get into meditation or even just into the present moment. It is really difficult to stay present. I’ve been practicing it my whole life, yet I rarely am truly in the present. You can feel when it’s working (and... Read more
The White Hindu
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In