Category: Miscellaneous

Good morning dear readers and bloggers:
Our dear spiritual friend Harbans has produced a great article about the Indian festival of Diwali and I would like to share it with you. Even though it is a little bit long, it is full of information about the Hindu religious beliefs that form the basis of this event.
For all the believers, we wish a Happy Diwali to you and your family. Being so close to our own birthday, we feel obliged to do some atonement; privately we will reflect on our recent deeds and try to improve our relationships with our family, colleagues and friends. This festival feels like the ritual confession of the Catholic Church but in a more congenial-community minded setting.
Enjoy this great article and try to reflect about these moral lessons.

What do you think? Please tell us.

Don’t leave me alone.

Dear readers and fellow bloggers:

This great article by my dearest friend Harbans explains the popular Indian celebration of the birth of Lord Ganesh (the one with the elephant’s head) I believe that it is a very interesting read, not only for didactic reasons, but also to show how the biggest democracy in the planet is trying to coalesce the different castes and religious groups into some unifying identity. Moreover this Hindu deity resembles the Roman god Janus, keeper of the sanctity of the hearth with its smiling face directed inside the house and its menacing one facing the street; it has both an enabler aspect (for people with good intentions) and a blocking aspect (for evil doers) Master Harbans just said to me that Lord Ganesh is termed as”Vegan Harta”, which means that he keeps evil-doers away.

I am a great admirer of the writings of Thomas Merton–the Catholic monk and also Columbia University graduate–who said that our Catholic faith is too imbued with the Cartesian rationality and should re-connect with its Eastern Mysticism heritage. In fact Jesus Christ preached all his life in the streets of Jerusalem, not Paris or even Rome.

With the sheer volume of malice and malfeasance that we all live with in our societies, it is important to seek the protection of all the powers that be. Including Lord Ganesh.

May Lord Ganesh bring prosperity, both spiritual and material, to you all.

What do you think? Please tell us.
Don’t leave me alone.