Life and Spirituality

Me on the way to Nainital during a dry summer month While nearly all scientists and experts agree that global warming is probably due to human activity, not many agree on the precise cause and which of the various human activities is to blame. The following two are the most suspected: Increased carbon emissions in the atmosphere Increased deforestation My own leaning is towards cause number two. The reasons for that have been discussed in my steam center blog and I shall not go into that again. Here is just a suggestion that could take care of the problem in a jiffy whatever be the cause. The population of grown up humans on our planet is currently around five billion. If each of these humans planted two trees each, the additional ten billion trees would take care of the entire carbon emission (through carbon capture) or deforestation problem for a year. The trees can be planted anywhere in town or country side. However, if humans continue to generate ca...

Photo shows roof of Naini Mata Temple in Nainital with text overlay by Ashok Malhotra My cousin Pradeep and a face book friend posted something this morning about a Mantra on his wall: Mantra Dhaarnaa Yon Kar, Vidhi Se Le Kar Naam Japiye Nishchaya Achal Se, Shakti-Dhaam Sri Ram These verses in Hindi may be translated as: From right Teacher learn right technique of repetition of right name Then mediate with greatest faith, Upon the Lord’s most vital name I fully agree with my dear cousin that the chanting of Mantras done correctly is a powerful technique, even magical. That is the reason one has magicians chanting spells in fairy tales to perform magic. Recently a college classmate and dear friend got into serious legal difficulties. His name is Rajat Gupta. Until recently he was one of the most senior corporate executives on our planet well known to Prime Ministers and Presidents including Obama and Clinton. He can be found in Wikipedia. However, amongst so...

T he wonderful thing about planting a tree is that in doing so we not only help ourselves but also perform a service to the world. If we were to go into all the benefits that trees provide there will be little space left for the topic at hand. Just briefly, one may reiterate that trees absorb carbon during their growth and that helps stabilize climate. Trees produce life-giving oxygen. Planted at home they enhance aesthetics and value of the property. Depending on the variety they may also produce fruits and other food besides. Planted in places of work, they improve work environment; planted on a street or park trees improve human habitations and planted in the countryside they adorn and enrich mother earth; all this while they work steadily to improve climate, soil and provide food plus shelter to numerous birds and animals. One may have noted that most plants and animals serve nature and earn good karma just through the process of living, for example birds help spread se...