Life and Spirituality

A TV Dinner I t is a mind free of the stress of greed, fear, anger and other such encumbrances that is the first step to good health and happiness. Next are sunshine, pure air to breathe and natural healthy food followed by a life style that includes physical exercise that is built in to the life style and not contrived. Most Ikarians work on their farms, gardens, orchards etc. and live in a hilly terrain that incorporates walking up and down hills just to get on with their daily routine and abundant socializing. Just like the residents of Neeltal in my novel – Nude besides the lake (the title has ‘besides’ not ‘beside’ in case you search for it online) – the Ikarians have an afternoon nap and drop into visit each other for the late afternoon or early evening tea followed by a glass of wine over greetings and laughter. As regards food, the Ikarian food includes the healthiest of ingredients and natural health supplements. The diet is usually vegetarian and includes hone...

Balck eyed peas - Lobia beans A vegetarian diet, especially one that includes eggs, milk/ milk products has been described as a healthy diet in many articles of this blog. It was given the name lovegan food as different from a vegan one that does not include eggs and milk. While leafy green vegetables such as spinach are great for providing many of the nutrients a human needs for good health, when meat is completely or largely eliminated from one’s diet, it is necessary to replace it with other food items that will provide protein in order for the diet to be a balanced and healthy. Milk products and eggs are some of the sources from which this protein can come. However it becomes necessary to include other sources of protein too. One problem with eggs is that although one or two a day is great, a larger consumption per day appears to be bad for health. Milk products such as cheese and yoghurt or just plain milk can provide the rest of the protein active healthy humans need...

A country that has a HISA center beside every town, village and city has neither homelessness nor hunger Note: It must be noted that HISA centers are visualized as completely voluntary facilities. They are neither prison camps nor concentration camps. People choose to live in one of their own free will and need and leave whenever they like. While at the center, they have freedom of movement from the center to nearby cities or any city for brief or long periods with the only condition that if they are absent for more than a certain number of days, say six, without permission, their allotment may be cancelled and they would have to seek fresh accommodation along with any other new applicants.   Any restriction or compulsion on movement of an inhabitant except children is a violation of fundamental human rights to life and liberty. Homeless in this note does not imply those living in rented homes (unless high rents have pushed them to the street) but those t...

E very now and then, I go into blogger and check the statistics of page views of the various posts of this blog. It gives me an idea of what people are interested in. A few days ago, it was a surprise to learn that visitors were reading an older post called ‘Heaven Scientifically Speaking’. The attempt in that post was to reconcile the ancient religious concept of heaven and hell with modern scientific understanding. According to ancient religious concepts, a human is rewarded by a life in heaven as a result of his or her good deeds while Hell is the punishment for bad behavior. Many modern humans put it all down as an attempt by some ruling powers to keep human behavior in check and essentially crap. Certainly the modern view is a convenient one especially if one has a pile of bad behavior in one’s past and is determined to continue with some more :) In reality we do not have to go very far to other places and planets or future lives to have a glimpse of heaven and hell...