Life and Spirituality

H umans meet their primary food requirements of carbohydrates and proteins from a narrow selection of foods. For example the primary source of carbohydrates for a majority of humans on earth is wheat or rice. Even when it comes to vegetables and fruits, most choose from a narrow selection according to their varying tastes and availability. While all this can meet primary food requirements, for optimum health and well being, a human also requires a whole lot of other micro-nutrients and organic compounds. A shortage of just one micro-nutrient can create serious health problems. To ensure that a person may not miss out on essential components required by the body or mind, it is a good idea to have a large variety in food. However, as mentioned since variety is usually not large in main food items of daily consumption, it may easily be added through a variety of herbs, flowers and other plant parts. Many herbs have a medicinal value and even without knowing its precise medicina...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tilia_x_europea-2.JPG This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. T rees make a tremendous contribution to improving climate and environment of the planet. Many provide food for birds, insects, animal and humans. All know of fruits and nuts from trees but the flowers and foliage of some are excellent as food too. At the present time, when population of humans on planets has increased to around seven billion, food producing trees must become the first choice for planting in homes, towns and forests. An earlier note in this blog described the Moringa or drumstick tree as an excellent one for food in warmer parts of the planet. Its foliage, flowers and fruits are all edible. In cooler parts of the planet another tree, Basswood is an excellent choice as a food tree. It is the best wild salad plant in North America. Basswood leaves make a good salad green in spring and early summ...

A s a step towards peace and happiness, humans seek many different things. Some of these are - wealth, health, fame, beauty, ability, worldly education, education of life etc. A few achieve excellence in one or more areas. For the moment, let us confine our attention to two prominent acquisitions - wealth and wisdom. There are examples in human history when a few individuals attained excellence in both. Two famous examples of this are - King Solomon the Wise and King Rama of Asian prehistory. However both were godly personalities. More often, among humans we find persons have attained either great wealth or much wisdom but not both. Examples of wealthy persons in modern times are the billionaires of the world. Examples of excellence in wisdom are a series of saints and hermits through human history. These latter have shown the way to other humans when they were in distress. While wealthy persons have fine jewels, clothes from leading designers, fine mansions with expen...

Lokesh and his mother. May God bless and protect these children and children everywhere on Earth A cross my home in India, is another home that was sold recently. The new owners are redesigning and reconstructing parts of it. The contractor has allowed a laborer, his wife and two kids to stay in the under construction site so as to keep an eye on supplies in an otherwise vacant home. In recent times, there is some prosperity in India and extreme poverty has reduced but there still remain pockets of poverty and it is out of these that most construction laborers come. Poverty is not new in India. It has been there now for several generations with some families and when that happens, humans can sink to the lowest of depths of humanity and this could be the case with the laborer just mentioned and his two kids. Often it is a matter of proper knowledge rather than poverty alone that does this to humans. This laborer has a two year old son and a five year old daughter a...

“Let your food be your medicine” Hippocrates W hile the young may suffer from health issues, several health problems are more common with age. Modern medicines can relieve many common conditions but they often come with adverse side effects that can leave a person compromised in health and worse off in the long run.  Before modern medicines became prevalent, humans treated many ailments with flowers, leaves, roots and barks of plants and trees. Ayurveda, an ancient Indian medicinal science, makes use of herbs and plant materials without substantial extraction of active ingredients as modern medicine does. These are called Ayurvedic medicines. The additional compounds in a medicinal or edible plant are an organic whole and a part of life that supports other life. It therefore helps to balance the chemicals in a way that is more conducive to life than a pure chemical in isolation would be. A modern example in wide use as food is sugar, a pure chemical isolated from j...