Life and Spirituality

I t was mentioned in in the last post that food is inexpensive if bread or pasta is central to a meal and if the bread or pasta is prepared at home from flour. It is only when wheat is processed further into bread or pasta and bought from a store that the price goes up. Admittedly bread or pasta from a store is convenient but the one made fresh at home not only costs less, it is also healthier by far. Eventually the choice depends upon the circumstances of each individual. One way fresh pasta or pasta fresco is made in our home is by kneading a half and half mix of semolina and flour, rolling out into pancakes and then cutting strips of it with the help of a ruler and sharp knife. If you wish you could add an egg or two to the original mix but it is not necessary. The egg would be nicer if hard boiled, cut into slices with an egg wire cutter and used as a garnish. The cut strips are then dunked into salted boiling water and boiled for a few minutes until just right to ea...

What a lovely road! T here are many articles on how to increase happiness therefore it might be worth writing one on how to become unhappy. It is believed that harboring a strong desire for something that we do not appear to be fated to receive in life leads to unhappiness. While self evident,  that this is a source of unhappiness, it is not a sustainable one. This type of unhappiness can be lost in an instant. The moment the desire is given up this unhappiness disappears. Following is a list of seven convenient and frequently used methods of becoming unhappy on a sustainable basis: These steps are more or less guaranteed to work. 1. Get a job that you do not enjoy. This way you would be spending several hours of your life in an unhappy manner. It is likely to become a habit even when not in the workplace. To add to the woes, ensure that about an hour or so is required to commute to work each way. All you have to do is locate your home far away from your place of...

A lot of my friends on facebook and other places liked a picture of my garden that is greener than other times because it is still the monsoons here in Jaipur. This time I snapped a picture from the north side to get a different view. There is a small pond towards the north with a small concrete bridge over it. At one time I use to stock it with gold fish but then the fish eating birds found out and that had to be stopped. Now it is a part of the rain harvesting apparatus of the home. Shyamu the boy who has looked after the home and garden for the last twelve years is shown standing in second photo and I am seen sitting in the first identical one. Just click on the picture for a bigger and better view of the photo. Our photos are tiny because the idea was to get in as much of the garden as possible rather than us. As you can well make out I have planted as many trees as possible all around my home and many on the street sides too. If I had more space I would have planted more...

There are person who proclaim that they do not believe in God and there are others that firmly affirm that they believe in God. Both of these statements should not be taken at their face value because after all what these persons are proclaiming as God means different things to different persons. Let us consider both these type of persons a bit more First let us consider the people who say they believe in God. Perhaps they even visit a temple, mosque or church or belong to one of the many religious organizations that exist on our planet. Or, they may be independent believers who do it on their own. Amongst these are some that practice their faith in a visible active manner, yet, it has been found that some from amongst them may lack in compassion for their fellow human beings or other life that makes up our world. They may even lead a life that exploits or hurts the planet, other humans and other life forms directly or indirectly for personal gain. To my mind these person...

Whenever a human need arises a human often tends to seeks help from other humans. Thus when a human has a health problem he seeks a doctor that can help him. The trouble is that this world is made up opposites -   good and bad, truth and lies etc. For every genuine practitioner out there, there are also quacks willing to lie about their abilities or to exploit the need of a fellow human to satisfy their greed rather than any sincere desire to help. Unlucky persons can get trapped by such exploiters or agents of the devil and instead of getting real help end up loosing their health or money or both. It requires utmost wisdom to protect oneself from falling into the wrong hands. Such quackery and greed does not exist merely in the field of medicine but also in every other sphere of human need. What may be said though that more acute the human need, the more extensive  the exploitation. Unfortunately, spiritual quackery has also been widespread in human societies from...

A visitor to this blog – Sam- commenting on a title line of this blog wished to know which of the true virtues is greater – love or truth. I promised that I would write an entire post on that question but instead I composed the following story to illustrate the point King of Blue Mountain Once upon a time at the foot of the blue mountain lay the Kingdom of Blue Mountain. The kingdom had a pretty castle in which lived a fat King. The castle was surrounded by farms and homes of the five hundred or so citizens of this state. The citizens of this country did not have to farm much because it was surrounded by forests of trees that produced a lot of nuts and fruits round the year and they could get lots to eat by just gathering the fruit and catching some fish from the many small lakes and streams around the kingdom. Instead the farmers kept cows and allowed them to graze freely on their fields. In the days of the fat king, on top of the mountain, there used to...

The North-Western side of my home in Jaipur Most of my posts have been of an impersonal nature on topics such as trees, environment, food and the Lord. Perhaps it is time that I wrote one of a more personal nature for a few of my fans that are interested to know a bit more about my background. Yogis of the east rarely speak of their origins but I am no yogi but rather an academic who has tried to understand the world - both the manifest side of it and that which is not manifest. My father retired as a colonel from the Indian army after a long and eventful career. Subsequent to a few years in private and public corporations, he came and settled in Jaipur, the city that I presently live in. Originally, the family of both my parents belonged to a part of India that has now become Pakistan. Since the family was a Hindu one it migrated to India along with millions of other Hindus during partition of British India into India and Pakistan. Much of my father’s family lived betwe...