Life and Spirituality

A s the monsoon has receded a white rose bush has suddenly come to bloom at home. My experience with plants and bushes are that they are sensitive beings and choose the time and place to thrive and bloom. Some are more sensitive than others and the rose is one such. To me all roses are symbolic of love, different colors for different kinds of love. Thus whereas the deep red rose signifies romantic love the white one is for spiritual love, the yellow for friendship and the pure pink for grace and regards. Thus if one were to gift a bunch of roses to a friend, the yellow roses would be most appropriate, whereas if one were to gift a bunch to the queen the pink would be the best. There is a peach pink too, pink with a tint of yellow and this is best for the king or your boss on his birthday. Definitely avoid gifting him a red lest he misunderstand :)  There are also other colors signifying different less common types of love. Thus there is a deep violet, blackish rose and t...

Green Coconut Ever since humans began to cultivate land for food-grains such as wheat and rice their gaze has been towards the land for most food needs. In doing so, another source of food - trees- have not been fully utilized by mankind yet. As deforestation accelerates on the planet and a need is being felt to plant more trees to stabilize  climate e .g. this post   it is worth considering trees as a food source too in order to take pressure off agricultural land. Indeed food from trees can have a magical effect in treating diseases that have become chronic in the modern age, some for which no modern treatment is available yet, such as Alzheimer’s disease or others such as undesirable cholesterol accumulation that are treated at the cost of severe side effects by medicines such as statins. Modern vegetables grown on land are not as healthy anymore as in the distant past because repeated farming has drained the land of essential nutrients. Trees on the other hand ...

E lsewhere in this blog we have mentioned that chanting of a mantra or divine words is an excellent way to achieve meditative states and commune with the Universal Consciousness. Mantras can consist of a single word or many. However, rather than words it is best to describe a Mantra in syllables. personally I find that a very short mantra may lead to an easy distraction of mind and very long ones though helping one to keep one's focus initially also lead to distraction after some time. Chanting a mantra musically helps to keep the mind in focus. An excellent ancient mantra that is neither too long nor too short is  Om Mani Padme Hum Listen to a Beautiful Musical rendition of this mantra from the depths of the Himalayas. You are sure to be enchanted, at http://www.diydharma.org/om-mani-padme-hum-tibetan-incantations   It is essential that during recitation of mantra (jap) the breathing remain calm and regular  and not irregular. A mantra that interfer...

A human being may survive for many days without food but he cannot survive for long without water. Good clean drinking water that is neither too hard nor too soft is the best health drink. Yet water is often combined with ingredients of food and with health supplements in a manner so as to produce a drink for enhanced health, beauty and joy. The fact that drinks are an ideal delivery system is apparent from the fact that even Nature thinks so. The first food chosen for a new born by Nature is a drink – mother’s milk. As one ages one may add a number of other drinks to one’s daily routine in order to optimize one’s health and well being. Here is a collection of some of the best ones from around the world as discovered by this author in his travels, study and reflection.   Following is a description of drinks for different times of day some or all of which could become a person's lifestyle if not already so. The really special and unique drinks, the best on the plan...

Top of a Drumstick tree between a Jamun (A black berry) tree and grape vine in author's home T his blog has described many useful trees but it appears that a full article on one of the most useful ones, the drumstick tree, has been missed. It is time to make up this deficiency now, especially during the monsoon season when nature lovers in India are busy in tree plantations. The Moringa or the drumstick tree is a fast-growing, drought resistant tree that is native to the southern foothills of the Himalayas in northwestern India. But it grows easily in semi-arid areas too. It can be grown in forests, home gardens, schools, offices, farms or as street side trees in cities. It is also an ideal choice for forestation programs.   Mixed with other trees such as the white mulberry, other trees from the mulberry family and a few other fruit trees common to the area, it virtually produces a food forest of fruits and leafy vegetables. It can be grown from cutting or seed. ...

Photo from Home of Dr. Ashok Malhotra, July 2013 An aging friend of mine was commenting on how much fun it was to indulge in romantic episodes, something that youth and younger persons usually enjoy. My response was that personally I do not care for that sort of thing much now, although it was a pursuit for sure when I was younger. One finds that from childhood to old age, what fascinates one most in life changes and that is how it should be. It is rather silly to see old men like Rupert Murdoch romancing.   It is business persons quite often who go in for that sort of thing even in old age perhaps because they feel that now that they have the money they should do something of value with it or perhaps because they were so busy in the pursuit of wealth in their younger days that they did not get time to enjoy lunch, when it was lunch time and are now having to partake of some very late in the night, metaphorically speaking. ( there is a story about that in this blog at h...

My younger daughter, Keya was born in 1982 and in the first few months she slept in a little cane basket. She is a practicing medical doctor in USA now and is also expecting her first child in a few months. I still had her baby basket in storage and she wanted to see a picture of it. So today I took it out. it was very dusty. It was taken to the back garden and given a good wash. The attached picture is one of it drying in the sun in the back yard of my home here in Jaipur. Now I am in the process of getting some new linen made for the new baby. Update: August 2013: In the meantime the old linen  that occupied this basket has long been discarded. Therefore new linen is being prepared for the new arrival from the finest and purest cotton fabrics and fluffed cotton ( for the pillow and mattress) available in the market. The second picture shows some that is ready. New linen for a baby basket