Nirvana!

Study of native cultures world over and the way many of them lost out to a dominant culture has one thing in common. Barbarism and deceit of the overbearing religions, namely Islam and Christianity. Until the advent of these two religions, there are very few examples of civilizations being wiped off by force. Yes, civilization do adapt, evolve and even transform over centuries. But Islam and Christianity turned natural evolution into forced acceptance, obviously with the use of force, deception and subversion. The focus of this post is the native American nations and their tragic story of their civilizational obscurity forced by the Christian Europe. One of the outcomes of my reading Michael Punke's 'Revenant' and the corresponding brilliant movie starring De Caprio, was a renewed interest in the history of native inhabitants across the world. While Punke's work is known for its gripping story and narration, I was looking out for a more focussed work that recounte...

The intermingling of science and spirituality especially Indian spiritual traditions has had a long journey and witnessed many debates, discussions, fawning acceptance and equally acrimonious negations, but has also seen many concerted and dedicated efforts to understand it. Though was aware of many academic and rather pedantic works which dealt with the subject, a work for public consumption and common aficionados like myself wasn't in my purview. This is important because the current popular discourse on the intermingling of science and spirituality has either been lopsided or plain caustic on both sides. My personal interest in the subject had my antennas searching for such a work for quiet sometime. Thanks to Prof. Sangeetha Menon of NIAS who introduced Prof RL Kapurs seminal work 'Another Way to Live' to amateurs like me through her post on FB, that lacunae too was addressed. Prof RL Kapur was a internationally well known psychiatrist and had held visiting posi...