Ravi S. Iyer: Spiritual

Last updated on 1st April 2014 A couple or so days ago I saw a couple of videos of a Sai devotee's recent talks in the USA, on saicast, http://www.saicast.org/2014/2014FebSatyajit.html . IMHO, both of them are very good and will help in Bhagawan's mission. Thanks to the Sai devotee speaker for the talks and thanks to saicast for making the videos available. Some particular points: In the Boston talk (Part 1), (at around 36 min. 36 secs), the speaker-devotee, who served Sathya Sai Baba at a close personal level for many years, mentions about Sai Baba (paraphrased) correcting the view that atheists who are great social workers, have strong ethics and morality (but who don't believe in God) will not get self-realization in this birth but will be blessed by a next birth in a good devotional family with a smooth path to self-realization. (At around 38:42)The speaker said that Sai Baba categorically stated that atheists too most certainly can achieve self-realization...

Some days ago I finished reading Reza Aslan's "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealot:_The_Life_and_Times_of_Jesus_of_Nazareth . I think it is the first book that I have read about the "Historical Jesus" though I had somewhat casually read some articles and viewed some videos on the Internet on the topic earlier. This was my first serious look at how some academics of history of religion examine and view Jesus of Nazareth. The first thing that struck me was that while the author is quite sensitive in his writing about Jesus, perhaps this academic field is such that he and other academics are forced to be skeptical about scriptural accounts, which in this case is the New Testament. They dig deep into inconsistencies between the gospel accounts. Very importantly they look for other records like Roman records to corroborate events related in the New Testament. If there is no corroboration from other records they bri...

A couple or so days ago I received the copy I had ordered of India: A sacred geography by Prof. Diana L. Eck. I flipped through the pages of the 559 page book published in 2012 and was awestruck by its sweeping coverage of Hinduism in India. Some quick points: Banaras, Pandharpur, Badrinath, Girnar, Kanyakumari, Tirupati, Ujjain, Haridwar, Somnath, Ramesvaram, Tiruvannamalai, Madurai, Srirangam, Simhachalam, Vrindavan, Mathura, Dwaraka, Udupi, Guruvayur, Puri, Ayodhya and Nasik are some of the holy cities covered. Char Dham and Jyotirlingas are covered. Sacred rivers covered include Ganga, Yamuna, (and Triveni), Kaveri, Narmada, Krishna and Godavari Gods mentioned include Shiva, Shakti (Kali, Mahadevi, Lakshmi, Parvati/Gauri), Rama, Krishna, Vishnu (Narayana) and Narasimha. References and quotes are given from various holy Hindu scripture including Mahabharata, Ramayana, Atharva Veda, Puranas (Shiva Purana, Linga Purana, Skanda Purana, Devi Bhagvata Purana, Bhagvata P...