Amit Goswami, Ramtha and what the bleep

http://twm.co.nz/goswam1.htm

WIE: In your book you refer to this new paradigm as "monistic idealism." And you also suggest that science seems to be verifying what a lot of mystics have said throughout history—that science's current findings seem to be parallel to the essence of the perennial spiritual teaching.

AG: It is the spiritual teaching. It is not just parallel. The idea that consciousness is the ground of being is the basis of all spiritual traditions, as it is for the philosophy of monistic idealism—although I have given it a somewhat new name. The reason for my choice of the name is that, in the West, there is a philosophy called "idealism" which is opposed to the philosophy of "material realism," which holds that only matter is real. Idealism says no, consciousness is the only real thing. But in the West that kind of idealism has usually meant something that is really dualism—that is, consciousness and matter are separate. So, by monistic idealism, I made it clear that, no, I don't mean that dualistic kind of Western idealism, but really a monistic idealism, which has existed in the West, but only in the esoteric spiritual traditions. Whereas in the East this is the mainstream philosophy. In Buddhism, or in Hinduism where it is called Vedanta, or in Taoism, this is the philosophy of everyone. But in the West this is a very esoteric tradition, only known and adhered to by very astute philosophers, the people who have really delved deeply into the nature of reality.

- posted by kp @ 5:19 AM 4 comments

 
'India is giving us a splitting headache'

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=47639

After the story on farmer's misery, we have this. What is happening? Can someone point out the economics of it all?

- posted by kp @ 2:17 AM 0 comments

 
Highway One

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=71107

Beautiful Idea.

-- Home is where .emacs is

- posted by kp @ 1:14 PM 0 comments

 
Indian Express Travelogues
The Indian Express has loads of travelogues that can be accessed here

Given all this content, I just have to re-organize it so that it is easily browsable and more people can add more content to the bottom. Maybe time is ripe to move to the wiki that is indexed via a world map or something.

Ofcourse I can not paste the contents of all the pages I have stumbled upon, but I will provide links to the stories and then hope for some comments to be added.
- posted by kp @ 3:38 AM 0 comments

 
Anita Nair's Travels
Anita Nair travels to

• Wayand, Kerala. More here
• Taiwan : When I suggested that we try something beyond the pale, something a little more fun, something that would help me see beyond the conjured imagery of clean boulevards, shop fronts, pre-set meals and the pageantry of lantern festival, I was told, "I don't think any provision has been made for any irregular entertainment."
• Maldives or Male
• Rome Has a good take on the food culture Italians are so proud of.
• Beypore: 8 kilometres out of Kozhikode(formerly Calicut).

- posted by kp @ 3:23 AM 0 comments

 
Shanghai vis-a-vis Mumbai
Vrijendra travels to Shanghai and laments at Mumbai's seemingly misguided "development". Our leaders and planners need to see that their main goal is not to serve the car owning middle class Mumbaikars but instead to serve those millions walking the streets. Maybe the leaders do know what they are doing, it just doesn't come across. Maybe the urges of the caste system are now targetted towards the class system, and serving the middle to upper middle class is considered development. It certainly comes across like that.
- posted by kp @ 4:00 AM 0 comments

 
Anil Thakraney takes a road trip
Nicely presented, a bit reflective. On Outlook India here
- posted by kp @ 10:14 AM 0 comments

 
The need for such a cyber/knowledge space
It all starts from an observation about us Indian depending on travel guides written by and for the non-Indians.

Usually when Indians want to travel in or out of India they either depend on the word of mouth or read travel guides written from a non-Indian perspective. I say that from my experience of finding a travel guide for India or any other part of the world written from Indian perspective.

How many times do we find a line saying "Like the usual Indian food, hot as hell" or "A usual Indian city, working with all the choas and cows on the streets".

Can we compose a travel guide which looks at Europe or Americas and say, "The usual food, boiled potatoes, when will they learn to be creative with food?" or "The usual American country side, no sign of pre-european population" or "More mad highways, completely cutting one off the landscape". A travel guide on Middle East that says "Kitab, never knew that was an Arabic word, but hey, here is yet another sign of how fluid the boundaries of cultural influences were."

I can not even begin to think all the cultural observations an Indian would make travelling in other parts of Asia or Africa.

I would just like to see such a travel guide. One that covers the non-Indian world with an Indian perspective. This blog is just an attempt to start achieving this. It has been suggested and yes I have thought of starting this as a wiki, but hosting space is a problem. Besides it remains to be seen how interested people might get into it. Ideally I would like to see it become a wiki, with posts from every nook and corner of the world.

I intend to start with a post on Dublin, Ireland, where I have spent three years now. Will do it soon. I promise. Then I will try and advertise it to friends I know and hopefuly we will have some kind of interest.
- posted by kp @ 9:50 AM 0 comments