Thanks to Mike Corey of KicktheGrind TV, I now have a stunning opening sequence for upcoming Breathedreamgo videos … now all I have to do is make some! Isn’t this lovely?
India’s pluralism in the 21st centuryI love TED Talks. They almost universally deliver intelligent and insightful ideas from charismatic and entertaining people. This is a particularly good one. Indian author, politician and Twitter personality Shashi Tharoor talks about India’s “soft power” — in other words, India’s ability to influence and make impressions upon the hearts and minds of people. IT expertise, Bollywood and yoga are just some of the things India is exporting with great success all over the world. But there is something India has, and does, that is better than all of this: India’s robust and abiding pluralism.
According to Shashi Tharoor, when it comes to soft power, “It’s the country with the best story that wins.” And India has the best story — a story that rests on the platform of political and religious pluralism. With 23 official languages, dozens of religions, hundreds of dialects and on and on, India has (largely) achieved consensus on how to survive without consensus. Watch this video. It’s very inspiring, as well as fascinating.
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Swami Vivekananda
January 12 is Swami Vivekananda’s birthday (born 1863). In honour of his birthday, I am posting the speech he made in 1893 at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He was the first Indian swami, or guru, who really made a big impact on the west. To say he stole the show is an understatement. His speech was phenomenally well-received, and it is still resonating to this day. Watch this and marvel — he spoke extemporaneously, without notes and without preparation. His message of the inherent tolerance of Hinduism is very inspiring — but his wish that the Parliament of Religions would sound the death knell to fanaticism is bitter-sweet since we know it has only risen in the last 100 years.
You can read more about him in recent article called Three gurus who changed the face of spirituality in the west by Philip Goldberg. January 12 is also Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s birthday (he will forever be known as the Beatles guru….).
Personal note: My Mother died on January 12, 1998, a full moon night. I always knew she was a mystic.
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Saying namaste to the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project
The joy of cross-cultural mash-ups
In some ways, India and Canada could not be two more different countries: Canada is new, India is old; Canada is cold, India is hot; Canada is efficient and orderly, India is chaotic and spontaneous. Yet these cultures are really mixing it up in many different spheres — and certainly in my own life over the past five years. Recently, I attended several India-Canada cultural mash-ups that left me noticing the similarities, the differences — and the misperceptions that Canadians, and westerners, seem to generally hold about Indian culture. (more…)
I felt a swell of pride and a wave of relief as I watched the truly gorgeous opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India on October 3, 2010. This is just a small portion, and not even the best part. You showed ‘em India! Jai Hind!
Today is World Humanitarian Day. And UNICEF needs your help. The floods in Pakistan are wreaking devastation on an indescribable scale. More than 14 million people are affected and the crisis is growing worse by the hour. Donations are not keeping pace with the need. UNICEF and the children of Pakistan need you! Please help UNICEF provide life-saving assistance by making a donation. Please read more to find out what else you can do. (more…)
The greatest break-up story ever told
Oooops, missed Video Friday on BreatheDreamGo because of the Eat, Pray, Love juggernaut. (btw, did you know that juggernaut is a Hindi word? It refers to Lord Jagganath and the massive chariots pulled through the streets of Puri during the annual Rath Yatra festival. Apparently, the frenzied faithful used to throw themselves under the chariot’s wheels to be crushed to death — much to the dismay of the British Raj.) This video is a trailer for the delightful full-length feature film, made by cartoonist Nina Paley, about both her break-up and the Indian epic The Ramayan. You can watch the full-length version and read the true-life story behind this inspired creation and how Paley decided to release copyright on it on her website, Sita Sings the Blues.
Every summer, ISKCON (International Society of Krishna Consciousness — otherwise known as the “Hare Krishnas”) holds a picnic on Toronto Island called the Festival of India – Feed Your Soul. It’s a wonderful event and I never miss it. Everything is free — even the food! — and people of all ages attend. You can join a free outdoor yoga class, have your astrology chart done, enjoy the vegetarian feast, buy Indian clothes and trinkets and best of all, sing and dance along to incredibly happy, joyful kirtan (sacred) music. The event wraps up on Sunday late afternoon with a rousing kirtan session that everyone joins in. It’s basically a celebration of god, a spiritual rave — and no drugs or alcohol are needed to send everyone in a frenzy of joy. I took this video while everyone else was in the kirtan tent chanting along to the music. More pictures from the event follow.
For Video Friday on BreatheDreamGo, I have a video I took while riding in a bicycle rickshaw on the way to the train station from my hotel in Haridwar during the Kumbh Mela. I was staying at the wonderful Haveli Hari Ganga, which is located deep in the bazaar – where the streets are too narrow for cars and too crowded with people and stalls piled high with brass figurines of the Hindu pantheon, pyramids of vermilion kumkum powder and neatly stacked wafers of pastel sweets. The hotel has its own bicycle rickshaw for transporting passengers to and from the train station.
This is a video of the aarti (ceremony to honour the Ganges River) that happens each day at dusk in Haridwar, India. I took this during the Kumbh Mela, the largest religious gathering on earth. I was standing on a media platform in Har-ki-Pauri, the sacred centre of Haridwar. Notice how the Indian authorities set up the media platform with a electrical wires marring the view of the aarti! But still, I think I got a lovely shot of women int he crowd when I panned down across the river to the side I was on. Of course, a modest video like this in no way captures the heat, the smells, the enormous size of the crowd and the intense devotional energy that was palpable in the air. It was an amazing experience to be there. A privilege, really.
On the morning of April 14 approximately 10 million people streamed into the sacred town of Haridwar in north India to bathe in the Ganga on the most auspicious day during the 2010 Kumbh Mela. I was one of them. Find out how I found myself alone, and at home, at the world’s largest spiritual gathering.
In Varanasi, where the veil between life and death seems very thin, a boat ride on the river can become a journey to the other side. Come along with me on a boat ride on the Ganges River in India’s oldest, holiest city and pierce the veil.
The Ganges / Ganga River is the Mother of India. The River speaks in many voices as she travels from the high Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. At the source, her song is joyous, full of the the jubilance of youth, the rush of fresh mountain streams, the sincere chanting of pilgrims and the excitement of the onward journey.
