Archive for the ‘NewsFlash’ Category

Manikarnika
ManikarnikaGhat from the Ganges.  The terraced buildings to the left and center are pilgrim sheds.  The domed temple to the right, now abandoned, was built in the 18th century by Queen Ahalya Bai Holkar of Indore

ManikarnikaGhat from the Ganges. The terraced buildings to the left and center are pilgrim sheds. The domed temple to the right, now abandoned, was built in the 18th century by Queen Ahalya Bai Holkar of Indore

It’s always six o’clock at Manikarnika.  Squinting through the thick smoke of incinerating bodies, one can see the clock atop the decrepit Birla pilgrim shed which hasn’t moved in living memory.  Shrouded in perpetual twilight, legend states here, at this most holy of Hindu sites on the banks of the Ganges, time never runs down but instead stands still.  And so it does.  Precariously rooted in the ashes of thousands of bodies burned over thousands of years, the site is reverently known as the “cradle of Vishnu.”  Its origins, rumored to extend back to the beginning of creation, serve as a gruesome yet persistent reminder of life’s trembling fragility and temporary essence.  Here within the ancient sacred city of Varanasi, multitudes of the Hindu pious have for millennium brought their dead to this auspicious place for cremation and ultimately their final journey from this world.  Their presence and force is palpably felt within the all enveloping spectral haze.  It is a place of great severity and immense profundity.

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Last Updated on Sunday, 5 January 2014 09:33
A Case for Panpsychism

The essence of Transpersonal study revolves around elements of experience occurring outside the norm.  It’s a uniquely subjective field investigating phenomena that frequently elude conventional scientific scrutiny.  It assumes the existence of unseen forces driving human intuition, belief and behavior.  Despite this avowed respect for the non empirical there nonetheless remain certain epistemological biases in many who study these experiences. This is understandable.  For those whose scientific understanding is rooted within the positivist and objective tradition, the tendency to force this same paradigm upon the unseen phenomena they encounter is all too common.

Within the field of anthropology this form of ‘transpersonal scientism” is most evident when studying the spiritual beliefs of traditional cultures; particularly those with deep animist orientations.  The overwhelming tendency is to assume there to be only symbolic or metaphoric reality regarding claims that certain objects or entities possess mind or spirits.  Those rites and rituals designed to muster or placate such forces are labeled with such common psychological pathologies as transference, archaic sublimation or base superstition. 

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Last Updated on Wednesday, 28 July 2010 09:47

Each of us is a thread within the grand tapestry of existence. Deeply interwoven within the immense fabric of Being, it’s difficult to comprehend the picture of which we are a part or understand our role within its construction.  The only certainty is our interconnected nature to the greater whole.  As human beings this is a fate not easily accepted.

People of every time have questioned life’s nature and ultimate purpose.   We do so not by choice but necessity.  To know the pattern of which we are a part is essential to determining who and what we are.  Despite the enormity of the task, we continue forward convinced such answers are eventually knowable.

Through determined observation of ourselves and surroundings we try to come to terms with these ultimate questions. 

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Last Updated on Sunday, 12 March 2017 11:35