KARNATAKA, INDIA, July 28, 2017 (The News Minute): The demand for a minority religion status, seems to have divided the Lingayat Mutts (monasteries) in Karnataka. Even as multiple views from Lingayat outfits and political organisations have emerged, the demand of a separate religion seems to have divided the Lingayats of northern and southern Karnataka. On July 19, the Vishwa Lingayat Mahasabha, an umbrella organisation of Lingayat Mutts and political leaders, held a mammoth rally in Bidar. This rally marked the revival of the demand for a separate religion. According to Mate Mahadevi, Head of the Basava Dharma Peetha, the convention will be held in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu as well.
”Lingayats are not Hindus and neither are they a backward caste. We follow Basavanna’s Vachanas and not the Vedas. Hence, we should be classified as a separate religion. Just like Christianity, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, we too want the status of a minority religion. Apart from the reason that we are not Hindus, the separate religion status will open up opportunities for the members of the community. The government provides approx. US$250 million for minorities as a grant. This will help uplift the members of the Lingayat community,” Mate Mahadevi told TNM.
More at ”source” above.
CHINA, July 28, 2017 (Ecns): Since the first Indian yoga college in China was established in June 2015 at Yunnan Nationalities University in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, batches of Indian yoga teachers have come to China and their love for this country has taken root. ”Put your palms together in front of your chest with your spine in a neutral position,” a 37-year-old Indian yoga teacher Subbulakshmi Velusamy said to her students. After showing the movements, she observed her followers and corrected them. Having lived in China for a year and a half since 2015, Velusamy has adapted herself to the climate and life in Kunming and built her own social circle.
Yatindra Amoli, another Indian yoga teacher in the college, is addicted to Indian and Chinese cultures. He is surprised at the similarities between the two peoples’ minority cultures, lifestyles, dietary habits and even marriage customs. ”Chinese people once transported many commodities like tea to India through the Ancient Tea Horse Road (a trade link in southwest China, extending to South Asia). The history of trade may partly explain our similarities,” he said.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, July 26, 2017 (Metro): Certified meditation teacher Kristin Westbrook offered guided meditation sessions inside of her converted RV truck on Wednesday in midtown Manhattan and encouraged frazzled passersby to join her for a 10-minute mental break. Westbrook, 50, said she opened ”Calm City,” a mobile meditation studio, in May to alleviate people’s stress as it helped her with her own. The Calm City mobile studio, which seats up to nine people at a time, hosted about four customers total on a recent Wednesday, according to Westbrook. She hopes to partner with companies around the city for corporate events and eventually expand her business by operating more trucks.
”I wanted to make it as convenient as a food truck so that you could just pop in, get 10 minutes of calm and then go back to work without it being a big time commitment or travel commitment,” Westbrook, who has been meditating since 2001, said. ”I love when people come in here and mediate because the look on their face just changes so much when they leave. It’s so relaxing and so purifying. People walk by and they are like, ’Oh wait, let me see what’s going on in here.'”
Photos at ”source” above.
We who have come from the East here have been told day after day in a patronizing way that we ought to accept Christianity because Christian nations are the most prosperous. We look about us and see England as the most prosperous nation in the world, with her foot on the neck of 250 million Asiatics. We look back in history and see Christian Spain’s wealth beginning with the invasion of Mexico. Such prosperity comes from cutting the throats of fellow men. At such a price the Hindu will not have prosperity.
— Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, 1893
