TANJUNG KARANG, MALAYSIA, January 14, 2019 (The Star): The Pongal festival which is a thanksgiving celebration for a bountiful harvest by rice farmers is among the important celebrations of the Tamil community throughout the world. Hindu rice farmers in Malaysia await with excitement to celebrate the festival tomorrow following the harvest. V.R. Arumugam, 68, who owns a rice farm in Parit Empat in Sekinchan, said the Pongal festival is a much-awaited celebration by Hindu farmers as it is very special for them. ”We celebrate Pongal in conjunction with the end of the harvest season, where the harvest is dedicated to Surya Bhagawan (the Sun God). The festival is also to signify thanksgiving for the harvest,” he said.
In conjunction with the celebration, each family will gather around a claypot to look at the milk boiling over, signifying happiness and bountiful harvest for the family. ”Rice from the first harvest will be cooked with milk and brown sugar and a portion of the sweet rice will be offered to Surya Bhagawan,” said Arumugam who has been a rice farmer for 45 years. Pongal is celebrated in the 10th month of the Tamil calendar called Thai Matham in conjunction with the harvest month in India.
See also: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation … iety-says-health-officer/
| Pandit Ved Gopee: ”Mauritius Is the Only Country in the World to Offer Religious Subsidies” |
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MAURITIUS, December 14, 2018 (Inside News translated from French): Mauritius is perhaps the only country in the world where the state offers religious subsidies for the preservation of places of worship and also for the propagation of religious and spiritual values. Pandit Ved Gopee, who spoke at the 18th graduation ceremony of the ”Akhil Bharatiya Vidvat Parishad” in Varanasi, India, declared on December 2nd. The president of the Sanatan Holistic Vidhya Academy who also holds the position of Vice President of the Council of Religions has been honored by the All India Council of Eminent Scholars for his contribution in promoting religious values in Mauritius.
In his speech, he emphasized the contribution of religions in nation-building. He painted our country as a mosaic of culture where fraternity between different beliefs is not a myth. ”Our democracy offers space for all religions to flourish side by side and the various religious holidays are also celebrated at the national level,” he said. Pandit Ved Gopee pointed out that Mauritius is considered a paradise on earth. This is thanks to the hard work of our ancestors who, about 180 years ago, came from different parts of the world. ”They fed the earth with their blood and sweat,” he said.
| You Should Meditate Every Day |
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, January 9, 2019 (New York Times by Farhad Manjoo): Because I live in Northern California, where this sort of thing is required by local ordinance, I spent New Year’s Day at a meditation center, surrounded by hundreds of wealthy, well-meaning, Patagonia-clad white people seeking to restore order and balance to their tech-besotted lives. In the past, I might have mocked such proceedings, but lately I’ve grown fond of performative sincerity in the service of digital balance. It’s the people who haven’t resigned themselves to meditation retreats who now make me most nervous, actually. Which brings me to my point: It’s 2019. Why haven’t you started meditating, already? Why hasn’t everyone?
I’ve been a technology journalist for nearly 20 years and a tech devotee even longer. Over that time, I’ve been obsessed with how the digital experience scrambles how we make sense of the real world. Technology may have liberated us from the old gatekeepers, but it also created a culture of choose-your-own-fact niches, elevated conspiracy thinking to the center of public consciousness and brought the incessant nightmare of high-school-clique drama to every human endeavor. You’ve heard about the benefits of mindfulness before. It’s the subject of countless books, podcasts, conferences, a million-dollar app war. It’s extolled by C.E.O.s and entertainers and even taught in my kids’ elementary school (again, it’s Northern California). The fad is backed by reams of scientific research showing the benefits of mindfulness for your physical and mental health — how even short-term stints improve your attention span and your ability to focus, your memory, and other cognitive functions.
More at ”source”.
| Daily Inspiration |
A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches and thoughts, the consequences of even the least of them is far-reaching.
— Swami Sivananda, (1887-1963) founder of the Divine Life Society
