JUCHEN, GERMANY, July 3, 2017 (NGZ Online, translated from German): It is quite colorful in the new Hindu temple at Hochstrasse 10b in Hochneukirch. Members of the Tamil community transformed a former supermarket into a Hindu temple with several large and small shrines, decorated in every detail, after just seven months of construction. With solemn ceremony and worship, the only Hindu temple in the district has been inaugurated. In the center of the new temple complex, which opened to many visitors, stands the Elephant God (Ganesha), which is the main murthi.
At the ceremony, some honorable guests such as Juegen’s mayor Harald Zillikens and Bundestag deputy Ansgar Heveling, slipped into a world that was rather alien to them. For the inauguration, they were dressed in an oriental robe and painted on the forehead with a red dot, a religious symbol of Hinduism. ”The Tamils have been well integrated into German society for decades, but they have not forgotten their roots,” said Mayor Harald Zillikens, who also said that the new temple complex has improved the whole neighborhood. The temple is to become a center of the community.
UNITED STATES, July 11, 2017 (New York Times by Sara Manning Peskin, MD): Every major organ in the body — heart, lungs, liver, kidneys — has the capacity to shut off the brain. It’s a biological veto system. The mysterious exception is ”terminal lucidity,” a term coined by the biologist Michael Nahm in 2009 to describe the brief state of clarity and energy that sometimes precedes death. Alexander Batthyany, another contemporary expert on dying, calls it ”the light before the end of the tunnel.”
A 5-year-old boy in a coma for three weeks suddenly regains consciousness. He thanks his family for letting him go and tells them he’ll be dying soon. The next day, he does.
Early reports of terminal lucidity date back to Hippocrates, Plutarch and Galen. Dr. Nahm collected 83 accounts of terminal lucidity written over 250 years, most of which were witnessed by medical professionals. Nearly 90 percent of cases happened within a week of death and almost half occurred on the final day of life.
More on this fascinating subject at ”source” above–and note the valuable comments to the article.
Free will is not free–it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect–but there is something behind the will which is free.
— Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902)
