Happiness depends on ourselves.

-Aristotle

I posted an essay that I wrote a while back on what I felt was the basis of spirituality.  To me, reason and understanding are clear factors that are often neglected when people turn to religion or spirituality.  Because we so often neglect them, many are misinformed that such things have no place there.  It has always been very strange to me how so many people never fundamentally ask “Why?”  Perhaps it is because they are afraid of the answers they will recieve?

We are often told ignorance is bliss.  Perhaps this can be true if it is total ignorance, but we almost never totally ignorant.  Half-knowledge is a dangerous thing, and it is that state of partial knowledge, and partial ignorance that troubles most people so.  In such a state, we cannot go backward, the only way possible is forward, to complete knowledge.

Link to Essay

An interesting article from a Sulekha.com blog speaks of ‘the perceived conflict between desire (Kama) and spirituality’. It is interesting because the author traces the Vedic roots of the idea of Kama, and reflects on why it is considered one of the four goals of life in the Hindu tradition. (more…)

From Kathopanishad:

na tatra sūryo bhāti na candra tārakam
nemā vidyuto bhānti kutoyam agnih
tameva bhāntamanubhāti sarvam
tasya bhāsā sarvamidam vibhāti

Where the sun does not shine, nor the moon and stars
not even lightning, much less the fire,
You alone shine and in your light
this entire world shines. (more…)

You may be used to the standard inane links from google video and youtube, but sometimes you see something worth watching. Today’s video quote of the day, by Richard Feynman, describing how knowledge and understand add to one’s appreciation of the beauties of nature, rather than subtract.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gGcJIihe3G8

An excellent article by Subhash Kak on Sulekha.com regarding the misconceptions surrounding caste is here:

http://www.sulekha.com/blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?cid=4803

An excerpt from the article:
“Varna is commonly, and wrongly, translated as caste. The Purusha Sukta hymn of the Rigveda (10.90) speaks of the brahmin, rajanya (kshatriya), vaishya, and shudra as the four varnas that have sprung from the head, the arms, the thighs, and the feet of Purusha (God visualized as the Cosmic Man). For someone who has a superficial understanding of the Vedas, it is easy to interpret this hymn as sanctioning caste. But, the texts insist that varna is a state of the mind. Since each person is in the image of Purusha, he has all the four varnas in him.”

http://www.ozyandmillie.org/

A hilarious cartoon that I haven’t read in forever. I recently took another look at the comic, and it still looks good. A sample

http://www.ozyandmillie.org/2000/om20001204.gif

The recent guest editorial in the NY Times in enlightening. It is interesting that there has been so much focus on the effects of the proposed (and now fallen apart) immigration legislation on the unskilled market, that few talk about the skilled education market. The fact of the matter is that America relies on importing research talent from other countries these days, as few Americans choose to pursue graduate degrees in engineering and science. Will barring new immigrants change this? No. Will it hurt our progress in these fields? Yes. If they want to encourage more Americans to pursue science and engineering the way to do this is through educational programs, not this foolishness with immigration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/opinion/10Clemons.html

“Will admitting more immigrants drive down the wages of American workers? That may be true in unskilled jobs, since there is a fixed number of bedpans to be emptied and restaurant meals to be cooked in the United States.

But it isn’t necessarily true for skilled workers, at least not in the long run. That’s because more talent means more innovation and opportunities for all, immigrant and native alike. The growth economist Paul Romer has spoken of the prospector theory of human capital. The more prospectors there are, the more likely it is that some will find gold. As the history of Silicon Valley and other tech centers proves, brain work migrates to where the brain workers are. It’s a kind of Field of Dreams in reverse: You will build it, if they come.”

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”

-John Milton

An excerpt transcribed from a talk by Swami Dayananda Saraswati:

“In fact, only by accommodating others, allowing them to be what they are, do you gain a relative freedom in your day to day life.  In many ways, everyone interferes in everyone else’s life.  Everyone creates a global effect by his or her actions.  Ordinarily you just look at things from a small perspective, and you find the person you are angry with looming large before you.  In fact, you are never free from anyone’s influence or from all the forces in the universe.  Nor can you perform an action without affecting everyone else.  Even your statements will affect others.  Therefore our freedom needs to include the fact that we are all interrelated. (more…)