My Blog
Chyawanprash
When I was staying in the Sivananda Ashram in Neyyar Dam, Kerala, the ayurvedic doctor there gave me two tubs of a dark sticky jam called chyawanprash. He informed me that the secret of good health was to meditate every day, do yoga every day and take chyawanprash....
The Quiet
I've recently finished Paul Wilson's book The Quiet, which is about meditation. This book is different to other books on meditation that I've read in that it gives advice for most forms of meditation. So if you already have a meditation method (which I have) you can...
Meditation: Vipassana & Mantra
I've learnt and practised two forms of meditation. The first was vipassana meditation. I was living in Italy and started going to a Tibetan Buddhist temple in Florence where I was taught by Andrea Cappellari, the Dalai Lama's Italian translator. He was a petit man,...
Oracle of Rama
I recently got into fortune telling cards. I don't wholeheartedly believe they can tell the future, but I'm curious to see if they can. It's like a scientific experiment for me. If they don't manage to tell the truth (more or less), I'll put them away in a drawer...
Bhagavad Gita and Meditation
"He who seeth inaction in action and action in inaction, he is wise among men; he is a yogi and performer of all actions,"(4.18) According to the swami who taught me on my Sivananda yoga teacher training, this is one of the most important verses in the Bhagavad Gita....
Bhagavad Gita & The Recession
I'm reading my third translation of the Bhagavad Gita. I started some years ago with the Juan Mascaro version in Penguin. The language was beautiful, but probably not very accurate. Then I read Jack Hawley's version, which is easy to understand, but certainly not...