« February 2007 | Main | April 2007 »
March 31, 2007
The Glory of Education: Part II
If I had one wish, it would be for everyone (in the world) to read this hot-off-the-press book prior to the 2008 Presidential election. Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower ...
Author Zbigniew Brzezinski, of many qualified opinions out there, is for me probably the most experienced and sustinct in his interpretation of the feelings many global-minded Americans must be experiencing...that things are currently not-at-all well with the stature, influence, or power of the United States. Admittedly, I did not understand how dangerous Bush II has been to America's national security and overall future until now. I mean, I knew that things were bad (as does any fan of Bill Maher)...but I didn't have the comprehensive framing of the issues from someone as asteemed as Brzezinski. In short, the book was a deep education for me...an education from one of the very most qualified people around to espouse just opinions in the first place.
In short, you will comprehensively and deeply understand the reasons and meaning behind his last words of the book, that if the American people do not pick the right president in 2008, there will be no third chance for America.
Posted by Saira Mohan at 09:08 AM | Comments (14)
March 30, 2007
Fighting and debating the wrong "war"
I find myself quite uncomfortable with the near consensus I see in America today (as reflected in the media and recent policy coming out of the House and Senate) on the belief that "the war" on terror is going poorly, and the answer to this problem is for America and the world to pull out and leave the Middle East to solve it's own civil and societal issues.
My two main contentions/concerns are as follows:
1. I feel everyone is missing the forest (the real war), as they are focused on the trees (Iraq, and sometimes Afghanistan). The war, and I do believe, we are in the midst of "the third world war" is much broader than just the conflicts in these 2 countries....and I fear "pulling out" of Iraq, may reflect a broader pull back on any sustained attack or defence against the root cause of the war....which I believe is largely, if not fully, unaddressed today (more than 5 years after 9/11).
2. The real war we have is not a physical war at all. It is a virtual or mental war....a war of beliefs and values (largely Islamic beliefs and values on key issues, but broadly religious fundamentalism and the violation of basic human rights using religious beliefs/edicts as a justification).
This real war is the ultimate untraditional war. Yet, the world has largely responded to it with traditional tactics....i.e., physical attack and defence. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent already, on physical conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Imagine what this money could achieve if appropriately redirected into fighting the real war....the war of beliefs.
I think it's time to take a step back, somehow firmly but fairly extricate ourselves out of Iraq over time (I know this in itself is a huge issue, but I'll leave my thoughts on Iraq specifically for a separate discussion. I will say I think it's key despite all the past mistakes....to leave Iraq a much better and more peaceful place than it was and is), redefine and understand the real war against terror, and get cracking using more "untraditional" means such as economic policy, incentives, education, TV and the internet, opportunity and basic common sense and logic....to help the muslim world adopt a more moderate version of their religion (as has happened with other religions, including Christianity over the past few hundred years).
It won't be easy for people to ignore the actual words from the Quran that are used by some to justify killing, discrimination against women, and other inhumane and backward practises....but this is religion....and muslims must adopt moderating changes themselves after debate and discussion....if they are to retain their pride....which is paramount when you are talking about religion and culture.
Posted by Rayman Mathoda at 04:31 PM | Comments (20)
The British hostages in Iran
Why dont the EU and the USA stop buying oil from Iran until the hostages are returned? Hit them where it hurts.
Or is it politics as usual?
Posted by Deepak Singh at 03:34 PM | Comments (16)
The Mystery of the Real Jesus (Part 1)
A stir was made recently by the documentary film from 'Titanic' director James Cameron that claimed to have found the final resting place of Jesus and his family, and although the evidence presented wasn't satisfying to the vast majority of biblical scholars, the search for the real Jesus has become a preoccupation, even obsession. Modern people want evidence that a wandering rabbi, or teacher, actually preached in northern Galilee two thousand years ago, yet outside the New Testament, even the simplest facts about Jesus are essentially non-existent. This has given rise to a number of contending views:
1. The real Jesus is contained in the four gospels.
2. The Jesus found in scripture is so confusing and contradictory that the real person has been lost.
3. Historical evidence is irrelevant. The real Jesus exists in disembodied form.
4. There was no real Jesus, or if he existed, he is buried under layers of theology.
5. In the absence of historical documents, a circumstantial case can be made that reveals much about Jesus and his times.
There are pros and cons to each position, most of them unknown to practicing Christians and skeptics alike. I will devote a post to each argument, although entire books go into extensive detail about them.
Argument #1: The real Jesus is contained in the four gospels.
Pros: This would seem to be the simplest and most logical position to take. The four gospel writers either knew Jesus personally or talked to his disciples. They wrote their accounts roughly in the generation after Jesus died, or the one after that (in any case, before 100 CE). In addition, the accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke overlap extensively --John is a separate case--further corroborating each other. If the four gospels don't offer the true Jesus as he existed, no other documents can claim such authenticity. They are the best we have or can hope to have in the future.
Cons: There are no cons if you believe that the four gospels are divinely revealed. But we live in an age of doubt and scholarly research, which have combined to upset the tradition of faith. Here are some of the relevant facts that make the four gospels less than convincing:
.
--The gospels are by unknown writers. Only tradition names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as the authors. There is no historical evidence that these four figures wrote anything down, and we do not know their actual relationship to Jesus when he was alive. That again is a matter of tradition.
--It is likely that many unknown scribes altered the original texts before a final version was settled on between the third and fourth centuries CE.
--Whoever wrote these accounts, they do not offer the same picture of Jesus, but rather are full of contradictions. Nor do they agree on the same time line of events. (We don't know if Jesus taught for three years, as tradition holds, or as little as eighteen months. We don't know if he went to Jerusalem for high holy days or only once on the Passover when he was arrested and crucified.)
--Words are attributed to Jesus that no one could have heard (such as the scene in the garden of Gesthemane when Jesus asks God to take away the cup from his lips, meaning his coming doom on the cross. This is also when the text tells us that the disciples had all fallen asleep, without anyone to overhear his words. Since he was immediately arrested, he would not have had time to recount them, either).
--The four gospels are full of gaps. Except for a single incident in Jerusalem when he was around twelve, the gospels offer nothing about Jesus's life between the birth story and his appearance to be baptized by John the Baptist when he was around thirty.
--The Jesus of the gospels is psychologically incomplete (for example, not once does he either smile or laugh. We have to wait for later accounts to learn even the barest facts about his brothers and sisters).
-Many key teachings of Jesus are countered by their direct opposite. Jesus preached love, peace, and forgiveness but also vengeance, punishment, intolerance for sinners, and so on. He preaches humility but also says that no one can come to God except through him. He denounces the Pharisees as hypocrites who are blindly tied to the laws of Moses but at other times commands that his followers uphold the same laws.
--Jesus rarely refers to any historical or biographical facts. Such a basic thing as his marital status becomes open to speculation.
--The writers of the gospels did not set out to tell the facts of a life but to convert nonbelievers and support their own belief in Jesus as the Messiah. For this reason they almost certainly exaggerated events, invented miracles, put words into Jesus's mouth, or all three. (For example, Jesus often directly quotes the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah or refers to them. Is this how the actual Messiah spoke or how a Messiah has to speak if converts are to be won over?)
--Other documents may be as old as the four gospels and therefore have their own claim to authenticity. These include the so-called Gnostic Gospels, such as the Gospel of Thomas, which are early documents banned by the church after 313 CE, when the Emperor Constantine officially adopted Christianity, ending the persecution of the faith but beginning a massive effort to destroy heresy and authorize one church and one scripture.
--Among hundreds of early Christian congregations, scriptures differed widely. For example, local beliefs had a lot to do with the birth story of Jesus set down in the gospels. The fact that a scribe from a certain church was drawing from local stories probably played a big part.
--Mark appears to be the first gospel written, and scholars generally agree that it was based on a lost document (known as Q, from Quelle, the German word for source), which is thought to have been a list of Jesus's most important sayings, parables, and teachings. To this bare list Mark added all the stories he could find--these were handed down orally. At a certain point Q disappeared as the popularity of such lists of wise sayings waned.
Unless you believe that the gospels are revealed truth, these internal problems with the written text are enough, I think, to cast doubt on the Jesus we meet in the Bible. The hunt for the real Jesus had to continue elsewhere, as we will see in the next post.
Posted by Deepak Chopra at 08:34 AM | Comments (79)
Good vs. Great
Some days ago, I read a story about an obviously famous Baseball player, that I never heard of before, as I have never been specifically interested in Baseball. His name is Babe Ruth. And his story illustrates perfectly the transition from being good to being great.
When Babe Ruth was 19, Jack Dunn, owner and manager of the Baltimore Orioles (a Boston Red Sox minor league team at the time), recognized his talent and signed him to a contract. After only five months with that team, the Boston Red Sox purchased Babe’s contract, and he became a Major Leaguer still at the age of 19.
At that time, he has been a pitcher. This is the guy, who throws the ball, whereas the hitter tries to hit it - ideally in a way that none of the players can catch it. And he was a GOOD pitcher. In his first World Series game for Boston in 1916, Babe set a record that still stands today. He settled down to pitch 13 scoreless innings for the 2-1 win. The 14-inning gem stands as the longest complete game in World Series history.
At one point he made the decision to stop pitching and to focus on batting.
What a move!
Try to imagine: he was already good in what he was doing, a famous and successful pitcher, but something told him - or "he thought" -, he could do even better in batting. Something pushed him further.
So now he was a hitter and he took a lot of heat for his decision but stuck with it because he knew he had the motivation to be a GREAT batter and he could imagine it.
During a 22-year professional career, Babe Ruth cemented his name as the most prolific home run hitter of his time. He may no longer be the home run king, but his record .690 lifetime slugging percentage may never be topped!
Maybe the most famous moment in baseball history, and certainly of his career, came during Game 3 of the 1932 World Series against the Chicago Cubs: he slammed what is believed to be the longest home run ever hit out of Wrigley Field, directly above the spot where he had pointed.
At that point, he was GREAT in what he was doing. That's why he had such tremendous success. Often the difference between being good and being great is making adjustments that allow you to spend more of your time developing your greatest strengths.
You have to find what you really love to do and have the faith that you will be able to do it. Thus you will allow yourself to be the great person that you already are on another level.
Many people give up on the way to becoming great because of various reasons. Most believe, that becoming great must go easily and that on the right road, no doubt, no struggle, no failure appears. All crap! IT DOES NOT! That's why being GREAT is not for everyone.
There is something you have to pay for it, a pay price to action and you have to honestly ask yourself, if you are willing to do whatever it takes to realize your GREATness, your vision or dream. Becoming great or achieving great success, comes out of struggle, out of doing things wrong and accepting failure.
Napoleon Hill once said that "Edison failed 10,000 times before he perfected the incandescent electric light bulb. Don't worry if you fail once" - as Martin Luther King jr. expressed it, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
It does not matter in what you want to be GREAT. Your intuition will lead you the way. It could start with being a GREAT person. From there, have the faith and courage to have a dream or vision and then go for it - no matter what it takes. BE a great person, DO your best and "act as if There are NO Limits to Your Abilities", as one of my business mentors says and you will HAVE made the transition from a good life to a GREAT life.
With that in mind, you can achieve everything. Everything is possible, just do it!
Posted by Heiko Faass at 07:19 AM | Comments (4)
March 29, 2007
Massage of the Week - The "Self Abhy"
As part of the Ayurvedic daily routine, it’s recommended to do a self-massage with oil each morning before getting into a warm shower. (If you have a Vata imbalance, it’s especially important.) At the Chopra Center, we call it the Self Abhy (pronounced AH-bee, which is short for the word abhyanga, which, incidentally, simply means “massage”).
We rub the oil into our skin every day to nourish and protect the skin, as well as loosen the ama (toxic residue) that accumulates in our tissues due to stress. The warm water from the shower helps to open up the pores in the skin, allowing the oil to penetrate deep into the tissues.
The whole process shouldn’t take you longer than five minutes. When I’m in a rush, I can do it in 60 seconds.
Supplies needed:
An old towel to stand on
A plastic bottle of massage oil (you will only use a few tablespoons of oil each morning)
A sink full of hot water (optional, but recommended if you like using warm oil)
Optional: Fill your sink with hot water and put the bottle of massage oil in it for a few minutes to warm up.
Start to run the hot water in the shower so that it’s nice and steamy when you get in. Lay out your old towel on the floor in front of the shower to stand on while you do your abhy – it’ll protect your carpet/floor from any oil that spills.
Pour a tablespoon or so of oil into the palm of one hand and rub it between both hands. Start with the scalp. Rake your oily fingertips through your hair to get a layer of oil onto the scalp. Vigorously “shampoo” the oil into the scalp, moving the scalp in all directions. Next, apply a little bit of oil to the face, throat and neck, rubbing the oil into the skin. Try some little circles with your fingertips over the forehead, into the temples, around the cheeks and jaw. Do a couple strokes under the cheekbones from the bridge of the nose to the ears. Massage some oil into the ears. Be quick but make sure to touch everything once.
As for the rest of the body, the general guidelines are as follows: long strokes (back and forth, or up and down) over the long muscles (e.g. the biceps, triceps, forearms, thighs, calves…), and circular strokes over the joints (e.g. the shoulders, elbows, knees …). There’s really no wrong way to do this – follow your intuition. Cover as much of the body as you can with oil, and rub it in creating friction and heat between the palms of your hands and the skin. If you have time, do one or two strokes up and down each finger (and toe!), and use your thumbs for 10-20 seconds to dig into the bottoms of the feet.
Once your body is covered with oil, step into the warm shower and relax for a minute in the heat. You can shampoo your hair as usual, but just use soap where necessary, leaving a layer of oil on most of the skin.
Yes, you will get oil stains on your towels. Your bath towels will not last as long if you do a self-abhy every day and you will need to buy new ones more frequently. But so what? They’re just towels. It’s more important to nourish and protect your skin.
Posted by Grace Wilson at 10:08 PM | Comments (7)
Hometown Baghdad
Dear Friends,
Here's the latest episode of Hometown Baghdad. Worth watching: www.hometownbaghdad.com.
Love, Deepak
Posted by Deepak Chopra at 11:11 AM | Comments (8)
March 28, 2007
Recipe of the Week - Khichari
This week’s recipe is a simple Khichari or mung bean and basmati rice stew. This is also known as Sattva food. Sattvic foods are pure, wholesome and balancing for the body and the mind. They are also easily digested and assimilated. This is especially good to have during the transition of the seasons.
The great thing about Khichari is that you can add additional spices or vegetables to this recipe if so desired. Split mung beans (or dahl) can be found at most health food or Indian specialty markets.
½ cup split mung beans
½ cup basmati rice
½ teaspoon ghee
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
Pinch red chili flakes
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and minced
¼ teaspoon asafoetida powder (also known as hing)
¼ teaspoon turmeric
½ sea salt
3 ½ cups vegetable stock
1 leek, white part only, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 cup fresh spinach leaves, cleaned and chopped
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Sort through the mung beans and remove any debris such as stems or rocks. Rinse the mung beans and rice in a fine mesh strainer and set aside. In a stock pot heat the ghee, cumin seeds, red chili flakes and ginger on medium high heat for 2 minutes. Add the mung beans, basmati rice, asafoetida powder, turmeric, sea salt, leeks, carrots and vegetable stock. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat to low. Cook for about 30 to 40 minutes or until mung beans are soft and completely cooked. Stir in the spinach and fresh lemon juice. Enjoy
Posted by Teresa Long at 10:35 PM | Comments (2)
CHOPRA MEDIA -- CORRECTION
Dear Friends, Stay tuned. Deepak's taped segment on CNN Larry King Live will be aired on April 6 or 9 - check your local TV listings: www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live.
Warm regards,
Chopra Media
Posted by Deepak Chopra at 12:47 PM | Comments (3)