It looks like people have realized that they cannt have something interesting to write everyday! Afterall, if we keep posting everything that crosses our head, it will become pure noise and nothing interesting to read. It is this need to write everyday - and something interesting everyday - that is causing the blogging wane down.

We find it very hard to be able to write something everday for the blog. We, therefore, simply dont write as long as we dont have something interesting to share - something worth sharing! But does that essentially kill the very character of blogging?

pranams

Swami Ramdev Maharajji, as devotees call him, has fast become a household name in India. The Yoga guru has simplified yogasanas, mainly pranayama (yogic breathing exercises) and is drawing flocks of followers in countrywide yoga camps. He is not only famous in India but in its ‘western neighbour’ Pakistan as well! In a recent media poll in Pakistan he was surprisingly found to be the “most famous Indian in Pakistan’ leaving even bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan behind him at No. 2 in popularity. Swami Ramdev is planning a visit to Pakistan and also to the communist China shortly to teach Yoga there!

Swami Ramdev began his yoga programmes on Indian television in 2002. He claims that through Pranayama all ‘incurable diseases’ can be cured. He claims to have cured patients of diabetes, heart problems and even Cancer. Today, he is one of the biggest draws on Indian television. He can be seen not only on religious channels like Aastha, but also news and features channels like India TV and Sahara One. Millions around the country follow his programmes religiously and use ayurvedic medicines prescribed by him.

Born as Ram Kishen, to a poor farmer in a village in Haryana (India), Swami Ramdev went to the gurukul of Swami Baldev when he was four years old. Swami Ramdev, according to his web site, is learned in the holy scriptures of Hinduism and has spent a considerable amount of time in the caves of Gangotri (India) from where the River Ganga (Ganges River) emerges.

Last month, he founded Patanjali Yogapeeth, said to be the world’s biggest Yoga and Ayurvedic Centre in Haridwar, Uttaranchal, India. In 1995, he had set up the ‘Divya Yoga Mandir Trust’ in Haridwar as well, which sees a regular stream of devotees and is a multi-million rupee (Indian currency) venture now.

The outspoken, Swami Ramdev is strongly anti-West, and advises people to use cola drinks as toilet-cleaning fluid! He strives for a ‘medicine-free world’ and firmly believes yoga is the cure for all illnesses. He says he has been on a diet of milk and fruits for the last two years. This media savvy Yoga Guru has indeed not only revived Yoga in its homeland India but also revolutionised it. A large chunk of Indian population believe Yoga is good but is a complicated time-consuming exercise. Swami Ramdev’s easy-to-do pranayam exercises are fast catching up among these folks. His popularity is growing among the Indian elite and the masses alike.

A Wake-up Call to Those Living in Auto-Pilot Mode

I recently stumbled on this book, “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” by Robin Sharma. I know some of the readers here would say the book does not compare well with Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” and other perfect works of art on the subject. However, in its imperfections (in story telling), the book sure offers something for both the categories of readers - those who are already familiar with the philosophy of the East and those who are just starting to explore it. I, for one being from India, find most of the teachings of the book all too familiar yet am amazed to discover that most of the “common sense” advice in the book was forgotten by us and so was the true purpose of our being – our dharma (read: purpose of life).

Following lines on dharma, are quite endearing. Let’s meditate on these lines for a while:

“…The purpose of life is a life of purpose. …Anyone can revolutionzie their lives once they revolutionize the direction in which they are moving….if you don’t even know where you are going, how will you ever know when you get there?”

some reviews of the book can be found here

Technorati Tags: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, Robin Sharma

I have some amazing Yoga pics to share here on YW blog. I tried installing Gallery on this blog, but somehow it doesn’t want to. I believe my technical shortcomings will overcome my desire to share these images with all of you. Anybody could help?

thanks and peace to you!
the monk in meditation

Technorati Tags: installing Gallery

Over one million copies of Mestre DeRose’s Books sold and equal number of Brazilians have learnt Yoga from him!

I met him in person!

I had posted about this great exponent of Yoga from Brazil in my post of October 17, 2005 (below). I actually got the opportunity to meet this great teacher of Yoga personally last week. His presence is so overwhelming and inspiring. He really does carry a lot of cherisma and serenity of a Yogic saint in his personality. Really was honoured to meet him in person. He handed over one of the most beautiful yoga images of his students, shall be posting them over here very soon. But please be nice and don’t copy the pics as they are all copyright protected. Shall be posting them real soon.

Introducing A Modern Yogi of Brazil, “Master” of Swasthya Yoga with images that surprised me and probably most of us who view yoga in a different colour. Uni-Yoga.

The publisher of The Mestre De Rose Yoga Review of Brazil, Mestre De Rosa, in his own words, is a prototype of a modern Yogi. He has trained more than 5000 Yoga teachers in Brazil, Americas and Europe starting at the age of 16 and wrote his first book on elementary Yoga at the age of 18.

With more than 12 books already published and 20 years of travels to India, Mestre DeRose is teaching his methods in South America, Europe and India as well. Read more about this Master of Swasthya Yoga here and their magazine which is available both in Spanish and Portuguese.

There is no doubt that the efforts of Baba Ramdev to re-introduce Yoga to the Indian people and revolutionizing it for the masses, deserve credit. (See earlier post below). That being said, his recent claims that are floating around in media every now and then regarding treatment of serious life-threatening diseases like Cancer and AIDS through Yoga only are hard to be swallowed. It would seem nearly impossible to substantiate these claims in the absence of any proper research.

While Yoga can help people suffering from various diseases in coping with the disease in a better way and to certain extent expedite the recovery and control the disease, ruling out completely any need to take medicines and treating these dreaded diseases only through pranayam (breathing exercises) will, in addition to serious consequences for the people suffering from those diseases, only harm the popularity of Yoga itself in the wake of people allegedly dying in Ramdev’s camps due to lack of proper treatment.

His claims in this regard have sparked a fierce controversy. While the Indian Medical Association reduced him to a quack, the Health Minister recently rubbished his claims. Another health institution, which was planning to confer honorary doctorate upon Baba Ramdev, has now reportedly scrapped any such plans.

While Baba Ramdev’s revolutionary style of preaching Pranayama made him a household name in India, rekindling the interest in Yoga in the masses, such unfounded claims, though allegedly withdrawn by him later on, will only bring bad name to Yoga and tarnish his own image among his followers.

We can only appeal to people suffering from these diseases to continue their in Yoga if they wish to but NEVER ever replace it for a professional medical practitioner’s advice and ofcourse never stop taking your medicines.

Related readings :

Baba Ramdev : A quack?
Ramdev’s Claims of AIDS Cure
Ramdev backing out from his claims on AIDS
Ramdev is a quack: IMA
University backtracks on honour for Baba Ramdev

No, its not a sponsored post. I am not writing about it for money. It is infact the efficacy of this new option in skype that can effect huge savings for any small or big organization. We implemented in our office just last week and its just amazing. It took me a while to get around the Control Penal and to figure out how it works, but once installed, it works like magic. Here is a quick tutorial if you may need… (I wrote it presuming you already use skype and know how internet telephony works)

To use skype in office with multiple users, you have to use the ‘Skype for Business’ version. You will get it here: skype for business Each user will have to first open an ordinary account with skype and obtain skype i.d. (which is free).

One of the users can be designated as Administrator whose account will be set up with access to control penal from where he can add credit to this control penal and distribute these to each user. All this in the programme itself you will learn as you go. Once each one has skype i.d., you will add them in the administrator control penal and each user will get an email inviting them to join, which they should do. Once they join, you can activate each user’s account and also fix the amount of credit for each one of them. You can keep track of how much each one is spending from the control penal itself. From here on, it should be easy to work with. Funding the account is bit of an issue, hope you can come up with some better ways of doing it. We are currently funding the account via Paypal account, 10 dollars at a time which is infact quite cumbersome, I guess for business users, Skype should allow bigger amounts of purcahse of credits at one go.

As for the instrument, there are numerous skype phones (Voip, internet telephony phones) in the market, pick up one that suits your requirements best. We went for cordless ones. The phone currently we are using is Linksys CIT200. Go ahead and find more about them. (more about Linksys phone here)

Technorati Tags: skype for business, skype, Voip, internet telephony, Linksys CIT200

As Susan Bordenkircher sees it, Christians for too long have kept yoga on the mat.

In her new book, Yoga for Christians, the certified group fitness instructor and a devout Methodist argues Christians should change their posture and stretch their concept of worship to embrace yoga.
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A Yoga Institute in Rajasthan, India is treating patients of AIDS free of cost with a combination of allopathic medicines, alternative medicines and, Yoga! The veracity of Institute’s claims that they are adding 15-20 years in the lives of AIDS patients is certainly open to debate, but isn’t the gesture of helping these poor patients by putting aside the stigma that is generally attached to the disease, not good enough a start? In a country where over 5 million people are HIV positive and with little or no access to health facilities in remote rural areas, it is for sure a heartening start towards greater acceptance of HIV positive and AIDS patients in the society.
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“Hasya Kriya” that is the ‘laughter excercise’ forms an important part of daily Yoga exercises. A laughter club in the ’silicon valley’ of India - Bangalore - is finding its way to better health just by laughing it away! Read on the following item published in the Washington Post on 7 April, 2006 to know more on this :

India’s `laughter yoga’ groups giggle, guffaw to good health
By John Lancaster
Washington Post

BANGALORE, India - In the grainy half-light just after 6 a.m., a few dozen men and women gather in a small park, greeting one another beneath a canopy of flowering trees. Ranging in age from 40 to 80, they clap, form a circle — and unleash a gale of uproarious laughter.
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