What's Stopping You?

Both Ganesha and Cthulhu are of deific stature, with a well-fed belly, and have prehensile appendages where a human would have a nose. Thus, it may seem easy to confuse the two. Should you meet a god on the street, and cannot tell if it is Cthulhu or Ganesha, here is a helpful guide:( Read more... )

My friends at Moonhowler Productions had an issue with one of their actors, who was hesitant to wear a Hindu-based Halloween costume. For those of you who don't remember, Moonhowler runs the haunted houses for Ocean Park Hong Kong.

The information I looked up might be interesting to those who have been following my Hinduism entries.

( Read more... )

Om, Bhur bhuvah svah
Tat savirtur varenyam
Bhargo Devasya dheemahi
Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat

The first mantra I was taught as a child was the Gayatri Mantra. My father taught it to me, taught it to all the kids of the Indian Cultural Association (ICA). The Gayatri Mantra is also my first memory of photography, since I helped my father photograph it on slide film so that we could project it onto a screen during ICA classes. It holds the same place in Hinduism as The Lords Prayer in Christianity: a good, all-purpose prayer, easy to learn, powerful in effect, generic in purpose.

( Read more... )

Since mollpeartree has been asking a few questions about Hinduism, I've once again been idly contemplating the uniqueness of Hinduism.

For example, there is, as far as I know, nothing in other religions which comes close to the Archana Puja. The Archana is one of those rituals which is so popular that in order to perform it as often as people want, it has been stripped down to the shortest form possible. It might be considered a sort of fast food drive-through prayer. It's quick, accomplished by brahmins in a perfunctory manner, and there's usually a line for it. My father once told me that when he grew up, people would stop by a temple on the way to work to perform it the same way Americans might pick up a ham 'n' cheese croissant from McDonalds. Yet, the symbolism behind it remains potent, if you pause to consider it. ( Read more... )

So first off, Happy Diwali, everyone. ( a few bits about Diwali )

Curiously, today is also the day all of my recent internet purchases have arrived.  A Raku  pot I ordered at GenCon (broken, unfortunately), my DDR pad and my yoga DVDs. A small collection of DVDs I bought to test my degree of addiction. Another piece of The Quiet Plan. A CD that was on backorder since Gaian Mind.

Even more oddly, yesterday nearly every device I regularly use lost power: my memo recorder, my CD/mp3-disc player, my iPod (which needs reformateding now), and worst of all, Maggie. How does Maggie run out of power? I left her with some valet parking and they had to ask me to walk up to her to help them find the battery to jump her. What did they do to my little baby? Manors won't even tell me, he just smiles wickedly, like it's punishment for something I did wrong.

Of course, I have had no time to restore power to my battery-operated life-aids, nor will I have time to begin my exercise plans, since I must immediately Away to the northern suburbs to spend the night in prayer, punctuated with arguments with my mother, who will undoubtedly want to set me up with A Nice Indian Girl, and discussions with my brother over all the ways in which I could easily Get Rich Quick.

Disturbing thought: On Saturday, my parents will discover that I've been working with nude models. Oh, that's going to be fun.

Anyway, I must find some time to schedule to figure out how to schedule my new exercise regiment. And buy groceries. I'm getting really sick really getting sick really getting really sick I am very tired of eating leftovers, although I suppose I should be grateful that I never learned how to cook for less than four.

At any rate, this means that I'll definitely need to be getting up even earlier than before, so I need to rework my morning schedule (which I haven't been following, anyway). Perhaps I should establish a Nightly Routine, too, so that I can try to get a decent night's rest from now on. I don't know when's the last time I got more than four hours.

Piss and bother, all I really know is that I need to edit two photos and print them four times, and double- and triple-check that my website is finished.

It would be very nice if people told me what they thought of the new site, and if it works on their computers.