Promod Puri

Stephen Hawking Opens New Frontiers In The Science Of God

By Promod Puri In his mind, physically-challenged Stephen Hawking explored the cosmos, and he got a much clearer picture of how the universe came into existence. In the quest, he could not find the god commonly believed to be up there and responsible for this creation. However, as a physicist, he found his god in…

God And Religion Of Stephen Hawkins

Physically-challenged Stephen Hawking’s mind explored the cosmos, and from where he got a clear picture of how the universe came into existence. In this quest, he could not find the god commonly believed to be up there and responsible for this creation. However, as a physicist, he found his god in his dedicated daily karmas…

Stephen Hawkins God And Dharma

For most of us we have a mindset personified image of God. And that is what Hawkins rejected. His God resided in his rational thinking and dedicated research which was in the cosmos world and beyond. For that reason he knew more about God than the god most of us perceive. His God was in…

No Kanyadaan Ritual By Woman Priest

KOLKATA: Nandini Bhowmik dons several hats – a mother, a professor and a drama artist. But the most important hat which she wears in the patriarchal societal order is that of a priest. She is the first woman Hindu priest in West Bengal. A Sanskrit professor at the Jadavpur University, Bhowmik has undertaken a unique…

How Americans came to embrace meditation, and with it, Hinduism

Vasudha Narayanan, University of Florida This week marks the death anniversary of Mahesh Yogi, the Indian guru who brought transcendental meditation to the West in the sixties and became a spiritual teacher to The Beatles, comedian Jerry Seinfeld and countless other celebrities. Today, the legacy of the Maharashi, as he was popularly known, is…

Introduction of Hinduism In America

The American public formally learned about Hinduism was through the World’s Parliament of Religions, a gathering of practitioners of different faith traditions, which took place in Chicago in 1893. It was at that time when the American public first saw and heard people from “Eastern” religions, including Hindus and Buddhists, on their own soil. Vivekananda,…

Who Are Sufis

Injured people are evacuated from the scene of a militant attack on a mosque in northern Sinai, Egypt on Nov. 24, 2017. Associated Press Peter Gottschalk, Wesleyan University The origins of the word “Sufi” come from an Arabic term for wool (suf). It references the unrefined wool clothes long worn by ancient west Asian ascetics…

Sufi Thinking

“An eighth-century female Sufi saint, known popularly as Rabia al-Adawiyya, is said to have walked through her hometown of Basra, in modern-day Iraq, with a lit torch in one hand and a bucket of water in another. When asked why she replied that she hoped to burn down heaven and douse hell’s fire so people…