Soma Purana

Traditional purpose of going to a foreign country is sight seeing. I am personally not too interested in sight seeing. Once you have seen a tall building, you have seen all tall buildings. On the other hand, I feel the most rewarding part of touring a foreign country is observing and understanding the culture, how people interact. I visted Japan on business many years ago. Let me present some experiences. I stayed in a Buddhist temple during the time. My host Muso Tanizaki was the priest there. I had to leave my shoes at the door and place them neatly and facing the outside.  Muso took me to a restaurant that served priests. This was purely vegetarian. We sat in a little room just for two of us and were served for more than an hour by a Japanese lady continuously.  I visited Tokyo one day, got of the bus and asked a man the directions to go to Akihabara known as Electric Town. The man couldn't speak English and I couldn't quite follow his directions that he was attempt...

I finished reading "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin is winner of Pulitzer prize. This book was written in 2005 but didn't get much attention until Spielberg's movie "Lincoln" loosely based the book came out 2012. I have read that there are over 15000 biographies of Lincoln. The movie focuses on just one aspect, Lincoln's backroom dealing to get the 13th amendment (abolition of slavery) to the US constitution. The book "Team of Rivals" is much more than that. Goodwin probes into the 1960 primary campaign and delves deeply into the characters of Lincoln and his primary rivals and then goes into, again deeply, into his presidency, civil war, his reelection, and ultimately his assassination. I found 100s of pages on the characters in the 1960 campaign hard to read but found out it is essential to understand the political genius of Lincoln, particularly, in his years as President. Lincoln brings in all three of his primary riv...

I want to report on my Bikram Yoga so it motivates me to keep going. After coming back from my vacation in India, I had to go to Wash., DC for training and that disrupted my Bikram for a few days. I restarted Bikram on 6/26/13. I hope to continue going everyday non-stop. Week of 6/23/13: 4 days Week of 6/30/13: 7 days 11 continuous days so far. Week of 7/7/13: 7 days 18 continuous days so far. Week of 7/14/13: 7 days 25 continuous days so far. Week of 7/21/13: 7 days 32 continuous days so far. Week of 7/28/13: 7 days 39 continuous days so far. Week of 8/4/13: 7 days 46 continuous days so far. Week of 8/11/13: 7 days 53 continuous days so far. 8/17/13 Mary Jarvis class and seminar Week of 8/18/13: 7 days 60 continuous days so far. Week of 8/25/13: 6 days 67 continuous days so far. [8/31/13: Sat in Worcester, MA. No yoga  (later made up with a double on 12/29/13)] [9/1/13: Sun Went to Bikram in Auburn, MA] [9/2/13: Mon. no Yoga  (later made up with a double on 1/...