Year: 2024
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My Shadow
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I got forwarded a WhatsApp video which showed an American girl talking in a very artificial manner and an American man making fun of her accent and telling her that she was not sounding posh when she put on her fake accent. The conversation with my friend on WhatsApp went like this: Friend: What do…
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Purnapramati retreat near Mangalore
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(Note: Pawanji conducted a retreat for the teachers of Purnapramati school of Bangalore between 3rd to 11th February, 2024 at Purnaprajna Prakruthi Paathshaale near Mangalore. The Paathshaale is set in a lush forested area near Kudremukh national park. Around 50 teachers from Purnapramati came in three batches to attend a retreat titled ‘Sanaatan and modernity.…
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On the Bhagavad Gita
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“The Gita can only be understood, like any other great work of the kind, by studying it in its entirety and as a developing argument. But the modern interpreters, starting from the great writer Bankim Chandra Chatterji who first gave to the Gita this new sense of a Gospel of Duty, have laid an almost…
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Visit to an organic farm
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(A few days ago, I went to the yearly function of a large organic farm near Bangalore. The morning pre-lunch session had many interesting talks about diet, lifestyle, sustainability etc. and it was all very intense and contemplative. At the end, the audience was invited to comment or ask questions and many people spoke up.…
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Ghar Wapsi
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(The following is extracted from a long note Pawanji wrote on the SIDH WhatsApp group) Since 2014, a sharp divide has emerged in the Bharatiya samaj. No, I am not talking of the Hindu-Muslim, or the caste, or the rich-poor or the North-South divides. In the context of power, the only divide of significance in…
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Who Am I?
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Sri Ramana Maharshi, in 1902, wrote out the answers to some questions asked by a disciple seeking spiritual guidance. These questions and answers, collected together as ‘Nan Yaar?’ or ”Who Am I?’, give a short introduction to self-enquiry as a path to liberation. The 8 page PDF of ‘Who Am I?’ is available here. The…
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What are our retreats about?
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(The following is collected together from messages written by Pawanji on a WhatsApp group) In the retreats that SIDH has been organising over the recent past, we have tried to invite only those who in our opinion are more or less aligned together. More or less on the same page in terms of self-enquiry and…
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Learning to learn – Part 2
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Part 1 of this post talks about the first of the two books on ‘Learning to learn’. Here are some excerpts from the second book, ‘Learning to learn – Ideas on implementation’. Excerpt 1: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) established in 2008 has been giving data driven insights into our education system. The…