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Corporate Retreat
November 2-4, 2015
Program Description
- 3-day complete package for up to 40 participants
- 1 yoga class, 1 lecture & 1 satsang daily
- Creativity Style Test & analysis
- Deluxe, standard, garden or dormitory housing with yoga mat, sheet, blanket & pillow
- 3 meals +2 chai daily
- Extra – healing appointments: Ayurveda, Reiki, Massage
Program's Purpose
A May 2014 Adobe survey of 300 large global companies across a diverse set of industries seeking to understand how creativity impacts business results discovered that companies that foster it:
- achieve more exceptional revenue growththan peers
- enjoy a greater market share
- win recognition as best places to work
- enjoy higher levels of loyalty & retention
-The Times of India, Ascent Global, 8 Oct. 2014, pg. 2
Are you part of the successful 10%
However, even knowing these facts, only about 10% of those companies surveyed confessed to supporting initiatives that manifested and nurtured creativity in its employment ranks. If you are part of the 90% ignoring the importance of creativity in your employees, begin to fix this error with a Corporate Yoga program at Shri Jasnath Asan. Our retreat aims to push your organization up on creative ladder by framing creativity as a state of mind, accessible through yogic practices – a state of vibrant life.
Program Design
A 'working retreat' for your leaders and managers. Practice yoga with three qualified instructors, eat and sleep well, unwind in a serene environment.
Attend two lectures daily: one will focus on increasing creativity in management, blending theoretical with practical activities.
The second lecture of the day should be provided by your HR manager, engaging your group in games and activities concerning on your company's mission and goals. During your free time, enjoy fellowship with the ashram family, the rural environment of the village, and a stroll in the desert.
Creativity Instructor
Shri Jasnath Asan is offering this 'working retreat' for your team evolved from the research from our Director of Yoga Programs.
Shree (Sherry Minnard)
Director Yoga Programs
- MSc Creativity & Change Leadership, State University of New York at Buffalo, U.S.
- 10 years experience as an Organization Development Specialist with Fortune 200-300 companies, focusing on building more creative teams
- 5 years as university instructor in creative business skills education for professionals
- 20 years yoga practitioner
- Poet and published co-author: Leadership Essentials in the Wellness Industry, Cengage Learning, NY
"Creativity in society today seems to be more and more interpreted as that phase which precedes an innovation only. People look at masterpieces and inventions and believe that creativity involves a lot of doing – things done with the eyes open: brainstorming, mindmapping, dialogue. These are absolutely important methods for communicating your creative insights – a very important skill to have in a team or organization."
Dr. Michael O'Neil,
Chief Business Development Officer,
The Relational Capital Group says:
"Sherry is positive and creative. She is able to bring that to her clients. What's extraordinary about Sherry is that she walks the talk. She lives what she teaches and is driven to pass her insights and beliefs that we all have within us a unique way of expressing our creativity. Additionally Sherry understands the power of creativity in the world space and how important it is to tap into that creativity if businesses are going to maximize their potential."
Our Team
Check out Our Team for credentials and qualifications of the rest of our teachers and team.
|Corporate Retreat Daily Schedule, Monday – Saturday
|6:30 – 8:00
|Yoga class: asana, chanting, meditation, pranayama
|Light breakfast
|8:30 – 10:30
|Lecture #1 – SJA provides this
|Lecture #2 – You provide this
|Individual meetings, ayurveda appointments, local outings or free time
|Puja & Satsang
|Meditation & study
|Puja & Satsang
What Kind of Creativity?
Sudhakar Dantiki, Director India, Akzonobel Automotive & Aerospace Coatings suggests that most new employees are lacking in soft skills such as the ability to persuade others with their ideas and/or build on others ideas. -The Times of India, Ascent Global, 8 Oct. 2014, pg. 1
"I've always been more concerned with what happens before the doing…The thing that happens when you are alone with your eyes closed. Because creativity starts in an individual. Therefore you can only be creative if you are an individual, free from the expectations of teams and large organizations. This might seem counterproductive to team leaders, but if you are one to then go back to the organization with your enlightenment, taking your new 'creativity' ability is possible. I've seen it transform individuals, teams, and whole organizations." -Shree, Director of Yoga Programs, SJA
Goal Planning
Participation in this working retreat should be in line with your organizational needs (present and future):
- Management, employee, or client incentives
- Part of your employee benefits package
- Team building or communication training
- Customer service training
- Promotional incentives
- Empowerment, goal actualization, or stress management
- A rich cultural experience
Let's Get To Work!
We look forward to meeting your team. See Your Stay at SJA for more information about our ashram and its offerings. Then Contact Us with your requirements and we'll get right back to you with a proposal.


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As you already know, my kids are book-aholics. Serious book-aholics. The kind that would put us in debt, if not for e-book lending from the library. We've been striving to ensure the books they read reflect the diversity around them and especially include African-American kids in central roles, so I am going to reap the benefits of their book-love and share a few of our current finds.
I would like to say this book-sharing will be a regular thing, except every time I say that I end up totally slacking. So we shall see!
Let's Talk About Race by Julius Lester (grades 1-5; 32 pages)
I would love to give copies of this book for every school in our community! It isn't "perfectly" written (the part that asks what life would be like if we all went around without our hair or skin got a little weird to me), but it is a great springboard for conversation about race. And while the book doesn't really get into systemic racism or the more complex aspects of race, it is a wonderful starting point. My favorite part is the way that Mr. Lester talks about each person being a story: "Do I look at you and think I know your story when I don't even know your name? Or, do I look at you and wonder…" I love that. I enjoyed reading this book to the boys and we've referred back to it several times. This is a must-have for your family library!
The Hero Two Doors Down by Sharon Robinson (grades 3-7; 208 pages)
My third-grader loves to read and he loves sports, so lately it seems every book he picks up involves athletics in some way. A friend lent him "The Hero Two Doors Down" and he couldn't put it down. In his words:
I liked that this book was about baseball and I like Jackie Robinson because he was a good baseball player and he was the first Black baseball player ever to play in the Major Leagues. This book told the story about this boy named Stephen who was a fan of Jackie Robinson and one day he heard a Black family was moving in and it happened to be Jackie Robinson's family. It's a story about his relationship between him and Jackie Robinson's family. It would be really cool if a professional baseball player moved to our neighborhood.
What makes this story especially interesting is that it is written by Robinson's daughter and based on a true story about the friendship that developed between Robinson and an 8-year-old boy when Robinson moved into an all-Jewish neighborhood in 1948.
One Crazy Summer by Rita Garcia-Williams (grades 4-7; 304 pages)
I wanted to "pre-read" this book before handing it off to my third-grader, so I read it myself while traveling for work. There is no wonder that this book has earned a slew of awards! "One Crazy Summer" is well-written and interweaves history with the story of a three African-American sisters in the late sixties. The girls head to Oakland for the summer to meet a mom they barely remember and find themselves in the midst of the Black Panthers movement. The book touches on tough issues – sibling relationships, divorce, race – in sensitive and subtle ways that honor their complexity. I enjoyed the novel so much that I immediately ordered the sequel, "P.S., Be Eleven," and read that too!
What diverse children's books are your family enjoying?
pin it to share it!

subset: commoncrawl


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Lime Crime Has A Massive New Scandal Cooked Up
Lime Crime is an internet based makeup company that prides itself on creative bold, intense, and quality products. They are based out of Los Angeles, CA and have a very strong social media following with 2.6 million Instagram followers. The company's mission is to allow their customers to express themselves as they see fit.
Lime Crime just release a new Velvetine lipstick in the color Scandal. This is a very intense plummy matte color that has the same great formula as the original Velvetine Lipsticks. It is long lasting and has a luxe formula. And is as a liquid-to-matte finish. It is also vegan and free from animal testing of any kind. It is a very unique purple/violet hybrid hue. Doe Deere, the CEO and Founder of Lime Crime, created this new launch as she does with all Lime Crime products.
She designed this color specifically for people that a little more punk and edgy. This look would pair great with a bold liner for added drama. This plum color is very trendy for this winter season. It is a very sexy and bold shade that demand attention.
To get the best wear out of this lip color apply lip balm about 15 minutes before applying to color. The wipe off any extra moisture before putting on the color. A lip brush may be handy to achieve a precise application. Scandal is a long wearing lipstick, so it may require waterproof makeup remover to take it off. Scandal can be ordered off the Lime Crime UrbanOutfitters website for $20 USD.


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This is the first in a series called "Who's Your Migraine Buddy?" where people living with migraine share their stories of those pets and people (or maybe a thing?) who help them through their migraine attacks.
This is Ali, and she was one of my best migraine buddies — ever. For the last 17 years, the little cat you see here sat on my lap when I was at my desk, slept beside me every night, and seemed to always know when I had a migraine. Licking my hand was one of her favorite things to do.
Ali had been slowing down, and recently, acted as if she didn't feel well. A trip to the vet last week told us why. Our poor little friend had arthritis, and she had breast cancer. We caught the cancer too late to do anything about it. It had started spreading. This was our first experience with Teresa Essig, D.M.V. Our former veterinarian moved several months ago, and a friend recommended Dr. Essig. She was so very kind. She told us that it was too late to try surgery, especially given Ali's age. She said she could give us pain medication for Ali, but that it wouldn't buy her much time or completely relieve her pain. The worst thing she told us was that Ali was in pain. She'd been biting me lately. Not the gentle bite of playing, but really latching onto my hand and biting. Dr. Essig said that was probably because she was in pain.
Ali, Migraine BuddyFor John (my husband) and me, hearing that Ali was in pain, and that pain medication couldn't get her to a pain-free state left us with only one choice. So, we released Ali from her pain and plunged into our own. Dr. Essig was so very gentle, giving her an injection to make her sleepy before the final injection. I held Ali, and she nuzzled against my arm, hiding her face. All I could do was hold her and know that she wouldn't hurt any more.
Migraines triggered by crying filled the next three days for me. That now seems so ironic since Ali always licked my hands and my chin, trying to comfort me during migraine attacks. Whether she was on my lap or lying beside me, her warmth was always comforting. Her purr was always soothing, and listening to her helped me relax and get to sleep. Sweet, gentle Ali was my migraine buddy, and I'll be forever grateful for having her in my life.
Who's Your Migraine Buddy? To learn more about our migraine buddy series, visit our HealthCentral Facebook page. To tell us about your migraine buddy, please email us here.


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As professional Fort Lauderdale Wedding photographers we are always available for all types of wedding photography. We specialize in luxury wedding photography and have photographed hundreds of weddings at most of Fort Lauderdale's premiere resorts and beach locations. Whether you are looking for formal, traditional, or photojournalistic styles of wedding photography, or if you are more into having casual beach wedding photography shot on Fort Lauderdale's famous beaches, Adept Wedding Photography has a wedding photography package for you.
As professional wedding photographers we treat your wedding all the respect and courtesy that this once-in-a-lifetime situation deserves. Over the years hundreds of Brides and Grooms have entrusted us to provide our intuitive sensitivity for this special occasion, as well as our outstanding photographic and artistic competency. We'll make sure you have a truly unique and exceptional experience with us from beginning to end.
As a professional Fort Lauderdale wedding photographer, Adept Wedding Photography undertakes regular wedding photography assignments throughout Fort Lauderdale and the surrounding areas including Boca Raton, Hollywood, Miami, Coral Gables, Florida Keys, the Bahamas and Caribbean Islands. If you're looking for intimate romantic wedding photography, the wonderful beaches and upscale resort locations in Fort Lauderdale offer some of the most spectacular wedding photography opportunities, and the outstanding late afternoon light make for memorable wedding photography.
Call Adept Wedding Photography today, toll free at (800) 816-2693 or at (954) 351-8884 to discuss your wedding photography ideas. We look forward to your call.
Wedding Photography Styles / Genres | Wedding Photography Prices | Wedding Photography References | Recent Wedding Photography | Choosing A Wedding Photographer
- LIKE us on our Facebook Page: Adept Wedding Photography


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Cherry pies would be nice to make :)
Type: Posts; User: SunshinePA
Cherry pies would be nice to make :)
How about blueberry bushes to make blueberry pie. And a banana tree for banana shakes, pies and banana bread. Plus oranges for orange juice. Just a few suggestions there.
2 cups Domino pure-cane granulated sugar
1 stick of Parkay butter
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon cocoa
2 1/2 cups of oats
1/2 cup peanut butter ( smooth or chunky )
1 teaspoon vanilla...
I know how to close the chat BUT how can I delete all the conversations?
How can I clear/delete all the chat conversations?


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The watches I recently wrote about are now available for preorder. They are available in two finishes, DLC (diamond like carbon) or FDE (flat dark earth). They are available with or without a date. Unlike the renderings the date window is square and is black-on-white rather than white-on-black. They have my favorite design, the PVD no-date with a PVD crown on pre-order and I have to say I am extremely tempted. All the versions are 43mm in diameter not including the screw-down crown. The movement used is a quartz Ronda 715Li, a well-known and reliable movement. It comes with TWO Zulu/Nato type straps (aka, made of nylon). The sapphire crystal covers the dial that has no lume with the exception of the hour and minute hands. The watch also has an improved crown that you will see below in pictures. All four watches cost $425, with a date or without a date. Pictures of the watches are below. The watches can be pre-ordered by following the link from their website. I did this work for you and the link to buy them is: http://thecgacompany.com/Minuteman?zenid=52947e21dd2f01e97a60a3e7e666bad0
Oh, and did I mention they also released pictures of the special caseback? I like the front AND the back of the watch.
Jake Fogarty is the founder of It's All About Watches and writer for most of what you will read here. If you want to contact me you can visit the contact and advertising page.
© It's All About Watches, All rights reserved.


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Confusion and uncertainty. That is what professional riders and fans must be feeling, as rain and unstable winds continue to haunt the kiteboarding world.
One day after granting the International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) the right to crown world champions, the International Sailing Association (ISAF) announces that Special Event status is being awarded to the newly founded Pro Kite Tour (PKT), a Virgin-run world kitesurf series.
"The series will become ISAF's sixth Special Event, joining events such as the America's Cup, Volvo Ocean Race and Extreme Sailing Series as one of sailing's premier circuits," notes the world governing body for the sport of sailing.
"Following a successful event in Fuerteventura, Spain the next stop of the series will be in St. Peter-Ording. Argentina, China and South Africa will host the remaining events in 2015 and both ISAF and the PKT are looking forward to working together to deliver a successful series of events."
The announcement is vague and not clear enough. When and who (IKA or Virgin) crown world champions in freestyle, wave, slalom and big air divisions? What is, and who takes part in the Pro Kite Tour? What will happen in the 2016 season? Will riders and Virgin be interested in participating in a series that doesn't decide world titles?
Interestingly, one of the Special Events listed in ISAF's website is, precisely, the Professional Windsurfers Association (PWA) World Tour, a circuit that is crowning world champions for a long time. Confused? We all are.


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5×10 cost $21,500.00
6×12 cost $24,500.00*
Our tables ship fully tested, 98% assembled and ready to run
All New Advanced Control Systems:
- Ethernet based communications, for more reliable faster performance.
- Industrial Linux software
- New Torch Height Control, that delivers blazing fast response.
All New Steel Welded Frame
- 3/16″ wall tubing
- Powder coated frame
- Fully welded unitized frame
- Provides a rock solid base for fast accurate cutting.
- 8 1/2″ deep 12g steel water pan
- Slat Surface flush with side of table with built in rollers to assist in loading plate
Engineered low mass high strength aluminum gantry
- Fast acceleration and deceleration
- Combination of High Mass Frame and Low Mass Gantry leads to excellent acceleration and deceleration qualities without vibration or noise, resulting in accurate and smooth plasma cuts.
- 8.5″ clearance
Precision Linear Rails on X and Y axis
- 20 mm precision linear guide rails, just like the big tables
- Provides super smooth motion for unmatched cut quality
- Dual seals and scrapers for longer life and best protection available
Introducing Arc Max! The Arc Max CNC Plasma Table is Arclight Dynamics' newest table! It is available in a 5×10 and 6×12. The Arc Max CNC Plasma Table has pushed the limits of what an air plasma cutter is capable of. We have taken the features found on high-end industrial tables and incorporated them into an affordable package. Arclight Dynamics is raising the bar for what you should expect from a CNC plasma table.
Arc Max 5×10 and 6×12, which are ready-to-run, are built on a welded and unitized frame of 3/16″ wall steel tubing. The new gantry, engineered from low mass aircraft aluminium, provides exceptional rigidity and first-class acceleration and deceleration characteristics; most desirable in high performance CNC plasma tables. The drive system, comprised of precision 20 mm linear guide rails and Hiwin linear slide blocks, provides smooth stable motion without inducing table vibration or flex. This means smooth cuts, sharp corners, and true holes! Truly, this is Arclight Dynamics' best product to date. Bottom line is Arc Max will blows the doors off of the competition in cut quality and overall table performance!
The Arc Max CNC Plasma Table has inspired the creation of an entirely new control system for all Arclight Dynamics CNC Plasma Tables. Built from the ground up, this controller has allowed us to create a table that you have been asking for! The end result is a simple to use, feature rich CNC plasma system that is responsive and precise. The Arc Max CNC plasma table has exceeded our expectations and we know it will thrive in a rugged industrial setting.
Each Arc Max CNC Plasma Table comes will an industry leading 3 year warranty on its controller and control system, 2 year warranty on all electronics, and a limited lifetime warranty on the table frame. Further, Arclight Dynamics offers tangibles that no other company can; unbeatable value, unmatched table performance, and comprehensive customer support. Allow Arclight Dynamics to afford you the confidence to propel your business and business dreams to the next level.
We proudly build our American made CNC plasma tables in the state of Oregon where there is NO SALES TAX. That means that if you pick your table up from the factory the prices you see on this website are the prices you'll pay. There are no hidden fees. We believe strongly in business transparency. Come see why we're leading the industry in customer satisfaction! Start by building yourself a quote or give us a call at 866-222-2154.
*base price does not include plasma cutter, shipping or state tax.
See How Easy it is to Make a Custom Sign
See How Easy it is to Make a Custom Bracket


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Some days are just are not great. It's okay to admit it. Obviously our attitude holds weight in the impact these days have on us, but sometimes things just don't go right because that's the way it is.
My bad day probably doesn't look as devastating to you. Today is National Donut Day. Krispy Kreme is giving out free donuts people…run. But I can't because I have really awesome and convenient "dietary restrictions," (Insert sarcastic eye roll.) I do not know many people whose love of donuts is stronger than mine. So today is a reminder that I don't get to have those glazed yeast donuts calling my name in the display counter at the grocery store this morning.
I know what you're thinking, "So make your own Chelsea, you've done it before." Yes friend I know, but sometimes it would just be nice to not have to "make my own." Although I DO plan to do just that…but that isn't the point!
Most of the time being gluten free and eating minimal processed sugar isn't actually that bad. I've learned to adapt and make what I can't have. But SOMETIMES I just want to run down the street to buy the donuts!
I am fully aware of the trivial nature of my dilemma. But if it helps my case, this morning, I realized I left my phone at Walmart AFTER I had gotten the baby out of his car seat…mom's you get the devastation this caused. Thankfully I had left it with the cashier and she had saved it for me. Bless good people!
To top it all off B just woke up an hour and a half early. Why?!
Thank goodness tomorrow is another day. I can start over and it will be better (mostly because husband will be home to help play catch up with me on all neglected household chores) Also someday there will be a saint of a person who masters the gluten free yeast glazed donut and opens a bakery by my house. You have your dreams, I have mine.
*Easy Weeknight Chicken Spaghetti
I was surprised how good this tasted using all GF ingredients. With having to substitute the pasta, and the canned soup I was a bit nervous. For nothing, it was delicious. I was also too lazy to pull out chicken to thaw and cook before so I used Costco's canned chicken. Winning!
*Baked Chicken Parmesan
This is my go to dish for company. I first had it at my in-laws home years ago but it has now become a favorite of mine as well. Also, Udi's makes really great GF italian breadcrumbs so I don't have to fee like I'm missing out.
Take Note
I will no longer be adding the tag "GF" to any of the meals. Everything I make now must be gluten free so if the dish's original recipe uses a gluten substance I will explain how and what I substitute to make it GF.
Below the dinners I hope you'll be thrilled to see a Snacks & Sweets section. We usually have a dessert with Sunday dinners and I make a treat on Friday or Saturday. Some of the recipes in this section I already absolutely love, and some I have yet to try. Some are guilt free and some are reserved for cheat days, which tend to be Saturday and Sunday for me. Happy snacking!
*-Tried and true family favorite.
B4D-Breakfast for Dinner (There isn't lot of time in the mornings and we love breakfast food so we eat it for dinner instead)
CP-Crockpot/Slow Cooker recipe
YoYo- You're on your own. (Because I don't believe that someone should have to cook every day of the week)
Not sold on meal planning yet? Check out my crash course guide and I'll have you convinced!
Let's Eat
YoYo x2
Grilled Cherry Tomato Turkey Burgers/Veggie Kabobs
You can use GF bread crumbs and either buy a GF bun or just put these in a lettuce wrap. Personally I prefer the wrap.
B4D-GF Dutch Babies / Spinach and Cheese Omelettes
BFD-Diner Pancakes/ Turkey Bacon/ Eggs
*Coconut Chicken/ Fried Zucchini
*Oven Fried Pork Chops/ Mashed Potatoes/ Steamed Carrots
I have seen a GF stuffing box at Walmart, but if you can't find it there check another grocery store.
CP Teriyaki Chicken/ Brown Rice/ Roasted Green Beans
CP* BBQ Ribs/ Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey and Cinnamon
Make sure your BBQ sauce is GF
*CP Cream Cheese Chicken Taquitos/ Cilantro Lime Beans and Rice
I throw in a little can of diced green chilies into the cream cheese mixture, it pumps up the flavor.
*Slow Cooker Cheesy Potato Soup/ Easy Brazilian Cheese Bread
*Korean Beef and Rice/ Roasted Green Beans
Pizza Friday/ Side Salad
Costco has unbeatable prices for frozen pizzas. They recently just started carrying a GF cheese pizza and I was thrilled. To top it off, it was the best gluten free pizza I've had EVER!
*Chef Salads
We top ours with: cut up lunch meat, carrots, boiled eggs, cheese, cottage cheese, sunflower seeds,
Snacks & Sweets
Anytime Granola
No Bake Almond Joy Cookies
Cinnamon Apple Bread
I'm going to see if I can substitute GF flour.
What recipes will you choose for your dinner table?! Share Below!


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I recently discovered this great recipe for the easiest cookies using just four basic ingredients. It was so deliciously simple that I simply have to share it with you.
When I first read the recipe, the amount of sugar seemed excessive when combined with the sweetened condensed milk. But actually the sweetness turned out to be okay. Don't forget that you are combining it with five cups of flour to make a massive batch of cookie dough. Though I think you should be able to reduce the amount of sugar slightly depending on the types of additions you plan to mix in.
This mega batch of cookies lasted us for over a month, I actually kept the dough in the fridge and baked the cookies in three separate batches as I didn't have time to bake everything in one go. Whenever I wanted to bake a batch, I just took the dough out of the fridge 15 minutes earlier to let it soften a bit before working with it.
Easy Four-Ingredient Cookie Recipe
395g Can Sweetened Condensed Milk
500g Margarine or Butter
1 cup sugar
5 cups Self Raising Flour
(Makes approximately 100 cookies)
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Cream butter and sugar together. Add milk and flour to the sugar and butter mixture and mix well together.
Next comes the fun part, throwing in your additions. You can mix in pretty much anything you like -- chocolate chips, m&ms or smarties, hundreds&thousands, raisins, oatmeal, coconut. I divided my dough into two batches, and made mixture of oatmeal raisins for one, and dates and coconut for the other.
Then roll tablespoonfuls of cookie dough into balls, place on a lined baking tray and flatten slightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.
If you are short on time or like me, prefer a shortcut method, I melted the butter in the microwave, mixed all the ingredients together by hand, then refrigerated the dough for 20 minutes before shaping the cookies. The cookies still seemed to turn out okay even without the creaming step, just make sure you mix the butter in thoroughly with the sugar and flour.
Happy baking!
What favourite additions would you throw into your cookie mix?
Linking up to
Little Drummer Boys & Twinkle in the Eye


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Srila Prabhupada's Vision For New Vrindaban (in his own words)
Srila Prabhupada's Vision For New Vrindaban:
Compiled by Chaitanya Mangala Dasa
1. Cow Protection.
2. Sustainable Agriculture.
3. Simple Village Life.
4. A Place of Pilgrimage in the West.
5. A Place of Higher Learning.
6. Above All, a Place for People to Develop Their Love for Krishna.
1. Cow Protection:
"Krishna by His practical example taught us to give all protection to the cows and that should be the main business of New Vrindaban." Letter to Hayagriva — 14 June, 1968
"Therefore the special feature of New Vrindaban will be cow protection, and by doing so, we shall not be loser." Letter to Hayagriva — 14 June, 1968
"Therefore, my special request is that you should try to maintain as many cows as possible in your New Vrindaban." Letter to Kirtanananda — 24 June, 1969
"The cow is so wonderful and valuable in society. But you should also use the bulls by engaging them in tilling the ground. People may call this the primitive way but it is very practical for engaging the bulls – have them work in cart loading, transporting, etc…" Letter to Kirtanananda — 7 January, 1974
"If you give the right protection to the cows, then they will give so much milk, that the ground of New Vrndaban will be muddy with milk." Letter to Kirtanananda — 31 May, 1975
2. Sustainable Agriculture:
"The whole idea of New Vrindaban is that men who are living there should produce their own food, of which milk is the principal thing." Letter to Kirtanananda — 31 July, 1969
"So these duties are there in New Vrindaban, and we shall have to live there self independently, simply by raising cows, grains, fruits, and flowers." Letter to Kirtanananda — 12 January, 1969
"Agriculture and protecting cows, this is the main business of the residents of Vrindavan, and above all simply loving Krsna." Letter to Kirtanananda — 27 July, 1973
3. Simple Village Life:
"Yukta Vairagya, means that we should simply accept the bare necessities of our material part of life, and try to save time for spiritual advancement. This should be the motto of New Vrindaban." Letter to Hayagriva — 14 June, 1968
"It may be an ideal village where the residents will have plain living and high thinking." Letter to Hayagriva — 14 June, 1968
"New Vrindaban does not require to be modernized because Krishna's Vrindaban is transcendental village." Letter to Hayagriva — 14 June, 1968
"Go on acquiring the surrounding lands and in this way we will establish a local self-governing village and show all the world a practical example of spiritual life as Krishna Himself exhibited in Vrindaban." Letter to Kirtanananda — 27 July, 1973
4. A Place of Pilgrimage in the West:
"I understand the spot is very beautiful, and the hills may be renamed as New Govardhana. And if there are lakes, they can be renamed as Syamakunda and Radhakunda." Letter to Hayagriva — 14 June, 1968
"New Vrindaban should be taken up very seriously because actually I want to develop a replica of Old Vrindaban. I have got ambition to construct there 7 temples as follows: 1. Radha Madan Mohan, 2. Radha Govinda, 3. Radha Gopinatha, 4. Radha Damodara, 5. Radha Raman, 6. Radha Gokulananda, 7. Radha Syamasundara." Letter to Hayagriva — 18 November, 1968
"So you have now taken charge of the sunrise of New Vrindaban. Our program is there for constructing seven temples." Letter to Kirtanananda — 12 January, 1969
"Now I am hopeful that our New Vrindaban will be an exact replica of Vrindaban in India." Letter to Kirtanananda — 18 February, 1970
"Therefore, I may once more request you to try your best to construct New Vrindaban an exact duplicate of Vrindaban, and that will give me the highest pleasure." Letter to Kirtanananda — 18 February, 1970
5. A Place of Higher Learning:
"One Rupanuga Vidyapitha—that is a school for educating brahmanas and Vaisnavas." Letter to Kirtanananda — 12 January, 1969
"You remark that in New Vrindaban the capacity is lacking for taking care of the children. If you can organize a higher level school of theology under your care, I shall very much appreciate it." Letter to Rupanuga — 24 July, 1969
"Another important thing is our theistic school in New Vrindaban." Letter to Hayagriva — 9 March, 1970
"Regarding using New Vrindaban land for building for the older Gurukula boys it is a very good idea." Letter to Bali-mardana — 13 April, 1974
6. Above All, a Place for People to Develop Their Love for Krishna:
"Agriculture and protecting cows, this is the main business of the residents of Vrindavan, and above all simply loving Krsna. Letter to Kirtanananda — 27 July, 1973
"The cows, the trees, the cowherd men and gopis, their chief engagement was loving Krsna, and in New Vrindaban we want to create this atmosphere and thereby show the whole world how practical and sublime our movement is." Letter to Kirtanananda — 27 July, 1973
The Brahmana & The Prostitute
Once, in a peaceful village, there lived a scholarly brahmana (priest). Opposite his home, there lived a prostitute.
As a daily observance, the brahmana would sit in his doorway and recite the Gita. Meanwhile, across the street, the prostitute would tend to her business.
As the years passed, the brahmana grew ever more disturbed by the prostitute. "Just see how lowly she is." he would think to himself and continue with his recitation.
It so happened that both the brahmana and the prostitute died at the same time. To the brahmana's surprise, the Vishnuduttas (the Lord of Heaven's messengers) came to deliver the prostitute while the Yamadutas (the Lord of Death's messengers) came for him. "What is this?" he protested. "There must be some mistake!"
Both the Yamaduttas and the Visnuduttas replied, "My dear brahmana, there is no mistake. While you were busy meditating on the lowly activities of the prostitute, she listened to you recite the Gita and prayed that she could one day elevate herself to your position. In this way the prostitute achieved liberation while you only degraded yourself."
Reality Check: An Editorial from the As It Is Magazine
Below is an editorial I wrote for the As It Is magazine Issue #4 in the Winter of 1993.
The Guru & The Cat
Once upon a time in a certain village in India there lived a guru. Every evening the guru would sit on his seat and deliver a lecture to the public. It so happened that the guru had a cat, and just at the time of giving the lecture the cat would create a big disturbance.
Being greatly annoyed by the cat, the guru decided to tie the cat to a tree before starting his lecture. So doing, the guru then delivered the lecture without disturbance. It worked so well that the guru regularly tied the cat to the tree before beginning his discourse.
After some years the guru died. His disciples carried on the guru's program. They also continued tying the cat to the tree. When the cat died, they bought another cat and thus the ritual of tying a cat to a tree continued generation after generation.
In the fifth generation that followed the guru, one of the renowned followers wrote an elaborate treatise on the spiritual significance of tying a cat to a tree before beginning one's studies of the scriptures.
"For the current of our spiritual life creeds, rituals and channels that may thwart or help, according to their fixity or openness. When a symbol or spiritual idea becomes rigidly elaborate in its construction, it supplants the idea which it should support." Rabindranath Tagore
Something To Remember:
I wrote the following paragraph as the conclusion to a longer article about the 3rd annual Gurukula Reunion in Los Angeles, CA. This was published in the first issue of the "As It Is" magazine January, 1993. In retrospect, I may have been a bit overly optimistic in regards to the the time line for recovery on the part of the gurukulis and discovery on the part of the older generation. I know from personal experience that it has taken me much more time and effort to deal with some of the more difficult issues than I initially thought it would. And realistically, many of these challenges will be with me for the rest of my life. Still, I stand behind the principles I briefly described. A side note: at that time I was signing my correspondence "Keeping the Faith." Eventually I felt that "Seeking the Essence" was more appropriate.
Something to Remember:
Many of us [gurukulis] have already passed through the hardest parts of forgiving (but not forgetting) the past and have begun the healing process – both individually and collectively. Unfortunately, much of the first generation has not. Only lately have the majority of them truly begun to come to terms with the reality of the past and their pain and guilt is quite literally tearing them apart. Now is a good time to remember how we felt and find for them the compassion (karuna) and understanding (samajna) we so badly wanted at that stage. In this way we can show that what we learned in Bhakti Shastri class went well beyond the mindless mimicry of a few select verses.
Keeping the Faith (alive and kicking!),
A Play-full Plea: (A glance in the rear view)
I originally wrote and published this article in the "As It Is" magazine issue #2, the Spring of 1993. Ok, I'll admit my approach was a bit idealistic and arrogant, though it also contains a touch of humor and optimism. While the way in which gurukulis are viewed and treated in ISKCON has gotten much better in the thirteen years since this was first published, there is still plenty of room for improvement. I think we could find paralell examples today. For example, Kulimela is one positive expression of the ideals found in the "Final scene."
I post this both as a bench mark of how far we've come and as a reminder of how far we've got to go.
FYI: I intentionally removed the names and locations referred to in the original article because my purpose is not to draw additional attention to them, but "rather to address the overall issue."


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|National Library Week: Libraries Lead
Comment here or on our Facebook page. If we have led you somewhere, or to something, let us know.
We want to hear what you have to say because "Libraries Lead" is the theme of National Library Week, April 8-14, 2018. We want to be an integral part of our community.
Are we leading? Or are we following?
In an effort to lead you back to the library, we are offering to let patrons work off their fines. We want you to use your local library and we don't want fines to be an impediment!
During the month of April, you can come by the library and read off your fines ($1 per hour spent reading in the library) or you can check out and return books ($1 per book.)
Why this elaborate plan? It takes several weeks and some practice to develop a new habit. We want that habit to be visiting your public library.
Whatever entertains you--music, film, magazines, books--we can probably find it at your library.
Learn something new...learn to play chess on the first Saturday in Lebanon or learn to crochet every Thursday (Lebanon) or Friday (Honaker.)
Or just have fun with science! Mad Science for Adults (and youth) will blasting rockets and creating explosions April 9, 3-5 p.m., at Honaker and April 10, 5-7 p.m., at Lebanon.


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A historic election for India
By Rana Ayyub
The world's largest democracy with a population of 1.3 billion is heading to the polls on April 11 in a marathon election that will continue for six weeks. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was voted into power five years ago with a comfortable majority, is seeking another term for his Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
While in 2014, Modi campaigned under the slogan "sabka saath, sabka vikas" (collective efforts, inclusive growth), this year the prime minister has made nationalism the pillar of his electoral strategy. The military escalation with Pakistan in February gave his campaign a significant boost and helped him launch what very much looks like a hyper-nationalist blitzkrieg.
Almost every electoral rally Modi leads, features pledges to defeat Pakistan, photographs of slain soldiers, and a barrage of militaristic rhetoric. Just days before polls were to open, the prime minister addressed first-time voters, saying: "Will you dedicate your vote to the brave men who conducted Balakot air strikes, to the CRPF men who lost their lives in the Pulwama attack?"
India's air strikes on the Balakot region in Pakistan in the aftermath a deadly attack on a military convoy in Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir managed to reverse the downward trend in Modi's popularity ratings. In January this year, his approval rating was hovering around 32 percent. This came after his party lost by-elections in three key states Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh held late last year.
After the Pulwama attack, however, Modi's rating shot up to 62 percent, as he rode on the "revenge" wave that swept through the country.
As India descended into anti-Pakistan sentiment, the many failures of the BJP government were conveniently swept under the carpet. The promises for economic development and vigorous job creation never materialised in the past five years. Modi's economic record appears mixed at best.
While he managed to push through some business-friendly reforms that facilitate business activities such as cross-border trade and construction permits, and has overseen GDP growth reaching seven percent, he has failed to enforce economic changes to improve the lot of the majority of Indians and lift their standard of living.
Last year, farmers marched barefoot in the national capital to remind the country of the rural and agrarian distress. In January this year, millions of workers went on strike against the Modi governments anti-labour policies. Among their complaints were a lack of jobs and the merger of state-run firms that were struggling to sustain themselves.
The job situation in India has gone from bad to worse. A report by the National Sample Survey Office leaked in February revealed that unemployment in India is at 6.1 percent – the highest it has been in 45 years.
The ill-conceived and executed demonetisation programme, which was hailed as one of the most heroic and bold decisions by the Modi government, failed miserably, to the extent it does not find a mention as an achievement in the party's election manifesto.
But while Modi failed to fulfil his 2014 campaign promise to bring the "good days ahead" and an era of nation-wide prosperity, he still left his mark on India.
Much has changed in the country in the last five years.
Some of the most powerful institutions of the country have been undermined. Aspersions have been cast on the Supreme Court of India, the constitutional temple of the country. In an unprecedented move a year ago, four Supreme Court judges decided to convene a press conference and speak up about being forced to work in a problematic atmosphere that could disrupt the fairness of judicial processes.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, India's premier law enforcement agency, where our hope for justice rests, has been mired in controversy after its director Alok Verma was removed – a move many have seen as politically motivated.
Independent institutions like the Reserve Bank of India have witnessed a churning and controversial exits. Government officials and non-compliant administrators have complained to me in off-the-record conversations of surveillance by the state. Public servants, ministers, politicians, and the general population now prefer talking on WhatsApp, fearing phone tapping.
India's civil liberties have also taken a hit. Minorities have increasingly become the target of mob violence. Hate speech has been normalised, while human rights activism has been increasingly suffocated and at times even criminalised.
Critical voices have been languishing behind bars. Civil rights activist Sudha Bhardwaj, who has campaigned for minorities' land rights of and who was recently honoured by Harvard Law School as one of 21 women inspiring change, has been incarcerated since October last year for crusading against unjust practices of the state.
Over the past five years, we have become a nation that increasingly chooses to stigmatise its own citizens on the basis of caste, religion, and economic status in clear violation of the basic tenants of the Indian constitution.
Modi's disregard for civil liberties is only paralleled by his disdain for the free press. In his five-year term, he has not held a single press conference or answered direct questions from the media.
Pressure on mainstream media has increased and many prominent editors and journalists have had to leave the newsrooms of major outlets. Just a few days ago, journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem was released after spending four months in jail for a YouTube video critical of Modi and the BJP. Wangkhem who was booked under the draconian National Security Act was released only after a judicial order from the High Court of the state of Manipur.
Real news in India has now been replaced by half-truths, while fake news has flooded India's social media, making its way to government statements.
For every criticism of the excesses of this government, we are given a skewed version of our past. We are reminded of the Indian partition, of the self-serving nature of freedom fighters like Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi; our history is being re-written, re-imagined to build the Hindu-nationalist narrative as the redeeming idea for the country.
India is at a critical juncture in its history. As Indian academic and author Pratap Bhanu Mehta recently pointed out: "There is something happening to our democracy which is mutilating the democratic soul. We are becoming a nation of resentful hearts, small minds and constricted souls."
The 2019 election is not about Narendra Modi and the BJP, the Congress or any other opposition party – it is about the character of this nation and the preservation of its democratic and pluralistic foundations which have been a guiding light for leading humanists and leaders across the world.
Another term for Modi and the BJP would give them the mandate to proceed with their Hindutva experiment with impunity and expand it. This election will indeed be a battle for India's soul.
Balakot strike: just for bragging rights?
By Manini Chatterjee
We, the people of India, must collectively thank NarendraModi, the chief campaigner of the BharatiyaJanata Party, for making it clear to us why NarendraModi, the prime minister of the country, ordered the air strikes on Balakot deep inside Pakistan in the last week of February.
The ostensible reason for the air strikes was to avenge the massacre that took place in Kashmir's Pulwama on February 14, which left 40 uniformed personnel of the CRPF dead. The deaths were not a result of an encounter between security forces and militants that have long become routine in the Kashmir Valley. They happened when a lone Kashmiri youth, allegedly belonging to the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad, rammed his vehicle — laden with over 300 kilograms of explosives — into a CRPF convoy inching its way along the highway.
Less than two weeks later, we woke up to the news that Indian Air Force jets had struck the biggest training camp of the JeM in Balakot. The government officially claimed that "a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated." The unofficial claims, conveyed to the media by "sources", went further: 325 terrorists and 25 commanders had been killed in the strike. Pakistan had been taught a lesson it would not forget. The "New India" under the muscular leadership of NarendraModi would enter the country and take out the terrorists at will if they dared attack India again.
The rhetoric was so powerful and the hyper-nationalist cheering in the media so shrill that no one dared ask for evidence. But when one or two intrepid skeptics did wonder what exactly was achieved at Balakot, the ruling party and its army of supporters became menacing. Anyone who dared asked for proof was talking the language of Pakistan; was questioning the valour of the armed forces; was guilty of sedition and treason.
With the election campaign now under way, the Balakot strikes are becoming a central theme of the ruling party. Even though the Opposition has steered clear of national security issues and focused on jobs, farm distress and broken promises, the BJP is repeatedly bringing Balakot to the fore — and muddying the narrative even more.
Take, for instance, a recent interview given by the prime minister to an English TV channel. Asked whether he would eventually give proof that hundreds of terrorists had been killed in the strike, Modi retorted: "As far as proof is concerned, Pakistan itself has given proof. Why should they wake up at 5 a.m. and tweet? We were quiet. It is not as if the Indian government claimed the attacks first."
That was a clever answer — but it was too clever by half. It is true that it was Pakistan's director-general of the Inter-Services Public Relations, Major General Asif Ghafoor, who first tweeted that the Indian Air Force had "violated Line of Control". But Pakistan also claimed that the Indian jets "released payloads in haste" and there were "no casualties or damage".
By citing Pakistan's tweet as proof of the success of the air strike, Modi has — embarrassingly for the country — brought attention to Pakistan's version as a whole.
More embarrassing has been Pakistan's subsequent response. If India wanted to teach Pakistan a lesson and left the country with a bloody nose, Islamabad's response has been very curious indeed.
In a recent chat with foreign correspondents, Pakistan's prime minister, Imran Khan, appeared to take the whole Balakot offensive much too lightly. According to The New York Times report on the chat, Imran Khan said that on learning that the Indian bombs had fallen into an empty ravine near Balakot, Pakistan opted for "a measured response and bombed an empty area just across the Indian border." It went on to quote Imran Khan as saying: "They hit our trees; so we thought we'd hit their stones."
Imran Khan went further — batting for the return of NarendraModi to power and seeing it as the best possible option of settling the Kashmir conflict. If Balakot was a slap on the face of Pakistan, it is baffling — to put it mildly — why the country's prime minister should want another term for his hostile counterpart across the border.
But with each passing day that mystery is receding; with every BJP speech, it is becoming clearer that the Indian forces were made to strike Balakot not to teach Pakistan a lesson but to provide bragging rights to NarendraModi as a saviour of the nation and provide him a handy tool for his re-election bid.
If NarendraModi was indeed the supreme patriot that he claims to be and if he truly valued the courage and competence of our armed forces, he should have been the first person to reprimand the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, for referring to India's professional army as "Modijikisena". He did nothing of the kind — his silence serving as encouragement to other BJP leaders who repeated the epithet before the Election Commission, belatedly, stepped in.
In fact, he went further than his acolytes. In a speech that shocked retired and serving members of the defence services, NarendraModi asked first-time voters "to dedicate" their first vote to the "valiant soldiers who carried out the air strike in Pakistan's Balakot" and to the "brave martyrs of Pulwama." Never before has any Indian leader so brazenly sought to politicize the military for electoral gains.
Perhaps Modi was addressing his appeal to first-time voters because he is confident that the youth — subjected to the relentless propaganda of the last five years — have no knowledge of history and will be easily swayed by claims that Modi has achieved what no other Indian leader has in the past 70 years.
But not every Indian is a first-time voter. And even first time voters have parents and grandparents, teachers and tutors, people around them with longer memories. And many of them will still remember the grit and the glory of 1971 — the only time India decisively won a war. They will also recall that in complete contrast to the faux war-mongering of today, the prime minister of that time showed a grace and courage that was so much more powerful since it was entirely bereft of bombast.
Some BJP apologists, defending Modi's electoral use of Balakot, erroneously claim that Indira Gandhi too capitalized on the 1971 victory to win by a landslide in the elections that year. The truth, though, is that India won the war after, not before, the elections.
Mrs Gandhi won her famous "GaribiHatao" election in March 1971, a couple of weeks before the Pakistan army went on a brutal rampage in what was then East Pakistan. In the following months, there was a massive influx of East Pakistanis into India. We may have been a lot poorer back then but unlike today we kept our borders — and our hearts — open to those fleeing genocide. More than 10 million refugees found shelter in India.
Indira Gandhi went across the world, campaigning against the suppression of democracy by West Pakistan in its eastern wing and the mass killings and rapes that followed. The American president, Richard Nixon, was famously hostile to her and blatantly backed Pakistan. But Mrs Gandhi combined diplomatic outreach with a quiet military preparation — executed by able military men untrammelled by considerations of electoral expediency — that eventually resulted in unequivocal victory. On December 16, 1971, less than two weeks after Pakistan bombed Indian air bases, its commander in Dhaka, Lieutenant-General A.A.K. Niazi, signed the instrument of surrender in Dhaka before Lieutenant-General J.S. Aurora of the Indian Army. No proof of India's achievement was needed. No claims were made.
Two days later, Mrs Gandhi's victory speech in the LokSabha was equally shorn of rhetoric. It lasted barely a minute. "All the world," she said, "admires a deed well done. And I think, with all modesty, we can say that we have done this action well." India's most successful war prime minister went on to say: "But let us not forget that the road ahead is still long and very steep and we have many peaks to scale. Let us hope that we can do this with the same spirit in which we have faced this challenge. And that we will go ahead from peak to peak raising our nation to new heights of quality and of excellence…"
Watch that speech on YouTube. Even first-time voters will be able to tell the difference between the élan of true victory and its 56-inch, tawdry alternative…
(The Telegraph, Kolkata)
Don't blame Sharia for Islamic extremism – blame colonialism
By Mark Fathi
Warning that Islamic extremists want to impose fundamentalist religious rule in American communities, right-wing lawmakers in dozens of U.S. states have tried banning Sharia, an Arabic term often understood to mean Islamic law.
These political debates – which cite terrorism and political violence in the Middle East to argue that Islam is incompatible with modern society – reinforce stereotypes that the Muslim world is uncivilized.
They also reflect ignorance of Sharia, which is not a strict legal code. Sharia means "path" or "way": It is a broad set of values and ethical principles drawn from the Quran – Islam's holy book – and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. As such, different people and governments may interpret Sharia differently.
Still, this is not the first time that the world has tried to figure out where Sharia fits into the global order.
In the 1950s and 1960s, when Great Britain, France and other European powers relinquished their colonies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, leaders of newly sovereign Muslim-majority countries faced a decision of enormous consequence: Should they build their governments on Islamic religious values or embrace the European laws inherited from colonial rule?
Invariably, my historical research shows, political leaders of these young countries chose to keep their colonial justice systems rather than impose religious law.
Newly independent Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia, among other places, all confined the application of Sharia to marital and inheritance disputes within Muslim families, just as their colonial administrators had done. The remainder of their legal systems would continue to be based on European law.
France, Italy and the United Kingdom imposed their legal systems onto Muslim-majority territories they colonized. CIA Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, CC BY
To understand why they chose this course, I researched the decision-making process in Sudan, the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from the British, in 1956.
In the national archives and libraries of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, and in interviews with Sudanese lawyers and officials, I discovered that leading judges, politicians and intellectuals actually pushed for Sudan to become a democratic Islamic state.
They envisioned a progressive legal system consistent with Islamic faith principles, one where all citizens – irrespective of religion, race or ethnicity – could practice their religious beliefs freely and openly.
"The People are equal like the teeth of a comb," wrote Sudan's soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Hassan Muddathir in 1956, quoting the Prophet Muhammad, in an official memorandum I found archived in Khartoum's Sudan Library. "An Arab is no better than a Persian, and the White is no better than the Black."
Sudan's post-colonial leadership, however, rejected those calls. They chose to keep the English common law tradition as the law of the land.
Why keep the laws of the oppressor?
My research identifies three reasons why early Sudan sidelined Sharia: politics, pragmatism and demography.
Rivalries between political parties in post-colonial Sudan led to parliamentary stalemate, which made it difficult to pass meaningful legislation. So Sudan simply maintained the colonial laws already on the books.
There were practical reasons for maintaining English common law, too.
Sudanese judges had been trained by British colonial officials. So they continued to apply English common law principles to the disputes they heard in their courtrooms.
Sudan's founding fathers faced urgent challenges, such as creating the economy, establishing foreign trade and ending civil war. They felt it was simply not sensible to overhaul the rather smooth-running governance system in Khartoum.
The continued use of colonial law after independence also reflected Sudan's ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity.
Then, as now, Sudanese citizens spoke many languages and belonged to dozens of ethnic groups. At the time of Sudan's independence, people practicing Sunni and Sufi traditions of Islam lived largely in northern Sudan. Christianity was an important faith in southern Sudan.
Sudan's diversity of faith communities meant that maintaining a foreign legal system – English common law – was less controversial than choosing whose version of Sharia to adopt.
My research uncovers how today's instability across the Middle East and North Africa is, in part, a consequence of these post-colonial decisions to reject Sharia.
In maintaining colonial legal systems, Sudan and other Muslim-majority countries that followed a similar path appeased Western world powers, which were pushing their former colonies toward secularism.
But they avoided resolving tough questions about religious identity and the law. That created a disconnect between the people and their governments.
In the long run, that disconnect helped fuel unrest among some citizens of deep faith, leading to sectarian calls to unite religion and the state once and for all. In Iran, Saudi Arabia and parts of Somalia and Nigeria, these interpretations triumphed, imposing extremist versions of Sharia over millions of people.
In other words, Muslim-majority countries stunted the democratic potential of Sharia by rejecting it as a mainstream legal concept in the 1950s and 1960s, leaving Sharia in the hands of extremists.
But there is no inherent tension between Sharia, human rights and the rule of law. Like any use of religion in politics, Sharia's application depends on who is using it – and why.
Leaders of places like Saudi Arabia and Brunei have chosen to restrict women's freedom and minority rights. But many scholars of Islam and grassroots organizations interpret Sharia as a flexible, rights-oriented and equality-minded ethical order.
Religion is woven into the legal fabric of many post-colonial nations, with varying consequences for democracy and stability.
After its 1948 founding, Israel debated the role of Jewish law in Israeli society. Ultimately, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his allies opted for a mixed legal system that combined Jewish law with English common law.
In Latin America, the Catholicism imposed by Spanish conquistadors underpins laws restricting abortion, divorce and gay rights.
And throughout the 19th century, judges in the U.S. regularly invoked the legal maxim that "Christianity is part of the common law." Legislators still routinely invoke their Christian faith when supporting or opposing a given law.
Political extremism and human rights abuses that occur in those places are rarely understood as inherent flaws of these religions.
When it comes to Muslim-majority countries, however, Sharia takes the blame for regressive laws – not the people who pass those policies in the name of religion.
Fundamentalism and violence, in other words, are a post-colonial problem – not a religious inevitability.
For the Muslim world, finding a system of government that reflects Islamic values while promoting democracy will not be easy after more than 50 years of failed secular rule. But building peace may demand it.
The Assange Arrest is a Warning from History
By John Pilger
The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.
That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for "democratic" societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.
But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi fascists in Trump's Washington, in league with Ecuador's Lenin Moreno, a Latin American Judas and liar seeking to disguise his rancid regime, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice.
Imagine Tony Blair dragged from his multi-million pound Georgian home in Connaught Square, London, in handcuffs, for onward dispatch to the dock in The Hague. By the standard of Nuremberg, Blair's "paramount crime" is the deaths of a million Iraqis. Assange's crime is journalism: holding the rapacious to account, exposing their lies and empowering people all over the world with truth.
The shocking arrest of Assange carries a warning for all who, as Oscar Wilde wrote, "sow the seeds of discontent [without which] there would be no advance towards civilisation". The warning is explicit towards journalists. What happened to the founder and editor of WikiLeaks can happen to you on a newspaper, you in a TV studio, you on radio, you running a podcast.
Assange's principal media tormentor, the Guardian, a collaborator with the secret state, displayed its nervousness this week with an editorial that scaled new weasel heights. The Guardian has exploited the work of Assange and WikiLeaks in what its previous editor called "the greatest scoop of the last 30 years". The paper creamed off WikiLeaks' revelations and claimed the accolades and riches that came with them.
With not a penny going to Julian Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, turned on their source, abused him and disclosed the secret password Assange had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing leaked US embassy cables.
With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding joined the police outside and gloated on his blog that "Scotland Yard may get the last laugh". The Guardian has since published a series of falsehoods about Assange, not least a discredited claim that a group of Russians and Trump's man, Paul Manafort, had visited Assange in the embassy. The meetings never happened; it was fake.
But the tone has now changed. "The Assange case is a morally tangled web," the paper opined. "He (Assange) believes in publishing things that should not be published…. But he has always shone a light on things that should never have been hidden."
These "things" are the truth about the homicidal way America conducts its colonial wars, the lies of the British Foreign Office in its denial of rights to vulnerable people, such as the Chagos Islanders, the expose of Hillary Clinton as a backer and beneficiary of jihadism in the Middle East, the detailed description of American ambassadors of how the governments in Syria and Venezuela might be overthrown, and much more. It all available on the WikiLeaks site.
The Guardian is understandably nervous. Secret policemen have already visited the newspaper and demanded and got the ritual destruction of a hard drive. On this, the paper has form. In 1983, a Foreign Office clerk, Sarah Tisdall, leaked British Government documents showing when American cruise nuclear weapons would arrive in Europe. The Guardian was showered with praise.
When a court order demanded to know the source, instead of the editor going to prison on a fundamental principle of protecting a source, Tisdall was betrayed, prosecuted and served six months.
If Assange is extradited to America for publishing what the Guardian calls truthful "things", what is to stop the current editor, Katherine Viner, following him, or the previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, or the prolific propagandist Luke Harding?
What is to stop the editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post, who also published morsels of the truth that originated with WikiLeaks, and the editor of El Pais in Spain, and Der Spiegel in Germany and the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. The list is long.
David McCraw, lead lawyer of the New York Times, wrote: "I think the prosecution [of Assange] would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers… from everything I know, he's sort of in a classic publisher's position and the law would have a very hard time distinguishing between the New York Times and WilLeaks."
Even if journalists who published WikiLeaks' leaks are not summoned by an American grand jury, the intimidation of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning will be enough. Real journalism is being criminalised by thugs in plain sight. Dissent has become an indulgence.
In Australia, the current America-besotted government is prosecuting two whistle-blowers who revealed that Canberra's spooks bugged the cabinet meetings of the new government of East Timor for the express purpose of cheating the tiny, impoverished nation out of its proper share of the oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. Their trial will be held in secret. The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, is infamous for his part in setting up concentration camps for refugees on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus, where children self harm and suicide. In 2014, Morrison proposed mass detention camps for 30,000 people.
Real journalism is the enemy of these disgraces. A decade ago, the Ministry of Defence in London produced a secret document which described the "principal threats" to public order as threefold: terrorists, Russian spies and investigative journalists. The latter was designated the major threat.
The document was duly leaked to WikiLeaks, which published it. "We had no choice," Assange told me. "It's very simple. People have a right to know and a right to question and challenge power. That's true democracy."
What if Assange and Manning and others in their wake – if there are others – are silenced and "the right to know and question and challenge" is taken away?
In the 1970s, I met LeniReifenstahl, close friend of Adolf Hitler, whose films helped cast the Nazi spell over Germany.
She told me that the message in her films, the propaganda, was dependent not on "orders from above" but on what she called the "submissive void" of the public.
"Did this submissive void include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?" I asked her.
"Of course," she said, "especially the intelligentsia…. When people no longer ask serious questions, they are submissive and malleable. Anything can happen."
And did.
The rest, she might have added, is history.


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Salwar Kameez - Designed by Sahba (a female upcoming designer in Lucknow city)
If I were to believe, believe me, there is nothing more beautiful than an Indian attire..which does not mean western apparel makes you look any less beautiful or sexy.
All I mean is the indian dresses like the salwar kameez has the purity and originality of its own and makes a girl look so so elegant that anybody from any part of the world would fall in love with her!! There is just nobody who would say, "You don't look good in an indian attire". I personally have a liking for salwar kameez, though I hardly buy or wear any... (its always once or twice in a year around the wedding season :P) still I am fond of this particular type of Indian wear, may it be in any color. For instance, the salwar suit (salwar kameez) that i'm wearing in the pictures down below is one of my favorites by a designer in my city and I totally love it.
Love it for two major reasons :
A. Its Pink
B. Its just one in the world.
I love the long flowy dupatta too...its so chic that it has the four borders fully embroidered and 'booties' made all over the piece...Its a bit heavy but compliments the whole kameez (suit) and I like the sheer part of it (startled eyes)!! Woaaaahhh!! Isn't that just sooooo beautiful! There is a minimal of glitter touch in the design...but even if I wear it at a wedding or a sangeet in the night, the whole outfit will stand out with a shimmer...
I love how the designer has done the detailed embroidery starting from the quarter sleev-end to all the way down at the border (such a huge pattern), with small 'booties' in the centre filling the whole front of the kameez and so neatly done. The gold embroidery reminds me of the real gold bangles that my grandmother used to wear when I was a kid and I played with them, asking her why are there so many tiny detailed designs made on a single bangle and she said because it depicts the Indian creations, the neatness and hardwork, after all its all handmade and is the same with the embroidery on the kurta (in the picture). All the embroidery is hand-done.. so pure and elegant!
Photographed by : Guneet Singh
Hope all the girls reading this post will get inspired to wear at least one Indian outift someday, and the day you do, send your picture to me....


text: The Fosters is an American family drama television series that airs on the ABC Family network in the United States and ABC Spark in Canada. The series follows the lives of the titular Foster family, consisting of an interracial lesbian couple raising a blended family of biological, adopted and foster children. ... more on Wikipedia


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Go Back, Get It Right (Wildlife)
Lecture no. 8 from the course: National Geographic Masters of Photography
Taught by Professor Joel Sartore and 11 others | 34 min | Categories: The Great Courses Plus Online Hobby & Leisure Courses
These days, good equipment isn't hard to come by and many people are able to take tight, standard shots of wildlife in focus. So, how can you do something original in a world awash in pictures? Find out as Mr. Sartore delves deeper into the art of building photo essays and the mechanics of making exquisite images. Gather tips on lenses, where to photograph animals, and more.
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