Silent night....Holy night.....Happy birthday....

It is Christmas eve. Last year I was at the Coptic Church in Egypt.  My roots go back to the ancient Hindu tradition of rejoicing the spirituality and holiness in any religion. A religion will lose its spirituality if it prevents or refuse to extend universal love, acceptance and tolerance beyond its own. Then it reduces itself to a mere procedures and legal instructions to perpetuate fanaticism. Fear replacing the love and violence replacing kindness and compassion.
 
I remember the time when I travelled in France almost in every church I recited the Hindu Prayers. I felt that Mother Mary or Jesus has acknowledged it with a smile or a wink!. When my Mom visited the Cathedrals and Churches in Europe, she would even remove the shoes when entering a  church  as a way of showing reverence. An amazing Mother.

Tonight is special when millions of people think about God, peaceful, joyous, kind, feel and express love. That is the magic of festivals and celebrations when the universe experience the collective vibration of love and kindness.

Happy Birthday Jesus! Joy to the World!

All content copyright © by Sobana Iyengar.

Litteratura....Grammata.....e-Mail....

I quickly closed the PDA when the US Airways flight attendant announced the departure of my fight to Washington DC. I was half way through an e-mail. Sitting back I started reading the in flight magazine. An excerpt from the book "Tyranny of e-mail" by John Freeman caught my attention. Apparently Freeman has compiled enough data to support his theory that e-mail is indeed a menace!.  I can understand if he had talked about spam but the theme of his book is how e-mail has altered the business life and cases where productivity has lowered.

Pardon me! John Freeman should have put more efforts to write on how to use the e-mail tool more effectively. One can use additional spam-filters in business networks, add another "How to" training program for effective e-mail communication.

I thought some people must have reacted the same way as the author in every epoch of human history when the cave paintings were replaced by clay tablets, papyrus, Palmyra leaves and subsequently ink and paper followed by printed material and now Internet and e-messages!.

Expression of thought, feelings, imagination, facts, and news require a medium. The evolution of writing shows that we have been constantly in search of or improving the tools to convey our thoughts. Why blame e-mail or newer technology!

                                         Photo: Rinconada Canyon Petroglyph – New Mexico

All content copyright © by Sobana Iyengar.