An Ordinary Person's Views on Dharma

    Dear sweet making sister  If your Diwali sweet turns out too soft, call it halwa. If it turns out too hard, call it burfi.  If it looks like it can use some sugar, say  it's  low glucose.  If it doesn't look like anything your mothers ever made, find a new name for it! But one thing is sure. All the sweets you made chanting the name of Yashoda's butter stealing son are definitely sweeter!  Happy Deepawali!

Celebrated on Chaturdasi thithi in the month of Thula , Deepawali reminds us of more than  one great event related to our ithihasas.  We celebrate the home coming of Sri Rama, Sri Lakshmana and Sri Sita along with their vanara guests.   We also remember the home coming of the Pandava brothers after their vana vaasa and agnyata vaasa.  People from some States celebrate Deepawali for three days as Lakshmi puja. People from some other states celebrate as Naraka Chaturdasi.  Narakasura was an asura who was born of Sriman Narayana and Ma BhuDevi. His boon was her could only be killed by his own mother and none else... As Asuras act always after getting powerful boons, he harassed people in every way.  Sri Krishna and Ma Satyabhama went to the battlefield together and it was Smt. Satyabhama who slew him. She is an amsavatara of ma BhuDevi.  It shows Bhagawan delivers justice without any bias. A dying Narakasura had a change of heart and requested Bhagaw

Modern women and men are bombarded every day with subtle / unsubtle messages about why women are special and why they need to treated in a special way. It’s true that women are indeed special but not for the reasons the liberals of this world list out. “You can do anything a man can do!” is the constant mantra that’s being thrown at women all the time. Let’s face it.  This isn’t true .  Men and women have different skillsets for the reason that they are meant to complement each other. Any person with real leadership skills can tell you that great teams are built with people having diverse skillsets. Efficient, nurturing preschool teachers are mostly women. They may be grossly under paid, but are we going to demean their great service to humanity? Hard working workers of emergency/rescue services/city cleaning services are mostly men. Their service to humanity goes unsung. Where would our modern homes be without the work skills of ordinary plumbers? Ex