Dr.King - Author of books on Yoga, Spirituality and Indology

[Quick links] [Pause]         Happy New year and my best wishes! I have some interesting things to announce for this New year.

[Quick links] [Pause] We were discussing the interesting story of Avadhoota – a totally liberated person who was moving around like a mad man, completely nude. Though Avadhoota had attained the ultimate knowledge, he never had any specific Guru. He imbibed whatever he knew from various sources which he considered as his Gurus. Some of these were not even human. In the previous episode, we saw 4 of...

[Quick links] [Pause]       Guru is a Sanskrit word which means a teacher – someone who shows you the way. Many of us spend our lifetime searching for a Guru in our spiritual journey. We try to coverup our lazy lifestyle by saying that we have not yet found a proper Guru. And some of us hang on to fake Gurus who mislead more than lead us on the right path. Bhagavata talks of a strange man who clai...

[Quick links] [Pause]   As we discussed a few episodes ago, Krishna did his schooling in a residential school run by a well-known teacher by name Sandipani. Such residential schools were called Gurukul – literally meaning ‘family of teachers’. Students lived in such Gurukuls along with their teachers and their family, during the period of their study which could be as long as 12 years. During that...

[Quick links] [Pause] Jara bringing child Jarasandha                   With the dual intention of freeing the Kings imprisoned by Jarasandha and also attending special Rajasuya ritual organized by Yudhishthira, Krishna and his entourage reaches Indraprastha. It would have taken several days for them to travel from western end of India to almost Northern end.

[Quick links] [Pause]         Krishna has left behind his naughty childhood days. And also, the playful youthful days. He is a mature person now, married and also with several children. Though he was not the King, for all practical purposes, he worked like the representative of aging King Ugrasena – his maternal grand father. Have you ever wondered how a King or Prime minister or President of a co...

[Quick links] [Pause]             While he was in Gokul, as a mischievous kid, Krishna was often accused of stealing butter. As he grew into a young man, people accused him of stealing the hearts of young girls. He was now an adult and the prince of Dwarika. But accusations of stealing never left Krishna. And now, he was faced with the accusation of stealing an expensive Gem. What is this new stor...

[Quick links] [Pause]     Krishna was now in Dwarika. He was no more the boy of Mathura. He had grown into an adult. Naturally, like all human beings he too fell for the cupid’s arrows. That is, he too fell in love like a typical human being. But it was not a one-sided story. Nor was it a smooth love affair. Let us discuss this love story in this episode.

[Quick links] [Pause]                 The book that I am going to announce today is not really a new book. I had started working on it 2 years ago, but I was not very comfortable giving a final shape to it. It is about a highly revered ancient Indian scripture, or shall I say the most controversial one. It is highly revered since it is supposed to put down in clear terms, everything about Brahma o...

[Quick links] [Pause]       We were discussing events in Mathura after Kamsa was killed by Krishna. Kamsa’s father-in-law, namely Jarasandha was furious about the killing of Kamsa. He wanted to wipe out the entire Yadava clan to which Krishna belonged to avenge Kamsa’s death.

[Quick links] [Pause]   Uddhav meeting the cowherd girls               After freeing Mathura from the clutches of the tyrant Kamsa, Krishna installed Ugrasena – Kamsa’s father, as the King of Mathura.

[Quick links] [Pause] Krishna curing Trivarka When Krishna and Balarama were going around in the majestic city of Mathura, they came across two types of people. There were some who were close admirers of Kamsa and loyal to him. They tried to slight Krishna in whatever way they could. But there was a vast silent majority who suffered a lot from the tyrant Kamsa. They were quite jubilated to see Kri...

[Quick links] [Pause]   Akrura lands in Vrindavan with an invite from Kamsa           Were you surprised? The Kamsa, who was all along doing everything possible to kill Krishna, how could he think of inviting Krishna to Mathura? Was he repenting for whatever wrongs he did against Krishna? Was he thinking of patching up with Krishna to avoid his death in Krishna’s hands? Or was his wicked mind sche...

[Quick links] [Pause]                     The Krishna’s story that you have been listening to for the past few weeks is now in a book form – e-book, Paperback as well as audio. Each format has its own advantages.

[Quick links] [Pause]                   In the previous episode, we saw how Vyasa apparently portrayed Krishna as a flirtatious boy. More than getting into the historicity of the incident narrated in the previous episode, I am more curious as to why Vyasa included such an incident in the Bhagavata. Did Vyasa really want to portray Krishna as a flirtatious boy?

[Quick links] [Pause]                   Krishna is often portrayed as a ‘lover boy’! Probably, in any other religion, thinking about God as a lover boy is blasphemous! But not so for most Indians. They enjoy looking at Krishna as a very flirtatious, and even sometimes as a person who goes beyond all socially accepted norms when it comes to ‘love’.

[Quick links] [Pause]   Krishna in Vrindavan     Child Krishna seemed to be always getting into problems. When he was a small kid, the cruel ogress Putana tried to kill him. When he survived that attempt, a cart almost fell on the cradle in which he was sleeping. But he escaped unhurt. As Krishna grew up, there were more such calamities which seemed as if planned by someone to kill him.

[Quick links] [Pause]   We often use the word spirituality to mean some uncommon or mystic set of notions or practices. Even people who do not believe in the concept of spirit or soul use the term to mean such things. Many people talk about ‘spiritual experiences’. Most modern Gurus take subjective experience as the proof of existence of spirituality that is beyond science.

[Quick links] [Pause]    Idol worship has been in vogue since time immemorial in all races and communities. Hindus are no exceptions. But Abrahamic religions forbid idol worship at least as a principle. There is an interesting story regarding this.

[Quick links] [Pause]            For people who love to listen to audio books, here is some good news.

[Quick links] [Pause]    In the previous episode we saw how Badarayana defines God. Most religions should have no problems accepting that definition.  That definition does not talk about a person or an entity, but a cause. It is more of a way of explaining the origination of the world.

[Quick links] [Pause]    Since our entire discussion revolves around God or Brahma, probably we should first define what this God is. Many people who claim to be believers have tough time defining God.  They may describe God as some person in the heaven, or some deity in a temple, and so on. But they probably cannot ‘define’ God.

[Quick links] [Pause]      All of us love our mother. So, there is nothing wrong if one declares that his or her mother is beautiful even if she is horrible looking 😉 May be to some extent it is acceptable if we say that “my mother is the most beautiful!”. But the problem starts when we say that “your mother is ugly as compared to mine”.

[Quick links] [Pause]    If you ever were a mother – well, no gender bias, it could as well apply to a father - you probably would better appreciate whatever I am going to discuss now. As a child grows, it goes through stages of gradual building up of its vocabulary. Most of what it says initially is gibberish and makes no sense at all. But does a mother ever complain? On the contrary she takes th...

[Quick links] [Pause]    Have you ever seen a rotten corpse? Just the thought of it may be repulsing to you. The nauseating stench, decomposed flesh, wriggling maggots, the hungry vultures tearing apart the rotten stuff… Can you picturize that? Horrible isn’t it?