Monday, June 18, 2007

Truth and Knowledge

A friend of the family prepared a very special gift for the kids.

He brought the kids' birth info to his Hindu spiritual leader who figured out their Hindu "horoscope". I don't mean horoscope as we understand it here in the west. The date and time of birth is used to calculate the name of a Hindu god or ideal. Pursuing the qualities governed by that particular deity will bring the child a lifetime of good karma.


A gift of good karma.  Wow! 

For Ty:
Satish
- the Hindu word for truth.

"The Hindu tradition encourages Hindus to seek spiritual and moral truth wherever it might be found, while acknowledging that no creed can contain such truth in its fullness and that each individual must realize this truth through his or her own systematic effort. Our experiences, and our dialogue with others - especially with enlightened individuals - provide various means of testing our understanding of spiritual and moral truth.

Although Hindu scripture, based on the insights of Hindu sages and seers, serves primarily as a guidebook, truth comes to us through direct consciousness of the divine or an ultimate reality. In other religions this ultimate reality is known as God. Hindus refer to it by many names, but the most common name is Brahman."




For Erin:
Saraswati
- the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and creative arts.

"In Hinduism, Saraswati represents intelligence, consciousness, cosmic knowledge, creativity, education, enlightenment, music, the arts, eloquence and power. Hindus worship her not only for 'academic knowledge', but for 'divine knowledge' essential to achieve liberation from the suffering involved in being subject to the cycle of repeated death and reincarnation."

What a fascinating gift. Thank you, kind soul.