Author: Maria Wirth
India is unique. In no other country there are as many impressive spiritual personalities as in India. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is no doubt one of those outstanding personalities. Sri Sri, as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is often called, was born on 13th May 1956 in Tamil Nadu. He started reciting verses from the Bhagavad-Gita, when he was only 4 years old. His parents supported him. They allowed him to study the Vedas as well as physics. Several gurus influenced him, most of all Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced the Transcendental Meditation in the west. Sri Sri lived in Maharishi’s…
Question: What are the draw-backs of Hinduism apart from idol-worship? Answer: Why do you write “apart from idol worship”? Too much Christian brainwashing that idols are just stone? Hindus consider the whole universe alive, as ultimately Brahman. Nothing wrong in taking the help of a ‘form’, a murthi, to feel closer to the Divine by worshipping it. Coming to the original question: there are no drawbacks in Hindu Dharma, since it is a genuine, outer and inner enquiry into what is true about us and the universe and helpful for a fulfilling life. The truth is non-negotiable, but rules for…
It was August 1981. The monsoon clouds were heavy between the mountains. I had travelled for the first time to Nainital, 2000 meter high in the Himalayas. Together with a porter I walked towards Ban Niwas, a branch of Aurobindo Ashram, on top of a hill. Abdullah had reached from Delhi some hours before me. I saw him sitting by the window trimming his beard, when I put my laundry on the washing line and liked him at first sight. Abdullah was from Jordan. He was the eldest of ten siblings and had worked in Saudi Arabia to contribute more…
“Terror has no religion” is often repeated by politicians and media. At the same time, the most dangerous terrorists of our times like the Islamic State and Boko Haram shout triumphantly ‘Allah ho Akbar’ after brutally killing those whom they consider infidels or opponents of the caliphate. Common sense would suggest that at least these groups inflict terror in the name of Islam. However, so far, the “correct” view is that these groups don’t follow Islam, but ‘Islamism’. They are misguided and have distorted the good Islam into a bad Islamism. So they are not Muslims, but Islamists or extremists…
Next to the Ramakrishna Mission in Dehradun, there is a small ashram where on 27th August 1982, Anandamayi Ma left her body. Anandamayi Ma, who was born in 1896 as Nirmala Sundari in what is now Bangladesh, was and still is revered all over India for having being extraordinary saintly and wise right from childhood. Devotees still come to her Samadhi in Kankhal, even though many of them have never seen her in person. I was fortunate to meet her and would like to share some of those precious memories: During the Ardha Kumbh Mela in Haridwar in April 1980, some…
Politicians worldwide steadfastly maintain that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam and most liberal non-Muslims share this opinion. Several Muslims, too, express the same view. They label the terrorists ‘misguided youths’ but don’t seem to be interested who or what misguides them. On the other hand, those who joined ISIS are clear: “We follow the true Islam”, they declare with full conviction and ridicule those who think otherwise. Who is right? Is it difficult to discover? Killing people who go peacefully about their daily lives clearly goes against human nature. So why do they do it? Apart from some…
For the first time, an International Yoga Day will be celebrated on 21st of June this year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested this honour for yoga and his suggestion got overwhelming support from 177 countries. Yoga has indeed become popular all over the world. Many millions practice it – from schoolchildren to senior citizens – and courses are held down to the village level in many countries of the west. But strangely, in its home country India, yoga was not valued even till a few decades ago. The reason was that under British colonial rule, Indian tradition was projected…
Swami Chinmayananda’s 100th birthday is on 8th May. He was born in Ernakulam in Kerala in 1916. Those who had the good fortune to meet the Swami in person, surely treasure his memory. He was a towering personality, who stood up for the Hindu tradition once he had realised its worth. He was a man on a mission – the mission to acquaint his countrymen, especially the English educated class, with the profound insights of the ancient Rishis, which were in danger of being forgotten. He started a revival of Hindu Dharma in independent India by translating the ancient knowledge…
Some time ago, Adity Sharma had asked me some questions via email. Adity is a student at St. John’s University School of Law in New York. Here are her questions and my answers which she first published in Chakranews: What was originally planned as a trip to see Kerala’s wildlife, transmuted into a journey of spiritual discovery for Maria Wirth. She writes in her BLOG about Hindu Dharma with clarity, deep insight and yet in simple language. It shows that hers is not merely abstract knowledge but based on experience and intuition. Adity Sharma (AS): You have written at some…
There is probably no other country where members of other religions were as safe as in India. Hindus always gave shelter to those who were persecuted in their homelands. Jews gratefully acknowledged that India is the one country where they were never persecuted. Syrian Christians under their leader Thomas of Cana (Thomas the Apostle did not come to India) were given refuge in the 4th century. Parsis came in the 10th century to escape the Muslim invaders in Persia. And in 1959, some 100,000 Tibetan Buddhist refugees found shelter in India – only 12 years after the British had left…