Religion Dispatches
While many books will no doubt be written about the momentous events that are unfolding in the Middle East, many of them will doubtless leave out the prehistory. By exploring the rich tradition of nonviolent resistance in the Muslim world—from Palestine and Pakistan, to Kosovo and the Maldives—Amitabh Pal dispels the oft-repeated misconception that what we are witnessing in the Arab Spring is without precedent.
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Attempts to legally define yoga would amount to identifying a bounded tradition of symbols, practices, and ideas, which in reality vary across yoga studios and ashrams within the United States alone.
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Reflecting on Sai Baba’s life, one encounters moments of divine transformation, devotion, and public service as well as pain, death, and heinous accusations. Millions of devotees believed in and worshiped Sai Baba as a god-man, an avatar of God. Many also despised him as a charlatan, a sexual abuser, and even an accessory to murder.
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Daya Mata’s death reminds us that American yoga has no single essence or form. Indeed, it’s in and through its countless varieties that yoga has become as American as Elvis himself.
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Sri Chinmoy wanted to win a Nobel prize, and to be more famous than the Dalai Lama or the Pope. Jayanti Tamm writes a book about what happens when a good guru goes bad.
Read MoreWhen men do it, we don’t blink an eye, but when a woman gallivants around the world looking for love we are quick to call her self-indulgent.
Read MoreThe week in religion, poetically.
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Gandhi’s grandson says that Israel promotes a “culture of violence”: Shalom Goldman tells the little-known backstory.
Read MoreObama can prove once and for all that he’s not a Muslim, secret or otherwise, by accepting the Hindu Hanuman statue that he keeps with him.
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Can a genetically altered hot dog be kosher? Can a vegetarian eat a tomato that has animal DNA in it? Is modified corn just another instance of colonialism? These and other questions are broached in a new anthology, sure to make excellent Thanksgiving dinner conversation.
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