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News Updates - August 2005
Vedic building promotes clearer thinking - Houston
Chronicle
A touch of Indian-ness - New York Times
Retreat from stress - Houston Chronicle
Life of Lord Krishna - Houston Chronicle
Building has an ancient
touch - Vedic principles promote clearer thinking
By NANCY SARNOFF,
Houston
Chronicle, August 2005
Feng shui, the ancient
Chinese philosophy that's supposed to achieve harmony and balance through
design and placement, has a rival: Vedic architecture. A building that just
opened in The Woodlands has been constructed according to Vedic principles,
a 5,000-year-old building practice from India that predates feng shui.
The building's owner is an
energy company executive who's leasing out the ground floor to a
Transcendental Meditation group, founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who also
happens to be a proponent of Vedic architecture. Vedic buildings typically
face east, have lots of windows and are constructed with nontoxic materials.
"The effect is clearer thinking," said building owner Howard Settle, chief
executive of Lexington, Ky.-based Century Exploration. The cost of
constructing the building was not available, but Settle expects to pay a 25
percent premium over a conventional office building.
He has seen the benefits
of this type of design before. After he built his Kentucky home in
accordance to Vedic principles in 2000, Settle said he slept better, felt
more energized and his allergies disappeared. Two years later, this lifelong
meditator had his corporate headquarters in Lexington developed in the same
way. "We've had unprecedented success since we moved in," Settle said,
noting that the company has reported a sixfold rise in revenue. "There's no
way for me or anyone else to make an absolute direct link between the Vedic
architecture and the increase in revenues we've enjoyed, but from a
subjective point of view, seeing how my people are working together and
creating more opportunities, I'd say it's working," he said.
A
Touch of 'Indian-ness' Amid the Glass and Steel
22 August 2005, The New York Times
Driving from the airport
into BANGALORE, visitors are struck by the gleam of steel-and-glass
box-shaped high-rise office and apartment buildings, carrying signboards of
the biggest Western high-tech companies. In contrast to these unabashed
clones of buildings in Palo Alto or San Jose is a 37-acre campus in the
heart of the city whose granite- and terra cotta-adorned buildings are set
among decades-old trees and painted in vibrant Indian shades of brick red
and deep green. The buildings have names from the ancient Indian language of
Sanskrit, while the rooms within are named after the ancient books of
learning, the Vedas. Every morning the Indian flag is ceremonially hoisted
on a central flagpole, an unusual practice for businesses here. At
lunchtime, the chirping of birds mixes with the chatter of workers in the
open spaces.
The campus, with its
distinctive architecture, is the headquarters of a four-year-old outsourcing
company called ITC Infotech. With 4,000 employees and $55 million in
revenues, the company's professed philosophy is not to let its workplace be
an imitation of countless modern buildings. Flouting the local fashion for
buildings with names like Hi-Tech Tower or Software Techcity, the company
calls its campus simply the ITC Infotech Park. The tranquil expanse that
blends the old and the new provides relief amid the concrete and glass
structures in Bangalore, a city that the World Bank lists as among the
fastest growing in the world.
Bangalore-based architect
Krishnarao Jaisim says ”two dozen of the defunct tobacco warehouses in
central Bangalore have been modified to seat hundreds of workers each, and
most of the streets have been paved with local stone.” The architect
retained the shell of the old high-ceilinged warehouses. The giant
century-old chimney, ancient trees and even an old fire station have been
left standing.
The distinctive marks of
the company's ideas have paid off for ITC Infotech in unexpected ways. Many
employees feel a strong sense of pride in their unique campus. In Bangalore,
where competition for skilled talent is intense, this campus is a great
differentiator. It is a refreshing change from the "clipped, almost
Californian, presentation of the typical campus" said Simon P. Bentley, vice
president for application development at DHL, one of ITC Infotech's
customers. Mr. Bentley said it is a "beautiful oasis in the midst of the
daily noise and difficulty" of life in Bangalore. It was as comfortable and
efficient as his own offices in Scottsdale, Ariz., he said, but with a "more
enviable" natural environment.
Retreat from stress
Aug. 18, 2005, By CHRIS WELSCH, Houston Chronicle
The
second-story yoga studio felt like a giant treehouse. It was open on three
sides, and the only thing dividing us from the lush forest of bamboo, palm
and orange trees outside was mosquito netting. The sweet, early-morning air
of the Big Island of Hawaii was utterly still. Not a leaf flickered. Our
instructor was exhorting his students with the passion of a circuit-riding
preacher: "Every cell in your body is connected to the mind. Where the brain
goes, the body follows." When class finished an hour later, I felt like I'd
grown an inch. My body was relaxed. My limbs hung loose. The normal noise in
my head — internal chatter about things to do, things I forgot to do and a
sense of anxious urgency — was not present. Instead, I felt as calm as those
trees in the breezeless garden. Achieving that calm is the point of a yoga
vacation. For a week, I left behind the hurly-burly world of office work,
traffic, television and various minor crises at home, and traded it for
daily yoga practice, meditation, a healthy diet and plenty of sleep.
Making it even better was
Yoga Oasis' location — 20 minutes from the ocean, thermal hot springs and
the Hawaiian town of Pahoa. My wife and I had a small cabin in a clearing to
ourselves; we fell asleep each night serenaded by a chorus of tree frogs.
Yoga Oasis was my second yoga retreat, and yet another facet of a deepening
appreciation for the ancient discipline. About four years ago, I started
taking a weekly class as a way to deal with low-back and neck pain. It was
very effective — the pain disappeared in a few months. But I also noticed
other benefits. I gained flexibility, increased my energy level, slept more
soundly and developed more mental focus. I started taking more classes.
Eventually, I went on my first yoga vacation last summer. My reasoning was
that if a 90-minute class made me feel good, a week of yoga would be
exponentially better. I was right.
In
seeking a yoga remedy for the stresses, aches and pains of modern life, I am
not alone. Yoga Journal reports that more than 15 million Americans
practiced yoga in 2004, a nearly three-fold increase from 1998. The trend
shows no sign of abating. As stress levels grow, the motivation to find ways
to deal with stress does, too.
"A
regular vacation is nice — you get a little rest, but then you're back in
the daily grind. It doesn't continue to give you benefits," said Rod
Stryker, a yoga teacher who leads retreats in the United States and France.
"A yoga vacation gives you something more. It gives you tools to deal with
that stress when you get home." As Stryker puts it, yoga is a systematic way
of getting to know oneself. "Before I can understand the world," he said,
"let me understand myself."
What is it about this
5,000-year-old tradition that makes it relevant today? As a set of
techniques, yoga was developed in India by spiritual seekers. The Sanskrit
word "yoga" is often translated as "union." The yoga scriptures, or
"sutras," outline an eight-limbed approach to reaching an enlightened state.
The yogic path includes a code of ethics, breathing exercises, and
techniques for meditation and concentration.
Our instructor Aruni said.
"We believe very much in being in the present moment. Yoga helps us do that
by bringing us to the sensations in our bodies. Yoga brings us sheer
experience. It doesn't matter what happened yesterday, or what happens
tomorrow. What matters is this breath, this moment." The challenge of yoga,
she said, is to confront the habits of the mind, which is always
anticipating the future or fretting about the past. But Aruni said yoga just
begins in the classroom or on the retreat. The tougher task is carrying that
attitude out into the world, listening wholeheartedly to family and friends,
fully experiencing grief as well as joy, and to use the old cliché, stopping
to smell the roses wherever one finds them. In that sense, it doesn't matter
if you're in a tropical rain forest or the Berkshire Mountains, or just in a
folding chair in the backyard. In yoga, the ultimate destination is wherever
you are at the moment, which may be the most difficult journey of all.
The life of Lord
Krishna
Devotion to Hindu deity inspired by tales of his wisdom, life's deeds
By TARA DOOLEY, August 27, 2005 Houston Chronicle
To devotees, Lord Krishna
can take many forms. To some, he is a beautiful baby or a mischievous child.
Some see him as protector or teacher. Others feel romantic love for Krishna.
Separately, each of these images of Krishna represents different kinds of
love. But together they represent the full spectrum of love that devotees
would seek to feel for God. "These manifestations are an affirmation of the
close relationship between God and life," said Sridhar Srinivasan, a
Houston-based board member of the Vedic Foundation.
Indeed, Krishna is one of
the most widely recognized incarnations, or avatars, of God in Hindu
theology, said Andrew Fort, religion professor at Texas Christian University
in Fort Worth and an expert on Hinduism. Krishna is considered an
incarnation of Vishnu, who is considered the protector God, though Krishna
is worshipped in different forms depending on Hindu tradition. "Everyone
would know about Krishna and he would be certainly in the top three gods who
are worshipped throughout all of India," Fort said.
Krishna's influence
extends beyond Hindu denominations to other religious traditions such as
Buddhism and Islam that have existed in India, Srinivasan said. And Krishna
has inspired centuries of art, poetry, music and dance. For Hindus, Krishna
is the manifestation of God in the world and comes to humanity to provide
balance and moral righteousness in the face of evil, Srinivasan said.
"Krishna's presence is an affirmation of the existence of God," he said.
In his many forms, Krishna
has captured the imaginations of believers through the stories of his life
and deeds. The stories and sacred texts of Krishna's life have inspired
centuries of devotional movements, including the International Society for
Krishna Consciousness, more commonly recognized as the Hare Krishna
movement.
The tales come primarily
from the Srimad Bhagavata Purana and the Bhagavad-Gita, a portion of the
Indian epic the Mahabharata. The Bhagavata Purana is probably the most
popular source on Krishna since it details the god's daring deeds from his
birth to his life as a cow herder. The Bhagavad-Gita is one of the most
central Indian theological texts. In it, Krishna takes the form of a
charioteer, guiding the warrior Arjuna through the moral complexities of war
and life. "It is one of the most influential, if not the most influential
works," said Sarrabhauma Dasa, an assistant priest at the Hare Krishna Dham
in Houston. "In the Hare Krishna movement, it is also very important."
The tales of Krishna's
babyhood from Srimad Bhagavata Purana include one involved sneaking butter
from a pot while his mother wasn't looking and feeding it to monkeys. The
moral of the story is "it is OK to have some fun in childhood," Narasiman
said.
The
Bhagavad-Gita in some ways, provides a distillation of many of the ideas
central to Hindu thought, Srinivasan said. "It is the guidebook for how we
live our life, how to deal with the vicissitudes of life and how to live
life such that we can be happy," he said. The text has inspired Krishna
devotees of many denominations and thinkers ranging from Henry David Thoreau
to Mahatma Gandhi and T.S. Eliot.
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