The Essentials of Hinduism

As part of my "cramming" for our upcoming trip to India and Nepal I was able to absorb The Essentials of Hinduism (by Swami Bhaskarananda, 2002), which proved to be exactly what I was looking for... a relatively quick overview of, well, the essentials of Hinduism.

In less than 200 pages Swami Bhaskarananda provides all of the basic tenets of the oldest practicing religion in the world. The very basics are relatively easy to understand, although even this quick overview did go over my head before all was said and done.

As I've often encountered when studying the various religions of the world, it's just incredible how many similarities there are between them. This one excerpt from page 84 of The Essentials is a case in point:

"God, in order to incarnate on earth in human form, creates an earthly body for Himself through His inscrutable magical power... He gives others the impression that He is born of human parents. Out of compassion for His creatures who take refuge in Him, He absorbs their sins or bad karma in His earthly body, and suffers on their behalf. He works out their bad (karma) to give them relief and salvation."

Sound familiar???

The book winds down with an overview of a 19th century Hindu saint named Shri Ramakrishna, who wrote and preached the idea that all world religions are basically one and the same, something that is starting to make a lot of sense to me. From his writings: "God has made different religions to suit different aspirants, times and countries. All doctrines are so many paths; but a path is by no means God Himself. Indeed, one can reach God if one follows any one of the paths with whole hearted devotion." Also, "A truly religious man should think that other religions are also so many paths leading to the Truth. One should always maintain an attitude of respect towards other religions." And lastly, "Every man should follow his own religion. A Christian should follow Christianity, a Muslim should follow Islam, and so on."

Known as the "prophet of the harmony of religions," Ramakrishna's words were never more relevant than today. And so I've added his works to my reading list for the future.

Are We Not There Yet?

Eileen and I are headed to India and Nepal in less than a month, so the travel books are arriving almost daily! My first read in preparation, Are We Not There Yet? by Chuck Rosenthal defies description, so I don't think I will even attempt to do so.

Rosenthal wrote the book, which is subtitled Travels in Nepal, North India, and Bhutan, following a four month trip on which he chaperoned more than a dozen students. I suppose any book written following that type of experience would defy description.

I laughed out loud a number of times while reading the book, both because of Rosenthal's writing style, but also because of the crazy things that happened on their trip. I haven't been to the region, but the book certainly presents a wide spectrum of experiences, from heavenly awe to raw horror that makes you want to vomit. And from what I hear, that's pretty much what we should expect from the trip.

Anyhow, we are out-of-our-minds excited. More reports to follow.

Vagabonding & Leaving Microsoft

I've been reading a lot of shorter books lately, so I'm struggling to keep up with the blog entries. Hence the need for two books in this one entry.

Perhaps I'm reading shorter books because I've been concentrating on some new topics. First out of the gates comes Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. Trying to quench my thirst for long term overseas travel at a time in my life when I can't do much of it, Vagabonding was both fascinating and heartbreaking. Potts describes a type of travel that almost no one actually does: Slow paced, long term travel that focuses on the experiences of everyday life, rather than sites and destinations.

Potts takes the time to explain the benefits as well as the challenges of long term travel. Not exactly a how-to manual, Vagabonding strips away the supposed glamour of luxury travel, replacing it with an inwardly rewarding method that touch the soul.

I enjoyed the book so much that I've added Potts' Marco Polo Didn't Go there to my wishlist!

As much as I enjoyed Vagabonding, my next read, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood left an even more profound mark. As I've written previously, I'm clearly approaching an age where I want to do something significantly philanthropic. Wood's story is inspiring to the extreme: While taking a two week hiking trip through Nepal as an escape to a high pressure job with Microsoft, Woods encounters a Himalayan school with virtually no books in its spacious library.

After giving Woods a tour, the school's headmaster says goodbye to Woods with the simple request that perhaps he could one day return with some books. Less than a year later Woods returned with thousands. The joyous reaction of the local village so overwhelmed him emotionally that he soon quit his job to build more libraries (and ultimately schools) in the developing world.

Ten years later the organization he started, Room to Read, is having a massive impact on literacy and education around the globe.

I'm truly inspired by his work. Perhaps my upcoming trip to Honduras will instill me with similar inspiration!

Honduras

I'm headed to Honduras in a few weeks as part of a group called The Wilderness Team. When my friend and mentor Bob Hope brought it up a year ago, I was definitely intrigued. Bob has been taking groups of Americans to rural Honduras for more than ten years.

Apparently we will spend much of our week building schools in the remote Agalta Valley, but we will also help share our knowledge and try to devise new plans to help this acutely poor region of the world.

I knew pretty much nothing about Honduras until recently. As I learned while reading Honduras by Roger Dendinger, Honduras has the third lowest GDP in the Western Hemisphere.

As I've written before, the older I get the more I think about finding meaningful ways of giving back, and I have a feeling that this trip is the beginning of something completely new for me.

Stay tuned.

Enjoying the Walters Art Museum

My wife and I are in Baltimore this weekend for a friend's party, and we took some time this afternoon to visit the Walters Art Museum. We were pleasantly surprised with what we found.

The art crossed a huge variety of ages and cultures (ranging from ancient Sumer, Egypt and Assyria to a wonderful 19th century collection). Both the quantity and quality of works was excellent.

We've been fortunate enough to visit a lot of wonderful museums around the world, and I'm starting to appreciate them more and more. While I've always had an intellectual appreciation, I've started enjoying the art much more for its beauty.

For years I felt that I had to know the name of the artist, the subject of the art, and/or the history surrounding the piece itself to truly be able to enjoy it. I found myself first reading the plaque, then looking at the art. Now I do the reverse.

I don't think you need to be an art historian to appreciate art. There are no rules. I like what I like, and I don't what I don't.

Now instead of feeling an obligation to look at everything in a museum - starting with the information on each plaque - I can simply peruse each gallery. When I see something I like, I study it closer and linger. If I'm really interested in something I might even check out that plaque.

This has dramatically increased my enjoyment of museums, especially the wonderful Walters Art Museum!

Appreciating Ancient Islam

I know that I'm one of the few Westerners that desperately wants to visit all of the countries of the Middle East. I can hear it now, "Why would anyone want to go there?"

For me it's because the Islamic world offers a glimpse into such an unexpectedly rich past. "For five centures, from 700 to 1200, Islam led the world in power, order, and extent of government, in refinement of manners, in standards of living, in humane legislation and religious toleration, in literature, scholarship, science, medicine, and philosophy" (Source: The Age of Faith, Will Durant, p. 341).

I've read volumes on the subject, and it's simply awesome what these people did at such an early age. The fact is, ancient Islam during this period represents the height of civilization and culture, comparable to any in history.

For example, only at the peak of Alexandria's prominence under the Ptolemies were books held in such a similarly high repute. Patrons exhausted fortunes to build tremendous libraries, and engaged agents to travel the known world to acquire rare and important volumes. And by the way, they read these books.

Poetry, interestingly, was written by virtually all. Caliphs and commoners alike took the time to write poetry on a daily basis, share it with one another, and outdo their colleagues in eloquence, wit and wisdom.

A little known fact is that we owe much of the extant Plato, Aristotle and many other classical writings to Islamic bibliophiles who translated them into Arabic. While the dark ages shrouded Europe, leaving its libraries to destruction and decay, the courts of Baghdad, Cairo, Moorish Spain and countless other cities held such writings in great esteem. The Renaissance welcomed the Arabic texts back across the Mediterranean, translating them into a variety of European languages.

Medicine, science, astronomy, philosophy, architecture and art all experienced similar apogees in ancient Islam.

What I wouldn't give to experience these cultures in their original, living glory. Modern politics aside, these were, and are, amazing cultures, far more worthy of exploration than the most popular tourist destinations of our time. They're vastly different places now, but every bit as fascinating.

The British Museum

My wife and I have been talking about going to London to visit the British Museum for years. Finally last week we did it, and it was well worth the wait. They might as well call it the Museum of all the World's Ancient History, because quite frankly, that's what it is.

I won't get into the politics of how and why the Brits were able to acquire so much of the world's important antiquities. For better or worse, it offers the best cross section of finds that I've seen from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Greece and Rome. And needless to say, we didn't see everything the museum has to offer. The only other contender, from what I've seen, would be the Vatican Museums.

After landing in London at 6AM local time, we went straight to our hotel, dropped off our bags and went to meet our guide Ingrid at 10AM. We arrived a little early, offering a much-needed opportunity to down some lattes.

Ingrid cut to the chase by taking us straight to the Rosetta Stone, which was surrounded by a sea of tourists and flashing bulbs (yes, the British Museum allows cameras). After a quick glance we meandered through Egypt, where we saw some of the colossal finds of Giovanni Belzoni, including the massive Rameses II head. My wife and I both agreed that the quality of the material we saw is only bested by the Cairo Museum itself.

In the Assyrian exhibit we saw some of the wonderful, massive wall inscriptions from Nimrud and Nineveh. We've seen some of the same at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but the collection in London is much more significant. The winged bulls were fantastic, although it was dark, so my pictures came out a little fuzzy. The quality of the detail is just fantastic; the hunting scenes combine real majesty with the genuine emotion of the dying lions. You can almost feel their pain.

The famed Elgin Marbles, taken from the Parthenon frieze on top of the Acropolis in Athens, were great to see, but a little bit of a let down in terms of the surviving quality. I guess that I've been hearing about the Marbles for so long that I anticipated them being in near perfect condition - in hindsight a silly assumption for something that sat outside, exposed to the elements, for some 2300 years.

I was greatly surprised, however, to see the surving frieze sculpture from the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (modern Turkey). I didn't know that any of this even existed, except perhaps fragmentary remains in situ. The condition was actually much better than that from the Parthenon, and it genuinely warmed my heart to see it. Ingrid indicated that this section is quite often closed, so we were really fortunate to have the opportunity. We need to get to Turkey!

Other highlights were the so-called Standard of Ur from Sumeria, wonderful Greek and Roman sculpture, including busts of Hadrian and his pal Antinous.

My biggest regret was not getting to the Indian collection until we went back to the Museum a couple of days later, this time without Ingrid. Great Britain obviously has a long history with India, and the extensive collection of ancient Hindu art reflects that. I just don't have the knowledge right now to really appreciate it to its fullest extent!

We did plenty of other things while in London, but the British Museum was a real highlight. We can add it to the list of the world's great ancient history museums!

London Calling

My wife and I have finally committed to the trip to London that we booked last summer. With the economy in chaos we weren't sure if the timing made sense, and we're still not sure, but we've decided that we just don't care!

It's a short trip, centered around our long-time wish to visit the famed British Museum. We've been fortunate enough to visit a lot of the world's great museums, but this visit is going to be really special. Just to make sure, we've hired a guide who specializes in the museum to give us a personalized tour.

As previously mentioned, I'm hurriedly reading the Oxford History of Britain to fill in my embarrassing unfamiliarity with U.K. history. In two weeks I've advanced from Roman England to the arrival of The Tudors, about 1500 years of history, so I guess I'm catching up quickly.

I'm sure we'll take in much of the usual tourist destinations, but with only four full days, we don't have a lot of time to mess around. A daytrip to Bath will be another highlight, allowing me to explore the ancient baths, and Eileen to visit the hometown of her favorite author, Jane Austen.

And much to my surprise, I'm really enjoying my audio course on the comedies, histories and tragedies of William Shakespeare. Eschewing much detail in terms of plot summaries, the course provides wonderful contextual analyses of the settings from each play. I'm learning a great deal about the history of Elizabethan England, but also the time and location in which each play is set.

Lots of Beginnings

I've started a lot of new projects over the last week, and have probably bitten off more than I can chew. I started a new audio course on the works of William Shakespeare, as well as the fourth book in the History of Civilization by William Durant, entitled the Age of Faith.

Of course, it just donned on me that my wife and I are pondering a trip to London, our first to the U.K., in about six weeks and I had originally intended to dive into the Oxford History of Britain by Kenneth Morgan. It's been sitting in my study for weeks in the on deck circle and I completely forgot about that.

No biggy, I will get a jump on it next week.

And although I'm enjoying the audio course on Shakespeare, I'm not sure I'm going to make it through any of his actual plays. I'm trying, but I'm just not feeling it. Why is it that I can muscle through volumes on history that would bore 99% of the reading public, but I can't make it through a single Shakespeare play?

San Francisco

My wife and I are finishing a quick trip to San Francisco, including a day of touring a variety of wineries in Napa Valley. With the economy in shambles we will not be taking any major trips this year but are trying to work in some shorter trips to close by destinations.

With only one day in San Fran, we hit the obligatory Fisherman's Wharf area, Ghirardelli Square, China Town, and the Japanese Tea Gardens (see photo) where we sipped green tea and enjoyed the perfect weather.

The second day we spent touring Napa, spending time learning about wine and how it is made from a handful of small vintners and wineries. We particularly enjoyed an in-depth tour at Round Pond, and spending time with the owners of another small vineyard called O'Brien Estate.

We're headed home later today, but looking forward to our next trip, albeit only five days long, to London.