When corporate-endowed foundations first made their appearance in the United States, there was a fierce debate about their provenance, legality, and lack of accountability. People suggested that if companies had so much surplus money, they…
The title comes from Allen Ginsberg’s poem, Howl
Dipa Ma’s greatest gift to me was showing what was possible—and living it. She was impeccable about effort. People with this ability to make effort are not disheartened by how long it takes, how difficult…
If you’ve ever … put your faith in a guru traveled to India and were blown away and never took a single drug recited a mantra throughout the day met your future wife at a…
So many of my brilliant former students— Their families from Gujarat, Bijar, Delhi, Kerala, West Bengal— Would pity me Or express incredulity That I, their erstwhile quasi-prof, Hang on the words Of Sri Anandamayi Ma…
Mohandas Gandhi used the Bhagavad Gita as his go-to source for dealing with life’s daily problems and issues. A short book of 700 verses, the Gita grounded and inspired Gandhi throughout his life. Like other …
Dear Perry I am sending out the following to a few of my friends, Bengali-Americans, who haven’t heard of Sri Anandamayi Ma. I think they’ll be open to her. I’m grateful we read her before…
What is happening to our world is almost too colossal for human comprehension to contain. But it is a terrible, terrible thing. To contemplate its girth and circumference, to attempt to define it, to try…
Not agitated By grief nor hankering after pleasure, They livs free from lust and fear and anger. Fettered no more by selfish attachments, They are not elated by good fortune Nor depressed by bad. Such…
Ten years ago, because of a Social Justice theology class, I got to know Melissa Banerjee, a Bengali-American. It made sense to me to give her a hardback edition of the The Gospel of Sri…