Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World
We have all taken personality tests before. At work, your company have made you take the Myers-Briggs personality test in order to teach you how to effectively communicate and work with other people. Or you might have taken a less serious personality test like the “Which Disney Princess are you?” At best, you received some
Every morning, I go through my prayer ritual, or puja, to Ganesh. It involves a series of steps, one of which is lighting incense. I’ve grown quite fond of the ritual, especially the incense. It’s incredibly pleasant to have your morning coffee and write while breathing in the calming aroma of incense. Initially, I thought
Yesterday, I went to a Bikram Yoga class, which is a 90-minute yoga session conducted in a 104 degree room. I didn’t intend to go to Bikram yoga during my Hinduism month. I would have preferred to go to a regular yoga class, however, this particularly yoga studio had the best Groupon. Being the cost
One of the readings at Mass yesterday told the story of “The Temptation of Jesus.” Jesus fasts in the desert for 40 days and the devil makes him three offers. He asks Jesus to use his powers to turn stone into bread. Jesus refuses. The devil asks Jesus to jump off the roof a temple
I’ve never really felt the need to be a part of a group. For example, I’m from the Boston area, which of course, means I’m supposed to be a Red Sox fan. Nominally, I’m a fan, but honestly, I don’t really care about baseball. The thought of going to a baseball game with thousands of
I consider myself to be a fairly rational and analytical person. This mode of thinking is useful for making many decisions, but not all of them. This is the problem Russ Roberts tackles in his book, Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us. As an economist, Roberts’ default mode it to tackle
Over the past two weeks, I’ve been in Portland, Oregon and took a break from the project for a little while. I didn’t intend to, but I was working remotely at weird hours and didn’t have anything logistically set up for my Hinduism month (my shrine, time to study, etc.). Instead of doing a half
Over the past six weeks or so, I’ve adopted Hindu practices to understand more about myself. I took a few minutes every morning to pay my respects to the Hindu god, Ganesh, I suffered through 90 minute hot yoga sessions, and I read important Hindu scriptures, including the Bhagavad Gita and selections from the Upanishads.
Yesterday, I had an opportunity to put the Taoist advice I wrote about it in practice. In January, I submitted applications for grad school to study religion. I applied to two programs, (a PhD and a MTS – Masters in Theological Studies) at one school. I was rejected in February for the PhD program, which
This month was an interesting one for me, primarily due to a major change in my work situation. I left my company as an employee, and I’m now working on a project for them as an independent consultant. The project is the same one I was working on as an employee, so it was an