Recently in Hinduism Category

Today I was amused to find an ad for Brahma Beer on the sidewalk in front of my apartment, and now, coincidentally, Weird Universe has just posted the above TV spot for the brand.

The heroic myth takes on a new form. A commenter explains:

Ganesha is seen as the Remover of Obstacles, so anyone or anything that takes action to remove obstacles can be seen as exhibiting an aspect of the divine, in the form of Ganesh. The people who made this statue are saying that the heroic nature that we admire in the fictitious character of Spider-Man is an expression of the divine within us all, and should be honored. Also, it’s FUN. Bravo!

Thanks, Deborah Elizabeth Finn!

, originally uploaded by brobbeh.

A pic posted to pareidolia paradise Faces in Places explains why the lute, or veena, always looks so sad in traditional images of the Hindu goddess Saraswati:

She's strumming its head!

Just over the electronic transom: a press release for a recent examination of adornment & communication in India--Pravina Shukla's The Grace of Four Moons.  Hindu and Muslim dress are central to the work.  

There's a lot of good stuff here, but this in particular stands out:

[The notion of dress as communication is] also consistent with an important concept within Hinduism called Darshan, a Sanskrit word which means "vision."

"The premise of Hinduism is you look at the god and the god looks back at you," Shukla said. "You ask for the god's protection by looking at the god's face. The god gives you a blessing by looking back at you. Most of the Hindu statues have very big, prominent eyes -- the eyes are painted at the very end when you're making a statue."

It provides a precedent for nonverbal communication in India and shapes its people's orientation to the visual, she said.

A real McLuhan moment!

Via about:blank

Hindu pareidolia in NYC:

To most people, the purple flower that sprouted between two concrete slabs in a Queens backyard would be just a hardy vestige of summer.

Sam Lal sees something more.

The Jamaica man is convinced the mysterious blossom is an incarnation of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh - and neighbors and friends are flocking to see it.

The nearly 4-foot-tall flower grew in June and began to resemble an elephant's head and trunk in August. Lal said that the ailments that had plagued him for months disappeared.

"This formation came to heal my illness," the 60-year-old Hindu man said of his relief from pain due to a bone spur near his spine and bulging discs in his neck.

"They say God comes in many forms. I figure this has taken the form of a plant to come into my yard to bless me," said Lal, who immigrated from Guyana three decades ago.

Sex and spirit come together in Tantra Chocolate, one of several erotic food products mentioned in this list from Em & Lo--another way that people transform natural desires into something more.

Can a German body-modder reclaim an ancient spiritual symbol from its Nazi appropriators, or does this tattoo Superman & swastika cross the line? The debate ensues in the comments on this BMEZine pic.

Update: Speaking of which . . .

Amma is a gura popularly known as "the hugging saint." She runs an ashram in New Delhi, sells jewelry and other devotional items in an online store, is reported to be the source of divine miracles and has won all sorts of honors from Western elites. She also is a big deal at the UN, where one of her spiritual gatherings was used as an excuse by one executive to dump a $#!+load of scutwork on me.

Outside her circle of devotees, Amma has also inspired a fair degree of criticism, which her followers do not answer with hugs. As Guruphiliac reports, they've shut down a blog, called in the lawyers and laid the smacketh down on anyone who dares to question Amma's divine love.