Skiing and ebooks

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March 2, 2012

Pioneertown, California

Yesterday, as part of my visit America campaign, Sukulina and I went on a driving trip that was supposed to take us skiing. We drove through the high desert to the small village of Lucerne, and then headed up into the Big Bear Mountain’s, east of Los Angeles, to the ski slopes. One often hears that in Southern California you can ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon, and its true. The resorts of Big Bear fulfill the ski side of this pleasure equation. Unfortunately, we arrived at 2 o’clock in the afternoon to find that the ski lifts close at 4. We were unable to ski. I had assumed there was night skiing and everything would stay open till late. I was wrong. But this is the nature of an adventure. One never knows what to expect. At least now, if we decide to go skiing we know how. Continuing the adventure we headed down the other side of the mountain into the Los Angeles area to the small city of Redlands.

 

Smilely Library, Redlands CA

Sukulina suggested we visit the Smiley Library, which is an historic site within that city. My photos shown here show the beauty and charm of this building and it’s surrounding area.

However for me, what was more important than the architecture of this building, were the actual books, the library stacks. As a student, books were my life and soul and I spent 30 years of my life sitting in the stacks of libraries. At home I still have a large collection, yet this was the first time in 25 years that I’ve actually gone into a library and seen the stacks. During my student days I remember spending hours on end browsing library shelves. I almost lived in the library stacks. So often a good book would seek me out and force me to read for hours in the library’s lounge area. While my friends were out enjoying social life on a Friday evening, I would read in the stacks till midnight. I love books!

Regrettably books are no longer an important part of my life. Actually this is not true, what I really mean is that paper books are no longer as important to me.

For better or for worse paper books are a dying commodity as they are slowly being consumed by the electronic book. It used to be the card collection was the heart and soul of every library. Today, no library maintains a card collection. Card catalogues have been replaced by computer databases connected to a global network. In fact, few people go to a library to search for a book anymore; they do that from home before they obtain the book from the library. Within the next decade, I fear the same fate awaits the book collection itself. Instead of getting a book from a brick and mortar library we will download a digital copy of the book from an online library or other online source. The paper book as we know it will mostly become a museum piece along with the buildings that holds them.

 

Smiley Library, Reading Area

Apple, the digital electronics company, recently released software that allows any individual to easily create their own

electronic book and then distribute that book over a worldwide network and even sell it for a profit. This is astounding! Similarly, they are encouraging textbook companies to create electronic textbooks with the same software. No longer will students have to lug heavy textbooks; instead they will carry a simple book reader that will hold not just one or two textbooks, but all their books. Indeed these readers can hold almost unlimited numbers of books. I teach a Sanskrit class and I no longer use my huge Sanskrit dictionary that needs a wagon to haul it around, instead I’m accessing an online dictionary through my tablet computer. The same for my French grammar and dictionaries. Everything I need can be accessed on my tablet computer or even on my cell. I hardly use any of the paper books in my home collection anymore. Instead I access everything online.

What I describe here must be understood in the context of a person who grew up in a time without any computers, where even the word ‘computer’ was unknown. My home had just one small black and white television. Our family telephone was a rotary phone on a party line and color photography was unheard of. This was my world growing up. How much the world has change astounds me. It’s like magic.

These days I make it my business to stay a breast of digital technology, so I may be a little ahead of the rest of society, but digital technology is slowly sinking into everyday culture. It is only a matter of time before traditional textbook companies start producing their books solely in electronic format and virtually every book is published as an ebook. As tablet computers and wireless technology become even cheaper and widely available more and more electronic books will appear. Electronic books have been available for decades on desktop and laptop computers, but it is only with the rise of the small and inexpensive hand held tablet, the book reader, along with inexpensive and fast cellular wireless that this change has been truly possible. With a tablet or book reader the reading experience becomes close and personal. One can curl up with a book reader in front of a fire place; you would never do this with a laptop let alone a desktop computer. And it all starting now; literally millions of books and magazines are at anyone’s finger tips instantly, anywhere and cheaply. And even more, these new electronic books can be interlaced with video, audio and other media forms; things that could never be done with a paper book. And all this information can be kept current. Traditional paper books are heavy, bulky, expensive and they become outdated quickly. In other words, the end of the book as we know it is imminent, which also means the end of the traditional library as well. This beautiful library building, the Smiley Library that I visited in Redlands California is sure to become a relic of the past. It will become a museum. As libraries card collections have disappeared so their paper book collections will also disappear along with their buildings.

This shift to digital format and the distribution of information through wireless networks both saddens me as well as gives me great joy. I get joy knowing that so much information is instantly available and that I have access to the world’s libraries, art galleries and other cultural institutions at my fingertips, yet I am saddened knowing that these library stacks, the places where I once sat and dreamed of life’s possibilities, will soon be gone forever. There is indeed something deeply satisfying and almost magical about holding a paper book in one’s hands and turning its pages as one settles into a library lounge for an evening of reading and dreaming.

Why I Travel

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Tuesday, September, 27, 2005

A person needs at intervals to separate from family and companions and go to new places. One must go without familiars in order to be open to influences, to change.*

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.**

Travel is a chance to change my thinking. I am ashamed to say it, but my view of the world is still parochial, even after years of travel and study. For all intents and purposes I live in a bubble called India. For sure I am not un-traveled. I have been to India many times. I have been to Britain, France, Italy and Mexico and I have traveled throughout much of Canada and the United States. I even have a Ph.D. which has allowed me to travel the intellectual highways of the world. Unfortunately, all of my travel and study has been focused on just one interest, religion. Everything about my life has been related to religion, and so I have come to realize that my life is unbalanced. Nowadays, when I study, I learn science, physics and astronomy. My thinking should include more than simply the religious world. I am interested in religion, it is my heart and soul, but now I am broadening my interests, and travel has become my way of correcting the imbalance. I have incredible travel notes of my trips to India. I still love to read my descriptions of the villages, the rail stations, the people, the colors, the sounds and the smells. I travel as a “gentleman observer,” the French idea of the flaneur. I talk to people. I take photos. I make diaries, and I study the history of where I am and what I do. Travel is a great meditation, and most of all, I love to travel alone because in solitude I enter my private world of self-reflection. When I travel I become an observer not only the place where I am, but of myself. Travel is about self realization.

As I write this I am on my way to Europe, only this time I am doing it with a different attitude than I did on my previous trip. One friend, who is a diehard religionist as I was years ago, cannot comprehend why I would want to go to Europe. A trip to India, she could understand, but a trip to Europe is a trip into a barbaric world. I am traveling to the land of the meat eaters! Of course, I could easily travel to India, but I am specifically not going to India. I live in that world. Instead, I have decided to travel to the land of my cultural forefathers, not the carnivores. I travel in search of my foundations.

One thing I have learned while living years ago in India: I am Western to the core. For years I tried to deny my Western roots. I wanted desperately to be Indian and Hindu. I suffered under the misconception that India was spiritual and the West was material, but as I matured and became more conscious of myself and Indian Hindu culture I realized how foolish this idea was. There is nothing inherently spiritual about India and there is nothing inherently materialistic about the West. Both worlds have their spiritual and material sides. But even more importantly, I have learned just how Western I am and I have happily accepted this fact. Spend a few months completely immersed in the culture of India; cut yourself off from the West and you may quickly find yourself screaming out for the sounds and tastes and sights of the the West. India has made me appreciate who I am, a man of the West.

Canada and America are still young countries. What exists there, as primal Western culture, is limited. Toronto, New York, and Washington indeed have inspiring architectural monuments to Western culture, but I crave to see the classical monuments of the West, so here I am on my way to Paris and Rome.

On this trip I hope to gain the tastes, smells, sights and experiences of a world beyond myself. I hope to enrich my writing and speaking. The more traveled, the more expanded my experiences are, the more depth I can add to my writing. I hope to refresh and enthuse myself. This trip is my spiritual quest to touch my foundations and to discover how my bothers on this side of the Atlantic have interpreted their spirituality. I hope that I can learn some things and bring new understandings into my writing and speaking. This is why I travel.

* Katharine Butler Hathaway
** Margaret Mead

Notre Dame, My Spiritual Oasis

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Thursday, July 20, 2006 1:59:11 AM

Dear Anna

Notre Dame

I left my hotel by 6:30 AM this morning and went to shoot photos in the streets of Paris. I wanted to take advantage of the morning sunlight. I also wanted to return to Notre Dame. Morning is a good time to photograph buildings, but not a good time to photograph people. There are few people in the streets of Paris at 7 AM. This is a city that stays up late and plays hard and therefore gets up late. Notre Dame, however, was wonderful. It was quiet because no one except the most devout were there. I sat in a pew just to be alone.

Being here in Notre Dame was a chance to spend a few quality minutes with Mother. This time I did not have the catharsis that I had last time. Those kinds of experiences are reserved for just a few special moments in a lifetime, but I did have a good chat with myself. I attended mass and actually took communion! Later I wondered, why on earth did I come to Paris and receive communion? As I watched the priest, I thought, “This could be me.” I have done this in my temple so many times. I received the communion because I wanted to feel what it is like to be on the other side of the altar. As a priest I spend all of my life giving, giving, and giving. This time I wanted to receive, just once.

Back to Life

Sitting in this glorious cathedral contemplating my existence felt good. There is great pleasure in being a simple worshipper. But why Paris and why a Christian cathedral? Why am I not in Benares sitting in a Hindu temple? The answer is simple. If I went to Benares I would in some tiny way still be at work, a Christian cathedral frees me of that completely. It matters little that the religious symbols are Christian. I see Mother, Notre Dame. And perhaps the most important reason I come to Notre Dame is because here in this cathedral I am reminded of the mystery that surrounds life. The ambience of this cathedral pulls my heart to heaven. I have been to many churches and temples all over the world and every once in a while I find one that particularly “talks” to me. So Notre Dame has become my spiritual home, a place of pilgrimage. However, I only want to stay here for a few minutes because ultimately I want to get back to living. The purpose of the priest in this cathedral, like my own purpose in my temple in California, is to help others touch this mystery, but even a priest needs to leave the altar and go out and live. Anna, of all the great places of worship that I have been to, Notre Dame touches my heart the most. I have no idea why, but it just does and I accept her blessings. As a traveler comes to an oasis for a small relief, I come to Notre Dame, and now I am ready to go back to the streets of Paris and find some more of life.

VHP/Ashok Singhal

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Wednesday, October 6, 2004 6:37:43 AM

Last night I gave the opening invocation at a meeting of the VHP in the Swami Narayan Temple in Norwalk CA. The guest speaker, Ashok Singal, was the head of the VHP in India. Every temple in Southern California was represented. Of all the priests who could have made this invocation, they asked the Western American priest. I am not certain why. I certainly get to appear in some interesting places. The politics of religion is not something that I enjoy. I will likely avoid these gatherings in the future. Perhaps the Indian priests know something that I do not!

Ashok Singal presided over the destruction of the Mosque at Ayodhya in the 1990s. I remember this event only too well because the temple in Placentia, where I was the priest at the time, was threatened and I had to go to the local police to ask for extra patrols. Those were tense moments and I felt personally in danger. You would think that being a temple priest was a simple and peaceful occupation. Not so. The religious emotion touches the essence of the human heart and therefore can be a most creative and wonderful experience, or a most destructive and devastating force. A priest sits at the heart of this primal human emotion.

Journey to Salisbury

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Friday, July 25th, 2008

Today, I took a first class train to Salisbury from Heathrow to see the Cathedral and stonehenge. During the trip I had a table where I could write these notes. First class is the only class if you ask me! Later I will take a first class train to Paris that will also include a typing table and power for my computer. How wonderful!

The English country side is beautiful. What a relief from the deserts of southern california. Green clean and well attended to. England is a beautiful country and for all the gripping in the states about the failures of the British health care system, the people look much more healthy than Americans. Britain is outrageously expensive yet the people are spending money. There seems to be no shortage of cash. Gas is about $9 a gallon and yet the cars are modern and there are certain plenty of them. There are very few beggars on the streets, unlike like Paris or LA. I wonder why? I also notice that London seems to have no trash cans and what with the British being all proper and clean, this is strange. The answer of course is security. Public cameras are everywhere.They are even on the buses and trains. You cannot move in this country without someone watching. Anti terrorism is the name of the game and yet I have been into all the churches and other public buildings without a security bag check. The only exception was the London “i.”

The Cathedral at Salisbury is somewhat on par with Chartres Cathedral near Paris, both are outside a major urban area, both are old and both are grand and historic, although Chartres, in my opinion, is a cut above. Ornamentation and embellishment is where the difference lays. The detail in the stone work and the extent of stain-glass puts Chartres in a league all its own. Nonetheless the Salisbury Cathedral is worth seeing. Its construction started in 1220 AD, whereas Chartre was started even earlier. At first I thought the difference between Chartres and Salisbury lay in the fact that Salisbury is Anglican while Chartres is Catholic, but this of course it not true because Salisbury was built well before England became a non Catholic country. This is one old building!

What was exciting and most unexpected was seeing the Magna Carta. I did not know one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta is kept here. Unfortunately, like most good things they will not allow photography so I can only show a web derived photo, but it was exciting to personally see such a document. In essence the Magna Carta is the first documented attempt to create a legal means to limit the powers of government and guarantee the rights of citizens. The abuses by King John (1166-1216) caused the revolt of his nobles to compel him to recognize the rights of both nobles and ordinary folk. It established the principle that no one, including the king, is above the law. There are only four extant copies of the Magna Carta and the one I saw in Salisbury is dated 1215 AD. I consider the Magna Carta to be not just a legal and political document, but more importantly a spiritual document marking the growth of human consciousness. For me to come here and personally see this document puts me in direct in touch with the spiritual development of humanity. Afterwards, I had the pleasure to speak to one female priest of this grand cathedral, who was concerned with human rights, namely that her church still does not allow the full ordination of a female priesthood, or the ordination of homosexual priests or the performance of gay marriages. The Anglican church as well as my other religions organization are divided over these issues, yet how ironic is it that such a document as the Magna Carta was enshrined just a few feet way from where we were discussing these basic issues of human rights. It was interesting to have some shop talk with a fellow priest on this trip.

As far as the cathedral itself is concerned it is a living church, but only barely so. I noticed that it has a lot of bodies buried in the church floor even at the entrance way. Old Christian churches seem to do this a lot, bringing death and religion together. Every church has at least a graveyard out back and big ones such as this even have crypts in the basement for dead VIPs. Here in Salisbury the water table is very close to the surface. Someone even showed me this by pulling away a floor tile and inserting a ruler. Water appeared at about four feet down. That is not much for a building of this size! The cathedral is floating? I am also told the spire is off center by half a meter. The tour guides said the town of Salisbury and the cathedral in particular was never bombed during the second war because German pilots used the cathedral as a landmark for navigation as they crossed the channel heading for London and other places. Apparently the British spitfire was secretly built in this area. All in all Salisbury is a quiet and restful location and well worth a visit, but of course the real attraction to Salisbury is not this grand cathedral or anything to do with Christianity; instead it is about another temple and a much older religion, Stonehenge.

British Museum

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July 26th 2008

Puja spoons and cup

A Saturday afternoon in July is not a good day to come to the British Museum! The place is swarming with visitors. In the National Galleries and Somerset House I at least had a chance at getting a handle on what there is to see, but here in the British Museum the place is so massive it is impossible to grasp. The audio self-guide is hopeless, not because it is poorly done, but simply because there is just so much and it only addresses a tiny fraction of the collection.

So instead of trying to see everything I decided to make the money exhibits my target. It is a relatively small room that covers the history of money from kind, to coin and paper money, and then to plastic and even electronic currency. Coins, for obvious reasons make up the bulk of the collection, but since I have no training coins do not interest me. However, the exhibits describing the manufacture of coins and paper money was interesting, particularly in regards to security and forgery. Electronic and plastic currency were the most most interesting of all. A simple thing as a credit card is amazing. Many even have computer chips built inside of them. I always wondered about that spot in my AMEX card.

Later I went through the ancient Greek and Roman domestic life exhibits. I like to see the details of peoples lives, the kinds of utensils they used, their implements for grooming and beauty, their furniture, and so on. In the end I took a walk through the Hindu and Buddhist collections. Greek and Roman religions remind me so much of Hinduism. For me it is simply the same thing in a different bottle, although I do think that Hinduism has a more advanced theology, which is perhaps one of the reasons that Hinduism is still alive and well. It was amusing to look at the Hindu and Buddhist puja bells, spoons and cups in the glass cases. For me I use these things in my daily life! I have these things in my living room. In the museum Hinduism looks dead, but for me it is alive, well and kicking.

Mao's little red book, British Museum London

It is simply not possible to know the details of even a faction of what is here in this glorious place. The collections are massive. I would need many many trips here to even begin to take in what is here. The most obvious and the most general thing I can say is that there seems to be no end to the ways human beings perceive reality and build their cultures. This is what I have learned from coming here and seeing in one concentrated place so much human history and diversity. I think, after all, it is good to be human. We are an interesting bunch.

After the museum I went back to the streets. Downtown London is another kind of museum and it is also packed. It is a Saturday and again not a good day to relax in a cafe, but certainly a good day to see what goes on in downtown London on a Saturday in July. I have actually gotten rather good at getting around. An English speaking country is easy.

Click here to see more photos!

Sommerset House

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Edouard Manet, 1882 A Bar at the Folles-Bergère

Friday, July 25, 2008

The Courtauld Collection of French Impressionism at Sommerset House, London*

Renoir, La Loge 1874

Somerset House, just off of the strand in London, is a wonderful collection of 19th century French Impressionism. There are painting by Manet, Monet, Cézanne, Degas, Pissarro, Gauguin, and many others. I am sure Sommerset House was mentioned in my DVD Teaching Company series, but I only paid attention to it during my bus tour of London. But what a gold mine!

I think between the D’Orsey in Paris, plus last years Vullard’s visiting exhibition in Paris, plus the two collections I have seen here in London, I have seen a major portion of French Impressionism. I’m on my way to becoming an expert! lol And to think this art was considered pop culture and ‘hippieish’ during its time. I took photos of everything I could and when I return home I will re-watch the DVD series.

Gauguin, Nevermore, 1897

A part from the excitement of seeing original art, I was most interested to see some of the letters Cézanne wrote to a female colleague. These letters really give a slice of Césanne’s inner life, his hopes and dreams, his pain and despair, and his mental condition. He suffered depression. To me this was as interesting as the art itself. In my work in India during my dissertation what a joy it was to find the original letters of Bhaktivinoda and to read his biography from his own hand. I leaned that things that we consider ordinary and unimportant, like the rise of the internet or the beginning of the space age, will in years to come take on new meaning. What a pleasure it was to read about the first telegraph or gas street lighting coming to Calcutta. I learned the power and historical value of letter writing. This is why I write these travel logs and other installments. I know that someday descendants or scholars may discover these letters that I write. Those who create and record a history have a history.

London, Day Two

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Today I went into downtown London at 10:30 AM and did not return until 10PM. It is obvious to me why Americans are over weight, the portions of food are too large and we never walk. This includes me. I have been walking and walking and walking. I cannot believe it, I have no muscles for this even though I go to the gym and walk everyday in California. Anyway I plan to take full advantage of this and hopefully loose those pounds that have crept up on me since my knee injury. My goal is 185 pounds and I have a plan to get there. Walk and don’t eat too much. Food in London is not particularly good so this helps. France and Greece are going to be the killers, but so long as walking is there I will be fine.

Today I took a bus tour of London. This is something I always do in a new city, to get an overview. I cannot believe the size of this place. The bus just kept going and going and going from site to site. The bus ride alone was overwhelming. Somewhere along the route I jumped (hobbled) off the bus and spent almost four hours in the National Galleries. This place was a dream come true. Before I took this trip I watched a Teaching Company DVD on the paintings of the Louvre in Paris and this prepared me for the National Galleries. I was taught right off the bat that I am never going to see it all so don’t even try. Instead, buy one of the self guided head sets tours and just look at a select set of works. If you don’t already know what you want to see, then just pick the pieces that attract you. And this is what I did. I went slowly through the galleries and just stood or sat in front of the paintings that touched me and listened to their guided tours. It is a wonderful way to see a museum. In the past I would just walk through the galleries, “saw that, saw that, done, done, next, next… “ and so on. Yes I have seen the Mona Lisa, but I have never studied her, actually taken the time to enter into the painting. This time I know how to do it and I will. Similarly with all these painting in London I had a plan of attack and it worked. I was also delighted to find that London has a good collection of Monet, Degas, Manet and Cézzanne and other French impressionists. What I had not seen in Paris, I was seeing here in London. It was wonderful! On the bus tour I discovered another small museum of French Impressionism, Somerset House. I am going there later today.

It takes a lot of time to really know how to look at art and take it all in. I see most people doing what I used to do, race through the galleries so they can at least say they were there. But it really takes preparation, and the more training, the better. These self guided tours are the best. They are worth every penny or in this case pence.

Advice to Lalita

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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 The National Galleries, London

Dear Lalita,

Sistine Chapel

Today I spent almost four hours making a tour of the British National Galleries in London. What a wonderful place! All the time I was thinking that you should see this with me. We talked a few weeks ago and you asked that I take you to Europe, and said I would be more than happy to take you. But what are you doing to make this happen? Here is my fear and, honestly, this is what most people do. I went to a ladies’ home recently and in the hallway of her home she had a reproduction of Michelangelo’s “The Hands of God and Man” from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. When I saw this and other photos from the same location I assumed that she had been there, so I told her that I too had seen the original in the Sistine Chapel. Then she told me that she had not seen the original, but that one day she hoped to go to the Vatican and see it. Later, after talking about travel, she politely leaned over to me and in a low tone asked me how I got the money to travel to Europe and other places. She was living in an upscale home and I knew she could do it if she really wanted to. The fact is she did not want to travel. So here is my point. You can do just about anything you want to do if you really want to do it and are prepared to take the necessary steps and make the sacrifices to do it. This lady was all talk, I wish, I hope, one day, I will try, and so forth. If she really wanted to travel she would travel.

So Lalita, you said you wanted to go to Europe. What are you doing to make this happen?

Sistine Chapel

Have you applied for your passport as I suggested? Are you thinking about going? Are you looking at the guide books, learning the geography, listing the sites you might like to see? Are you making yourself hungry to go? You have an incredible talent. You have a natural sense of color and spacial relationships. You can draw and paint. Are you using this God given talent? Are you preparing yourself to see the originals with me in Europe? Why are you not taking art courses? Does your university not offer courses in art history, drawing and painting? I took art history courses in university, and here I am walking in the National Galleries of Great Britain looking directly as the paintings that I only saw on slides and in art books when I was at school. You have no idea what a thrill it is to see the original! Next week I am returning to the Louvre in Paris. It is my dream-come-true to see the beauty of the world, the art, the architecture, the sculpture, the ruins of antiquity. And not just to see these things, but to have them enter into my soul and enrich me, and so I have qualified myself to be here amongst all this beauty. I took the courses, I prepared my mind to appreciate these things and I have worked hard to be here. I took the necessary step to be here. I consider it a blessing from God to be here.

So here is my advice: don’t just dream, do! Be a doer. Search your feelings, unravel your dreams, find them and then make a plan to achieve your goals. It may not be travel and art, but whatever your dreams are, plan to achieve them, and step by step execute your plans. Don’t be like the lady who only hopes to go to the Vatican one day. Go to the Vatican. Follow your bliss!