The remains of an ancient gate have pinpointed the location of the biblical city Sha'arayim, say archaeologists working in Israel. In the Bible young David, a future king, is described as battling Goliath in the Elah Valley near Sha'arayim...   more »

…In July 1938 the Yogi-Poet had an assignation with the primordial Night, the Night of Creation. He went to meet her, carrying “God’s deathless light” in his breast. He was aware that this was going to be a very bold and dangerous rendezvous; it was going to be an exceptional and most decisive affair, fraught with possibilities. His fate and hence the fate of the world remained locked in them, in the possibility leading towards earthly deathlessness. So, he the pilgrim-soul made an assignation with the Night. But what was the outcome of that bold and dangerous rendezvous? What had actually transpired in the course of the meeting? But apart from dropping some broad hints, no communiqué was issued. If at all, it seemed that the way was lost and that there was no end to the “weary journeying”. Yet there was hope, there was conviction and certitude that the outcome was going to be a path leading towards immortality. There was the inalienable freedom, and the Yogi-Poet lived in the Spirit’s calm, and was in possession of the vast immobile bliss of the Being. Soon his rooms, all his rooms and the cellars, would get lit up with an endless Light, and rapture would be coursing through his nerves, and through every cell of his body. In a mute blaze of ecstasy, calm and conquering, and steadfastly preserving the “living sense of the Imperishable”, even in the bodily existence, he would proceed towards his goal. That was great indeed, marvellous. If the bodily existence was set ablaze in this way, it meant that there was the wonderful realisation or the siddhi of the Mind of Light in him, that the physical had started receiving the supramental. Sri Aurobindo had definitely moved towards it, a remarkable event, a landmark event in the evolutionary sequence. It is said that Pythagoras had a thigh of gold, and that Vamadeva, after crossing the hundredth year, lived in a golden body for sixteen full years. Something golden had happened in that far past, but now in the collective the Mind of Light has made the body its permanent base, permanent home…   more »

Nobel Prize-winning Indian scientist Rajendra Pachauri and musician Sir Paul McCartney have teamed up to urge people to become vegetarian to save the planet from the greenhouse gases created by rearing livestock...   more »