About JAIMAL YOGIS As an award-winning journalist and photographer, Jaimal spends much of his spare time surfing and traveling the globe.  With a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University, his work has been published in The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Toronto Star, The Surfers Journal, Belief.net, Tricycle, San Francisco Magazine, and many others.  His first book, Saltwater Buddha, has been internationally praised and is the subject of a forthcoming PBS documentary. Nevertheless, he is currently working on a second release, while also traveling on an extensive book tour (along the coasts of course).

LM: Your book is a delight to read.  I came away with similar feelings I had come away with when reading Siddhartha.  There were so many ‘A-haa’ moments that I experienced.  Without forcing it on the reader, you  share some beautiful prose and help us all to focus on what is truly important — living more mindfully, being aware of our own happiness.  Have you always been on a quest for spiritual understanding?  When did this interest first strike you?

JY: It goes back as far as I can remember. I wouldn’t have called it spiritual when I was really young, but I’ve always had the desire to know what is “behind” so-called reality. I’ve always wanted to know the source of everything, why we’re here and all that.  When I was about 10 years old I was a little pretentious and even created my own religion called Jaimalism. The only tenant was that whatever you firmly believe would become your reality, afterlife included. I joke about it but I guess I’m still basically a Jaimalist.

LM: As a Junior High student, you ran away to Hawaii, equipped with little more than a copy of  Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.  Can you share with us the reason for your trip?  Before this time, had you surfed, or was this your first experience?

JY: I had this impulsive feeling that running away to Hawaii was going to save my life. I was running into a lot of bad stuff in my hometown – drugs, trivialities, stagnation. I felt bad for putting my parents through all that worry, but running away really was the beginning of my spiritual path and the beginning of a quest to follow my heart, a quest I’m still on. I’d surfed a couple times before that in Cocoa Beach and I’d body boarded a bit, but as I write in the book, it didn’t prepare me for what I found in Hawaii. I had to get pretty beaten up before I even started to learn the basics.

LM: In your book, “Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea” (Wisdom Publications, $14.95), you trace your steps through the islands of Hawaii, while also discussing your travels to Mexico, UC Santa Cruz, India and a Berkeley Chinese monastery known for its strictness.  Of all the places you have visited, can you share with us the most spiritual of journeys you have taken thus far?  What was it about that specific trip that left you with a feeling that you were no longer the same person you were when you first stepped out on that quest?

JY: The cool, and sometimes difficult thing about traveling, is that you always come back a different person. The people and places literally become a part of you and you’re never the same. I can’t say any of the places were more spiritual or more life changing than the other, but India – specifically becoming very close with a Tibetan monk named Sonam, which I write about in an upcoming Shambhala Sun article – stands out in my mind as one of the happiest.  Perhaps it was because we were in the Himalayas. Those mountains will change anyone. Plus, I was coming out of a very sad break-up and just starting to feel my freedom and stability again.

LM: As a journalist and photographer, did you set out to document your story, thus creating Saltwater Buddha or did the idea for the book come about more organically?

JY: It arose organically. I was meditating in my room during graduate school in journalism, very stressed about deadlines, and I felt like I was drowning in bad thoughts: “You’re not good enough, etc.” I was able to pop out of that bad state by imagining that my bad thoughts were just really ugly waves that I could let pass over me like I do in a stormy surf session. I didn’t have to ride any of them, or identify with them. I wrote an article about this kind of surfing-meditation metaphor and that article became really popular online. One of the magazines that republished the story asked me what I wanted in my bio, and I said, “why don’t you say I’m working on a book about zen and surfing”.  I had only started the book in my head, but a few weeks later, Wisdom called me and asked if they could publish it. I said, “Sure, I just have to write it.”

Surfing Buddha By Brandon Duke

LM: You have many friends who consider themselves avid surfers, while also being practicing Buddhists.  Do you see Buddhism being a commanality amongst the surfing community?

JY: I didn’t realize how prevalent surfing Buddhists were until I wrote the book, but it’s incredible how many I’ve met since Saltwater Buddha hit the shelves. We’re all over the globe. It seems to be a burgeoning community which is really exciting to me.  Most surfers consider surfing spiritual, but a lot of us haven’t learned to take the peace we get from surfing into our land lives . Buddhism offers practices that teach you to maintain mindfullness in any situation, surfing included.  I think they’re a great combo.

LM: With all the places you have travelled to, what is your favorite place to surf and why?

JY: I still love surfing most in San Francisco with my friends. The water’s cold but I just feel at home there. There’s nothing like feeling totally at home while floating in the vastness of the ocean.

Dharamsala by Kenji Babasaki

LM: While in India, what did you focus on? Was it a spiritual quest, were you travelling throughout the country?  What was the one thing you remember when you think back to your travels to India and her people?

JY: I was studying journalism and finishing my undergraduate degree in religious studies, but my main goal was spiritual.  I spent about a month in silent retreat up in the Himalayas and met some incredible hermits.  Getting one hermit’s blessing was a life-changing experience.  He approached me randomly on the street in Dharmasala.  I’ve never seen such compassion in a human’s eyes.  It solidified my faith in meditation and prayer as a vehicle for improvement and freedom.

LM: If there were one goal you want readers to come away with after reading Saltwater Buddha, would it be that we each need to follow our dreams, live our dreams, create our own destiny?  If so, why do you feel that this is important to each of us as we travel down this road called life?

JY: Yea, I’d like everyone to have the faith to follow a dream. But I think it’s important to do so without being caught in a narrow result. To follow a dream, or to follow your heart, and not be attached to the outcome, remain open to life and what it brings, is an art I’m still working on. But I have a hunch that that art is ultimately how we can be free and happy while still living in the world.

Once again New York will be hosting Amma Ji, “the Hugging Saint” during her U.S. Summer Tour.  She will be at the Manhattan Center in New York City on  July 7th, 8th and 9th.  All programs will be  free of charge.

Her outreach takes two principal forms:

1. Her darshan programs (Where she reaches people individually)
2. Her charities (Designed to improve peoples’ lives on a broader scale)

Dont miss your chance to experience “the Mother of Compassion” as the media dubbed her.

LOVE IS RECESSION PROOF, INVEST IN IT!

K. Michael Ferranti along side Hindu Saddhus

About K. Michael Ferranti: A medically trained professional, integrating both eastern and western medical traditions for over a decade. A licensed allopathic, Physician Associate/Assistant for the past 15 years, after many years of practice, K. Michael realized that he wanted to concentrate on the inner healing of his patients and felt a strong link between the “diseased” physical body with the imbalances of the mind and spiritual bodies. There was a symbiotic relationship between them. So, being frustrated with the restrictions of western medicine, K. Michael was in search of a real immersive, traditional Ayurvedic program in the US. This lead him to The Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, in Lenox, Massachusetts. He attended the first class of The Kripalu School of Ayurveda, an 18 month comprehensive Ayurvedic Medical training. Highlights of his Ayurvedic gurukula education included being taught by great Ayurvedic vidyas (Ayurvedic teachers) such as Dr. Vasant Lad, Dr. John Douillard, Dr. Robert Svoboda, Dr. Shekar Annambhotla, Dr. Jay Apte, and Dr. Sunil Joshi.

In March 2007, K. Michael studied in India with world renowned Ayurvedic Physician, Dr. Partap Chauhan at Jiva Ayurvedic Institute, completing course work on ‘Ayurveda and Incurable Diseases.’ At the Jiva Institute, he learned the interconnection between the body, mind, and spirit and how they affect the disease process. Concentrating on the emotional and spiritual bodies to heal the physical body, “Dr.Chauhan taught us the ways to heal “chronic, incurable diseases”, focusing on various Ayurvedic healing modalities, such as herbal preparations, lifestyle and diet recommendations, herbalized massage, panchakarma (detoxifying and cleansing treatments), yogic and breathing techniques, and developing a connection to your spiritual body”.

His introduction to a life of spiritual growth and enlightenment started as a very young child. Thanks to his parents, he was initiated with a mantra into the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at age 6. Then when he was a young adult, K. Michael volunteered as a missionary in Russia, as he was invited there by the Patriarch of Moscow. Travelling around Russia, he taught the New Testament, in small villages where religion was forbidden by the Communist government. “My heart was awakened while witnessing these suppressed people with such an eagerness to have spirituality in their bleak lives. The year was 1991, I witnessed the fall of Communism. This experience was paramount to my spiritual journey. Studying the Bhagavad-Gita and being Krishna conscious at a young age, spiritual growth through various Vedic texts, Buddhist Eastern thought, and Christian mysticism became central to my life. Since I was young, I was always in search of my “truth” and found solace in finding it through the development of my spiritual body, knowing I needed to detach from the attachment of the material world.”

Receiving Darsan from Amma Ji

LM: Western medicine generally relies on established scientific authority. What is the source of authority in Ayurveda?

KMF: Ayurveda, being the oldest, most traditional form of “medicine” as we know it today, relies on our instinctual insight to heal ourselves with the gifts of Mother Earth, that have been used for centuries and taught to many other cultures and civilizations by the Indians. If one consciously trusts in the power of self-healing and surrenders the power over to themselves to heal, then the healing process will naturally start the transformational process of homeostasis (bringing the body to a healthy state). The body does not like being sick, injured, imbalanced, or in pain. The plant kingdom that Mother Earth has blessed us with to sustain life, has a vibrational healing energy, that cannot be duplicated by a “lab tested” small white pill, produced in a cold lab somewhere, or one in which Western culture has become addicted to. Especially when it comes to herbal therapies, not only do the herbs receive the energy of the Mother Earth and the Sun feeding it, but the people harvesting and preparing the herbs are praying over the herbs, infusing them with a lot of heart grounded loving energy, to maximize their healing effect, even before being ingested. Therefore, the source of authority in Ayurveda is [Read more →]

Simone in Gujarat Desert: Innovation TV Series.

About Simone: Simone Ahuja is the founder and Principal of Blood Orange Media a vertically integrated media company based in Minneapolis, USA. She began her Art career by performing and teaching improvisational and traditional theater, eventually moving into film and television. Her company, Blood Orange, develops, produces and distributes non-fiction television programs in genres that include travel, history, lifestyle, business and world culture for US and international broadcast, and develops concepts for fiction programming.

Simone has produced award-winning programming for CNBC, USA, founded an online film competition, and produced and directed the 2007 travel series Indique – Untold Stories of Contemporary India that airs nationally in the US, on international airlines including Northwest Airlines and Virgin Atlantic. In India, the series aired on Zee TV and the Indique DVD was launched at Crossword Bookstore by Anupam Kher, Rahul Bose and Ness Wadia. The series was most recently supported by Fortune 100 company, Best Buy. Simone is based out of Minneapolis, USA, and Bombay, India.

INDIQUE– Untold Stories of Contemporary India

LM: I read recently that you fund a great deal of your movies through your own means, by way of your dental practice. Do you find it hard to juggle the creative process with the business demands – i.e., distribution, marketing, etc?

SA: Though I’ve been involved in film and television for several years, last year I was able to make a complete transition out of dentistry. I now have the ability to exclusively create films, write, and pursue India-related academic studies both formally and informally. It was challenging to balance both careers – and the ability to focus on one career certainly has catalyzed a forward momentum. All filmmakers struggle with balancing the creative and business sides of our medium. Initially, I resented that so much time has to be spent on marketing, distribution, etc, but now

[Read more →]

Traveling to Kathmandu, not sure what you can afford? Not to worry, we’ve scoured the web and consulted with many Nepal trekkers…to come up with our list of top 10 attractions that you can enjoy without breaking your piggy bank. [Read more →]

Madlib’s The Beat Konducta Vol. 3 & 4

This dope instrumental hip-hop album from Madlib (aka Otis Jackson, Jr) features songs that vary from wholesale samples to polished rap tracks.This is a definite must have! for fans of Madlib, beat archeology and or good ol’ Bollywood kitsch.

While J Dilla’s final collection of hip-hop instrumentals was released to rapturous critical acclaim, [Read more →]

Sacred Chants of Ancient India: Various Artists

Incorporating the best of four volumes’ worth of material from previous releases, Sacred Chants of Ancient India (Kosmic Music) is a meditative experience that mixes strains of Western popular music with Eastern devotions. The chanting-singing of various Vedic chants (by talented female vocalists) soar above ambient piano, shimmering strings, and synthesized drumbeats.

One can hear ancient Indian mantras and chants, some of which have been [Read more →]

MIA’s new album, “KALA”

Ok, so the weather outside is frightful…what a fantastic day to pick up M.I.A.’s outrageously lovley new album, “Kala,” plug in and settle into your work station so you can plough through that overflowing inbox of yours with 1000s of emails.

The playful melodies on this summer’s hit “Mango Pickle Down River,” will have you dancing around the office. The London-born Sri Lankan rapper-singer-political artist specializes in a wonderous new kind of world music — a global sound clash complete with a perfect balance of imagination and invention. This song is definitely on ‘repeat’ on the i-pods of hipsters trekking around town this summer; featuring a group of aboriginal kiddie rappers known as the Wilcannia Mob, the song comes complete with a droney didgeridoo that makes for one of the most groovey and unconventional bass lines of 2007! [Read more →]

Come, oh come, yea tea thirsty

Restless ones; the kettle boils,

Bubbles, and sings, musically.

–Rabindranath Tagore (as quoted in Tea: Legend, Life and Livelihood of India)

Tea is such a part of India’s culture, it’s hard to imagine daily life without it. As scientific research continues to establish the beneficial qualities of tea, it’s popularity continues to soar. The history of tea in the country of India is as fascinating as is the tea industry’s important role in the socio-economic life of the people.

Thanks to Tea: Legend, Life and Livelihood of India, the history now comes alive. [Read more →]

Mumbai’s entrepreneurial dreams climb as high as the gleaming skyscrapers that define its skyline. This great city of more than ten million people is the capital of the state of Maharashtra and also the commercial capital of the whole country…center of industry, transportation, and communication, its fine harbor on the Arabian Sea makes its one of the world’s busiest ports. …..”Bombay” to locals, Mumbai is totally a hip place to be — from food, to fashion and a thriving nightlife, this town will keep all your senses on high alert.

Gateway of India

Be sure and visit Colaba, the tourist hub of Mumbai. Colaba starts with the Gateway of India — the landmark of Mumbai. Colaba is the South Mumbai district filled with cafes, bars, and plenty of shops. Chowpatty Beach is a popular beach where many celebrations of festivals such as Coconut Day and the Ganesh Chaturthi immersions take place. On the beach you’ll find statues of India’s freedom fighters, Lokmanya Tilak and Vithalbhai Patel who symbolize the freedom struggle. Chowpatty occupies a special place in the life of Bombay, having been the venue of mass political meetings in the pre-independence era.

In the evening Chowpatty develops a magical atmosphere [Read more →]