A WONDERFUL DAY IN MIAMI: WITH GRATITUDE TO ALL THAT WHICH WAS LEARNED IN THIS YEAR OF ISOLATION

 It was a nice day here in Miami today. The weather was picture perfect. I had contact with many of my friends around the world.

The men of letters that enhanced my intellectual and spiritual spheres today were 

Omar Khayyam 

Beautiful yogic commentaries on the stanzas of Rubaiyat by Paramahansa Yogananda. The book arrived this morning by mail and it is so well illustrated and it is a kind of book to cherish. The Yogi gives the inner meaning of the worlds of Khayyam and explains it in the Yogic terms and more importantly he adds the practical importance of each verse. I am sure I will write about it later.

I was aware of Christopher Hutchins, a public intellectual and was mesmerized at the discussion he had with the now disgraced Prof. Tariq Ramadan on why no religion especially Islam cannot be called religion of Peace. Prof Ramadan who has been now discredited as a Fake Person (well educated and held important positions in academia) had to be given credit for admitting that Not a single ARAB country could be called DEMOCRATIC and the other Muslim majority countries are all autocratic, with dissent punishable by Fatwas and Death (God Forbid, you happen to be gay) and that these countries politicized their religion and used it to enforce autocratic ways. 

Hutchins was nothing short of brilliant. The debate is available on you tube and I plan to reduce the size to one small enough to load on the blog. 

Other intellectuals in the western mode that put in an appearance today in my life were 

Yuval Noah Harari from Jerusalem

Alain de Botton a british philosopher on how you will fall in love with the wrong person or marry one. His philosophy explains how to avoid the mistake our romanticism leads us into. Worth listening to and put into our practise.

I enjoy a cup of Yerba Mate but with a little bit of honey added to it. This Mate is from Brasil.

The excess of time and the ability to contact from other parts of the world also keeps me up to date, of information which others may consider trivial.

I do know how many people died of Covid today in Malaysia 

and that a branch of the American chain OUTBACK (apart from the name there is nothing remotely australian about this place and the food is incredibly unhealthy and thus tasty) has opened in Bauru in the interior of the State of Sao Paolo in Brasil 

this book is truly a pleasure to hold and read...

and of course there is CUBA, which is never too far away from my heart. Each day I look forward to messages from the island with news and trivia.. but their affections are felt deeply and appreciated profoundly 

I have been watching a Mother Duck, protecting her ducklings over the course of past few days and it was a pleasure to see the mother teaching the youngsters how to swim in the canal . The mother was very protective that when someone approached, she would scoop all her nine progenies under her wings and disappeared the little ones become.

Today I saw the siblings wandering around but with no mother around. I wonder what happened to the mother..

Two answers came from Cuba (it tells more about Cuba than about the Ducks)

My sister said.. the little ones are now old enough to fall in love. A friend wrote to say that the mother might have gone to look for a lover.

I will accept their explanation.

Nice to receive messages from Cochin, Iran, Brasil Thailand 

It was a good day here in Miami..