"American Veda shows us how we got to where we are. It chronicles a revolution in consciousness and describes India’s lasting influence on our culture, from gurus, meditation, and yoga to sitar music and aromatic curries. Savor it."
– Michael Bernard Beckwith, author of Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential
"This book demonstrates the far reach of Indian thought into the American psyche and sense of spiritual self. A well written, superbly researched book, it should be read by all the 15 million Americans practicing meditation and yoga!"
– Christopher Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology, Loyola Marymount University
"Wonderfully comprehensive, positive, tremendously insightful, and illuminating. For anyone interested in the deep influence of yoga philosophy in American culture, I highly recommended this masterful book."
– John Friend, Founder of Anusara Yoga
"Immensely smart, wise and brilliantly written. This book should be required reading for everyone interested in ecumenical spirituality which is the one hope for the survival of the human race, and India’s great gift to us in our crisis."
– Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: The Guide to Social Activism and The Sun at Midnight
"In this important and engaging book, Philip Goldberg chronicles the long neglected history of Hinduism's encounter with the US. He astutely examines how Hinduism has been constructed and consumed within the larger American spiritual landscape. A must read for those interested in Hinduism and its transmission."
- Varun Soni, Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California
Whenever I need more strength and energy, I remember that I am well-connected to all the vibrant life of the universe. I affirm my connection within. I remind myself that I am energetic, fully alive with the light of life, and ready to express in a mighty and powerful way.
I am made in the image and likeness of God, and God is always flowing. As I tap in to my wellspring of unlimited God life, I feel the stirring of this great and powerful energy. It is my source of healing and well-being.
By the magnetizing power of divine love, I know that I am poised to experience and express love in any moment every day. I am one in the harmony and unity of divine love. I am fully alive with the light of divine life.
But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.—1 Corinthians 6:17
Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people. Can’t do this even if it means we must continue to hear Fake News like CNN, whose ratings have suffered gravely. People have to figure out what is real, and what is not, without censorship!
President Trump on Friday called off a planned trip to North Korea by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just days before the top diplomat was scheduled to arrive in the country for the next round of high-stakes nuclear talks, the first public sign of the president’s festering frustration over the stalled negotiations.
In a surprise announcement on Twitter, Trump declared that he had instructed Pompeo, who was planning his fourth visit to Pyongyang, “not to go to North Korea, at this time” because there had not been “sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” The president left the door open for future talks, but he raised the stakes by blaming China for its lack of cooperation on the issue and appearing to tie the matter to the escalating trade war between Washington and Beijing.
“Secretary Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China is resolved,” Trump wrote.
The president’s tweets marked an abrupt shift in his public posture after insisting for weeks that progress was being made in the wake of his landmark meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June. Trump has repeatedly hailed the meeting as an unqualified success, declaring there was “no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea” and citing the return of what is thought to be 55 sets of remains of U.S. service members killed in the Korean War. He has decried critics who cited the lack of firm commitments required of North Korea in the Singapore agreement.
Trump has expressed increasing frustration to aides in private, however, and has suggested publicly that the timeline for getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program would take far longer than he had initially claimed.
A U.S. official familiar with the talks said Pompeo faced a tough round of negotiations on what would have been his first trip with his newly named North Korea envoy, Steve Biegun, a former executive at Ford Motor Co. In his last visit to Pyongyang in July, Pompeo came away mostly empty-handed and failed to get a meeting with Kim, which was widely viewed as an embarrassing snub.
U.S. negotiators have struggled in recent weeks over a North Korean demand for the United States to declare an end to the Korean War before making any concessions on denuclearization. U.S. officials have said any declaration would first require additional concessions from North Korea, such as the disclosure of its nuclear arsenal, according to U.S. and Korean diplomats who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
U.S. intelligence agencies have said Pyongyang is continuing to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in secret, despite announcing publicly that it was dismantling a pair of testing facilities.
“At the most basic level, this is the classic struggle for leverage with North Korea and leverage with China and, of course, the two are deeply interrelated,” said Evan Medeiros, who served as senior Asia director at the National Security Council in the Obama administration. “Trump with this tweet is clearly casting around. The problem is, Beijing and Pyongyang are hip to this game. They will likely see it more as a sign of frustration and vulnerability.”
In his tweets, Trump offered warm words for Kim, saying he looked forward to seeing the young dictator again soon, though a second summit has not been scheduled.
The cancellation marks the second time Trump has called off a high-level bilateral meeting with North Korea. In May, just weeks before his summit with Kim, Trump abruptly canceled, calling it a “tremendous setback” and warning Pyongyang that the U.S. military would act should the regime take any “foolish and reckless” action.
Trump’s action at that time, however, followed a provocative statement from North Korea in which its vice minister of foreign affairs criticized Vice President Pence, calling him a “political dummy.” Days later, Trump recommitted to the meeting.
In his tweets on Friday, Trump said “because of our much tougher Trading stance with China, I do not believe they are helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were.”
The extent of China’s willingness to help pressure North Korea and how much leverage it actually holds over Pyongyang has long been a key question for U.S. policymakers. Trump initially sought to enlist President Xi Jinping’s buy-in last year during a summit at his Mar-a-Lago resort, suggesting he was holding off on trade sanctions against China in exchange for its support on North Korea.
But Trump and his aides have complained that Beijing appears to be allowing more cross-border trade with North Korea in recent weeks and the Trump administration has begun taking a harder policy position with China.
Trump has told advisers that he believes Beijing is attempting to punish him politically ahead of the midterm elections, citing tariffs Beijing enacted on agricultural goods in states that had he had carried in the 2016 election. The president stated at one point that he is “totally fed up” with China, according to a senior administration official who spoke to him about it.
Trump also has complained to advisers that other presidents have not done enough about the Chinese trade practices and that he wants to make history and change them, said the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
At a recent dinner at his private resort in Bedminster, N.J., Trump complained about Chinese trade practices and listened to complaints from the chief executive of MasterCard, which along with other U.S. credit card companies is shut out of China. He sought stories from other attendees about how China was hurting their business.
“He said China wants to make a [trade] deal tomorrow, but it’s not a good deal for our country,” said John Catsimatidis, a New York billionaire who attended the dinner.
But analysts said that Beijing, while alarmed at the increasing hostilities with Washington, has successfully leveraged Trump’s North Korea gambit for its own benefit — namely, to improve its relations with Pyongyang.
Kim has visited Beijing three times and South Korean news agencies have reported on rumors that Xi is planning his first trip to Pyongyang.
“China has gotten a lot of what it wants in the changing situation on the Korean Peninsula,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What has Trump gotten out of it? A deal in Singapore . . . with no timeline, no road map and really no definition of what denuclearization means.”
Trump’s strategy, analysts said, appears aimed at convincing Xi — under the threat of the ongoing trade war — to use whatever leverage he maintains over Kim to win a significant concession for the United States that could restart denuclearization talks.
But that endeavor is quickly taking on far broader considerations that make a successful outcome even more tricky for Trump. Late Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a sharply worded statement condemning El Salvador’s decision to cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan under pressure from China, which views Taiwan as being under its territorial control.
Sanders called the move of “grave concern” to the Trump administration and warned that the United States would reevaluate relations with its Latin American neighbor. She accused China of seeking to influence countries through “economic dependency” that leads to “domination, not partnership.”
“It was curious and worrisome because it suggested a U.S. strategy toward China that wants to contain all Chinese trade and investment with countries all over the world,” Medeiros said. “There was a paternalistic and patronizing tone to it.”
resident Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama both swiftly reacted to the death of John McCain Saturday. The Arizona senator died at home at the age of 81 after a battle with brain cancer.
Trump, who feuded with his fellow Republican from the early days of his own candidacy, remained critical of McCain right up until his death and posted a short response on Twitter.
“My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!” he wrote.
Everything that is happening in the world around us is an extension of what is happening inside each one of us. Our individual beliefs are part of the collective consciousness of our planet. My own thoughts and feelings create waves of energy that move outward from me. Others feel those feelings and pass them on. My inner conflict contributes to conflict, and my own peace allows peace to grow. Every time I take the opportunity to heal something inside myself, that process allows for healing in the world.
With this in mind, I choose to be a channel for peace. I purposefully bring my awareness to the divine energy, allowing it to radiate from me to the outer, allowing for the realization of lasting peace. A world of peace begins in me!
So far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.—Romans 12:18
Abe throws hat into LDP leadership race, setting up showdown with Shigeru Ishiba
TARUMIZU, KAGOSHIMA PREF. – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday he will run in the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election next month, setting the stage for a two-way race against former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
“For three more years, I am determined to lead the nation as LDP president and prime minister,” Abe told reporters in Tarumizu, Kagoshima Prefecture. “I will take the initiative in creating the nation in the period beyond the Heisei Era.”
With official campaigning scheduled to kick off on Sept. 7, the ruling party will hold the election, which will effectively decide the next prime minister, on Sept. 20.
Noting that his LDP won last October’s House of Representatives election by a landslide, Abe claimed, “It is my responsibility to live up to the public mandate.”
Ishiba welcomed Abe’s official announcement, saying “It is the LDP’s responsibility to offer the nation and the public as many opportunities as possible to hear debates (among LDP presidential candidates).”
LDP policy chief Fumio Kishida, who has decided not run this time, said Sunday at a party meeting in Gunma Prefecture he will throw his hat into the ring when the LDP holds its next presidential election, likely to be in three years time.
Abe is predicted to win because five of the LDP’s seven intraparty factions, which encompass around 70 percent of its members, have said they are ready to back him.
Victory would give Abe another three-year term, putting him on track to become Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.
In the election, the contenders will try to secure a majority of the 405 votes cast by the party’s Diet members and the same number of votes cast by rank-and-file members. If no one wins a majority in the first stage, a runoff will be held that gives more weight to the Diet members’ ballots.
Ishiba, 61, who has held such key such as secretary-general and minister in charge of regional revitalization under Abe, is trying to broaden his support base among the party’s rank-and-file.
The LDP president is trying to boost his popularity outside big cities as the ballots cast by both the Diet members and rank-and-file members will have equal weight in the first round.
In an apparent attempt to demonstrate his emphasis on rural areas outside Tokyo, Abe, 63, chose Tarumizu as the place to officially declare his candidacy.
Now that Abe has officially thrown his hat into the ring, debates are set to start on issues including whether to amend the Constitution, how to boost regional economies and Abe’s handling of the government over the past five years and eight months.
Abe, who was re-elected unopposed in 2015, was defeated by Ishiba in the initial stage of the previous election in 2012 but managed to come from behind in the runoff.
The two veterans are expected to officially register their candidacies on Sept. 7, setting off the campaign period.
One focus of the debate is likely to the men’s plans for war-renouncing Article 9.
Abe has called for adding an “explicit reference” to the Self-Defense Forces to ensure there is no way for them to be deemed “unconstitutional,” and said the LDP should submit constitutional revision proposals to the extraordinary Diet session expected to be convened in the fall.
But Ishiba has insisted amendments to Article 9 are not a priority, especially given the public’s lack of understanding on the issue.
Now is the time and this is the moment to free myself from doubt.
At the very core of worry is doubt. If I doubt that I can accomplish something, then I can think myself into failing. Self-doubt can lead to the destruction of what I could actually accomplish.
I find release from worry in the quiet of prayer and meditation—in knowing who I am as a creation of God. I begin to claim my freedom from doubt by settling in to a quiet place that invites me to be calm.
Here, I confidently accept that with God, the source of all good, I can accomplish anything. I direct the energy I would have used worrying to take positive action in everyday and monumental matters.
Now is the time and this is the moment to free myself from doubt.
And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?—Luke 12:25
