The Swaroopa Blog

Hello all, Namaste! Before proceeding with this post, I would like to clarify something. I am of the outlook that each person should choose the religion he/she feels comfortable with or relate to. If they feel they don't need a religion to express themselves, that also is an individual's choice. I am writing this post about Hinduism, only to write my thoughts on the title. It is never my idea or intention to propagate Hinduism. Another fact, I want to put forward is, the original name of Hinduism was 'Sanatana Dharma ' or the 'Eternal way'. It is not a religion, more of a way of life and I like to view it that way . In Vedic scriptures, there is not a term called ' Hindu '. It has been thought that people who had traded with or invaded India started calling the culture as the 'culture of the people near the river Sindhu' , which later transformed into Hindu and the culture they practiced to Hinduism. Sindhu is now known as the river Indus

Hello all, Namaste! All of us seem to be very different. We have brown, blue, hazel, gray, or black eyes matched up with brown, black, or white skin. We are tall, short or medium build or height. Everywhere we look we see differences, variations, and contrasts. But are we as different as we think and feel? Let us look at some biology, shall we?     Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes , which are composed of 22 pairs of autosomes (normal chromosomes) and a pair of XX or XY (gender) chromosomes. So how similar is our DNA? Before it was thought that our genes are 99.0 to 99.9% similar. But now new research has come to light, showing that the same gene can have different copy numbers. A copy number is a phenomenon where sections of the gene are repeated and the number of repeats can be different in different individuals and population. So the same gene for a person may have two copies while another one may have five copies. The researchers found that this happens in 12% of the

Hello World! Namaste! This is my preliminary attempt at a blog. I had an intuition that I need to share my thoughts and ideas with the world. So when I started thinking about what to write as my first topic, it took me some time to settle on one. Finally, I decided I need to clarify what “Swaroopa” means. It is the name of my blog, so I should know what it is and should have some underlying meaning or symbolism pertaining to this blog.   Before really starting this attempt, let me give homage to the Hindu God who removes obstruction, Ganesha, by invoking him - "Om Gam Ganapathaye namah:" . May Ganesha remove all the obstacles in my path and purpose to accomplish the highest authentic, original and creative expression, I can ever achieve and to help myself, my family, friends, the community, society and the greater world at large! Tadasthu- So, it is! To underline this invocation, I am putting the image of the whole Shiva family. Why reduce anything?    Shiva family with