RECOMMENDATIONS: Music, Books and Films

EMERGING MIND: A book about understanding mind and how it perceives things including Art and Beauty.

Emerging mind is written by Vilayanur S Ramachandran (Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition and professor with the Psychology Department and the Neurosciences Programme at the University of California, San Diego).  I have been fortunate enough to see him in Chennai (He is from Chennai settled in USA) in connection with one of his book launch and liked his simplicity. He is considered one of the best scientists of the century. He gave four part lecture in BBC in 2003, in the Reith Lecture series.

The book is very interesting and explains, quite beautifully, how our brains perform and what goes on in, inside the brain. I have been much impressed by the book that I have had given this book to almost all my friends. Specially, the section on “The Artful Brain” where he has tried to explain how we perceive art and beauty. His other book, “Phantoms in the Brain” was also a best seller and came before this.

This book, “Emerging Mind” is a scintillating introduction to the latest thinking on the brain and the mind by the world's leading expert. Neuroscience can now begin to unlock the key to the self. Our knowledge of the brain has progressed so rapidly that it will change the way we think of ourselves as human beings. It will change our notion of understanding. This is a revolution which will have impact on all our lives. Neuroscientists are gathering new empirical evidence about consciousness and human nature; they are picking up where the great earlier thinkers like Freud, Darwin, Charcot and others began. This evidence begins to give substance to some of the grand statements and intuitive leaps made in the nineteenth and early twentieth century about the nature of the self.

It’s a very interesting read, hope you will all enjoy it.

Click here to read the BBC lecture - "The Artful Brain"

MOVIE: Samsara - A movie about Spirituality and sense pleasures.

I have seen it almost by the time it was released in 2001 and loved it. This movie's one line "How do you save a drop of water from drying up" is still stuck with me after decades and have featured in many of my writings.

Indian born filmmaker Pan Nalin makes his directorial debut with this sensual, elegant look at sex and spirituality. Tashi (Shawn Ku) is a gifted young monk who is just completing three years of solitary mediation in the mountains. Sporting long hair and a scraggly beard, Tashi is roused out of his deep mediation and brought back to his monastery by his fellow monks. There he rests up to recover his strength, returning to the usual rigors of monastic life. Though he is highly revered for having attained a profound level of enlightenment, Tashi is surprised to discover the sudden awakening of his own sex drive. While blessing the annual crop, he encounters beautiful peasant girl Pema (Christy Chung) and immediately he falls in love. Arguing that to properly renounce the world he would have to experience it first, he leaves his order and eventually marries Pema. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival

Sublime! A surprisingly intense cinematic experience. NOT TO BE MISSED. 

-Vogue Magazine International

The sacred and the profane meet head-on in Samsara. The film is spectacular, spiritual and thrilling. A distinctive debut feature by Pan Nalin is startling, with tech credits are top-notch, crisp widescreen camerawork and all other creatives combining to evoke the region with a stunning clarity and detail 

- Variety USA

A beautiful widescreen production… a metaphorical aerial bombardment that approximates the thunderbolts of love…Hypnotic, dynamic, delicious…Pan Nalin' s film has excellent production values and thoroughly transports one to its far flung world of clear skies, jagged mountains and passionate affairs on the mind and the body. 

-Hollywood Reporter USA

Simply Stunning! Beautiful and serene, Samsara, tells a universal story of desire and destiny and about how the desire for change can change one's destiny. Exquisitely filmed and acted, Samsara, is A FILM TO SAVOUR, …

-WOW Magazine Canada

Click here  "Samsara" to watch parts of the movie...

Click here to read a beautiful review by Devang Vibhakar. Click here for the interview of the director of the movie Pan Nalini by Devang. 
I thank you Devang for the links and a wonderful review. I loved it.

Music: Celtic Thunder - Appalachian Round Up

I have loved the music of the group and here is a favorite of mine from the group..... click here to listen to the song.