We are planning to visit the Shakti Peethas in #HimachalPradesh and then a short, relaxing, laid back stay somewhere in the mountains!
While exploring, I came across this beautiful place McLeod Ganj.
As always, I got distracted and started researching history of this name -
It is named after Sir Donald Freill McLeod who fell in love with this place. Ganj means neighborhood in Farsi.
More about McLeod: He was such a great Christian that a native gentleman gave him a “compliment” that “If all Christians were like Sir Donald McLeod, there would be no
Hindus or Mahommedans.”
He devoted his life to civilize the heathens of India, who were in idolatrous darkness!
He understood the importance of India to the English with her great wealth, and created awareness of the need of increasing missionary activities in India so that it is possible for a handful ppl to rule India, whose ppl can do little by themselves.
He ensured that the Government does not depart from its secular character.
Grants of money in aid of “secular education” carried in schools established and conducted by Christian missionaries, might be made by Govt without any risks of giving rise to “evils”.
While he encouraged mingling with the natives and educating them in the robust mental habits, and imbued with enlightened views of the West, which inevitably they will imbibe, he alluded to allowing but little, if any, real share in management of their own social and municipal
affairs, which they feel is a great indignity and injustice. But this was a blessing to them as they could do very little by themselves.
Point is - I still haven’t decided where to vacation in Himachal because I read this horrible person’s biography after whom we still have… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Another name we should change in Himachal is Dalhousie!
Why did a High Court have to send CISF commandos so that Hindus could light a simple Karthigai Deepam lamp?
Why did the State block them even after clear judicial orders?
And why should every Hindu pay attention to what happened at Thiruparankundram?
Let us break it down.
What is the issue? 🔍
• Thiruparankundram hill houses an ancient Murugan temple and a Dargah
• For centuries, Hindus lit Karthigai Deepam at the Deepathoon, a stone pillar at the peak
• Because of “law and order” situation around the Dargah zone, officials shifted the ritual to a lower mandapam
• Court records confirm the Deepathoon stands on temple land as per a 1920s ruling
• Devotees went to Court to restore the traditional practice
What does “law and order” mean here? 🚨
Court documents reveal the State repeatedly used:
• Fear of “clashes” if the lamp was lit at the peak
• Claims that Hindus trying to reach the hill might create trouble
• Blanket restrictions under Section 163 BNSS (earlier 144 CrPC)
• Police reports “potential mob activity”
• The Court noted the Dargah agrees to Deepam being lit beyond 15 metres
Why the Outrage Against Samantha’s Bhuta Shuddhi Vivaha Exposes a Bigger Problem
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The reaction to Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s Linga Bhairavi Bhuta Shuddhi Vivaha has created a strange alliance:
Leftists and some “pro-Dharma” folks united in outrage.
In Sanatana Dharma, TRUTH is the authority.
Yoga didn’t come from books.
Books came from Yogis who realized the Truth.
Realized Yogis create.
Scriptures follow.
Never the other way around.
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So asking for “scriptural permission” before a new Yogic process is like asking a scientist for “ancient approval” before discovering something new.
That’s not Sanatana.
That’s textbook Abrahamic/colonial thinking.
Why did a leading actress like Samantha Ruth Prabhu, raised as a Christian, choose a dharmic wedding at Linga Bhairavi?
Because this was not just a wedding. It was a conscious process based on the ancient science of Bhuta Shuddhi, where marriage becomes a spiritual alignment, not just a social bond.
Bhuta Shuddhi means purification of the five elements.
In yogic science, the human system is seen as a blend of five elements: earth, water, fire, air and space. When these are balanced, the body and mind operate at their best. The Bhuta Shuddhi Vivaha works on this principle.
According to Isha Yoga Centre, Bhuta Shuddhi Vivaha is not a symbolic ritual. It is an energetic process.
Through fire offerings, mantras and specific geometric arrangements, the bride and groom undergo a realignment of their elemental energies. The process harmonizes them at a foundational level.
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Hindu Dharma speaks of four Purusharthas—Dharma, Artha, Kama & Moksha.
Marriage is seen as the gateway to achieving all four.
Scriptures prescribe duties for every human, including continuing the lineage with good offspring.
In the Gita (7.11), Krishna says: “Dharma-aviruddho bhooteshu kamo’smi” — Desire that does not violate dharma is divine.
🧵 2/8
Sanatana Dharma lays out the Ashrama System:
1️⃣ Brahmacharya – celibate student life, vidyārjana.
2️⃣ Grihastha – family life, righteous wealth earning & raising children.
3️⃣ Vanaprastha – withdrawal from worldly life.
4️⃣ Sannyasa – total renunciation.
Each stage helps one walk toward the Purusharthas.
🧵 3/8
A healthy society needs people who are well-read, well-bred & well-fed.
Thus, raising good offspring is a responsibility.
A balanced marriage—where husband & wife understand each other’s needs—prevents friction.
A fractured family → fractured upbringing.
Dalhousie is a beautiful hill station, near town of Chamba in Chamba district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
It is named after Lord Dalhousie.
Who is he?
Lets dive into History to know more about him (not the one our text books taught us).
Lord Dalhousie landed on the shores of Hindustan in 1846. When he became the viceroy he gave up the practice of sugar coating the poison pills to victims of India, and began a system of open and direct oppression. No wonder he is described as
one of the founders of the British Empires. Following are the territories he annexed to the Empire in the cruelest of ways –
1.Punjab- Dalhousie knew that his ambition of levelling Hindustan cannot be fulfilled as long as Raja Ranjit Singh and his brave
1. My husband bought a book in India to take it back home for a Pakistani friend.
I found it weird. So I opened it and started reading.
First page, and I knew why. It’s banned in Pakistan.
I read two chapters, and what I found will shock you.
2. We Indians, especially Hindus, either refuse to see it or are so blinded by the “secular” blindfold that we think this mindset died in 1947.
It didn’t.
It simply got a flag and an army.
And it is trying to raise its ugly head again.
3. You know Liaquat Ali Khan, right?
Pakistan’s first PM, the man we studied in British India history.
But here’s what textbooks hide:
His grandfather helped the British crush the 1857 War of Independence (a war which Hindus and Muslims fought should to should - read Savarkar).
That loyalty to empire got his family land & power.