Knowledge = Power

Rita

Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.

  1. 6 DAYS AGO

    Eknath Easwaran - The Bhagavad Gita Unabridged

    The Bhagavad Gita is the best known of all the Indian scriptures, and Eknath Easwaran’s best-selling translation is reliable, readable, and profound. Easwaran's extensive introduction places the Bhagavad Gita in its historical setting, and brings out the universality and timelessness of its teachings. Chapter introductions clarify key concepts, and notes and a glossary explain Sanskrit terms. Easwaran grew up in the Hindu tradition in India, and learned Sanskrit from a young age. He was a professor of English literature before coming to the West on a Fulbright scholarship. A gifted teacher, he is recognized as an authority on the Indian classics and world mysticism. The Bhagavad Gita opens, dramatically, on a battlefield, as the warrior Arjuna turns in anguish to his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, for answers to the fundamental questions of life. Yet, as Easwaran points out, the Gita is not what it seems – it’s not a dialogue between two mythical figures at the dawn of Indian history. “The battlefield is a perfect backdrop, but the Gita’s subject is the war within, the struggle for self-mastery that every human being must wage if he or she is to emerge from life victorious.” Arjuna’s struggle in the Bhagavad Gita is acutely modern. He has lost his way on the battlefield of life and turns to find the path again by asking direct, uncompromising questions of his spiritual guide, Sri Krishna, the Lord himself. Krishna replies in 700 verses of sublime instruction on living and dying, loving and working, and the nature of the soul. Easwaran shows the Gita’s relevance to us today as we strive, like Arjuna, to do what is right. Narrated by Paul Bazely, an actor of Indian heritage and a longtime student of Easwaran. Music by Yann Stoneman.

  2. 6 DAYS AGO

    Jay L. Garfield, The Great Courses - The Meaning of Life Perspectives from the Worlds Great Intellectual Traditions

    What is the meaning of life? It's a question every thoughtful person has pondered at one time or another. Indeed, it may be the biggest question of all - at once profound and universal, but also deeply personal. We want to understand the world in which we live, but we also want to understand how to make our own lives as meaningful as possible; to know not only why we're living, but that we're doing it with intention, purpose, and ethical commitment. But how, exactly, do we find that meaning, and develop that commitment? How can we grasp why we are here? Or how we should proceed? And to whom, exactly, we should listen as we shape the path we will walk? This comprehensive 36-lecture series from a much-honored scholar is an invigorating way to begin or continue your pursuit of these questions, and it requires no previous background in philosophical or religious thought. It offers a rigorous and wide-ranging exploration of what various spiritual, religious, and philosophical traditions from both the East and West have contributed to this profound line of questioning, sharing insights from sources that include ancient Indian texts, such as: The Bhagavad-GitaFoundational Chinese texts like the Daodejing and the Chuang TzuClassical Western texts, such as Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Marcus Aurelius's MeditationsModern philosophers and writers like David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Leo TolstoyThe unique perspectives offered by Native Americans, in this case, the Lakota Sioux medicine man and writer, John Lame DeerMore recent and contemporary philosophers, such as Mohandas Gandhi and the Dalai Lama

  3. 28 APR

    The Art of Investing Lessons from History's Greatest Traders

    Great investors like Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio will tell you they're no geniuses; they're simply observant, open-minded, and industrious. Using these key traits, the world's most outstanding traders have employed a remarkable mix of strategies to build huge fortunes. Their careers are a how-to manual for anyone who wants to succeed at investing, no matter what the size of their stake. The lives of rich and famous investors are gripping tales of opportunities seized and squandered; of billions won and lost, and won again. And these life stories are also an eye-opening education in the workings of financial markets. The Art of Investing: Lessons from History's Greatest Traders profiles over 30 men and women at the pinnacle of the investing field, including Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio, John Bogle, Peter Lynch, George Soros, T. Rowe Price, Jr., Linda Bradford Raschke, David Dreman, Michael Burry, and others involved in such ventures as value stocks, growth stocks, mutual funds, index funds, hedge funds, commodity futures, private equity, sovereign wealth, distressed assets, and more. Each lecture covers one of these approaches, together with traders who have made it pay handsomely - along with insights on how they did it. An award-winning teacher and the portfolio manager for a $2.5-billion investment firm, Professor John Longo of Rutgers Business School tells these intriguing life stories with an insider's grasp of the financial details. Included in these 24 half-hour lectures are tips on the most common mistakes made by investors, scores of pithy sayings that synthesize the hard-won wisdom of veteran traders, and, in the final lecture, an investment checklist that lets you narrow down your own best approach to building personal wealth.

  4. 25 APR

    Xenophon - The March of the Ten Thousand (The Anabasis)

    Translated by W. E. D. Rouse, The March of the Ten Thousand is one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature to come down to us. Xenophon employs a very simple, straightforward style to describe what is probably the most exciting military adventure ever undertaken. When Cyrus, brother to the Great King of Persia, attempts to overthrow his feckless sibling in 401 B.C., he employs a Greek mercenary army of 10,000 hoplites as the core of his rebellious force. Xenophon, who seeks the advice of Socrates before joining, is among the common soldiers. Inexorably, Cyrus and his huge army march southward 1,500 miles from the coast of Ionia all the way to Babylon, and there give battle to Artaxerxes, the Great King. Although the battle is soon decided in favor of Cyrus, the would-be usurper is killed while in pursuit of the king. Meanwhile, the Greeks are victorious on their part of the battlefield and await the return of Cyrus and his instructions. By the next morning, they realize that Cyrus is dead and that his allies have melted away in the night, leaving them alone trapped behind enemy lines within a few miles of the Persian capital. And only a few miles distant lies an enormous Persian army with vengeance in mind. Despair deepens when the Greek officer corps is treacherously murdered during peace talks. Alone, leaderless and hopelessly outnumbered, the Greeks nevertheless elect new officers. Xenophon steps into the pages of history with his magnificent rallying speeches and selfless acts of courage. Follow one of history's most spirited bands of soldiers as they fight and maneuver their way through 1,500 miles of hostile territory seething with adversaries. It is an epic of courage, faith and democratic principle.

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Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.

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