She’s always done what was expected of her. Until… When 30-year-old Seattle-based Indian housewife Mira Sood is blindsided by her husband’s extramarital affair, her three-year arranged marriage is shattered. Humiliated, heartbroken, near-broke, and facing the united dissension of her orthodox family, Mira is desperate to rebuild her life. She moves in with her rebel cousin, searches for any job that will take her, and impulsively signs up for a half-marathon race. There’s just one problem—Mira's experience with running starts and ends with running to catch the bus. With herself as her biggest critic and doubter, Mira commits to the race and is assisted by entrepreneur Andy Fitzgerald, a handsome, elite marathoner who helps her create a training schedule and personal goals. When the lines of friendship begin to blur, Mira realizes she’s facing an even bigger challenge. Can Mira embrace her stronger, more independent self—risking another heartbreak and disappointing her family—or will she once again play it too safe and let the possibility of happiness slip away?

“Through mantra practice, positive karma flows freely into our lives ... desires are fulfilled ... spiritual abilities manifest ... and we have moved another step forward toward moksha—complete spiritual freedom.” —Thomas Ashley-Farrand Karma: the consequence of all of your actions, decisions, thoughts, and emotions. According to Thomas Ashley-Farrand, karmic patterns from the past are always with you, affecting everything you do—for better or for worse. With Mantra Meditation, you will learn how to use genuine Sanskrit mantras to balance your chakras (your body's seven spinning energy-centers) to dissolve negative karma. “When you begin to chant these ancient formulas,” teaches Ashley-Farrand, “the petals on your chakras begin to resonate, and they pull in spiritual energy.” With Mantra Meditation—designed as a 40-day practice or a lifelong tool—your spiritual energy grows, your karma disperses, and your path clears to bring you everything you desire through the fusing of your own efforts and the infinite generosity of the universe. Includes 15 guided mantra meditations and instructions for Sanskrit pronunciation.

This book explicates the origin, nature, function, and significance of mantras within the bounds of the Hindu tradition. It explores the use of mantras in the Vedic age, in Saivism and Vaisnavism, in Tantra, and in Ayurvedic medicine.

Second Edition of the original My Mini Book of Mighty Mantras.

This book explains how to meditate with mantras. Think of it as a kind of Feng Shui--the Buddhist way to position the mind and voice in harmony to bring real, lasting physical and spiritual benefits.

Living Mantra is an anthropology of mantra-experience among Hindu-tantric practitioners. In ancient Indian doctrine and legends, mantras perceived by rishis (seers) invoke deities and have transformative powers. Adopting a methodology that combines scholarship and practice, Mani Rao discovers a continuing tradition of visionaries (rishis/seers) and revelations in south India’s Andhra-Telangana. Both deeply researched and replete with fascinating narratives, the book reformulates the poetics of mantra-practice as it probes practical questions. Can one know if a vision is real or imagined? Is vision visual? Are deity-visions mediated by culture? If mantras are effective, what is the role of devotion? Are mantras language? Living Mantra interrogates not only theoretical questions, but also those a practitioner would ask: how does one choose a deity, for example, or what might bind one to a guru? Rao breaks fresh ground in redirecting attention to the moments that precede systematization and canon-formation, showing how authoritative sources are formed.

Billions of dollars are being spent nationally and globally on providing computing access to digitally disadvantaged groups and cultures with an expectation that computers and the Internet can lead to higher socio-economic mobility. This ethnographic study of social computing in the Central Himalayas, India, investigates alternative social practices with new technologies and media amongst a population that is for the most part undocumented. In doing so, this book offers fresh and critical perspectives in areas of contemporary debate: informal learning with computers, cyberleisure, gender access and empowerment, digital intermediaries, and glocalization of information and media.