Tis the $eason to be $pending. That's the less-than-spiritual message retailers are blasting from radios, TVs, billboards, newspaper and magazine ads, circulars, direct mail, Facebook walls, tweets, and e-blasts (have I missed any media?) in these last weeks before Chanukah and Christmas.

Far be it for me to put a...

UDAIPUR, Rajasthan - Life has brought many advantages to Arvind Singh Mewar, not the least of which is an unobstructed view overlooking Lake Pichola from his palace terrace here, the city Travel & Leisure readers recently voted best in the world.

Now more than the view -- the lake...

A fascinating cultural phenomenon will take place in India from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3.

This one will not involve an out-of-body experience or levitation. No Bollywood crossover star-turn. No Bangla-meets-hip-hop CD release. No spontaneous third-eye opening. Not even a humungous garland-laden...

UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, India -- I am just returning from a summer in India, where, I have observed, the most frequently used words these days are "iconic" and "brand."

These words may have become clichés partly because, with reference to the former, India is a...

Did you hear the one about the schizophrenic Buddhist filmmaker who thought he was at two with himself? Buddha-bing, Buddha-bang.

But seriously.

OK, director/screenwriter Harold Ramis's new film, Year One, may pander to a lower common denominator, with bathroom humor, physical comedy and sight jokes targeted...

There is eco-travel to protect the environment -- plants, birds, fish, mammals, waterways, land and air -- and then there is eco-travel to protect an endangered indigenous species called Homo sapiens. This blog is more about the latter than the former, because when we...

My father, for all his lack of domestic skills, was a brilliant grill-meister. On a New Jersey summer night, like the ones we begin to savor now, he would start the grill early on the back patio, Pabst Blue Ribbon in hand.

There wasn't much to prepare. This was long...

La Fortuna, Costa Rica - This country's modern-day Big Bang came in 1968 when its only constantly active volcano, Arenal, woke up from a 400-year geologic nap with a huge eruption that not only displaced thousands of villagers circling the mountain but also disrupted the lives of countless species of...

Back in the dark green ages of 1994, I helped launch the first national magazine dedicated to a then burgeoning travel trend called eco-tourism. Short-lived though it was, EcoTraveler focused on environmentally, ecologically and culturally sensitive travel, and I was proud to be a part of it.

Now that style...

I spent last Groundhog Day with Harold Ramis, the director and co-writer of "Groundhog Day." He was on set in Shreveport, Louisiana, directing his next film, "The Year One," produced by Judd Apatow, starring Jack Black, Michael Cera and others, and due out in June.

A large sandy tract...

The Aronies are the bravest family I know.

Nancy and Joel are a warm and funny couple in their mid 60s - she the raging extrovert who shares every unedited thought both verbally and in print, he the quiet introverted steady-eddy with a wicked sense of humor once he...

A study I found while researching my most recent book, Buddha or Bust, reported that some 30 percent of Americans practicing Buddhism come from Jewish backgrounds.

They call themselves Bu-Jews, or Bu-ish. I am among them, though I just call myself...Perry.

Except for one or two teeny...

The other day I called David-Dorian Ross, a three-time Olympic medal winner in t'ai chi and the wellness manager at the Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach, California, just to make him beat me up about the fact that seven months have passed since he strongly advised me...

I have been a Daniel Goleman groupie since the mid-1970s, when we met in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We were among a wave of young Americans just returned from extended journeys in India - culturally disoriented and simultaneously very much re-oriented - hanging around the home of Harvard psychology department head David...

Isn't it - I can't decide whether to say "ironic" or "appropriate" - that modern technology now brings us wisdom that would otherwise have been considered oh so 2,500 years ago? I refer here to sharing timeless tips from one Siddhartha Gautama, the prince who lived 500 years before the...

In truth, that headline is misleading. This list is merely a starter set, not the be-all and end-all assuring spiritual bliss. (And what's so mystical about the number 7 anyway, other than that it appears to boost book sales?) As the unofficial and self-declared Stephen Covey of spirituality, I add...

Pilgrimage is the time-honored journey to places sacred. Of course, the earnest pilgrim who wisely follows his or her intuitive spiritual compass always arrives at the most sacred of places: one's self. The ultimate pilgrimage, for those willing to leave their personal baggage behind as they travel, is a rite...

He's taller than you'd expect -- especially for a Vietnamese man -- and thinner. He has big ears and huge eyes set deep into his face, giving the impression that he is watching you very closely but from very far away. And he speaks so softly that you have to...

Smita Premkumar grew up fairly well-to-do in Mumbai. Her father, now retired, was Chief Secretary for the Indian state of Maharashtra. She moved to the United States 15 years ago, earned her Ph.D. in genetics and statistics from Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans, joined the American work...

It's not surprising that a Caribbean spiritual philosophy espousing peace, unity and love -- whose charismatic spokesmen delivered its message via a mesmerizing music, fueled by as much ganga as their lungs could hold -- found so many devotees in a mid-70s America that was still recovering from the divisive...