Water is weird

And that's thanks to the hydrogen bond.

Check out this neat article from NatGeoMag, which has a snippet that always has me in splits:
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Scientists think they know the main reason for water's peculiarity: the hydrogen bond. Admittedly this concept is not the most evocative in the annals of science, but perhaps it's all in the inflection. Try saying suavely, "Bond. Hydrogen Bond."
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Book Review of the tamil version of "They Lived with God"

Swami Chetanananda has written a very sweet book called They Lived with God, which covers the life of Sri Ramakrishna's disciples.

This has been translated into Tamil as KADAVULUDAN VAZHNDHAVARGAL. Check out a review.

A great book: [A Heart Poured Out]

It's amazing how a book comes to you. One of my pals is leaving for the United States next Saturday (10.APR) to work with Apple in Cupertino and he asked me to "take care" of a book called A Heart Poured Out.

This is the story of Swami Ashokananda by Sister Gargi (née Marie Louise Burke), who's also written the six-volume Swami Vivekananda in the West - New Discoveries. Swami Ashokananda had been initiated by Swami Vivekananda in an xp, which goes as follows: (page 29)

It was during his high school years, probably in the latter part of 1912, that Yogesh* had an experience that would profoundly influence every part of his life from then on-that would, indeed, transform him. It happened one afternoon when he was ... meditating on Kali. "Suddenly", to put it in his own words as he spoke them in the last year of his life, "I felt that the presence of the Mother was replaced by the vivid presence of Swamiji. The change was very distinct, and immediately I began to feel that Swamiji was pouring his power and spirit into me. It was a definite and unmistakable experience. Just as you would put the mouth of a full jar against the mouth of an empty one, one above the other, and just as the contents of the first would pour into the second without reservation or obstruction, so his power poured into me. Swamiji's mind and mine became as though merged. I was astonished, and that brought me out of that state. But the thing had been accomplished, fully."

* before he became Swami Ashokananda. Yogesh was born the same year (1893) as Swami Paramahamsa Yogananda.

My spiritual fervor has increased dramatically after reading just a few pages of this book. Here's a stunning experience of his: (page 21)

One day while walking slowly to school, I felt that I had cornered my ego in one part of my body. I tried to get hold of it and throw it out. It was like a living thing. It went with lightning speed from one part of my body to the other, and with lightning speed I pursued it. I couldn't catch it. And then suddenly it became dispersed again through my whole body; it was no longer a separate thing that I could put my finger on. I have never read in the books of an experience like that, but it was very definite, very real".

"That was a very illuminating experience", Swami Ashokananda once said years later, attributing the experience to a friend of his, "and one which accords with our whole system of Vedantic thought. It not only gave him the sense that the ego was something different from himself; it also gave him a sense of what he really was-not the ego, but the Self…. Once you have grasped this truth, once you have brought about a little of the severance between the 'I am' and the predicate, the rest will come easily. It is as though you made a breach in a tremendous dam; it is just a matter of time before the waters themselves will sweep the whole dam away."

Natural Miracles of Swami

Swami is back in BLR, and the weather is mild and great. While the rest of the country is suffering from a heat wave, it's nice & raining in BLR. What a place!

Due to some reason, I was thinking of the natural miracles of Swami. All three are from the Telugu book called "Anyadha Saranam Nasti" and are as follows:

• After lunch, Swami is enjoying paan. He starts playing with the green tamalapaaku (betel) leaves, folds them in a particular way and throws the "package" into the air. It becomes a raama chiluka (parrot) and flies off! Swami laughs (pakapaka mantu), along with everyone.
  
• Swami makes a fist and asks his devotees what's in it. A devotee replies that there's nothing in it. Swami says that everything's in it. He opens his hand and there's a small midata (grasshopper), chewing on a light-green leaf. He closes and opens his hand and the grasshopper+leaf combo have gone back to where they came from.
  
• One couple wants to do paada puja to Swami. They have all the necessary stuff, but forget the all-important nalla poosalu (literally, black beads). During the pooja, a shimmering, monstrous black ant comes out of the flowers being offered. Swami playfully chides the couple ("How come you're doing pooja with ants!"), picks up the ant, blows on it, and it becomes the missing nalla poosalu!