Sattva Saves

Some more thoughts on Being Centered.

At the end of the chapter on Baba's Passing Away in the Shri Sai Satcharita, there's a small piece that always inspires me:

Who is this ME?

Sai Baba expounded many a time Who this ME (or I) is. He said "You need not go far or anywhere in search of Me. Barring your name and form, there exists in you, as well as in all beings, a sense of Being or Consciousness of Existence. That is Myself. Knowing this, you see Me inside yourself, as well as in all beings. If you practise this, you will realize all-pervasiveness, and thus attain oneness with Me."
…
Has not Baba often said: "He who carps and cavils at others, pierces Me in the heart and injures Me, but he that suffers and endures, pleases Me most."

Today, found the reason for Baba saying that. In the Speaking Tree article, one read:

Activate Positive Energy By Practising Equipoise

…Peace, happiness and contentment are the fruits of sattva.

Our sattvic nature is given to us in the form of energy by God Himself. It empowers us to cope with problems in a very systematic way without affecting our mental peace or depleting our humane qualities. It tunes us to Divinity and activates our Soul. Just like we preserve food using a preservative, we should preserve our minds using the energy called sattva. If we want to have unflagging inspiration, zeal, zest and dynamism, we have to soak our minds in sattva.

Sattva gives us the ability to remain unruffled at all times. We interact with so many people. Whatever people say, we should never allow inner peace to get destroyed. If there is a grain of sattva in us, other people’s thoughts, words and actions will bombard and kill it if we react to them. Even if somebody accuses you, keep quiet. After a while that person will realise his mistake. When we don’t react and become completely quiet inside, what comes out of us is sattva and peace. This is in the form of a vibration. We cannot see it, but we can feel and experience it. These divine vibrations are extremely powerful. They transform people and situations, as no words can.

When we don’t react, our sattva acts like a concrete wall and shields us from other people’s negative energy. If we react, all that energy will invade us in the form of vibrations. Then we will feel depressed, tired and depleted of energy. Sattva is an armour that protects us from all kinds of negative vibrations, as well as an antenna that attracts positive and divine vibrations. Physical proximity is not required for the transmission of such vibrations. They are transmitted automatically even when we think of a person. That is why, when we pray for somebody’s welfare, though that person is far away, our prayers benefit him.
…

The Best Way to Win an Argument

Kiddo really surprised me in the morning. He was narrating how one of his "fiends" was using a nickname on him that he doesn't like. i asked him: "So what did you do?" His response: "I didn't do anything. I remembered what you told me: 'The best way to win an argument is to avoid it' and cycled away."

That killed me. Recalled telling him something to that effect from Dale Carnegie's Golden Book. Mr. Carnegie actually said: (page 2, middle)

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

But the kiddo following it to the T, that amazed me.

Some use this technique to increase longevity. Like this dude in his 90s being interviewed:

"Sir, what is the secret of your longevity?"

"i never get into an argument."

"Come on, there's surely more to it."

"You're probably right."

Why i attend bhajans

After his meeting with Sri Ramakrishna, M., the author of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, made a beeline to Dakshineshwar for his next meeting. The Master joked:

A man once fed a peacock with a pill of opium at four o'clock in the afternoon. The next day, exactly at that time, the peacock came back. It had felt the intoxication of the drug and returned just in time to have another dose.

The reason i attend bhajans is somewhat similar. Get into a high, without having to snort anything!

Swami says:

The spiritual vibrations produced by Bhajans confer great joy both on those who sing them and on those who listen to them. Bhajans remove all negative thoughts, soothe the nerves, purify the mind and fill the body and the heart with sweet love for the divine. As one sings Bhajans, the mind is saturated with God Consciousness and a great ecstasy wells up from within. No mental or intellectual effort is called for, as there is no need to understand anything while uttering the holy names of God and singing His glory. The singing and the atmosphere created by Bhajans takes one beyond the realms of the body, mind and intellect and helps to establish communion with the Higher Self (consciousness) within.

Last Friday, we celebrated the B'day of Swami. The photo was very nicely decorated (love that red-flower garland).

Lots of folks were there, with a few new faces. Never know what to expect from them.

Anyway, the person on "my North East", Sri Srikantan of Chennai, sang a tremendous Siva bhajan (Bhasma Bhooshitanga Sai Chandrasekara), which made me cry with joy at the start itself. He sang a small intro song before the bhajan (generally not done), which had some of the regular singers looking askance, but what the heck; anything that makes you cry with joy.

You can listen to Sri Srikantan's version here.

In that wonderful chapter on Swami Shivananda in God Lived with Them, one reads: (page 136, middle)

When I first started visiting the Master, I often felt inclined to cry. One night I was crying uncontrollably by the riverside near the bakul tree. The Master was in his room, and he inquired where I had gone. When I returned he asked me to sit down and said: "The Lord is greatly pleased if one cries to him. Tears of love wash away the mental impurities accumulated through the ages. It is very good to cry to God."

Another day when I was meditating in the Panchavati grove, my concentration became very deep. The Master came towards me from the pine grove, and as soon as he looked at me, I burst into tears. The Master stood still. I felt something creeping up inside my chest, and I was overcome by a fit of shaking. The Master said that my crying was not insignificant. It was a type of ecstasy.

Heading for the Infinite

Find it interesting that a few folks got to (almost) touch the head of Swami during his b'day celebration on 23.NOV. Wonder what those folks XPed.

Latu, direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, had his highest samadhi through such a touch:

Latu earlier had had various kinds of spiritual experiences—such as ecstasy and visions of divine forms or light—but he experienced the highest samadhi at Cossipore. He later narrated to a devotee: "You see, it is nothing spectacular to see light during meditation; it only strengthens faith. When body consciousness goes away and the mind becomes pure, one realizes a realm behind the light, which neither can be known through the intellect nor can it be expressed by words. One day at Cossipore I was rubbing the Master's head, then that transcendental realm opened to me. My senses failed to grasp that Infinite, but I realized It through and through."

Shashi later testified: One day the Master asked Latu to rub his head. After a while I noticed that latu's hand stopped, his body became motionless, and he was absorbed in deep meditation. I called him a couple of times and even touched his body, but did not get any response. The Master said to me: "Don't disturb him. Is his mind in this world?"

Loo…oops

Had a good laugh over this SMS Joke in y'day's B'lore Times:


Ha, ha. Once in a while, lose track of how many times one has used the Himalaya Herbal shampoo.

It's like that kid who's asked:

Do you know how to spell BANANA?

His response:

I do, but i don't know when to end it.

Shrivel Drivel

The bloated balloons at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade reminded me of this exquisite one from a very old RD:

An American visitor to Africa ends up with some shriveled heads and he's determined to make a killing. As soon as he lands back home, he calls up Macy's and imperiously demands that he be connected to the Big Boss himself. After some time, the Big B picks up the phone and says: "This is the head buyer speaking."

Being Centered

There was a stunning article by Osho a couple of days ago in the ToI's Speaking Tree.

The print version went as follows:

Know The Accidental And The Essential

Life has two layers: the essential, and the accidental. The essential is never born, never dies. The accidental is born, lives and dies. The essential is eternal, timeless; the accidental is just accidental. We become attached to the accidental and we tend to forget the essential.

You become attached to money but money is accidental. It has nothing to do with essential life. You become attached to your house or car, spouse, children and relationships. Relationship is accidental; it has nothing essential in it. It is not your real being.

You have become attached to ‘my’ and ‘mine’ — to possessions. And you have completely lost track of your being. You have completely lost track of ‘i’. ‘My’ has become more important. When ‘my’ becomes more important then you are getting attached to the accidental. When ‘i’ remains more important and ‘my’ remains a servant, then you are a master. Then you live in a totally different way. Using the word ‘i’, in an absolutely nonegoistic sense it means your being. The accidental man lives on the periphery. The essential man remains centered.

That's what i call cutting it to the bone.

It also had an unusual bug. The ToI Edit guys are so gung-ho about converting all Is to the lower-case i on the Edit page that they goofed as Osho was referring to the primordial I, what Ramana Maharshi calls the Self, which to me is the Supreme Eternally Living/Loving Formless.

Observations apart, how does one remain centered? Last afternoon, i was wandering around our garden when i noticed a spider ensconced in a tree in our lawn. Sri Ramakrishna said:

In the Vedas creation is likened to the spider and its web. The spider brings the web out of itself and then remains in it. God is the container of the universe and also what is contained in it.

It's interesting that the spider normally remains in the center of the web that it has created. That should be our endeavor as well.

Venkateswari?

Yesterday, got this stunning image of the deity at Tirumala. For those who are wondering how the photo was taken, ND has the following:

Must be a VVIP who was not frisked and hence managed to sneak in a camera/camera phone.

But the deity looked like a lady to me!

Sometime back, i had read about Swami Brahmananda's XP at Tirumala: (God Lived With Them, page 106, bottom)

In Tirupati Maharaj (Swami Brahmananda) saw the Divine Mother in the image of Lord Venkateswara. His body shivered in ecstasy. Later he said to Sharvananda: "I have distinctly seen the form of the Divine Mother. Please inquire about it." After inquiry and close examination of the image and sanctuary, it was found to have been originally a Shakti temple, later converted into a Vishnu temple, probably under the influence of Ramanuja.

More in Bala…gee.

Am more and more inclined to believe that the Old Man* at Tirumala is actually the Old Mother in disguise. She's much closer to my heart, anyway.

* Carbon-dating of the rocks at Tirumala have shown they are at least 1,961 million years old.

In a Pickle

My elder bro (the brainy one in my family: his IIT-JEE rank was 108 in 1979) was in town for a day and this news item:

This humble green could check diabetes

This humble vegetable may find new respect, even among picky palates. That’s because new research shows that consuming 50 grams of kundru (thondekai) daily can help keep your blood sugar under check.

A three-month-long study conducted by doctors at the Institute of Population Health and Clinical Research, Bangalore, has found that the common kundru, which looks like a poorer cousin of the tasty gourd parbal and has no particular gastronomic appeal, can impact blood sugar levels in patients with mild diabetes.

reminded us of a funny incident from our childhood.

Krishna Tamma of #25, Sea Sands was the first one to leave for the US from our quarters in 1976 and one of his doubts just before leaving was:

ఓరేయ్, దొండకాయని Englishలో ఏమంటార్రా?
What's the word for dhondakaaya in English?

Even after 30 years, it still makes me chuckle.

The slip between the cup and the lip

The Amazon Kindle was all over the news; more in my gnotes for the day. Can't say anything about the product as i am yet to see it in action, but what i can analyze is its name, which adds up to 45.

If only the folks at Amazon called it Amazon iKindle! That would have made its name number 46, and a number that really bucks the trend. Some great 46s:

• Albert Einstein
• Tim Berners-Lee
• NR Narayana Murthy
• Robert De Niro
• Shivkumar Sharma, and
• Jeff Bezos himself!
  

Among places, one 46 is Palm Meadows, which has dramatically changed the housing scene in Bangalore.

With the number of the Amazon Kindle being 45, what we can expect is a lot of noise about being the best. Other 45s include United States and Saddam Hussein :-) No wonder neither backed off during both the wars.

Another number that missed the 46 bus was Windows Vista; i had predicted its poor acceptance here.

What makes a B"OSO"ffice hit?

Today's Page 1 in Bangalore Times had this:

Bollywood ka super-hit formula

What makes a film a box-office hit? Is there such a thing as a sure success? Why, for instance, has Saawariya with its star cast and huge hype bombed at cinemas, while the spoofy Om Shanti Om, has audiences coming back for more? …

My two bits on the same:

After all the standard stuff is ensured (good script, hummable songs, etc.), get the name right numerologically.

On Diwali (09.NOV.2007—FRI), when the two films Om Shanti Om and Saawariya were being released, i told WiFi that SRK was on a roll.

First, he had Chak De! India, which added up to 32, one of the lucky #s, and then Om Shanti Om, which adds up to the next one in the series, 41, with some real Hollywood heavyweights:

• Gregory Peck
• Nicole Kidman
• The Lion King
  
• Angelina Jolie
• James Cameron.
  

That's what i call a clever being in clover!

On the other hand, Saawariya adds up to 17 and i knew it was doomed from the start, the media blitz notwithstanding.

Sri Ramakrishna said:

There are many paths to God, some clean and some not so clean (say, tantra). It's simpler to take a clean path.

Well, i apply the same to numerology: Why have a difficult name and struggle to make a point? In the end, was all that struggle worth it?

Stanley Kubrick used to say:

I don't know what I want, but I certainly know what I don't want.

Would second that. Why use a difficult name in the first place?

As kids in that lovely place près de la mer, we used to say:

అడిగి కొట్టిన్చుకోవడం
Ask to get thrashed

That's what comes to my mind when one goes around with a name that adds up to a difficult/painful number.

Ramana, Inc.

Of late, this is the image i've in my mind when i think of Ramana. As Sri Ramakrishna says, in His usual inimitable way: "The cockroach becomes motionless by constantly meditating on the kumira worm; it loses the power to move. At last it is transformed into a kumira. Similarly, by constantly meditating on God the bhakta loses his ego; he realizes that God is he and he is God. When the cockroach becomes the kumira everything is achieved. Instantly one obtains liberation."

The mystery of Ramana Maharshi, an Incarnation by Death, was unveiled a bit more yesterday with this post.

None other than Papaji had this to say about him: (highlighting mine)

When I was at Ramanasramam in the 1940s I used to spend hours looking at the Maharshi's eyes. They would be open and staring, but not focussed on anything. Though his eyes were open, they were not seeing anything. Those eyes were completely free of thoughts and desires. The mind is revealed very clearly in the eyes, but in those eyes there was nothing at all to see. In the hours that I concentrated on his eyes, I didn't once see even a flicker of a thought or a desire. I have not seen such utterly desire-less eyes like his on any other face. I have met many great saints during my life, but no one has impressed me as much as the Maharshi did.

From this context, some of His sayings are more understandable. For instance:

Bhakti is not different from mukti. Bhakti is being as the Self. One is always That. He realizes It by the means he adopts. What is bhakti? To think of God. That means only one thought prevails to the exclusion of all other thoughts. That thought is of God, which is the Self, or it is the self surrendered unto God. When He has taken you up, nothing else will assail you. The absence of thought is bhakti. It is also mukti. Bhakti is Jnana Mata, i.e., the mother of jnana.

It is interesting that "Arunachala Ramana" adds up to 42, which is, of course, The Answer to The Ultimate Question Of Life, the Universe and Everything.

"Quick Gun" Murugan

Today is Skanda Sashti and the Speaking Tree article had:

Muruga Inspires Total Fearlessness And Love


The culmination of the six-day worship of Lord Muruga or Kartikeya, older son of Shiva and Parvati and sibling of Ganesha, falls on the sixth day after Deepavali, the festival of lights. Called Skanda Sashti, the occasion celebrates the victory of Skanda, the supreme commander of divine forces, over demons Tarakasura and Surapadman. Krishna declared in the Gita, "Of generals, I am Skanda". This victory symbolises our surmounting of inner demons or vices.


The numeral six is special to Skanda. There are six holy abodes of His in Tamil Nadu: Palani, Swamimalai, Thirupparangunram, Pazhamudircholai, Thiruthani, and Thiruchendur. The legend goes that He was born of the six rays of light that emerged from Lord Shiva's third eye. This event happened in the month of Kartik (November), hence Kartikeya is one of His names. The six rays fell in Sara Vana, the forest of reed grass, hence His six-syllable name Saravanabava. The mantra is so potent that its recitation is believed to attract people (Sa), wealth (Ra), removes debt and disease (Va), suppresses problems (Na), charms others (Ba) and stops negativity (Va).

In NOV.2005, when i visited Tiruchuzhi, the birthplace of Ramana Maharshi, from Madurai via Virudhunagar, that awesome temple town, we passed by Thirupparangunram, with the temple on a massive hillock.

In the Sai Bhajans, i particularly like the Saravana Bhava Guha Shiva Shakti Bala, sung in honor of Lord Murugan. You can hear it here (sung at the 82 Bhajans by Savitha).

PS: If you find the title offensive, excusez-moi. "Quick Gun" numerologically adds up to 27, the same as Murugan! Jesus Christ (18 + 18) and Rolls Royce (18 + 18) exhibit similar behavior.

42ude, redux

Was quite "amuzed" by this news report, as i used the same metaphor on turning 42:

Hit for India, miss for Sachin

Genius, by its very nature, has a sense of occasion. On this day, the 15th of November, a certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar made his international debut against Pakistan back in 1989. An unbelievable 18 years and 27,000 international runs later, things seem to have gone from the excellent to the sublime. But all the records later, one important mark now eludes him with all the devilry of time: The number 42, the solution to Douglas Adams’ "Ultimate Question", the answer to "Life, the Universe and Everything": The most important number even in the Tendulkar lexicon for a while now.

So what does Sachin "10" need for that elusive (illusive?) 42nd ODI century?

42ude, dude, 42ude!


42ude adds up to 21 and is more addition to the pantheon of great 21s such as:

• Love
• Truth
• Satya Sai Baba.
  

"Mr. Blu-es-ky"

After the gloomy skies of October, it's a privilege and treat to see the cloudless skies this month.

The bougainvillea on our north wall accentuates the blue and makes it even more lovely.

Anyway, to return to this post, there was this professor who never made a mistake in pronouncing the names of his fresh batch of students. Until one day, we find him repeating himself:

"Mr. Blu-es-ky, Mr. Blu-es-ky"

without a response from his audience. After a while, he has no choice but to get down from his high horse and ask:

Who's the student who spells his name B…L…U…E…S…K…Y?

At that, a huge guy stands up and says:

"Oh, that's me, Sir; Blue Sky, I am a Red Indian*"

* American Indians used to be named after the first thing folks used to see when they exited the teepee. For instance, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

Achronoliterate?

Aliterate, one of the AWADs last week, drew this response from a reader:

Maybe I am an achronoliterate (I made that up), someone who does not have enough time to read everything that he wants to read!

Sometime back, i saw the following:

When you buy a book, you should also be able to buy the time required to read it.

Consciousness or Bust

Have added a twist to the Is consciousness a product only of matter, or of life? thread with my latest comment.

As Swami Vivekananda says in A Study of Religion: (seen in A Heart Poured Out, page 20, middle; highlighting is mine)

The sum total of this whole Universe is God Himself. Is God then matter? No, certainly not, for matter is that God perceived by the five senses, that God as perceived through the intellect is mind; and when the Spirit sees, He is seen as Spirit…. That which existed eternally, independent of the senses and of the intellect, was the Lord Himself. Upon Him the senses are painting chairs and tables and rooms and houses and worlds and moons and suns and stars, and everything else.

For a masterly exposition, don't miss Reality and Consciousness: Turning the Superparadigm Inside Out by Peter Russell.

Can "I Can"

The cover of the latest issue of The Week brought back amusing memories.

While at Infosys, i responded to some item on the "BullBoard" stating that the go-getter attitude of Americans was due to the fact that the word American ends with "I Can".

Folks were on me like a ton of bricks. One said: "So does a Mexican". Another wondered: "What about a Mohican?" Yet another added: "As does a lousy Pepsi Can".

Yet to live that down.

Gyre and Jumble

Sometime back, VSS sent me a funny take (if nothing works, try sarcasm) on the North Pacific Gyre: (don't miss the link below)

Is it not true? Is there anything more impressive than the idea that you can, say, toss away your little Calistoga bottle or your plastic Safeway bag or your meth syringe or old iPod case or cigarette lighter or DVD wrapper here, and it will somehow, through a miraculous combination of time and wind and wastefulness and the flow of nature's beautiful eternal pulsing rhythms, wend its way 1,000 miles out to sea and then, well, just swirl around, slowly breaking apart and poisoning all life surrounding it and joining with the mountains of other plastic crap spewed out from our friends and enemies and neighboring nations worldwide? Is this not, in its way, profoundly moving? You bet it is.

Something about the word gyre gives me the creeps. Guess the gy at the start makes it wet and sticky.

Was also wondering where i had heard that word before. After a while, it came back; right at the start of Jabberwocky:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Gemini Contenders

Got the inaugural issue of The Bengaluru Pages a couple of days back. That's another good thing about staying in Palm Meadows; you get a lot of freebies.

The First In section, which sounded suspiciously like This Just In (used in Fortune by Stanley Bing), had an interesting start:

What does Infosys' co-chairman Nandan Nilekani have in common with Nobel award winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk and Indian novelist Salman Rushdie? A common literary agent, in heavy hitter Andrew Wylie.

Noticed another connection: all of them are Geminis :-)


Jokes apart, looking forward to reading Nandan's book, fairly drooling over the English that will be on display. Still remember some of the turns of phrase that he employed just before the J-Curve meet on 07-08.JUN.1996! Not for nothing is he called Explainer-in-Chief.


Wonder whether he'll have his name as Nandan M Nilekani on the jacket of the book, as it adds up to 48, the same as some of my favorite writers:

• John Steinbeck
• Arthur Gordon.
  

తెలుగు తేట

This news item made my day:

Once a Telugu speaker was speaking at a convention in Moscow and one among the audience asked an Indian sitting next to him why the speaker was singing. The Indian explained that the man was speaking in Telugu. Such is the sweetness of the language, recalled eminent Telugu litterateur CN Reddy.

Bagful of Baddy '007

Y'day was a busy day with Baddy '007 coming to a close and all the finals being played. In the morning, Anurag beat Sanath by a whisker in the Boys Under 10 semi-final, after being 0-1 and 12-18 down in the best-of-three being played with the new rules. Somehow he "channelized his anger" and got the better of Sanath.

In the final in the evening, he played cool and collected against Ankur, the Boys Under 8 winner. The abiding image of that final was Ankur burying his head against his Dad after the match!

Niki got the better of Payal in the Girls Under 13 final, after being 0-1 down. She was the runner-up in the Girls Under 16 event as well.

That made for one proud papa!

The stage was then set for a pulsating and long-awaited men's singles final between Arun PM and Bobby Singh (best-of-three games of 15 points, old rules). Arun was a bit off in the first game and lost it quickly. In the second, he was leading 12-5, after which he inexplicably lost. Here's an interesting snippet:

Service Excellence—Samsung India

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.—Douglas Adams

Had a very nice XP with Samsung India Service.

My kid was interested in a Nintendo Wii, which my bro in the US said he could get, but he wasn't sure whether my Samsung Bordeaux Art TV would support the NTSC format used in the US.

So i pinged them on the Net around 2:10 PM, with the same query.

By 4:45 PM, i got a call on my cell from Sumit at their Gurgaon center, who guided me to the exact menu on my TV:


Voilà!

How To Be

The ToI had this right on page one today, in the side bar for the article Some gyaan from CEO Lord Krishna:

Why B spiritual?

Ramnath Narayanaswamy says: “There are three components in management: the analytical (head), the emotional (heart) and the spiritual (soul). But management education completely ignores emotional intelligence (EI) and focuses only on analytical intelligence. However, our young future managers need feeling and imagination. It’s difficult to teach these as they are experience-driven. Life skills like creative thinking, listening, mentoring, working under pressure, empathy, team building — all these come from EI.”

Spiritual intelligence is necessary in this divisive world, then you would understand where the other comes from, and there would be no disputes.

Shirdi Sai Baba gave a nice lesson to management a long time back. At the end of the Fabulous Portions (Chapters 18-19) of the Shri Sai Satcharita, we find:

Remuneration for Labour

One day at noon, Baba came near Radha-Krishna-Mai's house and said - "Bring Me a ladder." Some men brought it and set it against a house as directed by Baba. He climbed up on the roof of Vaman Gondkar's house, passed the roof of Radha-Krishna-Mai's house and then got down from the other corner. What object Baba had, none could know. Radha-Krishna-Mai was, at that time, shivering with Malaria. It may be to drive off that fever, that He may have gone there. Immediately after getting down, Baba paid Rupees two to the persons who brought the ladder. Somebody asked Baba, why he paid so much for this. He replied that nobody should take the labour of others, in vain. The worker should be paid, his dues promptly and liberally.

Following this simple principle, the text goes on to say that there can be no conflict between Labor and Capital.

stunR of a scanR

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxScanR

Or, OCR in a jiffy

Typing the 2½-page ghost story in Unadhikakritamkritam took over an hour a couple of days back. Had a trial version of Abbey FineReader 8.0, but its UI is a bit clumsy, so i took the hard way out.

Last morning, i was browsing a recent issue of Newsweek (the one that had The Most Dangerous Place on Earth on the cover) and ran into this article:

How To Make The Cell Phone Into A Portable Scanner

Florida lawyer Rick Georges, a self-described gadget guy, had what he calls a "eureka moment" about a year ago on a flight. "I was in a scrunchy little seat, and the jerk in front of me put his seat all the way back so I couldn't open my laptop completely," he says. Unable to work, Georges started leafing through articles in magazines and fiddling with his Treo. Suddenly he remembered a Web-based service he had read about, ScanR.com, which converts JPEG image files to electronic documents, such as PDFs or Word documents. He used the Treo to photograph an article he wanted to clip. When the plane landed he e-mailed the photographs from his phone to ScanR.com, which quickly e-mailed the images back as PDF attachments that could be searched, e-mailed to clients and colleagues, or filed away in his records. "I just thought, 'Wow. This is the future'."

Oof, if only i had read the article a day earlier :-(

Anyway, i checked out scanR* (five trial conversions free) by sending Swami Vivekananda's XP of Cosmic Consciousness to this email ID:


and got this text: (new-lines removed; hyphens retained; text formatted as in image above)

Swami Vivekananda
63
Experience of Cosmic Consciousness

Knowing Narcn's inherent nature, Sri Ramakrishna instructed him in monistic Vedanta, which teaches tfuit the individual soul and Brahman are identical. One day Naren zvas telling Hazra about Vedanlic nondualism and his unwillingness to accept it. "Can it be," he said, "thal the waler pol is God, Dial the drinking vessel is God, that everything we see and all ojus are God?" Naren laughed scornfully at the idea and Hazra joined in. While they were laughing, Ramakrishna came up to them. "Wfiat arc you two talking about?" he asked Naren affectionately; then, without wailing for an answer, he touched Naren and went into samadhi. Naren related the effect of the touch:

At the marvellous touch of the Master, my mind underwent a com¬plete revolution. I was aghast to realize that there really was nothing whatever in the entire universe but God. I remained silent, wondering how long this state of mind would continue. It didn't pass off all day. I got back home, and I felt just the same there; everything I saw was God. I sat down to eat, and I saw that everything — the plate, the food, my mother who was serving it, and I myself — everything was God and nothing else but God. I swallowed a couple of mouthfuls and then sat still without speaking. My mother asked me lovingly: "Why are you so quiet? Why don't you eat?" That brought me back to everyday con¬sciousness, and I began eating again. But, from then on, I kept having the same experience, no matter what I was doing — eating, drinking, sitting; lying down, going to college, strolling along the street. It was a kind of intoxication; I can't describe it. If I was crossing a street and saw a carriage coming towards me I didn't have the urge, as I would ordinarily, to get out of its way for fear of being run over. For I said to myself: "I am that carriage. There's no difference between it and me." During that time, I had no sensation in my hands or my feet. When I ate food, I felt no satisfaction from it; it was as if someone else was eating. Sometimes I would lie down in the middle of a meal, and then get up again after a few minutes and go on eating. Thus it happened that on those days I would eat far more than usual, but this never upset me. My mother became alarmed; she thought I was suffering from some terrible disease. "He won't live long," she'd say.

When that first intoxication lost part of its power, I began to see the world as though it were in a dream. When I went for a walk around Cornwallis Square [now Azadhind Bag], I used to knock my head against the iron railings to find out if they were only dream-railings or real ones. The loss of feeling in my hands and feet made me afraid that I was going to be paralyzed. When I did at last return to normal

Pretty awesome, n'est-ce pas?

scanR also rates the document's quality with a quality number. In this case, it was 98.

You can also convert whiteboards and business cards!

* Too many folks are aping Flickr nowadays, though there's a small possibility that scanR is named after The R Document by Irving Wallace ;-)