The WalMartization of the Net

Or, Druid and Googoliath

This is a continuation of Copyleft.

The other day, in response to an AWAD, i was feeling lucky for "Suzanne White Aries Pig" and ended up here.

All five pages of the Aries Pig in The New Astrology are right there on Google Books. So why should i bother buying them, when they are available free?!

The New Astrology is the sort of book that comes probably once a generation. One reviewer says: (from The AquaMonk)

This book is so spot on it scares me. I have a lot of books about Chinese astrology which are definitely more detailed but this combination of Western and Eastern astrology gives a short description of each sign which is totally enough. I like the way the book is structured. Each sign, for example Leo/Tiger or Virgo/Pig is described on 4-5 pages which is perfect for a quick and playful reading. This sounds superficial, but Suzanne White is so accurate that people think I'm making it up when I read theirs out loud. … Suzanne White is really good in recognizing and describing this. The way she writes might seem a bit casual but it's not. She's better than some more "serious" written books on this subject translated from Chinese into English. Just buy it and compare it with your friends and you'll know what I'm talking about.

So how does Suzanne White, who created this magnificent tome, benefit from retaining the online rights for the same when Google Books is making most of it available online free?

What comes to mind is this equation:

Mom & Pop Stores vs. WalMart = Suzanne White vs. Google Books

Ashté.

Caught Lapping

Caught Lapping, Redux

While cycling around Palm Meadows last morning, saw this unusual sight of a cat knocking off the last bit of milk from a packet; it might have either nicked it itself or found it so. But it polished it off, though it was torn between the milk and me (time to run?) :-)

Henri Cartier-Bresson said:

A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

Saw this on my first cycling loop of Palm Meadows; went back home and got the DigiCam. When i came back, thankfully the moment was still there.

Here's another instance:

Caught Lapping

మ్యుజ్లి for ముసలితనం

Am busy with the shifting of Swananda.org to a different server, so here's a quick post.

Commenting on the vitiating habits of the What Next generation, Swami cautions in an amazingly alliterative allusion: [it's in Telugu, but watch the ము (mu) at the start]

ముందన్నది ముసలితనమనే ముసళ్ళపండగ
Ahead lies a croc fest called old age

My solution for that: muesli. Check out its health benefits:

All the main ingredients of muesli are considered important elements of a healthy diet:

• A diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of cancer and other age-related diseases, and a serving of muesli can contain one or two servings of fresh fruit.
• Oat products have been shown to help lower high blood cholesterol concentration (hypercholesterolemia) and thereby reduce the risk of arteriosclerosis.
• Products made from whole oat and wheat grains are rich in fibre and essential trace elements.
• Some types of nuts (especially walnuts) are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which are associated with many health benefits, including the development of the nervous system.
• Milk products, often served with muesli, are a rich source of calcium and protein.
• The fruits that are in Muesli, as well as the oats are a source of fiber as well.

The low glycemic index of muesli without added sugar or honey helps with diabetes control.

I am a fiend for this brand so much so that the Food Zone guys at Marathahalli have made a joke of it and send me 4-5 pieces whenever they receive a delivery.

Bagrry's Hi Fibre - Lo Cal Muesli

24 Season 5

Last night, we finally wrapped up 24 Season 5. Though it comes on AXN, we don't enjoy watching 24 on anything other than those power-packed DVDs ;-) The best part is that we get it free from one of WiFi's colleagues.

Each night is an ordeal; when do we stop?! One night, we watched 24 Season 3 till 3 AM.

Seeing Jack Bauer in action is great fun; some of his mannerisms remind me of the Stag in Madame Rosette:

'Thank you', said Stag. 'Thank you very much.' Stuffy noticed that the Stag was being polite. There was always trouble for somebody when he was like that. Back in the squadron, when he was leading a flight, when they sighted the enemy and when there was going to be a battle, the Stag never gave an order without saying 'Please' and he never received a message without saying 'Thank you.' He was saying 'Thank you' now to Abdul.

and:

'Quiet,' said the Stag. 'Quiet!' and the second time he shouted it as a command. The talking stopped.

'Mesd'moiselles,' he said, and now he became polite. He talked to them in his best way and when the Stag was polite there wasn't anyone who didn't take it. It was an extraordinary thing because he could make a kind of smile with his voice without smiling with his lips. His voice smiled while his face remained serious. It was a most forcible thing because it gave people the impression that he was being serious about being nice.

Loved the name of the Russian Prez, Suvarov, as well; that was the same one in The SoB:

Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds.

Anyway, what we all liked was the manner is which the last episode of Season 5 ends: without any sentimentality. After all those heroics, Jack Bauer is knocked out and shipped off to China.

In Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (on IMDb), Tony Palmer says:

His films are often thought to be without pity. That's a good quality, it seems to me because he is saying, "We are like this. We are hopeless, muddled, fallible, desperate, needing-love human beings." In the end, I think that's what is the central quality of his films. He tells us about human beings as we are, not as we'd like to imagine we are.

Today is the 80th birth anniversary of Stanley Kubrick.

"I Walk the High Wire"

Philippe Petit in "Man on Wire"

What a joy it is to see this review of Man on Wire in the New York Times: (requires free subscription)

On the morning of Aug. 7, 1974, after months of preparation and years of dreaming, a French daredevil named Philippe Petit stepped into the sky above Lower Manhattan. For almost 45 minutes he ambled back and forth on a metal cable strung between the towers of the World Trade Center, a feat of illegal tightrope walking that, according to a New York Police Department sergeant who recounted Mr. Petit’s act of physical poetry in dry press-conference prose, would more aptly be described as dancing.
…
But it is also worth recalling that the trade center inspired more love posthumously than while it stood. Mr. Petit was an exception. A zealous, daring wire walker — the French word funambule is a more lyrical, as well as a somewhat more ridiculous-sounding term — he conceived a passion for the structures even before they were built.

As he recalls it (and as Mr. Marsh imagines the scene in one of many witty, unobtrusive re-enactments), the young Mr. Petit was flipping through a magazine at a doctor’s office when he saw an article about plans to construct the two tallest skyscrapers in the world side by side at the bottom of Manhattan. In his mind, and then in a series of sketches and diagrams, he drew a simple line connecting the buildings and imagined himself perched atop it.

Remember reading that wonderful book section in the Reader's Digest titled I Walk the High Wire, the story of Philippe Petit walking across the twin towers. Some of the things that are still up there in the old at-tic:

• At one point during the walk, his windcheater flies off one of the towers and the crowd below thinks that Mr. Petit has fallen off the wire. It's a long way down, 110 floors.
• Mr. Petit lying down on the wire and then getting up. Just imagining that gives me the heebie-jeebies.
• The co-author's name: a chap called John Reddy (at Sea Sands, we found that name quite amusing).
• Mr. Petit saying: "When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk."

To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers

Hyper-dole

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce

Gopa's latest post, Zillions are worth Zilch in Zimbabwe, apart from being very nicely alliterative, reminded me of this monster USD bill: (page 34 of The Book of Lists)

Largest USD Bill

What's the equation between this bill and the Zimbabwean dollar? As of the time of this post, it is:

100,000 US Dollar = 3,328,814,466,000,000 Zimbabwe Dollar

Reva, The Leaping One

Wrt yesterday's post, it's not just the gurus, with their abyssal looks, that pause my mind.

Narmada, the River Mother, does the same thing to me. Was thinking about that, when my youngest bro, who was visiting us for a day, was asking how the Reva electric car was doing.

Wonder how many folks are aware that that's one of the names of the river. In The Soul of India—a Narmada travelogue in the APR.2000 issue of Sanctuary Asia magazine, we read: (page 48, middle)

The Narmada river has been portrayed as a strong-willed virgin who, with quicksilver movements, escapes all the advances of heavenly princes. That's why she is also called 'Rewa', the leaping one. This waterfall at Beraghat near Jabalpur is one of the largest on the Narmada.

Reva, i aver
Narmada, a dam ran

FP Analysis

श्री सच्चिदानन्द सदगुरु साईनाथ महाराज की जय

Ah, what a joy it is to read chapters 18-19 of the Shri Sai Satcharita. It's a real pity that, unlike the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, there's so little of Shirdi Sai Baba actually saying something in this venerable book. So whenever He says anything, i enjoy it with great relish. For instance, his benediction to Hemadpant:

"My method is quite unique. Remember well, this one story, and it will be very useful. To get the knowledge (realization) of the Self, Dhyana (meditation) is necessary. If you practice it continuously, the Vrittis (thoughts) will be pacified. Being quite desireless, you should meditate on the Lord, Who is in all the creatures, and when the mind is concentrated, the goal will be achieved. Meditate always on My formless nature, which is knowledge incarnate, consciousness and bliss. If you cannot do this, meditate on My Form from top to toe as you see here night and day. As you go on doing this, your Vrittis will concentrate on one point and the distinction between the Dhyata (meditator), Dhyana (act of meditation), Dhyeya (this meditated upon) will be lost and the meditator will be one with the Consciousness and be merged in the Brahman. The (mother) tortoise is on one bank of the river, and her young ones are on the other side. She gives neither milk, nor warmth to them. Her mere glance gives them nutrition. The young ones do nothing, but remember (meditate upon) their mother. The tortoise glance is, to the young ones, a down-pour of nectar, the only source of sustenance and happiness. Similar is the relation, between the Guru and disciples."

That's what i feel when i see or think of this photo of Ramana: The mind stops.

From a very recent gnote:

Eckhart quotes Ramana occasionally. The one I remember is when Ramana was asked how does one gauge their own spiritual progress. Ramana said, by the degree of absence of thought.

Also, as a dear reader commented on Open Sesame:

where your mind find rest...is the guru's place or abode.

Swami near our Pooja Room

Mobile Features I'd Like to See

The other morning, i ran into the PM Cable Guy. He installed Hathway digital cable last August, but the set-top box keeps going on the blink. I asked him to give me a missed call, but he said that he can't as his prepaid card was out of gas.

Indians have made giving a missed call such a fine art: (from Missed Calls - Communication Unlimited in India)

My friend never used to accept a call from home on his mobile without allowing it to ring at least 3 times. He invariably used to lift it only after the fourth ring, in case the call persisted that long. Curious to get to the bottom of this, I once enquired about this odd habit of his, after having caught him in the act. He replied, "There is an unwritten code between me and my family members. If they give me one ring and cut the line, then it means that they I need to call them back immediately. If they hang up after two rings, it is to remind me of something that I was asked to fetch while returning home. In case, my phone rings exactly thrice, then I am expected to call up home at my leisure."

that Mobile Service Providers should support at least one ring, even if the caller is out of balance on his prepaid card.

IDing Junk Calls

While working at MaarsIndia, we developed a very cool feature:

Tell me your mobile number, I'll tell you the time on it!

From the post:

Wikipedia has an awesome database on the telephone numbering plan used in China and India, so we snaffled that into our app as well.

During the parsing of the telephone numbers, we noticed how the numbers panned out:

• +4428: Northern Ireland
• +442871: Londonderry
• +442890: Belfast.

If we had a Belfast number, the parsing function had to ensure that it didn't see the +4428 and jump to the "confusion" that it's just a Northern Ireland number. So, we had to ensure that the For…Next loop parsed the number from the specific to the general and, accordingly, we used a diminishing counter. Like so:

strTelNumDigitsOnly = gfnStripContactNumberToItsDigits(vstrTelNum)
…
For gintCounter = 7 To 2 Step -1
…

Last month, while driving down to the Infosys AGM, AKK and i were discussing junk/telemarketing calls, when i realized that a similar logic could be applied.

If i indicate to my mobile caller ID feature that all calls from the exchange +91.80.6122 are junk, it should alert me accordingly whether i have stored that particular telephone number (+91.80.6122.2777, say) or not as junk.

This will be especially useful since most large companies are moving to a DID sort of system in their offices, thus avoiding me the pain of storing a whole lot of numbers as junk.

Even got a name for that: CID on the DID ;-)

Name-Dropping and Other Silly Ills

The other morning, while cycling around Palm Meadows, i saw that the resident owner of the house was around and i sought his permission to photograph the gorgeous plant that grows outside his door. He said that i could and added: "I have to go for a board meeting".

Since i have stopped working for like two years, that additional bit struck me very much as a non sequitur. Who cares, really? I was thinking about the time when i was working and might have been guilty of the same thing: "I got to go for this meeting with Nandan." I might get screwed in the meeting, but that doesn't prevent me from that bit of name-dropping.

Btw, saw the best excuse for name-dropping in the foreword of The Moon's a Balloon (take-off on Flickr) by David Niven: (paraphrased)

You must excuse the inevitable name-dropping, but it doesn't make much sense to talk of the waiter if Chairman Mao is sitting down for dinner.

Nelson du Monde-la

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
—Inaugural Address of JFK

It's nice that this statesman of the world is having a great 90th birthday celebration (BBC Live: Mandela's birthday).

There's something about him that transcends borders and makes one feel good about Life. For me, he's an instance of someone who became even more famous than the one after whom he might have been named (Horatio Nelson). In the Wiki, we read:

Mandela has frequently credited Mahatma Gandhi for being a major source of inspiration in his life, both for the philosophy of non-violence and for facing adversity with dignity.

From Nelson Mandela Cartoons

I feel it's appropriate that he shares his numerological numbers with Edgar Cayce, my first guru. Both of them are D9C8s and i find them both wonderful.

Suzanne White writes about this Cancer Horse:

The Melancholy Workaholic

The Horse, you may recall, is able to give himself up to a romantic passion and chuck everything—including his self-respect—for the sake of love. Cancer/Horses are, with their Scorpio counterparts, about the most self sacrificing. Love and its vicissitudes, the preservation of a home and kids and pets and insurance policies and telephone bills, can all be capable taken in hand by the Cancer/Horse. When questioned as to why he continues to struggle so hard and so seemingly alone without compassion or cooperation, the Cancer/Horse merely smiles. "It's for Janet. I love her." Or "It's because of the children, my home, my family."

Who Sees?

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/WhoSees

July 17 is roughly the day Sri Ramana Maharshi had the death experience in 1896, which resulted in the realization of the Self.

Found this news item quite intriguing at the end of last month:

CCTV cameras 'taught to listen'

CCTV cameras which use artificial intelligence software are being developed to "hear" sounds like windows smashing, researchers have revealed.
…
The existing software is sophisticated enough to identify minor visual cues such as whether a car aerial is up or more complex activity such as violent behaviour, researchers said.
…
"So, if in a car park someone smashes a window, the camera would turn to look at them and the camera operator would be alerted.

In the late '80s, read that while humans see an image as a number of sub-images (cues), cameras can only see them as one full raster image. It's nice to see the tech catching up. But, of course, it's got a very long way to go.

How are the sub-images that people see converted into a complete image? That was the subject of these pages in an article on the eye in the NatGeoMag of NOV.1992, which had this very detailed illustration on how the eye worked:

Pathways to Perception
(readable image)

To me, the most interesting part was the highlighted stuff at the top right:

If the brain takes the bird apart, why do we see it whole? For vision scientists that remains a most tantalizing puzzle.

Surprisingly i found the answer to this question not in a scientific publication, but in The Power of the Presence, Part Two. It is Consciousness that puts it all back together. Kunju Swami nararates: (page 28, middle)

During one of his visits Sri Bhagavan handed him [Narayana Swami] a sheet of paper on which he had just then completed copying Arunachala Ashtakam. On that particular day some math heads who knew a lot of Vedanta had also come along with a few other devotees. Narayana Swami read the verses out loud at a slow steady pace so that he could follow their meaning and others could hear him. When he came to the film simile in verse six, he asked Sri Bhagavan for clarification as this analogy was not to be found in the ancient vedantic works. After hearing Sri Bhagavan's explanation, he understood the import of the verse and also realised the true state of Bhagavan. The verse, which explains how the mind creates the world, goes as follows:

You alone exist, O Heart, the radiance of awareness! In You a mysterious power dwells, a power which without You is nothing. From it [this power of manifestation] there proceeds, along with a perceiver, a series of subtle shadowy thoughts that, lit by the reflected light of the mind amid the whirl of prarabdha, appear within us as a shadowy spectacle of the world and appear without as the world perceived by the five senses as a film is projected through a lens. Whether perceived or unperceived, these [thoughts] are nothing apart from You, O Hill of Grace.

So it's Consciousness that's making us see, but we get the impression that we are.

More and more, one's convinced of that wonderful discussion between Sri Ramakrishna and Hari Prasanna: (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Chapter 22, also used in The Sport of God)

MASTER: "This world is the līlā of God. It is like a game. In this game there are joy and sorrow, virtue and vice, knowledge and ignorance, good and evil. The game cannot continue if sin and suffering are altogether eliminated from the creation.
…
HARI: "But this play of God is our death."

MASTER (smiling): "Please tell me who you are. God alone has become all this-māyā, the universe, living beings, and the twenty-four cosmic principles. 'As the snake I bite, and as the charmer I cure.' It is God Himself who has become both vidyā and avidyā. He remains deluded by the māyā of avidyā, ignorance. Again, with the help of the guru, He is cured by the māyā of vidyā, Knowledge."

T*ware

Looking at this Tupperware lid, i was reminded of some playing around with names in the early 2000s, when i was a big fan of the Palm PDA.

Here are some variants of the Tupperware name, useful in various areas: (descriptions are of my whimsy)

• Tapperware
• Tepperware, for anger management
  
• Tipperware, for managing income on the side in restaurants and other places of service
  
• Topperware, for preparing for the IIT-JEE
  
• Typperware, for improving spelling.

Revisiting Old Wilma

It's the birthday of my elder sis, Vimala. My kid used to call her Aunt Vilma, due to some reason. Appropriately, i paid a visit to Old Wilma in Her temple at Varthur.

Mariamman at Varthur

She was gorgeous as ever, in a pink saree (the photo above is from an earlier visit). I sat down for a while and the priest Ayyappanayya suddenly started off:

It'll all be finished in 4-5 years.

He was, of course, referring to 2012—End of the World as we know it.

Last December, i had blogged about my meeting the priest:

Due to some reason, he started talking of the predictions of Veera Brahmam (Wikipedia), the Telugu mystic who was a contemporary of Nostradamus:

• Women would go around with handbags (what a thought that must have been in 16th-century India)
  
• Folks would have to dig deep for water
• A match-box of rice would cost INR 10!
  

Today he gave me some more of those predilections:

• Buildings will become tombs, as no one will have the energy to get up and bury the dead. Please see my very first end time vision: sai baba as well.
  
• Kids will be saved, but one in Madras and one in Mysore (while the British use understatement, Indians are prone to use exaggeration in humor and elsewhere). They will be the ones who will take humanity forward.
  
• Folks devoted to the Old Mother would be protected by Her. All those who love Her would be kept close to Her, while She would allow the others to be dragged away by the యమ కింకరులు (workers of Lord Yama). When i wondered whether this was before or after death, he said, like Sri Ramakrishna, that the body was nothing more than a pillow case and of no importance; without the గాలి (air) it was nothing more than a కట్టె (piece of wood) and that we was referring to all this happening after death.

If there's one person who's even more sure of 2012 than me, it's this guy!

He was indifferent to my wanting to "take the dust off his feet", saying that my bowing down to the Mother was enough. Every time i meet him, my respect and love for him only increase.

Ayyappanayya at Mariamman Temple, Varthur

Marked Basket Analysis

Underground nuclear testing, defoliation of the rain forests, toxic waste ... Let's put it this way: if the world were a big apartment, we wouldn't get our deposit back.
—John Ross

Trashin' Palm Meadows

It's amazing how much trash gets generated in Palm Meadows on a daily basis. This pile was at the head of Avenue 1.

In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck mentions how one could figure out the preferences of buyers by poking through their garbage, a different type of Market Basket Analysis ;-)

He goes on to say: (page 25 of the Mandarin edition)

American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash—all of them—surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered with rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountains of things we thow away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index. Driving along I thought how in France or Italy every item of these thrown-out things would have been saved and used for something. This is not said in criticism of one system or the other but I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness—chemical wastes in the rivers, metal wastes everywhere, and atomic wastes buried deep in the earth or sunk in the sea.

See the following as well:

• Progressive Destruction
• Gyre and Jumble.

Muslim Devotees of Sri Ramakrishna

On his stay in Thailand, Suratkar used to say:

Shastri, there's nothing exceptional if we become devotees of Swami. We have been brought up in a similar cultural milieu.

I used to see people in Thailand whose lives started turning for the better once they got into the fold of Swami and they gave up eating beef and pork, smoking, and drinking. They are the real devotees of Swami.

On similar lines, here are two Muslim devotees of Sri Ramakrishna from the chapter on Swami Shivananda in God Lived with Them. Swami Shivananda narrates on the first one: (page 160, middle)

A Muslim whom I met in Cuddapah is so highly esteemed that he received the title of Khan Bahadur from the British Government. He belongs to the Sufi sect of Islam, but is very devoted to the Master. In Cuddapah there is a little ashrama dedicated to Sri Ramakrishna. The Khan Bahadur, the local collector who is also a Muslim, and several others were responsible for founding the ashrama. We stayed there for a few days. Almost every morning and evening I found the Khan Bahadur seated in a corner of the shrine room in deep humility, intently looking at the portrait of the Master on the altar. He is convinced that the Prophet Muhammad was born as Sri Ramakrishna for the good of the world.

and, on the second, he says: (pp. 165-166)

One year I visited the Nilgiri Hills. Learning that I was there, a Muslim doctor and his family came all the way from Bombay to see me. After inquiry I found that he was a famous physician in Bombay who had been educated in England and had a very good practice. He was accompanied by his wife and two sons, who were very handsome in appearance.

In the course of conversation the doctor said to me, "We have come to see you, but my wife is particularly eager to speak to you." Saying this, he moved to the adjoining room. His wife saluted me with great devotion, and disclosed many intimate things relating to her spiritual life. Since childhood she has been a devotee of Krishna. She worships the child Krishna and occasionally has visions of him. After reading the Master's life and teachings she has become very much devoted to him. It is her conviction that her chosen deity, Krishna, has been born again as Ramakrishna.

I noticed that she has profound love and devotion for the Master. She is quite intense in her spiritual practices, and the Master has blessed her in many ways. When taking leave of me, she knelt down and bowed to me, saying, "Please bless me by touching my head with your hand. You had the blessed privilege of associating with Sri Ramakrishna, and you were blessed by him. Please touch my head with the hand that once touched Sri Ramakrishna." And how she wept! I said to myself again and again: "Glory be unto the Lord! Blessed is Thy power."

وحدة الوجود

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxWaW

Am always drawn to the Sufi way of Life, whether it's Rumi or Moinuddin Chisti. To me, Shirdi Sai Baba is the acme of Sufism.

Read a very inspiring Speaking Tree article on Moinuddin Chisti last night:

The magic of Ajmer Sharif

While his own simple life was a living example of all that he believed in, his teachings reflect a rare compassion for all, transcending all barriers. He would say: "Develop river-like generosity, sun-like affection and earth-like hospitality."
…
A true friend of God must learn to be as generous as the river that does not discriminate between good and bad, belief and disbelief. A true friend of God must develop sun-like affection for all. Doesn’t the sun bestow its light and warmth on all, irrespective of divisions made by man?

Unless we’re generous and compassionate, we would continue chasing shadows, getting deluded all the time. Mother Earth cradles us all in her lap, generous to a fault, giving all to her children. Only when we emulate this quality can we curb our acquisitive nature and become loving and giving, believed the Khwaja. Only then would the Wahdut-ul-Wujud—Unity of Being—be realised here.

Was wondering where i had heard that phrase before, but couldn't place it.

Today, it suddenly popped up in The Life and Teachings of Sai Baba of Shirdi. After describing this incident from Chapter 9 (end of it) of the Shri Sai Satcharita: (page 86, bottom)

Baba Fed Sumptuously, -- How?

Once, Mrs. Tarkhad was staying in a certain house in Shirdi. At noon, meals were ready and dishes were being served, when a hungry dog turned up there and began to cry, Mrs. Tarkhad got up at once and threw a piece of bread, which the dog gulped with great relish. In the afternoon, when she went to the Masjid and sat at some distance, Sai Baba said to her, "Mother, you have fed Me sumptuously up to my throat, My afflicted pranas (life-forces) have been satisfied. always act like this, and this will stand you in good stead. Sitting in this Masjid I shall never, never speak untruth. Take pity on Me like this. First give bread to the hungry, and then eat yourself. Note this well." She could not at first understand the meaning of what Baba said. So she replied -- "Baba, how could I feed You? I am myself dependent on others and take my food from them on payment." Then Baba replied -- "Eating that lovely bread I am heartily contended and I am still belching. The dog which you saw before meals and to which you gave the piece of bread is, one with Me, so also other creatures (cats, pigs, flies, cows etc.) are one with Me. I am roaming in their forms. He, who sees Me in all these creatures is My beloved. So abandon the sense of duality and distinction, and serve Me, as you did today." Drinking these nectar-like words, she was moved, her eyes were filled with tears, her throat was choked and her joy knew no bounds.

it goes on to say: (page 87, middle)

Thus, Baba expressed the Indian Sufi ideal of wahdat ul-wujud, the unity of all beings, divine and human. As the Turk says in verse 11 of Eknath's Hindu-Turk Samvad, "Allah, you exist everywhere…you are the seeing and the seen…the knower and the known…you are life and the giver of life…you are the alms that fill the stomach and take away sin."

Sai Baba's experience of oneness exemplifies equally well the metaphysical principles of advaita-vedanta, that is, the identity atman-Brahman of the Upanishads. Sai left no space for theories: the dog is Baba and Baba is the dog.

When Numerology Really Helped Me

Last evening, there was a message from a person about how his investment in a residential complex was turning out painful. I did a quick analysis of the name of the residential complex and it turned out to be 53. No wonder! I responded:

I wouldn't 'ouch an 8 (5+3) with a bargepole.

That reminded me of the instances when numerology really came in handy:

• When i got the ESOP from Infosys
• When we invested in Palm Meadows.

Still remember that evening of 23.NOV (Swami's b'day) in 1994, a Wednesday, when Nandan and AKK called RSR, HPR, and me into the far conference room at Pink Building. I didn't know this ESOP thing from Adam then, but RSR held forth on what a great thing that Infosys was doing. After a while, Nandan gave him a look as if wondering when RSR would shut up. I got a multiple of 8, the same number as RSR.

No way was i going to take that number. Later, I asked Nandan whether i could take a multiple of 720; CPKK used to say that 720 was the number of Kubera and that it was always a good idea to open a bank account with a multiple of 720. I could take only a multiple of 100, Nandan said. And that's what i did. When i was giving in the document, MDPai said that i was crazy not to take the entire lot. I said it was OK; i had that choice, n'est-ce pas?

As it turned out, both HPR and i cashed while RSR, who was giving all that spiel, couldn't. Needless to say, he opted for the entire number he was given.

So, even though i might be fooling around with numerology for fun, you never know when it might come in really handy, in the absence of other info in taking a decision. As we found when we invested in Palm Meadows when everyone thought it was so far away (blogged here).

Preening Insect

Wednesdays are my lucky days!

Was cycling when i almost ran over this lovely iridescent insect preening itself on Avenue 2.

Preening Insect on Avenue 2

Two Wonderful XPs

Was in a blue funk with the six-monthly cold hitting me in the morning. However, reading these two XPs lifted my spirits.

The first, from the Shri Sai Satcharita, illustrates the great compassion of Shirdi Sai Baba: (Chapter 7)

Mrs. Khaparde, the wife of Mr. Dadasaheb Khaparde of Amraoti, was staying at Shirdi with her young son for some days. One day the son got high fever, which further developed into Bubonic plague. The mother was frightened and felt most uneasy. She thought of leaving the place for Amraoti, and went near Baba in the evening, when He was coming near the Wada (now Samadhi Mandir) in His evening rounds, for asking His permission. She informed Him in a trembling tone, that her dear young son was down with plague. Baba spoke kindly and softly to her, saying that the sky is beset with clouds; but they will melt and pass off and everything will be smooth and clear. So saying, He lifted up His Kafni up to the waist and showed to all present, four fully developed bubos, as big as eggs, and added, "See, how I have to suffer for My devotees; their difficulties are Mine." Seeing this unique and extraordinary deed (Leela), the people were convinced as to how the Saints suffer pains for their devotees. The mind of the saints is softer than wax, it is soft, in and out, as butter. They love their devotees without any idea of gain, and regard them as their true relatives.

The second one was from God Lived with Them: (chapter 3 on Swami Shivananda, page 162, middle)

During his brief stay in Deoghar, Shivananda caught a chill that developed into a bad cold accompanied by asthmatic spells. One night the swami could not sleep. The next morning, in spite of his sickness, he cheerfully greeted everyone as usual. He told them his experience:

"I suffered a great deal last night. I felt almost suffocated. The passages of my nose became stopped up because of my cold, and the asthma was very much worse. I did not feel at ease whether sitting, reclining, or lying down…. Gradually i felt as if all my senses would stop and life would leave the body. Being at a loss what to do, I started meditating. It being the meditation of an old man [which came from his lifelong practice], my mind soon became absorbed within. I noticed then that there was no pain or suffering and the mind became quiet and placid. The storm and stress of the outer world could not reach there. After remaining in that state awhile my mind came down to the external world."

Curious, a monk asked: "What is that, Maharaj?" The swami replied: "That is the atman." Shivananda's experience substantiates this verse of the Katha Upanishad: "The Purusha, not larger than a thumb, the inner Self, always dwells in the hearts of men. Let a man separate him from his body with steadiness, as one separates the tender stalk from a blade of grass. Let him know that Self as the Bright, as the Immortal" (2.3.17)

It's interesting that both of them have to do with diseases more serious than the common cold :-)

Ishtha, Nishtha

While cycling around Palm Meadows this morning, was pleasantly surprised by this sight between villas 379 & 380 in Phase Two.

Reach for the Sky

Something about it was niggling me; got it later through this allusion of Sri Ramakrishna: [The Master with the Brahmo Devotees (II), page 222, bottom]

"If people feel sincere longing, they will find that all paths lead to God. But one should have nishtha, single-minded devotion. It is also described as chaste and unswerving devotion to God. It is like a tree with only one trunk shooting straight up. Promiscuous devotion is like a tree with five branches."

Water collects only in the Valley

The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative and the second is disastrous.
—Margot Fonteyn

It was nice to read this first thing in the morning on Sunday.

"Writers are always hungry"—Amitav Ghosh

"I've visited Bangalore many times", Ghosh continues. "The streets are more crowded now. Bangaloreans are very humble. At one of my book readings, a man standing at the back row came up to me and introduced himself as Nandan Nilekani", he recalls, as the prawns with curry leaves is served.

This was one more thing i used to like about Nandan: take your work seriously, not yourself. Even his signature reflects his humble a++itude.

At the start of this month, there was a news item:

Wimbledon: Women stars hit out at disrespect in show court schedule

The Williams sisters and Jelena Jankovic have accused Wimbledon chiefs of disrespect by not placing them on the tournament's top courts.

Federer had a very clear view on that: (end of the same article)

Federer told the girls to belt up and stop whinging.

He rapped: "Pete (Sampras) played on Court Two after winning seven years.

"Who deserves what here? It's the club who decides in the end. You know, we're happy to be playing here. They can put us at Aorangi or Roehampton if they want to, but we have to accept the fact.

"Going back on Court Two, sometimes it's also kind of cool. You're closer to the crowds. It's kind of a different feeling out there.

"I understand there's a little bit of disappointment maybe, but I don't think it has anything to do with disrespect."

Even Sri Ramakrishna had to go through a similar XP, but he dealt with it with the wonderful maturity of the AquaMonk: [The Master with the Brahmo Devotees (II), page 221, middle]

The worship was over. Most of the devotees went downstairs or to the courtyard for fresh air while the refreshments were being made ready. It was about nine o'clock in the evening. The hosts were so engrossed with the other invited guests that they forgot to pay any attention to Sri Ramakrishna.

MASTER (to Rakhal and the other devotees): "What's the matter? Nobody is paying any attention to us!"

RAKHAL (angrily): "Sir, Let us leave here and go to Dakshineswar."

MASTER (with a smile): "Keep quiet! The carriage hire is three rupees and two annas. Who will pay that? Stubbornness won't get us anywhere. You haven't a penny, and you are making these empty threats! Besides, where shall we find food at this late hour of the night?"

After a long time dinner was announced. The devotees were asked to take their seats. The Master, with Rakhal and the others, followed the crowd to the second floor. No room could be found for him inside the hall. Finally, with great difficulty, a place was found for him in a dusty corner. A brahmin woman served some curry, but Sri Ramakrishna could not eat it. He ate luchi with salt and took some sweets.

There was no limit to the Master's kindness. The hosts were mere youngsters; how could he be displeased with them, even though they did not show him proper respect? Further, it would have been inauspicious for the household if a holy man had left the place without taking food. Finally the feast had been prepared in the name of God.

Sri Ramakrishna got into a carriage: but who was to pay the hire? The hosts could not be found. Referring to this incident afterwards, the Master said to the devotees, jokingly: "The boys went to our hosts for the carriage hire. First they were put out, but at last they managed to get together three rupees. Our hosts refused to pay the extra two annas and said, 'No, that will do.' "

Suggested reading:

Soul Curry: To Baba, with love

in the Times Life section of yesterday's SToI.

Born on the Sixth of July

When His Holiness The Dalai Lama met George "Son of a" Bush last October, wonder whether they knew that they share the same birthday (today, on July 6).

Autonomy Not a Stepping Stone for Independence: Dalai Lama
U.S. President George W. Bush (L) looks at the Capitol Rotunda with Dalai Lama during the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to Dalai Lama at a ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington October 17, 2007. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES)

Pissed Mutt

Wizard of Id on 06.JUL.2008

Heard a variation on this a long time back:

An ardent golfer does not find anyone to accompany him to the course on a particular day. Finally, a priest volunteers.

Every time he misses a putt, the golfer swears: "Missed the phucking b@stard". The priest is uncomfortable and keeps warning him that God would get angry. But the golfer, being unlettered, is undeterred and continues with the litany with each missed putt.

Soon, the day turns stormy and the priest can't help smirking when lightning fills the sky. Suddenly there's a flash very close and the priest is fried to a crisp.

Along with the rolling thunder come the words:

Missed the phucking b@stard!

Copyleft

A couple of months ago, ran into a Q&A with Suzanne White where she made a point of great foresight:

For years, I have been trying to convince author friends not to sell their electronic rights. I have made many book contracts in my life in many countries and languages. I have never allowed any publisher to own my electronic rights. In the old days, (70's and 80's before the Net) they were called "audio-visual rights". I always had the feeling they might one day be valuable. So I routinely kept them.

So when i saw The New Astrology in Google Books, i pinged her, to which she responded:

Thank you Sastré. I once informed Google they should not use my content online. The Authors Guild here in the States has a lawsuit with them on the subject of copyright. Authors Guild claims the copyright belongs to the author. The publisher usually ignores that and gives Google the right to use the books and to print text from the books.

But in my case, the publisher doesn't own the electronic rights. I do.
…

My own response to copyright is quite laid back. Though other bloggers have copyrighted their stuff, i don't feel the need to do so. I think Ramana's admonition as to who does the work weighs heavily on me. So i replied accordingly:

For what it's worth, i have a liberal attitude to copyrights. You might call me a copyleft-ist!

I will attribute all the stuff of others properly, but i am lax about my own stuff being used by others. In our philosophy of Advaita, the question is indeed who does things. Ultimately, we believe it is the Great Infinite Spirit that does things; it's just that we get the feeling that we have done it.

Though one is not yet 100% there, one would like to keep moving on that path. Hopefully, one can advance from one-sigma (~70%) to two-sigma (~95%) and three-sigma (~99.5%).

Guess it's not surprising that i share my b'day with Tim Berners-Lee, the chap who created the www. If he had copyrighted that, folks say there would have been many mini-webs, but not the wonderful one that we see now.

Suzanne White had a very clear-cut response to that, which i couldn't help but appreciate:

If I were Asian and had studied so much as a smidgen of philosophy, I might be more like you.
…
Copyright ensures we get paid for what we do. No matter how spiritual we are, we must eat and feed our families. We don't have any other way to make a living.

So bye bye Great Spiritual Being and hello Authors Guild.

So i pointed her to David Pogue's:

The e-Book Test: Do Electronic Versions Deter Piracy?

to which she e-mailed:

Thanks Sastré... David Pogue's forthcoming results are already suspected by my little self because I sell my books as e-books and have been doing so for 4 years. I know about giving away books as opposed to selling them.

He and a bunch of other authors (Paul Coelho, for example) are trying this giveaway approach. It is far from stupid to imagine that your hard copy book sales will increase if you give away e-books. I even like the idea and (if I didn't have my own successful bookstore on my web site) I might do it too.

The rub is (and I cannot stress this point enough) that publishers never report what they sell. Perhaps they do tell more or less the truth when they are dealing with a very popular, rich author who (in case he or she doubted the sales reports) might change publishers or audit or even sue them.

But for backlisted best-selling authors such as myself who are not rich and have been on their books for over 20 years, publishers somehow manage to sell a suspiciously similar quantity of books every six months and send me a similar check each time.

Can't imagine that even popular authors like Suzanne have this issue.

My Dad wrote a book on thermodynamics based on his university class notes and all the Macmillan guys ever paid him was INR 1,000!

Note: Post published with the consent of Suzanne White.

Ecstacy?

Unusual to see the world's local bank goofing up on the spelling of ecstasy. Might be due to that …stacy at the end ;-)

I use a crossword clue to remember that there are two Ss and one C and not the other way around:

Yes, cats might produce such a feeling in some people (7)

Save the planet?

Or, Human Hubris

Last November, there was a ToI article by Jug Suraiya that:

Not the planet, it's only we who will perish

Science and nature commentator Oliver Morton in a thought-provoking book What is your dangerous idea? (Wiki) has cogently argued that climate change—which, unlike George Bush, he in no way denies—is not threatening the existence of the planet.

"A planet that made it through the massive biogeochemical unpleasantness of the late Permian (a geological period about 290 to 240 million years ago) is in little danger from a doubling (or even quintupling) of the very low carbon dioxide level that preceded the Industrial Revolution, or from the loss of a lot of forests and reefs, or from the demise of half its species, or from the thinning of its ozone layer", he asserts.

But while the planet is pretty safe, we are far from being so. Morton acknowledges that many hundreds of millions of people—particularly those in poorer, agrarian countries—might die as polar ice melts, seas rise and inundate coastal areas and a cycle of floods and droughts is set into motion, pushing humanity as a whole to the verge of extinction.

Saw a stunning riff by George Carlin on the same idea today:



If you can't view the above video, check here, where i saw it first.

popCorn on the Fourth of July

News of Clint the Flint's "little soldier" last month didn't make much sense. Looks like the Two Chicks Chatting are catty and in cahoots.

Anyway, that reminded me of this amusing one from Michael "Frighten" Crichton's Travels (in Google Books). After their Land Rover overheats, they top up the radiator and wait for the engine to cool, when some Masai kids come over. Crichton narrates: (chapter on Baltistan, page 230, middle)

They watched all this with the polite solemnity that I had learned to expect from Africans, and after a while we got used to one another. I sat on the seat of the car with the door open, facing out, and I stared at the kids, and they stared back. And it was like that for a while, and I daydreamed, and when my attention returned I noticed that they were behaving oddly. One after another, they would bend over, and twist their heads, and look at me sideways.

At first I thought it was a game. I smiled.

They didn't smile back; they just did this odd sideways looking. And they chattered among themselves.

And then I got it: they were trying to look up my shorts. They had seen I was very tall* and they were curious about whether everything was in proportion.

* 6'9"

Massively Passive

A thing i am liking nowadays is the usage of the passive voice.

When i was writing a user manual for IBM Lidingö, one thing they used to stress on was the usage of the active voice in documentation. The idea was that users like the direct approach. Might be true, but what's good for the gander (cyberspace) ain't good enough for the goose (real life).

When one says:

This thing wasn't done,

it's much nicer than saying:

You didn't do this thing.

This is very much in sync with my idea of avoiding conflict nowadays. Peace starts with yourself. Also, it's very useful in situations when i jump to "confusion".

It also helps me to better appreciate this allusion of Sri Ramakrishna: (Visit to Vidyasagar, page 105, middle)

"Even after the attainment of Knowledge this 'I-consciousness' comes up, nobody knows from where. You dream of a tiger. Then you awake; but your heart keeps on palpitating! All our suffering is due to this 'I'. The cow cries, 'Hamba!', which means 'I'. That is why it suffers so much. It is yoked to the plough and made to work in rain and sun. Then it may be killed by the butcher. From its hide shoes are made, and also drums, which are mercilessly beaten. (Laughter.) Still it does not escape suffering. At last strings are made out of its entrails for the bows used in carding cotton. Then it no longer says, 'Hamba! Hamba!', 'I! I!', but 'Tuhu! Tuhu!', 'Thou! Thou!' Only then are its troubles over. O Lord, I am the servant; Thou art the Master. I am the child; Thou art the Mother."

In Praise of Hanlon's Razor

While getting ready to go to the shuttle court early in the morning yesterday, kiddo told me about the cheque that had to be cut for the uniforms. Last-minute stuff always makes me jumpy. As it is, i am an async guy (more in Steinbeck's Knife).

So while walking the kid to the school bus stop, i told him a few things the gist of which was:

Why do folks get angry? It's because they are not in sync with the Is, the current situation. They have an expectation and the current situation is out of sync with that. In reality, it's the other way around. It's they who are out of sync, like i was.

However, you have to cut the other folks some slack, with the help of Hanlon's Razor. This great funda encourages people to:

Never assume malice when stupidity will suffice.

Thus, when someone does something screwy, you'll not get angry, but you only feel sorry for them!

Murphy was an Optimist

Zheng Jie all the way?

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.
—Lao Tzu

Zheng Jie beats top-seeded Ana Ivanovic at Wimbledon

What a pleasure it was to see the diminutive Zheng Jie blow the unsporting Vaidisova off the court in the QF! Here's another prediction: (assuming, of course, that she wins the SF)

Zheng Jie will be the first Chinese to win the women's singles title at Wimbledon.

As well as the first unseeded player to do so.

Her name adds up to 32, one of the luckiest numbers in numerology. And there's a lot of balance in her name, which she's showing on the court as well. Like so: (two 7s adding up to a 5)

zheng jie
75553 115
25 + 7 = 32

The best part, of course, is that she turns 25 on 05.JUL, the day of the women's singles final.

Go, girl!