Curing the Dis-ease

Had an early start to the weekend last morning with it being the working Saturday for WiFi, while i had to take the kids had to their old school for some work. Thankfully, that got over in a jiffy.

They were then getting ready for their school's football match with some other team. Jacobian said that he would pick them up near SKR Kalyana Mantapa. There's a nice little temple there, so i peeked in and was rewarded with this:

Lord V at SKR Kalyana Mantapa

A surprising darshan of Lord V on His day, Saturday. Very nice.

Soon, the kids were away with nary a backward glance and it was like any other weekday for me.

Listened to some awesome old Hindi songs, given to me recently by AKK. I think it was Asha Bhonsle who said that today's songs are written for the eye while the old songs were written for the ear. My Hindi isn't that good, but i just love the old numbers. The feeling is akin to what Morgan "Red" Freeman says of the Italian singers in Shawshank:

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it.

Tried to grab some shut-eye but couldn't get the deep sleep that refreshes me every afternoon. Recently read that that higher levels of cortisol in the afternoon and early evening make one cranky; find that the mid-afternoon siesta, even for half an hour, is the best way to handle that.

Anyway, then went for a couple of rounds of cycling, but i was still feeling out of sorts. Kids came back dog-tired past 7:30 PM and promptly hit the sack. I also tried to, but sleep wouldn't come. Something had gone out of kilter. Got up and watched Morgan Freeman in The Contract.

In Autobiography of a Yogi, PY observes that disease is actually dis-ease. You are ill at ease and it's manifesting in your body, not the other way around.

I pushed that thought some more:

DIS Ease
D IS Ease
The IS Ease
The Infinite Spirit Ease
The Infinite Spirit @ Ease.

The Infinite Spirit is always at ease, while it might appear as disease to us. Because we are not in sync with the present moment, the Is.

IMHO, this dis-ease will not be cured unless one has a mind-altering XP (an NDE or a vision of the Self). As Sri Ramakrishna says so pithily in His usual inimitable, cutting-close-to-the-bone way: (Rules for Householders and Monks, page 405, middle)

Once a thunderbolt struck the Kāli temple. I noticed that it flattened the points of the screws.

The Date Warehouse

Excusez-moi for any perceived చంకల గుద్దుకోవడం

After some awesome games at our shuttle badminton court this morning, i was telling folks about it being Guru's b'day. He was our singles champ in 2005 and used to move like a hurricane on court. That was another reason for remembering his b'day as it was the same day (29.AUG) that Katrina laid low New Orleans in 2005.

Navneet was wondering which Katrina i was referring to: Katrina Kaif?! But, due to the recent Khan bash-up, i was aware of her b'day: 16.JUL. Deepa was zapped; faster than querying a computer, she said.

Naren made an observation: "Shastri remembers the b'day, but not the name". That's true.

At a recent IIM-A get-together, i ran into this guy who looked very familiar and even talked to me in Telugu, but i still couldn't place him. Turned out to be SankarG :-(

Hope he wasn't too miffed with me, but i was with myself. If one can't remember the name of one's own dorm mate, there's something kooky up there. Later, i tried to make amends, by recalling his b'day. I was off by four days, but i would have sworn that it was the same as GLP's and not the same as Thadi's. SankarG was still spooked. After Twenty Years and all that jazz.

Anyway, my b'day memory started getting better, esp. after learning a bit of numerology in the early 1990s.

Sandeep and Shiva joined us at NIIT while we were staying at Crescent Court in 1988. In NOV.2005, i saw him one morning at our shuttle court and IDed him (normally, i don't forget the face). Later, i zapped him some more by mentioning his b'day (05.APR). I had to do a bit of jiggling on the date as i remembered that both Sandeep & Shiva were quite close on that (05.APR & 08.APR). Since 8 guys are a bit jacked, i shot for 05.APR for Sandeep and came out right.

They say:

Happiness is good health and a poor memory.

Guess i've been blessed the other way around.

In the late 1990s, i was trying to build a data warehouse for banking data. One evening after some exchange like the one above, Nandan remarked:

Don't know what this guy is doing on the data warehouse, but he's certainly a date warehouse!

If you tell me your b'day, there's a good chance that i'd remember it all the way till 2045.

Kshemankari

Sri Saradadevi, The Holy Mother

Got this nice little book from Just Books in Whitefield. Started reading it last morning when i was quite struck by footnote 1 on page 18:

It is customary in Bengal to give two names to a baby—one from astrological considerations and the other for calling in daily life. It is said that the astrological name given to the Holy Mother was Thakurmani, and the common name, Kshemankari. At the request of her aunt who had lost a daughter named Sarada, her common name was changed into Sarada, so that the bereaved mother could feel the child's presence in her niece.

What a nice name to be given: Kshemankari, one who creates safety.

In Telugu households, younger folks used to be given the following farewell:

క్షేమంగా వెళ్ళి లాభంగా రా
Go safely and come back profitably

Now her well-known quote:

I am the mother of the righteous, I am the mother of the wicked as well. Never fear. Whenever you are in distress, just say to yourself "I have a mother".

makes even more sense.

Even her astrological name, Thakurmani, is quite intriguing. Sri Ramakrishna is generally known as Thakur (there's a wonderful DVD with that title) and her name literally means the Gem of Thakur.

Sri Ramakrishna once said of the Holy Mother: (Ramakrishna As We Saw Him, page 355, top)

Do you think she is an ordinary woman? She is a part of Saraswati—the goddess of learning—and very intelligent. So she loves to dress herself nicely, since Saraswati is the embodiment of beauty. She is not a common woman—she is my Power.

Movies: Into The Wild

He was one of those who had the wilderness for a pillow and called a star his brother.
—Dag Hammarskjöld

Just got the DVD of Into The Wild. Here are some thoughts that i blogged last September.

Was pleasantly surprised to note that Into the Wild has been turned into a movie and released last Friday (21.SEP).

Briefly, it's about Christopher McCandless, who chucks the modern/materialistic life through the window, tramps around the United States, and ends up living close to Mother Nature in Alaska. Needless to say, Mother Nature is in Her inexorable form out there and soon our hero goes back to Her lap.

The book created a love-it-or-hate-it feeling in readers. One can sort of empathize with Chris as he sets out on an adventure that ends with his death.

Wonder what's there in modern working life? A CEO type said:

I reached the top and found nothing there.

Thoreau observed that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

The worst part is that, after another generation of man finishes its term on Earth, Mother Nature ends up even more screwed up. Check out this allusion by John Ross: (from 2012)

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.

Am not surprised that Chris McCandless, who was born on 12.FEB.1968, is an Aquarius Monkey. He cut to the chase and tried to strike out on the path less traveled. That it didn't pan out is a sad thing, but one has to hand it to him. He had the guts to do it. On the lines of Larry Darrell.

Am reminded of Sri Ramakrishna, another Aquarian Monkey, who didn't mince words when, after coming to Calcutta, his brother gently admonished him and asked him to pay more attention to his studies: (Introduction to The Gospel, pp. 6-7)

"Brother, what shall I do with a mere bread-winning education? I would rather acquire that wisdom which will illumine my heart and give me satisfaction for ever."
…
When Rāmkumār reprimanded Gadādhar for neglecting a "bread-winning education", the inner voice of the boy reminded him that the legacy of his ancestors—the legacy of Rāmā, Krishna, Buddha, Sankara, Rāmānuja, Chaitanya—was not worldly security but the Knowledge of God. And these noble sages were the true representatives of Hindu society. Each of them was seated, as it were, on the crest of the wave that followed each successive trough in the tumultuous course of Indian national life. All demonstrated that the life current of India is spirituality. This truth was revealed to Gadādhar through that inner vision which scans past and future in one sweep, unobstructed by the barriers of time and space.

Why was Sri Ramakrishna successful unlike Chris, his fellow AquaMonk? Because He looked inside rather than outside (if you would excuse the pun on the link).

However, there's that last photograph of Chris: (page 199, bottom, of the book)

One of his last acts was to take a picture of himself, standing near the bus under the high Alaska sky, one hand holding his final note toward the camera lens, the other raised in a brave, beatific farewell. His face is horribly emaciated, almost skeletal. But if he pitied himself in those last difficult hours—because he was so young, because he was alone, because his body had betrayed him and his will had let him down—it's not apparent from the photograph. He is smiling in the picture, and there is no mistaking the look in his eyes: Chris McCandless was at peace, serene as a monk gone to God.

Anyway, can't tell you how glad i am that India opened up in 1991 and not when we were kids.

RIP, dear Venkat

In the 7/7 Kabul explosion, Venkateswara Rao Vadapalli died. Since his name was the same as that of my Dad and he was evidently from AP, i followed the case closely.

Seema Sirohi recalls:

An Officer, A Frontiersman

Armed with tons of verve, V. Venkateswara Rao—Venkat to his friends—was among the best and brightest of the younger generation of Indian diplomats. Never known to say "no" to tough assignments, in fact, courting them with enthusiasm, Venkat had served in Kathmandu, Berlin and Washington before taking up the challenging assignment in Kabul. Many of his friends cautioned him about the job, but fear was not part of his anatomy.

I remember Venkat and his lovely wife Malathi from my days in Washington when I regularly interacted with them both professionally and socially. He would talk enthusiastically about India's growing commercial engagement with the US, weaving in plenty of facts and figures to make his point. He was handling the workload fit for three, given the chronically stretched diplomatic service. But Venkat was always on top of the game, tracking the myriad new initiatives launched in the wake of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit in 2005. He would be prepared with all the position papers and documents, neatly captured in his pen drive. In fact, he introduced me to the concept, patiently explaining its uses in his charming south Indian accent.

Aziz Haniffa reminisces:

Remembering diplomat Venkat Rao
…
When you consider that, at 44, he was a rising star in the Indian Foreign Service when his life was cut so tragically, so pointlessly short leaves you numb. He had so much left to do, so much in him to contribute, when an insane act cut him off in his prime.

I also found out that he was born today (26.AUG) in 1963, which makes him a D8C8, like me. D8C8s inspire me a lot; don't know whether there's something different about them or because they are the same breed as me :-) Some of them are:

• My Dad, who showed me the way to repeatedly do "trivial" things excellently
• Sammy San, who taught me how to live in the present
• Stanley Kubrick, many things on movies and some on life
• Roger Federer and Anil Kumble, on how to be stylish and graceful under stress
• Matt Damon.

To come back to Venkat, Ms. Sirohi concludes:

At parties, Venkat and Malathi were a hit. You could count on Venkat taking the floor if his then favourite number—Keh do na, You are my Sonia—was playing. Locking eyes with Malathi's, he would sing it straight to her, causing much ruckus and a deep red to spread on her cheeks. Now only memories remain.

An Officer, A Frontiersman

RIP, dear Venkat. I didn't know you, but you have touched my life. Guess the Old Mother wanted you back, and cashed in your chips.

Movies: The Good Shepherd

Saw a snippet of The Good Shepherd at Mysore during that fascinating interview with Matt Damon (more in "Just do your work, kid!").

So when i saw it at Mothay Movie Rentals, i checked it over the weekend. One hardly saw any action, but it was all very gripping. Robert De Niro has a fine subdued style as a director. As expected.

The movie is about the Bay of Pigs débâcle at the end of a long career of Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), who hardly ever talks, but carries the film on his broad stooped shoulders. Somewhat like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank.

Some of the stuff that i will remember:

• Angelina Jolie's transformation from a life full of joie de vivre to a harridan
• The abrupt manner in which the bride-to-be of Wilson's son is tossed out of the plane. The only concession to viewers is the gentle wafting of the bride's wedding gown as she goes careening into the forest below. As was said of Stanley Kubrick: His films are often thought to be without pity….

And some of those quotes:

Joseph Palmi: Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the niggers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?
Edward Wilson: The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting.

and:

Richard Hayes: I remember a senator once asked me. When we talk about "CIA" why we never use the word "the" in front of it. And I asked him, do you put the word "the" in front of "God"?

and hitting closer home:

Bill Sullivan: My feet, they're cutting off pieces of them. It’s not dignified for a man to have to die from the feet up.

My rating: 7 on 10.

Oomphics

Well, you got to give it to China, which has ended up as the lord of the five rings. The final tally of medals is like:

• China: 51, 21, 28
• USA: 36, 38, 36
• RUS: 23, 21, 28.

A thought struck me: visualize the number of G-S-B medals as the dimensions of a woman. China's voluptuous way beyond Pamela Anderson, USA's nice but fighting the battle of the bulge, while the Russian's skinnier than Kate Moss.

It also reminded me of this one in an old RD:

The professor is explaining the commutative property of addition saying A+B+C is the same as A+C+B to which a student gets up and says:

"Sir, but 36-24-36, 36-36-24, and 24-36-36 do not add up to the same figure"!

Considering how few India (1-0-2) won, what is our counter to China's obscene haul? That old OZ observation:

More than a handful is a waste.

తగులు, మిగులు

One of my shuttle baddy friends called last evening and was wondering why so many Hindu festivals were falling over two days, of late. For instance, the Krishna Janmashtami over yesterday and today.

Earlier this year, my BiL told me the concept of tagulu, migulu when it comes to tithis, which are used for deciding when to celebrate a festival: (for Indians, note that the day starts with sunrise, and not with midnight)

• tagulu: When you run into the tithi during the course of the day and use that for celebrating the festival.
• migulu: When you use the tithi that is running at the start of the day to celebrate the festival.
  

As usual, i would like to take the best of both these approaches and celebrate the festival based on the context. The ashtami started last evening at 6:08 PM and ended this afternoon at 3:45 PM. Since the critical part of the birth of Lord Krishna was in the night, we celebrated the festival last evening itself.

I use a similar logic for Sankashta Chaviti. Since the main worship is held during the night, the correct date would be the night in the waning moon phase when it is Chaviti tithi.

Of course, in India, there might be some other logic. Whether you get the holiday or not might be the determining factor ;-) With the Janmashtami falling on Sunday with the migulu method, one might opt for the tagulu transform and say that the festival falls on Saturday.

Not surprisingly, some states have declared Monday as a holiday! Do you crib if someone credits your bank account?

Moving into Bliss

Just love the posts of Nithyananda. Swami Nithyananda Update reveals that:

In the first week of August (August 1st-3rd) Swami Nithyananda visited Tiruvannamalai for a three day programme which comprised: …, Guru Puja at "Pavalakkundru", where Swamiji had his first self-realization experience, …

No wonder; the words of a self-realized person cut to the bone with the least amount of fuss. You get the message without the mess ;-)

Almost on a daily basis, there's something to gnote. Today, he blogs:

Drop Guilt, move into bliss!
…
This is why I say that you fully accept your past mistakes and get rid of any feelings of guilt. Regretting the past will only spoil the value of the present. Just learn from it, accept it and move on. Even if you cannot accept it for some reason, just accept that you cannot accept. Once this happens, you will find that a great load has been lifted from your mind. If you accept what you are, what is, the grip of the negative mind will disappear and bliss will rise in you.

If you accept what you are, what is, the mind will lose its roots. Mind and bliss cannot stay together. When mind is, bliss is not. It is either mind or bliss. So drop your mind and simply decide walk the path of ecstasy!

Reminded me of this snippet from MamMoth mystery and then some:

Later in the day, my co-sister came visiting with her cute kid. She quoted her father's guru, who has an ashram in Nandi Hills, and had once said:

"I don't ask you to avoid sin, I ask you to avoid sorrow".

In his liberating A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes that the original meaning of "to sin" is "to miss the mark". Very nice; i like that. No negative connotations; you just missed the mark on whatever you set out to do.

Couple that with Nithyananda's sage bit of advice, you can really start living in the present.

Sweet DbTp

Having to control my blood sugar, WiFi makes coffee in a slightly different way. She makes for two (nice and strong, with the milk), adds the sugar, and pours me the stuff from the top. Since the sugar is laying there at the bottom, not yet mixed, i get a hint of the sugar, but nothing more (don't like to use aspartame-based products as it's been reported to be dangerous; see Aspartame Controversy). Once in a while, she forgets and stirs the lot. Accustomed to the rather tasteless stuff, my brain exults at the joy of that sudden dash of sugar.

Brushing over this thought in the loo, i got an idea last night. Enjoy the taste of sugar but don't take it in (somewhat like our man, Clinton).

A sweet diabetic toothpaste. Enjoy it and spit it all out in the end.

Dreams of 2012

Nikita Khrushchev (on one of his state/staged rounds) meets a farmer: How's the yield?
Farmer: Average
Nikita Khrushchev: What do you mean, average?!
Farmer: Worse than last year's. Better than next year's.

That's how the monsoon is of late, pummeling [;-) to Sammy San] Bangalore every evening with oodles and puddles of water. The reason is clear enough: global warming, with more water for the heavens to dump on us.

As kids, we used to stay in Sea Sands on a sort of promontory, about 50' above the Bay of Bengal. Our quarters ended at the edge of the promontory, from where one could walk down and enjoy the sea, though it was quite deep there. My younger bro almost got sucked into the sea once and was saved only by the presence of mind of a neighbor.

Anyway, i used to get this scary dream. It's pitch dark and the sea's all the way till the edge of the promontory. The weird thing was that there were no waves. It's eerie, with the waves lapping the edge. No Dolphin's Nose, no nothing, just the sea all the way. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just to think of it.

Nowadays, i treat it as a premonition of 2012. Especially after reading this dream of Manomohan Mittra in Ramakrishna as We Saw Him: (page 281)

Long ago I heard about Sri Ramakrishna and read about him in the Indian Mirror and Sulabh Samachar. I talked about him with my friends and had a desire to see him, but my desire was not fulfilled until the fall of 1879. At that time it rained continuously for four days. One Saturday night I saw in a dream that the whole world was flooded with water. All of the tall buildings of Calcutta, including the Ochterloney Monument, were swept away by the terrible current. In whatever direction I looked I saw only water and not a single human being. I was drifting helplessly in the current. All of a sudden the thought came to my mind: "Where is my mother? Where are my wife, daughter, and sisters?" Immediately I heard a voice: "There is no one left in this world who is your own. All are dead."
"Then what is the use of my living?"
"Suicide is a great sin."
"Then where shall I go? I don't find any human habitation."
"No one is alive in this world. All are dead."
"When none is alive, then with whom shall I stay?"
"They only have survived from this deluge who have realized God. You will meet them very soon and live with them."
"I see only water all around. What shall I eat?"
"Search below your heart. You will get food."
I put my hand below my chest and found a plank of wood, which was helping me to float in the current. i was surprised to witness this play of….

Last morning, i was cycling around when i ran into Bobby Singh, our Baddy'007 shuttle champion. We chatted for a while and the talk drifted to 2012. I told him my theory about 2012, when he said that his (very spiritual-looking) mother says more or less the same thing. That killed me.

The dawn of the Golden Age is at hand. But not everyone will experience it. The age of preparation precedes the Golden Age and it is during this time that the sorting-out process takes place. So seize the opportunity that all of you have been given to rise above the material level and manifest once again in the divine state. Only then can you enter the Golden Age and experience the omnipresence of the Lord.

—Satya Sai Baba

Bolt. Lightning Bolt.

Man, the papers are full of superlatives and take-offs on that run of the year, if not the decade:

• Jamaican Run
• Bolt and Beautiful
• Lightning Bolt
• Insane Usain
• U-Bolt.

I think the day was just perfect for that run.

Last Saturday (16.AUG.2008) was a D7C7 (August 2008 is a numerologically-pure month, where the month & year add up to a multiple of 9). Usain Bolt has a similar combo. Like so:

Usain Bolt
63115 2734

A 16 + 16 adding up to a 32, one of the luckier, if not most lucky, numbers. More on 32.

Some of the other "alliterative" numbers belong to these heavyweights:

• Jesus Christ (18 + 18 = 36)
• Rolls Royce (18 + 18 = 36).

Guess our man Bolt was destined to have that run. And to think that he slowed down towards the end! What would have been the time if he didn't do that nor look over his shoulder twice. A 9.65?

As they said of Bob Beamon in the 1968 Mexico Olympics:

The Man who Leaped into the 21st Century

Olympic 100m Finish

Update on Tuesday, August 19, 2008

My younger bro emails:

What I heard on TV (the reason for looking back twice and relaxed after about 85m) is that these guys have incentive clauses in their contracts, i.e., if you break the world record by so much then you get this much bonus. Maybe he did not want to break the WR by a big margin. This way he can get the bonus a number of times. Don't know if it is true though.

Heh. Makes sense. Break it, but not by too much. Somewhat like Sergey Bubka breaking the pole-vault record by 1 cm, ad nauseum.

WALTO

There's no I in team,
but there's a hidden me

Looking at the cover of ID 61 issue of The Week, WiFi made a profound observation:

There are too many Is in India!

It's interesting that when you remove the Is from India, you are left with NDA ;-)

Anyway, the Is are one more reason, i think, to change the name of India to Bharat.

India adds up to 12, while its I-day (15.AUG.1947) is a D6C8 and its R-day (26.JAN.1950) a D8C6. The 6s in the I- and R-days are at loggerheads with the 3 of India. Incidentally, Ayodhya happened on a D6C3 (06.DEC.1992). Bharat adds up to 15, which is, of course, much more in sync with its I- and R-days.

Anand feels that 33 might be an even better number. More in Numerology for India.

Threading the Mother

Changing the Sacred Thread

Today's Jandhayala Pournami, the Full Moon where the sacred thread is changed. From Kamat's Potpourri: The Sacred Thread:

A full-moon day of the year is observed by those who wear the sacred thread (typically brahmins and followers of Arya Samaj) as a day of spiritual renewal and the thread the ritually replaced by new one.

When on one's shoulder, it it the person's responsibility to keep the thread clean (washing every time one takes a bath) and honor it.

Didn't do anything major while changing the thread. Just bowed down to the Old Mother and swapped the old one with the new.

There's a sweet anecdote in the Gospel: (The Master and M.)

"Is the Primal Energy man or woman? Once at Kamarpukur I saw the worship of Kāli in the house of the Lahas. They put a sacred thread on the image of the Divine Mother. One man asked, 'Why have they put the sacred thread on the Mother's person?' The master of the house said: 'Brother, I see that you have rightly understood the Mother. But I do not yet know whether the Divine Mother is male or female.'

Later, while reading a couple of pages from Ramakrishna As We Saw Him, i remembered that this was the day (16.AUG) that He attained MahaSamadhi in 1886. A life of just 50 years and its effect is still reverberating reverentially around the world!

Ramakrishna As We Saw Him

VaraLakshmi Vratam and the Virat

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxVarVra2008

VaraLakshmi Vratam—Start

The season of festivals starts with this vratam for us.

Daivajna K N Somayaji explains its significance:

Vara MahaLakshmi Vrata—When Lakshmi is worshipped
…
She is the power of Lord Narayana who is also known as Lord Vishnu or Lord Hari. Narayana is God's aspect of preservation, an embodiment of Shuddha Sattwa. Laxmi is his casual body. She is Maya, the illusory power of Nature. She deludes the whole world and projects it with her power. As Vidya-Lakshmi, she enlightens the spiritual aspirant.

Like the vratam as i just have to help out WiFi with various things. Stay cool and collect (some punyam). Among the many things i did was to remove the stems from the flowers.

Flowers for the VaraLakshmi Vratam

Was reminded of two things during that stem-plucking operation.

One of them was from The Sound Machine, one of the stories of Roald Dahl about an off-beat inventor, who's obsessed with sounds, and creates a device that allows one to hear out-of-human-range sounds such as the shrieks of rose plants whenever their stems are cut:

"I believe", he said, speaking more slowly now, "that there is a whole world of sounds about us all the time that we cannot hear. It is possible that up there in those high-pitched inaudible regions there is a new exciting music being made, with subtle harmonies and fierce grinding discords, a music so powerful that it would drive us mad if only our ears were tuned to hear the sound of it."

The other was from the Gospel:

The Master and His Injured Arm

"One day, while worshipping Śiva, I was about to offer a bel-leaf on the head of the image, when it was revealed to me that this Virat, this Universe, itself is Śiva. After that my worship of Śiva through the image came to an end. Another day I had been plucking flowers, when it was revealed to me that the flowering plants were so many bouquets."

TRAILOKYA: "Ah! How beautiful is God's creation!"

MASTER: "Oh no, it is not that. It was revealed to me in a flash. I didn't calculate about it. It was shown to me that each plant was a bouquet adorning the Universal Form of God. That was the end of my plucking flowers.

Anyway, we had a very nice function. When it was over, i took this:

VaraLakshmi Vratam—End

While doing so, this quote by the Holy Mother came to my mind strongly and engulfed me:

I am the mother of the righteous, I am the mother of the wicked as well. Never fear. Whenever you are in distress, just say to yourself "I have a mother".

Sell Phelps

Phelps Exults

Man is wrecking records like there's no tomorrow ;-) and the NYT writes:

Five Golds for Phelps, Three to Go

"He’s not from another planet," Burnett told Reese. "He’s from the future."

Recounting the story Wednesday, Reese laughed and said, "That’s probably the best explanation I’ve heard."

Where have i heard that before?

In Back to the Future, Part III, of course:

Doc Brown: I'm from the future

Flunked in Finance…

…phucked in Phuket!

That was the net result of a dream early this morning; it happened this way.

Was at some seminar shooting the bull with Fish & Jaya when i heard Giridhar (making an appearance due to his recent message to our batch on YahooGroups) and another guy (Thadi?) discussing, of all things, dual variables.

One thing i learned about dual variables at IIM-A was that they denote the incremental contribution one could expect if the corresponding constraint is released by one unit. We never got this insight at AUCoE; so when i got back to Vizag at the end of the first term, i made a small presentation to the 4th year guys & NLN Rao and they were quite impressed.

Anyway, to get back to the dream, i went over to their desk and G&T were going through some monstrous tome and the page of interest was 1024 (i remember this clearly as i said: 2¹⁰, which is also the EmpNum of KeShi Huang). I shuddered to see the integrals on that page and i blurted out:

Flunked in Finance, phucked in Phuket!

Got up with Giridhar chortling away like crazy.

"I'm a Peach"

What a day Pervez Musharraf must be having. It's ironic that the motion to impeach him started on his 65th b'day.

Somewhat like Sivarasan, who masterminded the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on 21.MAY.1991 meeting his own end on Rajiv Gandhi's birthday (20.AUG.1991).

The wheels of God and all that jazz.

Shreyas vs. Preyas

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxShreyas

Remember always that it is easy to do what is pleasant; but it is difficult to be engaged in what is beneficial. Not all that is pleasant is profitable. Success comes to those who give up the path strewn with roses, and brave the hammer-blows and sword-thrusts of the path fraught with danger.
—Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 3, Ch. 18 (Krishna Janmaashtami, 12.AUG.1963)

One thing that is in my mind of late is the classification of activities into the shreyas and the preyas, i.e., the good and the pleasant.

Lord Yama raises the same with Nachiketa in the Katha Upanishad: (start of chapter 2, Part One)

Yama said: The good is one thing; the pleasant, another. Both of these, serving different needs, bind a man. It goes well with him who, of the two, takes the good; but he who chooses the pleasant misses the end.

Both the good and the pleasant present themselves to a man. The calm soul examines them well and discriminates. Yea, he prefers the good to the pleasant; but the fool chooses the pleasant out of greed and avarice.

There's a reference to it in the Shri Sai Satcharita as well: (Chapters 16 & 17)

Qualifications for Brahma-Jnana or Self-Realization
…
(6) Preferring Shreyas, (the Good) to Preyas (the Pleasant). There are two sorts of things viz., the Good and the Pleasant; the former deals with spiritual affairs, and the latter with mundane matters. Both these approach man for acceptance. He has to think and choose one of them. The wise man prefers the Good to the Pleasant; but the unwise, through greed and attachment, chooses the Pleasant.

A simple example: you are peeling a pomegranate. Do you eat the peeled stuff in between or at the end? I find that i can't really pop in the stuff in between but more at the end, as a sort of reward for the good work done.

Boil the milk or oil the blog? Earlier i would have plonked down in front of the computer. But now it's the milk first; in fact, all that time in the kitchen is a good fermenting ground for *mule*ing over future posts.

Kids are the ultimate in choosing the preyas over the shreyas. Not that i blame them. I was asking kiddo last evening what's up, and he said that he's bored as there's nothing to do. He meant nothing pleasant to do.

So that's an edge that the person who chooses the shreyas has, as there's always something good to do. And if you can add a dash of Osho while doing that good thing, what more can one want?

Be Creative, Do Small Acts With Love
…
A man of understanding is continuously creative. Not that he is trying to be creative. The way he sits is a creative act. Watch him sitting. You will find in his movement a certain quality of dance, a certain dignity. Life consists of small things; just your ego goes on saying these are small things. You would like to do some great thing — great poetry. You would like to become Shakespeare, Kalidas or Milton. It is your ego that is creating the trouble.

Drop the ego and everything is creative. Then everything is tremendously great. If you don't love, then your ego goes on saying, "This is not worthy of you." Cleaning is great. Don't go on an ego trip. Whenever the ego comes and persuades you towards some great things, immediately become aware and drop the ego, and then by and by you will find trivia sacred. Nothing is profane; everything is sacred and holy.

Milk Sachets Get the Olympic Cachet

In Praise of Boredom

To get out of it, re-arrange the bedroom (7)

This piece of news lifted my spirits:

You’re Checked Out, but Your Brain Is Tuned In
…
Yet boredom is more than a mere flagging of interest or a precursor to mischief. Some experts say that people tune things out for good reasons, and that over time boredom becomes a tool for sorting information — an increasingly sensitive spam filter. In various fields including neuroscience and education, research suggests that falling into a numbed trance allows the brain to recast the outside world in ways that can be productive and creative at least as often as they are disruptive.

Now i know why i keep going into that blue funk.

The Flake and the Fake

One of the incidents that used to intrigue me from the life of Sri Ramakrishna was this one, just a few days before the Master attained mahā–samādhi: (Introduction, page 72, middle)

Narendra said to himself, "If in the midst of this racking physical pain he declares his Godhead, then only shall I accept him as an Incarnation of God." He was alone by the bedside of the Master. It was a passing thought, but the Master smiled. Gathering his remaining strength, he distinctly said, "He who was Rāmā and Krishna is now, in this body, Ramakrishna - but not in your Vedāntic sense." Narendra was stricken with shame.

Ramakrishna's admonition of Narendra became clearer when i read David Godman's Is the world real?, a post that i particularly enjoyed:

In everyday English the word ‘real’ generally denotes something that can be perceived by the senses. As such, it is a misleading translation of the Sanskrit word ‘sat’, which is often rendered in English as ‘being’ or ‘reality’. Bhagavan, along with many other Indian spiritual teachers, had a completely different definition of reality:

What is the standard of reality? That alone is real which exists by itself, which reveals itself by itself and which is eternal and unchanging. (Maharshi’s Gospel, p. 61)

In Indian philosophy reality is not determined by perceptibility but by permanence, unchangeability and self-luminosity.

Ramakrishna was a flake of the Formless; his body was one made totally of love. A narrative on how he was conceived goes:

Remarkably, Sri Ramakrishna manifested himself in the world in exactly the same way as Lingodbhava Siva. A flood of divine light emerged out of Sivalinga at Kamarpukur and entered the body of Chandramani Devi, who thereafter fell unconscious when she was on the point of telling the blacksmith woman Dhani about it. Dhani helped Chandramani recover and was surprised to hear about her wonderful experience. Chandramani had the feeling that the light of Siva was in her womb and that she was pregnant.

It probably explains why his hands were so soft; his finger was once cut by a crust of bread!

41, Redux

41

Yesterday was the first of only three D5C5s this year. And i got lucky with both the big 5s:

• Ganesha (23)
  
• Venkateswara (41).

Have been seeing this Ganesha mural in our North lane for a while and, on the cycling round last morning, saw the lady of the house. Quickly requested permission and snapped a photo.

Ganesha in the North lane

Nearer home, on our main road, i got this shot, again after requesting permission:

Lord V on M1

Whenever i go past this house, i salute the Emperor.

An unusual thing happened a while back. Some folks had just moved into the house neighboring this and were playing Housey. I was walking past this house and was looking up at the above mural when the Housey guy called the next number: 41!

That killed me; it was as if the Old Man at Tirumala was saying:

Dude, that's my number.

As it is, a very curious thing about the name Venkateswara is that it adds up to 41 in both systems of numerology, the Hebrew Kabala as well as the American.

V for Venkateswara

Unsheathing the Pith

Unsheathing the Pith

While cycling last morning, went past this guy trying to get at the core of a banana tree. Looped back and asked him to pose, which he gladly did.

A pleasant gentleman stepped out from the side French windows of villa 422 and said that a dish made with the pith was very good for clearing out hair ingested accidentally by kids. Cool.

But the real reason for taking the photo was the equation between the Formless and its many Forms, as alluded to by Sri Ramakrishna in The Gospel: (Car Festival at Balaram's House, pp. 801-802)

"You see, in one form He is the Absolute and in another He is the Relative. What does Vedānta teach? Brahman alone is real and the world illusory. Isn't that so? But as long as God keeps the 'ego of a devotee' in a man, the Relative is also real. When He completely effaces the ego, then what is remains. That cannot be described by the tongue. But as long as God keeps the ego, one must accept all. By removing the outer sheaths of the plantain-tree, you reach the inner pith. As long as the tree contains sheaths, it also contains pith. So too, as long as it contains pith, it also contains sheaths. The pith goes with the sheaths and the sheaths go with the pith. In the same way, when you speak of the Nitya, it is understood that the Lila also exists; and when you speak of the Lila, it is understood that the Nitya also exists."

and: (In the Company of Devotees at Syampukur, page 909, bottom)

MASTER: "Let me tell you the truth. He [meaning Dr. Sarkar] is now following the path of negation. Therefore he discriminates, following the process of 'Neti, neti', and reasons in this way: God is not the living beings; He is not the universe; He is outside the creation. But later he will follow the path of affirmation and accept everything as the manifestation of God.

"By taking off, one by one, the sheaths of a banana tree, one obtains the pith. The sheaths are one thing, and the pith is another. The sheaths are not the pith, and the pith is not the sheaths. But in the end one realizes that the pith cannot exist apart from the sheaths, and the sheaths cannot exist apart from the pith; they are part and parcel of one and the same banana tree. Likewise, it is God who has become the twenty-four cosmic principles; it is He who has become man."

"Mothay" of All Movie Rentals?

Or, DVD and Conquer

After a fair bit of searching, got this DVD for sale at the Landmark in The Forum mall last evening. Amusingly, i asked the Landmark guy for Once Upon a Time in the West, made by Sierra Leone!

My DVDs: Once Upon a Time in the West

My luck got even better today with Mothay opening their DVD shop right within Palm Meadows, in the Amenities Complex.

Mothay Movie Rentals

Now there's even lesser incentive to go outside our gated complex.

Thoughts Clearing up

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxTCup

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
—Paul Valery

One of our maids was the living example of this observation of Albert Einstein:

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

The water refused to flow in the sink of the main bathroom and she stuck in a tongue-cleaner to clear it. Needless to say, the tongue-cleaner got stuck in the hole and it wasn't a pretty sight: one leg inside and the other in mid-air, like that chap in the trisanku-swarga!

The Adarsh maintenance guys came and cleared up. They used a INR 40 plunger to send some shock waves to the blockage et voilà, the water started flowing nicely again.

But what a mess they left behind. The most insidious slimy stuff that wouldn't stay put; it kept moving around like jelly. Anyway, that tongue-cleaner came in handy. I slimed all that stuff on to it and flushed it down the toilet. Felt a bit like Ed Ricketts. In The Log from the Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck writes about Ed: (page 49, top)

With his delicate olfactory equipment, one would have thought that he would be disgusted by so-called ugly odors, but this was not true. He could pick over decayed tissue or lean close to the fetid viscera of a cat with no repulsion. I have seen him literally crawl into the carcass of a basking shark to take its liver in the dark of its own body so that no light might touch it. And this is as horrid an odor as I know.

One reason for being cool with the mess was the feeling that everything is a manifestation of Consciousness. Even saw a Ganesha-like shape in the mess! And, of course, this XP from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna: (The Master and M, page 282, top)

"Another day I saw rice, vegetables, and other food-stuff, and filth and dirt as well, lying around. Suddenly the soul came out of my body and, like a flame, touched everything. It was like a protruding tongue of fire and tasted everything once, even the excreta. It was revealed to me that all these are one Substance, the non-dual and indivisible Consciousness."

Tailoring Greek Names

There was a GMail web clip by Euripedes this morning.

An unusual name no doubt, but to what to make of this exchange between a guy with a torn pair of trousers and a tailor in an Athens street: (in a very old RD joke book)

Tailor: Euripedes?
Guy: Eumenides.

I couldn't make head or tail out of it, till my elder bro let on (You ripped this? You mend this.)

Ganesh Guruji Garlands…Almost

Ganesh in Mathrubutheswara Temple at Sri Ramanasramam

Seeing this Ganesh via a Google Alert on Wednesday morning reminded me of this unusual incident: (in the words of Lakshmana Swamy in The Power of the Presence, Part Two, page 225, top)

By April 1950 it was clear to everyone that Bhagavan was about to give up his body. The cancer had debilitated him to such an extent, he could barely move. About a week before his death I was walking around the Mother's Temple, the one which was being consecrated on my first visit to the ashram. On my way round I stopped to look at a statue of Ganesh that had been recently garlanded. As I gazed at the statue, it began to move in its niche. The head and shoulders started to rock backwards and forwards, and each time it rocked forwards, the bowed head of Ganesh moved nearer and nearer to mine. I suddenly realized that if I stayed there any longer, the garland would slip from the statue's neck onto my own. I didn't want to be garlanded in this way, so I moved away from the statue and continued my walk around the temple.