SCotU

Y'day, a couple of carpenters were working throughout the day fixing some meshes to some wooden frames.

At the end of it, one chap asked me to open the garage door and as he passed the narrow space between the vehicle parked in the driveway and the garage door, his fancy pants, with pockets at the knees, caught the edge of the license plate and broke it off.

KA for Karnataka

Then he started blaming the pants!

I have always wondered about the Snagging Coefficient of the Universe (SCotU). I feel it's quite high as otherwise the concept of karma would be quite difficult to implement. So i wasn't really hassled by the breakage, as it was yet another vindication of this thought. But the guy's attitude of not taking responsibility was a bit sad.

Anyway, the next time you are carrying a laptop bag by its short handles, leaving the long one trailing close to the ground, just watch out for this SCotU funda in action ;-)

Update

The Incredible Design of the Earth and Our Solar System has some interesting points in the context of SCotU, one within the solar system:

The need for Jupiter-sized planets at 5 AU from its star

Despite having been responsible for the shower of meteors that pelted the early earth, Jupiter is now our great protector and is responsible for collecting and ejecting a large proportion of the comets that enter into orbit around the Sun (e.g., comet Shoemaker-Levy). Without Jupiter life on Earth at this time would be difficult or impossible due to the large number of cometary collisions (approximately 1,000-10,000 times more collisions) with the Earth,

and the other within our Milky Way galaxy:

Unique location in our galaxy - co-rotation radius

Typically, the stars in our galaxy orbit the center of the galaxy at a rate that differs from the rate of the trailing spiral arms. Thus, most stars located between spiral arms do not remain there for long, but would eventually be swept inside a spiral arm. Only at a certain precise distance from the galaxy’s center, the "co-rotation radius", can a star remain in its place between two spiral arms, orbiting at precisely the same rate as the galaxy arms rotate around the core (…). Why is it important that we are not in one of the spiral arms? First, our location gives us a view of the universe that is unobstructed by the debris and gases found in the spiral arms. This fact allows us to visualize what the Bible says, "The heavens declare the glory of God." If we were within the spiral arms, our view would be significantly impaired. Second, being outside the spiral arms puts us in a location that is safer than anywhere else in the universe. We are removed from the more densely occupied areas, where stellar interactions can lead to disruption of planetary orbits. In addition, we are farther from the deadly affects of supernovae explosions. The 4+ billion year longevity of life on earth (the time needed to prepare the planet for human occupation) would not have been possible at most other locations in our galaxy.

The Whole Shebang

This post is dedicated to John Steinbeck, for his extraordinary love for humanity. His birth anniversary falls today.

If you are easily scandalized, do not continue reading. The way i am, i don't have much shame, one of the eight fetters in the realization of God.

Had heavy bouts of crying, going on for almost half an hour, during the daily pooja on the first Friday of this month as well as on 18.FEB, b'day of Sri Ramakrishna.

The only time i had a more intense experience was in front of the Guruvayoorappan, at Uncle's place in Besant Nagar in the early 1990s, at the end of which my temples started buzzing.

Listening to the Silence

Sometime back, while filling up our 5-liter water jug, i had a realization. When the jug fills up over the brim and you can't put the lid on it, you could remove the water from the top (as tears of joy) or from the bottom tap. The choice is yours.

Full Jug

In the Gospel, one reads: (Rules for Householders and Monks, page 411, bottom)

To be able to realize God, one must practise absolute continence. Sages like Sukadeva are examples of an urdhvareta. Their chastity was absolutely unbroken. There is another class, who previously have had discharges of semen but who later on have controlled them. A man controlling the seminal fluid for twelve years develops a special power. He grows a new inner nerve called the nerve of memory. Through that nerve he remembers all, he understands all.

12 years?! That's like climbing Mt. Everest (see Ramana on the Mount).

The maximum one has been able to do was like 19 days around the Dasara of 2006. In one of Steinbeck's books (The Grapes of Wrath?), one of the characters makes a very appropriate comment about it. He says:

It gnaws.

One thing i had noticed is that the gnawing follows a sort of a sine wave; it lessens after the first "hump" of the wave around 5-6 days. So you're on a roll till the next one.

Anyway, guess the funniest observation on the whole "she-bang" is this one from Dr. Strangelove:

The Essence of It All

Visit to Chaithanya Bharathi Mandir

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxVisitCBM

SanjayB, my IIM-A and basketball pal, was interested in visiting the Chaithanya Bharathi Mandir (CBM) near Hope Farm. Sanjay is a long-time devotee of Brahma Chaitanya Maharaj and, with my newly-developed interest in this sweet guru, i was also quite eager to visit the CBM.

We were initially supposed to go there this (26.FEB) evening, but as BC Prasad Gaaru was leaving for a trip to Sringeri, we advanced our visit by a day. Something about th 25s i think; my last visit to the CBM was on Christmas with my father-in-law. Also, i was more than eager to make it last evening itself, as Wednesdays are my lucky days.

Since it was on the way, stopped off at the MahaGanapati temple in Whitefield. There was no power, which made the idol, with its shining eyes, look mysterious during the arati. Surprisingly, i met the priest at the Hanuman idol at Gunjur Sani Temple [;-) to Roge].

When i reached the CBM, Sanjay was already there and we soon met Prasad Gaaru, who had much to discuss with Sanjay. He told a very interesting thing with regard to samadhi:

• Keep your mind blank for 12 seconds without a thought, you reach one state.
• Keep your mind blank for 12x12 seconds without a thought, you reach the second state.
• Keep your mind blank for 12x12x12 seconds without a thought, you reach the state of samadhi!

Papaji writes of his darshan of Ramana:

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

The Maharshi's Eyes

We then made our way across the lovely garden (makes a very nice football field for the kids) when i told Prasad Gaaru: "Sir, i am very impressed with your style. May i know your b'day?" His response knocked the wind out of me. It was the same as mine, born in the year of our Independence. Since that was 18 years before mine, it makes him a D8C8 like yours truly.

Then we were in the CBM, which could be accessed from a rear gate as well. Looking North, it has the parampara of Brahma Chaitanya gurus, starting with Sri Tukaram, Brahma Chaitanya Maharaj, Sri Brahmananda (same name as the disciple of Sri Ramakrishna), and two others. To their right, my gurus adorn the wall, with the Holy Mother in the center!

All my Gurus at Chaithanya Bharathi Mandir

The evening lent the place a mystical feel and the lights made it wonderful. This is what we saw in the altar, a photo from the mandir at Chintamani, (used in some ads as "No Chinta, only Money"):

Altar at Chaithanya Bharathi Mandir

While Sanjay meditated for a while (he had brought a rosary with him!), Prasad Gaaru gave me a couple of copies of Discourses. Later, he gave me this book as well:

The Saint of Gondawali

KV Belsare is to Brahma Chaitanya Maharaj what Swami Nikhilananda was to Sri Ramakrishna.

Very surprisingly, the book indicates that Brahma Chaitanya Maharaj came down to Calcutta via Ayodhya and met Sri Ramakrishna, who told him: (page 36, bottom)

"Well, child! Crucify your self. Murder your self yourself."

Just to show how much gurus are clued in, we find that Sri Tukaram, Maharaj's ultimate guru, roars out much the same thing when they first meet: (page 42, top)

"Come on, I am going to murder your self."

Tamilians say that you can get gold, but not a Wednesday that easily:

பொன் கிடைத்தாலும் புதன் கிடைக்காது

It's true.

On Violence

Last evening, was reading about Stephen Alter's account of being brutally attacked in his own home in Mussoorie. It ends as follows:

The Red Slayer
…
Several months after the attack, I found myself searching for a poem that I first read long ago. Titled Brahma, it was written in 1857 by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who seems to have been responding to events in India of that year. Perhaps there's some solace in the verse of a Yankee transcendentalist meditating upon the violence of his time.

If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep and pass, and turn again...

Somerset Maugham quotes another snippet from the same (short) poem in The Razor's Edge: (page 262, top)

They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

~*~*~

Thadi used to do a very funny impersonation of two Bengali guys fighting. They would never physically fight but could go on with allusions to the same for hours.

But i wonder how many guys are really like that. From The Xigency of Y:

Several advances in the last decade have underlined the bizarre fact that the brain is a full-fledged sexual organ, in that the two sexes (sic) have profoundly different versions of it. This is the handiwork of testosterone, which masculinizes the brain as thoroughly as it does the rest of the body.

This might be the main reason why men are from Mars and women are from Venus. And also why women have a super-highway for processing and communicating info, while guys have at best a sidey-road. Men get into a warring mood quickly, while women can go on arguing for hours altogether.

~*~*~

There's an old Indian case about banks having to honor very low-value cheques, as dishonoring the same is equivalent to impugning the very character of the person writing out that cheque.

Once in a while, violence follows on similar lines: for very trivial reasons. One particular scene that sticks out is from The Green Mile where "Wild Bill" Wharton, played stunningly by Sam Rockwell, goes on the rampage and gives the reason after being put in solitary confinement:

All I wanted me was a little cornbread, motherfuckers! All I wanted me was a little cornbread!

Mimicking Life

Last Sunday, we were all having a lunch in our backyard. We were enjoying the shade and some nice food while the sun was beating down with nary a cloud in sight.

Anurag was mentioning about the palindromic blessing that Tenali Rama extracts from Mother Kali with his wit. To become a:

వికటకవి (vi-ka-Ta-ka-vi)

Of course, this is palindromic only in an Indic script, as our scripts are based on syllables rather than on letters.

But, till now, it has been difficult to render the same on a computer; that state of affairs has been changing only this decade, keeping out a great majority of Indians out of the computing stream unless, of course, they bit the bullet and learnt English. More on local-language computing at:

• A number of new technologies are emerging to simplify local language computing and take the internet to the masses
• Type in the Indic script of your choice at Quillpad.
  

That's one part of it. Last evening, i was wondering how to note down a certain factoid. In life, it's quite easy, you just draw a curly bracket and write your stuff in between the lines. But it can be a struggle to do that in cyberspace:

Nicole Kidman }
} Both add up to 41 in the same way (24 + 17)
Angelina Jolie }

The primary reason for that is, of course, as Ranjit Makkuni (PDF bio) pointed out so beautifully about the Internet:

The prAna is missing.

A Slumdog in Sea Sands?

Friday night, watched Slumdog Millionaire along with the kids. Tata Sky was airing the same for three days (20-22.FEB), no doubt due to the big night coming up at the Oscars this weekend.

All we had to do was to pay INR 25, and we get to watch it any time during the day. That was a real steal deal. Less than 10 rupees per person. I felt good that we didn't blow up INR 200 per head at the multiplex. The movie simply wasn't worth it. It was good, but by no stretch was it great. The max i would give it is a 6 to 7, but it's going for 8.7/10 on IMDb.

The great one with shitty pipedreams has to be The Shawshank Redemption (9.2/10 on IMDb) and this one hardly comes close. In retrospect, the review (requires free reg'n) by Namrata Joshi was more spot on than that of Nikhat Kazmi.

The scene that was talked about in the press, the kid jumping into the shit and wading across to get the autograph of Amitabh Bachchan. Well, that didn't bother me much even though i was eating some upma right then.

But it served to remind me of an amusing one from the time at Sea Sands.

Those days (mid-1970s), there used to be open drainage at Vizag [;-) to Sajan] and there was a shit-pit right behind my neighbor's house. You can see it here in WikiMapia, under the crosshairs; it isn't the entire brown area but just a small portion of it.

Though we used to play more often in the main ground (our "Oval"), once in a while we would play cricket/football behind our house. It was in one of those instances when the (tennis) ball (used for cricket) went into the shit-pit. One of the guys, R…B…, wasn't thinking when he waded into it and promptly sank to his knees. Soon after, he was christened:

పీతుకాళ్ళ ఆంబోతు రా…బా…
Shitty-legs Bull R…B…

Heh. Anyway, we used to get some tremendous views of the Bay of Bengal from our backyard. Due to our being at a height, the waves could be seen for quite a distance into the sea, just off Ramakrishna Beach. I think my love for the Great Infinite Spirit was created there; due to living on the edge of Infinity.

The shit-pit near by and a whiff of the Great Infinite Spirit slightly further away. I strongly feel that God cannot be realized unless we lose our disgust for things. As Sri Ramakrishna sings so beautifully: (Advice to Pundit Shashadhar, page 497, bottom)

When will you learn to lie, O mind, in the abode of Blessedness,
With Cleanliness and Defilement on either side of you?
Only when you have found the way
To keep these wives contentedly under a single roof,
Will you behold the matchless form of Mother Syama.

Related post: Thoughts Clearing up.

Gizmos: Philips Rip-All AZ1856

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxPhiRipAllAZ1856

Was quite intrigued by this feedback from a reader in the India Today G&G (Gadgets & Gizmos) JAN.2009 issue:

G&G—JAN.2009—Letter on Philips Rip-All AZ1856

Checked it out a bit on the Net and got this:

Philips Unveils Rip-All AZ1856
…
Philips Electronics has announced what it claims is the country's only Rip-All AZ1856 Sound machine that enables users convert their favorite CDs and cassettes to MP3 music with just the touch of a button.

The Rip-All provides users the option to rip music from cassettes, CDs, and FM Radio to MP3. The same can be downloaded, and played back through USB flash drive or MP3 players. Philips claims that with this gadget, music lovers no longer run the risk of losing any of their songs.

It sounded too good to be true, but there was some good feedback from our fellow residents here.

So this was the first thing on the agenda when i went over to Jayanagar a couple of days back. Dropped off at the Philips ARENA showroom there and picked up the same for INR 4,800.

Last morning, i got down to testing it.

Philips Rip-All AZ1856

Inserted a Swananda cassette of RajaGanapathi and found that it does convert the same nicely to an MP3 (onto a USB stick that you must insert, as shown in the pic).

The only problem is that the entire side (A or B) ends up on a single file, which is about 20 MB! Certainly, i didn't have that in mind. Of course, you could hang around the system and keep pushing the USB REC button to toggle the recording on and off, but that's a synchronous process and violates the basic idea of Steinbeck's Knife.

The user manual says that files on a CD would be copied/ripped to individual MP3 files and it does do what it says. However, you must press the USB REC button on the system (or the REC button on the remote) twice.

Though the user manual says that you can't record protected CDs, i noticed that you could still record a single song by pressing the USB REC button. The song starts playing again, with the REC in process. If you try to record all songs (by pressing USB REC twice), the copy protection mechanism switches off the recording process when the song changes, though the song continues playing.

All in all, after all the hype, i feel that it's a good product (3-4 stars), but not a great one. At least, it's not a rip-off ;-)

Super Brahmin

They say Superman wears his chaddi on the outside.

This one does the same with his sacred thread.

Card-a-roach

While at TCS in the early 1990s, i used to visit the Amaravati restau down the road.

One night, after i ordered the regular thali, i noticed a 'roach flitting about. Roaches on the ground are OK, but i get nervous when they start flying about. So i summoned the manager and wondered WTH was going on. The guy's reaction was surprising: without saying a word, he picked up a paper napkin, cupped it around the 'roach on the sofa, and squeezed the life out of it!

Last morning, at the Sunday buffet at Herbs & Spices, Deepak told us an even-more unnerving incident concerning his friend, who's also a chef:

One customer at his friend's place found a 'roach in his biryani; he culled it out with a spoon, put it on the side plate, and summoned the chef. The chap came over, saw the stuff on the side plate, and started eating it. After he finished, he said, "Sir, that wasn't a cockroach; it was a piece of cardamom".

Man, what a way to destroy evidence!

Nicolas Cage once ate a 'roach for a movie and later said he saved the director a million dollars in SFX:

Cage's Cockroach Fear

NICOLAS CAGE still shudders thinking about his 1989 movie VAMPIRE'S KISS - because his role required him to eat a cockroach.

Cage admits he has an irrational phobia of insects - but in the film's most infamous scene, his character Peter catches the critter and pops it in his mouth.

And the star insists he still feels nauseous recalling the daring feat.

He says, "To this day, people ask me about the cockroach - it was disgusting. "I have a fear of bugs and I had to disinfect my mouth with 100-proof vodka and just spit the bug out.

"It makes me sick thinking about it and, in the theatre, it was the same reaction: 'Oh no!' I know the reason it is still in video stores is partly because of that."

Walking the Talk

Got this message from RK, Lead India winner and fellow resident:

As you are aware, ABIDe (Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure & Development) Task Force, with the Chief Minister as Chairman, Mr. Ananth Kumar (MP-Bangalore South) as Vice Chairman and Mr. Rajeev Chandrashekar (MP - Rajya Sabha) as Convener, has been constituted to revive and rebuild Bengaluru through a combination of Comprehensive planning, improved municipal services and new investments into infrastructure. ABIDe also owns the task of providing a blue-print for sustainable and orderly development of Bangalore under Bengaluru Vision 2020.

I and Ashwin Mahesh (IIM-B), are entrusted with the task of suggesting solutions to the Traffic and Transport issues of Bangalore - A tough job indeed :). Please visit http://abidebengaluru.in/report/show/7 to read and give suggestions on our recommendations.

The Transportation team at ABIDe has identified public transport as the most important tool in reducing traffic congestion and chaos on Bangalore roads. Given that metro rail network is still some years away, Bus based public transport system is being promoted with a corridor approach.

To promote public transport and make travel hassle free, 10 major arterial roads (Big-10) have been identified as high density traffic corridors which will be made junction/signal free with dedicated point-to-point Bus Services, both A/C and non-A/C buses, named as Big-10 service.

Priority Bus Lanes, Bus Bays, Paved Footpaths, Safe Pedestrian Crossings, Cycle Lanes (proposed) will also be introduced on these Big-10 routes. We have 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24 month deadlines to accomplish all these Road Infrastructure Improvement objectives on all Big-10 Corridors. Please visit ABIDe website for corridor and other details. - http://www.abidebengaluru.in

However, deployment of Big-10 and Hop-on Hop-Off (HoHo) Bus Services has already begun.

Out of 10 Corridors Big-10 Bus Service is already in operation on Hosur Road (Vellara Jn - Electronic City) and HAL Airport Road (Trinity Jn - Whitefield-Hope Farm jn). This is proving to be extremely popular. Next week Bannerghatta Road Big-10 Service will start. In next 2 months all 10 Corridors will have Big-10 Bus Service with a frequency of 5-10 minutes, both A/C and Non-A/C Service.

This service CONVENIENTLY connects with Central Business District (CBD) HoHo Service (Kendra Sarige) at Vellara Jn on Hosur Rd and Trinity Jn on HAL Airport rd respectively. This makes it extremely convenient for anyone living and commuting on these routes to use this Big-10 Service in conjunction with CBD HoHo service to reach any point in the city including all shopping malls and offices, without the need to take their private vehicles to work or shop.

I have myself used these services and they are extremely convenient and efficient.

Please encourage all your friends and colleagues to use these BUS services. Traffic congestion will reduce only if we stop/reduce taking our cars to work and shop.

No amount of cribbing or road widening is going to help if we keep adding private cars to our roads. Now we have the comfortable and convenient public transport in close proximity to our homes and work places, lets use it and help our city and the environment.

Sri Brahmachaitanya Pravachan Grid

Discourses

Discourses by Sri Brahmachaitanya Maharaj are so inspiring that i thought of converting each page to its cyber-copy on a daily basis.

When i called up Prasad Gaaru, through whom i got the book via Ravel, he said that someone in Chintamani was already doing that job.

On Wednesday, my lucky day of the week, Prasad Gaaru called back to give me the name of the blog that's doing this great service.

As i wanted direct access to each of the daily posts (especially like the discourses on certain days like 17.JAN and 18.SEP), i quickly created a grid on top of the posts.

You can access the same from here.

Friday the 13th

Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. 'It was bad luck,' Twain later told the friend. 'They only had food for 12.'

This year, there are three of them, the so-called triple whammy. 13.FEB was a D4C8 as well, so that made me jittery.

A quick look at the mental calendar reveals the monthly offsets in a non-leap year as follows: (with January starting with a Monday)

0 3 3
6 1 4
6 2 5
0 3 5

Since there are three months starting with a 3 in 2009, there will be three instances of Friday the 13th.

~*~*~

Normally i set two alarms, one for 5:35 AM and the next one for 6:05 AM, and in the alpha-state of sleep in between them, had this dream:

Was on the first floor of my house when the sky started darkening rapidly. Thought it was going to rain in one of those spectacular Bangalore storms, when visibility also went down. Some sort of ash was all over the place.

A premonition of some volcano such as Vesuvius blowing? Let's see.

~*~*~

Later, while having breakfast, was concentrating on the muesli, keeping in mind Churchill's funda:

My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.

Guess i was concentrating a bit too much as my eyes got locked into a cross-eyed state. Man, it scared the hell out me. They refused to get out of that state for at least a minute and, only after invoking the Smiling Old Mother, they got back into shape. Shoot!

Got ready a bit early for the pooja, but there was a call from Anurag's school that he had a serious pain in his left abdomen. Had to rush there, but it turned out to be just a case of accumulated gas. All's well that ends swell.

~*~*~

In the evening, read the review of Dev.D in the ToI: (5 stars from critics)

Dev D is indeed a coming-of-age film, not merely for the protagonist, Devender Singh Dhillon, but it is a brilliant breakthrough for Bollywood too. It really doesn't matter whether the film ends up as a box office scorcher. What matters is the fact that for the discerning viewer, Dev D is a tryst with milestone cinema, reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann's Shakespeare-shaken-and-stirred in Romeo and Juliet. Kashyap, however, gets even more adventurous and adds a progressive flourish to both the plot and the characters which are played to perfection by the three lead players. If Mahi and Kalki are riveting new finds, assured of a long innings in cinema, then Abhay Deol adds a whole new meaning to the term `Unconventional Hero'.

The promo's interesting:

Dev.D

but it reminded me of the caricatures of Brad Pitt: (the lips are oversize in most of them)

Brad Pitt Caricature

Creationism or Darwinism?

NatGeoMag—Feb.2009—Charles Darwin Feature

Today being the bicentennial of Charles Darwin, this month's NatGeoMag had a feature on him. The initial bit of the above reads:

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the most incendiary book in the history of science, and, coincidentally, the 200th birthday of the mild-mannered Englishman who wrote it. Charles Darwin didn't invent the idea of evolution, any more than Abraham Lincoln, who happens to share his birthday on February 12, invented the idea of freedom. What Darwin provided in The Origin of Species was a powerful theory for how evolution could occur through purely natural forces, liberating scientists to explore the glorious complexity of life, rather than merely accept it as an impenetrable mystery.

The ToI guys had a nice graphic y'day:

ToI—BLR—11.FEB.2009—Page 17—Darwin

Somehow, i am not a big believer in Darwinism. The way i see it, to put it mathematically, is that scientists have seen the

dy/dt (change over time)

and are saying that they know about the y (or rather the how).

Harun Yahya is a big opponent of Darwinism; see:

The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution

In one of his articles there, he writes: (which i find very convincing)

The Transitional Form Dilemma
...
One of the main objections to Darwin’s theory of evolution indeed, concerns the fossil record. The transitional forms that evolutionists expected to find in the fossil record—and which might be regarded as proof that species evolved from one another—have not been found. Fossils emerge suddenly and with all their particular features fully present, and the fossil record demonstrates that no species experienced any process of gradual change leading to its eventual disappearance.

Edgar Cayce also said that the five races of man were spontaneously created 130 million years ago. One of our ancestors was around when Rajasaurus Narmadensis was roaming around the Narmada river!

Rajasaurus Narmadensis

In one of his books, Michael Crichton argues in favor of something other than the Theory of Evolution because the time required for complex stuff (like mankind) to emerge is very much longer than the 4.6 billion years that Mother Earth has been around.

IMHO, since the Universe is just a shadow, though not a pale one, of the Great Infinite Spirit, i feel that life gets spontaneously created in His majestic maya, which is nothing more than His dream.

The scientists might do whatever to get folks to toe the ToE, but, to me, the theory of evolution is just that, a theory.

Killing Hissing and Dissing

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxKHaD

As part of today's parayana, i read the nectar-like words of Shirdi Sai Baba: (end of chapters 43-44)

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

Have always found that that last bit in variance with what Sri Ramakrishna says through the hissing snake parable: (Master and Disciple, page 86, middle)

The brahmachari exclaimed: '…! You don't know how to protect yourself. I asked you not to bite, but I didn't forbid you to hiss. Why didn't you scare them by hissing?'

"So you must hiss at wicked people. You must frighten them lest they should do you harm. But never inject your venom into them. One must not injure others."

While discussing some other stuff with Gopa over email, an example he offered made it clear (to me) as to the strategy to follow:

Long time ago in Vizag, we bought a faulty VCR. …. If, for example, I told the manager in a calm voice "look, I am not happy. My degree of dissatisfaction on a one-ten scale is 8, one being the lowest and ten being the absolute fury. So do the right thing and honor the warranty". He would have responded in an equally calm voice "look, I can offer you zero help on a one to ten scale, 10 being the best customer service."

Still chuckling over that.

My understanding now is that the Shirdi Sai Baba funda can be used for personal relations while that of Sri Ramakrishna for business and acquaintances. If people start taking you for granted in personal relations, probably we should hiss there as well, but only as a last resort.

Of course, the more you use the Shirdi Sai Baba funda, the more expansive you'd have become in your equation with the world.

The Abyss is a Bliss

The Abyss

In the early 1990s, saw this movie along with my uncle (who has his Ketu in the 12th house; supposed to be an indicator of being in the last life). Both of us enjoyed it immensely.

Now i understand the real reason for that joy; the Abyss is the source of all things and beings.

How long can one enjoy moving around in the surface waters? After a while, it creates a sort of ennui. The real source of joy is deep down.

"Let me tell you something. What will you gain by floating on the surface? Dive a little under the water. The gems lie deep under the water; so what is the good of throwing your arms and legs about on the surface? A real gem is heavy. It doesn't float; it sinks to the bottom. To get the real gem you must dive deep."

as Sri Ramakrishna told Bankim Chandra (page 674, middle). Ramana Maharshi says much the same thing:

64. Question: Am I the froth?
Bhagavan: Cease that identification with the unreal and know your real identity. Then you will be firm and no doubts can arise. Because you think that way there is worry. It is a wrong imagination. Accept your true identity with the Real. Be the water and not the froth. That is done by diving in.

68. Question: You often say that there is the real meaning of "I" in the Heart. What does it mean?
Bhagavan: Yes, when you go deeper within, you lose yourself as it were in the abysmal depths; then the Reality, which is the Self that was behind you all the while, takes hold of you. It is an incessant flash (or current) of I-consciousness, you can be aware of it, feel it, hear it, sense it, so to say; this is what I call the throb (or current) of the "I"-"I."

while Swami alludes: (Divine Discourse, May 24, 2002)

There is plenty of grace that God can give you. But it is at a depth! Some effort is required to obtain it. If you need to fetch water from a well, you need to tie a rope to the bucket, lower it into the well and draw the water out. The rope to use is that of devotion. This rope must be tied to the vessel of your heart and lowered into the well of God's grace. What you receive, when the water is drawn out, is pure bliss. Live in love with everybody. Once you earn this love, everything else will be added unto you.

Of late, i find that i have become indifferent to most things. One stays alone most of the day (with WiFi and the kids away at school), but one is not lonely. Thoughts of the Abyss dominate on the joyous days. One has the feeling of:

Just Being, Not Becoming.

Diving deep has another very interesting spin-off: Conflict reduction. As someone said:

You can't argue with Silence.

Last July, we did an interesting painting experiment. As music played, we "danced" with a pencil on a sheet of paper. After a while, we noticed the patterns created by the pencil markings and painted out the stuff. This is what i got.

Deep Sea Beauties

Sheila, one of my neighbors, made an observation that i liked very much:

There's so much of the paper that hasn't been painted.

Thought it was a very good summary of my current state of mind.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.—Mother Teresa

Super Sunday

Had a very nice Sunday y'day.

Had heard that Herbs & Spices served an excellent buffet for a very reasonable INR 150 per head. So, after some regular cycling in the morning, we all headed to the place. It was as good as promised.

Started off with some watermelon juice (no sugar added), idlis, and vadas. Normally, i avoid vadas outside as i am unsure about the oil, but Paddy (one of the two owners of H&S) said that they use pure sunflower oil, with no oil being reused. He also mentioned that he was looking into the latest reports of some cooking oils having too much of trans fats; how's that for conscientiousness? Anyway, the vadas were lightly-browned and i dug into them with a vengeance :-)

The good stuff kept coming: uthappam and channa batura. The waiter, Dixit, served us keeping the funda of Sri Ramakrishna in mind:

When you serve, you forget about yourself.

This was followed by a single-egg omelet and some coffee.

Deepak, the other owner of H&s, joined us and he gave us the low-down on what's happening in Mangalore. Both he & Paddy are sweet guys (their b'days are pretty close: 22.NOV and 24.NOV, if i recall correct) and it's always a pleasure to interact with them.

Two Scorpios

The bill came to INR 660 for the four of us, with a 15% off on the next bill :-)

While leaving, Deepak and i chatted for a while about Games Indians Play.

On the way out, we checked out the ducks/geese.

With the Ducks/Geese

Without a doubt, H&S is the most unusual restau you'd see.

Cosmos Mall

We were then thinking of checking out Slumdog Millionaire, but it had an A certificate, so we changed tack and went for some retail therapy at Cosmos Mall. They had some great deals and all of us soon walked out with some nice stuff, all for under INR 5,000.

Quiz

Prem & Sheila called us over in the evening for a quiz that they periodically host and we went over, wearing the cool shirt that i picked up earlier in the day. WiFi said that it was nice to see me out of the grunge look, she could also dress up.

There were a zillion people there and the quiz-master was Prabhakara Sastri. He had a great way to get random questions: the four teams play Snakes & Ladders and answer the question # on which they fall after the roll of the dice. Since multiple teams might land on the same number, there were three levels of questions: easy, medium, and difficult. The easy one was for 10 points (5 for a pass), the medium one went for 20 (10), and the difficult one for 30 (15). It's been a while since i've been in a quiz, but one could still crack a few:

• In which country is Timbuktu located?
• How many lines to a limerick?
• Where's the Dewey system used?

Some of the Qs that our team (Cobra) missed:

• What does the HB on a pencil stand for?
• Which is the first movie in color to get a Best Picture Oscar?

During the break, interacted with a couple of participants:

• Ramesh Dasari was in Vizag as a kid and studied at Timpany; that killed me.
• Prabhakara Sastri, the quiz-master, is from HYD and has worked with Orbit Automation, where my FiL works. It's a small world.
  

There were a couple of written rounds:

• Identify famous places from Google Earth and other images
• Droodles and fill-in-the-phrase.

You might have seen droodles before. For instance:

0
BSc
MSc
PhD

is for Three Degrees below Zero :-) Some that i enjoyed:

• 12 67 11 MONA LISA
• NOSTITCHON
• ENTURY
• xmascara
  

and, IMHO, the best:

SUCCESS
GALAHAD

But i am yet to see one for succinctness that our seniors at IIM-A created for one of the Synchrony (the rag-mag with a messy finesse) issues: (with an Indian context)

SAIBT

It had a spin, as delicious as one of the Black Widower stories. More in:

TAT TVAM AS1

Sammy san, if you crack this, i'm going to BowMore to you ;-)

Rare Coincidence

In the night, WiFi wished her mother on her b'day. It was also the wedding anniversary of my elder sis. Very unusually, my MiL's wedding anniversary falls on the b'day of my elder sis. What's the probability of that happening? 7.5 in a million [(1/365)*(1/365)]!

Beneficial Eye Exercises

Love is all fun and games until someone loses an eye or gets pregnant.
—Jim Cole

My eyes had been acting up of late with shiny blobs suddenly coming up in the right eye. On Tuesday, i dug out some old books that indicated some eye exercises and started off on them from Wednesday.

Have been doing three simple exercises and the blobs have been kept at bay the last five days.

Sun Treatment



Face the sun in the early morning/late evening and swing like a pendulum from side to side for 2-5 minutes.

When you open your eyes, you might see everything in a white color, but that's OK.

Washing

Gently wash the eyes after the sun treatment. If you have an eyecup (images), fill it up to the brim and wash the eye in it.

Palming

Then cover the eyes with the palms for 2-5 minutes.

Eye Exercise—Palming

The whole process takes about 10 minutes. I repeat the same in the evening. More exercises are prescribed in:

Our Eyes—"Relax and See"

You can download a PPS of the same from here.

Trip to Virudhunagar

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxTrpVir

This is a trip that i did with JB quite some time back, on 12.NOV.2005 (SAT). Recently, i ran into a kumkum packet that we got from the beautiful Madura Meenakshi temple, which triggered off wonderful memories of this trip. Had missed blogging it then. Unfortunately, i didn't carry my DigiCam on this trip, so i'll add similar photos from the Net to the narrative.

JB was interested in visiting Tiruchuli, the birthplace of Ramana Maharshi. I was myself keen on visiting a temple in Virudhunagar that was covered in a news report (there was a very powerful deity there who helped in resolving long-standing issues and i was wondering about the Infy ESOP taxation issue). So we decided to use Madurai as the base and visit the two places, which are on a sort of isosceles triangle from the temple town.

Snippet from Outlook Traveller Maps

We left by bus from Hosur Road the night of 11.NOV (FRI). Tamil Nadu is connected heavily by good roads, but the ride did get a bit bumpy in the night. We were seated right behind the driver, which added to the tension. JB told some stories that only accentuated it!

Anyway, we reached Madurai in one piece and had a nice chai to start the day. We then checked into Royal Court India, a pretty nifty place. We had a king's breakfast (they had the American plan) and set out for Virudhunagar.

The plan was to cover Virudhunagar and Tiruchuli in the morning, come back for lunch, rest for a while, see the Old Mother Meenakshi in the evening, and catch the train back.

Organized a cab for the day. Soon we passed by Tirupparamkunram, with the temple to Lord Murugan on a massive hillock.

After we landed up at Virudhunagar, it wasn't clear which one had the powerful deity, but we visited a couple of nice temples. Then we set foot in a third one (dedicated to Lord Murugan) and it simply blew me away. Temples in Tamil Nadu are very clean and this one was right at the top.

After seeing the main deity (couldn't see His eyes clearly, an important thing for me when visiting a temple), we went around the deities on its periphery. There was a beautiful Nataraja on the left of the entrance, with the Navagraha right in front of it.

Lord Nataraja

There was a Ganesha as well and after we rounded the same, we saw temples to Lord Ayyappa with the 18 steps in miniature, to Goddess Saraswathi, and one to Lord Hanuman, in betel leaves.

Then we were in front of the Shiva-Parvathi deities. The Parvathi idol was very imposing and matriarchal. As if not to be outdone, the Shivling was more than three feet tall. I was in a state seeing them both. Then the priest came out and knocked me out. He was at least 6' tall and an ajanubahu, with ultra-long arms. He was like Hanuman, with a thin beard. Seeing a guy like this in the middle of nowhere, my mind was transfixed and i started shedding tears of joy. The priest looked at me quizzically, but i was beyond caring.

There was an elephant on the way out, if i recall right.

In this warm mood, we set out to Tiruchuli. The temple was sadly quite dilapidated and the house where Ramana Maharshi was born was just outside it. From Bhagawan Ramana Maharshi - Early Years:

the 30th of December, 1879 was an auspicious day for the Hindus, the Ardra-darsanam day. On this day every year the image of the Dancing Siva, Nataraja, is taken out of the temples in procession in order to celebrate the divine grace of the Lord that made Him appear before such saints as Gautama, Patanjali, Vyaghrapada, and Manikkavachakar. In the year 1879 too, on the Ardra day, the Nataraja Image of the temple at Tiruchuli was taken out with all the attendant ceremonies, and just as it was about to re-enter, Venkataraman was born.

We visited the birth-place and JB, as ever, gave them a nice donation. Shridi Sai Baba says: (Shri Sai Satcharita, Chapter 35)

Wealth should be the means to work out Dharma. If it is used for personal enjoyment, it is wasted. Unless you have given it before, you do not get it now. So the best way to receive is to give. The giving of Dakshina advances Vairagya (Non-attachment) and thereby Bhakti and Jnana. Give one and receive tenfold.

Then, the priest kindly opened the temple for us. The Old Mother there was lovely. Both JB and i noticed a cockroach crawling on the deity. The Old Mother, she's crazy about them.

Then we headed back to the hotel, discarding the many flowers and garlands that we got on the way. As Sri Ramakrishna says in the Gospel:

Flowers are only for God or for a dandy.

We rested and visited the Madura Meenakshi temple in the evening. Very nice it was.

After i got back, over a period of time, i found some connections to Virudhunagar:

• The til oil used in our pooja room comes from there. Til from a place close to the dil :-)
  
• SivaKR, an xInfoscion and a fellow D8C8, hails from there.
  
• In the list of STD codes, Virudhunagar comes just before Visakhapatnam.
  

Whenever i think of the trip, the memory of that humongous priest, who looked like Hanuman, makes me cry.

Hanuman in our pUja Room

Truth is stranger than fiction because Truth doesn't have to stick to possibilities.

A Bout of Boo Hoo

Have been quite disappointed by FedEx crying like a baby after the OZ Open final.

So much so that Nadal has gone on record saying that he's not able to savor his OZ Open title, after playing like a machine/maniac for more than 9 hours in less than two days.

FedEx's comment on that breakdown was:

I love this game. It means the world to me. So it hurts when I lose.

But, WTH, don't we all play to win and doesn't it hurt when you lose, whatever might be the margin?

The King is dead. Long live the King.

PS: The only time crying in public makes sense to me is when one does it out of joy. How does one distinguish between the two types of tears? Easy; as my guru Sri Ramakrishna so beautifully pointed out:

Tears of repentance or sorrow flow from the corners of the eyes nearest the nose and those of joy from the outer corners of the eyes.

The Case of the Vanishing Words

Thanks to a pointer from Michelle, i could go and save a lovely word.

Save The Words—Jussulent

It reminded me of succulent, one of my favorite words. Others include:

• Gloaming
• Golden
• Skittish.

The latest NatGeoMag had a lovely shot of mustangs that captures the spirit of skittish:

Skittish

Once i got a shot that was a combo of two of my favorite words. What more could one ask for?!

Golden Gloaming

A Pocketfull of Bull

While cycling around Palm Meadows, i normally wear a jacket as i can then play the Sai Bhajans close to the heart. Since i am normally driving "look no hands", i also use the jacket pockets to keep my hands.

Last morning, i forgot to wear the jacket and i found the driving a bit uncomfortable. But it served to remind me of this amusing boner from The Book of Lists: (page 471, middle)

Defoe's Memory Lapse

In his immortal novel Robinson Crusoe, author Daniel Defoe had his shipwrecked castaway try to salvage some goods: "I resolved, if possible, to get to the ship; so I pulled off my clothes, for the weather was hot to extremity, and took to the water." After the naked Crusoe climbed aboard the ship: "I found that all the ship's provisions were dry; and being well disposed to eat, I went to the bread room and filled my pockets with biscuits."