Revving up on the Road

On Friday the 13th (this month), i took some time off to see Revolutionary Road (Wiki: book, film), starring Leo DiCaprio, one of my favorite actors, and Kate Winslet.

When i reached the multiplex around 5:15 PM (the show time), there was a person wanting to buy a ticket, but the guy at the window wasn't interested in selling! He said that there was no audience, and the show was canceled.

Then a couple, an Indian lady and an American guy, landed up. The American got all hot under the collar: "What do you mean? We came all the way from Frazer Town". I asked him to relax and persuaded the guy to have the show, now that he has four customers. I threw in a sweetener: we'd all buy Gold Class tickets, @ INR 200 ;-)

It was a slow but terrific movie. Kate is living the life of a suburban woman, doing all the tough work at home. Our man Leo is working at Knox Business Machines. One day, which turns out to be Leo's b'day, Kate gets a brainwave of going to Paris and working while Leo gets to relax at home, and do whatever he wants to do (he doesn't like his current job).

I guess the more distant the dream, the more it looks achievable.

There's a mathematician-turned-slightly-insane (the son of the lady who finds them the house on Revolutionary Road), who meets Kate & Leo after they have decided to go to Paris and applauds their decision and Leo's grit.

With the pressure off and the trip to Europe scheduled for that October, Leo pulls off a coup with a customer and gets into the good books of the boss. Kate gets pregnant. Even though she feels that she could have the baby in Europe, Leo starts hemming and hawing due to his current rise in the organization as well as the cost of having the baby in a different place. So there's tension between the two, with the trip to Paris inching closer, with Leo more or less scrapping the trip in his mind.

So, when they meet up again later with the mathematician, he gets angry about the rollback and bluntly asks Leo: "The pregnancy is a good reason not to go, what's the real reason?" This sends Leo through the roof. As he leaves, the math'm fires a parting shot: "I know what i don't want to be; i don't want to be that kid", pointing to Kate's stomach.

The movie ends with Kate dying from an attempted abortion and Leo having to look after their two kids.

~*~*~

When i was getting tired and listless of working at Infy, i took off. Slightly later, WiFi started working. Now, folks say that she's doing a great job at the preschool where she works, while i get to enjoy the peace and quiet of our place and think a bit about the Great Infinite Spirit. WiFi says that her working is possible only because of my staying at home, which suits me just fine. I get to do all the blogging and a little bit of helping out the community.

On that same day (13.MAR), i read a profound comment by Brahma Chaitanya:

Our Faith in God should be Firm, Unflinching
…
Our main care, therefore, should be to see how we shall attain God, and not how we can mend a rickety prapancha.

That rickety prapancha (world) went searing into my head. It's just not cricket; it's ricket-y. And i felt that i made the right call, especially after seeing the movie.

Of Spirit and Men

There was a Speaking Tree article today that interested me in parts:

Spiritual Life Need Not Be Bound By Religion

Hannu from Finland was my class fellow; we were preparing for our PhD in London. I also shared the flat with him. Hannu was and still remains a staunch atheist. Having known him closely, however, I 'baptised' him as 'St Hannu', even though God or religion did not figure in the agenda of his life. He led a spiritually rich life even without a religion or God. I found him to be a far better person to live with than most people of 'religion' I had known. Hannu was the most likable person in the class because, among other things, he was always available to help anyone in need and one never heard him speak ill of others.

In The Log from the Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck writes a couple of instances about how Ed Ricketts looked at people:

• About the Madam of a Monterey bordello, across the street from his lab: "She's one hell of a woman. I wish good people could be as good." (page 21, top)
• "There was one christing son-of-a-bitch who complained to the captain about me. Can you imagine that? He put it on a moral basis. He didn't drink. I wonder why non-drinkers are so often vicious." (page 31, top) As WC Fields observed: "Never trust a man who doesn't drink."
  

Religion never interested me; only spirituality does. The Guru of Joy gives a very interesting comparison:

Spirituality is the banana and religion the peel.

My corollary to this is how fast the peel dries up when there is no banana inside :-)

There's a delightful incident, among many, in The Gospel: (The Master and M., page 278, bottom)

Narendra said to M. that he had been reading a book by Hamilton, who wrote: "A learned ignorance is the end of philosophy and the beginning of religion."

MASTER (to M.): "What does that mean?"

Narendra explained the sentence in Bengali. The Master beamed with joy and said in English, "Thank you! Thank you!" Everyone laughed at the charming way he said these words. They knew that his English vocabulary consisted of only half a dozen words.

Guess we have to reword that quote for these times:

A learned ignorance is the end of philosophy and the beginning of spirituality.

Centenary of a RamaDasi

Sri Brahmachaitanya Sri Rama Mandira, Chintamani

Today is the 100^th birth anniversary of Sri BS "RamaDasi" Ramaseshaiah, father of BC Prasad Gaaru.

He was born on Rama Navami in the year 1909. When i pinged Anand about when Rama Navami "happened" in 1909, he got back with:

Rama Navami was on 30.MAR.1909, as the ruling tithi and nakshatra at sunrise are Navami and Punarvasu respectively.

Some additional info, just in case:
Navami tithi runs from 10:46 AM (29th) till 12:11 PM (30th)
Punarvasu rules from 8:15 AM (29th) to 10:10 AM (30th)

I did my "CRC" of the date with my mental calendar and it turned out to be a Tuesday. Not really surprising as Tuesday-born folks tend to be devotional; Tuesday is after all the day of Hanuman.

There's a centenary celebration at Chintamani this weekend, right after Rama Navami, on 03.APR (FRI) this year. From Sri Ramotsav at Chintamani Mandir:

Sri B. S. Ramaseshiah, who was a Jamindar and Shanubhogue and a public works contractor in Bettahalli, did Ramadasi Bhiksha for upwards of 50 years for the upkeeping of the Mandir, every Thursday. He went round the town with bare foot, chanting Raghupathi Raghava Raja Ram, Pathitha Pavana Seetha Ram, incessantly from 7-00 am to 3-00 pm.

He did not miss a single Thursday and his service to the Mandir, was a PENANCE.

His 100th Birthday is being celebrated with Mass Ramadasi Bhiksha. About 100 devotees go round the streets of Bhaktha Nagari and N.R.Extension, chanting RAGHU PATHI RAGHAVA RAJARAM , PATHITA PAAVANA SEETHARAAM.

Looking forward to that. Both my Marathi friends are totally surprised that there's a Brahma Chaitanya Mandir in, of all places, Chintamani, but that was due to a person from that area meeting Sri Brahma Chaitanya Maharaj in the year 1913.

Here're the first 15 minutes of the audio from a video recorded during the RamaDasi's 80th birthday.

Sri BS "RamaDasi" Ramaseshaiah

More on the RamaDasi here.

The Opposite of Love

There was an article in the ToI y'day that was very much in sync with my thoughts of late:

Tit-for-tat attitude doesn’t pay

People who live by the motto “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, then chances are that their life will be full of miseries, a new study has found.

…, people who apply a “tit-for-tat” attitude to life are more likely to be unemployed, have a smaller circle of friends and are less happy. However, those individuals who repay good turns from others are likely to earn higher salaries, have more friends and enjoy life more.
…

To illustrate through a (-1, 0, 1) example, as i understand them better:

• If Life serves you a -1 (bad deal) through someone, you respond with a zero (indifference). Don't take panga.
• If Life serves you a 1 (good deal), you respond with another 1.

As a general rule, of late, i avoid conflict. My secret of longevity is:

Steer clear of moronic behavior.

But, since the day before the Ides of March, i have been involved in three scraps (two face-to-face and one over email) that i later felt that i shouldn't have gotten into. Only one had any sort of desired effect, but it still left me blue (i later apologized).

The Old Man in the Heart hurts when i get into those situations and He gives me that feedback in no uncertain terms.

The spirit that spoke through Edgar Cayce minces no words: (snipped from The Life and Readings of Edgar Cayce)

• Arguments gain little. The mental attitude and prayers gain much; for thoughts are things and their vibrations reach those in every sphere and walk of life as related to self and to others. (1438-2)
• Learn the lesson well of the spiritual truth: Criticize not unless ye wish to be criticized. For, with what measure ye mete it is measured to thee again. It may not be in the same way, but ye cannot even think bad of another without it affecting thee in a manner of a destructive nature. Think well of others, and if ye cannot speak well of them don't speak! but don't think it either! (2936-2)
• This is the first lesson ye should learn: There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, it doesn't behoove any of us to speak evil of the rest of us. This is a universal law, and until one begins to make application of same, one may not go very far in spiritual or soul development. (3063-1)

I have since realized that it's better to do nama-smarana than get into any argumentative nonsense.

*~*~*

Elie Wiesel made a stupendous comment that i first saw in an RD:

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.

This is in direct correlation with the (-1, 0, 1) example above. If anyone acts weirdly, don't retaliate, but meet it with indifference.

I also find that idea very useful in controlling my thoughts, which are beyond one's control; they are incessantly springing up from the "bed of the ocean". Nithyananda blogs:

You can never stop the thinking. The thought that you have to stop your thinking itself is another thought! If you forcibly try to be silent for a second, that silence is not the silence we want to achieve, it is just a forced and dead silence. The silence that we want to achieve is a vibrating and blissful silence - the silence of Existence.

So what is it that needs to be done? Simply watch the mind, that’s all. Be an observer. Don’t pass any judgments; don’t resist any thoughts. Watch it with the deep gratitude that it is God’s gift to you. This is the first step towards inner silence.

If it's a negative thought, meet/observe it with indifference. Don't "feed it" any further and it'll die a natural death. If it's a good thought ("how about giving something nice to the plumbers who are doing the late-night repair work?"), take it to completion. It's the thought that counts.

And through it all he observed the Law, pitiless and potent, ever unswerving and ever ordaining, greater than the motes of men who fulfilled it or were crushed by it, even as it was greater than he, his heart speaking for softness.
—Ending of The League of the Old Men by Jack London

Ranking The Page

A Beefy Uppercut (7)

It's the 36th b'day of Larry Page, the Google Guy. Thought i would put him a bit through the wringer of the ANTheNA dossier and see what we get.

ANTheNA Dossier

The world of predictions is a massive dodecahedron and astrology, palmistry, and other -ologies are cuts of the same. Some predictions are right and some are not. That's because of the finesse of the cut. The ANTheNA dossier includes the following cuts:

• Astrology (requires the Date, Time, and Place of Birth)
• Numerology (requires the Date of Birth)
• The New Astrology (requires the Date of Birth).

Effectively, the ANTheNA Dossier will hold up three different mirrors (of you/someone) to you.

Since the time of birth of Larry Page is unknown (as of now), we will stick to the last two. Make that aNTheNA, but don't say అంతేనా? [antEnA=only so much? in Telugu ;-)]

Numerology

The numbers are:

• Day Number (D) = 8
• Compound Number (C) = 2+6 + 3 + 1+9+7+3 = 31 = 4
• Name Number (N) = 26.

So Larry Page is a D8C4N26. Here are the predictions for a D8C4:

While 26 is generally a tough number, have seen a few folks hit big time, such as Imran Khan and Barack Obama.

The New Astrology

His DoB makes Larry Page an Aries Ox. Suzanne writes:

The Tireless Bulldozer

The powerful Aries/Ox can wither a mountain in a halfhearted shrug. This is a mighty combination - doomed to achievement. The stalwart Aries character sallies forth into the world full of vigor and hope at a tender age. The Ox, solid and diligent, carries young Aries, head high, sword drawn, slowly but surely toward serious, demanding goals. Aries/Oxen are champions!…

So now you sort of know what made Page start indexing all the pages on the web: (source)

"At the time Page conceived of BackRub, the Web comprised an estimated 10 million documents, with an untold number of links between them. The computing resources required to crawl such a beast were well beyond the usual bounds of a student project. Unaware of exactly what he was getting into, Page began building out his crawler.

"The idea's complexity and scale lured Brin to the job. A polymath who had jumped from project to project without settling on a thesis topic, he found the premise behind BackRub fascinating. "I talked to lots of research groups" around the school, Brin recalls, "and this was the most exciting project, both because it tackled the Web, which represents human knowledge, and because I liked Larry."

Note: Numbo Jumbo Grid updated.

Just a Di…git

Celibacy is not hereditary.
—637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said

Wish there was more literature on the transmutation of the lower force into the higher one.

It was said of Swami Vivekananda that he never lost his "juices". When Swami Brahmananda complained of feelings of lust, Sri Ramakrishna wrote a mantra on his tongue to help him get rid of that feeling. When some other devotee said that he avoided all women like the devil, Sri Ramakrishna chided him saying that was the wrong attitude. He suggested His own strategy of looking at every woman as His mother. But is such an attitude possible for all?

So it was quite startling to read the following in Holy Mother: (pp. 102-103)

In Benares the Mother and her women companions paid their respects to the well-known holy man Swami Bhaskarananda, who was completely naked. Looking at them, the Swami said: 'Don't feel nervous, Mothers. You are all manifestations of the Divine Mother of the Universe. Why should you be embarrassed? Is it because of my genital organ? Why, it is like one of the fingers.'

Ganeshas Galore

Raavel was in the neighborhood last evening and i went over to meet him at the office of BC Prasad Gaaru. Since i was going over the MahaGanapati temple, i stopped off for a while there.

Sri Guruprasad, son of BC Prasad Gaaru, had a massive Ganesha collection in his wonderful spacious office, including some Lladro Ganesha. He graciously allowed me to photograph them.

Ganesh Gallery

My Ganesh Guruji collection on Flickr touched 100 photos with this photo; felt good. If you're feeling lucky on Google for Ganesh Guruji, you'll end up on this Ganesh Guruji collection page.

What was surprising was the "OM" that i saw before the Ganeshas; it turned to be the VAIO seen from the other side ;-)

Dimensional Analysis

We learned the technique of Dimensional Analysis in the 3rd year of Engineering. I wish we were taught it much earlier in school.

It's so useful for understanding and cracking questions, as i have found when i sit with my kids for solving their math and physics problems [March is exam time in India :-)].

Anurag had this one:

A room, 13x9 m, is to be covered with a carpet of width 75 cm. If the carpet cloth sells for Rs. 6.50 per meter, how much does it cost to cover the room with carpet?

Showed him the dimensions in the equation:

(m x m/m) * (Rs./m)
(Area/Width) * Cost

and how all the m(eter)s cancel out, leaving you with the Rs., which one has to spend. You can see the answer evolving in front of your eyes.

Raju Penna used to say that the most wonderful thing about using blank transparencies in a presentation was how you could build the entire concept right in front of the audience (he used to do that quite a bit at NIIT). If you're good, the audience would remember it for a long time. Too bad that PPTs came along and ruined that to some extent. Anyway, i find dimensional analysis a bit like that.

Related: Feynman's A Different Box of Tools.

ಆಗು ನೀ ಅನಿಕೇತನ

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

An article that i read on the birthday (28.SEP) of Shirdi Sai Baba is still at the back of my mind, esp. in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack, when everyone is edgy. It went:

Spiritless existence behind closed doors
…
Shingnapur provides the opportunity to ponder over the practice of having doors and the prospect of doing away with these. Saturn, presiding deity of the town, leads from the front. His symbol, a large slab of black rock, is installed in the open. This is so everywhere: Saturn somehow disliked being housed in chambers. In animistic societies the practice is to install symbols of all deities in the open. Enclosures, let alone doors, are taboo. Primitive communities imbibe this virtue of their gods: they like to live in the open, in symbiosis with nature. Enclosures are for minimal use, mostly for shelter from inclement weather.

Spiritless existence behind closed doors

Found the ending especially poignant:

Is it possible to entirely do away with doors? The matter can be debated. What is important is to keep the spirit free. Kuvempu, the Kannada poet, calls upon his chetana, consciousness, to break loose and be 'un-housed'. "Aagu nee aniketana".

My pal, Anuj, translated that as:

Become ye unhoused.

Guess most Indians follow this principle. When Boom Boom Boris Becker visited Chennai for the first time, he was amazed that Indians lived so much of their life on the streets!

Thadi, my very sagacious Sagittarius friend, once observed that, in the US, there was little chance of meeting anyone outside your homogeneous group, but in India, all you have to do is to step outside the office :-)

Of course, with biz parks and gated communities coming up this decade in India, that (contact) has been somewhat reduced, but i always like it when i step into Ramagondanahalli, outside Palm Meadows. Commingling with the spirit in fellow human beings, animals, and even trees nourishes. My sis was unnerved by her brief stay in Palm Meadows, and longed to go back to her house in HYD.

One of the reasons Steinbeck made that fantastic journey across the humongous United States (as detailed in Travels with Charley) might have been to experience the feeling of being unhoused in his Rocinante:

a kind of casual turtle carrying his house on his back.

My own dream of being unhoused is to do the Narmada Parikrama some time.

Summary of the Holy Mother

Read a wee bit of the Holy Mother by Swami Nikhilananda on a daily basis.

There was a passage of great lyrical beauty: (page 146)

Holy Mother was a living embodiment of the non-attachment taught in the Bhagavad Gita. In every action, great or small, she practised yoga, or complete union with the Godhead. Her will was one with God's will. Though a householder, she never deviated from the ideal of renunciation laid down for monks. She did not shun disagreeable duties nor did she welcome agreeable ones. Through all her activities she never forgot God. If she had wanted, she could have lived a life of ease and comfort in Calcutta, receiving worship from her devotees and disciples. Yet much of the time she chose to lead an austere life in a malaria-stricken village, performing her duties cheerfully in order to set an example to the world. The secret of her inner peace, poise, and contentment was her unceasing communion with God. Even when her body or sense-organs were extremely active, her heart was directed to God, like the needle of a compass which points always to the north. Again, like an anvil in a blacksmith shop, she remained unmoved by the repeated blows of the world. The events of the outer world may have made slight ripples on her mind, but they could not disturb the peace of her soul. She was like the ocean, into which rivers from all sides empty themselves, causing waves on the surface, but whose inner depths remain for ever serene.

 They say that spirituality is philosophy in action. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that yoga was skill in action.
 As Amelia Earhart observed: "The best way to do it is to do it"!

Holy Mother

The Life and Readings of Edgar Cayce

For all prayer is answered.
Don't tell God how to answer it.
—Edgar Cayce Reading 4028-1

Today's the 132rd birth anniversary of Edgar Cayce

One of my favorite days of the year has rolled around and it's a double-delight that it's a Wednesday (no matter that i lost all five shuttle games that i played in the mo"u"rning; an instance of a double-delight becoming a double-whammy).

When i embarked on my spiritual search in 1990, Edgar Cayce was the person i was introduced to by CPKK, the chap who taught me numerology. After the introductory book, A Prophet in His Own Country, it was The Sleeping Prophet and Many Mansions, a stunning explanation of reincarnation. Gopa once sent me a Telugu version of the same!

From these, i created a page on Edgar Cayce on the Infosys intranet:
~~~~~
Edgar Cayce (pronounced Kay-see) was born in Louisville, Kentucky on March 18, 1877. From a young age, he was drawn towards God and used to read the entire Bible once a year.

Around 1900, Cayce went through an unusual experience that was to change his life. He lost his voice! After some unsuccessful attempts to cure it, he met a wandering hypnotist who put him into a trance and made a suggestion that Cayce cure himself. This was followed by a tremendous amount of blood rushing into the region of his throat and, when Cayce got up, he found that he got his voice back.

With his doctor friend Ketchum, Cayce started on a mission of curing people. All that had to be told him in the trance was the name of the patient and where he was at that moment. It didn't make a difference whether the patient was in the next room or in Switzerland. His prescriptions, called readings, were radical, but they worked.

Around 1923, one of Cayce's friends realized that what they were sounding Cayce on was just the tip of the iceberg. So, in the trance, Cayce was asked whether there was any relation between astrology and one's life. Cayce responded to this and, at the end of the reading, came out with an intriguing statement:

He was once a monk.

When Cayce got out of his trance, he found the other people in the room excitedly discussing the possibility of reincarnation. With his Biblical background, Cayce found it extremely difficult to digest this bit of information. However, he went through more trances where the Spirit that spoke through him was questioned on reincarnation. The voice gently but firmly assured him that was how the world worked, with one redeeming aspect:

However terrible one's karma, the person was always given one more chance.

This started off a new set of readings that were called life readings. Many books have been written on these readings which cover dreams, ESP, gem stones, reincarnation, among others.
An extremely well-written book on reincarnation in Cayce's life readings is Gina Cerminara's Many Mansions. Jess Stearn's immensely readable The Sleeping Prophet and A Prophet in His Own Country helped in popularizing Cayce.
Cayce also made a number of predictions. Some of them were:

• The Great Depression of 1929
• The fall of communism by the end of the 20th century.

Interestingly, he foresaw England losing India which nobody else did, and a free India unloved because it was unloving.
His predictions on the sweeping changes that the Earth is going to witness by the end of the 20th century include the following: (he attributed this to the shift in the Earth's rotational axis that happened way back in 1936)

• Destruction of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York
• Inundation of the states of Alabama and Georgia
• New land coming up off the East Coast of US
• Disappearance of Northern Europe in the "twinkling of an eye"
• Major upheavals in Japan.

According to him, all this would start within three months after the next major volcanic activity of Vesuvius or Pelée (in the West Indian island of Martinique).
Edgar Cayce died in 1945.
~~~~~

Some of his readings have been featured in this blog's header: (numbers in brackets are those of the readings)

• …don't get mad and don't cuss a body out mentally or in voice. This brings more poisons than may be created by even taking foods that aren't good. (470-37)
• Q: If a soul fails to improve itself, what becomes of it? A: That's why the reincarnation, why it reincarnates; that it may have the opportunity. Can the will of man continue to defy its Maker? (826-8)
• Meditate, oft. Separate thyself for a season from the cares of the world. Get close to nature and learn from the lowliest of that which manifests in nature, in the earth; in the birds, in the trees, in the grass, in the flowers, in the bees; that the life of each is a manifesting, is a song of glory to its Maker. And do thou likewise! (1089-3)
• Then, to be able to remember the sunset, to be able to remember a beautiful conversation, a beautiful deed done where hope and faith were created, to remember the smile of a babe, the blush of a rose, the harmony of a song—a bird's call; these are creative. For if they are a part of thyself, they bring you closer and closer to God. (1431-1)
• Arguments gain little. The mental attitude and prayers gain much; for thoughts are things and their vibrations reach those in every sphere and walk of life as related to self and to others. (1438-2)
• Know thyself, then, to be as a corpuscle, as a facet, as a characteristic, as a love, in the body of God. (2533-7)
• Study to know thyself in relationship to that ye choose as thy ideal. And let that ideal be set in Him, who is the way, the truth and the light. This does not mean becoming good-goody, no—far from it! Be able to look everyman in the face and tell him to go to hell—but live as He did, the lowly Nazarene! (2869-1)
• Learn the lesson well of the spiritual truth: Criticize not unless ye wish to be criticized. For, with what measure ye mete it is measured to thee again. It may not be in the same way, but ye cannot even think bad of another without it affecting thee in a manner of a destructive nature. Think well of others, and if ye cannot speak well of them don't speak! but don't think it either! (2936-2)
• Cultivate the ability to see the ridiculous, and to retain the ability to laugh. For, know—only in those that God hath favored is there the ability to laugh, even when clouds of doubt arise, or when every form of disturbance arises. For, remember, the Master smiled—and laughed, oft—even on the way to Gethsemane. (2984-1)*
  
• This is the first lesson ye should learn: There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, it doesn't behoove any of us to speak evil of the rest of us. This is a universal law, and until one begins to make application of same, one may not go very far in spiritual or soul development. (3063-1)

* In East of Eden, we find that Sam'l Hamilton, grandpa of Steinbeck, was a great exponent of this ability.

Coincidence and Learnings

As usual, i was playing the Sai Bhajans on the mobile while cycling this morning. These bhajans are sorted by Album, and while passing in front of Lord V on M2, the last one in the album, Govinda Govinda, started off.

I keep wondering about various coincidences such as:

• What's the chance of getting a call when my ring-tone bhajan is playing? :-)
  

When i came back home, the Philips system was playing the Bhajan Cornucopia in a different order, sorted by duration. So i was wondering what was the possibility of this one (Govinda Govinda) ending on my mobile and the same one starting off on the Philips system. Weirdly enough, it did! Spooked me no end.

Two Learnings

While reading up on the day in Discourses, i saw this:

How to Reduce our Attachment for Prapancha
…
Exercise rigid control over speech. Always speak gently, sweetly. We want to employ the tongue for uttering the sacred name of the Lord; how, then, can we defile that tongue by uttering anything that hurts the heart of another, that is hurting the Lord who resides therein?

This really hit me as i have been trying to do a bit of nama-smarana of late.

A similar incident is narrated in the life of Swami Ranganathananda: (page 5, top, of the PDF)

When Shankar was 12 or 13 years old, once in his mother’s presence, he used some foul words against a person. His mother immediately reprimanded him, lovingly saying: "My boy, your tongue is the abode of Vâni or Saraswati, the Goddess of knowledge and wisdom. Don’t soil it by using foul language against others." The advice, he said, went straight to his head and heart. Little wonder then that the Goddess manifested so tangibly through his blessed tongue for over eight decades.

Later, while reading the Holy Mother by Swami Nikhilananda, the Mother lets in on the trick to love everyone equally to a little girl: (page 138, bottom)

"Let me tell you how to love all equally. Do not demand anything of those you love. If you make demands, some will give you more and some less. In that case you will love more those who give you more and less those who give you less. Thus your love will not be the same for all. You will not be able to love all impartially."

Kawa Mere Kawa

Schoolkid in bus to my pal parked alongside at a traffic light: "Yama?"
Shake of head (Nope)
Tries once more: "Kawa?"
Shake of head (Yep)

In the late 1980s, while working with NIIT, owning a bike was the done thing. Thadi kicked off straight away with his Kawa (C.. 765…3), while i had to wait to make some money before i could afford it.

That date finally came around on Thursday, March 16, 1989 and, after twenty years, i was thinking about it this morning. Of the many trips that i did on that, i fondly remember the ones between Bangalore and Chennai (not once but thrice). It sort of got me over the fear of doing long distances alone.

The photo below was taken just before the start of the third one (on either 27.DEC or 29.DEC.1989) at NIIT, Palace Road, where i had gone to bid goodbye to the folks out there. The security guard there used to remind me of Lee Van Cleef!

Off to Chennai

In DEC.1995, i sold/gave it off to a guy who was working with a spiritual center.

Still miss the lovely beat of that Kawasaki "Lehar" RTZ.

aMen

Overheard at the great party that we had at the Goyals place last evening:

How come men are a part of so many problems of women:

• Menopause
• Menstruation
• Mental problems such as dementia
• "His"terectomy

Make that woe-men!

Lost in Translation?

It's Pi Day (3.14) as well as the b'day of Einstein (see The Magic Number as well).

Appropriately enough, it was the same day that i bought The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna way back in 1992. A momentous tome couldn't have come to me on any other day (3.14.1592…), i guess.

Last morning, IndiaSpirituality sent me a doubt on a quote from the Gospel that he saw here: (The Master's Birthday, page 700, bottom)

"The cockroach becomes motionless by constantly meditating on the kumira worm; it loses the power to move. At last it is transformed into a kumira. Similarly, by constantly meditating on God the bhakta loses his ego; he realizes that God is he and he is God. When the cockroach becomes the kumira everything is achieved. Instantly one obtains liberation."

The doubt was whether the original (in Bengali) actually used the word "cockroach".

A similar issue had been raised on the translation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis:

Gregor Samsa awakes one morning in his family's apartment to find himself inexplicably transformed overnight into a gigantic insect.

But the English version says that he was transformed into a cockroach. I guess that word hits harder than most.

However, knowing the patois style of Sri Ramakrishna and the rigor of Swami Nikhilananda in translation, i feel that the Master would have used the word "cockroach" itself.

I request readers who are aware of the original in Bengali to clarify the word used in it. For your convenience, the quote comes in Chapter 36, The Master's Birthday, near the bottom of page 700. Thanks.

A Mnemonic Trick

Last afternoon, the cook was mentioning a few things that were required. I created a menomonic for them: ABCCP, recalling my IIM-A pal, GCP, in the process.

Later on, in the evening, while ordering from the local store, i could recall only four items: AvAlu, B…, Channa Dal, Cheese, and Paneer. What the heck was that B? I pinged WiFi and she tried to deduce the forgotten item. And, yes, she was able to track it down to baThANi!

I was thinking that, since the start of the item was known (B), one could have used all the letters of the alphabet after that and homed on to the item that slipped through the cracks showing with age. As it turned out, one got the answer with the first letter (a) itself.

Soon, however, i realized that it'd have been better to create a syllable-based mnemonic, A BaCha CheePa (is that kid cheap?!), which would have made the data recovery better than the 80% that i showed.

Incidentally, quite a few Kannada authors and poets are known in this fashion. For instance, Kuvempu and TaRaSu.

Update

Check out some fundas of Dale Carnegie in You Can Remember Names, from a very old RD (June, 1959).

Blindspotting

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxBSpot

Due to the jump from 28.FEB to 01.MAR earlier this month, i had to reset all my Timex watches. I could do one easily, but i was stuck with the E-Tide-Temp-Compass one. Nothing happened when i plucked out the middle button one notch and rotated the bezel.

Later on, i realized that it used the simple funda. Just pluck out the middle button one notch and rotate the button itself to reset the day. It took me three days to figure that one out!

There were a couple of other blind spots sometime back.

I used to feel that i was the king of MS Access when, at Infosys Towers, Jayant asked me to create a database table for him, but using SQL. Heck, i had never done that in Access; i always used the Table Designer, but i still set out to help him. It got pretty complicated (using code and all that), when some other guy did this:

• Open a new query in design view
• Switch to SQL View
• Type in the CREATE SQL
• Run it. Voilà!
  

Heh; i still have to live that down. When you keep doing the same thing over and over again, i guess you get into a rut. And, as they say, the difference between a rut and a grave is only the depth ;-)

The other instance was when one of my kid's friends came over one afternoon and i was working on the computer. There was a painting (Sunflowers, i think) by Van Gogh on the screen and i asked her: "Are you aware of this painting by Van (the word caught in my throat) Go-gh?" She asked: "You mean Van Go?"

Shoot, learning things by reading (how my generation did) is very different from learning things by hearing them (how my kids' generation is doing it). All my life i have read; have been reading for ever, but some things slip through the cracks over time. You never hear them being said.

The only thing that consoles me is that Feynman, one of my idols, also went through it. In Surely, we read: (page 12 of the PDF, middle)

I often listened to my roommates—they were both seniors—studying for their theoretical physics course. One day they were working pretty hard on something that seemed pretty clear to me, so I said, "Why don't you use the Baronallai’s equation?"

"What's that!" they exclaimed. "What are you talking about!"

I explained to them what I meant and how it worked in this case, and it solved the problem. It turned out it was Bernoulli's equation that I meant, but I had read all this stuff in the encyclopedia without talking to anybody about it, so I didn't know how to pronounce anything.

The trouble with pidgin is that you get to thinking in pidgin. I write a great deal to keep my English up. Hearing and reading aren't the same as speaking and writing.
—Lee to Sam'l Hamilton, East of Eden, page 183 (middle)

The Big Lebowski

There was a news item today:

Cops join networking sites to fight crime
…
Most prominently, police agencies are now using the same Web 2.0 tools as everyone else - sites like YouTube, Twitter and MySpace. Last month, in a case that made national headlines, police in Auburn, Maine, posted on Facebook images from a surveillance video that showed three teenagers vandalizing the spa at a local Hilton. Facebook members soon provided tips, and suspects were arrested.

So the next time i get the message:

… is now following you on Twitter!

should i be looking over my shoulder in real life?

A Mental Calendar

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxDoW

Zapped a couple of guys [both 8s :-)] with some quick calculation of the DoW (Day of Week) of their DoB (Date of Birth) the last couple of days. Thought it would be a good one to share.

The mental calendar uses a progression of offsets, across years and months, before homing on to the day within the month.

Years

Since a year is 52 weeks plus one day and a leap year with one more extra day, all we have to do is to adjust for the extra days over years.

Months

Across months, we have to remember a small offset table, signifying the cumulative number of days over and above the four weeks that each month has. This table is as follows for a non-leap year: (each row is a quarter)

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

This offset is for the "zero"th day of the month and the table implies that, if 01.JAN is a Monday, 01.FEB is three days ahead, i.e., a Thursday. Thus, we can define a ZeroDate() function, which is the DoW of the date less one (subtracting the one initially itself makes the calculation simpler and free from errors).

There is no separate table to remember for leap years as the leap day is adjusted in the years itself. The sample calculation later makes that clear.

Days

Within the month, we just have to add the day we are interested in and do a mod 7 (remainder after division by 7) operation. The remainder gives the DoW (1=Monday, 2=Tuesday, …, 6=Saturday, 0=Sunday).

Sample Calculation

Let's find out the DoW of 18.OCT.1956, the date of birth of Martina Navratilova.

Add the number of years in the year (56) as well as the number of leap years (14, not 13) till 18.OCT.1956. We get 70.

Then, add the offset (0) for October from the month-offset table, to get 70.

To that, add the day (18) to get 88 (70 + 18). Divide that (88) by 7 and get the remainder (4). So Ms. Navratilova was born on a Thursday.

Note

For 19yy dates, we have to add the years in the date. For 20yy dates, we have to add the years in the date less one, i.e., we have to add the number of completed years for 20yy dates. This is because 01.JAN.1901 was a Tuesday, while 01.JAN.2001 was a Monday. The mental calendar absorbs the offsets through this mechanism.

To get the DoW of Katrina (29.AUG.2005), we have the offsets as:

4 (completed years) + 1 (leap year) + 2 (Offset for August) + 29 (Day) = 36

with a mod 7 operation giving 1. So Katrina hit on a Monday.

What's the DoW for 21.DEC.2012, the supposed end of the world as we know it? We have the offsets as:

11 (completed years) + 3 (leap years) + 5 (Offset for December) + 21 (Day) = 40

with a mod 7 operation giving 5. So the world will supposedly end on a Friday or, as Anand observed sometime back, a "Fry"day ;-)

CRC

I find the mental calendar useful for doing a "CRC" of the date. While staying at Chennai as a PG in the early 1990s, i had a fellow roomie, who was born the same day as Swami Vivekananda. So i did the DoW of his DoB and said that it was nice that he was a born on a Tuesday, like me. But he said that he was actually born on a Sunday and that's why folks call him Ravi at home.

I noticed that there was a leap year between his given DoB and the actual one and so asked him the inevitable question: "Were you actually born the earlier year?"

In Search of the Nama

శ్రీ రామ నామాలు శతకోటి, ఒక్కొక్క పేరు బహు తీపి
The names of Lord Rama are a billion, each one of them is very sweet

After reading the 17.JAN page in Discourses: (snipped from The Square Root of Nava-vidha Bhakti)

The third stage is nama-smarana, the action of chanting nama. When this becomes a habit we need undertake no effort for the remaining forms of worship, because their effect is included in it. Imagine that a person wanting to meet another living nine miles away, starts for that place; when he has walked three miles he sees the very person he had set out to meet; it is then unnecessary for him to walk further. Similarly, if one has developed a genuine liking for nama-smarana, one need not attempt the rest of the forms of worship, for they are all duly covered in nama-smarana, and the purpose is served.

i was quite keen to get a nama for chanting.

When i met Prasad Gaaru along with Sanjay on 25.FEB, they said that the nama would come in due course. But i was wondering whether i had already got it.

Some days earlier, i was reading Visit to Vidyasagar, one of my favorite chapters in the Gospel, late in the night. At one point, the Master says the following: (page 104, bottom)

"There is nothing in mere scholarship. The object of study is to find means of knowing God and realizing Him. A holy man had a book. When asked what it contained, he opened it and showed that on all the pages were written the words 'Om Rama', and nothing else."

Quotes from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

The Om Rama adds up to 19 (11 + 8), which long-time readers know is one of my favorite numbers. Something about the (11 + 8) was intriguing me and last morning i realized what it was. They are the same as the number of steps in the two flights of stairs (11 & 8) that take one from the ground floor to the first floor in our house.

If that combo could take me one level up physically, i felt that it might do the job spiritually as well ;-) And to think i was sitting on the same steps while reading the Gospel that night!

Interestingly, the words Brahmn and Self also add up to 19 numero-logically.

Nama Protects

~*~*~

During that 25.FEB visit, i heard a very inspiring thing about the father of Prasad Gaaru. He was a RamaDasi, a servant of Lord Rama, and, in spite of his wealth, would go from door to door begging every Thursday. He did that without a break for about 52 years!

Just before his death, he slipped into a coma. But his right hand kept moving, as an indication of his unbroken nama-smarana. On seeing that, his grandson clearly understood an earlier interaction: when he asked his grandpa whether the nama-smarana was going on in the midst of all his worldly duties, the RamaDasi responded:

రోమరోమమున సాగుతున్నది.
it's going on in each hair of the body.

I was reminded of the lovely words right at the start of MS Rama Rao's SundaraKandam:

రామనామమున పరవశుడయ్యె,
రోమరోమమున పులకితుడయ్యె.

Totally immersed in the name of Lord Rama,
Each hair in exhilaration.

Brahman is an Anda

While munching on the muesli this morning, i was thinking of Swami Brahmananda's XP at Tirupati (more in Venkateswari?).

Then i noticed something unusual:

Brahmananda = Brahman + anda

Brahman is the anda (egg) from which everything emerges; the One becomes the many. From Fruit of the Root:

'Lingam' means that in which all things merge and out of which all things emerge. The Absolute, the Ultimate Reality, Brahman or God has no opposites, no polarities, no contradictions, so, it is represented by the most perfect mathematical symbol, the sphere. When the basic desire, Ekoham Bahusyam, 'I am One, let me become many,' disturbs the perfect balance of the One, the sphere divides itself into two, we get the ellipsoid. The Lingam is ellipsoid. The One Brahman has become Siva-Sakthi, the primary polarity principle of the positive and negative.

An Easel makes it Easy

The key, the whole key, and nothing but the key, so help me Codd.
—Rules of Data Normalization

The Palm Meadows Owner's Association wanted a Resident Information Management Software (RIMS), so i volunteered to do the same.

It's good to get back to some work; nothing like keeping the mind sharp. The almost-daily blogging does that to some extent, but a small dose of additional stress is welcome from time to time.

I was thinking of buying an easel to work out the design and got a Winsor & Newton Shannon studio easel for ~7K last Saturday. Kids were also saying that they'd love it and Niki got down to this by that evening.

Painting by Niki

Spare no expense if that makes the kids flower. My Dad followed the same funda when it came to books.

Last evening, i collated most of the requirements of the RIMS and got this:

RIMS Design

Some of the stuff that i had to take care of in the design:

• A person might be owning a villa, but renting out another.
  

Now it's a simple matter to move all that to MS Access 2003, my trusted app dev platform.

Incidentally, Spielberg has this to say about how Stanley Kubrick used whiteboards: (from Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures)

Many artists, when they put a canvas up which is blank they start with very detailed, small, delicate pencil strokes on a canvas. Stanley started conceptually on all his movies, from my point of view, with large primary-colored brush strokes and he would just beat out these concepts that were pretty obvious. In Paths of Glory every sequence hammers its points home but in every sequence the film-making is subtle and gentle almost.

Sri Ramakrishna says

There were some nice wallpapers of Sri Ramakrishna along with quotes from the Gospel here.

I quickly created a PPS from the same. You can download it from here.

It Moves

Am always fooling around while doing stuff in the kitchen. While moving the 2L milk in the Tupperware to the fridge, i don't put the container in stable equilibrium straight away. I plonk it such that one edge is sticking out a bit over the crisper and the momentum of the milk (80-90% water) carries it over the edge to a stable position. It's fun, at least to me.

I was talking about that to Anurag last evening when i told him about a related incident; the swimming pools at the top of apartments in Ahmedabad when the Bhuj earthquake hit. The building took the shock and was trying to right itself, but the momentum of all that water at a height took the building the other way, leading to its collapse. You don't screw around with water.

This in turn triggered off memories of one of my favorite passages from No Comebacks by Frederick Forsyth. From The Emperor:

Murgatroyd stared at the water and felt the awe that dwells on the edge of fear, so much companion to men in small boats. A craft may be proud, majestic, expensive, and strong in the calm water of a fashionable port, admired by the passing socialite throng, the showpiece of its rich possessor. Out on the ocean it is sister to the reeking trawler, the rusted tramp, a poor thing of welded seams and bolted joints, a frail cocoon pitting its puny strength against unimaginable power, a fragile toy on a giant's palm. Even with four others around him, Murgatroyd sensed the insignificance of himself and the impertinent smallness of the boat, the loneliness that the sea can inspire. Those alone who have journeyed on the sea and in the sky, or across the great snows or over desert sands, know the feeling. All are vast, merciless, but most awesome of all is the sea, because it moves.

Of course, with global warming, there's something other than the sea that's moving:

Underground Lakes Drive Glaciers in Antarctica to the Ocean

Most glaciers in the Antarctic don't lie on solid rock, as many believe. Instead, they virtually float on top of underground glacial lakes, which are more like fluid ice streams. They act as a lubricant layer between the rock bed and the glaciers on top, thus allowing gigatonnes of ice to move towards the ocean. When they overflow, more water under the ice causes it to move faster, and the flow of glaciers is accelerated. Scientists now managed to observe in real time how this happens.

Laughter the Best Medicine?

Came across the Wikipedia page on Jandhyala, with his famous quote:

నవ్వడం ఒక భోగం, నవ్వించడం ఒక యోగం, నవ్వలేకపొవడం ఒక రోగం
To be able to laugh is a luxury, to make others laugh is an art, and to be unable to laugh is a disease.

My doubt on this is:

What about నవ్వాపులేకపొవడం (not able to stop laughing)?

Think that's also a disease, called kuru.

Incidentally, the fine line of laughter is best illustrated for me by this old one in an RD: (used in Slaughter the Laughter)

A small portly man is at the head of the stairs in a party, which he's not particularly enjoying. He loses his balance suddenly and starts rolling down the stairs, to the amusement of the party folks. As he continues his descent, the laughter reaches a crescendo. At the bottom of the stairs, the party people are stunned to see that the man is dead.

Wit: Laugh at people
Humor: Laugh with people