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«Girivalam

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After chatting with Balan for a while, we headed back to our room and cleared out quickly.  Since SRM Old Age Home is right off the highway, we sort of hit the ground running.  That's what i like about towns.  It doesn't take forever to get out of them.

I can't really recall saying goodbye to Arunachala.  I am not too good at them (goodbyes) and, anyway, He's there in the cave of the heart.  That was anyway the whole idea of this trip: to say Hello to the representative of the Self, seated hidden in the Heart.

I was soon telling Gopa that the guru to whom i turn to for ideas on how to live life is Shirdi Sai Baba.  His Shri Sai Satcharita is a mine of info in that respect.  Got it from my FiL on 18.NOV.1992, but i got around to reading it only in July 2006!

With the (almost) daily parayana, some of the fundas from it have been seared into my system:

• On Gratitude:
  | The Lord is the sole Doer and Inspirer. He is also most merciful. Neither I am God nor Lord. I am His obedient servant and remember Him often. He, who casts aside his egoism, thanks Him and he, who trusts Him entirely, will have his shackles removed and will obtain liberation.
• Package Tour/Trip to Tirupati-Tirumala:
  | Unless there is some relationship or connection, nobody goes anywhere. If any men or creatures come to you, do not discourteously drive them away, but receive them well and treat them, with due respect. Shri Hari (God) will be certainly pleased, if you give water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked, and your verandah to strangers for sitting and resting.
• Specialists at Work:
  | The worker should be paid, his dues promptly and liberally.
• Killing Hissing and Dissing:
  | 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."
• Kakabali: (from Sai Baba the Master)
  | At kakabali time take plenty of cooked rice outside the house and leave it there. Do not shout or call for any creature nor drive any away. Whatever the creature that comes to eat, let not that disturb your mind. You get thus the merit of feeding lakhs of guests!

~~~*-*~@~

On the way, saw this ten-armed Durga:

In The Gospel, we read:

The Master and Vijay Goswami
…
Regaining partial consciousness, the Master said: "Why is my spiritual feeling kindled at the sight of Rakhal? The more you advance toward God, the less you will see of His glories and grandeur. The aspirant at first has a vision of the Goddess with ten arms;* there is a great display of power in that image. The next vision is that of the Deity with two arms; there are no longer ten arms holding various weapons and missiles. Then the aspirant has a vision of Gopala, in which there is no trace of power. It is the form of a tender child. Beyond that there are other visions also. The aspirant then sees only Light."

Further on, saw the guardian deities of a village:

You can see many more of these startling figures on the highway to Coimbatore over Salem / Erode.

Soon we had to bid adieu to the leafy arbors and, thankfully, the potholed roads"

Once on the national highway, we really let it rip.  I was driving a bit slow on the way to TVM due to my vertiginous migraine, but all that slow driving till then really put a burr under my @ss and we were soon speeding away at 100+ kmph;  might not be much to you, but it is to me ;-)

A Tavera was showing off overtaking us, but once we got into the hilly sections near Hosur, the Innova really showed what separates the men from the boys.  It soon was way ahead.  If i remember right, the only vehicles that overtook us after were two other Innovas.

Due to the brunch, we were feeling a bit grubby and thankfully, there was a restau (Kamat Upachar) attached to a Reliance gas station.  It was quite close to the Dhabba Express that we stopped at on the way to TVM.

Very weirdly, we ran into Shyam and Swarna out there.  They were on their way back from Chennai.  I was wondering whether theirs was one of the Innovas that overtook us, but they were traveling in their Camry.

I polished off some idlis and set dosa while Gopa had a go at some puris, if i remember right.

We filled up on the diesel, INR 1,000 @ ~41, a solid saving on the BLR rate of more than INR 48.  The lone ranger of an attendant owed us 10 pips on that transaction.  Thinking some more and taking a risk with the quality, i topped up the tank.  The attendant overshot the 600 by 30 pips and demanded the same.  I laughed and beat it.

Right after that, we saw the traffic on the other side being diverted into our lane.  The bed of the trailer had broken and one had to wonder how the dudes would get out of that mess.  We can't get our head around this, while the Solar System, the Milky Way, the Local Group, and other superstructures are merrily working their way around the Universe.  The best part to all that is Sri Ramana's observation:

It's not the Universe that is vast, but the human mind!

~~~*-*~@~

Around this time, i broached the topic of being a witness to phenomena with Gopa (more in Being a Witness). Since the subconscious is unrelenting in spewing Its thoughts and, since we can't tell our @ss from our elbow, we take them to be ours (a false I-dentification) and end up with concomitant pain or pleasure.  What if we were just a witness and act diligently but w/o attachment?  Since the I is eliminated at the outset itself, one can fulfill all those fundas of teamwork easily:

• Great things can be done if it doesn't matter who gets the credit,
• There's no I in teamwork [but there's a me ;-)], etc.

At Electronics City, we took the Elevated Tollway and it was really smooth sailing till CSB; i can still hear the musical clipping.  Highly recommended for INR 20 (one way).

We stopped off at Adarsh Esplanade, where the niece of Gopa stays.  He was catching the 11:45 train from their place.

It was a lovely place but, as Steinbeck writes in Travels with Charley, once in a while the trip is over before it actually gets over.  That happened to me out there and i had to haul myself the last few kilometers to get back to my house.

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxTVM2BLR2010
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«Girivalam

Time to chuck Windows out the window?

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxGCOS

The Google folks created a hell of a buzz on Google Fast Flip with the release of Google Chrome OS earlier this week.  Personally, i was very pleased with some of the stuff that i saw straight off the bat:

• Features:
  | Free data available for two years from the time you first activate your 3G service.
• Apply for the Pilot:
  | The Pilot program is open to individuals, businesses, schools, non-profits and developers based in the United States [that last bit was quite a dampener :-(]
• Cr-48 Chrome Notebook:
  | It's ready when you are, booting in about 10 seconds and resuming from sleep instantly. There’s built-in Wi-Fi and 3G, so you can stay connected everywhere, and a webcam for video chat. The vibrant 12-inch LCD display, full-size keyboard and oversized touchpad let you enjoy the web comfortably. And at just 3.8 pounds with over eight hours of active usage and a week of standby time, it’s easy to take along for the ride.

Are you ready for it?  Take the quiz: 
Are you living on the web?

One reviewer says:

Chrome OS PC: More About Personal, Less About Computers
…
Later in the day, I fired up the Chrome browser on my iMac, which I had already configured for application syncing in Chrome. With one tap, I was in the New York Times app on my second machine; there was no need for another installation or changing of settings. The experience was seamlessly personalized and totally divested from the machines I was using. I could have been using a Chrome OS netbook, a Mac laptop or a Windows PC at my local library.

What about weaning away all those corporate types who swear by Excel?  The Google guys have got that covered as well:

A Quick Tour of Google Chrome OS (slide 7)
…
Apps in the Enterprise: Yup, it's Microsoft Excel running on Chrome OS, thanks to the Citrix Receiver app that offers desktop virtualization in the cloud. Google really hopes Chrome OS will take off for enterprise users.

Guess it's time to move to the cloud.  Larry Ellison made some noise about it in 1995 and, a full fifteen years later, we have a strong contender.  Go Google.

Assange sana Squash banana

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxASSB

With so much action swirling around Julian Assange, thought that his aNTheNA Dossier was very much in order; so here goes:

Sample: aNTheNA Dossier for Larry Page, the Google Guy

Here are some quick calculations on Assange's date of birth of SAT 03-JUL-1971; please see (for context) The Numbo Jumbo Grid:

• D #, influences personality: 3
  
• C #, influences career: 1 (3 + 7 + 1+9+7+1 = 28)

From D3C1 in the Numbo Jumbo Grid:

Many of them are in government service.  Some of them are engaged in trade.  Being honest people by nature, they will not undertake an activity that goes against their conscience.  For them conscience is God.  When some problems arise, they will act boldly.

Those in government employment will obediently follow the instructions of their bosses.  But if they are treated as slaves they will be prepared to oppose their superiors.  While discussing some problems and while arbitrating disputes between some groups, they will not take sides with any party.  They will remain impartial and speak honestly.  They possess such a good mind.

They are moderately tall. Their eyes are somewhat reddish and they glow with compassion. They have beautiful eyebrows as if drawn neatly. They also have slightly curly hair. As their body is excessively hot, they may start losing their hair. They will take medicines to take their body cool. True in their affection, they exhibit heartfelt friendship towards others. Seeing others suffer, they feel moved and they come forward to meet them. They are hospitable to those who come to meet them. They cannot speak falsely or in an artificial manner. Their frankness may mislead people to conclude that they are rude.
…

From Numerological Values of the Letters of the Alphabet:

the name number of Julian Assange is 38.  One particularly dicey aspect of this name number is sudden death!

As per Suzanne White's New Astrology, he's a Cancer Pig, the Openhanded Autocrat:

The self-starter of all time, this person could live on a desert island, rise at dawn, say his prayers, prepare his tea, wash up, go to the rock that serves as the office, slave for fourteen straight hours, come back to his grass shack, prepare himself a huge feast, eat it, say his prayers, lie down under the palm tree and start again the next morning. Integrity is a word invented to describe Cancer/Pigs. They are whole, complete unto themselves, and require little other than fawning admiration, unflinching affection and obedient devotion from others. That's an exaggeration. Cancer/Pigs are utterly generous and charitable in the extreme. But they do like things their way and generally one way or the other see to it that the wheels turn in the direction they dictate…

One more of those amazing predictions from the High Priestess of the New Astrology!

Girivalam

«Arunachalé

Back to Bangalore»

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The whole hill is sacred. It is Siva himself. Just as we identify ourselves with a body, so Siva has chosen to identify himself with this hill. Arunachala is pure wisdom (jnana) in the form of a hill. It is out of compassion to those who seek him that he has chosen to reveal himself in the form of a hill visible to the eye. The seeker will obtain guidance and solace by staying near this hill.
—The Power of Arunachala

Even though we slept in a bit late, i was up by 5:35 and held up Gopa with my morning routine (facing the south face of Arunachala), during which he read a book in the doorway from the light of the lamp in the loo!

While freshening up, played the Arunachala Aksharamanamalai.  Whether you understand them or not, the lyrics tend to get under your skin.  Gopa was mentioning that the same had been running over and over in his head since he heard them last evening.  I have had the same effect for the last few weeks.  You can download the same (and many others) as an MP3 from here.

When we got out, there was this sight of swirling stuff:

and an idol of Ramana Maharshi facing His beloved mountain guru:

We dropped in on Balan and he gave me a couple of oranges, which i promptly put away and asked for more like, well, Oliver Twist.  One of the issues of the morn was to ensure that your finish the cRap for the day with so much travel coming up down the pike: the girivalam (going around Arunachala) and the drive back to Bangalore.

A note on the cRap: i think the measure of the truly intelligent person is the sort of fresh perspective that s/he brings to things.  In the early days of BBU (Banking Business Unit), we had the Print Parameter Acceptance Form, redesigned by, i think, Lovely Mathew.  Everyone would laboriously say PPAF, using up four syllables [btw, it's faster to say World Wide Web (three syllables) than www (6), though i prefer dub-dub-dub (3)].  When Sammy San came in to take charge of the BBU Engineering group in 1994, he referred to it as pPaf, using just two syllables.  Of course, the word in use here has just one syllable, but the two-syllable usage makes it, well, palatable!

Even after all that, it was still a no-go…o and Gopa & i headed out to Akaash Sesha Bhavan and dug in to some puri and pongal.

By the time we got back, we were ready to do our ab-loo-tions and soon we were on our way to go around the Great Arunachala.

We bade goodbye to Balan (on his cycle!) and, on the way out, we spotted this kingfisher portending, one hopes, the king of good times:

Soon we were walking on the right (to face the oncoming traffic, better to get hit from the front than from behind) single-file:

You might have read about how the four-minute mile was cracked: John Landy set the pace for Roger Bannister, who took over at the end.  We sort of followed the same funda.  Gopa was more keen on walking, while i like to  shoot around.  So he'd maintain his speed (he once finished 10 km in 80 min!) and, once i took my shots, i'd run to catch up with him.  That ensured that we finished the 14-km walk in 2.5 hours.



Some notes on girivalam: (from goppArunachala)

• In one verse often pointed out by Sri Bhagavan, Jnanasambandhar described this hill as being jnana-tiral, a dense mass of jnana.
• 'Bhagavan, who scarcely ever gave advice to devotees unless asked, wholeheartedly encouraged their going round the hill as conducive to progress in sadhana,' writes Lucia Osborne
• Sri Bhagavan told him, 'For everybody it is good to make circuit of the hill. It does not even matter whether one has faith in this pradakshina or not; just as fire will burn all who touch it whether they believe in it or not, so the hill will do good to all those who go round it.'
• Sri Bhagavan said to Kunju Swami, 'This hill is the storehouse of all spiritual power. Going round It benefits you in all ways'.
• 'Bhagavan used to say that if one went round the hill once or twice, the hill itself would draw one to go round it again. I have found it true. Now this is happening to Dr. Syed,' writes Devaraja Mudaliar in Day by Day with Bhagavan, 19th December, 1945.

~~~*-*~@~

You run into this Ganesha temple when the girivalam path peels off from the highway:

The haze still hung around Arunachala:

Weirdly, we again ran into RS Kishore of Infosys, but we soon beat it as he was waiting for someone/something.

Soon the tiled girivalam path started:

It made the walk pretty easy, however, it didn't run throughout; they are still working on it.

I enjoyed running into this sadhu:

who reminded me of this later:

The Power & Significance of Mount Arunachala
…
Millions of Siddha masters live at Mount Arunachala in their Light Body form. When you walk around Mount Arunachala, you can commune with these ascended masters and receive their grace and blessings. Occassionally, you may have the good fortune to encounter such masters who appear to you in a physical form disguised as beggars or wandering monks seeking alms or food.

This is the reason that Ramana would ask folks to walk on the outer periphery (left of the path) of Arunachala, the inner periphery (right of the path) being reserved for these masters.

Soon we were in front of this wonderful Thiru Ner (Straight) Annamalai temple:

Some of the unusual sights around this were:

• Ganesha on a Tractor
• Exotic birds such as a peacock and some, amazingly, turkeys as well (it was Thanksgiving that day, by the way)
• Big Foot.

while the "snout" of Arunachala rose majestically:

Gopa was quite intrigued by the tools that came up on display along the way: (this had the most)

By this time, we could see the thagada (rugged) north face of Arunachala:

Contrast this with the south face, which reminds me of peace and that saying: (Matthew 11:28)

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

We were back in the town now and walking was that much more difficult but, to compensate, there were some nice sights such as the one that Gopa noticed:

That pissing boy made my day; he was so nonchalant!

We went straight through at the one temple that i saw dedicated to Lord Venkateswara (on an earlier girivalam, i had taken the left there, to go further into the town) and landed near the Arunachaleswara temple:



Got Gopa to take this w/o the two dudes getting hassled:

The birds were swirling in and out:

and we captured each other:

The temple had a lot of detail and we saw this in an alcove:

Soon we passed the temple and got back into the town. The chap in this reminded Gopa of a Texas politician and me of Brosnan:



Then we passed by a solid Ganesha; the Fat Man looks cool wherever you place Him, which IMHO is a very good lesson:

We finished our lunch at Akaash Sesha Bhavan and, on the way back, had some food for thought as well:

The lion in the tank was the marker for peeling off from the highway:

and soon we were back to the familiar sight:

We hung around with Balan for a while and started back for Bangalore around noon (to be covered in a subsequent post).

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxGV2010
Related photoset on Flickr: http://bit.ly/fsxsGV2010

«Arunachalé

Back to Bangalore»

BMI up, Scotty

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Saw an article in the Times Trends this morning:

Weight & Watch: Healthiest BMI is 22.5-24.9, no room for plump

When i scouted for the same on the Net, got this:

The healthiest weight revealed
…
The healthiest BMI is 22.5 to 24.9, they found - at the upper end of where the World Health Organisation, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups have said people should be.

Here's how you calculate the BMI:

Ideal Weight Or BMI Linked To Much Lower Risk Of Premature Death
…
BMI metric units:
Your kilogram weight divided by the square of your height (meters).
For example. If you are 1.8 meters tall and weigh 80 kilograms
1.8² meters = 3.24
80 ÷ 3.24 = 24.69
BMI = 24.69

When i checked for my height (1.76 m), i got the
22.5 - 24.9 range as
69.7 - 77.13 kg.

Found it intriguing how close this range is to that old quickie funda:

Six Years of Shuttle Badminton
…
They say that one's weight should be between A and B, where:

• A is the lower end of the range and is one's height in inches (70)
• B is the upper end of the range and is one's height in cm (176) less 100 (= 76).

This reminded me of:

When the first test atomic bomb went off at Los Alamos, Fermi guessed its power from how far his hat flew off. After 6 months of calculation, scientists came up with a figure close to that of Fermi ;-)