Who am I

I am a confused soul, who is lost in one of the following worlds
1) World of Literature filled with love , beauty, romance, passion and truth
2) World of Juniper , finding bugs in other people's designs with a sadistic fervour
3) World of Philosophy, trying to comprehend and insinuate the truth of being the supreme.
4) World of Music, as diverse as classical Indian, catchy bollywood and adult alternative
5) World of Sports, dominated by cricket, and lately by soccer
6) World of Psychology, uncovering the mysterious ways, human mind works
And
7) My very own world of fantastic but fascinating dreams

EGO = "Edge God out"

I had the fortune to attend two lectures this week by Swami Sukhabodhananda, on the topic of , Bhagvadh Gita's relavence in our lives. I was rather sceptical in my expectations of enjoying the lecture, but to my surprise, I enjoyed the first one so much that, I didnt want to miss the second.

Swamiji has the ability to add right doses of humour in his talk that make his lecture entertaining in addition to being enlightening. His speaking skills are excellent and he connects with the audience and grabs their attention very quickly. He puts in a lot of effort to make the audience understand the difference between knowledge and wisdom. In his own style, he says, undigested knowledge is the obesity of mind. Though this talk was meant to give the aroma of Gita (in swamiji's words), he uses apt references from Buddhism, poems of Kabir das, to drive home the point of living consciously while being calm and alert.

He says, if we make an effort to understand the answer to the question, "Who am I", most of the miseries we go through in day to day life seem to be the result of fallacies created by our mind. He goes on to answer this question saying, we are not the body that represents us physically, neither are we our emotions , nor the intellect, but we are the conscious sense of being. One punch line if I want to remember from this lecture is the definition of ego being "Edge God out".

Heres the url for his website
http://www.swamisukhabodhananda.net/

A beautiful Poem by EE Cummings

I carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me
i carry it in my heart

i am never without it
anywhere i go you go,my dear;
and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling

i fear no fate for you are my fate,my sweet
i want no world for beautiful you are my world,my true
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart
i carry it in my heart

That must be me driving the car

Are you a man yet ?

If by Rudyard Kipling


"If you can keep your head
when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! "

When will the tyranny end ??

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=179785


A 17 year girl commited suicide by jumping off the third floor of her school. The family claims that the school authorities were putting her through stress, that resulted in her taking the fatal decision while the school authorities are blaming the girls personal life was the driving force for her death.

Most of the kids spend their childhood, wraught with tensions, fear and stress. They get lost in the rat race that is created by schools and actively supported by parents. Both the schools and families should be blamed for this tragic situation of the children that has become a norm in our society. I can hardly remember the days when I enjoyed my time at school and there was hardly any time, I looked forward for a working day at school. Even the games class in the school, which is supposed to be a fun class, was not enjoyable to me as most of the PT teachers treated us like weaklings, on whom they can take out some of the frustrations off their personal lives. As a kid, I was tremondously afraid to speak up to a teacher and there is not a single teacher I can think of, who encouraged this with his or her students. Sadly the same apathy towards free thinking and free speech continues through our adoloscence and adulthood. The teachers seem to enjoy the fear that the students harbour in them and I suspect this gave them a false sense of being important that they missed so badly in their personal lives.

We have had enough of this tyranny and it is high time we bring out a revolution in the way the kids are treated in our society. Its time we treat our kids as kids, literally or else stories like this will become a common occurance.

Some Humour

Carpe Diem

A poem by Robert Herrick in 1600's that talks about the importance of present and exhorts the women (people in general), to make most of the present instead of waiting for the future.

Robin Williams playing the role of John Keating in the movie "Dead poets society", reads this poem to inspire his students to become extraordinary and to make most of their youth (present). He teaches them the latin term Carpe diem which means Seize the day, for the sentiment "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may". Captivating words of wisdom these....

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
---------------------------------------------

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Robert Herrick

The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography

What I Have Lived For

" Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. "

For starters, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) won the Nobel prize for literature for his History of Western Philosophy and was the co-author of Principia Mathematica.

Sir Betrand Russell has had a great influence on me. The same three passions he mentioned in his prologue seem to hold sway on my life at this moment. To be able to articulate his emotions and understanding of life so beautifully is an amazing skill. I have read his book "The conquest of happiness" and this book has influenced a lot, my perception of happyness and life. I am looking forward to read his autobiography

How abnormal am I ?

You Are 36% Abnormal

You are at low risk for being a psychopath. It is unlikely that you have no soul. You are at high risk for having a borderline personality. It is very likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at medium risk for having a social phobia. It is somewhat likely that you feel most comfortable in your mom's basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?