Guru Poornima

Yesterday - 25th July 2010 was Guru Purnima. On this day, disciples offer gratitude or pay respect to their Guru (Spiritual Guide). Before I go any further lets be clear on a few questions:

1. What does the word Guru mean?

2. Why does a person needs Guru and

3. What happens when you get a Guru?

In sanskrit Gu means darkness and Ru means light. Guru is someone who dispels the darkness, darkness here is due to ignorance. So the job of a Guru is to bring you out of ignorance into the realm of knowledge and make you realize that there is so much more to life then the small cocoonish world we all live in. It is like a frog in a well who thinks that there is no world beyond this small space. Similarly, when there is ignorance the vision gets narrow and we are not able to see things in their totality. So in short, Guru is like a coach. The players in a soccer team have tremendous talent individually but it is the coach that brings the best out of the team. Similarly, when you get a Guru he makes you realize that there is so much to life than getting angry, holding grudges and taking revenge. You know your happiness is much more precious than all these things. Guru's job is to channelize the life force in us, just as water without banks is flood. But if the same water is flowed between banks it can be used to generate electricity. Similarly, when life force gets channelized all the other dimensions physical, mental, emotional and social are drastically improved. As at the end of the day life is nothing but a play of emotions, energies and outlook.

This year the Guru Poornima celebrations were in Hartford, Connecticut. We rented a car and drove from NYC to Hartford. The journey was pretty awesome and fun filled, we discussed a variety issues like operations of Armani Exchange to Karma and reincarnation. The event was in a Convention Center which was HUGE HUGE and very beautiful. The music, food, people were all great and I had a very good time. It was nice to see 5000 people from 50 different countries and different backgrounds come together in the spirit of celebration.

One of the few events not to be missed.......

Later

A

Structure of Life - Concluding PArt

Building on the Tree of Life from the lastpost. There are 2 worlds in which all of live -

1. Internal World

2. External World

The internal world consists of 7 layers of existence - body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego, self/soul. Where as the external world consists of 3 entities - people, situations, things. We may be with the best of people, in the most favorable situations and with nicest things; but if we are not happy from inside then all these are of no use. The point here is that the quality of our life is determined by the internal world not the external. I am not saying that you should dismiss the external world, I totally agree that they have their importance. But if they become the axis of life then it will be a problem.

Our mind has been conditioned to believe that life will be better only if I fix the outside (external). It is this misconception that is making you give so much attention to the outside and not pay attention to inside. But if you want to live life exuberantly, fully or change the way you live you should pay attention to inside i.e. attending to the source not the consequence, attending to the root not the flowers or fruits. As if the roots/source are taken care of the fruits/results will happen the way you want them to happen.

How do you define internal well being:

Disease free body,

Quiver free breath,

Confusion free mind,

Inhibition free intellect,

Trauma free memory,

Ego that encompasses everyone,

Sorrow free self/soul**.

Bye

A

** - Taken from a talk by Sri Sri Ravishankar in Wahington D.C, 2006.

The STRUCTURE of Life

Hi.

Yesterday night, I came with a nice tree - structure identifying the important things that govern/effect the life of all of us.

I will go in more detail in the upcoming posts.

Love

A

Vegeterian Indian Curry

Here is a cool recipe for Indian Curry .....enjoy....

Summer Season and Bike Ride Across Hudson......

The George Washington Bridge - Connecting NY and NJ

Summers are always a welcome change in a city that sees harsh winters with gusty winds. The air is light and vibrant, people relatively less grumpy and nature at its full bloom with trees getting back to their true colors and flowers coming out. Apparently, the campus (Columbia University) is dull during this time as most of the students head back home.

View of New York City from GWB

During summers I usually pick up a couple of outdoor activities like biking, swimming, hiking, playing firs-bee, or sometimes just sitting in central park with the weekend edition of New York Times. A week ago I was invited by one of my friends for a bike ride across the Hudson, to which I graciously agreed. We plannned on crossing the George Washington Bridge (GWB) to New Jersy, heading to a state park and then coming back to New York. Interestingly I found that GWB has the greatest capacity of any bridge in the world, carrying approximately 106 million vehicles per year, making it the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge.

Me (left) and Nils at the State Park

My partner for the ride was Nils - a cool french guy in our lab. He is one of those people who are so social that they can get along with anyone and everyone. One of his other quality is that he can make some of the most offensive jokes without offending you. He is an avid biker. The ride was pretty intense as at times I had to push really really hard to keep him in sight, and he was riding quite fast. Some of the roads were so steep that I almost thought my organs will come out if I put in more effort. But also there was a sweet satisfaction of completing the stretch and then enjoying the ride downwards where you just feel the cool air on the body and let go of everything.

Intense physical exercises like biking and running give a certain kind of pleasantness to the mood, the same is the experience of a deep meditation. After a while all the thoughts are gone and you are just in the moment, there is a certain kind of stillness in the air as though time has frozen, the body feels light, the mind is alert and relaxed at the same time. I got the same feeling and lost the track of time while gazing the sunset, marveling the beauty of nature and having a deep sense of gratitude towards life and its gifts....

So Long
....A

Lesson of a life....Concluding part

Contd. from the last post.....

I went to one of the desk and started working on my stuff. After some time this dude comes and tells me " I did not want you to take a picture while I am working". I replied " Yes, I know and I am sorry about that, I already deleted that pic. And FYI you were nowhere in the picture". He listen and replies " But that isn't the reason I am telling you this". Then WHAT I shouted in a slightly rude voice.

He looks a bit surprised and tells me" The reason I gestured you to stop was because the chemicals in that room are sensitive to white light, and I had a bottle that was open. Since the flash of the camera was on it would have been bad for my experiments". As soon as I heard this I was dumbfounded for 2 reasons. First, I was annoyed at my stupidity, as I had been using that room for over 2 years and second, I was cursing my mind as to how quickly I made a judgement about that person. Without, knowing the facts or the actual situation my mind had drawn a conclusion.

This lead me to some introspection about my mind, and emotions. And how easily it is for each one of us to make judgements about people, their nature, behavior or in extreme cases character itself. Though some of you may say that - Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes form bad judgement. Agreed, but the catch here is - as long as we are aware that we have made an error and have the humility to rectify the thinking. Eventually, after observing the mind over a period of mind we see that there is no point in having prejudiced against people just because someone told something about them or you saw them in an awkward situation. As everything in the world changes with time. The key is to approach everything in life - people, situations, with an open and receptive mind.

Later...

A

Lesson of a life.....Part1

Fig. Inside view of a clean room.

Many a times even small events can teach a BIG lesson. Learning depends on the level of personal awareness, alertness, attitude and adaptability. I had an opportunity to apply this to my outlook.
For my research work I have to shuttle between Columbia U and Cornell on a regular basis. I work at the Nanofabrication Facility (one of the best in the U.S - for research purpose) at Cornell. Now for those of you who do not know what a nanofab lab is. In short all of the nano/micro fabrication is done in a clean room which is space with a special environment like controlled amount of particles in air, controlled humidity and temperature etc. Even the lighting in some rooms is different as there are chemical that are sensitive to white light, so we have esp. rooms (Yellow Rooms) within the clean room.

Coming to the point, a few months back I was at Cornell and working my a** off in the clean room, at one point I got so inundated with work that it was time to do something different. Incidentally, I had bought my camera in the facility, so I thought why not do some photography.

Fig. Me preparing to use chemicals (Note the fake smile - just for the camera..-:)).

Taking some pics here and there and getting myself clicked in different poses, I went outside one of the yellow rooms and started clicking. Apparently, there was a dude who was working in the room. As soon I clicked the picture, he looked at me and made gestures with his hand indicating to stop this photographic adventure. I was taken aback and though to myself come-on I am not even clicking your picture, you were nowhere in the pic. With sadness and dejection I left the spot and thought why this person is so ANAL, whats wrong with him, he must be a real - PISSY dude.

I went to one of the desk and started working on my stuff. After some time this dude comes and tells me......

What did he tell me, and what was my reaction and the lesson that came home ....will be concluded in the next post.

Bye
..A