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Tuesday, October 28, 2003 ( 1:39 AM ) sankar Of late 1) What was my most recent disappoinment? I did not take oil bath as planned on Diwali day. Because I forgot and no one reminded me. 2) What was the one thing that I did for the first time in my life? I participated in a Koottu prarthanai (group prayer), organised at Nanganallur Hanuman temple on last Sunday for rain. 3) What is that I am eagerly looking forward to? To talk to my fiancee, Gita. I am just waiting for the finalisation of date for official engagement and marriage. 4) What was my recent regret? I wasted quite a lot of time and money in e-chatting in the past week. .... # Thursday, October 23, 2003 ( 8:03 AM ) sankar Happy Diwali to you all. Diwali seems to be yet another day. The only new activity for me is going to be the yennai kuliyal (oil bath). BTW, today I interviewed Dr Badrinath, Chairman, Sankara Nethralaya. Good one. # Wednesday, October 22, 2003 ( 1:32 AM ) sankar Get Naked This is a good article. Every firm should have a nudity strategy, says Don Tapscott on Oct 16th 2003, The Economist. # Tuesday, October 21, 2003 ( 1:17 AM ) sankar Warren Buffet on the practice of stocking Gold "It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or some place. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay some people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head." # Monday, October 20, 2003 ( 1:04 AM ) sankar Spiritual discussions with my mother If I have someone at home to discuss about spirituality, it is my mother. She knows Sanskrit and regularly reads Gita, commentaries on Vedas, Upanishads. She is a deeply religious woman. By attending lectures of various spiritual leaders like Omkarananda who used to visit my native place Rajapalayam (under the aegis of Ramco Group), she learnt a great deal of Gnana Margam. She is never tired of telling how her spiritual learning helps her in seeing through hard times in life. Yesterday, we discussed Ramana Maharishi's teachings at great length. At times, she is afraid that I would become a Sanyasi and hence always makes it a point to emphasis the importance of Karma Yogam . lol. On my part, I assure her time to time that I understand that spirituality is about carrying out duties against all odds, and it is not some easy route to escape. # ( 12:50 AM ) sankar Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation I have read and discussed enuf about meditation. Though I try to meditate sporadically...it's time I learnt it under the guidance of a guru. I joined a five day TM course on Saturday. Hopefully, I will continue meditation life long. # ( 12:45 AM ) sankar SWIM For sometime now, I have been discussing with like minded friends in media about starting a forum for writers interested in spirituality. I drafted a brief note on the forum. S W I M Know Thyself Spiritual Writers of Indian Media (SWIM) Why SWIM? In the wake of the increasing interest in spirituality, as evident from the overwhelming response to the spiritual forums of all faiths, the newspapers, magazines and TV channels are in a position to cover this important but delicate subject better and with utmost care. However, there are less or no training is available for spiritual writers in India. Without training and sharing among the writers of this rare breed the objective reporting of spiritual events, correct interpretation of spiritual philosophies and critical, secular and scientific approach to spirituality cannot be acheived. With a proper orientation, training, guidance and peer learning there could be an effective communication of spiritual subjects with relevance to the current happenings be it political or economical. Media can play, and is playing, an important role in spreading awareness of spiritual solutions for day to day problems of the individuals and societies. In this context, the forums like SWIM (for the writers to learn from each other and from the spiritual gurus) will go a long way in better media coverage of spirituality. Who can be the members of SWIM? SWIM is formed with the spiritual writers who belong to various faiths at Chennai. Writers, TV reporters and others who are interested in spiritual communication can become members of the online forum of SWIM and participate in its "off-line" programmes like seminars, workshops. Members irrespective of their social, political, communal, educational background can become members of this flat not-for-profit organisation. There is no membership fee or organisational position. SWIM is not affiliated to any particular religion or ideology - scientific or philoshopic. What are the activities of SWIM? The SWIM is into (1) facilitating online discussions (2) conducting seminars, training programmes, workshops and (3) facilitating the sourcing of spiritual content for Indian and world media. What is the organisational structure? SWIM will remain a flat organisation. However, there is an organisational committee comprising founding members as of now. There is a moderator to anchor the online discussions. There are no other separate organisational positions. .... # Friday, October 17, 2003 ( 1:03 AM ) sankar D is for And then D in FRIENDS is for Dependable. Sounds Ok! # ( 1:02 AM ) sankar Viveka Sudamani and Bhaja Govindam A few days back, I bought Adi Sankara's Viveka Chudamani from a book stall near Nanganallur Anjaneyar temple. The commentaries are given by Swami Turiyananda, a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. I read only a few pages. Sankara says: "One, who wants to gratify the body and still see the Atman, is like the man who takes hold of a crocodile to cross a river, thinking it is a log, and is thus destroyed." His message is clear: "Forget your world, your body, etc which are not you and realise the Atman." There is no compromise or short cut. I feel I am less than a weak mortal and to me this definitely sounds so extreeeeme and strict a view to me. But there is always a scope for improvement. I also bought the audio CD of Bhaja Govindam, sung by M S Subbalakshmi. It's my looong, longing plan. I am listening to it at least once in a day. I thought she had sung all the stanzas of Bhaja Govindam but she had chosen only a select few to sing. Some of my favorite stanzas are missed out. # Thursday, October 09, 2003 ( 10:19 PM ) sankar Friends are for? Thirvalluvar says "naguthar poruttandru, nattal miguthikan marchendru idiththar poruttu." The loose meaning is "friendship is not for having fun alone but a friend should be a strict/responsible guardian to an erring friend." I think friends should not be overly concerned about the "image", "reputation", etc when they have to take a guardian's role. Sure, when you are tough at a friend when he/she is erring we are actually risking, sometimes the friendship itself...but its a risk worth taking. I just sent a mail to a friend....my explanation for friends is here...I do not have a world for D...??? F - Frank R - Responsive and responsible, I - Inquisitive E - Encouraging N - Natural D - ???? S - Sensible # Wednesday, October 08, 2003 ( 5:45 AM ) sankar Four books I had a Rs. 500 note and no change but I needed a Rs. 5 train ticket to Nanganallur. The ticket counter lady frowned at me when I gave her the Gandhi note - no surprise, I expected that. So, in order to get change I decided to buy a few books at a nearby book shop. But I ended up buying four books for Rs. 300! The books are: Time Frame (1925-50) and Time Frame (1900-1925), a Longman dictionary and Economic History. The Time Frame seris has very interesting pictures about World War I, Great Depression, etc and also pictures of leaders like Martin Luther King... I think this is the first time I am buying a dictionary of this size - what I have at my home are two small dictionaries. Before that I was using Oxford dictionary, presented to me by Saravanan loooooooooong ago. It had very good usage examples for almost each word. But somewhere I misplaced it. # Tuesday, October 07, 2003 ( 6:29 AM ) sankar Crorepati and then... I received my salary account's monthly report from ICICI Bank today. It informed me that I have Rs. 898.00 Cr in balance! Unfortunately the Cr does not stand for CRORE but "credit" (that's what my colleague said). I wanted my colleagues to tell what would they do, suppose they get that kind of money. One said that she would take a world tour and go places. Whatever is left will go to a charity. I was a bit serious and I told my plan, "I would buy huge space and build a satellite town with offices, residences, schools, hospitals, parks and yes, temples for all religions - there will be no polluting factories or vehicles..." A little while later, I changed that plan. Now I rather wanted to set up a venture capital institution for ordinary business ideas. I will invite ordinary, hard working and honest people with time tested, common sense business ideas and fund them. But again after some time, I had another idea, which I think is better than the above two. That is, I would ensure that all mothers and children get nutritious food so that every children will have no physical, physiological, nutritional impediments in learning and growing. Well, I could not continue my day dreams for long with constant interruptions from the real work a day world. # Friday, October 03, 2003 ( 4:57 AM ) sankar Will AIDS attack Pulliraja? These hoarding campaigns are speaking some non-sense, close to obscene language now-a-days. A chicken company's recent campaign stoops too low to use blatant double entente - it's quite shocking. BTW, what do you think of this Pulliraja? The hoardings in all the suburban railway stations asking "Pullirajavirku AIDS varuma?" (Will AIDS attack Pulliraja?) were irritating and confusing. "Who is Pulliraja?" "For what these hoardings are all about?" I wanted to know. But I did not ask anyone as I knew that's what the campaigner wants me to do - so that the news about these hoardings spread and arouse the curiosity of others. But I got the answers for my unasked questions from my friend who told me that it's actually an aids awareness campaign run by an NGO, whose name I am still not sure of. He explained the meaning of the name "Pulliraja." The campaign is so successful that I saw a poster at Nanganallur, which reads: "AIDS will not inflict Pulliraja if he has Yesu Raja's blessings" - a Christian association trying to take mileage out of Pulliraja! Kashtam!?! # |
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