Ashtavakra Gita - The Song of the Eightfold Cripple  

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Watching ashtavakra CDs is a revolutionary experience for any one on the path. Ultimate form of knowledge anybody and everybody will require in the planet :).

Wiki

The story: Once upon a time there was a student of the scriptures who could not support his family. He would work hard all day every day and then read aloud the holy language of sacred verses late into the night. His wife, round of belly with their coming child, would sit beside him in the dim room, listening as her weary beloved chanted the ancient words. One late night in her eighth month a voice from inside her belly said to the father: “Sir, please be attentive - you are mispronouncing that verse.” Tired and short-tempered, without thinking why he would feel so enraged at being corrected by an unborn child, the father cursed the voice - and because the father had built up merit, his curse took hold: the child was born deformed, with eight crooks in his body. That child was called Ashtavakra, a name which means ‘eight bends’. Everyone who saw him laughed in derision. That crippled child was an enlightened master who took birth in this family to reveal in simple words the essence of mystical experience. Janaka, king of the known world, father of the bride of God, Sita, daughter of the earth, that very King Janaka became this crippled boy’s disciple. The book based on that event is called The Song of the Eightfold Cripple, or Ashtavakra Gita.

Youtube

original sanskrit text: click here

WikiSource

Tintumon Revolution  

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Couldnt resist pasting here.......enjoy!!


"DOSA
Teacher: Name the liquid which changes to solid when heated
Tintumon: Dosa

BEGGAR
Bus Cunductor: Why are you standing near the door, is your father a watchman?
Tintu Mon: Why are you always asking for “Change”, Is your father a Beggar ??

PROFESSOR
A professor to tintumon: “what is attention deficit hyperactive disorder?”
tintumon: “JIMBALAKDI BAMBA”
professor: “i dont understand anything”
tintumon: “same 2 you”

MOTHER
Father to Tintumon: Why can't you not think every woman as your mother?
Tintumon: I can, but if i did so, what will people think of you?


LKG-TINTUMON
To be is to do(Socrates)
To do is to be(Plato)
To be or not to be(Shakespeare)
Scoo be do be dooo(Tintu mon, LKG)……..

CHEMISTRY [Too Good]
Teacher : What is “Al2 O3″ ?
Ramu : Alumina.
Teacher: Tintu, What is ‘Fe2 O3″?
Tintumon : “Filomina”

DINESHAN
Teacher :What is the name of Gandhiji’s son?
Tintumon: Dineshan
Teacher :Why?????
Tintumon : Mahatma Gandhi is the father of di-neshan"

Spider fry  

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I was enjoying my first spider outside Phnom Pen market when I heard a highly agitated voice behind me: "Oh my Gaahd, what are yooouu eating?" Turning, I saw an American tourist staring at me with an understandable mixture of revulsion and fascination. Trying to sound casual, I replied: "Spider - would you like a leg?"
She stood for a couple of moments, mouth gaping soundlessly before grabbing her husband, who was busily working a flashy video camera: "Dan! Dan! The boy is eating a spider!" Working on a variant of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle - nothing exists until you video it - Dan swung his costly optics round and I obligingly stuffed the thing in my mouth while she continued to goggle. Once Dan had captured the moment for posterity they left, she still more than a little horrified.
Although my spider wasn't quite as delicious as the Americans' reactions, it was pleasant enough for something that looked like a Hallowe'en prop. My epicuriosity was piqued so I asked the spider seller about her trade. She spoke no English but a nearby taxi-bike driver did and, through him, she explained that she was a mere metropolitan outpost of arachnid cuisine; if I were serious about my spiders - or a-ping as they're known locally - I needed to head to the town of Skuon, some 55 miles north of Phnom Pen.

................. that is how a Combodian's travelog will be... read more @ http://www.rhymer.net/cutsE.htm

Why are the British so much funnier than we are?  

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Got this mail from Nithin, could not stop pasting it here... he he he...

UP movie review  

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By tying thousands of balloon to his home, 78-year-old Carl Fredricksen sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. Right after lifting off, however, he learns he isn't alone on his journey, since Russell, a wilderness explorer 70 years his junior, has inadvertently become a stowaway on the trip.

I enjoyed this movie, from the second row in the theater. Cartoon movies are really heart breaking.

Before The Rains - movie review  

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Before The Rains, directed by Santosh Sivan, is a tragic tale of love, death and guilt set against a backdrop of the emerging nationalist movement in the 30s.

Sivan's camera captures Kerala's images of lush, rolling hills, covered in sparkling green foliage and crystalline waters.

The film is mostly in English, with even most of the Malayali actors speaking in English, and only sparse pockets of Malayalam.

Major roles are played by Linus Roache, Nandita Das, Rahul Bose, Tilakan, Lal..

Famous vegetarian personalities  

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Abdul Kalam Dr., President of India and Space Scientist - info

Abraham Lincoln, former President of the United States - info

Albert Einstein, renowned scientist - info

Amitabh Bachchan, Indian celebrity superstar - info

Brad Pitt, actor - info

Bryan Adams, singer and songwriter - info

John Abraham, actor Bollywood - info

Kate Winslet, actress - info

Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian painter and inventor - info

Pamela Anderson, actress - info

Rabindranath Tagore, Eastern Indian philosopher - info

Thomas Alva Edison, renowned inventor - info


More @

http://www.happycow.net/famous_vegetarians.html


Vote for sexiest celebrity @

http://getahead.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/aug/05/slide-show-1-glamour-poll-whos-the-sexiest-vegetarian-celeb.htm



Are you ready to Wave?  

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I received my Google Wave developer account enabled and got a glimpse of the tool today. Please add me to contacts, if anybody out here got the enabled. My id is sunandk@wavesandbox.com, sunandk-test@wavesandbox.com
For those who have not heard of Wave: Google Wave is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year. Demo is available @ http://wave.google.com

Power of now  

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Just finished watching the DVD talk by Eckhart Tolle. It is really awesome. No words to express! Here is the link for the book.
http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=sQYqRCIhFAMC&pg=PP1&dq=power+of+now

Back to winamp  

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Started using winamp after a long time, it gave a nostalgic feeling of college days. Could not resist installing winamp with classic theme, lot of options in the media library. I imported all my mp3s to media library, and renamed the genre with category in the way I wanted.


I also liked the option to change the play list entries to show the filenames without extension. Also, installed few sound enhancers, still looking for the best sound enhancer. Winamp really rocks with my sennheiser headphone.

New Job Titles  

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Could not resist pasting this here, from my Inbox.

OLD TITLES : NEW TITLES

Garden Boy : Landscape Executive and Animal Nutritionist

House Maid : Family Environs Upkeep Manager

Receptionist : Front Office Manager/Office Access Control

Typist: Printed Document Handler

Messenger : Business Communications Conveyer

Window Cleaner : Transparent Wall Technician

Temporary Teacher : Associate Tutor

Tea Boy : Refreshment Overseer

Garbage Collector : Public Sanitation Technician

Watchman : Theft Prevention and Surveillance Officer

Prostitute : Practical Sexual Relations Officer

Thief : Wealth Distribution Officer

Driver : Automobile Propulsion Specialist

Maid : Domestic Operations Specialist

Employee without Portfolio : Administration Manager

Cook : Food Preparation Officer

Unemployed : Township Management

Gossiping : Research
Management

Veggie talk again  

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Firo rocks again with his thoughts – it often happens on lunch breaks, makes sense to me and interesting too , so thought of sharing. hope u guys will enjoy it.

Though from a non veggie which was brought to Firo (a veggie by choice)

Firo: Situation: damn hungry- nothing around –on a long drive……..
Vehicle happened to bank royally to a mango tree with sparkling yellow ready to serve mangos falling like rain drops – lucky ?? yea unlucky ?

Non Veggie: Of course lucky, coz I got lots of mangos out of the blue when badly needed

Firo: Replace Mango tree with a chicken, little chicken’s leg was broken. What will you feel????

Non Veggie: I will feel sad about it, because I broke the leg of the chicken

Firo: Why should you feel that way, you should have felt yummy about it, since that was your favorite meal indeed. ;-) .........

ABC of Life  

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A wareness, belongingness and commitment hold the key to success. They form the ABC of life. In any field, we need ABC. Are we aware of what we are telling ourselves? This level of awareness is vital for society because this is what can prevent crime. With this level of awareness, it is impossible for a criminal to commit a crime.

There was a thief. He went to meet a saint. He told the saint that he had a compulsion to steal. The saint said, "I am not going to tell you not to steal. But, when you steal, do it with awareness." Three months later, the thief came back to the saint and said, "With awareness, I could not steal."

It is the same with anger. It comes with a burst, you lose it. But, what have you actually lost? You lost awareness. You can arouse passion, and that passion can become an impulse to destroy. But, to be creative, you don't need to arouse a passion, you need to be focused and, most importantly, you need to be aware.

Expand your awareness

Now, how to bring up one’s awareness? You start with simple and small things in life. Things that seem insignificant, like hearing the birds singing, seeing the sun set, and so on. This would bring up your awareness.

Awareness nurtures intellect. Belongingness nurtures the heart. And, commitment nurtures life. The problem is that creators are only a few, and they succeed because they have a lot of commitment.

If we are observing the ABC, then we can make a big change in society. Ask yourself the question: do all people in the world belong to me? The day you ask that your spiritual journey has begun. With this context of awareness, you can understand cosmology.

In some temples, there is a tradition called sankalpa. It reminds you how old this Universe is, and then from there, it brings you into this moment. Cosmology brings awareness. Other methods for raising awareness are meditation, breathing and pranayama. You need energy and you will not get that only from food and sleep. Meditation and a silent state of consciousness will also give you energy.

C is also for commitment and compassion. Smile more. A bit of humour can keep you out of trouble. Look into the mirror everyday, and smile. The higher you go up in the corporate ladder, the smile starts shrinking. I measure success by the smile. How strong your smile is will show how secure you are. And, this is what, I think, indicates success in your career.

Smile your way through

To be able to smile through any situation in life, you need a little knowledge about yourself, about your mind and your consciousness. You need to learn a little bit about your breath. We need to know a little bit about all the layers of our existence: that is, body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego, and the self. This is what I call Art of Living, learning a little bit about yourself; the seven layers of our life. And, that makes us live in the present-moment, and it helps us to maintain the innocence that we are all born with, and feel at home with everybody, anywhere.

Does anybody teach you, at school or at home, what to do when you are upset, or angry, or depressed?

Learning something about our breath is very important. Our breath has a great lesson for us, which we have forgotten. For every rhythm in the mind, there is a corresponding rhythm in the breath; for every rhythm in the breath, there is a corresponding emotion. So, when you cannot handle your mind directly, you can do it through breath. The rhythm in breath can help you get in touch with the depth of yourself, your soul, your consciousness.

The ABC of life brings expansion. It brings an awareness of existence, belongingness to the whole creation, and commitment to human values in life.

This will help broaden our vision and deepen our roots.

-Sri Sri Ravishankar

Breath of Life  

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Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

The world would be free from trouble if there is no love! All the problem in the world is caused by love! So also all the joy, pleasure and the very purpose in life. Do you see what I’m saying? Suppose there is no love, you can’t be jealous; jealousy is because of love. Greed is because you love objects too much. Anger is because you love perfection, that is why you are angry at imperfections. You love yourself too much and that’s why pride and arrogance comes to you. Isn’t it?

So, every distortion of love causes problems not only for ourselves, but for everybody. Even though this is the case, without love what is there in life? Just imagine there’s nobody who loves you on this planet, and you don’t love anybody. Does life have any meaning, any purpose? It appears absolutely depressing, boring, uninteresting, isn’t it so? But, how do we get to that point of love where that love is free from the distortions and we are able to be at ease with ourself?

This is where a little knowledge about ourself, about our mind, our consciousness, and the root of distortion will help. It is when you are tired and exhausted that you are not in touch with your virtues. Every individual is bestowed with all the virtues in the world. They simply get covered by lack of understanding. All that is needed is to just to uncover the virtues that are already there.

Never should we think, ‘‘Oh, deep inside me there is sorrow’’. I say it’s only skin deep, go a little deeper there is no sorrow. You cannot have hurt deep inside you, that only means you have not gone deep enough. That’s why we are unable to forgive somebody because we think that person has caused us hurt. Right? But if you look at the person from a different perspective, that person himself is also a victim of ignorance, small mindedness, lack of awareness. So, inside every culprit there is a victim crying for help. If we can recognise that we don’t need to forgive them, we will feel compassion for them.

When we are happy, something in us is expanding, have you noticed it? And when we are upset, something in us is being crushed, a sense of contraction is felt. Just knowing this brings freedom to us. Then our mind or our consciousness no more becomes a puppet of anybody’s words, opinions or their sayings. It becomes free. We are unconditionally happy.

Each of us should reach out to everyone and say, ‘‘Hey, come on, just be friendly!’’. Do you know that a child smiles 400 times a day, an adolescent only 17 times, and an adult doesn’t smile at all. And that too, if he becomes a little successful, he becomes much more stiff. I can’t understand this! To me, someone who has no fear, who feels at home with everybody and has a smile which no one can take away is a successful person.

From today, make one resolution — that you are going to be a guiding lamp for the world, for the people around you. Wherever you go, you are going to uplift the atmosphere. If someone comes to you with complaints they should go back with a lighter heart, feeling more enthusiastic. Can you all do this?

So, learning something about our breath is very important. Our breath has a great lesson to teach us, which we have forgotten, for every rhythm in the mind, there is a corresponding rhythm in the breath, for every rhythm in the breath there is a corresponding emotion. So, when you cannot handle your mind directly, through breath you can handle the mind.

Neither at school nor at home does anybody teach you what to do when you are upset or angry or depressed. Isn’t that so? The first thing we did when we came to this planet is that we took a deep breath in and then we started to cry. The last thing we’ll be doing, we’ll breathe out and make others cry! In between, the whole life, we are breathing in and out, but, we have learnt very little about our breath! No breath, no life... know breath, know life! The rhythm in breath can help us get in touch with the depth of ourself, our soul, our consciousness, our being and we feel connected with everybody, with everything in the world.

I am sure that deep within you, everyone of you feel that you have not grown, meaning you have not changed, not grown old. This indicates the soul in you, the depth in you, the spirit in you doesn’t change, doesn’t grow old, it’s not aging. The body is aging but something in you is not aging. Getting in touch with that something that doesn’t age, brings beauty in life. That is meditation.

We need to learn a little bit about our breath. We need to know a little bit about all the layers of our existence, viz body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego and the self. This is what I call Art of Living, learning a little bit about ourself, the seven layers of our life. And that makes you be in the present moment and it helps us to maintain the innocence that we are all born with, and feel at home with everybody, anywhere.

What I would suggest is take one week off every year for yourself, like you take your car for servicing. During that time, align yourself with nature, wake up with the sunrise, do some exercise, eat proper food, just as much food as necessary, some exercises, yoga, and some breathing exercises, a few minutes of singing, and keeping silence, enjoying the creation. Aligning ourself with nature, our whole system gets recharged, makes the whole year, we feel so vibrant, enthusiastic.