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.

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

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. ;-) .........

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

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.

H H Sri Sri Ravishankar answers questions from Manorama Online readers:

http://www.manoramaonline.com/advt/Festival/Guruvasaram/index.htm

Question by: Kiran
Dear Guruji, now I am facing a big problem in my career life.I am working in a private company in Dubai, for the last couple of months.My problem is that, I can't do even a simple work completly.I cant complete the work on time.Everything is getting pending.I had thought about this thing so many times, but I doesn't get a proper solution for this.I have to do a lot of works in my office - it comes one after another, before completing the first one.But I have to do all in a priority basis.But unfortunately, I can't do it properly.I am doing all those work, but it becomes the drawing in the water.Please provide a solution for this.Now I am also thingking about my future that, without become a professional, how can I get better oppertunities. I haven't seen U till now. But, U may please provide a proper solution for this problem by either ur writings in Manorama or by return mail. Waiting for your mail......Regards,Kiran K. S.
Answer : SRI SRI : It is the desire that tires you - the 'want' in the mind. Your mind tires you more than the physical work. If you are willing to do some work, even 15 hours at a stretch, it will not tire you but if you are not willing and you have to work even for four hours, it will tire you. For eg , you have a party at home or you are arranging Onam /Vishu decorations. So you may work many late hours but still not feel tired. You feel good about it. But you work in some place you don't like, you'd like to have four coffee or tea breaks and even then you feel it's tiring! Don't do any work at all. Just sit and go on thinking. You'll be terribly exhausted. For many people, the tiredness and exhaustion comes from thinking and worrying, not by working. Thinking you need rest makes you restless. Thinking you have to work hard makes you tired. Thinking you have worked hard brings self pity. So, learn some techniques which will give you deep rest, deeper than sleep. Deeper your rest, you can be more dynamic .

Question by: Dr.Geetha
Even though I have strong belief in GOD,when I face misfortunes in life,I feel depressed and worried.I faced many tragedies in life and overcame all these with the help of GOD without much side effects.I did nt get a Job, eventhough highly qualified.How can I get peace in mind with all worries in life.
Answer : SRI SRI : The way to overcome personal misery is to share universal misery! The way to expand personal joy is to share universal joy. Instead of thinking "what about me?" "what can I gain from this world?" think "what can I do for the world?" When everyone comes from the point of contributing to society, you have a Divine society. We have to educate and culture our individual consciousness in order to expand in time with the Knowledge . . . from "what about me?" to "what can I contribute?"