"Today India is poised to take flight into this open sky of success and perfection, and as the loyal citizens of this country, it is our duty, as individuals, and as a nation to ensure that we do not let this unprecedented moment in time go unutilized for the dream of a strong, robust and prosperous India... We must realize that it is us, and our billion hands that can shape it, and in the immortal clarion call of Swami Vivekananda, I ask my fellow citizens to " Arise, Awake and Stop not till the goal is reached"
This is a quote from the speech given by India's recently sworn new president on the nation's sixtieth independence day.
A vibrant, confident and optimistic India indeed... ready to take the centre stage in the corridors of world-power...a dream probably closer to turn into reality !
However we must not forget that ' Rome wasn't built in a day,' and there are 'many slips between cup and lips' Patience and vigilance are the two strongest allies of any nation or any individual. As Bal Gangadhar tilak said, ' liberty is every human being's birth right,' and India must also strive to achieve it in its each citizen's happiness and progress. India will be truly independent when its poorest will also have at least basic needs satisfied...a roof over the head and not a half filled stomach to go to bed each night.
That bright spark of a dream is still missing from the India's poor and hungry eyes which our first prime-minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru saw sixty years ago,
" Democracy means equality, and democracy can only flourish in an equal society."
But then total equality is almost impossible any where ; all one can do, is just carry on individual responsibilities and our own goal and nation will rise itself... nation doesn't make an individual, often individuals do make or break a nation !...
* * *
Few weeks back a youth flashed indecently and made some unprovoked rude gestures. His anger wasn't targeted against any individual, but towards the whole of Asian community and perhaps towards his failed and neglected aspirations also. Thought of handing him over to the police came to mind, but then ignoring him completely I forgave. Probably he was a mentally ill person and came from a deprived and desolate background.
This disparity and neglect in societie's infastructure is a curse. Here in England, shooting of boys ubder 16 by each other is becoming a common occurance. At least three were shot dead in last couple of months. Other day a motorbike rider was shot dead in a broad day light on a busy motorway. All the traffic for miles and miles came to hault and stood still ...Stranded in rows of cars for hours and hours I wondered like all those other people before and behind me; what is happening to this civilized nation ...where society as a whole is going wrong...is the law too lenient on criminals?
We all have to understand that man is not an island in himself ...and one man's emotions are going to have a domino effect on all .
Perhaps how to live and accommodate other fellow beings harmoniously should be a subject taught in the schools, along with the numbers and alphabets. Understanding and controlling our feelings is as important a skill in survival as is nourishing and nurturing one's body and soul.
" Anger, an intense sense of displeasure and antagonism, comes from the Latin angere, "to strangle." We get angry at those who've harmed us, aggravated us, or let us down. We get angry at ourselves. At God. Growing up, I was angry about being stuck on Earth; I felt like an alien, just longed to go "home." Sometimes anger becomes a mask for fear or hurt; it also leads to resentments, which I'll discuss later. Anger is human, we all have it... Anger is a toxic subtle energy. Seething in your system, it can eat you alive, or else dangerously erupt. Keep in mind: Those painfully polite churchgoing housewives turned ax murderers snapped from repressing anger, not from consciously expressing it."
From "Positive Energy," by Judith Orloff, M.D.
History can vouch when this demon of anger or hurt takes over it devours everything. In ancient times whole Mahabharat was fought and the entire Kuru dynesty was wiped off from the face of the earth along with Pandavas, when Draupdi ridiculed Duryodhan as a blind son of a blind father because he couldn't recognize a glass door in their Palace and bumped into it. In more recent times New York's Twin towers were blown away. Destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan may also be attributed to this anger of one powerful nation against another. How can we calm or turn this negative energy into a positive energy and stop it harming us...be it an individual anger or a whole community's...It is not only volcanoes which erupt; if not channelled properly, human lava can be far more dangerous than anything we know!
Long long ago, in a little town of Dalmatia, there lived a merchant. He was an honest,sensible man who wanted to make a good life for himself. He had married the daughter of a very respectable farmer and together they had worked and saved and saved and worked until they could afford to buy the best house in the town, the one with the balcony, that his wife has always dreamed of. She filled the balcony with geraniums and everyone said it was the prettiest house of all. They were blessed with a daughter, a pretty child with hazel eyes and shining hair who knew from the day she was born how to make his father give her anything she wanted.
The merchant was doing well but he dreamt of making enough money to make his family really secure. So, one day, he loaded up his donkey-cart with all his best merchandise and promising his wife to get the best prices he could, he set off for the market.
" Drive the cart carefully!" She called "Get the best prices you can!"
" And don't stop to talk to anyone in the forest---you know there are strange folk in there who would rob you of everything if you let them."
"Don't worry !" He called. " I will be back in three days and after that you don't have to work and save any more!"
The market was a whole days journey away through the dark forest, across the the river bridge and over the stoney mountain and finally he saw the city walls and beyond them the sea, wide and shining before him.
Well, the merchant had never such a good time at the market. In fact before the first day was over, he had sold everything he had brought with him and got the best price and he was sure that his wife would be very pleased and happy when he returned. Thinking about his wife and little daughter he decided to buy them presents with some of his profit. First he chose some fabric---his wife could make herself a very fine white dress for dancing in the festival next week. Then he saw some jewellery and remembered how his wife wished for some fine jewels. These were better than anything the farmer's wife could wear! So he bought them too and jeweller packed them. Then he found a toy-maker's shop and thought how much his daughtr would love to have a special doll, one with hazeleyes and shining hair just like her own. And then he bought her some boxes of sweets and some lollypops and finally he took all his perchases back to the cart and prepared to set off for home.
It was a beautiful day-the sun glistened on the sea behind him as he went over the stony mountain, the river shimmered and sang as he went over the bridge and even the forest didn't seem as dark as it had when he set out. The merchant started to whistle a little tune as the cartwheels went round and he thought about the pleasure his gift would bring to his family.
He was travelling through forest for about an hour when an unfamiliar sound interrupted his thoughts. What had it been? he stopped the cart to listen. There it was again and now it was quite close-the sound of a small child crying. He looked around and then he saw her, sitting at the roadside where a patch of sunlight gilded the primroses. The merchant's heart was touched and he got down from the cart to find out what was the matter.
" Why are you crying, little girl?" He asked. " Are you hurt?"
But the child didn't reply and went on crying. The merchant looked at her more closely. Her dark hair was tangled , her browned skin was not washed and her clothes were almost rags. " little girl, tell me what the matter is so that I can put it right. Has your mother scolded you? Has your father beaten you? Are you lost, out here in the forest?"
But the child just went on crying as though her heart would break. The merchant remembered what he had bought that morning and ran to the cart to fetch the sweets and lollipops.
" Here you are, little girl." he said. " Sweets always make any daughter smile" But although the child ate the sweets she went on crying. Then the merchant remembered the doll he had bought, the one with the hazel eyes and shining hair. He was sure that this grubby child would have never dreamed of anything so fine. So he fetched the doll from his cart and offered it to her. The child took the doll and looked at it with her dark eyes but still she did not stop crying.
" Are you cold little girl?" He wondered. " Take this fine cloth that I bought for my wife. You can wind it around you to keep out the cold."
But the ragged child wrapped in the fine cloth still went on crying, in desperation , the merchant fetched the box of jewels that he had bought for his wife.
"Here little girl", He said " these are all the gifts I have. See how the stone twinkle and the gold glints. Wear the necklace and you can be a princess this afternoon!"
The child shook her tangled hair and looked from the gold to primroses and went on crying.
Suddenly there was a shout from among the trees.
"Hey, you-what are you doing with my daughter!"
The merchant jumped up in shock and ran to his cart and pickd up the whip and tried to beat his poor donkey into a trot. But the stranger ran more quickly and grabbed the merchant by his cloak and pulled him down from the cart.
"What were you doing to my daughter!" he shouted " No-one tries to steal away a daughter of the forest and lives to tell the tale!"
And the two men fought and punched and faught while the merchant tried to explain that he had only been trying to stop the little girl from crying. The merchant was no match for the stranger and at last he was overpowered and fell, bruised and panting on the forest floor. As he opened his eyes he saw man's arm raised high above him.
"Wait!" he cried "I know you are going to kill me but for pitty's sake tell me, bfore I die, why the little girl was crying!" The sunlight flashed on the blade of a dagger.
" Do you really not know?" Suddenly the forest men smiled. " Then I will tell you. You townpeople love jewels and clothes and sweet things. When you cry it is for the things you do not have. We who live in the forest own nothing. It is beauty that makes us cry."
The Ashtavakra Gita (Song of Ashtavakra), also known by the name Ashtavakra Samhita is an influential nondualist Vedic scripture which documents a discourse between the Ashtavakra (Eight times Knotted or Gnarled Guru) and Rajah Janak, though its authorship is not known with certainty.
While still in his mother’s womb, Astavakra used to listen to his father’s recitation of verses from the Rig Veda, and sometimes even correct him. (probably he was the pioneer of this idea of a generation gap, where the son is always annoyingly smarter than the father!) At one point he said to his father that “what you’re reciting is just words, theres no substance in them” At this father got very angry, and cursed his own son!
So when Astavakra was born, he had eight distortions in his body (hence the name asta = 8, vakra = crooked), and needless to say was far from handsome.
At the age of 12, as a result of several incidents Astavakra goes to the court of King Janaka, where all his scholarly courtiers are also present, and here comes a man in front of them with a crooked body. As soon as he enters the court, everybody starts laughing, including the king himself.
But instead of getting offended, Astavakra also starts laughing. [this is the mark of a great man, who doesn't feel offended, even when he is being belittled].
King Janaka ridicules him “everybody is laughing at you, then why are you also laughing?”
Astavakra replies very boldly, referring to everybody in the court who was laughing “I am laughing because such a great scholar and king like you has surrounded yourself with cobblers! And you’re also one of them!”. He further explains “…because a cobbler looks only at the skin, and not beyond it… likewise you’re all judging me just by my shape, and not looking at my being!”.
Impressed by his courage and wisdom, King Janaka starts asking Astavakra questions and this question and answer conversation is recorded as the ' Ashtavakra Gita'.
The Astavakra Gita is around 5000 years older than the Bhagavad Gita. This is an extremely powerful and concise book, and gives the truth straightaway, without any long winded twists and turns. The most important thing about the Astavakra Gita is that nobody worships Astavakra. Therefore it stands a better chance of people paying attention to what he said. Bhagavad Gita has ended up with the fact that people have started worshipping Krishna and the main issue of his speech is sidetracked!
There are various versions of the background story on the Astavakra Geeta. One is that Astavakra’s father was imprisoned, another is that his father is dead and he wants to bring him back to life, another is that King Janaka asks that he dosen’t care if he’s the greatest of scholars, but he should get enlightened straightaway by the mere words of the scholar, another is that there’s a debate where Astavakra helps in the victory, etc. All these details aren’t that relevant compared to the actual content of the conversation; which is powerful and illuminating.
The Ashtavakra Gita does not date itself or brand itself to any region, culture, or people, although it does contain Hindu-specific references, especially in the final chapter entitled 'I am Shiva' where it proclaims in the final verse that the author is in truth, ' One with God'.
The essence of the Ashtavakra Gita is that there is no such thing as existence or non existence, right or wrong, or moral or immoral. In the eyes of the sage Ashtavakra who is the ostensible author of this text, one's true identity can be found by simply recognizing oneself as Pure Existence and that as individuals also, we are the Awareness (conscience) of all the things around us.
The Ashtavakra Gita teaches that one is already free once one realises they are free. It advocates non-action (similar to the Daoist concept of Wu Wei), the loss of desire and severing of worldly attachments. To free oneself from the cycle of life and death, one should withdraw from all Earthly desires, worries and cares. To continue induldging in Earthly things even after one has realised their true nature is said to be foolish and time wasting. Instead it paints a picture of The Master as someone who continues to keep up their responsibilities in the world, not because one has to, or due to any worldy attachments, but simply that it is in his nature to do so like life preserving wind or water. It is important to avoid misinterpretation, and to that end teachers traditionally recommend that Ashtavakra Gita be pursued by only those who have already advanced on the spiritual path. Ashtavakra teaches that emotions, thoughts and even meditation can lead to further bondage and that religious practice itself is of no meaning to the enlightened.
The work was known, appreciated and quoted by Ramakrishna and his disciple Vivekananda, as well as by Ramana Maharshi. Radhakrishnan refers to it with great respect, even Sri Ravi Shankar has given a commentary on this scripture. Apart from that, the work speaks for itself. It presents the traditional teachings of Advaita Vedanta with a clarity and power very rarely matched. It teaches to be free from anxiety and responsinility, joy or sorrow yet living life to the full... and that is some teaching and achievement in any age ...
पसीने की एक बूंद किसीकी खानपान और धूम्रपान की आदतें बयां कर सकती है। यही नहीं, यह भी पता लगाया जा सकता है कि उसने थोड़ी देर पहले क्या खाया है।
लंदन के इंपीरियल कॉलेज के वैज्ञानिकों ने यह तकनीक विकसित की है। वैज्ञानिकों के अनुसार जब कोई व्यक्ति किसी वस्तु को छूता है तो स्पर्श की हुई जगह पर पसीने एवं चिकनाई के अँश रह जाते हैं और इन्ही अंशों का विश्लेषण करके ये सारी जानकारियां हासिल की जा सकती हैं। वैज्ञानिकों को उम्मीद है कि एक साल में इस तकनीक का इस्तेमाल होने लगेगा और इसका उपयोग अपराध विज्ञान में भी किया जा सकेगा। भौतिक रसायनविद प्रोफेसर सर्गेई कजारियन ने बताया कि उनका विश्वास है कि इस तकनीक से अपराधियों को पकड़ने में मदद मिल सकेगी। उन्होने कहा कि निकट भविष्य में रसायनिक तस्बीरें अदालतों में महत्वपूर्ण साक्ष्य होंगी। यह रिपोर्ट जनरल एनेलिटिकल केमेस्ट्री में प्रकाशित हुई है।
पहले अंतरिक्ष होटल 'ग्लैटिक सूइट' की यह तस्वीर एक कलाकार की परिकल्पना पर आधारित है। ऐसी संभावना व्यक्त की जा रही है कि यह होटल वर्ष 2012 तक मूर्त रूप ले लेगा। यहां आने वाले मेहमानों को 80 मिनट में पूरे विश्व के भ्रमण की व्यवस्था होगी। इस परिकल्पना को अंजाम देने वाले बर्सिलोना के एक आर्किटेक्ट का कहना है कि आकाश गंगा (ग्लैक्सी) के इस अंतरिक्ष होटल में ठहरना नि:संदेह बेहद महंगा होगा। तीन दिन के प्रवास के लिए करीब 16 करोड़, 19 लाख रुपये देने पड़ेंगे। इस प्रवास के दौरान एक दिन में 15 बार सूर्योदय का नजारा किया जा सकेगा। विशेष सूट वेलक्रो के जरिए मेहमान अपने पाड रूम की दीवारों पर स्पाइडर मैन की तरह चिपक कर चल सकेगा।
The Terracotta Army has begun its long march to the UK after 2,000 years in China. There are thought to be at least 7,000 life-size terracotta warriors partially buried in the city of Xi'an. Once in London the iconic figures will form the centre piece of a new blockbuster exhibition at the British Museum. A dozen of the estimated 8,000 figures that have been restored are being shipped to the UK. (Natalie Behring/The Times)
The terracotta soldiers were created in order to keep the Emperor safe for eternity. Seeing himself as a Divine Ruler of the world, he became obsessed with finding the elixir of immortality.The potions invented for him in the quest for immortality included phosphorous and balls of mercury.The Emperor died suddenly in 210BC. The suspected cause of death - mercury poisoning (British Museum)
It is the largest group of the Terracotta Army ever allowed to leave China for a foreign exhibition (China Photos/Getty)
"Today India is poised to take flight into this open sky of success and perfection, and as the loyal citizens of this country, it is our duty, as individuals, and as a nation to ensure that we do not let this unprecedented moment in time go unutilized for the dream of a strong, robust and prosperous India... We must realize that it is us, and our billion hands that can shape it, and in the immortal clarion call of Swami Vivekananda, I ask my fellow citizens to " Arise, Awake and Stop not till the goal is reached"
Shooting Stars
FOREST CHILD
An Introduction to a classic 
In Focus
पहले अंतरिक्ष होटल 'ग्लैटिक सूइट' की यह तस्वीर एक कलाकार की परिकल्पना पर आधारित है। ऐसी संभावना व्यक्त की जा रही है कि यह होटल वर्ष 2012 तक मूर्त रूप ले लेगा। यहां आने वाले मेहमानों को 80 मिनट में पूरे विश्व के भ्रमण की व्यवस्था होगी। इस परिकल्पना को अंजाम देने वाले बर्सिलोना के एक आर्किटेक्ट का कहना है कि आकाश गंगा (ग्लैक्सी) के इस अंतरिक्ष होटल में ठहरना नि:संदेह बेहद महंगा होगा। तीन दिन के प्रवास के लिए करीब 16 करोड़, 19 लाख रुपये देने पड़ेंगे। इस प्रवास के दौरान एक दिन में 15 बार सूर्योदय का नजारा किया जा सकेगा। विशेष सूट वेलक्रो के जरिए मेहमान अपने पाड रूम की दीवारों पर स्पाइडर मैन की तरह चिपक कर चल सकेगा।
The Terracotta Army has begun its long march to the UK after 2,000 years in China. There are thought to be at least 7,000 life-size terracotta warriors partially buried in the city of Xi'an. Once in London the iconic figures will form the centre piece of a new blockbuster exhibition at the British Museum. A dozen of the estimated 8,000 figures that have been restored are being shipped to the UK. (Natalie Behring/The Times)
