The Holy Red Dot

For centuries, Hindu women have worn a spot on their foreheads.

We have always naively thought that it had something to do with their Religion.

The true story has recently been revealed by the Indian Embassy in
Washington, D.C.

When one of these women gets married, she brings with her, a dowry. On her wedding night, the husband scratches off the spot to see if he has won either a convenience store, a gas station, a donut shop or a motel in the United States.

Joking aside, here is Kamat’s explanation of the significance of the holy red dot, or bindhi.

Geography of Heaven: Vrindavan

Looks like there is suddenly an interest in the media to investigate different beliefs of heaven around the word. NPR in collabration with National Geographic is running a radio expedition exploring the geography of heaven, starting with Vrindavan.

There is beauty, because Vrindavan is heaven — not a metaphor for heaven, or a way to heaven. This is heaven.

The multimedia slideshow is pretty good, and there are three articles ( the streets of holy hindu city :: pilgrims on the path of Krishna:: the embodiment of earthly divinity ) worth a read. There is also the actual radio broadcast, for those who want to listen.

As for my thoughts on all this–I will just let Richard Dawkins letter, “Good and Bad Reasons for Believing“, which he wrote to his ten year old daugher, explain it.

Yogo Sutras of Patanjali

This is an archive of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, translated into 33 languages. Be patient with this; there is a lot to read and digest here.

The documents can be accessed by first registering on the forum. After registering, head to the forum and look for a password post, here you will be able to retrive the username and password to access the documents. The forum has over 2000 members, but lacks activity for that kind of membership, I am assuming most people sign up, simply, for the translated Yoga Sutras.

I like the information contained on this site, but for lack of good organization and simplicity, I am giving it a four om rating.

Om rating

Moment of Zen

Leonardo Da Vinci combined art and science and aesthetics and engineering, that kind of unity is needed once again.
– Dr. Ben Shneiderman

Remembering Tsunami Disaster 2004

It’s been a year since the biggest natural disaster of our life time which took the lives of more than 200,000 people. Head over to bbc for an in depth on the Tsunami Disaster. Take a moment to reflect on what happend a year back, find out more on the state of the Indian Ocean tsunami warning system, how aid money has been put to use, and how have people who have been affected by the disaster coped with it.

Here are some pictures I had collected last year, as I was glued to the TV and internet, like most of you, as the might of nature unfolded.

For me, a disaster like this puts things in perspective. In our busy day to day lives, we often ignore the fact that we are–after all–tiny beings on a rock flying around in space, almost like being in a plane on a clear day and no turbulence. You have this feeling of being still, even though you are jetting across the sky at over 500mph. Disasters of colossal proportions are inevitable; the chances of being blind sided are high; if it happened over there a year back, then it could happen here–in your backyard–next; maybe even everywhere.

In the moment of the emotional aspects of such a tragedy, and the number of human lives lost, we rather not think we are like bugs on a windshield when it comes to something bigger and more powerful. If it’s a giant wave today, it could be a 100 mile wide asteroid tomorrow. Am I trying to say ignore what happened, no, absolutely not, but rather reflect on it, what we can learn from this from a bigger picture point of view? It’s not a question of end of the world either; it’s a question of how we can assure our survival, and by that I don’t mean you or me, but humanity.

Do we keep getting shocked by disasters and the number of lives lost, and move on with our lives once it is no longer in the news, leaving it to the scientists, priests, environmentalists, and the politicians we elect to figure it out, or do we start putting our heads together, and move in the direction of taking steps to not only protect and preserve the rock we live on, but think in terms of how we can survive in the face of colossal disasters that could affect us as a species. Do we have it in us, or will the future generations have it in them, the qualities our ancestors had, to survive, as they watched the dinosaurs perish?

Did you Know

I have had many sandwiches, but never has it sparked my curiosity, until today, as I drove home with my wife, thinking sandwich for dinner. I wondered if someone lazy made the first sandwich, I had to find out, and here is the facinating story of sandwiches:

According to wikipedia, John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich is credited with creating a sandwich, and the name was derived from his title. It was long said that he invented the food to sustain himself while gambling without having to eat a full meal; he would never leave his seat at his gambling table and when compelled to eat, asked his servants to bring him a piece of cold meat between two slices of bread. And that is the story behind a sandwich, and now you know it too.

Lateral Thinking

There are six eggs in a basket.
Six people each take one egg,
how can it be that one egg is still
left in the basket?

Did you Know

That almost 900 years ago a man named Suryavarman II tried to construct heaven on earth. He did not succeed. But the temple mountain that his people built in what is now Cambodia in nothing short of miraculous. It would be an architectural feat even today to erect a seamless edifice with stones weighing as much as 8,000 pounds apiece. Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, erected around 1150, was built wihout the use of mortar; it is held together by weight and friction. The complex is a sculpture of roughly a square mile. Its sandstone relief carvings–of Hindu legends and Khmer battle scenes–are among the world’s finest.

Source: Life Magazine
Further reading: A Fascinating Page From History – Monuments of Angkor Wat

Worth a 1000 words

Dead Bee
by KarmaDude

Moment of Zen

“If you have to create a new world, a new civilization, a new art, everything new, not contaminated by tradition, by fear, by ambitions, if you have to create something anonymous which is yours and mine, a new society, together, in which there is not you and me but an “ourness,” must there not be a mind that is completely anonymous, therefore alone? This implies, does it not, that there must be a revolt against conformity, a revolt against respectability, because the respectable man is the mediocre man because he wants something, he is dependent on influence for his happiness, on what his neighbor thinks, on what his guru thinks, on what the Bhagavad-Gita or the Upanishads or the Bible or the Christ says. His mind is never alone. He never walks alone, but he always walks with a companion, the companion of his ideas.

Is it not important to find out, to see, the whole significance of interference, of influence, the establishment of the “me,” which is the contradiction of the anonymous? Seeing the whole of that, does not the question inevitably arise: Is it possible immediately to bring about that state of mind that is not influenced, which cannot be influenced by its own experience or by the experience of others, a mind that is incorruptible, that is alone? Then only is there a possibility of bringing about a different world, a different culture, a different society in which happiness is possible.”
– J. Krishnamurthy