Meditation Tip

“Now, let us see if we can together feel the importance of meditation, and also perceive the beauty, the implications, the subtleties of it. To begin with, that word “meditation” has a very special significance to you, has it not? You immediately think of sitting in a certain posture, breathing in a certain way, forcing the mind to concentrate on something, and so on. But to me that is not meditation at all. To me meditation is entirely different; and if you and I are to share this inquiry into what is meditation, you will obviously have to put aside your prejudices, your conditioned thinking about meditation. That is true, I think, whether we discuss politics, or a particular system of economics, or our relationship with each other.

If you are given to a particular form of so-called meditation, and the other is not, there can obviously be no sharing. You must let go of your prejudices and experiences, and he must also let go of his, so that both of you can look into the problem and find out together what is meditation.”?

From 1959 8th Public Talk, New Delhi
by Jiddu Krishnamurthi

Did you Know

That the word malaria comes from the words mal and aria, which is Italian for bad air. This derives from the ancient belief that all diseases are caused by bad, or dirty air.

Worth a 1000 words: Stefan Rohner

A Yogi
by Stefan Rohner

Do check out his India 2005 album, containing fabulous images capturing daily life in India.

Brain Calisthenics

Brain calisthenics, a Time Magazine article, states that performing a 20-minute mental workout, can help you keep your mind strong and sharp.

The sample brain warm up exercices are fun to do, and at the same time, they point out areas that need improvement. Will it make you the smartest person on the planet, I don’t know, but it might just get your mind in shape. I am going to give it a try for 30 days, and post back my thoughts on how it went.

Desktop Widget

For those who use Yahoo! Widgets, I have created a KarmaDude widget, which you can download and use on your desktop. The widget will display links to the recent 6 posts on this blog, and includes the ability to search posts on this blog.

Give it a try and post your comments and suggestions.

Moment of Zen

mattuvin chattangale! allenkil mattum athukalee ningalethan!

Reform, change the rules! Else those very Rules will be your downfall!
– Kumaran Asan

Objective Art vs. Subjective Art

Objective art is meditative art, subjective art is mind art.
–Osho

When you look to the west, names of many famous artists pop up in your mind, look to the East, and works of art pop up. Even though Gurdjieff is the person responsible for formally dividing art into subjective art and objective art, I find Osho’s explanation of objective art the one that defines it the best. He uses the following Haiku of Basho to define objective art:

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Did you Know

If your are wondering what’s up with the Google logo–no, it’s not being hacked–if a blind man could feel his way around your screen, he would tell you it’s braille for Google! Looks like they are celebrating the birthday of Louis Braille, the creator of braille. Let us celebrate too, by learning a little about the creation of braille.

It was a French army captain, Charles Barbier de la Serre, who actually invented the basic technique of using raised dots for tactile writing and reading. His original objective was to allow soldiers to compose and read messages at night without illumination.

Barbier later adapted the system and presented it to the Institution for Blind Youth, hoping that it would be officially adopted there. He called the system Sonography, because it represented words according to sound rather than spelling. While the Institution accepted Sonography only tentatively, Louis set about using and studying it with his customary intensity. Soon he had discovered both the potential of the basic idea and the shortcomings in some of Barbier’s specific provisions, such as a clumsy 12-dot cell and the phonetic basis.

Within three years, by age 15, Louis had developed the system that we know today as braille, employing a 6-dot cell and based upon normal spelling. He also went on to lay the foundations of the braille representation of music, and in 1829 published the Method of Writing Words, Music and Plain Song by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind and Arranged by Them.

– Source

What if?

“What if?” is a popular tool for generating ideas, creating ideas, solving problems.

What if a personal computer was fun and easy to Use?
asked Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and the result was Macintosh.

What if a hub-and-spoke system was used for overnight delivery?
asked Fred Smith, and the result was FedEx.

What if a beer bottle looked really different?
asked Interbrew, and the result was Wildbrew in a in a tiger-print bottle.

Hundreds of “What if?” questions can be asked to inspire creative thinking:

What if society was structured differently?
What if money wasn’t a consideration?
What if there was no divide between the rich and the poor?
What if what happens after death is something we haven’t imagined yet?
What if there were no borders?

List five “What if?” questions that come to your mind in the first 60 seconds from reading this post.

Excerpted from “zing! Five steps and 101 tips for creativity on command” by Sam Harrison

Worth a 1000 words

Kochi – Chinese Fishing Nets
by KarmaDude