Friday, June 29, 2007

AIRBUS PLANT IN CHINA

AIRBUS PLANT IN CHINA



India with top consumer-base should take lesson from China to cash its bargain-power for making multinational giants to set up their plants in India. China withheld its accumulated order of 150 civilian planes for its 11 airlines to successfully bargain with Airbus-Industrie to set up in China its first-ever plant outside Europe. India too could be at such a bargain-position with Indian government permitting Indian airlines-companies including government-owned to place orders for planes together with either Boeing Company of USA or with Airbus Industries of Europe whichever would set up its plant to manufacture planes in India. Such a policy should be adopted in other fields also like coaches for metro-trains.



MADHU AGRAWAL

(Guinness Record Holder for letters in Newspapers)

1775 Kucha Lattushah

Dariba DELHI 110006 (India)

Tel 23253636

Mobile 9810080011

Fax 23254036

E-mail subhashmadhu@sify.com
Web www.subhashmadhu.com

SIVAJI AND RAJNIKANT

Expressindia.com

Friday, June 29, 2007
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Entertainment

Forget B'wood, Rajni outshines even H'wood

Joginder Tuteja/IndiaFM News Bureau

June 29: After a month long vacation, there was quite a lot of backlog that I had accumulated when it came to Bollywood and Hollywood flicks. And guess what I was ignorant about most? That in the interim there was this Tamil film that had released which ultimately turned out to be the first film that I wanted to watch as soon as I landed back into the town!

No Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, no Ocean's Thirteen, no Shrek 3, no Chain Kulli Ki Main Kulli no Fantastic Four - what I wanted to catch up was, you guessed it right, SIVAJI!

Not that I won't be catching up on the flicks mentioned above, yes I certainly would, but then within a couple of hours of landing, I marched straight to catch the first available show of Sivaji at my neighborhood multiplex.

‘No English subtitles sir’, I was told by the Box Office attendant. ‘Oh no’, I sighed. Quick I ring up by my Chennai based Tamilian buddy Bala and he promised that it definitely was not a bad idea at all to watch the flick even without subtitles. It's a lethal combination of Rajni and Shankar, he educated me, and I won't miss out on all the adrenalin rush even if I won't understand a word.

He turned out to be so very right!

Yes, first one hour into the film did make me feel that Sivaji was a lot more hype than it actually warranted. In fact, the endless wooing scenes between Rajni and Shreya Saran [I am looking forward to seeing her again in Awarapan today] were turning out to be yawny and oh-so-predictable. An occasional chilly scene did bring on laughs but references to a couple of dark skinned neighborhood girls seemed in bad taste.

I started wondering what the big deal about the entire film was. Agreed that the screen sparkled whenever Rajni along with his buddy [I would love to see this guy do some light hearted stuff in Bollywood too!] struggled with all the politicians and bureaucrats of the world to get their 200 crore project in place, but then the expectations were a lot higher.

Yes, this is where Shankar came to fore as one could remember the treatment in his earlier films like Gentleman, Indian and Nayak where he showed a common man trying to fight against the establishment. But then the trouble was that after every such interesting sequence, there was a song or a romantic rendezvous that seemed like a painful roadblock.

Thankfully, Shankar still kept the film sailing smooth by bringing on the antagonist Adi [the guy is a powerhouse on screen!] at regular interval who seemed like just the right opponent for Rajni. You want to see more of him. You want to see more of him v/s Rajni. You want the drama to revolve around the two BIG guys.

Shankar teases you by depriving you of all the fun. And action!

And soon you know that it is due to all the right reasons.

Because soon after the 200-crore-ka-maalik Sivaji is turned into a pauper and a one rupee coin is handed over to him by Adi, you know that it is going to be drama time soon. Intermission sign is flashed and there is such a buzz in the auditorium that it has to be experienced to be believed.

Ok, so the character of System Software Architect Sivaji who has returned from US couldn't get into the 'typical' Rajni mode all through the first half but then the second half more than makes up for it. And how!

The coming-back-to-power game of Sivaji begins as he transitions into THE BOSS who forms his own team to extract all the black money from across the globe. He gets into the riches once again as he forms his own private government and creates an establishment to serve the poor.

The Robinhood act is hard to be missed and though there are those predictable moments, what the heck! I was thoroughly enjoying them even though there are some Nayak references with all the red tapes being cut and the signatures being taken, by hook or by crook! The drama is compelling and Rajni moments are also into force. Big time!

The tricks are all there. So much for the Rajni fans, you know! And it is not difficult to imagine that there would be many more of the clan after the release of the flick. Goggles keep swirling in the air with utmost charm, coins keep moving one palm to another while defying gravity, a jeep races over a dozen odd other big cars while throwing them in air as if they were sleeping dogs on a pavement.

But mother of all stunts take place in the per-climax song when a revolver thrown by Rajni finds its own target, shoots it and returns back like a boomerang into his hands. Well, there is one more. A bullet racing towards Rajni manages to reach him but stops millimeters away from his forehead. And now as he walks, it continues to move back too.

Yes, I got my money's worth by this time.

But then there was more to come. And this was not just the gimmicks/style but some real drama. After an attempt on his life, Sivaji returns back in his new avtar. And this is what one calls style. One would have never imagined being bald to be so cool, but Rajni makes it all so plausible! This time around he is called MGR and just when it seemed that the movie had come to an end with a possible sequel being in the mind of the writer, there are some more intense scenes between him and Adi to follow.

The 3 hour film comes to an end with a Matrix style choreographed action sequence and the seetis-and-taalis are ear deafening. If this is the kind of frenzy in Delhi, what would be the kind of scene down South, I wonder?

My friend was right. I didn't miss on any of the fun even though the only words I could understand were a few mouthed in English. The hype was worth it, I realize, even as I move out of the theater promising myself to catch it again as and when it came in it's Hindi dubbed version or with English subtitles.

Yes, I am a little guilty about the fact that I ignored a few movies, especially Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and Ocean's Thirteen over Sivaji but I can convince myself that after all it was worth it. I will certainly give each of the backlog films also a dekko but till then I am sure the Sivaji hangover would be hard to resist.

After all it is due to all the right reasons that when Rajnikant's name flashes in the opening title rolls of each of his films, it is prefixed with SUPERSTAR. Yes, he truly is!

PRATIBHA PATIL

Presidential prophecy on Prathiba Patil
6/28/2007 1:29:21 PM HARAN.B.R

The post of "President" signifies the "Sovereignty & Integrity" in the democratic set-up of our Great Nation. Apart from being the 'Supreme Commander' of our mighty Armed forces, the President must ensure the sanctity of our constitution. The decisions made by the President are 'vital' at times like reconsideration of a 'bill' passed by Parliament, dismissal of a State Government, dissolution of Parliament and passing of Constitutional amendments brought in by the parliament. So, the Presidential nominee must have the relevant knowledge, exposure & experience apart from having a clean public image with clear antecedents. Hence, the highest constitutional authority namely the 'President' must be elected on a consensus in a healthy democracy.



What is happening now is that the 'Honour' of this great country is at stake. Prathiba Patil has been chosen for the post of highest constitutional authority by an 'extra constitutional authority' (read Sonia), which doesn't have any responsibility or accountability towards the people of this country, with a sole aim of serving her self interests. While the congressmen are known for their sycophancy & spinelessness, the other allies have fallen in line in order to achieve their own self-interests, as they are also known for their lack of interests on matters of national interests. The Left front, which every now and then prides itself on 'probity' in public life, has also supported the candidature of Prathiba Patil. The Prime Minister, who by this time must have got the intelligence-inputs about the presidential nominee, is keeping mum showing no signs of courage to tell his boss that the candidate is not a worthy choice.



The presidential nominee Prathiba Patil landed herself in trouble by making naïve remarks on the 'veil' system being practiced by the Muslim women, thereby earning the total displeasure of the community. She had also claimed publicly that, she had spoken with the 'spirit' of her Guru from the 'Brahma Kumari' sect & got the blessings. Then came in to the limelight, all her dubious antecedents, one after another. She has been accused of harbouring her brother, a murderer and curtailing the process of investigation; the Cooperative Sugar Factory founded by her has been involved in economic offences owing its bank crores of money; her Mahila Cooperative Bank started under the garb of helping & empowering women had to be closed by the RBI due to huge misappropriation of funds, which were distributed to her close relatives. Now, she stands accused in the eyes of Law, she is certainly tainted and deserves to face an enquiry.



While a small responsible section of the media reported her dubious antecedents, a large irresponsible & pseudo-secular media including the 24X7 English Channels followed obediently the footsteps of Congress Party and reported that none of the accusations pointed finger on Prathiba Patil and that she is not directly involved in those issues.



What is most condemnable is the attitude of the congress President. She had proposed the name of Prathiba Patil and announced her candidature, terming it as 'historic', knowing fully well the dubious antecedents of her presidential nominee. Talking of historic happenings, the election of Prathiba Patil as the President would be certainly a 'blot' in the history of independent India, worse than the 'Emergency'. The entire episode has exposed the irresponsibility, arrogance and the scant regards for Constitutional propriety of the UPA – Left combination.





Alas! The election of 'President' has been made in to a mockery by the Sonia led UPA-Left combine and the people of this country are simply watching the ugly scenes without even realizing the forthcoming 'danger' that the "Constitution" of India is going to be subjected to all sorts of unholy & unethical changes by a plethora of amendments, soon after Prathiba Patil takes over the mantle of Presidentship.



If at all the 'inner voice' makes our legislators to listen to their 'conscience' and if they act accordingly, then we can be sure that Shri. Baironsingh Shekawat would win the election and become President thereby saving our Nation & Constitution.



May God answer our prayers and save the Nation & its Constitution!

SOME PLEASANTARIES

Daku Mangal Singh Banta Ke Ghar Mein Ghus Ayaa..
Daku : Sona kahan hai, Jaldi Bataao..!
Banta : Pura Ghar Khali Hai Malko, Jithe Marzi So Jao!

Santa : Kaisi Sabzi Banai Hai, Bilkul Gobar Jaisa Swad Hai !
Jasmeet : Hey bhagwan! Na Jane Inhone Kya-Kya Kha Ke Dekha Hua Hai. Gobar Ka Swad Bhi Pata Hai..!

Banta : Praji, Jab Main Paida Hua Tha To Military Walon Ne 21 Topein Chalayeen Thi.
Santa : Kamaal Hai ! Sab Ka Nishana Kayse Chook Gaya..?

Santa meets his friend Bunta
Santa : A & B, A & B, A & B, A & B, A & B...!
Bunta : Oye, Iska Matlab ?
Santa : Kuch Nahin Yaar, I Mean Long Time No C..!

Santa : Drinking-n-Driving Dono Nalo Naal Nai Ho Sakde.
Banta : Kyoo Ji ?
Santa : Je Speed Breaker Aa Gaya Taa Peg Dul Jau.

Phone Ki Ganti Baji.
Santa : Phone Mere Liye Ho To Kehna Mein Ghar Pe Nahin Hoon.
Jasmeet : Wo Ghar Pe Hain.
Santa : Maine Mana Kiya Tha Ke...
Jasmeet : Phone Mere Liye Tha!

Santa : Aapne Nurse Bahut Changi Rakhi Hai, Uska Haath Lagtey Hi Mein Theek Ho Gaya.
Doctor: Jaanta Hoon, Thappad Ki Awaaz Mujhe Bhi Sunai Di Thi.

Santa : Oh Yaar Main Badi Mushkil Mein Hoon...Meri Biwi Mujhse Ek Pappi Ka Ek Rupeya Leti Hai..!
Banta : Oh Yaar Tu Bada Lucky Hai, Auron Se To Woh 5 Rupye Leti Hai.

Santa : Yaar! Main Apna Purse Ghar Bhool Aaya, Mainu 1000 Rs Chahide Si.
Banta : Dost Hi Dost De Kam Aunda Hai, Le 10 Rs, Riksha Kar Te Purse Le Aa.

Banta : Wo Ladki Deaf Lagti Hai. Main Kuch Kehta Hoon, Woh Kuch Aur Hi Bolti Hai.
Santa : Kaise?
Banta : Maine Kaha I Luv U, To Woh Boli 'Maine Kal Hi Naye Sandal kharide hain'

A crow shits on Banta. Preeto gives tissue paper to him.
Banta: Koi Fayda Nahin, Kauwa Toh Udd Gaya..!

Santa : When I get mad at you, you never fight back. How do you control your anger?
Jasmeet : I clean the toilet bowl.
Santa : How does that help?
Jasmeet : I use your toothbrush!

Thursday, June 28, 2007

ATTENTIVENESS

Attentiveness is the path to true life;
Indifference is the path to death.
The attentive do not die;
The indifferent are as if they are dead already.

-Dhammapada

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

moses

Bloopers from Sunday School Students


Moses led the Hebrews to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.


Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Amendments.


The first commandment was when Eve told Adam to eat the apple.


The Seventh Commandment is thou shalt not admit adultery.

PHYSICAL DIETING AND MENTAL DIETING TOO NEEDED

At a time when people are so conscious of maintaining their physical health by controlling their diets, exercising and so forth, it makes sense to try to cultivate the corresponding positive mental attitudes too.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 1963
From "The Pocket Dalai Lama," edited by

Monday, June 25, 2007

MEDITATIONS.....

Ashamed of what's not shameful,
not ashamed of what is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.

Seeing danger where there is none,
and no danger where there is,
beings adopting wrong views,
go to a bad destination.

-Dhammapada, 22, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Meditation & Surfing: The Ride of a Lifetime?

DHAMMAPADA ON LINE

http://oaks.nvg.org/lg1ra5.html

DHAMMAPADA ON LINE

http://oaks.nvg.org/lg1ra5.html

DHAMMAPADA

Dhammapada

concerned with dhammapada online
Anticipating things well is a task of wisdom.
dhammapada study page Here is one of the most popular books in Buddhist literature, an anthology of many moral teachings in a simple aphoristic language. More than half the verses are excerpted from other canonical texts. Others come from the storehouse of pithy sayings in ancient India. [Encyclopedia Britannica, s.v. "Dhammapada"]

1. The Twin-Verses
2. On Earnestness
3. Thought
4. Flowers
5. The Fool
6. The Wise Man (Pandita)
7. The Venerable (Arhat).
8. The Thousands
9. Evil
10. Punishment
11. Old Age
12. Self
13. The World
14. The Buddha (The Awakened)
15. Happiness
16. Pleasure
17. Anger
18. Impurity
19. The Just
20. The Way
21. Miscellaneous
22. The Downward Course
23. The Elephant
24. Thirst
25. The Bhikshu (Mendicant)
26. The Brahmana (Arhat)

Frieze
Take care: Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed throughout:

DHAMMAPADA

Chapter 1 - The Twin-Verses
1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.

2. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

3. "He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,"—in those who harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.

4. "He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me,"—in those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.

5. For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.

6. The world does not know that we must all come to an end here;—but those who know it, their quarrels cease at once.

7. He who lives looking for pleasures only, his senses uncontrolled, immoderate in his food, idle, and weak, Mara (the tempter) will certainly overthrow him, as the wind throws down a weak tree.

8. He who lives without looking for pleasures, his senses well controlled, moderate in his food, faithful and strong, him Mara will certainly not overthrow, any more than the wind throws down a rocky mountain.

9. He who wishes to put on the yellow dress without having cleansed himself from sin, who disregards temperance and truth, is unworthy of the yellow dress.

10. But he who has cleansed himself from sin, is well grounded in all virtues, and regards also temperance and truth, he is indeed worthy of the yellow dress.

11. They who imagine truth in untruth, and see untruth in truth, never arrive at truth, but follow vain desires.

12. They who know truth in truth, and untruth in untruth, arrive at truth, and follow true desires.

13. As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, passion will break through an unreflecting mind.

14. As rain does not break through a well-thatched house, passion will not break through a well-reflecting mind.

15. The evil-doer mourns in this world, and he mourns in the next; he mourns in both. He mourns and suffers when he sees the evil of his own work.

16. The virtuous man delights in this world, and he delights in the next; he delights in both. He delights and rejoices, when he sees the purity of his own work.

17. The evil-doer suffers in this world, and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done; he suffers more when going on the evil path.

18. The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is happy in the next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he has done; he is still more happy when going on the good path.

19. The thoughtless man, even if he can recite a large portion (of the law), but is not a doer of it, has no share in the priesthood, but is like a cowherd counting the cows of others.

20. The follower of the law, even if he can recite only a small portion (of the law), but, having forsaken passion and hatred and foolishness, possesses true knowledge and serenity of mind, he, caring for nothing in this world or that to come, has indeed a share in the priesthood.

SHOULD CHILDREN WITNESS CHILD BIRTH?

Should children witness childbirth?
Due to a power outage, only one paramedic responded to the call.
The house was very dark so the paramedic asked Kathleen, a 3-yr old
girl to hold a flashlight high over her mommy so he could see while
he helped deliver the baby. Very diligently, Kathleen did as she
was asked. Heidi pushed and pushed and after a little while, Connor was
born. The paramedic lifted him by his little feet and spanked him on
his bottom. Connor began to cry.
The paramedic then thanked Kathleen for her help and asked the
wide-eyed 3-yr old what she thought about what she had just witnessed.
Kathleen quickly responded, "He shouldn't have crawled in there in the
first place......smack his ass again!"
If you don't laugh at this one, there's no hope for you.

FOUND EFFORTLESSLY

Don't wave lights and incense, or offer flowers and food. He is found effortlessly when worshipped through self-realization alone.

-Maharamayana

Thursday, June 21, 2007

SARDAR EXPRESS

Sardar Express Post Your
Articles / Joke

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Sardar found the answer to the most difficult question ever - What will come first, Chicken or egg? O Yaar, what ever U order first, will come first.

A teacher told all students in a class to write an essay on a cricket match. All were busy writing except one Sardarji. He wrote "DUE TO RAIN, NO MATCH!" Postman: - I Have To Come 5 Miles to Deliver U This Packet Sardar: - why did U come so far. Instead U could have posted it....

A Sardar & his wife filed an application for Divorce. Judge asked: How'll U divide your kids, U"VE 3 children? Sardar replied: Ok! We'll apply NEXT YEAR

Sardar's wish: when I die, I wana die like my Grandpa who died peacefully in his sleep not Screaming like all d passengers in d car he was Driving

A Teacher lecturing on population: "In India after every 10 secs a women gives birth to a kid." A Sardar stands up- "We must find & stop her!."

A man: "Sardarji, tell me, why Manmohan Singh goes for a walk in the evening not in the morning?" Sardarji: ''Arey bhai Manmohan is PM not AM''.

Sardar visits Chinese friend dying in hospital. The Chinese friend just says "CHIN YU YAN" and dies. Sardarji goes to China to find the meaning of his friend's last Words. And finds It means "U R STANDNG ON the OXYGEN TUBE!"

Sardarji was standing in front of the mirror with his eyes closed. His wife asked what you are doing. He said-I am seeing how I look while sleeping.
Why did Sardar cut the sides of the capsule before taking it? Guess what... To avoid side effects!!!

Man: Sardarji where were U born? Sardarji: Punjab. Man: Which part? Sardar: Oye part part kya kar raha hai, whole body is born in Punjab Yaar".
Lawyer to Sardar: "Gita pe haath rakhkar kaho ke...... "Sardar :"Yeh kya, sita pe haath lagaya to court mein Bulaya. Ab fir gita pe haath!"

Sardar saw a beautiful girl... He went and kissed her.... Girl said- "What R U doing...?" Sardar replied- "B.COM from Khalsa College, Chandigar"

Sardar: For the past one week a girl is disturbing Me. I don't know how she got my no, she interrupts whenever I call someone and says "please recharge your card

sardar was drawing money from ATM, The sardar behind him in the line said, "Ha! Ha! Haaa! I've seen ur password. Its 4 asterisks (****) "The first sardar replies, "Ha! Ha! Haaa! U R wrong, Its 1258"

Q:) Why did the sardarji sleep with a scale? A:) Because he wanted to measure how long he has slept

Santa Singh MBBS After finishing his MBBS, Dr. Santa Singh starts his own practice. He checked his first patient's Eyes, then the tongue, and finally the Ears using a torch. Finally he said Battery is Ok!!!

A MUST READ SESSION WITH A HEART SPECIALIST

A chat with Dr.Devi Shetty, Narayana Hrudayalaya (Heart Specialist) Bangalore was arranged.
The transcript of the Questions & Answers is given below. Useful for everyone.

Qn: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his heart ?

Ans:
1. Diet - Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil
2. Exercise - Half an hour's walk, at least five days a week; avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a longtime
3. Quit smoking
4. Control weight
5. Control blood pressure and sugar

Qn: Is eating non-veg food (fish) good for the heart?

Ans: No

Qn: It's still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person
gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?

Ans: This is called silent attack; that is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.

Qn: Are heart diseases hereditary?

Ans: Yes

Qn: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?

Ans: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.

Qn: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?

Ans: Walking is better than jogging since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints .

Qn: You have done so much for the poor and needy. What has inspired you to do so?

Ans: Mother Theresa , who was my patient.

Qn: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?

Ans: Extremely rare

Qn: Does cholesterol accumulates right from an early age
(I'm currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?

Ans: Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.

Qn: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart ?

Ans: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body's enzyme release for digestion gets confused.

Qn: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?

Ans: Control diet, walk and eat walnut.

Qn: Can yoga prevent heart ailments?

Ans: Yoga helps.

Qn: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?

Ans: Fruits and vegetables are the best and the worst is oil.

Qn: Which oil is better - groundnut, sunflower, olive?

Ans: All oils are bad .

Qn: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?

Ans: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.

Qn: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?

Ans: Help the person into a sleeping position , place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him to a coronary care unit since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.

Qn: How do you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?

Ans: Extremely difficult without ECG.

Qn: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 yrs of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.

Ans: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, edentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.

Qn: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?

Ans: Yes.

Qn: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?

Ans : Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may not have a software engineer as a child.

Qn: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart ? What precautions would you recommend?

Ans : When you are young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.

Qn: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short / long term)?

Ans : Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.

Qn: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?

Ans : No.

Qn: Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?

Ans : No.

Qn: How would you define junk food?

Ans : Fried food like Kentucky , McDonalds , samosas, and even masala dosas.

Qn: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?

Ans: Every race is vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.

Qn: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?

Ans : No.

Qn: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded emails on this)?

Ans : Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.

Qn: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?

Ans : No. But it is ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.

Qn: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?

Ans : Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.

Qn: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?

Ans: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than non-diabetics.

Qn: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operation?

Ans : Diet, exercise, drugs on time , Control cholesterol, BP, weight.

Qn: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?

Ans : No.

Qn: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?

Ans : There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet to
reduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.

Qn: Does dispirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?

Ans : No.

Qn: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?

Ans : Nature protects women till the age of 45.

Qn: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?

Ans : Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkup s if you are past the age of 30 ( once in six months recommended) ...



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SOME JOKES

Teacher : Sam, you talk a lot.
Sam : It's a family tradition.
Teacher : What do you mean?
Sam : Sir, my grandpa was a street hawker, my father is a teacher.
Teacher : What about your mother?
Sam : She's a woman.

Tom : How should I convey the news to my father that I've failed?
David: You just send a telegram: Result declared, past year's performance repeated.

Teacher : Now, children, if I saw a man beating a donkey and stopped him, what virtue would I be showing?
Student : Brotherly love.


Patient : What are the chances of my recovering doctor?
Doctor : One hundred percent. Medical records show that nine out of ten people die of the disease you have.
Yours is the tenth case I've treated.The others all died.

Teacher : " Hello boys, Remember !!! Nothing is impossible."
One of the 20 Students: "Ok Sir, You please take out all the toothpaste and put it back into the tube again.


Sardarji opens his lunch box in the middle of the road....why ?
Just to confirm whether he is going to or coming back from the office

Number two name in Britain today

From: Sushim Mukerji
To: bgajjar@comcast.net
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 3:41 PM
Subject: Number 2 First Name in Britain Today


According to Time in UK, the Number One first name in Britain is Jack. That is not a news. The news is, the Number Two first name in Britain is Mohammed. This news item came out on June 6, 2007. If you put "Second most used first name in UK" on Google search, you can read the whole article. According to that article, next year Mohammed will be number one First Name in Britain. Heaven help us.

Sushim Mukerji

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

DESIRES, DESIRES, DESIRES.....

Shree Hari:

Jyestha Shukla Shashthi, Vikram Samvat 2064, Budhvar
20th June, 2007, Wednesday

A man has desires of four types -
- Artha (Wealth); Dharma (Righteousness), "Kaama" (Passion) and Moksha (Salvation).

Artha is achievement of material wealth and prosperity and reputation.

Dharma includes acts of sacrifice, penance, charity, fasting and pilgrimage, performed with or without desire for their fruit.

Kaama is mundane pleasures that result from sound, touch (pleasure born of contact), form (pleasure derived from seeing beautiful objects), taste (pleasure from tasting delicious things), smell (pleasure through beautiful fragrances, flowers etc), honor, praise and comfort (pleasure from idleness, laziness, and comforts) .

Moksha (salvation) is Self Realization, Benediction, Salvation, and God Realization.

Of these four, wealth and righteousness enhance each other. But if both are utilized to satisfy desires, then after satisfying the desire, both wealth and righteousness perish. Desire devours both of these. Therefore Lord declares in the Gita that "Desires are insatiable" and He asks Arjuna to kill this enemy i.e. Desire (Gita 3: 37-43).

From "The Bhagavad Gita - Sadhak Sanjivani" in English pg 1867 by Swami Ramsukhdasji.

Ram Ram

PANDITS CHANT NEW MANTRA ; ENGLISH

Pandits chant new mantra: English
- Foreign vacancies draw priests to finishing schools in Andhra
G.S. RADHAKRISHNA

Hyderabad, June 19: Beads of sweat form on priest Vedantacharya’s forehead as he struggles to pronounce the words on the sheet before him.

“Hi, how do you do?” he chants as if reciting a Sanskrit shloka. “Good morning, nice to meet you.”

Knowledge of the Vedas and Sanskrit are no longer enough for ambitious priests in Andhra Pradesh — the ability to speak English has suddenly become just as important.

It all began in March when job offers at Hindu temples in the West started appearing in newspapers, Telugu television channels and websites. An estimated 4,000 pandits’ positions are vacant in US, British and Australian temples, built mostly by the 50-odd NRI Telugu associations.

Hundreds of priests in the state have since then made a beeline for spoken-English centres. The rush has led several vedic schools, and even temples, to offer crash courses in the language.

“The priests will be conducting the rituals in Sanskrit, of course, at the American temples,” said Dantu Nagarjuna Sarma of Imprint Astrological and Vedic Research Centre here, “but they must be able to speak English if they are to live there.”

That, and a lot more. The priests are being taught to send emails from PCs and text messages from mobiles — in English, of course. Acharyas who have never looked beyond the dhoti are being groomed in the art of slipping into casual shirts and trousers.

“We advise the pandits on how they should dress abroad while travelling to and from a temple or a religious function,” Sarma said.

“Hindu priests have been known to be detained for indecent dressing because they were wearing just a dhoti. We tell them they must never step out bare-bodied.”

The syllabus includes the low-down on how to find vegetarian food. The pandits are informed not only about canned vegetarian meals, but taught to pick their way around the various kinds of meatloaves that might be mistaken for a chunk of cheese.

Scores of pandits and mahants aged between 35 and 50 -- with bushy pigtails, shaved scalps and bright tilaks on their foreheads – can be seen at Sarma’s institute every day, listening to their English teachers or poring over their reading material.

“We have difficulty in pronouncing the words correctly, and also in spelling them,” said Vedantacharya, 48, priest of a Balaji temple who has been offered a job at a Pittsburgh temple provided he picks up enough English.

The vedic schools’ decision to start the courses has come as a boon for elderly priests like him, who are too embarrassed to sign up with the usual spoken-English centres.

He has learnt the rudiments of how to browse websites on Hindu religious practices, and has been filled in on passport, visa and work permit norms.

The training period is short – often for about a month. With the jobs already advertised, the priests cannot afford to wait too long.

At the end of the course, a priest receives a certificate saying he is proficient in the various rituals and can converse in English.

“The opportunities for us to go abroad is now very good,” said Sarma, a priest himself. “Other than NRIs, many Americans are turning towards Hinduism (for spiritual solace). They are also keen on astrology and yoga.”

Even the priests’ families now want to learn to speak English. Sarma plans to open a course for the wives and children soon.

THIS SHAH JEHAN DIDN'T MAKE A TAJ MAHAL FOR MUMTAZ BUT SLIT HER THROAT FOR ....

Cooch Behar, June 19: This Mumtaz, too, has died young but she won’t be getting a memorial from husband Shah Jahan.

All he had for her this morning was a knife in the throat.

Shah Jahan Ali, in his late forties, has been arrested on the charge of murdering his wife after he found her drinking with two young men at home late last night.

Neighbours at Dinhata’s Village I, who often joked about the couple’s names, said Shah Jahan suspected the comely, 30-year-old Mumtaz of cheating on him.

The murdered woman had one thing in common, though, with the Mughal queen remembered with the world’s most famous monument to love. Neither was born Mumtaz, both being given that name by their doting husbands.

Before her marriage to Shah Jahan six years ago, Dinhata’s Mumtaz was a Hindu named Khaimala Roy. About 12 years ago, she got married to her first husband, a Hindu. Four years later she bore him a daughter. The following year, they divorced and she returned to her parents’ home in Village I.

That’s when she met Shah Jahan of village Navina in Geetaldaha, a middleman who “got things done” for people. When she converted to marry him, Shah Jahan decided her name would be Mumtaz.

The already married man would spent some five days a week with Mumtaz at Village I and the remaining two days with his first wife in Navina.

“I knew Mumtaz was a woman of loose morals. Still, I fell in love with her. I had told her there will be no affairs, but she didn’t listen,” Shah Jahan is believed to have told the police.

Yesterday, the youths had fled at the sight of him and the couple had then quarrelled through the night. The police said that in the early hours, Shah Jahan slit Mumtaz’s throat.

Mumtaz’s mother Nirbala Roy said she was astonished around 4-4.30 am to see her son-in-law steal out of home with his bicycle. “I became suspicious and tried to stop him. But he pushed me and fled. I entered my daughter’s room and saw her blood-splattered body.”

After Mumtaz’s elder brother Ranjit Roy lodged a case, the police arrested the accused at his home in Navina.

Shah Jahan punched a sub-inspector and tried to flee. After the police caught him, the villagers gheraoed the force and tried to free him.

The body has been sent for post-mortem. Shah Jahan is being questioned, district police chief Anil Kumar said.

Empress Mumtaz, whose real name was Arjumand Banu, too, was Shah Jahan’s second wife and the favourite among the nine he ultimately married. They lived in wedded bliss for 19 years before the 38-year-old Mumtaz, while delivering her 14th child, died in 1631.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

BBC REPORTING...

ashwini1@aol.com"
to shakti-l, ibharati, IndianVoice, info, hinduhumanrigh., HinduUnity, IndiaCause, CaribbeanHindus, swadhyaya_varga, hkfeedback, prohindu, ramesh.kallidai, delvoice, admin, hinduvoice, bharatadesha, ahad, Unitedhindufro.

show details
Jun 18 (23 hours ago)


Obviously, BBC does not want to be
reminded how many Hindus're killed
during partition of 1947. Or may be we
need to remind them how many Hindus
are being killed everyday in Kashmir??
Or it may be better to remind them what
they did during Jaliawala Bagh Massacre.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6764957.stm
BBC NEWS - Hindus 'guilty of Muslim deaths'
18 June 2007

A court in India has convicted 14 Hindus of mass killings of Muslims during some of the country's bloodiest religious rioting nearly 20 years ago.

The men were found guilty of killing and burying 116 Muslims in Bhagalpur in the northern state of Bihar in 1989.

More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence after a Hindu procession at the flashpoint holy site of Ayodhya.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar promised justice to Bhagalpur victims when he came to power in 2005.

Acquittals

The court in Bhagalpur gave its verdicts in relation to rioting in the village of Logai on 27 October, 1989. It reserved sentencing until 27 June.

Two of those found guilty were policemen. One person convicted is still being sought by police.

Twenty four people were charged in the case. Six have since died and four are still on the run.

Rioters in Logai were found to have killed Muslims and then buried their bodies in a field, before planting vegetables to hide the graves.

Rioting in Bhagalpur went on for several weeks and are some of the most infamous cases of anti-Muslim violence in Indian history.

Over the years courts in Bihar have heard 152 cases relating to the killings, acquitting the accused in 119 of them.

Many of those convicted in the other 32 cases were given life sentences. Most have appealed.

Ayodhya has been at the centre of much of India's religious violence over the years.

When Hindu hardliners destroyed the Babri mosque in the northern town in 1992, rioting around the country claimed an estimated 2,000 lives.





See what's free at AOL.com.

Monday, June 18, 2007

NOT BY KNOWING INTELLECTUALLY, BUT WHAT ONE BECOMES...

Self realization does not come from one knows intellectually
but what one becomes as a result of that knowledge.

If you think of Me, I cannot escape
While living in your heart, I will act through you.
and you become Me.

Vishay are poison of intellect
Once a poison goes inside, you become restless
It becomes in charge of your thinking and controls intellect
For example, if you study chemistry, none can stop you becoming a chemist.

You should become a thinker and not a learner
So that it can digest the vishays and cannot harm the intellect.

K G Misra.

DELHI HC ASKS TIHAR TO RELEASE 600 INMATES

Delhi HC asks Tihar to release 600 inmates

Monday, June 18, 2007
17:40 IST

Blog this story Blog this story

New Delhi: Acting on a probe report that blamed overcrowding and lack of basic amenities for the recent spate of deaths in the Tihar jail, the Delhi High Court on Monday directed the release of 600 inmates, who are accused of minor offences and languishing in jail, in a bid to decongest it.


"All 600 inmates in Tihar Central jail brought on account of being booked under section 107 (Security for keeping the peace) read with 151 (Arrest to prevent commission of cognizable offence) of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) due to non-furnishing of surety would be released on furnishing personal bond of Rs 2,000," a Division Bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandarajog and P K Bhasin said.


The court also said the prisoners, who will be released, would have to report to the local SHO twice a day.


The court passed the direction after going through the report of a three-member committee appointed by it which pointed out that recent deaths in the jail happened due to overcrowding and lack of proper facilities.


Tihar Jail has seen eight deaths, including that of a prison official, in the last ten days.

TEN MOVIES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

New on DVD
:
Special Feature



©Paramount Home Video "Top Gun"
© Paramount Home Video "Top Gun"
Movies That Shook the World
We've celebrated the anniversary of 'Star Wars' ... here are 10 other films that changed cinema

By Jim Emerson
Special to MSN Movies

Also read: How "Star Wars" Shook the World

All right, so "Star Wars" changed everything. But that was 30 years ago. Between the first "Star Wars" in 1977 (now known as "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope") and the first prequel in 1999 ("Star Wars: - Episode I: The Phantom Menace"), other films have come along to revolutionize the cinematic landscape in various ways that were comparably earth shaking.

Look back over the history of movies, and you find certain titles commemorated as familiar landmarks simply because they were the first to use new processes or business strategies. For example, we cite "The Jazz Singer" (1927) as the first talkie; "Becky Sharp" (1935) as the first three-strip Technicolor feature; Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) as the first feature-length animated movie; "Winchester '73" (1950) as the first talkie for which a star (James Stewart) took a share of the gross receipts in lieu of a salary; "The Robe" (1953) as the first widescreen anamorphic (CinemaScope) film; and so on. But these pictures themselves were not the innovations -- they simply introduced or fleshed out techniques or technologies that would come to have a profound effect on how movies were to be made for years to come.

Other pictures were perhaps more revolutionary in developing the language of cinema: Edwin S. Porter's 12-minute "The Great Train Robbery" (1903) is remembered as the first (or one of the first) narrative films, while D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) marked developments in film style and grammar that are still fundamental to the language of movies today.

Skip forward to the late '60s and the early '70s and you have such epochal shifts as: "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), in which the science fiction movie became a blockbuster hit and a trippy art film at the same time, while realizing special effects that make much of today's CGI look like crayon drawings by comparison; "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), exploring new territory in gore and pseudo-documentary style -- just before the MPAA ratings went into effect (with gritty camerawork that made it seem all the more real, and more awful); "Easy Rider" (1969), the scruffy, low-budget counter-culture film that suddenly made establishment-Hollywood production values seem paleolithic; "The Wild Bunch" (1969), setting a new standard for the (poetic) portrayal of violence in American movies; "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), the first adults-only film -- an X under the new ratings system -- to become a hit and win an Oscar for Best Picture, not long before pornographers hijacked the "X" for sensationalistic marketing purposes; and, "El Topo" (1970), the creator of the "midnight movie" phenomenon that would peak with "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), a dystopian satire that pushed the boundaries of cruelty and sadism in ways that are still shocking and disturbing.

Then came "Deep Throat" (1972), mild stuff compared to "A Clockwork Orange," but the first porno movie to be widely shown in mainstream movie theaters, appealing to couples, and becoming arguably the most profitable film ever made; "Last Tango in Paris" (1972), a breakthrough in the portrayal of sex in a "respectable" studio feature -- and with a major star (Marlon Brando); "Nashville" (1975), perhaps the strongest influence on films of the '90s and '00s, a multi-character, multi-narrative epic shot in a seemingly spontaneous, semi-documentary style (which director Robert Altman introduced in "M*A*S*H"), with more overheard and overlapping dialog than any film since "His Girl Friday" and the heyday of Howard Hawks; "Jaws" (1975), the birth of the modern blockbuster; "Carrie" (1976), after which every horror film had to have a false ending and a grabber just before the final credits; and, "Taxi Driver" (1976), a new landmark in the portrayal of violence and urban paranoia.

Then, in 1977, "Star Wars" and Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" marked the creation of the modern special-effects megahit, blazing the way for "E.T.," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," "Titanic," "The Matrix," "The Lord of the Rings," "Spider-Man" and the rest.

From "Star Wars" to the end of the millennium, here are 10 more landmarks that changed the world of movies, as we know it:

"Halloween" (1978)
The birth of the modern slasher movie. From "Prom Night" to "Friday the 13th," "Slumber Party Massacre" to "The Devil's Rejects," "A Nightmare on Elm Street" to "Scream," what really began with Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) became a bloody pop-culture phenomenon with the massive success of John Carpenter's "Halloween" (the most successful non-porno indie of its time). Writer-director Carpenter (who even named Donald Pleasence's asylum doctor, Sam Loomis, after John Gavin's character in "Psycho") went back to the basics in his portrait of the-thing-in-the-dark: In the original film, the adult Michael Myers was identified in the credits only as "The Shape." "Halloween" set up the paradigm for the struggles between Eros and Thanatos in contemporary horror movies: Kids who had teen sex (or wanted to) got butchered.

Next: More Movies That Shook the World

ATMA AND JAD PRKRATI

Dear Sadhaka, namaste! (Pratapbhatt@yahoo.com)
Manjulaji has given a wonderful food for us to chew!
Q:Who dies if soul or Jad body/prakruti don't die?

- None, really! Body is integration of elements-
mahabhutas, and they disintegrate eventually back into
the elements. Atman doesn't come and go, no birth and
death, one indivisible Consciousness, giving prakruti
its existence, like sun giving life on earth. So
Birth and death are concepts of mind! Body gives up
Prana/Atman shakti(cannot hold on any longer) due to
its detoriation with time and we say its a death! But
isness-existence of deadbody continues as mahabhutas!

Q:If Soul doesn't eat and body (dead man can not eat)
doesn't eat then who actually needs food?
A:Only in the presence of Atman and Prana shakti(of
Atman only) body(food body) seems to be eating
apparant food in another form.(Brahmarpanam,
Brahmahavi....)
Q:If Soul is all pervading, that means this
consciousness is with, within and without then why we
call somebody 'dead'?
A: Just as Consciousness is all pervading, still we
call prakruti Jad(as in first question of yours) which
is a concept of mind. From the Consciousness point of
view, its just a pure perception of an object we call
dead, like all other objects of the world inside and
outside! Our mind has conceptualized the perceived
object as dead or alive, good or bad, pleasures or
pains etc etc for practical reasons.
We cannot experience Jad-gross as Jad, it is
experienced only as Consciousness of that which we
choose to call Jad/dead, otherwise in itself it is not
Jad or chetan, dead or alive etc etc. all being
concepts of mind!
Saadar Namaskar!
--- Manjula Patel wrote:

> Loving Divine,
> With humble pranams, I present few sentences for
> discussion:
>
> - If Soul / Atma doesn't die, if matter / jad
> doesn't die then who
> dies? Little clarification: we call
> prakruti/body jad so think before
> giving your answer.
> - If Soul doesn't eat and body (dead man can not
> eat) doesn't eat then
> who actually needs food?
> - If Soul is all pervading, that means this
> consciousness is with,
> within and without then why we call somebody
> 'dead'?
>
> Enough for now.
> With love,
> always at Thy Divine Feet

Sunday, June 17, 2007

KUCHCH HANSAIYAN

Boy: Chalo kisi viraan jagah chalte hain!
Girl: Tum aisi-vaisi harkat to nahi karoge?
Boy: Bilkul nahi!
Girl: To phir rehne do...
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ******

Ravan was sent to court & was asked to keep a hand on Geeta. He refused
saying: Sita par hath rakh kar itni musibat aayi! Ab Geeta pe haath nahin
rakhunga
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ***

A lady to another lady: Jab tera divorce huwa tha tab to ek hi baccha tha
aur ab 3 kaise? She says: Woh kabhi kabhi maafi mangne aa jate the...

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ***

Jija: Sali ji, aapke yahan ki sabse mash-hoor cheez kaunsi hai?
Sali: Jija ji, jo mash-hoor thi, usey to aap le gaye!

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ***
An old rich man marries a young gal.
Interviewer asks the girl: Apne inmein shaadi ke liye kya dekha?
Girl: Ek to inki income aur doosre inke din kum.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ***
Boy: Tum gaana bahut achcha gaate ho.
Girl: Nahin, mein to sirf bathroom singer hoon.
Boy: To bulaao na kabhi, mehfil jamaate hain.

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ***
Angry boss: Tumne kabhi Ullu dekha hai?
Executive (sar jhukate huwe): Nahin sir. Boss:
Niche kya dekh rahe ho ? Meri taraf dekho.

THE RICH OLD MAN AND HIS WEALTH

Bring What You Can Carry

Once there was an old rich man who was afraid of dying and leaving all his wealth behind on earth. So, he took up the matter with God. He pleaded day and night to be able to take all his earthly possessions with him.

Finally, God conceded. He said the man could take as much as he could fit in one suitcase. The old man immediately went out, bought a huge suitcase, sold all he owned and filled the suitcase with gold bars.

Shortly after that, the old man died. Awkwardly dragging the big, heavy suitcase, he approached St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter stopped him, asked him to open his luggage, and then told him he couldn't bring his gold bars into Heaven.The man was irate. "You don't understand," he said. "I got permission directly from God himself for this. He told me whatever I could fit into one suitcase, I could bring with me."

St. Peter, shrugged his shoulders and simply said, "Fine with me. But we've already got plenty of pavement here."

Saturday, June 16, 2007

REASONS BUDDHISM VANISHED FROM INDIA

Why Did Buddhism Vanish from India?
http://indiasecular.wordpress.com


Have listed six reasons plus 7. words of Swami

Vivekanand and 8. words of Dr B. R. Ambedkar.

1.

The main cause was the neglect by the monks of this life and its values. While the Buddhist monks realized that everyone was not fit or could not become a monk or nun, they paid attention only to the life of a monk and not to the life of a householder. Which meant that they focused on the life of a monk, which is a life of inwardness as compared to that of a householder, which is one of outwardness. Now, both these aspects need examination, study, guidance and control. It is not enough to tell a householder that this existing life is only a stepping-stone to the life of a monk. Why and how is it so and what relation it bears to realities has to be explained. Instead Buddhist philosophers began to teach that this life was nothing but a value of tears and misery. While some forms of Vedanta taught the same philosophy, the attitude of Mimamsa (philosophy of action) and the Epics saved Hinduism from the fate that overtook Buddhism in India. Many great Indians were impacted by spiritual teachings but “unless there were some codes extolling the values of the world, they tended to become one-sidedly inwardly “.
2.

Another reason was the admission of women into monasteries and the more or less indiscriminate conversion of men, women into monks and nuns. While true renunciation and celibacy were appreciated, people wanted to see them well practiced. When people supported these monasteries with their hard-earned money, they did not want its residents to live in luxury and enjoyment, virtues, which were condemned. If monks and nuns had lived by the rules that they were taught, people would have supported them inspite of any hardship that they had to face.
3.

The next reason was the deterioration in the political and economic life of the country. Monasteries were supported by the people and the Kings e.g. Ashoka. Now, when a dynasty fell or a king died, the next in line might not give the same degree of support. The king’s thinkers realized that their defeat was due to the loss of their best fighters, leaders, who had become monks. This made the country an easy prey to the foreign invader. Coincidence or otherwise, India’s first foreign invasion by the Greeks took place in 327 B.C. a couple of centuries after Emperor Asoka’s peace movement.
4.

Buddhism existed in the monasteries and unlike the dharmaasutras (ethical codes) lacked a moral code. So when monasteries disappeared, Buddhism disappeared. The invasion of the Muslims and the ruthless destruction of Buddhist monasteries extinguished the lamp of Buddhism in North India. The wanton destruction of the great monastery of Uddandapura (Bihar) and the wholesale massacre of its monks might make us visualize how the great monasteries of Nalanda, Vikramasila and others met with a tragic end.
5.

The extreme asceticism practiced and popularized by both Buddhism and Jainism disturbed the social life of India. Magadha, the seat of many imperial dynasties, became Bihar, the land of monasteries (viharas). There was nothing in these religions to emphasize the importance of life in this world and its values. These causes led to a bloodless revolt by the orthodox in the eight-century a.d. The revolt was staged from two sides, the Brahmanic and the Upanisadic. Kumarila was the leader of the former and Sankara of the latter. Kumarila succeeded in reviving a strong positive attitude towards the world and its values and all that could be called human and activistic. On the other hand, Sankara said that everything that was good in Buddhism already existed in the Upanishads. In fact, Gaudapada, the grand teacher of Sankara, unified the current spanda (vibration) doctrine of Saivism, the vijnana (mind) doctrine of the Buddhists and the Atman doctrine of the Upanishads in his Mandukyakarikas and made the way easy for Sankara to assimilate and absorb Buddhism. Thus, there remained no justification for its separate existence in India; it had no social ethics and consequently, no hold over society. It could not stand alone as a spiritual discipline as it was shown to be part of the Upanishads.
6.

Quoting Swami Vivekananda ” Thus, inspite of preaching mercy to animals, inspite of the sublime ethical religion, inspite of the discussions about the existence or non-existence of a permanent soul, the whole building of Buddhism tumbled down piece-meal and the ruin was simply hideous. The most hideous ceremonies, the most obscene books that human hands ever wrote or the human brain ever conceived, have all been the creation of the degraded Buddhism. The Tartars and the Baluchis and all the hideous races of mankind that came to India, became Buddhists and assimilated with us, brought their national customs and the whole of our national life became a huge page of the most horrible, bestial customs. Sankara came and showed that the real essence of Buddhism and that of Vedanta are not very different but that the disciples did not understand the master and have degraded themselves, denied the existence of soul and one God and have become atheists. That was what Sankara showed and all the Buddhists began to come back to their old religion”.

#

Buddhism adopted various thoughts and beliefs between the first century B.C. and the sixth century a.d. Some Buddhists adopted the tantric sadhanas and distorted them for the sake of enjoyment and comfort. The highly advanced philosophy of tantric sadhana is difficult to understand without the guidance of a proper teacher. This undigested knowledge of tantra, including the use of wine, meat, fish, gestures and physical union led these Buddhist followers to their downfall. Also, the distortions of Buddhism produced a variety of schools, which were not pure Buddhist schools but contained a variety of practices. To give you an idea of the syntheses between Vedanta and Buddhism, the concept of Maya in Vedanta in borrowed from Buddhism. Sankara accepted the logical connotation of Maya just as it was given by the Buddhists. Jainism was saved by tacitly allowing its members to become part of the Hindu fold by adopting rules of conduct of the third caste, namely Vaisyas or traders.
#

Quoted from ‘Dr Ambedkar Life & Mission by Dhananjay Keer’. Dr B R Ambedkar addressed delegates of Young Men’s Buddhist Association in May 1950 at Colombo on ‘Rise & fall of Buddhism in India’ - ‘Buddhism in its material force had disappeared. But as a spiritual force it still exists’. As regards Hinduism he said it went through three phases, Vedic religion, Brahmanism and Hinduism. It was during the Brahmanism period that Buddhism was born. It was not true that after the days of Shankaracharya Buddhism was dead in India. It was going on for years together. In fact Shankaracharya and his teacher were both Buddhists he added. While he was digging material on the subject for the decline/vanish of Buddhism from India the reasons were - adoption of some rituals & practices from Buddhism by the Vaishnava & Shaiva cults, which were vociferous in their propaganda against Buddhism. During the invasion by Allauddin Khilji thousands of priests in Bihar were massacred and consequently some of them fled for their lives to Tibet, China & Nepal. In the meanwhile, the majority of Buddhists went over to Hinduism. The third cause was that Buddhism was difficult to practice while Hinduism was not. Reason four was that the political atmosphere in India had been unfavorable to the advancement of Buddhism he concluded.

But according to Hindu scholars the fall of Buddhism was due to many reasons. Owing to universalistic ambition its spread was everywhere but it had geographical center nowhere. It discarded all national gods & godmen & proclaimed Buddha the greatest of all gods. As long as it reacted as a reformative flank in India, Buddhism gained ground but when it began to act against the Vedic religion, which was the national religion of the majority, Buddhism lost sympathy in India. The Vedic Hindus fought the Muslims bravely and did not flee to any other country. But the Buddhists when attacked, having a center nowhere, fled to different countries and even it is said acclaimed the invasion of India by non-Hindus with the ringing of bells. Besides its godlessness, its over-emphasis on redemption, its sad tone, its unconcern with the world & neglect of family checked rather than fostered enterprise. Quote ends.

Books referred to :

1. Introduction to Comparative Philosophy by P T Raju.

2. History & Culture of Indian People by Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan.

URL : http://www.esamskriti.com/html/essay_index.asp?cat_name=prabuddha&cid=&sid=201

AN IMPORTANT FACT ABOUT MEDITATION

:Shree Hari:

Adhik Jyeshth Purnima, Vikram Samvat 2064, Shukravar
15th June, 2007, Friday

The most important fact, is that God (manifest or unmanifest), pervades everywhere - in all persons, things, incidents, circumstances and actions and there is never any modification in Him, while matter always undergoes modifications. As a diver, dives into an ocean and is engulfed in water all around, similarly a spiritual aspirant, should feel God all around and also wihin him. The only aim of mankind is to realize God, Who is ever realizable, but we do not feel Him, because we divert our attention towards perishable things.

If we had exclusive devotion to attain only Him, our mind would be automatically concentrated on Him. Space is all around us, and so is God, but we do not pay attention to this. Therefore a spiritual aspirant, abandoning all thoughts of the world, should be indifferent and quiet. He, while concentrating his mind on God, commits an error, that he opposes a thought that comes to the mind, and then has affinity with that thought. He has affinity for a thought, if he is attached to it. Therefore a stirver should neither oppose any thought, nor support it. He should only remain indifferent and attain tranquility or quietude.

All projections of the mind are transient, as these are born, they will certainly disappear. We should not accept our affinity with them and only accept affinity with God that pervades everywhere. It is only when we confine ourselves to this body, that our separate entity comes in to existence that "I am". This individuality that we perceive is also enveloped by God who is limitless. He is the embodiment of truth, knowledge, bliss, equinamity, and tranquility. God is the illuminator of all things and actions. He is the One Light, that remains as is. Just as the light has no relation with the actions, objects and persons,
similarly God too has no relation with objects and actions that are transitory, while He is the origin. Being established in Him, one should not think of anything. (Gita 6:25)

From "The Bhagavad Gita - Sadhak Sanjivani " in English pg 751, in Hindi pg 428 by Swami Ramsukhdasji.

Ram Ram

Saturday, June 09, 2007

JAP, JAP, JAP, BHAJ, BHAJ, BHAJ, rest is all commentary

The way of devotion is as good as the way of knowledge. But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of devotion.

-Ramakrishna

ARUNACHAL PRADESH AND CHINA's EVIL EYE ON IT

India cannot sleep on Chinese meddling on Arunachal
http://indiasecular.wordpress.com
By Rahul Kashyap

Not many in India take politicians very seriously.

The same happened when Arunachal Pradesh representative in Lok Sabha Khiren Rijiju complained that China had set its eye on the state. It was taken as just another attempt to steal newspaper headlines.

But events that unfolded shortly after, quite unfortunately, proved that his fears were not completely unfounded.

The denial of visa to an IAS officer Ganesh Koyu from the state by China cannot be looked at as an ordinary event. If at all the Government does, the fact would only reinforce India’a position as a soft state and the incident as yet another attempt by the Communist state to peddle this image.

And let’s not forget, it happened to a pet proposal by none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself.

With the benefit of hindsight now, especially Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Yuxi’s comments last November that China claimed ownership over entire Arunachal Pradesh, we can safely that India is in a difficult neighbourhood. And the Chinese threat does indeed loom large from across the Himalayas.

And also that Sun Yuxi’s remarks ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao were not as out of place as Government efforts tried to make it to be.

The Chinese act deserves special attention as it comes at a time when border talks are on way and the impression that the Indian establishment has tried to convey that negotiations are favourably disposed towards New Delhi. So, such incidents come as a shock to the people of the country, that the Government represents. Therefore, the latest Chinese act of misdemeanour, arrogance and resounding rebuff, is a reflection that the Government has not been able to hold on to the promise of protecting national interest.

It might appear to be very loaded, but a stark reality nonetheless, when Rijiju says that while the people of Arunachal Pradesh have always stood up to the Chinese might but the present Government has let them down. He goes to the extent of saying that New Delhi is “afraid of the Chinese military.

He raises another pertinent question—why was the Chinese envoy not summoned by the Ministry of External Affairs and given an earfull?

Some might say that the BJP MP is overreacting, but there is hardly anyone who would dispute the fact that incident has left the UPA government with egg on its face.

The incident is yet another pointer to how little thinking is done by the present regime. The delegation was a well thought decision. It seems, the lackadaisical attitude of their political masters has crept into the iron cast bureaucracy as well. If that were not the case, why would they send someone from the state as part of the team in the first place? Was there any reason for them to forget what Beijing had done to former state Chief Minister Gegong Apang?

In fact, as late as April, three officials and an MLA from Arunachal Pradesh were denied visas on the same grounds—that they did not need visas to visit their own country. They were part of an Indian delegation to attend the 8th China international vegetable, science and technology fair.

However, as waters have been murkied by China, it lends an opportunity for India to raise the issue of Aksai Chin and demand the area back after having been under Chinese occupation for several decades now. The issue of the region being illegally ceded to China by Pakistan, has failed to get the international attention it deserves. It just might get it now.

It must also force a thought about reconsidering the official position on supporting the cause of political and religious freedom in Tibet.

Coming back to the moot topic, let us not miss the larger picture in it. While strategists in North Block have not given much thought, there have been genuine worries about a larger Chinese gameplan to encircle India with Arunachal Pradesh, especially Tawang, providing just a symbolic value.

If we go by the general prediction doing the rounds across the world about the rise of India and China as the world’s next Superpowers, Beijing has indeed gained the upper hand. Unless India indulges in taking corrective measures fast, it would have automatically lost diplomatic ground and considerable international influence too. (The author is a senior journalist and an International Relations expert. He can be contacted at rahulwaa@gmail.com). URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=187&page=11

IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK FROM GOD?

That Too Much To Ask?

Sarah's grandson is playing in the water, while she is standing on the beach not wanting to get her feet wet, when all of a sudden a huge wave appears from nowhere and crashes directly over the spot where the boy is in the ocean. The water recedes and the boy is no longer there. He simply vanished.

Sarah holds her hands to the sky and cries, "God, how could you? Have I not been a wonderful mother and grandmother? Have I not given to B’nai Brith and Haddasah? Have I not tried my very best to live a life that you would be proud of?"

Just then, another huge wave appears out of nowhere and crashes on the beach. As the water recedes, the boy is standing there, smiling, splashing around as if nothing had happened.

A loud voice booms from the sky, "I have returned your grandson. Are you satisfied?"

Sarah responds, "Well...he WAS wearing a hat."

HAJRAT MOHAMMED - ISLAM WILL WIN AS GOD IS ON THEIR SIDE TO KILL EVERYONE ELSE

1. Shri Sher Agrawal Jee:

Yes, Islam/Hangman Hazrat guaranteeds that victory for Moslems is assured, because Allah is on their side.

2. Islam and Christianity are extremely similar, if not identical in their doctrines. That is why I frequently ask:

What is the difference between Islam and Christianity ?

What is the difference between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee ?

Surinder Paul Attri

On 6/8/07, Sher Agrawal wrote:
Mr. Surinder Attri,

Namaskar and Jai Hind.

Do the Mohammedans also not claim that according to qoran Moslems will eventually win and rule the world?

DHANYAVAD.

SHER AGRAWAL



On 6/7/07, surinder attri wrote:
CHRISTIAN IDEOLOGY: ITS HOT & COLD, OVERT & COVERT PROPAGATION

By S.P. Attri ( USA )

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Christian ideology which describes the Christian doctrine, and which determines the attitude of most Christians, alleges over and over again that, Christian conquest is decreed in the Gospels. Consequently, the Christians cannot possibly lose. Therefore, it is not only appropriate but, the sacred duty of a Christian, to convert this doctrine into a fact of reality, by harvesting as many Non-Christian souls, as he possibly can. It is because of this doctrine that, Christians are always greedy about grabbing Non-Christian infidels ( Pagans, Heathens ), and trapping them inside the slave camp of Christianity. Christian appetite for Non-Christian souls is piggish and devouring.

2. In pursuit of this venture ( in which Christian victory is guaranteed in the Gospels ), Christians follow many techniques, but all their techniques can be grouped into two basic categories, hard and soft.

In the first approach ( the hard approach ), Christians use an aggressive approach, and carry out combative-crusades, for the furtherance of Christian ideology. In the second approach ( the soft approach ), Christians adopt a soft-approach, or softly-soft, chocolaty-chocolate technique, to gain upon the Non-Christian crowd, to have them come close or move towards Christianity. But this chocolaty-chocolate approach is not passive, it is only a low-intensity form of combative-Christianity.

3. Regardless of which technique they employ, the Christians are always attempting to send their ideology forward. The result of both these Christian approaches is always Inter-Religious tension, and plenty of trouble for both Non-Christians as well as for Christians. The evidence of this consequence is prominent in the records of history. The entire history of Christianity bears witness to the combative and warlike nature of Christianity.

Two-thirds of Pagan-Europe was murdered

HEART AND SOUL

Today's Quote

When the heart grieves over what it has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left.

-Sufi epigram

Friday, June 08, 2007

INCREASING INFLUENCE OF ISLAM AND THE FUTURE DANGER

An excellent article by Tavleen Singh. It is not a saffornite who is writing this article but a secular media person. Finally, the secular crowd is seeing the writing on the wall, but still are afraid to say it. There are a very few persons in this secular crowd like Tavleen Singh who are now gathering enough courage to say the truth. The serious concern expressed by the author in the last paragraph is extremely ominous.

Please forward this article to all.
************************************************************************************
De-Indianising Indian Muslims
Tavleen Singh
Cybernoon
May 31, 2007
Gone is the easygoing, Indianised Islam of before which gave us some of our great poets, musicians, writers, thinkers and movie stars.

Writing a book requires solitude and as I am in the last stages of one I have spent the last ten days holed up alone in a house by the sea, away from the seductions of city life. I spend the mornings writing and revising and the afternoons reading. The solitude has given me time to read two books that I recommend to our policy makers and to those who believe that Indian Muslims have been unaffected by the worldwide jehad. The first is 'Infidel' by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the second is 'The Islamist' by Ed Husain. Both books describe in frightening detail the changes that occurred in the interpretation of Islam in the nineties and how a literal understanding of the Koran by Islamists has created an aggressive, new religion whose stated objective is world domination through the resurrection of a caliphate, or an international Islamic republic.

Global domination
Ed Husain, a British Muslim of Bangladeshi origin, was an Islamist himself for a while and writes this about the objective of radicalising Muslims in Europe. "All this, we were convinced, was based on the sira, or the life of the Prophet Mohammed. He had bequeathed a political system for us to implement, a total ideology for global domination: Islam. This ideology would be carried to other parts of the world by means of a jihad, which was the raison d' etre of the army of the future Islamic state."
What makes the books important is that they have been written by Muslims who have observed what is happening in Europe from the inside. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somalian woman who became a Dutch citizen and Member of Parliament and who lives under permanent guard now because she angered Islamists by pointing out that the position of women in Islam was that of slaves. She worked with the Dutch film maker, Theo Van Gogh, on a film about Muslim women called 'Submission' and it resulted in the brutal murder of Van Gogh two years ago by an Islamist fanatic.

Overt influence
What does all this have to do with India? Well, we have the second largest population of Muslims in the world and since the early nineties they have been gradually radicalised. Most Indian analysts are too politically correct to acknowledge this and those of us who do blame it on the demolition of the Babri Masjid. After the mosque was demolished in December 1992 there were riots across the country and especially bad ones in Mumbai in which more than a thousand Muslims lost their lives. We even sort of justify the bomb blasts that happened in March 1993 by saying they were a reaction to the riots.

We refuse to accept that there is a movement to de-Indianise Indian Muslims by imposing an Arabic idea of Islam. Travel to any Indian city with a large Muslim population and you will see more veiled women than ever before, more children in Islamic schools and more overt influence of the religion than before. Gone is the easygoing, Indianised Islam of before which gave us some of our greatest poets, musicians, writers, thinkers and movie stars. Gone are the movies of yore, the Muslim family dramas, that gave us "Chaudhvin ka Chand" and "Mere Mehboob". Have we stopped to ask why they are not made any more?

What is more worrying is the manner in which our 'secular' politicians are making the same mistake Europe made by inadvertently encouraging the worst kind of Islamism through their policies. Ever since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came to power in Delhi three years ago it has revived the old Congress policy of encouraging Muslims to believe they have valid reasons for a sense of grievance. The Sachar Committee was set up with the specific purpose of establishing that Muslims do not get their share of the Indian pie without anyone bothering to point out that the problem lies mostly with the community refusing to understand the importance of women's education. Uneducated women usually produce educationally handicapped children because half a child's learning comes from its mother.

The UPA government has gone beyond Sachar in its efforts to create a sense of insecurity among Muslims. Banks have recently been ordered to give priority loans to Muslims and there are at least two Congress states that have started reserving jobs for Muslims. It was similar mistakes in England and Europe that allowed the Islamists to feed on insecurities and lure Muslims into their fold with ideas of pan-Islamism. If we take our blinkers off and look around we will notice that the same thing is beginning to happen in India. The recent municipal election in Malegaon was won by an Islamic party called the Indian Muslim Congress. It is a religious party that was born out of insecurities in the community that resulted from the bomb blasts in September last year. Muslims felt they were being targeted by the police and discriminated against by the Maharashtra government.

How long will it be before we see Muslim religious parties winning elections in other parts of India? How long will it be before these religious parties become involved in the international jehad because let us not forget that Hindus are as much the enemy as other kafirs like Jews and Christians?

I KNOW WHAT THE BIBLE MEANS

I Know What the Bible Means

A father was approached by his small son, who told him proudly, "I know what the Bible means!" His father smiled and replied, "What do you mean, you 'know' what the Bible means?" The son replied, "I do know!"

"Okay," said his father. "So, son, what does the Bible mean?"

"That's easy, Daddy. It stands for 'Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.'"

LAW2 OF KARMA AND GOD'S HAND IN OUR ACTIONS

Namaskar All,

This is a rejoinder to the following e-mail of mine. The subject matter is whether we are the puppets in the hands of Ishwar.

That everything is in hands of God is as per the Path of Devotion (Bhaktiyoga) and at the highest spiritual level of a person.

Law of karma is as per the Path of Action (Karmayoga).

So it depends on which path one is looking to for explanation and one’s spiritual level.

(Incidentally, the spiritual level of a common man is 20%; a good person, whom we normally call a sajjan, 30%; a saint 75% or more and when one attains 100% spiritual level, one reaches the stage of Final Liberation i.e. Moksha.)

Gurucharani
a.d. tapkire

Thursday, June 07, 2007

THESE STUPID INTELLECTUALS

Timely Essays on Chesterton's Timeless Paradoxes
Fanaticism
James V. Schall, S.J
Browsing the other day on Internet to see if I could find a copy of Tolstoy's Tales Men Live By, which someone had recommended to me, I chanced across an essay of G.K. Chesterton's about Tolstoy. It is found in the Library of the University of Virginia. I had never seen it before.
Chesterton curiously begins by telling us that the best way to understand Count Leo Tolstoy was not through his novels or his ethical views, but by observing the conduct of a Russian anarchist sect in Canada called the Doukhabors. Tolstoy, it seems, had written a famous philosophic defense of their practices. In consequence of the logic of this defense, they had let their domestic animals loose “on the ground that it is immoral to possess them or control them.”
What struck Chesterton about this strange act of “liberating” one's domestic animals was its rigid faith. This Russian anarchist faith is as fierce and practical as that of the Mahometans, who swept across Africa and Europe, shouting a single word. This single word was, no doubt, “Allah.”
It would take a fairy-tale to “imagine the Doukhabor solemnly escorting a hen to the door of the yard and bidding it a benevolent farewell as it sets out on its travels.” We can suspect that the traveling hen, suddenly out of human captivity, was soon caught and consumed by some wandering fox or wild dog. But at least, as some think, it was emancipated from immoral human beings.
Most people will think such actions as the philosophic freeing domestic animals to be merely loony. And yet this singular carrying out of what is taken to be a noble action taken in the name of liberty provides a kind of delight. “For there is only one happiness possible or conceivable under the sun, and that is enthusiasm— that strange and splendid word that has passed through so many vicissitudes, which meant, in the eighteenth century, the condition of a lunatic, and in ancient Greece, the presence of a god.”
Josef Pieper, in his Enthusiasm and the Divine Madness, sees this word, enthusiasm, in the Platonic sense of having our world open to more than nature or our own constructions. It meant the possibility that we can be visited by the gods. Ronald Knox, in his famous book, Enthusiasm, applied this term to movements that went beyond the normal, something that could undermine any social or religious order.
Chesterton, for his part, sees this freeing of one's animals to be an act of utter logical consistency, the meticulous carrying out of a principle. And this strict carrying out of a principle is not what is right about the act but what is wrong about it. Tolstoy has a “real, solid, and serious view of life.” He is his own church. He has a view of everything flowing from his first principle.
Tolstoy's basic principle, that he applies to all else, is that of the “simplification of life.” This principle governs everything we do. If something is simpler, it is better, so it is said. “When we deal with a body of opinion like this, we are dealing with an incident in the history of Europe infinitely more important than the appearance of Napoleon Bonaparte.” This position is not to denigrate the importance of Napoleon but to stress the importance of what we hold. Ideas are often more important than men, even when men and personality are important.
Already for a half century before his time, Chesterton noted something that is very common today, namely the view that religion is the origin of “fanaticism.” There is a whole literature today whose thesis is that religion causes “fanaticism.” Indeed, this is the major issue of our time, so that the taming or eliminating of religion is the way to peace. The irony of this view is, however, that getting rid of religion will not get rid of fanaticism. Scientists and politicians, Chesterton thought, are just as capable of being “fanatics” as priests, perhaps more so. The current exclusive association of religion with fanaticism obscures its relation to science and politics.
The case of Tolstoy and the Doukhnabors seems typical. “A sect of men starts with no theology at all, but with the simple doctrine that we ought to love our neighbor and use no force against him, and they end in thinking it wicked to carry a leather handbag, or to ride in a (horse-driven) cart.” What concerns Chesterton is the logic at work once certain first principles are embraced. There is nothing wrong with first principles or first things, of course, provided that they are really first and we deduce things properly from them.
Of Tolstoy, Chesterton continues, “A great modern writer who erases theology altogether, denies the validity of the Scriptures and the Churches alike, forms a purely ethical theory that love should be the instrument of reform, and ends by maintaining that we have no right to strike a man if he is torturing a child before our eyes.” This same mode of reasoning, needless to say, is behind dogmatic pacifism. Tolstoy evidently went on to hold that sex is not only immoral but also not even natural. His logic and purity ended up in eliminating the very existence of the body as a good, the Manichean position.
“Fanaticism has nothing at all to do with religion,” Chesterton affirms. The origins of fanaticism lie elsewhere and neither science nor politics nor academia is immune from it. Tolstoy was no doubt a genius. He had great faith. He lacked only one thing. “He is not a mystic and therefore he has a tendency to go mad.”
This passage recalls Chesterton's discussion of the maniac in Orthodoxy. The maniac is not a man with many ideas that tend to balance each other off in common sense. Rather he is a man with one idea according to which he sees all else in a distorted light. Tolstoy “is not a mystic; and therefore he has a tendency to go mad. Men talk of the extravagances and frenzies that have been produced by mysticism; they are a mere drop in the bucket. In the main, and from the beginning of time, mysticism has kept men sane.” It is the mystic who is open to all things, even if they seem at first not to make sense.
This passage on mysticism and logic is of great importance from another angle. Chesterton in his analysis of Aquinas showed a great interest in the variety of ordinary things, in their almost infinite capacity to arouse us to think of what is. He chastised the Augustinians and the Platonists for their withdrawal from things to contemplate the One as if they could not also find the One through particular things which after all originated in the same One.
Chesterton comes to his main point. “The thing that has driven them mad was logic.” The poets were less likely to go insane than the scientists—the “mad scientist” is a well-known character, in fact. Tolstoy was deficient in poetry. “The only thing that kept the race of men from the mad extremes of the convent and the pirate-galley, the night-club and the lethal chamber, has been mysticism—the belief that logic is misleading, and that things are not what they seem.”
In its own way, this is an amazing passage for anyone who might think that Chesterton was a mere rationalist. He was in fact a Thomist. That is, he held that logic will not save us. This limitation of logic was found in Etienne Gilson's great thesis, in his Unity of Philosophic Experience, in his analysis of Abelard. God could not be reached by logic alone, however useful and valid logic might be in its own order.
Today, we often hear it said that “fanaticism” is the consequence of religion, that science is its alternative. If I understand Chesterton's view of both the scientists and Islam, it is that “fanaticism” stems from both. But it comes not from the original mystical insight but rather from the “logic” that flows from it and subsumes all else in its wake. Scientism denies any place for revelation in its “logic.” Islam's “logic” ends up denying secondary causes or an understanding of the divinity in which diversity in the Godhead and Incarnation are impossible. The subduing of the world to Allah is a conclusion not of the mystical insight but of the logic that follows from it.
In the end, “fanaticism” is not a product of mysticism, but of logic. By looking for its causes in the wrong place, we often reveal our own “fanaticisms.” The “fanatical” concern about the religious cause of “fanaticism” has blinded us to the “fanaticisms” that stem from science itself and has caused us to misunderstand what it is within Islam that often makes it so “fanatical.”
The mad man who sets his chickens loose on the grounds that it is immoral to eat them is the maniac with one idea. The cultured purist who won't even say “merry Christmas” because it violates his logic of diversity or separation of church and state is a fanatic.
Common sense does not eschew logic as such. But it does see that at the origin of things is a reality whose ways are not our ways. This is what the mystic also sees. It is the fanatic who does not see this limitation, but chooses rather to follow the logic of his position even when it leads him to absurdity. Things are, and can be known. But likewise things “are not what they seem.” We did not create them and must be prepared to find in them more than we could imagine. Call this mysticism or true philosophy or revelation, it is what we discover when we encounter any thing that is.

BE HONEST TO THYSELF

Nameste Sherji,

you have answered your own question. We have to be
true to our self. Do best we can do with the
body(healthy) mind(intellectual) and wealth(our
talent).. most of us doing with the expectation and
when they are not met we feel discouraged and look for
ways/ people to blame. Teaching/learning is always
easy. it is the living by what we teach/learn that
test our faith in God. Observe when you are most happy
and you are not even aware of your self (I) that is
geeta is talking about.
Try to more of activities when you are fully immersed.
You will experience movements when you are not
separate from gad because you are not aware of I.

regards
Sneha

HEALTH - SIX MISTAKES TO AVOID

6 Stupid Health Mistakes
Even smart women make these. Here's how to wise up.
By Amanda Spake & Stacey Schultz, Prevention
Find More

* Top 10 Food Mistakes
* OTC Drug Mistakes
* 5 Major Eating Mistakes

You know a lot about staying healthy, right? You're supposed to watch saturated fat and eat lots of vegetables—that's why you usually pick up a take-out salad for lunch and dinner (even when the kids get burgers). But you're not obsessed with the scale like some women you know. You brush your teeth and you last flossed, oh, maybe 2 weeks ago. You exercise but avoid lifting so you don't bulk up like those female gym rats lurking around the free weights. The tummy pains you got last week? Must have been gas, nothing more serious. And, hey, you'd like to get 8 hours of sleep, but the days are short, and it's hard to get everything done.

Sound familiar? Then you may be making some of the dumbest health mistakes a woman can make. Here, experts tell how never to be trapped by them again.

1. You Always Order a Salad

"The word 'salad' makes people think they are eating something healthy," says Brie Turner-McGrievy, RD, clinical research coordinator for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) in Washington, DC. "But the truth is, a lot of take-out and restaurant salads are basically a burger in a bowl."

Last year, when Turner-McGrievy analyzed nutritional information for 34 salads available at the nation's largest fast-food and sandwich chains, only two the Au Bon Pain Garden Salad with fat-free raspberry vinaigrette and the Subway Veggie Delite with fat-free Italian dressing and no cheese got an "outstanding" rating for being high in fiber and low in saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium, and calories, according to federal nutritional guidelines.

Turner-McGrievy's "burger in a bowl" analogy is no exaggeration; the nutritional facts support it. McDonald's Crispy Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad with Newman's Own Ranch Dressing has more calories, fat, and saturated fat than a Big Mac 640 calories and 49 g of fat versus 600 calories and 33 g of fat. Other fast-food salads are almost as dismal. Get the skinny on all 34 salads tested in the PCRM salad analysis.

"Only about 10 percent of your diet should come from saturated fat. For a woman who is eating 1,500 to 2,000 calories a day, these salads contain all the saturated fat she should eat in a whole day," says the dietitian.

And many fast-food salads contain very little fiber (government guidelines say most women should have 25 to 35 g a day). "Most have no beans and very few vegetables," says Turner-McGrievy. "So if you have one of these salads for lunch, your other meals are going to have to be bran cereal to make up for the lack of fiber."

Taco Bell's Salad with Salsa was the clear winner in the fiber category, with 13 g. But with 42 g of fat and most of the sodium you should have in one day (1,670 mg the total recommended daily intake is 2,400 mg), it was rated unacceptable in the PCRM survey.

Here's how you can have your salad and eat it, too: If you order it without the taco shell, you lower your fat intake from 51 to 21 g, and the sodium drops to 1,400 mg.

The Fix

Don't scratch take-out salad off your menu; just apply a few commonsense rules before you order. For instance, avoid high-fat add-ons such as sour cream, extra cheese, croutons, bacon bits, and high-fat dressings, including Caesar and ranch. Opt for salads that aren't just a fiber-free mound of iceberg lettuce dotted with a few carrot and red cabbage shavings. Ask for low-calorie and fat-free dressing.

And plan ahead. Most fast-food chains supply online nutritional information for all their fare, so you can scout out the best salads before you leave for lunch.

2. You Avoid the Scale

For some women, the only thing in the house gathering more dust than the treadmill is the scale. "I have scale-phobia," admits one woman. "I have this thing about not weighing more than 132 pounds, but I haven't looked at my scale in months, so I don't really know how much I weigh."

She isn't the only queen of denial. "It always strikes me as funny how many women in my practice won't get on the scale," says Prevention advisor Mary Jane Minkin, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist in New Haven, CT. "They just refuse. And I always say, 'Why don't you get on the scale, and I'll look and you don't.'"

Doctors call scale-phobia an avoidance behavior. The idea behind it: If I don't know for sure that I gained weight, maybe I didn't. You're most likely to duck the scale after a few days, weeks, or months of eating whatever you darn well please.

"It's typical for people not to want feedback on the part of their behavior that's not going well," says Kelly Brownell, PhD, director of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders. "For some people, getting back on the scale can be a help. The trick is knowing whether or not it will motivate you."

If you're trying to lose weight, you may need the kind of feedback the scale provides, Brownell says. If you weigh yourself regularly, you can notice a gain when it's easier to shed at 3 pounds, say, instead of 15. But it's important not to get so obsessed with the numbers that you're weighing yourself once or twice daily. Scales do lie. Your weight can vary from day to day, even hour to hour. You don't want to be discouraged when, despite all your best efforts, you put on 2 pounds between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The Fix

Stay friendly with your scale while losing or maintaining your weight:

If you're trying to lose weight, get on the scale monthly. Do it first thing in the morning, naked, after you go to the bathroom. Schedule your weigh-ins at the same time in your menstrual cycle each month not when you're likely to have water-weight gain.

If you're maintaining, go with daily or weekly weigh-ins. The real "losers" in the National Weight Control Registry, the largest study of people who've been successful at long-term weight loss, maintain their weights by stepping on the scale at least once a week. Don't freak out over a 5-pound gain; that's a normal fluctuation. If you find yourself drifting higher than that, the alarm bells should sound. That's the time to rein yourself in: Cut out the snacks, and get back on the treadmill.

3. You Forget to Floss

Americans spend $600 million a year on procedures that bleach their teeth whiter than pearls, but many don't put in the less than 5 minutes a day it takes to floss. The result: At least 23 percent of women between 30 and 54, and 44 percent of women over 55, have severe gum (or periodontal) disease, reports the American Academy of Periodontology.

Gum disease is a serious bacterial infection that attacks the tissue surrounding one or more teeth and the bone supporting them. It's the number one cause of tooth loss in the United States, but it's far from just a cosmetic issue: When periodontal bacteria enter the bloodstream, they can travel to major organs and cause chronic inflammation. In recent years, researchers have come to suspect that such simmering infections in the body may be implicated in some cases of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and even premature birth.

"When you have gum disease, it's like having an infected, oozing hand. It's that big of an infection if it's generalized throughout the mouth," says Marjorie Jeffcoat, DMD, dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine and lead researcher on a groundbreaking study that found that women with gum disease were three to eight times more likely to have a premature baby than were women with healthy gums. The culprit: a labor-inducing prostaglandin (similar to the drug Pitocin) produced by their immune systems to combat the infection.

Chronic inflammation may also explain why some people who have heart attacks have no known risk factors such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Infection triggers inflammation, which, under normal circumstances, is part of the healing process (it allows infection-fighting white blood cells to reach injured tissue). But when inflammation is chronic, it can damage artery walls and make them more prone to fatty buildup. Likewise, a chronic bacterial infection like gum disease "can predispose people to cancer," says Lisa Coussens, PhD, assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco's Cancer Research Institute. Though a direct link hasn't been made between the two, she points out that people with other inflammatory diseases face increased cancer risk. For example, people with the inflammatory bowel condition known as Crohn's disease have a 60 percent increased risk of developing colon cancer.

Chronic infection can trigger cancer in several different ways. For example, inflammatory cells contain growth factors that stimulate cells to multiply in an attempt to help repair injured tissue. But by increasing the rate of cell division, this process might also put you at increased risk for mutations that lead to cancer development. When triggered by an infection, immune-system cells also alter the DNA of bacteria-laden cells, causing them to die. But there's the risk that this tinkering "can induce DNA damage and cause a mutation" that leads to cancer, says Coussens.

Women in particular need to pay close attention to gum health. "Flossing is so critical because the hormonal changes that occur in women during puberty, pregnancy, and menopause cause the oral bacteria that lead to gum disease to grow more readily," says David Schneider, DMD, a Bethesda, MD, periodontist. Drugs such as antidepressants, some blood pressure medications, and antihistamines can also raise your risk of gum disease because they reduce the saliva that helps wash bacteria away in the mouth.

The Fix

Floss at least once a day. Don't know how? Here are some simple instructions from the American Dental Association: Take about 18 inches of floss and wind it around the middle fingers. Hold a few inches of the floss tightly between thumbs and forefingers. Guide the floss between your teeth, using a gentle rubbing motion. When the floss reaches the gum line, curve it into a C shape against one tooth, and gently slide it into the space between the gum and the tooth. Hold the floss tightly against the tooth. Gently rub the side of the tooth, moving the floss away from the gum with an up-and-down motion. Repeat this for every tooth.
4. You're Afraid to Lift Weights

Some women avoid lifting weights because they think they'll end up looking like the female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger. They're wrong. "The vast majority of women do not have the genetic capability to develop large, bulky muscles," says Cedric Bryant, PhD, chief exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise, the organization that certifies personal trainers. To get that Arnold look, you need what Arnold has: testosterone plus many hours a day spent pumping iron. The average woman simply does not naturally produce enough testosterone to bulk up from weights, Bryant says, and most women are lucky to squeeze in half an hour a day doing any exercise.

So don't think of weight lifting as "lifting weights." Think of it as a great way to look more toned and trim without losing an ounce. In fact, once you start, you may even notice that you've put on a few pounds. Don't panic: You're gaining muscle, which weighs more than the fat you're losing. But since muscle is more dense than fat, it takes up less space, helping you fit into your clothes better. And if you lift regularly, you'll eventually start dropping pounds.

Here's another bonus: A recent study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that women on a strength-training program for 25 weeks lost significant amounts of belly fat—the dangerous kind that increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes.

The Fix

You don't have to spend a lot of time pumping iron to get the benefits. Two or three times a week on nonconsecutive days for about 30 minutes per session should do the trick. The American Council on Exercise says that light weights and multiple reps tend to help build endurance and muscle tone, while training with heavier weights generally produces stronger muscles.

5. You Ignore Aches and Pains

If you're knee-deep in caring for kids, managing a household, and holding down a job, you may be quick to brush off a nagging cough, back twinge, or bout of indigestion. You may think fatigue is your natural state. You shouldn't ignore any of those symptoms. Three years ago, Stephanie Goldner, a 37-year-old mother of four, went to work despite waking up with what felt like a bad case of indigestion. "I had to get to work," she says. "I had a deadline." But as soon as her colleagues at Baptist Hospital in Miami took one look at her, they sent her to the emergency room. There, she learned that her bad indigestion was actually a heart attack.

Why didn't she just stay in bed that morning? Her answer will probably sound familiar. "Even when you feel awful, you have things to do," Goldner says. "I really don't have time to coddle myself over a cold or heartburn."

And there's the irony: Although women tend to go to doctors more often than men, and though they're the caretakers for everyone from grandparents to the pet parakeet, they're least likely to take care of themselves, says Diana Dell, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics-gynecology and psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center. "Personal wellness and preventive care always take a backseat to caring for someone else."

Research suggests that some women will ignore even crushing fatigue and pain, symptoms that in a partner or child would send them scurrying for a doctor's appointment.

For example, a study of 1,725 US and Canadian women with ovarian cancer—one of the deadliest cancers because it's often not caught until it has advanced—found that nearly all had symptoms before they were diagnosed, but about half ignored them for more than 3 months before finally seeing a doctor. (Those symptoms included bloating, abdominal or pelvic pain, and bleeding.)

Likewise, many women who suffer heart attacks have symptoms such as unusual fatigue and shortness of breath as long as a month beforehand, says a new study that looked at 515 recently diagnosed women. And while some report their symptoms to a doctor, a significant number don't, says lead researcher Jean McSweeney, PhD, RN, of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. "It's about fifty-fifty," she says. "Some of the women in our study who didn't go to their doctors attributed their symptoms to getting older. Others delayed seeking treatment because they were waiting for the symptoms to either get worse or go away."

In addition to ignoring warning signs, women can't seem to find time for routine maintenance. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women, yet 40 percent of women over 40 haven't had a mammogram in the past year, says Debbie Saslow, director of Breast and Gynecologic Cancer at the American Cancer Society. Women over 40 should have a routine screening annually. Similarly, up to 15 percent of vulnerable women have not had a Pap test to screen for cervical cancer in the past 3 years.

The Fix

Familiarize yourself with the symptoms of serious illness, know your risk factors, report anything unusual immediately, and don't let anything get in the way of regular screening tests, which can often detect problems when they're still small and treatable.

Goldner now says her heart attack was a wake-up call to take better care of her health. She quit smoking and lost 60 pounds. She advises other women to pay attention if they don't feel well. "Don't cruise along and hope that things will get better," she says. "At some point you have got to make yourself a priority."

6. You Don't Get 8 Hours of Sleep

Scrimping on sleep may seem like a smart way to squeeze a few more productive hours into the day, but busy women who do it can pay a heavy price with their health, says Suzanne Griffin, MD, a sleep specialist and psychiatrist at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. "This is a public health epidemic that is going unnoticed," she says. "Often what I hear, especially from mothers, is that they are intentionally staying up late at night because it is the only time they have to themselves" to do laundry, pay bills, and catch up on work.

Though there's no set amount of sleep people need, 8 hours is usually a minimum, says Clete Kushida, MD, PhD, director of the Stanford University Center for Human Sleep Research. Most women are getting only about 7 hours on weeknights, says a 2002 National Sleep Foundation survey of about 1,000 men and women. Twenty percent of those women reported daytime sleepiness, a sign that they weren't getting enough shut-eye.

The risks of sleep deprivation go way beyond waking up with that groggy feeling even coffee won't cure. Women who sleep less than 8 hours a night over a 10-year period are at slightly higher risk of heart disease, reported a study published in the past year in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Those 8 hours are also crucial to maintaining a healthy weight. Another study found that sleep deprivation can lead to an imbalance of various weight-related hormones that can encourage your cells to store excess fat and lower your body's fat-burning ability.

Still other research has linked sleep deprivation to depression and anxiety, as well as insulin resistance—a trigger for high blood pressure, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. And accidents caused by sleepy drivers injure more than 40,000 people a year and kill at least 1,500, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The Fix

Acknowledge the futility of trying to fit 26 hours' worth of activities into 24 hours. Cut back on your commitments, says Griffin. Divvy up family responsibilities with your partner and children. Establish a bedtime for yourself, and stick to it every night. Avoid caffeine in the afternoon and evening. And don't use alcohol as a sleep inducer; it can actually interfere with a full night's rest. Your sleep may improve if you adhere to the same relaxing bedtime rituals you've started for your kids, such as reading, listening to music, or taking a warm bath.