__._,_.___
One Long Walkabout ( from Outlook)
My dinner companion at the British Museum trustees dinner was the MP Rory Stewart. He's a slight, wiry man who smiles a lot and is very good company. His grandfather was stationed in India, he was born in Hong Kong. For two years, 2000-03, he walked alone through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India, including my birthplace of Amritsar, Jalandhar, Anandpursahib and Shimla. Walking meant literally that—no hitch-hiking on cars or trucks. Going step by step, he practised walking meditation and read Persian poetry and theBhagavad Gita. He walked through Afghanistan through the dead of winter and in the middle of the war. Soldiers with Kalashnikovs stopped him for questioning and children threw stones at him, but people opened up their homes to him because there were no hotels. He covered about 6,000 miles on foot and slept in people's homes in about 500 villages. Places in Between, his bestselling book about his travels, has been translated into several languages. He also briefly served in the British army and British foreign service, was Iraqi governor of a province of 3 million people, and lived in Kabul for two years, where he set up the Turquoise Mountain charity. And he's not yet 40! He follows in the footsteps of great British adventurers like Sir Richard Burton, who translated the Kama Sutra into English, shocking his fellow Victorians no end when it was published.
Women - Multiple process
Womens brains designed to concentrate multiple task at a time .
Women can Watch a TV and Talk over phone and cook the new recipe.
Men - Single Process
Mens brain designed to concentrate only one work at a time. Men can not watch a TV and talk over the phone at the same time. He stops the TV while Talking. He can either watch TV or talk over the phone or cook.
LANGUAGE.
Women can easily learn many languages. Her brain sets up. But can not find the solutions to problems. Men can not easily learn languages; he can easily solve the problems.
3 year old gal has three times higher vocabulary than 3 year old boy.
ANALYTICAL SKILL
Mens brain has lot of space for handling the analytical process. So easily he can analyze and find the solution for a process.
He can design (blue print) a map of a building easily.
If a complex map is viewed by women, she can not understand it. She can not understand the details of the map easily.
For her it is dump of lines in a paper.
CAR DRIVING.
While driving a car, mens analytical spaces are used in his brain. He can drive a car fastly. If he see an object at long distance, immediately his brain classifies the object (bus or van or car) direction and speed of the object and driving accordingly. Where as women take a long time to recognize the object direction/ speed. His single process mind stops the audio in the car (if any), then concentrating only on the driving.
You can often watch, while men driving the car fastly, the women sit next to him will shout, GO SLOW , CARE FULL, AAHHH, OHH GOD..
..etc..
LIE
Many times, when men lie to women face to face, they get caught easily.
Her super natural brain observes the facial expression 70%, and the body language 20% and the words coming from the mouth 10%. So he is easily caught while lieing.
Mens brain does not have this.
Women easily lie to men face to face.
So guys, While lieing to your girls, use phone, or letter or close all the lights or cover your/her face with blanket.
Dont lie face to face. 
:P
PROBLEM.
End of day, if men have lot of problems, his brain clearly classifies the problems and puts the problems in individual rooms in the brain and then finds the solution one by one. You can see many guys looking at the sky for a long time. If you disturb him, he gets irritated.
End of Day, if women have lot of problems, her brain can not classify the problems. she wants some one to hear that. After telling everything to a person she goes happily to bed. She does not worry about the problem being solved or not.
WANTS
Men want status, success, solutions, big process etc Women want relationship, friends, familyetc UNHAPPY
If women are unhappy with their relations, they can not concentrate on work.
If men unhappy with their work, they can not concentrate on the relations.
SPEECH
Women use indirect languages in speech.
Geeta asked Vijay, vijay do you like to have a cup of coffee?
This means, Geeta wants a cup of coffee.
In the morning.Darling, do you think, it will be good to have an Omllette for breakfast?.
Men use direct language. Geeta, I want to have a cup of coffee, Pls stop the car when you see a coffee shop.
In the morning.Darling, Can you please prepare an omllette for breakfast?. Always men and women think differently!
HANDLING EMOTION
Women talk a lot without thinking.
Men act a lot with out thinking.
Thats why many of prisoners are men all over the world.
Nov 5th 2011 | PARIS | from the print edition of the Economist
WORLD leaders and their motorcades will pull up even as the resort of Cannes closes down for the annual G20 summit. It is fitting that France is host, not just because the euro is at the centre of the world's current economic turmoil, nor yet because Nicolas Sarkozy claims credit for reinventing the group after the 2008 financial crisis. It is also because the French have such a strange fetish for the number 20.
Teachers in France in all subjects, even sport, grade students out of 20, as does the school-leaving baccalaurรฉat. The French language uses 20 as a base for counting between 70 and 100; hence 80 isquatre-vingts ("four-twenties"). Paris has 20 arrondissements, or boroughs. The capital's annual running race is the 20 Kilomรจtres de Paris. There is a free newspaper called "20 minutes". Even the main French television news is the Journal de 20 heures (the eight-o'clock news).
The French began to move to base ten in the 16th century; the metric system was first adopted in 1795. Yet traces of the vigesimal system linger, says Bernard Helffer, president of the Sociรฉtรฉ Mathรฉmatique de France. The Fifteen-Twenty eye hospital in Paris still keeps its name. Founded in the 13th century, it was named for its 300 beds. The system of grading out of 20 in schools was introduced as recently as 1890. Whatever the origins of this curious French obsession, it has nothing to do with another Gallic passion: it just happens that, when spoken, the word for twenty (vingt) sounds exactly like the word for wine (vin).Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, director of the Institute of Higher Scientific Studies, says numbers like 12 and 60 are more interesting, because they have more divisors. The vigesimal system (counting in base 20) is thought to originate from humans' fingers and toes. It was used by the Mayans as well as by Celts and in other parts of Europe in the Middle Ages. In old French, 40 was deux-vins.
Mumbai: Virender Sehwag was at his attacking best when asked to describe the secret behind teammate and good friend VVS Laxman's calm demeanour, and why he "had become a liberated soul in the dressing room in recent years."
"I think that's because he takes a lot of time getting ready to bat in the dressing room. Since he comes in to bat at No. 5, he can afford to do all that. He showers twice before going out to bat. He'll do all his pooja and everything else. He follows that up with all his stretching exercises. We always say that VVS Laxman takes 45 minutes to warm up his body to bat."
"Meanwhile, the Indian team finish their warm-up in that much time. It's good to have a friend like him in the dressing room who will always share an honest opinion. I really love fielding alongside him in the slip cordon too," a cheerful Sehwag told the emcee during the CEAT Awards ceremony at the Cricket Club of India on Saturday. Sehwag, batting great Sunil Gavaskar and Laxman shared the stage.
Sehwag revealed an incident in 2001 when captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Wright asked him to convert into an opening batsman. "I still remember when Sourav Ganguly and John Wright asked me to open the batting. Laxman came to me and said, 'don't do that. I also did the same mistake (of opening the batting). If you do the same, your career is over.'"
"I told him 'Laxman, please let me take my chances. If I get success, nothing like it. Otherwise, I'll become your competitor in the middle order'."
Laxman was awarded the Special Award for his contribution to Indian cricket, while Sehwag was bestowed with the Special Award for completing 10 years in international cricket, and also for his innings of 175 against Bangladesh in the opening match of this year's World Cup.
Later, Gavaskar asked Sehwag if he had given Laxman his cheque too, since he was always offering advice. Sehwag said: "Yes, because Laxman can't handle his money. So he gives me a cheque, so I can invest it in some funds."
| You may recall that the period of a pendulum is proportional to the square root of the length of the line suspending the weight, i.e., the longer the pendulum, the slower it swings. Harvard students built a device with a series of 15 pendulums in a row, each one slightly longer than its neighbor, then set them in motion and filmed the result. The resulting patterns in this short video are quite fascinating to watch....sure its physics but it is fun! Is it art?
|
HINDU WISDOM
The beauty of being a Hindu lies in your freedom to be who you want to be. Nobody can tell you what to do, or what not to do. There is no central authority, no single leader of the faith. No one can pass an order to excommunicate you, or like in some countries, pass a decree that orders your death by stoning for walking with a strange man.
We don't appreciate our freedom because we can't feel the plight of others who aren't free. Many religions have a central authority with awesome power over the individual. They have a clear chain of command, from the lowliest local priest to the highest central leader. Hinduism somehow escaped from such central authority, and the Hindu has miraculously managed to hold on to his freedom through the ages. How did this happen?
Vedanta is the answer. When the writers of Vedanta emerged, around 1500 BC, they faced an organised religion of orthodox Hinduism. This was the post Vedic age, where ritualism was practiced, and the masses had no choice but to follow. It was a coercive atmosphere.
The writers of Vedanta rebelled against this authority and moved away from society into forests. This was how the 'Aranyakas' were written, literally meaning 'writings from the forest'. These later paved the way for the Upanishads, and Vedanta eventually caught the imagination of the masses. It emerged triumphant, bearing with it the clear voice of personal freedom.
This democracy of religious thought, so intrinsic to Vedantic intelligence, sank into the mindset of every Indian. Most couldn't fathom the deep wisdom it contained, but this much was very clear. They understood that faith was an expression of personal freedom, and one could believe at will. That's why Hinduism saw an explosion of Gods. There was a God for every need and every creed. If you wanted to build your muscles, you worshiped a God with fabulous muscles. If you wanted to pursue education, there was a Goddess of Learning. If it was wealth you were looking for, then you looked up to the Goddess of wealth — with gold coins coming out of her hands. If you wanted to live happily as a family, you worshiped Gods who specially blessed families. When you grew old and faced oncoming death, you spent time in contemplating a God whose business it was to dissolve everything — from an individual to the entire Universe.
Everywhere, divinity appeared in the manner and form you wanted it to appear, and when its use was over, you quietly discarded that form of divinity and looked at new forms of the divine that was currently of use to you. 'Yad Bhavam, tad Bhavati'… what you choose to believe becomes your personal truth, and freedom to believe is always more important than belief itself.
Behind all this — was the silent Vedantic wisdom that Gods are but figments of human imagination. As the Kena Upanishad says, "Brahma ha devebhyo vijigye…" — All Gods are mere subjects of the Self. It implies that it is far better that God serves Man than Men serve God. Because Men never really serve God — they only obey the dictates of a religious head who speaks for that God, who can turn them into slaves in God's name.
Hindus have therefore never tried to convert anyone. Never waged war in the name of religion. The average Hindu happily makes Gods serve him as per his needs. He discards Gods when he has no use for them. And new Gods emerge all the time — in response to market needs. In this tumult, no central authority could survive. No single prophet could emerge and hold sway, no chain of command could be established.
Vedanta had injected an organised chaos into Hinduism, and that's the way it has been from the last thirty five centuries. Vedanta is also responsible, by default, for sustaining democracy. When the British left India, it was assumed that the nation would soon break up. Nothing of that kind has happened. The pundits of doom forgot that the Indian had been used to religious freedom from thousands of years. When he got political freedom, he grabbed it naturally. After all, when you can discard Gods why can't you discard leaders? Leaders like Gods are completely expendable to the Indian mindset. They are tolerated as long as they serve the people, and are replaced when needs change. It's the triumph of people over their leaders, and in this tumult, no dictator can ever take over and rule us. Strange how the thoughts of a few men living in forests, thirty five centuries ago, can echo inside the heart of every Indian. That's a tribute to the resurgent power of India, and the fearlessness of its free thinking people.
| | ||
 | ||
| Sarah MacDonald 12 November 2011 10:44:02 Oman Time | ||
 | |||
| Trygve Harris started making frankincense-flavoured ice cream and selling it at the Salalah souk | |||
| | |||
