DOORS OF THE MIND

As long as we have the power to choose, it is never too late to open doors to channels we haven’t travelled before, says Kishore Asthana

Imagine a vast hall in our minds. We spend our lives in this hall. There are many doors here and one corridor leading off, with no door at all. In the final stages of our lives, we go into this door-less corridor and, at its end, fall off this plane of existence. This note is not about what happens when we fall off at the end. It is about what happens as we spend our time in this Central Hall.
The doors in the Hall are of different colours. Behind these doors we can find creativity, laughter, adventure, love, serenity and fulfillment. There are some doors behind which we find negativity, too, in the form of addiction, disease, enmity, vileness, bigotry and such things. When we open a door, we spend time behind it experiencing whatever that room contains. We then come out into the Hall and have the choice to do nothing, open another door or go into the same one again. Inside these doors, there are other doors leading to different rooms.
All the doors are unlocked and open smoothly when we are born. Those we choose to ignore become harder to open, as their hinges rust. Those doors we keep opening frequently remain smooth. In the nature of things, it is possible to be behind more than one door at the same time, but the time spent behind any additional door takes away the time from other doors.
As we age, we make our choices. We open certain doors and ignore others. We are guided in our choices by a variety of factors — our genes shape these to a certain extent. Our family and friends are another influence, for we usually prefer to open those doors behind which we are likely to find those we like or which are recommended by them. That is why the wise recommend good company, satsang.
When we spend too much time behind a particular door, the hinges start rusting and it becomes increasingly difficult to come out. Most of our politicians are examples of this. They have spent so much time behind the door marked Vote-Bank-Politics that they find it difficult to come out of this sorry room even at the time of a crisis such as therecent terrorist strike in Mumbai. Similarly, most of our bureaucrats appear to spend most of their time behind the door marked, Pass The Blame.
Sometimes we spend too much time behind a door because we find happiness there - this may be a ‘good’ happiness or a negative one such as that caused by drugs or visions of paradise through religious extremism. Often we spend too much time behind a specific door because we feel helpless. This can happen because of things like prolonged illness, addiction or the wrong company, such as that of religious zealots. It can also happen because of laziness and lack of daring. Sometimes it happens because of belief in our own importance – “what will happen to all this if I leave?” is a question often asked and then replied in a way which enforces the sense of ones indispensability.
At all times, we must remember that, in the final analysis, the choice is entirely ours. We are the Openers of The Doors. The Hall belongs to us and it is not the other way around. Whoever thinks that she belongs to the Hall is powerless to do anything worthwhile and prematurely awaits her end near the entrance of the open corridor. Ennui and a sense of worthlessness are the major experiences if one tarries at this point too long. Some people mistake this inaction for spiritual detachment but such people do not find the bliss they are looking for.
In this connection, I would like to particularly mention two doors which are often mistaken for each other, though they are quite different. One is marked Religion and the other Spirituality. Though the two doors are independent, the rooms behind them are interlinked and the room behind the door marked Religion also has a portal to go into the room marked Spirituality. Unfortunately, Religion has other doors, too and one of them is marked Jihad, or its equivalent in other faiths. Some religious leaders inveigle impressionable young men and women into opening this door. Once inside this, the only way out appears to be death – their own and that of many others who they take with them through misguided notions of vengeance. The recent events in Mumbai highlight what can happen when this door is entered.
Most people enter the door marked Religion under the mistaken notion that this will take them automatically to Spirituality. Unfortunately, in most cases people entering the door marked Religion are unable to reach the spiritual, as they get engrossed in the many diversions offered by religion. An impression has been conveyed by religious leaders that we must enter the room of religion for the Creator to listen to us because He does not do so in other places. This misunderstanding also tends to make the seeker unwilling to leave the varied attractions of this room by opening the interconnected door of Spirituality.
The door marked Spirituality leads to a wondrous corridor whose hallmarks are inclusiveness, empathy and compassion. If travelled till the end, this takes one outside this construct altogether and permits the adept to view it from the perspective of the one who created it all. The adept realizes what has been called moksha, satori, enlightenment and baqa. At the end of her life, the realised one might experience a change of form but not a change of focus. She finds herself at the place she already was. This state has to be experienced and cannot be learned through words. One must see for oneself what colour is and it is not possible to describe it in words to a blind person. So it is with this state.
We should review the choices we have made till now. We should also evaluate if we have been behind a particular door too long. If need be, we should make fresh choices before the hinges of the as yet unopened doors get too rusted to open. Remember, till we have the power to choose, it is not too late to open any new door. It may be increasingly difficult to do so, but, with a strong will, it is still possible to do so. All we have to do is exercise our will in channels it has not travelled before, but would like to. The alternative is travelling through the door-less corridor to our end, carrying with us the regret at what could have been.
At the end of our lives all the doors will open themselves, but by then it would be too late. At that time the doors only allow us to go out into the hall, where the door-less corridor awaits.
(The writer is a management consultant and a social activist)

What interests you?

I have been thinking on what really attracts the bloggers to a blog site and it really beats me. Is it the template or the visuals or is it the topics or something else?

Quite a few times I have come across some well written poetry and only to find out later that some blogger has commented that the stuff was plagiarised from some one or some lyrics from a song. I guess due credit should be given to whomever we take the stuff from. Even I post stuff from the net but I make it a point to put down on the footnote that I have copied the stuff and the source.

Having cleared that, now what really interests you? I can't be writing about stuff that happens to me all the time and these days nothing interesting really happens. I guess the other problem I have is that I might be having too many blog sites to really post anything of substance. I have another blog titled "sukku" and I keep updating it all the time and leave this blog for something that I want to voice out from my heart and by the looks of it I guess I am being heartless....as I haven't been updating anything for a long time.

I was busy trying to do something with the template but just couldn't proceed further, afraid that I might screw up my blog up and the fear of losing whatever I have done so far. Anyway I am lucky that another blogger has offered to help me with making the changes to my template.

I wouldn't mind if anyone could let me know what attracts other bloggers to their blogs, is there a magic formula or am I barking at the wrong tree.

Playing around with the template

I almost screwed up my template as I downloaded a free blogger template from the net and then added into the edit html and saved it. And what came out was something that I didn't anticipate and I revert back to the classic template and then upgraded to minima.

I guess I have to keep my itchy fingers to myself and not to experiment anything new unless I get someone to guide me in installing a new template.

Sukku no speak!

Looks like I have nothing to speak these days as I am busy with a lot of stuff ever since I return home. Finally today I told myself that I have to update this blog and since there is not much to do today at site.

I am seriously thinking of reducing my blogs from 6 to maybe 1, but I just don't know which one to eliminate or should I do the next best thing! Keep them all and hope that I get time to blog on them at least once a month.

So please bear with me.

What the future holds

Too many things are happening here at the moment. My job with the present company is stake as there is a change in the management. With the entry of new owners and directors and the formation of EXCO committee to oversee the operations, and the old boss is still hanging on to the company, it looks like a full fledged corporate war is going on. Now what is going to happen to mere mortals like us, are we going to be trampled by the elephants that are doing their war dance.

I guess I am so deeply entrenched with the affairs of the company and so far I have not seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully something good comes out of this exercise and I guess it is going to be a long and bumpy ride.

I have an option here, should I abandon the sinking ship or sink further with it? I think these next couple of days are going to be pretty crucial for me.

The art of being present

Julie Redstone

There is an awakeness that comes from a clear mind, unobscured by wandering thoughts and preoccupations, and there is an awakeness that comes from a clear heart, willing to engage with life as gift and as an everunfolding revelation of the purpose of creation.

Such an awakened heart can’t respond indifferently to life because it sees the outstretched hand of the creator at every turn and in every particle of experience.

It cannot turn away from feeling, no matter what feelings may occur, because it perceives emotional depth as the great gift of individualized consciousness. This gift stirs the response of individualized life to the source of life as it displays itself in all living things.

To be awake and present is to take responsibility for noticing — for maintaining an intimate connection between the self that is, and the rest of the world that is. It is to know that within the domain of this relationship lies a profound revelation of the source of all within every gesture, every interaction, and every experience that takes place. It is to perceive the sacred in every moment.

In today’s overscheduled world, being continuously busy is sometimes a necessity but often a choice based on the drive for outer success, wealth, and the symbols of what is often taken to be a ‘life worth living’.

Being busy, as opposed to having time ‘on one’s hands’, is perceived by many as a testimony to a life that has merit, purpose, and meaning.

By contrast, idle hands — hands that remain receptive rather than active in relation to time, suggest that time is being wasted — that one could do more, achieve more, accomplish more. No matter if these hands are connected with one’s heart and with the heart of the world. For many, it is only the visible ‘doing’ of things that creates a sense of security and lets us know that time has meaning. The existence of a space of silence in which awareness can broaden is often not considered a gain. Nor is simply being here, responsive to the very air we breathe, considered a virtue.
Is it any wonder, then, that we, as a collective humanity, have forgotten the sacred art of being present, that we have placed ‘noticing’ on the back burner of experiential values. And what would we notice if we took the time to do so?

In order to answer this question, it is helpful to sit in one place, breathing quietly, eyes somewhat unfocused, listening, seeing, sensing. Though one can do this profitably in a bare room, it is easier, at first, to sit in an environment where there is just a little movement present. Now, close the eyes and pay attention to the other senses. Feel the comforting fabric of surrounding life as if it were an envelope or cocoon, gently cradling one’s essential self. Notice everything without discrimination, without opinion. Try to feel the intimacy of connection with what is.

Spending time for a few minutes each day being awake and noticing is a good way to begin the practice of being present. It is a good way to begin to expand one’s idea of what constitutes a meaningful life. And yet more than this is needed if one is to truly embrace what is, and to be ‘present in the present’. What is needed is the greater opening of the heart to the one self that exists within all.

This perception of unity and oneness has an opportunity to grow at any moment in which we interact with another soul. It is nourished by an absence of judgement and by a willingness to be open to the deeper levels of who that other might be. Such openness comes from a state of innocence and of childlike grace. It comes from knowing that the ‘other’ is part of the same ‘all that is’ as oneself, therefore of one heart, one breath, one life.

The gift of being present as it applies to relationships is that it brings love to every interaction, no matter how small or insignificant. It brings the divine into every perception, no matter how ordinary. And it brings gratitude into each moment as it unfolds.

As a sense of being present deepens and one’s capacity to notice flowers, the deep richness of life and of love can be found everywhere and separation nowhere. In this state, one senses only the one who lives within all. One feels the essence within every other. Here, consciousness can only affirm the greater life of which it is a part:

I am and you are. We are both of the stars and of the dust of the earth. We are both of the rocks and of the sandy shores. We are water and we are sky; we are earth, and we are air. We are the breath that life breathes through itself, in a single and continuous song of creation.
(Julie Redstone is a writer, teacher and founder of a spiritual centre for healing and transformation)

This article is reproduced from the Sunday Times Hyderabad 20.07.2008 Edition. Happy reading.

What is your level of trust?

Do you believe that the person on the other side of the computer that you are chatting with is genuine? Aren't there wolves in sheep's clothing waiting to con you. Have you encountered any such experience? Do share your experience so that we all can learn from it.

Forget about romance but just the motive of the other person ,maybe a fraud, trying to steal information from you. What is your level of trust and how comfortable are you with strangers?

Do you have the 7th sense in knowing the unknown, that is the other person on the other side can be trusted. Have you ever connected to the other person even without seeing them eye to eye or at the their body language.

I have a mixed feeling on this as I generally trust the other side easily as all I want is nothing from them, just to share my experience and thoughts. I read an article about the romance on the internet and it sounds pretty scary. I will paste part of the article below just for your information. But you can access it at :

http://www.ou.edu/oupd/kidsafe/websafe.htm

While danger from such links may not be readily apparent, consider that the persons with whom you are communicating:

1. May not be anything like they describe themselves, and may not even be the gender they claim.

2. May not be providing their real name or personal information, and may be using someone else's account or even a "hacked" account.

3. May not be located where they say; the individual whom you believe to be on the other side of the country or overseas may be two blocks away.

Tips For Your Safety
Here are some basic personal safety tips you should consider whenever participating in Internet communication, particularly of a personal nature:

1. Avoid giving out personal information such as your home address or telephone number to people you meet on the net; not everyone is what they seem. There are predators out there, but they won't look like wolves; they'll be disguised as sheep.

2. Exercise caution when agreeing to meet anyone in person whom you've met on the net. Before you arrange any such meeting, at least try to address the following:
   

1. Can you verify, through a third party whom you know and trust, the true identity of this person?

2. Is there a way to verify the information provided by this person?

Spain 1 Germany 0

Another chapter in the Euro Cup championship came to an end this morning with a superb goal by Torres at the 33rd minute of the game (I loved it as Torres is playing for my favourite team Liverpool). Looked like Germany was outplayed by the Spaniards and the game was getting a bit out of hand and I felt the refree was not in total control of the game.

Michael Ballack being the captain, had been the main culprit and I am suprised that he got away with only a yellow card. Nothing was going right for the German team even though I was hoping until the last second for them to score the equalizer but my dreams were shattered.

To me without England in the tournament was a damper and I just couldn't come to terms of watching the rest of the team even though at one stage I was pinning my hopes on Holland but they too dissapointed me.

So looks like all good things must come to an end and so did Euro 2008, and I loved the scenic cities where the game was played and the atmosphere on the stadiums looked electrifying. My hats off to the organisers for a great show.

What it takes for a blog to be a hit?

I wonder sometimes why some blogs are popular and some are not. What it really takes for a blog to be a hit, for the other bloggers to keep coming back for more. Some just cruise along your blogs silently, they don't even want to say anything like they are on a stealth mode (yahoo messenger) but then again there are some who would always make it a point to make their presence felt by saying a few kind words. Sometimes harsh words would be a welcome sign too.

Getting ideas or churning out blogs is not an easy task as you have to keep the readers in mind and what you say should have some value (do you agree with me) or it should be able to connect with them. I personally like to read about blogs which focus on the simple mundane day to day activity but with a little touch of humour thrown in. It's like looking at your life situation but at the same time being detached from it because you have infused some humour in it and maybe laugh at yourself in the process.

And I would also like critics who would say it like it is and maybe stimulate the mind for a debate but I don't seem to find that from my visitors. A debate is what I like and if my opinion is wrong then I should be told so. I could be barking at the wrong tree so to speak but what I write is always centred on me and my emotional thoughts. I am sure you would have felt the same feeling that I am having regarding your blogs too.

So if you have an answer to my question, please feel free to let me know so that I can improve myself.

My years in India

I always wanted to write a piece on my stay in India and on what I felt being here from October 2002 until now on my official work of running my company’s office in Hyderabad. What have I learned here over the years which has enriched my life or which made me into a monk (like the Monk who sold his Ferrari)? You decide!

1. Read a lot of books on philosophy

2. Learned to be patient

3. Look at life in a holistic way

4. Learned humility

5. Learned to cook like chef out of desperation

6. Learned to hold my drinks, not like an alcoholic

7. Learned to forgive

8. Learned to be alone

9. Learned to share

10. Travelling and meeting new people

Reading has always been my passion and what better place can I do that when I am alone most of the time in Hyderabad. Books on philosophy had my mind working overtime and also the landmark course that I did had helped me to look at things in a different light. I know I can’t change others but I surely can change myself and my perception about others.

Learning to be patient is a virtue that you will imbibe once you are in India with its age old wisdom and the pace where thing go by. Over here when someone says “2 minutes” it really never will be a 2 minute, it might be 20 minutes or 2 hours. So stay cool as ‘2 minutes” is really an expression without any time frame attached to it. And I know when I give someone an appointment; I have to wait for ages. Even the church here never starts on time, I remember the pastor was making an announcement asking the parishioners to be in the church by 9.00 a.m. and not to start from their homes at 9.00 a.m. and eventually lead to the service starting at 9.15 a.m., in Hyderabad, and even God has to wait.

I remember I was waiting in the office of the number one person in this state and I am sitting there in his office waiting for his P.A for fixing my appointment for my company director to see him, after 2 hours I called him (the P.A), just to find out that he has left the office and had to go through the whole waiting game at another venue the following day. So patience is what I learned and I can sit like a statue for hours with just staring at the walls.

Being humble and forgiving is another trait that I was forced to pick up. Thanks to our partners whom I sacked and they fixed me up after that. And it was revenge I guess served as a cold dish. I came out of it shaken but not stirred and that got me looking at life and freedom at a different angle (Don’t ask me what they did, as I have forgiven them, but God hasn’t I pray so).

Sharing is what I like to do here, be it materialistic things or knowledge. I know for sure that the more you give, the more you would gain (being selfish eh). It’s a never ending process. They also say that to be in an enlightened state, we should share with others what we know.

The last item on the list is travelling, I love to travel in India and try out all the different varieties of food that is available for the palate. I would pick Chennai as my favourite destination for breakfast and banana leaf food. I love Mumbai for some very exotic variety of food followed by New Delhi. Ahmedabad in Gujarat is the worst place that I can think off, for the food and the place being a dry state, meaning no beers to quench your thirst after a hard days travelling and getting your stuff from the permit room like some hard core alcoholic.

And finally it is Hyderabad, for the chaotic traffic, laid back attitude and fiery hot spicy food which I don’t think you can find anywhere in India, maybe Warangal should take the title for pungent chillies. Warangal incidentally happened to a place where I did my Engineering at the Regional Engineering College (during my student days). I remember how I used to wash my chicken pieces in the curry with hot water and still find it hot.

©sukku2008

How happy are you?

Being happy depends not so much on external circumstances as on your inner life, says Tony Wilkinson

Are you the happiest person you know? Not necessarily the luckiest, richest, or most successful, just the happiest?
If not, why not? Most people will reel off their current worries — the job, the kids, the car, the price of fish. I don’t mean to sweep these aside: problems need to be solved, if you can, or waited out until they disappear. But as far as living happily is concerned you have to face a crucial fact. If you can only live happily after all your problems are solved, you are never going to live happily, because when today’s problems are gone and forgotten, others will take their place. So either living happily is just impossible, or you have to do it in spite of your problems.
Being happy depends not so much on external circumstances as on your inner life. This means all your thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, emotions, desires, dreams — your entire mental and emotional scene. Happiness is about how you react inwardly to events, what you think and believe, how you feel, how problems affect you. It may sound obvious, but like many obvious things it’s something that is often forgotten when it matters most. We focus almost exclusively on our external lives, on getting and spending and having fun, and then wonder why we are not happy. But it’s when our inner lives are tranquil that we are happiest and we call this inner peace.
So how is inner peace to be achieved? Is it a question of religion, perhaps, or yoga? These can certainly help but only if they have a positive effect on your inner life. The difficulty is that inner life is based on patterns and habits — some you were born with, most you have acquired. You don’t choose, occasion by occasion, how you respond inside when something happens. This happens and you feel angry; that happens you feel sad; you pass the patisserie and you feel hungry; you hear a tune or smell a certain scent and it reminds you of a particular time or person? Things produce a response without you thinking about it or choosing how you feel, and they don’t necessarily leave you with inner peace. So the trick is to break the pattern. You can’t completely avoid problems, but you can change how you react to them by acquiring new habits that provoke peaceful inner responses. Training your inner life into different habits requires learning skills of thinking, feeling, and managing your beliefs and desires. These are very like the virtues many religions and philosophies advocate, but if you think of them as skills rather than virtues, you benefit from an important and liberating shift. Instead of “I must become a better person” you can think “I would live more happily if i worked on my skills”, so the change in attitude becomes a choice, not a duty. And to these remedial skills i’ve added an extra set of enjoyment skills, otherwise getting happier could turn out a very depressing affair.
This process is not something you can do overnight, it’s a whole new way of life, but the reward is what we all want most — happiness. There are five main skills you need to cultivate.

Mindfulness: Borrowed from Buddhism, this involves developing your ability to focus your thoughts in the present. The problem most of us have with thought is having too much of it — the worrying and nonstop mental chattering our minds are prone to. Mindfulness is a key inner skill because, as it gets stronger, it lets you focus on your own inner life and catch your habits in the act. Once you can see how you are ruled by them, the change you are seeking often happens of its own accord.

Compassion: Most religions rightly stress compassion. As well as being a virtue in its own right it is a practical skill that counteracts negative emotions like anger and hatred, which are terrible wreckers of happiness. Try it the next time someone annoys you: put yourself in their place and ask yourself what they might they be thinking or feeling to behave like that. Even bad people, let alone people who just mildly annoy you, often have a warped or mistaken view of the world which makes them do what they do. Wars are started and atrocities committed, for example, because someone decides that this is what their God wants. It doesn’t mean they should get away with their actions, in fact it may be necessary to take strong action to defend yourself.

Story skills: These are very useful for problems with your inner belief system, as they let you stand back and explore alternative versions of reality. Beliefs have great power over your life because a belief is something you take as fact. Start to think of your beliefs as stories, and it is easier to accept that other things might be true as well, or even instead. Even true stories only select the little bit of reality we are focusing on at the moment: no one story is the whole truth about any situation. From a different point of view we would see a different story, sometimes a whole different world. This is not about make believe, it’s about reframing situations to look at them from a different perspective.

Letting-go techniques: These are particularly helpful when we are unhappy not getting what we want. Generally, we are encouraged to keep wanting and to think that more will make us happier, whether it’s clothes or cars or even love. But wanting is a treadmill: as long as you have unsatisfied wants and desires you won’t be at peace, so to be happy you either have to satisfy all your desires, or let go of some of them. Letting-go skills also include forgiveness, which helps hugely if one of the things you think you want is revenge.

Enjoyment skills: This last group includes skills such as patience, humour and, especially, gratitude. You don’t have to be grateful to someone, it’s enough to cultivate gratitude for things. Our minds naturally scan the environment for dangers and resources, a useful mechanism when we were hunter-gatherers. But it can make us unnecessarily pessimistic — focusing on the 10% we lack rather than the 90% we have. Cultivating enjoyment skills will help redress the balance.
Acquiring all these skills takes time and effort. The important thing is to practise them until they operate without you thinking about them. Your practice routine will be very individual, because everyone needs to prioritise different skills depending on the specific issues that are holding them back from being happy, but keep the skills in mind and you will constantly find new ways to try them out.

This article is extracted from Sunday Times Hyderabad edition dated 22.06.2008 and I would like to share it with you. I hope you enjoy reading it as I surely did.

Is there real love?

Is there such a thing as real love in this world? Unconditional love? Is it something of a myth? Why do we attach expectations to love as love itself is unconditional. Can we have a relationship with the opposite sex without expecting anything in return? Why we as humans always expect something in return otherwise we feel that we are losing out in the bargain.

Is love a bargain then?

Why do you trade your love for something in return? Can we just not love our neighbours or another human being for the sake of love?

I know how it is as I have got myself into trouble a couple of times and sometimes I wonder 'Is there real love?"

Back and running

This is my continuation of my saga with my computer. I got it back in shape after screwing it up. I did the inevitable and restored it back to factory settings. On 17th evening I bought an external HDD of 160 GB by Western Digital and backed up all my files. And at nearly 2 a.m. on 18th, I pressed the Recovery Manager, which comes with the HP laptop and voila! it was back as new. One of the reasons that I wanted to do it was my system was getting slower and I know over the past year I had been storing a lot of junk, downloading and deleting free softwares.

I find that the storage space in system restore is inadequate and I am trying to increase it as I read it somewhere, it's always better to have a bigger storage capacity so that you can undo based on the older images. My advice to the vista users would be as I mentioned in my previous post, is "don't touch system registry" and you will end as what I did, spend a whole day getting the system running back to how you liked it. And I had problems installing MS office but after cleaning the disc with a little soap water, I was able to install it ( a trick I learned after reading somewhere in the net).

Now I have changed my mind in switching over to a Mac as I see I have gained back the speed and it's pretty easy restoring it back to what it was.

I think I have a problem with my DVDRW device, maybe a loose connection or it has to be replaced but thank God that I had my extended warranty for another two years left and when I get back home to Kuala Lumpur, I can get it replaced F.O.C.

Now you might be wandering why go through the hassle, but given a choice I would like to spend my evenings and nights with my laptop, maybe it is an addiction. If ever you have a problem, feel free to ask me as I am an experienced hand in this now.

Screwing up my computer

I did the unthinkable and cleaned my registry of Windows Vista Home Premium O.S. There was a lot of conflicts in the system and what did I do? I saved the files that were in conflict on my hard drive and then pressed the clean button. And after that I did defrag with a free software called defragger which I had downloaded. It freed up a lot of space and maybe screwed the system up in the process which was already screwed earlier by CCleaner.

The following morning when I wanted to play my audio CD, the system couldn't read it. Hey what did I do? I screwed up my system and I also lost my auto play on the process and God know's what else I have deleted. My word of advice is "DON'T MESS AROUND WITH THE REGISTRY" and what I did was I reinstalled back the registry files that I had in my hard drive and the computer can read my Audio CD but my auto play is still out.

When I tried to do a system restore, I had problem as the last restore point was after the deletion. Now I guess I have to reset my system back to company settings or as when I purchased it. The problem is that I am in Hyderabad and I left my external hard drive at home in Kuala Lumpur.

Not that the system is not working per se, but I somehow have this urge to put back all the drives or other stuff that I have deleted. Isn't there anyway that I can do that without losing all my data? Let me know, please.

I spend the whole of last evening until midnight trying to search on-line for help but it was of no avail. I will be going back home by the end of this month and then maybe I can back up all my stuff and use the recovery disc which I had created after running my system for the first time to reinstall my windows vista.

I hope I don't do any crazy stuff until then and be satisfied with the damage that I have caused. So my advice to you again is, if you are using CCleaner, be very careful and don't touch that registry unless you are an IT geek.

Where are we heading?

It looks very scary with prices of essential commodities going up and our salaries seem to have stagnated over the years. With the recent hike of petrol price in Malaysia by 41%, I guess everything has gone up or gone less if there is no hike in cost. Comparatively our petrol price is still lower than the other countries in the region but that is not a consolation. Because at the end of the day, our savings have gone smaller and I still can't figure out why is the cost of oil going up? Is it that the supply can't meet the demands of China and India or is it something that we don't know.

Why haven't we found an alternative source of fuel, we have discovered everything that is possible under the sun. Are we waiting for the depletion of oil from the Arab nations and then come out with the discoveries. To me something doesn't seem right here.

With the ever increasing population, do you think that the demand for petroleum would decrease? Look at the number of cars that are hitting the roads every day. Why can't we have an efficient public transport system so that the public would not depend on cars?

Look at the weather across the globe and you would know where we are heading. All this is brought about by our destruction of the forest and indiscriminate use of non-biodegradable plastics. Is this what we call development?

Look at the killings that is going on across the globe and we are waging wars in the name of democracy and religion. The list goes on and on and on. There is no respite to the happenings across the globe.

©sukku2008

Gizmo bug

Yes I got myself a new camera today, I already have a Konica Minolta 5 MP but I felt that I should upgrade to 10 MP, saw one this morning and out of impulse I had to buy it. Anyway I gave my old camera (which is 2 years old) to my youngest son.

I don't know why I melt like an ice-cream when I am with gadgets and the other day I was thinking of getting a new laptop by apple, switch from Window's to Mac, but I just couldn't do it. My laptop is only less then a year and the current model that I have is by HP Pavilion Entertainment PC, still good but I feel like I should change to an apple. Too great a temptation and if I get a good buyer for my laptop in Hyderabad, then maybe I would change to an apple by the end of this month.

I changed my Atom Exec mobile to HTC Touch 2 months back and I have no regrets about that. I even changed my Ipod classic to Ipod mini of 8 GB. I gave my classic to my eldest son and looks like there is no end in giving and buying too. I guess life is too short to be stingy.

Do you feel the same way regarding your electronic gizmos?

It's nice to be at home

It's nice to be at home for this short holiday and I just can't wait to wind up and really be back home for good. I find that there is no place like home especially if you are with your family. Being at home I find that my brains have gone dead and there is nothing that I can blog at the moment, maybe it would take some time for me to get to my routine here, and before I could settle down into my comfort zone, next Sunday, I am flying back to Hyderabad. That would be my last 3 weeks in Hyderabad.

Not much of blog this one.

Which is the best blog host

I have been searching the web for the best free blog host and I was left more confused then ever. I always like the feel of a three column template and the look of the other blog providers but I just can't seem to find any. I know I can tweak this blogger template to a 3 column blog but I just don't feel it's right to that as I am afraid that I would screw up my existing template and I am not an IT nerd either.

Can anyone suggest a good free blog host so that I can test drive that. Or should I stick to what I have now and put this thought to rest.

6 years in Hyderabad

Yes that is how long I am in Hyderabad and I can remember my first trip to this city of 6 million inhabitants, the airport was empty and I flew in by Silk Air with my Architect and Quantity Surveyor. In Hyderabad, our local Quantity Surveyor met us and we all stayed in the same hotel.

Since it was a transit flight from Singapore, by the time I got into Hyderabad, I was hungry and could eat a horse. So I went down to the only restaurant that was opened in the hotel, and there they served midnight Briyani and it was also the fasting month for the muslims and hence they had this muslim speciality called "Haleem" and I didn't know what the hell it was. So for the Briyani buffet, after filling my plate with "Gosh (mutton)Briyani", I went to help myself with the haleem and to my my surprise there wasn't any mutton pieces inside the gooey stuff, I thought to myself, hey these people are short changing me since it is mid-night and it could be left overs from lunch or dinner. It was like dal, and I took the haleem and had my supper without complaining as I am in a foreign country.

The following day I casually asked our partner who was a Hyderabadi, what happened to the mutton pieces in the haleem and the hotel is not giving what it promised and to my surprise, he told me that haleem is cooked with flour(maida), spices and mutton over 6 to 7 hours and everything becomes gooey and I had a good laugh.

The most glaring difference that I noticed was the head shaking, they move it sideways for a yes and I had a little bit of a problem with the Indian accent too. I couldn't understand a word they were saying and I guess they couldn't understand my accent either. I got over it now and when I go back home, now they can't understand me.

Visiting the Government offices was a drag, it was just like what the British had left when they left India. And the dressing was casual, the officials wear chappels and shirts not tucked in. I was weary of the water they serve at the Government offices, just didn't want to fall sick.

I stayed in a Hotel for 7 months and I got used to life in a Hotel, I was upgraded by the Hotel management to a Junior Suite with free fruit baskets and a bottle of complimentary beer everyday along with Lays potato chips and other stuff. I also had complimentary cocoktails from 7 pm. to 8 p.m, which I normally extend by double parking on my drinks and the tidbits would serve as my dinner.

When I think back of those days, the streets in Hyderabad was relatively free from traffic and I guess over the past 6 years, things have changed much. Hyderabad has got it's new airport and traffic is chaotic now. The beautiful trees are chopped down now in the name of road widening. And I can feel the heat when I am in the city. More pubs and restaurants have opened up and I see many new shopping malls have opened up too as the middle class has increased in proportion.

The only positive thing that I have gained from Hyderabad is learning to be patient(I can sit in a place for hours like a buddha meditating) and also my tolerance to spicy food has increased ten fold.

Cook "cooked" it

After all the weeks of excitement, David Cook finally won the American Idol by 12 millions votes. I guess this year it must have been the toughest and the closest competition and I think David Cook deserves the title as he has the personality to carry it.

The finale was a drag as 2 hours was too long a wait to find out and also this morning I came to know of the result from a blog posting. There went my element of surprise but I had the feeling about the result after watching the show last night.

I guess after sometime, the show gets a bit jaded and becomes quite predictable. But with the younger viewers cropping up each year and with the advent of mobile phones for the teenagers maybe the popularity would still linger on.

Anyway I enjoyed myself and I felt the most touchy show was when a girl contestant had her dad passed away in an accident just before she came in for auditioning, I just can't place her name, but it sure did bring lots of tears to my eyes.

My best to this years winner and I am looking forward for the next American Idol in January next year.

How many blogs per week?

What do you think is an ideal number of blogs to be posted per week. Should a minimum of 3 be sufficient or should it be 7 (that is posting a blog a day). Or should it be blog, when there is a need to blog, like looking for events or situations that you can blog about.

It's about late afternoon now, and I just felt like blogging but I just couldn't think of a matter to blog and so I had decided to write one on the number of blogs per week. I am amazed with the number of bloggers on the net and the amount of stuff that gets published and are there readers for all these blogs. What strikes a chord with the other bloggers.

I started with a blog many years back, and then concentrated with opera and now on blogger. I don't really see that many traffic at my blog site. I am just pouring out what I am feeling at the moment as I am sure that the other bloggers would have felt the same way too. I even think whether blogger is a right platform to blog or could there be someother better host for the blogs.

It's always the why's that keeps me going and my constant search for that answer. But most of the time, my questions on my blogs are unanswered and it has a natural death, perhaps like these set of questions.

Bad night

Yesterday I attended the 25th wedding Anniverasary of a friend in a five star hotel. He is a Gujurati and the function was fun and colourful. I took a few snap shots on my ppc phone, but I don't think they turned out that good.


At 2.00 p.m., there was a powercut in my place and I thought it was a routine cut, by 6.00 p.m, there was no sign of power and I called my neighbour Lynette, who happens to be staying upstairs, to only wake her up from her sleep, she came back late this morning from her work at the call center. Anyway I asked her about the powercut and to my surprise, she had power. Well what did I do wrong this time, did I burn the fuse or something. I called the electrician and he came over by 6.30 p.m. and checked the wires and informed me that the previous electrician had done a screwed up job. But the snag was that there was no supply to my meter from the Electricity Board and also my next door neighbour confirmed this as she didn't have suppy to one of the phase. Thank God I didn't burn or melt any fuse this time.


Meanwhile, I was running late for my function that I had to attend, on my way I bought a nice bouquet of artificial flowers (for the function) done very well, why give natural flowers, when after 3 days you have to throw it away.


I picked up my friend at his house and we went to the function together and I guess I had one too many to drink of Johnnie Walker Black label, as I was by that time trying to drown a piece bad news that I received. Well I guess, there is nothing that I can do about it now.


We left the function by 1.30 a.m., dropped my friend in his place and it was a long drive for me, lucky I had my driver with me as I guess I wasn't in the condition to drive back.


Reached home about 2.30 a.m., and to my surprise, the damn power wasn't there. Well what am I going to do in the blistering heat of about 31 degrees Celcius. I opened my bedroom windows, as it has a screen to prevent the mosquitoes from coming in, and also I would get some breeze. I lighted a mosquito coil and hit the bed. I was sweating profusely and I was really angry, with the Electricity Board, and the power came back at 7.15 a.m., this morning. Maybe it was because of the drinks that I was able to sleep in the furnace and if the mosquito had bit me, then it would have crashed somewhere as it would have been too drunk to fly.


I hope there would be no more of this extended power cuts as I had to throw out my cooked food, the mutton, chicken and the prawns that I had kept in the freezer for at least 15 hours without power. Why take risk of solmenella poisoning from the decomposing meat and cooked food.


To top up the bad night, I am having a slight hangover and a depressed feeling with regards to last nights bad news.

A Simple Blog Template

After so much of tinkering around with the idea of having my second blog with blogger, I had spent the whole afternoon deciding on how to present the blog. Should I go for a 3 column template or should I load it with all the latest widgets but then an idea struck me! Why not keep it as simple as possible, I have a counter for the number of visitors, and one widget for responsible commenting, which I strongly believe in. You know I had received a comment from one of the readers asking to press the link in the comment, and I did that, and my anti-virus alarm went off and I quickly deleted that response. Now why on earth would somebody be so nasty, what did I do to him.

I have one adsense advert by google on my blog and I will keep it that way, not that by placing it all over the blog I am going to be a millionaire. So far in my other blog, my account stands at "0" earnings. So there goes my ambition in blogging for money.

So simple it is, my blog template. Do you agree with my opinion?

Being awake from sleep

The passage below is extracted from the book by osho titled “awareness” the key to living in balance, insights for a new way of living. I should be thankful to Rajneesh for his beautiful thoughts which I would like to share with the world and especially with my friends on the net.

This poem by Heraclitus says it all about being awake and he says:

Private Worlds

Men are as forgetful and heedless
in their waking
moments
of what is going on around them
as they are during their sleep.
Fools, although they hear,
are like the deaf;
to them the adage
applies
that whenever they are present
they are absent.
One should
not act or speak
as if he were asleep.
The waking have one world in
common;
sleepers have each a private world of his own.
Whatever we see
when awake is death,
when asleep, dreams.

Heraclitus touches the deepest problem of man, that he is fast asleep even while awake. You sleep when you sleep, but you also sleep while you are awake.

Even right now you are dreaming within. A thousand and one thoughts continue and you are not conscious of what is happening, you are not aware of what you are doing, you are not aware of who you are. You move as people move in sleep.

Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there. If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen. It can happen only when you are fast asleep. When you are present, immediate transformation starts in your being, because when you are present, aware, many things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible, if you are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin, and that is unawareness.

You need not change anything, and even if you try to change, you cannot. You have been trying to change many things in you. Have you succeeded? How many times have you decided not to be angry again?

What happened to your decision? When the moment comes, you are again in the same trap: you become angry, and after the anger has gone, again you repent. It has become a vicious circle: you commit anger and then you repent, then you are ready again to commit it.

Remember, even while you are repenting, you are not there; that repentance is also part of sin. That’s why nothing happens. You go on trying and trying, and you make many decisions and you take many vows, but nothing happens – you remain the same. You are exactly the same as when you were born, not even a slight change has happened in you. Not that you have not tried, not that you have not tried enough; you have tried and tried and tried. And you fail because it is not a question of effort. More effort won’t help. It is a question of being alert, not of effort.
If you alert, many things simply drop; you need not drop them. In awareness, certain things are not possible.

You cannot fall in love if you are aware; then falling in love is a sin. You can love, but it will not be like a fall, it will be like a rise. Why do we use the term falling in love? It is a falling; you are falling, you are not rising. When you are aware, falling is not possible – not even in love. It is not possible; it is simply not possible. With awareness, it is impossible; you rise in love. And rising in love is a totally different phenomenon from falling in love. Falling in love is a dream state. That’s why people who are in love, you can see it from their eyes; as if they are more asleep than others, intoxicated, dreaming. You can see from their eyes because their eyes have sleepiness. People who rise in love are totally different. You can see they are no longer in a dream, they are facing the reality and they are growing through it.

Falling in love you remain a child; rising in love you mature. And by and by love becomes not a relationship; it becomes a state of your being. Then it is not that you love this and you don’t love that, no – you simply love. Whosoever comes near you, you share with them. Whatsoever is happening, you give your love to it. You touch a rock and you as if you are touching your beloved’s body. You look at a tree and you look as if you are looking at your beloved’s face. It becomes a state of being. Not that you are in love – now you are love. This is rising, this is not falling.

Love is beautiful when rise through it, and love becomes dirty and ugly when you fall through it. And sooner or later you will find that it proves poisonous, it becomes bondage. You have been caught in it, your freedom has been crushed. Your wings have been cut; now you are free no more. Falling in love you become a possession: you possess and you allow somebody to possess you. You become a thing, and you try to convert the other person you have fallen in love with into a thing.

Look at a husband and a wife: they both have become like things, they are persons no more. Both are trying to possess each other. Only things can be possessed, persons never. How can you possess a person? How can you dominate a person? How can you convert a person into possession? Impossible! But the husband is trying to possess the wife; the wife is trying the same. Then there is a clash, and then they both become basically enemies. Then they are destructive to each other.

Possession … everybody goes on trying to possess the beloved, the lover. This is no longer love. In fact, when you possess a person, you hate, you destroy, you kill; you are a murderer. Love should give freedom; love is freedom. Love will make the beloved more and more free, love will give wings, and love will open the vast sky. It cannot become a prison, an enclosure. But that love you don’t know, because that happens only when you are aware; that quality of love comes only when there is awareness. You know a love that is sin, because it comes out of sleep.

Try understanding exactly what this sleep is, because if you can feel what it is, you have already started to become alert – already you are on the way out of it. What is this sleep? How does it happen? What is the mechanism? What is its modus operandi?

The mind is always either in the past or in the future. It cannot be in the present, it is absolutely impossible for the mind to be in the present. When you are in the present, the mind is there no more – because mind minds thinking. How can you think in the present? You can think about the past, it has already become a part of the memory; the mind can work it out. You can think about the future; it is not yet there, the mind can dream about it. Mind can do two things. Either it can move into the past – there is space enough to move, the vast space of the past; you can go on and on and on – or the mind can move into the future; again vast space, no end to it, you can imagine and dream. But how can mind function in the present? It has no space for the mind to make any movement.

The present is the dividing line, that’s all. It has no space. It divides the past and the future – just a dividing line. You can be in the present but you cannot think; for thinking, space is needed. Thoughts need space, they are just like things, very subtle, and every material things need space.

You cannot be thinking in the present. The moment you start thinking, it is already the past. You see the sun is rising; you see it and you say, “What a beautiful sunrise!” – it is already the past. When the sun is rising, there is not even space enough to say “How beautiful!” because when you utter these two words - “How beautiful!” – the experience has already become past; the mind already knows it in the memory. But exactly when the sun is rising, exactly when the sun is on the rise, how can you think? What can you think? You can be with the rising sun, but you cannot think. For you there is enough space – but not for thoughts.

A beautiful flower in the garden and you say, “A beautiful rose” – now you are not with this rose, this moment; it is already a memory. When the flower is there and you are there, both present to each other, how can you think? What can you think? How is thinking possible? There is no space for it. The space is so narrow – in fact there is no space at all – that you and the flower cannot even exist as two because there is not enough space for two, only one can exist.

That’s why in a deep presence you are the flower and the flower has become you. When there is no thinking, who is the flower and who is the one who is observing? The observer becomes the observed. Suddenly boundaries are lost. Suddenly you have penetrated, penetrated into the flower and flower has penetrated into you. Suddenly you are not two – one exists.

When you are in the present without thinking, you are for the first time spiritual. A new dimension opens – that dimension is awareness. Because you have not known that dimension, Heraclitus will say you are asleep, you are not awake. Awareness means to be in the moment so totally that there is no movement towards the past, no movement towards the future – all movement stops. A new movement starts a movement in depth.

The whole world moves, existence moves, into eternity. Mind moves in time. Existence is moving into the depth and the height, and mind moves backwards and forward. Mind moves horizontally – that is sleep. If you can move vertically, that is awareness.

Be in the moment. Bring your total being into the moment. Don’t allow the past to interfere and don’t allow the future to come in. The past is no more, it is dead. The past is no more, why are you worried about it? Why do you go on chewing it again and again? Are you mad? It is no more; it is just in your mind, it is just a memory. The future is not yet – what are you doing thinking about it? What can you plan about it? Whatsoever you do about it is not going to happen, and then you will be frustrated, because the whole has its own plan. Why do you try to have your own plans against it?

The existence has its own plans, it is wiser than you – the whole has to be wiser than the part. Why are you pretending to be that whole? The whole has its own destiny, its own fulfillment; why do you bother about it? And whatsoever you do will be a sin because you will be missing the moment – this moment.

Yesterday you were thinking about today because then it was tomorrow; now it is today and you are thinking about tomorrow, and when tomorrow comes, it will become today – because anything that exists, exists here and now, it cannot exist otherwise. And if you have a fixed mode of functioning such that your mind always looks at tomorrow, then when will you live? Tomorrow never comes. Then you will go on missing – and this is sin.
The moment the future enters, time enters. You have sinned against existence, you have missed. And this has become a fixed pattern: robot like, you go on missing.

So remember one thing: whenever you realize that you have gone to the past or into the future, don’t create a problem out of it. Simply come to the present, not creating any problem. It’s okay! Simply bring back your awareness.

Whenever you feel you have missed, come back, that’s all. Don’t feel guilty. Because when awareness becomes perfect, this world – this world that you have created out of your mind – simply disappears; another world becomes revealed to you. Maya disappears, the illusion disappears – the illusion is there because of your sleep, your unconsciousness.
It is just like a dream. In the night you move in a dream, and when the dream is there, it is so true. Have you ever thought in a dream, “This is not possible”? The impossible happens in a dream, but you cannot doubt it. In a dream you have such faith; in a dream nobody is skeptical, not even a Bertrand Russell. No, in a dream everybody is like a child, trusting whatsoever happens. You see your wife coming in a dream – suddenly she becomes a horse. Not for a single moment do you say, “How can this be possible?”

Dream is trust, it is faith. You can not doubt in a dream. Once you start doubting in a dream the rules are broken. Once you doubt, the dream starts disappearing. If even once you can remember that this is a dream, suddenly this will become a shock and the dream will shatter and you will be fully awake.

This world that you see around you is not the real world. Not that it doesn’t exist – it exists – but you are seeing it through a screen of sleep.

You are taking the whole existence as a screen, and then you project your own mind on it. You see things that are not there, and you don’t see things that are there. And the mind has explanations for everything. If you raise a doubt, the mind explains. It creates theories, philosophies, and systems, just to feel comfortable that nothing is wrong. All philosophies exist to make life convenient, so that everything looks okay, nothing is wrong – but everything is wrong while you sleep.

Once you have known awareness, nothing is worth it – you have known the greatest bliss of life