Guru Poornima - Story and thoughts

The Full moon day on Aashada month which falls on 3rd July, 2012 is the Janma dina (birth day) of Veda Guru "Veda Vyasar" and is celebrated as Guru Poornima. The Hindu culture strongly emphasize the importance of learning knowledge from a Guru and more importantly doing Seva (self-less work) for Guru as the foremost thing. The reasoning behind Guru Seva is to inculcate humility in the hearts of the Shishya (disciple), which is a requirement that enables the learning aspect from Sishya.

On this auspicious Guru Poornima day, I would like to share an incident from Life of Sri Krishna, which shows how Guru takes care of a Shishya both in terms of being strict and showing love towards his Shishya.

When Krishna was ruling Dwaraka, His childhood friend Sudhama visited him. They both were having friendly chat and was recollecting incidents from their childhood days at Guru Sandeepani's ashramam.
One day Krishna and Sudhama went to forest to collect dry wood as per the orders of their Guru Sandeepani. After few hours, the clouds turned black and there was a heavy downpour of rain in that region. The heavy rain had blocked the way back home and both the children (Krishna and Sudhama) find it struggling to find their way, as the roads were filled with rain water. Being afraid, both of them got hold of their hands and wandered the forest all night without food.
Guru Sandeepani not finding his Shishya's return from forest, got worried and went in search of them. After he saw both the Shishya's next morning, he felt bad on how much trouble they have gone through because of his orders. However, Krishna and Sudhama were happy to see their Guru and told that they were saved from wild animals and heavy rain because of their Guru Seva. Guru Sandeepani was pleased with their response and blessed them that the Vedic knowledge they possess would protect them forever.

This incident recollected and shared by Krishna to Sudhama conveys that while Guru is strict to his Shishyas, he is bountiful of love towards his Shishya at the same time. So as a Shishya, it is important to oblige Guru's orders, though we might not get the implied meaning behind their strict teachings.

Story taken from: "Deivathin Kural part 4" by Sri Ra. Ganapathi

Sensors in Nature

I am always interested in gardening and it is one of my favorite hobby to grow plants and flowers. I still remember the days when I grew "sanghu pushpam (in Tamil)"  (English name: Butterfly pea, Biological name: Clitoria ternatea) flowering plant. It was like my pet plant and I used to talk with it everyday.
While adoring the plants I also developed a skill to observe it closely and recognize the way they grow.

Now I have some plants in our yard and on close observation I found something interesting which I would like to record and share. It is about the plant "sweet peas" which is a climber plant. It took some days for me to arrange some stick lines for it to climb. But by that time, it had grown well and it seems was already in search of something to climb.. It can be seen from this picture how the tendrils reach out to see if it finds something to climb on.

So in fact, the tendrils act like proximity sensors and react based on some physical object nearby. Once these tendrils finds some physical objects like stick, grass, stones or other plants nearby, they curl themselves with the object and starts growing over them. Like this sweet peas plant whose tendrils have identified the nearby grass and got a hold of it.

That was indeed wonderful isn't it.. I am sure that I am not the first person to recognize this "search and hold" activity of these climber plants. But for me personally, it is interesting to observe them growing.

As a person who has learned some Electronics, I can say that the proximity sensors work based on the amount of light that fall on the sensor and react to the intensity of light. They have some transistors and diodes which does these kinda work. The climbers as proximity sensors made me think how they do this search and more importantly what ingredient in it is doing that logic?! (as equivalent to transistors or diodes)
Perhaps some one well versed in botany studies and has expertise might know the answer.
If you, readers have some ideas or thoughts about this, please do share them with me here.

Nature is full of wonders and I wish I do not stop just wondering, but go ahead to find the truth behind it.
And, that can happen only with God's grace - Nature's creator.

An oxymoron example?

Perhaps this post could be an example of oxymoron, but isn't the world full of oxymoron?
 
Time and again, events happen proving money or lack of funds per se is the most important entity for the survival of a company or an individual.. and so I felt worth posting this video again.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7rvupKipmY&feature=related.

 But hold on, that is not the only case happening in this amazing world. Look at this,  and those who deliberately pursue their interests shunning away the need of money.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djzitB1xyoc

As the old lady reflects, "It is hard to convey the difficulty in living that way" and I could add that "It is also hard to experience the joy she enjoyed unless one experience it oneself".

Putting into practice - the toughest

I am always inclined towards ideals mentioned in Bhagavat Geeta, and "wanted" to practice it in my life. Especially the main essence "To work for the cause and do not work expecting the results". Though it is in my thought all the time, it seems the recent events proved that it is actually NOT. So what is that?

There was a idea submitting competition called IIDA in Tampere, Finland which invites ideas from students and researchers about product or service innovations.
The first time I had participated in it was on March 2009, when I just joined the college. Unfortunately I could not submit my idea & business plan within the contest deadline (as I started working on it only a week back). But gave it a try still by sending my idea a day after the deadline. The organizers told that it is not possible to accept it and promised to send feedback though. I also got the feedback as promised.

Again, I came up with a good idea  (in my opinion though ;-) to submit for this year (2012) contest and worked on it well ahead.. But this time I had noted the deadline date as April 14th while it was April 12th. When I tried to submit my idea, the form threw error.. Deadline over!Ah, same story again this time!
Still I sent my idea through email on April 13th and got the reply that mine will be considered. From then, I used to check often news and updates about that contest and look forward to results. I did this so often, that I got really obsessed about it.
I have neither worked on improving my idea nor implementing some prototype of it, in the coming weeks.

On the day of result, I found that I am not one among winners/runners. I did not feel bad, for I was not looking for winner/runner prize, but a platform or support from them to build up my idea and help me in implementing it.

My introspection later, made me understood that the obsession I had over this contest, had prevented me from working on my concept and try implementing by my own. Though I believe, in working for the cause and not results, I had not put that into practice. That was the reason, I wasted my energy in knowing about the contest news and results and did not channel it properly to the actual cause of my work.

I pray God to bestow me His grace and make me put the ideals into practice. In Sanskrit there is a word called "Anushtanam" which means, incorporate it one's lives. I am keep reminding myself with this word, which would hopefully get me to the right track.

MahaPeriyava Jeyanthi 2012

Today June 4th, 2012 marks Tamil month Vaikasi and Nakshatra (Star) Anusha is auspicious as it marks the Jayanthi (birthday) of HH Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Swamigal also widely known as "MahaPeriyava".

He is one of the Matt Guru of Kanchi Sankara Matt. Though I could not meet him even once, I am drawn towards His teachings through various books and articles.
From my limited knowledge, I have to say that His teachings are far more simple, that He gives common man examples to explain many spiritual questions.

On this auspicious day, I would like to share with you two of such examples, whose mere simplicity will let us believe in the concepts He relate them to.

Once a group of His devotees came to see him and request him to send some well versed pundit to perform poojas, and other rituals in their city. They complained that the only one pundit in their location though he performs pooja well, does not know the meaning for the mantras and poojas he is doing. So the younger generation are not interested in taking part in those."
On hearing it, Periyava told, "Yes what they say is  true and and has to be acknowledged. At that time, a postman brought some posts to the mutt and delivered it to Periyava and waited for his darshan.
Periyava read some posts and asked the officials and the post man standing there, "All these letters have the word PIN. Do you know what is PIN?". They thought for sometime and later told that they do not know". He replied that PIN means Postal Index Number.
He continued saying, "Even those people who wrote PIN and the number might not know what does PIN correspond to. Postman though he delivers letters based on the PIN does not know what it corresponds to. However, if the sender writes the number correctly, it will reach the correct destination, though the sender and the postman do not know what PIN corresponds to.
Similarly, you might not know the meaning or reason behind these mantras and practices. But if you pronounce it correctly and perform it with Shraddha (determination) it will yield the result it is destined for."

This explanation clears the misconception, that it is better to abstain from telling these mantras without knowing meaning. This example clearly sends a message to follow the rituals laid out by our ancestors which provides nothing but good for us.
It is equally important here to quote that Hindu Dharma also encourages people to strive towards knowing the meaning behind these rituals as discussed in this post (http://meinall.blogspot.fi/2011/06/guiding-verse-of-my-life.html)

So while the first thing is to tell Shlokas with belief, further goals should be to find the reasoning by ourselves.

The second example is about preserving our Vedic knowledge and resources. MahaPeriyava elucidates that our ancient Vedic knowledge is rich in analysis of various subjects like Vimana Shastra (Aeronautical), Pakshi Shastra (Birds science), Astronomy etc. Varahamihra has compiled all of them and gave a book named "Bruhat Samhita". Though we personally could not gain understanding of these knowledge, texts and literature, our future generations could be interested in knowing them.
He explains the importance of it with a simple example. Once, a blind man was walking on the road holding a lantern during night. Another man came on  his way and seeing the blind man carrying a lantern (which is of no use to him) asked him, "Why are you carrying the lantern, when you cannot even see things around?". The blind man replied, "Though I am not having vision, I am carrying it because you have vision. If I am not carrying the lantern, then you would have stumbled upon me during this night time." Thus He explains the importance of preserving our ancient knowledge and pass it on to the future generations, though we are not interested in them.

This raises me the question, "In what ways we can preserve and pass our ancient knowledge?" If you have any thoughts please share them here.

Play around with hand-made animal masks

It was easy to make those Rabbit and Monkey masks colored by Barathraam and myself. Choose your favorite animal mask layout from here http://www.firstpalette.com/tool_box/printables/printable-mask-glasses.html

and get it colorful through your kids hands.

It is really fun to play around with these hand-made masks. Give it a try and I am sure your kid will love it.

Guru Bhakthi - Story from life of Adi Shankaracharya

Vaishaka Masa Shukla Panchami (5th day of bright half of Vaishaka month - April 26th, 2012) is an auspicious day marking the Jayanthi of our Jagad Guru Adi Shankaracharya.
On this auspicious day, let us take few minutes to know about one of the four main disciples of Sri Shankaracharya and his beautiful composition on his Guru.

Sri Shankaracharya had four disciples namely Sri Sureshwaracharya, Sri Padmapadacharya, Sri Thotakachaarya and Sri Hasthamalakacharya similar to Lord Dakshinamurthy who had four disciples - Sri Sanaka, Sri Sananda, Sri Sanath Kumara, and Sri Sanatna.

 Sri Bagavathpaadha after successfully completing his bhashyam on the Brahma Sutras by the graces of Sri Parameshrara at Kashi, used to deliver Vyakyanam (discourse) on the Bhasyas, Vedhas, Upanishads and the Advaitham daily to his disciples. Sri Shankaracharya had abundant compassion for his disciples & he would start his Vyakyanam and Paatam (lectures) only after all four of them had come. Among all four of them, Sri Thotakachaarya was a little bit silent and was not out-spoken like the rest of them. However, he had deep devotion towards his Guru. Sri Bagavathpaadha understood this, and he wanted to make the rest of the three disciples understand the fact that, Sri Thotakachaarya's devotion to the Lotus Feet of Guru is much greater than the knowledge of all of them. Surrendering everything at the Lotus feet of the Sadguru and doing bakthy or devotion to the Lotus Feet of the Sadguru itself would present one, with the complete wisdom of Self-Knowledge, which is the essence of all the Vedas. Sri Bagavathpaadha wanted to convey the message that, Guru Padha Seva is superior even to the Seva to the Almighty himself.

One morning, Sri Thotakachaarya was a couple of minutes late and our JagadGuru Bagavathpaadha was waiting for his arrival. The rest of the three disciples were wondering why would Sri Bagavathpaadha wait for someone, who is not as "bright" as them. Sri Bagavathpaadha had blessed Sri Thotakachaarya and Sri Thotakachaarya came walking, singing a hymn with wonderfully rhythmic words. Sri Thotakachaarya’s words were showing his over flowing Guru Bakthi. This hymn was metered with very complex poetic meter called Thotaka meter. The rest of Sri Acharya's disciples, now understood the deep Gnanam (Poorna Gnanam) and Guru Bakthy of Sri Thotakachaarya and they regretted for their ignorance and they all praised Sri Thotakachaarya’s knowledge and his fervent Guru Bakthi. Since then he was called as Sri Thotakachaarya although his deeksha namam was Giri.

Here is the composition made by Thotakacharya

Thotakashtakam:

Vidhithakila Shaasthra Sudha Jhaladhe Mahithopanishadh Kathithartha Nidhe
Hrudhaye Kalaye Vimalam Charnam Bhava Shankara Deshika Me Sharnam

Karuna Varunalaya Paalayamam Bhava Saagara Dhukka Vidhoona Hrudham
Rachayakila Darshana Tathva Vidham Bhava Shankara Deshika Me Sharnam

Bhavatha Janatha Sukitha Bhavitha Nija Bhodha Vichaarana Chaarumathe
Kalayeshwara Jeeva Viveka Vidham Bhava Shanakara Deshika Mey Sharanam

Bhava Eva BhavaaNidhi Me Nitharam Sama Jaayatha Chethasi Kouthukitha
Mama Vaaraya Moha Maha Jaladhim Bhava Shanakara Deshika Mey Sharanam

Sukruthe Dhikruthe Bahudha Bhavatho Bhavitha Sama Darshana Laalasatha
Athi dheenam imam paripaalayamam Bhava Shanakara Deshika Mey Sharanam

Jagadtheem Avithum Kalitha Kruthayo Vicharanthi Mahaamaha Shachalathah
Ahi Mamshuri Vathra Vibhaasi Guro Bhava Shanakara Deshika Mey Sharanam

Guru Pungava Pungava Kethana The Samatha Mayatham Nahi Kopi Sudhee
Sharanaagatha Vatsala Tathvanidhe Bhava Shanakara Deshika Mey Sharanam

Vidhithaa Na Maya Visha Dhaika Kala Nacha Kinchana Kaanchanam Asthi Guro
Drutham Eva Vidhehi Krupaam Sahajaam Bhava Shanakara Deshika Mey Sharanam

Sri Thotakachaarya has enlisted all the divine qualities of Sri Bagavathpaadha
in his 8 verses.

Kathithartha Nidhe (Vaibhavam of Sri Bagavathpaadha's writing commentary to all
the Upanishads, Vedas.., which are like the waves of milky ocean.)
Vimalam Charanam (preaches all of us to bear or to think of
the divine feet of Sri Bagavathpaadha, which he says would give us the knowledge of all
the darshanas and the Vivekam of Jeeva-Eshwara Vidham )
Krupaam Sahajaam (quality of daya or compassion by birth)
Tathvanidhe (sole authority for all the Thathvas or the philosophies)
Sukitha Bhavitha (Many householders are delighted by your grace and renderings)
Chaarumathe (pure consciousness moon)
Karuna Varunalayam (ocean of compassion)
Guru Pungava (JagadGuru or the Guru for all the "local" Gurus, who have been emerging from time to time in various parts of the Universe)
Samathamaya tham Nahi (one who does not have any one equal to His intellect)
Sharanaagatha Vatsala (one who always protects His refugees)
Ahimamsurivatra Vibhaasi Guro (Shines like a sun amidst the group of monks)





This incidence is a proof that Guru always recognize immense devotion and faith rather than the knowledge. It also emphasizes the importance of observing or putting into action in our lives whatever knowledge we possess, otherwise knowledge serves no purpose, but increases our ego.

Listen to this wonderful rendition of Thotakashtakam by M.S. Subbulakshmi amma.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUGg29s0IQs