Disturbances in Mind

While I was in a Restaurant, suddenly a cockroach flew from somewhere and sat on a lady standing a little away from me.

She started screaming out of fear. With panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group got cranky to what was happening. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach to another lady in the group.

Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.

In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.

The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt.

When he was confident enough, he grabbed and threw it out with his fingers.

Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering:

- Was the cockroach responsible for the ladies' histrionic behavior?

- If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed? He handled it near to perfection - without any chaos or drama.

- So, it was not the cockroach, but the inability of the ladies to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed them.

I also realized even in my case then, it is not the shouting of my father or scolding of my boss that disturbs me, but it's my own inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturb me.

Similarly, it's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused in my mind by the traffic jam that disturbs me.

More than the problem, it's my own reaction to the problem that hurts me!

The Take-Away:

- The women reacted but the waiter responded.

- We must not react in life; we should always respond.

- Reactions are instinctive; responses are intellectual.

Ant and Grasshopper - Indian Version of story - too good and fact

Original Story:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool
and laughs dances plays the summer away. Come winter, the Ant is warm and
well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the
cold.

Indian Version:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and
laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant's a fool
and laughs dances plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands
to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others
are cold and starving.

NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper
next to a video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with
food.

The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor
Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant's house.

Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that
Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter .

Mayawati states this as'injustice'done on Minorities.

Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for
not upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the
Grasshopper (many promising Heaven&Everlasting Peace for prompt support
as against the wrath of God for non-compliance) .

Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for'Bengal Bandh'in
West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in
the heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and
Grasshoppers.

Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway
Trains, aptly named as the'Grasshopper Rath'.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the'Prevention of Terrorism Against
Grasshoppers Act'[POTAGA] , with effect from the beginning of the winter..

Arjun Singh makes'Special Reservation'for Grasshoppers in Educational
Institutions in Government Services.

The Ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and having nothing left
to pay his retroactive taxes, it's home is confiscated by the Government
and handed over to the Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV, BBC, CNN.

Arundhati Roy calls it'A Triumph of Justice'.

Lalu calls it'Socialistic Justice'.

CPM calls it the'Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden'

Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

Many years later...

The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar
company in Silicon Valley ,

100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere
in India ,

....AND

As a result of losing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the
grasshoppers, India is still a developing country...!!

Meditation for a Travel Bug

There are two kinds of people in this world. One, for whom traveling is a passion and a lot of fun. Exploring new places, tasting different foods, discovering new cultures – they are simply smitten by the travel bug! And then there’s another category of people who start making a long face at the mere mention of the word ‘travel’. They have had too much of it and they can’t seem to enjoy it anymore! For these people, traveling itself is a bug.
The good news is: we have a tool, so simple and handy, to fix this bug.

Jet Lag

The first and the most common after-effect of long hours of travel. Change in time zones disturbs sleep patterns and the entire body cycle gets affected. But that’s not all. With the body not feeling great, the mind is unable to function effectively. If you are on a business tour, jet lag can be particularly problematic as it can affect productivity and efficiency at work.
Just for thoughts: Rajita Bagga, President of the World Forum for Ethics and Business, sometimes travels 2-3 weeks a month but despite long flights and jet lag, she manages to remain productive, creative, enthusiastic, and fresh. How?

 

 

     How to include meditation in your
     tour itinerary?

• Meditation is possible anywhere – flight, airport,
  car transit (when you are not driving), or train.
• It’s good to meditate morning and evening
  but if you can’t, do it any other time of the day.
• Meditating before in-flight meals is a good
  idea. But don’t worry if you missed it, meditate
  whenever!
• Download a few online guided meditations
  on your Ipod or laptop.
• Register for a Sahaj Samadhi Meditation
  Course and carry your mantra
  with you during travel.

 

 

Poor digestion

The last thing you would want on a holiday is an upset stomach. Unfortunately, change in place, change in weather, different eating habits and different food types all make it happen. Sometimes, the craving to taste a different food is so strong that we end up stuffing ourselves and crying with pain later.
Just for thoughts: Srinivas Uppaluri, Management Consultant, needs to travel quite a bit for work. Yet, he has a healthy digestive system. Apart from the fact that he is fairly strict about his diet and eating habits, Srinivas is also extremely particular about his daily routine, no matter which part of the world he is in. Long traveling times and jet lag don’t bother him and he is fresh and charged up when he arrives to take on the day ahead of him. How?

Motion sickness

Most people are uncomfortable in transit because of motion sickness, particularly on flights. While some people feel like throwing up during take-off and landing, some feel light-headed and restless all through the journey. The result: not a very favorable start to that perfect vacation.
Just for thoughts: Shreya Chugh, National Coordinator, Art of Living Yes! Course, travels extensively and used to keep popping pills each time she had motion sickness during air travel. Now, not only has she bid adieu to this problem forever but she doesn’t suffer from any jet lag either in spite of her hectic traveling. How?

Back-to-back travel can take a toll on the body

Imagine what would happen if you had to make more than 12 trips in a year? Sometimes, two back-to-back trips in a month can be enough to leave you exhausted and not wanting another for at least a year again! Continuous travel in different modes of transport – car, train or flight – can actually make one feel sick after a while. Most young business people these days, between the age group of 20 to 35 years, complain of back problems and body pain because of long uninterrupted travel schedules.
Just for thoughts: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living, has traveled at least 54 cities in the past 3 months alone! Yet, he looks fresh and energetic after every tour. Whether it is a satsang he needs to attend the moment he lands at the airport, or a business meeting that he needs to go to soon after, the enthusiasm remains unchanged. How?
There is only one answer to all these ‘hows’ – meditation. A few minutes of sitting still with yourself can work wonders, especially when you are traveling,

• It helps you get over the jet lag so that you can spend the day holidaying or finishing business deals instead of catching up with sleep in the hotel room.
• Meditation helps keep the digestive system in place
• Meditation can help restore balance coupled with a few yoga postures, pranayamas, and a little check on the diet. And the best part is that you can do some of these yoga poses even on the flight! (see yoga in airplane). Srinivas Uppaluri, Management Consultant, shares the secret to his good health – “I make sure to carry my yoga mat everywhere I go and the first thing I do after arriving at the hotel is practice yoga, Sudarshan Kriya, and meditation. With that, my jet lag is gone and I’m fresh and active for the entire day.” • A few minutes of meditation helps eliminate the fatigue and travel-related stress in the mind and body.

Ok, all this sounds great but where do I fit meditation into my busy travel schedule? If this is your excuse, there is all the more reason for you to start meditating. It will help add more hours to your day. Just 20 minutes of meditation and see the change for yourself – your mind becomes more focused, productivity increases and you will be able to strike much more profitable deals – all with just a 20-minute time investment.


Loads of Love,

Ravi...

The 5 Legends!

1. Legendary is the love that withstands rejection. It will be free of anger and ego

2. legendary is the commitment that withstands humiliation. It will be one-pointed and will reach the goal

3. Legendary is the wisdom that withstands turbulence. It will be integrated into life

4. Legendary is the faith that withstands a million chances of doubt. It will bring perfection

5. Legendary are the events that withstand time. They will become morals for millions

Loads of Love,

Ravi

Meditation

Meditation is universal. It transcends all divides like religion, country and culture. It is a gift given to mankind to access the infinite spirit not limited by any identity. It is the only tool that can aid a person to return to innocence.
Modern life style has high exposure to anger, hate, fear and other negative emotions. These human emotions have a high tendency to duplicate and spread. For example, when a person gets cheated, he starts to suspect everything around him. This also has an impact on people around him. These emotions form strong impressions and opinions on an individual and social level. The result of which is an insecure individual and an unstable society.
Meditation helps an individual overcome these emotions to facilitate a calm peaceful mind and a healthy and stress free body.Upon daily practice an individual will blossom into an unshakable personality. With increase in the number of people who are clam, peaceful and healthy will facilitate a social transformation, enabling a society that is trusting, happy and content.


100 Benefits of Meditation

Physiological benefits:
1. It lowers oxygen consumption.
2. It decreases respiratory rate.
3. It increases blood flow and slows the heart rate.
4. Increases exercise tolerance.
5. Leads to a deeper level of physical relaxation.
6. Good for people with high blood pressure.
7. Reduces anxiety attacks by lowering the levels of blood lactate.
8. Decreases muscle tension
9. Helps in chronic diseases like allergies, arthritis etc.
10. Reduces Pre-menstrual Syndrome symptoms.
11. Helps in post-operative healing.
12. Enhances the immune system.
13. Reduces activity of viruses and emotional distress
14. Enhances energy, strength and vigor.
15. Helps with weight loss
16. Reduction of free radicals, less tissue damage
17. Higher skin resistance
18. Drop in cholesterol levels, lowers risk of cardiovascular disease.
19. Improved flow of air to the lungs resulting in easier breathing.
20. Decreases the aging process.
21. Higher levels of DHEAS (Dehydroepiandrosterone)
22. Prevented, slowed or controlled pain of chronic diseases
23. Makes you sweat less
24. Cure headaches & migraines
25. Greater Orderliness of Brain Functioning
26. Reduced Need for Medical Care
27. Less energy wasted
28. More inclined to sports, activities
29. Significant relief from asthma
30. Improved performance in athletic events
31. Normalizes to your ideal weight
32. Harmonizes our endocrine system
33. Relaxes our nervous system
34. Produce lasting beneficial changes in brain electrical activity
35. Helps cure infertility (the stresses of infertility can interfere with the release of hormones that regulate ovulation).

Psychological benefits:
36. Builds self-confidence.
37. Increases serotonin level, influences mood and behavior.
38. Resolve phobias & fears
39. Helps control own thoughts
40. Helps with focus & concentration
41. Increase creativity
42. Increased brain wave coherence.
43. Improved learning ability and memory.
44. Increased feelings of vitality and rejuvenation.
45. Increased emotional stability.
46. improved relationships
47. Mind ages at slower rate
48. Easier to remove bad habits
49. Develops intuition
50. Increased Productivity
51. Improved relations at home & at work
52. Able to see the larger picture in a given situation
53. Helps ignore petty issues
54. Increased ability to solve complex problems
55. Purifies your character
56. Develop will power
57. Greater communication between the two brain hemispheres
58. Respond more quickly and more effectively to a stressful event.
59. increases one’s perceptual ability and motor performance
60. Higher intelligence growth rate
61. Increased job satisfaction
62. Increase in the capacity for intimate contact with loved ones
63. Decrease in potential mental illness
64. Better, more sociable behavior
65. Less aggressiveness
66. Helps in quitting smoking, alcohol addiction
67. Reduces need and dependency on drugs, pills & pharmaceuticals
68. Need less sleep to recover from sleep deprivation
69. Require less time to fall asleep, helps cure insomnia
70. Increases sense of responsibility
71. Reduces road rage
72. Decrease in restless thinking
73. Decreased tendency to worry
74. Increases listening skills and empathy
75. Helps make more accurate judgments
76. Greater tolerance
77. Gives composure to act in considered & constructive ways
78. Grows a stable, more balanced personality
79. Develops emotional maturity

Spiritual benefits:
80. Helps keep things in perspective
81. Provides peace of mind, happiness
82. Helps you discover your purpose in life
83. Increased self-actualization.
84. Increased compassion
85. Growing wisdom
86. Deeper understanding of yourself and others
87. Brings body, mind, and spirit in harmony
88. Deeper Level of spiritual relaxation
89. Increased acceptance of one self
90. Helps learn forgiveness
91. Changes attitude toward life
92. Creates a deeper relationship with your God
93. Increases the synchronicity in your life
94. Greater inner-directedness
95. Helps living in the present moment
96. Creates a widening, deepening capacity for love
97. Discovery of the power and consciousness beyond the ego
98. Experience an inner sense of “Assurance or Knowingness”
99. Experience a sense of “Oneness”
100. Leads to enlightenment

To top it off, meditation has NO negative side effects





Loads of Love,
Ravi

What Java Has Removed from C++

1. Pointers. Pointers don't exist in Java for two reasons:
• Pointers are inherently insecure. For example, using a C++-style pointer, it is possible to gain access to memory addresses outside a program's code and data. A malicious program could make use of this fact to damage the system, perform unauthorized accesses (such as obtaining passwords), or otherwise violate security restrictions.
• Even if pointers could be restricted to the confines of the Java run-time system (which is theoretically possible, since Java programs are interpreted), the designers of Java believed that they were inherently troublesome. 
2. Java does not include structures or unions. These were felt to be redundant since the class encompasses them.
3. Java does not support operator overloading. Operator overloading is sometimes a source of ambiguity in a C++ program, and the Java design team felt that it causes more trouble than benefit.
4. Java does not include a preprocessor nor does it support the preprocessor directives. The preprocessor plays a less important role in C++ than it does in C. The designers of Java felt that it was time to eliminate it entirely.
5. Java does not perform any automatic type conversions that result in a loss of precision. For example, a conversion from long integer to integer must be explicitly cast.
6. All the code in a Java program is encapsulated within one or more classes. Therefore, Java does not have what you normally think of as global variables or global functions.
7. Java does not allow default arguments. In C++, you may specify a value that a parameter will have when there is no argument corresponding to that parameter when the function is invoked. This is not allowed in Java.
8. Java does not support the inheritance of multiple super classes by a subclass.
9. Although Java supports constructors, it does not have destructors. It does, however, add the finalize ( ) function.
10. Java does not support typedef.
11. It is not possible to declare unsigned integers in Java.
12. Java does not allow the goto.
13. Java does not have the delete operator.
14. The << and >> in Java are not overloaded for I/O operations.
15. In Java, objects are passed by reference only. In C++, objects may be passed by value or by reference.

Loads of Love,
Ravi