#1: Why do we do “Namaste”?

My wife forwarded some of these points to me couple of days ago. From back home we have been carrying forward some of the rituals that we are/were used to. There are answers to some of them and not for some (as we heard). Eventually, there has to be some reason or answers for the things we carry out.

Well, I wanted to share some of those points that I came across from friends and other sources.

so, #1: Why do we do “Namaste“?

image source: http://www.holy-india.com/namaste.jpg  

Indians greet each other with namaste. The two palms are placed together in front of the chest and the head bows whilst saying the word namaste. This greeting is for all – people younger than us, of our own age, those older than friends, even strangers and us.

There are five forms of formal traditional greeting enjoined in the shaastras of which namaskaram is one. This is understood as prostration but it actually refers to paying homage as we do today when we greet each other with a namaste.

Namaste could be just a casual or formal greeting, a cultural convention or an act of worship. However there is much more to it than meets the eye. In Sanskrit namah + te = namaste. It means – I bow to you – my greetings, salutations or prostration to you. Namaha can also be literally interpreted as “na ma” (not mine). It has a spiritual significance of negating or reducing one’s ego in the presence of another.   The real meeting between people is the meeting of their minds. When we greet another, we do so with namaste, which means, “may our minds meet,” indicated by the folded palms placed before the chest. The bowing down of the head is a gracious form of extending friendship in love and humility.

   The spiritual meaning is even deeper. The life force, the divinity, the Self or the Lord in me is the same in all. Recognizing this oneness with the meeting of the palms, we salute with head bowed the Divinity in the person we meet. That is why sometimes, we close our eyes as we do namaste to a revered person or the Lord – as if to look within. The gesture is often accompanied by words like “Ram Ram”, “Jai Shri Krishna”, “Namo Narayana”, “Jai Siya Ram”, “Om Shanti” etc – indicating the recognition of this divinity.

   When we know this significance, our greeting does not remain just a superficial gesture or word but paves the way for a deeper communion with another in an atmosphere of love and respect.

Search feature on Udbhava.com

I personally like this Site – Udbhava, why? I usually like the classical music – instrumental / vocal. You get to listen to most of these classical music, kannada folk songs on this site. If you are into listening to Kannada Movie songs, sound track recordings then here is the place – you may find many movie songs to listen to.

Thank you, Udbhava for having such a site running.

Yes, it now has the Search feature built in. You may search for your favorite singer and it lists all the songs available that you may then play what you want from the list. Thats pretty neat.  

Wiki in Kannada

I was excited to see wikipedia in Kannada language. To all my Kannada speaking/reading friends, I am sure you are gonna love it. There are many articles published there. I think I can post some kannada articles or pointers there on wikipedia site.

For reference, here is the wiki english site

what is Kannada? Here is more info

Geek Dinner

I was at the Bellevue Crossroads mall for a geek dinner couple of days ago. How did I know about the event? I checked Robert scoble’s blog the previous day and got to know about this gathering and wanted to make it. See here for a music demo on mac.

I finally had a chance to meet with Robert Scoble. I also met with many other geeks/bloggers there. Anita Rowland organizes a monthly weblogger meetup group in Bellevue. You may find the webloggers meetup information here. I met with few others from Channel 9 and search teams.

I also heard about k-p-l (Kids Programming Language) being developed on top of Microsoft .Net platform. That’s pretty amazing. I missed the name but he showed the demo (Robert has a picture posted here) of how few game programs were written using KPL. Oh right, you may download the KPL beta here

It was great to meet many people around at the geek dinner.

The road not taken

An excerpt from Robert Frost’s memorable poem “The Road Not  Taken“

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, 
And sorry I could not travel both 
And be one traveler, long I stood 
And looked down one as far as I could 
To where it bent in the undergrowth;…  
 
I shall be telling this with a sigh 
Somewhere ages and ages hence: 
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— 
I took the one less traveled by, 
And that has made all the difference.
 

Thoughts – Swamy Vivekananda

When I Asked God for Strength
He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face

When I Asked God for Brain & Brown
He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve

When I Asked God for Happiness
He Showed Me Some Unhappy People

When I Asked God for Wealth
He Showed Me How to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Favors
He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard

When I Asked God for Peace
He Showed Me How to Help Others

God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted
He Gave Me Everything I Needed
    - Swami Vivekananda

The Goal – Process of ongoing Improvement

I am currently reading a book titled “The Goal“. I had seen this book in one of my coworker’s office and wanted to read this book for a while. I recently got hold of this book from the Library and started onto it. I also talked to a person who has already read this book before. Well, As I read I am coming across some of the information that really makes sense to think about.  It starts off a little slow like most novels but helps you understand the background of what it is all about. I am so far about few chapters through and I particularly like the topic where Plant Manager takes time to think about that the Goal of any organization is. He jots down various ideas that he gets and what he thinks is the Business’s goal. At once, I thought, I knew it. But think again, how many people know what they are working towards – whether most of us even have any Goals set.

I will post more of what I learned from this book, as I read along.

Today’s Gathering

We had a gathering today near our place.  It was great fun getting together with some of our friends and playing with lot of kids around. Oh! it was a funny story with Vidya. She started off with all the energy, enthusiasm to meet with other kids. As time rolled over to early afternoon, she dozed off. She usually takes a nap between 11 and 12 and that didn’t happen around that time as she was having fun; and she naturally fell asleep around 1:30 and was hard to keep her awake.

She woke up later on and has been very active and excited again thru’ the evening until she got to bed at night.

 

Persistence – When was the Last time you…..

Persistence – When was the last time….

Our little daughter is becoming active day by day .. It is a lot of fun to watch her crawling around, walking all around the house. We had a doctor appointment for her for scheduled shots. We are at the doctor’s office, doctor’s assistant takes us to the office. Vidya goes through preliminaries like weight, height, etc. etc. Now we are waiting and doctor comes in… Doctor: Hi, how are you guys keeping up. Us: We are doing great Doctor: How is this little girl doing? Us: She seems to be doing just great. We are concerned for her shots now Doctor: She sees to be active. Tell me what she does. Does she crawl around? Us: She does, she is all around the house Doctor: Does she sit up? babbles around? observe you all? etc etc Us: Yes she does, etc etc Doctor: Have you noticed the number of times she gets up on her feet, tries to walk, falls down, gets up again and again and all over again. When was the last time you were such persistent and tried things without getting bored or not giving up? and now, that caught us. Yes, I think about it and Fortunately, We have been fairly disciplined with our goals and what we want to do. But at times I think, I have held off learning new activities that I wanted to do (like pursue MBA, learn blade  skating, etc) – either due to priorities or timing or what so ever. The point is Consistency and Persistency, being disciplined on finishing what we start, the Perseverance.  I like this quote by Thomas alva Edison - Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Think about it – seriously – When was the last time you were so persistent in getting what you wanted – working through the efforts – overcoming the obstacles – being thankful and not taking life for granted. It is amazing how most people take life for granted. One of the things I learned after reading many personal development books in past few years and especially in 2005 is Being Thankful – to God for this beautiful life; being thankful for every little things.

Profile Types

D I S C – types

I was recently reading a book titled Become Influential. In there the Author mentions about DISC types of people. I wanted to share this book and the concept, some of the Ideas I found very interesting. I am sure we all work with many people every day and that makes it implicit that we also work with people with same or different kind/taste than we are. What do you say. This books helps us identify what characteristics each type of person would have, what are the strong and weak points and what each type of person need to do to become better. DISC can be compared with the personalities you might know – CSMP. Well, what do they even mean, some of you may ask. These are different Profile shapes used to describe different styles. C  – Choleric S  – Sanguine M  – Melancholic P  – Phlegmatic D  – Dominance I  – Influential S  – Supportive C  – Compliance As author mentions repeatedly, that no one can exactly fall under one of these categories, there could be combinations – viz., D/I, I/S, D/C, etc., Some styles are also considered High D, High I, High C/S, etc.,