சரணாகதி

"நின்னைச் சரணடைந்தேன் கண்ணம்மா"
I surrender to thee, my mom!

WOW! How so difficult?

Ramana on celebrating his birthday!

You who wish to celebrate the birthday, seek first whence was your birth. One’s true birthday is when one enters that which transcends birth and death — the Eternal Being.

At least on one’s birthday one should mourn one’s entry into this world (samsara). To glory in it and celebrate it is like delighting in and decorating a corpse. To seek one’s self and merge in the Self — that is wisdom.

Huh! What do you say, masochist or saint? :p

Bats

Have been reading a slightly old book called The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. Its yet another fabulous book by Dawkins. I wanted to share a section from it where Dawkins beautifully describes the wonderful sonar systems that bats use to navigate, technically called echolocation. In the second chapter Dawkins describes in details some of the sophistications of the sonar system of bats. It just blew my mind off. Take this:

• Due to the inverse square law property of the intensity of sound with respect to distance from source, the intensity of the echo falls of at the rate of the fourth power of the distance of the object from the bat. So, a very high pitched initial sound is needed. But, this could damage the bats ear drums. So, the bat has a mechanism by which it presses the ear drums with a muscle every time it sends out a sound and this prevents the ear drum from oscillating much and saves it.
• Echo from a farther object from an earlier made sound and the echo from a nearer object from a latter sound might come back at the same time. To differentiate between them, the bats continuously vary the carrier frequency. So, older echoes can be distinguished from earlier ones.
• In order to zero in on a moving target like a moth, bats exploit Doppler effect. Instead of simply exploiting the shift in pitch of the echoes coming from a moth, bats sometimes vary the pitch of their clicks so that the pitch of the echo from a rapidly flying moth remains fairly constant at around the maximum sensitivity region of their ears.
• Its an interesting question as to how in a cave full of bats of a similar species, how bats manage to retain their mental image of the cave given that they will hear the echoes of every bat. One suggestion is that bats do a sanity test. If an echo from another bat does not fit the mental image by not passing the sanity test, bats simply ignore the echo.

These are just some of the features of the echolocation system of bats. Of course, not all species of bats have all of these. But, the extraordinary skill of bats just blew me away. Apparently, besides bats, dolphins, whales and porpoises are some of the other animals that use echolocation. Check the following beautiful video.


Dawkins later on went to make a documentary based on the book. The book was primarily intended to debunk all the crazy ideas of creationists and advocates of intelligent design. You can find it here.

Punished for a victimless crime

I first heard of this phrase, victimless crime, in the India Uncut blog. I committed one and got rapped on my knees for this recently.

I visited a friend in Vellore recently and traveled by the Kovai express from Chennai to Vellore. As the train was reaching the Katpadi railway station, I alighted from the train before the train had come to a complete halt (For those who do not know, Indian trains do not have doors that shut close when the train is moving). Though technically this is not something that one should do, the train was just about to stop when I alighted. It would not have moved more than 20 meters from the point I alighted. So, the train was probably moving at like 5KM/hr when I alighted.

But, then there were two hawkish policemen attached to the Katpadi railway station throwing their weight around on me. They pulled me up for my infraction and fined me Rs. 120 for my victimless crime. Not just that, I had to sit in the police station for about 30 minutes and also had to hear homilies on the dangers of alighting from a moving train. The fun did not stop there. They neither gave me a receipt for the fine and nor did they give a copy of the official document on which they took down my signature.

Great fun! :)

Suffering and freedom

WOW, my dear omniscient Valluva!

Kural - 341

யாதனின் யாதனின் நீங்கியான் நோதல்
அதனின் அதனின் இலன்

You don't suffer from those which you have set yourselves free!

Stop sleep walking through life

A fabulously fantastic book by Prof Devdas Menon (Professor, IIT Madras) on the most important education a person should have. I strongly recommend this book to everyone who the same question as Buddha within thesmselves (Can there be an end to suffering?) even in the slightest possible degree.

The book is peppered with very insightful quotes. Presenting a couple that I love.

A young Apollo, golden-haired,
Stands dreaming on the brink of strife,
Magnificently unprepared,
For the long littleness of life.

-- Rupert Brooke


When an archer shoots for nothing, he has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind,
Or sees two targets - he is out of his mind!
His skill has not changed, but the prize divides him.
He things more of winning than of shooting,
And the need to win drains him of power.

-- Chuang Tzu


If you are looking for more insights into the above two wisecracks, get hold of this book!

Ants and compasses

Magnets help ants lead the way

While human global positioning systems rely upon power-consuming receivers that pick up information from clunky, orbiting 3,000-4,000-pound satellites, the probable ant system weighs next to nothing, requires little body energy to operate and is Earth-friendly to the max.

The system, in fact, appears to be mostly built out of dirt.

Emptiness

Emptiness emptiness everywhere,
not a mask to wear!

Anger

Either one has to realize the silliness of anger or one has to endure pain! Even if the anger is anger at someone who has been angry or silly with you. This is true irrespective of what magical arguments ones ego might conjure up to justify ones anger.

Thirukural - 305

தன்னைதான் காக்கின் சினங்காக்க காவாக்கால்
தன்னையே கொல்லும் சினம்!

If you want to save yourself, stay away from wrath!
Else, you will have to endure the wrath of wrath!

Guruji passed away

Guruji Shri Pattabhi Jois passed away yesterday at the age of 94. I am most unfortunate to have not met him in his flesh and blood form!

I am extremely grateful to this fabulous lineage of Ashtanga yoga of his! Shri gurubyo namaha!

எண்ணங்கள்

நான் எனும் எண்ணத்தினால் - பேய்களை காண்பதினால்
வருவதைவிட அதிகமாய் வரும் பயத்தினில்
மூழ்கி இருப்பவரை மீட்க
வழியொன்று சொல்வாய் அரங்கமாநகருளானே!!


யாத்திரையிலும் பூசையிலும் ஈசனை தேடும் மருளரும்
எருமையை கண்டபின்னும் அவாவை நீக்காதவரும்
தன்நலமற்ற பொதுநலத்திலே ஈசன் ஓளிந்திருக்கானென என்று உணர்வாரோ?

Permanence

In an universe of permanence,
My ego is lonely in its impermanence!
Ohhh!
When will this illusion pass?

And my vote goes to

For a long time, I was thinking I was not going to vote. Democracy in India is functioning only in a namesake manner and even the most honest government would pursue policies that I am totally not comfortable with! Then, for some time, I was dilly dallying with 49-O, the none of the above option. I have heard stories of how election officials not exactly being friendly to people who want to exercise this option, due to the additional work that they have to do. I was preparing myself to may be try it.

Then, I heard that Mr. Sarath Babu, CEO Foodking, is a candidate from my constituency (South Chennai). I listened to a few of his speeches and his manifesto. He does seem to be a person with his heart in the right place. But, both he and his manifesto to be a bit one dimensional. Yes, his journey from the slums to his position today is purely because of sheer hard work and dedication (and I am absolutely totally stunned by his effort). But, he seems to be talking only about this in every video I have seen. Nevertheless, he seemed to be a much better option than the thugs that are expected from the traditional parties.

Then, today, I heard of Mr. N.S. Venkatraman of Desiya Paadhukaapu Kazhagam. He is also a candidate from the South Chennai Lok Sabha constituency in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Like Sarath Babu, Venkatraman also seems to have his heart in the right place. He seems to be more mature and his policies and his ideas seem to be more multi-dimensional than that of Sarath Babu. But, his policies are also centred around "conventional development" et al which I am not very comfortable with.

My vote this time is primarily a voice for probity in public life. So, I dont mind the differences in ideologies with either of these two candidates. So, my vote this time is for either of these two candidates and, for now, I am tending towards voting for Venkatraman!!!

Did you get it

I KNOW EXACTLY HOW THIS FEELS!


Incidentally, I beat Jorge Cham to this :D

Enlightenment

I used to think that an enlightened being has constant and endless compassion and love for all life. Now, I know better.

Enlightenment is an unintended by product of constant and endless compassion and love for all life!

Dear Software engineers

Please, for christs sake, write software that obeys me!

Having been a software engineer myself in the past, I know its hard to write software that does exactly what it is meant to do and not do anything that it is not supposed to. But, it is not that hard to write software that can be aborted by the user at will.

It is extraordinarily frustrating when a software does something that I do not want it to do and there is no way for me to abort it. Most often such software sends the CPU usage and my BP to the roof! So, please, write software that can be aborted by the user at will!

Doctors

I have sometimes passed sarcastic comments about doctors who charge exorbitant fees for treatment. I usually prefer to call them vendors (albeit with a good service). The ugly thing here is that for most people, there are rarely any alternatives and it is indispensable for them to go to these vendors. I used to get quite irked by this situation and that resulted in those sarcastic comments that I have spoken.

Such not so non-violent comments of mine are not to be condoned. I am working on trying to not talk like this. I have of course come across lots of supremely committed and dedicated doctors. The time has come for me to publicly appreciate one such doctor who has touched my life.

A doctor named Dr. Surendran performed a major surgery on a near and dear one for about 4 hours and then took care of his hospitalization for the next 10 days. For all this superlative effort, he charged a super paltry amount which was less than 2% of the total hospitalization bill!!! Almost everyone whom I have spoken to about this have been taken aback by this! Kudos and heartfelt appreciation to this great doctor!

Arjun asks

Arjun-uvacha
Anger-oma compassion-gamaya

Bhagwan-uvacha
Be present!

What about me?

Just reflect for a few moments about the title of this post. Observe the thoughts and emotions that traverse your mind in relation to this title.

Now, watch this small video!



Now, reflect upon the title again. Do you see the change in perspective?

Mirror test

The above video is really nice and it concludes that apes are self-aware as they can recognize their faces from the mirror. Recognizing oneself in a mirror is self-recognition and that certainly is a sufficient condition for self-awareness.

But, I just want to put out a caveat here. From this test, we cannot conclude that animals that cannot recognize themselves in a mirror are not self-aware. Self-recognition is not a necessary condition for self-awareness. This is amply demonstrated by the disorder in some humans called prosopagnosia. People who suffer from this disorder are totally self-aware but cannot recognize their image in a mirror. The video makes no such claim. I just felt like making a note of this.

Blind hand of evolution

This is a common phrase biological circles that is used to indicate that the course of evolution cannot be predicted and is driven purely by chance.

This phrase grates against my senses. Natural selection as envisaged by Darwin is driven purely by random chance and hence the phrase blind hand of natural selection makes sense. But, evolution is driven not just by natural selection. I think lots of species have intelligence and consciously work towards goals. This also contributes to evolution and this is not driven by random chance (unless you are going to trivially reduce the organism to a collection of particles).