Evolution...what???

During Aurangabad tour, my friend asked me, “What could be the reason for moon-phase?” I have asked the same question to many of friends, but nobody could answer the exact reason, except this. That befuddlement, lead me to learn the rudiments of EARTH. So I dipped into “A Brief History of Time” that ignited an interest to know about our (human) evolution so I skimmed “Human Evolution and its Uniqueness”.

Stephen Hawking in his book “A Brief History of Time”, discussed about how the earth formed from solar nebula, the probabilities of “Big Bang”, nature of “Black Holes”, evolution of earth w.r.t “Space Time” and composition of earth with various factors of Universe, how human beings formed from the star dust, probability of life on outer-space and nevertheless existence of GOD!!! Apart from the book he wrote, the author himself is an inspiring persona to know about.

C.V.Rao, specialized in physics from Andhra University, presented the human evolution on a large canvas with broad strokes about the evolution of mankind, in his “Human Evolution and its Uniqueness”. The book dealt with the concept of “cosmic evolution”, “origin of life on earth”, various phases of human evolution like “Homo Erectus”, “Neandertals”, ”Cro-Magnon”,  “Homo Sapiens” and about their respective living conditions, life style in a detailed manner.

There may be ocean full of concepts about evolution of Universe, these books lead me to understand a tiny drop of it and increased my interest in anthropology.

2009 readings...

During the salad days of blogging, i thought of sharing one of my Google docs in blog. Today, i made that thought into action. I shared a spreadsheet, that embodies the volumes i read in the year 2009. I am planning to read more volumes in the year 2010.





P.S.:  Yep, I do read with sluggish speed. I am planning to improve it.

Filler...

I have been cerebrating about my next post after my travelogue. I have had few thoughts to write about “being GOD”, a puzzle that I come across, an innocent doubt of my friend about Moon Phase that freaked me out for almost fifteen days, and my (learning) experience as a PL/SQL panel member for ||||||||||| walk-ins. But being occupied with “A Brief History of Time”, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, and “living”; I couldn’t post them so far. I felt I need more space-time to post them. But I am sharing/organizing information in FB, Reader and Twitter regularly. I am realizing the pros and cons of these applications now more than ever (I wonder why I feel the same every time). Hope to come up with another article soon.

Courage: The joy of living dangerously

Prologue:
Frank Lucas a drug lord from America, Frank Abagnale Jr an American security consultant and former check forger, and Osho a spiritual guru, are the people whose way if thinking was utterly out of the box.
Usually I don’t follow the spiritual lectures and practices, but on 10th July, I saw this book, titled "Courage" written by Osho, in our office library. I thought of giving it a try and see what’s in it. 

After couple of days, a friend of mine showed me a vedio of Osho’s addressing to his disciples. It was first time that I heard a speech about a particular English word by a spiritual guru, which left me stupefied.

About the book:
“Life is uncertain and insecure” this is what I heard from many people, but Osho addresses it in the other way. He says “Don’t call it uncertainty - call it WONDER”, “Don’t call it insecurity – call it FREEDOM”. He elucidates about courage and how to live life courageously/dangerously. He discusses about the importance of love, meditation, morals, ethics, dos and don’ts of human life. He addresses about the life before one’s birth, and the views of different communities/religions on how life will be after one’s death, with dainty examples. He also tells us (as in most of the other self-help books) to always get ready to accept the change when it knocks on your door, even if it leads you from bad to worse, you should be ready to accept and embrace the change (read book to know why).

I liked the following example regarding how we need to embrace the change. “When a human being is in mother’s womb, he/she gets everything from mother - food, breath and warmth. It is the best place in the world that a human being can ever live with out toiling much. But we can’t stay there for our lifetime, we have to accept the change and come out of the womb to face this world, where he/she has to strive for their endurance”.
There are few titillating stories like how George Bernard Shaw sold his books, how danger it is to ask time to a Punjabi at 12’o clock.

Few Lines from the book:
A boy was constantly scratching his head. His father looked at him one day and said, “Son why are you always scratching your head?”
“Well,” the boy responded. “I guess because I am the only one who knows it itches.”
The above four lines are enough to depict Osho’s wit and astuteness.

Epilogue:
On the whole I enjoyed the book.

May be...

I always enjoyed “MAY BE…” story.

I thought many times, to post this story but deep in my heart, I have a feeling that people "MAY BE..." thinking “Does this guy always tell stories?”

Lot of hullabaloo happened in my mind for a long time, and the result is... yet again one more story for you.

Many moons ago a thief lived in a kingdom. He was punished couple of times for pick-pocketing. He was produced in The King’s court again for the same crime. The king and the courtiers wanted to teach a lesson to all the thieves in the kingdom, so they verdicted death sentence to the thief.

The thief beseeched The King in many ways but, The King didn’t plead him.

Thief being wily tried one more trick.

“My lord, if you hang me to death, you will loose a great opportunity to ride a horse that can fly in the clouds”(praying to god in the heart to make everybody believe in his words).

The King and the courtiers were left in silence for few seconds and lost in their own imaginations about “the flying horse”.

“You can’t imagine what people think about you when you hold your inner ostrich egg right”
Darrel Bristow-Bovey said in “I Moved Your Cheese”.

“How?” The King asked by making a knot with his eye brows.

Being sensed that his plan started working, the thief told “My lord, provide me a black, healthy, Kladruber horse, and one month time with all the food I ask, I will feed the food to the horse and let it grow big wide wings on its back, so that it can fly. Then you can have the horse and hang me if you want”.

The King frenzied with his imagination about “the flying horse”, ordered courtiers to provide a separate cell and the horse that have all the attributes mentioned by the thief.

The thief in his special cell along with the Kladruber horse started enjoying a royal life from the next day.

The whole kingdom was waiting for the day to come. Especially the imaginations of the security guard of the thief’s cell was beyond the extremity of J.K.Rowling and George Lucas.

He was peeping into the cell every now and then, but there was no sign of a single feather germinated from horse’s back. He served variety food items ordered by the thief, with a curiosity of the end result. As the days were passed his curiosity got better of him. One day he asked the thief who was ready to take a nap, that “Three weeks over and you are hardly left over with less than ten days, I didn’t find anything special that make the horse fly?”

Thief cackled and told the security guard “it was a trick to defer my execution”.
Flabbergasted guard said “But on the thirty first day if horse doesn’t fly, you can’t elude the execution” with a perplexed sigh in his face.

“May be” (thief shrugged his shoulders)….. “May be!!!!?”(Security guard popped his eyes widely)

“May be...

May be, The King may change his mind and forgive me in these thirty days….
May be, my friends may plan, come and rescue me from jail…..
May be, I may get an opportunity to escape from the jail…..
May be, The King’s enemies may declare a war on our kingdom, and the King may forget about me, being busy in war...
May be...
May be...
May be... the horse may fly...” said the thief and went for his nap.


So friends "Hope is the only thing with FEATHERS, with which we can fly miles high", "never loose your hope in adverse conditions,and  just try to trick the world around" :) :) :) !!!!...

"A New Religion? H+" Review

The "H" in the title stands for Happiness, Humour, Help, Hope, and Health. Author (Edward De Bono) introduces us what is H+, how it is a religion, what are the similarities and disparities  of A New Religion(H+) with few famous religions in the world.  

Then he explains the importance of all the above H's in human life in this book.. His main emphasis is on the third "H" i.e., "HELP".  As he is famous for explaining all his ideas with various new concepts, in this book he explains a new concept called "pons" based on "pontoons".He explains whole concept of "pons" wonderfully with real time examples.

He defines a new signal(unique action code)  to identify the people who follows this "New Religion" as in other religions people have unique dress codes or unique identifications.

The author is famous for coining new words; In this book, he introduces us with few new words like "woligion", "waffo" and "warm form"

On a whole the book is worth reading once and if you follow the New Religion definitely there will be self satisfaction.