Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Love Moves The World
I was 16, when I first heard about Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Art Of Living. Yeh, both of them are two sides of the same coin they cannot be separated from each other. In our nuclear family, my father was the first person to get into AOL and I was the last. At first it appeared just to be a normal thing for me. But slowly the music penetrated my body and touched my soul and soon I was dancing into the tunes of Vikram Bhaiya.
Well, Guruji was born on May 13, 1956, in Tamil Nadu. He is an exponent of Advaita Vedanta and the spiritual leader of the Art of Living Foundation (founded 1982), which aims at relieving both individual stress and societal problems and violence, and which is an NGO (non-governmental organization) with UNESCO consultative status. According to his biographies, at the age of four Guruji could recite the Bhagavad Gita and then moved on to receive a baccalaureate in science at 17 from St. Joseph’s College, Bangalore University. He was even nominated for The Nobel Prize for peace. He has written various books on spirituality like "God Loves Fun", "Celebrating Silence", "An Intimate Note to the Sincere Seeker" etc etc.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar emphasizes breath as the link between body and mind and, therefore, as a tool to relax the mind, emphasizing both meditation and service to others. According to him, science and spirituality are linked and consistent. Emphasizing that joy is only available in the present moment, his stated vision is to create a world free of stress and violence, and his programs are said to offer practical tools to help accomplish the desired goal.
Sudarshan Kriya is a breath-oriented process, and a core component of the Art of Living courses. According to me its the best thing I have ever experienced in my life. Frankly speaking the feelings are beyond comparison. I can only tell u that, thousands and thousands of people across the globe have hugely benefited from this unique techniques. Be it a poor Indian farmer or a sophisticated American billionaire.
The Art of Living Foundation is one of the world’s largest volunteer based, humanitarian and educational Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). It was founded in 1982 with the vision of creating a stress-free, violence-free society. The Art of Living has reached out to over 300 million people in over 140 countries with its various programs. AOL are dealing with hundreds of social problems across the globe. Prison courses of AOL are very effective, which deals with the stress level of hard core prisoners and terrorists and in many instances have completely re-structured there life.
As a member of such a big organisation I myself have visited its Tribal School in Ghatsila. Really the amount of labour and pain they have taken to educate those tiny tots is amazing. Most of them are the first one to get educated in their family. AOL have really offered a helping hand towards the building of independent citizens. Apart from the regular course work they are trained in vocational studies which will later help them in earning their livelihood. And let me tell you that this is just one example and there are probably a thousand more, occuring every day every hour at different centres of the world.
The Green Kolkata Clean Kolkata campaign was other learning experience and a positive initiative from the youth members of AOL, Kolkata. Yes, the journey so far is undoubtedly without any hurdles and there are always a thousand things which you can learn while you are standing under the banner of "Art Of Living". Self Confidence is the main thing which I got from meditation apart from clarity of mind. I could really feel the shift after doing kriya (meditation). Science also says that meditation has a positive effect on the various chakras of our body. So the young health conscious society is getting more and more inclined towards these stress booster techniques.
The satsang or the bhajans, rejuvenate my soul and feeds happiness into my body. The feeling after half an hour satsang session @ Bangalore ashram is simply beyond words. You just need to feel it. The aura there is so different, its bound to shift your mood.
Thanks Guruji! for radiating my life with so much of knowledge, faith and love.
Jai Gurudev!
Humor @ Cricket
Why are these Aussies behind me? I thought section 377 was legalized only in India.
Miandad had probably been watching a lot of wrestling the previous night, maybe wrestling of a different kind. You may call it the slug hitting. Perhaps inspired by American Baseball.
Dhoni is not just a good cricketer and captain, here he is showing us some of his karate skills. Now that's called a true all-rounder.
The Ghost Town
Dallol was a settlement in northern Ethiopia. Located in Administrative Zone 2 of the Afar Region in the Afar Depression. It is situated at an elevation of 50 meters above sea level. The Central Statistical Agency has not published an estimate for this settlement's 2005 population; it has been described as a ghost town.
Dallol currently holds the record high average temperature for an inhabited location on Earth, where an average annual temperature of 34°C (94°F) was recorded between the years 1960 and 1966. Dallol is also one of the most remote places on Earth. There are no roads; the only regular transport service is provided by camel caravans which travel to the area to collect salt.
Nearby is the Dallol volcano, which last erupted in 1926.
Uuuuuuuuuhuuuuuuu, got lost in the bumpy terrain of Dallol, think about an entire day trip in that strange land. Just imagine!
CBS
Well Core Banking Solutions (CBS) is new jargon frequently used in banking circles. The advancement in technology, especially internet and information technology has led to new ways of doing business in banking. These technologies have cut down time, working simultaneously on different issues and increasing efficiency. The platform where communication technology and information technology are merged to suit core needs of banking is known as Core Banking Solutions. Here, computer software is developed to perform core operations of banking like recording of transactions, passbook maintenance, interest calculations on loans and deposits, customer records, balance of payments and withdrawal are done. This software is installed at different branches of bank and then interconnected by means of communication lines like telephones, satellite, internet etc. It allows the user (customers) to operate accounts from any branch if it has installed core banking solutions. This new platform has changed the way banks are working.
Nowadays, most banks use core banking applications to support their operations where CORE stands for "Centralized Online Real-time Exchange". This basically means that all the bank's branches access applications from centralized datacenters. This means that the deposits made are reflected immediately on the bank's servers and the customer can withdraw the deposited money from any of the bank's branches throughout the world. Few decades ago it used to take atleast a day for the amount to reflect in the account because each branch had their local servers and the data from server in branch to server in the datacenter happened only at the end of the day (EoD).
Normal core banking functions will include deposit accounts, loans, mortgages and payments. Banks make these services available across multiple channels like ATMs, Internet banking, and branches.
Thus CBS has revolutionised the seven letter word called "B A N K I N G".
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