Yoda's Wisdom

Here are a couple of video clips from one of my favorite movie series, Star Wars. The first one (five minutes) is a classic - involves Luke's failure to pull his space ship out of the water and the powerful lesson he learns from Yoda in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

The second video (about eight minutes long) is a mixtures of scenes from different episodes - Enjoy, and may the force be with you! 

Loved the part after Yoda pulls Luke's space ship out of the water using the "force". Luke says in disbelief: "I don't believe it". Yoda quips, "that's why you fail".

Modern Day Robinhood?

Scott, while walking near Times Square in New York notices a man intensely throwing shreds of paper into the air.  Obviously, Scott gets curious, and goes to the man: 

Scott: Sir, what are you doing?! 
Man: I am chasing elephants off of here. 
Scott: But there are no elephants here.
Man: See, it's working!"

Cartoon Source: God's Address

I couldn't help but think of this joke*, while I was listening to a discourse by Sri Viswayogi Viswamjee Maharaj on September 13, 2008 in Austin, at Shirdi Sai Baba Temple.  He was speaking on the same day that Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston.  In the middle of his discourse, he said that on meditating at sixth level the previous night, he down graded the hurricane from Category 4 to Category 2! My immediate thought was, "why leave it at Category 2?"  

After his discourse, people stood in line to bow to his feet.  I was surprised to note that he was handing out his color photograph to each, along with his blessings.  As he was talking about the greatness of Shirdi Sai Baba at length a few minutes ago, I thought that it would have been apt for him to distribute Baba's photo instead of his.  Besides, for a while, when people were bowing to his feet, he was talking to someone on his cell phone (without even noticing who was to his feet!).   

I failed to see any more divinity in him than that is present in every rock, tree, and Joe.  If some managed to see it, I have great news for them!  

 

I own a bridge in Brooklyn and I am willing to sell it at a throw away price:-)

Joking aside, I learned that Sri Viswamji is doing a lot of public service, and like I opined before, he deserves respect for this aspect alone.

* Heard it in our Toastmasters' meeting.

Perspicacious Pisces

At the point of our birth, we all get some baggage*.  Some of it is good (like well-functioning body parts, parental care, and inheritance) and some of it isn't (like genetic defects and inadequate living conditions). And then as we grow, we add our own baggage to it (which we acquire through a combination of good and not so good habits/practices). 

So, at any point in time, (knowingly or unknowingly) we will be carrying two sets of bags - a set of good ones and a set of bad ones.  Some among us have a knack for getting excited about the good baggage (even if it amounts to almost nothing), and the gift of oblivion for the bad one. I loved one of these yogis in this (one minute) motivational video that PBS used to air a few years ago. 

* Whether that baggage contains past karmic impressions or not is a different subject.

Nikon, an Icon

Loved the pun in a recent Nikon commercial.

Talking about puns, I loved this pun in a Telugu movie song ever since I heard it for the first time (excerpt from the lyrics below) వ్రేపల్లియ ఎద ఝల్లున.., from the movie సప్తపది

కాళింది మడుగునా కాళియుని పడగలా
ఆబాల గోపాల మాబాల గోపాలుని
కాళింది మడుగునా కాళియుని పడగలా
ఆబాల గోపాల మాబాల గోపాలుని
అచ్చెరువున అచ్చెరువున విచ్చిన కన్నులజూడ
అచ్చెరువున అచ్చెరువున విచ్చిన కన్నులజూడ
తాండవమాడిన సరళి గుండెల మ్రోగిన మురళి
ఇదేనా..ఇదేనా ఆ మురళీ

Ike's Ire

I find the photo above on hurricane Ike's aftermath from National Geographic amazing. Looks like* all houses around it were obliterated, while this one survived pretty much unscathed. Someone on TV the other day quipped "I am going to have my house constructed by the contractor who built it!" 

Here are a couple more photos.

A pump jack--a device that mechanically extracts liquid from oil deposits--sits among flood waters shimmering with oil in High Island, Texas, in an aerial photo taken on September 14, 2008. 

An alligator crossing the road in Sabine Pass.  Why did alligator cross the road?!

*It is hard to tell from this picture alone, if all the houses around were destroyed, as we have view of only one side of the house. May be all the houses next to it that were not in the view were saved, and this happened to be at the boundary of a group of house that survived.

Mexicans and Racism

Read in yesterday's newspaper that McCombs grads are not getting as many jobs offers as they used to. To get handyman jobs done cheap, so far, some folks have been shopping for (hard working) illegal immigrant labor near Home Depots and Lowe's. Things are changing a little bit these days. 

This is a racist video that I came across a couple of years ago; not a must watch video.

Acts of God

Graphic Source: 3-D View of Hurricane Emily, NOAA

When I heard of Hurricane Andrew after I landed in New Orleans (in January 1993), one of the first things I looked up in the library was, why aren't hurricanes a problem in India? I quickly learned that they actually are; we just just don't call them by this name - in Indian Ocean they are cyclones, and in western Pacific they are typhoons. The physics is the same - low pressure with calm winds in the center, surrounded by turbulent winds spreading outward.

It just occurred to me that these weather phenomenon are analogous to what we call God.  In the west He is Jesus, in the east he is Vishnu, and in the Arab world He is Allah. Also, like the eye of a hurricane, the God is within us, as calmness at the center. The turbulent we are, the farther we would be from the Center (aka God).

When I think of of calmness in the center of these massive weather systems, I get goose bumps. Can you imagine calmness in the center of energy that is more powerful than thousands of atom bombs?

People who were caught in the 1926 Miami hurricane - most had never been in a hurricane - discovered that an idea like yours can be fatal. When the eye of the Category 4 storm came ashore a little after sunrise on Sept. 18, 1926 many people thought the hurricane was over and went outside.

When the other side of the storm arrived, one anemometer measured the wind going from less than 10 mph to a gust of 132 mph in two minutes. The available reports say "many people" died when the other side of the storm hit, but no exact figures are available. Newspaper accounts referred to "the second storm."

It's hard to believe today when many Florida newspapers, such as the Miami Herald, have writers and editors who are very knowledgeable about hurricanes, than few people in Miami in 1926 even realized that a hurricane consists of winds going around a calm eye, with almost equally strong winds on all sides of the eye.