Come Back

 Getting back to blogger today after several years.This takes my memory back to the time how and when I started.I have been through multiple emotional phases along with my blogging journey.I had a concept, a theme or a message identified when I wrote blogs during my early days of this journey.It became more like a platform to vent out and speak my mind at some point.Now I feel like I found my long last friend who doesn't judge me on what I feel, let me be who I am and lets me write whatever I feel.To me writing has always been thereupetic.Fear of being judged and ofcourse other priorities drove me to burry my writing.Been thinking about putting my thoughts down, could be just my point of view on something or can be called as journaling or whatever.But the time I spend for myself in putting down my thoughts is so liberating and I love it.Want to come back to this more often.

Today is a Gift

It has been very long time since I blogged. I do not want to give the typical excuse that I was very busy and had no time. The truth is my priorities changed and wanted to stay away from blogging for some time.

It is still so fresh in my memory about how and when I started blogging. Yes, it has been 9 years since I started blogging and here I am trying to get back to blogging and revive this space.

Recently I started watching few videos of "Infinetheism". The videos are very motivational and though provoking. Here is a video that I would like to share with the world and get back to blogging.
Will write more in my next blog about what I felt about this video and why this was inspiring.

Bye Bye Beerangi gundu

Idly is the staple food in several South Indian families. Making the right consistency of the batter and making soft idlies like sponge cake comes naturally to several South Indians. My mother made soft idlies and I call them as soft and white like “malliga poo”.

Although I have always had one of the best idlies, idly was not my preference. I preferred dosai over idly. 

It was when I moved to the US, I started missing the South Indian delicacies. Until the time I got it easily, I never valued it. In memory of tasty food , I tried making Idlies which were often like beerangi gundu. Yes that’s how my appa and periappa called rock like idlies :-) I tried several proportions, tried adding poha, yeast and what not. It wouldn’t get better at all. 

The need for a grinder dawned all of a sudden on me. It was the same time when my mom also told that she felt the need for me to have a grinder.  This time around my visit to India, a nice grinder came back with me. I made tasty and soft idlies just like ‘malliga poo’.

Bye Bye Beerangi gundu !

Emotional Fitness

I was reading an article that had 10 ways of feeling better about yourself. The times when we feel low, don't feel much accomplished in life or insulted by someone, we need to know how to not react but respond. One of the 10 ways talks about not wanting too much in life. Sometimes we desire and aspire for something desperately only to know that it is not as pleasant as we imagined it would be. It could be simple thing or a serious decision in life.

"Desire can be a powerful motivating tool, but wanting something too much can be very painful and very expensive, so don't live beyond your means or covet the unattainable. Seek your desire, but keep your integrity."


All of us have several things in life that we desire to achieve and achieving it really does not make us happy. Sometimes it is not a bad idea to accept life as it comes since we have control over our expectations and disappointments.

This is a nice link:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/emotional-fitness/201103/10-ways-feel-better-about-yourself

Saibaba of shirdi is whom I call as my turban master. It has been few years since I know about Baba. There is a reason why we like certain things in life. We like specific color, food, art, game, friend and lot more for a reason. I started going to sai darbar near my house few years back. To me initially it was a place that had abundant positive energy and equilibrium for prayer. Slowly the perception transformed into an idea that the place had a special person who was loved by several people. If people loved him crazily there surely is a reason why he was loved that way. He has a magnetic attraction that made me read about him more. Slowly it transformed into tremendous faith. 

Baba is a very simple person who takes care of his children with so much of love. He has abundant love to share with everyone. Sai by the name means Sakshat Ishwar as per satcharithram. Satcharithram is the holy book written by Hemadpanth which talks about the incident s that happened during Sai’s period.

I treat him like my grandfather since he is old and has nothing but only love to offer. There are several stories in satcharithram that increased my devotion and love for baba.  Baba says in the satcharitram that he decides who can be his devotee and then he draws his devotees to him by any means.  There has been several times when I have related so much to some devotees who appear in satcharitram.

Personally I like baijabai who deligently made sure that baba ate every day. She was so sincere and made roti for baba every day. It makes one live in the times of baba while reading the holy book. It feels like Shama (madhav rao Deshpande), kaka, mahalsapathi, nana sahed chandorkar, tatya patil, baijabai, radha Krishna mai still live with baba in front of me. The beauty in following the preceptor is he never forced anyone to follow him. He says he is only sadguru to help us reach the god. What else can one expect? He always gave more than what the devotee asks for. 

For every devotee going to shirdi is a dream. I had my dreams too. One should definitely be blessed to touch the holy soil in shirdi. Baba made the dream come true 7 years before when I first went to shirdi on the 1^st of Dec. There really wasn’t anything more I could have asked for. I truly felt like I visited my grandfather’s house where he would stretch his arms and shower his love. 3 years later I visited shirdi again and the experience was unbelievable. The desire to go to shirdi is undying in every devotee.

I visited the sirdi sansthan website today and had a live darshan of baba and hence this post.

Long live Sri Sai and Peace be to all.

Leelai

I watched this movie "Leelai". It was  a very nice, light and romantic movie. The time just flew by watching this movie. It was very neat and the new faces were refreshing. I like Santhanam's comedy and he did fine. It is a well directed movie and targets the young audience.

I am hooked up to this song ever since I listened to it. I am playing the song in repeat mode and is constantly in the background of my head.

I am thinking of watching the movie for the second time. lol.......

There was a time when internet was a costly affair. I had a dial up connection at home during my engineering days. I used to check my emails twice a day for not more than 10 minutes each time. Most of the times the phone line worked disastrously and I ended up going to a cyber cafe.
When my cousins went abroad, it was very difficult to catch up with them. I think it was early days of broadband when Yahoo introduced video chat and it was little too much to do a video chat with webcam on. However we managed to do video chat with my cousin to see the little one.

Today when I want my parents next to me or talk to my sister like before, I can hardly think of some time off to go be with them. There are so many factors that go into planning a trip and working it out. Many of you like me might not get to meet family often.
But skyping is definitely very comforting when someone can easily talk or see people who live far away. Happiness, crying, anger, sadness, yelling everything is over the phone. All the more an Iphone with the skype app is like a boon for me. I get to at least video chat and the days just pass by.
It is definitely not being in person with someone but the very least better in some ways. Someone said that out of sight is out of knowledge. Anything like skype reduces the weird meaning in the saying.

Sometimes it is better to choose to be happy and console oneself ignoring the worrying part. Although I miss my parents and sister, I think about the goodness in getting to chat.

Time has changed from internet being costly to eating and sleeping on internet. I can't imagine a day without internet. May be I should tell internet is elixir of life.

A neat jingle

I totally love this jingle from the Tamil movie unnale unnale... It's a beautiful movie as well..

I hate him as much as I love love him... Sometimes I feel he doesn't have ears, eyes and is too old. If he ever thinks about what I have to say he would show it in his actions and assure me. May be he is too busy and I am in his bottom priority...

I am still with you my beloved turban master.

AkkamPakkam

This is a song that I sang in a tamil mandram. I have uploaded the rehearsal version of it.

Great Restart

“*Doubts and difficulties surround us just to move us and confirm our
faith. We are tested as it were*.” – Sri Sai Sacharitra, Ch. XXIX.

Thomas Edison lost two million dollars’ worth of equipment and the record
of many years’ work, when his laboratories were gutted by fire, in 1914.
Edison’s son, Charles, found his father standing near the fire, his white
hair blown with the winter wind. His heart ached for his aged father.
Edison saw Charles, “Where’s your mother?” he shouted. Bring her here, she
will never see anything like this again as long as she lives.”
The next morning, walking among the ashes of his hopes and dreams, the
67-year-old Edison said, “There is great value in disaster. All our
mistakes are burnt up. Thank God we can start anew!”
There spoke a man with the friendly attitude towards life and its
happenings.

What a great way to think like Edison. As long as we have our focus set right, the hurdles should never hinder us.
Like my master says Shraddha(Faith) and Saburi (Perseverence) is needed.


Bow to Sai and peace be to all.

After a very long time, I have made good friends at work. I meet lot of people everywhere. I like to meet different people, know them and read them.

Learning about people is always fun. I try to understand their minds, approach them knowing their frequency.

I seamlessly move with some people and it has been very difficult to understand some of them. In some situations I move away from people whom I cannot get along with.But definitely knowing people is a good experience.

I also hear people ranting for various reasons at various times. How do you feel when someone rants ? Do you feel sympathetic ?

Or do you feel motivated that you are in a better situation than them ? How should one feel ? I am clueless at times when I do not know how to react when people tell how bad they feel about certain things in their lives.

I have had a war within myself to react well and be patient to listen to what others have to say. But I also feel that everyone has difficulties in their lives.Sometimes people forget to count the blessings and talk about their difficulties as though its end of life.

For each of us our difficulty appears like giant mountains. There will be no fruitful outcome in comparing each others difficulty level.There are some of us who rant openly and there are some of us who keep our worries within ourselves.Those who do not open up appear as though they are very happy but that doesn't mean the person does not have hard feelings.

Learning psychology and reading minds is very vital. I try to understand people's mind and react accordingly. All that I see is there is problem everywhere.

Most of us conveniently do not understand others but expect others to understand us all the times. I think being sensible about what we are complaining, to whom we rant and putting ourselves in others shoes will help us realize the reality better. What else can I think of ? May be doing this will help us to be better individuals.

I checked today’s date and I realized that I have been blogging for six years now. Really? Has it been six years? I can’t believe that I am still doing something without being bored. I do not blog as often as I think I want to write, but I try to find some time as much as I can. Sometimes fear of how the post will be perceived is also a reason to hold back on writing some posts.

Along with starting a blog, I also did another good thing few years back. I registered in google groups that talk about the goodness of my turban master. It has been wonderful so far to read stories and good things every morning. How is it that everything is good with the turban master?

Here is a small gyan from today’s email:

It is important to understand that the air never gets depleted from the universe no matter how much is consumed. We are floating in a pool.
 Natural law is that what one may absorb, others may not be absorbing it.
For example: A leaf takes green colour, the flower is not absorbing it. It takes another colour.
 
If someone absorbs fear, he is making someone else fearless. That individual is creating that field, atmosphere around by being receptive to it.
 

Don’t take fear. An environment of fear is self-created... enhancing the devil by feeling fearful of him. By being fearful, someone else is becoming fearless. This is how terrorists work!
 
The Supreme has made everyone a reflection of itself.
Be fearless and counter attack. Now we have to be fearless, aware and conscious. This is the message.

Understand the subtleties. Everything is floating in the universe. Universe balances all. Same sun rays fall on the cactus as on the flower, what they do not absorb, shows on them.

Doubts and fear come when you are fearful, karm heen.

Face your fears... counteract by saying: “Why should I be scared when I am truly working on myself?” People often become submissive. Say to yourself:
“I am in surrender if I am truthful then divine help will always be there for me” Energy is depleted by being fearful. Forward your fears to the Universe. “I am on path of truth love karm and light, I am not taking it.”

Watch the body language change. Grace will descend.Be a worthy medium of divine grace.