Life and Spirituality

Clean air, sunshine, clean water and appropriate food are central to health of all life. Knowledge about food is essential knowledge for any human. It is surprising that in our world there are many persons, especially the young, who know more about sports and films than the basics of what constitutes good and healthy food. The first thing to know about food is that healthy food is not expensive. Much of it is derived from grass and other vegetation that grows in abundance on our planet, in spite of a burgeoning human population that exceeds seven billion. Milk and meat is produced by grass eating animals and we as humans consume the seeds of grass as wheat, corn, rice etc. let us just briefly list the types of food a human requires: Carbohydrates : These are a primary requirement to mitigate human hunger. Wheat is a primary source for it supported by other food grains such as rice, corn etc. Wheat has excellent storage capacity and it can be consumed in a variety of ways s...

Although a scientist and engineer by profession, I have had deep interests in spiritualism and spiritual practices albeit tempered by scientific wisdom and logic. One of the side effects of this indulgence is that one develops certain symptoms and side effects that are similar to spiritualists of a more rigorous kind. I too have not been able to escape such symptoms and one of these is the reading of signs and occasional prophecy.   Thus, years ago when I served for a few years as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Saddam’s Iraq, I noticed that the population throws away bagfulls of bread on a regular basis. This was before the gulf wars. One of the things that Saddam Hussein used to do to keep his subjects happy, besides the supply of fine European booze at subsidized rates, was the supply of near free bread through kiosks that were littered throughout Iraqi cities. The idea was that no citizen, howsoever poor, should go to bed on a hungry stomach. Booze was ne...

  I have had the good fortune to live and work in different parts of the world. Everywhere, it was my cardinal principle to enjoy local culture including local foods and drinks rather than stick to the habits from back home. I was introduced to good wine as a doctoral student in Canada during the department Christmas party at UBC and still enjoy it on occasions. If you are a wine lover too then you may enjoy some simple facts about wine and wine making that have been gathered through my travels and experiments that most books don’t tell. First of all as regards alcohol uphold the principle enshrined by King Solomon the wise some thousands of years ago as recorded in the Old Testament of the holy Bible “Give wine to a person heavy of heart but give strong drink to a person who wishes to destroy himself” There is really much wisdom in this statement that personally experienced. Many persons consume an alcoholic drink once in a while. At times that drink happens to b...

Without groves of trees cities lack beauty: Image source: https://twitter.com/BEAUTIFULPlCS/status/634229660528869376/photo/1 S everal earlier posts in this blog have mentioned it is better to live in a rural or country area surrounded by greenery rather than in crowded cities. An earlier post proposed a configuration of farm lands (termed AM farms for identification) that combined some of the advantages of urban living with rural life. However many persons are still compelled to, or prefer to, live an urban life in big towns or cities. That is just as well because the population of our planet is now around seven billion and with such a heavy population it is a necessity. A large proportion of humans must continue to live in cities. However, it is possible to live amidst greenery even in urban settings provided cities are designed for it. This post proposes the configuration of a city that brings some of the advantages of a rural life along with its greenery to towns and...

Jai Bajrang Bali at the entrance of the Naini Mata Temple If you see that someone else has something nice and good that you do not have, Remember, That everything nice and good of this world comes with some problems attached. Feel blessed that Nature has chosen to shield you from such problems. If you see the life of another is rising with success whereas your own is going no where, Remember, That every sunrise is followed by sunset, the dark night and that Nature has chosen to spare you the pain of the night that shall follow. If you see that another has great riches that you do not have, Just look a bit wider, And you shall see many that have even less and feel blessed and grateful. If your life is filled with pain, sorrow and darkness, Remember, That wisdom comes from sorrow and there is no gain bigger than that and look forward to the bright day that follows every dark night If you fear for the future, Laugh, That th...

Me on the way to Nainital during a dry summer month While nearly all scientists and experts agree that global warming is probably due to human activity, not many agree on the precise cause and which of the various human activities is to blame. The following two are the most suspected: Increased carbon emissions in the atmosphere Increased deforestation My own leaning is towards cause number two. The reasons for that have been discussed in my steam center blog and I shall not go into that again. Here is just a suggestion that could take care of the problem in a jiffy whatever be the cause. The population of grown up humans on our planet is currently around five billion. If each of these humans planted two trees each, the additional ten billion trees would take care of the entire carbon emission (through carbon capture) or deforestation problem for a year. The trees can be planted anywhere in town or country side. However, if humans continue to generate ca...

Photo shows roof of Naini Mata Temple in Nainital with text overlay by Ashok Malhotra My cousin Pradeep and a face book friend posted something this morning about a Mantra on his wall: Mantra Dhaarnaa Yon Kar, Vidhi Se Le Kar Naam Japiye Nishchaya Achal Se, Shakti-Dhaam Sri Ram These verses in Hindi may be translated as: From right Teacher learn right technique of repetition of right name Then mediate with greatest faith, Upon the Lord’s most vital name I fully agree with my dear cousin that the chanting of Mantras done correctly is a powerful technique, even magical. That is the reason one has magicians chanting spells in fairy tales to perform magic. Recently a college classmate and dear friend got into serious legal difficulties. His name is Rajat Gupta. Until recently he was one of the most senior corporate executives on our planet well known to Prime Ministers and Presidents including Obama and Clinton. He can be found in Wikipedia. However, amongst so...