Life and Spirituality

A Spiral Galaxy We are all familiar with the annual cycle of our planet around the sun in around the 365 days. We can derive a value for the Mayan estimate of the year by dividing 1,101,600 by 365, subtracting 2, and taking that number and dividing 1,101,600 again by the result. This gives us an answer of 365.2420 days. It is more accurate than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar. Besides the annual cycle there are other cycles that concern the movement of our planet in the galaxy, the longest of which on a galaxy wide horizon is around 226 million years. Our sun travels through the spiral arms of the galaxy as it revolves slowly around the galactic center in an orbit that takes about 226 million years. Shorter cycles mark other movements of our planet. There is a dark patch called the dark rift in the Milky Way close to the galactic center. This is caused by an interstellar dust cloud obscuring the light coming from the stars at the core of the galaxy. It is from th...

M y mind was drawn to the present topic when the news came over the media that the visit of the music god Ravi Shankar to our planet has come to an end at the age of 92. Ravi Shankar was lucky that he found an intensely gentle and loving companion even in his late years.  He faced some of the social problems of our planet while he lived amongst us but loneliness was at least one impediment that he did not suffer from. It is something that at least half the humans on the planet will face sometime or the other during their lifetimes. The Plains in Nainital District The normal course of life for a human on our planet is that he spends his or her childhood with parents. This is followed by a transition period when the human becomes an adult.  This transition period is rarely a lonely one because the human is quite busy with friends and setting up a life and career. Soon enough, after that, most humans get married and have the company of their spouses and children. When...

Economic Wisdom from the Himalayas In recent years there has been much discussion about the one- per- cent i.e. the small percentage of the world’s population that possesses and controls most of the wealth of the world. However, there is one- per- cents in numerous other arenas of human life and perhaps if one examined carefully enough each one of us probably falls in the one-per-cent in some category or the other. One of my neighbors would probably meet the criterion when it comes to ugliness and a friend in the size of his ---    :)   nose. Each one of us is unique and special in some way or the other for sure. If I turn my gaze towards myself, I find that I fall in that category as regards education is concerned. One consequence of this privilege is that one often develops a view point that is different from what ever is being upheld by the ninety nine percent from time to time on all sorts of issues. I have continued to persist with the habit because ov...

Albert Einstein   " A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”   Albert Einstein I t is so much nicer to talk of beautiful things that exist on our lovely planet that it is really a pity that I had to write this post that touches on something that to me is evil. Nevertheless I have written it because if an evil is ignored it is difficult to eradicate it. The evil I am referring to is about the denial of freedom of belief and imposition of beliefs on people and that is something even the followers of the greatest of religions on earth have not been free of though they have done so mu...

King Midas of the Golden Touch M oney is what gets humans their essential needs as well as luxuries. Therefore when we hear of a person who is a billionaire or even a millionaire we tend to be jealous or envious. However, if you go into the depth of matters many millionaires and billionaires need our prayers and sympathy rather than our envy or Jealousy. My mind went to this subject yesterday when news channels announced that a famous billionaire of North India – Ponty Chaddah – and his brother had killed each other ( at least as initially reported in some of the media although it is being investigated ) in a shoot out in which their respective armed guards were also involved. It seems that there was a property dispute. The matter is still under investigation but the newspapers today reported that their unfortunate bodies were riddled with bullets. Yesterday the TV also showed glimpses of Ponty while he was alive. This is the first time I cared to look at him carefully. ...

Robin Hood and his Merry Men I n today’s complex economy it is useful for the ordinary citizen to understand a few simple principles about economics. That way, they can manage their own money better and also contribute their voice to policy making in their countries. This post is about inflation, its causes and ramifications and how it can be managed  in any country. Money is a used for acquiring goods and services and when the price of goods and services rise we say that inflation is taking place. The price of something depends on many factors but two of the primary ones are 1. Demand and supply balance 2. Extent of Money Supply.   Both factors are easy to understand. If a commodity becomes in short supply then its price tends to rise. If apple crops have been destroyed by untimely frost then apple prices will rise. If the demand for a product increases then too its price rises but if demand falls prices fall or crash. The balance of demand and supply is one...

Fifteen month old Golu  (my god grandson) on a walk in, Nainital Dist. My daily newspaper – the Times of India – that is truly daily here in India, unlike when I lived in Canada and the daily newspaper took a holiday every Sunday, as any sensible human institution should, has a very sensible weekly page on health issues that I read with much interest. Today’s page reported the effects of exercise on longevity from a recent collaborative study between the Brigham and Women’s hospital and the National Cancer Institute in Washington. I presume Brigham is a man and therefore the study applies to men just as well as women although I fail to understand why the Brigham and Women’s hospital has excluded all men except Brigham, from its nomenclature at least, if not from its corridors. The study reported that just 75 minutes of brisk walking per week resulted in an increase of life expectancy by 1.8 years whereas 450 minutes of brisk walking was associated with a gain of 4.5 ye...