OK, Geysers also tells us something

OK, Geysers also tells us something.

In my article “Lakes, Rivers & Water Falls….”, I defined water falls as water dropping from a higher point to a lower point. I also added a note that hopefully there is none the other way around.

Since I am always surrounded by genius minds, some told me to check on geysers. They go from down (inside earth) to up.

I agree that this can be also seen as a reversed water falls. Let’s not worry so much on the technical definitions. The main point is, what is it saying? Nature may have it’s own definitions, but mankind is given full authority to interpret as he wants.

Therefore, in my own view, I associate geysers to our own problems that are kept locked inside us. These problems that are kept within us are like gas chambers that hold high pressure. Although our body and mind can has a very high threshold, it is always better to release the pressure at right time. Keeping them longer may destroy the body and the mind that is keeping the pressure.

I don’t know much technical details about geysers but I think I have explained in simple manner what it is trying to tell us. Take time to spill out the things that are bothering you. Find a nice person (friends) and say it out.

OK, since we already know what the geysers are telling us, why not learn a little about them. Visit http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/tours/fountainpaint/images/geyser_works4.gif

Subra

Lake, River and Water falls - What do they say?

Although all the 3 have one thing in common, which is water, but all 3 are called with different names. It is because of the condition of the water, the state of the water defines its name.

The stagnant water is called as lake (there are other names which brings slight variation to the term). The flowing water is called river where, water starts somewhere and goes to the sea. The flow is mostly smooth and consistent (again, there could be situations where it is also known as white waters where the flow is strong and fast). The water fall, as mentioned in its name, is where water drops from a higher point to another lower point (hopefully there is none the other way around).

We can say that the creator of the world placed the most important item for human (that is water) almost everywhere in this world. The creator also made them in many condition in order to suit man’s need.

Apart from consuming the water for livelihood, the creator has made water to support other life forms in order to sustain man’s need. Supply of life forms in the water that is consumable for man, support agriculture and also sustain man’s need to be clean.

Apart from all these basic essentials that are visible to man’s naked eyes, there is one more thing which happens without man noticing it. It is the nutrition that is supplied to man’s emotional need.

Have you ever wonder, how soothing it is to sit by the lake and ponder our life against the backdrop of calmness found in the lake.

Sitting at the riverside and letting our thoughts dance to the rhythm of the flowing river.

Standing at the edge of the water falls and associating our feelings to the water that falls from a height, splashed into million drops and dissolving into the calm collection of water.

The creator did not only provide what man needs to live a basic life but also to live a wonderful life with peace and harmony. The creator provided all the necessities for man to fulfill his physical needs and emotional needs.

Only problem is, we are always on the wrong frequency with nature. Don’t ask me why, ask the Lake, River and Water falls and listen to what they say?

I follow www.rainfield61.blogspot.com very passionately and I noticed him writing about trees that talked to him. I guess that, the creator has worked overtime to make sure human life is well taken care in this world.

Let’s say thanks and preserve the world.

Subra

Teacher……….One God, many forms

Last weekend I met a few old extreme friends. You may wonder why the word extreme is used for these friends. These particular friends are the type that won’t lose in any type of argument. After recalling so many “missed” events, I thought of starting the war. It is nothing wrong to start a war between “very well” known friends. This particular group is a matured group and they know their limits and they know how to reconcile back. I have seen arguments going to the centre of the earth and they come out laughing their hearts out.

The point for the argument was simple, “How many teachers are there?”

We didn’t put it to a debate of whether there is “teacher” or “no teacher”, all accepted that “teacher” existed. We turned dice on, “How many teachers are there”.

One was the smallest number (since Zero was not accepted in our argument). Countless was the biggest number. The arguing group was from a vast knowledge based people. I even had a Phd. in the team.

1. There have to be many teachers because we have so many things to learn.
   

In the 1^st round of argument everyone accepted that there are many teachers. One teacher most probably cannot teach a lot of subjects. The most one teacher could teach is around 3 or 4 subjects (there could be more, but let’s keep those teachers in a safe place).

2. If there are many teachers then whom should we choose?
   

Such a simple question was twisted at the beginning of the argument. We should get the maths teacher, no……., we should get the science teacher, no……., we should get history teacher, no…….., and the argument went on with many strong prolific reasons. Then one smart guy asked, who is the student?

You see, there can be many answers, but if you want a right answer then you need to know what is the right question. The question was not complete. The question should have been re-phrased to, “Which teacher should be selected for the student who has interest in science or maths or geography or music or language?” The interest of the student must be taken into consideration.

Looks like we have settled the argument in a simple manner.

Now for the fun of it, try to replace “teacher” with “God”.

Is the one God or many Gods?
Which God should I select?
All depends on what I want?
There are Gods for every aspect of human’s life.

I just relate this writing to Hinduism because it I have some fundamental knowledge in it. There is nothing against any other religion and my respect to all other religion are equal.

Hinduism believes in one God that exist in many forms. True to its core, God is similar to a teacher, there is only one teacher, this teacher takes many type of forms to teach what we want to learn. Every subject has a different approach in conveying its message, therefore the teacher should equip themselves with proper accessories in order to teach. That is the reason different Gods in Hinduism are displayed with many accessories.

OK, how about those who says there is no God? Don’t they have any teacher?

Actually there is nothing wrong to say that there is no teacher, their actual teacher is the nature and that is the one thing that no one can deny.

GOD, religion and nature are a guide to our well being in this lovely world. There is no scale that can evaluate and give you a result on which is better. All has different names and different approaches. In these many differences, one similarity lives on….that is "Do Good and live happily".

Teacher……….One God, many forms

I attach a link “Tribute to a teacher” which describes a teacher and how the teacher has shared. Let your mind ponder on these issues and you will see the connection on this topic.

http://www.knowledgebase-script.com/demo/article-418.html

Subra

Live with an objective that never ends.

I have a lot of table roses (Japanese Rose) in my house. I grow them not because of passion or love for gardening or interest in the environment, but just because it is the easiest thing to plant and grow.
I have wonderful colours in my collection. The best part of these flowers is, it blossom at around 9:00am and wilt by noon. What a short time to show off its glamour and beauty. It makes me think whether its worth to blossom and live a life as a flower just for a few hours. What glory can it gain in such a short period. Most of us leave the house before 8 and only return in the evening. We can only see the buds early in the morning before its full blossom.
I understand that orchids stay up to 2 to 3 weeks. Naturally its beauty is incomparable in the flower kingdom. To the title of being the most beautiful flower, it stays long to contribute to visual desire of man.
Although both table roses and orchids have one thing in common, which is its unique beauty but both have totally different life cycles. One stays for only few hours and the other for weeks. Yet, something makes both of them feel useful to this world and mankind.
Both knows that as a flowering plant, it should keep on giving new blossoms as the old one withers. Regardless to the life cycle of the blossoms, the plant continues to paint the world with its blossoms add a smile to every human in this world. The objective of the plants are not just to flower once but evertime the old one falls. The cycle never ends.

Live with an objective that never ends.

Subra

* The pictures are not mine

Man and his dollar sense.

It is quite surprising to see how much a man’s life is entangled in the world of “dollars” and “cents” (use your own country currency for the phrases).

I have seen people who has money that can only make them swim through their life on daily basis and I have also seen people who has money that can drown them. Let’s term them as “1” for those who live on daily earning basis and “10” for those who live in a world which fits a king (damn rich).

Most of the people I had known from the category “1” are sincere and lives a faithful life (here I am referring to only those whom I specifically know). I do have a lot of friends that comes from the category “10”. These are the people whom I admire the most.

Please note that I am a true believer of the “Ying Yang” theory. If somebody says that you can learn a lot of good traits from the rich people, I also say that we can learn a lot of bad traits from these people. Simple philosophy, learn the good and practice them, learn the bad and avoid from practicing them.

I just wanted to narrate a story on how a well to do people behaved and what should we learn from them (actually learn what we should not do when we have wealth).

The conversation with this person was rather unique. When I asked them how was the journey. Their answer: We paid RM300.00 for a service that was only worth RM120.00.

How was the food? Answer : The coffee was only worth RM0.70 but we were charged RM2.50, the meal could not be a single cents more than RM3:00 but we had to pay RM7:50. The canned drink was OK but they charged us extra RM0.20 compared to the local grocery store. How did you come to work this morning? I took the RM15.00 taxi. What movie did you see last weekend? I saw RM10.00 movie at the mall. You had a haircut, nice! I had my haircut at the city centre for RM40.00

For these people, everything seems to be translated to “dollar” and “cents”. Everything is referred in relation to dollar and cent. They won’t understand if you don’t include the cost of the product or the service you receive. Money, money, money……………everything had to be said in terms of money.

This person caught me off balance when he asked me why am I writing in the blog. I told him that I get to practice my writing skill, improve my language and it gives me satisfaction.

This person laughed when I said I get satisfaction. He asked me, “Do you get paid for this?” I said, “No”. And he said what the hell you are writing for?

Should we get paid for everything we do? Can’t we do anything if there is no money in it? I was ready to put up my arguments on this issue but I got a lightning strike in my mind saying that it will be like talking to a wall with this person.

Every thing we do (good or bad) will return to us in many ways. Some are returned in the form of money and some are returned in other forms. Many people appreciate all that comes to them regardless of what form it comes back but some will only accept if it comes in the form of money.

I am not saying that money is not important but we should not lose our sense of being a human with feelings. Man should know his dollar sense limits.

Subra

Man calls this creativity and innovation

As you all know, all human beings want to live an enjoyable life in this wonderful natural world. Whoever designed this world and the life form has designed it in perfect order. The designer, who is called as GOD or an unknown force or an unknown energy is accepted to exist in one way or another. Regardless of what it is, let’s just call it as “the designer”.

The designer made the world and the life form, in a way where both need each other for survival. The designer also fulfilled the “sufficiency and compatibility” aspect by preparing remedies for unforeseen situations. In simple English : designed “natural” medicines” apart from the “natural food”.

Whatever man needs to live a simple and peaceful life, are readily available in natural form. The designer gave the man an efficient brain in order to run the “life form” which it lives in. Addition to that, the brain also has the capability to handle the so called “unforeseen situations”.

Remember, the brain should act and re-act to natural requirement of the life form in accordance to the environment surrounding the life form.

Anyhow, it is difficult to say when and how man started to “abuse” the brain in order to “over drive” the designer’s natural world.

Man started to demand more from his environment. The “brain”, which, normally responds to the natural requirement of the life form and the natural effects of the world, is being triggered to think on pursuing things which are being artificially deemed necessary for life forms in this world.

Since the brain is capable of fulfilling man’s “artificially” created demands, the man, started to push the brain even harder to achieve more, actually, abuse more. Artificial requirements now change to greed and ego. Man wants more and more. Man forgets the equilibrium balance between life form and environment. The general theory of “yin yang” is relentlessly destroyed.

Man is abusing the environment.
Man thought he is in control over environment.
Man sees the environment as his slave to his insatiable desires.
Man feels that, environment cannot fight back.

Man calls this "creativity" and "innovation".

But,

Man forgot that environment doesn’t fight back but obliterate without mercy.

Use the brain to “create” without destroying the nature,
Use the brain to “innovate” without interrupting the nature.

Read below link to get the feel of how development without environment protection damages everything.

Subra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

Ways of looking at things : Positive and Negative

Last week, we had a small Deepavali party ( a Hindu annual festival held to celebrate the victory of "good" over"evil") in my brother's (Sundar) house in Penang. We invited many friends. I was surprised to meet a few of my very very old colleagues from my company.

An interesting scenario happened when I met these 2 guys. I think the last time I met them was around 2-3 years ago. The 1st responded, "Wow, Subra is it you? You look so different. My God!, you changed a lot."

The 2nd responded, "Subra nice to meet you again, you look the same. you never change a bit".

Totally confused.

2 ways of looking things : Positive and Negative

Positive :

-The 1st guy wanted to make me happy by telling that I changed a lot and look more "matured", more intelligent", "more majestic".......I know you are getting jealous.

-The 2nd guy wanted to make me feel that I am still as young as how I looked few years back.

Negative:

- The 1st guy intended to tell me that I changed from being a good guy earlier days and now I look pretty messed up.
-The 2nd guy intended to tell me that I never changed and still behave clumsy the same way I did a few years back.

Now , for the actual impact of the 2 contrasting comments - all depends on how I want to interpret. I chose to take it positively. I am a changed person - by look and thinking, at the same time, I am a person who did not change - by my good character and jolly good behaviour.

How the other person interpret seems to be lost in my analysis. I was happy for many reasons on that day:-

- it was Deepavali time
- I met long lost friends
- both had opinions on me
- and I see both opinions to be positive about me.

I am happy and I am sure my day will be great throughout.

There are always many ways of looking at things : Positive and Negative, but you can choose only 1, choose wisely.

Subra

If I can reverse the time.......

I am very sure many of us did wish that we could reverse the time in order to amend back some mistakes we made in the past. Just imagine if we really had such a mechanism....wouldn't it be wonderful.

Don't you think everyone in this world would be happy. Every mistake you make, you reverse the time and amend it again. Another mistake another reversal of the time and another amendment, that's it, everything is corrected and all are on the right track.

Surely nothing can be wrong anymore isn't it?

But before you think on the feasibility of this wish coming true, can we define what is right and wrong. Yes, if you can unanimously get a list of right and wrong, then you can ask for the time reversal equipment. What is right to one person can be wrong to another person and what is wrong to one person can be right to another person.

I think we are getting to something now. I make a mistake, reverse the time and amend the mistake. With a great smile of achievement I carry on with my work. Then came a man who is not happy with the amendment I made because it effected him. Therefore he would reverse the time back and amend my changes according to what he wants.

All this will continue and many of us will be engaged in reversing the time and amending what we have done in the past. Neither of us will bothered to think on how to correct the mistakes from happening again.

We will choose to sit on our mistakes and spend time thinking on how we could have avoided the mistake then reverse the time and amend it. All these regrets and time spent to do the reversal act dampens our vision to move forward.

Once you know it was a mistake, analyse what went wrong, think on how to avoid it or prevent it, then move on...don't stay on the mistake for too long, many other things are happening and if you missed it, then you tend to miss more.

Think again.......If I can reverse the time.....it will be a disaster.

To SMS or not to SMS, that is the end of English !

Last week I received a SMS from a friend called Lily.

The SMS reads as follow :-

Evry tear is sign of brokenes,
Evry silence is sign of lonelines,
Evry smile is sign of kindnes,
Evry SMS is sym of rememberance.

I almost killed myself trying to read this SMS, but consoled myself and replied with below SMS :-

Every SMS is a sign which says "Death is not far for English". To which she replied, "This normalah".

Even my daughter laughs at me when I type a SMS with complete spelling.

Lately, I am also receiving emails in SMS format. I have to figure out myself what each word means. I know good English is dying but I never thought it will be killed in this manner.

If Shakespeare lived in this world now, he would have written his famous words as "To SMS or not to SMS, that is the end of English".

Subra

Cheers on somebody's failure !

Hungarian Formula 1 race for the 2008 season was held last Sunday 3rd August. My family and few other friends gathered at my brother's house in Penang. It was actually 2 in 1 gathering. My nephew's (S. Yoga) birthday was on the 4th and since it was a Monday we decided to celebrate it on the 3rd August. the race starts at 8:00pm Malaysian time (2:00pm Hungarian time).

I think I need to state it clearly that we are McLaren Mercedes supporters - our favourite drivers are Lewis Hamilton and Heiki Kovailanen.

The pole position was a great advantage for our team. Lewis was on position 1, Heiki on position 2, Felipe (Ferrari) was on 3rd position and Kimi (Ferrari) was on the 6th position.

We were very happy that our team had great advantage and we thought it is going to be a one two win for McLaren. Everything went crushing when Felipe made a great start and managed to squeeze himself to the front by overtaking Heiki and Lewis at the beginning of the race itself.
















We were very disappointed and started the usual cursing tactic on the Ferrari. To add to our outcry, Lewis car had a punture and had to drive half the circuit on slow speed before coming into the pitstop to change the tires. He re-entered the circuit at the 10 position and managed to reach 6th position at his maximum speed. Things looked as if Felipe will win this race, Heiki will be 2nd and Lewis will be in the 6th position, but something we were longing to see happened suddenly. Felipe's Ferrari had an engine failure at the 67th lap (total laps 70).

His car came to a dead stop and he was out of the race.
At that point you should see my brother's house, it was filled with victory shouts.
I wonder why were we very happy at somebody's failure.
















This does not only happen when we are supporting our favourite team (of any sports) but also happens in our life. We tend to pay less attention and put in less effort in our work. We want easy victory, we don't want competition. We rather pray for the other people's failure in order for us to feel happy although we did not win either.

We tend to cheer for other people's failure rather than cheering for our own victory. Anyhow the Hungarian Formula 1 race was great, we had a great time and we were very happy. Just think about it.....if you have time.

Cheers on somebody's failure....is actually jeers to ourself.....................

Subra

http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2008/8/8201.html

* In the 1st picture, you can see how Felipe managed to squeeze himself from the 3rd position to the 1st position and in the 2nd picture you can see Felipe's car breaksdown with smoke coming out at the rear.

Want to believe it or not, it is your choice !

Yesterday’s (15th July 08) debate between Anwar and Shabery on reducing the petrol price made me recall a word I heard long time ago, “SCOTOMA”. Meaning extracted from dictionaries sounds like this :-

“Scotoma”
A scotoma (Greek: darkness; plural: "scotomas" or "scotomata") is an area or island of loss or impairment of visual acuity surrounded by a field of normal or relatively well-preserved vision.Every normal mammalian eye has a scotoma in its field of vision, usually termed its blind spot. The presence of this normal scotoma does not intrude into consciousness because it is very small, but it can be demonstrated to oneself by the simplest of clinical methods (such as the one in the blind spot article).

Apart from this one word, the debate also helped me to recall a phrase,

“The mind sees what it wants to see”.

Who was the winner of this debate?

I think the question should be whom do you want to be the winner?
Anwar or Shabery?

Relating this to the phrase “The mind sees what it wants to see”, made me ask myself what I wanted from this debate.

The 41%hike in petrol price really took a damaging hit on my family’s daily life. The chain effect of the price hike throughout the supply chain made me dig into my pocket much more deeper. Therefore when I was watching the debate, my mind already tuned it’s radar to look for something good that will soothe my mind and hopefully in real life later.

Automatically, the debate itself has put me on the biased side where, one guy is saying that the price increase is unavoidable and another guy is saying that the price can be reduced. At this juncture I need not to justify my “wants”. It is clear that I am looking for price reduction. My mind started to look for good things that are coming from Anwar’s mouth. On the other hand, whatever Shabery is saying seems to be excuses. Again, remember the prejudice of the mind which has already set it’s mind to be biased. We are human and when the situation is related to our daily life we tend to look for what we want.

This term can be further understood if you look at the scenario of being a jury in a court hearing. If you are one of the victims or related to the victim, you indirectly have compromised your judgment. Therefore you will be looking for statements, points, arguments, evidences, circumstances to substantiate in finding the accused guilty. But if you are totally independent, whereas you are neither related nor linked to the victim or the accused, you will weigh the court proceedings neutrally.

This is the scenario of the people watching Anwar Shabery debate yesterday. I believe all of us were looking for something good. I am very sure that we were never open to the point where the price hike is justified. We were a group of biased people (I don’t mean to offend, that is the reality).

On the word “scotoma”, which I would like to term it in simple as “blind spot”, comes on both debaters. If you really watched closely, you will see some true colours of the debaters prevailing. The blind spot is not visible to us until someone tells us that these things were missing. Anwar termed effected people as “petani”, “nelayan”, ”bumiputera Melayu”, “bumiputera Sabah Sarawak”, “segelintir Cina miskin”, “kaum India di estate”. This point should be looked deeper. What is his actual perception or principal in “serving equally” to all the people. When he defined poverty based on their livelihood activities and race, what does it reflect? Need a lot of thinking on this matter.

As for Shabbery, how can he fail to see that the price hike is not effecting all the people. All the people means: people from the ruling party too. The way he avoided this fact makes me uncomfortable. Or could it be that the people from the ruling party is not effected by the price hike……I don’t know.

Since the mind wants some good feeling, I think the debate has given a little “feel good” to many. Why many feel good? Because if Anwar forms the government, the petrol price will be down by RM0.50 and can even go further down in the future. Want to believe it or not, it is your choice !

Subra

I surfed some website and saw some interesting comments on the Anwar Shabbery debate, browse through on your interest.

http://limadang.com/2008/07/15/dato-anwar-vs-dato-shabery-debate-on-how-to-decrease-fuel-price/
http://kadazanpower.blogspot.com/2008/07/anwar-wins-debate-on-oil.html
http://thedriller.blogspot.com/2008/07/fuel-debate-anwar-vs-shabery.html


“petani” – farmers
“nelayan” – fishermen
”bumiputera Melayu” – son of the soil status local Malays
“bumiputera Sabah Sarawak” – son of the soil of Sabah Sarawak
“segelintir Cina miskin” – A small group of poor Chinese
“kaum India di estate” – Indian ethnic in estates

Can you try?

I attended a training on "Enhancing Managerial Skills" few months ago.

The trainer was an interesting guy. He highlighted one point which I think forces you to see from another angle.

He said, "Don't try." It is either you do it or not at all.

I was wondering, isn't it that we have been trained to give our best and try our best. Never give up without trying. And what is this guy talking about "Don't try."

The class was in chaos, some whispered, some were loud, some just giggled.

The trainer asked, "What is wrong?". One of us answered, "Trying is actually the highest action a human can do. Why are you asking us not to try?"

He asked, "Can you try to sit?", "Can you try to stand?", "Can you try to eat?", "Can you try to kick a ball?"

At that point, we saw light at the end of the tunnel. When someone ask you to try to sit and you actually sat, this is conflicting with the request. The requester didn't ask you to sit but he just ask you to try to sit.

Therefore his point was, change your mindset to be a person who accomplishes things and not a person who would be happy that he has given his best effort and left the end result (which could be success or failure) to other forces/factors. Have control in all your activities. Decide the result that you want. Don't just try, achieve it.

Now, can you try doing that.

Subra