Laws of Life By Swami Vivekananda

1. Love Is The Law Of Life: All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore, love for love's sake, because it is law of life, just as you breathe to live.
2. Don't Play The Blame Game: Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.
3. Help Others: If money helps a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.
4. Uphold Your Ideals: Our duty is to encourage every one in his struggle to live up to his own highest idea, and strive at the same time to make the ideal as near as possible to the Truth.
5. Listen To Your Soul: You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, none can make you spiritual. There is no other teacher but your own soul.
6. Be Yourself: The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves!
7. Nothing Is Impossible: Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin - to say that you are weak, or others are weak.
8. You Have The Power: All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.
9. Learn Everyday: The goal of mankind is knowledge... now this knowledge is inherent in man. No knowledge comes from outside: it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows', should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' or 'unveils'; what man 'learns' is really what he discovers by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge.
10. Be Truthful: Everything can be sacrificed for truth, but truth cannot be sacrificed for anything.
11. Think Different: All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.
12. It's Your Outlook That Matters: It is our own mental attitude, which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.
13. Life is Beautiful: First, believe in this world - that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you do not understand it in the right light. Throw the burden on yourselves!
14. It's The Way You Feel: Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.
15. Set Yourself Free: The moment I have realized God sitting in the temple of every human body, the moment I stand in reverence before every human being and see God in him - that moment I am free from bondage, everything that binds vanishes, and I am free.

The world in Dubai

Dubai is surely the hottest place on earth for real estate developers and investors.With the audacious,and at times incrdible, plans of carving out entire cities out in thd middle of the ocean, dubai has stunned the entire world.Pushing the boundaries of architectural design to the extremes Dubai has been able to achieve the impossible for many.Some of the projects are so airy fairy that one has to be physically present at the site to believe at the audacity of the vision.
A mission that started with a plan to increase the beach front of the city and there by gain more tourists attraction, has gone to create some masterpieces of architectural design.

The most unbelievable of all the projects being executed in Dubai are the

• World Island Projects
• Palm Island Projects

World Island Projects: This would probably come in the list of the most incredible project of all.Once completed this would have around 300 different sand islands carved out 4 kms of the shore.This islands combined together would be in the shape of the world with each island represting a coutry.The magnitude of the project is something incomprehendable and inspiring as well.Scheduled to be completed by 2008 this project is attracting some of the biggest investors from around the world.With rumors being that Richard Branson and the likes being interested in investing , there would certainly be a buzz in the real estate industry .

Palm Island Projects:The palm island project consists of a trilogy of three palm shaped structures extending out to the sea from the shore.The first of them being Palm Jumeirah which is fast becoming a reality. The Palm Jebel Ali for which the land reclamation is fast accelarating and the Palm Deira.

With a slew of other mega real estate projects in the pipeline Dubai is set out to give a whole new dimension to the word Megastructures of the world.

Swami Vivekanada's most renowned speech

Sisters and Brothers of America,It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to
rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. l
thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank
you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the
millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
My thanks,
also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates
from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well
claim the honor of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud
to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal
acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all
religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the
persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am
proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the
Israelites, who came to the southern India and took refuge with us in the very
year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am
proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the
remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few
lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood,
which is every day repeated by millions of human beings:

"As the different
streams having their sources in differentplaces all mingle their water in the
sea, so, O Lord, thedifferent paths which men take through different
tendencies,various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to
Thee."

The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies
ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the
wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita:
"Whosoever comes to Me, through
whatsoever form, I reach him;all men are struggling through paths which in the
end lead to Me."Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism,
have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with
violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization,
and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons,
human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time has
come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of
this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions
with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons
wending their way to the same goal.
..This speech was delivered by Swami Vivekanda At The World's Parliament of ReligionsChicago, 11th September 1893

Dusshera-The Victory of Good Over Evil

India is a land of multitude cultures and a festivals .One of the most widely followed and celebrated of them is Dusshera, also knows as VijayaDashmi or Durga Puja, and is celebrated in different forms across the coutry.
This festival commemorates the victory of the goddess Durga (an incarnation of Parvati, consort of Shiva) over the demon Mahisasura. It is also celebrated as a remembrance of the victory of Lord Rama (an incarnation of Vishnu) over Ravana, the king of Lanka who had abducted Sita, wife of Rama.
Dussehra is celebrated at the end of Navaratri, a nine-day festival. Images of Durga are worshipped during the Navaratri festival and stories related to the goddess and to the conquest of good over evil are told. Navaratri is celebrated with great enthusiasm in Gujarat, Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Prayers, devotional songs and colorful rituals mark the occasion of Navaratri and Dussehra.Ramilila is another exciting feature of this festival where the story of Rama, the God King of Ayodhyaya is depicted in a dance-drama form on all ten days of celebration.
On the 10th day i.e. the day of Dussehra, buffaloes representing the buffalo-demon Mahisasura are sacrificed to the goddess. The evening of Dussehra sees the burning of the colorful effigies of Ravana, complete with 10 heads and curling moustaches, and those of his son and brother. This spectacle is marked by setting off of a fusillade of fire-crackers and the triumph of good over evil is commemorated once again.
The legend underlying the celebration, as also its mode of conduct, varies vastly by region; however, all festivities celebrate the victory of the forces of Good over Evil. It is also considered to be an auspicious day to begin new things in life. It is the largest festival of Nepal and celebrated by Hindu and non-Hindu as well.
There is another and little-known legend associated with this festival, one associated with the Mahabharata. During the exile period of 12 years that the Pandavas underwent after loosing a game against the Kauravas, they found it necessary to lay aside, for the length of the final year of their exile, the many divine and distinctive weapons that they possessed. These they hid under a 'Shami' tree in the vicinity* of their chosen place of incognito residence. At the end of a year, they returned to the spot, found their weaponry intact, and worshipped in thanksgiving both the Shami tree and the Goddess Durga, presiding deity of strength and victory. Meanwhile, the Kauravas had invaded that area, suspecting the residence of the Pandavas there. Upon finishing their devotions, the Pandavas made straight to battle, and won the contest comprehensively. The day that all these events occurred on has since been known as "Vijayadashami", where "Vijaya" is the sanskrit word for "Victory".
The Navaratri celebration is also an annual spectale in Maysore and is a must see for anyone traveling to this part of India during this time of the year. On Vijaydashami day, at the culmination of a colourful 10-day celebration, the goddess Chamundeswari is worshipped and then borne in a Golden Ambari or elephant-mounted throne, in a grand procession, through the city of Mysore from the historical Mysore Palace to the Banni Mantapa.Banni is the Kannada word for the Sanskrit Shami, and Mantapa means "Pavilion".All in all Dusshera is one of the most celebrated festivals in the Indian festival calendar. ..www.wikipedia.org

Google's Ten Commandments

This is a list of the ten things that are part of the gooogles corporate philosohpy,I guess its worth a read and definitely offers food for thought for all the google afficionados.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.......http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

Peek into a Writers Mind

Recently while browsing through the net I came across this amazing piece of writing, Its Orhan Pamuk's 2006 Nobel Acceptance Speech .It gives us a wonderful insight into what goes on inside the mind of a writer and what it takes to write a novel or for that matter any literary work. Orhan explains about how writing a book is like “Digging a well with a needle”. Click on the link below to find, what goes on inside the mind of a writer……..

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/nic/orhan-pamuk-2006-nobel-speech.htm

Inspirations from Swami Vivekananda

Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached.

Be brave! Be strong! Be fearless! Once you have taken up the spiritual
life, fight as long as there is any life in you.

Even though you know you are
going to be killed, fight till you “are killed.” Don’t die of fright. Die
fighting. Don’t go down till you are knocked down......Swami Vivekananda

To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean”, says the persevering soul; “at my will mountains will crumble up”. Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal....

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better....Swami Viveknanda

Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone—“Have no fear.”
...

Take up one idea.Make that one idea your life , think of it ,dream of it,live on that idea.Let the brain, muscles,nerves,every part of your body,be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone .This is the way to success,the way great spiritual giants are produced...

We are responsible for waht we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions,it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present action.So we have to know how to act....

Freedom can never be reached by the weak. Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong, and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself...

Go on saying, “I am free.” Never mind if the next moment delusion comes and says, “I am bound.” Dehypnotize the whole thing.

It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thought make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light. First, believe in this world -- that there is meaning behind everything. Everything in the world is good, is holy and beautiful. If you see something evil, think that you are not understanding it in the right light. throw the burden on yourselves!

Never think there is anything impossible for the soul. It is the greatest heresy to think so. If there is sin, this is the only sin ? to say that you are weak, or others are weak...Swami Vivekananda

The weak have no place here, in this life or any other life. Weakness leads to slavery. Weakness leads to all kinds of misery, physical and mental. Weakness is death....Swami Vivekanada