Seven Secrets of Success

1. Roof says: AIM HIGH.

2. Fan says: BE COOL.

3. Clock says: EVERY MINUTE IS PRECIOUS.

4. Mirror says: REFLECT BEFORE YOU ACT.

5. Window says: SEE THE WORLD.

6. Calender says: BE UPDATED.

7. Door says: PUSH HARD TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS!

A Thought for Today : December 31, 2007

I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully - Ernest Hemingway

A Thought for Today : December 30, 2007

Among the attributes of God, although they are equal, mercy shines with even more brilliance than justice - Miguel De Cervantes

Eyecatchers-49: 'Cheaper Energy through Wafer-thin Solar Panels'

'Nanosolar, a company in California, USA, has started mass production of wafer-thin solar panels printed on aluminium foils. It is expected that this will make solar energy cheaper. The news has excited the entire energy sector all over the world.

Courtesy: 'Newscape', The Hindu, Madurai, December 30, 2007

Facts & Figures-14 : World Population

Every TEN SECONDS, the world's population increases by 27 people. Of these, 26 are in the developing countries.... The UN estimates that by 2050, there will be 11 BILLION . There is no guarantee that the earth plus science will be able to support a population of that size.

Courtesy: India 1000 to 2000 : A Millennium Book of Reference, Express Publications (Madurai) Ltd

A Thought for Today : December 29, 2007

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away - Ben Hecht

Suggestions for a Happy Life!

· Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.
· Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
· Be forgiving of yourself and others.
· Be generous.
· Have a grateful heart.
· Persistence, Persistence, Persistence.
· Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.
· Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.
· Commit yourself to quality.
· Be loyal.
· Be honest.
· Be a self-starter.
· Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life.
· Take good care of those you love.

A Thought for Today : December 28, 2007

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity - Seneca

A Thought for Today : December 27, 2007

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind - Bertrand Russell

Facts & Figures-13 :

India has the largest number of illiterates: 350 million. 250 million Indians lack safe drinking water.

Excerpted from “Resurgent India is the responsibility of this generation: Narayana Murthy” by Sarah Hiddleston, ‘Education Plus’, The Hindu, Dec.24, 2007. (Based on speech delivered by Mr.Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor and Chairman, Infosys Technologies, to management students from across the country gathered in Chennai for L'attitude, an annual management festival organized by Great Lakes Institute of Management)

A Thought for Today-185: December 26, 2007

It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves - Thornton Wilder

A Thought for Today-184: December 25, 2007

Life has a meaning, our birth has a meaning: that meaning is to realize in ourselves, in each one of us, something of God, to express in our daily life something that is associated with God, knowledge, kindness, benevolence, purity and happiness. - M.P.Pandit, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

A Thought for Today-183: December 24, 2007

Unstable emotions not only disturb our own state of mind, they also disturb the minds of others - His Holiness The Dalai Lama

A Thought for Today-182: December 23, 2007

The more we are able to develop an altruistic attitude, the happier we will feel and the better the atmosphere we will create around us. - His Holiness, The Dalai Lama

63,540 Quotations from PoemHunter.com!

PoemHunter.com gives 63,540 Quotations from 4826 famous persons, author-wise and subject-wise! My grateful thanks to PoemHunter.com!

For link to the Quotations page of PoemHunter.com:

http://www.poemhunter.com/quotations/

Q&A-2: How are we to live in a world full of violence, greed, envy and brutality? Will we not be destroyed?

“By eliminating these negative elements from our personal life, we can create a solid, living fortress, around ourselves. Impurities shy away from Purity. Even if an individual is destroyed by a combination of evil forces, in the very act of dying he releases energies that will eventually overcome the power of evil for the benefit of mankind.

- M.P.Pandit, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

Courtesy: “M.P.Pandit: A Peep into his past” by P.Raja
Published by DIPTI Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry-605002

Q&A-1: How can we get rid of the present world-wide violence?

“By creating centres of peace, pockets of peace, wherever we can. First we start with ourselves and then associate with others who are on the same wave-length. This is a sure way of combating the forces of violence on the subtle levels.”

- M.P.Pandit, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

Courtesy: “M.P.Pandit: A Peep into his past” by P.Raja
Published by DIPTI Publications, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry-605002

Self-improvement-43: 'Right Beginnings' - James Allen

Ø Life is full of beginnings. They are presented every day and every hour to every person. Most beginnings are small, and appear trivial and insignificant, but in reality they are the most important things in life.

Ø When a man begins the day by rising early, he will find that the silent early hour is conducive to clearness of mind and calmness of thought. It will enable him to meet any and every difficulty with wisdom and calm strength.

Ø Begin today aright, and, aided by the accumulated experiences of all your past days, live it better than any of your previous days. The character of the whole day depends upon the way it is begun.

Ø Another beginning which is of great importance is the beginning of any particular and responsible undertaking. The right beginning and first essential is a definite method plan on which to build.

Ø Your whole life is a series of effects having their cause in thought – in your own thought. All conduct is made and moulded by thought, all deeds, good or bad, are thoughts made visible.

Ø The man who patiently studies how to put into his mind the seeds of wholesome and charitable thoughts, will obtain the best results in life. The greatest blessedness comes to him, who infuses into his mind the purest and noblest thoughts.

Courtesy: James Allen’s “Byways of Blessedness”
With grateful thanks to: Professor S.Raghunathan, Former Director, Computer Centre, Alagappa University, Karaikudi-630003, Tamilnadu, India

A Thought for Today-181: December 22, 2007

Life is not meant to be somehow lived. It is to be geared to one central purpose if one is to achieve anything at all. - M.P.Pandit, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry

A Thought for Today-180: December 21, 2007

Evolution is always experimental. All progress is gained through mistakes and their rectification. No good comes fully fashioned, out of God's hand, but has to be carved out through repeated experiments and repeated failures by ourselves. This is the law of individual growth. - Gandhiji

A Thought for Today-179: December 20, 2007

To be conscious is the first step towards overcoming - Sri Aurobindo

A Thought for Today=178: December 19, 2007

Happiness means that our life is rhythmic and harmonious - Swami Paramananda

A Thought for Today-177: December 18, 2007

Happiness lives clothed in the garb of work - Swami Rama Tirtha

Eyecatchers-48: Super chip moves IT optically - ELECTRICAL SIGNALS CAN BE TURNED INTO LIGHT BEAM

Like a highway sign that says 'No Entry,' semiconductor designers may soon face the end of the road on the electric pathways used to move signals inside a computer chip. As they slide into the multi core era - where one slab of silicon might well house 2, 4 and soon 8, separate processing cores - they are grappling with a pressing problem: 'How to build the copper rails that carry the signals between the cores thin enough to squeeze more and more transistors on a computer chip. Even Intel co-founder Dr.Gordon Moore, whose "Law" predicted the doubling of chip complexity every two years, does not give current technology more than a decade, before it faces a physical roadblock.

Which is why last week's announcement by IBM, of a breakthrough in swapping copper rails for an optical waveguide is causing some excitement in the semiconductor industry.

A waveguide is the optical equivalent of a pair of railway lines - it forces an optical beam to stay within the guide. IBM engineers reported in the journal Optical Express that they had succeeded in converting the electrical signals of today's microchips into beams of light. Since these can be much, much, finer than the thinnest copper rail, they believe this will allow chip makers to put, not just dozens, but hundreds, of separate cores on a single processor, all simultaneously attacking the task at hand. Even the waveguide carrying all these beams would be 200 times thinner than a strand of human hair.

In other words, the first hurdle to creating a supercomputer in a box, maybe even on a single chip, seems to have been crossed. But please don't rush to order one any time soon.

The researchers say practical systems that deploy optical waveguides within silicon chips, are at least a decade away - Special Correspondent, Bangalore, The Hindu

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, December 17, 2007.

Grateful thanks to The Hindu.

A Thought for Today-176: December 17, 2007

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, but to love wisdom and live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust - Henry David Thoreau

A Thought for Today-175: December 16, 2007

That which is inherent in man is his virtue - Gandhiji

A Thought for Today-174: December 15, 2007

The only way to have a life is to commit to it like crazy - Angelina Jolie

A Thought for Today-173: December 14, 2007

Life is the gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom - Greek adage

Eyecatchers-47 : 'Sun no longer biggest body in the Solar System' - Michael Hopkin, Nature News Service

The Sun is no longer the largest object in the Solar System: That honour has fallen temporarily to a previously innocuous comet. The comet called 17P Holmes, shot to prominence in late October when its brightness suddenly increased roughly a million-fold.

Since then, both its size and its profile have grown - earlier this month astronomers at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy declared that its diameter had outstripped that of our Sun.

Many ancient cultures interpreted comets as portents of doom. Should we be worried? Are not comets supposed to be small? It seems ridiculous that the titanic Sun could be dwarfed by a comet.

Although huge in diameter, 17P Holmes 's gravitational field is negligible in comparison. "Its just a few snowflakes per cubic meter," Roche says - a far cry from the superdense, raging nuclear inferno of the Sun.. So how is this comet holding together? It is not really.

The ice is falling away from the comet's core, and as the coma gets bigger it also gets more dispersed. Eventually it will get so big and spread out that it won't even be discernible as belonging to the comet anymore. Is 17P Holmes dominating the sky?

Not exactly dominating, although it is visible as a fuzzy 'star' in the northeastern skies, and should continue to be large and bright for weeks, if not months.

Holmes Comet has been seen to burst in brightness before. In November 1892 and January 1893 it displayed a 'double burst' - although the Hawaii astronomers describe the current ongoing burst as "unprecedented."

It is very difficult to say what triggered this outburst, Roche admits. "Comets are tumbling through space, flexing and rolling," he says. "They are undergoing lots of stresses and strains, and they are very porous - they are more like Swiss cheese than a solid ice cube, so bits can easily crack and flake off." It is also possible that an interaction with the Sun's 'weather' - a stream of radiation flowing from the Sun - could have triggered the comet to bloom in brightness.

And it is showing signs of developing a tail, as many comets do when when their comas begin to be buffetted backward by the Sun's rays. How long will it last? Also difficult to say. The Hawaii team estimates that it is still expanding at a staggering 0.5 kilometres every second. But Roche points out that, the more it grows, the more its mass dwindles as its ice drifts off into space or gets left behind. "It is shedding mass all the time," he says. "It may just fade away and become a normal, unspectacular comet again." Some porous, rocky bodies in the Solar System are thought to be the rocky corpses of comets that have lost all their mass. Others, such as Shoemaker-Levy 9, are ripped apart when they stray too close to other huge bodies such as Jupiter. And some comets just die a mundane death, Roche says: "Every now and then, they just fall apart, almost as if they are dying of old age."

Excerpts from: "Sun no longer the biggest body in the Solar System" by Michael Hopkin
Courtesy: The Hindu, Science & Technology page, December 13, 2007

Eyecatchers-46 : 'Net Kiosks in Villages soon' - M.Dinesh Varma

The public-private partnership initiative to bridge the digital divide by opening Internet kiosks across villages in Tamil Nadu is likely to be rolled out over the next few months.

As many as nine players have bid for a stake in operating an estimated 5,400 cyber kiosks or Common Service Centres in the State. The bidding process concluded on Friday and a shortlist is expected to be framed soon.

"We are looking to place orders by the end of the month," IT Secretary C.Chandramouli told The Hindu.

Each kiosk would have a computer, a scanner and printer, besides broadband-enabled Internet connectivity. The Common Service Centres were being set up in the State as part of a Union Government drive to take the benefits of Information and Communication Technology to the grassroots.

An estimated one lakh such centres were proposed across the country on a ratio of one for every three villages. The exercise was estimated to cost about Rs.5,500 crore, to be shared by the Centre, the State Government and the private sector.

The kiosks would offer a range of e-governance services, including issue of application forms, certificates and payment of electricity, telephone and water bills.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, December 12, 2007

A Thought for Today-172: December 13, 2007

Life has meaning, to find its meaning is my meat and drink - Robert Browning

Facts and Figures-12: Internet

1. As of March 31, 2006, according to Internet World Status, over 1.02 billion people use the Internet.

2. Google Search Engine claims indexing 8.05 billion pages, whereas Yahoo claims 19.2 billion.

Courtesy: Manorama Yearbook 2007, p.204.

Grateful thanks to Manorama Yearbook.

A Thought for Today-171: December 12, 2007

The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears or the sea - Isak Dinesen

A Thought for Today-170: December 11, 2007

Fear is the dark room where negatives are developed - E.L.

A Thought for Today-169: December 10, 2007

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside awakens - Robin S. Sharma.

Grateful thanks to Mr.Robin Sharma, my favourite writer.

A Thought for Today-168: December 9, 2007

Great dreamers' dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended - Alfred Lord Whitehead

A Thought for Today-167: December 8, 2007

History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided - Konrad Adenauer

Self-improvemnt-42: "Rules of Living"

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

Never spend your money before you have it.

Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap.

Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.

We seldom repent for having eaten too little.

Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.

How much pain the evils cause us that have never happened.

Take this always by the smooth handle.

Wit & Wisdom-2: "The Many Facets of Life"

Life is a dream - Realise it.

Life is a challenge - Meet it.

Life is a struggle - Accept it.

Life is a game - Play it.

Life is a treasure - Search it.

Life is an adventure - Win it.

Life is a duty - Perform it.

Life is a tragedy - Face it.

Life is an opportunity - Utilize it.

Life is a mystery - Unfold it.

Life is a bliss - Take it.

Life is a promise - Fulfil it.

and above all

Life is a journey - Complete it.

A Thought for Today-166: December 7, 2007

Ultimately, life is all about choices. One's destiny unfolds according to the choices one makes - Robin S.Sharma, "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari".

Grateful thanks to Mr.Robin Sharma, my favourite writer.

Eyecatchers-45 : 'Man in the Moon' is four billion years old - AFP

The plains of solidified lava that give the moon its quirky human-like face as seen from the earth were created more than four billion years ago, according to a paper appearing on Thursday, in NATURE, the British science weekly.

The evidence comes from an unearthly silvery-grey stone that was blasted off from the face of the moon, perhaps by an impacting asteroid, and was the captured by the earth’s gravity, prompting to fall to ground in Botswana.

In 1999, the 13.5 kg remnant of this roving rock was found by local people near the village of Kuke, in the grasslands of the sprawling Kalahari Nature Reserve, who then sold it to meteorite hunters.

The lunar heritage of the rock, named Kalahari 009, has been confirmed by a telltale signature of oxygen isotopes and ratio of iron to manganese in two volcanic minerals, olivine and pyroxene.

The nature of these chemicals puts the rock into the category of a mare basalt – a lava that flowed out smoothly onto the lunar surface before solidifying, forming dark plains that early skywatchers mistakenly took for seas, “Mare” in Latin.

New analysis

A new analysis of fragments of phosphate in Kalahari 009 puts the rocks at the whopping old age of 4.35 billion years, give or take 150 million years, the Nature study says.

This implies that mare-type volcanism must have occurred at least as early as this date, just after the first stage of lunar crust formation, say the authors, led by Kentaro Terada of Hiroshima University in Japan and Mahesh Anand of Britain’s Open University.

Mare volcanism overlapped with a later stage of volcanism, evidence of which was found in rocks picked up by the Apollo missions.

The ‘Man in the Moon’ comprises eyes made of the Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis, a nose consisting of Sinus Aestuum, while the Mare Nubium and Mare Cognitum provide its mouth. These and other mare account for nearly a sixth of the lunar surface, mostly on the side visible from the earth – AFP

Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, December 6, 2007.

Grateful thanks to The Hindu.

A Thought for Today-165: December 6, 2007

The pursuit of perfection is the pursuit of sweetness and light - Mathew Arnold

Self-improvement-41: "Ten Minutes of Daily Tonic - Prof.Dr.N.H.Athreya"

Be warned, some one told me humorously, when you meet Swami Nikhileswarananda. He will hand you a bomb.

The bomb refers to the booklet, "Thoughts of Power" by Swami Vivekananda.

I learnt later that Swami Nikhileswarananda has distributed over 1,00,000 copies of this little book in the past few years. He placed a beautiful suggestion before the participants of the seminar on Management & Leadership recently held at Rajkot: "Purchase 10 copies of this booklet containing powerful thoughts and present them to ten friends with a request that if they find the book inspiring and elevating, they should in turn present ten copies to their friends; a fission like reaction will take place and you will undergo tremendous transformation, leading to the transformation of the whole society."

I liked the idea. I too have made a beginning. What is my logic? Thoughts lead to words, words lead to action and action leads to results and consequences. Since we all want positive results, we have to start with good thoughts.

And where do you find them?

You find them in a number of places. The availability is not the problem. Availing of it is. One unfailing place to start is the bookstore of any Ramakrishna Mission Centre. Modestly priced books are there to cater to all tastes. If you want cartoon type of books, they are available. If you want heavy volumes, they are available. Books you can carry in your shirt pocket are available too.

If you don't want to read, if you would rather prefer to listen, you are welcome to audio and video cassettes. For example, the three volumes of Bhagavad Gita by Swami Ranganathananda are available now in print media. For quite some years, they have been available in video cassettes form.

Our output depends in good part on our input, especially of thoughts.

I have found that 15 minutes - that is the minimum - of reading of any of the Math's publications energizes me for the day. If you will find it difficult to spare 15 minutes a day, you can make it 10 minutes; only, make it a DAILY ten minutes. It may help you as it has helped me, since 1938.

Please do not ask me for book title suggestions. The list will be long. I can list some of the books. I recently read or re-read. They are are: God Lived with Them; They lived with God; Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna; Parables of Sri Ramakrishna; Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda; Ramakrishna Upanishad and Bhagavad Gita by Swami Ranganathananda.

The books are available in a number of languages. I find some of the books read better in the Indian languages.

In 1938, I started with an investment of one rupee a year in good books. Now it is one thousand rupees per month. I give this information for only one reason. It pays to invest in books. Compared to other countries, India offers books at modest prices. Ramakrishna Math offers first-class books at most modest prices, almost token prices. It is an available blessing. It blesses when it is availed of. My prayer is that you avail it.

Article by Prof.Dr.N.H.Athreya, Management Consultant & Founder Director, MMC School of Management, Mumbai

Published in Souvenir of Ramakrishna Mission, Porbander.

Grateful thanks to Prof.Athreya and Sri Ramakrishna Mission, Porbaner.

A Thought for Today-164: December 5, 2007

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all - Peter Drucker

A Thought for Today-163: December 4, 2007

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others - Mahatma Gandhi

A Thought for Today-162: December 3, 2007

A real great man is the man who makes every man feel great - Charles Dickens

A Thought for Today-161: December 2, 2007

One way to get blood pressure is to go mountain-climbing over molehills - Earl Wilson

A Thought for Today-160: December 1, 2007

Ignorance is a form of environmental pollution - Frank Freeman

A Thought for Today-159: November 30, 2007

A ship in harbour is safe - but that is not what ships are for - John Shedd

A Thought for Today-158: November 29, 2007

Life is no brief candle - it is a splendid torch - Bernard Shaw

A Thought for Today-157: November 28, 2007

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about - Charles Kingsley

A Thought for Today-156: November 27, 2007

The world is a book. Every step we take opens up a new page for us - Lamartine

A Thought for Today-155: November 26, 2007

Truth has to fall on fertile soil - Paula D'arcy

A Thought for Today-154: November 25, 2007

Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment - Oprah Winfrey

A Thought for Today-153: November 24, 2007

Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos. - Cullen Hightower

A Thought for Today-152: November 23, 2007

Change is not merely necessary to life. It is life. - Alvin Toffler

A Thought for Today-151: November 22, 2007

Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self-respect springs - Joan Didion

A Thought for Today-150: November 21, 2007

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

A Thought for Today-149: November 20, 2007

The greatest possession you have is the twentyfour hours directly in front of you - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-148: November 19, 2007

The train of failure usually runs on the track of laziness - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-147: November 18, 2007

The best way to forget your problems is to help someone solve his - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-146: November 17, 2007

The heart is the happiest when it beats for others - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-145: November 16, 2007

Language is the expression of thought. Every time you speak, your mind is on parade - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-144: November 15, 2007

Laziness and Poverty are cousins - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-143: November 14, 2007

You can win more friends with your ears than with your mouth - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-142: November 13, 2007

Don't be afraid of pressure. Remember that pressure is what turns a lump of coal into a diamond - God's Little Devotional Book

A Thought for Today-141: November 12, 2007

Age is a matter of living, not of years - Cicero

A Thought for Today-140: November 11, 2007

The greatest truths are the simplest and so are the greatest men - Hare

A Thought for Today-139: November 10, 2007

Yesterday is a cancelled cheque; Tomorrow is a promissory note; Today is the only cash you have. So spend it wisely - Kay Lyons

A Thought for Today-138: November 9, 2007

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plain living and high thinking, the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment - Mahatma Gandhi