Girish's Blog

MAHASHIVARATRI – 2ND MARCH, 2011 JAI BABA SWAMI We had reached Hotel Royal Regency at 7.30pm and checked in. There were 17 of us and six rooms had been booked well in advance in anticipation of the rush. All the normal hotels were booked more than a month in advance and we were left with no choice but to book in this relatively new hotel. The hotel did not have any restaurant, so we had dinner in our rooms and retired for the night. We left the hotel for the Ashram at 4.30am. We were expecting a huge queue on the approach road based on past experience. In fact till about ten days ago the road was narrow, hence our expectation. But PP Swamiji takes care of everything through his mediums, the roads had not only been more than doubled but also made relatively level, plus parking arrangements had been made for the buses which were expected. We just drove into the Ashram very smoothly, parked and left for the discourse mandap (tent). The mandap (tent) was huge, made to house more than 1...

PP Gurudev’s 45 days Anushthan and Ashram facilities P.P. Gurudev, Shree Shivakrupananda Swami Maharaj, entered his 45 day Gahan Dhyan Anushthan (Intensive Meditation) on 17th January, 2011 which culminates on the holy occasion of Mahashivratri. He enters Anushthan every year for 45 days, during which he is close contact with his Guru’s in the Himalayas. He does not have any physical/inter-personal contact with anyone and stays in complete isolation and seclusion in a special room at Dandi Ashram. The only contact is through Vandaniya Guruma and certain select devotees. Communication is by means of written notes only. This year I had the opportunity to go thrice to Dandi to attend the full day program apart from March 2, which was the last day, being the occasion Mahashivratri. On all three occasions I experienced phenomenal vibrations, and the energy at the Ashram was palpable. In fact every time I prayed for getting the experience of the Himalayas, of Kailas Parbat, the a...

The common themes of her words reflect her work with the lonely, the sick, the dying and the destitute. Her unending love came through in her work and in her words. She was forever compassionate towards the loneliness felt by “wealthy” people who on surface had it all. She was also very concerned about the breakdown of families. Here are a selection of her words which say it all : • Every-time you smile at someone; it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. • I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. • If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. • Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. • Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very...

I have been travelling by road on the National Highway from Mumbai to Navsari regularly for the last two years. It was always a pleasure to drive in Gujarat as the qualitative difference in the highway tarmac once you passed from Maharashtra into Gujarat was telling. Maharashtra has always collected toll as a matter of right to make money and not for maintenance of roads which is the purpose for which tolls are collected. The Mumbai High Court has also passed strictures on the state government for collecting tolls without maintaining the roads. Gujarat used to be different – the roads were a carpet and the drive a pleasure – the drive to Navsari used to take about four hours as opposed to the bumps in Maharashtra. This was till about eight months ago, when the NHAI (National Highway Authority of India) in all its wisdom decided to start construction of the Mumbai-Delhi Industrial Corridor with the plan to construct bridges to enable flow of fast traffic. In principal, the idea is brill...

This is from a mail by received from a fellow Chartered Accountant. Total Scam Money (approx) Since 1992: Rs. 73000000000000 Cr. (73 Lakh Crore) Hard to digest ? Just check the below given details 1992 -Harshad Mehta securities scam Rs 5,000 cr 1994 -Sugar import scam Rs 650 cr 1995 -Preferential allotment scam Rs 5,000 cr Yugoslav Dinar scam Rs 400 cr Meghalaya Forest scam Rs 300 cr 1996: -Fertiliser import scam Rs 1,300 cr Urea scam Rs 133 cr Bihar fodder scam Rs 950 cr 1997 -Sukh Ram telecom scam Rs 1,500 cr SNC Lavalin power project scam Rs 374 cr Bihar land scandal Rs 400 cr C.R. Bhansali stock scam Rs 1,200 cr 1998 -Teak plantation swindle Rs 8,000 cr 2001 -UTI scam Rs 4,800 cr Dinesh Dalmia stock scam Rs 595 cr Ketan Parekh securities scam Rs 1,250 cr 2002 -Sanjay Agarwal Home Trade scam Rs 600 cr 2003 -Telgi stamp paper scam Rs 172 cr 2005 -IPO-Demat scam Rs 146 cr Bihar flood relief scam Rs 17 cr Scorpene submarine scam Rs 18,978 cr 2006 -Punjab's City Centre project sca...

This is adapted from a mail I received. In these days of daily scams, here is some food for thought - Learn the "Art of Giving" The Art of Giving "Rivers do not drink their own water, nor do tree eat their own fruit, nor do rain clouds eat the grains reared by them. The wealth of the noble is used solely for the benefit of others! Even after accepting that giving is good and that one must learn to give, several questions need to be answered. The first question is: When should one give? We all know the famous incident from Mahabharat. Yudhisthir asks a beggar seeking alms to come the next day. On hearing this, Bhim rejoices that Yudhisthir his brother, has conquered death! For he is sure that he will be around the next day to give. Yudhisthir gets the message. One does not know really whether one will be there tomorrow to give! The time to give therefore is now. The next question is: 'How much to give?' One recalls the famous incident from history. Rana Pr...

I was not as prepared for this marathon as the 2010 edition as most of December had gone indisposed due to cough and cold. Nevertheless, more than a year off drinks and a more scheduled and disciplined lifestyle meant I had increased stamina. In fact I was doing 10km in just about 65 minutes. I did the 21km trial run on the Sunday prior to the marathon in 2 hours 25 minutes or so. On the earlier Saturday, I tried matching my younger daughters’ folk dance steps and matched to tweak the muscle tissue on my left knee. The older you become the younger your mind thinks it is, but in actuality the body does age and if you listen to the mind and do something stupid the body says, “boy, are you stupid!” and promptly gets damaged. I called the physiotherapist and she told me to rest for a week, and when I told her that I cannot rest as the event just a week ahead, she said ok, apply ice packs and take Combiflam, if required. So that’s what I did for the entire week and just ran 7 to 10 km every...