Of Yog and Consumerism

[First Draft on 19 July]

I m reading "Raj Yog" by Swami Vivekanand now a days ... [although its not a book to be read but practised still lets begin somewhere :) ] I came across this concept of evolution Vivekanand claims that the seers and the founders of religions actually went past through in their lifetime which the entire humanity will take ages to achieve whatever they did. That brings me to the topic of this post .... consumerism ... our society is becoming more and more consumerist day by day ... the kind of Yog Vivekanad describes relies heavily on renunciation .... there is absolutely no scope for consumerism ... so if we look forward as a civilisation we are not achieving our ultimate goal ... as a lifeform that is evolving ... I am not sure but it definitely seem that way from here.

So are we actually seeing the downfall ... is the civilization evolving in reverse ... probably the answer to this also lies in the same text. It says that body is the ultimate tool we have, to achieve salvation ... its like a map which by itself is not what you what and once you have achieved your target does not matter but when u start searching for your goal it is important. Only a person with a healthy body can start doing Raj Yoga ... although that is not a sufficient condition that is a necessary one. It is also said that one should neither work too hard or too little ... in summary one needs to have a moderate good life if they ever are to start practising Raj Yog ... not to mention they should not worry about getting square meals.

Probably some centuries back conditions were just perfect for that but they are no more ... if we talk of India then there are many people who are more busy fending for themselves than anything else. People travels like animals in local trains and work like asses. The same can be said of many poor places in the world where the conditions of living are not good. Consumerism as it has grown in USA seems to be a solution for this ... the middle class there enjoys just the perfect amount of luxuries needed.

The humanity missed its chance sometime in the past. But strange it may sound consumerism is the way forward towards the salvation of humanity. The standard of living has to grow ... and only when one has food in ones stomach, hygienic living conditions and good quality of life can thoughts of spirituality enter the mind.

So I believe we have hope ... we as a society are not moving backwards but towards the ultimate goal ... One may ask that if such standards of living have already been achieved in US ... why does not everyone search for the ultimate goal of life .... the answer ... Things are much better now ... an average person with his needs satisfied cares more about a fellow human than one's whose arent ...

I hope my optimism is based on facts in the other case as well ... there is nothing to fear ... coz if wat Swamiji says is to be believed ... its the destiny of mankind to be salvated ... if not today may be a thousand years laters ...

PS: Again posted during my midsems ... boy I just turn too creative around dat time

Pehle Aap

My hopes stands in good faith and it does not take me 2 years to rite back again ....

Your blog is supposed to tell a lot abt U but mine doesnt ... infact it does not tell anything except that I njoi playing with Linux and belong 2 a class of wannabe(m not sure if this was the right word) geeks.

Well a different facet this time .... I am crazy abt renewable energy ever since I can remember ... this love has brought me back from the job of a Software Engineer to do an M.Tech in Energy Science and currently m working on Organic Solar Cells (OSC).

So back to the topic of this blog ... any1 from India can easily guess it has something to do with Lucknow ... well not exactly Lucknow but close ... its Kanpur. We dont have a lab for OSC in IITB so am here in IITK trying 2 learn the tricks of the trade.

To start with Kanpur inside the campus is an awsum place ...its infra is GOD compared 2 IITB but then there are always other things we have better there ... an obvious eg ... Their T-shirt for intercollegiate festival says "The biggest best intercollegiate festival in Asia India" ... The other being the punch line of MoodI ... IITB's fest :) ... Riting something on a T shirt does not help Kanpurities :P

OK the better things ... well there are a thousand things worth riting but let me stick to the ones that are most subtle ... the really good ones.

1. I am walking down a lane and ask some1 4 directions ... that person was not only kind enough 2 tell me the directions but offered me double seat on his cycle (they would never offer u lift on a cycle in Mumbai ... I dont :D )... but it does not end there ... We come across a turn where I had to take a different path ... now this really cool dude ... offers me 2 drop me till my hostel ... I politely refuse ... but he does not seem to budge infact when he finally agrees he has expressions on his face as being sorry abt that ... so he decides to make up for it and offers to buy me a juice in a nearby juice counter ... BOY Kanpur is cool ... isnt it ....

2. I had a broken button and away from home it can be a big problem so I tried borrowing a needle from a tailor within campus ... did not feel like shelling out money for a button ... So I go to this tailor and ask for it ... he offers me to take it away ... I insist I will fix it there and return him .... and then as soon as I take my shirt from my bag he offers to stitch it .... He not only stitches that button but almost all of them coz they were on the verge of breaking .... now how do I say thanks to this guy ... I cant offer money for his hospitality that would be gross .... "Idea !!!" So I but him a nice icecream and he is as happy with it as I am ....

A short part of my big travelogue of visit 2 Kanpur ... probably one of the best parts ... Isnt Kanpur cool ... and so is Life !!! made up of such wonderful moments

Intrepid Ibex .... Refreshing

It took me about 2 years to get back to the scene again. And the most ironical part is that I am doing this during my Mid-Sem exams .... hehe ... but then as they say ... fact it stranger than fiction .... fiction has to make sense ...

So what brings me back here .... A good internet connection and a head bored of studying and with lot 2 tell abt its expts with Intrepid Ibex .... Ubuntu's latest distro.(Yes its still the latest stable release)

So what is interesting ... firstly the graphics .... quite beautiful this time ... with some really cool workspace and window switching graphics ... Check out here

But inspite of this I still have a dual boot system with Vista Ultimate .... and its not just the MS compatible programs that are holding me back ... I still cant see the elegance of Vista in Linux ... neither Ubuntu nor any other .... Applications like Firefox or ThunderBird look so much more elegant in Vista but unfortuately not in Ibex ... but then thats OK and I can live with that .... Just a tht ... its my blog right ;)

And although almost everything worked out of the box .... 2 things caused me a lot of pain ....
1. My wifi card Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 was not detected ... Took me quite a while before I could fix it. You may find more details here and how I fixed it
I needed a firmware upgrade

2. I am behind a proxy server in my university which need authentication and the network authentication part of Ubuntu is still buggy continuing its legacy from 8.04 .... It cant handle 'dot' in login name ... and God knows may be in password also ... I have filed a bug in bugzilla ... but I dont know if they will fix it sometime soon .... Fortunately for me a friend of mine has lended me his non-dot containing login name and password for my linux use .... GOD must be in his finest mood [generally] when he decides hostel life for some1 .... May be if possible I may someday look into the code myself and try to fix it and win the coveted title of a contributer to Linux .. ;)

Well enough for today ....I have not been able to study since I have installed Linux ... (Billy u listening ... I have something against Linux u may use) ... Have been playing with it all day and nite .... personalizing it and fixing issues ....

Hope my next post will be pretty soon ... Not after another 2 years ... Kip checking

Cheers
PK