Sri Rama Stuti

Listening O.S.Arun singing Rama Stuti is an amazing feeling. And to think of this was written about 600 years back by  Tulsidas is mindblowing

Rama

Shriramachandra kripalu bhaju man haran bhavabhai darunam,
Navakanja-lochana, kanjamukha, kara kanja pada kanjarunam.

O my heart! Sing praises of Sri Ram, Who absolves the greatest fears due to the cycle of life and death, and Whose eyes, mouth, hands, and feet are like a newly blooming red lotus
Kandarpa aganita amit chavinava neel-neeraja sundaram,
Pata peet manahu tadita ruchi shuchi noumi, janaka sutavaram.

I bow to Sri Ram, Whose beauty cannot be compared with that of the cupid Kamdev, Whose pleasing appearance is beyond any measures, Whose body is like a newly formed dense blue cloud, Whose yellow robes are shining like lightening (on His cloud like body), Whose beauty is gleaming, and Who is the consort of the daughter of Janak (Sita)
Bhaju deenbandhu dinesh danav-daitya-vansha-nikandanam,
Raghunand anandakand koshalachandra dasharath-nanadanam.

Sing praises of Sri Ram, Who is the friend of poor, Who is the Lord of Sun, Who expurgated the lineage of demons from Danu and Diti, Who is the dear one of Raghu, Who is like a cloud of happiness, Who is like a moon for Kausalya, and Who is dear one of Dashrath
Sira mukuta kundala tilaka charu udaru anga vibhushanam,
Aajaanubhuja shara-chaapa-dhara, sangrama-jita-khara dushanam.

Sing praises of Sri Ram, Who has a beautiful crown on His head, Who is adorned with ear-hoops, Who has a beautiful colored mark (tilak) on His forehead, Who has expanded and beautiful organs decorated by ornaments, Who has long hands reaching His knees, Who holds a bow and an arrow, and Who defeated Khar and Dushan in a fierce battle
Iti vadati tulasidasa shankara-sesha-muni-mana-ranjanam,
Mama hridai kanja-nivaasa kuru, kaamaadi khala-dala-ganjanam

Tulsidas says this; Ram, the enticer of Shiv, Shesh (Sheshnag), and saints, reside in my lotus-like-heart and destroy the evils generated by desire

Packet Learning

Packet Switching is a process which most modern communication systems use to transfer information from one place to another. It’s the process of breaking down large amount of data into small chunks called – ‘packets’. This works wonderfully and all of TCP/IP is based on it. I have realized that I could apply same principle in learning new things, getting things done too. I call it packet learning and packet doing.

I have couple of things that are always going on or I am learning constantly. I have decided that everytime I learn something new, I would write about it and if possible draw about. This is typical me – visual thinking. But I have a hard time to locate a online service which would give me a free hand drawing. I heard Adobe would port it’s Photoshop to online in another 6 months. I would be the first guy to sign up to that.

As for getting things done – the packets way. I am still stuck with some good GTD software that runs on my desktop and stays on top of all windows and also syncs with a online service and my blackberry. I think it’s too much to ask that. But till then, I am exploring couple of systems which I could use.

Being Myself

Today I had another productive meeting with David. We talked about how procrastination is so common and David suggested some cool techniques which I plan to follow for the next 1 week to see how it works out. It all has to do with taking one small step at a time. I also need to make sure that 1 little step better be focussed and firm. I have to keep in control my distractions. I agreed that when I was following ‘The Now Habit” book – I enjoyed my working states of 30 mins each. The way  it works is – I would work for 30 mins with no distractions and then take a break and repeat.

So here are some guidelines for myself to remember while I am on my path to this:

  1. Keep the end in mind
  2. Take small steps
  3. Give and enjoy my 100% during that small step

In this process, I discovered that all the time I am trying to be someone else. All the time I am trying to follow someone else. This has happened somewhere in my life and I didn’t notice it. I am so stuck inside of it that I didn’t even realize it. I also want to practice being myself and being forgiving with minor mistakes I commit.

It’s all about principle

Today I had a wonderful meeting with David as a part of our weekly meetings. It was such an amazing process of learning for me. David is this highly motivated guy who can nicely charm anyone into his inspirational talk. We were talking about BDD(Behaviour Driven Development) and took a small task and broke it down to a BDD format. If you look it up, there are no books yet on BDD. The very little literature is some blog posts and some observations on websites. But it’s an outgrowth of something called TDD – Test Driven Development.

So, anyhow all during the meeting I keep on thinking that I am going to come across some book that will tell me exactly how to do BDD. But today I realized that doing or implementing BDD based upon a book or a blog post is nothing but working on a ‘practice’. It doesn’t mean that I actually grok the ‘principle’ behind BD. So this whole process I underwent with David really helped me to see the principle behind it and just work on it. Our own implementation of BDD will be our own ‘practice’ of the general ‘principle’ – which is perfectly ok.

But I just had to know that and learn it. Realizing that is such a powerful experince to me. I am thankful for the learning.

The Producer’s talk

In his great book called – The Now Habit – Niel Fiore describes how producers differ from procrastinators. Here are 5 common sentences that needs to be replaced in procrastinator’s language.

  1. I have to ==> replace with ==> I choose to
  2. I must finish ==> replace with ==> When can I start?
  3. This is so big ==> replace with ==> I can take one small step.
  4. I must be perfect ==> replace with ==> I can be human
  5. I don’t have time to play ==> replace with ==> I must take time to play

This book has such a unique take on procrastination. Everything he talks about how and why people procrastinate – I can relate to. I have a plan setup for the next one week. I will be following the techniques taught in this book and see how I fare.

Project Rhino

I have a great opportunity at work to hone my Javascript skills. We are productizing an amazing and simple piece of web software and it pretty much involves converting basic Coldfusion, inline javascript code to make it a pure javascript library. It is going to be fun and I am excited that I would learn javascript the proper way and use it in a object oriented fashion. I like to call it my own little ‘Project Rhino’ –