Eau de Cologne.

Cologne was first produced in the German city of the same name; it has been used for many purposes including as a substitute for alcohol. It usually contains distilled water with 70% alcohol and 6% of fragrant oils added for perfuming. Eau de Cologne evokes images of swooning corseted Victorian ladies, who were used to being fanned with perfumed handkerchiefs to beat the sultry summer heat and the sweaty odors of tropical summers. I n the old days Neanderthals, cave men and women, due to lack of personal hygiene smelt like skunks. This meant that social and sexual intercourse were severely restricted- nature’s way of family planning one assumes. However as homo-sapiens evolved the ancient Egyptians discovered perfumes and the Persians perfected the art of blending and storing them, thereby considerably diminishing the assault on the olfactory senses. Cologne’s medicinal properties have not been confirmed, but in India a cold compress was used on foreheads to reduce fever. Gian Paolo Feminis created the Eau de Cologne in 1709. Deodorants appeared many decades later and is mainly used to mask body odor. Unlike perfumes deodorants come in a variety of forms i.e. roll- on, sprays, gels, and liquids. deodorants were first commercially produced in Philadelphia, USA in 1888 and the brand name was “Mum’’ it consisted of aluminum derivatives, though of late aluminum free deo’s are also available. Cologne and perfume are applied to pulse points unlike Deodorants which are applied to underarms. Manufacturers fool men into believing that Deodorants can attract women to them, while ladies are made to believe that perfumes will draw men like bees to honey. However though both claims are debatable it has spawned a billion dollar industry worldwide. – In cocktail conversations sprayed by Yusuf Begg-

Tweet Tweet!

Birds were born to make the repetitive, pleasant, meaningless sounds called twittering.The tweet is a pure expression in bird form of communication. If homo -sapiens after evolving for countless years, acquiring knowledge in arts, literature and science revert to twitter in their communications; it would seem like a human reincarnation of bird brains in their after life of progress. Lots of people on Twitter do think you’ll enjoy the spectacle of their snacks. They tell you what they’re eating, where they’re going, what they’re consuming, never mind why you should care. They tweet something cryptic to the point of senselessness. This is the tweet that says, whatever its actual content, “I have nothing to say but I want to say something.” The Rise of the Tweet takes place amid an internet-induced cheapening of language, in both good and bad senses. The economic cheapness of digital publication democratizes expression and gives a necessary public to writers, and types of writing, that otherwise would be confined to the hard drive or the desk drawer. And yet the supreme ease of putting words online has opened up vast new space for carelessness, confusion, whateverism. Outside of Twitter, a coercive blogginess, a paradoxically de rigueur relaxation, menaces a whole generation’s prose (no, yeah, ours too). This means that Twitter, officially a microblogging platform, in practice has often functioned in a way opposite to the blog. Of course a tweet is just a tweet, not to be made too much of. Aphorisms are ideally consumed like nuts or candies, a handful at a time. It has also brought about a surprising revival of the epigrammatic impulse in a literary culture. Write as short as you can/ In order/ Of what matters. Few things could appear much worse, to the lurker, glimpser, or guesser, than this scrolling suicide note of Western civilization. Never more than 140 characters at a time? Looks like the human attention span crumbling like a Roman aqueduct. – n+1 Please RT.- Beep Beep the IT Road Runners are here.

Gods have feet of Clay

. Whether it is Greek, Eastern mythology or the holy books, the Gods and Goddesses have human frailties. This is why it makes it easier for us to empathize and identify ourselves with these characters and sensibilities. If Jesus was identified as a superman then he couldn’t have been killed. So like Grimm’s fairy tales all these chronicles strive to drive home moral statements. In Hindu philosophy the emphasis is on the earth’s process of transient conservation, which is a result of the continuous cycle of creation and destruction. However in nature we must be careful not to overuse our natural resources at a faster rate than we can replenish them. Wanton destruction of the Amazonian rain forests is a grim reminder that we should not destroy the habitats of the birds, fish, earthworms or even the tiny bacteria which help us keep the ecological balance. The Garden of Eden is a classic example where Adam is warned against yielding to the temptation of biting or consuming more than one can chew or needs. Because in your greed, if you destroy Eden, it will be difficult to build another garden as beautiful. Everything in nature including the sunlight that is beamed at us is designed to absorb and at the same time reflect outwards. Here too the simple philosophy is apparent, what we absorb or take from nature is designed in such a way that we end up reflecting more than what we absorb. This is the true essence of the philosophy of spirituality and science also endorses the phenomena that light color reflections are greater than the absorptions. Our life is a journey in space and time, both symbolic and mythical because the manifestation of the infinite is an incomplete finite. The truth is we can never measure up to the full potential of homo-sapiens until we properly understand; that all of us including God if any are tiny particles of the Universe and its wholeness. Similarly whether it is god or mankind, both will be beyond human comprehension unless we take acceptance of the complexities of humanity. Chaos is the pre-condition for destruction and creativity and even the Gods will not be spared

Guide to Bible

Suppose you had never heard of Christianity, and then one Sunday morning, a stranger standing in a pulpit, told you about a Holy book whose authors could not be authenticated and whose contents, written hundreds of years ago, included blood curdling legends of slaughter and intrigue – fables about unnatural happenings such as virgin births, devils that inhabit human bodies and talk, people rising from the dead on the third day and ascending to live in the clouds and suns that stand still. Suppose, he then asked you to believe that an uneducated, unkempt man described in that book was a God who could get you into an eternal fantasy- place called Heaven, when you die. Would you, as an intelligent rational person, even bother to read such utter nonsense, let alone pattern your entire life upon it? Ruth Green-

Do you have thoughts about Death and what happens after Death?

Well, no single person who has ever lived will be able to tell you what happens, period. And no single person who died has come back to tell us. There are so many theories floating around, nobody’s right and nobody are wrong. So what do you do, then? How does our minds work, and what we think about—let’s call it “The disappearing mind stream”—when you follow your thoughts and watch them attach to certain things, it makes certain things real and other things unreal, and you realize that this is all created by your mind. In some way it’s that elusive, intangible struggle that propels everyone forward—it has no end. So you’re doing something that’s endless, and you will never find out what it means, but you do it anyway. Having a little bit of a context gives you this illusion of its having meaning, but what is the meaning, really? Then it becomes beyond terrifying. What are you doing it for? Illusion is one of the most interesting things that we have found to think and talk about. We don’t really know how it works, but we know that in some way we are and in some way we’re not having this conversation. Just look at yesterday, and what you were doing, and how important it was, and how nonexistent it is now! How dreamlike it is! Same thing with tomorrow. So where are we living? Tibetans and Eastern spirituality have unbelievably fascinating answers to that. This is what I’m studying, insightful introspection because my dog diedand it is called Karma. –Xanadu-

Demystifying the Vedas.

Out of ignorance people tend to confuse religion with spirituality. Similarly the Upanishads and Rig Vedas a treatise on life and nature is identified incorrectly with holy books like the Bible and Koran. The Vedas are the gist of a compendious account of nature using a semi scientific approach which if interpreted correctly can lead us to an understanding of ourselves vis a vis the Universe. However to arrive at this understanding is like forming a diamond from carbon and coal. One has to dig deep and search to find the truth contained in it. The infinite universe consists of inanimate, sentient, insentient and external energy or spiritual substance. Apart from earth, fire, air, water and ether, there are infinite spiritual entities which form the subtler parts of the universe. Out of this chaos through a centrifugal action directed outwards is the force that controls the world, the old and new world is part of this same material. Like the eye of the storm if you can enter the centre of your being, you will find the answers to all that you seek. According to the Vedas our minds our endowed with limited knowledge and understanding. Only with great intellectual powers and development can we perceive that which is not visible. Hence we need to build our thoughts to realize the higher consciousness. Lesser mortals due to limited version think they perceive God in the invisible multifarious ways of the world. They discern him through images, photos, idols, temples, churches, mosques and create multiple religions each one differing fundamentally in their beliefs. Hence, so much strife, discords, conflicts and violence is perpetuated in the name of God. These meta-physical truths are clearly expounded in the Vedas where man’s relationship with nature converges on common ground. Spiritual evolution does not require God or religion, just awareness of the mind and self. Sometimes a common belief which everyone follows and thinks is obvious can also be wrong. God may be fascinating but our classical view of spirituality as part of religion is definitely wrong. Spirituality is self correcting, reality is never easy, and there is no blasphemy or sacrilege or sin in spirituality, it only enables one to understand the universe and be a part of it. –Vinay-

Social intercourse

Social bonding is amongst the most basic of human desires and was prevalent in the old liberal regimes of the past. In the early colonial period ladies and gentlemen dressed in intellectual costumes, would frequent English dining rooms, Scottish Pubs, and French salons. It was the age of eloquence and conversations, as people dabbled in political engagement with cultural authority. A vibrant literary culture thrived during the 19th century as people sought out human connections. The melancholic temperaments of that era were conducive to the idea that bodily fluids determined character. When political authority collapsed these people carried out their everyday diplomatic dinner meetings to look beyond themselves. All of them wanted stronger relationship, and were not sure how to go about establishing this human bondage. The old world charm was to be courteous, deal seriously with grave matters and gracefully with the lighter ones. They considered it bad manners to criticize people behind their backs or talk about oneself and generally stuck to subjects of general interest like the weather or economy and never lost their tempers or shouted at each other. Intellectually engaging a wide array of discerning people in soirees is a dying art with the advent of internet, face book, LinkedIn and chat. The new cyber world will produce a new electronic collectivization of complex and efficient form of cognition and communication, but it can also lead to historical amnesia and mass manipulation. Will it erode our civic virtues and traditions of the past? Only time will tell. All of us are now elated with the prospect of staying up all night and chatting with friends or lovers….