The Complete Works of Swamiji

I remember stacking up so many books of Swamiji, I perfectly understand there cannot be a substitute to a book made of paper and printed with words from a press ink. But the modern age fury, makes us so accustomed to e-books. I felt one good thing about e-book is the quick search facility. But yet we miss the beauty of appendix pages.

I came across this wonderful online depositary of Swami Vivekananda's Complete Works. Importantly the collection compiles all the public and private addresses, with extensive material written on all the Meditation methods, thesis on so many rare topics, article He wrote for Newyork papers and Chicago Papers, ofcourse the Chicago Speech.

www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/complete_works.htm

Chicago... I'm coming to you...

I'm so crazy about this city, Chicago, the best part of the story is I never been to Chicago at all. In previous life? I dont know. But this city somehow created a huge inspiration. In my boyhood days, I have read some of the beautiful things about this City. The first ever book I bought was a small 30 pages book-let, "Swami Vivekananda's Chicago Address". I got that in a subway in Madras, when I was about 10. Back in my 20s, I was hearing a lot of Jazz music. Surprised to learn that, all the Jazz legends are either from Chicago or Detroit. I've been to detroit, its a city in decline, no much jazz scene there, except the Motown Museum. But Chicago is still a great place for Jazz.

But my mind isnt thinking of just listening jazz music there, but walk those iconic streets, where my favourite jazz musicians walked and smoked out their jazz improvisations. Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, whomelse. Everybody walked and played on those streets. I just wanna walk in the smokey streets of jazz, and breathe the inspiration from vibrations of great jazz composers. Chicago is to Jazz like, what Vienna for Classical music.

(I'll make my maiden trip to Chicago this weekend)

Orange juice at the Snow-lit window pane

I clicked this picture in my hotel room, it was a snowy day out, bristles of powdery snow slowly creeping on the trees and grass. The private lamps illuminates a preferably dark night, with the white reflections from the snow-roads. I inside my 60F warm room, poured orange juice into a glass, and was about to sip. But wondered the beauty nature beheld. God is the mighty artist of this large white canvas. 

This picture was shot from a dark room, with only the snow reflections adding color of brightness. I took a little care in capturing the geometry and depth of my window pane.

Turner Classic Movies

I got a wonderful channel here in united states, called TCM, Turner Classic Movies. They broadcast old classical movies from 40s to 60s, sometimes even from 20s. Yesterday I was watching a very good Italian Movie called Giulietta degli spiriti (1965). Its more a kind of visual psychology movie. All the mental stress and distraction the lead role Juliet feels is portrayed as visuals in real time. I loved the way the director interpretted the fears and fantasies. Capturing them in real-time is other part of the ethology. I loved it top to bottom. 

Today I saw a very funny romantic-comedy called 'The Bachelor And The Bobby Soxer'. i dont know why they name Bobby Soxer comes in the title, but I loved it too. I liked the lead role Nungent’s personality and the stubborn, hard heroine Margarat’s attractive face. Their love chemistry and dialogues, everything looked perfect. The Margarat's character is skeptic, strong toned, secret obsession, dislike, romance, possessive. The Nungent's character shows a well disciplined man's outfit with a little darker past and little close to a criminal record. Now whenever I say 'little close' I wonder, how close? Definitely not far!! The character that suffers the teenage love is the sister of Margarat, another funny-schooler  in her late teenage.

reactions on 'scandals in monarchies'

I literally feel, to be precise, spiritually feel: the last sect of monk and saint-ism ended with Swami Vivekananda. I understand there is not true life of saint or monk or buddha after him. A monk is a being of high spiritual composure, one who has extreme control of all his senses. Sadly, lately no spiritual guru has been the way  Swamiji was & is!! 

I understand there are many meditators and fellow monkologists, but still all these men walk across the thin line of Saint and a Sinner..... may be thats a curse to the modern world.....

I dont get it!!

I dont get it!!

God is a cool guy with hippy philosophy, but Scientology never looks that way. When someone comes to you and say 'some 12 trillion years ago God created these valcano holes'. It needs a daring heart like ed hardy art on black tshirts. I dont get it. There are only 2 categories of people, Religious People and Sane People!!

freedom of speech.

I got to tell you, I see so much of freedom to talk in America.

I was watching this stand-up comedian, called Bill Maher. He really made me laugh on so many topics, i never dreamt i'll enjoy a topic like that. but also, he has this knack of putting forth his points and practical issues with the topic. but the degree of freedom he enjoys is damn huge.

He's more than a stand-up comedian, he tours and fills galleries of 10000 and just entertains them for an hour with just non-stop speech and fun-filled topics.

I saw his show on HBO, he talked on aero-science, barack obama, black models, arabian models, health care, why men are crazy, why men looks other girls, the tiger wood scandal, he made fun on everybody, including jesus christ. i was mouthshut to see the way he interprets the current affairs. i just cant imagine such a thing can ever happen in India. someone in NDTV or IBM talking like that, abt prime minister or some holy God. that results in riots. why?

because we are fundamentalists... we dont want entertainers, or news readers, or anchors, or radio jockeys to touch our fundamentals. as long as he comes round the  our ethics, we are fine. but if tries to punge into our fundas, we react strongly, sometime badly. thats the difference.

in India, we have so many voices, talking together, like a kindergarden class before prayer bell. 

This Bill Maher, has an assaulty style of putting words, against himself and in his little sighs, he explain a whole lot of new ideas.

I tried browsing his name, and found and added in my facebook.

everyday on the way to office, taxi driver plays a canadian radio station 88.7Hz. its a talk show of group of 2 guys and 1 girl. they dont have any specific topic, they dont have boundaries too. they talk on every possible topics of the world. the most frequent  one is 'adulesant events'.. i was not that interested in the beginning, i use to hit the seek button and change to a rock music station on 96Hz. but then i started getting the essence of the show. they pick every instincts of public opinion.

one good thing being in America, you atleast get a chance to watch others using their freedom of speech to the extreme most, unimaginable level.