Sharad poornima kheer

Sharad poornima is the full moon that falls in the sharad ritu( sep- nov).  Although we witness full moon in every month,  what makes sharad poornima special is this day moon will be very near to the earth and the moonlight is highly beneficial.

 If kheer is made and kept under moonlight and consumed the next day is highly beneficial for health and it acts as immunity  booster dessert.  Increased immunity  in the body can solve many health related problems  like heart problem,  hairfall,  depression,  anxiety,  hormonal problems,  menstrual problems of females,  as moon is related to womens health in Ayurveda.

Recipe of kheer:

• Rice - 1/2 cup
• Milk - 1 litre
• Sugar - 8 tablespoon
• Cardomom powder- 1teaspoon
• Sliced dry fruits - 1tablespoon 

Procedure: soak rice in water for 20  minutes.  In a saucepan  bring milk to boil,  drain all water from rice and add it to the boiling milk mix very well.  Add sugar when rice is half cooked and cardamom powder,  sliced almond,  cashews,  pistachios and raisins when rice is fully cooked. Kheer is ready 

Sharad poornima falls on october 13,  sunday.  Do gift ourselves health that nature is giving us just by eating this delicious dessert.  

Secrets of Gayatri Mantra

"Om bhur bhuvah svah tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat"

Meaning of the Gayatri Mantra:

The earth, the planets, and the galaxies are moving at a very great velocity, the sound produced is om( the name of formless god). That god who manifests himself in the form of light of suns is worthy of bowing / respect. We all therefore should meditate upon the light of that deity and also do chanting of om. May he guide in right direction our intellect.

Gayatri is a mantra of righteous wisdom and therefore, it has been called a be  jeweled crown of all the mantras.

The Gayatri Mantra was discovered by sage Viswamitra. The Gayatri Mantra enabled sage Viswamitra to use weapons which bowed to his will when the Mantra was repeated with faith. Through the powers he attained in this way, Viswamitra was able to create a counterpart of this cosmos. Dr. Howard steingeril an American scientist, collected Mantras, Hymns, and invocations from all over the world and tested their strength in his physiology laboratory. Hindus' Gayatri Mantra produced 110,000 sound waves/ second. This was the highest and was found to be the most powerful hymn in the world. The Gayatri Mantra has 24 syllables and when recited, these syllables address 24 different centers in the body. The 24 syllables are bijamantras, and their ultrasonic wave patterns. They positively affect the subtle centers of the human body, and  almost act like password to human consciousness. Through the combination of sound or sound waves of a particular frequency, this mantra is claimed to be capable of developing specific spiritual potentiabilities. The Hamburg university initiated research into the efficacy of the Gayatri Mantra both on the mental and physical plane of creation. Gayatri is Annaporna, the divine Mother, the Divine force that animates all life.

Health benefits of chanting the Gayatri Mantra:

• Calms the mind
• Improves immunity
• Increases concentration and learning
• Helps keep your heart healthy
• Improves the working of your nerves
• Helps beat damage caused due to stress
• Strengthens the mind and keeps depression at bay
• Gives your skin a glow
• Helps relieve the symptoms of asthma.

Theory of Relativity and Hindu story

"Sahasra yuga paryantam ahar yad brahmano viduh ratrim yuga sahasrantamte ho ratra vido janah"

By human calculation, a thousand ages taken together is the duration of Brahma's one day. And such also is the duration of his night. Since theory of Relativity is complex let us understand this through mythological story.
One of the very first time travel stories recorded in history appears in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, speculated to be written as early as 400 BC.

The story follows a king Kakudmi, his daughter Revati, and their search for a perfect suitor. Kakudmi humbly bowed and made his request to Lord Brahma:
O Brahma! To whom sahall I  betroth this daughter? I have searched for many princes and seen also a good many of them and none of them is to my liking and so my mind is not at rest. Brahma laughed at the foolishness of the king. Brahma said o king! The Prince that you thought would become the bridegroom of your daughter, all died; their sons and grandsons and their friends even have all passed away. Brahma goes on to explain, time runs differently on different planes of existence. During the time they had waited in Brahmaloka to see him, 27 chatur yugas , had passed onearth, everything that kakudmi had and owned, his friends and family, his sons and wife, his armies and treasures, had vanished with the time that had passed. The king and his daughter were overcome with astonishment and grief for everything they had lost, but Brahma comforted them, and recommended a worthy husband currently on earth: Balarama, the twin brother of  Krishna.
Is this because the plane or abode of the creator was only to be inhabited at a higher speed much higher than the speed of light?
Is it possible that srimad Bhawata was actually referring to a phenomenon that Einstein later came to in his Theory of Relativity and the effects of Travel at or over the speed of light.
Were king Kakudmi and his daughter two unwitting time travellers? What they thought were just minutes in front God Brahma. Millennia had taken place at home. When they came back from Brahmaloka, they did so to a vastly different place.
What is really interesting though, is how similar their view of time was 2500 years ago to how Physics and aAstronomers conceptualize space- time today.

 In the theory of Relativity as proposed by Albert Einstein, this is relative to  the observers frame of reference. It depends on the observers motion and strength of gravity. For instance one could argue that time here on earth runs slower than in space because gravity slows the passage of time. In the sane way that Einstein says time is relative to the observers frame of reference. It depends on the observers motion and strength of gravity, Brahma tells the father and daughter 2500 years before Einstein was even born that, time runs differently on different planes of existence. That is, during the time they had waited in Brahmaloka to see Brahma 27 chatur yugas had passed on earth.  

Story of Leelavati

Leelavati was the daughter of famous Mathematician and Astrologer Bhaskara2.

 Bhaskara was apprehensive about his daughter's inquisiveness and curiosity. The little girl Leelavati asked her father many questions and gained a lot of knowledge this way. As she grew up, Bhaskara decided to get Lilavati married. In this process, Bhaskara perused Lilavathi's horoscope. He was shocked when he found out that Lilavati would not have a happy married life if she did not get married at a particular auspicious time. He did not tell Lilavati about this, as he despised hurting his daughter. He made all arrangements to make sure that Lilavati would get married at the auspicious time. In order to make sure that he did not miss this particular time, he kept a cup with a small hole at the bottom of a vessel filled with water, arranged so that the cup would sink at the beginning of the destined auspicious hour. He forewarned Lilavati not to go near the vessel. When Bhaskara was not around, Lilavati, could not hold her curiosity and went to see what her father had devised. When Lilavati went close to the device, she bent forward to get a closer look. A little pearl from her nose ring fell into the water. She rushed back in a hurry so that her father would not find out what she was up to. The little pearl at fell into the water upset the calculations made by Bhaskara and the wedding took place, but not at the auspicious hour. As destined, Lilavati's husband died a few days after the marriage. Bhaskara brought back his widowed daughter to his residence. She seemed disinterested in the normal day to day activities. Bhaskara found it very difficult to see these changes in his daughter. He thought of a way to get her out of her depressed state. He posed arithmetic problems at Lilavati about the things around her and asked her to find  the solutions to the problems. Lilavati the brilliant girl that she was, solved all the problems posed to her. Lilavati's mind which was busy in solving the problems posed by her father never again got depressed.
Bhaskara wrote Siddhanra Shiromani in 1150 AD. This colossal work is divided into four parts. Lilavati, Bijaganita, Ganitadhyaya and Goladhyaya and consists of about 1450 verses. 

Alamelamma's curse to Mysore kings

"Talakadu maralagali malangi maduvagali, mysuru doregalige makkalillade hogali"
" may the city if talakadu turn into sand, may the town of malangi turn into a whirlpool, may the rajas of Mysore not have children for eternity"
This was the legendary curse uttered by Alamelamma before she leapt to death by jumping off a cliff into the whirlpools of river kaveri at Talakadu.

The story of the curse unfolds like this:

There was a guy called tirumala ho died of a disease called " disease of the kings". His wife Alamelamma owned a lot of jewellery. As a widow, she had no further use of these jewellery so she donated them to the temple of Sri Ranganayaki. Every Friday and tuesday, the statue of goddess was decorated with those jewellery and on other days they were kept in Alamelamma's safe. The temple authorities requested raja wodeyar to give them the custody of jewels so Raja Wodeyar sent a couple of army to  seize  those jewels from Alamelamma. She got really pissed and uttered those terrible words and jumped into river kaveri at talakadu.

Effects of curse:

1. The city of Talakadu was completely buried under sand and was abandoned by its residents. Even today the temple lie buried under sand and are dug and exposed every twelve years.
   
2. At Malangi, the river turns extremely vigorous and whirlpools are a common sight.
3. Every alternate generation of Wodeyars have had a problem with heirs ,
   
   the current king Yaduveer krishnadatta chamaraja Wadiyar was adopted by srikantadatta Wadiyar who had problem with heirs. On November 20, 2015, Yaduveer was titled the new maharaja of Mysuru.

Plausible logical explanation to all these effects of the curse as investigated by Historians , Geologists, Archeologists and Scientists:

1. In 1336, Madhava mantri, a minister from vijayanagara Empire built an anekattu, a dam across the river just about Talakaaadu. This dam is likely to dry up the river path exposing the sand banks of the river. And Talakadu receives strong winds from the northwest and the Southwest which could move sand particles towards Talakadu.
   
   
   Thus the sand covering the town of Talakadu is a consequence of the movement of the movement of the particles from the river  and over  the 18 century, the city was slowly abandoned by its residents due to accumulation of sand.
   
2. Geologists have demonstrated that there is an active fault running along the path of the river which made the river kaveri shift its course. Also, the river takes sharp turn at Malangi and the water is quite deep resulting in the vigorous torrents and formation of whirlpools. 
   
   
3. This is probably one of the most speculated question of all time. The first two could be geological reasons but how the hell do you explain the lack of heirs in the Royal family, given that none of the previous rajas were impotent?  Well, its genetics. Wodeyars married within their urs community. There were only about a dozen of "well bred" inter- married urs families from which all the spouses of the Wodeyar family came from. This may have caused something called inbreeding depression".
   
   Only 10 out of 19 rulers didn't have heirs. All the adopted rulers had heirs but their second generation did not, because of this "inbreeding depression". But as of now so many kings have married princess belonging to Gujarat and Rajasthan, currently on 27 June 2016 Yaduveer Krishnadatta chamaraja Wadiyar is married to Trishika kumari Devi, who hails from the royal family of Rajkot, Rajasthan.

All the Mysurians are hoping and praying in this concern that Alamelamma's curse come to an end and the Wodeyar's family cherish in prosperity and Happiness, as the Wodeyar dynasty had highly contributed to the development of Mysuru. 

Science behind Indians eating food by hands

The hands are a major center for tactile sensations which are processed by the most advanced portion of the brain- the cortex. A more recent discovery is that tactile sensations also involve other portions of the brain to literally give us a 3D image of what we are touching. So its no wonder that Indians who eat with their hands insist the food tastes much better this way!. They are absolutely right. This is called mindful eating. So Indians who eat with their hands get a multidimensional experience of their food. We get more bang for our buck thanks to touching our food. We Indians get

• The sight of food
• The smell of food
• The texture/ temperature of food.

 Indian food is traditionally served in a thali like a palette of flavours and textures which we can combine in various combinations and permutations and get a different experience ever time.
However some common myths about why Indians eat with their hands should be discarded such as

Indians didn't have spoons?

Its certainly not for a lack of spoons. Indians used spoons gir religious rituals everyday and we had very cool looking spoons  to boot.

Indians were poor to afford utensils?

Even wealthy and middle class Indians eat with their hands, so its not because of poverty.

Indians were unaware of different cultures?

Indians were well travelled from ancient times with traders trading goods as far off as Egypt, Rome and China so they knew how non ndians used to eat food with utensils. 

So one can assume it was a deliberate decision, a well thought out decision.

Importance of ganga jal

Ganges originates in the western Himalayas, the river has great spiritual significance to Hindus, who worship it as the goddess ganga. Its water popularly called gangajal is considered sacred and is used in many religious rituals. A holy dip in ganga river  is said to remove the sins of several births. Merging the ashes of the departed in the Ganges water is said to confer them liberation.

Ever wondered why our ancestors plain ignorant when they used gangajal for purifying everything no!. It has been determined that, there is variety of bacteriophage present in water of the Ganges which origin in Himalaya. Bacteriophage are special variety of viruses which have capacity to enter their genetic material in the bacterial body, take control, modify functioning and burst it up, and multiply at the same time. Thus majorly killing almost all the bacterial population in the water. These bacteriophages can not infect humans. Thus, the water of the Ganges considered very pure and purifying.

The above pic depicts the life cycle of bacteriophage. Oval shaped figure is bacteria, and crystal shaped spikey figure is bacteriophage.  The ayurvedic, naturopathy's and other supportive medical authorities have authenticated that regular use of this holy water is helpful in keeping the users healthy, robust and strong.
 Hence it is our duty to keep ganga and major rivers of India clean without polluting it. Public awareness and government interest is necessary in this concern.