E-SATSANG WITH SWAMI ISHWARANANDA

It's been a long pause. But I am very much alive!! Did not feel the urge to write/post anything. But now since I do, here is something for the soul.

I have subscribed to E-Satsang by Swami Ishwaranada of Chinmaya Mission here in LA. We had several satsangs with him back in Powai when he was teaching the bramhachari course at the ashram there. Those were some wonderful days!!! A different phase altogether... Here I am posting one of his E-Satsang's:
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We have heard that when you give you receive more. It is equally true that only when you have received you will give whole-heartedly! Only then you can understand the power of giving…

If you have received timely help from strangers, you willingly support the helpless

If you have received compassion from your elders, you excel in forgiving others

If you have received inspiration from your teacher, you empower your student

If you have received unconditional love from God, you become a compassionate soul

Only a befitting receiver is a qualified giver!

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There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else. - Peyton Conway March

=====================================Humor

A man was walking through a rough part of town when a beggar in threadbare clothes came over to him and asked him for two dollars.

“What do you want the money for?” asked the man. “Is it for drinking?”

“No”

“Will you gamble it away?”

“No”

“Then will you come home with me so I can show my wife what happens to a guy who doesn’t drink or gamble?”

Sandwich love!!

I am an ardent fan of sandwiches and love them in any form. They can be made nutritious by adding a lot of different veggies, cheese, chutneys, sauces etc. and are totally filling and tasty as well. We achieve all the objectives in just one dish! And there's no limit to the variations one can come up with...

One of the food blogs I always read and feel inspired is Nupur's One Hot Stove... I recently happen to read her recipes for Grilled cheese sandwich and Cheese vegetable toast (Link's here), which I felt was a must try. But somehow decided to combine the two and came up with this version: Avocado grilled cheese sandwich over the last weekend! (Deadly combination for people who are already on diet!!!)

You must be thinking, I must be an Avocados fan since it was mentioned in my previous recipe too. But the fact is I keep buying them in the hope that my daughter will eat it some day (although in vein), and have to device new ways of consuming them before they spoil... One of the many good things about Avocado's is they can be consumed as it is. More on Avocado here.

Coming back to the recipe, for most part I followed Nupur's method, but with a slight variation.

Ingredients:

Potato - 1 (boiled & grated)
Avocado - 1 (mashed coarsely)
Any veggies of your choice finely chopped (I used Capsicum, Cucumber, Tomato)
Grated cheese as per your liking
Green chili to taste (optional)
Chat masala - 1 tsp or as per taste
Salt to taste
Spicy green chutney

For Green Chutney:

Grind together to form thick paste: coriander leaves with stems, mint leaves for flavor (I used dried mint leaves since I did not have fresh ones), green chillies, ginger, garlic, salt and a dash of lime juice.

Method:

Mix all the ingredients except the green chutney. Take 2 slices of bread and apply butter or butter substitute on both sides of bread. Slightly toast one side of each bread. Apply chutney on the toasted side and fill with the mixture. Press a little & toast it in a pre-heated sandwich maker. I toasted both sides of sandwich on a heated pan on medium-low heat and covered it while toasting so that the inside got well-heated and melted the cheese (Also suggested in Nupur's method).

The final outcome was amazing... It was crispy on the outside and perfect in taste... As you can guess, the sandwiches disappeared with no trace ;-) Will definitely keep making these in future....

Are we compromising our Nation's security?

Now a days browsing has become our second nature. We unknowingly turn to Internet out of sheer habit. And browsing comes with associated security keywords such as Anti-virus, Firewall, Anti-Malware, Anti-Spyware, Anti-Spam and so on... A lot has been written about Internet/ computer security. But how seriously do we take this issue?

Most of us use Windows operating systems (which is prone to a lot of security issues! [A topic in itself ;-) ]) on home & office computers. If we are using company laptops, the network/ security team takes care of it's security, of course that doesn't end our responsibility!! But what if we are not? I have seen a lot of people who don't care, (Probably they assume that somebody else takes care of this or maybe they don't understand the severity or they just assume it won't happen to them since they don't do any of the things which they are not supposed to!) or the opposite, people who are finicky about security! But believe me there is no such extreme when it comes to computer security. Cause when we think we are secured, there might be something going wrong somewhere... The point here is, it is an ongoing, evolving process.

But why am I writing this boring stuff when a lot has been written already? We probably knew this all along, but forgot about the very fact, By keeping our computers secured, we are in turn keeping our Country secured!!!! How?

There have been a lot of attacks on Indian government websites in recent times esp. from China[Link1, Link2]. And possibly, many of the computers used in the attacks are based in India!!! Now how is this possible? One of the reason, because of many of the users from the first category mentioned above. Who are unaware/ ignorant of the computer security issues. Who click on links which they should not, install unauthorized software which actually are malwares, click on unsolicited emails & download attachments from such emails, and so on ... We know all that part already... Hence unknowingly not only are we compromising our own personal data, but might be helping our foes too.

What are the implications of this to our country's security? Hacking a government computer/ network is equivalent to (and still fresh in our memories) infiltration by Pakistan and the result, Kargil war! In Internet terms it is Cyber War. (The best example of cyber war would be the 2007 cyber attack on a small country Estonia once part of the former USSR and incidentally many of the computers used in the attack were in India!) Most of our confidential data is on our computers now, unlike in paper files which was the case earlier. Hence this new threat. Didn't we want it to be this way? We wanted to get rid of paper and the delays associated, as in western countries. We wanted our country to be at par with these nations. Which is certainly a good thing. But advancement in technology comes with side effects hence more responsibility!!!

Initially when it came to data, it was important to only keep the facilities with confidential material safe and secured, but now its clear that our foes don't need any physical access to wage a war against us. Internet was meant to bring people together, not otherwise!! So far, they probably don't have their hands on any confidential data, but if we don't take any action in the right direction now, they will soon have it! If our computers can be used to attack other countries, would it be difficult to use the same to attack our own?

It's become utmost important for us to be aware of computer security if we are using a computer, it's inevitable that we take necessary, positive action. We have to be vigilant while browsing. We have to learn and teach others about computer security. It's a very serious issue. It's like we are indirectly acting as soldiers in the making or breaking of our Nation... Can we, as loyal, peace loving people, live with the fact that we were in some way responsible for compromising our Motherland?
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This was a long pending thought, although not interesting to many, nonetheless important to us all, which I felt should be expressed in words. I might have sounded finicky ( which I am! :-) ), but the whole point is to stress the importance of computer security. I welcome any suggestions, pointers in this regards.
To begin with, I have posted a Trend Micro link in the 'Useful Tools' section in this blog. This is a very good site where you need not download anything, but get your computer scanned for Viruses, Trojans, etc online. It takes some 30 minutes or so, but worth it. And at the end of the scan you will know what vulnerabilities, issues exist on your computer, if any and you can take necessary action. I am planning to update the blog with more such useful security tools in coming days.

Also checkout this interesting article, China: Friend or Foe.

Raw Banana Subzi (dry)

A lone raw banana had been lying around in my refrigerator for quite sometime. I prepared the chapati dough, adding a whole avocado yesterday for my daughter (Although she did not eat it.. She has aversion to that which is edible but loves to eat that which is non-edible!!!) and hence will be having it as my lunch today. (This is what happens mostly... I make something for her adding a lot of fat and nutrition to it, and end up having it myself, so that it does not go waste!!) Anyways...

I personally love raw banana curries. The dry ones can be made in a jiffy. So this is how I made the subzi:

Ingredients:

Raw Banana - 1 Peeled and boiled in water with a pinch of Haldi till almost cooked
Onion - 1/4 finely chopped
Jalapeno - 1/2 finely chopped (or you can add green chili as per taste)
Salt to taste
Any masala (I used sambar masala)
Tadka:
Oil, Mustard seeds, Curry leaves, little Chana and Urad dal, Hing

Method:

In a non-stick pan, prepare the tadka with all the ingredients mentioned. Add chopped onions and jalapeno and fry till the onion color changes to pink. Meanwhile coarsely grate the boiled banana. Add to the fried onion. Add masala and salt to taste. Fry for 2-3 min. Garnish with coriander leaves and/ or fresh coconut.
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If you don't like your subzi too dry, you can add 1/2 chopped tomato after the onions are fried. A lot of variation can be done here. You can add ginger, instead of grating cut the banana in small cubes, if you like a little tangy taste increase the quantity of tomatoes or just add aamchur powder. My belief is that this subzi tastes good if it is a little spicy. Imagination is the limit!

I totally agree with the fact that preparing food is a science in itself... It has to be a balance of flavors, nutrition, and of course taste. I don't claim to be a scientist in this. But the truth is, I love to prepare different dishes and indulge in them. And sometimes pamper myself and family without thinking much about nutrition... So not everything prepared by me, follows the rules of food science. Although I confess that there is a lot of scope for improvement here....

I admire a lot of food bloggers who are nothing less than artists to me. Like any other art, cooking needs the same Patience, Endurance, Imagination and most of the times Dexterity! I must add that in today's "fast-food" world, Presentation is important too... And each of the artist is unique. My rule of thumb to try out a new dish from these blogs: If my mouth starts watering while reading a recipe, then it's definitely a must try!!!! Incidentally, most of the vegetarian recipes I come across pass this rule and hence a long list of to-dos is pending now ;-)

The Beginning!!!

Finally managed to break away from that unfamiliar resistance which kept me from creating my blog. I have been a silent reader of many blogs and have always been amused at how well people communicate their thoughts... I personally have always found writing as the best medium. So here is the beginning of yet another thought stream in the blogging world!!

There is so much I want to post, not everything meaningful though. Let's see how much I can actually put in words.

Selecting a name for the blog was a tough task. I wanted it to be synonymous to "Thoughts" but getting the name I wanted was a problem, due to lack of availability, hence "my-manas". And secondly because, Manas or Mind is constituted of one of the many elements "Thoughts"! The "my" sounds egoistic to me, "mind" itself is filled with ego, but that's totally another thing. Overall, the name truly reflects the essence of this blog.

I believe in the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). And I will try to follow that in this blog. I am planning to post my thoughts, views, favourites, my photography (currently in the back seat due to other priorities!), things that I find useful, and last but not the least my culinary experiments which has been my hobby, my strength!! Thanks to numerous mouth watering food blogs out there and Internet in general.

Sometimes I think how would life be without the Internet and Aah, Google! Google is a topic in itself, not that I am promoting it or anything, but it has certainly given a whole new value to search engines. Can you remember a single instance when you are generally browsing and have not Googled intentionally or otherwise? Personally, I owe a lot to Google including this blog! :-)

Signing off for now.....

with Love...