Sacred Flowers from this culture

I am not saying who spoke these words, but you should be able to guess!
It is a gift beyond any length of imagination to state I was born in this culture.

Patanjali:
Yoga is pure science, and Patanjali is the greatest name as far as the world of yoga is concerned. This man is rare. There is no other name comparable to Patanjali. For the first time in the history of humanity, religion was brought to the state of a science. He made religion a science of bare laws. No belief is needed.

Patanjali is like an Einstein in the world of buddhas. He is a phenomenon. He has the same attitude, the same approach as a rigorous scientific mind. He is not a poet like Krishna. He is not a moralist like Mahavira. Patanjali is basically a scientist thinking in terms of laws. He has come to deduce the absolute laws of the human being, the ultimate working structure of the human mind and of reality.

If you follow Patanjali, you will come to know that he is as exact as any mathematical formula. Simply do what he says and the result will happen. The result is bound to happen; it is just like two plus two equals four. It is just like when you heat water up to one hundred degrees and it evaporates. No belief is needed. You simply do it and know. That is why I say that there is no comparison. On this earth, there has never existed another man like Patanjali.

Krishna:
Krishna is utterly incomparable. He is so unique, and his first uniqueness lies in the fact that although he happened in the distant past, he belongs to the future. He is really of the future. Man has yet to grow to the heights where he can be a contemporary of Krishna's...

The most important reason is that Krishna is the only great man in our whole history who reach the absolute height and depth of consciousness, and yet he is not at all serious, sad, in tears. By and large, the chief characteristic of a religious person has been that he is somber, serious and sad-looking, like someone defeated in the battle of life, like a runaway from life. In the long line of all the sages, it is Krishna alone who comes dancing, singing and laughing.

Religions of the past were all life-negative and masochistic, teaching that sorrow and suffering are great virtues.  A laughing religion, a religion that accepts life in its totality, is yet to be born. And it is good that the old religions are dead, and that along with them the old God, the God of our old concepts, is also dead. Up to now, every religion has divided life into two parts, and while the accept one part they deny the other. Krishna along accepts the whole of life. The acceptance of life in its totality has come to its peak in Krishna.

Kiran Bedi @ Ted

I want to clap my hands and whistle! What a lady! I only wish this were one of the longer TED talks (~18mins). My intro to Kiran Bedi was just a coincidence. This was nearly ten years ago where I was crazily scraping and gathering every nuance of IR's life. So I came to know that a mini docu-video titled "The Real Salute" came out on which she agreed to be the main lead. Of course music was composed by IR. I remember bawling like a baby after I watched that video. So today, after this TED talk, I searched for that video and watched it again. Again, I couldn't help watching it blurry eyed. For me, India, the Indian flag are all not about patriotism. They are cultural and spiritual. The flag is a representation of it all despite being a recent addition. One sore point with the video was the mini interviews surrounding it, especially including some people who I think are the antithesis of what the video was trying to represent. The docu-video is below the TED talk.

I now know which book to read next!

Wikileaks

All this outrage, including those against Wikileaks and the corresponding parties from the revelations are understandable. These secrets, which those involved have worked so hard to keep under the covers, have been exposed overnight. The volume - the sheer physical volume of these revelations and the import of what the contain are all staggering. Naturally, people tend to polarize to two different groups. I think it is very very hard to maintain a middle ground.

As for Julian Assange, he makes some very valid points in his latest article - "Don't shoot the messenger...". It's only up to his conscience to decide whether he has a vested interest in all of what is going on or if he is really sincere about maintaining transparency.

For me, Wikileaks is of personal significance. It is all fine to get riled up about what we're seeing. But imagine for a moment - if all we thought and did was open for public scrutiny, how would we fare? It is not a social necessity, for we are all entitled to our own privacy provided we do not harm anyone else. But this is the irony we're facing. These acts that were perpetrated were done so under the assumption that they were "private" and they were changed overnight by these revelations. These revelations are not jokes. I think they are best used by each one of us for our own introspection.

As for these revelations:

- I agree there is a fine line in deciding whether what Wikileaks did is legal or not. It is akin to trespassing into someone's home and peeping in. But in the end you find that the guy inside the house was building a nuclear bomb to blow up the planet? How to tell right from wrong here? Additionally, the analogy is not 100% true. Someone from inside the house leaked information outside about what he considered to be a danger for everyone. What was eventually uncovered is there for everyone to see. Under the circumstances, the decision is a no-brainer!

- There is no doubt that there will be more fervent gating processes to avoid such leaks. We're already seeing changes in US military to react to these revelations. But is it right on their part to still play police on what should happen to Wikileaks? Shouldn't the roles be reversed?

- All those who have been exposed should be held accountable. We've seen Governments doing one thing and lying to their own public about what happened. People have been kept in the dark about what really went on. But who to take up this job? I have no doubt that majority of the Governments will be in the same boat if exposed. And I personally wish they are.

- I think the best thing for people to do is to call for transparency to be built into day to day Government and corporate frameworks. Classification is currently synonymous to "we don't want you to see what we're doing". Probably a review of all classified items should happen to see if it is really necessary.

- Finally, we need peer organizations doing what Wikileaks is doing. Fearless journalism is becoming a rarity. Instead of them sucking up to Governments and major corporations, if more are more news networks take up the job of exposing the truth, the scale of such events will make it much harder for Government's to intimidate.  Doesn't the fact that there are over 1600 mirrors for Wikileaks in case the main site is forced shut show an indication of what people really want to see? The best place for that to start is for people who are naturally setup with that infrastructure - the media! Instead of sensationalism, why not push for the truth and in turn transparency?

In the end, Wikileaks is about you and me. Introspect! Align yourself to the truth you wish to see on the outside! Whether Julian Assange himself falls into that category is for him to decide.