Economics: A common sense subject

It was Sept 10th 2000, I was studying the most favorite subject among students; ECONOMICS. Exams were just around the corner. I had this book, "Managerial Economics" and spent an hour and a half studying that subject. That time I had not done YES!+ but still my face carried an expression as if I had just completed long kriya. Totally calm & serene. Nothing running in my mind... My head was blank like a recently formatted hard-disk! This subject used to make me introspect a lot. (now I know why I am spiritually inclined!). It used to make me think deeper about the existence of life, human beings and finally, economics. WHY in the earth did humans create ECONOMICS??? It after graduation (in Commerce) I joined Chartered Financial Analyst. CFA in short. Here again Economics came to haunt me! But this time I decided to confront the subject and settle the score once and for all. Fortunately, I found a professor of economics who shared similar interests. He too liked to shoo away the fear of economics from the students' heart. The very first introduction he gave about economics was by saying: "Economics is a common sense subject" Then I started a journey into the world of economics. I started seeing the same boring subject in a different perspective. It now appeared exciting and colorful. This subject really influences people's lives and the nation at large. And now that I have started blogging on variety of subjects, I thought, why not have a posts on economics that brings a paradigm shift in understanding of the subject in a beautiful way? Really this is one subject that anyone with common sense can understand. The subject of Economics is really quite mystical. Even after years of economics evolution people still ask the fundamental question; What to produce? How to produce? How much to produce? It is just like asking the ownself; Who am I? What is the purpose of my life? I really hope you are not asking yourself "why am i reading this?" Enjoy Economics! Enjoy Life!

What is the purpose of knife?

Long back I attended a session with Bawa. It was really hilarious session with deep knowledge! One participant who happened to be a volunteer from a long time asked bawa a question on being a better volunteer and doing better seva. Bawa suddenly asked the person: What is the purpose of knife? The participant hesitated for a while and then replied: To cut...food.. perhaps? Bawa gave his "cool dude" smile and nodded in disagreement. He said the purpose of knife is to be Sharp... just to be sharp. It is the job of the chef to cut. Guru is the chef and you are the instrument, knife, in other words. What to cut, when to cut, how to cut that guru will decide. Your purpose is just to be sharp. Tell me which chef will like to work with a blunt knife?? The moment you think you are the doer (or that my purpose is to cut...) you get tired due to the doership in you. Just know that you are just guru's instrument. Nothing else. Just be SHARP! Jai Gurudev

"Crash" Course

I am a die-hard supporter of Firefox, Worlds best internet browser. Few months back I downloaded the latest version from the Mozilla stable, Firefox 3. But from few week I have been experiencing browser crash. Firefox, per se, is a very strong & sturdy browser. So frequent crashes is simply not its nature! In case you are experiencing the same problems then do refer to the tips & tricks I have mentioned below. But please continue using Firefox 3. 1. That's the way the cookie crumbles: Cookies in the computing world are used for authenticating, session tracking (state maintenance), and maintaining specific information about users, such as site preferences or the contents of their electronic shopping carts. A cookie named aus2.mozilla.org is the culprit that causes frequent crashes in Firefox 3. Especially when the Firefox checks for the latest version the users get this message: "AUS: Update XML File Malformed (200)". To solve this problem just go to Tools (Obviously, in Firefox application ) >> Options. Click on the Privacy Tab. Click the button Show Cookies. Scroll down to the named(famed) cookie, aus2.mozilla.org and click once on it. Below there is a button named Remove cookie, Click it. Now close that dialog box, and in the same Privacy tab there is a button named, Exceptions. Here you can block the cookie. Just type, "aus2.mozilla.org" in the field and click Block. There you go, now your Firefox is safe from frequent crashes. The other reasons for the crash can be 2. Not using the latest version of the Firefox... That's Firefox 3.0.1, for newbies. You can also click on the Orange colored "Upgrade now" button, just next to this post, to get the latest Firefox. 3. Problematic or Outdated Extensions or Plugins: Some extensions have been reported as problem creators, like:

Firefox 3:

AVG SafeSearch, XPL LinkScanner, RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin (installed with RealPlayer), ThinkVantage Password Manager (see the Thinkpad forums), PicLens Free Download Manager. Personally, I use AVG Antivirus. AVG has this Link Scanner which scans the links generated from the search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. This has caused Firefox 3 to crash many times. Just uninstall this extension! Note: Firefox does not provide ActiveX support and if you have an old ActiveX plugin installed, you may experience problems such as crashes. See ActiveX for more information. And for those using Windows platform, the VLC Media Player Plugin may conflict with the Windows Media Player plugin when playing WMP files. You will need to disable or remove the VLC Media Player Plugin to prevent this. 4. Malware: Virus & Spywares: A file named nsBrowserOpt.dll is notorious to cause enough trouble for Firefox 3 users. To eliminate this file, Exit Firefox. Then go to My Computer or Windows Explorer. Browse to the directory: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components. Delete the file nsBrowserOpt.dll. 5. Conflicts with... Google Desktop: Uninstall older version of GD and install the latest version. Downloading: If you are experiencing problems while downloading then the download history is got corrupted. To fix it first close the all Firefox application. Open the Firefox profiles folder. This folder is available here; C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\ folder (for Windows Vista users) or the C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\ folder (Windows XP/2000), which depends on your Windows user account name. Note that the Application Data Folder is mostly hidden. Alternative way is to go to Start>Run... Type %APPDATA% ("%" sign is necessary!) If the Profiles folder contains multiple folders, open the folder for the active profile. In the profile folder, find the downloads.rdf file and delete it. That should take care of the most common problems. And MOST IMPORTANTLY, when Firefox crashes it generates a crash report and starts the Mozilla Crash Report. Most Firefox users cancel it!. Do NOT make that mistake. More the reports reach Mozilla, the better it is for us. As we can get a bug free update of the Firefox next time. Enjoy Firefox. Promote Firefox. -- O.A.K. Tree Source: Mozilla

|| Ganpati bappa morya ||

For the first time in my life I participated in carrying the Ganesha Idol, attending the puja and the elating satsang in the evening. All the volunteers of Dombivli YES!+ team contributed the ideas and funds to start the YES!+ Ganeshotsav in Dombivli. This was our first Ganesh utsav. We had a battalion of exuberant guys and gals from the July 26th, 2008 YES!+ Course who volunteered for the exciting event. Hats off to Sagar, Sai, Nikita & Harshal who took all the initiative, responsibility and the truly deserving credit to make the event, super hit. On Ganesh Chaturthi, we got a pandit to worship the idol. He was an old stoic man, who guided our friend Ram in performing the puja. He explained the meaning of the ganesh puja. He said that once we install the idol of ganesha, we are in a way putting (Breathing, you can say) life into the idol. Then we offer the beloved lord with fruits, sweets, flowers and the most delicious.... MODAKs. Just the way the lord offers us with all the goddies (and some challenges) in our lives. We then do the Aarti. Divnity, in the form of sun and moon do the same aarti to us. During the visarjan or "Uninstallation" you can say, we take the life back from the idol and dip the idol into a well or a river. And we make a promise to meet Ganesha next year. ...Ganpati Bappa Morya... pudchya varshi lawkar yaa...

Gannesh utsav pics will soon be embedded in this post.

It is really amazing how humans have evoled a unique way of playing with nature. My master, H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, has described the meaning of pooja (worship) as "Jiska janm poornata se hota hai" meaning "That which is born out of fullness or abundance". You see, one cannot worship or celebrate when there is a lack. Worship or celebration happens when there is abundance. When you realize that you yourself are truly divine then the abundance dawns. And the life becomes a celebration. The guru's job is to make you realize the divinity within you. Jai Gurudev! P.S. I took out some time and tweaked some settings in the blog. The resulting effects are changes in the background pattern and the borders of the main body of the blog. Some more changes are on the way -- O.A.K. Tree