Soma Purana

I saw the following excerpt in a web site (http://www.yogawiz.com/askquestion/261/asanas-for-reducing-creatinine-in-blood-i-am-suffe.html) which seems useful for doing this asana correctly. "... sit on a yoga mat with spine straight and feet together, legs outstretched. Raise your right leg and place it against outside of the left knee with soles firm on the floor . Stretch your left arm and place fingers on toes if right foot, place the right arm around the back of your waist in such a way that your palm rests on the left hip bone. This is the first stage of this asana, before proceeding to the next level please practice this pose correctly. Throughout the exercise your spine should be straight and head should be in the upwards direction. Do not slouch as this will not only spoil the look of this pose but will also decrease the benefits provided by this pose. So to keep a check on your posture this exercise can be performed in front of a mirror. After taking the position, ta...

I saw a brief interview on MSNBC this morning with a doctor,  "Zeke" Emanuel.  I was astounded by the topic and found this provocative article. I subscribe to his  views entirely. http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/

I always wanted to make short math videos for my class. I tried making my first video. Surporisingly, it was pretty easy and came out fine on the first attempt itself. http://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=1ygx_ZAgL0g&u=/watch%3Fv%3D43nMxh5lxoM%26feature%3Dem-upload_owner I don't know why the URL is so long.

I got a newsletter yesterday from my healthcare company. It provided a checklist of preventative care items that apply to me specifically (considering my age and gender). I was surprised; it included so many items and vaccines I was not aware were included. The one that caught my attention is Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. I looked up and learned something. If our blood vessel is weak in a spot it widens or bulges like a car tire does (have you seen bulging occasionally on a worn tire?). Such a bulge is called  aneurysm. The blood vessel we are talking about is aorta which is a large artery that supplies blood to various parts of the body. Abdominal aorta is located in the abdomen.  Localized widening or bulging of a bdominal aorta is called  Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. There! The problem with Abdominal aortic aneurysm is often it does not cause symptoms.  Rupture of an aortic aneurysm is a catastrophe  where blood escapes the aorta and the patient can quic...

I sign up for MOOCs like crazy and then drop quite a few and settle on manageable number. Righ now I am pursuing three MOOCs. Introduction to Chemistry: Reactions and Ratios by Duke University: Another chemistry course! I took MIT's Solid State Chemistry before I was lost in that very broad course. This Duke's course is much narrower and I have benefited a great deal in getting a really good understanding. An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python - Rice University: I already had taken two python courses before (Michigan and MIT). In this Rice course we will be developing several games. I am looking forward to this. Mechanical Behavior of Materials - MIT: I love this course. This is hard. This is hardcore mechanical engineering. There are so many topics in this course that I should have learned in my engineering college but never did because they were never taught.

When I read some statements by so called great people, I say to myself, wow! no wonder he (or she) is great. But then, they say somethings that trouble me. For instance, there is this swami called "Ravishankar." He seems to be bright, good natured, and seems to brought happiness to millions of people. But I see he is referred to as Sri Sri Ravishankar. Why Sri Sri? Even God gets only one Sri.  I saw a photo of him wearing a fabulous crown. I saw somewhere his statement "If you feel lonely and feel that no one loves you and cares for you - remember me." What does this means? If I remember you, my feelings disappear? If I remember you, you will love me and care for me? How?

Since the last time I reported I have completed the following MOOCs. Justice by Michael Sandel - Harvard U Introduction to Solid State Chemistry - MIT: really hard course!  Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python - MIT another hard course Internet History, Technology, and Security - U of Michigan Programming for Everybody (Python) - U of Michigan So far I have completed 31 courses. In the last two years, I took many biology related courses (e.g., Genetics, Epigenetics, Programmed Cell Death). I am now focusing on computer science and chemistry. Right now, I am pursuing another chemistry course. The rate of MOOCs has dropped somewhat, primarily because the courses I am taking now are harder courses (I took harder courses before also but they were interspersed with somewhat easier courses).

On 6/26/2014 I completed 365 days of Bikram yoga in a row. (actually,   I cheated a little. I missed two days due to travel, but made it up by doing doubles on two other days. So, it is more like 365 classes in 365 days). I never felt like not going to yoga on any day, even though, I did feel some days were more difficult. Come to think of it, it is a remarkable feat. It required a lot of planning to make sure I go to some class on every day. This meant the following. I had to avoid being sick enough to skip a day.  At my age, just being fit enough to go to a yoga class every day for 365 days is itself an achievement. don't plan on going to the last class for the day; something could happen like a friend visiting. Today it is day 406. I missed one day, gain due to travel. I plan to do a double soon to make it up. I intend to finish 500 yoga classes in 500 days. Not planning on 1000 classes in 1000 days; that would be too much.

I am sure I will get into trouble for this post. bhajagovindam bhajagovindam govindam bhajamuudhamate sampraapte sannihite kaale nahi nahi rakshati dukrijnkarane The general meaning of this sloka is " Worship Govinda, Worship Govinda, Worship Govinda. , O fool! when the appointed time (for departure) comes, the repetition of grammatical rules will not, indeed, save you." "Grammar" is just an example. Shankara refers to what we immerse in, in general, in our daily lives devoid of Bhakthi (devotion). You could replace grammar with calculus, work, or pretty much anything else. Really? How does Shankara know? "When the time comes" refers to the last moment, basically transition from life to death. At that moment, nothing really matters. Shankara probably is referring to life after death. Is there life after death? Any evidence?  My theory is whatever we do during our lives should be with the purpose or improving our well being and happiness during...

Lawrence Summers has written an excellent article on the current economics rock star Picketty. http://www.democracyjournal.org/33/the-inequality-puzzle.php?page=all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty The Frenchman earned his PhD when he was 22 and became a professor at MIT at 22. He now heads an institute he spurred in France. Picketty probably will get Nobel Prize for his monumental work in wealth inequality studies. I haven't yet read his 700-page highly acclaimed recent book  Capital in the Twenty-First Century .   Lawrence says " His argument is that capital or wealth grows at the rate of return to capital, a rate that normally exceeds the economic growth rate. Thus, economies will tend to have ever-increasing ratios of wealth to income, barring huge disturbances like wars and depressions. Since wealth is highly concentrated, it follows that inequality will tend to increase without bound until a policy change is introduced or some kind of catastrophe inte...

I have just begun to learn Kant, an 18th century philosopher. Kant emphasized reason and freedom. What is freedom? If I suddenly have an urge to drink soda and have before me Sprite and Pepsi, and I chose Pepsi, did I exercise freedom? I chose Pepsi on my own accord. But, what drove me to look for soda in the first place? Freedom is not acting in a free manner to chose the means to achieve a given end. Freedom is in choosing the end itself. Oftentimes we are instruments rather than authors of the purposes we pursue. This freedom to choose the end itself is what gives us dignity. Kant's conception of morality: What makes an action worthy? What makes an action worthy is not the end result but the motive behind the action, the quality of the will that led to the action (doing the right thing for the right reason). Kant says "a good will shines like a jewel even if fails to accomplishes nothing." Motive confers moral worth of an action. Kant gives an example. ...

I want to approach this question differently. Rather than make a subjective pronouncement based on what comes to my head right away, I want to start with the notion, I have no clue, but let me try to figure it out. Suppose people are allowed to sell their one kidney. We have two kidneys, presumably, for a reason. May be it is for redundancy, if one fails the other one is sufficient to maintain life. Or for the proper function both kidneys need to be working and with only one kidney, may be life is deficient. If we consider the redundancy reasoning and if we assume failure of kidney is highly likely after a certain age, then there is the question of seller's remorse. But unlike seller's remorse where the seller sold his stock in stock market at a low price and later the price doubled, here we are talking about life and death. The stakes are high. If we didn't have flood insurance and our house is washed away in a tsunami, we say, well it is only the house. But, we can...

Military recruitment is going down in US. There are three ways of increasing the recruitment. Increase pay Implement conscription Hire mercenaries. During Civil War, US adopted a combination strategy conscription and mercenaries. Andrew Carnegie who was drafted could hire a substitute mercenary and send him in his place. He paid the mercenary a few hundred dollars which was less than what he would spend in a year for his fancy cigars. Strange system but that was allowed during Civil War. Even voluntary army has an element of coercion. Those who are economically poor and cannot get any job opportunity are "coerced" to join the military. I like conscription. I would like to combine that with increasing pay, may be double it. Conscription forces the society to think carefully about what wars we should engage in and limits the wars to truly what is essential to defend the borders. This should reduce the size of the military, not increase it. I was highly moti...

When I registered, I accidentally chose audit. The EdX webpage was done in such a way that it gave the impression that you had only two options. One was audit or another was paid verified certificate. I didn't want to pay, so I chose audit. But there indeed was free honor certificate option as well but it was not clear how to sign up for it. Later I found out how to navigate to sign up for that option. In any case, I sent a mail to EdX and they couldn't reverse my audit status. I added a comment on the discussion board. The professor intervened and I got the certificate. I spent so much time on this course and it felt good to receive certificate acknowledging my accomplishment. 

I am planning to take computer science courses this year. I did biology related courses mainly in 2013. Comp Sci is hard. I learned some Python programming - want to improve my programming over the year. Programming is essential for pretty much all Comp Sci courses. I just started Stanford's "Algorithms: Design and Analysis Part 1". Lots of lectures. I am sure this course is going to be overwhelming. Let us see how it goes.

I am continuing MOOCs with the same vigor as before. Started MOOCs in Sep. 2012. So far I have completed 28 courses. My latest MOOC completion with distinction is "How Viruses cause Disease" by Prof Vincent Rcaniello of Columbia U. I also completed Jason Hafner's (Rice U) Electricity and Magnetism and passed it with 92% (>85% is A) but didn't get the certificate, because, I found out when I registered I accidentally chose audit only. I am right now studying Python programming, and a MOOC course called "Justice" from Harvard.

Unalienable right to life is one of the most difficult rights to enforce when it comes to taking one's life. If a person decides to kill himself, if he does not succeed, he will be punished (I guess) but probably mildly. He can attempt again. If he succeeds, it is done, there is nothing anyone or any government can do. In a normal trade, there is a seller and a buyer. In suicide, there is a seller, But who is the buyer? There is no buyer. Therefore, it is not a transaction and therefore, you cannot claim it be illegitimate. You cannot even claim it to be immoral? Who has done the immoral act? The person doesn't exist anymore. The person who killed himself is only in memory, thought. What about war? The war scenario seems more useful to discuss it would appear. In the case of a soldier who is killed in battle, did the soldier have the right to engage in an activity where the likelihood of getting killed (thus giving up his life) is high. At least here, there is an act...

I have been reading political and moral philosophy by Bentham, John Stewart Mill, Robert Nozick, John Locke. Absolute right in our life that a pure libertarian would assert is not something majority would agree and can be expected. I can donate a kidney (if I have two working kidneys) to save the life of a loved one. But no doctor would take my healthy heart even if I wholeheartedly(!) agree to save the life of a loved one. Kidney and heart are both parts of my body but I seem to have different levels of right to them. If I want to donate my hair, no one would quibble with that right. If I am suffering from a terrible chronic hopeless condition, do I have a right to end my life? If I try and don't succeed, I will be punished by the government. If I succeed.... If I give away my car, I cannot claim it back. If I give away myself to slavery, by the same logic, I cannot claim it back. The car example seems just. But the inability to claim back the right to our self that wa...

This was a 9 week EdX course offered by Caltech (Professor Antonio Rangel). This was the toughest course I have taken so far. I just scraped through and got my certificate. In spite of the frustration it caused, I think it was well worth it. I understood so many concepts that I was not aware of such as dead weight loss, Pigouvian tax, impact of government policies on consumer surplus, producer surplus. The calculus part is that difficult (it does involve some partial derivatives, but is is mostly single variable calculus) but requires a lot of thinking. Right now I have three more ongoing MOOCs, Virology (How viruses cause disease) from Columbia U, Electricity and Magnetism from Rice U, and Engineering systems in motion: dynamics of particles and bodies from Georgia Tech. The last course involves a lot of vector analysis and a little bit of vector calculus. E&M from Rice involves a lot of integral calculus, the course culminated in theory of electromagnetic waves which does invo...

My yoga teacher made a profound statement one day in class. She said yoga is mostly unseen. I have been reflecting on this statement. Yoga generally has three main components, They are breathing, asanas, concentration/awareness. Asanas are externally observed and others can see it. Breathing is a technique and can be observed if the teacher looks at you closely. In a large class it is is difficult how well and correctly the students are breathing. But, the most important part of yoga, being aware and focused is totally unseen by the instructor or others. Only, the student practicing yoga knows it.