Welcome back!

Quite a few of my blogging buddies seemed to have gone into hibernation and slowly they are getting back; it could also be that I haven't been visiting their blogs as much as before. :( Sorry folks.
Here is what they have blogged on recently:

Shikha - An end to the hiatus - Part 1 - Does she mean that part-1 of the hiatus is over and another one is in the offing? ;-)
She describes the wonders of traveling in Europe.

Raman - Even this regular blogger seemed to have gone into a shell - what with his marital duties and trying to get a good name from the wifey, I don't blame him. ;-)
Now he seems to got out her clutches and has posted quite a few posts:
Deprivation Syndrome - or the sour grapes reaction.
GPL for dummies - a non-techie explanation of the meaning of the GPL license of software - even I understood.

Brownie- has 2 posts since her return:
World cup - she discusses the 2020 World cup win by India in her characteristic style.
She has another post, laced with her brand of humor, - Ignore this - where one can feel her sense of ennui after her return from England.

Boo - back to her blogging duties after a break of nearly 4 weeks has a new template. She records the darndest things that kids say. She seems to have had a whale of a time in Madras and is now back in Zurich, confused about how she is going to catch up with all the reading that she has to do in blogosphere. PS: She has to take an exam on this shortly. All the best Boo. ;-)

I know this is a poor effort, because all of you would have already read these posts, but the doctor has prescribed that I need to necessarily persevere and be active, if I am to get out this feeling of indolence.

Will come back with more from blogging buddies.

Of Experience, Swami Vivekananda, marriage ...

There is no substitute for experience.
I've taken the liberty to rework Mrs. Indira Gandhi's favourite quote during the emergency: There is no substitute for hard-work.* I fully agree with Mrs Gandhi, but I cannot fully agree with the former statement, which is what Raman seems to imply in his post - The Experiential factor.

Interestingly he quotes a friend of his who holds the view, "Vivekananda never got a first hand experience of what a man enjoys in marriage and so whatever his views are on Brahmacharya as a better way of living are totally based on half knowledge . They cannot be complete and authoritative." He further goes on to substantiate this statement by relating his experience of his marital life (bliss?) till date, which has made him change his attitude-to / view-of life. Raman also observes that we might say this is just a honeymoon period and things would look rosy now since each of you are in a condescending mood. Quite clairvoyant, Raman seems to be. ;-)

I am not a Swami Vivekananda buff to either accept or reject the statement about him, but one of the commentors, multisubj yb, on Raman's blog gave a link to one of his blogs, Vivekananda YB which apparently studies and analyses [on] Vivekananda's epistles, with a different perspective.

* This quote is originally attributed to Thomas Alva Edison.

An Interesting Experiment

I read RKVS Raman's blog, because quite often he gives quite different perspectives of life and one's attitude to life. In his most recent post, The Game of Giving,he describes an experiment done by a friend of his (the results are not yet out).

He has numerous thought provoking posts, a few of which I present here:

Open Intentions Initiative

Riding with the drizzling cloud

The Experience Capsule Technology