My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.
[source: Be lucky, it’s an easy skill to learn]
How true!
I’d always been curious about how is sattvika, rajsika and tamsik food defined. How would I ever decide whether something is sattvik? And this curiosity was fueled by the food items allowed during a fast or pooja. Onions and garlic were always a no-no and I wanted to know why. My mother told me that maybe they left a bad smell in the mouth that’s why; but I wasn’t satisfied. This was one of the questions which motivated me to read the scriptures in the very beginning – I wanted to find the answer in them. So you can well imagine the smile on my face when I came to this chapter in Gita :).
The kind of food you like is also influenced by your nature.
A sattvik man likes food that has the following characteristics:
Some of the food items that have the above qualities:
You actions build your inherent nature and your inherent nature resides inside your conscience. Hence, your nature determines your conscience. Your conscience influences your faith and your faith, your devotion. Ultimately, its your actions which decide your faith and devotion.
I’m a little confused about this – I would’ve thought that your character determines your actions but Gita says the other way around; and it uses the verb “builds” your character. So the more I think of it the more it makes sense, one may be born with a character but one can always build it through his actions all through his life. That is what is being stressed here – your character develops based on the actions you do and your character influences your decisions on what is right and what is wrong. And this ability leads to faith in something. So the most important thing to do is to do good deeds.
Depending on his faith and following of religious teachings a man’s destiny can change.
Author: Mitch Albom
Awesome is just the word for this piece of work! I loved reading every word of this book and I would highly recommend it to everybody!
In concept it is similar to “Tuesdays with Morrie” and is a true story too. The author is asked by his rabbi if he would write his eulogy, to which the author has no choice but to agree. To accomplish that he must learn more about the Rabbi and so begin his tete-a-tetes with the Rabbi. With some hesitation he began this journey and little did he know how much he would learn on the way. He also comes across a pastor during this period with whom he gets associated and even though the Rabbi and the Pastor were so different – one was the leader of Jews and other that of Christians, one was a black and the other a white – there were so many similarities in them.
As the title says, it’s all about what is faith and what it can do; but not in a philosophical manner but in a more story-telling manner. There were so many dialogues in this book that were worth writing down but then I realized that if I did that I would be copying half the book in my post :). There is one that has left an indelible mark on my mind: the rabbi says to get happiness one must “Be satisfied. Be grateful”. So true! I always knew the satisfied part but on reading this line that it is so important to be grateful of what you have. It is only then you realize how much you have and the importance of it. How many of us thank God for having a wonderful and loving family? In fact for having a family? For a good job? The food that we eat and the house that we sleep in? For our five senses, two working hands and legs?
When I list them down, it looks like a laundry list and one would argue do we really need to list each and every thing? Well yes, we do. That’s the whole point. We take everything that we have for granted and keep wishing for/complaining about/comparing all those things that we don’t have. What we don’t realize is that there is a whole gamut of people out there who don’t even have what we have. Trust me - we’re all so lucky in what we have!
Ok coming back to the book :), as you would’ve realized this book is on a topic that is close to my heart – faith and is simply beautiful! I can go on and on praising it but I would rather that you read the book :).
Bottomline: Awesome book!! Must must read!
This time when I made pongal for Sankranti it turned out just perfect, DH simply loved it and so I decided to record the recipe. Even though it is from Chandra Padmanabhan’s Dakshin and I have this book, I like to write down what I did because I’m sooo going to forget how I made it when it’s time to make it next year!
The way to remember the proportion of ingredients in this recipe is to benchmark them with respect to the volume of rice. You don’t have to use 1 cup rice, you can use 1/2 cup rice and change the other ingredients accordingly.
I used 1/2 cup rice and it yielded enough pongal for around 4-6 people.
Ingredients
1 cup rice
1/2 cup split yellow moong dal
2 and 1/2 cups water
1 cup milk
3 cups jaggery and 3/4 cup water
cashew and raisin, in quantities you like
1-2 tbsp ghee for roasting the dry fruits
Method
Sankranti marks the northward movement of the sun and this period is known as uttarayan; while the karkasankrant (the onset of the zodiac sign cancer) marks the southward movement of the sun known as dakshinayan. This day is considered considered very auspicious and hence people are encouraged to make offerings. [Source: Hindu Jagruti]
{Place holder for the photo of my pongal :) – yes I made it!}
How do we celebrate it? We make sweet pongal and ellu (a mixture of coconut, jaggery, sesame seeds, etc.). I did make sweet pongal but forgot to make ellu this time :(
Tell me how do you celebrate this day!
