National Motto - Satyameva Jayate

Interestingly many countries like Japan, China, Russia don't have National Motto.
National motto is essentially printed on currency notes.

• Just like our Indian Rupee notes have  सत्यमेव जयते  below the national symbol (4 lions)
• Similarly US dollars we can see "In God we Trust" a very interesting one to me being so advanced in technology. 
• Nepal too has interesting (familiar phrase to Indians) - जननी जन्मभूमिष्च स्वर्गादपि गरियसि (Janani Janmabhoomischa Swargadapi Gariyasi)

The comprehensive list of national mottos is here on Wikipedia
 

Free power from nature but we can't tap into

Our current technology is not yet advanced to tap high energy in less time. Also we cannot transmit high amounts of power or store it. Research is going on. I wonder when a day comes when we can harvest these:

Power from Lightning

The energy available in a single lightning is sufficient to light up a city. The difficulties involved:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvesting_lightning_energy

Power from cyclone/hurricane

20% of cyclone wind energy sufficient to whole of US. But we can't make use of it. Why?
We can't even stop the intensity of the cyclone. Why?

Effective Listening skills

The better we listen, the better we can comprehend and make best use of it.
I went through a good listening skills course at Lynda.com In summary what this course taught is

• When we are going to listen to some one speaking, we should set our objective  to usually one or two of these roles:
• Recalling the details (listening to a lecture/presentation - we should be able to remember few things so that we can actually study them later or take action)
• Get the big picture (when it is high level overview session or group discussion, we should able to get the big picture of what is actually happening and it is important)
• Evaluating the content (At certain conversations we need not be buying in everything that the presenter is talking of. What makes sense to us and how better the content has to be evaluated across many such cases. Proposals discussion etc)
• Attending to subtle cues (see what is the presenter is expressing from vocals and body language; especially important over phone communication in expressing how we understand etc)
• Empathize - this is required for speakers to be more freely comfortable speaking to us - by matching/mirroring his body language, expressions etc
• Tips to follow
• Don't take too much of notes as it would be information overload and does distraction
• Try mind maps for less info and great abstraction
• Don't do multi-tasking (like looking at mobile etc or doing some other task while listening). Stay focused
• Clean our mental filters.
• Trying paraphrasing and clarifying is good. That makes speaker as well as fellow listeners get to know more.

Followed up these free practice sessions from British council

 

Great Indian Spiritual leaders most of us may not be knowing

Sri Aurobindo

• I discovered Aurobindo while reading about Pondicherry and why it was not merged with TamilNadu state
• Even though he led a normal life in the beginning, in his last decade, he took spiritual path to  realize himself   
• Aurobindo ashram looks to more famous and must see place in Puducherry.
• The ashram is bringing life to all his writings which are good starting point to understand how one's ideas turnout after deeply studying Bhagavad Gita and other Upanishads.  

Meher Baba

• While I was listening to a course on listening skills, the tutor mentioned about Ram Das quotations.
• In this process I wonder how Meher Baba led a life without speaking for years and communicating only by gestures.
• I think Meher's principle is close to Adi Shankara in maintaining  "Aham Brahmasmi" (I am divine) 
• Led his last years with complete renunciation of all materialistic pleasures/behaviors attaining Stita Pragna as described in Bhagavad Gita
• May be an ideal serene spiritual center should look like what his followers built - Meher Spiritual Center 

More references

• http://www.thefamouspeople.com/spiritual-leaders.php