Absent-Minded GENIUSES

You may have heard of those proverbial professors who are always absent-minded. The same applies to geniuses as well. Quite a number of them were known to suffer from temporary absent-mindedness. This has often led to embarrassing situations.

One day Albert Einstein was riding in a train in Berlin. Absent-minded as he was, the noted physicist told the conductor that he had not given him the correct change. The conductor counted the change again, found it correct and handed it back to him. He told him rather rudely, "The trouble with you sir, is that you don't know mathematics," What a thing to say to none other than Einstein - the greatest mathematician of he century!

One day Edison too found himself in an embarrassing situation. The famous American scientist had gone to the court house to pay his taxes. When the clerk asked him his name, Edison instead of replying stared blankly at other people in the queue. Nobody there knew that he was a great scientist who had given the world not less than a thousand inventions.

If Edison blissfully forgot his own name Sir Walter Scott, the famous poet and novelist often forgot the poms he wrote. He once praised one of his own poems very highly, thinking that it was the poem of Byron.

Failing to remember one's wife's birthday or forgetting one's own wedding by not turning up for the occasion is indeed amusing. Louis Pasteur, the eminent French chemist's marriage was fixed for 29 May 1849. But on the appointed day, after all the guests had arrived there was no sign of Pasteur. Someone rightly guessed that he might still be in his laboratory and rushed over to catch the scientest and bring him to the Church.
"Did you forget about your wedding?" asked his friend finding Pasteur busy in his laboratory.
"As a matter of fact i did remember before i started this experiment," said Pasteur. "But later i totally forgot. Thank God you came".

Sir Isaac Newton, the famous English scientist never dared to marry. He died a bachelor. He was once madly in love with a girl. But the disease of absent-mindedness sealed his fate.
One day having decided to propose to his lady love, Newton fell on his knees, took his fiancee's hands in his own and looked lovingly into her eyes. All of a sudden his mind wandered. Dreamily he grasped his sweetheart's finger and took it for a pipe cleaner. He then rammed it up his smoking pipe. When the girl uttered a long , loud cry due to pain, Newton apologised, "Ah! my dear, i beg your pardon! i am afraid i am doomed to remain a bachelor".
And he remained a bachelor. No woman could have possibly lived with Newton. He was always shabbily dressed and he even forgot to have his meals. One day he had his lunch, he then had a second meal, having totally forgotten that he had already eaten!

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the great English poet's wife invariably sent meals into his study. But he frequently forgot to eat them. Later he would join her and inquire, "Mary, have i dined?"

If Newton and Shelley forgot their meals, Swinburne, the famous poet invariably forgot his hat. One day he searched for it in a club he often visited, he called the hall porter and wanted to know where his hat was. The man replied thatSwinburne had not worn a hat when he entered the club that evening!

Not being able to recollect where one is supposed to alight having set off on a train journey is rather strange. But this often happened to the famous journalist and essayist G.K. Chesterton. Once he got off a train at a palace called Harborough and immediately sent a telegram to his wife, "i am at Harborough, where should i be?"

Here is my Autograph!

Abraham Lincoln, the great Emancipator, received a letter asking for "a sentiment and his autograph". He replied, "Dear Madam, when you ask from a stranger that which is of interest only to yourself, always enclose a stamp. There is your sentiment and here is my autograph".

Are you responsible for this?

Ramon Magsaysay, the Philippine President, was inspecting a new irrigation project on the island of Mindanao. The President was worried about the project since the supply of pumps from abroad was delayed. But on arriving at the spot he noted that the project had been well ahead of schedule. He was told that some old US diesel trucks had been bought, torn apart and adapted to work in place of the pumps that had not yet arrived.
The President sent for the public works engineer. "Are you responsible for this?" he asked, pointing to the improvised pumps.
"Yes, sir," the engineer replied, not without misgivings. For it was he who had bought the old trucks and gone ahead on his own.
"Raise your right hand," ordered the President.
Wondering what next, the engineer raised his hand.
"Repeat after me this oath of office," said the President, beaming. And the astonished engineer found himself being sworn in as Under Secretary of Public Works!

I have no business

Kiechu was a great Zen teacher of the Meiji era. One day, the newly appointed governor of Kyoto called on him to seek his blessings and guidance. On reaching the monastery, the governor sent his card to Kiechu through one of the attendants. The card read "Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto." Kiechu read the card and said to the attendant, "I have no business with the Governor of Kyoto. please ask him to leave." The attendant took the card back to governor and conveyed the master's message in a apologetic tone.
The Governor remarked, "The fault is mine." Taking the card in his hands, he promptly scratched out the word "Governor of Kyoto" and asked the attendant to hand it over again to the master.
This time Kiechu said, "Oh, Kitagaki has come. I would like to see him."

Abraham Lincoln's letter to Headmaster

Here is Abraham Lincoln's (16th President of USA) letter to Headmaster of the school in which his son was studying.

"He will have to learn, that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend. Teach him, if you can that a dollar earned is of far more value than five found.....

"Teach him to learn to lose... and also to enjoy winning. steer him away from envy, if you can, teach him the secret of quite laughter. Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books.... but also give him quite time to ponder over the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and flowers on a green hillside.

"In school, teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat.... Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everybody tells him he is wrong... Teach him to be gentle with people. Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crowd when everyone is getting on the bandwagon. Teach him to listen to all men... but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

"Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad... Teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him to scoff at cynics and beware of too much sweetness... Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders, but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Teach him to close his ears to the howling mob... and to stand up and fight if he thinks he is right.

"Treat him gently, but do not hug him, because only the test of fire makes fine steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient...? Let him have the patience to be brave. Teach him always to have sublime faith in himself because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind.

As long as man has not realised GOD

The potter puts his pot in the sun to dry. Haven't you noticed that among them there are both baked and unbaked ones? When a cow happens to walk over them, some of the pots get broken to pieces. The broken pots that are already baked, the potter throws away, since they are of no more use to him. But the soft ones, though broken, he gathers up. He makes them into a lump and out of this forms new pots. In the same way so long as a man has not realised God, he will have to come back to the potter's hand, that is, he will have to be born again and again.

- Sri Ramakrishna

He called it 'HOME'

An artist who wanted to paint the most beautiful picture in the world, asked a person: "What is the most beautiful thing in the world?"
"Faith" said the person. "you find it at any altar".
The artist also asked a young bride the same question.
"Love", she replied. "Love builds poverty into riches and sweetens tears, without it there is no beauty".
A weary soldier told him, "Peace in the world. war is the ugliest thing in the world. wherever you find peace, you find beauty".
"Faith, Love and Peace, how can I paint them?" thought the artist. Entering the door he saw faith in the eyes of his wife. And there in his own home, the artist saw the peace, that love and faith had built. So, he painted the picture - 'His masterpiece'. The picture of the most beautiful in the world and he called it - "HOME".

Where is GOD?

Man has failed, not God. Man has not applied the laws of ethics and morality to solve the problems of human relationships. We praise the spiritual ideas of our prophets but ignore them. We build churches and temples to his glory but we keep far from them. Having abandoned God, why should we ask 'Where is GOD?'

Fear killed the rest

A peasant was driving into a town. An old woman standing on the road asked him to take her up and drive her into the town with him. She sat next to him and as they drove along, he asked her who she was. The woman with a twinkle in her eyes told him that she was the CHOLERA. The peasant then ordered her out of his cart, but she assured him that in the town she would kill only ten persons.

Next moment she handed him a dagger and told him that if she killed more than ten, he was at liberty to kill her. The peasant later found in the town more than a hundred perished with the cholera. The angry peasant meeting the woman on the street, drew his dagger and was about to kill her.

The old woman calmly lifted her hand and told him, "I killed only ten, but fear killed the rest."

Motivation

* After American film actor Fred Astaire's first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1993, said, "can't act! slightly bald! can dance a little!" Astaire kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home.

* An expert said of Vince Lombardi, American football player: "He possesses minimal football knowledge. lacks motivation."

* Greek philosopher socrates was called, "An immoral corrupter of youth."

* When Peter J. Daniel was in the fourth grade, his teacher, Mrs. Phillips, constantly said, "Peter, you're no good, you're a bad apple and you're never going to amount to anything." Peter was totally illiterate until he was 26. A friend stayed up with him all night and read him a copy of Think and grow rich. Now he owns the street corners he used to fight on and published his latest book: Mrs. Phillips, you were wrong!

* Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Woman, was encouraged to find work as a servant or seamstress by her family.

* German composer Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.

* The parents of the famous opera singer Enrico Caruso wanted him to be an engineer. His teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing.

* Charles Darwin, father of the Theory of Evolution, gave up a medical career and was told by his father, "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat catching." In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, "I was considered by all my masters and by my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect."

* Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt Disney also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

* Thomas Edison's teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything.

* Famous scientist Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old and didn't read until he was seven. His teacher described him as "mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams." He was expelled and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic school.

* French chemist Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15th out of 22 in chemistry.

* English physicist Isaac Newton did very poorly in grade school.

* The sculptor Rodin's father said, "I have an idiot for a son." Described as the worst pupil in the school, Rodin failed three times to secure admittance to the school of art. His uncle called him uneducable.

* Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, flunked out of collage. He was described as "both unable and unwilling to learn."

* Playwright Tennessee Williams was enraged when his play Me, Vasha was not chosen in a class competion at Washington university where he was enrolled in English XVI. The teacher recalled that Williams denounced the judges choice and their intelligence.

* American merchant F.W.Woolworth's employer at the dry goods store said he had not enough sense to wait upon customers.

* American automible manufacturer Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.

* Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He did not become Prime Minister of England until he was 62, and then only after a lifetime of defeats and setbacks. His greatest contributions came when he was a "senior citizen."

* Eighteen publishers turned down Richard Bach's 10,000 word story about a "soaring" seagull, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, before Macmillan finally published it in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than seven million copies in the U.S. alone.

* Richard Hooker worked for seven years on his humorous war novel, M*A*S*H, only to have it rejected by 21 publishers before Morrow decided to publish it. It became a runaway bestseller, spawning a blockbusting movie and a highly successful television series.

Oil is bought from my money

Chanakya (the author of Arthashastra and the guru of Chandragupta Maurya) preferred to live in a cottage rather than in the palace at Pataliputra. One day someone from the Greek Embassy expressed his wish to meet Chanakya. And he was escorted towards a cottage.
The surprised man commented, "Is this where the Chief minister lives."
"yes," said the escort.
A lamp was burning in a corner and in the light of the lamp, Chanakya was examining some documents. He put out the lamp and lighted another and asked the visitor, "welcome. what can i do for you?"
The Greek asked, "will you kindly explain why you put out that lamp and lit another?"
"I was doing work pertaining to the state. That oil is bought from the state funds. Now this is a personal interview. The oil in this lamp is bought from my money."

(Partha)

Jealousy kills Justice

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives, families, their homes, their jobs, and where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the man in the bed could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see from the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the colourful activity of the outside world.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake, the man said. ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. lovers walked arm in arm amid flowers of every colour of rainbow, grand old trees graced the landscape and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in distance. As the man by the window described all this in clear detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the beautiful scene.
One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window explained it with descriptive words. unexpectedly an ugly thought entered his head: 'why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never get to see anything.'
It did not seem fair. As the thought became intense the man felt ashamed first. But as the day passed and he missed seeing more sights, he was envious of the other patient. He began to dislike him and found himself unable to sleep. He should be by that window- this thought now controlled his life.
Late one night as he lay starring at the ceiling, the man by the window began to cough. He was chocking on the fluid in his lungs. The other man watched in the dimly lit room as the struggling man by the window searched for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room he never moved, never pushed his own button which could have brought the nurse running. Within five minutes the coughing and chocking stopped along with the sound of breathing. Now there was only silence.
The following morning the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths, when she found the lifeless body of the man by the window, she was saddened and called the hospital attendents to take it away. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved to the window. The nurse was happy to make the shifting and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully he pushed himself up on one elbow to take his first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall. He wept endlessly while realising that the other man weaved lovely scenes of imagination to keep him happy.

GOD has done well!

Nasrudin Hodja, in the heat of the day, sat under a walnut tree looking at his pumpkin vines. He said to himself "How foolish God is! Here he puts a great heavy pumpkin on a tiny vine without strength to do anything but to lie on the ground. And he puts tiny walnuts on a big tree whose branches could hold the weight of a man. If I were God, I could do better than that!"

Just then a breeze dislocated a walnut in the tree and it fell on the head of doubting Nasrudin Hodja, who rubbed his head, a sadder and wiser man. "Suppose," he thought, "there was a pumpkin up there, instead of walnut. Never again will I try to plan the world of GOD, but I shall thank God that he has done so well!"

THE FEAR OF GOD IS THE BEGINING OF WISDOM.

Hare RAMA hare KRISHNA, KRISHNA KRISHNA hare hare,

Hare KRISHNA hare RAMA, RAMA RAMA hare hare.........