The longest and total solar eclipse of this century

July 20, 2009: One one-thousand, 2 one-thousand, 3 one-thousand, 4 one-thousand...
Continue counting and don't stop until you reach 399 one-thousand.
Did that feel like a long time? Six minutes and 39 seconds to be exact. That's the duration of this week's total solar eclipse--the longest of the 21st century.
The event begins at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, July 22nd, in the Gulf of Khambhat just east of India. Morning fishermen will experience a sunrise like nothing they've ever seen before. Rising out of the waves in place of the usual sun will be an inky-black hole surrounded by pale streamers splayed across the sky. Sea birds will stop squawking, unsure if the day is beginning or not, as a strange shadow pushes back the dawn and stirs up a breeze of unaccustomed chill.
Right: A totally eclipsed sunrise in Antarctica. Credit and Copyright: Fred Bruenjes of moonglow.net.
Most solar eclipses produce this sort of surreal experience for a few minutes at most. The eclipse of July 22, 2009, however, will last as long as 6 minutes and 39 seconds in some places, not far short of the 7 and a half minute theoretical maximum. It won't be surpassed in duration until the eclipse of June 13, 2132.
From the Gulf of Khambhat, the Moon's shadow will race east across India, China, and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. Click on the image to launch an animated map:
The path of totality cuts across many large cities. The shadow will linger over Shanghai, the largest city in China, for six full minutes, giving 20 million residents a lengthy and stunning view of the sun's ghostly corona. Other large cities in the path of totality include Surat, Vadodara, Bhopal, Varanasi, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hefei, Hangzhou. The population of each numbers in the millions, making this possibly the best-observed solar eclipse in human history.
The eclipse is extra-long because of a lucky coincidence, made possible by the elliptical shape of planetary orbits. On July 22nd, Earth happens to be near its farthest point from the sun. A small sun means the Moon can cover it longer. At the same time, the Moon will be near its closest point to Earth. A large Moon covers the sun longer, lengthening the eclipse even more.
The leisurely pace of the eclipse could have a transformative effect on witnesses. Total eclipses have been known to turn ordinary folk into life-long "eclipse-chasers" willing to spend thousands of dollars and travel tens of thousands of miles to feel the Moon's cool shadow and behold the sun's pale atmosphere just one more time. A few extra minutes of wonder will intensify this effect to an unknown degree.
Live webcasts of the eclipse--not the next best thing to being there, but the only substitute available to many readers--may be found at the website of the San Francisco Exploratorium. Broadcasts commence at 9 p.m. EDT on July 21st (0100 UT on July 22nd).
Let the counting begin.

I don't know why I am here.

Once you understand it, you drop it. The why is ridiculous. Rather than asking, Why am I here? it is better to use the opportunity, it is better to flower, it is better to exist authentically. And this is the beauty of it, that once you start existing authentically, truly, once you stop all nonsense thinking and you start delighting in life, once you are no longer a philosopher, the why is answered. But it is not answered by anyone from the outside, it is answered by your own life energy.
The answer is possible, but it is not going to come like an answer, it is going to come like a lived experience. The answer is going to be existential, not intellectual. The question is intellectual. Drop it! Rather, be! Otherwise, you can go on asking... For centuries man has asked millions of questions; not a single question has been solved by speculation, thinking, logic, or reason. Not even a single question has been solved. On the contrary, whenever people have tried to answer a question, the answer has created a thousand and one more questions.
Who created the world? - and it has been answered: God created the world. And then immediately the question arises: Who created God? or, Why did he create the world? When did he create the world? And why did he create such a world? - so miserable, so helllike? The one who was answering you that God created the world must have been thinking that your question would drop; but out of one answer a thousand and one questions arise. Mind is a question-creating mechanism.
So the first thing to understand is: Drop why and immediately you become religious. Continue with the why, and you remain philosophical. Continue questioning, and you remain in the head. Drop questioning, and suddenly the energy moves in a new dimension: the dimension of the heart. Heart has no questions, and there hides the answer.
It will appear paradoxical, but still I would like to say to you: When your questioning stops, the answer comes. And if you go on questioning, the answer will become more and more elusive.
Why are you here? - who can answer it? And if it can be answered, you will no longer be a man, you will become a mechanism. This mike is here and there is a reason for it; the why can be answered. The car is there in the porch; the why can be answered. If your why also can be answered, you become a mechanism like a mike or a car; you become a utility, a commodity. But you are a man, not a machine.
Man means freedom. Why is there freedom? You can raise the question, but the question is foolish. The why about man cannot be answered. And if the why about man cannot be answered, how can it be answered when you put it for the ultimate, for God? Even about man the why cannot be answered. About God it is almost impossible even to raise the question in a right way.
My effort is not to answer your questions, but to make you aware that out of a hundred questions, ninetynine are simply foolish. Drop them! And once you have dropped the foolish questions - they took very philosophical - the one question remains. And that question is no longer concerned about irrelevant, nonessential things. That one question is concerned about Existence, about you, your being. Not why you are here, not about the purpose of your being here, but about your being here - who you are: Who am I?
This can be known, because for it to be known there is no need to go to anybody else; you can go inside. For it to be known, there is no need to look in the scriptures, you can took withinwards. For it to be known, you have just to close your eyes and move into inner silence. And you can feel it: who you are. You can taste the flavor of who you are; you can smell it, you can touch it. This is existential questioning. But why you are here, I don't know. And there is no need to know about it.

At the feet of Master

Osho On Gurupurnima

Guru Purnima Day is the day of all the Buddhas, all those who have become aware. In their remembrance, become aware. The grove is here in front of you. You can see that luminous light. It is here! You can hear that celestial sound; that music is happening. And you can be soaked into my fragrance. It depends on you -- how much you are ready to take, how much you are willing to take, how much you are going to be with me, how deeply. You can come here just to hear my words; then you will miss the real message. You can come here full of your nonsense, your argumentativeness; then you will not be able to hear what I am trying to convey. You can come here as Mohammedans, Hindus, Jains, and you will miss me -- but only you will be responsible, nobody else.

Try to understand your responsibility towards yourself. Enough you have been stumbling in darkness! When light becomes available, don't miss the opportunity. Take the jump.... There is a famous statement of Jalaluddin Rumi: "I died as mineral and became a plant. I died as plant and rose to animal. I died as animal and I was a man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?" And that is the fear that comes when you come around a Master -- the fear of dying. But listen to this Rumi's statement: "Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? I died as a plant and became an animal.

I died as an animal and became a man." When you die in your Master as a man, you become divine. A Master is a death and a resurrection. This day of Guru Purnima is a day of death and resurrection.

It is no ordinary day -- it is very symbolic. If you come to me, you come only in one way: if you come to die in me. And you will not be less by your dying -- you will be more, you will be infinitely more. You will be losing nothing and you will be gaining all. This death into a Master is what makes a man a disciple. It is no ordinary relationship; it is the only extraordinary relationship in the world. All other relationships are ordinary. All other relationships are part of the world. Only this relationship is not part of the world -- it takes you beyond. It is a golden bridge from the visible to the invisible, from the material to the divine, from the known to the unknown, from death to deathlessness. But... you will have to die first. To be with a Master is to carry your cross on your shoulders. That's why only very courageous people can become disciples.

Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3Talks on Zen, Originally tape title "Path of Paradox".Talks given from 01/07/77 to 10/07/77

Pop King MJ dies

Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop" who once moonwalked above the music world, died Thursday as he prepared for a comeback bid to vanquish nightmare years of sexual scandal and financial calamity. He was 50.
Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital, where doctors continued to work on him.
"It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known," his brother Jermaine said. Police said they were investigating, standard procedure in high-profile cases.
Jackson's death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.
His 1982 album "Thriller" _ which included the blockbuster hits "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" _ is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.
At the time of his death, Jackson was rehearsing hard for what was to be his greatest comeback: He was scheduled for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena, with the first set for July 13.
As word of his death spread, MTV switched its programming to play videos from Jackson's heyday. Radio stations began playing marathons of his hits. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital. In New York's Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.
"No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow," Michael Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message a friend had sent him. "It's like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died."

Gone away

something happening,
on the deep down of soul
Attachments is here so
once again, i felt lots of agony in my mind
when i feel my room without Dulfon...
suddenly, mirad knocks my mind
his mischievs were not there..
...miss behaves were vanished
everytihng is setteled and as it is
But he was not there.

Again the dalima of his noughty presence
chessing me,
for the shake of soulmates.
My must loved paintings were on the ground of rememberence
Sweet memoirs push me towards Black-pond
where my dreams can rarely alive

once again i felt down
no one can understand me as he
although he couldn't communicate by this worldy language
But, simply i call my poor dreams on the green leaf of LOVE,
yes, there i knew
Dulfon kisses me by the airy nose,

About Bijaula...

Im writing a novel, which is different...from the so called writers train!

signature of Karnali on my mind

After Karnali treks i just back in Kathmandu today. Of cousre i have lots of live rememberanc of Dailekh and other blue edges that river's.
Some young girl climbing straight mountian with the load of rice and salt, some teachers uses radio as a friend and most of all villegers were busy on own home-work.
My father shown me that tree when his mother used to point out when they acrossing through that cosy road some 40 years ago, time has gone rapidly and his mother was no more and now im standing as the next hallow.
Missed all the time to Dulfon, might be he was alone and feeling sad without me!
Impressd alot to see Navisthan's reguler flame, That was my first encounter to know such flaming surface of the river. hum really was a magical event, which i tasted by eye.