Yoda Sutras: Concourse No.32

Series 1

IV - 5: Stop Searching, and Find

Mind is a tangled web.

Use it to catch the world.

Try to comprehend the infinite complexity of it all…

…elegantly embedded in the fabric of space and time.

Open your eyes in amazement.

Be Aware.

See.

Medical Research:

Cooling Down the Pain

Many injuries respond to cold. Sprains and inflammation can be eased by the timely application of some ice or a cold compress. Now researchers have identified the mechanism in the nervous system that gives rise to this effect and proved its efficacy for blocking pain in rats. Recent research has shown that protein receptors on the outside of nerve cells variously signal hot or cold as well as other physical sensations such as taste and touch. One such receptor—TRPM8—is activated in a small number of nerve cells when the skin is cooled or cooling compounds, such as menthol or mint oil, are applied. A team of neuroscientists chose to investigate this particular pathway as a potential pain reliever based on centuries worth of anecdotal evidence. Rats with injured paws were either treated with topical solutions of icilin or menthol, or placed in a thin layer of water cooled to between 16 degrees and 20 degrees Celsius (61 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit) for five minutes. Both these treatments activated TRPM8, after which the rat’s pain nerves fired less frequently. Also, blocking their TRPM8 receptors stopped the analgesic effect. The discovery of the cooling pathway—and its pain-blocking potential—opens up a new avenue of research for those suffering from chronic pain due to nerve injury.

Think.

Alternative Fuel:

Hydrazine Hydrate

Learn.

Many obstacles stand in the way of ditching the internal combustion engine in favor of electric motors feeding off hydrogen fuel cells. Such a change would require new infrastructure for the delivery, storage, and distribution of hydrogen, either in a low-temperature, liquid state, or at high pressure, as a room-temperature gas. And standard hydrogen fuel cells are expensive, requiring as much as 100 grams of platinum at a cost of thousands of dollars. A new type of fuel cell could solve both problems at once. The technology, proposed by engineers at Daihatsu, a unit of Toyota, in Ryuo, Japan, uses a fuel called hydrazine hydrate, instead of hydrogen. Hydrazine hydrate—a compound of nitrogen, hydrogen, and water—is liquid, which makes it easier to store and deliver than gas. In hydrogen fuel cells, platinum serves as a catalyst membrane that breaks down hydrogen molecules into ions and electrons. The electrons provide the current that powers the car's motor. Platinum is used because it's the only metal catalyst that can survive corrosion by hydrogen ions for any length of time. But the membrane in the Daihatsu fuel cell has to cope only with more-benign hydroxide ions, allowing engineers to use cheaper catalysts such as cobalt or nickel. Such a technology has the potential of bringing the cost of a fuel cell vehicle down to that of an internal combustion-engine vehicle.

Imagine.

Understand.

Genetics:

Longevity Gene

If you live to 100, as roughly one in every 10,000 people do, you will likely want both your mind and body intact. Researchers have now discovered a gene that accomplishes just that, apparently protecting the brain as well as prolonging life. The Longevity Genes Project, initiated by Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, investigates people who live exceptionally long lives. Barzilai and his colleagues examined 158 people of Ashkenazi, or Eastern European Jewish, descent who were 95 years of age or older. The scientists gave these volunteers a common test of mental function, consisting of 30 questions. Those centenarians who passed were two to three times more likely to have a common variant of a particular gene, called the CETP gene, than those who did not. The CETP gene variant makes cholesterol particles in the blood larger than normal. The researchers suggest smaller particles can more readily lodge in the lining of blood vessels, leading to fatty buildups, which are a risk factor for heart attacks and strokes. Whether or not this gene variant protects the brain by preventing this buildup, or through some other mechanism, remains uncertain. Pharmaceutical companies are currently developing drugs that mimic the effect of this gene variant.

Explore.

Investigate.

Experiment.

Astronomy: Star Burn-out

Researchers using data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey—a comprehensive effort to map a quarter of the sky with a dedicated telescope at Apache Point, N.M.—have identified a cooling ember of a star ringed by a rare gaseous, metal-rich disk. The star in question is a white dwarf known as SDSS1228+1040. It is located 463 light-years away from Earth and is in the constellation Virgo. In its prime, the star weighed in at four to five solar masses. (Progenitor stars of white dwarfs can be up to eight times the mass of our sun). SDSS1228+1040's progenitor likely thrived as a main sequence star for about 70 million years, which is a relatively short life span compared with that of our sun—its current age is around 4.6 billion years old. There has been much debate within the realm of astrophysics about whether these short stellar life spans provide the time that is necessary to form planets from the debris of the disk that made the star in the first place. The new findings suggest they are. And if these short-lived stars are able to support planetary systems of their own, they can certainly serve as models for what could happen billions of years in the future to our own solar system. The timeline for the star now known as SDSS1228+1040 likely went as follows: After the star burned all the hydrogen in its core, it likely swelled into its red-giant phase, eviscerating all material—planets included—in orbits up to 500 million miles away. Any asteroids or planets stationed beyond that radius would then be kicked into orbits farther away from the newly swelled star. (It is estimated that our sun will enter its red-giant phase in five billion to eight billion years.) Once the outer regions of the red giant are shed, the star shrinks into its white dwarf phase that is superdense—the diameter of SDSS1228+1040 is 1 percent of our sun's, but it's mass is 75 percent that of the sun—and initially very hot. From this point it gradually cools down and eventually will burn out.

Analyze.

Know.

Study.

Mind:

Creativity and Mood

Despite those who romanticize depression as the wellspring of artistic genius, studies find that people are most creative when they are in a good mood, and now researchers may have explained why: For better or worse, happy people have a harder time focusing. University of Toronto psychologists induced a happy, sad or neutral state in each of 24 participants by playing them specially chosen musical selections. To instill happiness, for example, they played a jazzy version of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. After each musical interlude, the researchers gave subjects two tests to assess their creativity and concentration. In one test, participants in a happy mood were better able to come up with a word that unified three other seemingly disparate words. Interestingly, induced happiness made the subjects worse at the second task, which required them to ignore distractions and focus on a single piece of information. The results suggest that an upbeat mood makes people more receptive to information of all kinds. With positive mood, people seem to actually get more access to things they would normally ignore. Instead of looking through a porthole, one has a landscape or panoramic view of the world. Researchers have long proposed that negative emotions give people a kind of tunnel vision or filter on their attention. Positive moods break down that filter, which enhances creativity but prevents laserlike focus.

Innovate.

Ponder.

Perceive.

Create.

Nanotechnology: DNA Strands into Nano Systems

Penetrate.

Nanotech systems based on DNA may be on the verge of becoming very large and complex, if not immediately useful to medicine or manufacturing. A group of researchers has combined simple strands of DNA into the most elaborate logic circuits yet, with potential for even more growth, the creators say. Another group has turned DNA chains into a rudimentary robotic system, namely a grid containing dozens of flipperlike arms. Both systems get by on nothing more than the zipping and unzipping of complementary DNA sequences. In the case of the new circuits, these Velcro-like maneuvers carry out logical operations such as "if A and C, then D" (called an A AND C gate), which lie at the core of electronic computing. But instead of having voltages in a solid-state circuit represent A, C and D, in this case high concentrations of different DNA sequences do the job. The new system can perform relatively complex sequences of operations because it allows the output strand of one operation, such as D, to serve as the input for another logical operation. The researchers successfully combined up to 12 different gates in five cascading levels, although the process takes hours. The research has opened the door to being able to build quite large and complex systems. Other approaches to DNA computing, such as a system that plays tic-tac-toe, rely on gates made from DNA- or RNA-based enzymes, which have not yet proven as capable of turning their own outputs into inputs.

Wonder…

But Beware!

Don't get caught in the mighty maze of your own mind.

_________Transcend._________

Atha Yodanushasanam

Now begins the teaching of Yoda.

You are lost in your head. So many clouds of language and words and philosophies go round and round inside your head that you have become very very dull.

Life is warm, death is cool. But death is as much alive as life.

Nothing can be said about enlightenment. Provoked to become enlightened you can be, pushed you can be, thrown into it you can be — but what can be said about it?

Enlightenment cannot be sought; it is not something that you can seek and find. It is not something that can be achieved, attained. It is there already.

Enlightenment is not something that is in the future, it is already there inside you, bubbling — wants to surface, wants to bloom…

So much concerned with search you are and so much occupied with search, you don't look within. It is there, and you go on rushing outside.

God cannot be sought, God is here. Because you seek, that's why you miss.

Drop all seeking, drop all desire, drop all future, drop all hope — and suddenly you are not there. Only God is.

You want money, you want meditation, you want power, one day you want paradise — but you want something. Your wanting never stops.

10.

What are you searching? What is all this nonsense? Stop searching, and find.

11.

The moment you stop desiring, it is there.

12.

God is intrinsic to life; God is not outside life.

Close your eyes, meditate.

May the force be with you.

In the past, all over the world, people were pagans — simple nature-worshippers. There was no concept of sin, there was no question of guilt. Life was accepted as it is. There was no evaluation, no interpretation — reason had not interfered yet. The moment reason starts interfering, condemnation comes. The moment reason enters in, division, split, starts and man becomes schizophrenic. Then you start condemning something in your being — one part becomes higher, another part becomes lower, and you lose balance. But this had to happen; reason had to come, this is part of growth. As it happens to every child, it had to happen to the whole of humanity too. When the child is born he is a pagan; each child is a born pagan. He is happy the way he is. He has no idea what is right and what is wrong; he has no ideals. He has no criteria, he has no judgement. Hungry, he asks for food. Sleepy, he falls asleep… Each child is born as a pagan, but sooner or later he will lose that simplicity. That is part; that HAS to happen, that is part of our growth, maturity, destiny. The child has to lose it and find it again. When the child loses it he becomes the ordinary man, the worldly man. When he regains it he becomes religious. The child's innocence is very cheap; it is a gift from God. He has not earned it: he will have to lose it. Only by losing it will he become aware of what he has lost. Then he will start searching for it. And only when he searches for it, and earns it, achieves it, becomes it — then he will know the tremendous preciousness of it.

- Osho