Aspundir: 08/05/12

religious thought 08

He has no desires. He has cast off his chains. He walks on air. He is free, Tumbling like a leaf in the wind, From life to life. He has gone beyond the world, Beyond joy and sorrow. His mind is always cool. He lives as if he had no body.

- Ashtavakra Gita 18:21-22

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It is my belief that whereas the twentieth century has been a century of war and untold suffering, the twenty-first century should be one of peace and dialogue. As the continued advances in information technology make our world a truly global village, I believe there will come a time when war and armed conflict will be considered an outdated and obsolete method of settling differences among nations and communities.

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

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There is a key for everything, and the key to Paradise is to love the poor.

- Hadith The Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as reported by Ibn Umar

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An attitude of gratitude creates blessings.

- Sir John Templeton

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Independence is never given to a people, it has to be earned; and having been earned, it has to be defended.

- Chaim Weizmann, modern founder of Zionism

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religious thought 07

When help is rendered by weighing the receiver's need And not the donor's reward, its goodness grows greater than the sea.

- Tirukkural 103

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Someone asked T'ou-tzu, "How is it when subject and object are both forgotten?"

T'ou-tzu said, "No such thing. Don't entertain such an understanding."

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Give up what appears to be doubtful for what is certain. Truth brings peace of mind, and deception doubt.

- Hadith The Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as reported by Hasan bin 'Ali

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No founder of any religion has dared to claim for himself one fraction of the assertions made by the Lord Jesus Christ about himself.

- Henry J. Heydt

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When asked by his father, Joshua b. Levi, what he had seen in a trance, Joseph replied: "I saw a world upside down, the upper below and the lower above." Whereupon Joshua said: "You saw a well-ordered world!"

- Talmud: Pesahim, 50a

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animated gif 03

The History of Web Design

Heaven's Gate Mountain

Heaven's Gate Mountain is a cave natural arch eroded through a karst syncline.

Macro Photos Of Insects

Despite their reputation as pests, the trillions of insects, bugs, and spiders that inhabit the Earth can make some of the most fascinating and dramatic close-up photography subjects. Insects and their tiny environments offer the macro photographer an unlimited amount of color, texture, and physical architecture to explore.

They are as unique as we are, and they are obviously much more plentiful.

Seven Coloured Earths, Mauritius

The Seven Coloured Earths, a small region near the village of Chamarel, Mauritius, is a geological curiosity and a major tourist attraction of Mauritius. This relatively small area of about 7,500 square meters comprises of sand dunes of seven distinct colours (approximately red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow).

The sands were formed from the decomposition of volcanic rock (basalt) gullies into clay, further transformed into ferralitic soil by total hydrolysis (chemical break- down of minerals by water). The two main elements of the resulting soil, iron and aluminium, are responsible for red/anthracite and blue/purplish colours respectively. The different shades of colour are believed to be a consequence of the molten volcanic rock cooling down at different external temperatures.

An unusual property of the sands is that they settle in different layers even if mixed together that gives the dunes a surrealistic, striped colouring. This strange phenomenon can be observed even on a smaller scale, if one takes a handful of sands of different colours and mixes them together, they'll eventually separate into a layered spectrum. The cause of their consistent spontaneous separation is yet to be explained. Another interesting feature of Chamarel's Coloured Earths is that the dunes seemingly never erode, in spite of Mauritius' torrential, tropical rains.

Ice Cave In Skaftafell, Iceland

Ice caves are temporary structures that appear at the edge of glaciers. They look amazingly beautiful from the inside. This particular cave is located on the frozen lagoon of the Svínafellsjökull glacier in Skaftafell, Iceland. The centuries old ice coming down the slopes of Öræfajökull via Svínafellsjökull glacier has metamorphosed into highly pressurized glacier ice that contains almost no air bubbles. The lack of air means that it absorbs almost all visible light, apart from the blue fraction which is then visible to the naked eye. However, this blue ice can be seen only under certain circumstances. It can be seen in winter after long periods of rain when the surface layer of the glacier has been washed away. It can be seen in ice-caves like this one and on floating icebergs that have recently rolled over.

This cave in the glacier ice is the result of glacial mill, or Moulin where rain and melt water on the glacier surface are channeled into streams that enter the glacier at crevices. The waterfall melts a hole into the glacier while the ponded water drains towards lower elevations by forming long ice caves with an outlet at the terminus of the glacier. The fine grained sediments in the water along with wind blown sediments cause the frozen meltwater stream to appear in a muddy colour while the top of the cave exhibits the deep blue colour. Due to the fast movement of the glacier of about 1 m per day over uneven terrain, this ice cave cracked up at its end into a deep vertical crevice, called cerrac. This causes the indirect daylight to enter the ice cave from both ends resulting in homogeneous lighting of the ice tunnel.

Magical Floating Faucet Fountains

The floating tap fountain is a clever illusion. It consist of a faucet mysteriously hovering above a pool or basin with an endless supply of water gushing out of it from seemingly nowhere. The faucet remains surprisingly steady despite having no visible support and where is all this water coming from? This spectacular effect is achieved by a transparent tube in the middle of the water column that holds the tap in place and, at the same time, keeps feeding it with water pumped from below. The water goes up through the tube and exits at the top. The water column, which is usually turbulent, effectively hides the tube from view.

Several giant floating tap fountains can be found around Spain, Belgium, US, Canada and other parts of the world. Some are permanent installation, others are temporary art pieces. The one below is located at Aqualand, Puerto de Santa María, Spain.