About Quadcopters and life

Few days ago, I was walking along the St Kilda beach with my two kids and saw this funky copter. It was pretty cool. Had four wings and is extremely agile and moving quite fast. Of course, my kids are fascinated and we went and had a chat to the gentleman who was manning this little gadget. He was a truly a gentleman and explained me all about this thing called Quad(copter). There are rules and regulations for owning and flying this thing. There are lot of things that you can do with this. He went on explaining. Firstly, it’s not legal to fly this on the beach. It needs to be flown across the water because of obvious reasons like; it might hit someone and hurt them. Then, there is thing about privacy. Because, this can be fitted with a Video camera which can take videos. But, he explained me that unless it is hovering over same place for a minute or two, one cannot actually get clear or detailed view of people, someone sunbathing on the beach. That’s, why, I don’t come here when it is busy - He explained. The Quad's charge allows it to fly for about 20 minutes for a distance of 1 Kilometre, height of about 400 feet (above that is illegal to fly) and he is having a pair of glasses by which he can actually see the Quad. The, if something goes wrong, he loses sight of it, there is a button called Home or return to base and by pressing it, the Quad will come back without any further instructions. It costs about $1200 to get a decent one like this. This is his hobby and he already lost couple of them while flying on the sea.

Interesting - isn't It.? When can I get one? Gopal asked me and told him that he need to be at least 12 yrs to get one like this for him.

A Quadcopter 

A Quadcopter

Shortly afterwards, I reflected on this and thought about this gentleman. How passionate he was talking about his quad, what are things it can you, how he can control it etc. Surely, all of us want to be a creator, maintainer and a Master. In Bhagavad Gita,Chapter 3 Verse 27 there is a nice verse,

At St Kilda Beach

"prakrteh kriyamanani

 gunaih karmani sarvasah

 ahankara-vimudhatma

 kartaham iti manyate

TRANSLATION: The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature."

 So in general people think that they are the doer, doing things by their own will. But, actual fact is everyone is conditioned by the three modes goodness, passion and ignorance and depending on the mode that is prominent and dominant, that will dictate a person to act in such a way. Suppose, in a restaurant the waitress spilled coffee on a customer, depending on the mode people might react differently. Once person might say, that’s fine and goes and cleans his cloths. Other who is passionate might raise his voice and shout on the person who spilled the coffee and one who governed by the mode of ignorance might actually get up and bash the other person. Very good, one may say. I am not doing anything, it’s all the 3 modes of nature goodness, passion and ignorance that are making me do things and God is the one who controls everything so ultimately, it’s his fault. But, here is the caveat – you as a tiny spirit soul has some minute independence can actually desire for something to happen and basically whatever that happens to you is due to your desire and past karma that put you in certain situation.

Yes, we can all create and control something in our life. Just like, if you are walking along Swanston Street in Melbourne, you see a person controlling, juggling few balls by tossing them into air, one, two, three, four and catching and tossing one before the other one comes down. Think of the great God, who created this whole universe where he is actually making huge, gigantic balls of planets, stars floating and moving in their orbits with exact precision.

Brahma Samhita 5.35

eko 'py asau racayitum jagad-aṇḍa-koṭiṁ

yac-chaktir asti jagad-anda-cayā yad-antah

andāntara-stha-paramānu-cayāntara-stham-

govindam ādi-purusam tam aham bhajāmi

Translation: He is an undifferentiated entity as there is no distinction between potency and the possessor thereof. In His work of creation of millions of worlds, His potency remains inseparable. All the universes exist in Him and He is present in His fullness in every one of the atoms that are scattered throughout the universe, at one and the same time. Such is the primeval Lord whom I adore.

 I think, I will write more about this some other time.. Have a good weekend.