Training for Nirvana?

Came across this speech at NYTimes blogs. A brain scientist gets a brain strokes, recovers and talks about it.
One of the points she mentioned was that with her controlling the body part of brain shutting down she had almost a euphoric sensation for a while. She is detached from her own body- viewing it as some separate machine.
I've always wondered what do these yogis, mystics talk about when they talk about dhyan and euphoria and detachment from physical world. Is it that what the meditation unwittingly unlocks is a switch that shuts the rational mind off for a while leading to such an experience we often talk in terms of 'revelation', out of body experience, communion with God etc?

Maybe this time they will investigate

Jaipur was hit by serial blasts. An event that would have shook the nation wildly but for the fact that its become a regular occurring event. All politicians are playing the blame game. States blame center, center blames states, BJP blames Congress, Congress blames BJP and people will die on.
Meanwhile our VIPs will continue playing the give me more security game. The status of a VIP is rated by how many security personnel they have. A lowly one gets like 18! policemen, higher ones may get more than 100! How does sheer number helps doesn't make itself clear to me but apparently the Kings know it so they keep increasing their security detail numbers while blaming lack of policemen for crime investigation and prevention.
After all the government will get time to pay attention to citizen deaths once the ministers get time from writing letters to other ministries to corner government largess for the family, or after settling the burning issues of cricket. It seems every state's cricket body is headed by a minister or erstwhile minister. J&K has Farrukh Abdullah, Bihar has Laloo, Sharad Pawar is the head of BCCI.
But there may be a silver lining here. Today's TOI mentioned that many Australian cricketers were planning to return back post the blasts. That'll deal a blow to T20 which is cricket's latest money spinner. We know that politicos in India care only for money and cricket. So it might be a double whammy for them. This might just about make them try and work on prevention of such activities, at least in places important to cricket.
We can dream.

Sham Democracy

Manohar Joshi, the ex Lok Sabha Speaker in an interview post his book "1B" launch mentions that often passengers were too scared to talk to him when they realized that they were sitting next to a Shiv Sena MP. An MP (speaker of House of representatives no less) is feared because of which party he belongs to and that party is a registered political party! Speaks volumes about how our democracy has degenerated.

Another MP, cabinet minister and in charge of "human resources including education" swears that he pledged his loyalty to the family and will remain true to it and that is how he is judged. Please not, he does not mentions he pledged to constitution or to safeguard India's interest but of the "family". Does no one finds it odd that loyalty to a "family" and its rewards being ministerial births a slapping insult to democracy? Was this why people shed blood to liberate this country, why Patel and and Nehru worked to get the kings away from deciding citizen's destiny? If this is not an insult to us and our constitution than what is? But I am sure we will vote in the same people who will reward his subversion of democracy with more power.

Then we have our ackowledged security experts, our scientists (and those not dependent on political masters to continue in job) touting the nuclear deal, other defense agreements, oil pipelines only to have the political masters (including one who traveled in a Jet to Taliban, gifted them mangoes and lots of freed terrorists) citing Kalam's competence to judge the nuke deal? or left who opposed India's nuclear program but support's Iran and want India to support it no matter what the political costs?

Or Das Gupta of CPI who said Dalai Lama has insulted India by being political when the gentleman says he is not against China owning Tibet but want cultural genocide to end? His party and its ilk actually compared Tibet to Kashmir. As far as I know India is not illegally occupying Tibet tho China does have parts of Kashmir ceded to it by Pakistan. As far as I know Kashmir does not let rest of Indians buy land there while Tibet is probably now Han majority? Will the communists allow India to follow the same policy in Kashmir as China in Tibet (after all these are similar cases as per dear commies of India)?