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I was surprised to read this (Nepali), it says that Ram Bahadur Bomjon, the Buddha Boy attacked and injured a guy with his sword. The blog entry refers to a Nepalese newspaper “Naya Patrika”, according to which Bomjon attacked and injured 22 years old Anil Khatri with his sword because Khatri entered the meditation premises without permission.

The report seems conflicting — first it says that Khatri was taken into control for three hours before being attacked in presence of committee members, and later quotes a committee member Yekananda Kunwar, who says: “Khatri was attacked because he tried to enter the meditation premises with a Khurpa (Nepali knife) when no one was around”.

To me, all this sounds a bit strange — a person meditating for peace resorting to violence, but again the facts are not clear yet! hopefully more details will emerge soon.

[Thanks for the link, Bharat.]

I remember being admitted to a boarding school when I was in class 6 (around 12 years old). From that time I’ve been living away from home (most of the time). Trying to make new homes, a home away from home…, In 1990 I left my home town Pokhara to join Amrit Science College in Kathmandu. In 1992 I left my country, and flew to Russia, where I completed my higher education and lived for 6 years. I came back to Nepal in 1998, and started my IT career. Came to Hong Kong in 1999, where I have been living with my wife and son since then.

Hong Kong has been a special place for me both in personal and professional aspect. Personally, my married life started together with my wife here, my son was born here, I’ve made many friends, and overall I find Hong Kong very friendly and peaceful place to live (except the buildings are too tall and your living apartments are too small). Professionally, I had an opportunity to work in a very interesting company (Japanese), where I grew up to become an IT System, Networking and Security Professional. I obtained some well respected professional certifications like CISSP, CCNA, ACP, and earned my Masters Degree in IT. Hong Kong has been a nice stop in my life, but the journey continues…, I’m leaving Hong Kong, this time the destination is UK. I’m moving to UK in August 2007, with my family. By moving to UK, I hope to improve the quality of life for my family in the long term, and I think I’ll have more interesting opportunities to grow professionally as well. If anyone in UK is looking for someone with my background (pdf), feel free to contact me or email me at niranjan.kunwar@gmail.com.

I’m having mixed feelings at this stage. A lot of excitement and some uncertainty at times. I’m observing my feelings with great interest. I’ve learned to watch my own feelings, and chatter in the head up to some extent, thanks to mindfulness meditation. It’s amazing to step back and observe what your mind is doing. This gives some clarity and helps make important decisions. I truly believe that life is a journey, not a destination, and I’m really enjoying this new phase of my journey that’s about to begin.

Any tips (for a newcomer) from people living in the UK will be very much appreciated. You can leave comments or contact me.

Ok England, here comes one more geek!

Many smart people have figured out the importance of domain name quite early, and are now multi-millionaires. They came up with many different (smart and weird) business models with the domain name. Check this fascinating story about The man who owns the Internet. Ok that was for business, but how about the domain name for individuals? There’s no doubt that now it’s becoming critical for individuals too. A recent study showed that one in five employer searches the information about the cantidate in internet and 59 percent of those said it influences recruitment decisions. Fortunately you can have your say in what Google says about you. So, individual’s online presence is more important than ever before.

I remember having a hard time finding an appropriate domain name for this site when I started blogging. Today, I decided to check if there were any leftover domain names for me to nab. All the .com, .net and .org domains with my name were already taken. So, I tried my family name, and was lucky to find kunwar.org free. I’ve registered it and forwarded the domains niranjan.kunwar.org and kunwar.org to this site. Maybe in the future I can provide a sub-domain to each and every member of my family . Also found niranjankunwar.com free, and nabbed that too.

If you’re lucky enough to still get a domain with your first name or family name you should just grab it. I register my domains at Netfirms, it’s pretty cheap — $4.95 for first year and $9.95 per year thereafter.

What do you think about online presence and owning your own domain name?

I locked myself in for 2 months to prepare for the CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional) exam, and now I’m back triumphant to tell the story. Yes, I just received the Congratulations email from ISC2. I’m sharing my experience here with a hope that it might be helpful to anyone who’s preparing to take the exam. There’s no doubt that it was THE MOST difficult exam I’ve ever taken.

Let me give you a general idea about this certification. CISSP is a security certification carried out by (ISC)², which is a globally recognized, vendor neutral organization for certifying information security professionals. To pass the CISSP exam you’ll have to be competent in 10 Domains of the Common Body of Knowledge (CBK):

• Access Control
• Application Security
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
• Cryptography
• Information Security and Risk Management
• Legal, Regulations, Compliance and Investigations
• Operations Security
• Physical (Environmental) Security
• Security Architecture and Design
• Telecommunications and Network Security

To qualify to sit for the exams you need to:

Subscribe to the (ISC)² Code of Ethics.
Have a minimum of four years of direct full-time security professional work experience in one or more of the ten domains of the (ISC)² CISSP® CBK® or three years of direct full-time security professional work experience in one or more of the ten domains of the CISSP® CBK® with a college degree. Additionally, a Master’s Degree in Information Security from a National Center of Excellence can substitute for one year toward the four-year requirement.

Update: Effective 1 October 2007, professional work experience requirements for the CISSP will increase from four to five years, and direct full-time security professional work experience will be required in two or more of the ten CISSP CBK domains. A new endorsement policy will also be in effect, requiring anyone who passes a CISSP, CAP, or SSCP exam to have their qualifications endorsed by another (ISC)² credential holder. These changes will not affect those who sit for an examination on or before 30 September 2007. For more information, please refer to the Experience Requirement Change FAQs.

The exam itself is 6 hours long, with 250 questions based on the 10 domains. 25 out of 250 questions are for research, but you’ll have to answer all of them, and there’s no way of knowing which one is which. So, 225 questions will be scored, and you’ll have to get 700 out of a possible 1000 points on the grading scale to pass. Different questions carry different weight (marks) and there’s no way to know which question carries how much marks. As of writing this, the exam costs US$ 499 if you register 16 days ahead of exam date or US$ 599 if you register later.

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I was greeted with several New Year SMS Greetings early this morning. Nepali New Year provides a nice opportunity to connect with friends and relatives while away from home. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of my readers a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2064. I truly hope and wish that this year will bring peace, prosperity and development to Nepal and it’s people. For non-nepali readers here’s a good description of Nepali Calendar.

Recently I haven’t been able to commit as much time as I would have wanted to on this blog. Currently I’m very busy with other projects and hopefully I’ll be free soon to start regular posting here.

When I read the news about Bomjan’s plan to start the ‘patal samadhi’ (underground meditation), it appeared to me that he’ll go under the trench and they’ll literally bury him alive. I was very worried about his safety and wished that he knew what he’s doing. But I feel better after reading eKantipur’s report that he’s meditating in a bunker, which is cemented from all sides and has a roof of tiles. Now that’s not a live burial, I guess.

According to Inspector Rameshwor Yadav of the Area Police Post Nijgadh, Bomjon was inside the bunker-like square ditch of seven feet.

“We call it bunker,” he said, adding, ” Although it’s seven feet deep, there is no lack of oxygen inside,” said Yadav, who claimed to have seen him going inside it from close range Monday.

A police team, under the command of Yadav, had gone to the place after word of Bomjon being on underground meditation spread in the area.

“His face was clean and hair was combed well,” Yadav said. According to him, “the bunker” has been cemented from all sides with roof of tiles.

So, some people think he’s looking for a peaceful place to meditate while others think he’s doing this for popularity and more money. I think he’s doing this for the same reason Buddha did 2600 years ago. Of course it’s a different matter whether he’ll be able to attain enlightenment or not. I’m not sure about his followers, but I’m quite sure about him, that he neither cares about money nor fame.

Ram Bahadur Bomjoan, the Buddha Boy is back in the news with reports that he plans to be buried alive while meditating.

Bomjan now plans to begin ‘patal samadhi’ (underground meditation), a private TV channel reported Monday, quoting a local journalist.

According to reports, his followers have already dug up an eight-feet deep trench in which Bomjan plans to descend. The trench will be then filled.

Asian religious traditions narrate tales of holy men being buried alive, braving extreme heat or cold and subjecting the body to other torments in order to master the senses and attain salvation.

A question is being asked whether the district administration will allow Bomjan’s followers to bury him. There has been no official response.

I’ve no idea what this means or will lead to if it’s true. I just hope that he knows what he’s doing. Searched Google to see if anyone has attempted this before and found this interesting overview of Scientific Studies of Contemplative Experience by Michael Murphy.

Like heart stopping, the live burial of yogis has excited the interest of several researchers. A physician, Rustom Jal Vakil, published an account in the British journal Lancet of such a confinement that was witnessed by some 10,000 people near Bombay in February 1950. According to Vakil, an emaciated sadhu named Ramdasji sat cross-legged in a subterranean 216-cubic-foot cubicle and remained there for sixty-two hours. His pulse remained steady at eighty beats per minute; his blood pressure was 112/78; and his respiratory rate fluctuated from eight to ten breaths per minute. Though he had some scratches and cuts, Vakil wrote, Ramdasji appeared “none the worse for his grueling experience.'’

Strange and unusual deaths…

Austrian Hans Steininger was famous for having the world’s longest beard (it was 4.5 feet or nearly 1.4 m long) and for dying because of it.

One day in 1567, there was a fire in town and in his haste Hans forgot to roll up his beard. He accidentally stepped on his beard, lost balance, stumbled, broke his neck and died!

Go here for more

Update 13 March 2007: He’s been found safe and is meditating in a new place.

All Headline News is reporting that the Buddha Boy (Ram Bahadur Bomjan) has gone missing again after he re-appeared in December last year on Christmas day. He’s been meditating near Halkhoriya pond in Bara, since his re-appearance in December. Locals in the district said he left his meditating place Thursday midnight.

Officials of Namo Buddha Service Committee searched for him throughout the day on Friday. Inspector Rameshwor Yadav of the Area Police Office in Nijgadh said the police have not been able to reach the spot though they were reported about his missing.