Ome, Asatom, Asatom, As Tamasoma, Jyotyrgamaya, Mritiurma, Amritam Gamaya,

Ome, Shantay, Shanty, shanty.

Ome, lead us from the unreal to the real,

lead us from darkness unto light,

lead us from death to immortality.

Ome, peace, peace, peace.

Let me start with a story.

This is a story about one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived,

Carl Friedrich Gauss.

This goes back some 250 years to a small town in Germany in those days, Brunswick.

And at the time Gauss was just a nine-year-old boy.

The story goes that in their classroom, all the boys were seated in a mathematics class,

and their teacher was a very formidable school teacher, was walking up and down with his cane, threateningly.

And then the teacher gave them an assignment.

He said to the students,

boys add up from one to 100, 1 plus 2, plus 3, plus 4 and so on so on up to 100 because the teacher wanted to take a nap.

And so he'll relax a little bit. He knew this the kids will take a lot of time and struggle with it.

And they had slates and chalk in those days. So you have to do that and submit your homework.

And he thought he will relax. But the moment he had finished this little boy, Gouse, he stood up and said, here it is.

The teacher was furious. He advanced with his, and the cane threateningly, but he saw the answer was correct.

5050, 50, 50, 50. And he was stunned. How had this little boy managed in an instant to add up from

one to 100? Well, what the little boy had done was of course discover the shortcut.

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