AN ALTERNATE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

There is no stronger and more wide-spread philosophy than the Philosophy of Convenience. Indeed, I have proved it in another article: ‘How Innocent Or Unbiased We Can Get?’ that there is only one way to get pure innocence or pure un-bias and that is the Concept of Free Will, which can be achieved only outside this universe. We have self or as Sri Guru Granth sahib calls ‘haume’ writ large on the footprints of our lives. None of us can hope to get out of this loop of seeking something for ourselves, our interests, our family interests, our community, village, town, nation; indeed anything that is ours.

The Philosophy of Our Convenience was born the day Self, Ego, ‘haume’ ‘my or mine’ were born; ie, the day the universe was created. Lets take the Concept of Happiness for example and lets say you are one of those self-sacrificing saints who does ‘everything’ for others’ happiness. In the end, you still have to reckon with this claim: “It gives me happiness to make others happy.” There is no way you can take ‘me’ out of even seemingly ‘selfless’ deeds.

One fallout of this ‘Philosophy of Convenience’ is that most – if not all – of us wish to be regarded as virtuous, no matter what we are doing. The reason is that most – if not all – of us feel that people when they look at our deeds they don’t really understand what goes through our minds when we do what we do. At other times, we detest the tendency in people to misread the thoughts of our minds and give them a different colour than the one we had intended. And the best part is that our intention is also dynamic that keeps pace with our current and ever-changing philosophy of how to be virtuous and seen as virtuous.

Our collective and generational philosophy of convenience made us invent the following (Read: ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?’, ‘The Virtual World’ and ‘Absolute Virtue’):

God.
Religion.
Good, Bad, Virtuous and Evil.
Time.

Each one of these were and is necessary for community or societal living. The first three are easy to understand as the products of our desire to make rules about our lives in a society or community. The last one is also not difficult to comprehend: we invented Time only for our part of the Universe, ie, one rotation of the Earth around the Sun would be 24 hours and during the revolution of the Earth in an orbit around the Sun seasons would be there depending upon if the Earth is closer to the Sun (Summer) in its elliptical orbit, or away (Winter). Living in a society on Earth, Time and Seasons help us to convert a Relative Phenomenon (Time is dependent upon the velocity of light) into an Absolute one; so much so that we tick off people who are late for work by a few minutes; or, call it a New Year at the stroke of midnight, wherever we are.

The Philosophy of Hindu Religion is that God is beyond all emotions, biases and Time; and that if we are to be one with God, we have to detach ourselves from all worldly feelings, possessions, time and even thoughts. Finding Paramatama, therefore, calls for rising above – what we call as – worldly feelings and thoughts, needs and desires. In Sri Guru Granth Sahib this condition is called ‘Jeevatya marna’ (to kill (all worldly thoughts whilst living one’s life). Total abnegation of all worldly things and total surrender to the will of God is the biggest philosophy of convenience that we have derived for ourselves. Let us examine the lines in Sri Guru Granth Sahib:

[lineate]जो नर दुख में दुख नहिं मानै। [/lineate][lineate]सुख सनेह अरु भय नहिं जाके, कंचन माटी जानै।। [/lineate][lineate]नहिं निंदा नहिं अस्तुति जाके, लोभ-मोह अभिमाना। [/lineate][lineate]हरष शोक तें रहै नियारो, नाहिं मान-अपमाना।। [/lineate][lineate]आसा मनसा सकल त्यागि के, जग तें रहै निरासा। [/lineate][lineate]काम, क्रोध जेहि परसे नाहीं, तेहि घट ब्रह्म निवासा।। [/lineate][lineate]गुरु किरपा जेहि नर पै कीन्हीं, तिन्ह यह जुगुति पिछानी। [/lineate][lineate]नानक लीन भयो गोबिंद सों, ज्यों पानी सों पानी।। [/lineate]

It says, in simple words, with the blessing of the Guru, the person who realises and keeps himself away from worldly feelings and things, understands the Creation, and becomes one with his/her Creator just as Water merges with Water.

buddhism-a-philosophy-for-life-w — Buddhism or the Philosophy of Moksha or Nirvana

When we examine the Truth of this advice we realise that being beyond lust, anger, greed, belongingness, sorrow, grief, shame and pride brings us closer to our inner self and hence to God. Lets say because of one’s lust a son is born and one feels a sense of fulfillment and pride in having an intelligent son; one gets angry or ashamed when he does something wrong and one is full of greed for him to do well in life. However, he is killed in an accident and one is full of intense and indescribable grief and helplessness and even frustration with God for being unnatural in recalling the son before the father. That’s the time when the wise and the saintly, through collective and generational philosophy of convenience tell you the following:

He was never yours (Only God owns everything and everybody) so why are you sorrowful?
God’s creation never dies and hence your son is reborn as someone else’s son now.
Grief and sorrow, just like happiness and pride are worldly feelings and God keeps giving us periodic hints to rise above these.
Look at the entire srishti (Creation or Universe) as your own and you will realise that you neither gained anything when you had him nor lost anything when he went away.
God loves us all and will never do anything to sadden us; it is just that understanding of His ways is beyond us all.

Various rituals were and are born out of this philosophy of convenience. In my village in Punjab, women from neighbouring houses and families used to congregate at the house of a family whereat someone had died and they would beat their chests and do maatam (mourning) so as to help the bereaved to take out intense feelings of grief at their loss. Death is not seen as the final “end”, but is seen as a turning point in the seemingly endless journey of the indestructible “atman” or soul through innumerable bodies of animals and people. Hence, Hinduism prohibits excessive mourning or lamentation upon death, as this can hinder the passage of the departed soul towards its journey ahead: “As mourners will not help the dead in this world, therefore (the relatives) should not weep, but perform the obsequies to the best of their power.” The period of mourning, therefore, last until 13 days and has various stages such as Uthala (Rising), and Chautha (fourth day).

Now what if we have all got it wrong? What if God had given us various feelings and thoughts to face them and not to run away from them? A strangely rebellious thought? No, on the other hand, it is realisation of the fact that nothing can be created by anyone other than by God, if there is one. If He is the all-powerful and the only Creator than He alone made all worldly things, feelings and thoughts. Lets say, over a period of Time (our own invention; else, it doesn’t exist), since the beginning of the Earth, we, human beings, intensified these feelings a hundred times and brought newer thoughts and biases to these. However, nothing can be created out of nothingness; sometime or the other, however weak, these feelings originated and would have been given to us by God. We worship Earth, Sky, Water, Fire etc because these are God’s creations. However, why does our philosophy of convenience goads us to run away from emotions, feelings, thoughts etc in order to discover Him? Did God create these as obstacles so that we’d cross these and then find Him; a sort of cosmic Hide and Seek?

And who are we trying to please by abnegating these God’s creations? Our God, and for the good of our soul. I think the dichotomy lies in the fact that the world has evolved as a society or community whereas such abnegation makes us do something only for one person or one soul that is our own. Where do you want to stay; as an ascetic in the hills and caves or as a social being in the world?

Don’t seek God, therefore, for yourself and for the peace of your soul. It is a downright selfish and un-godly feeling. Seek kindness, and goodness for another person, another soul and leave the rest to God to give your just reward or punishment.

Let alone run away from feelings, thoughts and emotions; I am suggesting that you own someone’s loss, feel his or her grief, face his anger, pride and greed and be kind to him or her rather than at all times being worried about obtaining Paramatama for yourself.

Three years back, Mr. NR Narayana Murthy, the founder chairman of Infosys gave a speech at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, on 09 Oc 2009. The speech was titled ‘Learning From The West’. It is worth reading this speech and I have given you the link. See what a shift of philosophy from the individual to the society can do for us Hindus. It is the need of the hour; we need it more than at any time in our history.

BORN FREE? SATYAMEV JAYATE? LETS WORK TOWARDS IT

In my last article in Philosophy section of the blog, I wrote about ‘How Unbiased Or Innocent Can We Become? The article had this quote from Swami Vivekanand near the end: “Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. … To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.” I concluded, therefore, that with the influences acting on our consciousness or sub-consciousness from ages and during our lives, we can never be absolutely unbiased or innocent. At best, we can be more or less unbiased or innocent than others.

Lets now descend from the stratosphere to ground reality. The fact is that perhaps never before in Indian society we were less free than we are at present; both physically and in our thinking. Satyamev Jayate, the serialised programme by Aamir Khan, is all about individual and collective freedoms and desirable restrictions thereon; for example, in the last episode, it was brought out that the unrestricted littering and pollution of water sources in India need to be checked. However, it is my firm belief that changes in societies and individuals come from within, as a response to the perceived environment. Individuals think of these changes; but, finally, they require people’s support to bring about the changes. Sometimes only they are forced upon us; such as cleanliness drive after plague in Surat or need for coastal security after 26/11 attack in Mumbai. However, such changes have limited sustainability; as soon as the threat posed by the incident recedes, we go back to our routine way of doing things.

So, what this article seeks to do is to make us aware of some of the significant issues and suggest ways out. In each one of his episodes, Aamir Khan invariably brings out about individuals and organisations that are doing a yeoman service to get over the problems. This article is a small contribution to increase awareness.

Freedom or Right to be Born and Live. We have a very high Infant Mortality Rate in India. The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births. This rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country. The infant mortality rate of the world is 49.4 according to the United Nations and 42.09 according to the CIA World Factbook. As per the list of countries by infant mortality rate from the 2011 revision of the United Nations World Population Prospects report, by five years averages, India ranks at 150 in 194 countries with an IMR of 60.82. Our ranking is tucked in between that of Bangladesh and Ghana on top of us and Eritrea and Zimbabwe below us. Singapore has the lowest IMR with just 2.60 deaths per thousand. Since our death rate is 6.4 deaths per 1000, our IMR is about ten times. This means that in India ten times more children die before attaining the age of one than the number of deaths in other ages.

It would still have been alright to be complacent about these statistics. However, when the incidence of Female Infanticide is added to these, it should make us sit up and take notice. Some activists, including as brought out in an Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate episode, believe that India’s 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven – activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been aborted between 2001 and 2011. I brought out the plight of being an Indian Woman in an early article ‘Is There Reason To Celebrate Women’s Day in India?’ and how female foetuses were discovered in a well in Patiala. Wikipedia, however, holds that these claims are controversial and that the 2011 census birth sex ratio in India, of 917 girls to 1000 boys, is similar to 870-930 girls to 1000 boys birth sex ratios observed in Japanese, Chinese, Cuban, Filipino and Hawaiian ethnic groups in the United States between 1940 to 2005. They are also similar to birth sex ratios below 900 girls to 1000 boys observed in mothers of different age groups and gestation periods in the United States. I don’t agree. I feel that Female Infanticide is prevalent in India in significant numbers and even if a girl-child exercises the Right to be Born, she soon starts praying that she would be dead.

Look at the picture below. It is from the television serial on Colors channel. The series were titled ‘Na Aana Is Des Laado‘ (Don’t Come to this World Girl). It premiered on 9th March 2009, much before Aamir Khan brought it out on SJ. The story deals with the social evil of Female infanticide, and concentrates on the problems faced by women in a male-dominant world.

A scene from Colors serial ‘Na Aana Is Des Laado’

Solution. Being born is a gift of God; to live depends upon our conditions. As a society we have to realise that life starts much before the actual birth and that female infanticide is murder. A child should be allowed to be born irrespective of its sex. After having been born, it should get adequate nourishment and health-care so as to live. We keep talking of an emerging great power called India. It is total hogwash if 6 percent of Indian children die within a year of being born and millions of female foetuses are discarded because our society has little use for women. We cannot change the entire country; but, we can certainly change the way we look at things in our own families and immediate neighbourhood. Others will have as much value for Indian lives – both male and female – as we have for our own lives. Six percent IMR doesn’t suggest we value Indian lives too much.

Freedom to Choose Religion. This is a very touchy subject with us. Just like during the elections when we see that there are people whose votes have been already cast, we have our religion already chosen for us even before birth. After that, even in the kindergarten admission form ‘Religion’ has to be specified. This continues during our lives for all admission forms and other applications. Whose religion is it? It is that of our parents and their parents? We cannot dare to go outside the ambit of the religion chosen for us by our parents. We have no idea whether other religions are good or bad (actually ‘bad’ is not even an option; we are talking about religion and not potatoes or appliances); but, we are somehow told that absolute and blind loyalty to our religion is the stuff that separates us from pagans or beasts. It is therefore an acceptable thing to break the legs of or burn the house of a person who is perceived to be desecrating our religious symbols or monuments. Our religion itself might just be teaching us to look at all human beings with kindness; but, to hell with that. It is the religious practice or rituals that are more important to us. Hence, we are prepared to do irreligious things, even to kill, in order to defend our religion that our parents chose for us and about whose virtues we simply have had no idea. Some loyalty this.

Courtesy: wallpaper.diq.ru

Solution. Organised religion became the need when human beings started living in communities to be better prepared to protect themselves from animals, disease and vagaries of nature. Now that people live in cities, towns and villages, better equipped to defend themselves than many centuries ago, orgaised religions have started dividing people and are easy prey to machinations of hordes of godmen and politicians. We should, therefore, consider making religion more private than public and vulgar display of blind loyalty. Also, if all religions believe that we are God’s children, it cannot be that God as a father would look kindly on his Muslim or Christian or Hindu children and send others to rot in hell. God loves us all. (Read ‘Whose God Is It Anyway?‘)

Freedom to Live Anywhere in the Country. Now this sounds rather easy and doesn’t look like an issue at all; especially since Aamir Khan has not (yet) talked about it being an issue. Let me, therefore, give you a few facts. Two years back, in response to a PIL (Public Interest Litigation), the Supreme Court of India ruled that an Indian has an inherent right to settle down anywhere in the country. Now, why would you require a Supreme Court ruling on it? A few years back, in an election rally, I heard the Chief Minister of my home-state make an unlawful and unconstitutional statement saying, “Himachal is for Himachalis only.” Similarly, the goons of MNS want us to believe that only ‘sons-of-soil’ have the right to settle down in Maharshatra. A RAND study, a few years back, concluded that within the next two decades India would be divided into at least 50 states. Why are we becoming so parochial? Who is profiting from dividing us? This time it is not really a “foreign-hand” that is manipulating us. This time, just like pre-independence days when British ruled over us by following a ‘Divide and Rule’ policy, our own politicians too have learnt how to manipulate people by dividing them along religious, geographical, linguist and casteist lines. So, whilst earlier we lost our independence to the British, now we have lost it to the politicians. The states are now becoming more and more isolated from the concept of a united India. Within the states and cities we already have colonies of Muslims, Sikhs, Biharis, Bengalis etc. Three years back a Muslim was refused permission to buy a flat in a predominantly Hindu building in Pune. Many a times any opposition to these parochial ideas are met with threats of or actual killings.

Solution. Parochialism of this nature is anti-Indian. We have to publicly and individually shun it. We have to focus on the concept of one India rather than being divided into various regions. If we don’t do so, very soon we shall have anti-social and anti-national elements ruling over us. As an example, Maoists writ now runs large in about one third of the districts of our country. For any movement to succeed, people have to stand up to the nonsense dished out by politicians who take up the patronage of colonies and regions based on parochial interests. We, as people of free India, must stand against these. Lets ask of our candidates in the next elections that we would vote for them only if they undertake not to divide us further. As a small step, all vehicle registration plates, by law, are to be based on “modern Hindu-Arabic numerals and Roman alphabets”. Lets shun those that are in local script; these are illegal.

Courtesy: team-bhp.com

Freedom to Choose Government. “Aha, here we got you” you are bound to say, “India is the largest democracy in the world and we choose governments on the average of every five years.” Think again. Do you really exercise a choice? Is it really functional democracy? One and a half years back, on the occasion of our 62nd Republic Day I brought out in an article ‘How Proud Should We Be Of Indian Republic at 62?‘ that an elected representative in our country represents, on an average, about 9 percent of the electorate (people of voting age who are registered voters). This means that a good 90 percent of the electorate haven’t elected him/her. However, when he/she enters the parliament he starts using such arrogant words as ‘supremacy of the parliament’ (mind you not ‘supremacy of the people’ but that of his seat of “power“). And these 9 percent voters; how did they elect him/her? The only issues that he brought out to them during his/her messy election campaign were those of caste, religion, and vituperation of the other candidates and parties. Think again; what choice did you exercise whilst electing him/her? Did you exercise your choice of ‘none of the above’? Or, most likely, you only chose what appeared to be the least harmful of a band of rogues? If you did you are amongst the lucky few who actually went to vote and after going there found that your name is actually on the voters’ list (a tall order in case you happen to vote conscientiously and not enmass as people in the politically patronaged colonies do) and your vote has not already been cast after you have reached the voting booth.

Courtesy: rediff.com

Solution. We require a truly representative government in India; one where we actually exercise a choice. It wouldn’t come about unless the thinking middle-class wakes up and hold the representatives accountable. Please remember after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, when the middle class took out candle light marches for the victims and stridently took the elected representatives to task for complete absence of security, Colaba, the constituency where the attacks took place, recorded the lowest voter turn out of just 37 percent. Most middle class voters enjoy the three-four days holidays that they get for voting. Simple solutions then: One, ensure your name is on the voters’ list; two, ensure that you vote; three, lets have a strong enough movement to get ‘none-of-the-above’ choices included in the voters pad; four, vote conscientiously and not as an ad hoc choice at the spur of the moment.

Freedom to Choose Life Partner. India is a country where until recently we had the prevalence of Sati. A widow was expected to jump into the funeral pyre of her dead husband since it was considered that after the husband was dead, the wife had no right to continue living. And who was her husband? Did she choose him? No, for heaven’s sake, what are you talking about? Many of the Indian girls are still married when they are children (see pic below). The parents decide who she should get married to; of what religion and caste are the governing factors. It is the same with boys; he dare not marry anyone outside the ambit laid by the parents and the community. In many cases, should the boy and the girl decide to exercise choice, the future that awaits them is that of complete ostracising and also of death. With the increased expectancy of life, the couple is expected to spend the next five decades or more together but both of them do not exercise choice for fear of parents, relatives and khap-panchayats. In majority of the cases, the boy’s family either demands dowry directly or makes it clear that the girl will be happier if her parents provide something for her; eg, “Humein kuchh nahin chahiye, jo kuchh hai aap apni ladki ko de sakte hain.” (We don’t need anything; you are free to give anything to your daughter though)

Prevalence of child marriage (Pic courtesy: asianews.it)

Solution. Life is unique and life is precious. The happiness of our children lies in providing them the freedom to choose life partners. Dowry and other considerations of caste and community should be shunned. The only way to change the society is if we do it with our children and start with ourselves and our families.

Freedom of Expression. This is a very sensitive subject with us. From ostracism of MF Hussain to Mamta Bannerji getting after people with vengeance who were making cartoons of her, we are certainly losing patience and becoming more rigid in our approach. It is not just James Laine’s ‘Hindu King in Islamic India’ but, nowadays, increasingly large number of movies and books are found objectionable by communities and vested interests; many of these without either seeing the movie or reading the book. It is true that freedom of expression should be responsibly used; however, I am talking about more and more people in our society being pseudo loyalists and jingoists. We are gradually becoming a society where fear prevails and true expressions remain suppressed for ages.

Laine burning (Courtesy: patwardhan.com)

Solution. We should be proud of the pluralism of India. Even when foreign kings came to India and ruled over us, we didn’t require armies and senas to protect our beliefs and ideas. In the end, ideas conquer because of the strength of the ideas and not because of the authorities or senas protecting these. What we need is a society more tolerant of others’ ideas. As Winston Churchill said, “I do not agree with you but I shall defend to the hilt your right to say your thing.”

Right to Privacy. Lets face it: we are too many of us. There is no way we can let people by themselves; everything is public, everything is everywhere. In this, the role of the present day Indian media is to be abhorred. Imagine sending a microphone down to Prince having fallen into a 40 metres hole and asking him, “Kaisa lag raha hai tumhen?” (How do you feel being down there?). Similarly, telling us live what is happening every minute to the innards of Pramod Mahajan after having been shot by his brother, I would think it is invasion of privacy. Listening to people’s calls, e-mails, messages in the name of tightening security is also invasion of privacy. There is nowhere to go these days. Young boys and girls in love are frequently hassled by the police. All your sensitive information is public knowledge. India has emerged the capital of the world for white collar crimes such as stealth of banking data of people and credit card details. Similarly, the police feels that they can stop anyone anywhere and start harassing ordinary citizens in order to show their “supreme power”. Any number of promoters ring you up and sms you any number of times to advertise their products. You won’t find directions on the road as to how to reach the airport, hospital or railway station but you will find large hoardings telling you how far and where the next MacDonald is. Whether or not you want to participate in a religious festival, since these are largely celebrated on roads and public places you end up participating in these against your choice. You cannot dare to speak against the noise levels. We have simply lost privacy.

Loss of Privacy (courtesy: wearethebest.wordpress.com)

Solution. This will take a long time to come in India beset as we are with the problems of terrorism both from across the border and home grown. The law enforcing agencies feel that they have a right to pry into people’s private lives and people on their own feel helpless. Some of them even ask what’s the big deal about it? Possibly, we can start asserting individual’s right to privacy in awareness campaigns. The more people talk about it, the more will be the compulsion to do away with privacy. As far intrusions into privacy of individuals by communities are concerned, includind intruding by unwanted and illegal noise, we can start with ourselves, our children and our families and perhaps the movement will grow.

Freedoms We Can Do Without. Having given vent to some of the desirable freedoms that we should have as Indians and the ones that we are still far from having, let me now make a short list of freedoms that we have ascribed to ourselves but which encroach upon others’ rights and freedoms. We should restrict these so called ‘freedoms’:

The first one of these is the freedom to have sex with everyone and everywhere without consideration of age and circumstances. The instance of incest in our country is as high as 49 percent. Many very young lives have been scarred for life with our people’s inability to control sexual urges. Rapes are on the increase and Delhi has now earned the dubious distinction of being the ‘Rape Capital of the World’.

The second is freedom to use the roads every which way. The other day a foreigner asked me to describe traffic in India. I have written a lot on the subject in this very blog. But, in order to cut a long story short, here was my reply: In India you would do well to understand that on our roads we have all types of vehicles and non-vehicles at all times in all directions at all times. Can’t we individually and collectively bring some order into it?

The third is our uncontrollable urge to litter; the freedom that we feel our forefathers have won for us. The result is that our houses, colonies, roads, public places, anywhere and everywhere, look shabby, full of paan stains, with mounds or heaps of filth. Diseases and epidemics result from this unchecked pollution especially of all our water bodies. However, we don’t want to bring in even an iota of discipline in our civic lives.

Lastly, we can do away completely with the freedom to consider public moneys and properties as our own. From netas to common man, everyone is now part of the great Indian corruption scene; it is all to do with shortcuts to get ahead in life somehow. We Indians have really lost our soul. (Read ‘Indians – Bartering Character For Prosperity‘)

Fortunately for us having touched rock bottom there is no way to go but up. Lets work towards it.

Satyamev Jayate.

HOW UNBIASED OR INNOCENT CAN WE BECOME?

Is the world an obstacle course to cross and reach God? Is the purpose of our life or existence only to be with God or finally reach Him? Why is it that God can be obtained by the abnegation or denial of all human feelings, desires and wants? In our scriptures and even in ordinary conversation our baser feelings are described as being “animalistic“. But, who made those animals? Who made us? We tend to feel that whenever we do or think something ‘good’, God is controlling us. Then who is controlling us when we do or think ‘evil’ things? Who decides what is ‘good’ or ‘evil’? Who gives us any knowledge or consciousness? Is it God or does knowledge and consciousness exist in the world like internet; a huge highway?

Lets first examine the concept of consciousness. Consciousness is not an absolute term. Indeed, I have already established that there is no Absolute Virtue in this world (Read ‘Absolute Virtue’) and all virtues, qualities, good or bad, and hence beliefs and knowledge are in relation to others. Consciousness too is defined as ‘the relationship between our mind and the rest of the world with which we interact’. Thus, even though consciousness is awareness, it is subjective. And how do we know about consciousness? It is, we are at pains to say, something intrinsic, something intuitive. Something like our perception of God; an idea that emerged from nowhere but we intuitively know it is the right idea.

Consciousness: a relationship between us and the world (pic courtesy: zazenlife.com)

This then brings us to ‘Intuition‘. Intuition is known as the opposite of reason. And what is reason? It is the ability that we have ascribed to ourselves to think logically or to make sense of the facts presented to us. In other words, being reasonable is the same as being rational. Intuition on the other hand is the ability to have or use knowledge without reasoning. The origin of the word is Latin ‘intueri’ which means ‘to look inside’. Lets say you weigh factors in your mind and then decide on a course of action, your selection is dependent upon reason. However, if without weighing the facts in mind you, some inner voice or gut feeling tells you what you should do, you do so intuitively. Many people have won great fortunes or warriors won great battles by following their intuitions rather than reasoning. Intuition is also called Guardian Angel. It is not clear at whose behest your inner voice or Guardian Angel speaks to you.

Intuition: seeing it with the inner eye (pic courtesy: mindpowermasters.blogspot.com)

Lets subject Intuition to scrutiny, reasoning or logic. Is it really the opposite of rational and hence irrational or unreasonable or illogical? Then, how is it that even consciousness is what is intuitively known to us? What about post-event analysis or reasoning? For example, if an intuition can save you from an accident, what is irrational or illogical about it? Is it that if with your current sensory and extra-sensory knowledge leads you to disaster, then only it is fruit of a rational thought. Else, it is to be explained with the phrase ‘nothing succeeds like success’ or with the derisive ‘the b____r is just lucky’. About a century ago, in 1921, Carl Jung defined intuition as ‘perception by the unconscious’. Jung said that a person in whom intuition was dominant, an ‘intuitive type’, acted not on the basis of rational judgment but on sheer intensity of perception.

Last year, I wrote an article ‘Being Nonsensical May Be Far Sighted’. In this I had argued that since we compare our knowledge with what has been in the past, we limit our future knowledge. Therefore, the world’s knowledge grows only incrementally. Anybody who takes a leap of knowledge far beyond our current or past thinking is called non-sensical since we are limited by our senses. I also wrote that we live in ‘The Virtual World’ since even seeing is not believing and also, things do exist in the cosmos that are beyond our senses and hence, simply because we can’t see, touch, hear, taste and smell them are no grounds for their non-existence.

Okay, lets see what I have established so far in this article; it is that all consciousness, awareness, knowledge, rational, reasoning and logical approach is after all an attempt to compare the current knowledge with other current or previous knowledge so as to make sense of the facts presented to us. However, when we ‘intuitively‘ arrive at a conclusion, even if it turns out to be more right for us than reasoning, it is still the product of an irrational thinking or simply a ‘perception born out of unconscious’.

Intuition, therefore, may be defined as understanding or knowing without conscious recourse to thought, observation or reason. There is a great deal of mysticism or supernaturalism associated with it since we appear to be responding to cues, hints or suggestions given to us by our gut-feeling or without any previous knowledge. However, what if knowledge or awareness or consciousness about this previous knowledge is beyond the ambit of our senses? It would still then be historical data stored in the depths of our mind or hanging in the air, which comes to surface only when we are faced with a particular situation.

Sounds incredible? Well, it is not really so. We already have something called reflex action that makes a child instinctively take its hand away from fire or sharp object without having experienced it before during its short life of say three months. It is because generations of knowledge are imprinted in its nervous system through its parents, grandparents etc. Similarly, could this be that an intuition is nothing but generational knowledge imprinted in our system somewhere and it is designed to surface when it does? In that case, it is still comparing current knowledge with previous knowledge or simply experience. Have we experienced such a thing before? If yes, then how does the current experience compare with the previous one?

Therefore, experience is considered the very essence of consciousness; it is a subjective feeling, something intrinsic with each one of us. We are therefore conscious that there cannot be someone or something devoid of consciousness and still be called human.

Lets return to the original question: ‘who, therefore, gives us the consciousness, knowledge, awareness, and even intuition and reflex action, gut feeling or inner voice?’ Is there something beyond consciousness that drives us? Whenever we subject anything to our senses, we invariably compare it with a template we have in our mind of an earlier experience or history either directly through our memory or through intuition. Hence, we can never be innocent or unbiased since consciousness, knowledge, awareness, intuition etc all are relative and subjective. There is no absolute objectivity.

At this stage, let’s have a look at what exactly is Bias? How many times have you come across the expression, “Saala shakal se hi badmaash lagta hai” (He simply looks like a rogue). Lets give it a thought as to what exactly is contained in this statement? It is a template in our mind about what we think a rogue should look like. Have we got enough personal experience of rogues to form this template; or is it some one’s historic data, or description that has got us swayed?

Bias is, therefore, the tendency to have a one-sided perspective in comparison to other equally valid choices. It is a selfish point of view; something similar to a lover’s devotion towards his beloved. It is more emotional than reasoning. The fact is (this is my bias speaking) that every one of us has a philosophy of convenience and we invariably look for reasons to prove this theory or philosophy right.

A very good way to explain Bias by nirmukta.com

A bias can be cognitive if you take decisions based on cognitive skills rather than through evidence. We take shortcuts to arrive at decisions based on emotional and social factors rather than by seeking the proof of a particular statement, event or person.The term cognition comes from the Latin verb congnosco (con ‘with’ + gnōscō ‘know’), which itself is derived from the Ancient Greek verb gnόsko “γνώσκω” meaning ‘learning’. Hence cognition means: ‘to conceptualize’ or ‘to recognize’. If our mind, through emotional or social process of cognition has decided, even before hearing the evidence, that a certain person is bad influence; we cut out all reasoning and arguments against our decision. That’s Bias without our even stopping to think and analyse. Many a times we are not even aware that our mind does this to us; since, believe it or not, it is auto-programmed to do it without any inputs or help from us.

Take a mother’s love for her child; she gets immune to hearing anything that spoils her impression that she has the most beautiful child on earth.

With the kind of pre-knowledge that we are programmed to have, even before we are born, it is not possible for us to be ever unbiased or innocent. Every thought with us, whether conscious or intuitive, is based on historical knowledge (it may be immediate history or of thousands of years back) and hence, when we tell someone to clear his or her mind of all ideas and then make a decision, we are as far from the truth as we can get. Bias, with each one of us, is present in some manner or the other, in some degree or the other. All thinking is Bias in its larger sense. None of us can ever be totally innocent since all knowledge actually corrupts the mind and keeps the mind from reacting to a new situation or idea based on its own merit and not on historic data in our mind or elsewhere. Also, one can never be completely innovative; for, if one did, it would simply be non-sensical or beyond the scope of senses.

How then can we ever regain innocence? Indeed, this sentence unknowingly suggests that we had innocence at one time and lost it by our own actions, thoughts or inactions. Actually that itself is a myth. Anyway, lets at least examine the chances of our ever becoming unbiased or innocent.

The holy book that I look for guidance is the Sri Guru Granth Sahib. Guruji has described something called haume (Self or Ego) that gets into every thinking of ours and we are never free from it. According to Sri Guru Granth Sahib, if we can be rid of haume, we would be close to param aatma (Supreme Soul) or God.

Sounds very simple, is it? Get rid of haume and we are next to God. To help us examine it, we have to decide whether we have the Free Will to think or do things independently or some force somewhere guides us all the time?

Historically, there has been considerable debate with scholars and spiritual leaders about whether we have Free Will or not. It is a somewhat divided house. Is a person, of sane mind (whatever that means), to be morally responsible for his/her thoughts or actions or is what one does or doesn’t do already determined by a higher force; something that the Sri Guru Granth Sahib calls Kirt (writ already for you for a particular life or determined in advance)? Already, in most courts, a person’s guilt is held to be minimised or even held as zero if he or she was not sane or in a position to decide by himself or herself; for example, a small child suffocating her father through sheer ignorance will be held in the courts as innocent because a child is not expected to know what he/she is doing; and certainly not have mens rea (a guilty mind or an intention to commit wrong). However, if we carry forward this argument further, and come to the collective conclusion that no man or woman can ever be totally free to take a decision or commit a deed, what does it make of our collective reasoning to punish such a man? “For heavens sake, a forty-year old can’t be as innocent as a child”?

Lets study the concept of Free Will a little more. Free Will is our ability to make choices free from all constraints. What stands in the way of Free Will is metaphysical determinism and what favours is the concept of metaphysical libertarianism.

Determinism broadly means that some form of determinism or pre-set conduct or behaviour is true, and hence there is nothing like Free Will. This takes four major forms: Casual, Logical, Theological and Biological. Lets just take one of these to understand what it is. Logical determinism is the notion that all propositions, whether about the past, present or future, are either true or false. The problem of free will, in this context, is the problem of how choices can be free, given that what one does in the future is already determined as true or false in the present.

In Hinduism, the various schools of thought do not agree with one another on whether we have Free Will or not. Here is Swami Vivekananda about it; one of Hinduism’s thinking and modern saints: “Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. … To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.”

I found this in Wikipedia: However, the preceding quote has often been misinterpreted as Vivekananda implying that everything is predetermined. What Vivekananda actually meant by lack of free will was that the will was not “free” because it was heavily influenced by the law of cause and effect—”The will is not free, it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect, but there is something behind the will which is free.” Vivekananda never said things were absolutely determined and placed emphasis on the power of conscious choice to alter one’s past karma: “It is the coward and the fool who says this is his fate. But it is the strong man who stands up and says I will make my own fate.”

So, finally, we have come to the end of this long discourse; which is that we can never be unbiased or innocent. However, there is a Consciousness far beyond the western or common notion of consciousness as given above. If, in some way, we are able to arouse this consciousness, we can get over what is pre-determined for us.

Until then, we can be more unbiased or innocent than someone; and at the same time be less unbiased or innocent than someone else. Also, we cannot be absolutely unbiased or innocent. As Eugene O’ Neill wrote, “No man’s guilt is not yours; nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart.”

Sri Guru Granth Sahib, which I believe, in large parts, is based on the Vedas (the holiest of Hindu scriptures), has this to say about it: “Man jeete jag jeet” (Conquer the mind to conquer the universe).

Easier said than done, since, you can’t free the Mind of Bias (borne out of haume) even for a second.

BEING NON-SENSICAL MAY BE FAR SIGHTED

I believe that it is not just ‘we are what we think‘; but, also, the universe is what we think it is. Surprised? Hogwash? We often refer to it as ‘magic’ or ‘supernatural’ what we cannot understand. Those who can let their imagination take wing can ‘see’ and ‘hear’ things better than others; something that we have called ESP (Extra Sensory Perception). I have proved in this section of my blog (The Virtual World) that even seeing is not believing; even seeing is still our imagination. So, in order to carry forward this argument, what if the saints and spiritual leaders before us had discovered that senses can get us only so far and no more; and that going beyond the senses may be the way to go. That is, the expression “are you out of your senses” may not describe you as an idiot but as a great intellectual?

Don’t get it? Well let me explain: Senses kind of ‘limit’ the range of our imagination or even ‘knowledge’, if you care to call it that. There is only an ‘incremental’ growth in the knowledge of the world with passage of time; even when there are such earth-shaking discoveries as atomic power and speed of electrons. So, because of this limitation, we are not able to acquire such knowledge about which we have no knowledge whatsoever. In other words, you can only discover such lands and treasures that you have at least imagined them to be there. It doesn’t mean all treasures and ‘lands’ (I am using the word ‘lands‘ in a metaphoric sense) have been found; least of all imagined. Therefore, in our life time, we shall never imagine those things, ‘treasures’, ‘lands’ that people will ‘imagine’, say, a thousand years from now.

But, what, if we were to suddenly discover a machine or tool by virtue of which we could go beyond our current imagination and discover things or treasures of future generations? Impossible? Well, I am not too sure. Leonardo da Vinci did it; Lord Rama did it; Arjuna did it.

Probably, many of us do it but these are termed as – you guessed it – non-sensical; because, our collective sense has not (yet) taken us there.

Seen in this manner, I am convinced that there is no difference between Science, Spirituality and Mythology: the one that takes the bigger leap calls the other backward and idiotic. And who is to know which is the bigger leap? Well, our ‘current’ knowledge.

What happens to some of us or at least one of us who has travelled to the world beyond the year 2500 AD and lives amongst us? We don’t believe but he believes because he has seen it, heard it, felt it, smelled it and spoken to it.

Let me end on a lighter note (that I frequently do) to sum up our understanding of someone else’s understanding:

A man was going through the jungles of Africa and was held prisoner by cannibals. As they prepared to boil him alive and have him, he thought of scaring them with ‘Magic’. He pulled out a cigarette lighter (during those days the lighters were the flint-stone type) and jerked the wheel to produce a flame and turned to the cannibals and said, “See Magic”. Upon this the cannibal chief responded, “It indeed is. This is the first time I have seen a lighter that worked on first go”!

We, others, and universe are what we think we, others, and universe are.

WHOSE GOD IS IT ANYWAY?

We have just concluded the Navratri “celebrations”. I am convinced that people believe that gods must be deaf or sleeping and they need to be woken up with cacophonic music, ear splitting noise of conches and other religious instruments and blaring loudspeakers. It is as if when we did not have technology of woofers and mixers we had no means to reach God.

Earlier we had the Ayodhaya verdict. I sometimes keep comparing our times with times many centuries ago. As compared to then, we have better technical means available now to debate issues. However, I keep wondering whether the quality and impact of debates are any better than, say, during Peloponnesian wars. Is it the destiny of human race to periodically indulge in extreme foolishness and lunacy that do nothing for general upliftment of people? If we believe in God, all land, assets, and people belong to Him. Can some judges actually adjudicate now whether a miniscule portion of that land also belongs to Him or not? God, we are your children but many a times we act as if we are more powerful than even you. I’d rather join the ranks of pagans and atheists than to associate with such religions as divide God’s people.

Let us take the simplistic version of origin of Religion; no, not any particular religion; but just Religion. Many centuries ago, Man realised that there was great deal to be gained by staying together: mutual support, defence against animals and vagaries of Nature, and optimal utilisation of resources, to name a few. However, community living brought with it a set of problems if all the members were to follow their own rules, ethics, and standards. Thus, Religion was born: a set of principles for good community living. There were, however, many problems, dangers, disasters etc that Man was not able to protect himself against even when living in a community and hence the concept of God or gods originated. The philosophy was that anything beyond Man, both individually and collectively, was in the realm of an omnipotent and omnipresent God and all that we had to do was to have faith in Him and He would be our saviour. Indeed, the ancient images of gods included Snake, Sun, Tiger, Lion and all the things Man was afraid of. Thus, when faced with situations beyond his control, Man turned to God for succour. This pleading for succour could be done in many ways. But, Man realised that the best was to do it together in community. Therefore, somewhere along the line Religion got associated with the concept of praying to God. It is not clear whether Religion, being a set of principles for community living, came first or formal praying to God in community came first. However, principles like ‘Thou shalt not steal’ or ‘Thou shalt not covet your neighbour’s wife’ together with Prayers or Petitions to God became essential parts of most religions.

The concepts of Religion and God were refined over the ages and in keeping with the times. However, despite the refinements, because different people interpreted these differently, problems arose. One basic reason why these were interpreted differently was (and is) that logic and reason are more suited for individuals (eg, Lord Krishna reasoning it out with Arjuna before the battle of Mahabharta). More often than not, in collections of people called crowds, mob mentality takes over. So, whereas people individually are adequately reasonable, in crowds they behave at the level of common minimum reasoning laced with jingoism and parochialism. The reason for this is not difficult to fathom; it is an unquestioned faith in tenets of community honed over ages. Armies are built around such philosophies of convenience; ‘Good’ lies with us and ‘Evil’ is what they are. The concepts of jus ad bellum (right to wage war) and jus in bello (just war) also have their origin in this.

Oliver Cromwell, on 5th Aug 1650 wrote thus to the synod of church of England: “I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken”. But, like Rundi K Bakshi, played by Peter Sellers in the movie ‘The Party’, said, “In India we don’t think; we are sure”; there is no question of Indians, belonging to any community, thinking it possible that they may be mistaken. Gods, they feel, have bestowed upon them the burden of being ‘firm in faith’. Translated it means that there is religious merit in locking up good sense and following jus ad bellum unquestionably.

Whenever our collective understanding of tenets that should be followed in a community, that is Religion, became much haywire, we had leaders emerging who brought us back to good sense. These leaders reminded us primarily not to try to prove with mass reasoning that we knew to be intrinsically wrong. These reformists either started a new Religion or their teachings became new Religion. In some cases, like in the case of Hinduism, the religion remained the same but reforms made it better and more suited to emerging times.

As I said earlier, in our collective wisdom, the teachings of these leaders too became subject to interpretations. So when Mohammed said and practised that a Muslim should marry many women, he was talking about succour that such marriages provided to those women who had lost their protectors in war in early seventh century. But, over time, this was interpreted as a right of a Muslim to have many wives. In other religions too such interpretations to suit philosophy of the day became rampant. Our faith demanded that we did not think of these leaders as mere mortals; so we regarded them as gods or the God or prophets of God. Since Religion was close to armies in organisation, blind or unquestioned faith in tenets of the religion and gods was considered a virtue. Hence, people fighting in the name of God or Religion was sanctified in almost all religions. This included even Buddhism.

I think a time has come when we do not require organised Religion at all. We have come way off from the ancient times when Religion provided us with collective defence against Evil and fearful enemies including animals and demons. During those times and many centuries later Religion united us against such forces. But now, Religion has become the biggest divider of people. We should now move from community religion to individual religion. Indeed, Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, and many other reformers, during the major reformative movement of Hindu religion, described Kalyug as a positive era; in that whilst earlier we were praying to God in community, we could, in Kalyug, do it individually. In other words we can be one to one with God. We can evoke the Good within us and kill the Evil within us rather than seeking to destroy or look down upon the enemies or perceived enemies of our Religion. Guru Nanak borrowed a phrase from the Vedas to delineate the entire essence of what should be our Religion: “Man Jeete Jag Jeet” (Conquer your own Mind to conquer the Universe).

God is within us and all around us. We neither have to go to mountains, nor churches, mosques and temples to worship Him or Her. Collective worshipping of God or gods helps no one except to divide communities (who are also the same God’s creations and hence related to us) and only helps the politicians or so called custodians of faith who thrive from such polarisation.

I was very small when I went with my parents to see Hindi (we had not bastardised by calling it Bollywood) movie ‘Dhool Ka Phool’ (A Flower in Dust). But, still the words ring in my mind:

‘Tu Hindu banega na musalmaan banega,

Insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega.’

(My child, you will neither grow up to be a Hindu nor a Muslim; you are a human child and you will grow to become human)

I, for one, shall pray in a Mandir or fight for the right to pray in a Mandir if…..well, if a court can prove to me Ram is to be found or can be prayed to only in a Mandir. Similarly, I shall pray for Allah in a mosque if He can’t be found elsewhere.

When they objected to Guru Nanak for sleeping with his feet towards the mosque because it was the abode of God, he simply asked them to move his feet in a direction where there was no God.

Whose God is it anyway?

ABSOLUTE VIRTUE

Playwright Eugene O’ Neil once said, “Remember that every man is a variation of yourself; no man’s guilt is not yours, nor is any man’s innocence a thing apart”. This relativity of human kind actually extends to the entire cosmic universe. The existence and even location of millions of objects in space is dependent upon other objects. If it were not for the gravity, many objects would lose their weight and position. For example, we cannot see Dark-Matter or perceive its existence, but because of gravity exerted by it, we know it is there! Imagine that Mass or Matter beyond electromagnetic waves is perceived by inference alone! Einstein’s Theory of Relativity further brings the relationship between Mass and Energy. According to him both are the same; that is, both are conserved separately but atomic particles (Matter) can be converted to a form of Energy (Non-Matter) such as Light, Heat or Kinetic.

That brings us to the Law of Conservation of Energy that we read about in the school. According to this the total amount of energy remains constant over time. In simple terms it means that when energy is consumed or dissipated it appears in an equivalent and some other form or forms. In other words Energy cannot be created or destroyed! Since there is relationship between Mass and Energy it also, by extension, means that the Total Energy or Total Mass in the universe is constant over Time as observed by us.

In my previous article ‘The Virtual World’, I had argued that how we see objects is dependent upon a form of Energy called Light emitted by such objects and reaching us over Time. If this Energy including Infrared and Ultraviolet were not to reach us, as far as we are concerned, such a thing does not exist. But, nay, Dark Matter does exist as otherwise who or what would be applying such gravitational force.

Suffice it to say that only constant is Total Mass or Total Energy and everything else is relative. Every consumption of energy by us is reappearing somewhere and someone is being affected by it. So far there is no difference between Science and Spirituality. We believe in the same thing. Where we differ is what we perceive by inference. Spirituality feels that there is a Creator since Scientists acknowledge the fact that Energy or Mass cannot be created but merely converted. Then who created it? For example, Guru Nanak as brought out in the very first lines of Guru Granth Sahib made an effort to explain God, the Creator (Ek Ongkaar). God, he said is Satnaam (Truth) and is “Aad Sach, Jugaad Sach, Hai Bhee Sach, Naanak Hosee Bhee Sach”. (True in the Beginning, True in the Primeval Age, True now, says Nanak, He shall certainly be True in the future). This means that God the Creator is beyond His Creation and when the Creation dies (or actually reappears as something else), He will not die.

Bhagwat Gita says exactly the same thing. Ahamaatmaa gudaakesha sarvabhootaashayasthitah; Ahamaadishcha madhyam cha bhootaanaamanta eva cha (‘I am, O Gudakesh, the Self that dwells within all beings, as also their primeval beginning, middle, and end’). Both, Guru Granth Sahib and Bhagwat Gita also tell Man not to worry about the past or the future because it was and is beyond him. Also understanding of the cosmic world is beyond man: Na tu maam shakyase drashtum anenaiva swachakshushaa; Divyam dadaami te chakshuh pashya me yogamaishwaram (But thou art not able to behold Me with these, thine own eyes; I give thee the divine eye; behold My lordly Yoga). It is only then that Arjuna saw various manifestations of Lord Krishna as the Creator.

Anyway, a deeper study of Science and Spirituality bring out that there is hardly any difference in what both believe in; except that Science feels that what is now unknown or un-understood by Man will be discovered by him later in a scientific way whereas Spirituality feels that God reveals to Man what He chooses to reveal.

As brought out on page 606 of Sri Guru Granth Sahib: Aape mar jivaida piyara sah laide sabh lavaaia (The Beloved Himself kills and revives; all draw the breath of life, given by Him). Aape taanh dibaan hai piyara aape kaare laaia (The Beloved Himself is power and presence; He Himself engages us in our work). Jiu aap challaye tiu chalaye piyara jiu har prabh mere bhaayiya (As the Beloved makes me walk, I walk, as it pleases my Lord God). Aape janti jant hai piyara jan Nanak vajeh vajaaiya (The Beloved Himself is the musician, and the musical instrument; servant Nanak vibrates His vibration).

This is no different from Bhagwat Gita, eg, Chapter VII: Beejam maam sarvabhootaanaam viddhi paartha sanaatanam; Buddhir buddhimataamasmi tejastejaswinaamaham (Know Me, O Arjuna, as the eternal seed of all beings; I am the intelligence of the intelligent; the splendour of the splendid objects am I). Balam balavataam asmi kaamaraagavivarjitam; Dharmaaviruddho bhooteshu kaamo’smi bharatarshabha (Of the strong, I am the strength devoid of desire and attachment, and in (all) beings, I am the desire unopposed to Dharma, O Arjuna!) Ye chaiva saattvikaa bhaavaa raajasaastaamasaashcha ye; Matta eveti taanviddhi na twaham teshu te mayi (Whatever being (and objects) that are pure, active and inert, know that they proceed from Me. They are in Me, yet I am not in them). Tribhirgunamayair bhaavairebhih sarvamidam jagat; Mohitam naabhijaanaati maamebhyah paramavyayam (Deluded by these Natures (states or things) composed of the three qualities of Nature, all this world does not know Me as distinct from them and immutable).

At this stage, I am not going to get into any discussion about the Good and the Bad or Evil. However, it is important to take stock of what we have established so far

· One, we have established that Energy or Mass cannot be created or destroyed. These can only be converted to other forms.
· Two, we have established that there is a (so far unknown) Force (as believed by Science) or Creator who has created this fixed quantity of Energy or Mass and this Force or Creator is beyond the laws of Nature.
· Three, that because of our inability to produce new Energy or Mass (as opposed to converting what this Force or Creator has made available to us); every action of ours is relative to such reconverted forms.

Some simple examples of the last point above are that we, human beings, do not create water; we either melt ice to get water through the use of Heat Energy or convert sea water into water by excluding salt by evaporation. If the world balance of Total Mass or Total Energy is to be maintained, then every action of ours has an (or several) equal reaction(s) over Time; some of these are immediately noticeable by us whereas some take more time; some may be at the same place, whereas some may be at another distant place. An example of the latter is the concern of the developed world about global warming and environmental issues. They themselves used Energy during their industrialisation years causing unfettered depredation of the environment; but, they want China and India to put cap on emissions during their rapid industrialisation requiring unprecedented use of Energy. These are clearly double standards.

Here is what Jeremy Seabrook wrote in Outlook magazine (16 June 2008 issue) in an Opinion titled ‘The Paupers Arrive..Late for the Banquet’:

“In a world of prodigality and poverty, of excess and exiguity, and a system that violates the elements that sustain life, if India and China increased their wealth twenty- or fifty-fold, what would be the effect on the resource base of the earth? It is yet another unfortunate historical accident that India and China should be poised on the brink of the age of heroic consumption at the very time when the western powers are coming to the sober realisation that this era may be drawing to its close. The insistence that India and China forbear to pollute in the reckless fashion of the West at the time of its early industrialism is an indirect recognition of the impossible task they are faced with. Although the economy is the only area of experience in which the knowing and cynical of the world still believe miracles to occur, it would require unprecedented supernatural intervention to satisfy unbound human desires, which hover like an epic plague of locusts over the harvest-fields of the earth.”

Strong words these. However, these are in recognition of both our findings; that Energy consumed would produce some reaction somewhere else over Time; and two, that we have only a fixed amount of Energy. It is for this reason that I steered clear from any discussion on Good or Bad because who is going to be the judge? As seen by George Bush global food crisis of 2008 was a direct result of enhanced consumption by India and China! One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

This argument can be extended to arrive at the realisation that there is nothing like Absolute Virtue or Absolute Evil. In God’s Universe there are no Absolutes; everything and every action is in relation to another thing or action. It is because of the Relativity of Time. The only Absolute is the Creator Himself; He is Timeless.

What if ideas, concepts, words and sounds too have an Absolute Total Quantity over Time? In that case we would only be regenerating these (in the same manner as other forms of Energy)! When I was small I read of a machine that would produce all possible combinations of letters and digits and punctuation marks (say in just one language). It would thus produce all the literature of the world that has already been produced and all that that is going to be produced. There is only one problem though; the time taken for all the combinations would be eternal even with super computers. After that another eternity would be required to sift the meaningful from the gibberish and who knows all the meaningful from all the gibberish? In relative terms (the only terms known to us) one man’s gibberish is another man’s intellect!

Now we turn to the concept of Free Will. All religions believe, with some variations, that Man does not have Free Will. If you followed my arguments so far, we can never have free will since we have a position in this universe which is relative to others. Every action of ours is in relation to others. Here is what Swami Vivekanada had to say about the concept of Free Will,” Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is moulded by conditions of time, space and causality. … To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here.”

In Guru Granth Sahib it is said thus: Hukme karam kamavne payiye kirat firao (According to the Lord’s Command, people perform their actions; they wander around, driven by the karma of their past actions). And what exactly is this kirat? It is what God ordained for you. In Bhagwat Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna not to be carried away by the fact that those arrayed across from him were all related to him and would die by his actions; he said in any case the whole universe is related to you and in any case they are going to die. But what about your Karma?

This brings us to the most interesting concept of Life and Death; we know that these are not Absolute. Hence, for something to be born (not Created but born in the sense of the word ‘Born’ as we understand), something has to die. This also explains the doubt by a number of meta-physicists who feel that if Creator or God already knows that his creation (say, a man) would be wicked when he grows up, why did he create him? It also explains why there are floods and earthquakes.

In the great Hindi movie Waqt (Time), there was a beautiful song whose lyrics were:

Aage bhi jaane na tu, peechhe bhi jaane na tu
jo bhi hai, bas yahi ek pal hai

Anjaane saayo ka raaho mein dera hai
Andekhi baahon ne ham sabko ghera hai
Ye pal ujaala hai baaqi andhera hai
Ye pal gawaana na ye pal hi tera hai
Jeene waale soch le yahi waqt hai kar le puri aarzoo.

(What is beyond you don’t know; what is past you have no knowledge
What is really there is only the present moment.

In this world dwell the shadows strange,
We are all embraced by unseen arms.
The present moment is the only light, rest is dark for us.
So do not lose this moment, only the moment belongs to you.
O living being, think, only this Time is your own
To fulfill all your desires)

There is only one flaw in the lyrics of the song; that is, the suggestion to “soch le” (think). It is because the moment you think, you are transported to another “pal” (moment), which is either in the past or yet to come.

A few years ago, when I went to Spain, I saw the bull-fighting that I had heard so much about. All the impressions that I carried of bravado were shattered when I learn that it was not so much fighting but it was actually more like a play or drama with three Acts called the tercios (thirds), the start of each one announced by a trumpet. The first stage is tercio de varas (the lancing thirds) when the picadors soften the hump of the bull with lances. In the next stage, the tercio de banderillas (the third of flags), the three banderilleros each attempt to plant two banderillas, sharp barbed sticks into the bull’s shoulders. These anger and invigorate the bull. In the final stage, the tercio de muerte (the third of death), the matador re-enters the ring alone with a small red cape, or muleta, and a sword so as to finally kill the bull by piercing his heart by a sword through the already softened hump, what is termed as estocada. Accidents do take place in all the three acts. However, in this play or ritual or drama the bull has no choice but to die.

I was reminded of the Hindi movie ‘Anand’s famous speech by Rajesh Khanna, “Babu moshaye yeh zindagi ek rang manch hai; aur hum sab usme kaam karne wali kathputliyan. In kathputliyon ki dore upar wale ke haath mein hai. Kab, kaise, kahan, kis kis ko uthna hai yeh koi nahin jaanta” (Dear Sir, our Life is a play-stage and we are all puppets participating in this play. The strings of the puppets are in the hands of the Almighty. When, how and where he would make anyone disappear (die) no one knows”.

Many have misinterpreted the last words of Christ on the cross, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’ to indicate the wickedness of the Romans. Actually, Christ has said these for the entire mankind. He knew that Man has no way of knowing what he is doing because only God has that knowledge. Talking about Christ, He also gave us an example of our ignorance in believing in Absolute Virtue when he saved Mary Magdalene from being stoned for being a sinner. He said the first stone would be cast by the one who had not sinned. No such person existed. No such person exists even today.

Hence, if there is nothing like Absolute Virtue and we do not exercise free-will to do anything, we can only strive to do Good in what we believe to be Good. We can neither be judgmental of our own deeds nor of those of others. Here is an excerpt from the song, from the movie ‘Do Aankhein Barha Haath’:

“Ae maalik tere bande hum
aise ho humare karam
nekee par chale, aur badee se taley,
takey huste huey nikley dum

Bada kamjor hain aadmi,
abhi laakhon hain is mein kamee
par tu jo khadaa, hai dayalu bada,
teri kirpa se dharti thami
diya tune humey jab janam
too hee zelegaa hum sab ke ghum

jab julmon ka ho saamnaa,
tab tu hi humey thaamnaa
voh burai karey, hum bhalai bharey,
nahi badley ki ho kaamnaa
badh uthey pyaar ka har kadam
aur mitey bair ka ye bharam’

(O God, we are your servants,
Please make our karmas such
That we take the path of Good and be afraid to do the Evil
So that finally we return to you in joy.

Man is very frail,
As of now he has many shortcomings,
But you are all merciful,
And this Earth is in its place because of you.
Now that you gave us birth,
You will bear all cruelties done on us.

When we face cruelties,
Please keep us in your care.
But, when others do Evil and we do the Good,
We should never have a desire to seek revenge.
Let our every step be that of Love,
And we should shun all animosity.

I think that the realisation that there is no Absolute Virtue is the beginning of our knowledge about our Absolute Ignorance!

THE VIRTUAL WORLD

The entire ‘Srishti’ (Creation) – any Swami (man of God) would tell you – is ‘Maya’ (mirage); the only Reality is God. I heard this in my childhood and I heard it many times later. I heard it again recently and it is only now that I am beginning to realize that there is a great deal of truth in it. Reality is what one believes to be real. That’s why a person’s Reality is different from another person’s Reality, or as the English say, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” For heavens’ sake, it is the same object that we are talking about. How can it appear to be so diagonally opposite to different people?

Let us look at the concept of Reality; anything is real only if it exists in two variables known to us, that is, in Time and in Space. Let us tackle the Space factor first since it is easier to understand. How do we know a thing exists in Space? Simple, by feeling it with any of our five senses. Out of these five senses, for the sake of reasoning, we shall take the sense of Seeing. It is often said that seeing is believing. It is because there is no doubt about the existence of a thing after we have seen it with our own eyes. But now imagine that we enter a room in which this thing exists. It is pitch dark and we don’t know whether this thing exists unless we can make it out with other senses, that is touching, hearing, tasting and smelling. What if the thing is odourless, noiseless, tasteless and occupies no form? Difficult to imagine? Alright, let us just say that it has odour, noise, taste and form well below or well above the range of our senses; does it still exist? The answer is that we do not know. Hence, when we say that we don’t know, it does not mean that a thing does not exist. It is simply that it is beyond the range of our senses, which are our only way to establish if a thing exists. Therefore, as far as we are concerned, the existence of anything in Space is dependent upon our ability to see, touch, smell, hear or taste it.

All these are dependent upon the Rules that we ourselves make or discover. For example, many a times, we think of a person as extremely bright and intelligent when we see her and later find the same person extremely stupid when we hear her. Why? Simple – because Light travels much faster than Sound!

Let us pause to think of how do we see this person or any other person or thing? It is because of the Light emitted or reflected by that person or thing reaching us. And, Light travels at the, well, Speed of Light, which is very very fast indeed. Hence, we see the person or thing instantaneously. But, what if the person or thing is very far away, say, Light Years away? Well, in that case, by the time Light from that thing reaches us and supposing that thing is moving, we only imagine to see it where we see it, whereas in those Light Years, the thing may have actually moved elsewhere.

Let me explain this with an example. Let us say that a new star is born in the sky (it actually happens often), emitting, for the sake of hypothesis, distinctive light, say, green. Let us say, for the sake of argument, that you could travel faster than the Speed of Light and take a Space Odyssey towards this new emerging star and see it and return to earth. Now, let’s say, in the intervening time you have grand children and it is then, one day, when your grand children are playing in the courtyard that they see this new star in the sky (because of the light from that star having reached them after those many Light Years) and they run excitedly to you and shriek, “Grandma, come out and see there is a new Green Star in the sky.” And you, without stopping cutting the vegetables in the kitchen reply, “Oh, now you see, is it? I saw it fifty years back!”

So, you saw an event ahead in time in comparison to others, simply because you could travel faster than the speed of light! The distinction between what you always thought as Real World and Virtual World gets blurred! We refuse to believe it when the sages of yore used to call our world as Maya (the Myth). These worthy persons could travel (in body or estrella) at whatever speed they chose and actually (in our Reality) appeared sometimes at what appeared to be two or three different places at the same time!

So far, in our physical world, nothing can travel faster than the speed of Light and hence we tend to imagine that there is no other world. But think again; is it really true? Actually, something can travel faster than Light! Think about it; yes, our Dreams can actually travel much faster than any physical phenomenon known to us. If we do not get scared to, we can go Beyond the Rainbow and see another world and return to tell the story to others who would eventually see it many years later:

“Aa chal ke tujhe main le ke chaloon,
Ik aise gagan ke tale,
Jahan gham bhi na ho, aansoo bhi na ho,
Bus pyaar hi pyaar pale.

Jahan dur nazar daudayen, aazaad gagan laharaye,
Jahan rang birange panchhi, aasha ka sandesha layen.
Sapno mein pali, hansti ho kali,
Jahan sham suhani dhale,
Jahan gham bhi na ho, aansoo bhi na ho…”

This is an old Hindi song from the movie ‘Door Gagan Ki Chhayon Mein’ (Under the Far Skies), which is translated thus:
“Come let me lead you into that world,
Where there’d be no sorrow, no tears, but only Love.
Where as far as eyes can see,
You’d experience the unhindered sky,
Where birds of all colours,
Would bring the message of Hope.
In this dream world, Joy would blossom with sunrise,
And evenings’d lead to a sanguine sunset”.

Possible? I am sure we can make it possible. All we have to do is exactly what the Man from La Mancha, Don Quixote, did:

“To dream, the Impossible Dream
To touch the untouchable glory,
To reach the unreachable star…”

But, the doubts arise; don’t they always? “What if we all live in the virtual world? If we are always looking for ‘Tare Zameen Par’, who is to take care of Life’s real problems? What about electricity and water complaints, for example? The leaking faucet won’t be repaired simply by dreaming; the monthly bills have actually to be paid; children actually have to be dressed to go to school and the maid has to be actually trained over and over again”.

My answer is that there is time and place for everything! You dream when you can and you live when you have to. And if you can live and dream at the same time? Well, then, ladies and gentlemen, you are blessed indeed.

Category: Philosophy