Religion that is no more about SPIRITUALITY...

I am a tolerant person, well mostly! I believe that God and religion is a bunch of hoopla and hoax created to control the human free spirit. But, I am tolerant to those who find God or find peace in God. What I do find wholly bewildering are the people who hide behind religion when their individual purpose is solved. And I am not talking of politicians and self proclaimed tricksters, er, religious leaders! I am talking of every day idiots who hide behind religion to justify asinine behavior, incompetence and malicious intent. 

A Mark Twain quote comes to mind...

And I live in India. The Motherland of Religious Escapists. Everything impractical and sometimes everything that defies basic logic can be justified by religion. Whether it is fasting yourself to illness or making excuses for not working (the never ending inventory of religious festivals and functions) to shunning basic human dignity. All this can be justified by using religion as an argument.

And there is always a loophole to exploit. At the very least to ensure that all is forgiven! If you commit a sin, no matter, there is always some temple you can ring the bell at or a river you can bathe in to clean up! And then you can go right back to sinning, whatever your choice of sin may be. Every time I go to any relic of religious worship, the number of crooks praying can only be outdone by the number of people exploiting God and the crooks to make a quick buck. 

To say nothing of religious extremities! Some of them are just plain stupid and others are reflections of poor character that is preached in the garb of religion. An extreme example is that of the Aghori Sadhus. These are members of a Hindu sect who worship Shiva, whom they see as the supreme god. Because they believe that Shiva created everything – they consider nothing to be bad. For this reason they engage in a variety of sexual practices, they drink alcohol, take drugs, and eat meat. A perfect example of leveraging religion to eat, drink, fuck and make merry! 

In some parts of India it is believed that ghosts can inhabit certain people of the living world. Most notably, girls who are born with a baby tooth already erupted through the gum and girls who are very ugly or have some facial deformation are believed to be possessed by ghosts. The only way to exorcise the ghosts is for the girl to marry an animal, typically a goat or dog. Even though there is a lavish wedding ceremony complete with booze and dancing, the girl is not expected to copulate with the animal – which is good news!

And how can we talk of religion and it's bullshit (pardon my language but I cannot find a better word) and not talk of the Muslims and their matam and the Sati Pratha among Hindus. Thankfully the latter has not been outlawed. But I am sure if you search deep and wide enough, it is still practiced.  

By all means, pray and be spiritual. But you don't have to burn women, be violent and marry animals to achieve fulfillment. And if you truly find charity in your heart and good will to the world, practice it instead of using it as a facade to commit atrocities.

A Ghost of Wrong Exits & Turns

Did I tell you about the first time?

It ran like a shiver of love

Running through all of my body

Until it was piercing light in my eyes.

Did I tell you about the second time?

It was like floating in a dream

Through darkness and light, 

Until it was a tearing thirst in my throat. 

Did I tell you about my tenth time?

It felt quite like the sun had run out

And winter and dark was all around,

Until it was time for the next time.

Did I tell you about the last time?

It was like a pain that promises to never cease,

Been burning in your muscles since the last time,

Until there was no breathing anymore. 

Did I tell you of the shadowy streets I wonder?

Amidst the dark and scary memories past,

A ghost of wrong exits and turns,

Until there is only waiting for the next birth.

My God, Broken...

I woke up this morning to a cold wind

No thoughts, no words, no feeling

Into an emptiness, a hollow with no meaning

Like my God, this dawn, had not woken 

I looked out of the window to a sunless stretch

No character, no colour, no shape

A monotonous plain, featureless with no end

Like my God, this day, had not spoken

I looked up at a grey and dull heaven

No streaks, no hues, no promise

A canvas with no paint, 

Like my God, through the night, was broken

The Outcome Matters Not...

One rather solemn evening in the recent past, my grandfather said something that has stuck with me since. He is a career philosopher with years of research and teaching experience so most of what he says I absorb partially, me being someone grounded in the quagmire of practicality. He said, "you must do what you must do but misery and pain ensue when you fall in love and get attached to the outcome". Now it made sense to me somewhat at first sense as being a derivative of service without the hope and wishes of rewards from the Bhagvad Gita. But the more I thought the miseries and sorrows I encountered, self inflicted or of others, it made a lot more sense to me.

It takes the service without wish or hope of consequence or rewards to a whole new paradigm. Most often in life, we undertake the tasks or initiatives that we do with not just an anticipation of an outcome but with the expectation of a desirable outcome. And that kicks off multiple streams of events that guarantee an equal probability of either happiness or sorrow; both at the end of a path and, many times, along the road.

At the very bottom of the stacks of wisdom that makes up the meaning of life is the axiom that the future is not in our control. We can only control the present and align to the most rational course of action. The deepest flaw in our definition of the rational path is that it is built on the expectations of the rationality or gainful nature of the outcome. If we stop defining the present in terms of the future, it eliminates to a great deal the pressure and compulsions we feel to shape an outcome. And it also opens up a wide array of alternatives based on capacity, capability and level of dedication or passion that is felt.

In my experience of a corporate life I have often stumbled in decision making and execution inhibited by the fear and doubt of the outcome. Inherently therefore is the stress that is caused by the defense of the outcome against naysayers around. We feel so much love and attachment over what we have achieved that we are pained when criticism and, less often, feedback crosses our path and we drown ourselves in the joys and sorrows that accompany the rise and fall of the creation of our labors. Imagine a world in which you could just "do the right thing" that is optimum in terms of effort to execute and honest in terms of the intent. Continued stress and doubt of the future, when eliminated, opens up the space in our overcrowded mind and soul that is burdened by worry and anxiety. And inevitably helps us think and act with creativity and in the end be the best human beings we can.

Caught in archaic perceptions....

One of the things that makes India so different from the world and possible the single most powerful adhesive between us and our past is the grip of legacy and often archaic perception driven behavior. a lot of people will call it "our culture" and some will call it "our tradition" but what it mostly is, is a set of practices and an outlook that probably made some sense in terms of practicality a long time ago. But they have stayed on with us over generations and gotten enforced as a tremendous force of inertia that drives the way we think, what drives our beliefs and value systems and how we act.

As a country and civilization, we have come a long way from our past that, while studded with gold nuggets and diamonds, is in no way all great. And while we have uniquely adopted the new realities of the environment around us, a lot of the burden of the past still lingers on creating a very complex and sometimes counter-productive approach to seeing and reacting to incidents and surrounding.

These sometimes manifest themselves in taboos that have outlived their utility. Sometimes these are presented in their associations of religious symbolism - most notably heaven and hell. Most times however this manifests in what it really is - "it is what it has been", a generational treatise that has been passed down from the past to the present.

Every passing day these carvings on the stone are being challenged and in some corners being broken down but the progress is slow. Some would probably challenge me in that any way forward breaking shackles of the past, is not progress at all! But how is breaking away from the disappointment of giving birth to a daughter, or the often frowned upon single motherhood or the taboo associated with relationships outside the wedlock not progress.

If you step outside the neon flashes of the mega cities, as you make inroads into the small town and rural cultures, such practices abound in every aspect of life. And I think that holding on to such prejudices, perceptions and practices thus have very little to do with culture or tradition or any other justifying attribute such. We hold on to these beliefs and customs driven by antique value systems because they provide a corner of comfort and a place from where the practicing individual can wield some level of unjustified influence while being shielded from the harsh discomfiture of having to change.

And more often than not we would rather be exploited for this way of thought and action than change. It is how the colonial oppression succeeded and it is how every eon of ruling class has succeeded. We are so divided in our small universes and in our minds that our effectiveness as a united force is sub-optimal at best.  

The very fact that progress has proven inversely proportional to social rigidity, shows that it is. And as long as we choose to hold on to what our ancestors believed in and continue to explore the world and our lives through those narrow lenses, real progress shall elude us. The time has come for new sets of values and beliefs to be adopted that are more in line with the realities and forces of economics and globalization.

The obsession with the future…

John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead." And it is perhaps all that we can predict with any level of certainty, about the future. And yet we strive every day to change the outcomes and influence the future. Makes sense, since it is in the future that we will end up spending most of our time, anyways. However, the fact is that our influence on the future is limited only to a small extent because we cannot forecast what factors will drive the shaping of the future.

A story I heard some time back was of a guy who was scared to die, what is clinically called Thanatophobic. His phobia was very specific though – somewhere in the intersection of Thanatophobia and Dystychiphobia. He was absurdly scared of dying in an accident. I don’t think there is a clinical term yet but, this man was killed in the most absurd way (God rest his soul)…! He lived almost in a child safe cocoon with the inclusion of having his groceries delivered home. He was pale from lack of sunlight and fresh air exposure. He lived the safest possible existence until he died from a brain bleeding caused by his shower head falling on his head in the midst of his bathroom.

So, here is my point. The future is the equivalent of a roll of the dice on a swanky Vegas casino (or any other gambling destination of your choice). And in the long run the house (the alternative or uncertainty) will win. Yes, tomorrow I will wake up, water my plants and get to office after navigating some really irritating traffic. To that end I can predict the future but is that proof of a certain future or that my life is really boring! And yet, fortune telling is such a booming industry that some places have legal definitions of fortune telling and license regulations.

Eastpointe, MI is one such example that details quite extensively what qualifies as fortune telling, and lists acceptable tools, including crystals, coffee grinds and the occult, as well as proper usage of one’s powers, which can be summoned for “effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses,” among other things. It’s quite an interesting read.

“Fortunetelling” shall mean the telling of fortunes, forecasting of futures, or reading the past, by means of any occult, psychic power, faculty, force, clairvoyance, cartomancy, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, tea leaves, tarot cards, scrying, coins, sticks, dice, sand, coffee grounds, crystal gazing or other such reading, or through mediumship, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mindreading, telepathy or other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized article or substance, or by any such similar thing or act. It shall also include effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses or advising the taking or administering of what are commonly called love powders or potions in order for example, to get or recover property, stop bad luck, give good luck, put bad luck on a person or animal, stop or injure the business or health of a person or shorten a person’s life, obtain success in business, enterprise, speculation and games of chance, win the affection of a person, make one person marry or divorce another, induce a person to make or alter a will, tell where money or other property is hidden, make a person dispose of property in favor of another, or other such similar activity.

Quantum mechanics, more commonly accepted these days as the predominant rules that explain the physical universe (not much help with the metaphysical world), says that outcomes cannot be predicted. Much like the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment (for those of your who do not think very highly of Physics or not a fan of Big bang Theory here is a link that explains the experiment), the future is indeterminate until you are contextually present in it.

Why then the absurd obsession with the future? I have asked myself this question as to why, knowing that we have limited power, if any at all, to influence the outcomes of the future (assuming anything we do is a triggering mechanism towards some outcome), we obsess so hard about what is to be of us tomorrow. There are different theories surrounding the subject – the one that makes the most sense to me, from a pragmatic perspective, is that the future is random within a broadly defined range, at best. Will the end of the world happen tomorrow or not (well the last one failed pretty uneventfully, thank God, fate, destiny or just the carefully engineered balance of power by the global policy makers or whoever)? There are plenty of prophecies left yet. The two that are closest are by Nancy Regan who before her death in 1997 claimed Armageddon would come in 2020 or alternatively Dr. F. Kenton Beshore’s prediction that the world could end in 2018.

I think that humans are inherently built of hope. Hope is the center of our existences and most of our purpose in life is defined in terms of our hope for better outcomes. And it always feels nice to have hope substantiated by some form of authoritarian pretention. And that is really the answer. All our prayers and dependence on the agents of future are basically manifestations of human hope – our greatest strength and weakness at the same time.

The Truth vs. what we think is the Truth…

Is what we see a manifestation of the truth? The human sight is not the equivalent of an HD Canon DSLR – the downside of the human, or for that matter any life form with an evolved brain, process (if I can call it a process) is that seeing is not limited to a visual image capture. What makes sights so beautiful is the complex process of interpretation that the visual representation goes through. It is what makes the otherwise chemical composition of organic and inorganic environment so beautiful or ugly or whatever chord it might strike with the individual beholder. In my blog If There Was No God, I spoke about the individual motivation being the representation of their Gods. And from the very enthusiastic response I received from readers through comments, here and elsewhere, I am pushed to ponder over the crux of many similar debates.

“Why can’t you believe what you cannot see?”

And then there is the endless debate around how we can explain the perfection and balance of what we do see?

And this triggers the subject of this particular blog.  What we see, hear and feel, very often are almost always subject to the beauty of interpretation of the human mind. And such interpretation is determined by the design and shape of the looking glass through which we view the world. For those of who have grown through a conservative dogma or have at some point in life been influenced by religious or spiritual discourses, the world and its part in the universe looks like bountiful beauty that cannot be solely a matter of science and coincidence.

Then there are those who have been surrounded and trained in discourses that rely on numbers, facts and truth that can be experimented and replicated in practice or on the basis of known theory. People believed that the Earth was the center of the universe – it was not so much ignorance by character as it was ignorance by a distorted viewing glass. There was never any evidence that suggested otherwise and hence there was no reason to question what you saw. The Sun going around the earth or vice-versa, would have the same manifestation to the human eye – what the hum eyes saw and brain interpreted was day and night as manifested by relative motion between the sun and the earth – it exemplifies the kind of dogma that colors the looking glass.

Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientific minds of all times, once said, “A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.”

The weakness of the act of seeing lies in the fact that most human beings tend to judge and absorb partial truths and groom them into rationalizations based on skewed perceptions that have been built through interaction with extraneous environmental factors that are skewed in terms of their understanding of the nature and laws that govern all things that are. Religion, in its truest sense, is (or should be) the expression and articulation of the absolute truth. Einstein also went on to say “If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

As Swami Vivekananda once said, “Each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.” It is the complete assimilation of the universe around us, complete knowledge of it and its components that one and all Religion should be united to preach. Whether that is preached from the perspective of a God as a driving force or science as a reasoning force, or a combined faith, it must be preached to inculcate that opportunity to learn, change and evolve.

Reasoning based on limited knowledge and information, and attribution to God or the Divine or whatever our personal rationalizations may provide, without searching for absolution is not the equivalent of being religious, spiritual or a believer. It is ignorance that drives human beings down the wrong path, the outcome of this is the negativity we see and feel around us – because we seek God in the wrong places and, justify and judge actions based on half Truth driven perceptions.

What we really need to protest against.....

When I look back at 2012, I see a calendar of protests. From protesting against burning Qurans that marked the beginning of a disturbing year to the year being dragged through Russian, Walls Street, Catalan, Palestinian, Arab, Syrian, Egyptian and Greek protests against everything from governance to sustenance.

 

In India, we saw our share including a year-long anti-graft drama playing out on multiple fronts, to the Delhi centric anti-rape protests extending into the new year. I believe that protests are the healthiest form of expression of dissent, peaceful or otherwise. However, what I do not see is protests leading to tangible outcomes of betterment, especially close to home. The quality and value of life are no better or higher as an outcome of protests. What does that tell us about the state of affairs in our country as they manifest themselves?

 

I believe that we need to relook at how modernization and economic enrichment has affected the way life is valued in India. It is sad to see that with so much that has changed, nothing much has really changed. The gap of perception and reality between the ruling and ruled continues to widen and at a much faster pace every passing day. Regard and respect for law and order continues to diminish as the value to honesty continues to be defined in money terms. We continue to improve the outside while deteriorating as human beings from within. And I have come to conclude that we have indeed not learned from the lessons of the West where capitalism came at a dear cost of humanity.

 

That brings me to the crux of protests in India. Are we really protesting against what needs to be uprooted and discarded? Independent issues and occurrences fuel most of our angst at the external manifestations of a system that is gradually rusting towards an unsustainable future. This road that we are on has little to do with the politics of the nation or of the legal inefficiencies and enforcement corruption. These, in my mind, are symptoms of a much deeper degenerative gene. As human beings, if we take the time to look at the mirror, we have increasingly come to define ourselves with independent and material end objectives, almost always with a common trait of greed. Measuring ourselves in terms of money and material well-being has led us to forget that we live in a great nation forged from the blood and sweat of many thousands who dreamed of a common brighter future. As we go about our lives with our own selfish agenda painted and tainted by dreams of material acquisition, we forget the potential of collective growth. To suit our superficial moral angel (sitting and weeping on our shoulders), we react to outrage committed through protests and demonstrations of solidarity and yet, in the tone and nature of who we are, the hollow echo keeps getting louder every day.

 

Who do we blame? The Media? The Politicians? The System? What we need to take cognizance of, when pointing the proverbial finger, is the fact that the media, the politicians and not least of all, the system is comprised of you and me. The corruption and misdemeanor we see around us is just a manifestation of what has become of the human spirit. When pointing a finger we fail to see that the finger being pointed is really at a mirror of our collective. And, as long as we measure our successes by the steps we climb in an economically defined social staircase, no matter how hard we scream and shout offensives at the establishments around us, we shall make no progress.

 

I see people around me every day, pray to God, revolt against injustice and then return to conform to a system of convenience where everything is acceptable as long as their preferred way of life is not altered for the worse. How shall we dream and execute a luminous future if at the end of the journey we are standing alone; surrounded by wealth and well-being, with no one to share with? It is our greed and self-centered perspective, which we so readily conform to today, should be the object of our protests. Can we be slightly better as human beings tomorrow that we are today because we protested against how we do things? When we, as a people, begin to change individually for the better will we begin to see the society improve.

 

The alternative may be soothing to our conscience but that is all it shall be limited to till the day we die.

Defining The 'Self'

My life, starting from when I finished school, has been a continuous array of moving from one point to another in pursuit of something to define myself by. The first few years the discovery was mostly in search of what parameters can be used to define self. Why is defining the self, important? Many times when we are asked about who we are, the response to this question is never about who we really are but a kind of socially trained response that is driven by acquired perceptions and an imposed set of values that are not formed independently.  While the social definition of the self, although derived from the collective many, is what gives a society and its people some level of a homogenous character, it fails to take responsibility or accountability for the outcomes of choices of the individual self. The two ideas, viz. “who I really am” and “who they think I am” can often merge with one another to form a pretty complex universe that must be navigated.

To be able to navigate successfully through the catacombs of individual and social, it is very often important of defining the self, independent of external influence with a set of meaningful parameters that enable the individual to make choices towards most desirable outcomes. Every outcome and every experience is the complex output of how our individual choices interact with the collective direction and while we make everyday choices almost at a subconscious level, the outcome or experience may not have a noticeable short-term disruption of momentum.

Most often what we do struggle with are the bigger things like the choice of a career path and or deciding on a spouse because these are choices that impact our lives and completely change the direction of its course. And we think we understand these choices when we are hitting the throttle on the decision. However this understanding is often very shallow and as with most choices frivolous, is made through a socially constructed looking glass. The long-term experience and outcome of choices we think we understand will often lead the individual to question the choice. It is at this juncture that we come face to face with trying to understand the drivers of the choice and there we are exposed to understand that we are inherently different from what we are perceived as.

As an example with utmost respect due, most politicians use this to their benefit. In fact most successful politicians seem to have an almost iron clad understanding of their self and use this understanding to drive the external looking glass to driving a desired political, social and economic outcome. Most people I know at my age or over question their choices and decisions and I believe that the symptoms of this can be seen in almost every piece of statistic that has shown rapid change in recent times – crime rates, divorce rates, suicide rates, rebellions, unemployment (I strongly believe that unemployment is an outcome of someone doing what they are not built to do hence not doing it well), per capita income – the list is endless.

At the end of the day, it’s always the individual that defines the character of a stable social entity and this is why defining the self independent of social imposition is crucially important to be able to sustain a stable social fabric. Human nature has evolved over time and faced with a choice that does not align, increasingly we see people jumping ship to alternative avenues in search of satisfaction making for an unstable individual and therefore an unstable society.

Before successfully defining the self, it is important to choose the right parametric pillars to build the definition on. The choice of the wrong pillars will, depending on how they are wrong, will not lead to a meaningful and true reflection of the self. 

Starting with the obvious and most spoken about parameter as we move to a primarily economics driven life – wealth driven affluence. And this is probably the most common parameter used for definition. The road of wealth driven self-definition is one that tends to stretch somewhat beyond the horizon. Call it a cliché but you can buy that 75” LCD and then the 100” plasma and keep going till you have your own movie theatre and the incremental euphoria is really marginal once you reach the 75”.  Beyond the 75” or whatever the equivalent passion is, the acquisition of wealth and hence material wealth as a defining parameter becomes meaningless to some extent.

I consider that the definition of the self is really about the attempt to define a legacy to engrave on your memorial (photo, stone, or whatever your religion asks of you) – the attempt to get to the ‘richest’ in any given cross section will cease to be true with the individual unless you can leave behind machinery that continues to generate wealth.  So, I guess what I am really saying is this, wealth for the sake of being wealthier that some pre-defined parameter or person ends in a somewhat wasted effort since the race feeds on itself like an unbalanced mathematical equation – the higher the attributed values to the variables, the wider the lack of balance.  But then, of late, I have increasingly been meeting a group of people who essentially define and design their lives based on the pursuit of material wealth.

I reiterate (for the fear of being misunderstood) – my contention is not that altruism on a completely selfless basis should replace acquiring wealth. That is not my suggestion at all and frankly I do not believe that true selflessness is achievable – at least in the context of modern life, as it is. If we build a society that is based purely on social welfare the outcome would be unsustainable since this would be discouraging to individual initiative and wealth, or more importantly the opportunity to incremental wealth acquisition, is the most potent motivator towards collective economic progress driven by individual achievement.

But, as we have demonstrated, the incremental value that money or wealth can add to life is somewhat limited and beyond a point the law of diminishing returns results in wealth based self-definitions becoming meaningless statements of accounts. At one time I used to yearn for travelling on a Business Class ticket and, I would not deny it, even today I wish I would be able to get a Business Class ticket. But the actual incremental value (based on experience) is much limited to a perception based value. 

Is then the creation of the capability or the ability to generate wealth a more worthy criteria then to define the self. As wise men have said very often, “you are what you do.” This cannot, in my opinion, be an absolute way of defining someone for two reasons.

First, every individual’s choices and outcomes is as much a determinant of his environment as his own actions. It can be argued that the environment is a direct outcome of a person’s choices and hence outcomes are indirectly influenced by choices. But that would be assuming that choices are always made independent of the environment – this cannot be true since every choice we make is an interaction between the environment and thoughts; and every outcome is an interaction between choices and the environment.

Secondly, by that logic, most individuals would be defined by their profession. Which sometimes this might be true but in very many cases may not be – and this kind of definition of the self in itself is an outcome of acquired perceptions and hence cannot be a very good measure of who you are. A shrewd businessman who is driven solely by a profit motive at work may be a good father and husband – but should he define himself as a shrewd and profit minded person or a loving father and pampering husband?

It is true that what we do and more importantly, how well we do what we do can really be the looking glass for the world to look at someone and hence we often end up convincing ourselves that I must be the person everyone around thinks me up to be. This is the “Ctrl+C – Ctrl+V” version of defining the self. Why bother, right? Well, the problem is that we end up spending most of our lives and very often become the person everyone else wants of us thus draining the individual of his or her full potential to achieve and grow.

I do not say that everyone is born with one unique true purpose in life. If that were the case the concept of a homogenous social existence would crumble under forces of divergent purposes. But I do believe that for a society or economy or existence as such to progress, certain predefined purposes are established forming totems that an individual or groups of individuals gravitate towards. Leading, for example is one of the totems that a few individuals may gravitate towards while a larges number of people will gravitate towards one or more execution related purpose. So, theoretically, while you remain in control of your destiny, in practice you are really subject to choosing from a predetermined set of end games.

Thus using what we do, or end up doing in life, to define one’s self is flawed because this is not an independent expression of our fabric. In fact, it would not be too outrageous either to say that what we end up doing is more a reflection of the society we are born into (the totems we are bound to gravitate to). This makes me become a part of a larger whole instead of having defined the self as the axiom to the environment and social surroundings.

A lot of people have urged me to take the spiritual route to discover the answer to my search for parameters by which to define myself. I started out a few times on conventional and unconventional spiritual paths but stopped very short when I realized that spirituality as it is taught and practiced is more about the preaching and practice than about a journey towards self discovery. My biggest problem with any metaphysical or spiritual attempt at describing oneself is that this starts with the basic assumption of faith in that which is greater than the self and it’s purpose; and a certain acceptance of the magical supernormal as a guiding force. And while the supernatural does not intimidate me (it is a massive universe and there are bound to be things we don’t know, understand or, at the moment, have the ability to comprehend), the variability in the representation of this greater than you and me force and the attribution of prayer as a means to understand it’s power and presence.

I strongly believe that prayer will not help us answer the questions of the existence of a God in whatever form our perceptions shape him to be. The human mind and body have great strength and potential, potential that can be harnessed through meditation and concentration; but attributing such power and capabilities to something beyond ordinary (just because we do not understand it does not mean it is magic or supernatural; I agree it is statistically outside normal) leads to the same problem as with the “you are what you do” approach. As a parameter, spirituality cannot define the self, independent of social and religion driven perceptions – and as we have seen that road generally ends up in a person accepting that, which is socially formulated.

While this essay does not focus on the presence or absence of God as a deterministic force of fate, I would like to believe that fate is not predetermined since such predetermination essentially means that as an individual there is very little control one can exert on his or her life. If my fate and future is predetermined, whatever choices I make will lead to the same outcomes making any effort at self-realization and discovery futile. From what I have seen and heard so far, the argument of God conflicts itself in this one aspect, of many. I would much rather concede to random genetics being the determinants of fate.

Very often decisions and choices are just sum of limitations – you do something because that is the extremity of your capability. For example, I was never good at math; and never for the lack of trying. And this is an independent attribute that random genetics has assigned to me.

At this point it is important to understand or accept that outcomes can never be pin pointed since choices are unique although gravitating towards broad totems. Can I say that a choice I make is going to have an absolute outcome? Outside of numerical mathematics and physics, and sometimes even at that, it is difficult to predict the future. Heisenberg and Schrodinger all have said the future or outcome cannot be predicted beyond potential outcomes. Hence decision-making is generally a factor of deciding on a course that in combination of choosing for the most desirable of potential outcomes and understanding of limitations. So, therefore can we conclusively say the definition of the self is really a sum of a person’s limitations? While this does sound like an immensely pessimistic view of the world much of our conduct and choices are aimed at either concealing and overcoming or working around limitations. Having established that limitations form a large part of how we define ourselves, if is important therefore to also give due merit to strengths.

But, I believe, that a person’s strengths are compensations for his or her limitations. And examples are abundant. Great athletes do not make great scholars, as a rule, and vice versa other than in Robin Cook and John Grisham novels. I would attribute athleticism as an active quality requiring physical strength and scholastic pursuits are generally compensation. There are exceptions but most of those who end up pursuing pure or applied physics will tell you that they were never good at outdoor sports than saying that physics was an inclination from childhood – as if the limitation of outdoor capabilities is largely the defining force. The reverse is true too. Not everyone is geared to applied physics. And if you are not, chances are that you will compensate by inclining to outdoor sports apologizing along the way for not being good with number.

But, thankfully limitations cannot be the only components of defining the self.  A little earlier I mentioned that some significant part of our efforts are directed towards concealing or overcoming our limitations. If our definition of self would be reliant solely on our limitations then the effort to compensate or concealment would be futile. There must therefore be some other parametric element that gives rise to such emotional responses like hope, rationalization and inspiration; key components of being able to work around limitations.

Is it perhaps the much talked about force of will power? Ockham's razor would dictate that that must be it. But I, in spite being an eternal cynic, do believe that will power is something all humans can summon together. It cannot be the missing parameter since it is definitely inherent to human nature and the ability to summon it up is a derivative of situation and consequences. Ordinarily getting up early on a Monday morning can be a pain and yet picture facing a critical examination on a Monday morning, sleep generally ends the night before and there is no shortage of will to wake up.

I believe that, based on recent progresses in understanding the human brain, this factor is the basic human character. It is now proven that strengths and flaws of character, are driven by corners of the human brain and human character is a key determinant in terms of what drives human decision and hence key to self definition. To some extent, human character is shaped by his or her social environment; in the way it impacts the development of neurological reaction centers - to that extent definition of self is not completely isolated from social influence.   A person who is dishonest by character faced with certain limitations will react differently to life as against an honest person faced with the same limitations.

Definitely then, an individuals character is the road that the individual will take to make a choice or behave within the boundaries of his or her limitations – thus concluding to the definition of the self.

Interpreting An Odd Series of Dreams....

The odd nature of dreams, I have found, is that they end up, almost always, merging with a real life trigger - the alarm clock, the urgent nature's call, noise and, if you are watching about dreams on TV, someone shouting you name. Very recently I read someplace that you cannot see your own death in a dream. Or, at least what I think it meant, you cannot experience you own death - I am guessing this applies for those who experience dreams in first person. And I am not very sure how that works but this one is about a particular stream of dreams that are haunting me off late. And I am not the person who gets haunted very easily.

It generally starts with a normal day, picture the average boring work day with not too many variables out of the ordinary. And somewhere towards the middle of the boring day (I can tell you these are boring because most times I am unsure if the real is a dream or vice-versa, and I know a boring day when I see one; there have been so many of late!). And then, almost out of the blue, there will be this one thing that gets introduced into this rhythm that is unpredictable and unaccounted for. The range of the variable of uncertainty has been widespread from a harmless power disruption to disaster events like crashing planes or a tornado or a particularly harmful lightning strike.

Typically the way events unfold from there on are as varied as the nature of the disruptive variable (I will not try and detail it out because it would probably sound over creative) - the end sequence of events is rather constant. I am bleeding pretty badly (with no particularly discernible injuries) and surrounded by faces of people I have never met. Breathing is difficult and the distinct feeling that the next inhalation may quite be the last.

What is bothering me about this sequence of dreams is not so much the 'meaning' but the 'relevance' and or 'context'. I did spend some time researching some bit of similar dreams and how they might be relevant to my life as it was progressing - little surprise that there was not much help from there. Hence I spent the whole day pondering about the potential meaning and implications.

My first thoughts were influenced, I shamefully agree, by the more recent hypes surrounding the forecasts of the impending 2012 end of days scenarios. Given the nature of events unfolding in the world, I am not very sure that we may survive very long before the next war erupts - I am fairly convinced that for the next major war, it will not matter who starts it. It will spread so fast and so far that there will not be too many safe places short of the moon to hide. The only safety net we have is that the terrorism agenda has been somewhat diluted and no other agenda (Korea, Iran or whatever) is strong enough yet to justify war. In a way, the incidence to too many crisis issues coinciding is probably what's holding us off the all out war path. But that cannot be it. The disruptive variable in my dream is never battle or war related - no bombs or gunfire in any of the event sequences. In addition, as shallow as it sounds, I would probably not die for my country or any cause, not unless the change of circumstances will actually benefit me and keep me alive - I am selfish, it's just the way I am; at least I am honest about it.

The other perspective to the dream - it was probably telling me that there would be a change of career choice I would be offered very soon and, as has been the case last time I made a career choice, I would choose the wrong path and eventually be doomed for complete destruction. I must concede that my career choices have always been questionable at best and the outcomes have been very very disappointing. But then I think I have learnt my lessons so if this dream is a premonition or, scary version, a precognition, there is not much upside and it depresses me. That too cannot be because I know, as far as I can predict,  that there is no drastic change coming along. I am, at least from a career point of view, facing serious momentum issues.

Is it then my subconscious side reminding me that I am a mortal? That may well be the case since my research of dreams has told me that dreams of death or impending death are ways of my mind reminding me that I am going to die sooner or later. And that I need to take the chance of changing paths to make some difference. Being born into a family with a medical man as my father, I am very aligned to the fact of mortality and do not have any illusions of living forever. While it would be nice if we could come up with technology that could allow us to live forever, by downloading consciousness into new bodies. It is well established that the human body is not the most efficient vehicle for perpetual life - the only solution to the mortality problem is not in curing illnesses but some way of extraction & downloading of the human consciousness. That's the Robin Cook fan in me speaking, I guess.

My wife will say that I need to stop watching too much Science Fiction on TV and start watching more romantic comedies. That might be a suggestion to lead to some more clarity in my dreams - clarity in form of what I should pay attention to and what I should restrain wasting my reserve thought bandwidth. This could however be some form of an innocuous dream like the ones where I am my own superhero or good looking alien life form - not much to them. Well, I have been warned. World War will probably not leave me many options for an alternate future but the other outcomes I will be able to control to some extent, so fingers crossed!

I don't have anything against God...

I am prone, very often, to get into a discussion over the validity in the extreme euphoria surrounding the presence of God. I am not learned in the subject and by no means am I against the concept of God. For a universe the size of infinity, I am sure that there exists a race somewhere that must be all powerful compared to the destructive abilities we have achieve over a few thousand years of civility. And, by no means do I feel pity or disgust about those who believe in the existence of a power that is supreme and dedicate their life to it. But, that is a question of faith and belief and what you dedicate your life to; and herein lies my beef (or pork, or any meat or vegetable of your choosing and faith!) with the concept of God and associated religious beliefs.

Faith and belief are inherently very personal and not subject to external interpretation, judgement and contemplation. I, as any individual, have the right and (post the age of 5! Personally that was when I liked to think I developed the ability to think) to choose and practice what I believe in and anything that adds to the quality of my existence. Association of faith and beliefs to material rituals and habits by very nature reduces them to a rule bound and hence dependent set of feelings. As long as my faith and beliefs do not involve infringement on another's, I do not believe that these necessarily need to follow a particular set of 'divine laws'. Human laws are sufficient to guide moral conduct and abused concepts of enlightenment and repentance. Do I have to believe in a super-human power and worship what supposedly he (or she) has said to be able to decide that it is wrong to kill for profit, rape for pleasure and cheat. Or maybe it is not wrong!

The fundamental problem of religion and religious anything as I see it that it dictates a code based on very powerful fiction that is not based on scientific evidence or replicability and tries to manipulate the human mind with the awe. God is all knowing and all seeing, apparently and yet his justice is not immediate. I need to wait till Judgement Day to see thousands of 'impure spirit's (you know, your everyday politicians, scammers and definitely the spammers hitting my mailbox everyday) before they get punished. If there is a God of such nature who created man in his image and let's man spread such tyranny and  pain in the world, it does not speak very highly of his image, does it?

Just because some of our ancestors saw them heal and fly, it is not magic. My dad can heal (he is a doctor) and I can fly (in exchange for a lot of money but all the same)! To the primitive who has not been educated beyond the Bullock Cart, I can see why this might seem God-like but for the modern 'plugged-in' human this cannot justify blind faith that can convince him (or her) of anything. We will have teleportation and long distance space-travel soon enough unless we kill ourselves before we get there in the name of God and His religion. And then are we Gods or is there yet more to capture before we can be equals with our Gods? A wise man once said (oh! wait, that was me) that the meaning of life is for the idle mind; life is for the living.     

In the short term….

Is the future certain? Or does it follow the uncertainties of position and velocity? Are parallel universes spun off based on the possible outcomes of the simple choices we make everyday. In my pursuit of philosophy inspired by science fiction, thrillers and everyday monotony, I seem to believe that there exists a certain homogeneity of fate and the way this characteristic affects the certainty of our lives at large.
I have learnt, from my misadventures in the Stock Markets, relationships and some part baked hobbies I pursued, that short terms can be broken down into three parts based on how short sighted you can force yourself to be. I classify these as (a) in the next couple of hours, (b) in the next couple of days and (c) in the next couple of months.Of course, given the turbulence of the markets these days, a couple of months can actually become long term but that is not so much my point of pondering; although broadly speaking I am not quite sure what I am pondering about.

Coming back to the terms of short term and applying some partially learnt calculus, I believe that the the short-short term (next couple of hours) I will continue to do what I am doing and probably what I was doing for the last couple – in this case pondering over some non-productive banalities. So not much decision making goes into the continuance of doing what I am doing. Hence I am not spinning off any decision trees leading to possible alternate universes and hence the future is pretty certain. I will continue on the journey of writing this blog that I will myself probably be confused hazy of the short term viz. next couple of days.

In my mind the short terms (next couple of days) is going to be occupied with blocks of short-short terms. Now there is some change in direction of actions that I take. For example I will not spend the next couple of days growing birds in my beard writing away. I will rise, have dinner, get some work done, sleep and brush my teeth twice a day while half asleep both times. The underlying theme remains pretty constant.

Now, some will argue (since argument does not cost money, effort or much of any intellect for most arguers) that maintaining this underlying theme is a choice and who know what universe is spawned by the alternate me deciding to break the cycle, shoot some people (chiefly at my workplace) and be happy about generally achieving nothing but a prolonged prison term. I do salute the alternate me with the balls to doom himself in the prison for the foreseeable future (this is long-long term). Short of that kind of an uncertainty that happens on ‘a good dream leading to a bad nightmare’ scenarios, I am sure that in the next couple of days  I will continue doing the same old same old.

Now when I consider the long-short term, that presents some possibilities of altering the certainty of the future (although what might persuade someone to want or crave an uncertain future is a thought for lunatics; and I do know some idiots who swear by ‘you never know’ attitude being healthy for the heart) although riding the same logic that the long-short term comprises of blocks of short terms which in themselves occupy many short-short terms, nothing is going to change very drastically. But then assuming that I am able to force myself to break the inertia of not choosing lunacy of craving some uncertainty of my future and ask myself the question - ‘what do I want from life?’, the possible universes and realities are many. But then there is a opposing force of the great philosopher and scriptwriter of the Matrix trilogy said “the purpose of life is to end”. So in the case that we take the absoluteness of the philosophy that birth and life is the leading cause for death (a natural corollary, I think, of human mortality) I am led inevitably to place my bets on the fact (this is meaning of life stuff!) that fate, no matter what it’s impact results in a broadly homogenous path. Grown, grow tall, grow old and then die. I think therefore that the only possible impact of fate finds representation in the quality of funeral. In general that seems like a very depressing and dark ambition to pursue.

I cannot conclude my train of thought, at least not in any short term perspective, so as asinine as it may be I am inclined towards ‘you never know they might discover immortality’ and leave it at that….        

And then came the rain…

The burning and beating heat soared
And the scorching wind feebly whispered around
All joy was drowned in sweat that flowed
All tears dry in the scalded ground.

The burning orb has made aged slave
Of him who once in wealth have played
To toil, and burn, and mourn, and pray
For the ferocious riot to melt away.   

And then came the rain conquering the force
Washing anew all withered dreams
Healing the burns and wounds and sores
Breathing life back in dying hopes.

Loneliness…

01/18/2011

Loneliness comes in 3 categories. I am sure there are googols of research dwelling into the length and breadth of the psychological and philosophical attributes surrounding the feeling of loneliness. I Am just talking here of the ways people react to the feeling of loneliness. And I do believe that the path we take is really a function of how we learnt to cope with loneliness.

Before I launch into this not so well rounded categorization of loneliness, I would like to add, as a prelude, that I talk here of loneliness as represented by the feeling of not being included or not belonging in the midst of circumstances. Picture yourself as a literature major sitting in a lecture for particle physics. There is no one around you who can speak your language (or you theirs), no one understands you quite the way you have grasped the soul of Dickens and Shakespeare and you are screaming for life with no one responding to you. That to my mind is the true feeling of loneliness irrespective of whether you are dying alone or it is just your broken heart making you lonely; the variables may change but the sadness, emptiness and claustrophobia are pretty much the same.

[ I swear I am not feeling particularly surrounded by people who understand me but that was the least pathetic simulation of loneliness I could come up with. I guess my poetic inclinations are rather withered! ]

Category 1 comprises of the majority people who take their loneliness and beat the shit out of it in a vicious self destructive cycle of brooding and scrutiny. Most of these are men (and sometimes women) who, the first time they were lonely [ if memory can trace back ], did not have much to occupy their mind and the best use of the emptiness was to find the root causes of their loneliness and break it down to particles, all the while increasing the depression quotient. Such people generally tend to become victims of chronic depression because the analysis tends to become a part of their everyday lives. And life is not really the joyous ride it is made up to be; because whichever way you go, you more or less always end up in a place wondering if you would have been somewhere else as this was definitely not what you had dreamed about.

Category 2 is the second largest fraction of people; compared to Cat 1 they are small but compared to the third class, they are infinitely large. These people are almost equally self destructive but in a radically opposite exhibition. They tend to get wasted! Men will drink or smoke whatever they can lay their hands on, go party and if luck will have it, end up with equally lonely women with no memory of what her name was next morning. Women on the other hand do the same and / or will go shopping to test the limits of their credit cards and bank balances. The outcome is almost always something you regret later and this puts you through a similar landscape of depression and self pity. Generally coming out of people who are surrounded in the beginning by groups of similar nature, comprising of individuals of rather shallow outlook where drinking and shopping form recreation. Maybe sometimes being shallow is good!

The third category is the tiniest fraction of people who actually move on rather quickly. They touch on Cat 1 or Cat 2 behavior and then turn to newer ventures in life. They move over rather fast since they have evolved from Cat 1 and 2 phases in life to get to the next level of self realization. The realization that life will throw its sad moments at you and there is nothing that you or any higher power can do about it. So we may as well just move on than either waste time in brooding or wasting money on shallow recreation.

Sounds quite like the sermon but I have learnt that it is easier said than done. There are two devils and one angel and the force that pulls you back towards a perspective of gloom or frivolousness is incredible when you are surrounded by incredibly dense stupidity or incredibly alien company. Personally, I cook and as a side effect, I eat and the weight keeps piling on and off!

Ending with a song… Personally I think this is a Category 1 song but hoping it will touch the note perfectly – a Celine Dion cover of an Eric Carmen original.