The Force and The Brahman

At around 800 C.E a baby was born in Kerala, by name Sankara to a brahmin couple who wanted a son but weren't blessed with one. Myth says that the couple prayed to Lord Siva at Vadakkunathan temple for a son. The Lord accepted their prayers and gave them a choice. Either to have sons who would live long lives but with mediocre intelligence or a single son with short life but highly intellectual. It is said that the couple chose the latter choice. Sankara like a dutiful brahmin boy went to gurukul, learnt scriptures, Vedas etc in a very short span. Unable to being bound by the earthly lives, he embraced sanyasa and started propagating his ideas and cerebrations through the length and breadth of the country.
So what is the idea propagated by Sankara? The answer is too simple. His ideas which are referred to as Advaita philosophy simply means lack of duality, a Singular Power. Adi Sankara referred to the Singular Power as 'The Brahman', the ultimate soul.
Advaita states that every individual is a part of the eternal soul, The Brahman. There is no difference between each and every living and nonliving thing. Everything originated from Him and will end in Him. Each and every individual is separated from Him by the worldly distractions that surrounds him and prevents him from attaining the ultimate knowledge, the truth about 'The Brahman'. Sankara even details out these distractions and the measures to be followed to come out of the worldly web which is beyond the scope of the blog! Perhaps I will save it for some other day.

The next question that arises is who is the 'Him' and where is the 'Him', about who Advaita and Sankara shower encomiums? He is not the one to be visualized. You are Him. Everything around you is Him. Every single constituent in the universe is a part of Him. Him is nothing but the energy that flows through the cosmic space, into each and every organism, that which makes our heart beat, pump blood, think about Him etc.

Around 1100 years later a german theoretical physicist by name, Hans Albert Einstein stumbled upon the idea of Theory of Relativity and gave a simple equation E=mc2, which became the platform for other scientists to expand and prove the existence, creating and the current position of our Universe.

Theories about Universe started developing based on Relativity and finally they came up with 'The Big Bang model'. The model provided insights to how a big explosion occured at some point of time after which the universe which was of size less than a quark started expanding rapidly to reach this present state. The theory states that when big bang occured, the laws of physics, gravity, force etc came into being. If there had been a minuscle change in the laws during the creation, then i'd probably not writing this blog, the world wouldn't have existed and the whole universe would have collapsed within femto seconds after the big bang.

Hawking even goes a step beyond this and contemplates that even as we talk new universes are created with a big bang outside our dimension. The laws required to stabilise a universe may not always be created during the Bang. Gravity may not be thr in some universe, gravity may repel in others, conversion of mass to energy and vice versa may not occur, entropy may decrease etc leading to collapse of the other Universes.

So after this successful big bang thingy, matter - antimatter interaction occurred and matter emerged triumphant, quarks, protons, neutrons, electrons and atoms were formed, hydrogen came up, H2 under gravity came close, created intense heat resulting in fusion of H2. Then came the mini stars which produced helium as they died, along with carbon, neutron mass and some light elements. During death, the explosion that followed threw the elements to far away regions. The cycle continued and finally heavy metals like gold, platinum, uranium, silver etc were also formed by the same mechanism. A similar formation of a star with many elements resulted in the birth of Sun and its planets. And that's how earth was formed. Life evolved as time progressed in it and finally the life which formed, started thinking about its creator, for which many different names were given as time progressed. Adi Sankara calls the creator as 'The Brahman', Christianity as 'Lord' or 'The Father' and Islam as 'Allah' but modern physicists call them simply as Force, Nature or Physics.

So from the big bang point of view, everything originated from the big bang. Everything around you, including you, your pen, your PC, the breakfast you had in the morning, the stars, planets, moons, galxies etc all originated from the big bang. Everything gets recycled again n again.

Now scroll up and look what advaita says. The crux of both the philosophy and theory are the same. Just the name of the Universal set comprising of all things in the Universe differs. Advaita calls it as The Brahman whereas modern theoretical physicists refer to it as Raw force and Physical laws governing the Universe.

The main aim of advaita philosophy is to prevent future births for every life on earth. To attain 'moksha'! To escape from the continuous cycle of birth and death and mingle together with Him. Having proved Advaita is almost similar to Big Bang, the previous point or the aim of advaita may seem to be an anomaly or flaw in Advaita which 'The Big bang' fails to vindicate. But it is not. As I already mentioned, everything originated from the big bang.

Hypothetically let us consider a star 'X', which was formed by hydrogen fusion, resulting in helium. The helium, under gravity moves towards the core where further pressure and temperature at later stages of the star increases resulting again in fusion and creation of heavier and denser elements like carbon, nitrogen which again undergo the same processes and finally heavy metals are created. During death of the star, the star bursts and the elements are spread throughout the cosmic space. A portion of it reaches a dense mass of hydrogen gas area (nebula 'Y')and thus develops a new star out of it called Sun and other planets including earth. So whateva that is present in the earth comes from the star 'X' and nebula 'Y' including humans.

So from where do we come from? Star 'X' and Nebula 'Y'. Now let us go into the future. Five billion years from now, the Sun would have used up all of its hydrogen, starts using helium, it puffs up like a giant red balloon and would engulf all the planet of the solar system. When the Sun explodes it throws out chunks of essential elements and molecules to outer space just like the star X. Thus a group of hydrogen atom formed during big bang formed 'X' from which our earth came, human body came and finally the elements go to some other nebula becoming cradles for new stars and planets and may be even new life.

Something strikes a bell?? U can always scroll up and check for the advaita aim. There isn't much difference between the two. Does it? So does tat mean that Sankara knew about the big bang model, cosmic space, birth and death of stars etc? If so why doesnt he explain it properly then? Considering the superstitions, the understanding capability and IQ of humans 1200 years back, Sankara would probably have thought that it was better to coat the bitter truth with the sweet flavor of God instead of breaking the truth directly and be ostracized.

Cycle of life

Grateful to God for the life given;
Grateful to life for the experiences bestowed;
Grateful to experiences for revealing the truth;
Grateful to truth for showering me with knowledge;
Grateful to knowledge for showing the path to God.

Relations

People... What is the ultimate motive behind life ? What is the general characteristic of the normal population? What does a human expect from fellow humans? Answer to all these questions are the same. Self interest. Selfishness is the characteristic of every life form in this world. Its just the name given to the form of selfishness that varies. Friendship, lover, wife, children, husband, father, mother, siblings, guru, God etc... Call it whatever u wish. The motive is the same; stay happy till the end of one's life by exploiting the so called relations around you and self-propagate his/her genes to the next generation.

Let us consider the so called motherhood - the selfless love that mother gives to her child. Total crap. The child is her self. Her future. The key to move into future generation. Thus selfish in nature. Motherhood definitely strives for the well being of the offsprings and thereby protecting her own genes. We can even extend this concept to the parenthood, i.e, mother and father.

And what about friendship, lover, wife etc? These belong to other category. All these relations are aimed mainly upon self interest, self improvement, seeking comfort at times of distress, providing comfort so that the receiver may reciprocate the same at times of need to the giver.

So what about selfless charity, donating organs, donating blood. A person is forced to wonder if nothing is selfless, then into what category these fit in. No doubt. They too are selfish acts! It is just that the degree of selfishness varies between persons. A person may care only about himself, or only about his surroundings, or only about his people. This sort of 'self' can even cover fellow humans.

Being selfish outwardly is just common. It doesn't give a right to another individual to comment on the egoist as if the commentor is a pure selfless pristine soul. These 'pristine souls' are either people who refuse to accept the hard truth that he/she is also egoist or they conceal their motives to the public too well by sugar coating them with the idea of 'philanthropy' unlike a raw egoist who thereby can only be blamed for his/her disability to conceal their ideas to the public.

So what is the mantra then? What am i coming to say? Simple... 'BE SELFISH AND CARE ABOUT U AND UR SURROUNDINGS. DON GIVE A DAMN FOR OTHERS' FEELINGS, INTENTIONS AND MOTIVES UNLESS THEY ARE IN SOME WAY CONNECTED TO YOU'

As you call it - part II

After two years, the blogging starts again!!
http://thoughtsofegoist.blogspot.com/2008/07/as-you-call-it.html.. This is the supposed 'part I'.. Here comes the second part!!

Well... Two years back u've seen my opinion.. And now here is my ideas about the same concept. Well. Now its another three of my friends. Yes. And now it is varun, sridhar and akhil. But this time they din ask me anything though. He seemed to have gotten into a relation and finally that ended as a crap ultimately (As i've stated in the part I blog). The reason?? The reason is also as i've said it in the part I blog.. ha ha.. seems funny. I told one of them to read the part I blog after this happened.. His reaction, " Hey how did u know that this was going to happen? Really shocking da! But really very true da!!"..I read my own blog after two years and then ask varun to read it. His reaction is also alsmost the same but with a little modification. And that modification is what that I am going to talk about right now. From now, the blog will continue as if he speaks it..

"Hey i accept whatever u've stated there. Everything is correct da. But i don approve of the thing about the "stay away from love" part. I think that is not necessary.Initially i also thought exactly like you.. that love, commitment, relation etc is waste of time and is not needed. but as time passed by i donna when and where my ideas got modified. But i do know by whom it got modified. After a point of time it is not such a bad thing after all. The relation and the things it brings with it may not be that important from an academic or career point of view. But it proved to be very helpful in building up confidence, making decisions, taking up responsibility, knowing the amount of trust to be confided in to a person etc. So dont think that it is a very distracting thing. I feel that it is one of the experiences needed for a person in life. I definitely do not regret for whatever that has happened but at the same time i do not feel that great about everything too. i definitely do not regret that has happened in the relation too since it gave me good experience for a lifetime. Whatever happens, happens for a very good reason and its better that we must accept it with a full heart. So don't completely ignore it or see it as a forbidden fruit. And i completely disagree with your view that "keep them in the corner of your brain and after few weeks or months it will pass away". You can always give it a try and if things did not work out well, there is a possibility of taking it as a very good experience."

This is what varun meant in his speech and i think that on second thoughts i do agree with him. May be he is right and that people can get an experience from it!!

SHIT!!

As I had messed up my way to besi beach, I had been revolving around the coast up to marina and secretariat. I always had such problems and recently it was getting worse. I kept forgetting people’s face, those I’ve met once or twice or their names. Worst of all I forget the routes in and out of the city. As I finally found the route and was heading for my destination I was receiving all sorts of pleasant praises from pillion my friend, until we reached the beach. “E.G you are the worst driver I have ever met. How could you forget this route? You are the worst driver!! ”.

As his chants continued, and we neared the beach, a traffic police stood near the junction in which we had to turn and he stood in my way forcing me to stop. “Now what”, I wondered. “Take off your helmet and stand over here”, came the order. What!! What does it mean? Am I going to be sued for something? Or doesn’t he have money for the night? Damn it. Whatever it was I had the feeling that it wasn’t good. He had some sort of white colored remote control with a pipe sticking out of it and there was a photographer waiting to take a picture. I was confused to the extent. “Take it in your mouth and blow.” he told me pleasantly. And a green signal kept glowing on it. As I wondered what that light was supposed to mean there was a flash. I wanted to shout at him to stop. Alas!! He had taken it. The police asked me to leave. Was this some kind of elephant and a mouse story? Who cares! Am gonna leave. But as usual curiosity killed venki and he asked,” Sir, what was that for?” “Are you drunk?” “No sir.” “Then go.” Ahaaaa! So that’s what it was all about!

With comments that I am a ‘drunkard’ from my friend we entered into what was once the connecting road between the two beaches but now completely submerged in huts, garbage and ditch. Of course we had to get through the thorns to smell roses and pluck them. So as we passed through the thorns, we were confused to see that the thorns were trimmed by the Government. Yes, the route to the remains of the bridge was changed. The shrubs were cut and the route was actually passable. I thought that we had entered into some kind of an endless loop of black road with beach and walls on both sides. I feared that we had to stay in the loop for ages and ages until the black shadows engulfed us into its own self. This was the effect of a horror movie we had seen the night before.

My fears came to an end as the bridge came into view. Still something was wrong. Even the position of the broken bridge seemed to have changed somehow and every one of us were able to sense it. “Hey something is wrong here.” Sridharan said to everyone present. S.. too shouted the same as I made the grumpy noise from the movie we had seen. That was enough for every one of us. We got into our bikes and headed straight for S..’s home. As S.. ate his dinner and was getting prepared for the usual ‘night stay’ Sridharan was entertaining us with the bike of S….. He did wheeling, stoppies and stunts for which I have no names, S…’s mom wondered why he was doing such things.

Suddenly, Sridharan declared. I and S…. are leaving first. You people follow us. He didn’t even wait for our reply. He took S…’s bike and flew off. A note I would include here is that Sridharan is the most proficient and best bike rider in our gang. His control over bike is too good and the pillion would usually sit with confidence because ‘he’ was riding. Later, S... and S…. too went off separately as they had plans to secure the second part of the movie. I and K… started for home in our bikes when suddenly he said,” hey you proceed; I forgot my bag in his place. I’ll get it and come.” This seemed too odd. Wherever we went, we go together and today everyone was flying separately. Well, whatever it was I was too hungry and I wanted to get home as soon as possible.I didn’t even had the idea of stopping at an accident near the velachery road. As I was standing exactly on the right side of the road (accident took place on the left side), someone adjacent to me said,” Probably that would have been a goner.” I shuddered at the thought of how it would be if it was someone I knew. Hunger came again and I went straight home.

I had no thoughts of going for a night stay that night. I was too tired for that. My eyelids and my eyes kept fighting all the time I was eating. As I had just finished my dinner, my phone alarm began. Thinking that S.. always hated this noise I took it and to my surprise he had called me. My surprise was mainly because he had called from his cell. He almost never did that. Great! As I said ’hello’, he started shouting at me. It was all nothing but non-stop nonsense. All I could make sense was only one thing. Sridharan had an accident near velachery and was enroute to vijaya hospital. SHIT!!

As you call it.

Sitting in front of my one-in-all box (also called computer by others), I was playing one of my favorite strategy game fervently in full swing, when my home mobile (supposed to be mine) jingled in its own violent tone. “Ah! A forward.” I thought as I paused the game and checked it. A miracle! Abhinav (of course name changed) had messaged me,” free?” Curiosity started killing Venki and he replied immediately,”yes what da?” I guessed he wished to say something as he confirmed this three or more times before asking me a silly question,” My friend girl proposed to me. What should I do? Am confused. What would you do if you were in my state?”(Try answering this if you wish…chuckles.) Seriously, I was unable to tell him anything then gave him a part of idea which was met with thanks. Phew! What is going on?

Is it that serious an issue to be considered? Isn’t this what happens during the so called teenage? Is this where our society is leading us to? Unwanted thoughts (I prefer not to use the terms) during study years completely desecrates him and makes him useless. This is may be just a fun game for some, too serious issue to give the A grade preference for some or else to just shrug it off and dust it off from shoulders for the rest. I seriously do belong to the third category. Seriously, I believe that you become able to decide about ‘them’ once you start working for your meals. I laugh at the thought that once I too had some stupid troubles and my one of my sweet friend had to put it deep into my brain that I must be knowing my priorities( KNOW YOUR PRIORITIES! DECIDE YOUR LIFE! YOU ARE THE ONE TO DO IT! ). Well, once you get to know what this stuff is all about I don’t think the problem would arise again and if it does, it becomes so easy to push it in the back part of the brain and concentrate on the work at hand..

This sort of feelings is nothing more than pure hormones (I do have to prove that I am a biotechnologist!!). The magic is done by just chemicals: testosterone, oestrogen, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin etc.

Let these be aside. Let us consider that ‘A’ has some special feelings over ‘B’ and ‘B’ does reciprocate to ‘A’ in the expected way. They hang out with each other for a while; have extended phone talks and messaging over mobile; probably boast upon their so-called success to their friends. This sort of stuff goes on for a while and finally one will back off or they find a dispute, quarrel over it and move opposite. This is what happens almost (almost) always. Probably these are exact descriptions of what happened to Abhinav and many of my friends.

So here comes my conclusion. As I had already proved my point that it is chemical stimulated I had implied that it is unable to resist and I do say that it must be stopped. Confused? The answer is too simple: Just keeping them packed in a corner of your brain for a few days, probably weeks or months (certainly not more than a few months).

My Own Wrath

Stress has got me in its gripping hands,
Pushing me though; beyond the limits;
Those that are termed as end points of sufferings.
Suffering has just started for the Sinned,
For neither you nor He can give a hand.
All you filthy beings can is;
Just watch me bleed, break and cry.

Cries not born out of pain but anguish,
Being broken, not to surrender,
But to be triumphant on the bones of the Damned.
Bleeding, not to die as a puppy,
But to fool him and make him slips.

Hit me, Crack me, Shake me,
Twist me, Tear me, Mutilate me,
For every misery I bear,
My resistance grows and
Your hands tremble at every step.
Neither shall my suffering go untold,
Nor your paths of torture will be buried.


Thou are nothing more than a speck of dust.
Fool! Do you think I will give up?
Hear the truth: “For every suffering,
I bear; you shall face the same,
But along with my wrath- a hundred fold increased.