Tale of Torpor

"It is a singsong dawn
but we think of night alone
already pierced by dark"

-Japanese Haiku.

A dark chasm,
A haunting, deep silence,
In perfect stillness, an abyss.

A sound strikes a resonance,
A thought gets thought,
The quiescence stops.

Thought begets thought,
Thoughts spawn a thread,
Thread weaves patterns;Torpor ends.

As points of randomness gather,
Memory joins the dots,
A dream begins.

Colors of memory,
Dance a strange dance,
Contorting,twisting, the ignis fatuus.

Time flies, the dreamer dreams,
Dawn brings in light,
Shattering the reverie.

The Cosmic Dance

In the beginning was One,
In that one did they dwell,
Undifferentiated, unbroken,
Total bliss was their shell.

" Oh! I wish to play", she said,
And He acquiesced.
"But don't complain of loneliness", he warned,
" For I shall only be the witness."

In her gaiety, as she bloomed,
The void began to cease,
And then it began, the cosmic play,
As the flower called her bees.

Universes sprang up, galaxies arose,
The elements mingled,
The planets rose.

Zillions of lives,actors became,
And with them came their form,
With them came their name.

He became time, the grim witness,
Musing at the play,
Of his beloved mistress.

As eons rolled on,Darkness descended,
The life forms corrupted,
The happiness ended.

Misery ensued, sadness prevailed,
The unjust became mighty,
In this chaos she quailed.

"This isn't what I wanted, this isn't why I played,
Oh! won't you come and end this? ",
To her beloved she prayed.

From his quiescence he woke,
Smiling at her sorrow,
Time stood still,as he danced aloft,
His moves destroying the morrow.

She rose from the chasm,
In reply to his call,
Together they danced,
The fetters began to fall.

As the two danced as one,
Duality disappeared,
The knower became the known,
The seen merged with the seer.

In the end there remained one,
Their bliss becoming a death-knell,
Eternity merged into Unity,
And united did they dwell.

Understanding Infinity [Part-2]

“I'm only a four-dimensional creature. Haven't got a clue how to visualize infinity. Even Einstein hadn't. I know because I asked him.”

--Patrick Moore.

The last post on infinity was about getting to know at least on the surface what infinity is and what it means to different people at different levels. This one discusses the grand vision of our very own Indian philosophers. The Sanskrit verse purnamadah..purnamidam tells us exactly this:

That is whole, this is whole

From the whole, the whole arises

When the whole is taken from the whole

The whole still will remain.

As stated in the last post, if one observes in-depth, the motion from point a to b [Zeno' s paradox] or the large sets of aleph numbers, the concept of infinity stands out as an incomprehensible entity which cannot be touched by the senses, visualized through the mind's eye or understood by the intellect. It can only be defined as: It is or it exists. This is what Vedanta has been trying to say. This as we know is referred as God by some, the primal force by some and infinity by the others. The vedantins however, argue that all this is the self alone and nothing else. They say that this which defies understanding can be understood. However, they also add that neither through intelligence nor senses can this be understood but by direct experience alone.

Let us try and define what direct experience means. It is that knowledge which comes from within i.e it is not conditioned. This knowledge is not got by reading books, nor by listening to others but is got only through by going through it. Perhaps the reader may be confused, but the English language has yet to come up with a word that encompasses in whole what direct experience means. The word which could be used is intuitive knowledge. Once a person undergoes this direct experience the knowledge which comes out of it becomes irrefutable. Try asking a mathematician about the beauty of numbers. Then tell him that it is nonsense and numbers are mere symbols with no quality about them. The poor mathematician is bewildered because he doesn't understand why others cannot see the beauty that he does. He will tell you that numbers give him infinite joy. Similarly, an artist will talk about his art, an architect about his building and so on...

Our philosophers say that this happiness, the ineffable joy has but one source: the infinite. They call it self and thus the term Aham brahmasmi. They say that the joy which one gets when one plunges into the source of things is just the surface of what really exists beyond. Taking the mathematician's joy which though is wonderful, but is sadly limited in time. Once the numbers are taken away, he goes through the same dull process of life we all do with all its ups and downs. But the concept of infinity goes beyond the constraints of time and space. Our sages say that once the source of all sources is realised, the microcosm and macrocosm appear as one. This is what we refer to as 'self-realisation' or nirvana.

Often people have asked why self realised men seem so blissful and in joy always. Because they in one sense experience a mathematician's joy, but this one being boundless, infinite. That is why they have answers to all questions. Once someone understands the source of all sources, nothing is new or old, all are but ripples in the realm of the infinite. So , infinity stands out there as a challenge to all mankind urging us to understand it, to feel it to become it. But how many will be successful in this endeavour is again a paradox in itself...

With infinite love,
Adios.

Continuous Discrete Continuum!!

"The law of continuity ... consists of ... that each quantity, in experiencing a transition from one magnitude into another, must pass through all the intermediary quantities of the same sort. This is usually expressed by stating that the transition occurs through intermediate stages. Maupertuis considered these stages to be a number of minute additions occurring in a moment of time. He thought that the law must be violated at the same time for it is violated equally by the smallest leap or the greatest leap, since the concepts of small and great are quite relative. He was right if the term 'stage' denotes an instantaneous increment in any quantity. Really, it should be so conceived that particular states correspond to particular instants, whereas increases or decreases correspond exclusively to very small continuous intervals of time"
--- Geometry, time and the law of continuity.


Continuity. A term which many of us use everyday. But few among us realize the enormous complexities in this concept called continuity. What is this state of being continuous after all... the dictionary defines continuous as : Uninterrupted in time, sequence, substance, or extent. Lets set aside the mathematical part of continuity for a while and examine thoughts and their continuity.

I, for one, have found that the thought process can be described as a sort of convoluted continuity i.e lets say that my first thought occurs from seeing an image or a thing for e.g. a tree. My attention probably goes towards the leaves, their vibrancy in that particular season which might spring in the thought of vibrancy of life followed by a sudden thought about art or a painting with green undertones or a green dress worn by one of my friend. The point I'm trying to make is even in these so called vague or unconnected thoughts there is a sense of continuity. The best part is that this whole thought is like a tree structure. Depending on the direction the thought moves, it spans out this huge tree consisting of our memories, experiences and these thoughts which try to re-live or reminisce about them. Perhaps, that's why it's called a train of thoughts. The funny thing though is that if you interrupt a person during this and later ask him to re-construct the whole chain it'll almost seem impossible . More often than not, he'll end up constructing a new tree of thoughts though they've arisen from the same root!!

Evolution is another fascinating phenomenon where continuity comes into place. Right from the oldest creatures called trilobites to the so-called superior species of homo sapiens, we've all evolved and continue to evolve against the time-graph.But, if everything is continuum, where on earth does the concept of discreteness come into play? I guess , the best example to elucidate this would be the structure(if i may call that) of light. The physicists after centuries of experimentation have concluded that light nothing but a continuous emission of photons of discrete energy levels. So i guess what they mean is light has the qualities of both continuous-ness and discreteness at the same time(Bravo!!). Continuing in the same vein, that would mean that as evolutionary species, all the species which have evolved and continue to evolve have discrete energies does it not? Similarly, the thoughts of these discrete creatures are continuously discrete wherein the links between the discrete thoughts are what provide their continuity...

So these concepts of continuity are like the light and dark. The existence of one gives the meaning to the existence of the other. it is wonderful once you start realizing the enormity of this whole connectedness throughout this universe. The main question though, is that if both these continuity and discrete are relative, then what is real? Human mind refuses to accept anything that is relative as an absolute. So does that mean life, with it's discrete continuity is just an illusion? Or perhaps, the very word illusion is an illusion since it's nothing else but a play of light and dark? The best pictorial description of this question is the famous Yin-Yang wherein the light and dark are separate, yet they stay in one another and go on giving the purpose for the other to exist in a continuous vortex called time...forever and ever... So try shedding some light on this and let me know if you've found the answer.

Until next time,
Au Revoir.

Unconventional Reality

"Ridicule is the treat paid to the genius by mediocrity"
- Oscar Wilde.

It is commonly believed that exceptionally intelligent people or the people whom we consider geniuses have eccentricities. And just like all other things this subject of the treatment of people who are unconventional also has a pattern. The pattern most often than not results in chaos in the lives of these 'gifted' people and only a handful have been able to claim a sort of 'normalcy' in their later lives

The pattern is often like this: If the subject in question is a child prodigy, it's always seen that in the beginning, the child is praised to the skies and his achievements slashed across all the front pages of newspapers. And due to the child's natural ability, he/she progresses way faster than a conventional child in our society. Few realize the emotional trauma which the child undergoes during this stage. The child will not only have to deal with all the unwanted attention but also the ridicule and antagonism of his fellow mates in college who're a good ten years or so older than him. This sort of treatment often results in behavior which has been termed eccentricities primarily because society doesn't know why the behavior occurs since, it doesn't fit the conventional ones they've been exposed to. This very 'gifted child' is later called a freak because our so called society fails to understand why the genius in this person behaves the way he /she does. [Interested readers may look up William James Sidis' page on wiki] The same pattern with a little variation is what follows in case of people who deviate from the trodden path of the masses.

The question now is why this happens? To understand this we must go to the roots i.e what is a society. A society is a framework or a construct which has been agreed upon by individuals sharing common behavioral patterns for them to co-exist harmoniously and lead to their betterment as a whole by fixing certain laws to which all belonging to this framework must adhere to.[the definition is mine] . Now in comes a person defying all the conventional laws and is a living proof to the society that there is a possibility that these behavioral patterns which were till then considered normal might just be a generality describing the behavior of people who are less gifted. If the society agrees to this, then it'll mean that it's existence is nothing but a bunch of mediocre people who have a reached a consensus. Now just how many of us would like calling ourselves mediocre? Though, on the surface we might agree that this so called genius is exceptional, but inwardly we hate him/her for being what he/she is. Their very attribute like their extraordinary intellect becomes their grave enemy. At this juncture, chaos begins.

When a person is denied the right to express something which is natural to him/her it leads to a forcible suppression of these qualities for the fear of non-acceptance by the society. This in turn might manifest itself as behaviors for which the word eccentricity has already been coined( This is quite clever on the part of the society since it's managed to give the word eccentricity a negative feeling). One must understand though, that it is not this uncommon behavior which leads to the downfall of such geniuses but the failure on the part of the society to accept them as their own. And when a person feels that he has nowhere to go where he feels at home, he' s shattered.

Time and again this has happened and a lot of contributions that these people might have made have never seen the light. It is quite unfortunate that being just like everybody else[of course with a few extra qualities which is OK as long as they are 'normal '] is considered a sign of individuality. Till the time comes when such people find acceptance, the world's a sa dplace for these geniuses to exist in...

Till next time,
Sayonara.

Understanding Infinity [ Part-1]

“The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.”

-Voltaire


Infinity, a concept(?) which has puzzled men for centuries. There is a common notion in philosophy that since human mind(i'm referring to normal people) is limited to 3-Dimensions, something as abstruse as infinity is beyond comprehension. But, along the way people have come up with some really interesting theories.

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of Shakespeare. [ For the proof refer to the wiki page under the same name].




Mathematicians seem to treat infinity as a number. There are of course, Aleph numbers which represent the different cardinality of infinite sets like natural numbers, real numbers etc..which is a different approach to the same concept. They seem to say that one infinity differs from another depending on the set they are taken as a part of. Another interesting one is Zeno's paradox. It states that in order for an entity to go from point a to point b, the entity must first travel half the distance, in order to travel half, it must travel one fourth, and to travel this it must travel one sixteenth and so on infinitely. Zeno conludes thus that the whole concept of motion is an illusion!!

So infinity need not be necessarily very large always. It might be even the smallest immeasurable quantity which does not have a finite ending. So the question which arises is what exactly is infinity? Is it a notion? Or is it just a fragment of man's imagination? Or is it a yearning of the human mind by recognizing the need for something higher and non-definable?

Give it a thought.
till next time,
Au Revoir!

My Musings...

"When someone tells me, 'I cannot understand your poem',I am perplexed. What do you say to a person who smells a flower and says 'I cannot understand it?'" -Rabindranath Tagore


This post, i will just wonder,for wonderful is this process of wondering which leads to wonders. Everyone muses some or the other time don't they?

I've often mused how this word muse came about? Perhaps, from amuse, for musings are always accompanied by amusement, sometimes directed at the self,sometimes at others.The site dictionary.com defines musings as thus:

"An elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and reflections".

How can the word musings contain itself in it's meaning??

"Seers of great wisdom say when a person forgoes their ego, they transcend". But is'nt transcending equivalent to rising? And when some one rises where is the concept of equality?And without equality, how can one forgo ego?

How does vuja de happen? (This is supposedly the opposite of deja vu) Is it equivalent of sensing the past?Or is it the future? Because in deja vu, a person senses that happenings happening around him have happened somewhere before.

Why do secret socities like Freemasons call themselves so? Don't they bind themselves in traditions? So they're neither free nor Masons right?

I've often read the westerners exclaim "Jesus .H . Christ!!" err,no offense but "H" stands for??

Is Death the end of a beginning or the beginning of an end?? If it does culminate something, does the object of culmination free something within it?

So, if you, the learned reader are musing about my saneness, does your musing mean that you are amused by my musings or amused that you see an inkling of your own musings in mine?

Think about it. Or rather muse about it.
Adios.

God and Logic

Recently, I had been to Coimbatore, to take part in the cultural fest held by one of the branches of the institution where I study. One of the events there was a personality contest, of which stress interview was a part. A friend of mine, who had participated in this event, during her interview was asked to prove God exists. The interviewer wanted her to prove it logically. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to do it.

But it got me thinking. Very recently, i finished a book called Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintainence by Robert Pirsig which has the protagonist, who is a thinker and a logician struggling throughout his life to understand what the world really is about using logic. He asks some fundamental questions like "Didn't gravity exist before Newton discovered it?" When this question is asked to an ordinary man, he might laugh and say, "Of course it did!!". But the question this logician asked was, If so be the case, why didn't anybody acknowledge it? Everything that the innovators have discovered right from the Fuschian equations by Poincare,Riemann system of Geometry, Einstein's relativity,String Theory... have revolutionised the field of science and the way we perceive things. Didn't the people know earlier that there was something called time? Did they not know that all changes in our system are subject to this entity? If they did, how come it took so many centuries for someone to come up with this idea??

If one looks carefully, these great men discovered these things when they looked at things differently. In other words, they found that the perceptions of their time could'nt answer their questions i.e there was no logic which could explain what they were seeing but yet, the things they were able to see had to make sense. So, they did the only thing possible which would lead them to the truth. They transcended. They concluded that what was being accepted as the Absolute truth was not an Absolute at all. This Original thinking, of which man alone is capable of, have led to all the great innovations and discoveries.

There is a parallel to this train of thought. Indian Sages, the ones who have obtained self realisation have insisted time and again that one must transcend to find God. Unfortunately, many of us presume this means transcendence at a material and physical level. All they have been asking of us is to accept the fact that this system of Aristotlean Logic which we have been following, in which our innane desire to hierarchcically classify all things we see and find an explanation about it which can be said as 'trying to fit square pegs in round holes' is wrong. If one studies the western philosophy carefully, at the top of it there exists this dichotomy of Virtue(grossly mistranslated as Good in the philosophy textbooks) and Evil. And all the various names(often unpronouncable and difficult to remember) which are included in this hierarchy stem from the fact that even Aristotle made the mistake of assuming that all the things in the world follow his dichotomy i.e he concluded it to be the Absolute truth.

So, do we conclude that all the "logic" which we have been trained to accept is wrong? Not at all. Mankind, as of now, is in an intermediate state. Let me quote an example. If you have observed an ant which is crawling across your floor, you are able to determine where it'll be after ,say 5 seconds(assuming it follows the straight line path it always takes :) ). In other words, you are able to see it's future(a.k.a. relativity). But the ant itself, does not know of it since it's vision is restricted to the 2-D. Similarly we normal men are now at a stage where we are not able to envision many things because it's a block we have ourselves set up..of thinking in this straight line fashion.

Only when we transcend this sort of thinking will we come to know the Absolute Truth. The day science finds this, growth will stop. Perhaps, this is why we are made to trudge through this dull and boring existence and yet, at times are given glimpses of what we call beyond, of what we call Absolute Truth, of what some call God.Perhaps, this fleeting motivation is a test for us, to determine whether we have the guts to break free and look for the truth. So, my advice for people who want to prove God exists logically, is either abandon ur current system of logic and transcend thereby making that logic which helps u understand God as the Absolute Logic, or wait for someone to do it and keep whining till then that God does not exist.

Until next time,
Adios.

Terrorism: A product of Fear conditioning?

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

Terrorism. Perhaps the most common word used in the last few years. Everyone, from a wannabe who wants to get attention, political flunkies trying to show how much they care, business tycoons trying to prove they too have a conscience, have used this word. But how many truly understand it? And why are we all affected by it?

In psychology, there is a phenomenon called Fear Conditioning. The method by which organisms learn to fear new stimuli. It is done by slowly introducing an object to which a person might be averse to. Then by repeatedly making the person undergo this, building a sort of fear system within him. After a certain point, any object which might have the remotest connection to the object used earlier starts to have an effect on him. Words, images, associated with it begin to haunt him till the very name of the object gives him nightmares.

I believe, Terrorism is the best example for this. What started off as a group of radicals trying to achieve their objectives using extreme measures has grown into this phenomenon which is at the top of every country's potential threats list. How? Simply because of the attention it got. Because we failed to recognize that by giving it unwanted attention,we were creating a monster. These bunch of bozos began to realize that the more preposterous their actions,the more attention they got. And the more we hyped it up, the more fear it created. In the beginning it was just one of those distasteful events which happened once in a while. Then they started happening in regions a little closer to us. Of course, we cannot forget our dear old media with upcoming news channels vying for greater viewership which played a great role in giving these idiots the attention they craved for. With the over enthusiastic reporters, who rather than giving the news were more interested in proving they were the first ones to arrive at the spot. Selling news became the 'in thing' everywhere.

In the midst of all this was the aam aadmi, who religiously tuned to news channels at nine every night, more out of a habit than anything else. And what did he see? Great leaders everywhere expressing their sorrow over the losses of the other country (what wud happen to our foreign relations if we don't respond, they ask), more reports on bombing, mass killing, deaths..basically everything which confused the poor fellow and forced him to ask "But, why are we not doing anything about it?" and had to be contented with fellow aam aadmi's answer during tea at the office the next day "What can we do when these big people are not able to do anything?". Little did we realize that our inaction to voice our opinions then would bring about an event like 26/11 in our lives. That we were still being 'conditioned to fear' this baseless thing called terrorism.

But, post this attack inflicted to destroy our morale, a miracle has occured. It has resulted in bringing out the things which could offer a solution to the opened Pandora's Box. Hope. And Courage. By deciding to speak out, the common man has decided to take the responsibility in his own hands. Fear Conditioners be damned, no more of this bull anymore. The whole country has put its differences aside and decided to tackle these terrorist losers head on. The sacrifice of a few heroes has resulted in the birth of many. Even U.S. which generally likes to sit on the high chair and look down has started paying attention. Though slowly, everyone's recognizing it. India has arrived.

This is the time, when everyone stands united, to get rid of this baseless fear which has been pervading our minds. Let us all play our parts, however little and make sure a thing like this is never repeated. Let us learn from the past and move on towards a brighter future.

Until next time,
Adios.

The Anatomy of Power

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
- Lord Acton.

I was reading an online edition of newsweek which listed the top 50 powerful people in the world. And not surprisingly, at the top was Barack Obama the new savior of USA. Which made me wonder about the quote stated above... throughout history we've seen people vested with absolute power, after a while seem to forget the very reason this power was given to them.
Be it Louis XIV of France who haughtily declared “L’Etat, c’est moi” (I am the State) ", the infamous czars of Russia who were known for their autocratic nature or the Nazi general Hitler whose mind became so obsessed with his ideology that he forgot what it was like to be human.

Power as they often say is very elusive. Yet, in the short span of time it corrupts the mind of the person who wields it and causes him/her to completely lose sight of their original purpose. Even today, we see corrupt politicians, wealthy individuals all over the world bending laws to satisfy their own egos. If one looks closely, there is a common pattern to all this.
A highly gifted individual, either through his charisma or his skills makes it to the top. In the beginning all goes smoothly, but as time progresses the line between common good and personal good goes on blurring. So slowly, this individual starts amassing personal goodies as i would like to call them. He hesitates initially, but because of his power he's able to push it under the mattress. But this time, he continues doing what he's started because his mind with it's impeccable logic convinces him that he's already too deep in it and that it's OK since everyone around him/her does it. Thus begins the ever growing bonding of power and corruption which repeats time and again...

So which brings us to the question... Does power always corrupt? Is there no way to avoid it?.. I believe the one thing which would save us is wisdom. It is perhaps the only quality given to mankind through which he can overcome petty greed and ambition. Wisdom allows a person to see clearly through the mist which appears and take the right decision. The funny part being, Wisdom is like an advanced search algorithm. If you take a wrong decision anywhere in your life you start getting lost. So it's back to the same place till you learn how to make the right moves. And the greater the no. of right moves, the greater the wisdom.

One may argue that wisdom alone might not grant power which is essential in bringing change. Sure it's not enough. It's important to be wily, smart and a little cunning to gain power if you believe in end justifies the means concept. But the important thing is to retain the wisdom once you become powerful and not let it get to your head.

Incidents like the Satyam scandal are a stark reminder to all of us as to what will happen if we let power and unbridled ambition get to our heads. It remains for us, to learn from it and ensure we don't make the same kinda mistakes. Now post-recession the world is entering a new era and we can only hope that the new powers-be have done their homework and shall not be deluded in their own power and make the same mistakes again. Hoping for a better future to all of us, till next time folks, I say,
Adios.

Destiny

"Every man has but one destiny. Neither him nor the world can restrain him from it"...
We hear it all the time don't we? Take your destiny in your hands, just go for it,just change your perceptions et al. ... but the question is if everything has been decided already, what's the point of willfully trying to change something? aren't we all headed to our individual destinies anyway??

The answer i think lies in finding a balance... a balance between personal and nature's will. Perhaps this is the balance which Gods talk about in our mythologies. The ability to remain calm and detached even in the face of tidings, good or bad comes only by conceiving what has happened as the byproduct of both our actions and maktub (this is a very beautiful term meaning: It is written.). When one finds this balance, he is able to truly understand his purpose. Let me explain...

Say, a person wants to be a corporate honcho( :) A lot of you will be able to connect with this one i hope)... and starts off with a dream to make it big in life. Now, during the course of these myriad events which happen in life, he/she is made to face a lot of challenges,difficulties during his course. I believe this is an amusing yet effective way for life to test the person whether he deserves the cake he is about to get in the next stage. The funny part is, this happens at every stage this person moves ahead towards his/her dream. The good part is , if you clear the test, the cake keeps getting bigger and trust me..it'll be worth all the troubles. It becomes a question of how much tenacity, perseverance (let's cut out the big words shall we?)... basically how long you can stand it without chickening out :) ... it is a simple process of elimination thru which your own ability is decided. Now this simple process just to make it sound uber-cool is sometimes given the name Destiny.

So it all boils down to one thing. Dream, perform and have the spunk enough to stick with it...and everythin else will take care of itself....

Hope all you guys find your destinies and catch your dreams :)....
Adios.