It has been more than two months now since I blogged anything. So this is more of “Hey I am still alive, if you care to know” kinda post. So what have I been up to the last couple of months ?...nothing much apart from pretending to work that is.
The humor part of me has either taken a hiatus or taken leave for good. No news excites me these days. There was plenty to parody about, the Indian elections for one thing. But I simply could not get to write anything about it. Or for that matter, I haven’t been doing anything else either, it has been a monotony that begs a break.
Sometimes I wonder if the cobwebs of the mind are becoming too strong to let the thoughts through. Any new thought that dares to seek redemption through the strokes of the keyboard seem to die a suffocating death in the maze of these cobwebs that is getting dense everyday.
Cynicism, anger, sarcasm, despondency all seem to take turns in weaving their strands around any thought that germinates and they relent not till the thought meets its demise as a fleeting memory of what could have been.
What could have been and what is !!, two simple states that the mind flits across ever so often in an effort at reconciling the difference that separates them - through fantasies, through imagination, through hope. And finally assimilate the irreconcilable into the individual’s weltanschauung. Every lost thought, each futile action, each latent intent moulds the mind ever so slightly and tugs it towards acceptance - the acceptance of immutable fatalism.
Where fatalism exists, there lurks fear. The fear of inevitability that crushes emotions less strong and all that remains is cynicism, anger, sarcasm, despondency as they go about weaving ever stronger webs in the mind.
What started off as an update post is turning out to be an indecipherable philosophical rant that, frankly, I am not too sure I understand myself.
Simply put, I am just hoping this phase is going to pass
Showing posts with label General Philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General Philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, December 10, 2007
Looking Within
The winds of religious rhetoric have begun to pick up speed again in the subcontinent. Be it the Taslima Nasreen witch hunt or the Gujarat pre-election campaigning where Modi is going all out with his Hindutva babble, religion is again in focus for all the wrong reasons.
I cannot help but wonder if our Gods up there are having a good laugh at all this insanity.
The Jews await their Messiah, the Christians the second coming, the Hindus anticipate their Kalki and the Muslims their twelfth Imam - Al Mahdi while the Buddhists await their Maitreya. Even the cargo cultists want their John Frum back.
And while the Gods confabulate on whose turn it is to descend into this mortal world, we can in the meantime go for each other’s jugular.
The idea of God’s descent on earth scares me. Not because it may happen soon but more because it may have already happened and it did not make a difference. We were too busy upholding religion to notice God. Or maybe just maybe the Gods may want us to sort out the mess we created before even contemplating on another visit down here.
One of the more mysterious verses in the Vedas is the verse “Tat Tvam Asi” (Thou Art That). This verse has been a source of many an epiphany for me.
What is ‘That’ and what does ‘I am That’ even mean ?. More I think about this, more I have come to believe that there is no ‘That’, ‘That’ can be anything we want it to be. And what we want it to be is what defines us.
If you want to see Peace around you, you be the peace, if you want to see Love, you be the Love and if you want to see War, you be the War.
There is a beautiful saying (some attribute it to the Talmud) “We don’t see things as they are but we see them as we are”.
I guess we all spend our lives trying to find our ‘That’ while it remains within us all the time. We have a choice to make, whether the ‘That’ we choose, builds hearts and minds or destroys life and destroys the spirit. Apocalypse and Nirvana both lie within, we just have to make the call.
The Gods may never come down. For they know they have bequeathed upon us the most powerful gift of them all, the power of choice.
And what we choose is what we will become……
I cannot help but wonder if our Gods up there are having a good laugh at all this insanity.
The Jews await their Messiah, the Christians the second coming, the Hindus anticipate their Kalki and the Muslims their twelfth Imam - Al Mahdi while the Buddhists await their Maitreya. Even the cargo cultists want their John Frum back.
And while the Gods confabulate on whose turn it is to descend into this mortal world, we can in the meantime go for each other’s jugular.
The idea of God’s descent on earth scares me. Not because it may happen soon but more because it may have already happened and it did not make a difference. We were too busy upholding religion to notice God. Or maybe just maybe the Gods may want us to sort out the mess we created before even contemplating on another visit down here.
One of the more mysterious verses in the Vedas is the verse “Tat Tvam Asi” (Thou Art That). This verse has been a source of many an epiphany for me.
What is ‘That’ and what does ‘I am That’ even mean ?. More I think about this, more I have come to believe that there is no ‘That’, ‘That’ can be anything we want it to be. And what we want it to be is what defines us.
If you want to see Peace around you, you be the peace, if you want to see Love, you be the Love and if you want to see War, you be the War.
There is a beautiful saying (some attribute it to the Talmud) “We don’t see things as they are but we see them as we are”.
I guess we all spend our lives trying to find our ‘That’ while it remains within us all the time. We have a choice to make, whether the ‘That’ we choose, builds hearts and minds or destroys life and destroys the spirit. Apocalypse and Nirvana both lie within, we just have to make the call.
The Gods may never come down. For they know they have bequeathed upon us the most powerful gift of them all, the power of choice.
And what we choose is what we will become……
Monday, July 16, 2007
A lesson in humility
I approach another intersection and the signal turns red. The vehicles behind me continue to honk urging me to jump the signal. After a while, they give up. I look around and see an autorickshaw to my right, the driver is revving up the engine in anticipation of the green. Behind me is a bus that is packed with people who are jostling for space. A couple of two wheelers squeeze in between me and the auto. The Indian streets are always busy. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to go somewhere.
For me, driving through this mess called the traffic causes enough frustration and anguish but surprisingly in a strange way, it allows me to relax and at times even put things in perspective. Among other things, the Indian streets teach a lesson in humility.
Unlike many other countries where strict rules ensure that everybody complies with the discipline needed to maintain smooth traffic flow, Indian traffic is mostly a self adjusting organism that offers unparalleled flexibility at the cost of unbridled chaos and inefficiency (We don’t have traffic rules only suggestions).
In this motley mix of vehicles and drivers, it does not matter who the individual is because once a driver hits the streets, he becomes a part of the traffic organism merging into the whims and fancies of the entity. So irrespective of his social standing or his intellectual accomplishments, he is ‘normalized’ into the system.
A professor holding a PhD or a businessman driving a Mercedes or a movie star will still have to sway to the diktats of say an auto driver cutting across the streets or a dilapidated truck in the middle of the road that just does not seem to move uphill holding up everyone behind it.
How so important a person might be, the traffic organism ensures that he is brought down to the minimum workable levels on the streets. The traffic IQ is determined by the operational IQ of the least aware individuals comprising it and thus ensuring that the rest are browbeaten to those levels of operation.
Ironically this is a lesson in humility. In a strange way, the Indian traffic lets you know that on the streets you are but an ordinary person shorn of all individuality.
The signal turns green and honking begins from behind. I shift into gear and move ahead as I maneuver through the chaos ahead…
For me, driving through this mess called the traffic causes enough frustration and anguish but surprisingly in a strange way, it allows me to relax and at times even put things in perspective. Among other things, the Indian streets teach a lesson in humility.
Unlike many other countries where strict rules ensure that everybody complies with the discipline needed to maintain smooth traffic flow, Indian traffic is mostly a self adjusting organism that offers unparalleled flexibility at the cost of unbridled chaos and inefficiency (We don’t have traffic rules only suggestions).
In this motley mix of vehicles and drivers, it does not matter who the individual is because once a driver hits the streets, he becomes a part of the traffic organism merging into the whims and fancies of the entity. So irrespective of his social standing or his intellectual accomplishments, he is ‘normalized’ into the system.
A professor holding a PhD or a businessman driving a Mercedes or a movie star will still have to sway to the diktats of say an auto driver cutting across the streets or a dilapidated truck in the middle of the road that just does not seem to move uphill holding up everyone behind it.
How so important a person might be, the traffic organism ensures that he is brought down to the minimum workable levels on the streets. The traffic IQ is determined by the operational IQ of the least aware individuals comprising it and thus ensuring that the rest are browbeaten to those levels of operation.
Ironically this is a lesson in humility. In a strange way, the Indian traffic lets you know that on the streets you are but an ordinary person shorn of all individuality.
The signal turns green and honking begins from behind. I shift into gear and move ahead as I maneuver through the chaos ahead…
Friday, June 1, 2007
Maya
Everyone has a story, stories that intersect those of someone else at different points of time. How many of our stories have triggered completely new ones for so many others?. The stories happen all the time and will continue to do so long after we are gone.
We have always strived to understand this, not the stories themselves but why they have so many ramifications on so many people. The explanations are beyond science and into the realms of philosophy.
In India, one of the oft quoted philosophies is Maya. The world is thought to be an illusion. I am uncomfortable with this thinking. There are so many things happening all the time and yet people philosophize that it’s all an illusion. So is the Hiroshima bombing or the holocaust or the carnage that followed the partition an illusion ?. Yes say the proponents, it is but God’s will. Once you bring God into the picture any objective discussion of Maya ends since you can pretty much attribute any nonsense to God and end all questioning.
The concept of Maya is very interesting and I have come to appreciate it by looking at it differently.
Everything seems real, is real and is life for each one of us. It is the truth called ‘Maya’. Maya is the emergent behavior of the world where each of the components is too trivial to make a difference by itself but when they come together create a complex, ever changing, ever dynamic system that beats all efforts to understand it. This is when the behavior of the system far extends beyond just the sum of behaviors of the participants and no individual can have any control over it. This system of constant churning of life is what we know as Samsara.
Believing that Maya is about illusion and nothing is real is a mistake and is actually an over simplification of Maya. Yes, it is about illusion, an illusion that one person is bigger than the system, an illusion that one individual has control over Samsara. But it is also about reality. For me, Maya denies nothing, the pains are real, the pleasures are real, the senses are real and the events are real. The Samsara is real and so is our bondage to it.
Each of us affects the Samsara by our actions and thereby influencing the outcome of events in subtle ways. We can only control our behavior but not that of the Samsara. The melting pot of chaos and order brought about by actions of each one of us, our karma, is what defines Maya – the effects of karma on Samsara.
It is impossible for anyone to conquer Maya. People have tried and have failed. From God incarnates to spiritual leaders, from political giants to tyrant dictators have all tried to promulgate a homogeneous way of thought and action and have failed. The attempts will endure and the failures will continue.
Maya is the illusion of reality
We have always strived to understand this, not the stories themselves but why they have so many ramifications on so many people. The explanations are beyond science and into the realms of philosophy.
In India, one of the oft quoted philosophies is Maya. The world is thought to be an illusion. I am uncomfortable with this thinking. There are so many things happening all the time and yet people philosophize that it’s all an illusion. So is the Hiroshima bombing or the holocaust or the carnage that followed the partition an illusion ?. Yes say the proponents, it is but God’s will. Once you bring God into the picture any objective discussion of Maya ends since you can pretty much attribute any nonsense to God and end all questioning.
The concept of Maya is very interesting and I have come to appreciate it by looking at it differently.
Everything seems real, is real and is life for each one of us. It is the truth called ‘Maya’. Maya is the emergent behavior of the world where each of the components is too trivial to make a difference by itself but when they come together create a complex, ever changing, ever dynamic system that beats all efforts to understand it. This is when the behavior of the system far extends beyond just the sum of behaviors of the participants and no individual can have any control over it. This system of constant churning of life is what we know as Samsara.
Believing that Maya is about illusion and nothing is real is a mistake and is actually an over simplification of Maya. Yes, it is about illusion, an illusion that one person is bigger than the system, an illusion that one individual has control over Samsara. But it is also about reality. For me, Maya denies nothing, the pains are real, the pleasures are real, the senses are real and the events are real. The Samsara is real and so is our bondage to it.
Each of us affects the Samsara by our actions and thereby influencing the outcome of events in subtle ways. We can only control our behavior but not that of the Samsara. The melting pot of chaos and order brought about by actions of each one of us, our karma, is what defines Maya – the effects of karma on Samsara.
It is impossible for anyone to conquer Maya. People have tried and have failed. From God incarnates to spiritual leaders, from political giants to tyrant dictators have all tried to promulgate a homogeneous way of thought and action and have failed. The attempts will endure and the failures will continue.
Maya is the illusion of reality
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