Knowing The Truth

Some think that real knowledge is reserved for a few blessed beings. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This was known to all who have experienced it. There is no cast, creed, levels of intellect, social positions and amounts of learning which accompanies it. It’s a total liberation, liberation from the limits of a person’s awareness. You can read thousands of books on the effects of water on your body, but the moment you drink some you realize it yourself without a shade of doubt. Those who have drunk it always remain in a better position to know and understand it than those who have read about it. They may not be able to tell you about its chemical combination and the way it is absorbed into the system and acts within it.

These points are not important; they would not quench your thirst. There is limit to the amounts of information that we can gather and store and use. These limits are imposed by the physical world. In the realization of truth we are going beyond the barriers of the physical, in fact we are ignoring them altogether. There is no freedom in a closed environment. Our effort is not to learn what lies within this closed space, our attempt is to break down the walls and step outside.

Once we step out our perception changes, we no longer feel certain that the dream that we are living called the life is all that important. We just don’t feel like studying the composition of water before drinking it. We want to appease our thirst and that is of prime importance. There is no point in ridiculing those who have tasted it by stating that they don’t know its composition. Think about it, you will realize it too.

The major point that is mostly risen by the ‘knowledgeable’ people is just this. If a man knows truth why can’t he do this and that in the world? This of course is possible if the man invests time and effort in it. Any one who is thirsty can study the chemistry of thirst and water. It would take a little bit of time. But why waste it like that why not drinks at the font than look and wonder at it. That is more nourishing and less troubling.

There two kinds of truth seekers, one who are after the powers of creation and destruction of the world. The others want just to learn the truth. The later is the easiest way. Those who are after power would have to work bloody hard for it and would undergo all kinds of torture before they acquire it and after they have acquired it. It is the most evident truth. One who has some the right amount of sense in him would know this intuitively at all times.

Why waste time in fashioning dreams this way, why not go after the real. Once you have known it do as you wish.

Off Days

There I was lying on the terrace looking up at the sky. (Used to do it a lot in my younger days. Never got bored with it then. Now the same sight is not so thrilling and inspiring.

Play of time.

Of course it was night, bad and dark, chilly and misty- There was the black sky above as ever, completely starless, looking down with its unseeing eyes.
Was it really so bad. May be not. Our mood reflects on nature, it discovers the strange in the physical.

What was I thinking, may be I was sitting dumb, without a thought coming in to the brain. But then do the thoughts really come in, or do they arise within.
There is no easy way to tell.

Some say we create everything from within.

Hell that is daft. Would anyone want to create something so utterly devoid of beauty? All right it’s a personal view. Views are always sentimental. ( What the hell am I talking about)

Anyway those were terrible eyes, those that the starless sky turned on me, millions of them, unsighted and blank, but may be seeing everything, may be devising it all , may be providing the screen to enact it all, making you naked, touching your insides….

A bad night?

A night for demons? (Demon, what is a demon? It stirs up from within does it not?)
Where do such thoughts come from? It’s weird how they stoop down on you- sudden and immediate-like.

-Pounces, pounces could be the word -Crouching and springing, tearing and swallowing-Something wild, something unmanageable, and something lethal and destructive.
Evil is it? No, definitely not... Evil is intelligent, it’s not muscular, it’s not natural, it’s an imposition.

They say there is the unconscious, the terrible canvas on which the soul is painted. It holds dreams and revelations. It’s the treasury of existence. It’s behind everything, lurking in the horrible darkness, silent and bristly, vengeful and adamant.

No I do not believe that. It can’t be. There is no such thing.
Everything is conscious, the UN conscious is the forgotten, that one shirks away from, that one dislodges and casts away.

It’s not ever cast away. You can’t shovel the past out; you can’t replace it with the present alone. History is a dumb presence in the background, it can’t be hidden, it can’t be concealed and done away with.

I am rambling am I? It’s the mood, really! We need something to blame on for our off days

Nonpareil

The Nasadiya Sukta stuns us with its terrifying imagery and its total disregard for the rational in us. May be it is because of this that I like it to distraction. I am yet to find something which goes beyond it. Some say it supports the Big Bang theory. The problem is some others believe that there was no big bang at all.
There will be as many views as there are men/women.

The two groups ( bangists and no-bangists) are currently banging away at each other. It’s a kind of war of the roses and hopefully would never end.

Whether there was big bang or it is steady state or it is very much pulsating –oscillating, one thing remains, in mystical literature this sukta is nonpareil.

Here it is,

1.nAsadAsIn no sadAsIt tadAnIM nAsId rajo no vyomAparo yat |\
kimAvarIvaH kuha kasya sharmannambhaH kimAsId gahanaM gabhIram ||\

The real then existed not, nor the non-real:
Breath did not exist; or space beyond it.
Was there movement? But where? By whom directed?
Was water there or fathomless abyss?


2.na mRtyurAsIdamRtaM na tarhi na rAtryA ahna AsItpraketaH |\
AnIdavAtaM svadhayA tadekaM tasmAddhAnyan na paraH kiM canAsa ||\


Death then was not, nor life immortal:
Of neither night nor day was any semblance.
The ONE breathed by self impulse, calm and without air:
There was not any other beyond it

3.tama AsIt tamasA gULamagre.apraketaM salilaM sarvamAidam |\
tuchyenAbhvapihitaM yadAsIt tapasastanmahinAjAyataikam ||\


Darkness at first was covered by darkness:
This universe was indistinct and fluid.
The empty space was hidden by void:
That ONE was by the force of heat engendered.


4.kAmastadagre samavartatAdhi manaso retaH prathamaM yadAsIt |\ sato bandhumasati niravindan hRdi pratISyAkavayo manISA ||\

Desire then at first arose within it,
Desire which was the earliest seed of spirit.
The sages divined, searching with insight in their hearts,
The bond of being and non being.


5.tirashcIno vitato rashmireSAmadhaH svidAsI.a.a.at |\
retodhAAsan mahimAna Asan svadhA avastAt prayatiH parastAt ||\

They divined what was above and below

By casting their thread across the nothingness

They saw vital forces imbued with authority

It was potent below and impulse ridden above


6.ko addhA veda ka iha pra vocat kuta AjAtA kuta iyaMvisRSTiH |\
arvAg devA asya visarjanenAthA ko veda yataAbabhUva ||\

Who knows it truly? Who can here declare it?
Whence was it born? Whence issued this creation?
And did the gods appear with its production?
But then who knows from whence it has arisen?


7.iyaM visRSTiryata AbabhUva yadi vA dadhe yadi vA na |\
yo asyAdhyakSaH parame vyoman so aN^ga veda yadi vA naveda ||\

This universe, whence it has arisen,
Or produced or has not,
He who surveys it in the highest heaven,
Even he does not know it.

Hurting and glad about it

The sublimely intelligent have always found fault with my liking for the Buddha. I do not wonder at it. Even those who claim to be religious and highly spiritual are so thoroughly materialistic that they often don’t realize it themselves.

It is not that materialism is bad. No idealist has ever drunk a cup of scalding tea without getting burned from it. But that is not the point is it? We have some questions on life; the materialism has not yet been able to answer them. Matter seems elusive and not easy to define. We can’t just go by the dictates of our external senses and the instruments we have developed in the world to assist them.

Now The Buddha never denied the existence of the material world. He only said that it is transitory. Even consciousness is transitory, nothing is permanent, and everything flows. No one can dispute this fact. Even Marx had to say that the only thing that is changeless in the world is change.

Buddha is not liked for his wisdom alone. That of course was great. But people like him for his humanness. He never posed as God though even gods must have worshiped him. He was kindness personified. And yet there are persons who prefer to call him pessimistic. Well, if telling the truth was pessimism, he was a pessimist. He only told the world of four truths.

-The truth about suffering, the truth about the cause for it, the truth about its elimination and the truth about the path towards its elimination.

He was not a Buddhist. He was the illumined, kindly teaching others what lies behind. I firmly believe that he was the first real human being to walk on the face of the earth. The rest of us are called human because we belong to the species. Not that our species is bad, not it is worse than bad. It is self destructive.

This destructiveness is based on sectarian beliefs that would not take in any other beliefs. This is the worst form of religion that there is. Once religion is to be defended by violence then it is not worth having it. Fanatics usually think that the realm of spirit is reserved for certain members of their sect.

Really stop and reflect awhile, can any one cast anyone out from the world of the spirit? If they can, I would like to know how. If you want to connect with someone it is imperative that you have to share that level of life and experience with him. You can’t prove it logically every time. If you go by blind faith okay then the rest of the world is also competent to do that. He world can cal you a fool and you have to accept that.

Let me tell you everything is connected. The good as well as bad are relative. The human world is a world made out of superimpositions. This was realized by all those who have thought on the subject.

These others who sell their faith dearly, they are the commercial adventurers of the spiritual world. They don’t achieve anything other than transacting business supposedly for their own foolish ‘spiritual’ empires. I have often thought that they could do with a dose of real ‘spirits’ now and then. It might do good to them.

Oh, just to shake them free from the ancient filth that they carry around. They talk about all sorts of secrets and concealed teachings. If any one says anything simple enough for the common man to grasp they would start calling you names. The moment they become confused they totally lose their cool and start mouthing badness.

Don’t spare the Buddha anyway. He is a good target, wouldn’t hurt a fly.

First Love

My first great love affair was when I was six or seven. I do not remember the particulars but only that I felt this great unknown thing for her. Was there something physical in the feeling? I can’t say, I must have entered the latency stage by then if we go by Freud and the animal in me should have been resting. Then what was it. I think it was love. There were other girls around but I never had a thing for them. I hardly looked at them, but I could not take my eyes away from this one.

It must have been a great struggle for me to not to look at her always. She was my classmate and was so yummy I could have eaten her up alive. I intensely desired for her to take notice of me. I was not aware of the nature of attraction, but I was so jealous when she was talking to other boys and even girls that I was in great torment every minute that I was in class. I thought myself unworthy of her because she was so classy and imperious. I would go through raptures if she just looked my way. I never could understand why the other boys were not under the same sort of spell that I was. They seemed to take her as a friend only and not as final destination of their lives. I looked at them as if they were crazy. How could they talk to her and not fall for her. Are they any different from me? To me they looked stupid; completely unaware that there are subtler things to life than it appear.

I would tentatively ask some boy who had just exchanged a few words with her, horribly afraid that my voice would betray my emotions for her. I need not have worried.

She is nice isn’t she?

My face must have looked a sight asking it.

Yes, yes?

Would be the reply. They were hardly interested in my face or my expression or anything else than what they had in their mind then. Well it was true that they had other interests in life. Like driving an imaginary vehicle or, hunting for a bug in the ground, or flying a kite.

Oh yes I too used to do all this but I was not totally absorbed in them as they were. This was a curious feeling. I believed that every action of mine was watched by her and judged by her. I did not want to look foolish before her and so would naturally appear in the most foolish light when I was in her vicinity. This put me to such a humiliation and feelings of worthlessness that I usually grieved the way I was made. I must say those feelings of ineptness has remained with me afterwards and comes back and take their toll whenever I am having an unpleasant time.

It was a fact that I never was curious about the way I looked then. I barely stood before the mirror. I was always impatient to be off and do something; I was not concerned about what the thing I wanted to do. But there always was something to do. Mostly not very good things.

But her thought would make me think twice before I ventured into anything. I still remember the time I was leading a bunch of local boys with my little sister in tow through the newly dug telephone trenches near my home. We had gone some distance without being noticed. I still wonder how we managed to do that. We must have been very tiny then. The trenches I see now are not deep enough to conceal small children. Perhaps they dug the trenches more deep then.

The long and short of it was that we were discovered by some one who was passing by and was receiving admonitions and serious advice when she came along with her mother through the road. My heart sank and I wished to disappear into the thin air if I could. They stopped near us and even before the mother put the question across the man described the whole thing for their benefit.

We were all mud spattered and could not have been a very good site to see. I could see her imperious eyes looking at me without an expression in them. This hurt me more than anything else; I would have consoled myself if see had shown any distaste or amusement at our predicament. But no, she was like a wall, no expressions as if noticing such things were below her great status.

I loved her even then. I am sure that I was inconsequential in her scheme of things. I can still see her faintly. There is something indefinable in a girl who arouses your fantasy, some mystery which lingers on through out the rest of your lives. Though she never cared for me I went on loving her till I left the place and curiously still carry her memory with me.

Where is she now, have I met her again in the course of my life. The only girl who came somewhere near her in my school life was a girl named X I had as my classmate when I was in the final year at school. I think both the girls had the same names but though this girl had real beauty I was not enamored with her in the same manner that I was with the other one I believe.

Ramana and Yati

-Some where in his books Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yati recalls his experience of meeting Sri Ramana Maharshi for the first and last time of his life. Yati had received his initiation into the order of sanyasins and was still troubled by his lack of insight into the real and the unreal. To any one, whether he has received initiation or not, this is a hard task. Yati’s belonged to the school of Jnana Yogi’s. They seek the real by stripping the delusions away one by one till they reach the indivisible one. Only the very strong could do that, though the teaching could be condensed into a posture of silence.

Many things could hinder one from realizing it. Mere intellect or hard work at meditation would not make it happen. There has to be some inward change, it could be likened to a purification of sorts, though in reality there is nothing to be purified at. What is needed is a change in perception; this could happen in a single moment or after years of struggle or not at all.

Yati was suffering in soul. He hit upon the hardest course he could pick on to bring on the necessary change in him. He went on a journey on foot through the vast Indian sub continent. He slept where ever he could at nights and ate whatever the people gave him when asked. There were occasions he went completely hungry on for days, merely subsisting on water. Many including the great Vivekananda had performed this “rite’ in their time.

It was on this journey he visited Ramana Maharshi at his Ashram. Ramana had left home at sixteen in search of truth and had become enlightened after spending years in meditation at Arunachala, a holy mountain in the south India. He rarely spoke and as Yati found out had the habit of not looking at others most of the time. The tradition of Guru is very strong in India, the seekers of truth believe that if the Guru or a real liberated individual sets his eyes on the aspirant that would egg him on his way towards the truth.

Yati waited for days, he saw others being considered by the great Guru but when he was near the Guru would be immersed in a blissful state a would not even glance at him. This grieved him. He was physically not well at that time; his journey was taking its toll on his frame. More than that he was not at peace with himself, it seemed that the truth was eluding him. The utter neglect of Ramana cut him to the quick. At last he decided to depart.

He went to say good bye to the great guru. The guru was still immersed in inner bliss and seemed as if not aware of Yati at all. Yati rose to go after prostrating before the guru and then for a fleeting second Ramana’s eyes rested on his eyes. Yati felt a shock coursing through his entire being. He was stunned and stood rooted to the spot. Then Ramana looked away and that was that, there were no advices, no instructions, no other communications.

To me Ramana looks like a perfect example of a Jnana Guru. He taught only one thing. “Seek what you are”. He knew it would lead people towards truth and liberation. Narayana Guru also taught in similar manner. “There is nothing in Vedanta to learn. What are the waves to sea- so are we to reality”

But alas, the simpler the truth is, the harder it is to digest. Some might even think that these great souls are putting others on. They were telling the honest truth, there is no seeking, no quest, no complexity. What you seek has already been obtained. The only need is a change in perspective.

Some are so entrenched in their perishable lives that they would not dare look at the truth squarely even if it’s held aloft for them to see.

Despair - Aspire

We are a people pressed for time; we would not like to be slumbering while the world bristles with feverish activity around us.

One student, who tried to keep awake for five days at a stretch, puts it - life is too exiting to simply sleep away. Oh yes he managed to become psychotic afterwards.

Most of us would like to keep alert 24 hours of the day and even then would barely find enough time for our mounting interests.

This is where stimulants come in. At one time it was coffee, caffeine was supposed to be good at keeping you alert all the time. Then it turned out to be not good enough to keep ones attention span on the up all the time. A friend of mine has ADHD (attention deficiency syndrome) and there are medicines to correct it. Ritalin is one of them. (I think my friend was prescribed Adderall ). I have heard stories where normal people took these drugs to boost their brains.

This is not a wise thing to do for the drugs can cause cardiovascular problems and can lead to addiction.

Internet seems to the source of the purchase of the drugs because people won’t normally get their hands on them without a prescription from a registered medical practitioner.

All the same smart drugs are being researched into and marketed by firms to cash in on the frantic quest for a magic potion to drive away sleep. Eugeroics is the name for the drugs in this category.

Provigil is such a drug which is widely used by everyone who has to keep themselves awake for a span of 48 hours. I do not know what it contains but they use it in the Yankee land it appears. There are other drugs too in the anvil that offer a much extended span of alertness, if the reports are to be believed.

They say these drugs are superior to their predecessors in the sense that they stimulate specific regions inside brain which produces sleep. The drugs are supposed to have enhanced the subject’s performance over the control group which consisted of normal well rested individuals. The experiments were conducted on monkeys!

Methamphetamine is also widely used by those seeking brain boosts. The drug has has several side effects including chances of heart failure, brain damage and paranoia. (The good thing is it is addictive.)

Narcolepsy (a sleep disorder causing daytime drowsiness) is currently being treated by a drug called Modafinil in the west. The ‘speed’ seekers are on to this one too, it is supposed to have no side effects “It's a dopamine reuptake inhibitor” (whatever that is) it was tested on pilots whose motor functions were better after 72 hours without sleep than at the beginning.

There is a big community over internet after brain boosters and there seems to be sites selling them (eg. bulknutrition.com) in powdered form for low prices. ‘Piracetam’ is said to be the favorite ‘general cognitive and memory enhancer’ with these. In fact there seems to be several ‘racetam’s!

[I saw some one advocating cod liver oil as a brain booster. I used to take it once when I was very young. Terrible stuff. Seven sea’s have it in perfumed form I think.]

No one believes that such drugs could replace sleep. Sleep deprivation could gradually lead to many health related problems and even death in extreme cases. But who would mind that in these hectic times. If your neighbor is starting on it you just can’t sit idle and watch him prosper can you.

Most of these modern drug takers belongs to the intellectual class of the society like engineers, scientists doctors, politicians etc. The psychedelic drugs seem to have been replaced by smart drugs now. The trend is catching up on the lesser developed countries too.

No wonder today’s generation has no ‘despair’ in them, in fact they ‘aspire’ for big things

Stir it up

I am delighted. Things are hotting up everywhere it seems. It’s good to be in the eye of controversy and it feels nice, being taken “seriously” at last. How I yearned to be so, you can’t even imagine! I must have been intensely praying to ‘myself’ (you know, being God and all that!) over the last few months to make it happen.

The extent to which I had to go to achieve that. Man, you don’t know anything about the troubles and tribulations that a poor man has to undergo to attract some attention! You would not believe it!

You haven’t seen my ‘demeanor’ lately have you? You should have. It was pretty nice, even I was worried. It had thunder and lightning in it. It was like a black and stormy day. As I told you even I was worried.

Worries are what make us forget what a foolish thing this life is. Let me ask you, when was the last time you were alone with yourself? I know that you would not like to remember it, it could get bloody sticky. The memories which come sailing out of the deep recess of the past…..Hmm

Some say that we tend to forget our failures in life and remember only the moments of our victories. They must be crazy. It’s our wins that we soon forget, our failures, ha; those are what silently hunt us down. No wonder people run away to pubs, cafes, parks, movies and sports events.

Lately I have fallen into the habit of thinking. A bad waste of time if you know what I mean. I am yet to find a single human being who lives like that, by thinking I mean. There are exceptions of course. Take the case of my sworn enemies. They are the exceptions. They think all the time. It’s a joint venture. They put their heads together and try to think hard and every time their small intellects come up with below the belt ideas.

That’s what happens when you start to think. It gets your retentive states to come up. I am enjoying their predicament thoroughly.

It is sad that the lower level cronies they have in the fuzz could not yet come up with anything worthwhile to help them. These low dotards of the law came into this through certain unbelievable cowards among my adversaries. As every body but themselves are aware now, the live in my mortal fear.

I try not to look them in their faces now. For one thing I could not help laughing out if I did and for another they would get frantic if I did it. The bloody fools believe that if I look them in the faces directly they can’t live without fearing me. Okay I admit that there have been a few cases where they went of color when I looked at them in the phizz, but how can I be blamed for it. You can’t go on looking at something obnoxious without showing a healthy distaste for it. I just simply can't do it.

The loveliest thing of all is that they have engaged the help of a dumb headed professor who lives near me. Honestly I think that the poor guy may be getting some kicks out of his close encounter with the weird folk from the fuzz. He eavesdrops on our conversations in the family and reports the proceedings to his darlings. He is sort of pretty too. Who knows what the relationship actually is. I am not saying that there is anything in it. But his terrible antagonism towards me could be because I ignored his pretty smiles.

Anyway today I had a fright when the poor dolt and his cronies in the fuzz began to screech at high pitch when I just came in to the house. It went on for some time and suddenly stopped. The guys drove off. I rushed out to see what happened. I thought the moron was having some sort of a stroke and was about to be taken to the hospital.
I saw the tail light of the car. He has not yet returned from the drive. May be he is in the hospital. He lives isolated from the neighbors (He is a ‘southie” and none like to mingle with people from the south in these parts.). Let us hope that the poor son of a bitch is alright.

As I said my sworn gnash-teeth’s are seething now. They are importing all kinds of weird characters to confront me. They must have had some terribly bad news lately, I don’t know what. Anyway I can only report that they are in great ferment at the moment. One stooge came to threaten me that they would take it out on me on the coming Tuesday. They have called up all their buddies from the tombs and they are taking terrible vows internally.

The only disappointing thing that I find in them is the monotony of the games that the low level fuzz makes them play. It gets boring after a time. They are completely unimaginative. I am ready to supply them with some brains if I get a chance.
Why don’t the poor morons try some artificial stimulation to their brains, which might stir up some ideas in their head? Even the perps have brains cells don’t they?

Was it unattainable

The late 1950’s and 1960’s were a massively turbulent period in the history Europe and perhaps the world. In the aftermath of Nazi terror people had become terribly disillusioned with humanity and its achievements. The anguish and hopelessness was extreme. The continent had seen two brutal wars. They both were unbelievably de humanizing to those directly involved in them and those who watched from a distance. The human mind had plummeted in to unforeseen depths and seemed to emerge as the most evil of all instruments of torture.

People had lost hope in the goodness of their race. They found no one to blame but themselves. No one had a clue about what was happening. Was this the humanity which produced Shakespeare and Newton and Einstein which was now unearthing evil at every turn? Was this the same society which spread to newer lands and intellectual territories now falling a victim of its own monsters?

This came as a surprise to many. There were no precedents to the brutality and total neglect to everything we held near to our core. No one knew what led to such a bizarre out come. The renaissance had introduced a new model of man, free vigorous and capable of taking on the world. The period became a giant leap in the history of man. Perhaps the seeds of decay were sown even when the revolution was on.

This new face of humanity did not fail to get reflected in art. Every value we held on dearly to, was mauled and made to look inane, our whole civilization had begun to appear as unreal and dirty. The artists and intellectuals in the post war period saw an unstable world, one in which nothing could be relied on. Our god had died and there was nothing to replace it with.

It was this extreme distrust in everything human and the sight of a fragmentary reality which produced geniuses like Samuel Becket, Eugene Ionesco and Rob Grillet in Europe. They perceived the death of man written all over the place and in the absence of anything else to rely on, decided to celebrate this in their works.

People like Jean Marie Domenach had often wondered how the finest specimens of the race could be the loudest detractors it. To me it does not seem surprising at all. The European mind was highly entrenched in materialism. It had thought that everything would be made clear once the sciences had got hold of reality. It refused to look deeper into it. The European thought centered on the social rather than the individual. There were no syntheses.

Once the social structure began to shake it could not turn to anywhere else. People like Domenach wanted to rebuild it and could not understand how sensitive individuals like Becket went the other way. In reality the disease was of the soul rather than of the mind. It could not have been remedied by material anti dotes. What these intellectuals saw was the inherent wickedness of reality.

Becket yearned for God to come to his rescue, but he was searching for him in a place the God could not be found, that is, on the out side. His disease of the soul did not find expression in searching for an answer on the inside. He realized that what he was witnessing was MAYA without realizing its real implications.

I was always able to empathize with the modernists (of all varieties) because of this inherent yearning and disillusionment that I found in them. My only complaint being that they did not take the quest further in to the inner realms. The answer for all the ills of the world lies on the inside, in the real nature of man.

I believe that their quest was for something attainable. It was unfortunate that they did not realize it.

Aspects

Hell, how I ‘love’ everything esoteric!

I don’t know why.

There is something which bugs me in it. Something indefinable but something bad to the core. I don’t know how I got the feeling, but it sure makes my skin crawl. I visualize people entering darkened caves in the dead of night (somewhat along the lines of Umberto Echo’s description in his Foucault’s pendulum) with a terrible air of self importance and utmost secrecy. The image makes me shiver; there is something sinister in it.

Is it a kind of disease with me, this distaste for things esoteric; I can’t get rid of it no way? I have tried very hard at it. But when some one comes up with something esoteric I go faint with fright (like a damsel in distress). I look at it with extreme terror. May be it is because I am not very bright upstairs. Only the brightest among people understand the need for secrecy, it is linked to power, to politics, to bucks. They are fucking big things in the world.

Somehow I was not very interested in these from the beginning. May be I do not have what it takes to be a charlatan or it may be it is the other way round, I may be a real dumb head not knowing the importance of things secret.

I not mysterious, I am the every day Narayana, I am the common man. (I might be the mass man of Marcus et al. the faceless one, the one who superseded the renaissance individual, who is part of the general population)

I doubt that my level of intelligence is a bit low. Every Tom, Dick and Harry and every Jane, Alice and Mary have discovered this one flaw in my otherwise blemish less character. I am dumb where every one else is intelligent. I am democratic where every one is reticent. My own analysis of the situation is that I am at a loss on many of the secret aspects of life. As they say in astrology some maleficent influence could be continuously ‘aspecting’ my Buda, my lord of intelligence.

But then that is the very reason I need everything in black and white. If there is something I can’t understand in the world I would have to visit here once again to learn it. For why else are people can’t understand everything that they come across in life. Do you have any idea?

That would establish the doctrine of reincarnation. No reply from Toms and Janes.
But other than being damned adamant about their own importance in life none of them has yet shown any great genius in understanding the basic problem of life.
But is there a basic problem in life? Well, well, well………… I would not want say anything on it. But I love my judges (love is only skin deep some say)
My good wishes to them. Let their fecundity prosper by all means.

Well back to our business, to tell you the truth, I hate secrecy were it is not needed. There are things where a bit of secrecy is all right. For example, you don’t want to show to the world what you are doing inside the toilet, and considering everything, it is not a bad feeing to have. There are a few other things too. But they are all about being ashamed in public. I can’t understand what is there in the esoteric doctrines that the followers have to be ashamed about. But they go about it in that way being very secretive.

Either their doctrines are not fit to be discussed in public or there is something bizarre in it. If it is so I would like to bring the unhealthy elements out. I just can’t believe that there could be anything in the universe which could be revealed to just a few selected idiots in any particular sect.

May be most would not agree!

The Content of Love

Well here is a quote from FROMM( ERIC)

“There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started with such tremendous hopes expectations, and yet, which fails so regularly as love” - The Art of Loving.
It seems like a nice and intelligent statement when you take it at its face value. I agree Fromm has desisted from defining love. That of course is a major flaw. But all those who have loved and have seen their love turn sour would probably agree with the statement. I have already spoken too much about this sort of love in my blog and would not like to do that again. The subject bores me to death now. But love otherwise is a big subject for me.

My capacity for love was very limited from the very first. I have always wondered about ‘unconditional’ love. Is there such a thing in the world? There is the infatuation, a childish and adamant desire to own something, there is the masochistic yearning for the nearness of somebody, and there is the flaming desire for sex. These are the most common varieties of love that we find among humans. There are other forms too, like intimacy.

Yet…….. as Yagnavalkya says to Maitreyi ‘ We love others for the sake of our own selves” .

Come on, admit it, we do it for ourselves, no amount of romantic ‘bulshit’ ( The word is copyright, and I am using it with trepidation- its all in fun, don’t take it otherwise!) would convince me that we can love others without benefitting from it. Perhaps (it is very doubtful though) your intense awareness of some one else may give you an insight into the real. But I doubt it very much because becoming aware of someone, something or ‘anything’ other than yourself is just the path away from freedom; it is the opposite of being free. ( An old scholar on the net who saw some of my posts seemingly knows only of one special sort of ‘things’- nice to have some one like that around –anyway good luck to him with the ‘things’ he is after).

There is something dangerous in immersing yourself into some one else. “ Dhwithiyaat vai bhayam bhavathi” -duality brings in fear as an old Sanskrit text says. This is no mean statement and can not be dismissed as a sentence from an old and outdated text. The awareness of the ‘other’( not in the sense of a doppelganger but as other human entities existing independent of yourself) always creates anxiety, it disrupts peace , it destroys tranquility . In fact as they saw it, clearly this is the root cause of all our troubles.

Now don’t say that it is the most selfish of all practices to stick to oneself and seek ones own freedom. We produced society to help us achieve relative independence and security. It is not the other way round. It’s a contract between us and the society. Now why did we enter into this contract? There is a school which thinks society is more primary and man has to sub serve it. There is another branch which holds on to the view that the individual is of more importance. But it is better o stick to a middle path (like Buddha) and accept that the relationship is beneficial to all concerned (What the hell am I writing about!)

Anyway to me love (whatever is understood by the term) is always limiting. I have often found it debilitating too. It becomes the single choice at times. It has an element of stupidity in it. It has some animal connections. It is instinctive rather than intellectual. Intellectual love is just bull crap. It does not exist.

I don’t think that you can find release in love. The Bhakti Yoga of India is a method trying to reach God by universal love. It is not very practical, even if it is it is not very safe. Love means many things to many people. There are persons who love freedom than their own wives ( I am not joking, though I am not one of them). There are people who ‘love’ a drink a little more than everything else. Some love art, theater, music and the lot. We have a very limited vocabulary to express the different aspects of our intense likes. Love has to substitute everywhere.

We need to find better words to express our different loves or limit the content which we pump in to it.

RetroPsychoKinesis

The thing that we call consciousness is a “hard problem” in certain angles. There have been efforts to define it variously and the definitions have left a lot to be desired. Anyway people are sure that there is such a thing in existence. Certain of these enthusiasts have ventured into the very tricky realm of the paranormal and are avidly conducting experiments to prove that the human mind can influence the past.

No, no you don’t have to look at me like that. I am not the culprit. These experiments have been going on for quite some time in the cyber world or at least on the internet. Most of you would be familiar with the ‘retro’less psycho kinesis. It was studied by those who are interested in the paranormal for a century at least. In ‘retro’ the effort is to influence the past. If it can be achievable and can be scientifically proved it could shake the scientific world to its foundations.
Well is it possible to alter the past or select it as they say?

Some interesting characters say that it’s possible for us to influence the past events on the basis of the data from these experiments. The idea is to try to influence randomly generated data from an electronic random number generator. The data is pre recorded so that it can’t be influenced in any way.

The generator supposedly creates an even stream of binary numbers. We can’t predict the outcome while it is on. It is like a coin flip, the product at a given point would either be zero or one. As I said in the case of experiments these are pre recorded and forwarded to the subject in a file. He or she would try to influence the stream of data with the aid of visual displays. If any notable deviations in the number of binary data (more ones than when it was recorded) and if the result is consistent over a period of time and with many participants it would be considered a result above chance.

The experimenters have selected the internet as the stage for their studies. This has many advantages over a controlled experiment. It eliminates the laboratory from the scene and allows the subjects to perform in the quite of their homes and at their leisure. Every participant would be given a file containing randomly generated data and the site carrying out the experiment would keep a copy of the data with the name of the subject on it. The experiments would be monitored by the site and if the subject asks for it the complete log of the try would be made available to him or her.

In fact the complete record of the experiments conducted this far is available with the site and can be downloaded over a period of time (the data is large) by those who are interested to study the phenomenon for themselves.

They have three very good visual display tools on the site. The “Bell Curve” the “Clock face” and the “Pendulum”. In all the experiments you are given the task of mentally influencing them in a certain manner. I tried them all and was fascinated. I really thought that I was able to influence the stream to some extend (mere boast, you can’t tell it like that). Anyway the experiment has tremendous philosophical and scientific significance. I know that some thoroughly scientific individuals may pooh, pooh the attempt. There are worse fanatics in science than in religion.

The only thing I can say is that there is more to reality than we think of. If you want to participate or wish to learn more about the subject here is the link to the site.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/

E book devices

Being one who spends a lot of time reading in front of a computer I had always wanted to get hold of portable E book device with a good memory bank. It has many advantages. You don’t have to sit and stare at a computer screen for hours on end in an uncomfortable position for one. For the rest mobility, the option of carrying hundreds of your choicest E Books and articles with you where ever you go, reduced power charges, the absence of manual exertion of carrying dozens of hard covers or paper backs with you every time you move may figure prominently.

An E book reading device ideally is an electronic device about the same size of a paper back book and should display the reading matter in paper like quality and should be able to handle different file formats, like HTML, WORD, PDF, etc. They should also have a good internal memory to store many full sized books in it and options to display them in good contrast and font size without wearing the eyes. Well it appears that there is a lot of interesting E Book readers in the market and some of them have novel features too. The prices are a bit high though.

The earlier ones have all been monochrome and weighed a bit too. But things seem to have improved a lot recently. Some of the present ones have optional removable memory cards which can go up to I GB. A Normal E Book reader available now would hold around 160 E books in internal memory and would have options to make use of any number of removable memory cards.

I recently saw something about Sony LIBRIe e-Book Reader on the net and there is another one from Sony too, called Portable Reader System PRS-500. It costs around Rs. 17000/- or so in Indian rupees or that is what I gathered the price tag displayed in US dollars. At their site they have an E Book for around $300/- also. It looked attractive with a red finish and all.
I also gathered that there is a company called IREX which has some 3 E. Readers in their kitty. They are claimed to be light weight and affordable. I do not have any more details on them. It seems that there was monochrome E Books in the market some time ago with lesser capacities and lesser prices. Some say that the E Book device market is very competitive and some of the devices which were around have already disappeared from the market.

Cybook can be the favorite among enthusiasts now. It supports several formats. Support for Pdf is still under development it seems. It claims to be the worlds first multiform at E Book Reader. It comes with added features like MobiPocket Reader, µBook Reader, Boo Reader, Boo Reader Vision, Pocket Word, Pocket Inbox, Internet Explorer, PTab Spreadsheet, Audio Player and what not.

It is I KG with batteries they say. Memory is a bit low. Battery life is also not very good it seems. You need to pay a hefty sum of $ 399 for it. We get computers for even less in this land.
None of these are available in Asia or in India. My searches to find one have been fruitless.

It must be a fast developing area considering the launch of Kindle by Amazon. But there are some real threats ahead too. The netbooks may be one of them. Some of the netbooks are available for around the same price as an E Book device. They have dozens of more features too. If the trend really catches on the E Book devices might disappear altogether. The netbooks integrate several key features and are fast replacing laptops. It is a very fast growing field.

To me the ASUS Eee PC seems to be giving a good fight to every laptop on the scene. It can be also used as an E. Book reader. It has a 7 inch screen and naturally the font size would be small. The product has bee developed for children and children normally have good eye sight.

Yet it is very affordable for adults too with a price of around 18000 rupees. It is almost weightless compared to many notebooks now available in the market. It weighs just below 1 KG and would easily fit into your palms. You don’t need a back pack or special contraption to carry the thing around. For serious computer users its key board and mouse might create some problems though by being tiny.

Another threat to E Book devices might be the Personal Digital Assistants. Most PDAs running the Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 to 2003 come with the Microsoft eBook Reader, if not all. Other operating systems too seem to have included e book reading devices in their systems.

Obsessed With Something Alien

I was just like you, comfortable in my imaginary pupae of security, sweetly slumbering on without a care in the world till things began to take an ominous turn. Of course I had heard the rumble of distant battles in my sleep. I had seen smoke rising from Kashmir, Assam, Gorkha land, Punjab and other places and had wondered what was happening at those places. But they seemed definitely far away and I was still confident of my pupae of protection. There was something curious in those infrequent intrusions too; they seemed inching nearer and nearer every time that I became aware of them.

Then on one fine morning the racket of terrible explosions and rat-tat of machine gunfire suddenly broke into my consciousness. I realized with a horrifying sense of reality that it was happening in our midst. My sweet reverie was shattered, and I had to sit up and take notice. Scales fell from my eyes and I began to see things as they were. The pupae of safety were a myth, I realized. There has never been any such safety at all. I saw myself standing undefended in my own land, being ridiculed by the world. It was a revelation that was stunning and immediate. I saw weak willed people all around me and their mawkishness.

I thought, this could not be happening in this land, we are a democratic people, we are a peaceful people, we had survived for centuries believing in the right to be free from inhibitions, both internal and external. We have been a resilient race; our history has not been a bed of roses. We have suffered physical and mental dominations. We came through all that.

We knew that pride was folly. We have been surviving from time immemorial in this land. Yes we have committed mistakes. Our racial consciousness was riddled with a weakness we created ourselves. The weakness of loving every one, the weakness of heeding to every point view that is there and accepting there is some truth in every such view, the weakness of assimilating rather than discarding.

Where are those niceties now? The Hindu, Muslim and the Christians had lived here side by side visiting each others shrines, bowing before each others gods and divinities. Living near each other and exchanging pleasantries. We had fought, yes I admit we had even cut each others throat, but that was all in heat of the moment when emotions got hold of us. They were not sane acts. They were the results of the crazy moments of our social life. We soon forgot all that and returned to our normal lives.
We were one, though divided, though quarrelling with each other, though antagonistic towards every intrusion into our core beliefs. We had the oneness to keep a giant democracy alive. We were no mean performers in the world stage if only for the wonderful effort we put up to protect this loose, flawed, but still functioning democracy. That needed certain strength, certain integrity, and certain traits of character which are inherently intelligent.

We were careful to defeat all efforts at autocracy; we sensed rather than observed the decay in the system and responded. But we have lately become lax. We have allowed desultory elements to come up. We shut our eyes when our young were turning away from the main stream of the society into isolated emotional planes and were ruminating destruction of the very ground they were standing on. They had become obsessed with something alien, something lasting and unforgiving.

We shut our eyes. We turned a blind eye towards the rising fog of insensitive hatred which was obliterating everything fine from our young.

We have failed to teach them that they can’t cut down the very branch they were sitting on. They have lost bearings and purpose. It’s a kind of ennui that has possessed now. They just don’t care if the world goes rot.

And their and our world is going rot.

The lie that we live

Every sincere and honest person would sooner or later realize that the world does not do what it preaches. In fact it does the opposite in every instance. These are not the words of a disillusioned person. These are the words of a person who has learned to live with it, who has learned to make use of it to thwart the guiles of the very wicked (oh they posture like the embodiment of good intentions, did you expect some thing else?)

In fact the more integrity that you have the more you are looked down upon. The more sincere you are the more you are laughed at. The intelligent and the cunning believe that the only way to live is to live with a double face. They follow the supreme law of the evil empire, that to hide what is inside amount to the highest level of intelligence. The more honest you are the dumber you appear to them. The only integrity that they know of is the integrity among thieves and tarts. They are very thick among themselves. Talk of birds of the same feather!

It was a shattering experience to learn that the world was not as it was supposed to be. I had implicitly believed everything I was taught when I was young. I had thought that ones good deed returns good and ones bad deeds return bad.

My understanding of causality was very pedestrian then. I did not know that helping some one would end up in the greatest enmity between the helper and the helped. I have had occasion to undergo the after effects of helping some. It was as if I have committed the greatest heinous act in the world. They would go black in the face the moment they set their eyes on you. Strangely you would also feel as if you have done some thing purposely to hurt them.

Strange are the workings of human mind. By doing something good you should feel happy and upbeat as per the reports that are dished out every now and then by the learned. But instead you feel like wanting to hide from the general public. In fact you are ashamed too, of being in a position to help others. This mostly happens where money is involved. I must say that I soon got tired of this and began adamantly to refuse the pleas for help.

Wonder of wonders, things began to improve from that moment onwards. A wise friend of mine once came up with something like-

“If you don’t give them any, both you and the other man would be unhappy for a few minutes. But if you give them any both of you would go on being unhappy for a very long time.”

It took me sometime to learn this basic fact of life.

This is a world where Mr. Hyde is respected and Dr. Jekyll is considered a fool. It seems strange that H.G .Wells the creator of these characters went on in life with the belief that people are inherently good. He could never understand how humans have become interested in killing the members of their own species. His theory was this was an aberration, not characteristics of the race.

Perhaps he was too nice a man in life and never realized the real nature of man in his life. But his artistic talent recognized it from the very start. It is curious to see the man and artist side by side-One with the implicit belief in the natural goodness of his species and the other so skeptical as to create Mr. Hyde. It’s a kind of triumph of art over humanity.

Human badness is not a new theory. Heraclitus considered those intelligent who held forth on human vileness. The rest appeared just as liars to him. I haven’t seen someone capable of refuting this. The armchair intellectuals speaking from the security of their positions in life would not agree to this. But if they have seen life in all its aspects, with its brutality, with its scant respect for norms of behavior, with its terrible desire to exist against even impossible odds, the senseless murders, passion, hate, faithlessness, deceit, evil in all its forms would undergo a life changing transformation.

They would not see life as something romantic, some thing pleasant, something worthy of having. They would soon understand that the romantic notions that they had about life was all a terrible lie.

In fact every one of us is living a lie. As long as we do not realize it, we are happy in our imaginary worlds.

When we realize what it really is to most people we would shed a few scales from our eyes.

Animal or human?

There is this thing about coincidences, they are strange, and there are even very strange coincidences. What induces these coincidences is beyond my comprehension. Yet the one on which I am terribly concerned about now could not be accidental (or I hope so)-The accident of finding ourselves inhabiting an animal body.

For we are animals are we not? Some think so. They are called the animalists. They think that we are thinking animals and our animal part and our thinking part function together as one and there is no separation.

Some would not agree. They would call themselves God’s, finding them enmeshed in a thing which is of animal origin. The problem is, to provide the space for such an argument all parties have to bisect themselves into two. A thinking entity and an animal entity.

It was all started by Aristotle.

He germinated (like many other branches of thought) the vague beginnings of Animalism. I firmly believe that his express purpose was to irk me.

Like most of my ilk I too am fond of sitting in a chair. Our grand sires in this land used to sit on low wooden stools in the deep distant past. But that has no relevance to the point under consideration. Whether you sit on a stool or a chair you are supposed to be identical with a human animal sitting in them.

In truth I was otherwise engaged while Animalism was being developed in the later half of the last century and was blissfully unaware of it. It surprises me that it suddenly shed its lethargy just when I am not watching and more than a century after Darwin propounded his theory of evolution. If we have to be animals the theory of Darwin is the best bet for it. (There are some who say that his physiognomy induced him to write it)

Anyway as there are animals who can think (some believe that I am one such, but they are in gross error I must say, for I am not one of the thinking animals. I would qualify as a feeling one if you want. ) the human animal is one such.

What goes into proving this? Well the animalists have a minimalist approach to the problem. They argue that (1) there is an animal located where you are (2) which is thinking your thoughts and that (3) you can never know if you are different from this animal when the both are sharing their thoughts.

The opponents have to deny one of the above arguments to prove animalism false and they would be hard put to do that.
Well some have tried to circumvent this by a curious argument. When a person dies a corpse results. Death can not bring any new material thing into being. So it must have existed even before. Now animalism believes that we cease to exist when we die. If so our body can not be an animal, if it is it has to cease to exist when it dies.

So what is to be believed? Should we subscribe to the view that we are primarily animals that can think or that we are superman? Hell what does it matter? We are biological entities are we not? There has never been a single instance to believe otherwise. What matters if the biological entity sitting in the chair and psychological entity which sees itself as inhabiting this biological entity is the same or not the same?

My wonder is that why should the animalist maintain that an animal cease to exist when it dies? Is it not a lame argument? What makes it certain that we do not cease to exist after death? We may lose ‘life’ at death but that too is little tricky argument to sustain for ‘life’ can be defined severally.

Animalism is good pass time anyway.

Rants

People tend to divide everything in to two categories. That of the good and evil. They adamantly ignore the fact that these are our own creations and do not have any objectivity in the general scheme of things in the universe.
This is the sad tale of one falsehood becoming the prime basis of our reasoning.
All the time we all shit (not a fragrant thing by any standards) and Love (The absolutely magical thing by all standards).

People thought and thought and came up with something curious.

Love is good and shit is bad. So let us oust shit from our world and establish love as god.
Erroneous reasoning.

Think on it dears.

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Sorry mates I had to disappoint you once again. I doubt whether I can grasp syllogism any better than I am grasping my sides now.

But did you really think that I could master such abstruse subjects at this tottering age and still make an effort to stand up? Did it not seem a little impossible to you?

I know there is a saying that “nothing is impossible”

It is a great philosophical truth if you look at it a little closely. I mean, recalling “from void only void” and the like. It might even be logically impossible to prove that nothing’s ever existed, though I have known a few of them (the nothings I mean) over the years.

Why I can’t tell, I am infinitely drawn towards them too. A weakness of character perhaps.

Bet you, some consider me to be nothing’s too. Yet if we put our heads together and really made an effort we might perceive that there is something in nothing all the time.


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They were right. This guy had anticipated my words by three lunar circles. That is by 36 years. Let us forget the snide remarks that our dear sleuths made in the process and the deep distrust they have towards me.

There is this case of a writer who seems to have forestalled me altogether by writing about such things as I do now. I was not aware of the writer at all, and had unfortunately had never read him.

Some one advised me to look into him and I did, Lord god Beelzebub, from my first post to everything I have written up to now are portrayed in it in a germinal form.

I could barely believe it.

There are facts stranger than fiction it seems!

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Ichcha and will

Schopenhauer has always attracted me with his unbelievable clarity. He does not beat around the bush but jumps in front and states his ideas in a crystal clear manner. This is great for us. We don’t have to knit our brows and toil dispiritedly along to divine the hidden meanings in the learned philosophical treatise.

We would not go into his theory here. The scope of the post does not permit it anyway, even if I can do it. But his ideas have amused me and had made me see things in a different perspective. It was amusing to see so much honesty and ego too in a philosopher. He also had a healthy distaste to the Icon’s of his time. Hegel was his favorite punching bag.

May be he was a little bit envious too, because Hegel was so popular.

To him world was his idea. There he was right of course whether it included Hegel or not. The world comes to us through our sensations and these sensations trigger certain things within the mind to form our idea of the world. Even the moderns are beginning to recognize this as truth.

I would back his theory on intellect any time. To him intellect is subject to desire or will and has little or scant use in a person’s life. He states somewhat that we do not want a thing because we have thought about it. It is the other way round, we think about a thing because we desire for it. To him the whole of human history is a drama enacted to prove this.

The will is a great subject with the ancient Indians too. It is known by the name of Ichchaa sakthi in India. Siva is said to personify it. The Indian metaphysicians may not have stressed the primary-ness of the will like Schopenhauer but they knew of its prime importance. It is Thamasic( massive, hidden) force in nature and is the base on which the other Sakthi’s ( The Jnana and Kriya Sakthi’s- reason and action) build their empires.

As I said there is more than enough evidence that the man knew of eastern thought before he ventured seriously into philosophy.

The will to him was the basic force of life. Everything else is subservient to it. He thinks that even the human body is fashioned by the will. He can only be right when he says that our needs for food, shelter, protection etc do not originate in thought. They are the result of desire (another word for will to Schopenhauer) and the intellect and our physical powers second it and work for their achievement.

I like his treatment of love. To him it is a deceit of nature. Love of course is eugenics, an action of universal will. It is an effort by nature to select the best specimens for reproduction. But I have reservation about the way he links the individual to the general. It’s a bad use of the theory of Maya.

He says somewhere that he was writing to state just one idea but has not found a simpler way to state it than to write a whole book about it. His pessimism did not leave him without a sense of humor anyway.

The man was highly egotistical. He thought a world about himself. He has openly stated that he was the next big thing after Kant in philosophy.

The man is highly amusing.

Sakuna

A cat crossed my path at the very start of the day’s journey and I could not do anything about it- I was on a bike. I should have stopped and turned thrice in a circle and should then only have continued. That’s how my highly religious father in law would have done if he had experienced the same situation. (You don’t have to be a genius to know which community he belongs to.)

But the problem was you could not do it sitting on a bike in a narrow lane. I tried though, I pictured turning around thrice in the air and let it go at that. The cat of course was black. A sure sign of the devil for the westerners we do not believe in the devil in India. Some also ask whether the devil would ever dare approach our very own BhaDra Kali.

She is the ultimate in evil as well as good. Those familiar with her depiction in pictures would laugh at the portrayal of devil in the west-The poor fella, with hooves and two horns and a tail.

Really In conception and in visualization of evil the ancient Indians out did most of the races in the world because they recognized evil as an inseparable part of the world as well as the good. They even wanted to go beyond good into the realm of the pure knowledge.

But coming back to the subject at hand don’t you think I should have turned around in a circle thrice? How could anyone have proceeded further without doing that!

There are people who are like that in this country. Yes even in the 21st millennium. So I was not entirely joking you see.

Well in my case I use such beliefs to a good extend when I have to find an excuse to not to go to some place. If the situation was like that today I would have gladly returned home and told every one that I saw a bad ‘Sakuna’. That would be the end of discussion.

The fact is that normally we Indians believe in such trash even from the highest officials in the state to the lowest menial in the land- not officially of course. One of our former prime ministers would not move an inch unless he was told by an astrologer to do it. The strangest thing was that the guy was considered to be a highly intelligent man.

Once comrade EMS Namboodirippad (the then undisputed left intellectual of our land) commented that we would only send a space rocket away after splitting (breaking) a coconut at the altar of the god of impediments, the “Ganapathy”. May be that is true. Our superstations run deep down.

We take every thing as connected. It might be that we get a glimpse into the future through the animate and inanimate world that we see around when we start off to do something of importance. I haven’t yet guessed how we became so important to the universe to show us such signs. Yet there it is.

It is believed that first thing we see when we step out of our houses would determine the effects of the entire day for us. A cat crossing the path is the worst possible sight you can see when you have just stepped out of the house to go somewhere.

But why? I have no idea as yet. May be there are some ‘Sastra’s ‘to the effect. The fact is that I hate all such Sastra’s and do not look for their verification in my life but at the same time if some one was there to point out the Sakuna for me I might feel a inner sense of security or in security. These are deeply rooted and are difficult to dislodge.

Such beliefs have led us backward.

No wonder the Great Buddha wanted to ditch the whole system and start a new one. In this land, there is a ‘sastra’ for everything. Sastra’s could be found even advising or explaining situation in which you could kill and commit incest. Only the very gullible among human believes in such strange sciences. The strange fact is that almost ninety percent of us are gullible! And the wicked makes use of this gullibility to good effect.

These Sastra’s are good for very selfish ends and ends there. Is there any wonder the land is languishing still. They are coming back in a big way now. The progress of science and the explosion of information has drive people into the alters of forgotten gods and practices.

There are people who holds steadfast to those anachronistic sastra’s and swears by them. These serve their purposes. They still fill their coffers and keep them pretty popular among the ignorant. They would like to keep us in the dark ages of the world.

There is absolute bliss in ignorance

Unity and diversity

My view on Aristotle is a bit sketchy. His Psychology is what interests me. But he is not very clear when he defines things. We would not consider his views on the immortality of soul. But his thoughts on free will seem to be very unclear. In places he argues that we can’t be any different than we are. But then goes against his own argument by saying that we can select a suitable environment to better ourselves. Both go opposite ways.
Perhaps his thoughts on aesthetics are somewhat better. Some say that he discovered aesthetics as far as the west is concerned. He has some shrewd observations to offer to us. Artistic creation seeks to express the emotional content of our lives. It comes out of a desire for creativity.

Art to him is an imitation of reality. This definition has stood the test of times. But we now have a different notion of reality than he had in his times. Our reality has become subjective and is no more limited to an objective interpretation of stimuli. But yet in essence Aristotle was entirely right, whether interpreted objectively or subjectively artistic inspiration and out put remains an imitation of that which is perceived.

This is not to say that he did not realize the importance of the internal in the art. For he says somewhere that art should represent the inward significance of things. He correctly realized that the outward manifestations of things are of lesser importance than their inward reality.

He thought that the finest form of art should please the brain as well as the mind. He is totally against my notion of art. He went for form and unity in art. Any form of art should not have digressive elements in it. The plot should not be weakened by the introduction of useless and confusing sub plots. Well he can’t be blamed for his strict view on art. To him catharsis appeared as the paramount aim of art.

But in our times (or should I say confusing times) the art can not reflect reality in its entirety if it adheres to such strict narrative style. Our reality is variegated individualistic and unbelievably interpretive. An individual may experience different sorts of reality within a span of minutes. The same situation presents different sort of reality to different people.

A Black, a white, a Muslim, A Christian, a woman, A man an apostle of the NWO or a communist might be experiencing different sorts of reality at the same place. The same person might perceive different realities if the situation alters only slightly. A secular person caught up in a communal conflict might undergo a complete change of perception if the security of his near and dear is involved in the business.

But to Aristotle forming the first percepts of western aesthetics such concern may not have been immediately evident. It may be true that such multiple realities existed even in his times. But to his theory of catharsis unity of action was important. We may aim at the same by destroying the unity and infusing chaos into art now.
Aristotle had the Drama to form his opinions on art. Now we have dramas everywhere. Even news reports are not free from drama nowadays. I wonder what Aristotle would have done in our times.

"Clue"

Why do my thoughts stray towards the creatures of the night all of a sudden? May be there is something in it. Who can tell? Or perhaps I am seeking some variety or I am too damned lazy to think up anything worth while now. Any way there it is. It is none but the count of Dracula on the scene.

Well it seems that a fort and a title of Dracule are still in existence in the Carpathian region of Romania. Once the area was known as the land beyond forests. It must have been pretty inaccessible in those times. Currently it is part of Romania and is known for its scenic beauty. The people seem to be peaceful and cultured and the current Dracula also appears to be a well educated and normal man.

No, I haven’t met him. Saw some report to the effect that’s all.

Anyway this article has nothing to do with that Transylvania but takes after the Brom Stoker story.

Based on it ‘our’ Transylvania must be a sad countryside, filled with bloodless specters, walking corpses and of course blood suckers. They only move by the night, no doubt. Their element is darkness. Count Dracule of our fairy tale should be presiding over a very gory court. Let us keep it that way for the sake of fun.

So we have the setting. A dark and mysterious countryside studded with hills and inaccessible fortresses inhabited by the denizens of the night. A good setting too.

Let us take it for granted that the place is filled with vampires. What do they do for recreation other than sucking blood? Shouldn’t there be some social activity even among the night dwellers?

How do they pass time? Waiting for the next prey? Would they feel affinity towards others of the same ilk? What do they do for feelings which they had when they were human? (It seems that only humans can become vampires. There is no other way to create one. The vampire is a concoction of several totally selfish qualities poured into one vessel which refuses to disperse after death. I have seen some candidates for the post among our species now and then). Or do they have no feelings at all?

They (The vampires of course) probably live in the subtle body and has to make use of their physical body to latch on to this world. Some say that their fangs are fashioned just for that- to suck blood. It is through infusing live blood into their dead physical vehicle that they prolong their existence in the plane of earthly life.
I must say that if this is true it must be very sad indeed-To forsake subtle spheres of existence for remaining in a dark and hopeless world! Ours surely. Or are there any opponents?

Anyway the question which strikes me is whether they socialize and “drink” together? Do they have parties and public functions and orgies? Or do they live alone hunting for their prey in isolated individual efforts. Hmmm
There are further questions too.

Can they create Vampire classics and arts? Would they have governments and associations and guilds? Do they go for sports? (Even our sports began from gory activities like kicking the heads decapitated around. It later became football.)

All these activities are related to the sexual drives some say. What do the vampires do for sex? Or is sucking blood enough to satisfy their lust?

Actually this activity of sucking blood should only be peripheral in a vampire’s life. It just gives them the energy to live. It is like food. Though the vampire world may not approve of Christ, they may also think there is something in what Christ said. “One does not live by bread alone.” Or do they?

Whatever the situation is, there has to be some sort of companionship among them. An unending life without any purpose and no one to get close with is going to be a pretty tough thing to bear. Once you become a vampire there is no natural death it seems. Also the fear of death and the supernatural fear of being psychically tortured are going to force them not to end their lives in any other way.

Poor vampires. There are some such in the world too. They may also deserve our pity. But the deeds that they commit are not immediately pity producing.

Well I live in a sort of Indian Transylvania now and unfortunately I am not the lead guy. (It would have been nice to be the Dracula, with fangs and the ability to crawl up walls and call forth natural elements and night animals. The only thing is that the guy is supposed to be photo sensitive. That is a very limiting thing. If you can’t walk around drinking blood in broad day light what the hell is the use of being a vampire.)

Anyway being the lead guy always affords satisfaction in many ways.

No one would criticize you on your blunders is one? There are others, I am too lazy to recount them now.

You would not press me for the name of the place would you? The only ‘clue’ (as they say in TV quizzes) I would give you is that it is in a wonderful little state called the Gods own country.

The mechanics of control

Colin Wilson seems to think that the vulnerability with which people as well as animals can be hypnotized is an accident of nature. According to his theory, complex organisms need more energy or life force to function efficiently. If the flow of this energy is impeded in any manner the organism ceases to have a free will. He sites several examples from the animal word where hypnotism is in operation.

His theory might well be true. But this imposes a sort of inevitability on animal behavior. Once the nerve point which can immobilize the animal is discovered its days of freedom is entirely over. Wilson says this also applies to the humans. And those who know of this can easily influence others by inhibiting the flow of their energies.
There is nothing new in his theory. The ancients all over the globe believed that a subtle force called variously as Prana, Chi, Mana, and other things besides exerts its influence on us throughout our lives. Some of them have also inaugurated systems by which one can consciously make use of this energy for good or bad. The modern science has always been in conflict with this form of belief and practice. They have only began to tentatively appreciate the possibility of making use of this energy through breath control etc.

It is unbelievable that even after a hundred years of the greatest debacle of science no one has seriously ventured openly into studying these subtle forces which dictates their terms to us. It is no use saying that we can’t visualize these energies any more. I am not speaking of Kirlian photography etc. But according to several sources, researches on these lines were taken up by the super powers clandestinely through out the last century. These remains classified till date. There are also reports that the Russian scientists have developed a fully functional brain in the lab.

You would probably scoff at this. But “ Energetics’ the branch of science developed by the Russian scientists based on subtle forces in the sub atomic level has tremendous potential according to several well known scientists. It is reported that it is technically feasible to extract and make use of an unlimited amount of energy from the vacuum if right instruments are used. It can be manipulated into any complex forms by those in the know.

We do not know what the nature of the developed brain is, whether it is a biological entity or whether it is a simulated energy field which can mimic the activity of the human brain in all its activities. If it can be done it would certainly shed light into the operational limitation and capabilities of human brain. Politicians for example would like to know about this particular branch of science intimately.

Hypnosis in one form or other has always been in use in the world to control people. The method by which it is made use of has been discussed thread bare by one and all, all over the place. So we would not go into all that now. But it is a fact that the human organism has certain vulnerabilities which could be made use of by those who in the know to control others. This has both individual and social applications. Because of the nature of the power it is important to learn about it and discern its manifestation to have control of your life.

Seeing is believing

What does our mind do? It interprets reality, none of the things that we see outside or on the inside is what we take them for. They are interpretations. This view might smack of the idealist philosophical outlook of Bishop Berkley.

He was of the view that everything in the world can be reduced to our sensations and their interpretation by mind. Leibnitz also thought on the same lines. He said that he can prove every thing we experience are relative to something else and can not stand alone.

The relationship between the subject and object has been discussed quite bare in philosophy. There has never been a consensus between the materialists and the idealist on this basic question. There was a time in the 19th century when people thought that all would become clear once we discover the basic building blocks of the universe that is the primary particles. This was proved impossible since then.

It’s not surprising that Einstein began to think on the same line as Berkeley at the beginning of the last century. Quantum mechanics had rewritten most of the concepts of science by then. The only citadels remaining to be pulled down were Space and Time. These were thought to be absolute by Newton.

Einstein thought that space is not objective reality as we take it for. It is only an arrangement of objects. Without objects there can’t be any space or conception or knowledge of space. He extended the theory in to the sphere of time too. It has no existence outside the measures that we ascribe to a progression of events.

He visualized the universe as four dimensional space-time continuum-Three dimensions of space and one dimension of time. All reality exists in Space and Time. They are inseparable. All measurements of time are of space also. Also the reverse is true. All measurements of space are of that of time too.

Einstein gave weight to sensory experience. The only world we can know of is the world of senses.
We can’t go beyond them.

So what is reality?

Tough question, if we can only experience world as is given to us by our mind then the only option to discover reality is to investigate the mind- This call for introspection, meditation and all the things on which the modern science looks at askance. But can any one show any other way?

I doubt it very much. You can jump on upon the roof and shout at the top of the voice that these are unproven methods to science, you can also shout that science even in its present fragmentary state has been able to bring relief to the world.

All these may be true. But one simple thing remains. What is behind all this? Can we leave it at that and say we can’t go beyond? Would that satisfy us?

The emergentists may argue that way. The world is an accident and consciousness is a product of evolution. It may be or it may not be. But the problem is that they are not sure of it themselves. We are talking about the rationale behind building a world and making it work. What we are interested in is in the principle itself.

Is it conscious or is it not? If it is conscious is there any method by which we can know it? What is it? We would not like to bind ourselves and it to the limits of the confines of God as is known to us in mythology.
But we need some thing to go on.

If that is provided to us by the systems which are considered old fashioned now why not try it?

Be Bright

What the hell is a beacon? Some kind of a light? Not that it’s important. The thing just jumped into my mind some how.

But why?

Well that is what I am aiming to find out. A bit of sleuth work really.

There was this sleuth of Edgar Alan Poe’s! Was he French, the one who follows the train of his companion’s thought by a process of a totally terrifying logical deduction?

I shudder at the mental effort required. So no thanks Edgar. (Well the poor guy was not totally all there at the end of his life was he? That ‘Craven’ was berserk)

We can’t have him no way.

But what about Poirot, Hercule? Doubtless he was the most prolific solver of mysteries to date.

Was it Norman Chandler who said that the “Mystery on the Blue Train” was totally moronic? Could have been. That mystery was bad through and through; I was as much mystified with it as was everybody else.

So we can’t have him too.

Then there is this guy on 20 Baker Street. But the problema is I liked his Refugee(s?) the best and there is scant detective work in it.

Well ‘Baker’ again brings me to our unsolved beacon mystery. Where did the bloody word hop in?


God, the things that vault in to our mind sometimes!

I had immediately linked it with paragon (Of everything!). Both have an ‘on’ at the end and some sort of a ‘k’ tone somewhere. But not very similar otherwise, are they?

What could be the connection? Might have to use something to decipher it. (Sorry bro’, it’s not a pot shot; it’s a paucity of stuff inside. You won’t take it amiss would you?)

Cipher is a cute word too. Damn cute in fact.

Being in a very benign mood I looked it up in the you know what. It was gross. It could be a code, secret message and symbols. (Pretty unnerving stuff) It could also make you a nobody, nonentity, nothing and zero.

It follows that deciphering would unzero you and make you a thing an entity a body etc.

Not that it matters.

But there is something tricky with this beacon thing. The thing is I have a ‘thingy’ about thinking.

Beaker I know, it is some kind of a container, you invariably drink from it, I know of a Becker too, Boris by the name, he used to mow grass at the Wimbledon, he might have mowed a few men down besides, but who cares.

But all the same,

There is a song in Tamil about him I remember, sung by that fat guy, he is some sort of a Sámi, Adnan is he?
The song had raw power

Boom Boom chikitchaam chikitchaam Boom Boom yeah yeah

It was some kind of a beacon, that song, the visuals did some trick with still photos. The frame
But he was no beacon, that Becker guy; he used to hit a yellow ball pretty hard. Hence the Boom, Boom. Old tale, vintage, now who hits the ball where?

Well there is that guy in Casino Royal of course, damn bloody thing to do. May be you should hit where it matters. It places things in clear perspective.

And of course there was one who built low cost houses, it was Larry something. He was a Baker too. Must have been good one going by his reputation. What was he baking mud bricks?

There is deacon; it is about swindling people with faith, but beacon,
What is it?

Well my muse says that it is about light. We all need light, illumination, divine or otherwise. Dante croaked demanding the spurious of all things “Light more light”. He had Frankenstein for company. The right guy to have near you perhaps.

Spooks around

I saw a ghost the other day. No really, it was standing out there in the shade, picking at its nose.
Well that was nice if nothing else was. It showed it was human at least. I am yet to see some other species picking at its nose. It’s an entirely human gesture.

I did not acknowledge it of course. Not because I was afraid of it, but we had nothing to talk about and we barely knew each other. There is kind of “birds of the same feather” attitude in its face. It was at the cell phone all the time it was preoccupied with the nose. This was not a high class ghost. It belonged to the lower classes for sure.
Very black it was. Honest to god, I have some reservations against the lower class ghosts even know. Its something deep you know. These racial feelings. The more you try to squash it more it surfaces. I feel sorry for the KKK really. If I can’t get rid of this primordial racist feeling from my blood, which unfortunately is feudalist, how can the totally deranged guys handle it?

They really have tough work ahead.

Anyway this ghost in the shadows is either going brain dead or brain cooked by the cell phone by the look of it. It had that aggressive look of an animal caught in a situation. Restrained violence. I carefully averted my face trying not to antagonize it. It was not using any kind of cords or ear phones and was holding the phone plastered to its right ear lob. Pretty nice way to cook up the brain. He was at it continually. I watched him go for a full half hour at it. I felt mesmerized.

I had a cell phone at one time. The moment I took it up to do some thing it would start getting inside my brain and speeding it up. Normally I talk like I would not finish the sentence in the coming few millenniums. But after I was on the cell phone for a couple of minutes, I would suddenly start talking like say, Tom Cruise? (Who is the fast talker in Hollywood?) My mind would be so revved up that ideas would start to flow like cascades.

I soon got to distrust this artificial boosting. I liked the old world style of taking time to do talking.

Well the spook was a real addict. It liked two things. One was the dark; it never came into the open. The second thing of course is the thing attached to his ear. I left the place still seeing him going great guns. He was doing some reporting and I leave it to you about whom.

Well it seemed that I was having a great time with spooks on this day. The moment I stopped at a supermarket to buy something there were other lovely spooks around. The spooks certainly had good info on me and were freely exchanging it among them selves.

The spooks really had good manners I must say. I always think of them as my protectors. While they are around normally people show me great respect and fear. May be they think that I am with them. We all have the fear of the super natural do we not. I can’t blame the common people. If they have respect for someone it is for these shady characters.

I think the commoner prays daily to god let them keep well of these interesting people. Though I have this thing against the low class spooks I am interested in them too. I like to see them function. It is hilarious to watch their serious or brought on hilarity now and then. They of course are very poor actors. May be they do not know why they should act at all.

They receive directions and begin to perform right on whether they can pull it off or not.

Any way it was cool watching spooks on this day.

Tube Species

People write to get accolades. But really, of what use is applause? It is sweet to the young ears, it pumps them with confidence, it eggs them on. But to me, it just reeks of malice, not in the sense that one who says a nice thing is malicious, no. But in the sense that those words are mostly vacuous.
They are just lip service, there is nothing underneath it. It takes time to discover this. Then we become disillusioned and start our little laughs at the world. It is bound to happen to any one. You just wait. It will come to you.

It has happened to me. I now know that there is only deception around. We deceive ourselves. We deceive others. Every one deceives everyone. Why? Because we can’t live with ourselves. We are not proud of this shitting and farting machine that we carry around. It is the most insufferable thing in the world. Some say you have to be proud about yourself to succeed in life. Succeed? Tell me who has succeeded in life?

It’s only the young who are worried about success and failure. To others they are just words play. The very success may look such a big defeat in retrospect. You think that this is meddling with philosophy? Well okay let it be so. Whether we meddle with it or not, reality remains the same. It would not become something else if we ignore the wisdom of our own mind.

I agree with Alan Watts, we are a tube species which takes in food at one end and expels something through the other. That is all there to our lives. These basic needs. Yes these things continue till death. We cover it up. We look on ourselves as something wonderful but all the time we are aware that we are no such thing. We are just pawns in the hands of nature and no amount of praise is going to make us anything else.

We know that others are watching us. They think it is amusing to watch others. It is so really. It is even interesting to see others suffer. But that obliterates something from our mind. That we are no better. We follow the same fate.

No no no. I do not see anything wrong with it as long as these activities are not hurtful to the rest of the world. But mostly people believe that the only way to keep alive is to go at others. I can’t say if it really works. There could be some satisfaction in seeing others cringe. But that is in relation to you. You feel well and the others are not.

The moment the situation reverses they become good for sometime. Then they can see the goodness in others. And it goes on like this………….

Tricky situations

Here is something to think about.

What would you do if you know that you are going to be murdered in the near future? You would want to run to the law most probably. But what if the law is behind it? What if every agency which is supposed to protect you from such a fate is out to get you? Impossible you say? Let me tell you, there are impossible things than that in life. Some of you know it already intuitively; you may have the insight to see behind the veneer of superficiality into the heart of things.

There is no question of being afraid. That serves no purposes. You can be constructive in some way? But in what way? You can’t become an artist or scientist over night.

You despair and the threat is looming up. There are people out to drink your blood and no one is going to help you.
Tricky situation!

Well some would think, what the heck, let us face it then. They can’t murder you more than once can they, anyway you have to die some day. To some it is the uncertainty that could be frightening. When is it going to happen? To some it could be the certainty that is frightful.

There is all kind of fears.

Am not talking about the supernatural fear, there is that of course. The fear of the unknown, the l fear instilled in you by one and all through the course of life. But luckily that has never worried me. I do not think that there is a life after death at all. All we have this thing, this sometimes insufferable, indecent thing that we call our life. But we still cling to it don’t we? That’s natural too, for we don’t know about any other life. This is sadly true for the greatest religious fanatic even.

This clinging is what makes the life dearer to us. I have listened to people who had near escapes from the claws of death. They have all vowed at that time to life their life in full if they manage to get their lives back. But none seems to have done it to my knowledge. Once they are back they revert to the old ways.
Why ? Well who can tell? We may be programmed like that. To run around the mill.
No amount of prodding may lead us to grand lives.

We would yet remain small unenlightened individuals.

Some you might think that you are the center of the universe. No doubt you are. Every one is for that matter. Yet even you have doubts of your smallness.

This is what curious about life. There is some kind of a manic depressive process within you. There are poles which go parallel and would not meet.

There is no way that you can mend ways it seems.