Monday, November 7, 2011

A Progressive Voice from Pakistan

Moderate and progressive voices exist in all countries. I provide a link to a trio of Pakistani singers calling themselves 'The Beygairat Brigade' (i.e. The Dishonourable Brigade) who in their admirable song denounce the type of politics that is rampant in Pakistan.  The name of the band is itself a satire on Pakistan’s nationalists and conservatives, who are often described in the local news media as the Ghairat Brigade, or Honor Brigade.  This is a very daring song sung by the gutsy trio, specially so considering the highly charged atmosphere that prevails there. The song is quite critical of the military, the mullahs, the terrorists and even denounces Malik Mumtaz Qadri, an elite police guard who assasinated Salman Taseer after he challenged Pakistan's 'Blasphemy laws'.  A jibe is taken at  Ajmal Kasab too of the Hotel Taj attack, Mumbai, who to many Pakistanis is a hero of sorts. The Youtube version of the video has subtitles too and is quite easy to follow.

As the trio gallantly put it, they preferred to float it on Youtube rather than release it locally as they feared it may attract censorship. The video is supposed to have become widely popular both in Pakistan and across their border, in India too!

Please connect your speakers and click on the link below:

http://youtu.be/agLHraaNy78

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A Lecture about the Importance of Intuition and Feelings

Please click on the link below to get to know about the importance of intuition: about how Humans must allocate greater importance to feelings and intuition in our present context where, since about the 15th and 16th Centuries Humans have given overwhelming importance to reason at the cost of their intuitive abilities.


http://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain.html


allow a minute for the program to load and expand to full screen using the appropriate 4 arrows icon.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Is a Little Irreverence Permitted?

 A day or two ago I had sent a query to Sri M (author of ‘Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master’) about Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. It essentially was about my reading of a particular aspect of Sri Ramakrishna – that even he was being proper, and in being proper he was not true to himself. I saw this as an attempt by him to project his character and which most humans are guilty of, and I found it surprising that even Sri Ramakrishna was a victim of this weakness.  I particularly refer to what has been given in the Chapter ‘Introduction’ of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna Vol. 1, p.69 a particular interaction between Sri Ramakrishna and his disciples has been given as underneath.

Sri Ramakrishna: “Do you think I enjoy this suffering? I wish to recover, but that depends on the Mother.”
Narendra: “Then please pray to Her. She must listen to you.”
Master: “But I cannot pray for my body.”

My remark :  (He is trying to be proper than trying to be honest because he clearly does not enjoy suffering as he has himself stated above)

Narendra: “You must do it, for our sake at least.”
Master: “Very well, I shall try.”

A few hours later the Master said to Narendra: “I said to Her:‘Mother, I cannot swallow food because of my pain. Make it possible to eat a little.’ She pointed you all out to me and said: ‘What? You are eating enough through all these mouths. Isn’t that so?’ I was ashamed and could not utter another word.”

I feel Sri Ramakrishna was being correct and proper but not honest to his innermost heart. In his heart of hearts he desired to eat food. He strongly felt the urge to be able to eat. Instead of being correct and proper had he been honest to his innermost true self, he could have frankly told Mother “ But I am not getting the satisfaction of having eaten when all of them are eating with their own mouths. Please bless me with that ability and I shall be more than satisfied!”

Sri M replied that he had a great regard for Sri Ramakrishna as one of the great Saints of India and as such he would not be able to answer the question.

In this interaction with Sri M and my subsequent ruminations about it, I realised how in the past I have drawn conclusions about various people and how such conclusions have coloured all subsequent judgments about that person.  Based on a fragment of a person’s pronouncements I have drawn permanent conclusions about the entire person. To cite an instance, I once had read an interview of Sri Satya Sai Baba. In the interview the questioner had asked if he had ‘seen Shirdi Sai Baba’.  “This body has not seen him”, Sri Satya Sai Baba had replied.

To me the way the words were chosen and the way the sentence was formed implied an underlying meaning of the impermanence of the body and a lasting soul; the undervaluation of the importance of the body and so on. At a later stage in the interview Sri Satya Sai Baba had proudly claimed that in all the years his body weight had never exceeded 110 kg. To me this struck me as a contradictory claim to the insignificance of the body. I had even remarked cynically to my friend Raghavendra about it. One such fragment of evidence would colour my total perception of a person and would make me undervalue all his pronouncements and wisdom. It could even be true that some of his other understanding may actually be profound, but the assessment that I would draw from my understanding of the interview would hamstring Sri  Satya Sai Baba in my estimation of him. Such an attitude would prevent me from absorbing his wisdom if he was indeed wise.

Similarly, a total assessment of Sri Ramakrishna based on a fragment of his conversation can hamstring the possibilities of my drawing valuable lessons from his books. In the past I have also been guilty of laughing at people for their peccadillos and I now see a need to apply some restraint in making fun of people.

But what the hell! Maybe the world needs this banter and being too sombre and tight without having some fun at the expense of others even though it may be undesirable would make this world too aseptic for comfort. A little bit of irreverence, even at the risk of inviting the wrath of the Universe may be preferable to an ultra-clean universe, without banter, fun and humour.


xxx

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Mr. Umar

I am about to write about a person and I wonder if I can do enough justice to his genial personality. Mr. Umar was a graduate of the 1930s period. He joined the Mysore Geological Department (later called The Department of Mines & Geology) perhaps as a clerk on very modest salaries. I do not know precisely in what way, but in some way he felt extremely indebted to my grandfather (B.Rama Rao) who was the Director of the department for thirteen long years. I don't know if my grandfather was on an interview board which recruited Mr. Umar for a post in the department, or whether he had done him any favours in some other way, but I write to convey the deep appreciation of our entire family to Mr. Umar.

Mr. Umar was a lean and tall wiry person with sharp features and a very pleasant smile. He used to be immaculately dressed in a tasteful formal suit and a tie at all times. I've never seen him in casual apparel. His shoes were always polished to a glittering shine. I had a vague  idea that he lived in the 'Cantonment area,' which to us at that time in the fifties meant all of the vicinities of M.G. Road and Commercial Street and extending up to Frazer Town and Cox Town. Perhaps he lived in Frazer Town. He always cycled to work and I assume he was a meticulous worker.

My grandfather had retired from government service in the mid to late nineteen forties. Yet even as late as the late nineteen sixties I would see Mr. Umar rendering selfless service to my grandfather. Sunday mornings would have Mr. Umar cycle all the way from Frazer Town to our house in Vishweshwarapuram and he would arrive at our house by 9:30 or 10:00 a.m.  He would come all the way to wash my grandfather's car, check the water level in the radiator, drive it to the nearest petrol pump at Minerva Circle to have it refuelled and have the tyre pressures checked. He was an expert mechanic and would ensure that the vehicle was kept in excellent repair. I've never seen anybody serve another with such dedication, especially so when he had nothing to gain from my grandfather. My grandfather had a short fuse and even if my grandfather lost his temper, Mr. Umar bore it all with tremendous restraint and never appeared flustered.  Even after 15 to 20 years after my grandfather's retirement Mr. Umar was always readily available when my grandfather had to make short trips to Tumkur and Mysore in the car. Such trips meant that Mr. Umar had to apply for leave of absence from the office, yet he would ever so willingly do it. In 1956 when I was a small kid of four, Mr. Umar applied for a long leave of absence of almost a month to accompany our family on a South Indian tour by car.

Even when I was a lad of fourteen or fifteen, I had never realised the value of Mr. Umar's service to my grandfather. My friends would say mockingly "That man! He wears a suit and a tie and shoes and comes and washes your grandfather's car!" and I don't remember to have prevented such things.

My grandfather died in 1970, and at that time Mr. Umar was posted away from Bangalore. My grandfather had a wrist-watch which he had valued while he was living. I felt like possessing that watch after his death in his remembrance. But my mother thankfully was firm. She said that the watch should go to Mr. Umar as he had done so much service to my grandfather.

When Mr. Umar eventually visited Bangalore and thence our house, my mother presented the watch to him. She went over to the kitchen to prepare some coffee for Mr. Umar, and when she returned she found him weeping like a child.

Perhaps by now Mr. Umar would have passed on but I wish there was a way of letting his family know that we keep thinking of him and this article is a hopeful way of re-establishing contact.

The Hot-Cross Policeman !

There was a time in the 1960s when Bangalore police constables were pretty stiff and severe with bicyclists. Those days the wages of these cops were rather frugal and that used to motivate many of them to keep a watchful hawk's eye on petty traffic violators. There were many laws in place and the penury of the policemen would ensure that these laws were obeyed. There was a rule that cyclists had to compulsorily halt at 'Halt & Proceed' signboards. Double-riding on a bicycle was a strict No-No! Any cyclist pedalling the wrong way up a one-way street would be apprehended. And to be caught riding a bicycle without a proper light after 7:00 p.m. was the most heinous sin a cyclist could commit.

The impoverished police constable of those days would be on an eager lookout for violators. Each quarry caught meant that he could pocket a neat two rupees. As students, we were most wary of the 'no double-riding' rule and the rule of a 'light for the bicycle after 7:00 p.m.' We had our own tricks. The moment a cop apprehended a cyclist for double riding, the pillion rider would dismount and scoot from the scene. And without the presence of the second person, sometimes the cop would be forced to let the main rider free without being able to fleece him. But those days once you were caught for an offence, the chances of being let off without paying a bribe of two or three rupees were pretty slim. Having been forced to subsist on a slim pocket money of thirty rupees a month at the rate of a rupee a day, we used to be terribly nervous of getting caught by a cop for petty violations.

Bicycles of those days would come equipped with a mechanical dynamo, but since they were expensive, thieves would shear through the metal sleeve attachment  and steal them. Many others would use a flashlight with batteries, but since these would run out of charge it was considered very expensive to use them. The third alternative was to use a contraption similar to a hurricane lantern, much smaller in size though, and rectangular in shape, which would have a tape-like wick and the flame being kept alive with kerosene. This contraption would fit onto a slot on the cycle handle. Frequently this would burn yielding a thick soot that used to film the glass and render the light barely visible to pedestrians. A sufficiently severe gust of wind would extinguish the flame.

A friend of mine, Manu, once lit up such a lamp and ventured to ride his bicycle from Jayanagar 4th Block and towards Lalbagh West Gate after the deadline of 7O'Clock. He might have ridden the cycle for ten or twelve minutes when he was rudely accosted by a cop for riding the cycle without a light. My friend was surprised and when he checked the lamp, true enough the flame was extinguished. He pleaded with the cop that he had, in fact, lit up the lamp and that it must have gone off.

"Just shut up and come to the Police Station", he was rudely told by the cop. No amount of pleading would convince the cop who forcibly tried to lead both the cycle and the cyclist to the Police Station. My friend rued his luck, as he imagined that he would have to shell out a bribe from his pocket money for the month.

Just so that he could extract a heftier bribe, the cop began lecturing my friend on how the youth of those days were being spoilt by their parents and how the country is deteriorating due to lawlessness. He kept the moralising spiel at a sufficiently high pitch as he led the cyclist towards the cop station. He also talked of how, if he indeed went to the station, a stiff fine would be levied and so on. As he was busy framing the precise words and leading the offender away, he inadvertently laid his hand on the lamp which was still blistering hot, though the flame was extinguished.

"Eeoooww!!" the cop shouted and retracted his hand in a sudden violent jerk. There was a profound silence for a few moments as the cop eyed my friend meaningfully. My friend returned a blank and vacant stare that affirmed his innocence in the wicked workings of the universe.

"Sari !!  Haalagi hogu !!" ( o.k.!! Get Lost!!) said the embarassed cop and my friend was saved of a two rupee expense that would have meant two masala dosas, two vadas and two coffees for him and his girl in Bangalore of those days.

Friday, July 15, 2011

An Eloquent Muslim Advocates a movement for Democracy

Maajid Nawaz, a muslim perhaps of Pakistan origins but from Essex in England, who has a history of working to build up terrorist movements from the grassroot levels evidently has had a change of heart spurred on by his arrest in Egypt and also by being banned from entering three other countries. He talks very eloquently in this Ted Talk of why fundamentalists seem to be more successful in using modern technologies to build up their organisations than people who seem to be genuinely interested in liberal democratic ideas. One of the main problems is that radicals are more motivated and liberals are rather complacent. The ideas he puts across in this Ted Talk are very appealing. I earnestly seek readers to switch on their speakers and listen to this talk.


http://www.ted.com/talks/maajid_nawaz_a_global_culture_to_fight_extremism.html



                                                xxx

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Painful Existence !

This is a story of a mother and two children. The mother, when she was a young woman of twenty-two or twenty three wed a man of around twenty-eight who was earning his livelihood as a purohit (priest). Her father too was in the business of purohitya, and in modern times when people's interest in things religious has been on a steady decline especially in cities like Bangalore, he could barely provide for the family and they lived a somewhat lower-middle class life. The father was anxious to get his daughter married off, and despite the fact that she was quite attractive, she could manage to get only another impoverished purohit as an alliance.

Some months into marriage, the young woman found the economic circumstances too straitened and, in addition, she found her husband to be too miserly. The food was scanty and to compound things the husband used to physically abuse his wife and would clobber her black and blue. But Indian women being what they are, tolerated all the physical violence and in a matter of four years she bore him two children.

As time progressed the abuse became more and more intolerable and the husband would strike the children too. Things deteriorated economically and when the woman found that she could no more tolerate the physical violence being rained on her, she quietly abandoned the husband and left her two children too to be looked after by the husband.

She ran away alone as she was not even sure where she would be going. She found a kindly family that sheltered her, and over a period of time, found a job that did not pay too well but was adequate for supporting herself.

One day as she was traversing through the city and had halted at a traffic light, she was suddenly accosted by her two children aged five and seven who had jumped out of an autorickshaw they were travelling in with their father and came to her expectantly and called out "Amma!! ...  Amma!!"

The woman saw her husband in the autorickshaw and due to the terrible fear that the children would receive a walloping from the father, ignored her two children and vanished in the traffic.

I only wish life doesn't give such deals to people and children!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Is Mexico only the geographical antipode of India ?

Take a globe model and locate Mexico. It looks as if it is the geographical antipode of India. That means if you were to drill a hole from say, Nagpur through the centre of the earth to the other side, you would think that the hole would break out in Mexico. Well! Not exactly! Actually it emerges in the Pacific Ocean, off South America. But Mexico is at a similar Latitude on the other side of the globe.

When I travelled in the United States many years ago I was often mistaken for a Mexican. When I tried to buy a cotton shirt in Pittsburgh, the shopkeeper showed me an attractive printed cotton shirt that seemed a trifle too expensive. When I vehemently complained about the price he had marked, the shopkeeper remarked "But Sir! These shirts are from the sunny slopes of Southern India !"

When I told him I was very much from the same place, he exclaimed "But I thought you were a Mexican !"

Well! Mexico seems to have the same problems that India has. There is growing violence. The streets of the cities are unsafe. There is rampant drug-trafficking and government corruption. Mobsters and land mafia haunt cities like they do in Mumbai and Bangalore in India. Yes! Both India and Mexico have problems. But the main problem that both countries have, as Emiliano Salinas identifies, is that the citizens of Mexico (and I add the citizens of India too) view themselves as victims.

One of the main reasons Indians are apathetic is that they consider themselves as Victims of circumstances. Historically we have acted as victims. First we viewed ourselves as victims of the Muslim invaders. Then we viewed ourselves as victims of the British colonisers. Now we view ourselves as victims of a series of corrupt governments. And inasmuch as we view ourselves as victims, we cannot muster up the spirit to break the denial and apathy that thence results. As Salinas says 'We must open our eyes and stop seeing ourselves as victims'. We have to take responsibility and  stop behaving as victims and move on to directing the future with our own hands.

Emiliano Salinas gives out a clarion call for Mexicans to rise up and break the denial and apathy just the way Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi have done in India. He has exhorted Mexicans to rise up and protest honorably against the lawlessness and corruption stressing that honor is more dear than life itself and that people should prefer death to dishonor.

I give below a link to a powerful and eloquent Ted Talk by Emiliano Salinas. Unfortunately the talk is in Spanish but there is a facility to turn on the English subtitles below. I earnestly seek everyone to turn on their speakers and watch and listen to this talk by also clicking on the English subtitles.

http://www.ted.com/talks/emiliano_salinas_a_civil_response_to_violence.html


Please click on the link above.

Monday, May 16, 2011

DAVID HUME'S IDEAS AND THEIR CRITICISM

Hume denies that man is born with ‘innate ideas’  He argues for this 1. By dividing the contents of our minds into two kinds of phenomena  -  a)  ‘impressions’ or direct perceptions that include sensations, passions and emotions AND b) ‘ideas’ which are faint copies of impressions, such as thoughts, reflections and imaginings THEN 2. Asking how ideas and impressions relate to each other.

In doing this Hume calls into question our most cherished beliefs not only about logic and science but also about the nature around us.

He seems to have a point. For if we examine various types of statements we see them to be broadly of two types:

1.     Demonstrative statements whose truth or falsity is self-evident. Like the statement 2+2 = 4. Denying this statement would lead us to a logical contradiction where we may fail to grasp the meaning of ‘2’ or ‘4’ or ‘+’ or ‘=’. Demonstrative statements and deductive reasoning are known to be true ‘a priori’ meaning prior to experience.

2.     Probable statements whose truths are not self-evident for it is concerned with matters of empirical fact. E.g. Shakira loved Deepak. This is a probable statement because it requires empirical evidence for it to be known to be true or false (most likely it is false!). One needs to experience things to find out its falsity.
HENCE, IN THE LIGHT OF THE ABOVE, WE CAN ASK OF ANY STATEMENT WHETHER IT IS DEMONSTRATIVE OR PROBABLE AND IF A STATEMENT IS NEITHER THE ONE NOR THE OTHER, IT IS MEANINGLESS.

Hume’s reasoning really takes on an edge when it is applied to inductive inference – our ability to infer things from past evidence.
We may see the sun rise every morning and infer that it will rise again tomorrow morning. But is this claim justifiable? CLAIMING THE SUN WILL RISE TOMORROW MORNING IS NOT A DEMONSTRATIVE STATEMENT, AS CLAIMING THE OPPOSITE INVOLVES NO LOGIOCAL CONTRADICTION. NOR IS IT A PROBABLE STATEMENT BECAUSE WE CANNOT EXPERIENCE NOW THE SUN’S FUTURE RISINGS.

The same problem applies to causality. The statement ‘Event A causes Event B’ may be able to be verified, BUT THERE IS NO LOGICAL CONTRADICTION IN DENYING THAT EVENT A CAUSES EVENT B as there would be in denying 2+2=4. Nor can it be proved empirically because we cannot observe every event A to see if it is followed by event B. Hence it is not a probable statement either.
We make connections due to human nature and human habits where human minds read uniformity into regular repetition and a causal connection between constant conjunctions of events. Despite the temptation to interpret our inferences as “laws” of nature, this practice cannot be justified by rational argument.

HENCE IF WE REALLY GO TO SEE, IT IS ONLY BELIEF (a lively idea related to or associated with a present impression), GUIDED BY CUSTOM THAT LIES AT THE HEART OF OUR CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE RATHER THAN REASON. Hence Science, Hume says, deals with only theories and can never yield a “law of nature”.
This does not mean that inductive inferences are not useful (though not provable). In the absence of a rational justification for inductive inference, custom is a good guide. BUT THE MENTAL HABIT OF CUSTOM SHOULD BE APPLIED WITH CAUTION.

TAKE THE CASE OF THE TWO EXAMPLES GIVEN BELOW:
Case 1 : We can reasonably predict that when we let go of an object it will fall to the ground, because this is what has always happened in the past and there is an obvious connection.

Case 2 : Two clocks set to ring a few seconds apart will chime one after another – but since there is no obvious connection between them, we should not infer that one clock’s chiming is the cause of the other’s.
Criticism of Hume: Ayn Rand observes that if it were possible for an animal to describe the content of its consciousness, the result would be a transcript of Hume’s philosophy. Hume’s conclusions would be the conclusions of a consciousness limited to the perceptual level of awareness, passively reacting to the experience of immediate concretes, with no capacity to form abstractions, to integrate perceptions into concepts, waiting in vain for the appearance of an object called ‘causality’. To negate man’s mind, it is the conceptual level of his consciousness that has to be invalidated. In Post-Renaissance philosophy – the one consistent line, the fundamental that explains the rest is: a concerted attack on man’s conceptual faculty. As Ayn Rand says “the philosophers were unable to refute the Witch Doctor’s claim that their concepts were as arbitrary as his whims and that their scientific knowledge had no greater metaphysical validity than his revelations”.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

A Re-reading of Western Philosophy - 2

Talking about Empiricists and Rationalists - the latter believe that we are born with some ideas and concepts that are innate. Locke rejects this idea and considers Man at birth to be a Tabula Rasa - A blank tablet on which man's experiences writes out whatever knowledge he acquires through his senses.

I feel like agreeing with Locke in this aspect because a human baby (in contrast to the young of other animals) does not seem to have an awareness of what is perilous to its safety. I had read many years back that a small child of about 6 to 8 months tried to grasp at a passing cobra somewhere in Tamil Nadu, India and was repeatedly bitten. It did not seem to have an awareness that a cobra is dangerous. Hence there appear to be no truths available to humans at birth. Further, as has been told by many others, such a presence of ideas would have resulted in UNIVERSAL IDEAS found in people of all cultures at all times. Even the idea of God and divinity is not universal in the sense that it is not held to be true universally by all people at all times. Rather, as I've expressed earlier in my blog, much of mythology varies quite sharply from culture to culture.

At this some people may cite the example of mathematics - that 2+2 is 4 and 7+5 is 12 in India, Peru, Qatar and Greenland. But if you look into it, these truths are the way humans EXPERIENCE the universe in different parts of the world! These basic truths are experiential to begin with and only later is it that reason is applied. But yes! As I said earlier, reason may then proceed on its own steam to discover further mathematical truths, but what I am stressing here is that Man does not seem to be born with innate ideas even though he may have found truths that are universal. These truths are rather derived from the commonality of experience and the common way in which man experiences the universe.

A Re-reading of Western Philosophy - 1

Over thirty years ago, when I was a research student at the Delhi University, I used to browse through various books on Western Philosophy for which I had a passing interest. I seemed to have got familiar with some of the ideas of philosophers like Plato, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza and a few others too, but these ideas were largely lost to me as I had not kept up with my readings and had not nourished the incipient curiosity that I had. Since yesterday I've been re-reading some of these aspects from a very basic book and I now feel like recording my shallow and rambling thoughts in this blog which, in fact, is meant for such a shallow pursuit.

As I was reading the chapter on John Locke I was struck by what the book says about Locke - that all knowledge is gained from experience. As has been explained Locke was a British 'Empiricist' who together with George Berkeley and David Hume generally thought that all knowledge must come directly or indirectly from the experience of the world that we acquire through our senses alone.

This contrasts with the Rationalist philosophers such as Rene Descartes, Benedictus Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz who hold that in principle, at least, it is possible to acquire knowledge solely through reason.

In this sort of debate I am tempted to side with the rationalists because of what I have learnt from the advances in physics in the 20th Century.

For instance, many of the conditions that Einstein visualised in his theories of relativity are never in the ambit of general human experience. We never travel at such high velocities; we never experience such high gravitational fields; we never experience those physical conditions, and yet Einstein and his associates could predict the curvature of space-time around massive bodies. He could predict that starlight would be bent as it travels to the earth by grazing the Sun. Other effects of time distortions are proved in high energy particle accelerators where the decay times of subatomic particles are found to slow down at high velocities.

All these were the fruits of Man's Reason as contrasted with his experiences or sometimes were even counter-intuitive. Even the prediction of the existence of a positron by Paul Andre Maurice Dirac. He used his famous Delta Function to predict the existence of a positron which was detected only later!

So all these instances seem to indicate that humans can glean out knowledge by the use of rational faculties alone.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Dangerous Trends !

The Ted Talk, the link of which is given below, is scary!  Mankind has generated a BUGBOT, a RATBOT, an ELECTRONIC INSECT whose activites can be manipulated - the whole array of 21st century genetic engineering and biotechnology whose implications can be very dangerous for man. I invite you to click on the link below and watch the perilous aspects of modern biological and biotechnological research. Are we really prepared for such a thing? See for yourselves! (Click on the link below)


http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_root_wolpe_it_s_time_to_question_bio_engineering.html



Deepak

Friday, May 6, 2011

Jill Bolte Taylor's Experience of Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev's Experience

Jill Bolte Taylor, a practising neurologist or neurophysician, I am not clear which one, suffered a brain haemorrage. She watched her thoughts and feelings as she progressed deeper and deeper into her affliction. She has recorded in very graphic terms her experiences of the brain haemorrage that she suffered, and as I can presently see there is a remarkable concurrence with the similar experience that Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev had at Chamundi Hills in Mysore. Can we program ourselves to have this experience consciously the way Jaggi Vasudev suggests we can, rather than the purely accidental way in which Jill Bolte Taylor experienced it?

For an exhilarating trip down consciousness, even if caused by a lesion please click the mouse on the link below (ALLOW A MINUTE FOR THE PROGRAM TO LOAD)

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html


Deepak Bellur

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action | Video on TED.com

Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action Video on TED.com

Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse | Video on TED.com

Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse Video on TED.com

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Dangers of Ideological Gatekeepers !



Just yesterday (May 4th 2011) I was viewing a very interesting site called TED TALKS which presents eloquent speakers who have examined in some depth some quirky aspects of the world around us and are so enthused to share their findings with the public, that they use this platform to present their ideas in concise talks that could range in time from five to twenty minutes. TED stands for ‘Technology. Entertainment. Design’ and not, as I had mistakenly thought, a forum sponsored by someone called Ted.

Yesterday’s Ted Talk that I viewed was by a guy called Eli Pariser and was titled ‘Beware Online Filter Bubbles’. It referred to what is innocently being done by computer algorithms, what otherwise humans do more insidiously and directly in an almost callous way.

Pariser yesterday was talking about how search engines like Google, Yahoo and even other internet sites like Facebook use algorithms that are designed with the innocent objective of being more efficient, but end up dangerously filtering out data that may be of critical significance to the user. These internet sites are designed to collect information from the keystrokes or mouse-clicks that a person makes and use that information to build up your on-line personality, and depending on the sites you would have visited or the ideological leanings of the friends whose personalities have similarly been built up and on whom you would have most often clicked, present only such data that the program presupposes by its programmed logic, you would definitely be most interested in.

Pariser found that on Facebook, his strongly progressive and liberal intellectual leanings, gradually eliminated his more conservative contacts from being presented.  Similarly search engines like Google and Yahoo probably would not care to present a carefully considered ‘conservative viewpoint’ if you have built up a liberal on-line personality, even if in actuality and in real life you would probably have liked to consider that viewpoint.

Pariser rightly says that around the year 1915 newspapermen, because of the sheer volume of material seeking to be published, became active gatekeepers for the twentieth century to ensure that only worthy ideas fit to be publicized were chosen to be published. Almost a hundred years later and presently, for the twenty-first century, search engines and other internet programs are becoming digital and algorithmic gatekeepers and are threatening to polarize the world by unwittingly filtering out data from a user’s consideration on the basis of ‘efficiency of search’.

It may not be too evident and we may not even acknowledge it, but every human functions as a gatekeeper and selectively rejects and throws out ideas that may not suit his current personality. Even I have been guilty of such a thing.  Till about seven to eight years ago I prided myself to have rationalistic leanings and would have scrupulously avoided picking up a book like ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Paramahamsa Yogananda or ‘Living with the Himalayan Masters’ by Swami Rama. Back then, if I happened to read an article on Sai Baba like ‘God on a phone line’ by Sheela Reddy or ‘Holy Smoke and Mirrors’ by Rahul Singh or ‘That Irrational High’ by Ajith Pillai, (all articles in OUTLOOK magazine dated May 9th 2011) I would feel a sort of contempt arising in me for those poor credulous blighters who were so gullible as to be fooled by the wily godmen. Then the inevitable thing happened. Even I happened to experience one of ‘those ones’ and I was converted. Now when I read these articles I am confused why the Universe is designed in a way as to confuse people! I feel like asserting that there are some genuine people among these miracle-workers. While it may be true that a substance looking like vibhuthi may be able to be produced by a frame of aluminium and mercuric chloride in the presence of moisture, I feel like questioning what if the miracle-worker is not using this means? What if there is a genuine alternative method that does not use these chemicals. To put it in rational terms - while it is possible to produce vibhuthi type of material out of aluminium and mercuric chloride and water vapour, it does not logically eliminate other ways of producing it - perhaps even using an apparently miraculous process. To take the investigation a step further, it may be useful to analyse the vibhuthis produced by the two processes and compositions compared for Al, Hg, (OH) and so on.

It was only then that I started to even consider reading those books that I had scrupulously avoided buying. On reading some of these books, the latest one being ‘Apprenticed to a Himalayan Master’ by Sri M, I feel that it is a great tragedy that genuine experiences of many people who have related their true tales in all earnestness and sincerity are at worst not being read at all by large sections of the human society, or in the outside chance that they are read, these writers of genuine human experience are totally brushed aside by people who are so impressed by the obviously stupendous success and impact or rationalism and science. Often genuine human experience is brushed away as hallucinations. But then two persons cannot be privy to the same hallucination. And I have been witness to two such events that were a common experience shared by others.

It is time we stop acting like ideological gatekeepers and start examining what the other section of the society has to say. If only one has the openness to read the books written by the other section, they would learn of the amazing things that exist in this Universe.

Given below is a link to the interesting TED Talk on Filter Bubbles:

Monday, March 21, 2011

Some People are like this too !

At the outset itself I say that I am writing this post to convey the extremely pleasant experience I had at the Karnataka Bank Ltd. in Jayanagar 3rd Block west branch of Bangalore. It is not very often that you come out of a bank or a public office feeling pleasant, but this was an exception. My wife and I went to this bank last Tuesday to transact some business. We happened to contact a person whose name I vaguely caught as Prakash. He is a bespectacled man, somewhat thickset and of middling height by Indian standards and with receding wispy hair and has thick eyebrows. When we encountered him he was extremely busy attending to various tasks and he politely offered us two chairs. As soon as he could get some respite in a couple of minutes, he asked us the purpose of our visit. We told him. He immediately busied himself on the task by keying in a set of queries onto the computer and even as he was attending to it, the telephone on his taable rang. Some customer had made a call seeking some clarifications and he meticulously explained all the facts related to the caller's query with earnestness and placed back the receiver. Soon he got back to our work when there was another call from someone else. Business calls on the telephone require more attention as they are not present on the premises to assess that there could be other tasks that the officer could be engaged with. Consequently he attended to the second call too. Later he got back to our task and the telephone rung yet again. This time the call was for someone else in the bank and he transferred the call to the relevant person and told him by calling out his name.

As I was seated before him I found him not only attending to all the telephone calls that came to the bank but also efficiently attending to the job we had assigned him to the best of his ability. I found him to be extremely involved in his work and was admirably cheerful and calm. Towards the end of our transactions we had to collect three bank certificates. Usually it is the case that they ask you to come on another day to collect them, but Prakash was so considerate that he pleaded with his reluctant colleague to hand over the certificates failing which, he told the other person, "... or they would have to come all the way here just for this."

Seeing his excellent attitude to work in sharp contrast to my own nature, before returning I paid him generous compliments from my heart. "We had excellent service from you! Thank you very, very much!!" I told him beaming, and not feeling satisfied with the compliments I had paid him, I thanked him yet again. He jus smiled and nodded his head.

Actually, there was a fourth certificate which was to be opened three days hence on Friday. So I had to visit the Bank yet again on Friday. He just couldn't recognise me even though I had visited the Bank barely three days ago. He was as courteous as ever and on the job with extreme concentration and attention. He asked me the purpose of my visit and I told him. Again he was as eager to satisfy my banking requirements but this time he again needed his reluctant colleague's cooperation. As his colleague was quite reluctant to respond to his pleadings I said that I would visit the bank again on the following Monday. (Actually this is the sort of experience one has in public offices in India). Prakash looked quite apologetic and concerned but without much furore he asked me to return on Monday.

Now the purpose of my writing this entry in the blog is that I find Prakash's nature extremely admirable. Though I had lavished him with generous praise and appreciation he was never carried away by it. An ordinary soul like me would have marked out the man who praised him because praise doesn't come easily in India. While people are quick to complain for any deficiency, praise is very, very rarely showered on a person who genuinely merits it.  It is hence quite natural to remember a person who gives praise. But Prakash just keeps doing his duty with sincerity and ease and doesn't seem to hanker for praise or recognition and like a yogi, acknowledges it and moves on.

Today (Monday 21st March) I again found that he scarcely recognised me, but as always, was eager to satisy his customers.

Monday, March 14, 2011

My friend the dentist - 2

As I said earlier, this dentist friend of mine had set up his practice at Sajjan Rao Circle, Vishweshwarapuram, Bangalore. Being somewhat indigent he couldn't afford the costs of advertisements to publicise his practice. So he hit upon a method that was cheap and effective.

Those days, in the early seventies, the BTS (Bangalore Transport Service) bus route 11 used to ply from Gandhi Bazaar to Malleshwaram and pass through Sajjan Rao Circle. The bus would be packed liked sardine cans at the starting point Gandhi Bazaar itself with commuters who were largely office goers in the central parts of Bangalore. Dr Ramdev would recruit the services of two of his friends who were also his admirers and acolytes to board the bus and seat themselves at a strategic point in the bus. Later the bus would be crowded to the hilt, and as the bus started, his two friends would begin a somewhat loud conversation. As most of the bus commuters would be strangers to each other and there would be somewhat of a silence in this bus as these two would converse with a few jokes and interesting anecdotes that would mildly grasp the attention of all those standing around them.

Slowly the discussion would shift to matters of health and in a few more moments, just at at strategic time before the bus was to pass Sajjan Rao Circle, the topic would shift to dental problems. The commuters around the two seated youths would be listening with passive interest.

"By the way, Ramesh," one would tell another, "I don't know if you've ever tried Dr. Ramdev at Sajjan Rao Circle for your dental problems?"

"I've heard a lot about him but I've never had a chance to visit him as I've no dental problems", Ramesh would reply.

"A few months back I had an abscess of the tooth and I had a chance to visit him", the first would say, "I found him very competent and his rates were very reasonable!"

"Perhaps he is a young new doctor with some ideals !" the second would interject.

All the commuters standing around them and even those seated in the rows in the front and behind would be listening with growing curiosity.

"When I found his rates were so reasonable, I took my mother for a root-canal treatment and he did it so painlessly that my mother was so satisfied." he would continue. "For the rates he charges he seems to be one of the best!"

"Where is his shop in Sajjan Rao Circle?" the second would ask.

"I'll show you as this bus passes by," the first would reply.

And as the bus approached Sajjan Rao Circle and just before it passed the shop the first youth would wildly point to his equally eager looking friend "See! See! That shop with the grey door and the board 'Aryadanta Clinic' - That is Dr. Ramdev's clinic!"

And all the silent commuters standing around and even those seated would stoop to see the 'famed' clinic through the windows!!

My friend the dentist

This friend of mine Dr. Ramdev was of a different sort. In the early 1970s he was a rather sharp and enterprising fellow of about 22 years who had just graduated with a degree in dentistry from Bangalore. He founded a dental clinic and named it 'Aryadanta Dental Clinic' in a small premises taken on rent in a business locality of Bangalore called Sajjan Rao Circle. He was from the middle-middle classes and as a result found it very tough to arrange for the wherewithal to start his practice. He somehow convinced another friend of his who went by the name Shiva and happened to be affluent and had quite a lot of funds and was interested in investing his money in some business.  Dr. Ramdev convinced Mr. Shiva to start a business that supplies dental equipment and that both of them could be partners with Dr. Ramdev giving the know-how of the business and Mr. Shiva investing the funds.  So both of them in a partnership buy a whole lot of stuff from dental equipment wholesalers at wholesale rates and set up a shop in the premises of Mr. Shiva and call it 'Brokentooth Dental Suppliers' (to wit). Dr. Ramdev  has essentially got them to buy stuff that he would be needing over the next few years as Shiva is totally ignorant of the dental business and is rather unaware of what moves fast and what margins of profit are involved.  Shiva imagines that Ramdev would advise him adequately from time to time in the business as a sort of goodwill in friendship.  So we have that Dr. Ramdev of 'Aryadanta Dental Clinic' places an oral order with 'Brokentooth Dental Suppliers' to supply some dental equipment to 'Aryadanta Dental Clinic' on a credit basis. The material is supplied without any proof of delivery and some time later when Shiva asks Dr. Ramdev for the payment from Aryadanta Dental Clinic for the equipment and material he has supplied, Ramdev defaults on the payment over such a long period of time that Shiva considers filing a suit in a court. Ramdev manages to convince Shiva that his intentions were not to cheat after all, and if he has the audacity to presume such inconceivable things in a close friendship, why, he was willing to buy him off in the partnership.  Shiva tries his best to sell off as much of the remaining material that is lying with  'Brokentooth Dental supplies but Dr. Ramdev just handles the pricing for the material and the clientele looking for the merchandise in such devious ways that they just cannot find a suitable client to buy the material. Finally, tiring of the whole sordid experience, Shiva sells off his partnership in the business to Dr. Ramdev at a throwaway price.

It was after this deal that another friend of mine, let us say Dr. Suresh, who just graduated as a dentist, sought to place an order for a brand new dentist chair and drill with 'Brokentooth...'   Dr. Ramdev inveigled this raw new dentist Dr. Suresh to pay a hefty sum for the equipment he required and supplied a second-hand set of equipment that he just purchased at just the right time from another dentist who was selling off his equipment in order to migrate to the USA.

When Dr. Suresh realised that he was grossly overcharged and supplied inferior second-hand equipment to boot, he complained bitterly to Dr. Ramdev

"What a sad thing Ram! You even cheated a man who totally trusted you!!"

"If you don't cheat a man who trusts you, can you possibly ever conceive of cheating a man who doesn't trust you?!" he replied tersely.

The next post will have more about the way he advertised his practice.

Ironies of Fate - 1

Most Indians believe in reincarnation. Many  Indians also venture out into the outer world in search of Gurus who we believe will guide us to a final destination where this piece of life that I call 'Me' merges or unifies with the Divine in a way that this 'Me' has everything I can possibly wish to have. For instance, having merged with the Divine, I'll have all the knowledge of the whole Universe that Physics could ever find out; I'll have all the knowledge of all Mathematical structures of thought that somehow seems to pervade the fabric of the Universe; I'll have total knowledge of all the machinations that have gone on in the mind of every man and woman since the origin of Man (and of course, the good things too!); I'll have a knowledge of how life originated, its purpose and so on. And if my needs to unify with the Divine were only restricted to knowledge - I would find that very limiting. I would also love to have the experience of the totality of humanity - what it means to intensely crave for caviar, and of course the experience of how a person shapes and cultivates his mind to like caviar or cockroaches or dogs or rats or anything for that matter. I'd like to have the TOTAL HUMAN EXPERIENCE! But then why restrict it to humans only? Why not have the the total experience of tapeworms and fleas and mosquitoes too!? And the birch, the elms and rose plant? Surely the Divine has all of these and He also has an experience of what it feels to be God. Now all these I desire. And in the pursuit of this I've ventured out in search of a Guru who promises to give us enlightenment.

In this pursuit, I've found the teachings of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev very promising. Yet I have a basic question that is nagging me. Sadhguru was born in 1959 at Mysore in the Karnataka state of India. Say in the year 2125 A.D., Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is reborn say in Sangli, Maharashtra in India and is christened Jayanth Kaakodkar. Let us say he is given just an average Hindu religious upbringing that is not too spiritual but is weakly god-fearing as most of us have been given. Say in the course of his early life he is a very poor student and is frequently thrashed by his parents and is humiliated in front of his relatives. Let us assume that his yearning to come first in the class intensify to an extent that he regularly prays to god for blessing him with the first rank. Let us assume that despite his best prayers he comes in the bottom 5% of his class though he sincerely wishes that he be able to study with all his best efforts but just cannot do it because he can scarcely comprehend what is going on in the class. Let us say that this sort of thing has happened because he has been made to jump four grades and with the consequent lack of a good foundation, he just cannot grasp what is going on in class. So when he finds that despite all his prayers and his best intentions to do well at studies, let us say he continues to suffer humiliation till he grows up to be a teenager of 16 or 17 years.

And let us say around this time (2152 AD) Jayanth Kaakodkar gets to be influenced by writers like Bertrand Russell and Karl Marx and all the thinkers who foster his agnosticism initially and others like Camus and the like who promote his atheism at a later stage. His own experiences too have largely convinced him that his most ardent prayers are largely unanswered and as a consequence he has profound doubts whether God exists. Let us say Jayanth turns a strong atheist.

Assume Jayanth Kaakodkar has worse experiences as an atheist and he feels that his bad experiences as a lukewarm believer was much better than his experiences as an atheist! And let us say that in addition he has some mystical experiences that convinces him that the "phenomena in the world are too strange for our simple philosophies". Let us say Jayanth Kaakodkar around the year 2160 AD (i.e. when he is around 35 years old) turns a 'seeker' rather than a 'believer'. And assume around the year 2165 AD (when Jayanth Kaakodkar is around 45 years) he comes across the teachings of a certain Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev who was born almost 200 years ago and he is ravished by his teachings.

Let us say, since most of his friends are atheists, he very cautiously and very warily breaks it out to them saying "Hey guys! You know what?  I came across these writings of a certain Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and I find his writings very attractive and I'm thoroughly impressed !!"

Could Jayanth Kaakodkar in 2165 who was Jaggi Vasudev in 1999 be advertising his own works unconsciously?

Which reminds me how a friend of mine who was a fledging dentist in Bangalore in the 1970s used to operate ...  (see next post)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Stories - The glue that holds societies - 7

All this bring me to an incident related in a book by Deepak Chopra:

It appears an American anthropologist was once visiting some tribe deep in the Amazon Jungles. As he was sitting with the Shaman or the witch doctor of the village, a tribal arrived complaining of a severe tooth and gums pain. On examining the patient it was found that the patient was suffering from a severe tooth abscess. The Shaman thence ventured to tie a thin long thread to the infected tooth and let the other end of the thread on the table. Presently a series of ants came marching out of the tooth down the thread and soon the tribal villager announced that his pain had vanished!

The question I want to raise is why is such a treatment not universal? I'm sure the same method would not be tried in India. The practices that effect a cure in say, Tibet, does not work in say, Sweden. If cures for symptoms are culture specific, then is the cause of the disease too culture specific? Can what cause a diseased condition in India and to an Indian exempt an American? All such aspects have to be considered. Sadly, one section of the society totally ignores the concerns of another section of the society. In my Bhajan group, many of whom are engineers and have been raised on a nutritious diet of science, mouth opinions totally against science without pausing to consider the huge benefits that Science has brought all of us.

At the same time, if I were to draw the attention of a group of scientists to the above incident of an Amazonian Shaman in a book by Deepak Chopra, these individuals would start questioning the credentials of Deepak Chopra who is a qualified doctor in the western system of medicine. Rationalists have profound suspicions of mystics who may be totally sincere about their own experiences, and if everyone were to really approach the other with an open mind, I'm sure humanity would benefit from the total human experience.

I would like to conclude by relating another incident that was mentioned in one of Deepak Chopra's books. It seems again in a South American jungle an explorer from another continent, while attempting to scale a cliff, had a treacherous fall and was very badly wounded. They transported him to a nearby village on a make-shift stretcher as he was in great pain. He was led by a shaman to a hut and laid there. Soon the shaman lit a small fire and put some herbs and the hut was filled with smoke. The villagers rumbled the drums in a sonorous beat, and the smoke caused the injured man to fall into a deep slumber. When he woke up after a long time, he found himself to be alone in the hut and found that he was cured of the wounds. He got up silently and left the place.

Now what do you guys make of all this?

Stories - The glue that holds societies - 6

That brings me to a very significant incident. In 2007 I along with the group had gone to visit a place called Kuruvanthpura. This is a place in northern Karnataka about 40-50 km from Raichur. This place is actually an island in the Krishna River and the west bank of the river is in Karnataka and the east bank of the river is in Andhra Pradesh. We drove from Raichur up to the river bank in a mini bus. At the river we got into many coracles which accommodate about five persons each. On crossing the river to the island, one is to walk for about a kilometer to reach the temple. The temple is supposed to be a very ancient one and one of the incarnations of Dattatreya - Sripada Srivallabha, was supposed to have sanctified this place in the eleventh or the twelfth century. We stayed there in the island for three days observing various spiritual practices. It was here that a curious incident took place.

As a small digression for those unfamiliar with Hindu mythology, I have to mention that Hindu mythology recognises the existence of 330 million gods, but the entire creation, sustenance and the final destruction of the Cosmos is credited to the Trinity that comprise of  Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver), and Shiva (the Destroyer). In the beginning there was only Avyactha, or 'The inexpressible' . In this emptiness, Lord Vishnu (The Preserver) appeared in the form of a child, lying on the leaf of a banyan tree. As soon as he appeared in this form, his mind was filled with doubts about his identity. His questions were then answered by an unmanned voice- the voice of the supreme soul (Brahma), which is his true form. It asked him to meditate upon his soul, which he did, and a thousand petaled lotus emerged from his navel, in which, Brahma appeared. And it was Brahma who created the entire universe and all that is in it. It is to be noted that the three, considered as the Supreme Trinity in Hinduism, are not three separate gods, but three manifestations of the same Supreme soul, The Brahman.

Lord Vishnu is said to recline and sleep while floating on the cosmic waters of consciousness on the huge serpent called Sesha. In the Hindu texts called Puranas, Sesha holds all the planets of the universe on his hoods and constantly sings the glories of Vishnu from all his mouths.

This much of Indian Mythology had to be related by me to continue upon the incident.

While we were at Kuruvanthpura, we used to bathe in the mornings, in the Krishna River that flowed beside the temple. One day as the group was bathing, Shanthamma started hollering that a big hooded snake was coming at her. None of us could see a thing, but the huge serpent is supposed to have pushed her from behind, even as a few women who were around her held her as she fell. In a panic she flayed her arms wildly and clutched at the air, and as the women around held her, they noticed that she was clasping a silvery idol of Vishnu lying on the serpent Sesha.

This is what strikes me as curious. If it were pure hallucination, how do you explain the physical and very much material presence of the silvery idol? Where did it spring up from?  If the materially real idol came into her wildly flaying and clasping hands, could she have really seen a large serpent? If she could see it why not us? Further the story of Vishnu and Sesha is essentially an Indian myth. Why do these Indian religious motifs happen only in India? Why aren't they universal? Or are they? Why do the motifs of the mythologies vary from country to country and civilisation to civilisation? If these still happen in the 21st Century when the world is a global village, is there any significance that myths peculiar to a region are affirmed even by occult events?

Stories - The glue that holds societies - 5

The things that would materialise would fascinate all of us. At some meeting it would be a Shiva ice linga made of sweetened frozen milk; at another it would be that a flame would be burning in a Sai Baba image and the image would have a rudraksha seed plastered into it; at times a plate would be filled with cashew, almonds, raisins and pistachio; elsewhere silver rupee coins of the British era in India would suddenly be seen together with other coins with divine images. Honey would be a very frequent product. One couldn't predict what would come up, and all of us would be very eager to see what would spring up at a congregation.



As our association became more intense, the group began organising visits to Shirdi and to various other Guru Sthans (Places of Guru worship) in India. At such tours, invariably something spectacular would happen. At Pithapuram in Andhra Pradesh in 2008, a wooden arm-rest used by hermits in India (a contraption made of wood with a two foot vertical rod having a broad cup like structure to rest the elbow while squatting on the ground; See photograph on left)  and a cloth bag sprang up out of nowhere. Shanthamma was advised to hand over those items to two unmarried girls who were in the group.


Once at Shirdi, a two foot long sword shaped chrome steel object with a ring materialised (see photo on right). The object had nine holes in it, which was supposed to have a deep symbolic meaning. Shanthamma was advised by Swamy (Sai Baba) that she was to observe a particular Sadhana for a period of forty days with that object. Subsequently, if anyone who was plagued with a lot of difficulties requested her for help, she was to place the object over the body of the candidate at various places in a manner prescribed and that it would provide great relief to the sufferer over time.



Last year (2010) when the group was visiting a place called Ganagapura in northern Karnataka, Swamy presented Shanthamma with a bundle wrapped in a red cloth. Swamy told her that inside the bundle was His seat and ornaments and clothes. On opening the bundle she found a tightly packed square piece of tiger's skin with rudrakshas (ornaments of Swamy), cloth pieces and sacred ash. (See photo left)


The Rationalists of Bangalore famously used to assert that the things that would materialise were only of the size that could be hidden within sleeves of a shirt or a scarf. But I vouchsafe that the lady wore only a tight fitting short-sleeved blouse and when we went out from our rooms to the temple she carried nothing that could conceal such large things. Further who would ever conceive of such strange objects like the sword-shaped rod shown above or even the wooden arm-rest?

However, I would like to mention that as I seem to understand it, these events are some things that happen to her, and it seems as if they are beyond her conscious control. She can't seem to will it consciously. Perhaps the energies around her cause such events but without her being able to guide it in a given direction.

               (To be continued ... )

Stories - The glue that holds societies - 4

It was around this time in 2003 that my wife's cousin wed. When my wife chose to accompany the groom (assume his name to be Anant) from his house to the marriage hall in a bus that was arranged by the girl's side, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the groom's mother-in-law (assume her name to be Shanthamma) was a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba too, and that the bride's parents had adorned the interior of the bus with a large image of Sai Baba. There were Sai Baba Bhajans (Hindu devotional songs) playing on the record player too. A few months after the wedding, my wife's aunt informed my wife that Shanthamma, in one of the gatherings at her cousin's house had suddenly materialised a figurine of Shirdi Sai Baba and presented it to her cousin. Soon Shanthamma's talent of materialising things spread around the families of all our relatives.

It was precisely at that time when I saw this middle-class lady with no ambitions of fame or glory, leading just an average life in one of the non-descript parts of Bangalore, it convinced me about the genuineness of such phenomenon. I agree that I didn't subject her to the rigorous scrutiny that a strong sceptic would subject such things to. To me that was unnecessary. To me the plain truth was evident in the very nature of those circumstances, and I felt I could trust her. We invited her home one day for lunch with a view to honor her, and as the lunch was being served and the kheer (dish made of sweetened milk) was being poured into the diners' cups, the lady (Shanthamma) told my wife "Please check up the kheer cup, Swamy has come !" (Swamy is a deferential term for a Guru and she meant her Guru Shirdi Sai Baba)

True enough, in the cup were what in India is referred to as Padukas (miniature footwear models considered to be a blessing from a Saint) made of white metal. Later that day, in a private meeting with her, she materialised a figurine of Sai Baba in my presence.

Meanwhile, it had so happened that my brother-in-law who was living in the U.S. was felled by severe rheumatoid arthritis that left the joints of his body painful and swollen. His health began deteriorating steadily and he had to resort to very potent allopathic medicines. Over a period of time these medicines wreaked havoc with his serum parameters and he became wan and haggard. He quit his job and decided to return to India.  The doctors in the U.S. had warned him that should he happen to quit the medications prescribed, his condition would worsen drastically. But the drugs were playing havoc with his other health paramters.

On returning to India, he happened to meet Shanthamma who advised him a few spiritual practices to follow. Before he returned home, she asked him to place both his palms adjacent to each other facing upward, cupped adequately to receive whatever material that happens to appear. It so happened that his cupped hands were filled to overflowing with udhi (sacred ash), padukas, cardamom, nutmeg, rudrakshas and the such. She also advised him to mix a small portion of the sacred ash in a cup of water and ingest it daily. Simultaneously he also happened to consult a homoeopathic doctor who recommended that the strong drugs be suspended forthwith. With all these steps being taken, his serum parameters gradually revived and the severity of the rheumatoid arthritis gradually reduced to a great extent. Presently, he is free of all allopathic medication, and though he still suffers from an arthritic condition, his health has revived to an extent where he has returned to the U.S.

Our association with this lady who is a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba increased because of having seen such phenomena and over a period of time a Bhajan group (Hindu devotional songs) was formed and we have witnessed various forms of the occult manifesting at these congregations.

                     (To be continued ...)

Stories - The glue that holds societies - 3

The years from 1985 to 1988 were spent in a partial belief of the existence of God, and I ventured to adopt a few practices that would strengthen a spiritual experience. But nothing at all happened and my doubts again became stronger. It was in 1988 that I befriended a liberal atheist, who though born a Christian, was not a practicing Christian. Being of an amicable type and of a somewhat generous nature, he had undertaken to encourage some people who badly needed his moral support. He had even taken a little bit of their financial burden upon himself and aided them monetarily. This friend was a bulwark to me over a period of many years in times of my most intense crises, and seeing him to be quite an honorable person despite being an atheist, and since my own inclinations were that way too, I was quite sceptical of the existence of the so-called supernatural phenomena and of God. By and large I fully trusted the methods of science which bases its nourishment on rationalism and empiricism, although by that time I had an incipient doubt that our senses cannot be totally trusted. I had experienced certain states that the doctors to whom I ventured to relate had labelled hallucinatory. So I was not too sure about the one hundred percent reliability of my own senses of perception.

It was largely in this state of unbelief that I spent the years from 1988 to 1998. In 1999 I again had a set of experiences that could be called strange, and from then on till about 2003, I was in a vascillating state of mind. All the while after my marriage in 1996, my wife had remained an ardent devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba (a Saint of India who seemed to have encouraged all religions), and true to my form, I used to make fun of her beliefs. Nor was I a believer in astrology nor in any of the ritualistic practices of my religion. However from around 2001, I started reading the biography of Shirdi Sai Baba. The first reading left me rather unimpressed, but I gradually found a need in me to bow down to his image that was there in the room which was placed there by my wife.

In the year 2003, my sister-in-law happened to visit an astrologer in Bangalore who reputedly gave her quite an accurate reading of her circumstances. By that time, my curiosities in the occult had been sufficiently aroused to prompt me enough to test him out. So I made my wife consult him with her birth charts only to assess for my own curiosity how much these people could divine out of a person's birth chart.

I was quite surprised that the astrologer just by seeing her birth chart told that she was married to a man who was the only son to his parents (true) and whose other sibling was a sister (true). He also told my wife that my sister lived far away in another country (true) and that she had a daughter and a son (true). He further told her the nature and the temperment of my father quite accurately. He further told her that we were living on a premises that we owned and not rented (true).  He also told her that she had no children (true). With him predicting so many thing so accurately without ever having met her before, I was quite impressed.

With experiences like these I found my faith in the occult becoming stronger and stronger.

                      (To be continued ...)

Stories - The glue that holds societies - 2

As a preparation to narrate the story I am interested in relating, I have to briefly summarise that I was a lukewarm believer in God in my childhood days and that I was not raised with too much of a religious background. I viewed the religious festivals that my family used to observe when I was a kid as a happy break from the routine (the schools would thankfully be closed during those days) and as an opportunity to eat delicious dishes that were specially cooked only on those days. My favorite festivals were the Ganapathi festival when we would go around the whole neighborhood raiding houses to see the decorations of the god Ganapathi that people had done, and also for the eatables that they would distribute. Then there was the Dussera which again was a festival of displaying dolls of various kinds - some of which were even imported, and then of course the Divali - the grand festival of lights and firecrackers. My view of these festivals were hardly devotional, and was one of pure enjoyment.

Since my prayers were largely unanswered (I would pray quite intensely that I do well in studies) and due to the consequent stress that I had to go through, I started developing an incipient doubt whether God did really exist. Later, as I left my home at Bangalore to pursue my studies at Delhi, the readings that I did (authors like Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus, Nietzsche, Sartre, and other authors with Marxist leanings) removed any traces of doubt that God did not exist. Most of my friends were also atheists.

It was in 1983 that I faced a period of intense trauma, stress and anxiety that led to a rather precarious health condition. Under such circumstances, in 1984, I was given a field assignment with a devout believer in God. I used to have elaborate discussions with him and all the time I used to be a champion of the methods of science and of rationalism. I would disparage all things held sacred by him, and even disparage things sacred to my own religion. As I spent more and more time with him, I happened to notice a series of remarkable coincidences that were rather striking to my understanding. Over a period of time these coincidences became so prominent that I started feeling he had some divine power. But the fact is that he was innocent of any wilful manifestation of those coincidences and that is when I came to suspect things of an occult nature that are not always observable to all. But on returning to Bangalore from the field, I again returned to my rationalistic methods. However, by this time I was not too sure.

                                (To be continued ...)

Stories - The glue that holds societies - 1

Many people know the value of stories - they serve to form a glue that holds a society together. And now that the entire world is a global village - 'one society' - we should make all efforts to exist harmoniously despite differences in the disparate parts of its body.  It may be high time that we began sharing our stories. We need to do this with a great sense of urgency so that we understand and have genuine empathy for each other and consequently establish a harmony that increasingly seems to be threatened in the world of today.

The stories of the 20th Century were largely stories of the grandeur of Science and haven't they been truly impressive! They have had a large scale impact on the way humankind relates to the universe, and this relation, as Man has found out to his detriment, is causing some sort of an anxiety. Think of the 20th Century philosophies spurred on by the advancements in science and the impact it has had on society -  like some pessimistic strains in Existentialism. Think of the theory of the Absurd and the various forms of literature they engendered - especially in plays and in some sorts of fiction. The estrangement that Mankind found itself in relation to the universe in which it was placed, have also been captured in many films too - like those of Tarkovski, others like The Clockwork Orange, Passenger and so many others that I find difficult to list out here. In fact, they all represent stories that humans told each other about the state of the world in the 20th Century.

All one has to do to confirm that the general happiness quotient of humanity has taken a steep dive is to compare the paintings of say, the Dutch School of the 17th Century, specially of Jan Vermeer, Meindert Hobbema, Ruisdale and Frans Hals or even of the French School like Claude Lorrain or Jean Simeon Chardin or Jean Camille Corot and the 18th C English School represented by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough  and juxtapose it with those of the 20th Century like those of Braque and Gaugin. The very hues of the colors chosen itself seem to lower my moods. In contrast, in my house I have two prints of the lively  paintings of the former type - one depicting a happy peasant family and the other portraying an eager young woman with her spritely dog, who has dismounted a horse, expectantly knocking on a door (of her lover?). These paintings celebrate life the way it was meant to be enjoyed. It is certainly more optimistic than the pessimistic depictions of the modern day.

 If you grant it that art tells the story of humanity, then the paintings of the 17th and 18th C seem to tell the story of a happy humanity. Some painters render pictures of a merry humanity, but already in them, you see signs of decay. I invite you to see some prints of Rembrandt.

These stories that the painting of the 17th and 18th C reflect, are of a society not fully corrupted by the Industrial Revolution. With the ascent of science and technology, other stories that cover the realm of an entirely different aspect of humanity has been much ignored and sadly even discredited and in the next few posts I'll try to present some incidents in my life that seek to draw attention that these aspects deserve to be considered too.

                         (To be continued ...)

Saturday, January 29, 2011

My Stint in a Government Organisation

To describe my stint in a government organisation, I fear I cannot do it more succinctly than what I picked up from a book of Murphy's Laws:

 MORE AND MORE TIME IS SPENT ON REPORTING ABOUT THE LESS AND LESS THAT YOU ARE DOING;

PERFECT STABILITY IS ACHIEVED WHEN YOU SPEND ALL YOUR TIME REPORTING ON THE NOTHING THAT YOU ARE DOING!

Something of that sort has been cleverly captured in a Dagwood Comic Strip:



It reminds me of the inflated talk I would do when it was demanded of me.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Money is not a problem, No?

My wife and I happened to visit a huge mall near our home where they've announced a grand sale for the past week. My wife chose the opportunity to buy a few dresses for herself. On entering the mall we headed straight to the women's section, and as we entered an enclosure where the products of a particularly expensive trade-name were being sold, the salesman accosted us.

I told him that my wife was looking for cotton dresses. The salesman led us to a stack of dresses and asked superciliously:
                 "Money is no problem, No?"
                "To be honest, it's very much of a problem !", I replied.

He was rather disappointed. I realised that it is a trick that these salemen play. Once you say 'It's no problem', you are hamstrung. They show you only the expensive ranges, and having boasted that it is of no consideration, you would only be too eager to prove to him that you can indeed excel his expectations.

Even with the reply that I gave him, he initially kept on displaying only the more expensive labels which is kept well ahead in the front, and he even kept on prompting us that as one leaves the current stack and ventures further inwards, things got only more expensive. He seemed to give the impression that the best bargains were available right there, and it would be a waste of effort to scan further around the shop.

Luckily for me, my wife couldn't find any outfit that was to her liking, and when we went around, we found much more attractive pieces at much better bargains inside.

In these matters it is better for men to rely on women's methods because, men neither seem to have the patience to go around looking for better stuff after they spot something they have fallen for, nor do they have the hardness of heart to reject a persistent salesman who puts on a doleful face as you walk out rejecting all his wares. Women are rather made for it.

Friday, January 21, 2011

The Dangers of Art & Literary Criticism

I should know about this. Specially so after the experience I've been having in the past many days. For years I have not been too sensitive to the feelings and aspirations of people, and true to my zodiac sign, I've lived like a bull in a china shop. It is only in the last few years that my sensibilities to the psychological needs of human beings have been aroused, and there have been brief investigations on my part by looking into my own mind, about what an artist is venturing to do by creating a work of art. Since I am not too well read on the philosophical basis of aesthetics or various past theories on aesthetics, it may well turn out that what I am trying to say is out and out banal. Yet even if it is banal, I am compelled to spell it out clearly at the present moment, because it expresses my most ardent need at the present.

Any work of art, as everyone knows, seeks to express the artist. A dancer performs a well rehearsed dance only in order to please her audience, and what she ardently seeks in return is, first of all, acceptance. And if it is there, she would be gladder if there is praise.  The artist feels somewhat incomplete within himself, and in a desperate bid to seek completeness puts out his product. The very fact that there is a work of art is an indication to all people that there is a person seeking acceptance. The least that the public can do is to give it to him in whatever degree one is capable. It is only after satisfying the initial and most basic level of acceptance, may a genuine praise be given if the artistic piece deserves it, or in the event that it does not deserve it, just leave it at that. Criticism, if it has to happen, could be in the form of 'suggestions' to help improve the technique, or refine the work presented. In fact, a good critic can invest a meaning into a work of art even when an author obviously didn't even intend it! The only negative spin-off that this approach can have is that the author could become terribly self-important and that would be harmful to him.

Quite often, criticism can be quite scathing, and I myself have been guilty of having indulged in such an activity. There have been instances where I have been quite caustic in the past, and it is only in the recent past that I am trying to improve myself.  I draw attention to the fact that the critic too is seeking acceptance - only he is doing that by using the product of another man's soul, rather than present an expression of his own soul. The critic too seeks approval on the grounds that his criticism is 'deep', 'perceptive' , 'innovative' and so on.  Unfortunately, there is not much business in the 'art of criticising a critic', and he usually gets away scot free. A critic get his psychological sustenance when he is discussed and talked about and also when he is quoted, but his product is in a way parasitic, and feeds on another man's soul.

Yesterday I was witnessing what I would have dismissed earlier as a very badly made film. The actors were overacting, the humour was mediocre and crude, and everything was overstated in many aspects. Then again I realised that the author of the film may be trying with all his heart to seek acceptance. If a critic summarily dismisses the piece as 'not worth considering' we may be making a big mistake in humane terms.  A prickly  plant like a rose bush may be ardently seeking to express its beautiful aspects by putting forth a striking crimson flower together with fragrance and nectar, inviting bees to befriend it, but if the bees reject the flower just because the plant has thorns, that would be a travesty against nature. Hence even while criticising a work of art, it is necessary to consider the humane aspects and be subtle and moderate in the criticism.

Each man and each woman is seeking acceptance in this world, and I feel the world would be a much better place if it is given freely without witholding. Then again, what is given should be genuine and presented as truthfully as possible, and in instances where nothing pleasant can be stated without being untruthful, the critic may be advised to restrain himself and keep his opinion to himself.