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Sunday, May 31, 2015

PARENTING FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES

PARENTING FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES-  with the onus of imparting values to children.

As I see it this article throws up many issues than one from a larger perspective.

1.    When we become parents we notice and observe more deeply and keenly, involve in everything with greater commitment, think profoundly, turn more possessive, act carefully and more importantly become too conscious of the chronology of our life etc. In a way we grow into a new human being mostly for the better. So, in a way parenting is one of the great metamorphoses of human life. [A]

2.    We teach many things to children as moral correctness and morally wrong as if they are static and everlasting axiomatic certitudes. We fail to realize that morality is mostly, and rightly so, contextual rather than a set of static rules written down by scriptures, religions, cultures, society etc.  There are no perennial taboos or trends. [B]


3.    Any relationship and the most important aspect of life itself is spontaneous psychological reciprocation or reaction. Deal with children with love and they will reciprocate with love and love a universal and reusable syringe through which one can inject any good value or many nice values for life. [C]   



4.    Parenting is an opportunity to enjoy life with a new relationship by making a matured and pleasant journey with a less aged and less matured person understanding, adjusting to his/her whims and fancies with all the parental concerns and pampering and also assuaging his/her  unhappy moments without preventing him/her  from realizing that unhappiness is also an inevitable part of life, do our best to minimize it by many means but at the same time not totally masking a factual situation or stark reality with our overbearing emotional or sentimental affection, sometimes at the cost of inconvenience to others. [D]

5.    Parenting never stops in the mind of the parent: - initially it is an obsessive occupation with a combination of irritations and interesting things, and then it becomes a routine responsibility, slowly recedes into receptive spectatorship but always remains a relationship working with renewed vigor at every juncture. [E]



6.    All good values like kindness, humaneness, sharing and caring etc must be made to percolate through our actions and interactions with others because the first best means of learning for any child either verbal or action is through imitation and not through preaching or teaching, though they can be used later on. I think practicing these values are more important than exposing children to any religion or ritual because living requires good qualities and values which contribute to good natural habits not necessarily socially accepted practices. This is both psychological process and sociological outcome as very well explained in Micromotives and Macrobehavior by THOMAS C. SCHELLING. He explains how most adults and the whole society actually make imitation into an almost a collective behavior.

“That kind of analysis explores the relation between the behavior characteristics of the individuals who comprise some social aggregate, and the characteristics of the aggregate…. This analysis sometimes uses what is known about individual intentions to predict the aggregates:…. People are responding to an environment that consists of other people responding to their environment, which consists of people responding to an environment of people's responses……. To make that connection we usually have to look at the system of interaction between individuals and their environment, that is, between individuals and other individuals or between individuals and the collectivity.”



7.    Very often parental expectations, enthusiasm, emotions etc coupled with social pressures, approvals and appreciations may end up parents not noticing the inherent attributes i.e. strengths and weaknesses of children and therefore not doing anything to promote or prevent them from manifesting as they ought to in natural course.


8.    Of course, no parent would like to promote or parade a child’s weakness; they may at best minimize or mitigate it. If it is physical attend to it medically and if it is psychological or emotional then at least one parent must spend time and communicate verbally/emotionally/psychologically etc with the child to gradually improve its attitude to minimize such weaknesses. For strengths expose the child to the opportunities that a parent can afford.

So knowing the innate attributes and keying in the important attitudes are vital aspects of parenthood.

9.    Values of life are initially imitated then gradually get inculcated and remain inside the self and it is better that way rather than through indoctrination injected to keep intact any specific cultural, social or religious identity. Ultimately the values that are inherited through imitation initially manifest in or as habits in later years rather than whatever one learns through instruction. As Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina states, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. I would like to state that:- All nice parents have children with nice habits; every child with a nasty habit has a nasty parent invariably.

10.As they grow into adults, of course, if personal responsibility, independence, confidence, clarity of perception etc have also been aspects of value system that as parents we have followed they would know, learn or at least struggle and strive to learn to lead a life.


So as adults our children emerge hatched once again with capabilities to lead a life and also live a life. [F]

Most parents are keener on equipping and therefore preoccupied with the child to lead a good life in terms of the survival aspect of life, they hardly pay attention to the living aspect of living a life happily.

   

                                  [A] http://contentwriteups.blogspot.in/2014/12/parenting.html

                                  [B] MORALITY   






Friday, May 29, 2015

Indian Pseudo Intellects

Please do not credit crooks with the label of intellect.
First why are we using the wrong label who is an intellectual [1], please we must first differentiate from academically qualified, theoretically  knowledgeable, holding positions of eminence, well connected, vociferous, much promoted by certain vested interest groups with clear cut bias because they pander to certain predefined scripts which are sensational and savored by certain lobbies in the political and academic circles all over the world.

These people are good at, pardon me for using the appropriate vocabulary, mental masturbation of certain select ideas and ideologies where the semen secretes in high flown vocabulary.

I am consciously using this vocabulary because they ultimately do not go to create anything except temporary pleasure like an uncontrollable scratching of an itch. They attract more addicts to them.

They love not to bother about polarity principles inherent in nature like good and bad, hot and cold but try to magnify it as a socio-religio-cultural intentional discrimination devised to exploit some blab la.

Their ideological fixation is petrified with their pet identities [2] , their frames of reference when it comes to perception [3] is putrefied, their prejudices are paid, their inferences are influenced by undisclosable sources, their intentions are of mala fide and conclusion are tailor made to please their sponsors.

Most of these so called intellectuals in India are left leaning, and therefore never learning anything liberals.

While polarity principle is inherent in all spheres of life, Some people can never get rid of the old scripts as those types of stereotypical sloganeering get sensational attention, mostly in political and religious domains, namely the slogans on the victim hood versus victor, the poor versus rich, the haves versus the have-nots, the hero-villain etc.

They magnify and mutilate to present the polarity as a difference injected to inflict specific sufferings depending on the targets they want to choose and the result they want to achieve. That's why poverty is a very rich business and victim hood portrayal is lucrative ideology. Actually these peddlers of poverty and illiteracy have ensured to keep poverty intact. Yes a sickening and outdated ideology to be kept in the attic of a museum of fossil genetic samples but it unfortunately permeates into political discussions.
I feel there is lot of wisdom in the following piece which Phenella writes in “The Unwritten Comedy”.

“To be ignorant of many things is expected
To know you are ignorant of many things is the beginning of wisdom.
To know a category of things of which you are ignorant is the beginning of learning.
To know the details of that category of things of which you are ignorant is to no longer be ignorant.”  

On environment there is a huge deficit of perception and approach as people take extreme positions without understanding the simple, superb and sublime reciprocal relationship that we have with the whole environment as we all together are in the process of evolution.

Unfortunately most of us are, more so the types of human beings who like to find answers and solutions only through dry intellectual analysis, fail because we may make wrong frames of references, inadequate observations, including irrelevant things and aspects in the process of evaluation etc and presume that we are super intelligent. [5 &6]



Tuesday, May 26, 2015

what is media ?

What is meant by media?

Fortunately humanity’s greatest boon has been the internet and social media which nail the lies of paid popular media houses.

Any political leader and much less a prime minister’s job is neither to please the select popular media houses nor crave for their opinions.

In fact any PM in India taking select private media persons along with him at government expense is a very fit case for a big scam because it was at the expense of public exchequer.

Giving undue access and importance to these select media houses is also a favoritism in itself that can be termed as scam.

Please realize that popular media is one of the most ill defined platform where anyone with money either of his own or funded from outside can start. It is not necessarily the ones which are popular in print and audio visual arenas.

The greatest achievement of MODI has been to keep all the media houses at bay. I only wish he starts probing the scam I indicated above.



Data and Human Mind

                                                    DATA

Ultimately, data can provide all the SUBSTANCE but cannot infuse the SOUL of interpretations, inferences, interconnectivities, options available, alternatives actions etc like the human mind.

 

Both pro data and anti-data brigade are wrong as they tend to take extreme positions.  Data, like money, is important for the things that it can provide.

 

Excessive dependence, importance and getting carried away by the world of data and AI  must not lead to ignore the importance of many other factors, most of which may emanate from the minds, human minds and from multiple other sources beyond the boundaries of data centric world.

 

Data is a very vital and extremely useful tool for many purposes; I repeat many purposes because it gets its strength from its contributory utility. Trends of worshiping data are fine as very often they are the results of conclusions arrived at due to the ecstasy of revelations of research into reverse engineering.

 

Tweaking anything and everything to create something new or come out with some modified versions of some existing things are both interesting and easiest way to unleash the human creative instinct and draw certain conclusions, but all these have a saturation point.

 

Even in natural evolution certain designs are adopted others discarded based on the adaptive utility of a particular organ at a particular place and period.

 

To get an idea into the whole gamut of how the MIND works, not the physical organ brain, and how many things are shaped by various factors in the evolutionary process which involves almost everything or many things around, within and beyond the ken of human intellect.

 

To get a more comprehensive picture of these issues I wish a more exhaustive list of reference works which are or may be related to this topic like:-

 

1] How the Mind works by Steven Pinker –excellent research work

 

2] The Emperor’s New Mind by Roger Penrose- with high dose of advanced mathematics and excellent explanation of concepts of physics.

 

3] The Seven Mysteries of Life – by Guy Murchie – the most exhaustive book on almost all aspects of evolutionary processes.

 

4] Human Destiny by Le Comte du Nüoy- the biochemical explanation of human destiny

 

5] Works of Richard Dawkins, Neale Donald Walsch etc

 

While a large volume of data can throw up lot of ideas it cannot interpret or suggest proper utilization of those ideas.

 

While a large volume of data can throw up lot of thoughts it cannot do the thinking beyond a certain extent and besides a specified path of predefined command.

 

While a large volume of data can throw up lot of knowledge/information inputs it cannot initiate or ensure to either enhance understanding or can even restrict frames of reference for understanding.

 

While a large volume of data can throw up lot of insights into the working patterns based on permutations it cannot provide the wisdom to choose, as that knowledge comes with churning which life undergoes chronologically in the form of experience.

 

 

Data, like media reports does not sell in anonymity or emanates from and operates in neutrality. Claiming neutrality in the presentation of either is like selling proabortion condoms.

 

Therefore, every data set, in most cases, is presented with a predetermined response.

Monday, May 25, 2015

World Environment Day








As we celebrate The World Environment Day on 5th June we must first ask ourselves what is meant by environment. In what way and how are we related to it or it to us? Are we part of it or is it part of us? Why does it require a special attention? Is it an issue or a problem or a very intrinsic part of our life? And many more such questions arise.


Special days are normally observed to celebrate, to commemorate, to commercialize, to carry out rituals, to call attention to express concern for victims and victors, to cater to express our relationship to specific feelings, persons, issues, problem and so on.



Unfortunately, of lately whenever the word ‘environment’ is mentioned the following collocations are carried like joeys of a flyer [female kangaroo]:-issues, problem, concern, degradation, bio-diversity, sustainable growth etc. why?


Are these trends, the result of our perceptions going through prism of preconceptions with which we see nature? Or are these the result of real damage to human and environment relationship? Or are these a manifestation of concerned caution or candid confessions or hyper reactions?
It may be the result of all of the above or any of the above.

Though for all of us, at least, the word ‘environment’ denotes either the whole or some aspect of nature.

Ronald Harvey in his book ‘Our Fragmented World’ write, “The influence of environment begins long before birth. It begins at the beginning, with our genes. Genes do not exist in vacuo. They are part of their environment as we are to our world. They are as it were ‘sewn into’ their environment as we are to ours. No organism ever develops without an environment. It is not inheritance per se but the interaction between inheritance and environment where the responsibility must be placed”. “So our world and ourselves are one, we and our world form part of an organic whole”

So environment is not an issue it is part of our tissue.

It is not a problem but a magnified emblem of elements of which the whole biochemical organism of human body lives.

If we etymologically trace the word to its remotest origin it is from the Old French ‘en’[in]+‘Viron [circle] i.e. things that “environ” us, that encircle or surround us. So originally the whole of nature before human species made different enclosures.

So, it is human nature to look up to nature but humane culture to look after nature. Slogans appeal to everyone than sermons or scientific facts.

In the course of evolution, everything and everyone interacted either consciously or otherwise either with or without the awareness that everything and everyone are interconnected. Vagaries of nature and vicissitudes of human life have both contributed to changes to the environment.

Ancient traditions wonder at nature; some religions worshiped nature; civilization made man work and use it for his comforts; modern technological and economic advancement excessively use it.

In the process of evolution human beings realized that while mentally mighty they were physically weak so to live acclimatizing in naked nature was becoming difficult. Therefore, he started using the natural resources for his shelter, security, comfort etc.

Human population explosion and the concomitant need and greed made him over use nature and this has led to an imbalance in the relationship between humans and environment. This must be and can be rectified by various means or when everything else fails nature takes care.


At the same time resorting to extremism like objecting to every human, or economic growth related activity in the name of environment protection is hypocritical because those who protest must stop using paper, stop living inside houses, stop cooking, stop using any gadget, stop plucking vegetables and fruits as all these also are uses of natural resources; stop talking because that harms many tiny microbes.

We must realize human species has to be in a perennial relationship with the whole of environment. So, instead of advocating a late divorce or ill treatment we must adopt the best possible means of improving our relationship with nature.
Hysteric reactions can never set right any historic blunders.

We all must realize that our relationship with the environment matter more than anything else especially in an era when  there are ready made justifications available on the net for all types of actions, reactions and inactions.

René Jules Dubos a French-born American microbiologist, in one of his interviews said long back how a single man in the arid lands of Midi of France used to plant some trees every day and that has become a big forest. Incidentally his book ‘A God within” portrays many probable positive values in man's relation to nature and offers many simple solutions to enhance such a relationship.


Recently  in India, Jadav "Molai" Payeng (Assamese born in 1963), a Mishing tribe environmental activist and forestry worker from Jorhat, India, planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra over several decades and literally created  a forest reserve, called Molai forest after him and  is located near Kokilamukh of Jorhat, Assam, India and encompasses an area of about 1,360 acres / 550 hectares and this year [in 2015] he was honoured with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India.

Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Foundation makes huge and significant contributions to preserving forests and environment.


I reproduce this piece from an article I wrote in the early 90s as to why and how God created Hell.
“In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Quickly god faced a class action suit for failure to file an environmental impact statement. God was granted a temporary permit for the project, but was stymid with cease and desist order for the earthly part. Then God said let there be light’ immediately the official s demanded to know how the light would be created. Would there be strip mining? What about thermal pollution? God explained that the light would come from a large ball of fire .God was granted provisional permission to make light on the condition that no smoke would result  from the ball of fire and that he would obtain building  and conserve energy. He would have the light out half the time. God agreed and offered to call the light day and darkness night. The god said let the earth put forth vegetation, plant the yielding seeds and fruit trees. The environmental protection agency agreed so long only as native seeds were used. Then god said let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth. The official pointed out that this would require approval from the department of game coordinated with heavenly wildlife federation. Everything was fine until god said the project would be completed in six days. The officials said that it would take at least 200 days to review the applications and the impact assessment. After that there would be public hearing, then there would be 10 to 12 months before… at this point God created hell.”




 UNIVERSAL  DECLARATION of the RIGHTS of POSTERITY


Which was drafted by the UK council for posterity initially by a gentleman called Professor Scorer and a group of other concerned people like ecologist Herbie Girardet, Tanya Schwarz of the Forest Peoples’ Support Group, Guy Dauncey environmental consultant and Nicolas Albery of the Institute of Social Inventions.


UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF POSTERITY
(DRAFT, JULY 1989)

Whereas our descendants’ generations, although likely to prove far more numerous than ourselves, have no voice or vote in any of our political systems, we therefore declare that all the generations yet to come, for as far into the future as human life survives on this planet, are entitled by natural justice to the following rights, which those alive today have a duty to respect and uphold:

1. The right to inherit a planet that has been treated by its human occupants with the utmost respect. And more particularly:

2. The right to inherit a planet with oceans, lakes and atmosphere undamaged by human activity, with safeguards for planet’s climate, such as rainforests, still intact.

3. The right to inherit a planet with an undiminished diversity of species.

4. The right to inherit adequately maintained reserves of fossil fuel and other mineral resources.

5. The right to be born into world of human-scale societies, unravaged by population excess.

6. The right to inherit a world unmarred by nuclear or chemical wars, incidents or wastes.

7. The right to expect that previous generations will have cleaned up their pollution, repaired   their damaged environments, on land, sea and in the air (including outer space), and protected places of natural beauty.

8. The right to inherit political, legal, technological and social systems that respect individual human dignity, such as those laid out in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

9. The right to inherit the full uncensored cultural heritage bequeathed by former generations, as expressed, for instance, in their art, history, literature, libraries and museums.

10.The right of future generations to have their interests considered and, where appropriate, represented by a competent advocate, in any present day tribunal or assembly that is deciding courses of action that might have harmful log-term consequences.

Some of my old write ups on environmental issues.


LIFE WILL CONTINUE ALWAYS NO DOOMSDAY



URBANISATION MANIA CAUSES EL NINO




Saturday, May 23, 2015

Nobel Prize and Science - The credits and controversies.


Nobel Prize and Science - The credits and controversies.

Controversies, criticisms, complaints, manipulations, politics etc are part of any or every activity or venture. That does not mean that the whole activity is wrong nor it need to deter people carrying out the activity.

However, having said that, when the activity is a very highly valued or hyped or gets a huge mileage then the beneficiaries will be scrutinized intensely and expectation will be very high from them. On the flip side glaring omissions will be magnified and publicized enormously.

Nobel prizes are one such activity. The value that is attached to it is immense. When I discuss Nobel prizes I would like to exclude Nobel Peace prizes because the less we talk about it the better it is.

Irving Wallace wrote in detail all the dirty politics and rigging that goes on in the Nobel committee many years ago in two of his much researched  wonderful books ‘The Prize’ and ‘The writing of one Novel’.

Unfortunately what happens is that like unrecorded historical events, undocumented great ideas, the unrecognized scientific achievements get neglected and it also de-motivates the scientists.

Similar is the case with the controversies surrounding many patents. I shall give an example for this from one of my articles that I wrote for the Indian Express some 25 years back.

Here are some interesting links involving the controversies of Nobel prize


Regarding patents

“For example as early as 601 AD in the Vaghbata complied by Indian physicians there is mention about the medicinal herb ‘RAUWOLFIA SERPENTINA’ and only in 1949 in the prestigious British  Heart Journal an Indian physician Rustom Jal Vakil published that powdered root of ‘RAUWOLFIA SERPENTINA  is very effective in lowering blood pressure. Then in 1952 Reserpine was isolated by Swiss chemist employed by CIBA under the direction of Emil Schlitter who produced pure crystals of active ingredient in ‘RAUWOLFIA SERPENTINA and Boston heart specialist Robert Wallace Wilkins observed that Reserpine not only reduced blood pressure but also reduced anxiety. Now to whom will you give the Patents’? Leave alone all the controversies surrounding the product itself.
Unfortunately the things are further complicated, especially in the field of science, by the nexus and fights between industry and academia. While one of it has credibility the other has incredible influence. They generate with the help of media and publicity wings many questions of morality versus utility etc and the ultimate causality is truth.


Justin Pollard’s book titled BOFINOLOGY which reveals the ugly ‘the real stories behind our greatest scientific discoveries’ like for example ‘”Archimedes never said ‘Eureka’ and hated baths anyway”, Thales “credited as ‘the father of science’, whose only real claim to fame is that he often fell into ditches” and this book reveals how eleven people have claimed to have invented the stream engine etc
However, beyond all these dirty politics and polluting trends and catastrophic cultures ,still , if there is any field of activity that has helped humanity’s advance more tangibly meaningful and life in general more comfortable and brought people out of their caves of blind beliefs and trite traditions and helped them to see and savor the world with ease and in better ways than all the rest the credit must go and still goes to scientific inventions, discoveries and the multiple technologies that they have given to the world. In short it is a supra religion, along with bold philosophical inquiries, which has pushed aside the many useless diatribes of centuries of religious edicts, narrow ethnocentric pronouncements and bluffs of history which were irrelevant to life.


Life is an unmapped atlas which gets its maps based on our choices, beliefs, actions, reactions, thoughts, attitudes etc and it is our hands to make each one of these continents as great and as good as possible.




Thursday, May 21, 2015

Modinomics

Almost all corporate honchos are used to dealing through mediators/brokers/contacts/ to get things done or to work with next election minding politicians or hypocritical leaders who were keen to project an image of great statesmanship which would propel them into the orbit of gentlemen heroes.

For the first time they are dealing with someone with a clear vision and mission and who prefers national welfare in terms of economic development which can deliver both long term and sustained benefits through well established institutions of governance without room of much manipulations and corruption.

So it will take some time for many to understand this type of functioning. For 67 long years, we, as a nation were planning to plan to perform to a planned short term goals, gains for the selected few. That's why out of the 400 plus districts less than 25 are developed with all infrastructure and institutions in place.

MODI does not bother and need not bother about any one of these people because he is neither bothered about his ego or next election but the economy in the long term. A very important and relevant priority for the nation with so many youth.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/major-firms-creating-slowdown-to-hit-back-at-pm-ambit-report-115052001213_1.html

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Life- an unending puzzle- Lessons of life and Moral code-My reactions to Arun Shourie’s book, ‘Does He Know a Mother’s Heart?’

The beauty of life consists in the unknowns and the unending searches and researches –the unending process of evolutionary trends in everything.

Let us get our facts clear that personal sentiments and emotional binding will impact every human being- only the degrees of impact may vary from person to person and situation to situation. We all must acknowledge that we are neither sure about all the ingredients in the cauldron of life nor can we claim to know the complete process of churning.

These are my reactions to the book Arun Shourie’s book, ‘Does He Know a Mother’s Heart?’

I have also given at the end the links to many excellent reviews and reactions to this book.

There are literary works that prompt our philosophical inquiry; some that appeal to our emotions; some that soak us in sentimental stuff; some that hold us with suspense; some that unfold wisdom; some that trigger our adrenal; some that make us to contemplate; some provide certain templates to certain issues; some just take us into an island of imagination; some that sink us into the world of intense thinking; some that appeal to our aesthetic senses and cultural sensitivities and so on. But there are certain books that somehow provide combination of all these because such works contain both a biographical narration and the biographer’s personal reactions, observations and an unquenchable thirst to find reasons and an urge to find logical meaning for all that happens in life and not an outpouring of hysterical frustrations or decadent desperation especially from someone who cannot afford to perch on the ivory tower of dispassionate indifference and engage in emotion free debates. This is one such work.

Everyone is a victor in some aspects and victim in some other aspects of life. Compassion, concern and clarity permeate unsolicited in the process of search and realization in moments of suffering and sorrow than during moments of happiness and victory.

Starting to research in topics which have too many unknowns, sometimes including the topic itself, is a very tough task indeed. It suffers from a very objective and dispassionate approach and analysis more so, if handled by a person who unfortunately is himself a player and part of very sorry state of sad situations which have panned out in life and whose consequences he is forced to face on a day to day basis. People from outside can sit in the comfort of their normal or cozy life and either choose to be indifferent or show pity or make the journey along with the author to search for answers.


Here in this particular case because of the nature of uncertainties and unknowns coupled with presumptions becoming the premises and rational and /or scientific intellectual perception [fortunately or unfortunately, till now in human evolution, the best known and easily recordable, retrievable and reusable means of deciphering] the tool used to decipher the unknown it becomes difficult to understand, much less explain everything.

We as well as our rational and scientific intellectual perceptions are still in the process of evolution and therefore we do not know yet either the total scope of their capacity or the extent of their shortcomings to deal with many issues of life in general. This is the very beauty or element of the mystery or part of the unknown, not unknowable, aspects of life that sustain our everlasting processes of search, interest and scientific and philosophical inquiry and expand our understanding of many aspects of life and enhance the evolutionary emancipation of mental faculties.

The more we worry about our lack of understanding we start the process to understand better and the moment we become aware of our inability to understand many things [either through humility or due to inevitability] then wisdom may or can unfold through myriad means and unravel gradually the ingredients of the cauldron of life.

Scriptures, scientific discoveries and inventions, philosophical explanations,great thoughts, ideas, actions, events,works of art  etc all are revelations popping out of as parts of the evolutionary process of human understanding of life. But we must be aware that they are not the whole of life nor can anyone well versed in any of these aspects claim to be possessing the key to understand the whole of life nor are they even answers to all aspects of life that we know of. Life is lived moment to moment and we try to understand life , the meaning and purpose of life by utilizing all the faculties we think will help us understand life better.

But with the help of scriptures, scientific discoveries and inventions, philosophical explanations etc we must form various rules to play the game of life in the best interests of every life.

So, one obvious lesson of life is that any one method or every method to understand life is either valid or inadequate as everything is in a process of evolution and constrained by contextual confines and restricted by tools of perception.

One obvious moral code could be that ultimately everyone can choose any method to understand, experience and live life,  of course, ensuring to the maximum extent possible, that the methods chosen do not affect the life of others and environment.

I felt many relevant materials pertaining to the observations made above by me or through me along with the questions in the authors mind may be found in the following links as most of the contents of the book both at emotional and intellectual level:-

New Year with a New Realization of Reality


SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY


MORALITY         






Religion is understood better by synthesis than by analysis. 

Religions grow better by syncretism than by antagonism. 

As D.J.Mercier, the Archbishop of Malines has said even “Sound Philosophy sets out from analysis and terminates in synthesis”. 

Regarding religious differences, men of vision and wisdom have explained and warned repeatedly knowing well that the common man with his limited perception and the fanatic by limiting his perception may engage in petty fights and arguments over differences.

The inevitable fact of life and stark reality is that whatever we may have planned or planning to plan may not be the plan that unfolds in life in all sphere of life irrespective of whatever label we may give to that as fate or destiny or however we may try to ignore it or work hard to justify it. 

This does not mean or need not necessarily lead to the conclusion that we must not plan and that there is no use in planning.

Links to many excellent reviews and reactions to this book:-










Sunday, May 10, 2015

Technology is religion and gadgets are the new gods.

                       Technology is religion and gadgets are the new gods.



Nowadays we come across common refrains like:-

Once upon a time Windows was just a small hole on the wall. Application was something written on paper. Mouse was an animal. Keyboard was only on a piano. Web was a spider’s home. Cut was done with knife and paste with glue. Apple and Blackberry were just fruits and so on. Virus was just a sickness.

                                                                                                                   
But then those windows allowed less because of their geographical constraints compared to what this Window does; that mouse had limited access but this mouse can bring the world in your hand, especially in a world of cat and mouse race; those key boards produced only certain vibrations of sounds but this key board uses the keys to open the mind to wander into broad world of things; that web gave torrid time to people suffering from arachnophobia [ which incidentally has been found recently to be one of the most prevalent and ancient phobia ingrained as a part of evolutionary biology ] but this web connects minds cutting across all barriers; this Apple not only keeps the doctor away but makes you feel like keep everything else away with its amazing touch and apps; Blackberry is owners delightful addiction , once you taste its user friendliness it is difficult to give up I just tried it for a week and decided not to suffer from withdrawal symptoms and gave it up; Virus is a creative and clandestine intruder whose programming skills can be positively used much better than a vaccine.


Every technology provides a gadget either simple to use or requiring specialized skills to operate. But their fundamental function and ultimate utility is to enhance and facilitate living by making many things easier, more enjoyable and comfortable. They leave more time, energy etc available for other activities.
                                                        

But for spectacles most of us would all be grouping about with defective vision. Without microscope we would have never known the microbes or molecules. Without telescope we would not have known the details of many other celestial bodies. So, every technology gives birth to some instrument/ gadget/machine to fulfill a specific need. Without recording devices we would have lost lot of great music etc.



Gadgets are the New Gods, mostly omnipresent, omnipotent and at least helps by providing opportunities to realize the omniscient potentialities. Even if we don't worship them, at least we cannot do without them [we all use them when every other logical and illogical things fail and when we are alone and incapable of facing our own self all alone.

In fact can any human being undergo Gadget fasting for a day .i.e. no tooth brush, no cooked food, not even coffee, no cups or spoons but must use only use hands, pick raw uncut vegetables, fruits, grains etc. No sitting on chairs, not using any vehicle, no bed /cot just sit/stand/sleep on ground or sand [provided we can find that in a city].

Technology is religion. It can be both good and bad depending on how we use it and it is also capable of offering both good and bad;

Putting the gadgets to the best utility to enhance one's understanding and learning of the intrinsic facts and truths with a scientific approach unpolluted by any outside influence or biased conditioning with proper attitude by seeing gadgets as a better means  and not as an end in itself is the science of modern day spirituality.

In the book ‘A brief history of science as seen through the development of scientific instruments’ Thomas Crump explains how each technological  inventions has shaped our lives in many ways.

Like every medium, technology too can be misused, abused and over used. It is not the fault of technology but that of the users.

One can use a knife to save a life through surgery, cut a vegetable and also stab someone to death.

We all need to face and accept facts and learn to make the optimum utilization of technology beyond using it as a mere tool for remaining connected on social media, though that is of great utility.

We must mentally accept the immense impact and importance of technology and gadgets.

“All of us have our own inner fears, beliefs, opinions. These inner assumptions rule and govern our lives. A suggestion has no power in and of itself. Its power arises from the fact that you accept it mentally.”
― Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind