Greetings from Space

When I first went to Abu Dhabi in 2006 for an assignment in multinational company it was evident to my household that I wont be returning home for the next six months. Watching my weird face on the web camera my mother wondered if it was me. Going away(seven seas! Although if could be just one!!) and staying in a foreign country far off was and still is regarded out of the world. Separation and longing bring remorse and melancholy. Later you overcome the feelings gradually and become ready to greet in exuberance.

Man is dreaming to make settlements on the moon and mars and take intergalactic voyages into deep space and exploit the possibility of shifting one day permanently to another planet when the resources on earth would either be exhausted or the globe faces extinction in the future of time. It would be difficult to assess a mindset over a long period of time but we can understand and apply logic to the immediate possible future. We are thinking of how life be emotionally and practically applied to ways of living as new life emerges with technological developments and we move towards more robotised lifestyles.

We have seen pictures of how the earth looks from the ISS or from the moon but as you eventually go into deep space the physical aspects wane and you remain only radio connected. Oppose this with leaving in a foreign country on earth where you will breathe the same air and see humans of different colour culture and race and yet are rooted to the soil below even if it is black cotton soil in India or the vast sands of a desert in Abu Dhabi or firm terra firma of New York city. You still belong.

Once you leave the confines of this earth there could be a disconnect? One day hordes and hordes of people will travel in flying saucer like objects and it would be an everyday event but there needs a lot of water to flow beneath the bridge. You may then send Christmas greetings from a planet called Xayez.

Longevity

In the days of the Mahabharat and Ramayana (4000-5000 years before) people lived long lingering lives raised on elixir doses of somras and amrut. These were preparations from hitherto unknown plants and herbs now forgotten and prepared only from the waters of the river Saraswati now dried up or lost in the space of time. They lived to over 200 years of a lifetime. They were brought up in forests staying in ashrams to study and came back to find quarrels at home or an emotional frenzy of melodramas which separated the brothers. Then they fought long drawn wars with strategies and preparations lasting years and came back to their kingdoms to find it mangled and dishevelled and took more years to untangle the maze of complex relationships. In all their long lives there were not much health issues due to the extraordinary detoxifying qualities of somras. The kshatriyas (warring community) had larger than life frames and strong muscular bodies. There was a medical field however but the diseases were not as ghastly as in the modern times.

Today we have frail bodies smitten by all sorts of diseases driven by a hectic lifestyle that has no time to ponder and look at ourselves. And biological sciences are busy analysing the make up and build of the various organs in our body and the DNA and the tissues they are composed of. There are production houses that are manufacturing plastic goods and textiles. There are ways to produce agriculture and deliver power to your doorsteps. But how about a device to manufacture organs! Like assembling an electronic gadget and selling in a store. You have liver problem buy it from an outlet get rid of the old one and implant a new onet in your body in a super speciality hospital. Days are not far away when you could predict the condition of your kidneys or heart or pancreas (Oh! This horrible disease called diabetes can be forgotten forever!!) at an earlier stage itself and buy one and replace. Cosmetic specialists have already extracted tissues from other parts and improved the aesthetics of our face and given shape to haywire outgrown fats.

Longevity seems to be approaching fast and the time has come for us to live to 200 years. No problem.

Living in the clouds

Isn’t it strange to think of settlements on clouds where there is no firmament and the initial feeling would be to fall down. There are gaseous planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune where we hav’nt much thought about settlement due to the hugh gravity (probably you would be not able to move much) or the combination of gases thriving there. Scientists have always wanted alternatives locations of migrating(since the Earth would one day be depleted of its sources) to space and settling on clouds too are being given their due. Fantasies are the source of realities. PK the recent Hindi movie shows a spaceship embedded in a cloud swirling in the sky and settling on a Rajastani desert from where emerges the hero from the thin mist of clouds. Bespin life zone in the movie Empire Strikes Back has a cloud city below layers of metallic gas where Humans and Ugnaughts live. Tyche nickname was given to a hypothetical gas giant located in the solar system Oort clouds. Now NASA’s HAVOC (High Altitude Venus Operational Concept) will explore to make a living on the cloud cover of Venus which very much resembles the Earth’s gravity, pressure and a more powerful solar light. Google cloud save has started saving data. Living in the clouds may one day not be a dreamers dream but a reality.

Cravings

My favourite food channel anchors blared into my ears ‘Cravings my dear is what when one has to have to eat with the vigour and zest.....’ Craving to eat is absolutely understood! It is embedded in mythology and the guts yell when you feel the tremors of emanating aromas from the food that is being fried or the wok that is being fed with the spices. Yet in these modern ages we have developed a wide vista of cravings. Some of them are extremely irritable to an observer trying to strike a conversation of more dear subjects than the other following and forwarding ‘stupid’ jokes on WhatsApp. People have stopped liking basic instincts like discussing family matters or office gossips over priority to follow a soap in which headless people are making insipid moves to create openings on how the serial could last years with followers glued to the allotted timing. I remember well when on wednesday evenings in the yester- years hindi song program Binaca Geetmala on Radio Ceylon was a craving of such magnitude you couldn’t forget the program for the rest of the week. The presenter, Amin Sayani, was the first iconic radio jockey. Video gaming in unearthly hours, spirit consuming habit, compulsory vicious exercising are misdoings that can rob your mind of rationale and unsettle your nerves and end up wasting precious productive time and aggravate health issues.

Creation, God and Science

Was it all Created at some point or did the Big Bang begin it scientifically. At some point in the past (about 13.7 billion years in time according to astronomers) there was nothing. What triggered this universe! Did God create it and if so why? Did it happen as some scientific development in which the nothingness took the shape of this cosmos. In any case if God or Science was wanting to create this Earth (a very very rare occurrence in this cosmic set up which could have gone haywire even if it were for a degree or two of its position or tilt or its location ...and many more such factors)and to habitat the human being why was such a colossal cosmos constituting billions of galaxies necessary (the Milky Way being just a grain in the vast desert is the common comparison made) and why did the creator or science conceive a human being with such shortfalls like life and death or emotions and sensibilities and make it to grind through such uncertainties like a life full of the past or the future and the existing and the non existing the material or the spiritual or the God or Science!! If it was God he may have probably conceived us out of boredom so that he required entertainment (Wow! Such a huge stage and how paradoxical that we humans visit theaters to entertain ourselves) or it could have been some magic he wanted to revel in. Scientifically there is little for explanation as all the knowledge we have gained over the past 200 years seems to be only improving all the time.

One day we may create a rocket or travel through a wormhole like object and travel beyond 13.7 billion years to see who did this?

God, Space and the Beginning of the Cosmos

Look at this! Sometimes you feel as if these (great) astrophysicists are sitting in an easy chair in a dark room with their legs stretched and heads warmly resting on puffed pillows with eyes closed and allowing bright pictures to pass through time and space in their minds and gathering sterile videos. What could you say about the start of the cosmos and the various theories including the big bang. If we recall the big bang‘s aftermath to be an elongated funnel shaped cosmos in which objects created keep increasing in size with time(like expansion of galaxies) as they stretch out into the outer echelons of the funnel. The fact is that there still remains a lot of empty space around it. Now an astrophysicist proposes why time should move only in one direction and proposes time also moving in the opposite side of the funnel an absolute mirror image of it. Although this mirror image would be difficult to see it would be important to note that this suggests that time may also move backwards that is in the past. Along with parallel universes this is another amazing proposal.

DREAM, INSPIRATION, TRUST, HARD WORK

Space missions have become monotonous and they need paradigm shift in approach in construction of spaceshipss, in launching and executing the mission and in improvisation of soft landings. With this in mind Google Lunar launches an XPrice competition worldwide and some stunning designs are proposed and one shortlisted is an Indian team lead by Rahul Narayan. Such a project requires realistic dreams for it requires people from diverse technological and scientific fields to follow you and the most important being the financial one. It would take a visionary investor to put in money in such a project. And to bring everything together and make the project successful in a given time frame is what success capsulation means.

In spite of the fact that we are into space seriously we still don’t have the background or the awareness or the financial institutions to trigger such projects. We are in a nascent stage. NASA has not only landed spaceships and robots on the moon it has also successfully carried out human missions as we know. They have knowhow spread across a wide spectrum of scientific community and contractors who can design and invest and come up with solutions. But there has been a sort of a bottleneck in finding solutions to making a habitat a colony which NASA wishes to achieve by 2020 not a very easy task.

KUDOS to our team of ‘Team Indus’ and let us wish them all success.

New Horizons has woken up

In spite of following movements of spaceships in the planetary system I tended to forget the New Horizons launched by NASA nine years ago to a mission beyond Pluto. It switched off from my memory on and off and sometimes I thought it may have gone lost somewhere because there were years of gaps as no news spewed out and as if it had been not a part of us. Travelling at the rate of about 60000kms per hour and having travelled 4.8 billion kms it has now reached Pluto and NASA’s team has it woken up from its slumber to take up the several planned tests . In the mean time I myself may have travelled a few thousand kms and seen the vista of a few countries and the cultures of a few lands. But whats amazing is it takes 4 hours and 25 minutes for radio waves travelling at the speed of light to travel from Pluto to earth. This puts us in severe quandary about time travel and worm holes seem to be the only solution. Poor Pluto was a planet until nine years ago (when new horizons had just left the earth) until astronomers realised that it was far too different from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and that it belonged to the icy Kuiper belt world where there were many such objects. Since then it was rechristened as a Dwarf Planet. New Horizons is designed to still travel further into the far echelons of the solar system into the Oort clouds and it could be the first to go beyond the solar system if all goes well. In the nine years it has taken to travel to Pluto the humans have undergone lots of development in electronics, software and lifestyle. What changes we undergo in the years to come as New Horizons travels further is a mystery. For now we may call it very slow.

Saffron clad Sadhavi That she should step down as minister of food processing for her arrogant remarks. The opposition cornering the ruling party on Sadhavis remarks and the ruling defending her as new to the political arena etc are simple procedures both parties follow whether in the opposition or in the ruling for a billion to be fooled each time anyone amongst an MP or an MLA or a party worker indulges in some stupidity. Some said apology was enough and some others said we need not be tolerating such language. This is democracy and we have the right to speech and no one cares the extent of foul language one can use. We are yet to learn the Laxmanresha of what limits to follow and whether this country of such diversity in thought and actions will be able to achieve such restrictions as are aimed to hurt others feelings. We just express our thoughts as if we are gossiping or having a conversation on a street corner. As casual as it can be! The solution is to just neglect and let them make a fool of themselves and let us be happy with generous thoughts. I was always scared of wearing the saffron. It is not for wide mouthed (how could you tell kathas without opening one). It is for restful souls who are bent inwards who are at peace and not at loggerheads and having spiritual leanings (not political) and who have the moral authority not to arouse its own (read human) clan. We are having more important issues of bloodshed of terrorism and the whole nation under a threat. Let us concentrate on our survival first.

Brain in GPS mode

  This years Noble Price for medicine has gone to the Moser’s and O’Keefe for work on the brain which has a GPS like function (Surprisingly it is the brain which created the GPS-vice versa). There are ‘place cells’ and ‘grid cells’ and the way these function to memorise the place where you parked your car or how we find our way each time we visit a city.

  It is a matter of nerve cells in your brain which get activated as soon as you are in a place (place cells) and these are interconnected through ‘grid cells’. There are a billion nerve cells in your brain and the way they establish links is a matter of this study. Thus we can recall how your teacher punished you in the seventh standard (the classroom situated on the first floor next to the staircase) for a particular activity or the emotional stress or trauma you underwent on the death of your beloved one.

  You can remember the umpteen travels you made in your lifetime and the maps your brain has created and stored in the number of data bases. I can relate this to the number of travels I made between Mumbai and Raigarh(in CG) with various stations as place cells and the distances between them as grid cells and I can recall the turns my rail engine takes, through my window, on some of these places and i know that to reach Manmad from Nashik the train has to take a deep right and to take me to Chhatisgarh from Nagpur it has to take a deep left.

  Long back i had read how these nerve cells need to be tended to through a Mahesh Yogi lecture and the best way to keep maintaining the bridges between these nerve cells activated is to meditate for long periods of time. Bad lifestyle and habits may lead to mistaken metabolism and disease further leading to dementia and Alzheimer’s.

Brain in GPS mode

Brain in GPS mode

  This years Noble Price for medicine has gone to the Moser’s and O’Keefe for work on the brain which has a GPS like function (Surprisingly it is the brain which created the GPS-vice versa). There are ‘place cells’ and ‘grid cells’ and the way these function to memorise the place where you parked your car or how we find our way each time we visit a city.

  It is a matter of nerve cells in your brain which get activated as soon as you are in a place (place cells) and these are interconnected through ‘grid cells’. There are a billion nerve cells in your brain and the way they establish links is a matter of this study. Thus we can recall how your teacher punished you in the seventh standard (the classroom situated on the first floor next to the staircase) for a particular activity or the emotional stress or trauma you underwent on the death of your beloved one.

  You can remember the umpteen travels you made in your lifetime and the maps your brain has created and stored in the number of data bases. I can relate this to the number of travels I made between Mumbai and Raigarh(in CG) with various stations as place cells and the distances between them as grid cells and I can recall the turns my rail engine takes, through my window, on some of these places and i know that to reach Manmad from Nashik the train has to take a deep right and to take me to Chhatisgarh from Nagpur it has to take a deep left.

  Long back i had read how these nerve cells need to be tended to through a Mahesh Yogi lecture and the best way to keep maintaining the bridges between these nerve cells activated is to meditate for long periods of time. Bad lifestyle and habits may lead to mistaken metabolism and disease further leading to dementia and Alzheimer’s.

.GOD DOES NOT PLAY DICE

 These are the famous words of Albert Einstein. It meant that there was no gambling in the setting up of the cosmos and that all the happenings followed a design and that there was no disorder.

 Thus all the happenings in the sky including the suns shine and the moons  glow or the stars twinkle and more elaborately the life on earth or the dead planets or the gay comets are a plan of the grand design. It thus provides no flexibility and coming to us human beings- the way we think or behave or act has nothing to do with our degree of intelligence or stupidity.

 This also means that all the randomness you see and perceive are not random but originate in a design. It further would mean that you do not have any control over your destiny and that everything is predetermined. You have come to this world with a preconceived fabric and there is no free will. Further you have entered this set up and even God may not have much time to change anything in the scheme of things.

 The greatest ever short story comes to my mind of a servant asking his landlord for a horse so that he could gallop away to another city and escape the wrath of ‘The Lord of Death’ who had seen him in the bazaar that afternoon. Thereupon he flees to the next city only to find the demon funnily asking him ‘I had seen you couple of hours in the other city and I was wondering how you would be here in time!’

 The existence of God has been debated by scientists a lot. Whose business it may have been to trigger the beginning of this cosmos, probably the closest argument is through a Big Bang, according to the theory of astrophysicists. Surprisingly scientists even consider Albert Einstein to have believed in the existence of a divine power as some of his statements point out.

ABOUT OUR FORM

 Why do we look the way we are?

 I am speaking to you about the human form. Evolution as you know tells us a lot about why and how we gained this present form. The most intelligent creature on Earth needs to acquire the compatibility with a head having all perception organs fitted above a strong shoulder line with arms that can momentum and make you walk comfortably on your legs. In between you have a frame that encloses a complex body system that encompasses all the gadgetry required to run and support the form.

 Aquatic life in the sea has innumerable forms not always conceived to adapt to the liquid that surrounds. The several forms of the fish cannot be compared to the form of a seahorse or an octopus. On the surface of the earth we have monkeys that can move faster, dogs who can sniff better. Carnivorous animals have stronger teeth and some others can focus in the night better. This is all a matter of adaptability.

 One day we could mutate ourselves and achieve all those powerful senses. May be the evolvement would take 10000 yrs. This could be better thought by analysing a more intelligent life in space , more older and intelligent than us, in the form of aliens.

 Aliens have been imagined to have a bigger head size, longer stretchable arms and thinner lower limbs with extraordinary perception organs by fantasy and fiction writers as well as by scientists.

 I have always defied this logic that aliens would have similar but more evolved features. We may simply not recognise them because of this notion. They could be more abstract and our normal thinking process as they may have evolved over entirely different parameters. Imagine the form of a spongy boulder with entire body being able to see, listen, sniff, taste and smell. How does this form move? It has to have a very flexible muscle building inherent characteristic that can stretch out and take the form of two legs while running, four legs while walking or assume the form of a caterpillar while treading. This form could fly to a certain extent. It needs to be delved into as to how its metabolic, nervous and blood systems needed and worked. We don’t need the tonsils, we shed away our tail. We could evolve better system may be in a different body form.

ABSURD  SUNSETS AND MOONRISES

 In Isaac Asimov’s landmark book ‘Nightfall’ there is a night coming up on a planet perennially lit bright by the sky by six suns for two millenniums. There could have been any number of moonrises and moonsets on the first night on that planet. What a sight they may have missed all the nights. Contrarily it has never occurred to the inhabitants of the planet how they would spend that horrifying night.

 However that is not the topic. In the cosmic set up of things the above sight is not rare. In fact we could see why such many more permutations and combinations are not possible. For us living on the Earth with one sun and one moon and a background of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way and stars around in the night sky this imagination is not the end. In reality it brings many more possibilities we had never thought off. We have in fact very closely lost on having another sun in the form of Jupiter which could have become another star had it gained some more matter when the solar system was being formed. It would have started glowing into another dim star with interesting combinations of sunrises and sunsets to our very own earth. In what way life could have evolved is another matter to meditate and ponder?

 Now, thinking of such a phenomena and their effect on our day to day life. Darkness purges lots of metabolic activity in our physical being according to biologists. It could be very emotional like Asimov and Silverberg describe the night that befalls after a long period of two millennium of light. How to litup has never occurred to the inhabitants of ‘Kalgash’ and they face tremendous mind upheaval on account of the dark. Even the stars glittering in the night sky stimulates the deepest of horrors. The importance of flames that bring heat and light never bothers them once there is daybreak after the tumultuous night. All this may sound amusing but it could nevertheless be a reality on some other planet if there could be one with life. 

BHAGWADGITA AND ASTRONOMY

The Bhagwatgita (estimated to be over 5000yrs old) has shlokas (verses) on Brahma(the creator) creating the cosmos and with every opening and closing of his eyelids a yuga (an era) consisting of Satyayuga, Tretayuga, Dwaparyuga and Kaliyuga all together with a cycle of more than 17000 yrs begins and ends. Brahma would do this for 100 yrs equivalent to some 8 billion years. This is how significantly calculations were then denoted. More importantly the age of the cosmos as derived by modern day mathematicians and astronomers to have which kick-started with a Big Bang some 13.4 billion yrs earlier is quite close to available mathematics in those days.

 The Ramayana describes Hanuman as taking millions of flights to the north in reference to flying to mount Meru to fetch a herb for the ailing Laxmana, Ram’s (the epics hero) brother. Further description has Hanuman having leapt into the sky and vanished into a spec and left the speed of mind behind. This is how you can travel in space today.

 These and such references in the Bhagwatgita and Ramayana are born in astronomy. Some of recent day saints refer to the characters of the Gita and Ramayana to have been aliens with weird faces like Ravana having 9 heads, the three pronged face of the Brihma , Vishnu and Mahesh or the  monkey  like face of Hanuman seem not belonging to humans. But to imagine them to be aliens and create analogies of them having invaded the earth and created all these epics is amazing. This is like the Devas (gods) having descended from the planet Swarg (or heaven) and Asuras (demons) having lofted themselves from a planet called Nark (hell) to Earth and fought wars here is a fantasy that could stir one’s mind into deep azure thoughts.

THE FOURTH DIMENSION

 You get on a high when you have achieved something out of the ordinary. That feeling of being blessed is attained when what you have always wanted to achieve like winning an Olympic medal or a prize like the Noble.

 When you go beyond the ordinary state of conventional wisdom and achieve spiritually high values like sainthood you enter a new dimension.

 It is not likely that you could achieve above in the fourth dimension. The fourth dimension is a technical dimension that crosses the path of the three dimensional cube having length, breadth and depth. This could have very serious repercussions on the sensory organs and you could see, hear, taste, touch and smell differently eg you could see in the ultraviolet and infrared ranges of the spectrum as the life on another planets requirement could be. Similarly you could hear at more decibel level . Also the letters you read, the kind of form you have (it could be a vague mass like a sack with tentacles). You could perform an operation by simply pocking your fingers through your abdomen and making subtle adjustments in your intestines. Emotionally  minds of two people would  never meet. There are umpteen possibilities.

 Mathematicians believe we are not able to perceive as many as 13 dimensions since we are not designed to receive. It is also true that we need to think differently like the zens (part of Buddhism) to elevate our minds to see more and beyond.

THE HISTORY OF GOD, CIVILIZATION AND ASTRONOMY

 Whenever we refer to God we refer to the religious God of the Hindus, Muslims, Christians or Buddhists or many other religions and various other forms of God.

 That is not the topic here. Here we are speaking of the history of the Gods, Our Civilization and the history of Astronomy.

 Hinduism was probably started over 3000yrs ago. Islamic activities merged with other followings more than 1700 yrs before. The Christian calendar started 2014 yrs before and more is evident BC. We can say something about the Mayan calendar and more about Chinese Confucianism and its history and relate them to about a few thousand years. Overall it can be concluded that God in his form may have existed for about 5000 years whatever the faith.

 Now let us talk about civilization. We could go back to the Stone age, the Bronze age and the Iron age and go back in time by about 50000 yrs. Colonization began about 40000yrs ago. Cultures started thriving about 32000 yrs before. Domestication of cattle including dogs, pigs began about 20000 yrs ago. Cultivation began about 10000 yrs ago. Writing was invented about 5000 yrs before. Dynasties grew, kingdoms began and then religions spread. Civilization thus has a history of 50000 yrs.

  According to the Big Bang theory the cosmos was born 13.4 billion yrs ago. Humans created all about God and mythology hardly dating back to few thousand yrs. That the sun spreads light and keeps the earth going is a fact. That the tilt to the earth’s axis creates the seasons is a fact that fosters harvest is a reality. So the nature knows the happenings taking place for billions of years more than any of God or civilization and the energy it spreads kindles every iota. Let us celebrate the truth.

AS MANY FACES

 

 No two human beings match in any way including their features and their minds (this is including identical twins). There are as many faces on earth as as many nationalities, colour, caste, creed, hemispheres, males and females and more than genders, height, the size of their noses to the colour of their eyes or the spread of their ears notwithstanding the stretch of their limbs. How difficult it would have been if we had all looked the same. Nature has made things adapt in such a way that things are made simpler. Look at the minds. Whatever similar the design of the brain holds there are no two likeminded people. The small changes, you could say aberrations, are reflected in their behavioural pattern and the views they carry with them and describe themselves as the self. In spite of all there is still an order. There is a language that unites; there is a thinking that keeps people together. There is a society that is comprehensible. There is a set of laws that keeps the world going.

 Similarly if we look in the skies no two objects are alike. They have widely different features and their situational/positional or the ways they move in patterns do not match in any way. The Venus and Earth may have similar dimensions to the extent that they may be called sisters but then the similarity ends there. They have vastly different features and widely different characteristics. Whereas one bears humanity the other is hell where there are no chances that life could thrive. There are billions of stars in the galaxy alone(2.5 in the Milky Way) but no two stars match in their size, luminosity and have colours according to their age. There are characters like quasars and white dwarfs and pulsars so different from other heavenly bodies.

  In spite of all the differences the galactic patterns and the cosmic objects have an order in the way the planets move around the stars in the way the stars move in their galaxies. It is not that they are made to clash together and end themselves up. The order is set in motion so that all survive in spite of the fact that we have an expanding cosmos.

THE WORLD OF DARK

 

 We have always believed to belong to the lit world although we have nights. It is the Sun who is spreading all the energy and making life possible. The planets are all spheres revolving around the Sun in fixed orbits. Only half of all these planets surfaces or their moons are bathed in light and their other halves remain in dark.

 We have always lived in a world of light. The light gets us out of the dark (to this is attached all the positivity negligence ignorance and intelligence). The light fawns and fosters all the worldly things

 We have seen planets with many Suns and how there could only be survival because of the light. But is it possible that there are darker worlds. It could mean that there are no Suns illuminating the planet and hence even no moons, an all pervading dark. The demons are believed to have lived in a dark in ancient mythology and have fought with the Gods perennially.

 How would people live in the dark look? What would they eat? How would they move about in the dark. All these questions are a matter of thought. Some of the answers to the question look quite pertinent eg what do they eat probably moss, fungus and what grows in the dark. Next what sort of world could be possible? Do they live in habitats or in the open? What sort of temperatures possible. Probably extremely lower sides so their bodies may have fur etc

 There are blind parlours which take you into the world of blind people. Here you are escorted by a member who has his arm on your shoulder and takes you on this blind tour. You are taken into the darkest of the places and the next thing that could happen is you would fall into the dark abyss. It is hard to imagine a blind man’s world. But gradually you are subjected to a horde of things. You here different conversations among people and you realise you are on a street, next on a railway station, then in a market etc .After this somebody crosses your path and this you realise when his body brushes yours and you utter ‘hello’ and suddenly start realising your sense of touch and speech.  Then the guide will make you eat something he has packed with him. The experience of eating blind is exhilarating and can take you to more dimensions and you realise that in a world with sight you may have more distractions. Gradually you are in a wider world of the senses and you start adjusting to be a blind when the guide escorts you to a ray of light gradually bringing you back to your world of sight.

THE REALIZATIONS OF TRUTH FROM THE UPANISHADS- CALLED ANUBHUTIS

 The Upanishads are a source of vast knowledge. There are very few known authors but then not much is known about them too and their lives and times have not been detailed except for their propagated knowledge about the purpose of our life and the absolute truth.The main (Mukhya) Upanishads were written dating back about 3000 yrs (600-1000 BCE).The Upanishads were continued to be written until the early 20^th century and now number about 200. They have been classified into four Vedas The Rigveda, Yajurveda, Atharaveda and Samveda. Muni Vyas in the Bhagwatgita has summarised all the Vedic knowledge. He has further simplified and brought about the essence in the second chapter of the Bhagvatgita in Sankhyayog. However as you learn the Sankhyayog and then the Bhagvatgita and the Vedas and then the Upanishads we gradually come to realize the knowledge of the Brahman.

 In the Mundaka Upanishad there is a question asked by a pupil (Saunaka) to a teacher(Angiras)

What is that, which being known, everything else is known?

The answer to this question is ‘Brahman’ which in short is knowing the ‘Self’.

 The Upanishads prescribe the mode of attaining the knowledge practising and reaching the realized stage through renunciation.

The Upanishads give several examples called Anubhutis to simplify a Verse or a Mantra. By reading these we will get to know the kind of abundant knowledge these Upanishads store.

 These columns intend to convey some of these Anubhutis:

From Swami Vivekananda discourses from the Mundaka Upanishad:

KARMA CHAKRA-SPHERE

 People who seek celestial enjoyment reach these blessings- they die they go through Sun’s rays to heavens-very beautiful places-there acquire fine godly bodies-enjoy blessings of heaven for a long time-the old Karma strikes back-and here they come back to earth-through spheres of air and clouds and others-reach through raindrops-attach themselves to cereal-fit man eats-to make a new body-another chance to perfect them.

 

THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

 Have you seen god?

Have you seen Atman?

If you have not seen why are you preaching his name?

You walking in darkness trying to lead me in darkness

Realization is the only truth-the only religion

We would then only stop groping in darkness

Words of love will then come out of the heart

 

TO EXPLAIN CAUSE AND EFFECT AS THE SAME

 Cause is never different; the effect is but the cause in another form

Glass is produced out of certain materials and certain forces

The forces used have become the forces of adhesion and if these go the glass will fall to pieces

The materials are there in the glass, only their form has changed

 

MEN, WOMEN, ANIMALS ARE BUT REFLECTIONS UPON NATURE

How can there be so many souls?

The Sun reflected from millions of globules of water appear to be millions of Sun’s and in each globule is a miniature picture of the Sun form.

In the same way all the souls are reflections and not real.

They are not the real I which is the god of the universe the undivided being.

The rest is illusory reflection.

 

THE ENTIRE VEDANTA IS EMBODIED IN THIS STORY

 There is a tree. A bird is sitting on the top and the other is below. The bird on top is calm, silent, majestic, immersed in his own glory. The bird on the lower branches is eating sweet and bitter fruits is happy and miserable by turns.

 After some time the lower bird gets an exceptionally bitter fruit and gets disgusted and looks up and sees the bird on top the wondrous one of golden plumage who eats no fruit. The lower bird thinks ‘Oh! How i wish i would be like him’ and hops towards him.

 Soon he forgets and his desires take over him and he again begins to eat the fruits.

 After a while he again eats an exceptionally bitter fruit which makes him feel miserable and he again looks up and tries to get nearer to the upper bird. And so on until he comes very near to the beautiful bird. He sees the reflection of light from the upper bird’s plumage around his own body. Still nearer he comes and everything around melts away and at last understands the wonderful change.

The lower bird as it were only the shadow the reflection of the higher. He himself was in essence the upper bird all the time.

 The upper bird is God the Lord of the Universe and the lower bird is the human source.  

 

MAYA

WE LIVE A LIFE OF ONE HYPNOTIC STATE TO ANOTHER IN A TRANCE THROWING A NET OVER THE AUDIENCE LIKE IN THE GREAT INDIAN ROPE TRICK

 They take a rope or a chain and throw it in the sky-and it becomes firm-as if it were stuck to something-then they let a cat climb up a rope-then a dog, a wolf, tiger and then a lion. All walk up the chain and vanish. Two men will go up and begin a fight-then a head a hand and a foot fall.

 In this hypnotic trance if you go beyond the limit and come too close to the hypnotist you do not see this magic. The man who is playing does not see anything.

 Crawl nearer and nearer to the hypnotist and you will be free.

 

MIRAGE

 It took me about a month to travel through that arid country as i was walking. Everyday i saw such beautiful lakes and the shadows of trees on the shores of those lakes and the whole thing was quivering on the breeze. I saw birds and animals. Everyday i saw this and thought what a beautiful country it was!

 One day i was very thirsty and i thought i would drink a little water at the lake. When i went near the place the lake disappeared.

In a flash it dawned on me that this is the Mirage about which i had read. From then on i was never deceived.

FROM ISA UPANISHAD

From Shukla Yajurveda-believed to be ritualistic but really not-

 

ON CHANGE IN THIS UNCHANGING WORLD

It is like a movie projected on a screen. The movie changes but the screen is constant. Similarly the phenomenal world is projected on the lord.

 

TO SHOW IT IS A SUPERIMPOSITION-About change

It is like seeing a snake superimposed on a rope in a dark night. The snake has no independent existence. It exists because of the rope and it ceases to exist as soon as a light is brought. The snake then dissolves into the rope. In the same way, when you know Brahman, the world merges into it and you realise that you and Brahman are one and the same.

 

THINGS ARE TEMPORARY NOT PERMANENT

Take for example a piece of sandalwood which has long been under water and thereby has come to acquire bad odour. For a while the fragrance of the sandalwood is suppressed and the bad odour prevails. But when the sandalwood is rubbed a little the bad odour disappears and the natural fragrance becomes predominant/comes to the fore. Similarly your attachment to the world is temporary.

 

TO DESCRIBE THE ATTRIBUTES OF BRAHMAN

In one aspect it is without attributes (Nirguna). In another it is without attributes (Saguna). This is like a child wearing a mask. The attributes are mere superimposition. They cannot affect Brahman.

 

BRAHMAN NEVER MOVES NEVER CHANGES

Sometimes we see the moon move behind some clouds, but actually the moon does not move. It is the clouds that are moving. In the same way, Brahman, is always the same. It is never born, it never dies. We wear a new coat and when it gets old and torn we throw it away. This is the relationship the coat has with the body. The same relationship the body has with the self.

TO EXPLAIN SAMADARSHITA- SAME SIGHTEDNESS

Essentially we all are one. We differ only in names and forms. A boy may try to fool his friends by wearing different masks. First he wears the mask of a tiger and behaves like a tiger. Most of the friends are frightened. The next moment he wears the mask of a monkey and jumps about like a real monkey. This time his friends are amused. This goes on for a while, but finally the boy puts aside the mask and appears as he is. We are all one and the same: Brahman.

 

SELF IN THE PHENOMENOL WORLD

It is like a lamp. A lamp gives light without which nothing, good or bad, can be seen. But the lamp is not affected by whatever way the light is used. The position of the self vis-a-vis the phenomenal world is like that.

 

ON DUALISM

The ideal is to have a mind that accepts the whole world as its own- a mind that is as broad as the sky. It should be pure bright, free and all embracing

 

ON THE SELF

Self is purely a witness, not involved in any part of the phenomenal world, yet the phenomenal world goes on only because of the self. It is like a lamp. A lamp gives light without which nothing, good or bad, can be seen. But the lamp is not affected by whatever way the light is used

 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MANIFESTED AND UNMANIFESTED

The seed of the banyan tree. The seed was always there.

THE FOLLOWING ARE PASSAGES FROM THE GRAND DESIGN BY STEPHEN HAWKING

Prescribed to put light of how the west thinks about MAYA-illusion

Alternative reality in the film ‘Matrix’ in which the human race is living in a virtual reality created by intelligent computers to keep them pacified and content while the computers suck their bioelectrical energy.

 Many prefer to spend their time in the simulated reality of websites such as second life. How do we not know we are just characters in a computer generated soap opera?

 Or in an overlap over our lives is there an alien controlling our lives. Meaning we are figments of someone else’s dream.

Examples of how baffling relativity is leading us to believe we live in a imaginary world:

Example: A ball bouncing on a jet plane:

To an observer in the jet plane there will be zero distance. But to one observing from the ground the plane would have shifted to a large distance. Thus the two observers would not agree to the two events. This is a relative movement.

Example: Two observers moving at a clock

To an observer at rest the clock moves faster while to an observer moving the clock moves slower.

Similarly pulses of tail light to observer in the plane and at ground.

 

In Italy pets were barred from owners from keeping Gold Fish in curved Gold Fish bowls. Argument, gazing out the fish would have a distorted view of reality.

Might not we be made inside some big Gold Fish bowl and hence our vision distorted by an enormous lens.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE GRAND DESIGN

In his the Grand Design Stephen Hawking has reviewed the (entire) history of Physics and its development from Ptolemi to Einstein and from Richard Feynman’s diagrams to John Lonway’s world of Game of Life. There has been revolutionary progress over time and observations have been converted to laws and then expanded over 100’s of years. From Newton’s laws to the Theory of Quantum Mechanics and to the String Theory new ideas have evolved and new inputs have been incorporated, but the quest of physicists to evolve ‘a grand theory of everything’ has eluded like a mirage. The more they come nearer the farther it gets.

Finally the book concludes that the new hope would be the MTheory (where M could stand for Miracle, Mystery or Master) with 10raised to 500 universes each with different laws and 10 dimensions in space.

LUCK AND COINCIDENCE

The parameters of formation of the universe are very rare. The size of the earth, the temperature, the tilt of the earth’s axis making seasons possible, the intensity of our sun, the goldilocks zone(the location of the earth in the Milky Way

The process of condensation of carbon, hydrogen and helium has happened over billions of years. All these are very fine tuned. It will make you ask “Was the earth created by a benevolent creator?”

The earth’s surface being almost circular and revolves almost perfectly around the sun (no eccentricity).

Newton said the habitation did not arise out of chaos by the mere laws of nature in fact created and conserved by God to this day in the same state and condition.