Himalayas

I wish I was free enough to scale the Himalayas of the world. Allow me, the Great One, to scale the Himalayas of the mind in search of higher truth.

Infinity

Infinity is akin to a circle. How? No matter which way you go, you keep going.

You go either inside out or outside in. You start with gross matter and keep dividing it till you reach "infinity". This is same "infinity" as what you reach when you keep going outwards from your world. They both meet at infinity.

Infinity: Its a circle without radius and circumference. But, most importantly with a centre.

Development v/s Environment

Argument: Development is critical for developing and under-developed countries. There is a huge population without access to proper sanitation, drinking water, electricity and secure shelter. Infrastructure should be created that includes roads, drains, water pipes and electricity grids that are local to the area. Then to support these, electricity generation units, tools and machinery manufacturing units, cement factories, dams, etc. have to be built elsewhere. This requires some portion of the nature to be "reclaimed" for these purposes.

Counter-argument: Man has already spoiled the environment by building dams, electricity generating units, factories, etc. Hence, no more of these should be allowed. The "green" technologies to tap solar, wind and other "renewable" natural resources should only be allowed. Bio-fuels and other non-polluting fuels should be used in vehicles.

My stance: Humans have never been friendly to the environment. We have used our intelligence to find ways to defy nature. At the same time, we have not been intelligent enough to understand fully that we have been cutting a tree branch while sitting on the same branch towards the unconnected edge.

On one side, we have invented artificial methods (like medicine) to improve the longevity of ourselves and increase the chances of survival. On the other side, we want to deny basic quality of life to others amongst us!

Some of us live comfortably in a secure home with running water, modern sanitation and electricity for lighting, TV (and AC). At the same time, we oppose building new infrastructure similar to what enables us to do these!

Some of us are blind and fail to see that no technology is 100% environmental friendly. Each have their own costs to be paid by someone or the other. If the vehicles directly steal the food from the poor's mouth (in the form of bio-fuels), then solar photo-voltaic power generation are enemies of the environment, as that requires storing electricity in batteries, which are polluting during it's life cycle.

We can only delay the inevitable. Nothing is black and white. There are no Heroes and Villains in the real world. If you have to cut 10 trees to enable someone to improve the quality of life from below average to average, so be it. But make sure you plant 100 trees. Mother earth has abundant barren land.

No "green" technology can exist without doing a bit of environmental damage. If solar panels require manufacturing and batteries, then windmills require manufacturing too. And then there is another dimension to it: economics. No one has infinite resources to build "green" technologies. It's a balance. For example, we cannot expect an individual to give up his petrol car to buy a 100% "green" car (which itself is only theory) that is 10 times as costly if he can't afford it.

To be 100% environment-friendly, one has to:
- quit living in homes (made of artificial material)
- quit taking medicines (made of artificial chemicals)
- quit wearing clothes (made in factories that require some form of energy)
- start living in the wilderness without any modern amenities

So, let's learn not to take 0 or 1 approach, black or white approach and hero or villain approach. Let's learn to appreciate the fact that humans have never been 100% nature-friendly and would never ever be.

Let us strive to understand ways to push the inevitable as far as possible.

Time

Something I thought during an email exchange with a close friend... Time is the toughest of all. It is absolutely non-negotiable and absolutely consistent. This is also probably the only absolute reference that a common man can easily understand.

Faith and religion

Recently, I was witness to a heated debate among my friends on the subject of religion and faith. Particularly, the contrasting views of two of my friends were interesting to debate on. One argued that there is no God. The other said God is definitely there.

My atheist friend contended that science so far has not proved existence of God. And that its nature that sets up the laws based on which the rest of the things play out. According to him, science has proven that there are laws like survival of the fittest, which gave rise to (and giving rise to) variety of species on earth. He believes in Big Bang theory that created the universe and not God.

On the other hand, my religious friend argued that God created the universe and that science has NOT YET discovered God. He argued that God lives somewhere in the universe, but keeps watching us all the time. He also argued that going to temples and worshipping the God’s idols was the only way to connect with God.

Who is right amongst the two?

One point worth noting here is that, one maybe an atheist, but he has a faith! His faith is science. He has faith in science, reasoning, logic and evidence. The other friend’s faith is more traditional religion. He has faith in idol-worship, god and prayers.

I would say both are right in their own rights (refer my previous entry on truth). It is, however, important to have a faith – a strong one at that. If you do, then rest is immaterial.

As Swami Vivekananda said, “same size fits all” argument is wrong. Each person would have his/her own level of intellectual development. A highly developed intellectual maybe better off having faith is science (at least for some time till the real power of the super-conscious attracts him). An innocent commoner maybe better off idol-worshipping, as he may never be able to appreciate abstract thinking and philosophy involved in higher knowledge.

Hence, its not correct to argue which faith is correct. I would debate on how to achieve complete faith on something. Are you willing to?

Religion....

We talk a lot about things which we don't fully understand. I'm no exception. In today's world, one of the most talked about subject is religion, especially the extreme forms of them.

Let me try to dwell a bit on this. What is religion? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to me? To me, religion is something very personal, is a way to uplift myself, a path to gain more knowledge on the Bigger Picture. In other words, spiritual advancement. My definition of religion is strictly only these. Anything else falls into other categories.

One such category is culture. The way we interact with others, the way we dress up, the kind of food we eat are all parts of culture and never should be confused with religion. Since culture involves interaction with society, it has to be in a framework. Many of these accepted frameworks are regulated and become a part of the larger set of laws of land.

Religion on the other hand is very personal. There is very little scope for social interactions to uplift oneself. At the most, interaction with like-minded intellectuals, a spiritual Guru and/or efforts to access/understand texts that offer spiritual knowledge are the only social interactions. There are no bounds in a religion.

A religion, in a most ideal definition, is unique to each person. We may start with a known and popular "religion", but as we progress, the path we take usually is a unique one. But the ultimate goal again maybe same for all of us. It is more like this: starting from south pole of the earth, there are infinite lines parallel to earth surface that again meet at north pole. Which line you take does not matter. You will reach north pole ultimately.

[to be continued on another day to avoid overdose :-)]

Running behind Truth

Any thinking man, who at sometime in life, would start thinking about the real meaning of Truth. We all take it for granted that we fully understand the meaning of Truth. One day, this question struck me - what is the real meaning of Truth?

The dictionary defines Truth in many possible ways. Closest to what I had in mind is defined as "Conformity to fact or reality; correctness, accuracy". But, what is fact and reality? I'm a human; yes, that is a fact. I have eyes; yes, that's a fact too. Anything that you can verify physically can be taken as fact. Then, truth is to state the fact.

Going deeper, a truth states a fact, but a fact can be stated in many contradicting "truths"! If the truths contradict one another, then there has to be one truth and rest should be untrue. Or is it?

Consider this: Assume that a mountain looks like a human skull. But it also looks like a dog's ear from another angle. Well, both are facts. A mountain can look different from different angles. So, it is a truth that it looks like a human skull and it is a truth like a dog's ear. In order to satisfy these truths, you need to bring them to space domain and state the conditions of angle for them to be true.

Over a period of time, say a million years later, the mountain wears down due to nature's play. It is very likely that after a while it no longer looks like human skull or like dog's ear. So, does it mean that the previously stated truths are false? Hence, in order to satisfy those truths, now you will need to add a time dimension too.

Stop wondering. I think I made it reasonably clear that all these truths that we are talking about are relative; relative to space and time.

Is there an Absolute Truth? A Truth which is not bound by space and time? That which has no conditions? That which does not change from where you look at? That which does not change over time?

This Absolute Truth has to be something that was never created and would never be destroyed - something that is the Reference for the whole Universe.

There, certainly, is such an Absolute Truth. Can I define or describe it?

Not yet.

Note: I think I need to change the Title to something more meaningful like: "Running around in the Truth"!