Articles

The following are some articles that I have written. I do philosophize sometimes and I don’t miss an opportunity topen it down. I will keep updating this page as and when I think of something good enough. These are in no particular sequence, but one will note that there is gradual improvement in language, philosophic advance etc. This is evident since I have been writing for the past 5 years. “Continuum”, my favorite is first.

Continuum

Vyra was always getting attention when he awoke. His parental always watching his moves. He was just another native here; born to Lestwald and Ashe. He saw them smile and rejoice when he had learnt to walk on his two limbs long before anyone else of his age usually did. Vyra also was quite intuitive in his approach towards learning things. He did it with a lot of curiosity and his keen observations. It was all too familiar, he thought sometimes. Things around him were painfully similar. Had he been here before? He let that question float.

They had Shilas there, small gatherings of thirty odd headed by an enlightened individual, where they sat in a circle and discussed their observations. Each explained a phenomenon at the same time providing logical hypotheses. The least ambiguous hypothesis was chosen and accepted. Vyra did not find it very hard. He enjoyed it.

The time finally came for Vyra to head a shila of his own. He had impressed many through his talents. He was now regarded as an enlightened individual. Now he would play the role of selecting the right hypotheses among the many, put forth by more of his kind. And he too could not hide his elation on hearing so many hypotheses. Some that came close to what he had proposed. But how could these new kinds know? There, he stopped thinking any further.

With Ivess, it was love at first sight. It was getting increasingly clear that he was going to be with her, for her, always. He had found companionship and love in Ivess. They walked, played, and spent more and more time with each other. Even they could not believe what they were doing, but they just went about it, enjoying every moment of it. It was then that Mie was born. She had inherited much of Ivess’ beauty and was just about as rational as any other, perhaps more. She too, in time, was enrolled in a shila headed by Ivess’ kind for reasons they considered obvious. All was well and they were leading a life of great pleasure and beauty, and nothing seemed to interfere that beatitude.

It happened much later, about the time when Mie too had found love and moved on. Ivess came running to inform her that Vyra had not moved since he slept the previous night. It was nearly evening the next. Shocked at the truth that stared them, they knew not how to react. Nobody knew how to react yet it was to happen to each of them and always did. It was inevitable when it came. Vyra had left them.

He opened his eyes, but had to shut them quickly. There was too much light. He tried several times to get used to it. And when he did, he was looking at a couple of figures. They wore green masks on their faces so only their eyes showed. They were so much bigger than he was, he was too small to be any comparison. Vyra began to cry. He had woken up in a hospital, a fact that he eventually learned when he went to school. He had forgotten his past name and he did not realize that he had anything to forget. They called him Avinash Kumar now. The place looked familiar. Infact, painfully similar. They used a different language. He was just going to have to start learning…again.

Another successful transition between our own and the para-universe. The Mind never dies.

“Learning is, finding out what you already know.”
-Richard Bach
Here On Earth

I let my mind wander for a few minutes each day as evening approaches. It relaxes me; so much so that when I snap out of it, I am a changed person. It has serious influences on the way I think, analyse and view life . Doing this, I have been to places I never imagined I could visit and learnt of truths, which I had never before encountered. I shall share one such journey and make it as comprehensible as possible , because I haven’t the words to describe and make one understand the great capacity of the mind that we are born with.
One evening I sat on a chair in my room and watched the horizon which was ever so still. I then saw people on the street going about their usual activities and generally minding their own business. It is then that I wondered: what really controls us? I mean, besides the government and their laws. But, I will get to that later. We are all humans living on a planet we call Earth. Earth is a small planet amidst the nine that we know of. The Sun is equivalent to a thousand earths put together in size and weighs many million times more. The Sun is one star among zillions of others in one corner of our galaxy, the other corner of which is a few light years away. Our galaxy- The Milky Way – is one in one hundred zillion zillion galaxies, perhaps more,which make our fantastically massive universe ! My objective is not just to make us realize how really tiny we are, but also to prove that being so incredibly small, our brains even tinier, our mind is able to transport us visually around the universe even if we do as little as read about it. The mind has this unique capability of converting information to images even when none of us have really gone so far away as to the universe. The mind is in our control to a certain extent. When we want to think about something, we do. The mind is constantly working , but when we are asleep, what or rather who controls the mind? This leads us to believe in the existence of a super-being. A being that is responsible for all that goes around us . Science has no proof of the possible existence of a super-being., yet this being has its presence. Man was able to trace time back to pre-Paleolithic times and since then things have happened and changed event after event , just like a chain reaction. But what triggered the first even is the big mind –boggler. Nobody has an answer and so, we believe in God. We are unable to think beyond. God created the universe and has given humans , living on a pint-sized Earth, some thought by watching over us. Without control, there is chaos , so there had to be someone controlling the universe. We will never know who or what it is. All this went on in my mind in a span of about ten minutes , but it left me with a bunch of questions…. Who are we? Why are we on Earth? What is the purpose of our existence? Why do we take life for granted? What is all this that surround us? Where are we? Will it be the same as we saw it, after we are gone? How long will this go on?
I snapped out of this little dream, took a few deep breaths and went down to hang around with some people I get together with each evening to play a decent game of cricket. It feels great to be here . Here on Earth.

The Utopian Coma

The sound of the alarm was almost too ‘real’. I just managed to move and shut the thing off. A minute later I was awake and I was pondering over that last dream. Where in the dream was the alarm? It was so damn well connected to it that it surely would have rung thrice before I realized it was for ‘real’. Ever wondered about this? There is an almost unquestionable chance that it’s actually in our ‘reality’ that it rings. While you are thinking over that, also recall the last time you dreamt you were watching the television, using a computer, looking at your wristwatch or using a telephone. Is your answer- never? It is isn’t it? It seems that such appliances just won’t work in dreams and it is also for this reason alone that this gadgetry does not figure in our dreams. “…such items do not work in these parts…”, a very profound monologue from a very profound work of literature. E.M. Forster wrote in his classic essay titled ‘The Other Side of the Hedge’, about getting away from ‘reality’ into a magic land, utopia. A world where there is no competition, no success, no failure, no boundaries, no concrete, no fear, no security, no hatred, and yet everything that we might need. A place meant for all of mankind, where values and morals are above all else. All activities result in satisfaction and not fame. To think that we are all so close to this world, and that dreamland is actually this high territory of thought! When will this very necessary change happen? For, it must. The ‘reality’ that we are all part of today will eventually ruin education, morality, and values. Back-stabbing and cheating seem to be the more popular routes to success and nobody seems to care about the route adopted to get successful once they are. Richard Bach wrote in his ‘Illusions’- you do not dream without also being given the gift to make it true. So, is it possible? After all, we can’t just go on sleeping on it.

Power

There are things that Aristotle did not classify further. The two worlds, Heaven and Hell. There, he accepts what the Church had imposed on the people. Why did people believe it? Aristotle, as all may know already, is responsible for the factual information that books give us. Everything in the world was divided and classified and all we students have to do is mug it up. The human mind now automatically classifies things as it receives signals from the eyes, like when we pick up sand, we immediately start segregating the grains; big from the small, the round from the squarish, smooth from the rough and so on. It goes on endlessly. But no, for after some time the conditions for the classification become so tight that each grain receives individual status.
No, it hasn’t stopped. Man then delved deeper into that grain and figured out the elements and molecules, the atom, the protons and neutrons, the electron and more recently, the quark. The segregating operation had begun again. Now it won’t stop. Robert Pirsig, in his epic work, Zen and the Art…talked about Sophists like Phaedrus who believed in learning from experience rather than the factual descriptions of things that our text books now contain. The whole of modern Science and its theories has been imposed on people. A recent discussion in class with our English professor assessed the very situation. He almost proved it to us that it is all about convincing the rest. The examples- Jesus Christ, Isaac Newton, Einstein, Adolf Hitler. They had the power to convince. Their success was in the artfull conviction. They are also respected for the exact same reason. Newton and Einstein for their brilliance at convincing and Hitler, for his skillful oratory form of conviction. Even in our case, the son is always trying to convince his parents, his teachers and friends and if he does so, he gets what he wants, his marks and friendship benefits. Then, later in life, when after he has convinced his parents and professors, he must convince a woman and her parents, and further in his work area, he must convince his superiors and colleagues. Then convince his parents and relatives as to how good a parent he is or has been himself. It goes on. Life therefore is all about convincing the right people. People like Newton were very powerful and so for the Sophists to have their way, it will take a lot more people and stronger conviction. ———————————————————It is amazing that these thoughts also converge to the same kind of end statement as ‘Utopian Coma’ isn’t it?

Stoned

It was seven in the evening, the moth hour. I was there, and so was he. I only watched as he went about his work. He circumambulated the monument several times; not that I had planned to count. He then climbed up the front of the monument and entered the shrine, where he bowed and then stood with his eyes shut and prayed. There was faith.
Alas! A faithless act. He finished his prayer and as he left, he locked up his God. This was the priest, just like any other. Why would someone with so much faith do such a thing? Does he think that his God is insecure? He depends on this God for his safety and yet he thinks his God is unsafe. So much for faith. I peer into the shrine and see the monolith sculpted to represent a God. It was shaped to look like a being that was out of this world( an alien?). It had multiple limbs, large eyes, long arms, small feet and a rather oblong torso to go with it. A rather well known author Erich von Danniken raised this point some years ago and won cult acclaim for he made people believe that they were actually praying to aliens and presented Inca drawings of creatures that did look out of this world; but that is deviating from my thoughts. Some cultures worship idols that, in addition to having multiple limbs, had very wierd looking faces. This may explain why small infants cry when they see the idols at various places of worship. I refer to small infants for a reason here. They are the most natural and down to earth living organisms that I can think of. They, amazingly have the purest form of faith that many beings today are transforming themselves to—atheism. A new born infant has faith in nothing else but for the arms that hold and support it. It will cry if those arms weren’t to be. And who’s arms are those save that of a human being. A mother, to be more precise. All those who read this are humans, why must we worship stones? To give us direction? We can do that ourselves can’t we? …And what is good Phaedrus, and what is not good. Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?… – Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

iReflect

Agonize me, and I’ll give you pain,
Show me kindness so I shall be kind.Kill, but then beware of me,
Show some respect so I shall reciprocate.

Give, and I’ll have you receive,
Take, but you will lose sometime

Hate me, only to know that I despise you,
Love, and I will too.

Smile, and I’ll smile along with you,
Play, so I share the elation.

Be clear and frank and you won’t ever doubt me,
Pretend, and you won’t know who I am.

Life is a reflecting surface such as I,
Sense yourself in all that you sense.

Look around. What do you see?
Sadness? Poverty? Filth? Crime?

Ignorance? Greed? Folly? Injustice? But why?
That’s what you want to see.

What you sense is what you have been and are,
Care to change that? I care too.

I can be a friend, an enemy, an altruist, a beast,
Whatever it is that you wish me to be.

Whatever I see in you.

So, do Good, and see goodness,
Change, for the world is a mess.

And what is good, and what is not good, It doesn’t even figure.

When you learn and understand that there’s Always something better.

Now pray tell, what dost thou wish?