Duty

When did man first kill another man? No sooner than the birth of the human race, which was billions of years ago. When did one man last kill another? Just a second ago, somewhere on this earth. As long as men exist, they will kill each other. Animals kill each other too. Man is, in this way, no different than any other animal. Then how else is man different from other animals?

What will you do when you see in yourself a budding desire to cause harm to another creature? Supress it, and try not to ever have such a black heart again. What will you do when another man approaches to kill you? What should one do? What does an animal do? It either fights or flees. A man may beg for life. He could flee or fight. What does a man who practices non-violence do? He will not fight. He will not beg, because he has his dignity. He has a right to live. Or does he? What would you or I do? I may thank him for ridding me of these bonds of life. But that is not what I truly want, though. A human must show compassion even to his enemy. History teaches us to love even their enemies. Arjuna was told to fight and kill, not because Krishna liked war, but because it was Arjuna's duty to fight. Performing one's own duty is so hard, it was easier for Arjuna to give up fighting, or maybe even give up his life than to kill. Such is the importance of duty. Life is duty. Yet, how many of us realize our own duties?

If you consider it a lion's duty to kill a deer for its own survival, then its a soldier's duty to kill another. Then how is man different from animals? Back to the same question again. Men think and animals don't? Both think. Man is intelligent? How do you define intelligence? Is it consciousness of his surroundings that makes man different? I don't seem to find an answer. Maybe I am thinking too much to find a simple answer.

Peace of mind

Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.

-Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

When you get stuck

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance:

Getting stuck is the commonest trouble of all. Your mind gets stuck when you're trying to do too many things at once. What you have to do is try not to force words to come. That just gets you more stuck. What you have to do now is separate out the things and do them one at a time. You're trying to think of what to say and what to say first at the same time and that's too hard. So separate them out. Just make a list of all the things you want to say in any old order. Then later figure out the right order.

Quality

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance:

1. Quality is a characteristic of thought and statement that is recognized by a non-thinking process. Because definitions are a product of rigid, formal thinking, quality cannot be defined.

2. I was talking about the first wave of crystallization outside of rhetoric that resulted from Phaedrus' refusal to define Quality. He had to answer the question, If you can't define it, what makes you think it exists?

A thing exists, if a world without it can't function normally. If we can show that a world without Quality functions abnormally, then we have shown that Quality exists, whether it's defined or not. Subtract quality from a description of the world:

Fine arts, paintings, symphonies, poetry, comedy, sports, tasty marketplace items, movies, dances, plays and parties would all be gone. A huge proportion of us would be out of work, which would force us to indulge in non-Quality work. Pure science, mathematics, philosophy and logic would remain unchanged. If Quality was dropped, only rationality would remain unchanged.

The world CAN function without Quality, but it's not worth living. The term WORTH is a Quality term. Life would just be living without any values or purpose at all.

Please don't want!

I might be repeating thoughts from the post "Love and marriage" before, but I want to write this post, because I want to think straight. I think well when I talk to someone or I write things down. So, here I go:

I realize that it's perfectly possible to live with a person you have never known before, for the rest of your life. A small example: How do roommates live together? Do they not fight with each other, but yet adjust even for a a duration of a couple of years? There is proof for this, Indians realize it: They get married and then fall in love. Love is not essential before marriage. What is essential is the ability to adjust and sacrifice things for the one you love. Where love exists, hatred exists there - every coin has two sides. What half the Americans do is they divorce when that hatred pops up in at least one of their hearts. In my opinion, if they still stick together long enough, they can begin to love each other again. Since love didn't last long before they hated each other, that hatred will not last long too, they only have to wait it out. Love seems beautiful, and then they get married. Hatred and problems are ugly and hard to cope with, and they get divorced. That's how half the people live here. Now I begin to think that marriage and divorce are two sides of the coin of "a life together". Oh! Another point - If you WANT to get married, you should be ready for a divorce - "Desire brings misery" seems true everywhere. Then how do Indian people get married? I got it! It should happen by itself. You should not look for someone to get married to. What Indians do is let their parents find someone for them. They don't even ask their parents to find someone for them. Now, THAT seems right! The concepts of divorce and love marriages are FOREIGN to the Indian people. Maybe this is what is one of those things that are bringing the rich tradition of India down. Indians don't divorce because divorce doesn't solve the problems you face in marriage. It only helps you escape. What guarantees you that you will not be in the same situation again if you marry someone else next? Nothing. What will you do then? Maybe you will realize then, that divorcing is a waste of time, and a big pain in the neck and adjust with your second spouse for the remaining part of your life. My first husband, my second wife, etc are terms that make me sick to the stomach. I don't want to hear such stuff. Makes me want to go back to India and settle there for ever.

I might speculate on what kind of person is going to marry me, but that will only crank up my desire to get married, which I don't want to have now. Remember, marriage must happen by itself. Don't want it! What will I do if someone approaches me? Tell her to ask my parents :) Haha! That obviously seems stupid, but it's deep, going by the explanation I have given above.

What a realization! In this perspective, relationships are a waste of time. Valuable time you can spend doing other important things to develop your personality and character. A person dies, but his character remains. What defines a person is his character but not always his job.

Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am right, but these are my thoughts and hence I am.

The Eternal Law

A paragraph from "The Man Who Knew Infinity" by Robert Kanigel, pg 35:

The genius of "The Eternal Law", then, was that it left room for everyone. It was a profoundly tolerant religion. It denied no other faiths. It set out no single path. It prescribed no one canon of worship and belief. It embraced everything and everyone. Whatever your personality there was a god or goddess, an incarnation, a figure, a deity, with which to identify, from which to draw comfort, to rouse you to higher or deeper spirituality. There were gods for every purpose, to suit any frame of mind, any mood, any psyche, any stage or station of life. In taking on different forms, God became formless; in different names, nameless.

The statement in bold made me so emotional. I was overwhelmed with feeling I can't describe in words.

Squiggly line

Oh, squiggly line in my eye fluid. I see you lurking there on the periphery of my vision. But when I try to look at you, you scurry away. Are you shy, squiggly line? Why only when I ignore you, do you return to the center of my eye? Oh, squiggly line, it's alright, you're forgiven. - Stewie Griffin

I like the squiggly line...I don't know what they are called, though.

One of my ideal jobs

I would like to become a librarian. If I become a librarian, I can read all the books I want. Yes, I am after knowledge. Knowledge is in the library. Library entices me because I want to have all the knowledge I want in the short life I have. Vivekananda defines knowledge as a classification of all information, at some point. Classification of everything in the world. That reminds me of the library. Library is organized and classified. It is a hierarchical structure and represents the classification Vivekananda talks about. That's why I like libraries.

But, if I become a librarian, its obvious that I will not have time to study. Because the job of a librarian is not to study, but manage the library. His job is to help others study. Oh! Even a librarian doesn't have the time to study. I need to work and earn money to live and no time to study. All the time is being lost in working, and there is no time to study. That is why I am doing a PhD. To study. But what I am going to study during my PhD is a drop in the ocean of all knowledge. How do I drink the ocean? I can't live forever, so it's kind of impossible. I need to decide what to study and what not to study. Knowledge and experience also lies in telling what is important and what is not.

Ripples of thought

I began thinking about thought. Religion and philosophy and science have something in common. When you go deep enough, what some people don't understand or realize is that the world is an illusion. All the world is human imagination. Some of my previous posts say these things. I am pretty sure this sounds outrageous to you, the reader. Imagine an object, like a chair. What is a chair? Describe it for me, please.

A chair is something you sit on. You can feel it with your skin, and you can sense its weight if you lift it by hand. Your mind senses the existence of the chair through the skin and muscles. Your mind feels the chair. You can see the chair with your eyes: It's black or brown, made of wood and is hard and has legs and a backrest, etc. You describe what you see. Sight through the eyes reaches your mind. Your mind sees the chair. If the chair smells like something, you can even say your mind smells the chair. If you hit the chair, you can hear it being hit. Your mind hears the existence of the chair. What is the fifth remaining sense? Oh, the sense of taste! I am pretty sure that, if you lick the wooden chair, you can taste the chair :) Your mind tastes the chair. I keep using the word mind instead of the brain, because the brain is just a physical object. I refer to the mental concept behind the brain, the mind.

Having your mind sensed the chair with all your five senses, can you still imagine a chair even if the chair doesn't exist? Yes, you can. So, it means that the chair need not exist in reality for you to imagine it. What the human mind needs to imagine a chair, is an a priori concept of a chair. But, I find it hard to believe it. That needs memory. Where does memory come from? This is where I get stuck. Having discussed this, if you extend this discussion, I think you can see that the world doesn't exist outside the human imagination.

Wiki says this is the mind-body problem. This is the dualism in nature. Energy and matter, mind and body. Dualism everywhere, balance everywhere. I need to take a further step into monism. It seems intuitive to me that there is only thought in the world, and there is no physical world. Don't ask me why. I can't answer that question. Because I don't know why. I only think it's true. Maybe that's what God means. I hence question the existence of God. I try not to believe in God, for the purpose of finding and realizing God. That's the best way to do it. Reasoning and logic can take you only that far. Philosophy and religion go beyond reasoning. That's why the general public look at philosophers and religious people as crazy people without a purpose in life. That's because these crazy people question the purpose of life, and move the masses and disrupt their routine life. The government doesn't want the public's life to be disturbed. They are against philosophers and religion. I think this is where the concept of "separation of church and state" comes in.

Life is questionable. Philosophy says life and death are two sides of the same coin. Thus far, it's obvious. The Hindu god Brahma creates life and the Hindu god Siva destroys life. There is the third god in the trio, Vishnu, the God of preservation and sustenance. You can call the forces of life and death by any name. Names are not explanations. Selfish people make advantage of the fear of death. As long as humans remain humans, that is, the need for food, shelter and clothing exists, humans will fight among each other. Differences will exist. The world will remain like this. You cannot change it. Practice your principles instead of preaching them. Even if you preach them without practicing them, you will be a hypocrite.

I begin to think about hypocrisy. Most people think hypocrisy is bad. Hypocrisy is when the person does not practice the idea he supports. Should he follow a principle he states for the principle to be true? That's definitely a big NO. Gravitation exists whether or not Newton discovered it. For an idea or principle to be true, the person stating it need not be the one following it. See the idea, not the person. Lobbyists and reporters make a living based on the fact that people think hypocrisy is bad and hypocrites are questionable creatures. Perhaps they are right, because it's more impressive for a person to preach something when he follows it, because people will not question him: Why don't you follow it when you say it's true? Actually that question is unnecessary, because that's where it gets personal. People get personal instead of helping each other out towards achieving a common goal.

The identification of a common goal is important for people not to fight with each other. It all comes back to the same question again: The purpose of life. Since nobody knows the right answer (there is no right or wrong), people can't pursue that goal, and they set their own goals in life and pursue it. If it conflicts with the goal of another person, they fight.

Love and Marriage

All that I talk about love and marriage are from my personal experience in this month. I read somewhere on the internet that experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. It's absolutely true to me in this case. Absolutely. I began to ponder over the concept of marriage for the first time when this hit me in December 2007. As far as I understand, marriage is a necessity. The little bit of philosophy I read a while ago tells me marriage is a necessity and a duty, whether it's social, personal, emotional, or spiritual. It is a step towards higher realizations of life. Given this hypothesis, I will discuss my thoughts on this. I have seen two cultures in my life: Indian and American. The more time I spend on it thinking and hence the deeper I go, the more similarities I see, differences are only apparent superficial and shallow - they only divide people and cause disharmony among people who are not so broad-minded to see the similarities within.

Similarities are in the answers to questions like "Who?", "Why?", "When?": How do you choose whom to marry? Why should you marry that particular person? When do you decide whether or not to marry? When do you actually marry? These are the thoughts that seem to have similar answers across cultures and borders.

I will start with saying that you can marry anybody. ANYBODY. (Start the thinking process with disbelief, and build up on it.) That's true only when both the partners realize it's true. Since no two persons are alike and nobody is perfect, it means that marriage is aimed at bringing two people, who are most similar, together. But, is that necessary? Can differences be eliminated with time and harmony be achieved? Apparently not, because life is short. It will need sacrifices from both sides to make it work, because love means giving and not expecting to receive. What can bind them together? Is love a prerequisite for marriage? Millions of people who have never even known each other got married and lived together for all their lives. Love cropped up in their married lives either as a necessity or by itself. I am pretty sure they are happy with their married lives. You can't measure happiness, but you can tell it works, because happiness doesn't come from outside, but it's inside yourself - only the external world drives you away from discovering it within yourself.

When do you decide when to marry? My opinion is this: You think about getting married when you start feeling alone, because everybody else is getting married: Your friends, your relatives, your siblings, etc. Since they have their own personal lives now and they can't afford to hang out with you and spend time with you; you are left alone, and you start thinking about company for yourself because everybody else you know has company in their lives. I think this is where same sex marriages come in, since that company need not always come from the opposite sex, unless you are heterosexual, and feel the need to satisfy your physical desires. Since nobody I know is not after satisfaction of those desires, marriage is not essential in that respect: personal necessity. I think this is why some cultures have very early marriages, since people achieve puberty at very early ages, ages at which they don't even know what to think and don't even have the knowledge to understand what is happening to them.

My posts might be disjointed because I write as I think, and I can't write as fast as I think, and if I think about how to write while writing, it blocks the process of thinking itself, and it doesn't serve the purpose of writing. So, I ask you to bear with me and be patient as I learn that art of writing and thinking at the same time.

Now comes the emotional part: Is marriage a necessity for satisfaction of emotional desires? For most people it is, since they are emotional. But what exactly do I mean by emotional desires? It's the need to share your opinions, feelings: both happy and sad. This brings together people who think along similar lines: they must have the same tastes, the same culture, come from the same place, speak the same language - in short, have the same superficial attributes of life. But what I think they must have in common is the thought process. If they think the same way about life, that is enough to bring them together. All differences can be eliminated in due course of time. Of course, they can never be truly eliminated, but only reduced. Differences keep occurring in life not only in marriage, but everywhere: in your job, in your own mind, in your family, with your friends. What needs to be common to the two is the way they try to overcome these differences. That is what I call similarity in thought. But if, given a problem, there are always multiple ways to solve it. Do the differences lie in the problem statement? Or do the differences lie in the paths they take to achieve the same solution to the problem they both agreed on?

Coming to the spiritual need of marriage, I don't know if it's a necessity or not, because spirituality is in the mind and not in what you do. Can you be spiritual even if your partner is not? Should I be talking about this in the first place, since most people don't find it entertaining enough? Should I care for what other people think about spirituality? Should I write about it whether or not there are people to read this? I write because I want to share it with somebody nonexistent, when nobody I know is willing to listen to all this crap about my thought process. Maybe that is why I don't talk much and think too much. It's getting worse by the day, which I don't want to happen. Maybe I should post this stuff on some dating website when I need someone. :)

I have to read my book now, so see you later.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Thanks to Amith for suggesting that book for me to read:

Some extracts from the book:

Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Laws of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts. the whole blessed thing is a human invention, including the idea that it isn't a human invention. The world has no existence whatsoever outside the human imagination. It's all a ghost, and in antiquity was so recognized as a ghost, the whole blessed world we live in. It's run by ghosts. We see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and the Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. You common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past. Ghosts and more ghosts. Ghosts trying to find their place among the living.