Daily news, TV serial shows and movies

Most of these have a very large correlation with our daily emotional fluctuations and small correlation with what actually happens in our daily lives. I agree that this does help us connect with and converse with our colleagues, friends, relatives and even perfect strangers, but how many of us keep in mind the drops of emotional trauma that might one day lead to a flood in each of our lives? How many of us draw the line during these conversations - the line that divides banter and arguments, the line that divides conversation from confrontation, the line that divides our responsibility from someone else's?

Alas! There are very few who do, including me. I might be aware of this line every time I cross it, but I can hardly dream of achieving perfect control over my desire to toe it. This disaffects our happiness. This affects our psyche and consequently our health and quality of life. One can hardly think that banning the bringers and causative agents of these emotional spikes could be a practical solution. Of course, we even have no right to stifle these expressions of human emotions.

What is within our right and ability is to ban our reactions and exposure to these agents of trauma-drops.

Recognition

Just when I thought I was an excellent person, this occurred to me. People don't recognize you for what bad thing you did not do, but they recognize you for what good thing you did. Possibly only in rare cases do you find yourselves being recognized for not doing something bad, but even that needs you to take action because the sheep around you are telling you to do that bad thing.

Maybe being so silent doesn't work after all.

Oh, the pain!

The heart says one thing,
the mind says another.

Why can't I listen to one,
while happily ignoring the other?

Is this why I was born,
just to see myself being torn?

This pain is so unbearable,
catching you when most vulnerable.

I wish I could simply decide,
I wish I could otherwise hide.

But as long as I am here,
this I should always fear.

To do or not to do and
To be or not to be?

These I am trying to answer,
and I can not go any farther.

Pain and pleasure cycles and how to overcome them

I remember during my childhood when one of my classmates and I were arguing about the particular line-type to be used to demarcate one country from another on an international political map. According to the legend, the line-type for state boundaries was a thin dot-dash line, and the line-type for national boundaries was a thick dot-dash line. My classmate had failed to notice the difference in thickness of one type from the other and argued this way:

The line type for state boundaries is a dot-dash line that begins with a dot, and that for national boundaries is one that begins with a dash.

I didn't know how to respond to this, but I remember even until now how funny it sounded when he explained it. But upon very recent introspection, I found that I could have been just as easily mistaken about his argument too. He might have been drawing them that way (one beginning with a dot and one with a dash) but may be I missed to notice the difference in thicknesses of his lines.

This misunderstanding has been very useful to me because it helped me understand how the human mind interprets repetitive cycles.

Let's come to the pain-pleasure cycles in life. It can not be argued that they are inevitable even though in your life they might be controlled to make a straight line without any ups and downs. Maybe you are a yogi. So, given that the most miserable person in the world, the happiest person in the world and a yogi have these cycles in their lives, we question, "What is it that differentiates one from another one of them?"

Here is my answer: The miserable person is on the dash of the cycle. The happy person is on the dot of the cycle. The yogi, because he is enlightened, separated himself from the cycle because he had understood long ago that the cycle is not a part of reality. The miserable person will next be on the dot and the happy person will next be on the dash. What changed? Just the moment of our observation. Note that our labels "miserable" and "happy" themselves are given based on where the person is on the cycle. The yogi realizes the circularity of this labeling method, and transcends the limitations of language. Thus he separates himself from the cycle and is at equilibrium with the world.

The Trinity of human groups

After lots of thinking, I came up with a model to explain whatever people as groups do to each other, whether or not they are aware of their collective consequences.

I define three entities: the Ruled, the Ruling and the Unruled entities. Remember that these are ever-changing. (Nilekani moved from the Unruled to the Ruling entity.)

Most people like jailed criminals, taxpayers, children, servants, government employees, the army, navy and airforce and many more which I am sure I missed fall into the Ruled category. This entity is where everybody's self lies. Whenever an individual is by himself, irrespective of his actual entity (the Ruled, the Ruling or the Unruled entity), his mental self falls into the Ruled entity. When he cannot clearly identify a particular entity to associate with, God becomes the unity of the three entities and the individual recognizes his self as part of all these three entities. But let us not get into individual spirituality during a discussion about collective human interactions.

The Ruling category is the one that people tend to think about whenever they openly discuss their collective problems and hold the entity responsible. They are the one who have to solve their problems. One should never forget that one rule does not govern all sections of people and no rule is universal or ever-lasting. Rules are ever-changing with time and space. The Legal authority falls into the Ruling entity.

Interestingly, the Unruled entity of human collection is where the most change and exciting action takes place. This is what should be truly held responsible from within, but alas, it is not the case so often. Otherwise, what would be the fun in social life? Anyway, the Unruled entity is comprised of groups like the drug market, the entire sales/corporate market, civilian entertainment, social reformers and crazy people, newspapers and media, agents of change and awareness like leaders and ghosts of fame past, unrestrained criminals, etc. Ideally, this is what people should listen to and hold responsible directly, but with collective self-restraint. But as per my observation, most "holding responsible" happens not directly between the Ruled and the Unruled, but almost always through the Ruling entity. The flipside to the Unruled entity is that enormous sacrifice is needed on the part of the Unruled, whether it is before or after they face the consequences of their actions.

This collective interactions give rise to a need for a common language, culture and normality. What one should particularly note is that the individual understanding of what is "normal" arises from these collective interactions.

Mind, concept and application

One should apply the mind to the concept. If he applies the concept to the mind, the concept will remain unchanged and the mind will rot. But if he applies the mind to the concept, amazing and fruitful results will be obtained. There lies the power of the mind. Here, the mind is the tool, not the object. (However, if you are practising raja-yoga, the mind becomes the tool and the object. That is not relevant here.)

Let's take an example. If you have an immersible water heater and a bucket of water, you would be ill-advised to pour the water over the heater, wouldn't you? The water will not only remain unheated, but the heater will be damaged (Your circuit-breaker might trip, too!). If you want to use the heater properly, put it carefully in the water and you will get what you want or need.

Getting the answer from the escapist

I have read and also observed from my private experience that you can more often than not get the answer out of someone who is trying to avoid the question by persisting and being understanding. You might have to say, "I completely understand your concern, but I really need this information to help you effectively". Or you might have to say, "Can you be more specific please? It would be very helpful if you can give me some numbers."

Many a time I have seen that you one get what you want at the second or third attempt. You are lucky if you get it right away, but if you don't, this is one way to go about it.

Swine flu - a poem

Neither you nor I created it,
neither you nor I contracted it.

The only thing that matters
is that we are so afraid of it.

Is your goal unachievable or too high?

My sister asked me once how I knew a goal I set for myself is too high or too low. I explained it to her like this:

Setting any goal or aim can not be fully done without planning on how to achieve it. Since every plan has steps from the beginning to the end, one can know whether or not his goal is too high as he executes the first two or three steps of the plan.

Going by his judgment of how tough it was to finish these first few steps, he can re-evaluate his final goal, his self, and work backwards and forwards until he finds what he wants.

Negative thinking

Husband: I always think positively.
Wife: Do you mean to say that I always think negatively?
Husband: Does that sound like positive thinking?

An objective JEE

An objective JEE, compared to a subjective JEE, focuses on the end instead of both the means and the end, and will lead to a social phenomenon in Indian education, where the student community is raised by the system teaching them that it's OK to use any means to achieve the desired end. The fact that how the student arrived at the right answer is not evaluated or graded is detrimental to the students philosophical, analytical, strategic and logical mindset. As he grows up, he will be trained to think that there is only one solution to any problem in the world.

Previous batches who took subjective JEEs very well know instinctively that there are an infinite number of ways to solve a particular problem, that the problem can be redefined based on the solution, and the solution based on the problem. This mindset is a healthy basis for the development of any society if education and awareness are considered to be the pillars of a national foundation.

I now become aware that even though the quality of subjective JEEs falling with each successive year is not that big an issue compared to this change in test methodology. I had once heard someone say that every student complained about his educational institution, but I think I am right in saying that this recent change in JEE test pattern will be extremely detrimental to both the institutes and the students' collective psychology. In the next 15-20 years with batches graduating, getting PhDs and joining the same institutional system to teach students who they once were, the plane of the quality of IITs is going to be nose-down. The corporate world, be aware! The most you can trust the brand value of IITs is only for the next two or three years, when the last of the subjective JEE-takers leave the cyclical "IIT system".

An inference from two spiritual laws

In all practicality, this law is more a conclusion drawn from two facts, one being the Spiritual Law of Duality or Binary Opposition, and the other being the fact that everything can be condensed into a single thought, than a law by itself. Let me just state that it's just an inference and not a law, for now.

I infer that for every thought in this and any other world, there exists an equally powerful and opposite thought. Sometimes I wonder at this inference because of the fact that Gandhi and Hitler were contemporaries, but this wonder vanishes when I observe that Gandhi did not achieve as equal an amount of popularity (whether positive or negative), as Hitler did.

Perhaps there lies the truth about fame. Fame is an illusion, and only the one who can see through it, can truly conquer it and play with it for his and the greater good.

Neither alone justifies the other

We have all heard many people defend themselves or oppose others saying, "The means must justify the end", or "The end justifies the means." I would like to point out to both of them that neither of the them are right or wrong. Actually it's not about right or wrong, there's more to it than just that.

In my opinion, both means and ends must justify each other. That's when there will not be any difference between success and failure.

a. If the means are right, and the end is wrong due to unavoidable circumstances, one would be able to say confidently that he gave it a try, and must be defensive that he did it the right way. Only then will he have the right to blame whoever caused the unavoidable circumstances.

b. If the means are right and the end is right, the world and the one are both happy.

c. If the means are wrong and the end is right, it's most probably a case of extreme selfishness, or a terror plot. It then leads to misfortune both for the world and the person in action, because though he did something good, he did it the wrong way.

d. If the means are wrong and the end is wrong, both the person and the world is unhappy, and both can blame each other with the apportioning of blame being appropriate to both.

So, I logically conclude that both the means and the ends have to justify each other, by both being right independent of each other and with trust in God, because blame always awaits the one who does at least one of them wrong, and he will have the true courage to face it only when he knows this truth.

if X then Y logic

If X then Y. This implies that
if NOT Y, then not X.

I explain it here.
If X then Y can also be expressed as "Y contains X in a Venn diagram". This can only mean one thing. NOT X contains NOT Y. That means if NOT Y, then NOT X.

Note that I am using a relationship between the word "contains" and "if ... then ..." statements. Here, they are interchangeable. "If premise, then conclusion" means that the premise is contained in the conclusion, or the conclusion contains the premise. If the conclusion is false, then the premise is false.

Also note that I am only talking about a single premise and a single conclusion. More posts might follow one or more premises or conclusions.

Thanks to Vallabha,

without whose email forward, I could not write this post. The bold statements are from Dilbert, and the ones that are not, are from me.

I say no to alcohol, it just doesn't listen.
I assume you have ears and so you can listen.

Marriage is one of the chief causes of divorce.
One of them is a social responsibility.

The light at the end of the tunnel may be an incoming train.
It could also be the actual light at the end of the tunnel.

Born free, taxed to death.
Tax also has an everyday synonym. Duty.

It's not hard to meet expenses, they are everywhere.
There is something else that is everywhere. That is everywhere.

The guy who invented the first wheel was an idiot. The guy who invented the other three, he was the genius.
The 'other' three? Other than what? Exactly.

Beat the 5 O'clock rush, leave work at noon!
You could also leave at a different time you know.

It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end.
Can you stop all the vehicles that are waiting at a red light.

The cigarette does the smoking you are just the sucker.
May be 'Sucking a burning cigarette is injurious to health.' should be printed on packs.

Someday is not a day of the week!
Everyday is some day of the week.

Whenever I find the key to success, someone changes the lock.
The key to success is constant change.

To Err is human, to forgive is not a Company policy.
Microsoft or Google are not famous for the beauty of their buildings.

Alcohol doesn't solve any problems, but if you think again, neither does Milk.
I coined a new proverb - Prevention is better than solution.

In order to get a Loan, you first need to prove that you don't need it.
A loan melts a solid into liquid.

All the desirable things in life are either illegal, expensive, fattening or in love with someone else.
What is the root noun of desirable?

The Truth

Truth is in you. Truth and you are one and the same thing. Call it the soul, if you will. Neither your mind nor your body, but you are the truth. The whole universe is centered and moves around you and within you. That is the truth. True, truth is just a word. But it contains the essence of all existence and of God. You don't have to believe in God to realize this truth. A sincere atheist can be a believer of the truth, but he just calls it by a different name. Because it's just a word. Words don't mean anything unless realization comes with it, just as a weather forecast report means nothing until it becomes true or false.

Breathe to control your life

I found a perfect and most useful analogy, out of practice and experience, that suits humans of all kinds. It is a fact that the human lungs are controlled by both voluntary and involuntary muscles. This is a very good analogy to understand when you are in control of your life, and when you are not. When you breathe consciously, you exercise the voluntary muscles, and you are in control of your life, consciously. When you breathe unconsciously, your body exercises the involuntary muscles, and your life is in control of you. This is a perfect demonstration of the soul's control over the body.

When your conscience breathes through your body, mind is the master, and the body the servant. The creator controls the creation. When you let go of this control by involuntary or unconscious breathing, your body is the master, and your mind the servant. Desire and anger take over. The creation overwhelms the creator.

I think I learnt another spiritual lesson, but I don't know if it is a law or not: Keep breathing consciously all your life, and you will never regret a moment of it. You will be in perfect control of your self, and through your self, your body, through your body, your immediate surroundings, through your surroundings, your world, and through your world, the world and the universe.

Do we have an 'ism'?

I think we do. What '~thanam' is in Telugu at the end of many nouns made from adjectives, what '~thaa' is in Hindi at the end of those nouns, is the same as what '~ism' is in English at the end of the same. Then why do we hesitate to accept this sentiment? I think we should, by our instinct, well perfected due to centuries of life in the widest cultural and social diversity in this country.

Just a step further from the "Right vs. Wrong" debate

Everything is just that little step away. That which everybody secretly wishes to die for, but hates to admit openly, that which everybody shies away from when questioned, and that which we all know exists, is just a step further from the titular debate. There is nothing that is absolutely right or wrong.

That, I call 'most right' or 'least wrong'. That does exist, and we all know it does, but hate to admit in the debate, while we only try to silence our opponent. It might be apt now for me to remember a beautiful dialogue in "The Great Debaters":

"Who is your opponent?"
"He does not exist."
"Why does he not exist?"
"Because he is a mere dissenting voice of the truth I speak!"

That moved me to the verge of tears. But, I didn't cry, because I had finally gained control over my lacrimal glands. "Mere dissenting voice of the truth I speak", is such a beautiful phrase. The relevance of this phrase to our discussion is simply this: The opponent is not your enemy, he is your friend. Without him, you can not reach the truth, just like you can not walk on one limb. So, 'most right'? What does that mean?

It means everything in this physical world is less right than what is most right. Nothing is wrong, but only less right or least right. What is most right, I shall not say, but we all know. I will give you an example. The sun rises in the east. Is this right, or more right? My answer is that this statement is almost most right. Here I offer my explanation. In Indonesia, the sun rises in the east. In Nova Scotia in summer, the sun rises in the north east. In Alaska in summer, the sun rises in the north north east. I think you might want to say at this point, "I think I know where you're going." That only makes it easier for me. So, where does the sun rise in summer at the north pole? The sun neither rises not sets. He is there for six months straight. Doesn't "the sun rises in the east" become inappropriate there? Would you call that wrong? Least right? Irrelevant? False? Mu?

Do you see now that right and wrong are man-made, artificial, and hence divisive, and not absolute? You might be tempted to say that it's just one example that I chose. I can probably say then that I can prove myself with any statement that most people think is right, given enough resources. Won't you latch on to 'resources'? "What resources?", you will ask. "The best resource on my list is your patience.", I will say. This will go on, because in both our minds, there is a difference in the understanding of all that is right and wrong, while there is not any, and hence all our understanding of creation becomes baseless. This shakes man's ground, and threatens to destroy all that he has come to cherish and worship until now.

Most right, as I said, is only a step further from what we think is absolutely right. It is this step that we all are scared out of our wits to take, for it lands us in the end of the world. There is only one thing that I can say at this point now, as I said to my sister during the exact same debate.

The only thing that is most right, or absolutely right is God. Everything else in this and any other world, real or imaginary, is less right.

Timeless Laws

1. Monism.
Also called the Advaita in Hindu philosophy. There is only one, philosophical, spiritual, physical or by any school of thought.

2. Duality.
Also called binary opposition by some.
Corollary: Multiplicity.

3. Only one thought an instant.
The mind can only think one thought at any given point of time. Refer to a Turing machine in Computer Science. The read/write head is the human mind, which also has a state at any instant of time. The mind reads thoughts in the abstract world, and depending on its current state, does either of the following actions:

a. Change to next state of mind as a function of current state of mind and current thought.
b. Move to another thought in space depending on current state of mind and current thought.

Worry is a result of less than perfect functioning of the mind. Due to its momentum or maya or something that I am unaware of, the mind goes into infinite loops most of the time. This 'seemingly' eternal repetition is termed worry. "Awareness" is meeting the exit condition. People end a worry when they realize or are aware of their repetitive and fruitless worry.

4. I don't know.
Called by different people as The Veil, or Maya, or something else. This is the finest line that divides the absolute from the relative, the positive from the negative, the eternal from the transient, the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the limited from the unlimited, the knowledgeable from the ignorant, God from human, the soul from the body, and so on. "Every soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but whose center is located in the body." I don't know is the circumference of the circle that is the soul, because it is always changing with space, time and state of the mind.