The Concept Of God

Theists and Atheists, the ontologically sound and the hollow, the epistemologically inclined and the abstinent, lend me your ears, listen to what i have to say on this one. I don't want to hurt your opinions, i don't want to change your perceptions. All i want, is to present this discussion in new light, a sumptuous food for thought, if you'd like to put it after reading this one.

The theists and the Atheists have had sempiternal debates over this, and bet me, the debates have led to nothing concrete. In the end both people from both parties go back to where the were. Believers stay believers, non believers stay non-believers. Debates over such topics are a waste. It is because the believers present the the notion of God as nothing short of a reckless magic, wherein by virtue of being God, some supreme being is hailed the creator, perpetuator and the destroyer of this Universe. 

Being a believer is easy. The whole of the Universe with its infinite artistic beauty on the outside strutted with the rationalist mathematics and science on the inside makes human beings wonder whether there is a supreme power that has bestowed us with this enigmatic Life and all the surroundings. Failing to find answers of which, instills their faith in a power supreme. What adds to their belief are the mere coincidences which are given the name of mystical realism. In this world of mad believers and foolish pawns, God is the shortest escape from reality into a world of fairies and fairy tales.

Being a non-believer is easy too. When the die hard followers of science and logic step into the arena armed with their reasoning ability and argue that what cannot be seen or felt is non-existent, it puts the believers in a trap they can't get out of. But, when asked to comment on the magnitude of the construction of this Universe with its myriad manifestations in the form of diversity in all the living and the non living things, they tend to shy away and blame it all on chance events and randomness. It may be a good leeway, but then again it leads to nothing of much use and moreover helps in hiding the meaning of life and the purpose of creation in deeper darker and dangerous dungeons.

Who am i? Am i an Atheist?
No. 
Am i a believer? 
Read On.
What i have, is, faith in the concept of God. God for me, is not the creator or the destroyer of life in this Universe, but he is the manifestation of my faith, the faith that keeps me going. Having faith is the only thing that makes any person want to live this life, the purpose of which is otherwise indeterminate. To me, the whole point of life is figuring what life is all about. Now faith manifests itself in a huge number of ways. Some people have faith that they'll end up being filthy rich and enjoy all the pleasures of life, while others have faith that they'll live happy lives by sticking to only the bare necessities and no more. Some people have faith that they will help the needy in the society and change their lives and make the planet a better place for them to live while others have faith that they'll change the world as we see it through groundbreaking research in the domains of the Science and Mathematics. To me God is the piggy(Faith) bank where in i can put all my faith coins in, and pull them out when i need them, and i have no shame in admitting it. When i go about doing a task and i know at the back of my mind that something powerful is taking good care of me, chances are, i'd give it my best shot, almost always. If it turns out to be a success, i thank him, i implant more faith in my Faith bank, and drop in fresh coins. If it doesn't turn out to be a success, i thank him for the experiences gained. God is that piece of code, that keeps running in the kernel of my body, or the mind, that keeps me motivated in my endeavors, consoles me when the chips are down, pats me on the back when i do something good. In short God is the mentor that i always wanted. Its easy to blame him when things don't go my way, but then, mentors too, are allowed to make mistakes. Its important not to hand him the string of your life, but let him be the Krishna that guides the Arjun, the Arjun being you in this case. He does not have answers to all the questions, but he strengthens the gut instincts that lead to to wisdom. Talking to him is nothing more than just taking out time for yourself and we all have realized how important that is. 

God to me is as living as anything in this world, only that he is omnipotent because he resides in my mind and i can talk to him whenever and wherever i feel like. He is not the person that is running this Universe, which we are a part of, but He is as much a part of this as any living being. And with all the grandeur and the might we are witness to, at all times and at all places, i have reason to believe that there is more to my Faith bank than just a store house of my Faith coins. And that is about it, i have said a lot, but a lot more is hidden between the lines of this text and still a lot more can be said, but i'll not spill out everything for you. 

I have just presented one manifestation of God as my Faith bank, the way you would like it to be is your call. Call him power supreme, call him the creator, call him God, call him luck, call him by any name; for me he makes life, a hell lot simpler. Thanks for your time, Ciao! :)

Sachin, aap bhagwaan hain!

So, have you been wondering what has kept me so quiet on the cloud for so long? Yes? Read on. No? Read on. It has been quite a ride, the last three-four months. Sometime back i decided to quit blogging altogether. Why? Because the whole concept of sharing my philosophy on life seemed a futile exercise to me. I thought why and how would it make a difference to any one? I mean people would most often read a post, swallow the words and move on, because sadly their is no enzyme that would help digest the swallowed up words. The words have to be chewed and crushed into thoughts which are directly absorbed by the heart and the mind. Every post would drop on a person's life like the monsoon rain, that would bring ephemeral delight, but not eternal bliss. Only later I realized that its not only the banal rainfall every time it rains, some times there are thunderstorms too, that leave extended impressions. Impressions you forget only with time, because better and more dominating impressions take their place. This is what brings me back.

I've been lucky enough to have laid my hands on some of the great books that have come out of some of the greatest thinkers of the past and the present. The books have shaped and reshaped the way i think and the way i see the things that are in and around me. Every great book presents me with a new set of glasses that help me see the world in tints unknown to me at that time. New dimensions keep getting added to my thought process with every reading and thanks to these great books I, today, stand where I am.

What if the authors of these gems too refrained from writing, ascribing their repulsion to the same logic that kept me away from writing as well? Surely I would have missed out on knowledge and pleasure that to some extent, my text books have failed to provide. That is why I would love to continue writing, in hopes that someday (if not already) someone will get influenced by my thoughts, make them his own by embellishing them the way he likes, and start his journey with a new set of glasses, replacing the old and broken ones. I don't need any accolades for the way i key-down my thoughts, that is not my aim. My goal is to make this world a better place to live in, and to me that comes by helping people repaint their outlook on life. I really don't claim to be the happiest person alive and I am by no means the authority on life and the way it should be lived. I haven't and can't ever put to end my learning process. That is bound to last as long as i live. But as and when i feel like sharing something insightful, i'd never shy away from doing so. Maybe you'll remember me on your deathbed as a person who if not substantially, then, marginally helped in making your life a little more meaningful. 

So what do i suggest? Stop. Read. Think. Repeat.

Thanks for your time. Ciao!  

Thank You, Sapna Maun.

The concept behind the meaning of Rationality has eluded me since the time i started thinking about it. To put it in the simple words for the lesser mortals i'd say that the meaning of Rationality as stated in the dictionary doesn't make sense to me at all.

For starters let me just pull out the definition of the word from an online dictionary:

rationality [ˌræʃəˈnælɪtɪ]

n pl -ties

1. the state or quality of being rational or logical

2. the possession or utilization of reason or logic

3. a reasonable or logical opinion

Here you go. Read it? Just read that one more time. Done that? Do it again. Re-re-read? Did you notice a peculiar thing? Or maybe it is just me, that is precisely why i am writing this post; but the meaning doesn't grow upon you with every re-read that you give it, and on the contrary it seems to die down. The definition is contorted. What really is ridiculous and fake about this definition is that the words used to define the term Rationality aren't any easier to be defined themselves. The above reference is to the words 'quality', 'reason' and 'logic'. Now, you could stop and think over it, or just carry on reading because human beings tend to seek the easy way out, Always.

The problem i guess is that rationality is a subjective term. I mean something may seem logical to one person, while it may seem illogical to the other. Mind you, i'll be using the term rationality and logic interchangeably. Say for example there are four people, who stay together and have just had a very heavy dinner at a restaurant 5 km. from their home. For going back they could either take an auto who would charge Rs 10 per person, or they could walk back which is always an option if you don't have time and stamina as constraints. For some reason three people feel like walking back home, because it will help digesting food. They 4th guy argues; well, you could walk a km if you like but 5kms is like wtf?! But then everyone also earns decent money and the three of them enter a sort of argument with the other guy justifying how walking will help them digest food and save money too. The 4th guy then gives up on the argument and prefers to take the auto which charges him 40 rupees. He reaches home half an hour before every one does, but feels sad about how he couldn't convince the others to take the auto along with him which could have saved him 30 rupees. Strange, the ways of the world, he feels. Basically he realized it turned out to be some ego issue with a 3 on 1 situation and survival of the 'fittest' too. Is the 4th guy doomed for life if he doesn't change his ways? Is he not respecting evolution?

Well, if you ask me to analyse the above story, no body was irrational. Everyone just did what made sense to him. I mean the 4th guy could say the other guys were fools, wanting to save 10 rupees and walking 5Kms for that, but something will stop him. That is he can't just say what made sense to him is the best possible thing. It may be for him, but not for others. This is the heart of the discussion. You can never claim that at any given moment your actions were rational and what others did was irrational, for the very simple reason stated above. People have different levels of intelligence, things that make sense to one person are different than things that make sense to other people. While there may be many people who will buy your argument but you just cannot convince the whole world into believing in your definition of rationality. Take for example this blog post, it will make sense to many and not so much sense to others. Its all about feelings and perceptions and these, vary from people to people. Then, why, may i ask, is there a need to define rationality when no one is qualified enough to grasp its meaning.

But and this is a big BUT, there will always be some enlightened men, who gauge both sides of an argument and scrutinize the very process of defining rationality and then move on without defining rationality as a word but taking it as believing in something that makes sense, for the benefit of the whole society, always weighing in situations thoroughly before jumping to conclusions, understanding the very subtle argument that people with increasing amounts of intuitive powers and the intelligence to distinguish between intuition and prejudice, will have increasing amounts of clarity of the meaning of rationality and logic. With this heavy realization i have nothing more to say but that, I take pride in the fact, that I am one such man.

I am not one among you, don't count me as your normal friend. I am very different from what you are, i am neither a superior nor an inferior, i belong to a different dimension, a different universe altogether. Thanks for your time. Ciao.

Tête-à-Tête

In times like these, its hard to take some time out for yourself. You find yourself in a new city, miles away from college, just swarming with people you don't know, faces you don't recognize, expressions you can't understand, emotions you can't comprehend, talents you can't judge, smiles you can't respond to, security you can't breach, authority you can't challenge, tension that gives you sleepless hours in the bed, aspirations that fly high in the sky, appreciation lurking in the altars, fame that begs to be grabbed, names that ought to be taken and hopes you hope will come true.

Its hard to picture yourself against the alien surroundings, and it forces you to go back to your

shell, your comfort zone, back to the place where you belong, where you already have an identity, the same cube of which you have been a part for so long, where the huge walls don't scare you, and in fact where the walls shield you and keep you warm. The challenge of carving a new niche for yourself seems a daunting task, but its a challenge you just have to accept because first, life doesn't give you the time to look back in time, and secondly life only makes sense

when you look backwards, so at every moment moving forward is the only sensible choice.

Today I choose to write about myself. In a sense it gives me the impression that i am really

devoting myself the time i deserve and not the time that i need; trying to understand myself

by delving deeper into what I say and how I react to various situations and the way my

thought process works. It also gives me a chance to present myself to the world minus all the

sham and the embellishment. But then its only me who vouches for the fact that the information

here hasn't been garnished in a way that makes it more presentable and there is no one to verify

my claims here, but that it is the way I feel about myself and i wish that somehow you would

understand.

From being the guy who is totally into metal to being a guy who's favourite song happens to be

'Coming Back To Life'; from being the guy who screwed up acads in his college life to being the

guy who feels like repeating every damn course they taught in college just to show that he still

has the desire to learn; from being a guy who does almost anything to make people laugh and

goes on to crack jokes on himself to being the guy who weeps in his heart of hearts at times and

finds it almost impossible to get through what he actuallly feels like; from being the guy who

wants to help his friends get out of their shit to being the guy who actually ends up doing nothing

to alleviate their pain; from being the guy who almost does things without taking any self into

account most of the times to being a guy who ends up being called selfish most of the times; from being a guy who still likes to solves those math puzzles, collect those coins, still pursuing those chilhood hobbies to being the guy who still likes to look into the night sky, not observing anything but just gazing at those stars hoping to go into space some day; from being the guy who dreamt of becoming a really big shot astrophysict to being the guy who now just wants to spend an unobtrusive life; from being a guy who likes to talk less to being the guy who ends up saying more; from being a guy who thinks that every human being is equal to being the guy who regards

himself above all others when it comes to applying common sense; from being a guy who likes

to keep a low profile to being the guy who ends up getting all the undeserved attention; from

being the guy who just loves to speak his mind to being the guy who always ends up dishonouring lost of the people; from being the guy who does thing the best when he does it the first time to being the guy who gets bored of anyhting and everything; from being a guy who never shows that he cares to being the guy who loves some people from the core of his heart; from being a guy who wants to change himslef to being the guy who thinks that he is best the way he is; from being a guy who loves life to being a guy who finds life pointless and from being the guy who always starts a blogpost with a certain intention to being a guy who ends up saying nothing at all.

I keep discovering and rediscovering myself. Life is short, and I learn from the river. The river

never stops for anyone, and so won't I.

Thanks for the time, ciao.

Siddharta

A working sudoku solver finally and i'm free. Free to write and free to express. Its been a really long time since i posted anything new but here it goes. So recently i read this book 'Siddhartha' by Sir Hermann Hesse. 

This guy won the nobel prize for literature in 1946 primarily for his work 'The Glass Bead Game'.Couldn't get my hands on that book yet but after reading Siddhartha i got a faint idea of why he must have got that prize. Now i'm not going to narrate the plot of the book but what i will do is i'll just put down some dialogues from the book which i thought were both insightful and beautiful.But before that i'll let you hover your mind over these lines by paulo coelho from his book 'Like the flowing river' (another book worth reading atleast once) 

Be like the flowing river,
Silent in the night.
Be not afriad of the dark.
If there are stars in the sky, reflect them back.
If there are clouds in the sky,
Remember, clouds, like the river, are water,
So, gladly reflect them too,
In you own tranquil depths.

And here you go. Some dialogues listed below. Read them kindly, adore them, admire them, praise them and most importantly enjoy them :

• Siddharth Gotama to the Hero : " You've heard the teachings O son of a bitch ( sorry thats Brahmin ), and its good that you have thought about them deeply. You've found a gap in it,a mistake. You should think about this further. Let me warn you however,oh seeker of knowledge,of the thikcket of opinions and of arguing about words. Opinions are insubstantial: they may be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish; everyone can support them or discard them. But the teachings you've heard from me are not my opinions, anfd their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge. They have a different goal; their goal is salvation from suffering. This is that what Gotama teaches, and nothing else."                                                                                                                                        
• Hero to Siddhartha Gotama: "I have not doubted in you for a single moment. You have found salvation from death. It has come to you in the course of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through meditation, through realization, through enlightenment. It has not come to you by means of teachings! And so are my thoughts, oh exalted one-nobody will partake in salvation teachings! You will not be able to convey and share with anyone, oh venerable one, in words and through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment! There is one thing that the teachings of the do not contain: they do not contain the mystery of what the exalted one among hundreds of thousands has experienced for himself. This is what i have thought and realizes. This is why i am continung my travels- not to seek other, better teachings, for i know there aren't any, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and either to reach my goal on my own or to die. But i'll often think of this day, oh exalted one, and of this hour, when my eyes beheld a saint."                                                                                        
• "Daily, at the very hour appointed by her, he visited beautiful Kamala, wearing pretty clothes, fine shoes, and soon he brought her gifts as well. Much he learned from her red, shrewd mouth. Much he learned from her tender, supple hand. He was, regarding love, still a boy and had a tendency to plunge blindly and insatiably into lust like into a bottomless pit; she taught him, starting with the basics, about that school of thought which teaches that pleasure cannot be be taken without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every look, every area of the body, however small it was, had its secret, which would bring happiness to those who know about it and unleash it. She taught him, that lovers must not part from one another after celebrating love, without admiring one other, without being just as defeated as they are victorious, so that neither one started feeling fed up or bored and get that wicked feeling of having abused or having been abused. He spent wonderful hours with the beautiful and intelligent artist, became her student, her lover, her friend."                                                          
• Ferryman to Hero: "It is this what you mean, isn't it: that the river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and that there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future?"                                                       
• Hero to Ferryman : "And when I learned it, I looked at my life, and found that it was also a river, and that the boy Siddhartha was only separated from the man Siddhartha and the old man Siddhartha by only a shadow, and not by something real.  Siddhartha's previous births were also no past, and his death and subsequent return to Brahmin was no future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, and everything is present and has existence.                                                                                                                                               
• "When someone is searching" said the Hero, "then it can easily happen that the only thing his eyes see is that for which he is searching. He is then unable to find anyhting or let any thought enter his mind because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search. He is obsessed ny a gial; searching means having a goal. But finding means: being free, open, and having no goal. You oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, because in striving for your goal, there are many things that you don't see, even though they are right in front of you."                                                                                                                           
• "Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness. Knowledge can be transferred, but not wisdom. It can be found and lived, and it is possible to be carried by it. Miracles can be performed with it, but it can't be expressed in thoughts with words. This is what has driven me away from teachers. Another thought is that the opposite of every truth is just as true! That is to say, any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one sided. Everything that can be thought with the mind and said with words is one sided, its all just the half of it, lacking completeness, roundness or unity."                                                                               
• " Great thinkers may try to thoroughly understand the world, explain it, and despise it. But i'm only interested in being able to love the world, not despise it. I don't want to hate it and have it hate me; i want to be able to look upon it and myself and upon all beings with love, admiration and great respect."                

 These are only few of lines i found truly amazing. I know it may appear out of context to you guys but as long as you are able to get the gist of it doesn't really matter. Read the book completely and the meanings grow only more profound, only more subtle only more enjoyable and only more awe inspiring.

 Hats off to the great artist and his amazing work. I'll keep putting up new posts regularly. Thanks for your time tata :)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Secret

As i sit facing my desktop, flashes of the past cross my mind, bringing back memories. Well some memories make you happy some make you sad, though you always end up with
a mixed bag of emotions. It finally boils down to the fact that either you can rue over the past or you can relish the old memories it brings back.
It all started about 3 years back, when i set first set foot in this Oasis. Like all those stories you hear as a child, this Oasis too turned out to be a mirage, a simple yet deceptive
illusions. You know what is strange about illusions? Its the fact that illusions give you hope to carry on, to reach your goal. Seeing your target in sight you run with full enthusiasm towards it. Along the way expectations build up. You run with more effort, putting as much as you can in every stride and then exhaustion starts to set in. You slow down, close your eyes and take a deep breath. You open your eyes only to find out that your goal is still as far away from you as it was when you started. Then it dawns upon you that all this time when you were moving towards your goal, your goal also kept moving away from you at the same rate. You finally give up. But all this taught you a lesson. You would never fall for such illusions again but at the back of your mind there is always a nagging fear. The fear of making the same mistake again and you start living your life in a constant fear. Your steps become smaller and smaller with time and then slowly you pass out.
The paragraph above describes the all these years i have spent in this place but not the same goes for the last two weeks. About two weeks back i saw a movie/documentary titled "The_Secret." The video not only put me in shock and awe but also changed my whole perspective on life. It made me realize a certain things which i am going to be listing down. First, the importance of realizing your true desires and then visualizing yourself as a part of your dreams. Secondly, the notion that _you are and you achieve what you keep thinking about. Thirdly that you are not born with a purpose and that you define and write your own purpose. All this and the fact that life can only be understood connecting the dot's backwards has turned my whole thought process upside down. From being the sad pessimist that i was to becoming a more optimistic guy, i now try to take in the positives from any situation rather than debating on the negatives. From being the guy who had an opinion on everything and about everyone to becoming a non judgmental person. From being a atheist to person who believes in God and not necessarily destiny and luck. I seem to have realized that the best way to live life is to live it the normal way. For no matter how hard i have tried to escape the normal life style and defining a style which i thought will suit me, it never did. But that's just a part of the illusion that i have described. A normal life is the best possible way to lead a life. The higher you go, the harder you fall. Only a free mind can house constructive thoughts and i have certainly never felt this relaxed before. Not that i have completely changed or something but no matter how small the change is, it seems promising. And that is hope my friend. The thin line between hope and expectation has to be carefully spotted. Also i keep realizing the meaning and implication of this line from The Alchemist : "its all about reading the signs." The importance of understanding gut-feelings becomes stronger every day and some day i hope ill learn how to tap in my intuitions.
Ah well! You might not realize but its almost been two hours since i started on this post. I would advise you to watch the documentary. It will change the way you look at life provided, you hear patiently to what it has to say. Lastly, any sort of comments in any form are welcome. Ciao!