Life, without Divinity but Intellect!

Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (Documentary; 2012)

Different from many of his presentations, here Richard Dawkins portrays an image of sobriety as he tackles one of the many unanswered questions of life. Rather than being ballistic against the many dogmatic beliefs and seemingly meaningless rituals of organised religions, he is willing to engage in his attempt to understand their many practices and how it maintains sanity in Man.

Studies have shown that everyone sins including people from a religious background. Unlike their non-believing counterparts, believers carry a considerable amount of guilt. The incidence of cheating, lying, fornicating and watching porn is the same across the board. In fact, some figures show suppression brings the worse in us.

On one aspect, we act and behave like animals. On the other hand, due to development in our neocortex, we are capable of rational thinking. We have the capacity for reasoning and able to differentiate right from wrong. 

Animals think within the cocoon of satisfying their personal needs, of food, mate and territorial space. Humans, however, have been bestowed with the ability to empathise. Perhaps with this feature, they can be kinder towards each other and are able to judge what is morality. This mindfulness must be the precursor to spur the goodness that is buried within us. 

If so much of decency is embodied within us, why do things go wrong? The same mental faculty must be at fault. Our capacity to imagine, to concoct a potentially disgusting or fearful situation may make us wary o the others. We need to safeguard ourselves from a potential collapse of the other. Hence, the justification of self-indulgence and self above others.

Faith gives us a reassurance that a third party will be a guiding light and a protector of sorts as we allay our fear and recruit our resources to meet the challenge of the day. Without this conviction, life would be a bigger struggle than it already is.

If life is just all about our lifespan, it will not make much sense. There would be nothing more to look forward to. The fear or bliss of an afterlife must be a good enough motivator to put law and order in place. Earth would then be a home not only for the big and strong but for the weak and incapacitated. Simply put, life on Earth is just for the continuity of progeny. Centurions live long live probably thanks to their longevity genes. On a related observation, they also have fewer offspring. Is that Nature's attempt to give them a longer time to sow their wild oats?

Many religions of the world talk about souls being immortal and the body just being a vessel to carry the soul. The only thing that seems to continue generations after generations is the passage of genetic material. And the blueprint of this template must have started from our sea-living ancestors (or Adam and Eve), and its traces are ongoing. So that it must the Atma or the Soul. But that, however, does not explain the re-births in different species based on your karma.

 https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The power of imagination...

Dedicated to PC who wanted to know my barber's philosophy...

During our many hair-cutting sessions, I used to engage in deeply engaging banters about philosophy and religion, specifically religions of the Indian sub-continent. The barber shop is a simple establishment, in keeping with his simple philosophies of life, has seen much changes since the 80s when it was first set up. Starting life with a strict religious upbringing in his childhood and early adulthood, certain life changing events indeed changed his outlook on life, belief in God and attitude towards the self-professed upholders of the organised religion. In other words, there is the Maker (Nature, Cosmos, whatever) and there is him. That is all. A dash across two dates. The darkness before your existence and after, no previous lives and no after-life. Above us only sky and no cycles of re-birth and no book of Judgement too.

During one of our colloquy, he brought up the notion of the origin of Lord Muruga, the deity well known amongst the South Indian Hindus, specifically in Tamil Nadu. He asked me why the particular God is not seen as a member of the Shiva clan in the North but is prominently featured in the Southern part of the sub-continent. I put it to him about the legend that has it that an evil was terrorising that area and about the product of Shiva, the Destroyer, the six babies in six lotuses in Saravana Poigai, and about Sakthi, the nurturing mother, who provided him with the spear of destruction to douse the spitfire of evil!

He rubbished my understanding of the whole concept of Arumugam, the six-headed Peter Pan-like ever young, robust stalwart of truth and justice who could span the entire universe in a single swift in his majestic peacock.

In his books, legend has it that South India was faced some kind of epidemic. Many fell prey to this highly contagious communicable disease. The elders roped in many high notched medical practitioners of the day to find an immediate solution. The consensus was to build a big contraption with six medicinal elements into the city lake, the drinking source for its inhabitants. Sure enough, the disease got controlled, and the city dwellers were eternally grateful.

Over time, the genesis of the cure got romanticised. The ray of thoughts from the physicians became grandiosed as ray of fire arising from Lord Shiva's Netrikann (Third Eye); the train of thought wavelengths became Lord Agni who carried the ray; the six Karthigei pengal as the executors of the task; Goddess Sakthi as the alchemist who fused the ingredients and gave it potency. The invincible enemy, the disease, is, of course, the villain, the Asuras.

Guess we will never know the real story. Even though, the Tamilians claim exclusivity on the rights of Murugan or Saravana or Subramanya or Karthikeya, references to the deity had been traced back in Sanskrit literature in 1st millennium BCE. Even coins resembling Skanda with a silhouette of a peacock in the background were found in ruins of tribes of Punjab and Gupta kingdom!

Yaudheya coinage of Punjab (300-340 AD): 

Karthikeya standing facing, holding sceptre; peacock on right.

Why these intermediaries?

For Protection? The Monolith!

Conversations in a trip through the journey of life....

HL: You know, I have had it up to here with the chief priest of temple. I have religiously been going to this temple for God knows how long but when I need help, the chief priest gives me the run around. Sometimes, I think he only serves the rich and famous, not a poor nobody like me!
FG: Why don't you ask his assistant to help you?
HL: His assistant rather has his boss do the consultation for fear of hurting him.
FG: What kind of out-of-this-world help that you are seeking that only the chief of chieftains can help?
HL: No, just wanted him to help me with my astronomical stars and charts so that I can do the necessary prayers!
FG: For what?
HL: Huh? So that I can do a proper prayer for blessing.
FG: For what?
HL: Huh?

The Gods sent this?

FG: Do you believe in God? Do you believe that He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient? If you do, then you must realise that you do not need to tell Him anything. Least of all, you do not intermediaries to tell Him your problems because He knows. He knows what you want, what he have, what you do not, what you need and even what you think! He is supposed to be a God for all. So, I think you can communicate with Him directly, why not?
FG: Nobody knows the purpose of this journey. Some claim to know it all as if they have had a direct audience with God or have seen what is there on the other side. But, believe you me, we are all just as ignorant. Nobody knows what is in store for you, for me, for each one of us. We are all just sailing clutching to whatever that he says, she says...
HL: But still...
FG: Aaah...We are here...but not quite on the other side...

Above us only sky?

Osho Meditations

PRAYER

THERE is nobody to hear your prayers. Your prayer is simply a monologue; you are praying to the empty sky. Nobody is going to reward you for your prayers – remember it. If you really know what prayer is, prayer itself is its own reward. There is nobody else to reward you; the reward is not there in the future, not in the afterlife.
But praying itself is such a beautiful phenomenon that who cares about the future and who bothers about the reward? That is greed, the idea of reward. Prayer in itself is such a celebration, it brings such great joy and ecstasy, that one prays for the prayer’s sake. One does not pray out of fear and one does not pray out of greed. One prays because one enjoys it. One does not even bother whether there is a God or not.
If you enjoy dance you don’t ask whether there is a God or not. If you enjoy dance, you simply dance; whether anybody is seeing the dance from the sky or not is not your concern. Whether stars and the sun and the moon are going to reward you for your dance, you don’t care. The dance is enough of a reward unto itself. If you love singing you sing; whether anybody listens or not is not the point.

 So is prayer. It is a dance, it is a song; it is music, it is love. You enjoy it and there it is finished. Prayer is the means and prayer is the end. The end and the means are not separate – then only you know what prayer is.
When I say prayer, I mean an openness towards God. Not that you have to say something, not that you have to ask something, but just an openness, so that if He wants to give something, you are available. A
deep expectation, but with no desire – that’s what you need. Urgent expectancy – as if something is going to happen any moment. You are thrilled by the possibility of the unknown but you don’t have any desire. You don’t say that this should happen or that should not happen. Once you ask, prayer is corrupted.
When you don’t ask, when you simply remain in silence but open, ready to go anywhere, ready even to die, when you are simply in a receptivity, a passive, welcoming spirit, then prayer happens. Prayer is not something that one can do – it has nothing to do with doing. It is not an action or an activity – it is a state of mind.
If you want to talk, talk, but remember, your talk is not going to affect the existence. It will affect you, and that may be good, but prayer is not going to change God's mind. It may change you, but if it is not changing you then it is a trick. You can go on praying for years, but if it doesn’t change you, drop it, throw it, it is rubbish; don’t carry it any more.
Prayer is not going to change God. You always think that if you pray, God’s mind will change, He will be more favourable, He will be tipped a little towards your side. There is nobody who is listening to you. This vast sky cannot listen. This vast sky can be with you if you are with it – there is no other way to pray.
I also suggest to pray, but praying should be just an energy phenomenon; not a devotee-and-God phenomenon, but an energy phenomenon.

OSHO

Science can answer moral questions?

Only on BFM, you can hear an atheist trying to rationalize moral issues with science!