Of concordance and schisms

Aryabhata (476-550 CE)

Mathematician/Astronomer.

The first person to say that Earth 

is spherical and revolves around 

the sun. The first to suggest that 

any number divided by 0 

gives infinity ∞. (pinterest)

Continuing in the quest to make sense of things around me, I stumbled into something quite thought-provoking. It has something to do with our idea of separating knowledge into the sciences and the arts.

It is interesting to note that the Ionians, of the Eastern part of the Greek civilisation, and the Hindu culture started learning things about the world we live in entirely independent of each other. It is incredible how quite similar their discoveries were, at least in the initial stages.

The pre-Socratic thinkers thought that there was a connection between the Universe and the world immediately around us. Thales tried to say that water is the essence of our existence. Democritus put forward the theory of Void and eternal, indivisible atoms that made up our physical world. Pythagoras and his cult members attempted very hard to a mathematical formula for everything in the Cosmos, including music. His equations, he later realised, could be irrational at times. A case in point is the irrationality of √2. The hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle with dimensions of 1 X 1 cannot be calculated probably made him abandon his idea. From that time onward, another branch of knowledge is said to have developed - natural philosophy. Later philosophers quit looking at the stars for the answers but instead started gazing inwardly. They abandoned the physical sciences to rhetorics. Their idea of problem-solving was people watching. This type of wisdom continued all through Plato and subsequent sages. As we know Plato's teachings metamorphosed into Neoplatonic ideas which greatly influenced the Abrahamic religions.

Attempts to revive sciences through the works of Kepler, Copernicus and Newton met a lot of resistance from the society so ingrained in a kind of a dogmatic belief. Some of the branches of the Abrahamism realised their loss of grip on the flock and decided to move with the times while some found content in spewing their 6th-century or maybe 12th-century slightly improved ideologies.

On the other side of the world, in the Indus Valley, things progressed slightly differently. Their perspective of life on Earth seems to one that was devoid of the outside realm but of one that incorporated all the celestial bodies in the Universe. Till today, they appreciate significant events of the heavens like the birth of the new moon, the glory of the full moon and specific planetary positioning. Modern science is slowly agreeing to many of their old age believed traditions about the Cosmos and its cyclical manner of doing things. People of the Indian sub-continent continue showing their appreciations to things which are taken for granted in life. A simple example is the festival of Thai Ponggal or Makara Sankranthi which is celebrated during the Indic solstice as the sun enters the 10th house of the Indian zodiac Makara or Capricorn.
As more and more new things are discovered, one cannot fathom but only stand in awe trying to come in terms with how these ancient civilisations, with their rudimentary tools, were able to find things that were literally out of this world.

Kepler-186f is an exoplanet about 550 light-years from the Earth. It is the first planet with a radius similar to Earth's to be discovered in the habitable zone of another star. (Wiki) 

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Coincidence or what?

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Asoka Chakra, quintessentially Odiyan

For 17 years, I have been receiving referrals from the world over. On the morning before my long procrastinated maiden trip to India, to Bhuvanesvar specifically, where did I receive a referral from? Well, what do you know? It is from Bhuvanesvar! If you do not call it coincidence, what else? Or is it that I am specifically on the lookout for these quirky incidences. Perhaps if I were to look at other tiny unimportant data, I would surely see a pattern and claim synchronicity! [Referral]

Am I so important to the Universe that it decides to indulge in some kind of divine game? A mystical prank. That would be putting own self as a point of reference as if Nature gives a damn to the single individual.

In fact, complex mathematical formulas had been employed to calculate the possibilities of these seeming coincidences that defy logical explanations. The odds of experiencing these type of similar events are actually, not as low as we think it is. It is just that we fail to see other happenings that occur at similar frequency without we batting an eyelid to see them whiz us by.

Sorry to burst the bubble but there may not be a governing body in the Department of Synchronicity up there who is responsible for ensuring that events periodically happen at a pattern to show us who is The Boss! It is just an order in the chaos that we selectively choose to see.

Synchronicity (German: Synchronizität) is a concept, first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related. ... Jung used the concept in arguing for the existence of the paranormal. [Ref:https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_synchronicity05.htm]

(Listen to segment 19:00 through to 27:30)

Get a copy of the book 'Real Lessons in Reel Life' here...
Your entry into the elusive world of Maya, the stage set by Man to learn from to live on the stage set by Nature.  https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson

Humbled by a pig!

“It is 5.23 am,” I told myself as I glanced at my watch. “I guess I got up early. Anyway, SK should be here right about now, right on the dot at 5.30am, as he has always been. Today is not going to be any different.”

I plugged on my earphones to hear the continuation of a podcast that I listened to all through the previous week. It was a day before the full moon, but the cloudy skies and the lack of street lights made the street look pretty dark. I sat on the raised stone fence as the auto-gate slowly closed from inside.

Far behind a parked car, I could see a moving shadow. It looked like the silhouette of two stocky legs pacing haphazardly as if they were swaying. At once, I thought that it must be the neighbour’s son who must be struggling back to his home after a long Saturday night out with the guys.

“Wow!” I was thinking as I symbolically pat myself on the back for keeping up with the routine all these years despite the raging inner demons and concerned naysayers who keep advising me to slow down on account of being a half-centurion! “Only madmen would be running on a Sunday morning when the sane recovers from a stuporous night-out!” they say.

Just as I was drowning in the nectar of my self-praise, I realised that the shadow cast under the car was not that of a man. The contour of two legs soon became four, and a greyish horrendously ugly looking face with a tinge of what appeared like thick whiskers soon manifested. I was 10 feet away, looking eye to eye at Vishnu’s third avatar, Varaha, a wild boar!

Here I was, I thought, at the comfort of city living, enjoying the fruit of my lifelong struggle to benefit from the support of privacy and security of the gated community, I felt I had had it all. Within the luxury of economic independence and intellectual reasoning, the brutal combat of our ancient ancestors and the street smartness of the lesser beings have taken a back seat. Even in my wildest dream, I never envisaged a moment I had to face off a wild beast!

It was the stare between two worlds; one of the modern domesticated kind who had fight-or-flight response limited to his autonomic nervous system versus one who had to fight to stay alive and keep his place in the hierarchy of the pecking order of the jungle.

Hey, they knew even then that the Earth
 was spherical, even before Galleili!

The stare looked like it lasted for eternity. The boar, of course, hungry and desperate for food, did not want a competitor. As if he knew that I was not interested in his food, thank you very much. Negotiation naturally was out the question, so did all civil niceties. 

I turned around to ring the bell to my house as I did not have the gate key. The sudden movement must have startled the beast. It gave a low-pitched snorting grunt as if it was showing its displeasure. Interesting, it was my neighbourhood, and the visitor or rather an intruder, was displeased! Well, that is the law of the jungle. Might is right, and there is no place for logic. This is the ‘id’ that Freud is trying to tell that is put under check by societal pressure and would manifest in a mob situation or when enforcement crumbles.

Just when I thought that nay was near, of me being gored by a wild beast, a beacon of hope came in the form of a beam of light from an SUV. My ride arrived right on the dot just in time to turn the table on the aggressor. Awed by, all it knows could be a more giant animal and a louder roar, its fight mode downgraded to flight as it turned its back to return to where it came from. It retreated.

As we drove along, we saw a humbled pig strutting its behind with its tail between its legs heading towards the secondary jungle. Probably my friend must have been reminded of the carefree days of his childhood when sauteed and spiced wild boar meat with toddy was a delicacy among friends.

That is why we are repeatedly advised by wise men to get back to Nature. Nature gives a purpose to our existence. Its massive structures like the trees, the mountains and elements of Nature awe us to the ground. It impresses upon us our deficiencies and our feebleness. It drills unto us that we are nothing, just a passerby who makes a cursory presence while Mother Nature and the Universe goes on and on without a gap. We are not even a single fragment of a tiny dot in the Milky Way, what more in the ever-expanding dimensions of the Universe.

Lord Vishnu’s bodyguards were cursed to be demons by 4 Brahmans for refusing their entry. These guards (demons) terrorised Earth and submerged it into the ocean. Through Lord Brahma’s breath came a boar. With Vishnu’s powers, it became Varaha Avatar. It valiantly fought the demons and scooped Earth out with its horns. The wild boar, being the third in Vishnu’s 9 Avatars, after fish (water creature) and the tortoise (both land and water creature), is said to be the most primitive of the firmly footed land animal. Long before the Darwinian theory of Evolution, the Avatars actually describe the slow transformation of mankind, from a water creature slowly evolving to gain wisdom and finally achieving priestly states.

Beginning of life?

Sculpture depicting the churning of the ocean at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok, Thailand

Now that everyone can fly, everyone has a chance to see the wonders of nature and man made structures near and far! A point in question is the mammoth man made structure in Swarnabumi airport in Bangkok. Incidentally, 'Swarnabumi' is a Sanskrit word meaning 'land of gold'. It was initially used by Indian traders to describe the strip of land protruding from the mainland of south east of Asia, i.e.peninsular of Malaya.

The giant elaborate structure depicts an event in Hindu scripture (Puranas) of Lord Vishnu's second avatar. It all started when the God of Sky (Indra) was given a garland by a passing sage. Indra placed on his elephant's trunk who threw it away because of the strong scent. The sage, angered by this action of throwing away God's offering, passed a curse rendering all the demi Gods and Devas powerless. (Hey! I thought saintly sages are supposed to be patient and able to control their animal emotions!)

Same story in Angkor Wat

Lord Vishnu joined forces with Lord Shiva to save the world as demons, with special powers acquired from Lord Brahma and Lord Shiva at different times were terrorizing. Lord Vishnu assumed his second avatar as a turtle assisted by Vasuki, a serpent and a mountain. They had to churn out the nectar of immortality from the Ocean of Milk to restore powers of the Devas. Vasuki became the churning rope, the mountain became the churning rod, Vishnu sat on the mountain to stabilize it. On the tail end of the serpent were the devas and the demons at the head. This process produced lots of toxic power which was engulf by Lord Shiva but it got stuck in his throat after the neck was clenched by his consort. Shiva became blue in the face but the toxin got permanently stuck in his throat. The end results of the churning were aplenty. Beside the nectar which was held by the divine physician who flew on giant bird, Garuda, other by-products were Lakshmi who became Vishnu's consort, thulsi plant and many more. Lord Vishnu had to disguise as a pretty maiden, Mohini, to steer the attention of the demon while Garuda scoots off with the nectar. Unfortunately, things became complicated when Lord Shiva also gets excited. That is another sub-plot on the evolution of the Ayyapa and the justification of same sex union in the Hindu religion.
At one look, all these may look like a fictional tale coined to entertain the masses at an era where there were no outlet of entertainment to spend those long winter nights. Others may say it denotes symbolism of our daily life - our eternal fight with our inner demons to bring out the best in us.
I would say it sounds very much like a 'Big Bang' theory. An explosion of sorts in Ocean of Milk (?Milky Way) emitting radioactive explosion resulting in production of many lives, planets and beings.
Just a point to ponder...

Sagar Manthan

http://hinduwebsite.com/churning.asp

Centre of the universe

Hindu mythology has it that Lord Shiva's consort Parvati had a unique fruit (Gnana Pazham) that she wanted to give to either of her sons, Ganesha and Murugan. It could not be divided half as its magical power would be lost. Hence, Parvati decreed that the first child to go across the universe would receive the booty. Murugan, using his peacock as his vehicle, flew across the universe in no time to claim his loot. When he returned, he was furious when Ganesha had already received the fruit as he circled his parents, claiming that his parents were his entire universe. That made Murugan raving mad and left home and stayed sulking in self-exile in Palani Hills. The hill was named 'Pazham Nee' (Palani, that he was the fruit of wisdom) by Shiva to cajole Murugan back but in vain.

Ganapati outwitting his brother

Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei had to retract their scientific discovery that the Earth was in fact not the centre of the universe. The church, I guess, wanted to be in the centre of things and have the final say!
Just like that, the children nowadays have the unshakeable notion that they are the centre of the universe and the sun actually sets for them and they deserve everything to be done for them.If you go to any mall or public place, you may encounter toddlers terrorising and their imbecile parents (mostly fathers) running around like a joker trying to keep up with their whims and fancies. This will also be complemented by the grandparents (if there are up to it) to feed them with the more sugary drinks to make them more a brat than they already are! Probably, these grandparents are trying to repair their dented image after being a tyrant with their children a generation previously. The sum of all these is a child with narcissistic tendency and delusion of grandiosity.