On the Grand Design

Suffering is always tragic, often random and mostly senseless.

It is a worldly endeavor to lessen suffering, while the other-worldly pursuit is to "transcend" suffering since suffering is a "noble truth" from which there is no escape, only transcendence.

A friend of mine, with a network of well-heeled people in his network, writes on LinkedIn:

Seemingly adverse things appearing in abundance and without warning could be arising for one of two reasons. First, it may simply be that dealing with them is a necessary step in our development and without them our life journey will be a superficial success. Relatedly and importantly, these circumstances appear because prior volitional activity or accumulated karma making them the birth child of thoughts or actions we have taken in the past, whether we can directly recall or correlate to the present incidents.

Whatever the specific reason, I take great comfort in the fact that there is zero randomness in how my life’s events unroll and I look ahead with optimism and enthusiasm, knowing that the temporal map of these occurrences is accurately following the karmic load that I carry and strive to purify.

I quote an incident from an earlier article of mine:

Abandoned in Life and Death
Parents leave baby boy undergoing treatment at PGI

In a blatant display of extreme callousness, parents of a seriously injured baby abandoned the child midway through treatment in the PGI Intensive Care Unit.

Faced with absence of support in a critical condition, the infant breathed his last on January 7 and no one has even come forward to claim the body, which is kept in the mortuary of the hospital.

...

Although he started stabilising in the ICU, his parents suddenly vanished. After unsuccessful attempts at locating the parents, doctors informed the police.

...

Ruby passed away on January 7. 

...

The religiously-inclined might say that the child must have come to this world with his karma and that divine justice is infallible. And thus we avert our eyes from what must have compelled the parents of this poor child to desert him, and what must be improved in the hospitals, and in the mind-sets of doctors of this country for these events never to happen again. God forbid.

Truth is not comforting, it just is.  The truth is that this baby, Ruby, died of injuries and from lack of care, not of Karma.

Tragedy is not confined to the suffering of children, though it is perhaps easier to see that they did not deserve it.

I imagine the suffering of Ruby's mother as she abandoned him.  I imagine her compulsion, or perhaps her desensitized debasement.

I imagine the suffering of a father and a mother as their child is kidnapped and never found, as they imagine him or her to be amputated and made into a beggar or be raped by those who do not deserve to be called human beings.

I imagine the suffering of a noble warrior like Jaswant Singh Khalra, who, for protesting against others' killings, was himself tortured and killed by Punjab Police.

I swear, to my last drop of blood, and to my last breath, ... I swear on the still smoldering, in my heart, funeral pyre of Ruby who I never met, ... I swear on the courage of Jaswant Singh Khalra, that I will never forget your suffering, or justify it as part of a grand plan, or rationalize it as what you deserved because of your karma, but that I will hold your injuries as mine, that I will fight against what killed you, and that I will reject the abject nonsense of the eastern "wisdom" that claims that the world is perfect as it is, only if we would see it that way.

 

On Being Well-Adjusted, part III

First seek an understanding of human affairs, THEN seek to integrate, adjust or withdraw.  Too often, whether in the case of Buddha or Krishnamurti, young, ignorant minds go off into seeking "the highest truth" while not understanding why clothes dry or why an interest is charged on a loan.

Too often, maladjustment starts at the very beginning of one's adult life.  From living a sheltered childhood, to a sudden exposure to the harsh realities of a competitive adult life.  Many are horrified at the prospect and withdraw.  But that is a failure of the adjustment process, not an indictment of society.  Parents are responsible for slowly exposing their children away from fairy tales and into the world of millionaires and courts and real estate.

After an adult has successfully navigated, to a reasonable extent, the "real world", it is permissible for him to seek to withdraw to focus on another kind of pursuit.  Not everyone has to be an entrepreneur.  One could as well be a mathematician, an artist, or an astute generalist.  But to be maladjusted, to never understand the world, and then to withdraw is not renunciation, it is an admission of failure.

Society is indeed sometimes brutal.  But the brutality is not mystical (due to "ignorance of one's true nature" or suchlike), but tangible, due to material and historical conditions.  It may indeed be justified for someone to run away from a war zone, to be a deserter, but then, he cannot live in honor as the town mayor when the war ends.  You can escape the obligations of a "sick society", but you do not, if you are moral, then get to reap the rewards of that same society.

For a sensitive individual, I recommend very much that they should seek to become financially independent, to live with thrift and wisdom so that they may have enough money to live the kind of life they want.  And to become financially independent, it is important to understand society.  Not from a guru, but from study as well as lived experience.

Innocence of spirit can be maintained only by living a life of integrity, where one does not deceive oneself.  If one has to compromise on one's integrity (say, by paying a bribe to get a driving license), it must be with complete self-awareness, and with a feeling of tragedy.  Continuing with this analogy, a morally compromised man (that Krishnamurti would consider well-adjusted) would feel happy that he was able to cunningly achieve his aim, a morally integrated man would feel dejected despite having achieved his aim, and a defeatist (but moral) man would hang himself to death at the state of affairs.

The society is rarely totally evil.  It is made of all kinds of people.  In a very decayed society, or even in jail, you may find exceptional individuals.  You must aim to understand and navigate the circumstances that you find yourself in, and then overcome those circumstances with your strength and acumen, WHILE preserving your innocence and inner moral compass.

And then, having achieved mastery over the earthly affairs, to enjoy your freedom from the shackles of an allegedly "sick society".

That, if you can manage, will be a life well-lived.

On Being Well-Adjusted, part II

 (part 1)

If we disregard the esoteric notion that the goal of human life is unearthly, then living happily and wisely on this earth has to matter.  In this earthly living, what kind of "adjustment" is worthwhile, and what kind of adjustment is a surrender of one's integrity?

Krishnamurti was well-provided for right from his childhood, when he was adopted by the Theosophists.  He never had to struggle to make a career or to make a living.  Though he had romantic engagements, he never married or had children.  He lived a cocooned life, where important politicians and rich people kept him safe and free of worry.  He lived an aristocratic life despite his claims that he "gave up" the mantle of the world teacher.  He kept enough funds of the original "Order of the Star in the East" to keep himself comfortable, and his rich friends continue to support him.

Krishnamurti could rail against "society" and the pursuit of wealth and being career-focused while he himself lived comfortably and flew first class.  By all material indications, he was well-adjusted in society.  He never went to jail.  He never considered the tax laws as unjust.  He never fought in a war while letting others fight for him and his freedoms.

It is also a surrender of one's integrity to amass riches while misleading other people that one is the world teacher.  The integral act would have been for Krishnamurti to completely disavow his world-teacher status and be a common man.  But he did not do that.  He did not start working in a factory and find a rented accommodation.

All this is to say that criticism of the society as being profoundly sick, and stating that adjustment to such a society is a disease, can only come, ethically speaking, from someone who is not enjoying the fruits of such a sick society.

Let us leave aside Krishnamurti then, as he, being a hypocrite, is not worth responding to, and consider afresh how a man with integrity ought to live in this world, a world that demands the subjugation of his intellect, his strength and his insight.  How must a man live comfortably while still not allowing his soul to be sold, and his mind to be corrupted beyond recognition.

How to preserve one's innocence while being clever enough to navigate the traps of this world?

Is it doable?

(to be continued)

On Being Well-Adjusted, part I

Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said: It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

What is "society"?  What does it mean to be "well-adjusted"?  In what sense is society "profoundly sick"?  What kind of "health" are we talking about here?

If we take Krishnamurti's statement to be true, what is the recommendation for a modern human being?

Society is the structure of human interaction.  Whether it be financial, educational, religious, political, ethical, historical, legal, kinship, sexual, habitual, pertaining to manners, ...  The various kinds of interactions between human beings, and the burdens and benefits thereof, is society.  The structure is a behemoth of rules, implicit and explicit.  You are born in a family, you spend the first twenty odd years getting educated as per the norms of your society, you form friendships and relationships, you earn and spend money, try to be on the right side of law, and so on.

Nobody, anywhere, claims that their society is ideal.  But one can evaluate the health of a society in many ways.  Does it show signs of "low-trust"?  Is there a lot of hypocrisy (people asking you to follow certain rules but flouting those rules themselves)?  Is there a general sense of well-being and safety?  Is the environment healthy and clean?  Is there beauty?  Are people able to have a comfortable, dignified life?  Is there freedom of expression?  Are the institutions overburdened and inefficient?  Are hard work and ethical living rewarded or punished?  Do people feel empowered, or powerless?  Is there disease, or good health in the majority of the population?

But even in the best societies, as per our metrics, an individual faces a certain burden of socialization.  He cannot just do as he pleases.  There are rules and responsibilities, rewards and punishments, those who like and love oneself and those who are strange or hostile.

Spiritual people like Krishnamurti advise that the only true goal is salvation, and earthly and social goals are quite secondary.  Their focus is not on material conditions, but on inner growth.  To them, a man who is poor or one who is jail but elevated in his consciousness is far better than a cunning man who is comfortable and powerful, but otherwise commonplace in his thinking.

We can all agree that the former man is maladjusted, the latter is well-adjusted.  The former man has not adjusted to the rules of society and is suffering materially, while the latter has mastered the rules of his society and is prospering.

Is it possible for a happy and wise man to be materially well-adjusted?  Or is maladjustment the inevitable fate of wisdom?

Was Krishnamurti himself well-adjusted?

(to be continued)

Mechanism and Destination

Too many otherwise smart people fall in the trap of optimizing their ability to navigate modern life, and then dying.

They focus on their health, go on diets, build muscle, buy expensive goods, keep an immaculate home, get a good education, have a brag-worthy spouse, invest sensibly, push their kids into the ivy league, and then, ..., nothing.

They read self-help books, advance in their careers, post their photos on LinkedIn or on Facebook with the well-known, watch the Game of Thrones, and then, ..., nothing.

They go on picturesque vacations, eat at Michelin-star restaurants, get spa treatments, use the best skin products, keep track of their health parameters, and then, ..., nothing.

...

Mechanism is one thing, and Destination is another.  (this phrase is from my remembrance of a remarkable and life-altering essay by J Krishnamurti)

A life can be trivially wasted in shiny mechanisms, while the destination remains pithy, pitiful and prosaic.

It is fine to earn and to save money, if you have an idea on how that money can be used to go further.  If with that money you buy a bigger house, and then you spend even more money to maintain that house, then the house has transformed, for you, from a mechanism that could enable you to do bigger things, to a beautiful cage.

A meaningful destination comes naturally to some, but vast numbers struggle to create an appearance of one or have no understanding of why it might be important.  Why?

I hold that a destination is meaningful only insofar as it yields clarity, understanding and fulfillment.

If at the end of a day, you have taken ten thousand steps, and have eaten healthy, and have finished another chapter of a self-help book, that day must be recorded as a day preparing for life, not life itself.

We are not merely mechanisms, the core of being human is to think and to imagine and to dream and to elucidate and to clarify and to research and to create.

A life devoted to mechanism is a wasted life.

I believe it was Osho who once stated to the effect that for a poor man to embark on transcendence was a blessing, while for a rich man to NOT be interested in transcendence was a curse.

The aim of human life is to reach higher, not to spend all one's years in preparation of it.

All beauty, all strength, all vitality, all wealth, must be in honor of, and a tribute to, the mystery that is all around us.  The mystery of an infinite universe and of us being able to see the stars in it at night.  

Anything less seems like a pity, and more than a pity, and worse than a pity. 
(this phrase taken, with admiration, from the last para of the outstanding essay by David Albert about a very different topic)

Choice and Depth

In college, I was quite the tinkerer and hacker of computer systems and computer software.  It was late 90s, and though we had a local area network, we did not have internet access.  We didn't even an internet email address.

Operating systems were installed from floppies, some newer systems had CD drives.  PC magazines used to come with free software CDs and those CDs contained not just games and Windows shareware, but also free software such as the Slackware Linux distribution, or Cygwin (GNU tools for Windows).

Since we did not have internet access, we pried open, figuratively speaking, each software that we could get our hands on and explored every nook and cranny of it.  We explored all the settings, the various flags, limits, "GNU extensions", and we tried to compile it on unsupported operating systems.

I remember being introduced to perl and zsh, at that time still new things.  Perl was authored by Larry Wall, and zsh was written by Paul Falstad, a student at Georgia Tech university.  I read almost their entire man pages, and came to understand the philosophy and the interesting features in them.  I was intimately familiar with their capabilities, the differences they had with other languages and shells, and what differences existed in one version vs the previous one.

Linux was still new, and most free software with source code supported many Unix-like operating systems.  In our institute, we had access to HP-UX, SunOS 5, Solaris, IRIX, and SVR4.2, among others.  It was a lot of fun trying to make the GNU toolchain and compilers and libraries work on these varied Unix systems.

I remember that even in a limited operating system as MSDOS, we looked at almost all the system utilities and what they did and why and how.

Similarly, because the computers were much less powerful than those of today, it was both necessary and enjoyable to exploit whatever hardware capabilities were there.  With only 4MB of RAM, and 64MB hard disk, one had to be very efficient at storage and memory allocation.

That period set the tone for my professional career, as I, after a brief stint as a software engineer, veered back into system administration and network engineering.

...

When I look at the capabilities of computers and networks today, I find that there is nothing I cannot do or find anywhere in the world, but my curiosity in what I have already on my system is thereby much reduced.

The systems and software that I have on my personal computer are absolutely remarkable, and I sometimes mourn my disinclination to explore them more.

It is also true that systems have gotten more complex.  Tinkering with a simple engine is perhaps far more enjoyable than owning a complex piece of machinery which is more capable but less accepting of amateur exploration.

As an analogy for this situation, consider a man who lives in a village all his life.  He probably knows all the little ponds, the birds and their mating calls, he can identify cattle and horses, and he experiences life, dare I say, with more depth.  Each experience is deeper because of the familiarity one has with the context and the contents of that experience.

On the other hand, a man who has been given a boon to be teleported anywhere in the world will probably not find it easy to give deep attention to any one place, to any one thing, or to any one person.  He will always be going here and there, and it will be impossible for him to call any place home.  The attraction of novelty will not allow him to be bored, and boredom is, I think, essential to experiencing anything in depth.

The real learning starts when the novelty has worn off.  But if another novelty then takes its place, then the learning will remain facile.

The absence of boredom, and commitment, that an unlimited choice bestows on oneself is therefore a boon as well a curse.  It is the boon of freedom, and the curse of never delving into anything deeply.

In Defense of Cognitive Biases, contd.

Earlier essay: In Defense of Cognitive Biases.

Recently I came across this very good video on the cognitive bias related to "Loss Aversion".

A famous science popularizer asks many people whether they would take a bet with an expected return of $10, and many say "No".  He criticizes their bias, gently, but does not go into the value of having this bias.

Can this bias be explained?  Why does this bias exist?  What is the survival advantage in having this bias?

Let us ask the question in the video in another way so as to make it more obvious why the bias makes sense.

Let us assume, as is supremely reasonable and rational, that you value the life of your infant child.  Let us say a genie suddenly appears and offers you the following proposition:

If you toss your infant in the air, I offer you two possible outcomes: Your infant will die, or it will have double the lifespan that it is currently fated to have.

What would any normal individual do?  Of course they would choose to NOT participate in the bet at all.  The loss of their child is a far bigger tragedy than the joy at having the child live twice as long.

Survival is the prime directive.  For survival, avoiding situations which contain risk, pain and duress is important.  If you have a house, losing that house is going to have a drastic impact on your well-being, but being gifted another house is not going to matter as much.

Coming back to the offer in the video above, an individual has a certain amount of money.  They have that as an assurance that their immediate needs will be fulfilled, and that, as an example, they will be able to buy a bus ticket for back home, or have a meal.  They have sufficient money for that.

When offered a scenario in which they can lose that money, their loss aversion is rational, sensible and reasonable.  They have something to gain, but they were not counting on that gain, and they don't know what that gain will get them.  But they do know what that loss will mean to them.

And even if offered multiple chances to play the bet, with each bet having the expected value of $10 to them, a reasonable individual could still rationally refuse to play.  Why?  Consider that it is possible that you can lose the first few rounds and be down $40, and have no more money to play the game.  Yes, eventually you will come out a winner, but will you survive till then?

If you value your survival, and have a limited amount of resources -- and the limitation of resources is almost always a fact, and is hard-wired into our brain -- it is rational to avoid needless betting of your resources.

Most people choose safety, and wisely so, over speculation.

(And of course, the weird scenario of a stranger offering you an easy way to make money triggers the scam alert in our brain.  Instead of investigating the alert and marking it as a false positive, it is a good idea to ignore the scam altogether, especially if the scam scenario is not important to you.)

The Fruits of Labor

Some earlier thoughts here and here.

Winter is here, and the grass won't grow again until springtime.  The last mowing of the fall season was a few weeks ago.  I used to mow the lawn myself last year, but this year, it was difficult to find time as I was nursing my wife back to health.  I engaged a lawn mowing crew on a whim as they were busy in a neighboring yard.  They usually cut the grass in about twenty minutes, while it used to take me a few hours.  They had a bigger lawn mower, and there were two of them.  As they used to finish the job, it was a pleasure for me to see the neat lawn, and the clean patio without the little growths in the cracks.  I wondered whether they ever paused for a moment to appreciate their own work?  Probably not.

On an even more prosaic note, as I fold the clothes after a cycle of washing and drying, it is a pleasure to see the clean clothes, all fresh and neatly piled.  I remember when during my monastic years, I used to wash my clothes by hand, and gloated as I saw them drying in the sun and in the wind.  And as sometimes I bake a roti on the stovetop, what a pleasure to see it fluff up and become golden brown.

...

It occurs to me that there is no word for this pleasure.  The pleasure of seeing work completed in front of one's eyes.  I can only imagine the pleasure a bricklayer experiences after seeing a wall come up, the pleasure a road worker has as he sees the asphalt, or the pleasure of a cook seeing a meal fully cooked and laid out.

Of course, I also understand the drudgery of doing manual labor, day after day, and I imagine the pleasure diminishes soon.  The exhaustion and boredom must, over time, win over the subtle pleasure of fulfilment.

One of the essential differences between white collar and blue collar work is in the immediacy and tangibility of the results of one's work.  If the hard work with one's hands is tiring and usually pays little, the desk jobs are alienating.  People get their degrees in data processing, accounting and management so they can earn more by just tapping on the computer, instead of carrying heavy loads and getting their clothes dirty.

But as one gains a bank balance, there is a spiritual loss of not being able to find enough meaning in one's work.  The results of information work are ethereal.  The work is mental, and so are the results.  And the complexity of modern white collar work implies that it is accomplished by a team, with many members of the team adding a miniscule feature or factor to the end result.

There is a clear difference between writing a programming script oneself, and see it operate flawlessly and beautifully, contributing to an immediate saving of time, versus contributing to a complex software project, which ends up functional but ridden with problems and for which the "added value" is sometimes so trivial so as to be meaningless.

Consider for example the few pages of the Amazon.com's website.  The product search page, the product information page, and the checkout page.  Each of these is now a stable behemoth of code, to which the programming teams add a tiny tweak or feature to make it infinitesimally better.  I remember, when I worked for Amazon.com at one time, a whole group of genius youngsters worked on a feature to add news links for a product to its page.  That feature eventually got shelved, and never saw the light of the day.  The programmers got paid handsomely, but were they fulfilled?

Monetary compensation for one's work can only go so far to make one happy.  It is the meaning in one's work, and the skill and joy while doing that work, which also contributes to one's happiness.  In addition, it is evident that the camaraderie and the "buddy pleasure" of people working with their hands is very different than the politically correct, HR approved interaction in the sterile office cafeteria.

It is unfortunate that modern man has to choose either a hard life, or a life that offers little meaning.  Most choose the latter, because an aching body and an empty stomach rarely allow the luxury of being content with one's life.  Maslow may have been right, but what if as you move up the pyramid, the lower blocks fall away, leaving you perched and spiritually parched?

Even more importantly, what if the pyramid is wrong, and if reality is more intertwined?  What if self-actualization is a part of working with one's hands, and fighting to ward off danger?  What if an abundance of food and safety is spiritually starving?

(image credit)

It is perhaps for this reason that white collar workers get into the expensive hobbies of climbing mountains, cross-country hiking, or long-distance bicycling.  But these are "surrogate" activities, without inherent value.  These are imitations of a hard life, and therefore, in the end, unsatisfying.

I was once with a group of professional hikers.  They were competing to reach the summit of a beautiful mountain in the least amount of time.  They had no time to stop and marvel at the views, or to listen to the silence of the valley.  When we grouped together at the summit, they took a few photos, and then climbed down as quickly as they had ascended.  The "high" of that accomplishment was a "high five": one entirely of a social and peer-group kind, and if one of those competitive climbers was left alone, I imagine he would have felt rather empty and despondent.  

But perhaps I am wrong.  To each his own happiness, you say?  But then, why the modern epidemic of depression, seeking of mood alteration experiences, and the modern experience of anomie and alienation?

Being rich has its costs.

The Freedom to Disagree

It is paradoxical that the information age has become the age of disinformation and mistrust.

Mistrust of courts, the state, big tech, television, documentaries, news sites, opinion writers, experts, ... seems to be increasing by the day.

The reason is of course that they are no longer neutral but are using their power to push their agendas, to punish "wrong-think" and to silence dissent.

The powers think that the cure for disinformation is control. NO! That will lead us back very quickly to the medieval ages where if you disagree with the powerful, you are burned at the stake.

The solution must be, even if it is annoying in the short-term, to relinquish control and let truth win in the free market of ideas.

Neutrality is a noble ideal because it gives "you" the power to decide. It was always hard, but today it is harder than ever to escape the screaming mob if you remain neutral in the exercise of your power. Bias (if it keeps the peace) seems to be valued higher over objectivity.

Democracy must mean safety in disagreement.

As someone said on Twitter: "I remember when the news used to tell us what happened and we had to decide what to think about it. Now the news tells us how to think about something, and then we have to decide if it even happened."

In Defense of Cognitive Biases

Many books have been written during the last two decades about cognitive biases.  Some of the authors have been awarded Nobel Prizes for their work in this field.  Kahneman's "Thinking Fast, and Slow" is a major work in this category.

During my college years, we undertook a course in Logic which told us that "ad hominem" is a bad argument, and so is "appeal to authority" and so on.

During recent years, "victim blaming" and "whataboutism" have become four-letter words.

In formal journals, the scholar Gigerenzer has been a formidable adversary to Kahneman et al in his defense of such "fallacies" and "biases".  Interested readers can follow his work and read his papers.

In this essay, I will touch upon two modern sins that I listed above, and why they are not the sins that people claim they are.

Victim Blaming

Victim blaming is to hold the victim of a crime or injustice partly responsible for the crime.  It is most vehemently cited when a sexual assault victim is blamed for acting in a reckless manner.  In most cases, however, nobody disagrees that the criminal is wrong and he/she should be punished.  The argument that the incident could have been avoided had the victim taken better precautions is considered blasphemous. 

However, all precaution against criminality is of the same nature.  As long as we live in an imperfect world, it is important to continue to punish the criminals as well as  to take precautions to avoid becoming a victim.  If you put your wallet in the front pocket in a pickpocket-ridden area, if you drive defensively, if you watch your step in an unfamiliar location, you are protecting yourself from harm.  Yes, you may be able to file a police complaint or sue if your pocket gets picked, if you are hit by another car, or if you fall and break a bone in a hotel lobby.  But most reasonable people avoid harm rather than invite harm and then seek damages.

Traditionally, the adage "better safe than sorry" has been a heuristic to follow.  In modern times, unfortunately, the media and the "wise" tell you otherwise.  While they continue to take precautions, they ask you to be flagrant.

Ignore such advice, and be safe.

WhatAboutery

This is a recently coined word which means: To attack a critic with an allegation of a wrongdoing at their end.

Say, politician A says to politician B: "You spend your Sundays at leisure instead of working for the country."  And B replies: "You have no right to lecture me as you go on a two-month vacation every year instead of tending to your constituents."

The first criticism gets deflated by such a response, but the WhatAboutery brigades say: "No, no, answer the allegation on its merits.  Don't accuse the accuser of something else."

The problem is, human activity is acceptable or not depending on the norms prevalent in a setting.  If everybody is breaking rules, you cannot be expected to follow them.  If someone expects you to follow a rule, they must first demonstrate that the rule is followed quite generally, especially by themselves, and that you are an exception.

Traditionally, an allegation of theft coming from a thief was called Hypocrisy.  Whataboutery is calling out the hypocrisy.  Even if the reverse allegation is of a different kind ("you have no right to call me fat when you dropped out of college"), it is still reasonable in the sense that the accuser must first put their house in order before being considered a serious voice of morality or ethics.  If the accuser has multiple failures of their own, traditionally they have little right to criticize others.

Traditionally, the heuristic has been: "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others."  And it is a good heuristic.  Only someone relatively blameless and upright has the moral right to criticize someone else for their failings.  Yes, their criticism stands on its own in a formal sense, and a mature individual would take their admonition at face value and try to determine whether self-improvement is warranted, but in a social sense, their criticism will not be considered worthwhile. 

People expect a moral policeman to be moral himself.  For good reason.  It is hard to be moral and ethical, and if the accuser finds it hard, the accused is saying, in other words, "Fix yourself before you try to fix me."

The Nostalghia of Photograph

The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable. (Irwing Howe)

Nostalghia is a 1983 Russian film by Andrei Tarkovsky.

From Wikipedia:

The film depicts a Russian writer .... During his stay he is struck with nostalgia for his homeland, longing for an inner home, a sense of belonging, and a clash between his personal vision of the world, and the real conditions. ... profound form of nostalgia ..., comparing it to a disease, "an illness that drains away the strength of the soul, the capacity to work, the pleasure of living", but also, "a profound compassion that binds us not so much with our own privation, our longing, our separation, but rather with the suffering of others, a passionate empathy.

Photograph is a 2019 film by  Ritesh Batra, who previously directed the acclaimed film The Lunchbox.  The film follows a man from rural Uttar Pradesh making his living in Bombay clicking photographs of tourists, and a middle class woman student who he happens to meet.

Both of them are lost and alone in their lives, nostalgic for an earlier, simple way of living. The man lives with his friends, and the woman has a caring family, but their feelings and desires linger in silence.  The man is trying to find his footing in a world that has brutalized him in many ways, and the woman is silently waiting for whatever life might have in store for her.

The nostalgia is not just about an earlier way of living, in which joys were simple and the relationships more about love and the bonds of family.  It is also about the nostalgia of an adult for his childhood.  The innocence of being a child is hard to maintain as one tries to navigate a world in which pragmatism and planning take the place of spontaneity and freedom from care.

The film celebrates silences, showing instead of verbalizing.  Old songs, traditional street food, old taxis, old people, extinct drinks, out of fashion adornments and cosmetics, old cinema halls, ...

There is a certain lack of ambition and aspiration in children, as is probably there among people who have their homes in the hills or in a remote village.  They are content with the little pleasures of an occasional celebration, of an infrequent treat, and of a simple gift.

Of course, the film paints the poor people as carefree, innocent and caring and the rich and urbane as somewhat manipulative and stressed.  It is true to some extent.  The poor do not have much to lose, and they can thereby be more "in the moment" and heart-driven than the rich.

But poverty, the brutality of which is hinted at in the film when it describes the man's early years, is not entirely a romantic phenomenon.  There is immense suffering in it.  The daily grind and the daily humiliations of being at the lower end of society drain a man of his innocence as surely as the competition and upward mobility of the rich.

In a key scene, the woman innocently says to another man that she wishes to live in a village.  Earlier in the scene, the man has casually bragged that he can be happy "anywhere", but is taken aback when he hears her.

The woman idealizes the village life as being idyllic, not having actually lived it.

I used to think, when observing slums and the urban poor in the big cities in India: Why do these poor people come to the city and live in such inhuman conditions?  Do they not miss their village?  Yes, they might have a television now, but is their cramped and rotten living really better than what they had in their earlier life? 

It is a complex question.  But if we trust that these unfortunate people make their decisions not in foolishness but with regret and resolve, the answer must be that despite the open fields, the skies and the clouds, the simpler life, their earlier time in the village must be, in the final analysis, a romanticized nightmare of insecurity, scarcity and indignity.

They have a different kind of indignity in the city, but the city offers them at least a hope of making a life in which their children will have a place in the world, and not merely be blown around by the winds of the caste system, of oppressive landlords, of a capricious monsoon, of a criminal neglect and usurpation of their lands (if they have any) by those who can.

...

The wish of a human being that he will again be fragrant and innocent, once he traverses the hard and brutal terrain of a world that values only value, is a tragic one.  For that innocence will find itself deeply buried in the end, unless it is carefully renewed and nourished every day.

To keep one's inner child alive is not a mild undertaking, it is the very dream and the eventual hope of man: That one will again be free to be as one was.

The Working Class

It is a curious phrase, the "working class".  It means "the social group consisting of people who are employed for wages, especially in manual or industrial work."

If they are the working class, what are the knowledge workers?  And what about the Dilbert-esque managers of the knowledge workers?

Being one of the latter, I often wonder that despite the appearance of work, what we do merely re-arranges bits inside of a computer.  We manipulate information.  That information then eventually impacts something in the "real world" and transforms matter.

A programmer working for AirBnB helps create an app.  That app enables people to search for guest-rooms.  They use that app to book a particular room.  The app notifies the host.  The payment is made electronically.  The bank balance of the host increases while that of the guest decreases.  Eventually the guest travels and stays in that room.  In this way there is still some material "happening" in the end.

Consider a project manager for the Times of India website.  The reporter talks to real people, uses various online data resources, investigates, and writes a news report on a computer.  Say the report is about a government department's nepotistic hiring practices. The end result of the reporter's work is new forms of "information".  The project manager directs his staff to post the new information on the ToI website.  Once posted, it is available to read for anyone anywhere in the world with internet access.  After having ingested that new information, the reader talks about it to his friends, who then decide to picket the local government office.

A real "event" leading to another real event, mediated by information and information workers.

...

Information or Knowledge workers procure, manipulate or disseminate information.  In some cases their counter-party is a human being, but in many cases it is a machine.  For example, software programmers or systems administrators inform a computer on what it should do. 

The "working class" manipulates tangible matter.  They cook food, they drive trains, they make roads and build buildings, they repair machinery, they carry loads, ...

The social interaction between so-called working class and the knowledge workers is becoming rare.  Of course there is functional interaction.  You give your order to the waiter, and the waiter might be using the bank's call center to inquire about his recent paycheck.  But socially, these two categories of people rarely mix with each other.

I think that is a shame.

Charles Murray, in his marvelous, landmark book "Coming Apart", discusses just this phenomenon.  How the tastes, preferences, cultural pillars and much else between these two classes has become segregated and disjoint.

The cover page shows a glass full of champagne at the top, and a crumpled empty can of beer at the bottom.

An excerpt:

Many of the members of the new upper class are balkanized. Furthermore, their ignorance about other Americans is more problematic than the ignorance of other Americans about them. It is not a problem if truck drivers cannot empathize with the priorities of Yale professors. It is a problem if Yale professors, or producers of network news programs, or CEOs of great corporations, or presidential advisers cannot empathize with the priorities of truck drivers. It is inevitable that people have large areas of ignorance about how others live, but that makes it all the more important that the members of the new upper class be aware of the breadth and depth of their ignorance.

I highly recommend that you not just "empathize" or warmly smile at the next working class individual that you come across, but develop a deeper bond with some of them.

Invite your maid to dinner at your table, go have a drink with your driver, go and take your daughter to the birthday party of your mechanic's son, not as an act of condescending generosity, but something born out of genuine interest and affection for those individuals. 

You will find, as I often find, that their lives have much to teach you.  And that sharing in their experiencing of life will give you an unimaginably different perspective on your own life, and on the world in general.

The Journey

I grew up on a small street in a small town in Punjab.  The town of Patiala, known for its heritage of kings and darbaars and its classical music gharaana.  My darji (as we used to call our grandfather), was a simple man who sold vegetables in the market, sitting next to the ancient wall of the old fort.  Our home was tiny, barely ninety square yards.  The street was often flooded with drain-water when it rained heavily.  I played on the street with other kids, and went to the local temple to ring their bells in the evening.  My world was small but full of warmth and affection.  It was dinners in December, sitting on the floor in a cozy kitchen, it was the three siblings and our mother sleeping on a double bed, it was our school bicycles leaning on each other in the verandah.  My street and my home may not have been known to anyone outside Patiala, but it was the capital of my world.

I studied in an institution of prestige in the capital of India.  The chaotic capital city of Delhi, with its VIP mansions, roads named after Kings and Generals and Prime Ministers, the wide boulevards lined by embassies, and the glittering, elite environs of South Extension and Vasant Vihar.  I stayed in the institute hostel named simply Jwalamukhi (the volcano), and during the day studied the foremost contributions of the human mind of the twentieth century: Quantum Mechanics, the theory of Computation, the Calculus of limits and fields.  At times world-renowned men and women came to our campus to talk to us: the Dalai Lama, the Prime Minister of India, the founder of the Bose Corporation... We worked on computers built in Great Britain, and were taught by professors who had studied in Berkeley and Stanford.

I work near Washington DC, the center of world power.  I work for global airlines who reach all corners of this planet.  I sometimes trade in financial instruments which derive their value from the GDP projections and the future of oil supply.  Premiers and Presidents and Generals whisk past me on the road or fly above me in a helicopter.  Decisions which impact billions of people throughout the world are taken in buildings that I see in front of me.  Global trade deals are made and talked about in a hotel lobby while I sip on my coffee.  I am surrounded by people of almost all the nations of this world, speaking strange languages and dialects...  When we walk and chatter on Constitution Avenue, it fills many of us, I hope, with immense respect for that short document whose Bill of Rights has become the bedrock of human freedom.

The journey from that small street in Patiala to the power center of the free world has not changed my heart much, but it has exploded the frontiers of my mind.  I enjoyed the fairy tales of kings and princes and phantoms back then, and I perhaps understand the complexity of the human condition now.  As the train travels further and more distant from my birthplace, I long for the simple joys of my past, but am enthralled at the experiences which I could not have imagined as a child.

A journey that would have been unthinkable just a century ago is a living reality for me.  The journey has made me grateful, and humble.  I can only dream of giving back to the world a paltry extent of what it has given me.

A Comment on Epictetus

It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on himself; and of one whose instruction is completed, neither to blame another, nor himself. (Epictetus)

This is a superb quote, and deserves some elucidation.

Imagine someone in a concentration camp, or imprisoned due to a false accusation.

Is it true, and useful, that he should blame himself for his condition?

Is it true, and useful, that he should blame others for his condition?

Any aphorism is only a means to reflection, and it is a mistake to try and understand life through a formula.

The first part of the quote, that others might be responsible for one's pain and suffering, can indeed be true, but that frame does not help the situation if one has no means of changing them.  An inmate in a concentration camp, or a wrongly imprisoned person, can continue to justifiably blame others, to little effect.

The second part of the quote, that I myself am responsible for my suffering is often vigorously stated in self-help and spiritual literature, but this too is only partly true.  One can perhaps be considered "responsible" for one's response to an unwholesome state of affairs, but that too assumes an infinite fluidity and scope for inward change.  One's responses are not infinitely flexible.  One cannot help but react.  To react (emotionally and cognitively) is to be alive.  Spiritual literature often talks about "responding" instead of "reacting".  But we are emotional as well as rational creatures, and we will first react to a lesser or greater extent, and then hopefully respond when the emotions have cooled down.  Stoicism only works to an extent.  It is useful to only focus on one's responses if the situation is indeed firmly beyond one's control.

Imagine yourself having been in a car accident and losing a limb thereby.  And suppose it was indeed someone else's fault that the accident happened.  It is indeed true that the other is to blame, but it does not help you much if you are to reconcile with your current state.  You can claim compensation, but the fact is that your limb is gone.  The compensation may never be enough.

Imagine yourself being in a relationship with a foul-mannered person.  You can learn to be more patient, but only up to a point.  If that person continues to add friction and conflict to your life, is it useful to continue to blame oneself?  Imagine further that for the sake of your children, it is impractical for you to separate from your partner.  In that state, how useful it is give up on improving the manners of your partner, and only focus on how you and your children respond to the unhealthy environment?

Imagine yourself living in a very cold climate which frequently makes you suffer from fever and pneumonia.  How useful is it to continue to blame one's lack of immunity and not seek to perhaps move to a warmer clime?

So, blaming only oneself is only somewhat helpful in accepting the unchangeable.  Most situations are somewhat changeable, and it is solipsistic to only focus on oneself.

The third part of the quote, to neither blame oneself nor the others, is the understanding that things, including oneself, are limited in their ability to be transformed and changed.  That we live in a continuum of interaction.  That often things happen just "because"; without much rhyme or reason.

That the driver-at-fault who got distracted by his child sitting in the backseat of his car and hit you was perhaps not to "blame" but a factor in what transpired.  Was he to blame for not being a perfect driver?  Should he be jailed for his negligence?  Was the child too precocious?

That your ill-mannered spouse is limited in his self-awareness and in realizing the effect of his acts on others, or is perhaps suffering from a need to seek attention.  That the toxicity in your home is definitely his doing, but to blame "him", as in wanting him to fix this "issue" in him, is to not understand the entire background of "him".  Perhaps he can behave better, but perhaps he is like a blind man not able to see what is in front of him.

The third part of the quote, I believe, indicates that others are also limited.  That often blaming is to find reasons when there weren't any concrete ones.  That causation is complex.  That oneself is also a mix of influences and interactions of others.  That to improve either oneself or the situation may only lead to a limited success.  That there is no fully individualized "self", either Me or You, that one can blame or improve as one would repair a car.  To improve, one improves one's own responses (as far as possible) as well as the situation (as far as possible) but perfection may forever elude one.

"Blame" is often just a rant without useful, constructive action.  That of course is just the beginning of change.  If one ends there, it may have some therapeutic effect (just as it is relieving to cry due to a severe emotional trauma), but is Epictetus saying that it is not wise to only blame and then sit back and suffer?  Is it a call to action?  Is it to begin with blame, as in find factors which can be impacted, and then act?

Blaming is not in itself unwise.  But blaming narrowly, either just others, or just oneself, or a too wide rant at the whole realm of existence, is often an expression of helplessness.  Still not wrong, but not optimal.  One can do better, I hope.

The wise man blames correctly, and then seeks to improve oneself and change one's state of affairs.

Similar to Epictetus' quote is the Buddhist (?) adage:

"If you have a problem that can be fixed, there is no use in worrying. If you have a problem that cannot be fixed, there is no use in worrying."

But worry is the emotional energy to want to improve a state of affairs.  No problem is either fully fixable or fully un-fixable.  The worry is the effort to determine to what extent one can change the situation, and how.

And that kind of worry is eminently worthwhile.

The Serenity Prayer has more wisdom than either of these quotes:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

An earlier essay on a related theme: The Inner and the Outer.

I Am This Body

You must have heard and read many spiritualists and spiritual teachers assert "You are not your body".  Holy scriptures from India claim similarly.  In Bhagwad Gita, Krishna even advises Arjun to not feel bad about murdering someone because he is "only" killing the body, while the soul is eternal.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a spiritualist in which he claimed that he felt a sense of oneness while doing his spiritual practices.  When I asked him what that meant, he kindly elaborated that while in the normal state of affairs, we think of ourselves as having a boundary (usually at the limit of our skin), in his state he did not experience this boundary.  That while in our conversation (for example), I felt that "I" was speaking to "him", such distinctions disappeared in his felt state.  It was illuminating to listen to him.

Then I asked him: But there is a clear way in which we can ascertain this boundary.  You may feel a oneness, but the fact remains that you have the power, and you can will, to move your hand, but not mine.  He said in that state, such analytical considerations did not enter the picture.  Or rather, that he was too blissed out in that state to be asking any questions about it.

Well, that is just too bad.  That confirms my oft-repeated statement that spiritual bliss is a regression to an infantile state.  In that state, the analytical/thinking parts of the brain are undeveloped or in abeyance, and feeling states reign supreme.  The infant develops a sense of "me" and "not me" only at a certain stage of brain development.  And that seems important for survival.  If a predator comes lurching at "you", it would be quite a mistake to not run away to save your "self".

The question "Who am I", despite being a favorite of many spiritualists, is a loaded question.  A more neutral question is "What am I".  An even more neutral question is: "What is this feeling of I-ness" or "What is this sense of being me".

The statement "You are not your body" is equally loaded and misleading.  It assumes a "your body" phrasing which assumes a separate entity.  And spiritualists are very fond of pointing at this loaded-ness of commonly-used phrases "my body", "my mind" as proof (sic) that you are different from them.  A much more neutral, but therefore more easily seen to be flawed, statement is: "You are not the body."

The linguistic argument is very flawed, as I have pointed out elsewhere.  In simpler terms, saying "my arm is in pain" or "my mind is whirling" is a linguistic tool to avoid confusion when speaking to someone, lest they be confused which arm or mind is being spoken of.  Saying on the phone, or to someone in another room, "This mind is whirling", or "An arm is in pain" might elicit further queries.  "Whose mind?", "Whose arm?"  Answer: MINE.  "And who are YOU", he may ask?  [The right answer to him is: "your dad".  :-)]

Another favorite spiritualist statement is: "You are identified with your body." This commits the error of being a loaded statement not once but thrice.  The question is then, naturally, "who is identified" and then donations to the guru are not too far into the future.  But better questions to ask when hearing such assertions are:

"What do you mean by identification?"
"Are you assuming that there is a 'me' apart from the body?"
"What is the basis for your assertion?"

In the old days, an investigation into the psyche and feelings of selfhood was undertaken without the benefit of understanding evolution, the social aspects of mammalian behavior, and developmental psychology.  Many of the fields related to studying brain and its emergent phenomena are still in their infancy, but some clear statements can be made.

- There is a continuity to this body.  It is born, it grows up, and gets older, and dies.  There is no confusion about the body being, so to speak, continuing as a cohesive unit through time.  The old parable/paradox of the "Ship of Theseus" was an instructive one at the time, but with our understanding of DNA and cellular science, there are many ways to resolve it now.

- The brain has direct connections to the parts of the body, as compared to, with an outside object.  The brain can will the arm to move in a way that is quite different from a human being able to drive a car.  In the former, the connectivity is, so to speak, organic.  The body forms a cohesive whole with the brain as one of the organs.  There is two-way connectivity between the brain and the limbs.  It is interesting to consider various mechanical prosthetic limbs, or a future implant in a brain being able to control a car just by thinking of it.

- The sense of "I" has many components: memory, patterns of thought and behavior, "linkages" (relations to other entities and objects) and "imprints" (others remember me as "me"), social and legal abstractions (citizenship, credit history, etc.), etc.  It is natural to consider it therefore a mostly brain-related phenomenon.  The sense of "I" probably does not suffer as much at the cutting of a limb as at a severe trauma to the brain leading to loss of memory.

The sense of oneness experienced by my friend is a feeling.  You may feel like you are one with the tree, but, that's just a feeling.  It is likely a temporary shutdown of certain brain functions which are responsible for a sense of "I"ness, and that may be quite pleasurable for various reasons.  Suddenly the whole burden of taking care of "me", my worries and desires and fears and concerns and social perceptions, might disappear.  Leading to an intense feeling of freedom, bliss and euphoria.

Signs of Inner Growth

As you go through life, it is a fair question to ask yourself if you are becoming any wiser.

Consider a man who is enamored of some sportsman or celebrity in his teens, becomes passionate about a political cause in his twenties, and starts following a self-help practice in his thirties.  As time goes on, he exchanges one self-help practice for another, starts reading Zen Buddhism instead of Stephen Covey and talks of oneness and things "beyond the mind".  A few more years pass, and the man is now disillusioned with the usual self-proclaimed "roshi"s of Zen Buddhism, and becomes more of an adherent of orthodox Buddhism.  After going through a meditation retreat or twenty, the man declares that he has developed discrimination and inner wisdom.

What is a way to test yourself, and to test someone else, for a claim of inner growth and wisdom?  It is an important question.  After all, every day one is bombarded with wisdom by all kinds of wise men.  They claim a superior moral status or insight into the world, and feel entitled to tell you how to live your life.  I need not list some of the popular ones, in India or elsewhere.

Here are ten questions that you can put to yourself, or to such a man:

1. Do you now acknowledge and understand some of your shortcomings and limitations?  What are they?

Do you now know your own desires and fears?

2. Have you become less prone to judging people as good or evil, and more prone to seeing them as complex and contradictory bundles of thoughts and influences?  Do you get less angry at people in your interactions?

If a friend of yours is accused of an embezzlement and dismissed from work, do you blacklist that person from your social circle or do you continue to engage with him, perhaps a bit less than before, and seek to understand him?

3. Do you now have fewer answers to world's problems than before?  While earlier you might have had some quick knee-jerk formulae to solve poverty or crime or corruption, do you now understand the complexity of the problem in a way that makes you hesitant to offer short and simple answers?

Do you engage less in wishful tyranny?  "Can't we just hang all these anti-nationals?"

4. As the years have gone by, have you studied more about the world and about our understanding of it (via interactions, experimentation, scientific journals, history books, reflection)?  Before forming an opinion on a matter, do you now try to study something from various angles?

Are you now more aware of your region's history?  Are you now more informed about a particular lifestyle disease and how to avoid it, not just depending on newspaper columns?

5. Do you now have less or fewer esoteric assumptions about phenomena, and can explain more and more of life and the universe without recourse to faith or mystical notions?

Do you reject, or at least regard as mere useful fictions, notions of heaven and hell, nirvana or reincarnation, divine justice, etc.?

6. Do you have more insight and experience about the various experiences and struggles that humans go through, whether they be feelings of love, or obsession, or joy, or depression, or distress and trauma, or stress, or addiction?  Have you seen both your better angels and your "dark side"?

As an example, have you been through both love and heartbreak?  Have you experienced the terminal illness or death of a loved one?  Have you struggled with a bad habit?

7. Do you now have a better discrimination as to how you make or accept a claim?  Does that better discrimination now result in fewer disappointments at being gullible?

As an example, do you now refuse to believe in levitation or psychic abilities?

8.  Do you now have a better grounding in language, logic, the philosophy of science, the various biases and fallacies?

As an example, do you now understand the notion of "Correlation is not causation."

9. Do you now have less of a desire to argue with everybody to convert them to your point of view, and are you more accepting that people might think differently from you?

10. Can you love and admire people knowing that they are flawed?  And conversely, do you now no longer have a need to consider a particular individual as perfect, god-like, and who can say or do no wrong?

Interrogating the Enlightened Man, part 4

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Q: What do you mean by liberation from the cycle of birth and death?
A: This world is a plane of suffering.  My teaching is to become free from this suffering, and that can't happen if you continue to be reborn.  After attaining liberation, the cycle of birth and death is ended.

Q: That is very perplexing.  All that we know and see is people getting born and dying.  What do you mean by "reborn"?
A: When the body dies, the soul does not die.  The soul is eternal, and is reborn as another living being.

Q: What is this "soul"?  I know of soulful music which is kind-of sentimental, but what is this eternal "soul" that you speak of?
A: Your sense of "I".  Death is just like falling asleep and then waking up as another body.

Q: That can't be true.  When I wake up from sleep, I still have all my memories.  Does soul also have memories from its "previous body"?
A: Yes, many children have been observed to speak languages that they had no exposure to during their known lifetime.

Q: That is highly doubtful.  I am not sure if there is such an incident ever recorded in a reputed medical journal.  That said, how come I don't remember anything from my "past life"?
A: You can, if you meditate.  "Remembering past lives" is a very high state achieved after a long period of meditation.

Q: But isn't memory a material thing?  We are born, our sense organs perceive many things.  We form memories.  Language, for example, is learned by reading and listening.  And this learning is then stored in the brain's neural matter as patterns.  The body is burnt to ashes after death.  How are that body's memories stored in the "soul"?
A: It was not clear for many hundreds of years how the brain stores memories.  Similarly, at present it is not possible to give a physical explanation of your question.

Q: But this much is clear that memory is a pattern formed from sense (matter) experiences.  To store this pattern somewhere, anywhere, must require a substrate.  Are you saying that the soul has a storage medium?
A: That is possible.  It may be a subtle form of energy which has waveforms/imprints from your present and past lives.  I'm sure you understand that a television broadcast signal can have all kinds of information.  Just like physicists discovered the weak nuclear force only recently, it is possible that this soul-energy is too subtle to be measured by our present instruments.  And it is possible that only some important memories are stored in the soul-energy.

Q: That is very interesting.  So the soul is definitely a matter/energy form which is able to store patterns.  I'm sure you don't think it is matter, because that would mean we could hermetically seal a body before death and thereby trap the soul from escaping and grant freedom from rebirth to the poor soul.  That would be a nice shortcut to liberation.
A: Yes, it is not matter.  It is definitely an energy.

Q: Hmm.  Till we are able to detect this energy in some way, what can you say that will convince me that the "soul" exists?  Why should we believe you?  I don't give credence to those stories of little kids speaking a foreign tongue.
A: You don't have to believe me.  You can follow the path of meditation and discover on your own.

Q: But that is quite an investment of time and energy.  You are asking a lot from an ignorant man.  It will be such a waste if after meditating for thirty years, I come to the conclusion that there is no soul.  I will be very angry with you then.  What do you suggest?
A: Up to you.  You can continue to live a worldly life, or start on the path of holiness and eventually attain liberation.

Q: Oh, that liberation again.  But actually I don't find life that sorrowful.  Yes, there are stresses and challenges, but also such joys, pleasures, moments of wonder and delectation.  If given a choice, I would definitely want to be reborn.  The future is bright, I feel, and we as a species will understand so much more, and create such intricate art and machinery in the future.  This liberation doesn't appeal to me that much.  I would much rather be here and alive.  And I would give anything to be reborn.
A: That may be so for you.  Many others have seen life more deeply and concluded that liberation is the only worthwhile goal.

Q: They must be really depressed with life.  Obviously for them, the sorrows over the longer term must be outweighing the joys.
A: Or maybe you are just chuffed with little delights, whereas they have seen the real tragedy of life.  All joys wither.  All mans' creations are toys.  Suffering is always there in the end, if of nothing else, than of the fear of death.

Q: Toys?  Don't you wonder at the design of a VLSI chip, the proof of Poincare's conjecture, man's landing on the moon, the work of great sculptors and composers?
A: All trifles, when compared to liberation.  Death conquers all of these tinkerers in the end.  At the time of death they will understand what was truly important.

Q: I'm sorry but I know many who are not afraid of death.  In fact, I know many soldiers who have preferred a glorious but certain death to retreat.  I know artists who died of penury in the service of their art.  Poets who composed their works in the battlefield.  I know a mother who gave up her life for her child.  Death doesn't seem to be the ultimate tragedy.  The joy they got from their creation, or from saving their community or their child seems to have been greater than the fear or pain of death.
A: Such people are attached to worldly things like "art", honor, community and their children.  If they knew that their human birth was the most precious of gifts, they wouldn't squander it that easily.

Q: So can one say that liberation appeals to those who don't really have anything to live for, who don't find joy in creation, who crave a meaning in this vacuum, and who don't find this life and world a place of wonder and delight?  In other words, the alienated, the depressed and the maladjusted?
A: Quite.

(to be continued)

The Jump Instructor

The legend was that in the mountains in the east, there lived a great instructor.  The legend said that he was able to train and teach students to jump from one mountain to another.

S was a great athlete but in recent times had developed a limp.  Instead of trusting and following medical advice that was frequently given to him, he still wanted to become the best jumper in the world.  Doctors had told him that his limp was because of his reckless jumping on hard rocks during his youth.  He was advised to undertake moderate exercise, massage his ankle, and eat a good diet, but S thought such advice to be pedestrian.  S wanted a doctor or an instructor who would somehow cure his pain in such a way that eating a good diet became second nature to him.  He did not think that just changing the diet was the cure.  For S it was merely treating the symptoms, and he wanted the cure to go much deeper.

So one day, S decided to go to the legendary instructor in the mountains and to become his student.

The instructor was happy to get a new student.  The instructor disregarded his particular story, and quickly gave him his standard booklet on exercise and do's and dont's.  The do's and dont's contained similar advice as what the doctors had suggested, but the exercise was very different.  The exercise involved not massaging and treating the limp, but focusing one's gaze on the moon at night.

S tried hard to follow the practice, but gazing at the moon incessantly was boring and somewhat unnatural.  During his gazing, he became drowsy and used to fall asleep.  The instructor told S that such drowsiness was natural but that he should persevere.  Eventually he would be able to jump across mountains.  S saw the other students around him also gazing at the moon, and many told him of a great athlete in some far-off-land who had, after sufficient gazing, been able to jump across the mountain.

S stayed with the instructor for many years and gazed for hours at the moon.  His limp became somewhat less painful but whenever he tried to test his jump, the limp returned.  S was frustrated but when he saw others diligently and faithfully persevere in their gazing, he blamed his own impatience and indiscipline.  After all, he still wasn't able to gaze all night.

At the tenth year anniversary of his apprenticeship, S went to the instructor and told him that there had been some improvement and asked him when S would be able to really jump across the mountain.  The instructor handed him the same booklet, now in its fifteenth edition, and asked him to just follow the practice.  The instructor did not think S's situation required some adjustment to the practice, or another exercise than moon-gazing.

It was rumored that the instructor was able to jump the mountain himself, but that he wasn't a show-off so nobody had seen him do it.

After twenty years of practice - and the instructor was now dead - S had started blaming himself.  He was a bad student.  His indiscipline and drowsiness were to blame.

Crestfallen, S returned to his home in the valley, and told all his friends about the instructor.  He bought and gave them a copy of his holy booklet and the exercises and the pictures of legendary jumpers in it.

The booklet was now in its fiftieth edition.

The Meaningless Ideal

Many talk of it, few have seen it.

Ask anyone who talks of "everlasting happiness" or "enlightenment" how they came to even have a notion of it in the first place.  They will have to point to a scripture or to the sayings of a guru.

Ask them what that state is, that they are seeking.  They will again quote someone.

Is it not strange that they have formed a major goal in their lives based on hearsay?

Have someone say something about "all are my part" or "unconditional love" or "I am not real", and ask them how that notion translates itself into their daily lives.

Do they, literally, care for a stranger as much as they care for themselves?  Do they have a bank balance or a home that they allow themselves to use, but not a stranger?  Is their "care" only emotional, or does it translate into action?

Do they not expect anything from their beloved?  It their love is literally unconditional, why do they only love a particular person and not everybody?  If they love everybody, once again, do they give to the first beggar all that is in their pocket?

If their "self" does not "exist", can they emphatically tell first what they mean by the word "self"?  Do they mean to say that their body, or their brain, or their past and memories, or their dreams and thoughts, or their ways of thinking, preferences, credit history, criminal record, national ID number, the property in their name, is not "them"?  Do they not give special treatment to their "own" family versus a stranger on the street?  Ask them what is this "self" that they are denying the existence of, and whether this self, evidently not being all of the above, is not just a notion which has no bearing on their day-to-day life?  It is as if they fill gas in their car, care for its battery, change its tires, drive it to the office, but deny that the "car" exists just because all one can point to is the gas tank, battery, tires, gear handle and the various other parts?

Such phrases are used by people with little understanding of what might constitute meaningfulness.  In an impressionable state, people read a book which says "And in unconditional love I found everlasting bliss and freedom from care" and think that this is a meaningful sentence.  Every phrase in such a sentence - "unconditional love", "everlasting bliss", "freedom from care" - is an abstract notion which falls apart when subjected to the slightest analysis.

And if "analysis" and the "mind" cannot fathom these notions, then how come they are speaking of them?  Is it not their mind which speaks of them?  Is it not a thought that is coming out of their lips? Even more alarmingly, how did the minds of those holy ones come to know of these and how did they write (apparently) meaningful sentences about these notions and the inter-relation-ship of these notions with other such (vague) notions?

The important quality which is missing from such thoughts and notions is Rigor.  It is important to set out the parameters of one's discrimination in any quest for understanding.  Without those parameters, it is only too easy to spend one's life chasing chimeras and illusions.  Rigor is not compressible into a few sentences, but the following few heuristics will help:

I.    What is the meaning of this phrase or notion in terms of what I know?
II.   How does one evaluate the truth of what someone else is saying about this notion?
III.  In what tangible, observable way does the truth of a notion, or its acceptance, change one's day-to-day life?  Is that change discernible in the claimant of these notions?
IV.  What if the notion were untrue?  Will I be heartbroken?

A seeker of understanding must subject himself and his notions to the highest rigor.  For if mind-less notions are allowed to reign, it is not understanding that one seeks, but self-satisfaction.

Out of the Hospital

There was once a man who did not feel well, and he therefore went to the hospital to get better.

He found many doctors there, each with his own plan of treatment.  He trusted one, and then another, and then still another.  He tried their medicines, their exercises and followed their advice.

He felt he was getting better and better, but he still remained in the hospital.  Curiously, now and increasingly when he looked outside of his hospital window, he saw only sick people.

He still remained in the hospital, but believed that he was now healthier than he had ever been.

He continued to be on medication, and if he missed his daily dose, he felt uneasy and anxious.

One evening as he was looking out of the window, and saw so many sick people of the world, a beggar stopped on the street and looked at him.  The man in the hospital looked with pity at the beggar, sympathetic to what he thought must be a pitiful existence.  He invited the beggar into his room to share some fruit that had been kept by his bedside by the hospital staff.

The beggar smiled and turned as he walked and entered the hospital through its main door, and found himself in the man's room.  He was very happy to eat the fruit so generously shared by the man.  The two started talking.

The man told the beggar about his past, that he had been sick.  He told him that after spending more than seven years at the hospital, he felt as if he had found his destiny and had found the elixir of health.

The beggar had a twinkling look in his eyes.  He kept listening to the man as he told the beggar about the eternal sickness and its nature, about the medicines and the doctors, and about his daily exercises.  The man told the beggar about his realizations during this period, and how he now understood sickness and health and the deepest truths underlying the mechanisms of the body.

The evening had become the night, and conversation was nowhere close to its end.  But the beggar had to go.  He had to go back to his little tent near the railway line, where he slept every night.

As the beggar got up and said his farewell to the man, the man exclaimed, "It is your birthright to be healthy.  I have found the fountain of immortality, and I only wish everybody knew the secret."

The beggar nodded as he threw the banana peel and the apple crumbs into the wastebasket, and started walking out toward the door.

With one foot out of the door, the beggar turned around and said to the man, "If all that you say is true, you need not remain here.  Come with me."

The man was dumbstruck as he saw the beggar walk on, and walk toward the exit, and walk out of the hospital.