June 3, 2014
All our vital functions (breathing, blood circulation, digestion, response to stimulus, etc.) are involuntary. We exercise choice and express opinions on what is not vital to biological living or the onward march of the world and life. That is the level of our importance.
*We have no means of verifying
another’s experience as each of us live in a world of our own though we share a
common stock (subjectively, i.e. our genes are inter-related, and objectively,
i.e. there is one and the same reality out there.)
*We lead our life by instinct and on impulse, seldom in accordance with reason.
conomists also have realized that their basic assumption of rational human
behaviour is at the root of economic theory going haywire!
We should not spend a lifetime trying to find meaning for
life. We should live our life meaningfully.
We should not look for meaning for life beyond life.
Oct 12, 2000
Let us understand life. After-life will take care of itself.
Our life is incomplete as long as we believe in miracles.
Dependence is the basis of life- its pleasures and sorrows. Freedom is the
basis of ananda.
Life is meant for idle pursuits. We struggle unnecessarily.
6/9/2005
Life is hollow. It gets the stuff you put in.
We should subject ourselves to as little outside influence as possible, no matter how acclaimed, how beneficial, how popular it is.
*
Each one of us stated with a story of success against overwhelming odds. Millions of sperms competed to come to full-fledged life and one succeeded. It has the ingredients for fighting the odds and coming on top.
It was a deep desire to live this life that has brought
us to what we are. There is no justification to question that desire and
decision. The more we look for meaning the more meaningless it will appear. We
should, most of all, be careful not to entertain anyone else to find meaning
for our life with cock and bull stories.
*
The Greek logic of 'either or', 'yes or no', has been inculcated in us through the British.
It is just computer which works on yes or no, 1 or 0, on or off, and computer, for all its superhuman power, has no life. Life is not cut-and-dried in that fashion.
4/11/2018
A few stray observations.
I feel that there is a whole that appears to human intellect and mind in several ways like space-time, mass-energy, matter-spirit continuums. It does not care for insignificant things like human beings which are a flash in the pan.
*
Religion and rituals are creation of man, and can help genuinely, like so many other ideas of man enrich his life.
*
We have no means of verifying another’s experience as each of us live in a world of our own though we share a common stock (subjectively, i.e. our genes are inter-related, and objectively, i.e. there is one and the same reality out there.)
*
Science and religion have both sprung from the same human minds. There is no way to tell that science can tell us all the answers we are looking for. There is no way even to tell that the answers we have got are final.
*
We lead our life by instinct and on impulse, seldom in accordance with reason. Economists also have realized that their basic assumption of rational human behaviour is at the root of economic theory going haywire!
*
Life is a lot of fun one way or another. We must be who we are and at what we are doing. That is the only lesson worth learning and giving if asked.
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Life is like a balance sheet.
Life can be likened to a balance sheet.
Double entry book-keeping is followed generally and it entails both liabilities and assets. We see life as consisting of both good deeds (punya) and bad deeds (papa). If you give, it is punya and goes to the credit side; simultaneously, there is a receiver. To receive is bad and so it goes to the receiver’s debit side. Any transaction involves punya and papa! (Ayyo paavame).
A normal life will have thus both liabilities and assets (papa and punya). In the extreme case, the liability may only be capital. That must be god's balance sheet. That corresponds to theistic religious belief where god has only capital (a benevolent god or saguna brahman). That is not encountered in normal life.
No person can carry on business without both giving and receiving. No one can lead life doing only punya or only papa. Thus, any ordinary person has a balance sheet of both punya and papa.
We have to work out what happens when a firm goes into dissolution (death), merger (marriage), opening subsidiaries (getting children), hiving off (when children set up their own family) etc. Some may do repeated mergers like SBI (polygamy).
Chitragupta was the first accountant. There seems to be no controller for him.
“Even the balance sheet, where we have been the creators and masters, has limitations as to the value of money, qualitative aspects, human assets and liabilities, and so on. We have many more imponderables in life. Thus, life’s balance sheet appears often one-sided. Nevertheless, it is in seeing the symmetry in its totality, a perfect balance between the opposites, that we can derive the sense of fullness of life and a poise to face it with equanimity and live in peace amidst strife and turmoil.”
28/12/2002
I walked into a book shop with another person and after spending a little while perusing various titles, walked out. I remarked, “We came here and spent some time and are getting out. It is a model of our life style.”
June 10, 2016 ·
I tend to believe that life is real, mystical and whole. The world is real in the
sense of wholeness of life, its parts are inalienably intertwined and it is not
a synthesis of parts amenable to analysis as in science. Everything is endowed
with life. We live life by feeling, by being part of it. Life is not amenable
to dissection. Life is self-renewing and is ongoing. It is arbitrary to assign
a beginning to it or speculate on its demise. My mind that is a byproduct of
life is not the best judge of life. It has no more power than what is required
for its short existence. It does not extend into eternity. It senses life but
is no substitute for it. Do what we like, be ever so great, our job is nothing
beyond live the flash-in-the-pan life. Ignoramus that I am I draw solace from
this egalitarian thought.
May 6, 2016 ·
There is no mystery. Life is to live.
We have the power to know, beyond to exist. That power leads us to morals and enquiry. The gaps in that pursuit present as mystery.
April 1, 2016 ·
We know, thanks to science, that our blood vessels carry pure and impure blood. Mercifully, there is no attempt to make the body of only pure blood. We do not call the pure blood carriers (arteries except pulmonary) good and the impure blood carriers (veins except pulmonary) bad. The two are vitally necessary for life.
Is life in its totality also similar? Is our conception of good and bad an aberration? Is there perhaps a natural system that generates and treats the ‘bad’ and human intervention is only muddying the water?
Yes. Midnight madness. When I roll in bed seeking out the truant sleep, my mind
raves.
March 16, 2017 ·
Our life makes sense in the scale (space) and longevity (time) human life is confined in.
The distant sun is a burning and exploding mass of gases, but that reality does not impact us as we live life. Whatever we do, it is going to carry on for infinity (compared to our life span). The time of the world we consider our external habitat will again be infinite compared to the flash-in-the-pan of even a hundred years.
Our vision operates in a narrow range, just adequate for a short trip that is planned for us by nature. ("Visible light" corresponds to a wavelength range of 400 - 700 nanometers (nm) and a colour range of violet through red. The human eye is not capable of "seeing" radiation with wavelengths outside the visible spectrum). The size of a thing varies with the distance and the form varies with the angle of perspective. Sounds succeeding each other, approximating the rate of 1/500 of a second cannot be discriminated as distinct sounds. The world as sensed by us is subject to numerous limitations like these.
The size and shape of a thing is as we see it. Its real shape and size does not matter to us mostly. The moon is a round object soothing to the eye and inducing romantic feelings. That it is a satellite made of mud and elements and has no self-luminosity does not bother us. We cannot forget to compare when we see a real chandravadana or enjoy the neraval at chaandramukha malarale in bhairavi. We do not observe how absurd it is to liken the face to what must be a rugged clump of soil moon must be.
There is no real point in underplaying our significance in the limited circle in which we live. It matters in the scale in which we operate. We do not operate at the atomic or stellar scale. We do not even operate at the level at which our vital organs function. They operate without waiting for our sanction or intelligence.
Our mortality does not also minimise the importance of our concerns of life
including need for saving, prudence and bequeathing. That we may die one day
does not mean that we should live as we please. We live through our children
and if we are in a position to leave for their rainy day, it is the right thing
to do, not spending on ourselves lavishly.
All our life position and decisions must relate to the scale in which the world makes sense to us in ordinary life.
15/8/18
We do not start to live life only after understanding it in the conscious mind. Similarly, belief in god cannot wait for its logical basis. We understand neither life nor god. If without belief in god, we can believe in life and that it depends on other lives, it is enough.
30/6/18
I was peeling off the skin and munching the pumpkin seeds. By mistake, I pushed the skin in the mouth and it tasted so bitter. Nature has provided a bitter covering to the life-bearing seed to keep rodents away. Nature takes many precautions for continuity of life. Hope it is able to withstand the onslaught of man!
2/6/18
A neighbour brought from their farm a ripe pumpkin. When I cut it, I saw that one of the myriad seeds has sprouted. I wondered at the tenacity of life. Life bursts forth with the minimum of life support environment. That is how we live despite doctors and medicines!
(No joke. Read this by Will Durant on Immanuel Kant: He was so frail in physique that he had to take several measures to regimen himself; he thought it safer to do this without a doctor; so he lived to the age of eighty.)
20/12/18
We must make simple living and lack of possessions glamorous if we want to turn earth into paradise. We have a mind in wants and utter poverty and that is the cause of strife. We can enrich the mind with knowledge and good fellow-feeling. Then it will be possible to embrace simplicity and not get enamoured of possessions.
But, we are enslaved to aggrandizement any which way we turn from morning to night and even in dreams. That bondage is firm and the burden of a life that is enmeshed in speed, restlessness and competitiveness is what we have paid for.
When I started as field officer handling advances, I gained some insight. The practice to permit overdrawings based on security seemed risky unless the stocks were moving. The bank appointed a committee and came to the conclusion that activity level and not security must be the basis of drawings. I also found that loans for acquisition of land and building were not serviced properly often because they are not earning assets. Later when I worked in planning, I did not get ideas. The point I wish to make is that it is being in the field that generates ideas that can be worked on. An idea that is not backed in action is insubstantial.
In life also, it is living this life the best we can that spurs us to think creatively and with insight. An idle life spent in mere contemplation would produce sterile ideas that may be stimulating intellectually, but not rooted on earth.
August 5, 2018
Dignity of life
All life has a purpose and meaning for each other. Compassion is not a concession, but an inner compulsion. We get now and then some video clips of even wild animals showing consideration for the weaker ones. Each life has a right to dignity and man must extend that dignity to all. It is basic that all of us need food, but we need dignity even more. A society is civilized not by the material opulence it can flaunt, but by this shared idea of dignity. Even the ‘lesser’ beings deserve dignity. There is divinity in this dignity.
30/10/2017
Religion and metaphysics lead us astray. It is universally claimed that the purpose of life is to attain happiness. To be happy is surely a desirable state, but it is not a product or byproduct, but a question of attuning the mind. With the judgement that happiness is the goal of life, religion prescribes a code that is supposed to guide us to the goal, but the perceived outcome belies the promise. Not to be outdone, religion invents another world for reaping the fruits of following its commandments. Is it not the height of greed to expect plum and permanent reward for paltry and desultory efforts in a tiny life?
Misery and misfortune are the starting point of religious indoctrination and metaphysical speculation. They are attributed to evil, but the reason why evil overcame god is unconvincing. A dispassionate look around and reflection without any predisposition would tell us that life is an uneven mixture of good and evil, enjoyment and suffering. From the stories, chronicles and mythology, we may infer that it has been so always. While religions of revelation assure us of an eternal dwelling in heaven, religions based on philosophy enjoin us to renounce the life or its fruits. Luckily, not many have been tempted.
All of us want to live this life. It is a good natural instinct for us to want to live whether happy or unhappy. Human effort must be to make our life worthwhile and that cannot be a straitjacket. It has to be in different ways for different people. Observations, trials, socializing, empathy and so on will help us to live the short life richly. Religion and philosophy can engage quite a few of us to enrich our lives, but cannot pre-empt other choices and outlook. Much of mankind, and everything outside it, has no consideration of such intellectual stirrings as ignite the minds of philosophers to a glorious flame, about the first or final cause, or the future of present life.
It does not help to take a pessimistic view of life. It is not warranted. Life is full
of changes and surprises one way or another. That is its beauty and attraction.
We need to live it as a precious one-off gift in a maaner befitting living in a
group.
26/5/17
The more I think the more I am convinced that our ethical preoccupation with evil and suffering, and defining a goal of eternal life either physically or through an awakening, are just leisure time pursuits. We need to live this life and equip ourselves to live it. The sciences will enable us to understand the physical possibilities and the role of religion is to train our minds in useful channels. To build a hope of another life or suggest a route of escape from it are ideas overworked on wrong premise.
This life is neither a burden nor a trial. It is an opportunity and we need to turn it to good account, not for a future beyond our gaze, but for today and immediate tomorrow.
It is not that religion is a chimera, but its ostensible objective of a reward elsewhere is misplaced. Its usefulness is in the peace and togetherness it fosters in us. To pray, surrender, let the will of god prevail unquestioningly help us to carry on with some light in the way. The path is as arduous for a believer as for an infidel.
December 16, 2016
Life
The credit of ancient India lies not in having found a key to the mysteries of the world (which it has not), but in that it has posited the basic questions with scientific temper, rooted in the facts of the world, not in the tenets of a belief. It has understood that the whole is sacred and that the destiny of life is intertwined in all existence, that human life is not an isolation or a favoured thing of life.
What is life? We do not know biologically or ontologically. An overwhelming majority of us want to live for sure, but for what, that is open. The Indians of 2000 years ago came out with a plan. Right living is the basis for life. What is right is set down by the knowledgeable and wise, which is codified into a rule book. We need to earn a living. For the organized community living several jobs have to be done and sharing it makes it easier. Each takes up a job and does it acquiring skills and expertise over time. Living consists in fulfilling our practical desires to a reasonable extent.
We cannot live for ever, not yet. The major part of our early life seeks to engage with the world. But, we cannot continue in the engagement mode to the last breath, not even in polygamous societies! The preparation to live this life at ease must lead to preparation to leave it in peace – for us and for others!
This plan looks well-thought out. There must be other plans that appeal to others.
*
January 18, 2017
What is life?
· We become as we think. This is what both the east and west teach us. We are neither flesh and bone, nor the spirit, which is ghost without body. We are human just on an excursion like the other species, nothing special. Life is an interesting puzzle and the answer is what we find.
· David B Colyer What exactly do you perceive as being the truth about our existence as humans, and the death of our bodies?
Kv Chellappa I have no clue. My belief follows my upbringing. The larger truth is a mystery. No religion has succeeded in explaining it convincingly. So, religion is no guide to the truth. There is truth, only we do not know it. The very effort to find it is rewarding. My identity as Chellappa is one-off and has no relevance in itself. In retrospect, I have been blessed. I spend time in music, reading and Vedanta. They reinforce each other spiritually, whatever it means. Whatever happens after death is absolutely irrelevant to me. My thoughts have shut out that worry. The special place we claim for human beings is a self-delusion.
· David B Colyer I agree the larger truth is a mystery. My core belief is no one truly knows where we came from originally. There are lots of opinions though.
· David B Colyer What are your thoughts concerning the meaning of life? Why are humans on Earth? And, what are we (as a group) supposed to be doing with our time, talent, and effort?
· KVChellappa You draw me into topics where my opinion is bound to be raw, hypothetical and unsubstantiated. Some plausible answers are there in the lives of great people like Buddha ad Jesus. We must, if we care, look at their lives rather than their words. Better still, if a choice exists, to look for someone living in the worldly sense, what is called satsang (association with good people who are knowledgeable). As I said there cannot be a straitjacketed answer. The answer depends on what we are prepared for. That is why there is an almost impossible regime to undergo for a spiritual aspirant. In a lighter vein, humans may be here because they were turned out everywhere else.
· Kv Chellappa Meaning of life. When I presented a dictionary to my daughter, I wrote there: 'Go beyond words to meaning, and then beyond meaning to life.' Life is not about meaning. It is not about reason. These two words, meaning and reason, have undermined the richness of life. We look for meaning in words which are human creation, no matter what language it is. Reason is just one faculty that we have. It is not the only one, nor the most crucial one in the secondary sense in which we take it (there may be a reason as conditions in which anything life included become possible, but we refer to reason that we want to ascribe as human beings). It is a myth that human beings live rationally. Look for life, not meaning. To live is a gift, a precious gift. As a child we rejoice at the gift, we do not care so much about the giver. We do not worry how long we will enjoy it. We need to live life as if it were a gift, new one every moment. (These later thoughts rolled out at this moment, hence raw). My quest is what is life, not meaning or why.
· David B Colyer Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights Kv!
· David B Colyer Kv - What INSPIRED you to begin your quest to find answers to the question... what is life?
Kv Chellappa It is mutual. We blurt out what churns in our minds, hopefully we get clarity, a eureka moment, a feeling of total alignment with life with no more questions raised. It is never a moment of pretension, but of completeness that does not look for what pretension does, recognition.
· Kv Chellappa That is the only thing that seems to matter. Life is the only thing which makes us raise even this thought. The beauty of nature and the cruelty of man arise in life. The tranquillity and turbulence of mind arise in life. The fondness for company and longing for solitude happen in life. Is sentience really the defining feature of life? Is the ability to question wisely the zenith of life? Is a mere vanilla life the substratum and the add-ons only a diversion? My mind used to wander away always from the plain and hard facts of worldly existence once fed well. It always fascinated me to wonder at what is and find out what is. I am beating about the bush and trying to hide 'I do not know.'
· David B Colyer Do you recall WHEN you decided to begin your quest to find out what life is?
· Kv Chellappa Let me give a wistful answer as a variant of 'I do not know' : it happened when time spanned out; it became poignant when I saw others besides me; it established itself in the mind once there was no worry about the basic wants; it has been aflame looking at people who are good and do what they are supposed to do without a thought of others' opinions; it is fueled by the constant brush with vedanta and the wise sayings; it is encouraged by the unfolding frontiers of atomic science, even without understanding its import. In short, it has been the pursuit of an idle and dreaming mind. Was I born with it? Will it not then answer my quest?
·
David B Colyer Thanks for playing along and answering my questions Kv. I've been enjoying our conversation!
August 24, 2016
Life
The world exists. Life teems in the world. Human life is a part of it. It is not the apex, the purpose, the culmination or anything special.
Each piece and each life plays a role. There is no sanctity of anything except by human mind. Billions of cells constitute our body and they die and are renewed periodically. Imagine each one of them having a human consciousness and longing for and believing in individual eternity. We will laugh at the idea. That is precisely what we are doing as human beings. There are billions of human beings in the body of the universe. They die and life continues in another form. The hope for individual immortality is as untenable for a human being as for any form of life or any constituent of it. All religions exploit this outlandish human vanity. Unless we get people to believe that there is no special place for anyone here or in another place, we will have problems like crusades, jihads, racial cleansing, etc.
It will not be difficult to believe or even prove that all personal gods have sprung from human minds. It is a different issue whether they serve a purpose in life.
But, from the point of view of science our concern is whether there is anything that binds the universe apart from forces, whether there is an intelligent and conscious being as its source and rest. Perhaps, we will never find it out. Science can only be neutral on this issue perhaps.
The two issues which will bring more understanding are the nature of the world (whether the apparent continuity is 'real') and the nature of consciousness.
I have this thinking for the moment that science is not the ultimate, but clarifies understanding and helps remove untenable beliefs.
Life is all there is. The way we approach it seems to define it. When we approach it through science, we may not be quite right in judging the other perspectives from the scientific perspective. You can study water as a drink, a liquid or compound, or even a demon when it causes havoc. It is the same water. So with life. The most troublesome aspect has been that people of religion project that perspective as sacrosanct and 'god-given.' Much of what they say has been shown to be not valid.
The Upanishads have attracted scientific minds also, because there is a rigorous search for truth in it. The final result is that it has not been discovered in a way that can be stated explicitly. But, the journey it entails is fascinating.
Life existed without Upanishads and science and will exist whatever these searches may find. That is my 'belief'.
August 05, 2016
Living life
To live life fully, we must get rid of the idea of history (clinging to the past in any way). The fact of history (karma) gets imprinted in us as it happens. Nature likes repetition as a means to internalise, actualise potentiality. The tedium of repetition is got over by innate tendency to forget. We feel something fresh happening though it is just revitalising repetition. We must let that recurring idea of freshness to pervade our being. We do not die, but renew in another form. Rebirth or next life is a theory to sustain that feeling of continuity, by believing in a continuing identity; continuity is for the whole, not for an event – one individual life, assuming its reality for argument’s sake, is an event in a cosmic play.
February 15, 2016
Life
The idea to grade life as lower or higher, more evolved, etc. have sprung from human faculties. The nature has put forth life in balance and all life struggles to survive. In the process there is some mutual destruction. It is not that the winner in the struggle is higher. But, we have long cherished ideas that the way we look at things and weave stories believe in gradation with man at the apex. Some have imagined a still higher (going by popular notion) thing, but nature has not provided perceptual evidence of it.
We have read stories of each limb of the body claiming indispensability. In Upanishads there is a story of different senses and prana (life breath) claiming superioriy, and finally prana wins.
As we grow, it is as well we look at life as integral and self-balancing and drop ideas of what is useful, superior, etc. That will, in my experience, give a sense of direction and fulfilment, and help live taking things as they come.
I tend to believe that life is real, mystical and whole. The world is real in the sense of wholeness of life, its parts are inalienably intertwined and it is not a synthesis of parts amenable to analysis as in science. Everything is endowed with life. We live life by feeling, by being part of it. Life is not amenable to dissection. Life is self-renewing and is ongoing. It is arbitrary to assign a beginning to it or speculate on its demise. My mind that is a byproduct of
life is not the best judge of life. It has no more power than what is required for its short existence. It does not extend into eternity. It senses life but is no substitute for it. Do what we like, be ever so great, our job is nothing beyond live the flash-in-the-pan life. Ignoramus that I am I draw solace from this egalitarian thought.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Life is like that (for me):
1. I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but I am important to myself. (inspired by Somerset Maugham).
2. I am because I want to be. No one else is responsible why I exist.
3. Nothing is more sacred than life and living.
4. Goodness and love make life worth it and give it meaning.
5. I believe in God for this life, for its beauty and for its munificence, not for a future life.
6. As a Hindu, I believe that there is an invisible link between personality and destiny.
7. No one has a legitimate mission to save another. If God created us, and if we are to be saved, he must know to save us without an intermediary.
8. To help others is virtue, to harm others is sin. That is the essence of scriptures (a सुभाषित).
March 15, 2017
Human scale
Our life makes sense in the scale (space) and longevity (time) human life is confined in.
The distant sun is a burning and exploding mass of gases, but that reality does not impact us as we live life. Whatever we do, it is going to carry on for infinity (compared to our life span). The time of the world we consider our external habitat will again be infinite compared to the flash-in-the-pan of even a hundred years.
Our vision operates in a narrow range, just adequate for a short trip that is planned for us by nature. ("Visible light" corresponds to a wavelength range of 400 - 700 nanometers (nm) and a colour range of violet through red. The human eye is not capable of "seeing" radiation with wavelengths outside the visible spectrum). The size of a thing varies with the distance and the form varies with the angle of perspective. Sounds succeeding each other, approximating the rate of 1/500 of a second cannot be discriminated as distinct sounds. The world as sensed by us is subject to numerous limitations like these.
The size and shape of a thing is as we see it. Its real shape and size does not matter to us mostly. The moon is a round object soothing to the eye and inducing romantic feelings. That it is a satellite made of mud and elements and has no self-luminosity does not bother us. We cannot forget to compare when we see a real chandravadana or enjoy the neraval at chaandramukha malarale in bhairavi. We do not observe how absurd it is to liken the face to what must be a rugged clump of soil moon must be.
There is no real point in underplaying our significance in the limited circle in which we live. It matters in the scale in which we operate. We do not operate at the atomic or stellar scale. We do not even operate at the level at which our vital organs function. They operate without waiting for our sanction or intelligence.
Our mortality does not also minimise the importance of our concerns of life including need for saving, prudence and bequeathing. That we may die one day does not mean that we should live as we please. We live through our children and if we are in a position to leave for their rainy day, it is the right thing to do, not spending on ourselves lavishly.
All our life position and decisions must relate to the scale in which the world makes sense to us in ordinary life.
April 06, 2014
Size of man vis-a-vis the cosmos
There are two perspectives. In the overall size of things, man is not even a dot. That is not useful to the life we lead. Even knowledge of the celestial bodies, the majority of which lie hidden from our normal view, does not add anything to our short life, that is to the nature of choices we can make. On the other hand, in the immediate circle in which we act, which is virtually our world, each of us matter. Maugham said, 'I am the most important person to me.' The scriptures say that the soul has to be protected at all costs. This may sound as selfishness, but has been the plank on which human society has been floating.
March 14, 2017
Parent-child relationship
I heard Pulavar Ramalingam give a novel interpretation to the kuraL:
அன்பும் அறனும் உடைத்தாயின் இல்வாழ்க்கை
பண்பும் பயனும் அது.
He said அன்பு is wife, அறன் is husband and பயன் is children.
In our culture and tradition, marriage has been for begetting children. Children are not the byproduct, but the very purpose of marriage. Children bring meaning, purpose and cohesion in life. The best time of our life is that spent with children as they grow. We relive that experience with grandchildren with double joy.
Do we sacrifice the bliss of married life for children?
Jaya Bacchan was asked about her sacrificing the film career for her children a number of years back. She said pointedly, ‘What sacrifice? I wanted to be with my children and I have enjoyed it.’ That is the true spirit. Any idea that we sacrificed is sacrilege. It has been a rich experience. Only those who have not experienced and felt it can write that we should bother about ourselves more. It has been my pet belief, others may murmur and protest, that we owe our children everything and they owe us nothing. We have been, at least proximately, responsible for their being. The time we spend with them is itself a great reward. When they grow up and form a family of their own, they have to repeat it to their children. The world is forward looking, not the other way. In Readers Digest, I read decades ago, ‘Parents love their children, and children love their children.’ Though it is with a bit of wry humour, it is true and proper.
Good children are an investment not for our future, but for society. The joy of having good children is ineffable. It makes us feel complete and overturns any feeling of ‘sacrifice’ even if legitimate.
A parallel runs in mind. Innumerable people fought for the freedom of our country. A few have been recognized, decorated, rewarded, honored and glorified. Some have reaped the benefit for generations. But, the majority but for whom the freedom struggle would have fizzled out were ‘unwept, unhonoured and unsung.’ They certainly did it for the love of the country, even if on the heat and passion of the moment. They did not expect a return. ROI is a business concept, not a life concept.
When I saw harmonious families, I saw that tradition played a crucial part, but the single family system based on western ideas has often cut us off from tradition. People learn by observing, not through advice or reading. A healthy tradition and culture thus would produce balanced families. People who question tradition reasoning how new things and changes would happen forget that tradition is an anchor for a stable society and changes must happen organically at the pace of plant life. Without tradition, there is no civilization.
There are, however, many lessons we have to learn in parenting. We have fallen between two stools. It is as well we take advantage of the progress of science in fields like psychology and slowly build viable and healthy changes unobtrusively into our culture.
If the author is saying that overindulgence is harmful, there can be no qualms about it. We have known it for ages. Sayings like ‘ativrishti, anavrishti’ and ‘அளவுக்கு மிஞ்சினால் அமுதமும் விஷம்’ are part of our daily conversation.
March 02, 2017
Undue protection
It is understandable that those who are vulnerable and discriminated against should get strong protection of law and law enforcement agencies. But, that does not mean that it must be so provided that innocent people can be harassed. I know of cases in the bank where employees had to go underground as non-bailable charges were being framed against them. If without any evidence someone can claim to have been abused and if the law gives more credence to his affidavit, is it non-discriminatory law? Is the accused not eligible for protection against false charges?
If the vulnerable throw all precaution to winds and go about in a way as if to incite crime, how much should the state protect them and can it be done all the time? If a crime happens, it should be proceeded against, but can it be prevented altogether? Why should not the vulnerable take precaution and avoid overexposure?
June 02, 2014
Life
All our vital functions (breathing, blood circulation, digestion, response to stimulus, etc.) are involuntary. We exercise choice and express opinions on what is not vital to biological living or the onward march of the world and life. That is the level of our importance.
April 17, 2014
How LIFE began
I feel in an obscurantist way that science will one day discover that LIFE never began. What we understand by life is power of locomotion, certain involuntary biological processes and the power of reason. We have created a world, that is very much in our collective consciousness, where there is big bang, rattling of all matter as if in a desperate chase, a number of parts like stars and particles. In this world of our analytical framework, there appears a beginning, evolution and an unknown (hitherto) destiny. It is an interesting story worth reading and wondering.
What we know exists is what we collectively see. What we see collectively is a
story that has been built over thousands of years. We are all agreed on the
view because of similar conditioning. I am not saying that nothing
exists.
Interestingly, certain things appear out of reach of experimental science. Evolution takes eons and there is no way we can prove evolution in a direct way unless we transcend time. Reactions that are instantaneous and existence that is for an infinitesimally small time also defy study. (I read how the mechanism of inorganic reactions that are instantaneous are far more difficult to trace than organic reactions that are slower.) We have been fascinated by the search for particles that seem to die the moment that they are born. In other words, we are helpless when it comes to study of very slowly progressing events and very fast events. We are struggling in the middle.
Life will be created in lab just as it began in the lab of nature. The difference will be it will not be by evolution. Then, when life can be created without evolution, it will raise the question whether life could have come other than by evolution just as man has produced it. Evolution will have sunset days. Life created in lab is the life as we understand it.
Live in the Present
Jul 3, 2004
We are all aware of and sure of only the present. To live the present well is all that our aim
should be. ‘Well’ does not mean ‘as we please’.
The past does hang in and the future is certainly a concern. So, the above advice, as most simple statements go, is to be qualified and taken rather judiciously.
Are the moments in our life part of a continuum or are they discrete? Can we say there will be ‘n’ moments in our life and we managed to live ‘x’ of them well and the percentage of success of our life is x/n times hundred? Maybe this is pure materialism. Soul is required to explain continuity just as ether was required in physics. As there is an appearance of continuity, the existence of soul is inferable.
Living the present well may not address the issue of continuity. It may be a practical advice. All you can do anything about is the present. The future may issue from the present, but there is no knowing in what shape and when.
However, it is foolhardy advice not to plan or prepare for the future. Savings is an area that cannot be overlooked. Caring for health is another. Life is not so simple as some propose. In its outer relevance, it is not that complex either. We learn as we go along until the body gives up. The soul is unmoved.
*
When we are engaged in activity that satisfies us or enhances our competence and worth, life is meaningful.
When we seek to find truth in whatever we come across, life is fulfilling intellectually.
When we are able to give satisfaction to others, family, friends, society, life is
purposeful.
When we do the above taking in our stride the vicissitudes of moods and situations, we are enlightened and liberated.
This is a thought of mine based much on a little reading and a little on personal experience. It need not be universal. Each person will have his own life to guide his thinking.
*
Sep 16, 2000
Curiosity and feeling make the wheels of life rotate. Curiosity to know the truth and feeling for others (love). Truth and love confer ananda. That is the natural state. When we discover the truth and love as standing alone without any purpose, we realise a oneness and a freedom, a
state beyond mere body and mind. Body and mind are artificial limitations.
Bhakthi is a state of realisation of the truth and love that is universal. It is convenient to visualise truth and love as emanating from a deity and focus the mind on the deity, but if it does not transcend the symbolism, it becomes binding and infatuating.
Simple formula for life:
Pray for that which is good to happen to us.
Believe that whatever happens is for the good.
Be grateful for the gift of life.
Maxims for life:
Keep it simple.
Be and let others be.
You are your own redeemer, and living this life is its only redemption.
Sep 1, 2005
I was an idea and a fancy.
I became a reality.
I will pass into memory.
The memory will fade and die.
