Nature, Mathematics and Libra...

Wondering where I get these weird topics from?! They just come off the top of my head... Seriously! :)

If you ask me what fascinated you the most, I might give you different answers at different times but for the most part it would be God, the universe and one magical word that drives the whole show - 'balance'. This word forms the basis of Libra and Librans are always characterized in any zodiac book by the phrase 'the golden balance'. Let's look at this beautiful thread that connects everything, I mean everything together.

Imagine several thousand tons of mass floating here and there in the universe... The masses are not just floating, they are rotating revolving, radiating energy and what not. If you imagine the universe as a plane, what are the chances of the weights being equally balanced on either side - both in terms of mass and in terms of charge? After all, isn't that the crux of Anti-particle theory? The most unbelievable part of this whole thing is that a similar setup is also present within the smallest piece man has ever known - 'an atom'. Particles of opposite charges are kept so close to each other but they don't disintegrate and they contain so much energy that keeps the electron revolving forever and when the energy from a few grams of Uranium atoms is brought out, it is capable of feeding heavy voltage lines that serve a huge power consuming nation like India. So this goes back to the discussion on quantum theory and the illusion of space that we spoke about in one of my previous posts.

Okay... so that explains nature and libra in the title but Mathematics? Ever heard of Normal distribution? People tend to call it a bell shaped curve but to me it appears like the arms of a man/scales of a balance streched equally across the pivot. The reason it's called a 'normal' distribution is that it is the most commonly observed probability density function. Ok... I'm not talking Greek and Latin here. A simple example would be the distribution of employees in an office by character/sincerity/work. A major proportion of the poulation would be average, working when they feel like but making sure they don't overkill time (let's call them the mean). There will be some others who hardly understand anything and wade off their time in ping-pong tables, cafetaria and orkut (let's call them -sigma). There will be the other extreme who are stunningly talented and smart working; finishing off their work in a jiffy (let's call them +sigma). The presence of -sigma is balanced by the presence of +sigma and since the major chunk is already in the mean area a balance close to the median is established. This is precisely what normal distribution talks about and shunning off the mathematical aspects in it and focusing on the inference behind normal distribution, thinking for a moment about it like the person who discovered it; would lead to the eternal balance and the creator's magic...

Now do you still wonder why I'd say Mathematics, Nature and Libra are inter-woven?

It's upto our muslim brothers to answer...

I came across this shocking video in Google. I'm not a specialist in Arabic and I'm not an expert in Islam. So I don't have the knowledge required to really validate the content in this video. But if the content in this video is true, it'd be the hardest fact to digest! When man cannot be kind to another man, what purpose could a religion solve? I defer discussing it further but if someone could provide a response to the content in this video and validate if it's the translations are real, it'd be greatly helpful!

Does Islam preach these things?

Top 10 reasons to be a Hindu!

Beyond the layers of spirituality, philosophy and beliefs; man* is embedded with an inquisitive mind that questions everything that he sees and does and nothing but pure reason could convince it. In trivial things, we let it loose and with religion most of us control it in the fear of questioning God and being a sinner. I couldn’t accept this difference in perspective and I’ve revisited my beliefs, practices and religion quite often. Every time I think about it, Hinduism makes me feel proud, thankful and ecstatic; and this article is an attempt to identify the top 1o reasons to be happy about my spiritual self.

10: The Oldest Living Religion

Hinduism is the oldest living religion in the world and there is no start date for the religion. Ever since the day when man glimpsed at the sun with respect, Hinduism was born.

9: Liberty

Hinduism never compels you to do anything. No part of Hinduism mandates you to go to temples and there is nothing called a ‘Hindu Costume’. The religion underlines the fact that self actualization is the ultimate target for a man.

8: Feel free to ask questions

Unlike many other religions, Hinduism lets you question everything and sincere efforts are made to answer your question with the best reasoning possible. The Upanishads and Bhagavath Gita are classic examples of this quest for knowledge.

7: Vastness

Hinduism doesn’t have one holy book though ‘Bhagavath Gita’ is usually considered one. It is essentially a collection of so many sayings, wealth of knowledge and an ocean of facts presented under one name.

6: The way it spread

Hinduism does not believe in thrusting religion on others. Hinduism discourages conversion and it has never spread itself through conquests or forcible campaigns.

5: Contributions to the Human Society

Hinduism has provided innumerable contributions to the human society beyond the religious aspect. It has been the bed for countless discoveries, inventions, ideas and practises that helps an average man to be a better individual.

4: Civilization

Hinduism has never held itself to bad ideas; and concepts like animal sacrifice which came up in the minds of metamorphosed apes were slowly replaced by non-violent alternatives that beautifully retain the rituals intact except for the bloodshed. This level of civilization is hard to find in any other religion.

3: Science

Hinduism is filled with science and every single aspect of Hinduism has a scientific background to it. Even though “God’s will” could be used as an escapism to explain the complex realities, Hinduism never does that and even better the answers are packed neatly in the religious capsule. A classic example is the theory of evolution explained by ‘Dasavathara’ (the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu).

2: It’s not a religion but a way of life

Hinduism doesn’t refrain itself into a religious shell and instead it offers habits and best practices which are an integral part of life. From Yoga till the Ozone inhalation in Dhanur masa (the nineth month in the lunar calendar) there are so many ways in which a Hindu is made to follow best practices without even realizing he is.

1: I’m not a sinner, I’m God

‘Aham Brahmasmi’ (I’m God) is the underlying principle of a beautiful concept called Advaita that says God and Man are not two different entities and God manifests Himself in the form of life in all of us. None could explain life or God and that makes them synonymous.

The second part is the concept of ‘sinner’. I do things good and bad, and the bad things I do make me a sinner, is the version presented by many religions in the world. Some religions even follow ‘union theory’ where the fear of being haunted by sins is used as the base to attract people to the religion. But Hinduism leaves its classic mark here too. The soul (Jeevathma) in you is the ‘real You’ and eradication of the traces that your mistakes can leave behind in it by awakening the intelligence in you, is the concept behind the Maha Gayathri Mantra. To me this phenomenon cannot be explained any better.

Should there be any incomplete pieces here that you’d like to know more on, please feel free to contact me.

|| ‘Sarvam Shivarpanamasthu’ ||

* The word Man is used in a non gender-specific way all through this article

An Interesting Question...

During the spiritual discussions in the temple on the night of Maha Shivarathri, there was an interesting yet complex question that came up! "If God's will decides everything, why is it that he created me with the desire for money, making me stay in US far from my homeland and my people? If I'm not responsible for what I'm doing, can I do all sorts of bad deeds and call God as the person responsible for all that?" Since this question came up around 4 AM, not many were in a mood to answer it seriously and the question ended with a humorous answer - "I'll surely ask this when I see God!"

But a bit of thought would reveal that everyone has this question deep within. In my view, there are two parts to this question - (a) Why did God create me this way (b) Should I assume responsibility for my deeds?

The answer to part (a) is that God has His own reasons. For instance, Hinduism came back to the west through us. Now Westerners are aware of another religion called Hinduism and its great traditions. Any good thing happens only by the sacrifice of something else - physical or emotional.

Part (b) is a bit tricky. In my view, God (the paramathma) leads you through the soul (Jeevathma) in you and He has provided you with the best of gifts - Reason a.k.a the sixth sense. When the sixth sense is applied and decisions are made to the best of your interests, then even if the act results in a disaster, we cannot assume responsibility for that. But if you are denying the use of Him in you, then you are going against the will of the Lord and like a mother watching her child play around in her vicinity, God watches our activities and marks his presence somewhere to make us realize the mistake that we did!

I answered his question at least to an extent that I'm convinced... But I have a question and I'm not sure who will answer it - "Why did Lord get into the concept of creation? Why should he create the world and the universe and let the lives in there analyze the reason for their lives and search for Him? Is He afraid of loneliness? Does He want followers? Does He need some proof to prove his powers?". Will someone answer?!

From Ignorance to Elegance

When I try to visualize the days when mankind came into existence (from a group of apes or in a jiffy by the snap of the formless God's finger along with light, trees and birds), I couldn't visualize anything more than a group of apes that underwent metamorphosis to have a better appearance and increased curiosity. It is when the sixth sense was put into place, a whole new dimension of thought process originated. One of the first things to strike a fresh inquisitive mind with awe, surprise, question and respect would've been the origin of earth and the presence of such a wonderful ecosystem; and that is precisely when the concept of Religion would've come into existence in this world.

An excellent and in my opinion 'the best' by-product of this thought process is Hinduism - a religion that transformed into a way of life and removed the ignorance in man and brought him the elegance of a spiritually balanced scholar. The collection of different perspectives, the blend of science and religion and the civilization it has undergone are the best and unique features of the world's oldest living religion.

A Hindu (Madhvacharya) said "Things in this world always come in pairs like sun and the moon, like man & woman and so are God and men" while another Hindu who came in after the former (one of the most revered saints Adhi Shankara) said "A day and night make one full cycle of rotation, man and woman make the human kind and in the same way God and Man are not two different entities but God's scattered across every organism in the form of life".

The ten incarnations (Dasaavathaaram) of Lord Vishnu beautifully portray the concept of evolution while concepts of Siva, Vishnu and Sakthi have a wealth of information on matter, Vacuum energy and dark energy. The construction of a hindu temple in itself is a resemblance to the human physiology and the social engineering behind the concept of construction of temples is simply outstanding.

The civilization part of this religion is the most outstanding feature and the level of maturity in Hinduism went to such an extent that Hindus are always thought to respect that there are alternate views in every topic and that the real devotion in one's heart matters more than the actual way it is shown. Animal sacrifices were replaced by alternate non-violent ceremonies and Yoga, breathing exercises, control of mind, socializing with people, Mathematics, memory power improvement were all gradually included into a Hindu's normal lifestyle. The average age of a man/woman in the good old days was 120 and those 120 years of complete health were what was considered to be a long life those days.

Sadly, the degree of flexibility, freedom and maturity in Hinduism is being misused by Hindus as an excuse to stay away from the wonderful values and without even realizing where they belong to, some of them even convert themselves as followers of other religions and to top it all, they start accusing Hinduism. This ignorance brought in by the inability to remain elegant provides opportunity for pseudo-secularist politicians to abuse and slander Hindu beliefs. May the omnipotent and omnipresent Lord bestow people with maturity and the ability to remain elegant. Shambo Mahadevaa!