Meditations on Transcendence

Happy new year 2011. The greetings were all around in the air as i arrived for the first day in office for 2011. Innumerable handshakes, SMS, emails!!! I joined in it part of group think, which makes one do a ritual just because everyone is doing. Inside me i was thinking ‘what is happy about arrival of a new year?’. I have wished for the past 30 years but nothing better has happened. Corruption levels have increased, crime rates are on rising trend in all major cities and around us. We are constantly at fear of an imminent terrorist attack. So why we are all part of this ritual of wishing when the First of January arrives every year? Have we become very mechanical in life? Have we stopped questioning the intent of anything due to the ever increasing busy life. By the time my first day in office had ended, i had got heavily cynical of these new year wishes. As i was overhearing numerous wishes over the phone across my cubicle i was feeling how empty these wishes are. How many times do

9 th chapter of Gita is called ‘the most confidential knowledge’ and it is also the king of all knowledge. What is the meaning of confidential? Suppose i talked to a friend and tell him this is very confidential – keep it to yourself. Confidential means some information is not for public consumption. The Sanskrit word used here is ‘Guhyam’ or secretive. Why do we like to share information with only certain set of people? Like government defence secrets are confidential because it can get into enemy hands and can cause problems to national security. Similarly in the corporate world there are design secrets, trade secrets which if made public can cause harm in harming shareholder interests. Competition, enemity these are some of the causes that we hold some information secret. But Sri Krishna is the Lord himself who does not have competition nor worthy enemies. He is ‘asmaurdha’ ‘ajita’ or unconquerable. Why is he classifying some information as confidential? Also whatever he has said i

Every Hindu is aware of the word Dharma. People in India use it with different interpretations, in different context. The words 'Guru' and 'karma' have already gotten into the English dictionary being part of the vocabulary. It will not be much longer before the word 'Dharma' makes its way. What is the real meaning of the word Dharma? People usually associate with the english word 'duty'. Going deeper into sanskrit grammar, the word Dharma means 'spontaneous property of any object/entity'. Every object exhibits some natural property which cannot be disassociated from it. Like the property of sweetness is tightly coupled with entity sugar, flowing property is associated with water, heat with fire etc... one can go on. Dharma is an idea in people's mind on how a object generally behaves. Its a perception of reality unchangeable with time. Environmental influences can temporarily modify the property - like low temperature can modify the property

Last week the movie Ravanan got released in multiple languages – Hindi, tamil, telugu. Its a ManiRatnam magnum opus scripted around the character of Ravana – the ten headed villain in Hindu epic Ramayana. Its about exploring the ten different characters in the same person and how they interact, conflict each other. Is it like a multiple personality disorder? I don’t know – haven’t seen the movie. There is a recent spate of movies based on our holy epics. If Rajneeti by Prakash Jha was a take on Mahabharatha, Mani’s version is inspired by Ramayana. In fact this is a first take on Ramayan being used as base for modern day story telling. Mani has to be credited for his creativity and for going in the direction of unexplored waters. What are these epics? Are they just stories, fables or reality? What makes them holy?

Recently 2 kinds of news are hogging the media space. The BP oil spill issue and the union carbide issue. Both have lot of things in common. BP oil spill is about the oil well deep inside the gulf of Mexico going berserk. The earth has oil inside it and we drill it for running automobiles and whole lot of things to enable mechanical motion. But this spill has caused irreparable damage to the environment. Whole ocean flora and fauna is dripped and bathed in viscous oil. Has led to irreversible damage to life. If we can empathize then one can understand the sad plight of life in the gulf of Mexico. The ripple effect on human civilisation will have a time lag but is sure to come. Whole world is a system with interdependent subsystems which need each other for survival and growth. So its only foolishness not to anticipate an impact in the near future. Marine specialists should extrapolate this event to possible child events that will be triggered in future. Why is humanity creating such a

Recently went on a spiritual vacation to Navadwip. Spiritual vacations are little austere to the material body. We adjust with simple accomodation and pilgrim food. This austerity helps us to be rich in cidananda or conscious pleasure. Can Jadananda and cidananda coexist? I think before going to this question we need to understand the significant difference between the two. Jadananda is the ordinary pleasures of this world. Jadananda is the feeling of happiness derived from the interaction or friction of sense objects with the senses. When there is friction between good food with the taste buds of the tongue, jadananda is generated. Similarly all material gross pleasures are born out of friction. Jadananda is of 2 types - the gross and the subtle. The subtle Jadananda is experienced when we deal emotionally by giving meaning to material identities. Ananda due to the interaction between father and daughter is one of the examples.

Whole nation is going ga-ga over three idiots. The nation has woken up to the new year with the chants of 'All is well'. Hope with this combined aspiration, 2010 will be a great year minus the terrorism and natural calamities. A feel good movie with a message communicated via a laugh riot. This is typical of Raju Hirani - the previous time he made Gandhigiri relevant to the times, again with laugh riot as a vehicle. With 3 idiots, Raju is taking on the education system. The timing of the movie is accurate since India is awakening to the importance of innovation to drive the country's GDP. Education has to teach how to contemplate and solve problems using existing body of knowledge. Of these the skill of contemplation is superior. To contemplate is to think. The popular trend is accumulate information and perform repeated work to earn livelihood. In this way life passes on without challenging status quo. Problems can be solved using existing body of knowledge but What about