Parallel Spirals

Standing on the shores of space-time…

Blog

  • Aubrey Menen

    Aubrey Menen was what I was reading over vacations. He’s actually a guy from the early 20th century with an Irish mother and an Indian father (trying to explain the name). He has some different opinions, which you might just as well read:

    The Upanishads are held in awe by many people in the West, a number of whom had the satisfactory, not to say flattering, experience I have just mentioned. I did not. This may have been due to my Indian background. The Upanishads, though reverenced in the West are really not much read in India. The average Indian prefers the Bhagavad-Gita, a beautiful poem in which the Lord Krishna teaches us the noble lesson that we must do our duty to society. The duty under Lord Krishna’s attention in the Gita is to kill, maim or otherwise dispose of the enemy on a field of battle in a petty dynastic war. The Lord Krishna heartily recommends that this be done and done with a will. Indians, I have noted, have a liking for filling their minds with elevated notions which do not interfere with the business in hand. No book has ever been written which does this better than the Gita.

    The Upanishads, on the other hand teach no moral lesson whatever. The attitude in them is much like that of the Scottish philosopher David Hume. He wrote a book proving that there was no such thing as cause and effect. At the end of it he remarks that he has no doubt that his reasoning is correct, but as for himself, he has not the slightest intention of letting it affect him or his way of life. In the same way the philosophers of the Upanishads, after having led the reader into the very depths of his being, with shattering results to all his dearest belief, advise him to get up and go and enjoy himself like anybody else, with, they specify, horses, chariots, food and women. The verses in which this is said are as coarse as a hearty laugh and a slap on the back. How people manage to find God in such a book I cannot say, but I think it may be that they have a natural refinement which puts things decently straight.

    Liked it till here? Here’s some more:

    The Upanishads are, in fact, a supreme monument to the fact that, in matters of religion, the Indians are eccentrics. From the earliest times, the Hindu faith was outlined in the Rig Veda. This described the gods to be revered and how to worship them down to the last detail. For centuries, they were believed to be the last word on the matter, but then some philosophers decided they were not. Having taken due thought, they came to the conclusion that the gods of the Rig Veda were probably fictitious and that to worship them was quite unnecessary. In any decent and ordered society – that of the Christian Middle Ages, for instance – these daring men would have been promptly burnt alive.

    The Hindus, instead, studied these teachings, wrote them down, and then bound them up along with the Rig Veda. It is hard to find a parallel to this act in any other religion. It is as though in each copy of the Jewish and Christian Bible, the Pentateuch was followed by some lively chapters saying that Yahweh did not exist, that the Temple was a highly redundant institution and that the Ten Commandments were binding on nobody but Moses, who had probably invented them for his own convenience.

    Now the Western world is brought up to believe that black is black and white is white and anybody who attempts to muddle the two is an idiot. This opinion has carried us along the a triumphal way of scientific discoveries which have culminated, for the time being (or forever), in the hydrogen bomb. The Hindu has never thought in this manner. He has always felt that anybody who could prove that black is not black, white is not white, but both are really the same thing, is a very clever fellow and worth listening to. The result is that the Indians have invented nothing at all, except some ideas. One of those ideas is that the only way of meeting violence is to do nothing about it, but to go on minding your own peaceful affairs. I might observe in passing that if the bombs do go off, this will, obviously, be the only way of putting the world together again.

    These are lines from Aubrey Menen’s “The Space Within the Heart”, 1970. Read the book, if you can. Although there aren’t many paragraphs like the ones given above, you might find it an interesting read.

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  • Happy New Year

    I know I am about a fortnight late, but what the heck. Happy New Year.

    New Year was spent in Kerala. What was I doing at midnight? Sleeping. What else? So, I forgot about resolutions and stuff. Let’s see how the year goes without resolutions. The weird header art has been removed and replaced.

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  • JK

    I have not been too well to blog. I was also working towards my last exam this semester. Life’s getting pretty lethargic.But, I read these words by JK on what should be the role of a teacher:

    “Surely, when the teacher regards each student as a unique individual and therefore not to be compared with any other, he is then not concerned with system or method. His sole concern is with ‘helping’ the student to understand the conditioning influences about him and within himself, so that he can face intelligently, without fear, the complex process of living and not add more problems to the already existing mess.”

    When you read works by JK, one of your first instincts is: “Easier said than done.” Well, but if you look deep enough, then what we’re doing is actually delaying the final outcome of a process.

    A very simple example. You live in a place where the river’s water level is rising. What do you do? You build a wall around your house. As the level of the water rises, you raise the level of the wall. At some point, you reach a limit and you can no longer raise the level of the wall. What do you do then? Move.

    That was a philosophical example, if you understand what I mean. This is what we are tend to be doing. Just a word of advice, if you plan to read books on philosophy or personal opinion of people, please make sure that you do not read books seperated by a lot of time. People have written these books and experience changes many of the things they may have stated while they were younger.

  • Indo-US Nuclear Deal

    Lot has been said by a lot many people in criticism of this bill. Just wanted to ask this. If India were to enact a similar law to provide nuclear technology to a country with limited nuclear capabilities, what would it include and what would it leave out from the current bill? Wouldn’t it seek similar assuarances from that country?

  • Traffic Jam

    The condition of the world today is like a huge traffic jam on a single road in the middle of the desert. Going off the road is the equivalent of getting killed. On the road, everyone wants the other to move and have different solutions for how to get out of the traffic jam and everyone wants to implement their idea.

    Having one fellow unravel the whole traffic jam is useless, since he does not know the situation ahead. Having several people sort out the traffic jam is also useless, since there is bound to be difference in view points. Let’s see how we get out of this traffic jam.

    Hint: abandon your cars, take a cycle and go home.

  • Lok Sabha TV

    The Parliamentarians of India now have the whole nation watching their conduct on live television. Lok Sabha TV broadcasts live Parliamentary debate during the Parliamentary session and at other times has interviews with MPs, political parties, analysis programmes etc. This is the first 24-hour channel dedicated to the lower house of the Indian Parliament, the Lok Sabha and it is supposed to be the first of its kind.

    This has a very fun aspect of it. You can either see serious debates in Parliament or you can see how money is going down the drain.

    What is the expectation? People will see the MPs wasting their money on certain issues and when they return to their constituency, question them. I am yet to see the MP from my region in Parliament or maybe, its because I don’t watch LS TV that often.

    My nine year old brother who still does not understand Parliamentary democracy thinks that its a huge classroom with a teacher. He asks me why the teacher does not check their homework. I just don’t know what to answer.

    FYI: There’s also a Rajya Sabha TV. But LS TV is a 24-hour channel.

  • Progress and Revolution

    Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as https://pradx.wordpress.com. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on December 8, 2006 as per the permalink. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.

    The following is an article in J. Krishnamurti’s Commentaries on Living – Second Series. Please read this carefully. I am not suggesting this as a course to take. Purely for discussion. In this article, JK is talking with a revolutionary. There will be no blog posts till 13 December, 2006. So, feel free to discuss. These are from notes he took while talking with different people.

    Progress and Revolution

    He said he was a revolutionary, ready to kill or be killed for his cause, for his ideology. He was prepared to kill for the sake of a better world. To destroy the present social order would of course produce more chaos, but this confusion could be used to build a classless society. What did it matter if you destroyed some or many in the process of building a perfect social order? What mattered was not the present man, but the future man; the new world that they were going to build would have no inequality, there would be work for all, and there would be happiness.

    How can you be so sure of the future? What makes you so certain of it? The religious people promise heaven, and you promise a better world in the future; you have your book and your priests, as they have theirs, so there is really not much difference between you. But what makes you so sure that your clear-sighted about the future?

    “Logically, if we follow a certain course the end is certain. Moreover, there is a great deal of historic evidence to support our position.”

    We all translate the past according to our particular conditioning and interpret it to suit our prejudices. You are as uncertain of tomorrow as the rest of us, and thank heaven it is so! But to sacrifice the present for an illusory future is obviously most illogical.

    “Do you believe in change, or are you a tool of the capitalist bourgeoise?

    Change is modified continuity, which you may call revolution; but fundamental revolution is quite a different process, it has nothing to do with logical or historical evidence. There is fundamental revolution only in understanding the total process of action, not at any particular levelm whether economic or ideological, but action as an intergrated whole. Such action is not reaction. You only know reaction, the action of antithesis, and the further reaction which you call synthesis. Integration is not an intellectual synthesis, a verbal confusion based on historical study. Integration can come into being only with the understanding of reaction. The mind is a series of reactions; and revolution based on reactions, on ideas, is no revolution at all, but only a modified continuity based on reactions, on ideas, is no revolution at all, but only a modified continuity of what has been. You may call it revolution, but actually it is not.

    “What to you is revolution?”

    Change based on an idea is not revolution; for idea is the response of memory, which is again a reaction. Fundamental revolution is possible only when ideas are not important and so have ceased. A revolution born of antagonism ceases to be what it says it is; it is only opposition, and opposition can never be creative.

    “The kind of revolution you are talking about is purely an abstraction, it has no reality in the modern world. You are a vague idealist, utterly impractical.”

    On the contrary, the idealist is the man with an idea, and it is he who is not a revolutionary. Ideas divide, and separation is disintegration, it is not revolution at all. The man with an ideology is concerned with ideas, words, and not with direct action; he avoids direct action. An ideology is a hindrance to direct action.

    “Don’t you think there can be equality through revolution?”

    Revolution based on an idea, however logical and in accordance with historical evidence, cannot bring about equality. The very function of idea is to separate people. Belief, religious or political sets man against man. So-called religions have divided people, and still do. Organized belief, which is called religion, is, like any other ideology, a thing of the mind and therefore seperative. You with your ideology are doing the same, are you not? You also are forming a nucleus or group around an idea; you want to include everyone in your group, just as the believer does. You want to save the world in your way, as he in his. You murder and liquidate each other, all for a better world. Neither of you is interested in a better world, but in shaping the world according to your idea. How can idea make for equality?

    “Within the fold of the idea, we are all equal, though we may have different functions. We are first what the idea represents, and afterwards we are individual functionaries. In function, we have gradations, but not as representatives of the ideology.”

    This is precisely what every other organized belief has proclaimed. In the eyes of God we are all equal, but in capacity there is variation; life is one, but social divisions are inevitable. By substituting one ideology for another you have not changed the fundamental fact that one group or individual treats another as inferior. Actually, there is inequality at all levels of existence. One has capacity, and other has not; one leads, and another follows; one is dull, and another is sensitive, alert, adaptable; one paints or writes, and another digs; one is a scientist and another a sweeper. Inequality is a fact and no one can do away with it. What so-called revolution does is to substitute one group for another, and the new group then assumes power, political and economic; it becomes the new upper class which proceeds to strengthen itself by privileges, and so on; it knows all the tricks of the other class, which has been thrown down. It has not abolished inequality, has it?

    “Eventually it will. When the whole world is of our way of thinking, then there will be ideological equality”

    Which is not equality at all, but merely an idea, a theory, the dream of another world, like that of the religious believer. How very near you are to each other! Ideas divide, they are seperative, opposive, breeding conflict. An idea can never bring about equality, even in its own world. If we all believed the same thing, at the same time, at the same level, there would be equality of a sort, but that is an impossibility, a mere speculation which can only lead to illusion.

    “Are you scouting all equality? Are you being cynical and condemning all efforts to bring about equal opportunity for all?”

    I am not being cynical, but am merely stating the obvious facts; nor am I against equal opportunity. Surely, it is possible to go beyond and perhaps discover an effective approach to this problem of inequality, only when we understand the actual, what is. To approach what is with an idea, a conclusion, a dream, is not to understand what is. Prejudiced observation is no observation at all. The fact is, there is inequality at all the levels of consciousness, of life; and do what we may, we cannot alter that fact.

    Now, is it possible to approach the fact of inequality without creating further antagonism, further division? Revolution has used man as a means to an end. The end was important, but not man. Religions have maintained, at least verbally, that man is important; but they too have used man for the building up of belief, of dogma. The utilizing of man for a purpose must of necessity breed the sense of the superior and the inferior, the one who is near and the one who is far, the one who knows and the one who does not know. This separation of psychological inequality, and it is a factor if disintegration in society uses the individual, just as individuals use each other, in order to benefit in various ways. This using of another is the fundamental cause of the psychological division of man against man.

    We cease to use one another only when the idea is not the motivating factor in the relationship. With idea comes exploitation, and exploitation breeds antagonism.

    “Then what is the factor that comes into being when idea ceases?”

    It is love, the only factor that can bring about a fundamental revolution. Love is the only true revolution. But love is not an idea, it is when thought is not. Love is not a tool of propaganda; it is not something to be cultivated and shouted about from the house tops. Only when the flag, the belief, the leader, the idea as planned action, drop away, can there be love; and love is the only creative and constant revolution.

    “But love won’t run machinery, will it?”

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  • How true is this?

    Found this over at ‘Creating Passionate Users‘. Do you do this? I do.

    The Myth of Keeping up. Image Credit: Creating Passionate Users
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  • Space Projects

    Note: I wrote this on my earlier blog hosted as https://pradx.wordpress.com. I recovered the text from the WayBack Machine. This post appeared on December 6, 2006 as per the permalink. I’m trying to collect here again all my old writings spread on various blogs.

    I am involved in a satellite project. It’s actually not such an alien thing to do. There are more than 50+ satellites currently under construction and ready to be sent all around the globe. All this is under the CubeSat project that was started by Califoria Polytechnic. My appreciation for such projects. There are also numerous others bigger satellites under development. So, how’s ours different?

    We’re students. We’re all in one organisation. But we all live in different countries. So, what do we hope to do? Research – Construct – Assemble and Launch. Straight forward to listen to. Here’s the fun part. We build parts of the satellite in different parts of the world. So, one country builds the outer structure. The other builds internal structure, another solders the communications circuits and so on. Well, the satellite is no good in parts, is it? So, we bring it all to one place and we put it together. Take it to a launch pad and launch it.

    We’ve been discussing it since 2005 as a technical project in which we can all be physically and not Internet-ly involved. Sending emails and IMs are now passe. Collaborate with others across the globe and build stuff.

    I hope some car enthusiasts group from different countries can build a global car. They can release the manufacturing notes and let anyone with resources build a car for themselves. The experience of driving in a car you build is totally different and very very few people have experienced it. And don’t stick to cars either. Try to do this across other stuff as well.

    All this is a great way to network. You know these people are serious and not just bluffing with you. Also, you get to meet new people. Learn to trust each other. Who knows, maybe one day we can have peaceful co-existence that we have been trying to achieve for the past 2000 years.

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  • Recent Going Ons

    Between researching for SEDSAT 2 and learning for my exams, writing was a bit of pain for me. I’ve read about 15 technical papers over the past days. Half of it like greek and latin for me. But, I did understand some stuff. I found the University of Arizona documentation to be one of the best satellite documentation. Hopefully we can top that with the SEDSAT 2 project.

    Lot’s going in the world of space science. I just haven’t kept up with all the stuff in my aggregator which says: Google Reader (100+), which basically means I have more than 100 posts to read. Thankfully, it doesn’t show specifics. I might faint looking at something like: Google Reader (1067). Hope all are fine. I read the Space Culture post about the book: “Sex in Space”. Might not actually get around to reading that book, though.