Ethics

A very neat definition (or so I thought) of ethics that Hamid gave the other day:

An ethical code, he said, is a statement about three things -

1. A view of reality or the world
2. An objective/goal within that world-view
3. A set of rules for achieving that objective within the framework of the world-view

I thought it was very interesting that we often associate ethics with only the third statement, while it really is the result of the first two as well. Therefore, oftentimes when we find ourselves at odds with someone on an ethical matter, it is not because we just arbitrarily have different rules, but because we have different views of reality and/or different objective functions.

Definitely seemed like food for thought...

God - the unknowable essence

One of the points brought up in Steven's talk last week, that I'd like to elaborate on now, is the Baha'i notion of God being an "unknowable essence". I've spoken a little about this in a much earlier post (here) in the context of anthropomorphism, but let's review that once again here and then look at some of the deeper implications of this notion.

Historically speaking, most world religions have developed some picture(s) of God in some form - be it the very human forms of the Greek gods, the multi-headed/armed Gods of Hinduism, or the old, father-like figure of Christianity. My own personal understanding of these images is that they are quite symbolic, and represent the level of maturity and understanding of humanity at different stages of evolution. Some of these images have been formed to personify some attribute of God's, so that the common man has a concrete figurehead to direct his prayers at. Some others have been created, in my opinion, by the clergy of a particular religion, in order to maintain a stronger hold over the people and their beliefs. An image of God can be at most, I believe, a starting point - some sort of placeholder for what we ultimately can never completely comprehend. Unfortunately, these images have ended up becoming much larger than life, and the source of conflict and dissension amongst the peoples of the world.

The Baha'i concept of God begins with the realization that God is unknowable. Whatever God really is like, whatever his form is, whatever his essence is - we, as finite, limited, imperfect beings, can never know it. In theory, this makes a lot of sense to me - after all, if I could completely comprehend what God is, wouldn't that make me greater than Him? Baha'u'llah teaches:

"How wondrous is the unity of the Living, the Ever-Abiding God--a unity which is exalted above all limitations, that transcendeth the comprehension of all created things.... How lofty hath been His incorruptible Essence, how completely independent of the knowledge of all created things, and how immensely exalted will it remain above the praise of all the inhabitants of the heavens and the earth!"

But why can I not know even a part of what God's essence is? What if his essence is limitless - but we could know some of it (never all of it) in our quest for the truth? I've struggled with this question for a while, but I think some of Steven's ideas helped clear the waters a little for me, and made me get at least a glimpse of why this might be the case.

The Baha'i idea of God is of one who is “sanctified above all attributes” - and this includes even concepts taken for granted, such as existence, age, temporality etc. In essence (however hard this might sound), we have to stop thinking of God as a "being" - and this is a theme common to all previous notions of God, where God is considered an omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely powerful being. We have to transcend such a notion of God, and realize that even talking about knowing something about the essence of God, about the nature of his existence is meaningless - for he is really above anything we can ever talk about or comprehend. As Abdu'l Baha says:

"Know that there are two kinds of knowledge: the knowledge of the essence of a thing and the knowledge of its qualities. The essence of a thing is known through its qualities; otherwise, it is unknown and hidden.

As our knowledge of things, even of created and limited things, is knowledge of their qualities and not of their essence, how is it possible to comprehend in its essence the Divine Reality, which is unlimited? ... Knowing God, therefore, means the comprehension and the knowledge of His attributes, and not of His Reality. This knowledge of the attributes is also proportioned to the capacity and power of man; it is not absolute."

If we actually think a little about what it says in the quote above, we realize that even with mundane things, what we largely know is just qualities of things. And the simpler a thing is, the more accurately do its perceivable qualities reflect its essence. At the level of human beings, and even animals, we start seeing a huge discontinuity between what we can know of the being's qualities, and what the being essentially is, thinks and believes. Clearly, therefore, we should not expect to understand God's essence, when we can't even understand that of those closest to us.

Now what are the implications of such a world-view? First, it tells us why we can never really prove the existence of God categorically, and why traditional proofs of God are all incomplete - for they all attempt to prove the existence of God, the being.

Second, it makes quite clear that any image of God - anthropomorphic or otherwise - is only a model, and like all models, is possibly useful in some ways, but essentially incorrect.

Third, it of course begs the question - if we can't ever know God, if he is forever beyond our understanding, why bother with anything? Why bother praying, why bother trying to understand the world, why bother with spiritual growth? The answer to this can be found at the end of the previous quote by Abdu'l Baha - though we cannot have direct knowledge of God's essence, we can have knowledge of the attributes and qualities of God. Bahá'u'lláh wrote that everything in creation is God's handiwork and therefore reflects something of His attributes, albeit to an imperfect degree. The more refined an object, the more completely it is capable of reflecting God's qualities. And the highest degree of perfection that be attained on this mortal realm is that attained by the Manifestations of God, who Baha'u'llah says are "of all men, the most accomplished, the most distinguished, and the most excellent". Therefore it is in the lives and character of these various Prophets, these Manifestations, that we humans can find the closest reflection of the qualities of God. These Prophets therefore are to be revered and exalted above all other humans not because any of them is himself God (as a lot of us tend to believe) - but because they are, to us, the closest we'll ever see anyone to God. It is like looking at the reflection of the sun in a mirror - we all have mirrors that reflect the divine Sun to some extent, but our mirrors are all mostly dusty. The Manifestations of God, on the other hand, have these perfect, clean mirrors, and reflect the Sun in its purest form. And yet they themselves are eternally different from the Sun itself. Baha'u'llah writes:

"The door of the knowledge of the Ancient Being [God] hath ever been, and will continue to be, closed in the face of men. No man's understanding shall ever gain access unto His holy court. As a token of His mercy, however, and as a proof of His loving-kindness, He hath manifested unto men the Day Stars of His divine guidance, the Symbols of His divine unity, and hath ordained the knowledge of these sanctified Beings to be identical with the knowledge of His own Self."

So where does this leave us? First, we need to try and shed our preconceived notions of God as a being, and the nature of His form, and accept, once and for all, that we can never know Him in his essence. Therefore, let's all stop fighting over whether God is Jesus or Vishnu or Allah. Second, let's learn to make the distinction between God and his Manifestations, and understand the essential relationship between them - which is that the Manifestation of God reflects the qualities of God to the maximum degree of perfection achievable and perceivable on the mortal realm. Third, let's learn of our own relationship with these Manifestations - which is that these Manifestations represent, to us, the only way of getting a glimpse of the attributes of God, and a degree of self-perfection to which we need to aspire. Fourth, it would be ideal if we could actually be in the presence of such a Manifestation and study these qualities for ourselves. But as we cannot, the next best thing is to study the teachings and writings of the Manifestation. From our perspective, the word of the Manifestation is the Word of God, and it is to this Word that the individual can turn in his or her daily life in order to grow closer to God and to acquire a deeper knowledge of Him. This process of turning towards God can be likened to the process of polishing our own mirrors so as to be able to reflect that Sun ever so slightly better - and this, I believe, can be achieved through a transformation in our thoughts and actions, prayer, acquiring the ability to love our fellow beings and transcending our lower selves to the extent possible.

A blessing for the journey

A very beautiful prayer that was recited at the Multi-faith welcome to the new freshmen at Stanford yesterday:

Holy Wisdom, in whose many names we gather, be our teacher.

Teach us to seek you beyond and beneath all the knowledge we pursue. In a world flooded with information and parched for justice, guide our learning, our teaching, our living with courageous loving. Train us to see and embrace those we too often overlook, those from whom our books may shield us: the outcast, the poor, the forgotten. Shape our hearts as surely as our minds around the common good, and help us to discover what is most good in all that is most common.

Holy Wisdom, be our teacher.

Teach us the wisdom of generosity - the simple kindness to make room in our lives for new friends, new colleagues, new students, new teachers; and give us the extravagant simplicity to know we need them as much as they need us. Make us perceptive enough to recognize the loneliness around or within us, strong enough to name it, and gentle enough to ease it. And grant us generosity of intellect - to inhabit our doubts long enough to befriend and follow theml to listen to those with whom we disagree long enough to learn from them.

Holy Wisdom, be our teacher.

Teach us the wisdom of humor and humility - the freedom to take ourselves lightly and the courage to live slowly and simply as though our worth did not finally depend on our work, because it doesn't. May we remember this year that life is brief, so let our kindness be swift and our perspective be broad.

Holy wisdom be planted deep within us and scattered wide among us, so that when the rains have come and gone, and the daylight stretches again to its full length, we may be found at the far end of this new year flowering with humanity, mercy, friendship and wisdom. Amen.

The new atheism

Sunday's talk by Dr.Steven Phelps left a deep impression in my mind. There is still a lot I'm processing, and trying to organize in my head, but I wanted to quickly jot down the major points he made, some of which I'll discuss later in subsequent posts. But I wanted to put this down before I forgot the details :)

Steven started out by outlining the nature of the phenomenon of New Atheism (as propounded by thinkers such as Richard Dawkins), and the two pronged attack it launched on the foundations of religion - by questioning the existence of God, and by questioning the need for organized religion. The arguments presented in Dawkins' latest book, The God Delusion, calling into question the existence of God include rational and logical refutations of some traditional arguments for the existence of God, such as the teleological, ontological, modern design argument etc. In terms of organized religion, atheists have, as Steven said, a field day, what with all the ills we currently see in society that are directly caused by fundamentalist and fanatical religious groups. Dawkins uses these arguments, combined with an evolutionary explanation of morality and the religious impulse, to repudiate the claim that religion is a necessary component of life.

Steven then went on to mention some of the responses theists had given to the questions posed by Dawkins and others. Some of these are:

• That the atheists aren't really being fair, because the ill effects of religion are caused by extremists, and not the average religious person


• That the positive effects of religion, such as moral qualities, goodness etc, are far more subtle and pervasive - and so less striking - than the ill-effects, and that these positive effects are essentially less newsworthy


• That we should not judge past religious laws by today's moral standards

There were a couple of others which I've forgotten, but the point Steven tried to make was that though all these arguments were right in their own place, all they served to do, really, was blunt the onslaught of atheism - but none really came out as a ringing endorsement of God and religion.

The second half of his talk was focused on the Baha'i perspective on these ideas, and how as a Baha'i, he found himself agreeing with all the arguments present by the new atheists - and yet disagreeing with their conclusions. These ideas throw the whole concept of God and religion in a new light, and make it possible to resolve the issues raised as problems by the new atheists. Again, i'll just summarize some of the ideas he threw out, without going into them in detail - and hopefully I won't miss any of them.

From the Baha'i perspective

• All religious/spiritual beliefs have to have a basis in rationality - one must make a commitment to this. As Abdul Baha says, "Religion must conform to science and reason; otherwise, it is superstition"


• God ceases to be viewed as this supernatural being that has the power and choice to intervene in the world He created. Bahá’u’lláh describes God as an “unknowable essence,” “sanctified above all attributes,” and “exalted beyond and above proximity and remoteness.” He is not a being in the sense we traditionally view a being, and therefore questions such as "Why is there suffering if God is omnipotent and benevolent?" have no real meaning. The true nature of God is one we'll never understand - so let's not even try :) From this perspective, it is therefore totally true that traditional proofs of the existence of God aren't convincing, for they all try to prove the existence of God, the being.


• The non-existence of the proof of something's existence does not imply its falsity - or in other words, not being able to prove God exists in a rigorously scientific way (as we know science today) does not in any way prove the falsity of the claim that He exists.


• God's essence being unknown does not mean that we can never know anything about Him - for His will and actions take the form of nature. Natural laws, including evolution, are all an extension of God's will.


• Baha'u'llah defines religion as the essential connections and necessary relationships which proceed from the realities of things. Interestingly, nature is given the exact same definition. As is science. Therefore the Baha'i view really encompasses nature/science and religion as one under its fold, instead of viewing them as distinct entities. The attempt is to move from a dichotomous view of science and religion to one where both are viewed as essentially describing the same thing.


• Religious truth is relative, not absolute, and divine revelation is progressive, not permanent. Context is very important. Religion and revelation, therefore, are also evolutionary, and contingent on the state of humanity and society at any point in time. There is a cyclic nature to religious evolution, much like the seasons of the year - and therefore there needs to be constant renewal and rejuvenation through new Manifestations.


• The Manifestations of God, who seem to come up in society at distinct points of time and prescribe seemingly arbitrary teachings are not really arbitrary, but rather a result of the very same, evolving natural order of things. A Manifestation is like "an all-knowing physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind, He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require." It is from these physicians that we get our concepts of morality that we hold so dear today, and which we can, in fact, separate from their original source (see my earlier post).


• The critical need of the day is unity, and though the situation might look bleak now, the end of winter is not far - and tiny shoots are starting to emerge through the frost, signaling the advent of a spiritual springtime.


• An atheistic framework can be self-consistent in itself - therefore there is no objective reason why one should choose to believe in the above framework over an atheistic one. There are only two reasons why one might do so - because there is a feeling of the sublime (in a very Kantian sense) that is aroused in one when one encounters the writings and teachings of these great teachers, and because of the effect of implementing these teachings not just on ourselves but also on the people around us. This is of course subjective to an extent, and therefore is something that cannot be argued beyond a point.

An example he gave of the effect of the sublime, and its dependence on context is described in this experiment carried out by the Washington Post.

Adding to that last point, I'd like to say that the only reason why I'd want to make that leap of faith is due to the existence of these Manifestations, who I believe to be qualitatively different from the rest of humanity, and possessing a remarkably deep insight into reality. And it is the potency of their teachings, the circumstances in which they come up, and their vision for the future - all combined with a firm belief in the existence of God - that enable me to take that initial leap of faith. A more detailed description of this idea can be found here.

In summary, the ideas above, Steven believed (as do I) enable us to resolve a lot of the apparent contradictions that exist between science and religion today, and hope for a future where our understanding of both would evolve to a point where the distinction between the two gets blurred beyond recognition. Considering human progress in the last 5000 years, and extrapolating this to another 5 billion years in the future (the expected lifetime of the sun, and hopefully our planet), the possibilities of where our knowledge could extend to are indeed staggering.

The source of morality

A long conversation with a friend over the weekend brought up several interesting issues. One, in particular, revolved around the source of our morality. The thread began with a consideration of what I would do if I were completely convinced that there was no eternal human soul, that once I died at the end of this life on earth there was nothing beyond - if, in other words, I were convinced that this material world was all there was, and that I had just this one life here to do whatever I could.

Now in my opinion, if i truly believed that, the only logical thing to do would be to not exhibit qualities such as goodness, kindness, or any values beyond what was profitable to me in a purely hedonistic way. All I would do would be to try and maximize my material happiness in the course of this life, and not worry about other human beings, about the future of the world, future generations etc. Seems brutally selfish, doesn't it? And kind of unreal - after all, couldn't it be argued that there is something inherent in us that makes us want to do good? That would push us to be moral even if one didn't have to think of how it affected the development of an "eternal soul" beyond this life? Yes, it could be argued as such - in fact, we only need to look around us to realize this is true. For there are a lot of people in this world who are good, nice, moral people - but have no belief in God or a transcendent reality whatsoever. So surely we don't need God to be moral?

On the surface of it, no. But let's take a closer look? Where did all these people get their values from? Probably from their parents, and the social conditions prevailing around them. Where'd their parents get their values from? From their parents. And so on. And so the morals I hold today are not necessarily just linked to the person I am, but also to my entire history, and the history of society. And the origins of these morals in history - and here's where I throw in my $0.02 - I contend, can be found in the teachings of the Manifestations of God over the ages. It is these teachings, I believe, that have propelled society to an understanding of these morals and values, to a point where today, these values can be taken for granted and separated from their original source almost completely. To a point where today we naturally feel "good" when we exemplify these virtues, without necessarily being aware of the source of that feeling.

Is there any way to prove this? Of course not :) But it does give me a way to explain the development of qualities such as love, kindness, faith, trust, generosity, humility and so on, many of which seem unnecessary, and even harmful from an evolutionary point of view. And it gives me a reason for what might prompt a human being to choose to commit actions that might seem detrimental to his material well-being - because they do help him progress spiritually.

An atheistic view in many cases, therefore, cannot really be separated from the theism that has engendered those views in the first place. By the time we grow up and are mature enough to think about these things, and decide we have our own views on them, our nature and our beliefs have already been formed by many external influences - some of which come down to us from over the ages. And it is necessary, in my opinion, to be aware of the presence of these influences before we attribute our morality to any particular source.

Something to check out

The people at Niras - the consultancy in Denmark that hosted the essay competition last year - have started a few blogs to get people talking about some of the issues of today. One of them is in English, and is being edited by Sergio Fox, whom I'd met when I was there - he is quite a philosopher, and has tried to have a different take on the issue the blog caters to - health. Do check it out:

http://blogs.niras.dk/healthandhouses/2007/09/06/hello-world/

Living in a state of prayer

We often think of prayer as a set of words to be chanted, often in times of need or distress. Typically, even when said/chanted on a more regular basis, the act of reciting a prayer tends to be rather perfunctory (I have definitely been guilty of this). In addition, once the act of saying a prayer has been concluded, life goes back to normal, and we continue with our daily routine as if nothing had happened. Such a dichotomous lifestyle description will definitely ring a bell in many of our minds - it definitely sounds alarmingly familiar to me. However, as I continue to study the Baha'i writings, I'm starting to gain a deeper appreciation of the concept of living in a state of prayer, and what it really means.

The Baha'i teachings talk of prayer as a loving conversation with God. The two key words here are "loving" and "conversation". Abdu'l Baha says: "In the highest prayer, men pray only for the love of God, not because they fear Him or hell, or hope for bounty or heaven..." The message here is very clear - prayers are not to be said as a duty, or as a demand for some kind of gratification. A prayer has one and only one purpose - to express our love for God. Again, in the words of Abdu'l Baha - "...God knows the wishes of all hearts; but the impulse to pray is a natural one, springing from man's love to God". As this quote points out, by definition of God as an omniscient being, He already knows our needs/desires/sorrows, and so there is no need to communicate them through our prayers. The purpose of a prayer, then clearly rises above such concerns.

The second aspect of a prayer is that of a conversation with God - this isn't a one way street, though it often might seem that way. The effects are rather subtle, and so often not perceived. Over a sustained period of time, prayer opens out our doors to receiving the light of God, by cultivating in us the very spiritual qualities that reflect the attributes of God. But the Baha'i teachings also talk about an even more incredible phenomenon - the effect our prayers have not just on our soul, but on others as well. Says Baha'u'llah: "Whoso reciteth the verses revealed by God, the scattering angels of the Almighty shall scatter abroad the fragrance of the words uttered by his mouth, and shall cause the heart of every righteous man to throb." There is so much that I could say about this quote that I won't even get into it :) - but just sit back for a moment, relax, set your mind free, and conjure up the image this quote projects.

The final aspect of prayer I'd like to talk about is the elimination of our typically schizophrenic and dichotomous lives. The Baha'i writings talk about "living in a state of prayer". Now what does this mean? Does it mean constantly reciting prayers 24/7? Even a superficial understanding of this concept would tell us that there has to be more to it. What we really need to do is develop the attitude that comes with saying a prayer, and apply it to all aspects of our life - that of being in a state of supplication to God, of developing the spiritual qualities that reflect his attributes, of cultivating our Higher self, and bringing all this out in every interaction we have with the world and its beings. This sounds like a pretty lofty goal, of course - and so achieving this state of prayer is really a continual process, one which we slowly progress towards. Prayer, therefore, is not something that exists in a part of our daily life - instead, the concept of prayer becomes much more integrated with the entire process of our spiritual growth.

I'll leave you with the following words from Abdu'l Baha to meditate on:

"There is nothing sweeter in the world of existence than prayer. Man must live in a state of prayer. The most blessed condition is the condition of prayer and supplication. Prayer is conversation with God. The greatest attainment or the sweetest state is none other than conversation with God. It creates spirituality, creates mindfulness and celestial feelings, begets new attractions of the Kingdom and engenders the susceptibilities of the higher intelligence."

Be the change

I've been thinking a lot recently about the consequences of our choices. Most of us would be willing to accept that our choices and decisions have consequences that continue to affect us beyond just the immediate future. However what I've been thinking more about are some of the subtler effects of our choices and actions - on our surroundings, community and society.

I think the fundamental realization that led me to the conclusions I shall describe below, is the fact that society is made up of a number of individuals - of which I am one. Now I know that sounded very obvious and almost trivial - but lets unpack that a little more.

What does it mean to say that I am part of a society that consists of many more individuals like me? Well firstly, it means that I am not the center of the universe, and there exist people just as important as me in society. So I should not make decisions based on reasons that center around just me - will it make me happy, will it make me rich... Second, any crossroads I find myself at, other people probably have found themselves at. In fact, any choice I'm faced with today is probably faced by many other people without my knowledge - what career to pursue, whether to marry the person I love - you name it. So decisions aren't taken in isolation. Third, any choice you make sends a message out to the people around you, your family, your friends, your children, and influences the way they think. Fourth (and this is important), when people en masse take certain kinds of decisions, it creates the fabric and nature of the ideals of society of that time.

We often look at society today and say - this is the way it is, I can't change things. But I wonder how many of us pause to think about how society evolved to be what it is today. Let's take an example. Fifty years ago in India, most marriages were arranged between families. The concept of a love marriage was almost unheard of. Likewise, intercaste and inter-religious marriages were almost taboo. Today, however, things have changed significantly - a lot of people choose to marry each other not because their parents urge them to, but because they fundamentally feel a spiritual bond between them. Inter-community and inter-faith marriages are becoming increasingly more common. There are of course many sections of society that still hold on to the old beliefs - but attitudes are definitely changing. So how did we get here? Did we all wake up one fine day and decide that we'd be accepting of certain things that we didn't believe in the previous day? Or is the state of society today the painstaking result of thousands of choices people made over the last fifty years that slowly, subtly, but surely shifted the balance of society from one where, say 99% of the people did not believe in a love marriage to one where 50% of them do?

Too often do we dismiss the power of our choices - what, we ask, can one person do? What effect can my choices have on a society made of a billion people? But think of those thousands who did choose to go against the grain of society - what if each one of them had paused to think the same, and decided to do otherwise? Would we be where we are today?

The situation is not unlike the prisoner's dilemma - just like you need to project your own choice onto the prisoner on the other side of your jail-room walls, it requires you to put yourself in the shoes of every other person on the planet, and wonder what would happen if they all made the choice you are considering making. Where would the world go from there? What is the consequence of me, today, deciding to work in a company that manufactures guns? What is the consequence of me, today, deciding to drive an SUV when i'm single and don't really need one? What is the consequence of me, today, deciding to give up on my love for a Muslim girl and marry the girl my parents choose? Each of those choices might not really affect my happiness in the long run - I might earn a lot of money, drive around in a safe car, and grow, over time, to love my wife. Human beings are remarkably adaptive, and can learn to be happy in most situations. But what effects do those choices have external to me? How do they affect the fabric of society? And what do the people around me, my children, my grandchildren, the people who look up to me, learn from the choices they see me making?

We all have, I believe, a fundamental responsibility to ourselves and our families - but at the same time, we also have a subtler responsibility to society. Not just in a superficial way, but in every interaction we have with elements of the world around us. And each of those interactions need to, to the extent possible, reflect what we believe to be good, true and right. Ultimately, we all need to, as Mahatma Gandhi said, be the change we wish to see in the world - for each of us is a part of it.

Back...

...after a brief hiatus. Shall begin posting very soon :)

Meanwhile, here's a prayer for the latest love of my life, my niece Zayha

O God! Educate these children. These children are the plants of Thine orchard, the flowers of Thy meadow, the roses of Thy garden. Let Thy rain fall upon them; let the Sun of Reality shine upon them with Thy love. Let Thy breeze refresh them in order that they may be trained, grow and develop, and appear in the utmost beauty. Thou art the Giver. Thou art the Compassionate.

-- Abdu'l-Bahá

Selfless love

Here's a lovely story I read recently in the paper:

A businessman came out of his office in a high-rise commercial centre and crossed the street to get into his saloon car. His chauffeur was holding the door open for him. The man was about to get in when his saw a little boy gazing wistfully at the gleaming automobile. Moved, the man said to the boy, "Would you like to come for a drive with me?"

The child's eyes lit up with excitement and he said: "Thank you sir! I would love nothing better!" And off they went, the man and the boy, seated comfortably at the rear and the chauffeur at the wheel, unable to believe what was happening.

"How much did this car cost?" the boy blurted out, his eyes wide open with wonder. "Er... I don't know", said the man, flushed with embarrassment. "You see, it was a gift from my older brother".

"How lucky you are to have such a brother!" exclaimed the boy. "Where would you like to go?" asked the man, after a while. "I'll get dropped home", said the boy eagerly. "We live close by, in a hutment near the station". Soon they reached the station.

The car stopped in front of the sprawling slum. The boy turned to the man eagerly and said, "Sir, could you wait here for just a few minutes?" The man nodded. The boy got down from the car and vanished into the slum.

But he was back in a few minutes and in his arms he carried a severely disabled child. "Look, Chhotu, look! This is the big beautiful car that sahib's bhaiya gifted him", the boy told the child. "I wish to be like that brother! Then I could buy you such a car when you grow up!"

The boy waved goodbye and the car moved away. Inside the plush car the rich businessman sat in stupefied silence.
At long last he said to the chauffeur, "He did not want a car like this for himself. He wanted to give it to his brother!" True love is selfless. And such love can bring about lasting peace.

Prayer for protection

He is the Compassionate, the All-Bountiful! O God, my God! Thou seest me, Thou knowest me; Thou art my Haven and my Refuge. None have I sought nor any will I seek save Thee; no path have I trodden nor any will I tread but the path of Thy love. In the darksome night of despair, my eye turneth expectant and full of hope to the morn of Thy boundless favor and at the hour of dawn my drooping soul is refreshed and strengthened in remembrance of Thy beauty and perfection. He whom the grace of Thy mercy aideth, though he be but a drop, shall become the boundless ocean, and the merest atom which the outpouring of Thy loving kindness assisteth, shall shine even as the radiant star.

Shelter under Thy protection, O Thou Spirit of purity, Thou Who art the All-Bountiful Provider, this enthralled, enkindled servant of Thine. Aid him in this world of being to remain steadfast and firm in Thy love and grant that this broken-winged bird attain a refuge and shelter in Thy divine nest that abideth upon the celestial tree.

--Abdu'l Baha

Purpose

Unlock, O people, the gates of the hearts of men with the keys of the remembrance of Him Who is the Remembrance of God and the Source of wisdom amongst you. He hath chosen out of the whole world the hearts of His servants, and made them each a seat for the revelation of His glory. Wherefore, sanctify them from every defilement, that the things for which they were created may be engraven upon them. This indeed is a token of God's bountiful favor.

--Baha'u'llah

Evolution - the answer to it all?

After Friday's talk and discussion, one of the things I thought a lot about was whether theories of evolution could explain everything about human behavior and intelligence today. I believe that this is fundamentally so, and there might be many reasons why, but I came up with an interesting hypothesis about it, and so thought I'd pen it down here. Here's how it goes.

Most scientists today would accept that pretty much all of animal behavior and characteristics can be explained by evolution. Similarly, most of us would agree that most of animal behavior as we know it is instinctual. It is therefore quite easy to make the link between evolutionary laws and animal behavior - any behavior/characteristic that does not benefit their survival would get weeded out through the process of natural selection.

Now how do humans differ? In two very critical ways, I believe. One, unlike all other animals, we actually possess knowledge about these laws of evolution. Therefore in some sense we are already greater than them. Two, we have a significant amount of choice and free will, using which we can choose to go against these laws. This complementary effect of possessing knowledge and free will can be seen in many situations - once I learn about the law of gravity, and apply my mind and will to it, I can come up with ways of overcoming the gravitational force that otherwise binds us to this earth. In a similar way, I can at times choose to perform actions that go directly against the laws of evolution.

Now do we actually do that? Sure, all the time. We do so when we exemplify one of those many spiritual qualities of our higher self - love, compassion, sacrifice, kindness etc. For example, when I see some unknown child playing on the road, and a car barreling down the road towards it, I can choose to give up my own life to save the child - even if I don't know the child, don't have any relationship with it. In fact, I might do the same even for my dog - which actually belongs to another species! By doing so, I in no way benefit my own gene pool, or my species. However, even though I know that to be true, I still choose to go against those laws. And such an action, I believe cannot fundamentally be explained by those very laws.

But why can this not be put down to just a freak deviation from the norm? Why can we not just argue that of course, based on random variation of characteristics, there are some people who would do such things, and their genes would not survive and so they would get weeded out of the gene pool? How is this any different from the random mutative behavior that would exist in animals as well? We can see that such behavior actually does not get weeded out by natural selection - there have always been, and always will continue to be many people who exhibit these qualities and act in ways that defy those laws. And the key reason why that is so, and why this is not just random variation, is that these are not instinctual actions, but rather conscious and voluntary. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, are done with full knowledge of those laws and the consequences of going against them. Therefore I postulate that such behavior is outside the purview of all laws of evolution and natural selection.

When I proposed the above to A, she pointed out that altruistic behavior of various kinds has been seen in animals as well. For example, bees risk their own lives when stinging intruders in order to protect their hives. Vervet Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked. Wolves and wild dogs bring meat back to members of the pack not present at the kill. So one does see many examples of altruism in animals. But I would argue that these examples make sense evolutionarily, because by committing these altruistic actions, these animals still benefit their own herd/family/species. To my knowledge, there do not exist examples of animals sacrificing themselves for members of a competing herd, or for animals of another species voluntarily. Even if there did exist such instances, the genes of those animals would get weeded out by natural selection, because the behavior would just be instinctual and random.

All good so far? Ok, now here's the final step of the argument. Now given that there exist a whole set of human actions that are not governed by evolutionary laws - what, then governs them? Are those actions totally random? Or is there a greater set of laws that controls these actions as well? I believe yes - spiritual laws. It is these laws that define our higher selves, and give us the ability to exemplify certain qualities that we would otherwise not possess. The above argument, I believe, also suggests that the inability of evolution to explain everything is a fundamental one, not one due to just the limitations of science today.

Of course, I am not arguing against evolution - I believe that a lot of the characteristics we have today are the result of evolution - both physical and cultural. However I do think that there are certain qualities and traits that do not make sense from an evolutionary perspective, and can only be ascribed to something deeper within us all that impels us to such action.

I wonder if all that made any sense...

The various shades of proof

Amongst the myriad questions raised and discussed during and after Friday's talk, was one regarding the possibility of developing a concrete proof for hypotheses about God, the human soul etc. Now I've always believed that it is fundamentally impossible to develop a firm scientific proof (as we understand science) for these ideas, for many reasons which we won't go into now. Hamid however gave a most elegant answer to the question, and one which related directly to our own experience, so thought I'd share that here. I'm of course paraphrasing here, and adding a lot of my own thoughts, but the core of the reasoning is his.

There are several realms in which we learn about the world today. At the most abstract level is mathematics - where we deal solely in concepts, idealizations and numbers. It is only in the mathematical realm, really, that one sees examples of watertight proofs, that are always true, come what may. Once I've proven that 2+2=4 (which, incidentally, can be very rigorously done using the tools of real analysis), I know it to be true and there is no way it can be contradicted - ever.

Then we move into the real world, into the kingdom of the mineral. Here we use our mathematical tools (which are absolute), but in addition, comes our observation (which by definition is finite and often imperfect). These combined together create what we broadly know today as the physical sciences. By using our own observations, as well as observations made by instruments we build, we create mathematical hypotheses which can be tested against the real world. When considering the mineral world, these hypotheses are often very close to reality, and for all practical purposes, can be said to accurately represent reality. In a sense, therefore, we can accurately prove our hypotheses about the mineral world, and create theories.

The waters become a little more murky when we move up the ladder to the vegetable/plant kingdom. Still, modern day science has reached a stage where we can describe, to a very large extent, the inner workings of a plant. Every once in a while we still find ourselves confounded by certain elements of a plant's nature, but in general we can be fairly confident of our understanding of these systems. The approximate nature of our theories and proofs, though, is ever so slightly evident, for the first time!

Move to animals, and things become worse. One can be even less sure of what one is saying. The complex laws of evolution are, in most cases, sufficient to explain a wide variety of the behavior and complexity seen in animals - and yet our theories become much more difficult to prove. Behavior and thought are clearly discerned in animals, and by the fundamental separation we have as individuals, it becomes impossible to ever be absolutely sure.

You can see where this is going. Come to humans, and the sphere of what one knows, and can prove, becomes significantly larger. The human body is understood fairly well, but thoughts and emotions have certain qualities that prevent us from ever being able to make definitive statements about them beyond the most general and superficial. Move up to one further level of complexity - human society - and literally, all hell breaks loose! All one can really do at this level is hypothesize, bring out examples where the hypothesis is true, and try to ignore the rest (and hope nobody else discovers them either!!).

The above is all factually true - this is where we stand today. Now is this because of the fact that science just hasn't progressed enough, that eventually we will "get there", and understand all these things? I believe not. As I said, there is a certain quality to human behavior, actions and thoughts, that defies all attempts to lock it down to a mathematical equation. We are forever trapped in our own subjectivities - a fact we can safely ignore when considering the inanimate world, but certainly not when considering fellow human beings who have as much capacity for thought, choice and action as we do. The whole concept of objective experimentation - one the Holy Grails of science, and an underlying assumption to all scientific thought, loses all meaning when we consider subjective experiences. Experiences can never be objectively viewed and can never be repeated perfectly in a controlled environment - however, as each of us can testify, they are very real and alive - and in fact, make up a huge part of what we are at all!

So, when just at the human and societal level we have no access to rigorous proof, what about levels of complexity greater than us? What if, for a moment, we assume the existence of a transcendent reality far superior to us, not bound by the confines of space and time? Could science, crippled by its basic assumptions, ever hope to comprehend this reality? Can we even hope to develop clear scientific proofs of the existence or nature of this reality? Based on all that I've said above, the reasonable answer to this question seems no. The most fundamental assumption of science is that the universe is physical, that it can be observed, and that these observations and rationality can help us discover the underlying principles of the universe. By definition, if there exists something that does not conform to the above, science can tell us nothing about it. The unfortunate thing is that most people who defend scientific thought as the only way to get knowledge are completely unaware of these most basic assumptions - and even if they are, see them as unequivocally true.

Is God all about blind faith then? Can we never "know"? I don't think that is true either. What really is required is an acceptance that science has certain limitations based on its underlying assumptions, and the recognition of other sources of knowledge as equally valid. Divinely inspired revelation is one; subjective experience another. What science does provide us when considering these alternate sources of knowledge, is a process - the scientific process of hypothesizing, experimenting, and verifying. Only, the experimental apparatus in this case is our own self. I see this as a critical component of the kind of independent investigation of truth that the Baha'i faith talks about. We are given a set of teachings by these great Manifestations - let us go out and apply them to our lives and see how it affects us, our hearts, and others around us. If conducted with a pure and sincere heart, without preconceived ideas or notions - the spiritual equivalent of an objective observer - I believe that our observations will verify those teachings, and further solidify our faith in them. Of course, I cannot prove that - but that has been true in my own subjective experience.

A lot of people spend a lot of time today searching for proofs of the existence of God - or of the non-existence. An even greater number spend even more time proclaiming that the fact that this seems to be an unresolvable question in itself proves the non-existence of God :). Personally, I believe it best to move away from such theorizing - time is better spent trying to openly search for the truth, and grow spiritually.

The pursuit of material happiness...

...is, I was told yesterday, equivalent to running on the Hedonic Treadmill - however fast you run, you still stay in exactly the same place.

I thought that was one of the most brilliant phrases I've heard coined in a while...

When are we done?

In a most remarkable conversation a few days ago with a group of friends, this, amongst many others, was one of the questions raised - in this "quest for certitude", when are we done? When do we attain certitude and knowledge, if ever? And if never, then why keep trying? Why not be satisfied with where we are, and just live life according to those principles? Why constantly hunger for more - hunger can only be selfish, and cause one to be greedy for more. So why keep worrying about where I will get to, what "level" I can attain?

There are several responses that popped up in my mind, but I think P summed it up most beautifully - one is always to be content; but never satisfied. In that pithy, I think he really went to the essence of this quest. The quest for certitude is not a selfish/greedy quest. At every stage in this quest, one is content with what one has, and at peace with oneself. The realization that one can never know everything is neither a cause for despair nor indolence - because the true motivation behind this quest is the knowledge that this, really, is what we are meant to do. This quest is what is the defining quality of a human being. This yearning to know more, to understand the fundamental nature of the world, is one that is intrinsic to every heart and soul - unfortunately, in most of us, it just gets submerged beneath a truckload of materialism and triviality that society drowns us in.

I can think of at least three reasons why one can never allow oneself to be satisfied with where one is at any point on this quest. One, clearly one is never "done" - and so saying to oneself that one is done would just be a false statement. Two, such satisfaction can only lead to laziness, and will prevent us from thinking any more, and understanding even what we believe we know further. And three, believing that we are "done" will make us close our minds and hearts to any knowledge that comes our way, and make us reject it as false/trite. We see this all the time in streams of spiritual thought, where every religious school chooses to believe that it is, in essence, "done" - that their school of thought contains all the knowledge there is to know in this world, and therefore all other schools of thought must be wrong. Therefore, one just can't afford to be satisfied in this quest - ever

The quest, however, is not a greedy one - and this is where the contentment comes in. One does not seek to grab knowledge. Instead, one goes about this quest in the most humble manner, being open to all that comes one's way, and evaluating anything claiming to be knowledge in a pure, sincere and objective way. The contentment arises from this humility, and from the faith one develops in God, and the trust one has in His guidance. This quest, therefore, is not motivated by a desire to attain some fixed level of perfection - it is motivated purely by the awareness that this is what is essential to my "humanness", and by my love for God.

The fundamental importance of knowledge and wisdom, and the reason why we can never stop searching for it is best summed up in these words of Baha'u'llah:

The Tongue of Wisdom proclaimeth: He that hath Me not is bereft of all things. Turn ye away from all that is on earth and seek none else but Me. I am the Sun of Wisdom and the Ocean of Knowledge. I cheer the faint and revive the dead. I am the guiding Light that illumineth the way. I am the royal Falcon on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start it on its flight.

-- Baha'u'llah

Another gem...

...from the same book

"This is the curious nature of Mister God, that even while he is at the centre of all things, he waits outside us and knocks to come in. It is we who open the door. Mister God doesn't break it down and come in, no, he knocks and waits."

The same chord

I just read this most beautiful passage in a book I'm currently reading, "Mister God, This is Anna". The delightful and simple nature of this book is surpassed only by its deep spirituality and purity - a must read for everyone. Anyway, here's the paragraph that really struck me. These are the thoughts of the author, Fynn (who writes the book in first person) after a conversation with Anna on the myriad religions and spiritual perspectives people have, and the underlying commonness to them all.

"It makes sense, doesn't it? We're all playing the same chord, but it seems we don't know it. You call your chord a C major, while I call the same notes A minor seventh. I call myself a Christian, what do you call yourself? I reckon Mister God must be pretty good at music, he knows all the names of the chords. Perhaps he doesn't mind what you call it, as long as you play it."

Now isn't that lovely? What a wonderful analogy - we're all playing the same notes, but we call the chord by different names. And why is that so (and here's the nub) - it's because we all have different "home notes", as Anna says (or different scales that we're playing on). She says:

"The home note can't be Mister God because then we couldn't call them different names. They would all be the same name", she said.

"I guess you're right at that. What is the home note then?"

"It's me or you or Ali. Fynn, it's everybody. That's why it's all different names. That's why it's all different Churches. That's what it is."

How profound is that... Our differences exist because we put ourselves at the center, not "Mister God". We decide what our own home note, our tonic is - and we set everything in relation to that. If instead of the actual name, we focused on the harmony of the chord, we'd see nothing but oneness.

Ah, I love this book... :)

Prayer for the day

O God! Refresh and gladden my spirit. Purify my heart. Illumine my powers. I lay all my affairs in Thy hand. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge. I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved; I will be a happy and joyful being. O God! I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life.

O God! Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself. I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.

-- Abdu'l-Bahá

What's in a name?

A conversation with some friends over the weekend left me with the surprising realization that most of us still believe that a person's name is a very fundamental part of their identity. I must admit that I was more than a trifle nonplussed at this realization - and it really aroused in me a curiosity to know why one might think so.

The conversation began with some views about an increasingly common phenomenon nowadays - people changing their names when they start living permanently in another country. Some people shorten their original names just as a matter of convenience. Others change the very nature of their names - and so, for example, a number of Indians who come to to the US adopt Anglicized names. The general consensus on this action seemed to be that people who did this inherently gave up their cultural roots, and surrendered a very essential part of their identity - I disagreed with this, but was surprised to find myself completely at odds with everyone else.

In some ways, maybe I should have seen it coming. A while back, a close friend, soon to be married, expressed a disinclination to change her surname on marriage, because she believed her current surname was very fundamental to her identity, and a big part of who she was. I remember being surprised even then when I heard that - I always taught it was a person's actions and beliefs that made up their identity? So what is in a name?

There are multiple ways this question can be approached, but lets tackle the direct one - how we use names to form judgments about people. Let's first look at this historically. A few hundred years ago, a person's name told you exactly where they came from, what their job was, what religion they followed and what caste they belonged to. So a person's name really was a stand-in for many other aspects of their life - an indicator, essentially of other things. Today, this is still true to a large extent. However, with the level of global interaction we have now, the increased number of interfaith and inter-community marriages, and the blending of cultural boundaries, these distinctions are starting to get blurred. So the role of the name as an indicator of a person's identity is slowly, but surely being eroded. Based on this, it seems very reasonable to predict that soon a person's name will come to possess very little information about his background and identity.

Ok, let's store that fact away for now, and look at people who change their names. Now here's what I think should be the approach to this - it's not really all that important why a person changes his/her name - that is anyway something that in many cases we might never know. What is important, however, is how we react to that action, as someone external to that person - how we judge them for it, how we perceive them.

Let's take a hypothetical situation. Say I meet this person who introduces himself to me as John Doe. By his looks, I can tell that he is clearly of South Asian descent (something, incidentally, that one can be less and less sure of nowadays, what with so many inter-cultural marriages) - but the name John Doe is a very American one. Based on the information I have gathered and processed in the two seconds since I've met him, what mental picture do I form of him?

The standard picture would be the one i suggested earlier as being the prevalent view - and the one that I believe we should really be fighting against forming. Personally speaking, I know that my own instinctive reaction would be to brand him as someone who isn't really connected to his culture and roots, someone who just changed his name to fit into another culture, and who, therefore, had sacrificed a very intrinsic part of his identity. But I strongly believe that that instinctive reaction is highly unfair to the other person, and is one we should all fight to overcome. The critical realization is this - that a name is but an indicator of a person's identity - it does not define it. And the validity of that indicator is one that is slowly decreasing today, as I mentioned earlier.

So what defines a person's identity? A person's identity always has, and always will be, intrinsically linked to his actions and beliefs. Beliefs of course are difficult to understand from the outside - and therefore, as one human being to another, you can really judge a person only on the basis of their actions. So let's say that after I met John Doe, I made the attempt to get to know him a little better, and found out that he'd grown up in a small village in India, but then came to the US and since then had settled down here. He has certainly come a long way from his humble beginnings, and now leads his life as a respected and successful member of his community in the US. However, in his mind he still considers himself very much a part of his family back home, and sees a strong spiritual connection to his roots. He believes that his success was built on the efforts of many back home, and so he tries to do as much as he can for his family and community back home in India. He does not try to hide any of this from his friends in the US, and is more than happy to talk with them about his culture.

The above hypothetical situation begs two questions - one, how real is John Doe? How hypothetical is that situation? And two, what would I think of him? In answer to the first - I do not think that one can rule out, at the fundamental level, the existence of such John Does. I do agree that their number is probably fairly low - because the name is still a reasonably good indicator - but I do not think his existence is a theoretical impossibility. I also believe that the probability of his existence will only go up over time, as we become more global and accepting in our thinking. This would be even more true when we consider how an inter-cultural couple might name their children.

As for the second question, I fail to see how I could ever brand John Doe as someone who has sacrificed his identity and roots. His actions would clearly indicate otherwise, and in this situation I would be forced to accept that the name really was not a very good indicator.

Another point raised was of the need for role models, and how for any community - especially smaller ones - the existence of role models from their community is a huge inspiration for young ones. Therefore, as a young person, brimming with ideas, the recognition of a person who bears a name similar to mine, and has been a huge success, is one that can be very inspiring. Again, this is largely true in society today. However, let's say that I, as a parent, need to provide my child with a role model. I have, on the one hand, John Doe, and on the other, there is Kartik Gopinath, a person who also lives in the same community as John Doe, and has attained a similar level of success. However, in his thinking and actions, he sees little connection with his beginnings. He maintains little or no contact with people back home, prefers not to talk about them with his friends, and his name means little to him. Now again - how real is Kartik? Very real, I believe. And as a father, who would I prefer to present as a role model to my son? Would the fact that John Doe has an American name irreparably reduce his worth as a role model in my eyes? What, as an objective and caring father, do I do? The answer seems fairly obvious to me.

So where does this bring us? And where do we need to go from here? I believe that from the larger perspective of global unity and oneness, an attachment to a person's name, and the formation of judgments based on that can only be detrimental, and a source of divisiveness. It is true that in the past a person's name has been a very reliable indicator of his beliefs and actions. Given that this connection is not a fundamental one - and an increasingly dubious one given the current context of the world - can we afford to continue considering it to be sacred? When I choose to look at a person's skin color and then his name, see a mismatch between them in terms of what I expect, and make a judgment based on that, am I doing anything other than promoting existing stereotypes and preconceived notions? Should I not, instead, make a sincere attempt to find out more about him, and then form my opinion of him based on what I see of his actions? If I do find his actions suggesting that he has little or no appreciation for the contribution his own family/community/upbringing has had in his success, then of course I can make certain definitive statements. However, is it acceptable that I extrapolate this from the fact that he changed his name? I believe not.

From a spiritual perspective, if we accept the existence of an eternal human soul, and the temporary and material nature of our bodies, this becomes even more obvious. In a larger spiritual context, nothing that is a part of my material nature is really intrinsic to me - not my physical appearance, not my gender, not my skin color, and certainly not my name.

Given all the above, the questions we really need to answer for ourselves are these - What can I, as an individual, do to take society towards a more ideal state? How can I ensure that at least in my own interactions with the people around me - the only thing I can really control - I am unbiased and objective? How can i prevent myself from attributing reasons for actions based on my preconceived notions, when I have no idea of what goes on in another human being's mind? How can I make my instinctive reaction one of unbridled love? And how can I become truly accepting of every single person around me?

My home

A quote a friend shared with me today - I've decided to make it a resolution for myself.

"My home is the home of peace.
My home is the home of joy and delight.
My home is the home of laughter and exultation.
Whosoever enters through the portals of this home, must go out with a gladsome heart.
This is the home of light; whosoever enters here must become illumined."
- Abdu'l Baha

A move towards complexity

A while back I saw this excerpt from the book "Shantaram" on my sister's blog, which really resonated with me. I won't bother pasting the excerpt here again, but there were two key points it made, which I shall delve into here. The first was the concept of God as the Ultimately Complex being - and the idea that we are all attempting to move towards this complexity, towards order. It also went on to describe good and evil as being forces that either help us progress towards this complexity, or move us away from it. This seemed to me to be very synergistic with something in my last post - about evil not being an existent being in itself, but rather just the absence of good. As a part-thermodynamicist, it also lent me an interesting insight into the concept of entropy. Normally we think of things naturally moving from a state of order to disorder - the entropy of any system, left to itself, will increase. So naturally speaking, we should be moving towards disorder - except (and here's where i throw in my two cents), maybe, for free will? If I just chose to do nothing, and just BE, I'd slowly wither away, die, and my material constituents would be blown away by the wind - however, I choose to do something about my life, exercise my free will - and so I gain complexity. The relative degree of this gain depends on my particular choice of thought and activity - I can choose indolence, sloth or materialistic voyeurisms, and so gain not very much (at least in spiritual complexity), or I can choose to align myself with the rays of the spiritual sunlight, and really make progress.

The other point the excerpt made was quite a surprise, as its something I've always believed is a very strong metric for testing the ethical quality of any action - and I've been told at times that it doesn't work. The idea is to basically extrapolate any potential action to a situation where everyone is indulging in it - and then seeing where that would lead us. So, for example, killing is bad because if everyone killed each other, we'd all be dead. There are also subtler levels to this - where its not just a question of how it harms society, but how, as the excerpt says, it leads us towards or away from that ultimate complexity. For example, stealing is bad because, if everyone stole from each other, society would still probably survive, but it would lead us all away from that complexity. Not having inter-religious harmony is bad because if everyone remained antagonistic to people of other faiths, we'd forever remain divided into groups, and never attain greater levels of complexity. Evaluated from this standpoint, a lot of ethical questions seem to instantly evaporate into nothingness.

It does work, doesn't it?!!

A new beginning

Death is something we all have to confront at some point in our lives. If there is anything certain about life on this earth, it is that it will end. And yet we all prefer not to think about death at all - to such an extent that when it does touch someone close to us, we are shaken, moved to the very core of our being. Why, I wonder, does society train us to live like this? There is a very telling story from the Mahabharata which hits exactly on this aspect of human behavior. It goes as follows: During the Pandavas' exile, They are staying at a ashram with some sages along with their wife Draupadi. One day the arani(firesticks) is stolen by a deer. On hearing about this, the Pandavas go in search of the firesticks deep into the jungle.

Soon all the five brothers, Yudhishthira, Bhim, Arjun, Nakul and Sahadev get tired and thirsty. Yudhishthira instructs his brothers to look for a source of water and one of the brother climbs a tree and sees a pond in the distance. Sahadev goes to fetch water from the pond, while others take rest. When Sahadev reaches the lake, he is suddenly confronted by a Yaksha, a celestial being, who challenges him to answer his questions before he can take any water from the pond. On failing to do so, Sahadev is struck in a dead faint. A similar fate affects the rest of the brothers who follow Sahadev, until Yudhishthira arrives there and acquiesces to the Yaksha's request. He then proceeds to answer all of the Yaksha's questions with his infinite wisdom. One of the questions is these - "What is the most surprising thing in the world?" - to which Yudhishthira answers - "The most surprising thing in the world is that in spite of hearing of the death of near ones, and knowing that death will one day, inevitably, knock on his door, every human being continues to live as if he will live on this earth for all eternity."

Quite true, isn't it? Nothing could be further from our minds than death, as we go about our daily activities. And yet, I wonder, if there was that awareness of the finitude of material life at all moments, how differently would we behave? Would we then be more careful of our every action, be more efficient in our work, not spend that extra hour lazing in bed? Would we try to make the most of the limited, and oh, so precious, life we have? Or would we live every day in constant fear, awaiting our death like the goat awaits the fall of the butcher's knife? Hopefully not! What the realization of finitude should give us is a sense of responsibility and action, not one of fatalism or despair. Death is the end of a lifetime on this material plane - but it is not the end of everything, not the end of "us". The eternality of the human soul is a concept described in detail by every stream of religious thought. It is in fact one of those common underlying threads that runs through every religion. Of course, many of these conceptions have lost their philosophical depth over time, with much being interpreted literally. And so we have the concept of a heaven and a hell as places somewhere in the universe, of a satyrical Satan waiting with glee to grab hold of your soul and put you to work in the burning fires of hell forever, of precisely 14 levels of existence (also someplace in the universe) between which our soul shuttles based on its Karma (with the earth somewhere in the middle) - and so on. Much of these concepts seem to arise from fairly literal interpretations of texts. I prefer to think of death as a new beginning - a new beginning on that never-ending quest to get closer to God, to attain that ever-elusive spiritual perfection. Heaven and hell seem to be not so much places as states - of closeness and distance from God. Abdu'l-Bahá says:

"When they [men] are delivered through the light of faith from the darkness of these vices, and become illuminated with the radiance of the sun of reality, and ennobled with all the virtues, they esteem this the greatest reward, and they know it to be the true paradise. In the same way they consider that the spiritual punishment ... is to be subjected to the world of nature, to be veiled from God, to be brutal and ignorant, to fall into carnal lusts, to be absorbed in animal frailties, to be characterized with dark qualities ... these are the greatest punishments and tortures..."

So really, all hell is, is being separated from God. The raging fires are really in one's own heart. Darkness is but an absence of light - it is not a being in itself. Every soul attempts to get closer to God, to shed the veils shrouding it from the light of God's grace - and the extent to which it is able to achieve that defines its own heaven/hell for itself.

Once seen in that light, things become clearer - the purpose of life on this planet, once we realize our finitude, is not to sit and despair and await the inevitable - but rather, to rise up and seize the moment, and take every opportunity to further our spiritual growth, so we may be that tiny bit closer to God. What our impending death should give us is a sense of urgency to achieve this. It should also enable us to handle the deaths of our near and dear with greater equanimity, with a sense of hope and prayer for their souls as they progress on their own spiritual journeys, as opposed to one of sorrow and loss.

This is the day

"Lift up your hearts above the present and look with eyes of faith into the future! Today the seed is sown, the grain falls upon the earth, but behold the day will come when it shall rise a glorious tree and the branches thereof shall be laden with fruit. Rejoice and be glad that this day has dawned, try to realize its power, for it is indeed wonderful! God has crowned you with honor and in your hearts has He set a radiant star; verily the light thereof shall brighten the whole world! "

- Abdu'l Baha

There is much to think about in the above quote, but today I shall talk about just one. The overpowering feeling these words arouse is one of hope, optimism, joy and happiness. The Baha'i faith talks about this day being a great one in the history of mankind which, at first sight, seems rather strange. After all, isn't the world best with problems today, wracked by wars, with millions dying of starvation and disease across the world, while power-hungry capitalists are slavering to make money? Isn't this the day when the threat of nuclear and biological warfare looms large over our heads, when we fight each other on idealogical grounds? And isn't this the Kali Yuga, as defined by the Hindu scriptures, the age when mankind sinks to utter depravity, and all hope is lost? Seems a bit of a far stretch, doesn't it, to expect us to "rejoice and be glad that this day has dawned.."?!

What seems counter-intuitive and paradoxical to the sayings of other faiths, though, becomes clearer when we examine the statement more closely, and in the context of the other Baha'i teachings. This day is said to be the day that humanity has reached maturity. Now again, many would claim that the actions of several millions of the human species - in particular, our leaders - really indicate otherwise. But let us view the concept of maturity from a different perspective - from one of capacity, as opposed to action. Ah, now the mists rise, the murkiness clears! For truly, in terms of what the human race is capable of doing, and our own individual capacities (even if only potential), we are far ahead of where any of recorded history says we ever were. In my eyes, at least, what makes the past century really different from any of the preceding ones is the fact that, for the first time, the entire world is truly interlinked and interdependent. For the first time, we can go anywhere in the world, talk to people anywhere in the world, hear news from anywhere in the world. This really represents a qualitative leap from the condition of the world at any time in the past, making a lot of concepts - such as nationalism, warfare, conquest, trying to get one's nation to do better at the cost of another - questionable, even redundant. It is also a day when, as a species, we can finally address the problems facing this earth as a whole - pollution, global warming and protection of natural life being but a few of these. We have the tools with us to really effect change in this world. We have vast communications networks, scientific prowess that is increasing exponentially, a growing knowledge of different cultures and peoples. No one country today can survive on its own - we all need resources from each other. This shrinking of the world into a global village really requires a paradigmatic shift in thinking.

Of course, though we possess these tools, the question is how we use it. From that perspective mankind today can be likened to the adolescent teenager - a combination of mature capacities and not-so-mature actions. How we use our capacities today is critical, for just as we have the capacity to go great good in the world today, we also have a capability to cause destruction that is unparalleled in history. Currently we don't seem to be doing a very good job of it - and in that sense, it is the Kali Yuga. But even the Kali Yuga comes to an end. Of course, the common interpretation on that is one of annihilation of the entire world and its recreation, but I believe the idea really is metaphoric. The key concept here is one of a renewal of the human spirit, of rejuvenation and rebirth. And that really is what the Baha'i faith says as well - that today we are at the threshold of that golden age of unity and prosperity. For, given where the world stands today, unity and harmony really is the only option. Getting there might involve a lot of hardship and pain - but get there, we will. As my dear friend Michelle pointed out, very penetratingly I thought, it takes a lot of rotting, smelly vegetable skins to form enough compost that can act as fertilizer for something new and pure to grow!

The butterfly effect

A conversation with Vidi today made me think quite deeply about how significant the effect of seemingly mundane choices, decisions and events are on one's life. For example, the apparently innocuous choice Vidi made that day, seven and a half years ago, when she chose to call me to ask me about the file reversal program for the computer science homework, set off a chain of events that led her to be one of the most important people in my life - and me in hers. It is not often that one can so clearly trace back the beginnings of something to its roots - if one could, I believe one would similarly find most of what is important in one's life having its genesis in some very harmless event. Similarly, there is me deciding to listen to my cousin Siddharth one day and just go see what this whole Artistes Unlimited thing was all about. And that single decision led me through some of the most life-changing experiences - both positive and negative - and in many ways brought me to where I am today. It wouldn't be a far stretch to say that a lot of what I think and believe in today would not have existed had I not gone to that practice session. And it was a rainy day. I could just as well have not gone - I almost didn't, in fact.

It reminds me of one of the theories of the universe, that postulates a multiverse - a multitude of universes, where at every instant of time, the universe splits into many more universes, each determining a unique sequence of events. How many universes would exist now, if we started with one at the dawn of time?

This spiraling phenomenon is commonly referred to as the butterfly effect in chaos theory - where, as Lorentz pointed out many years ago, a flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil, could eventually set off a tornado in Texas - that would not have occurred had the butterfly not flapped its wings. The mind boggles at the thought of such complex interactions amongst the myriad particles in the atmosphere that could cause such an insignificant action to spiral into a very noticeable phenomenon.

But apply the same principle to human lives, and the level of complexity is multiplied several fold. It is these experiences, these choices, that determine who we are, our character, our beliefs, are thoughts - and our future actions. Of course, there is no way of determining whether we made the better choice - life would have been equally good, had one chosen the other path at any decision node. But who knows what the outcome might have been! For example, if Vidi had not called me that day - who knows where I would be right now, what kind of life I'd be leading, what I would believe in... And this is still just between me and her. Imagine the effect of every single interaction of ours with our fellow human beings, with our environment that we have from day to day. And all the lives we directly or indirectly touch in some irreversible way. And multiply this by 6 billion - because every person in the world is affecting every other in some inconspicuous way. And then multiply by some huge number to get the interactions we've had with the world through all of mankind's history. Staggering, isn't it? The amount of interconnectedness that exists. When one thinks of it in this way, its impossible not to believe there is a greater underlying spirit to all of reality, that holds us together. And it also points out the responsibility we have towards everyone and everything around us. How sacred our interactions with the tiniest atom are! For every little action, every little choice - changes the world irreversibly just that one little bit. And in doing so, affects the balance of the world just that tiny bit. And affects every single soul just that tiny bit. And over time, that tiny action has produced everlasting, observable change in the order of things.

It is of course impossible to map out entirely the consequences of an action - but maybe this will make us all think just that little bit more before doing anything. Will make us careful, and just a little more considerate of how our actions can affect the harmonious balance that God so carefully maintains our world in.

Quote of the day

"A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men. It is the bread of the spirit, it clotheth the words with meaning, it is the fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding"

- Baha'u'llah

How important it is to have a kindly tongue! This is something we neglect so often - I do it all the time, I'm sure... However precious the message might be, if delivered without kindness and love, it is of no use whatsoever. This is in fact so critical that it is the lodestone of the human heart - it is what attracts the hearts of men to us. Whether people understand you or not, whether they accept what you say or not - the true bond between hearts is formed only when words are spoken with gentleness, kindness and love. Kindness is described as the "fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding" - even if you have the wisdom and knowledge, that will only flow and wash over others when delivered through the fountain of a kindly tongue. Not only that, it is the bread of the spirit - it is what feeds our own spirit, purifying and refreshing it. How beautiful and powerful a message!

I have resolved to think of this quote once every day at least. Maybe this way, at least occasionally I might be reminded, at the right moment, that a kind word can be a million times more precious than the rarest of gems.

The benevolent Father

God. What's the first image that springs to your mind when I utter the word? Depending on your religious and cultural background, it's probably one of the following:

1. An old man with a long flowing beard and a kindly face
2. A multi-armed Vishnu lying on the Shesh-Nag
3. A trident-wielding Shiva meditating on Mt.Kailash
4. The face of Buddha surrounded by an ethereal halo
5. Jesus on the cross

There are several striking things that I find result from the above exercise. One, everyone, whatever their beliefs, have a concept of God - including those claiming to not believe in a God at all. Two, this concept is usually highly anthropomorphic. Three, its almost always a male. Four, this image usually embodies some very deep spiritual quality - love, kindness, benevolence, sacrifice, detachment... While all these are interesting in their own ways, I'll largely talk about the first two in this post.

The Bible talks about how God created man in his own image. Anthropomorphism is interesting in that it uses this concept to effect the exact opposite - creating a concept of God in our own image. In my mind idols and anthropomorphic images have a very specific origin in the history of man - they were primarily meant to be tools, ways for people to access more abstract concepts in a tangible way. It is indeed rather unfortunate that the caveat that these tools were no doubt created with - namely, that they are inaccurate representations to be used only as a starting point on one's search for truth - has been discarded by the wayside somewhere along the road of mankind's history. Not only that, these images have now become larger than life - they have permeated every level of our society, and are the fulcrums on which the cogs of the human machine turn. And worst of all, they are frequently the points of dissension amongst groups of people and go so far as to cause wars.

My adviser often likes to use this quote by George F.Box in his presentations - "All models are wrong. Some are useful." That's how I'd like to think anthropomorphism had its genesis - as a wrong, but nevertheless useful, model of a reality we cannot ever hope to comprehend. It is a sad commentary on the state of society that the model itself has become greater than the quest for that reality.

The Baha'i faith talks about God being an unknowable essence - one we can never hope to know or understand with our finite minds; and yet one who's qualities and attributes are reflected in all of creation. If we actually go beyond the superficial, we see striking parallels to this concept in all other religions as well. In the Gita, Arjuna describes the Lord, Krishna, as being "inexhaustible", "without origin, middle or end", and "of limitless glory" (chapter 10, verses 18-19). In spite of these words, a quick history lesson tells us how, over thousands of years, Hinduism became extremely anthropomorphic, with the priests using the concept of idol worship as a way to control an unknowing populace. It was precisely to counter this that the Buddha - who is accepted by most Hindus, even, to be an incarnation of the Lord - sought to bring the concept of a God back to its abstract self. The Quran breathes the same words - most Muslims generally believe that Allah is unknowable.

Where many cleave to such an anthropomorphic understanding of God, we also have, on the other hand, those who are repelled from religion precisely for the same reason. Claims of atheism always discomfit me a little because I really think that a lot of self-proclaimed atheists aren't really against a concept of an extra-worldly reality, but are just against the image society has of that reality. When asked, most people generally admit to some kind of belief about what it is that really underlies this world of existence. So it is really the myths propounded by organized religion that a lot of people are against - not the essential spirit itself.

Today I believe humanity has reached a level of maturity that makes the tool of anthropomorphism redundant. With the shrinking of the world to a global village, the access we enjoy to knowledge and information, all we really need to do is open our hearts, shed our preconceived notions, and go out and search.

The necessity of a spiritual reality

Today I had the most interesting discussion with Prashant (my dearest of friends), William, and JiaHua (I probably completely massacred the spelling of her name). It came at the end of a wonderful talk by Vida. Prashant and I had wanted to organize this talk and invite some of our friends - he's always marveling to me about how people don't use a resource like Vida more often than they do, and I quite see his point! I have seldom met a person who embodies the bhakti rasa more completely than Vida. She's easily one of the most inspiring people I know, and hearing her talk always fills me with a gladness and joy that few things have the ability to evoke. So we figured we should try and get some of our friends to come and listen to her. The topic chosen for the talk was "The search for truth - a Baha'i perspective". We didn't have a very large gathering, but that was fine. I won't go in much detail over what Vida said - it was, as usual enlightening and enervating at the same time. The most incredible thing about Vida is that you can so see her love for all of God's creations in every word that she utters - it is just so evident. And it makes her words all the more transformative. She spoke a little about the basic tenets of the Baha'i faith, and then went to the heart of the topic - about how it is necessary, before we embark on the quest for spiritual truth, that we open out our hearts, get rid of any pre-conceived notions or ideas, and purify our souls. About how the root cause of all the religious conflicts we have today, the apparent contradictions between different faiths is due primarily to the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the teachings of the divine teachers. About how, if we clear the haze and mist and get rid of the veils we have, we will find, beneath it all, the golden threads that run common to all the different faiths in the world. And how, all these teachings are really but different facets of the progressive revelation of truth over the ages, and how all these divine teachers and manifestations really come from the same one God. I won't go into any more details about her talk - suffice it to say that it was illuminating and inspiring.

Once most people had left, however, William raised a question that really burgeoned into the most interesting discussion. This essence of his question was this - Why do we need a spiritual reality, a Source greater than the physical, to explain the existence of these spiritual forces of love, kindness etc? Why can ethical laws not be just like physical laws - descriptive, rather than causative? Could moral codes not be just a product of human evolution - because it was necessary for society to survive and progress? I find it a very interesting question myself, because its something I've grappled with a lot myself - intuitively, instinctively, I believe there is a force greater than us, the unknowable essence that we choose to call God. But I've always found it extremely difficult, if not impossible to come up with coherent and clear arguments to defend that position from a rational standpoint, when asked the exact questions William asked. Does it then just boil down to faith? We batted the question around a lot; Prashant had a lot of useful insights to provide - as always! The discussion was really amazing - but I think one of the final conclusions we came to was almost epiphanic for me. From the human perspective, the most elegant and scientific explanation of our existence and the world around us is one that is based on a concept of God because - and I'd say only because - of the existence of these great divine spiritual teachers - Krishna, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Baha'ullah, etc. It is because these teachers have come and propelled societies forward, because they have been the perfect exemplars of spiritual qualities such as love (the attributes of God), and because they have demonstrated the ability to transform myriad human hearts like "the elixir that transforms copper to gold" that our concept of the world must include the concept of God. It is the acceptance of these divine teachers as being qualitatively different from the rest of the human race, and as being the source of the tremendous leaps made in all aspects of human life - sciences, arts, culture - that necessitates the presence of an extra-earthly spiritual reality. And once we accept them, it is the authority of their claim of the existence of God that makes it true. And thinking about it, it makes sense to me - if there actually were a logical proof of the existence of God, then there really would be no choice but to accept it. But it really requires us to see this transformative element in the teachings of the divine teachers, and see it as the source of morality in the world - and that of course is a choice we all have - accepting or not accepting.

To me, that is a very powerful statement. And very useful as well. For it means that time spent on trying to logically reason this out is time wasted. But its not blind faith either - its more empirical, and a question of fitting the best and simplest theory to one's data - the history of humanity. Evolution cannot really explain that transformative power of the Word of God. Especially on an individual level. It cannot explain why someone who's lived one way all his life can completely change just because of the divine Word. Scientific theories, I sometimes feel, tend to look at abstractions and aggregates - while ignoring the effect on the individual.

I still find it very difficult to translate thoughts to text. The mess of ideas above is clearly indicative of that.

I must say, before I end this post, that I love any discussion that involves Prashant. He has a spirit and purity that cannot but fail to inspire. And personally, it is interacting with people like him and Michelle (his wife) and Vida that really drive home to me the fact that there is indeed a deep spirituality and goodness and love underlying this world of creation.