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?