THOUGHTS ON PAHALGAM

Theory becomes utmost necessary when there is sheer confusion in the minds of an average intellectual and anger in the minds of an average layman. Because this is a situation where a new catastrophe can take birth. 

Usually, Intellectuals approach any event or problem with a problem statement and then arrive at an inference based on observations. But here we find, even the liberals of the country split. India wants revenge it seems. 

But in my opinion, when the loss is high, when the anger is at its peak, theory is then the most essential. 

So, we know what happened. Who killed whom and through a questionnaire, pants down approach and obviously it had links with religious fanaticism. 

But the inherent violence pattern in the attack gives us something to think. Like, first, they killed only men. Not women, not children. They specifically told a woman, to not kill her and to tell Modi, Honorable prime minister. 

Second, with an obvious ideological event, they targeted people specifically based on religion. So, to strike terror in the hearts of people of India and to further create a faction between India and Kashmir. 

Third, it was done within challenging the political dispensation of the time. 

So, we have to begin. 

First of all, let me begin by saying that a terror to provoke and a terror to threaten are two different things. Now, is this a terror to provoke or is this a terror purely of ideology? 

Why to know it becomes essential is to judge the further actions of the policymakers of defense. 

Like, the immediate steps of stop IWT and other things and indirectly put sanctions on the country of Pakistan is a good step. But I think it is not enough. 

I think the specific organization, The resistance group of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba needs to be eliminated. And here I am fearful of the fact that we cannot afford to be the Next Israel. however civilizational analogies we wish to create. 

And we need to think about the impact of a potential failed state to be (Pakistan) on India and its national interests. We might need to think over our non-expansionist defense policies of the past. It is not exceptional for a country in the circumstantial situations that India is to pursue something like an Expansionist policy. 

I hope it is clear what I mean to say. A caution about the expansionary policies and its effects on civilians must be well thought out. But Attacks on Indian civilians is a massive blow that already has created contentions about what and what not to do in this regard. 

Of course, a much blunt solution is out there just in front of our eyes. But the implications and consequences must be thought out. After that, we should also reconcile that it is also not wrong to act on the obvious solutions beyond a point. 

I think it's time....75 years are a good enough time of chance of survival. 

IS SCIENCE STILL ANTHROPOCENTRIC?

16th Century Italy and the example of Heliocentrism and Geo-centrism debate. A Galileo begging for mercy in front of the church, he might have been frustrated inside. That's why, he apologized but inside he said, "Eppur si Muove" or "But still it moves". 

But is it done? Like, Is the debate done? I always wondered Galileo was the person who knew about relativity of motion. At least, Galilean Transformation if not Lorentzian transformation. So, he knew, why the church is backing the Geo-centric model of the universe. Of course, someone sitting with his reference frame on Earth will see the sun revolving around it. To have your reference frame on Earth is like seeing the world revolve round you. It was probably known to Galileo. Why did Galileo oppose the church? Why was it so necessary to assert that the sun is not moving, rather the earth is? 

The answer to this is, It was necessary because the intent because of which Church, the medieval hegemonic entity asserted on Geo-centrism was not at all healthy. It was human narcissism. It was the view of humans that the whole world has been created around them. They are the center of attraction of the universe. The whole journey of science has been to be more conscious of the fact that "Oh! Humans! you are not the center of the universe! You are not special. You may be first among equals. Primus Inter pares, but not more than that."

God has not created you in his image. First of all, there is no God, then, there is no creation. And then, there is no image, since there is no object, but an objectivity without objects exists. 

Why it becomes necessary to oppose religious thought through scientific rationality and develop a scientifically refined spirituality over and over again, is because Religion is, obviously narcissism institutionalized and Intellectualized. 

A religious man is a narcissistic person who really thinks the creator, if any, of a wide, ever expanding universe cares for him. It becomes necessary from time to time to come up with refutations of this unhealthy daydreaming of religions. 

So, Religion is anthropocentric. This is what Feuerbach also had to say. That the central idea of religion is that God made humans, but Humans stress it to obscure the fact that Humans made Gods. 

But, then What about science? Is science out of the grasps of Anthropocentrism? Is Science, the forth-runner of corrective thought, already out of the garb of anthropocentrism? 

Current ideology of religions has already lost their claims on Ontological and metaphysical genesis. Science better explains how the reality was created. Not religions. 

Now, the religions and religious leaders are trying to bring Science down to the level of religions. You will see arguments like, "Oh! If religion is creation of men, then science also is created by men only! Not divine!" 

The message of such arguments is, "There is equality in religion and science". But of course, that was not the central thesis of scientific thought. 

Of course there is no divine intervention in scientific thought, rather interestingly reversing the idea, it claims, that there can be no divine intervention possible in any discipline, no holy book is possible since there is nothing holy present in the universe. No divinity means two things, 

1. No special status to anything, anyone or any event. 

2. No mysticism. There might be more to know. There might be inaccuracies in our understanding. But there is nothing which we will never know and it will keep influencing our lives. Anything that can have an effect on the physical world will have to be explained by physical laws. No extra-physical, no meta-physical entity can influence physical things or events. 

So, when we talk about say, Gravity, of course, there are anthropocentric interventions in it. To describe Gravity as a force was a human idea. It was decided by Newton to develop a mathematical-mechanical-dynamical structure and to place in that theory, or say story, Gravity as a force. 

Subsequently in the light of new observations with heavier objects and faster speeds, we found that it is in fact an interaction of spacetime and matter. Curvature of space time. And more so, we found in subsequent times, that it is in fact exchange of some particles called, Graviton. 

In all of this, there is no mysticism involved. Mysticism is perhaps the perverted version of curiosity. Curiosity is the progressive term for trying to know while mysticism is the epistemically ambiguous term, which propagates a view that never everything can be known, which is nothing, but a sort of dogma religions believes in. 

The new attacks on sciences as to reduce it to just anthropocentric imaginations is bizarre. Of course, a theory, a scientific theory is man made, and it is like a story only, but to reduce it to say that A religious story and a scientific story are on the same level is discarding the evidence and the experiments that conclusively proved the accuracy of the scientific theory. 

Religions have no relations with a scientific experiment. They are hell bent on an assertion that Experiments too are man-made, and men will observe what they intend to. That is not true at all. The whole basis of scientific experiment is to probe the physical world through a problem and some tools to probe the characteristics of the system created within the world and to get information useful for constructing a theory. It is not always that a theory is created and then experiments are done to prove it. Sometimes we just proceed with a problem statement and devise an experiment to get an answer and in turn we get a whole story which connects multiple phenomena together to form a concrete sense of reality. 

Now, this story, which has been constructed by humans only, have less contributions of human imagination, and more contribution of the evidence we get along our way. 

So, to say that 

Science= Man made Story, And 

Religion= man-made story 

so, Science ~ Religion is utterly bullshit. 

Science is not just a story. It is a story based on true events. Religion is a story fabricated, a lie, to explain the origins without trying to collect evidence of truth, with a claim that nothing can be known certainly (Mysticism). So, if nothing can be known certainly, how did you know this? That nothing can be known certainly? What was the basis of this dogma? Nothing but pre-judice, right? 

Science is anthropocentric. But it does not end at that center. That human center is not just a dot in case of science but with closely observing through a microscope, it is a small circle encircling the truth of nature and natural physical world. 

To come back to Our Galilean example, of course to say Heliocentrism and geocentrism are equivalent stories when you consider principles of relativity that There can be no absolute reference frame possible. 

But Humans believed in Geo-centrism for centuries and would have never known about the relativity of frames in the first place. It is only through Heliocentrism, which was the vanishing mediator thought, a necessary anti-thesis, which made us progress to the principles of relativity. 

If we cannot agree that It is better to view Sun still and planets revolving it, rather than Earth still, and sun revolving it, how will be able to explain Goldilocks' zones of other solar systems, Possible lives on other planets, and so on. 

The reason this much progress was possible is because someone in Italy thought to change the intent of knowing itself. The intent of knowing in science is not to escape curiosity but to live it daily. To spend lives in search of truth. That is the core of spirituality even. Attention to truth. Not some dogma. But truth, And if truth is an ever long search, Then attention would be curiously searching. 

Science is anthropocentric still. But it is science only, through which we can have the hopes that one day, we will be free from this bias. No religion wishes to free man from his biases. That is the difference precisely. 

BHASHYA: DHAMMAPADA (1/N)

 

It is very essential for you to chant it first. Consider it my orthodoxy towards Buddhism, but when aesthetics is not attached to truth, it becomes plain and human civilization, as high dopamine hungry it has become, is not ready for plain truths. 

It goes like this, Mano pubbaangama dhammaaa....! Mano Settha Manomayaaaa....! Mansa che padutthenaaaa..., Bhaasati waaa karoti waaa...! Tato nam Dukkham anveti...Chakkam va vahto padam! 

Let us now dive into the analysis. 

Actually, the structure of Dhammapada is very unique and interesting. First the Sutra, the Shloka comes, and then Buddha gives a story to explain it. The Sutra tells us the normative dimensions of the story, while the form of the story tells us two things, first a glimpse of the mind of Buddha, and A glimpse of the mind of the people he was telling these stories too. 

So, the interesting aspect of Dhammapada is that it is two-fold psychoanalytic. First, it preaches Psychoanalytic learning, about minds and its mysteries, So the content itself is Psychoanalytic. 

Second, is its form itself, it is as if, the course instructor is giving not stories but case studies about patients. A third but crucial Pyscho-synthetic angle comes when Buddha connects them to preach how to change the psychological fate. Psychological determinism is where Freud and later Psychoanalysts finish, at last, only the mind prevails is the message of great Psychoanalysts. But, with Freud, we had little hope, Hope of agency of correction, but with subsequent Psychoanalysis, People became determinists, No free will. No corrections possible. They accuse Freud, the honest man, of biological determinism. But, in turn, they are Mind obsessed people. Too much mind yet no solace. At least with pure biology, we see hope of change. Your body can fight back the conditioning. Your body can be seen struggling and winning. Your mind remains invisible and absurd mysteries are attached to it. Mind is only to be repaired in case of a disorder. It cannot expand its capabilities. Can't it lift itself from the valleys of sorrow, contempt, anger, jealousy, all those components of hell. But, here we have, Our first Psychoanalyst in 3rd century BC, coming up with simple principles of mind and its cultivation, how to tame the beast. 

Mind is the source of all religions. Dharma as it is said. what meaning to take of this word? I claim, take all meanings. Words historically accumulate the meanings throughout. Either you can be a purist and say, we need to find out the original meaning, which is untraceable, since the author's dead, or you can accept the historical accumulation as necessary and take all meanings of all times all at once. Tell me, if the word has been perverted, may be the word was meant to be perverted. 

One meaning of Dharma, comes from, Dhaarayate iti Dharma, something to hold on to. Which is not farther from the standard religion I claim. Institutionalized religion also gives you something to hold on to. It gives you Falsehood. Dharma claims to give it to you a doctrine of truth. But here comes the paradox. Truth cannot be indoctrinated. If it is truth, it must be automatically convincingly deductible and known to the seeker. So, here, the Dharma that is being talked about is whatever, it is man-made. All doctrines, all institutions are man-made. 

If someone is telling you to be present at the moment as the doctrine, It is precisely false. Since, what else would you do other than be? Is not being in option? Rather, retrospectively, it gave you an option to zone out from the present. Hence, All religions are reactionary. They were made when men left their original way of being. 

Mann, or Mind is the source of all Instincts. Mind is the source of all religions. What does this mean? Why this chronology? Instincts are animalistic. Religion is considered humanistic, cultured. Then why they both originate from a single source. That means, Animal Instincts and Human religions have something in common. 

Let me give you an example. Already in Religions, the way all religions treat sex is a great example. Ordinary animals do penetration and sex. Human animals observe themselves having sex. And that has made them make rules to have sex. Christianity says, Sex without love is sin. Why is that? Later Catholics added more to it. They said, Sex without giving birth to offspring is sin. They say, If you love someone, you love God. God comes out of you when a child is born. This, I claim, is perversion to the maximum. Rules are made to suppress pleasure. As if, to enjoy for human beings is automatically restricted. Human beings cannot bear themselves or any other human enjoying. They feel a need to regulate this pleasure. 

Biologically, orgasm is nature's reward to reproduce. Already nature is incentivizing, as if nature does not trust any living being with some responsibility, so it has to tempt Animals or humans into doing it. 

Then man, cannot bear himself enjoying, so he made rules to orgasm. Reproduce, only then are you allowed to orgasm. Hegel gives a wonderful reversal to this. Rather than obeying nature, actually having Sex for the sake of orgasm and not having children is the ultimate spiritual act, since It is the celebration of life. Pleasure is enjoying life today without producing someone later to suffer the atrocities of life. 

Here we see, Animal instincts and Human religions have something in common. What Humans lack, Animals have. Courage to enjoy. Humans lack the courage to enjoy without feeling guilty. All Human religion is a civilizational attempt to regulate pleasure. As if, Men fear pleasure. 

Good religions and bad religions. Whatever be your value judgement, realize it is your creation. No description of reality. Reality is odorless, colorless void. You fill colors in it. You fill it with meaning. Your mind sees logic in it. Your mind only can find it logicless. There is nothing. Similarly with instincts. In fact, religions are an expression of animal instincts. Men wanted to suppress enjoyment of others in sex, men made religions. 

So, if you understand this, understand this as well, that the feelings of good and bad, are feelings that you create through interactions with the world. And those interactions are not neutral. You jinx the outcome of that interaction. If you do something with good intent, good instincts activate. And good feelings come out regardless of the outcome. And similarly with bad deeds. It is you with the colors in your hand, coloring them in your mind. Your mind is a coloring book. reality is eventually colorless. 

Here, in the last line is interesting. Why this specific example, Sorrow follows the man who does deeds with a polluted mind as the bullock cart's wheel follows the Bull's feet. 

Now you see, this example might have routes in the socioeconomics of the time. Bull's and Bullock carts might be realities of those times. The example is interesting because it is development worthy.

Imagine the Bull is you. If the Bull has mentality of slavery, it will always bear the burden of the cart. Wherever the Bull goes, the Cartwheel comes. As if destined. But ha! Not so fast. The Bullock can free itself. It has enough strength to. It is not a week Bull. It has carried the cart for so long. If the Bull had not been strong, how is it possible? But the Bull is convinced that being attached to the Cart is its destiny. But that is the Dialectical dimension of the example. Bullock cart is name of slavery of the Bull. When he frees itself from the Cart, he remains not Bullock, but just Bull. It is no longer locked. 

Cart independent of the Bull has no existence. It feeds its meaning from the Bull itself. The essence of the Bullock cart is in the Bull. Without the Bull, the cart is nothing. As if Buddha gives a heads up to Marx who will give Labour theory of value, which will establish that in any material production of commodities, it is the labor which creates the value. Not the barren land, Not the non-living capital but the Labour. The effort. 

It is the destiny of the Bull to get freedom. It is in the destiny of the Bull to be able to lift nothing if it wishes, and lift whatever he wishes. And here we are talking about Mind. 

Finally, we come to the story associated with this Sermon. 

There was this old monk, Chakshu Paal. He was Blind. Here only, you should become interested. A man who is blind has a name, Chakshu paal or the Caretaker of the eyes. Is this just a meaningless Irony? 

Nope, only those who do not have eyes care for eyes. This is the normalized behavior of humankind. That's why a blind's name is Eye caretaker. 

When he used to move around in the Monastery, he used to unknowingly, kill insects through his feet. This catches the attention of other monks. They asked buddha, whose sin is this that unknowingly, Chaksu paal is killing insects. Insects? Or Chaksu paal's? 

Buddha gave a story of previous birth of Chaksu paal. In his past life, Chaksu Paal was a doctor. He was an eye surgeon. Now you see the essence of the name. It has past birth reference. So, did Buddha believe in Past lives? Of course not! This is even a bad question to ask. The good question to ask is, what Past life meant to Buddha. 

Past life meant some other incident of your life, when you were someone else, not the one you are right now. Past haunts us like it was a different life, isn't it? Mistakes committed in the past has the weird nature, you are forced to remember it, but you cannot do anything to change it. Isn't this the precise concept of hell? Hell is the concept of dwelling in past. 

So, the doctor was promised by a lady that she would become her slave if she cured her blindness. As the time came closer, and the lady's eyesight started to come back, she started lying to the doctor because she did not want to become a slave to him. The doctor knew that she was lying. So, he purposefully blinded her. 

Buddha says, that made him Blind in his current birth and that made him kill insects unknowingly. Now, let's see, what is happening? 

Now, who's sin? Sins have a multiplier effect it seems. Or as Buddha would have put it, Only the original sin exists, rest all are actions of lack of agency. For how a blind man can help seeing? But that blindness has roots in his earlier lives. Now beware, do not fall in the hermeneutic temptation of victim blaming. 

Let's go to the story within the story. Whose fault there's? Woman's? Doctor's? Or the system of slavery itself? Some loyalists to men would say, that it was woman's fault. Why she broke her promise? But may be the desperation of getting cured made her say that? Was this doctor's fault? Partially yes. because, he had agency. To blind the person for a broken promise is a sin. Partially yes to the society who allows slavery of one individual to other. But the impact remained the same. the mind of the doctor became corrupted because it overreacted to the woman's broken promise. A polluted mind can do this. He can do opposite to what he is supposed to. To not perform the duty of the doctor but rather he became a patient to his angst and frustration. 

People who feel lack of agency should know that this lack comes from them only. When you had agency, you chose to act in a way that made you lose your agency. Loss of agency can be called unfreedom or slavery. But who caused this slavery? You. Yourself. so, ultimately the message is, there is always agency. Not contextually but universally. may be you cannot help with blindness, but you can develop the mind's eye. Use agency where you still have it and make the lack irrelevant. Helen Keller is an example. 

We experience what we think we will experience. Then what about the first experience? I claim, with First experience only, we experience less. There exists an experience-lessness. The moment we touch a hot substance; a reflex makes us take our hand off. As if, nature does not want us to witness the truth fully. Now, fear creeps in and from next time, we self-restrict. We never experience anything fully without bias. From the second experience onwards, we started thinking in place of experiencing. We are going to take a bath. Instantly, mind imagines how is it like to have cold chilling water on your body. But then when you do it, Is the experience same as the imagination? NO! Never! However, many times you experience the same thing, imagination seems to be inefficient to be able to capture the experience. Certain surplus remains inaccessible. It will remain inaccessible till your thoughts keep polluting your experiences. Your mind is polluted due to natural reasons and polluted mind pollutes the experiences through polluted thoughts. 

Seems melancholic, isn't it? Next sutra has solutions. Stay with me for the next blog to find out!

BHASHYA: DHAMMAPADA (0/N)

It was a long overdue task I always wanted to do, but that's how things work. When the need comes, the divine does work through you. I am starting this project knowing not if I will be able to finish it. 

To be able to write a commentary on Buddhist text? I ask myself am I even eligible to write it? A sudden sense of fear creeps in my mind whether I will be able to do justice to it. But probably it is not about justice now. It is not an attempt to teach Buddha to the 21st Century anxiety driven century, who counts Buddhism also in the standard realm of definition of religion. This is the same generation who has a highly lonesome life, who lives only on weekends, the same generation who has lost hope in all religiosities and even if some have, they have hopes on false gods and false religions. The reason why I claim this, is because of reason itself. Modernity and post-modernity and centuries of reason and anti-reason respectively. These generations are reason obsessed generations and either some are running away from it, trying to indulge in something that relieves them from the anxiety of unreasonableness of existence, or they are fully immersed into it and have become cynical which has led them to be bitter in their personal lives, they cannot take themselves lightly. And how can someone who thinks of himself so reasonable and so sorted, will he be able to comprehend the contradiction of selflessness as the truth? He cannot. 

For the anxiety driven generation, I promise nothing. Nobody can, and at least not me. I am not on a civilization mission. I know I cannot help people come out of the hell that they take pleasure in being. 

It is my expression of love towards my master. Buddha, who is the epitome of everything that humanity has ever hoped for. Bertrand Russel says, I was born in the wrong religion, My reason tells me the most reasonable religion on this planet is Buddhas. Nietzsche's Übermensch, who is? Buddha. Buddha and his rational religion might be the answer the world always wanted. 

But, then, why wouldn't the world already find it? Because the world is ridden with the ideology of cynicism today. They find Carvaka more convincing because it does not take a toll on their bodies, their minds. They can indulge in material pleasure without thinking about how it is affecting them. Most mentally unhealthy people are found in good earning business owning alienated rich people. Rich people who, if not for accumulation of more capital and then subsequent consumption, will vanish, cease to exist. 

This is my ode to one of the most soft and reasonable masters the world ever seen, the light of Asia, Buddha. It is said that reason, if it does not bring with it devotion, is not reason, it is irrationality from core. This is what has happened with the people I see around me. Rationality to be practiced as a ritual but not applying reason to the innermost corners of their minds. Where their blind spots lie. When their ego hurts them regularly. One comment, One attack, even verbal, even gestural and even emotional, and they are on their heights of rage and then they struggle, they break relations, they break their lives even. They seem to be as "Martyrs without a cause". They die daily for their ego. 

My Attempt is an attempt to poetry. My attempt is to just be able to pen down what I have gotten from Dhamma. I have been practicing Vipassana at home since 10th grade and introduced to Dhamma in my graduation. Then with the help of a new age master, Osho, I learned the depths of Dhamma. And then, it made me lighter. How heavy was the load of my ego, my journey became so easy. Life is already hard for people who learn very late about attachments and its inherent contradictions and the Dukkha it generates. And then, when at last, the person realizes, he already has invested so much to his ego, it seems impossible for him to do things which go against his ego. 

I was like that. I am no longer. It was easier for me. It is usually easier for those who are ready to lose. How contradictory is the game of Maya, or MAAR, the name given in Pali to Maya, that the loser wins, the winner loses. 

I see people burning in the fires of anger, lust, ego, contempt, revenge etc. Even social justice fighters, people who are fighting for the righteous, are today fighting not because they know that they are fighting for truth, but because now it is an ego fight for them, it is fight for identity for them, what they call Identity politics. 

Good people do bad things because the system forces them too. This system of Maya has snatched away from them truth, the only sword they had, the only armor they had, and gave them a useless weapon, called ego. This ego is a sword with no handle. It constantly hurts the owner, probably it might hurt the other as well, but it wouldn't even touch the knower of truth. Since the knower holds the armor of truth.

Enough talk, let's possibly dive in. Dhamma is the name given by Buddha to the eternal law. Beware it is nowhere physical or natural. Of course it is man made; Intelligent Buddhists will never argue about it as natural law. It is of course man made. But not all man-made things are bad, and not all natural things are necessarily good. 

In fact, Mother nature is probably the worst mother in the history of mankind. It is so patriarchal. It has only one concern, the best of his sons and daughters survive. The best genes live. The animal eats, reproduces and then his body starts to decay. As if the nature's message is loud and clear, No need of infertile or post-fertile species. Old people live a pathetic life. Their bodies do not move; ache and they suffer before dying. 

Nature is evil. That's why Dhamma, or any spiritual discipline does not make a big deal out of nature. It certainly respects but does not fetishize. Religions, otherwise, and elsewhere, have an oedipal relation with nature. That's why so exploitation, and that's why Climate change. 

Man made some things: Equality, Justice, Freedom. aren't these good things? So, the first prejudice to remove is to stop fetishizing nature. Nature is not sacrosanct. 

Secondly, Dhamma tells you how to improve your quality of life. It is not a motivational or self-help book. It has nothing to do with whether you achieve the material success you wanted. It has to do with whatever situation you are in, how to improve your being in that situation. To indulge freely without any bias. 

Imagine, you are being given an injection by a doctor. You close your eyes in fear. Dhamma will teach you to face the sensation of pain with your eyes open. It will make you aware about the uniqueness of the experience of the pain. To be able to witness pain is already a privilege, is a motto of dhamma. Rocks cannot witness them being eroded. They cannot experience them being weathered by chemical agents. 

You can. But you choose not to. Because of your bias towards pain as bad. Who told you that pain should be treated as a taboo? Who told you to avoid pain and chase pleasure? Who told you to avoid death and choose life? And how contradictory, you wish to live, you choose life over death only to close your eyes t half of your life experiences? 

Dhamma is a silent whisper of the doctor, open your eyes. It is a natural procedure to get hurt. Witness it. Witness the unique pleasure of pain. The more open your eyes become, the lighter the self, the easier it becomes. 

Do you know, when you dive in from 2nd floor, one reason why you are prone to death is because in fear, your reflex muscles become stiff, the harder the muscles the brittle they become, they break, the bones break because the cushions called muscles contracted to become rock hard in fear. If you relax, you probably won't die. But you don't. You give arguments why you deserve to be scared. Remember these are the arguments you are giving yourself and even you are not convinced from inside about them.

Dhamma is for those who either wish to live their contradictions and hence solve them. It is not for those who either do not even understand that there is a contradiction, or they do not care, or they care but they only care about the argument and not the reality. They are not comfortable to live the contradiction.

Dhammapada is a guide to how to live the contradiction called life. As in 3 Idiots, Rancho says, "I do not teach Engineering, I teach how to teach!". 

There are two parts of Dhammapada. One is poetry. The sermons of Buddha. And then the stories, the examples that he gave. 

I am interested in both. The simplicity of the poetry of the sermons is marvelous. It is for the aesthetic enjoyer. Simple yet beautiful, rather simple hence beautiful. The stories are for the argumentative. This is the subject of psychoanalytic enquiry. I find them fascinating. Intellectually stimulating, they are called Gathas. 

So, formally starting it.

Buddha is the light of yourself, the guide who always tells you what truth at every instance is, He is the Father of Christ. The God. 

Dhamma is the creation of Buddha. It is the guide to create your own authentic light. It is the son of God. Christ himself. 

Sangha is the collective energy of truth within you. However latent, there is always agency in you to pursue the truth. It is the holy spirit of Christianity. 

Hence, Father, son and the holy spirit. May the spirit help me complete the magnum opus. 

Or... 

Buddham Sharanam Gacchami

Dhamman Sharanam Gacchami

Sangham Sharanam Gacchami! 

GROUND 3: A WORLD APPARENT TO ITSELF IS ALREADY A MARVEL!

Already with humans we had something very crucial in the debate between ideas and matter. Matter has relations with matter, and in relation to one, we describe other matter. Ideas also, are explained through relations with matter. 

But with Humans, you can already see the Humans lie on the middle of ideas and matter. We are matter but we do matter. Like, At the level of Idea, Humans exist since they self identify. Also, To say that Humans identify themselves to be matter is already talking in the realm of ideas. 

It is like this, Humans, that are matter, when they think of themselves, they think in terms of idea. The world of humans is not just simply a world of ideas, but a world of appearance of matter as ideas. 

And when this is understood by Humans, we suddenly try to view life as a marvel. Matter apparent to itself as matter only mediated through ideas, isn't this magic? 

I do not know a better magic than this. So, Matter can only be self-aware through entering the realm of ideas. 

Personally, knowing this fills me with a certain innocence, an innocence towards life as a person who has come to see magic, what life has to offer, take a seat and watch it. 

Watch the marvel called life, through the prism of ideas because a prism of matter does not exist. This also, in some sense proves something, a certain observation that I had since a long time. 

The world, the world of appearances, awards the lack of innocence. When A child goes to school, and suddenly, the system is capable to snatch away his innocence, the child is rewarded with something. Knowing is rewarded, understanding is rewarded. 

I mean, If Marvelous is life, and its appearance to itself, why not reward wonder? Why not reward questions? Why not reward confusion? Why not reward innocent submission to life? 

It is wonderful to watch humans defend themselves when they do not know something. They defend like anything, as if they committed a crime. Oh! my wonderous creature, that is how nature wanted you, that is how you are supposed to be. Knowledge is the extra appendix that has been attached to you. Keep it but keep it as an appendage only. Let us not make a big deal out of knowing and understanding. 

Rather, how well could you produce doubts in your own conformity is how you should access quality of a human. Doubtfulness is the virtue, knowledge is not. 

Now, Foucault would kill me saying, Knowledge is power and so on. Yes, it will be but suppose how great a power is that which Foucault himself possessed, the power of innocent decodes, an innocent doubt which could potentially demolish the whole structure of knowledge systems across the world.

This is how I see the world nowadays, not a place to fill up more with explanations, but, create what I call, anti-explanations, like a single innocent doubt, not cynical one. I am not for cynicism. 

I think cynicism is the worst kind of conformism there can be. Innocence is what I preach. Approaching life as a marvel within itself, every phenomenon, is an indicator of the marvel. Every conformity is an opportunity to play with it and eventually destroy it. No knowledge fixed in space time, deserves to exist. All knowledge, all answers deserve a question which breaks the ground of the answer and makes the answer meaningless. 

An ontology based on innocent interrogation. Unlearn, unlearn through creating breaks in the knowledge systems through innocent questions, till nothing remains. Nothing remains other than the innocence towards life itself. 

"Neti-Neti" of Upanishads but better. Neti-neti is arrogant. My approach of innocent interrogation is humble. Upanishads be damned. 

GROUND 2: AGAINST COMMON SENSE!

The problem at issue here is with how Science is perceived in the country of India by different stake holders. 

First stakeholders are people who do science professionally. There is already a split in the deed of science and as an appearance of science. What I want to say is, A doer of science, one who performs scientific experiments, approaches the subject not as a field of common sense, which is the popular view of science, but it appears as a completion attempt to the erstwhile incomplete reality there is. Whereas the popular notion of science as a common sense is a flawed one. Obviously, we can guess that, but we need to concretely analyze that. 

The appearance to science as common sense is anti-thetical to the notion of scientific temperament which is viewing science as a science doer. A science doer of course approaches reality as a story unfinished in itself and this piece of reality might complete it a little more. 

Second Stakeholders are people, who are mostly anti-science, as people I consider of religion. People of established tradition, who critique rational approach to reality as being a limiting approach, as if approaching reality with a rational lens will obviously obfuscate reality and hence some things will automatically disappear from its view due to the particular lens of scientific method. 

Here also, one thing is common, which is common sense. An approach to reality through a doctrine, be it religion, or be it a spiritual dogma, is to ascertain one dogma as a common sensical postulate and then proceed to develop its theories. These attacks of scientific temperament try to use a mix of inductive reason and empiricism to counter the reasonable way to approach reality. They try to ask the following problematic, "Is the total of reality reasonable, that is, graspable by the prism of reason?" Kant comes to their support with his transcendental idealism. Some reality remains unapproachable even through reason is what Kant says. I am neither defending nor attacking Kant here. 

In fact, It will be quite Naive to attack Kant, Like Ayn Rand tried to do. It is similarly quite improper to try to save Kant. Rather, I remain a Hegelian to subvert Kant. 

The obvious way to do the sublation task of Hegelian dialectics, that is, to try to subvert the assertion, is to fit the argument in the paradigm of "Of course.... but..." and then add an additional layer to it. 

So, "Of course, Reality is not fully graspable by reason alone, but then of course, Reality is already not graspable through a fixed static prism of common-sense spirituality, religion or for that matter any static dogma." 

Reason as a tool and empirical evidence as a tool to approach the inconsistencies in our stories to reality is the only valid dynamic way to proceed. Which leads us to our crucial point where I think people who do science do not realize. 

That is, Science is really not common sense. Scientific method might be common sensical, strictly, it is not reducible to common sense. Rather Common sense is an extremely conformist category which tries to fit reality in an approximate and often incorrect fiction. 

To be rational is to not be common sensical. To be rational and reasonable is not at the same time be a rationalizer. In a spectrum of idiocy here, there is a middle path which is the path of scientific temperament. The path of ever curious, ever incomplete perspective of reality. On one extreme you have indoctrinated spiritualists and religious people, who view reality as a complete out there truth, and try to explain their doubts with the continuous framing of rationalized stories, on the other hand, you have so called, Scientific bent of mind people, who are actually non-scientific, who view reality as a common sense, Reality as something which is already explainable through a series of deductive reasoning, and there is nothing that remains outside the purview of common sense. 

Common sense, or the prejudicial view, the view of viewing reality through an already filled basket of knowledge and trying to fit and reduce reality to this basket, is an attempt of an already dogmatic person, religious or otherwise. 

So, doesn't matter whether he is scientific or not, religious or not, if he operates in Philosophy as a person of common sense, he is bound to be a pervert, someone who is too overwhelmed by the incompleteness of reality and he thinks he already knows everything. 

A rational man is one, who is aware of this ontological incompleteness inherent in reality itself. And his attempts are to unravel how much the reality is really capable to appear in front of him. This is the path of science, this is the path of authentic spirituality even. This is not the path of common sense. 

A man of common sense, is a man of dogma, never mind if he is a liberal, or an atheist, or a religious man. Common sense, already is a superstition he believes in. To be precise, the superstition he really believes in is, every phenomenon, new or old, has an explanation in my basket of common sense, or if not his, in the common collective basket of common sense of all of humanity. 

To be rational, is to be philosophic per Execellence. To be rational is to be spiritual authentically. To be rational is to be scientifically curious all along, even view as scientific method as a potential incomplete background to be able to describe reality. 

An ontologically incomplete reality is apparent to the man of reason; it is invisible to the man of common sense. A man of reason does not use reason as a tool in the production of process of reality, rather, keeps reason also as a potential product of the production process of reality as knowledgeable. 

"In itself", is really the question of science. "In itself", is really invisible to the common sensical man. In itself, is apparent to the spiritual man, but often ridiculed even through common sense as subjectivity. 

Subjectivity is an inadequate description of "In itself". In fact, transcendentalism, even is not appropriate to describe things in themselves. 

In Itself, in fact, is a reality mediated by a transcendental supplement, and rather than its inaccessibility, which Kant proposes, we should talk about the appearances being able to be multi-faceted through the usage of subjectivity. 

How does subjectivity arise out of a reality which has some transcendental supplements? To answer this question, we need to ask a more fundamental one, "How is reality so apparent to itself?" or "How much reality is really apparent to itself?" "Is subjectivity an inability or a constituent of a collective objectivity?" 

Or to propose the radical, Subjectivity, as an incomplete and inconsistent description of reality arises because the objective description of reality itself is ontologically incomplete and not fully developed to be graspable. 
To put it in a naive religious way, how to have complete knowledge about the Universe, if the Universe is not completed by God, and is in fact in process of building reality as it is and it will be. If God himself does not know the truth, even God can be merely a philosopher and not a man who constantly repeats the statement, say an Apostle. 

To put God as a Philosopher in an ontologically incomplete reality as his Philosophical masterpiece, would be a radical attempt at Philosophy which could rejuvenate our hopes in Philosophy, curiosity and Science altogether merging like ancient times, to be decoders of the question, how much of reality and to what degree is accessible. 

Just, one more thing, Replace God even, with an ontologically incomplete creator, which is of course, a no-creator creation, that too incomplete. A process, without a processor, that too, in the middle of happening. This will be an authentic, modern day, Materialist description of Reality.

GROUND 1: A LAND OF OTHERS

It was Ramanavami time. Ramanavami means, 9th day of the beginning of Hindu year when Lord Rama, the icon god of Hinduism was born. 

I was in my gym working out. I observed in recent times, that the Biryani shop owned by a Muslim vendor was closed for 15 days. I was curious why because I was a frequent visitor there. They used to make the nicest Biryani in whole town of Pataratu. 

I overheard some seniors in the gym were talking as how Muslim shops are closed voluntarily by Muslim vendors due to Ramanavami. 

I asked one of my seniors, a Hindu of course, "why is so? Are they scared of us?" This followed by a nearly shout by that senior who said, "Why are you being so soft? Do you know Who Babar was? Why he came to India? Don't be such a softy. Hindus like you were forced by Muslims to wear Lehenga (an Indian attire for women)." 

I was taken aback by this series of taunts and shouts. I looked at a Muslim senior sitting just beside that particular senior and he was sort of ignoring the talk. The Hindu senior let's name him Abhishek, and the Muslim senior, let's name him, Munazir. 

Abhishek snapped but when he looked at Munazir, he felt weird. It was as if, he wanted to say the same thing, not just in front of him. 

He did not save himself. He went to do something else. All other guys were just pretending to look away. Munazir, I don't know how he must have felt. I don't even know, maybe he did not feel anything since he was either accustomed to hearing these things or in his own Muslim circles, even he used to spew these things about Hindus. 

Two kinds of religious doctrines were forced down the throat of Indians during Colonialism. One, the communal victimization of the "other", and the other, "the doctrine of religious harmony". 

I think, India suffers with a crisis of abundance of Ideas. Since ancient times, Upanishads and Hindu religion had so many concepts which the normal laymen of the country could not grasp and then came colonial masters, who tried to introduce communalism. and to counter them, came a set of foreign trained lawyers, including Gandhi. They further burdened the countrymen with ideas without changing their material reality. So. the concept of the "Other" communally, became stronger in absence of any welfare measure.

And now, when an ethno-national government has taken over, the others are the only existent entity. Hindus are others to Muslims, and Muslims to Hindus. Hence, India has become a land of others. 

Here, people try to act harmoniously. But secretly, it is a specific kink of Hindus and Muslims to hate each other. Another story, 

I overheard my grandfather, talking to his broker of land, who is a Muslim, Kudus his name, "Allah is really compassionate! An old debtor returned me my money without me even asking when I needed it the most!"  

Seems nice, isn't it? A Hindu man thanking Allah. But This man is a Hindu conservative who used to abuse Muslims and almost hates and feels disgust in even taking the name of Muslims. 

This is the forced status of Hindu-Muslim relations. Which feeling is authentic? The Right wing will say, The hatred is authentic, the liberal will say, the feeling of cooperation is real. 

I say, economics is real. The need to negotiate with a Muslim is real. Hindus and Muslims really don't like each other. They act as if they do. Secularism, nowadays, is a hated word for India. But, secretly, All communal people behave in a secular manner. Sometimes, they expose themselves like Abhishek sir did. 

An ambiguity of what normal man believes exist. No one can say in a definite way, what does he believe. Maybe he just wishes to exist. But for existing, he feels it necessary from time to time, help his own community to do violence to the others. May be this ensures more existence to the community. This Existence surplus derived from hating the other is a concept worth developing. 

A communal concept, imaginary of course, Existence surplus, forces a layman to become Hindu or Muslim. Religion offers an intrinsic quality of life. It offers peace but at the cost of personal sacrifice or war against the other. This paradoxical exchange of religion is by which Existence surplus is generated. Existence surplus is the extra life that a Hindu conservative or a Muslims conservative feels that he got while doing what his community wanted to do, demolish some mosque, kill some Muslims who were suspected of eating Beef and so on. 

But in reality, this feeling of Surplus is fallacious. In reality, It is an existence deficit. You are precisely being anti-religious by acting to what your religious institution tells you in India. This is the essence of this concept. This exposes the nature of religiosity itself. it craves war to ensure peace. War is any religion's fetish. We find concepts of "Dharma-Yuddha" in Hindu religion, "Jihaad" in Muslims, and "Holy War" in Bible. 

This blood lust is then quenched by violence and then a peace prevails which is horrifying. This peace of one of the Peaces of Defective peace. 

THE DEFECTIVE PEACE! (GROUND 0)

Fiction always scared me both as a reader and a writer. I wished always to escape it. Unless I escape it, I know it will definitely engulf me. I was perplexed from the childhood about why I fear stories so much! the more engaging the story, the more intensely I feared the story. 

The reason, I suppose, lies in the fact that the realities that we, in India, are forced to live, makes us too insecure to slip ourselves to random imaginative fictions. 

Ours is a country of fictions. There exist lesser and lesser facts in this country and more and more fiction. So much fiction that it is very easy for a sane person to turn into a lunatic/ And since this kind of Lunacy is widely accepted in Indian societies, nobody suspects that a mass lunacy exists. 

So, for people like me, it is really necessary to constantly force ourselves out of these fictions and try to live as much as possible in reality. 

Defective peace will be, as I have planned, a set of essays on my experiences, as an educated, secular, socialist, upper caste male, in a south Asian country called India, Experiences where I found myself in a rebellion against the popular stories that the Indian Society wished to force down my throat. These anecdotes and then commentaries on it, are of different types, sometimes about caste, about gender, about communalism, about regionalism, about all negative and positive experiences that made me conclude that India is a place of defective Peaces. Not a single peace, but Peaces. It is of course a double ententre, which means, there is a word play between Peace and Piece. There are layers. first of all, it is not a peaceful society. There are sub-conscious tensions always just waiting for a malfunction in the fabric to just come out, hence Defective Peace. Also, there is no single peace in society. 

What does it mean by "no single peace"? It means, as I intend to describe it, there are communitarian perspectives about peacefulness, and all communities tend to live that aspect of peacefulness. Rejecting the popular narrative that all religions preach the same peacefulness, I claim that Indian versions of religions, have intrinsically in them, a secret call for war and violence, hence they come in contradiction with not only other religions but also with themselves only. 

So, there are multiple Peaces. And finally, which leads to the underdevelopment of individuality in Indians. Psychoanalysts, especially post-colonial psychoanalysts, claim that this is not the case. Rather, they claim, the individuality of Indians is not individual but commutarian, that is, instead of a self, they possess, a family self. 

I reject this proposition, and I will try to prove where this concept of "familial self" ruptures and actually this concept of familial self is placed to justify the exploitation of women through non-waged domestic labor. In economic terms, "the so-called care economy" is a careless economy, in the sense that women are socialized to remain incompetent and serve as maids to masculine members of the family. 

The crucial aspect of this anthology of essays is that none of these essays are fictional. Whatever I saw, I am journalling verbatim. The interpretation is mine. But that does not change the truth. If a knife penetrating the chest of a man is interpreted as a murder, I do not think there is something wrong with it. 

Hence, I present to you, Defective Peace. 

AAJA BHID LE!

 Many people and when I say many, it means my five friends have asked me that I spend my time chasing ideas of Hegel, Marx, Buddha, Lacan etc. But what is my own Philosophy? What is that which I refer to while living my own life?

Is it pragmatism? Is it Idealism? Is it Marxism? Is it some spiritual doctrine? 

In fact, it is a quite blunt self-made philosophy. It can find correlations with Nietzsche's "Live dangerously" doctrine or may be Sartre's Authentic existence. But, I choose to call it, my own, "Aaja Bhid le" doctrine. 

It refers to the blunt outrageous aggressive way of living life when you stand against the waves of oceans of life with a straight face and say, "Aaja bhid le dam hai toh", or "Come fight with me, let's see what happens" 

This is a Warcry, this is a mute acceptance of war. Yes, I yearn war. Come what you can do to me. we will see who kills who. 

This can be expressed by this meme. Shizuka, the character in Doraemon, is ready. Other memes in this same context is as follows, 

1. 

2. 

This has been very successful for me till now. I encourage most of you to follow this philosophy only. One day, "Aaja Bhid le" will be a global Philosophy. 
That day, we will become Übermensch. Then, we will be able to tackle anything. Even AI. Wtf is AI? We will kill AIs.

Look the AI in the eye, and say, "aaja Bhid le, Machine saale!" And then see what happens! 

Thanks for your time!

MAKE NERDINESS GREAT AGAIN!

There are many things, attitudes and ways of living which people adopt and leave as per their needs and wants. 

I am not being Nostalgic, I mean, I find the feeling of Nostalgia as disgusting, But objectively speaking, I used to be a Nerd, a textbook nerd. In my school days, I used to be an avid reader in Academics. Here, I am going to self-reflect on the fact that there have been changes in ways of my living which I do not consider good for me. I need to revive the Nerd in me. 

I used to ask seniors how to study. I used to run after books and tried many books and which helped me a lot. This behavior, although was not liked my friends, or in general people who knew me, and probably this led me to change. 

But this is where Adhyatman comes in picture. It tells you precisely how the society wishes to exploit you and gives you agency whether you really want to change or not. And in my opinion, not every change is for the better. 

I lost my Nerdiness and got what? Some attention from women? Some validation of acceptance by friends? Some socialization? I spit on these things. I don't care. These incentives are not worth changing my basic nature. My basic nature is to keep my head in books, enjoy what I read and so on. 

The main reason why Nerds are not respected in society is mostly because people are jealous of their abilities. Their patience levels, and their peace of mind scares the average idiot on road. 

I think it is time to make Nerdiness great again. To hell with that people think. To hell with women. To hell with social validation. To hell with socialization. I want to read my book. Nothing matters if it is not written in print. 

Do not tell me not to read if you are an illiterate. In my opinion, if you are not reading a new book every week, you are illiterate on a weekly status. Similar to how Weekly status of unemployment is calculated. 

I am a Nerd. The place where I live, of course I do not belong here. Which literate, well-read man will belong to a place of idiots? No one! But I better find my place in books. Nerds are required but suppressed. I am a Nerd, and I own it.  

SING WHILE YOU WORK!

Bhuban Badyakar, The Genius Badam Seller! 

In a Zen Koans, I read this story. 

Zen Monk asked his master, "How to ensure that I am enjoying meditation or any other work that I am doing?"

Zen Master replied, "You should sing while working!" 

Zen Monk asked, "Which song?" 

Zen Master replied, "That's not your concern, you should focus on working!" 

Zen Monk remain puzzled. 

This wonderful Koans tell us the nature of flow and work. The song should not be a means to your enjoyment. It should be a symbol of your enjoyment, a kind of signal that your unconscious gives you that it is liking the job. 

The Zen Monk was in the presumption that the master will tell him some specific song that might work like a miracle and make him more focused. But the truth is the essence of focusing is in focus. Any alternative way will be just a disguised way of focusing only. 

When you focus, when you work, your brain functions in the non-sympathetic zone and thus, keeps itself active. "Which song" signifies ignorance. 

That is not your concern. Then whose concern is this? Perhaps, the unconscious. 

Ever witnessed when you are absorbed in work, and suddenly you just start to sing. Sing something totally bizarre. Something, which is just idiotic, but in a rhythm. That has lost in times of excessive number of songs available in the market. The day you started listening to songs, was the day you stopped creating your own songs from your unconscious. 

You lost your creativity, became a consumer. Recall the "Kaccha Badam" seller on the streets. He was so absorbed in his favorite job of Selling peanuts that he made a song out of his work. 

This is how genius works. His work becomes a song to sing. He does not need songs to relax. He makes the work his song. 

As Wagner used to say, "I Sing while I sing, Other singers work while they sing!" 

That is the difference between a genius and other workmen, other people work, the genius only sings. Hence, he is ever rejoiced. 

Don't forget to sing while you work. But now, you understand, what I mean. The song should be yours; the singing should be your work. And sometimes, symbolically, you sing a self-made song to announce your enjoyment. 

The Song made by Bhuban Badyakar, The Genius Peanut Seller! 

ENDOSYMBIOGENESIS: THE DISCOVERY DARWIN WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD OF!

    

    

Three thinkers that I think changed the landscape of modern scientific thought are: 

1. Darwin

2. Marx 

3. Freud 

I know, I know, where are Einstein, Newton and many other physicists from this list. My concern is not right now with the material physical world rather the world of humans as we have constructed it. 

The social life that we lived had been dominated by voices of the dogmatic religions of the medieval times. In these times, when these three thinkers came to the scene, with their respective discoveries, it really changed the way we were forced to see reality due to dogmatic religions. 

Here we are concerned with Evolutionary theory. And of course, not to say, it is not just a theory but a conclusive description of reality as we know it. But at the same time, we see, Darwin being misappropriated by the right wing, generally the Libertarian Free marketists, as the philosopher of the right. 

Here the main culprit I consider, this man named Herbert Spencer. Who not only coined the phrase, "Survival of the fittest", which more often is attributed to Darwin, who never used this term, but also, Spencer created a new theory of Social Darwinism, where he justified class inequalities as the poor is the unfit extinction worthy species, and the rich is equivalent to the fit survivor of this social jungle. What a pathetic misappropriation. That is why, Poverty is so tabooed in everywhere. It is considered a matter of shame as if the poor is responsible for his poverty. But the reality is, more often than not, like 100% of the times, It is a complex set of changing socio-economic conditions that forces the man out of his pockets and leaves him without money. There is no shame in being poor. There is no guilt to be taken if you cannot afford food. It is social circumstances. 

Also, We see, how social Darwinism misinterprets the principle of selective mutation and the principle of natural selection. In any natural setting, it is not fixed which trait is the deciding trait for which the nature is going to be performing the natural selection. For example, the white beetle got extinct due to being easily exposed because of growing pollution whereas the dark beetle got saved due to his color. So, the criteria of judgement of nature, is very random and circumstantial. To make it predictably obvious, is not nature's way. and It is in retrospect that we contemplate how a species would have gotten extinct. To attribute just richness with fitness for evolution is also fallacious as to say that having a good physique guarantees natural selection. If that is so, why did the Neanderthals got extinct? Social Darwinians are, hence, jerk heads. 

Now coming to the issue at hand, having given a note on how Darwin's evolution is not a rich glorifying propaganda but a solid natural description of reality, we come to modern times, when developments of this idea are already in place. 

After Darwin's Evolution due to Natural selection, came Neo-Darwinians, who along with natural surviving factors also gave some value to inherited variations and genetic mutations in the process of natural selection but they remained Darwinians as they did not leave the tenet of natural selection. 

But, An American Evolutionary Biologist, Lynn Margulis, rejected this consensus and gave a Gene theory of Symbiosis, which, although can be considered Darwinian at heart but has expanded the scope of Darwinian thought to genetic levels and speciate variations to the level of a cell. Let us understand what Symbiogenesis is and then we will proceed. 

Theory of symbiogenesis gives that evolutionary theory of the origin of Eukaryotic cells from Prokaryotic cells. How?

We found a new Organelle in the cell of Marine algae, called Nitroplast, An organelle responsible for Nitrogen fixation in atmosphere. Then Lynn hypothesized, how would this organelle have had come in this place. We understand that Cyano-bacteria fixes nitrogen and often comes in a symbiotic relationship with Marine Algae which provides shelter. Over time, when this symbiotic relationship persisted and not only persisted but cherished and they both survived, they were deemed fit by nature and Marine algae species underwent a mutation which led to Nitroplast being automatically installed in the Alage. 

This theory is a genius of Lynn as she has described, possibly the evolution of Organelles like Mitochondria, Nucleus and plastids in complex eukaryotic cells and linking it to evolutionary theory, it is nothing but a sort of a revolution in the field. We call it, Endosymbiosis. 

Researchers claim that this is a recent evolutionary development. like, around 100 million years, this might be an evolutionary change that has occurred. This might also explain the Indian idiot Political leaders who often ask for proof of evolution and say, "We have not seen monkeys changing into Humans". 

Recently, this was in news when a Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria, UCYN-A, and a marine Algae, B. Bigelowii, were found in a symbiotic relationship, and it is common understanding that Nitroplasts are recent developments in some marine Algae. hence, correlations found, and the theory proposes a solid causation. 

B. Bigelowii has Nitroplasts in it. That is wonderful marvel of nature. Here also, Whenever Humans discover something, instead of marveling at the wonder of nature, they ask, "How can it help us humans?" I coin a term often to describe this aspect of human nature, I call it, "Bheekhmanga Manushsya" or "Humans as natural beggars, beggars who beg newer and newer demands from nature instead of just leaving it as it is". 

So, here are some potential applications of this discovery, 

1. It can revolutionize Agriculture. as Ammonia made by Haber's process was good but the process was very pollutive. 

2. Engineering of host cells. We can literally make new cells with features that we like. We not just need to make sure the newly formed organelle is well integrated within the periphery of the host cell. 

3. We can understand genetic evolution better. We can in future tell with surety how humans evolved with much more accuracy and precision.

AS IF SEEING THE WORLD FOR THE FIRST TIME!

How do you see the world, has been the central question of Adhyatman. Not only does it ask the question, rather it also provides an alternative vision to look at the world. The terms used in these contexts, "Dhrsta" and "Sakshi-Bhaav", seem very cryptic in this regard. I have seen many people say this. But, I do not think they know the meaning of what they are saying or otherwise, why would they keep living the life that they are living. So, let us delve in this. 

I think, Sakshi-Bhaav is the feeling of seeing the world as it is. It is such a bizarre usage of words. As it is. As if the other people see it not as it is, or as it is not. What is there which you see, and they cannot see. Here, we can start deconstructing. What do we mean by, first of all, "The world" and the other, "Seeing". 

First of all, the ontological category, "The world". By the world, of course, it is not just the physical entities placed at places. First of all, we need to reject the obvious perception. We are not talking about seeing the world like we look at something. The world is not made up of things. How reductive it is about the world that we reduce it to a mere collection of objects and subjects. 

The world is not made up of objects. It is such a 2D version of the world. Rather, It is a collection of events. The world is not, rather it is "being". So, to talk about the world is to talk about existence as a whole. When you see, whatever that means, you see a whole bunch of existence unfolding in front of you. 

But this might be obvious. But the question is "Why do this obvious fact hides behind this false perception of world as things?" 

The Answer might be in Zizekian Ontology of "Parallax view". 

Let me explain that with a joke. A wife was cheating on her husband with another guy. The husband came back home only to find that there are 3 pair of legs appearing outside the blanket. He asks his wife, "Why are there 3 pairs of legs?" The wife replies, "You might be drunk, go out of the blanket to get a fresh look." 

Husband reaches the door and turns back only to find out that there are 2 pair of legs now. Now he is satisfied, he says, "yes dear, I was mistaken, they are only 2 pairs of them. I saw them wrong for the first time!" 

This is the problem with our false perception. Neither was our perception wrong in either of the times, rather the interpretation led us astray. 

When we look at the world with us in it, it seems to us like a subjective mess. People, who identify with themselves and objects that although lack self-identification, are identified by you as such, and you identify with yourself, and hence the world functions as a big register of attendance. 

When we look at the world with not us in it, it seems like a barren piece of land with some objects lying on it. 

In both the cases, there is a parallax happening, sometimes, we overestimate, sometimes we underestimate. 

To see the world, is to see a set of events unfolding in front of your eyes. It is so fast and yet so invisible. To see, is to also partially reason the changes occurring not only in the world as events, but also the seer as an event in itself. To see is to see also, through reason that you are not the same seer a second ago, and the world is not seen the same a second ago. In this vast and fast changing scenario, What could any fixed perception of the world be, but a blurred photograph clicked by a mobile phone due to the fast pace of the object it wanted to click. This haziness of world perception also brings with us the sense of incomprehensibility so immense that at points, the picture seems disjoint, non-congruent, and even broken. 

The Dhrsta is one who is able to see this discontinuity. This is so overwhelming to see, that you elate with both joy and fear. You fear the world. You fear what an immense sight. And then transformation of perception happens. You can no longer live in the same world you used to live. You do not live no longer in a boring world of objects. You live on a railway platform, where people randomly are moving very fast that barely any event notices you, and in turn, you are a process that nobody barely notice. You are an event, a happening, one day, your happening will end, and you will die. Something Organic will turn inorganic. 

This feeling of overwhelm is described by Sartre in his seminal work, "Nausea". The Dhrsta feels Nausea all the time. The constructs not only make sense, but they are also horrible at times. The simple act of riding a bicycle and going to gym seems like a weird activity. Let me explain through an example. You are riding a bicycle, a metal rod, extracted from a place of metals in mines, on which there is a leather cover, leather made by killing some animals and taking its skin. Then you ride that flesh, to reach to a place made of bricks, bricks are mud which are heated in a furnace, which in itself, is a burning place like hell. Then, You reach the gym and lift iron and different metals, so that you can progressively tear your muscles and increase your immunity and stamina so that you feel good about yourself and you sleep good and your body releases endorphins that are in themselves some signals, electrical shocks kind of, which instruct you to be relaxed and happy. 

This feeling that you get, when you deconstruct the set of events to the minutest level possible where no added concepts are used. This is not merely seeing but also, partially reasoning. You could only see an animal skin in the leather when you know it and reason it as such. Otherwise, you become oblivious that just for your usage of a bicycle, some animal must have died. "Common sense" is banned from this analysis. Otherwise, nobody will deconstruct what a gym actually is. 

So, Seeing the world as it is, is a philosophical task of reason. Deconstructing it like a deductive argument. And then you add traditional religion in the mix, the strive for a job in the mix, things become so nauseated that you might even puke. 

Religion gives us vomiting. But only the person who sees it like a Dhrsta. To be Sakshi, or attendee of this can be massive. To be able to look at things as they are, without adding additional concepts like, "Self", "Me" etc. This definitely put us in a fix but then releases us from all our obligations. 

You might be a bad son, but who is a son if everything organic and lively this second can turn into a rock the next moment. When your father dies, he becomes a rock. He becomes dust. So you are a bad son of soil? You can a bad son of a pile of dust. That does not seem bothering, does it? 

But, the problem is, this deconstructive view of the world is not useful to the man working in the world. It is not at all useful, rather it is detrimental in his attempts to make a life in this world. To be able to make a life in this world, to earn, to be good sons and daughters and lovers and husbands and wives and fathers etc. is a task which involves a mute acceptation of all the defined concepts of language without questioning. 

The scope of dogma fed to this life is immense. The dogma fills insecurity. The dogma fills the man with shock perpetually. Today he is sad that he could not find a good job. Tomorrow he will be unhappy because he could not help his father make a home. The dogma here remains, you consider a pile of dust, today alive, as your father, and you want to join together burnt bricks and put cement and want to stay inside it since you, as a pile of dust, have come out of your father in a form of a liquid, called semen. 

This makes it horrible, doesn't it? It takes away all the good feelings and dopamine, that you used to get due to acceptance of these false concepts of being a son, being a working person, and leaves us astray in desert of existence with everywhere dust and sand becoming something and then demolishing itself. 

Seeing the world like this, every time like the first time, in our childhood, but this time, knowing what you are seeing, will be also a fascinating experience. The seer, thus, fears nothing, craves nothing, and hence is not insecure like a normal man. He is in a state of perpetual wonder that how all of this came about. 

The world still wishes to grab him in his claws of self-made concepts. But he is free. He always has been. He just sees it now. He is not sad. He is not happy. He is just excited. Excited what the world has to offer. Alas, most people cannot see it and most problematic, those who see, instantly switch off these lights of reason to unsee it, otherwise how will they experience the pleasures that false perception brings. How will you enjoy sex, if you understood that you are squishing with your hands a blob of flesh, made up of cellulose and starch, sometimes fat which are made of chemical bonds, and the buttocks you like to view, are actually, from where the woman excretes the food she eats, and inside of the beautiful face that you write songs on and elate, is a skull, as horrible as a ghost. The dust that she is made of, will one day find its way. The skin, the whiteness of which blinds you, one day will melt in the soil or in fire, and the bones will be dust. 

Instantly a turn off right? you will say, these things we know, but the real fact remains that currently she is beautiful. No, you don't know. You talk about currently like it's forever. That is your problem. Currently is in fact closer to "never" than it is to "forever". Your perception of present is so small a time, that in that, her skin got hundreds of changes. 

This is the world you live in. Still if someone is pre-consumed by the ideas of me, my father, my fiancé, my job. How strange? To see the world as it is, is not strange, to see the world as a prejudiced set of concepts, that is weird. 

Prejudice is not in seeing dust as dust. But dust as a family, dust as a friend circle, dust as a girl you like. These are all sand-castles one day doomed to destroy. 

 

AUTHENTIC HELPLESSNESSES AND WHERE TO FIND IT?

Help is a wonderful category. To help someone can be an interesting experience. Even to the ego. The philosophy of Help or Seva is in Indian philosophy given a very central status. "Seva", in its pure meaning, is the losing yourself in the service of others kind of thing. 

Interestingly, the addition of suffixes, "-full" and "-less" makes it much more interesting. 

The feeling of being helpful to others contains within itself the feeling of being helpful to oneself. But there can be instances when the person is not able to help himself, but he can be helpful to others. 

"Helplessness" however is more or less an abstract totality. It is implicit in it, that If someone is helpless about himself, he cannot be helpful to others. In other words, here we are dealing with a Hegelian Negation, which means, the negation of being helpful, that is being helpless, is a different state. It is not just negation of helpful. 

Helplessness, although negates helpfulness, but it is much more radical. This overwhelm is much more intense. 

In Post-modern capitalist societies, Helplessness, where exactly are these found? 

Are these found in the tiresome bureaucratic structures of Indian Democracy? Are these found in the hierarchical oppressive structures of caste? Are these found in the seemingly sadistic patriarchal structure with a twist of feminist individual martyrdom of women that is seen nowadays, with men committing suicides due to torture and women demanding alimony? 

I guess, these might be helplessnesses on an individual level. A man living in these times might find himself in a state of helplessness, whom to marry, to marry or not to marry, or if the category of love can be trusted anymore? And similarly on an individual level, these things might feel helpless, but these are not collectively hopeless. 

For something to be helpless in the most authentic way, I believe, it has to be in a collectively hopeless state. That is, even if Humanity tried on a collective level, to help itself, it should fill humanity with an unprecedented hopelessness. 

I think the greatest hopelessness can be seen in the context of Ecology today. The fate of the commons is in dooms. No central authority to regulate. It is much easier to imagine the death of humanity from Climate change, but we cannot imagine the end of capitalism which actually caused it. Even on a collective level, if all of humanity tried, it can just extend the last date of humanity on earth, the feedback loops of climate change have now started. LA is burning, not enough air and water in Delhi, Africa we all know, drowning with waterlessness. It is a surety that we are living in end times, almost 40-50 years we have here on earth. 

And Ideology has rendered us anti-climate in this time. To talk about climate today is still a conservative talk. We do not have a progressive theory regarding climate change. The same old conservative thought process, "Mother Nature" and the religious connotations attached with Nature. I wonder what the leftists are doing. I think they have accepted suicide. They left theory long ago. When Fukuyama wrote that, "End of history", Leftists believed that dogma. Now, they think nothing can be done. 

Theory was the only hope left. But the central theme of today's time is that Marx's quote, "The fact is to change it!".  Change without a plan is just nature's way, not human's way. You raped mother nature. And now Mother nature is here to torture you to death. And still, you are personifying that bitch? 

The personification should be stopped. Is humanity still in its adolescent age? That it needs to personify abstract categories, like it imagines Gods, as his Saviour?  How hard is it to not hallucinate? How hard is it to see that you are creating a terrestrial and aquatic mess that no extra-terrestrial entity can solve.

On the deathbed also, man will not leave its "Other-worldly beliefs". It is so interestingly horrific that Ecology, a branch of science, still has a non-secular undertone to it. We still use terms like "Mother Earth". 

Wtf is "Gaia Hypothesis?" I think, it is "ulti seedhi baatein" or topsy turvy talk to avoid doing real work. 

Another area of Authentic helplessnesses can be found in the freedom to consume. Freedom, being a highly philosophical category, is now a commodity. You can literally buy yourself freedom when you buy a data pack. Freedom has been reduced to the freedom of consumption. 

Do you want to see a desperate devil's face? Just try to question someone on their usage of social media. 

The way they defend their internet consumption, is horrible. The withdrawals that they get when they are not using it seems like they are now zombies of information, content, and dopamine. This helplessness that I see in my friends, my peers, my parents even, is the helplessness to enjoy. 

This is our second category. If first one, the ecology one was, the helplessness to suffer, this is the helplessness to enjoy. 

We are forced to enjoy. Enjoyment is forced down our throats in this day and age. The only rare commodity, if still exists, is boredom. Boredom is difficult to find. It is so easy to enjoy nowadays that men do not do nothing but to enjoy. 

And men complain. How can you complain while using your phone for whole day? When did you assume that this has to become a fundamental right? Right to internet? It is such a weird category. But theoretically, we are witnessing something very profound here. We are witnessing, how a sense of entitlement is created. How an artificial demand, created to sell freedom to men, now has transformed to become almost as a pillar of democracy. What do we infer from it?

The fake sacredness that we attach to democracy is apparent now. There is nothing so sacred about democracy. It is just a set of juvenile fantasies of humans. What are rights in 21st century but a set of dopamine inducing desires of a 21-year-old. 

Mature societies, if they exist, need fewer rights, as they self-censure. They know the boundaries and limits of existence. To consume information all day long is maddening. It is utter madness. 

This pressure of enjoyment is not only with regards to Internet. In general, we are an enjoyment obsessed society. India, why it became a dopamine inducing factory for internet providers? This is because we are a bunch of restless jerks. We cannot sit still. We need almost 150 festivals a year to enjoy. This is not a matter of pride but a matter of shame for us. Mature societies have fewer occasions to enjoy and more occasions to work. We need work nowadays more than ever. But, work has been severely tabooed. Work is instantly associated with workaholism and then drain, and then suicides. It is same as when someone drinks a lot, and then comes to work late, he thinks timing of work is the problem. No timing is perfect, you are a drunkard. 

Why do we have so many festivals? It is because we have so many categories. We celebrate almost everything. We have so many divisions based on caste, class and gender, Indian-western dichotomy. Do you know the celebration of an Indian category called Chhatthi or the sixth day of birth of a newborn is now complemented with the birthday celebration. So, we adopted both the western and the Indian way. 

We are a dopamine addict country, not just a dopamine addict generation. It is not just GenZ that has this problem. I am not a conservative who criminalizes the newer generation for everything. I think it is in humans, they do not know what is good for them how much. It is like you have attached micro-rods in the brain of a rat and given him the remote. He will stimulate himself to death. He is now "free" in the post-modern sense now. 

Freedom in this day and age, is only one freedom. Freedom of self-destruction. The conservative good values of Discipline and regulation and control are now tabooed. That is why I often say, good conservatism is better than idiot progressivism. 

Conservatism had only one good virtue. It used to work on the individual capacity building of pain. How much can one man suffer? what is his limits? And that is tabooed the most today. We need to be conservative in one aspect today. We need to be self-disciplined; we need to self-regulate, we need to self-censure. 

If not we do it, the state will do it and we will reinforce a state of totalitarianism. 

So, in a nutshell, true helplessness is found in areas where you are mostly sleeping. You cannot even fathom the concept of helplessness there. You find yourself sleeping in enjoyment there. That is why, the concept of awakening is important in Adhyatm. Awakening has nothing to do with person in pain, rather with person in pleasure. A person in pleasure has to see that there is nothing more lethal than moments of pleasure, at least, the way pleasure is forced down our throats in this day and age. 

I read these lines in Class 7th. The couplet here is written by a 20th century, almost unknown poet, Balkrishna Sharma "Navin", it means more than ever today, "The secret of life has been understood today, the stimulations of eyebrows, a symbol of pleasure, is actually has roots of destruction." More than ever we need to internalise these lines. 

Bhru-Vilaas mein hi hai Mahanaash!