Immortality

Something interesting I've noticed.

When looking at the itihaasas and puraaNas, and even epics from other cultures and folk stories in general, you see some interesting similarities. One is the quest for immortality that arises from time to time. More importantly, though, is the secret to it: vengeance.

You have stories of people who were wronged and their family sets out to avenge. Bitter hatred grows over years and years, even over generations. Retribution is craved by those wronged, and once revenge is had, the other side lusts for it. Children are expected to carry out their parents' vengeance whenever possible. Look at dhRSTadyumna, who was born because of his father, drupada's craving for vengeance against droNa. Those who crave it don't give up on life very easily as well. Sometimes, that provides one's sole reason to live. And then there's the idea that people even take it from life to life. shikhaNDii/ambaa, went through the barrier between one life and the next for his/her vengeance.

Most telling of all, however, are the descriptions of ghosts, spectres, and other supernatural beings that exist because of their torment and hatred in life. There are many stories of spirits who were so consumed by their desire for revenge that they are transformed after their deaths. Too many, actually, and I can't even choose one that would do this justice, but you can take a look at almost any given J-Horror or K-Horror flick if you want a modern take on it.

The desire is important. If you crave immortality, then you'd have to seek unrequitable vengeance. The second you get it, you won't be immortal. The motivation would be gone. But, with that desire consuming your very being... Well, it's just not a quality "life," is it?

The interesting thing here, if we are to follow the yogic or one of the various other devotional paradigms, is that this is completely counter-intuitive. The teaching holds that true "freedom" from the cycle of saMsaara, from karma, from everything, entails immortality. That is the true nature of the soul. In order to acheive this goal, to really merge one's self with God, or to see what the self truly is (depending on your point of view), we must strip the conditioning we have undergone. We must let go of the biases, attachments, desires, and influences we have gained by living and experiencing things. God is just but that justice is not formed or influenced by God's experiences. It is absolute. Therefore, if we are to merge with God, we, too, must shed the biases we have from our experiences and gain this sense of absolute justice.

Perhaps I've diverged a bit, and perhaps that's an impossible goal. Regardless, the fact remains that one must strip the "impressions" one gets on their citta one by one. To say that intense desire fueled by more intense suffering and hatred can provide a sort of immortality (or strict binding to the world) seems to not work. Add the idea of forgiveness to this mix. Forgiveness alleviates and undoes the strife and pseudo-immortality (respectively), but then paves the way for the other immortality we've discussed. Attachment goes in the opposite direction of forgiveness.

Now that we can see each and cross between them, maybe we can make our choices. As for me, I think immortality is overrated. Without human experiences, I don't believe we can prepare for further experiences. For us to have our reality shattered, we need a reality, par exemple. But, I wait to be corrected. Divinity isn't hiding.

A Technological Monk (from the Technological Monk)

I thought I'd take the time to transcrieb the following post from the self-titled blog that it is attached to:

A Technological Monk

In it, I discuss a bit of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, how our attention is often divided, the need for developing singular focus, meditation, and how we can incorporate those point in our modern, technology-filled lives. I think you'd enjoy it, and it belongs just as much here as over there. Enjoy!

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Today, I'm going to elaborate on something I've discussed before: why it's important to take time to slow down.

I am a technological monk, a modern monk. I meditate, though not nearly as frequently as I want (or need) to. Truth be told, we have to make time for the things we enjoy, and one of these days I'll get around to working it into a routine or schedule. Until then, however, I make do by slowing down. I adapt the older techniques to a more modern way of life.

The fundamentals of Eastern meditation can be found from the Upanishads down to Patanjali (Deva: पतञ्जलि, pata~njali), who compiled the yoga sutras. Actually, the first line of the yoga sutras is as follows:

अथ योगानुशासनम् ||१||
atha yogaanushaasanam ..1..
Here (अथ) is the continuation (denoted by prefix अनु-) of the teachings (शासनम्) of yoga. This indirectly (though not merely implicitly) shows that the study of yoga had been going on for some time before Patanjali's formal compilation of sutras. While I'm on the subject, here are the next few lines:

योगश्चित्तवृत्ति निरोधः ||२||
तदा द्रष्टुः स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम् ||३||
वृत्तिसारूप्यमितरत्र ||४||

yogashcittavRtti nirodhaH ..2..
tadaa draSTuH svaruupe.vasthaanam ..3..
vRttisaaruupyam itaratra ..4..

"Yoga is the cessation (nirodhaH) of the turnings (vRtti) of the mind (citta).
Then (tadaa), the seer (draSTuH) resides (avasthaanam) in its own true form (svaruupe).
In other cases (elsewise, etc. ; itaratra), the true self (saaruupyam) [identifies with, "is"] the turnings (vRtti)."

What this essentially means is that:

1. The process of "yoga" is when the mind (in actuality, citta is the amalgamation of three components of sense-related consciousness) stops turning or revolving. It stops creating movement.
2. This is a very bold statement. Most people have never experienced this in a waking state, and so the third sutra serves to allay any fears of death.
3. The "seer" (a metaphor for the true inner consciousness) resides in the knowledge of itself.
4. In other cases, this inner consciousness identifies with movements in the mind. This identification is fallacious.

The idea here is that we have consciousness. It cannot be turned off while we are alive. This consciousness is usually focused "outwards," through the mind and its movements, through sensory perception, and out to the world. However, through careful and sustained practice, prayer, and/or raw discipline, one can turn off perception to these "outward" things, including to one's thoughts. Since consciousness cannot be turned off, it insteads reflects back on itself, and this "self-awareness" is the basis for yoga. Mystics find their liberation from the world through this, and despite being a horrid cliché that I hate, I will buckle and say that a Westerner can think of this as "enlightenment."

(Breakdown here is courtesy of my amazing former professor, Dr. Edwin Bryant, and his amazing Yoga Sutras topical study of religion. My explanation and interpretation exists because of what I learned in his classes.)

Relax, I'm getting to the point.

Nowadays, we're brought up to multitask. Multitasking is great, and useful, and is a great skill. But, overdeveloping that ability backfires. We learn to focus first, before we learn to split our attention amongst other things. When we learn to multitask, most of us continue to develop that without fully developing the ability to truly focus on one or two things. We don't have balanced attention.

Meditation works entirely on focus, especially with only one object. I'm not saying that multitasking has absolutely no place in meditation, but unless you're advanced, have another motive, or are a special case, it primarily hinders progress. That's why I don't buy the excuse that absolutely EVERYONE gives: "I just can't focus." Guess what? NO ONE can! It's nothing that doesn't affect everyone else. "Stopping" thought is not easy. You have to work at it, over a long period of time, and with discipline. Really, that statement is pretty much just a poor excuse; either they don't really care about it or don't realize that they have to invest a significant amount of time. Instant gratification really doesn't apply, especially for things considered "ascetic" arts.

At any rate, the fact of the matter is that we're stuck with a better multitasking ability and we're left wanting in terms of singular focus. My good friend Adam pointed out to me recently that an average pack/day smoker gets to have anywhere from forty to an hour and forty minutes of time that could be considered mild meditation. Adam, being ever the resourceful one, takes whatever opportunity he can to do what he refers to as "bullshit meditations." What a great idea! I, myself, do a lot of these b.s. meditations in my daily routines.

As I've said before, taking time to slow down can really have magical effects for some people. Taking time to focus on doing something in the not-so-efficient or not-so-resourceful way can serve a great deal of purposes, including building character-defining traits, forming idiosyncracies that can enrich your life (for yourself), and de-stressing! These habits give you a chance to concentrate your focus on one or two things, which lets you regroup. Many people think that by constantly checking on problems or worrying (essentially bringing things to the forefront of your mind from time to time) "in the background" that they're doing something good. Actually, it's a lot like flicking Alt+Tab; you're flipping through open programs, but just because you're not seeing some of the programs for more than five seconds at a time doesn't mean that they're magically "in the background." You have to let them sit, until they're tossed into the swap partition. This frees up your RAM to do something else, and when you do finally switch back to your other thoughts, they really are "refreshed." From personal experience, I can tell you this is really conducive to the Eureka Effect.

Understandably, modern life differs from ancient life. We can't all just up and leave our jobs and become ascetics or monks; devoting our lives to a method to free ourselves from life doesn't seem to fit the contemporary mood. On the whole, we don't care, and most of us haven't even thought about our own mortality in a truly life-altering way (aside from the fifteen minutes after somebody close to us passes away). However, why should that stop us from utilizing meditation as a quick tool to boost the quality of our lives? It can boost productivity, balance our moods, give us some greater perspective beyond the immediate here & now of our individual lives, and perhaps give us some spiritual insight in the process.

And why shouldn't we recruit the use of technology for this? As a personal example of how I sharpen my focus, I recently started learning the Linux command-line. I've been learning some scripting so that I could do some batch video conversions for my iPod. While in the future I can convert video really easily and without much thought, I spent two to three hours last night trying to get the script to work just right. That was good, solid focus. No multitasking; I wasn't checking torrents, downloading guides, writing this blog post. I was taking things one step at a time and trying to get exactly one thing working. This is just one example of how I take time to work on laser- or flashlight-like focus, instead of a lantern or lightbulb-like focus (a modern take on a very old metaphor). Slowly but surely I am learning some discipline. Actually, I've read numerous articles on the web that highlight research in education techniques. Doing things for shorter periods of time with a more intense focus and doing them daily is generally much more effective than "brute-forcing" something into your head irregularly and for prolonged periods of time. From my varied sources, this is true of meditation. The misconception is that when you sit down to meditate, you sit down for hours at a time until you get it. Beginners hear this and it really turns them away for the idea after trying it. Actually, it is much more effective to try and meditate for maybe a half hour a day for a few weeks, and as it gets more comfortable/familiar/easier, to increase that time. Very similar to many doctors' recommendations for exercise...

This is another junction where we can identify some of our issues by taking a look at our technological practices, and how some of our technological solutions can trickle back into other aspects of our everyday lives. As if I haven't said it enough already, there's no reason we can't still find ancient wisdom in our cutting-edge laptop or bleeding-edge software release. Similar ideas are at play now that were in effect thousands of years ago. And, at least for some things, that's not such a bad idea.

Aliens and ancients, opinions and opinions.

Let me preface this post by saying that it's full of personal ideas and beliefs, many of which are not exactly mainstream. It's also full of ideas that I think are crazy and don't agree with. Let's hope, at the very least, it's an entertaining, if not wholly interesting read.

After reading a lot about the subject of aliens over the years, and laughing at a lot of the most ridiculous crap ever, and just recently seeing a special on the History Channel about aliens in ancient religions, I have come to a point where I can't remain passively silent anymore. I choose to be passively vocal.

First thing's first. I do believe in "aliens," though I am in no way convinced of alien sightings, contact, and technology. It's fairly simple logic, which while being straightforward, may lead to me being ultimately wrong. If the universe is infinite, conceivably and practically, and has a really large number of galaxies, filled with stars and other matter, then I think it's safe to say there's probably a really large number of planets out there. The more planets there are, the more likely there is to one that is like ours, and can support life. Given the vastness of the universe, there's probably some sort of life out there somewhere.

Also, assuming we don't know everything there is to know in the universe (which is a really safe assumption to me), then there's a chance that there is a way for life to exist outside of our limited experience with it. That is to say, non-carbon-based life may be possible somewhere and under some conditions. After all, most of what we put forth (in invention, concept, and theory) is based on what we know or have experience with. It's extremely difficult, and some may argue impossible, to put forth an idea that has no basis in something we don't already know. When children draw weird animals, rarely do you see animals that are completely unlike what we actually have. Upon explanation, you'll see parts of animals that the child is familiar with put together. Just an example. So let's say it's a possibility, however remote it may be.

So we have aliens. But do we really have "proof" from antiquity? We barely have "proof" now, when sightings are photographed and recorded in video. To say with any sort of certainty that the vimanas (Deva: विमान) that are described as "flying vehicles" are in actuality flying machines not unlike modern aircraft is completely absurd. Yes, there's a lot of stuff in religious texts (especially Hinduism) that may seem really crazy. Actually, there's a lot of stuff in there that IS crazy, depending on who you talk to. But really, that doesn't mean that it's necessary.

Ancient ideas aren't always so remote and fanciful. The same fascination that the ancients had with flight motivated the Wright brothers to create, motivated many of the science fiction and fantasy writers from all eras, and motivated many others to dream. It's much less far-fetched to think that perhaps people from antiquity really just used metaphors or believed in less complicated things, and there was some really huge game of telephone that reached beyond their time. And I'm not necessarily saying that those from years gone by elaborated and exaggerated their own stories. Instead of always arguing how accurate things are due to their source, sometimes it's more prudent to argue how accurate things are due to their transcription. When you think about this through the ages, it adds up. To what degree are WE perverting what came before us?

To me, I don't think you can really call everything cut and dry without being there. A lot of historical inference is based on context, without which you cannot assert that something actually happened. Then again, I don't have a degree in History, or Archaeology, Anthropology, or whatever else. I suppose that while some people will say, "Show me the proof!" when it comes to debatable ideas and theories, I'm the type who'll take it as true in its context. I don't mean that I'll take it for granted; I always want to see the support. I mean that I won't take it as absolute if at all possible. Occam's razor is useful, but from what I've experienced in real life, the whole truth is nowhere near as simple as the first conjecture made.

Anyway, the show mentioned one thing in particular that I thought was note-worthy. "And, each time [the aliens] leave, they make a promise: to return in the distant future" (quoted as accurately as I can remember from a few hours ago). That statement really struck me with the stupid stick. Suppose that aliens did exist, and visited us. Suppose that when they visited us, they visited various different groups/cultures/societies of humans. In all likelihood, they ended up visiting different groups on each subsequent visit, each time promising that they'd return in the future. In that case, they wouldn't be very smart. If each group of people wasn't busy trying to take over the others already, then it surely would try to after "the Gods" visited earth. They'd be just plain dumb to continue to come back, regardless of how much more advanced they were. And, perhaps they were more advanced, but does that prove that they were smarter? Maybe their planet just allowed them to exist earlier than ours did.

To some degree, I think it's better to believe in the "ancient alien contact" theory than in our own religions. Inevitably, some idiot thinks it's a good idea to go literal. Also inevitably, some idiot thinks it's a good idea to go in a completely different direction. It's not so much that their actions make them idiots (also in some cases it's true), but more that they end up with idiot followers who need power, can't think for themselves, and/or are just bigots to some degree. If God exists, and aliens contacted us, who would you rather blame for the horrible paths that some of us have taken?


I don't often speculate on things, especially things that can't be proven in any degree. I also don't get so misanthropic and deterministic. But, I thought that some post is better than none. I also thought that any argument one tries to make about aliens visiting, the same can be said of a time traveler coming back. O Futurama velut luna statu variabilis (an O Fortuna reference, for those that didn't get it).


I mentioned vimanas, but in addition, you have the devas themselves, their various forms and incarnations, the divine weapons, and the "psychic" phenomena classified as divine and/or magical that can be questioned for being alien/extra-terrestrial(/from the future) in origin. Now, your homework for this lecture is to compare and contrast if you are not Hindu, and if you are, then come up with one MORE thing that hasn't been covered that can be construed as such.

In the Name of God

I've only recently picked up on this, and that surprised me.

I'm sure most people are aware that one of Christian commandments is to not take God's name in vain, wrongfully use it, etc. In addition to swearing, it's apparently also not proper to exclaim things like, "Oh my God!" Evidently, people take a lot of offense to that, as it "breaks a Commandment."

I'm surprised at how out of place that is!

Hearing my parents and grandparents exclaim "he prabhuu," and "raam, taarii maayaa," (yes, I'm Gujarati) here and there just jogged me one day. Isn't it a good idea to have God's name on our mouths?

I can't say I know too much about Judaism here, but in Islam, you have a myriad of greetings and pleasantries that name God. "Khoda Hafiz," "Al Hamdulillah," "Insha' Allah," "Masha Allah," take your pick. In English, we say "God bless you," "God forgive," and "God given," just to name a few. Let's even throw in the pan Judeo-Christian "Hallelujah," and the equivalent (in terms of use anyway) "Allahu akbar."

And, for those of you who go on about terrorism the second you hear the word "Allah," shame on you!! "Al-lah" literally means "The God." It's really more of a title when you think about it. "Lah" is a word that applies to all deities, even those of polytheists. Tying "Allah" to terrorists makes about as much sense as tying "the Lord" to terrorists. Which says a lot, actually, when you stop to think about global religous fundamentalism. And, this is me covering my ass and saying "I am not a terrorist, not have I ever been one, nor do I plan on ever being one." Even 7 years later, I'm covering my ass. That's what things have come to nowadays.

But to see someone get so indignant at my use of the word "God" really caught me off-guard, especially since it wasn't used generously as is the status quo. Immediately I was reminded of a Hindu parable.

The 'Pandavas' (Deva: पाण्डव's) eventually die and enter Heaven. Who else would they happen to come across except 'Duryodhana' (Deva: दुर्योधन), their nemesis. Arjuna sees him and can't understand why he would be there with them! As he goes to confront Duryodhana, 'Krishna' (Deva: कृष्ण, kRSNa) appears and explains in kind. "Just as you are here because of your devotion, so is he here because of his. You have spent your life reciting my name in praises, and he has spent his reciting it in curses. But, just as your attention has never left me, neither has his."

Actually, there's another reference related to the Ramayana (Deva: रामायण, raamaayaNa). In the Bhagavata Purana (Deva: भागवत पुराण, bhaagavata puraaNa), the two gatekeepers of Vishnu's abode, Jaya and Vijaya (Deva: जय and विजय) get a curse placed upon them whereupon they must undergo human birth, and thus, work their way up into Heaven again. Vishnu offers to soften this curse by giving them a choice: they may take seven births as Vishnu's devotees, or three births as His enemies." They choose the latter and appear as:

1. Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu (Deva: हिरण्याक्ष and हिरण्यकशिपु) during Vishnu's Varaha and Narasinha (Deva: वाराह and नरसिंह), or boar and lion-man avataras (Deva: अवतार).
2. Ravana and Kumbhakarna (Deva: रावण and कुम्भकर्ण) during Vishnu's Rama avatara.
3. Shishupala and Dantavakra (Deva: शिशुपाल and दन्तवक्र) during Vishnu's Krishna avatara.

Each time, they appear as some of the most vile enemies of God, only so that they may be expedited in returning to Heaven and being near God.


Personally, I think it's great using God's name. Cursing or praise, when we use "God" we think of God.