Logic of Spirituality - Part 1

The average attention span of a person is about 8-10 seconds. Stat
Keeping that in mind, am writing this blog on a 'deep topic'. Tall order I know..
At Chinmaya mission in Raleigh, watched this video by Swami Chinmayananda and wanted to record what I learned and possibly share it with some of my friends, relatives. Hope you guys are still with me.

Regardless of which country you are from, race, gender, religion, this is one question most of us have wondered about.. "Where did we come from". You may have gotten different answers depending on who you ask. For example,

• Scientist may say : Everything started from the "Big Bang", the Big Bang Theory. The universe was infinitely small and dense and then exploded in a big bang and all the known matter in the universe came from it. BigBangWiki
• Abrahamic religions explain it in different ways, which I don't intend to broach in this blog.
• This blog is about answering this question from Vedanta's(Ancient hindu religion's philosophy based on Vedas) perspective  

The ancient vedic were trying to understand the relationship between "Cause" and "Effect" which they used to call it "Karya Karana Sambandh". The Rig Veda basically declared - They can't directly investigate cause of the Universe. But can indirectly make observation about Cause and Effect. They came up with 3 laws.

1. An "Effect" can never be without a "Cause"
2. "Effect(s)" are nothing but "Cause" itself in different forms
3. From the "Effect" if "Cause" is removed, then we are left with "Nothing"

Let us apply the above laws to the observable universe. Apply Law (1) to Universe - So there has to be a "Cause" for what we see in the Universe. Apply Law(2) to Universe. Effects are Nothing but Cause in different forms. This is the famous 'Advaita' philosophy (We are mirror images of God and God is within every living thing). Lets apply Law (3), What is common (pervades) all living things? "Life". If Life is removed, than nothing exists. God exists as Life in all living things.

This concludes my attempt at summary of first part of the "Logic of Spirituality" video. Listening to Lectures/video or articles is called 'Shravanam'. Sharing Thoughts and discussion is called "Mananam".

Finally, during the discussion period, couple of interesting points came up..

1. Embracing this Vedanta philosophy where all of us have God in us, and we all have same Source, it should decimate bigotry hatred among us and also we can learn to treat animals kindly. It is quoted as "Vasudeva Kutumbakam"
2. Another gentleman mentioned that in Quantum physics there is a term "Observer effect" - where you cannot observe a subject without taking into account involvement of Observer. I think what he was saying is - We can't understand Effect without the Cause (God?) within us, the Observer? Or maybe I got it totally wrong..

Inspirational People

There have been lot said about well known historical inspirational people like M.K Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Lincoln, Dalai Lama etc.. This blog is not about them, but the average joe or Jane who have inspired us.. It may not be earth shattering, jaw dropping things they do, but small little things with no expectation of people noticing them. One such person is a lady who walks every day to work in the city where i live, ottawa ..

She is probably in her late 30s or early 40s.. I see her almost every day when i drive into work, walking the other way. Ottawa can get very cold and nasty in winter some years.. Does not bother her.. she walks through the snow and biting cold. She does not listen to music (no headphones)..and in her hand everyday is a plastic bag.. She collects stuff which is littered and is not recyclable, like plastic bottles, coke cans etc.. She does this everyday at least for the past 3 years (since i started taking this route to work) and possibly longer.. At first i thought she is crazy to be walking in -20C . but then i started admiring her.. often wondering what is driving her to walk and also clean up stuff on the way..

She definitely inspired me to start biking to work , not everyday, but alternate days.. and only in summer.. We need more people like her to inspire others and to save this beautiful blue planet.. If we kept our eyes open, i am sure we will find many more average joe/jane who do small things but very inspiring.

fav. conspiracies

I wonder how many of you out there follow conspiracy theories.. I seem to be attracted to few of them :-) and i don't want to be considered a nut-case, but some of them are very convincing.. i have listed some of them below.

1. JFK assasination - I think LBJ was responsible - in a major way
he was Vice president and had lot of power in pulling off the following
a) look at youtube's video on the bodygaurds's of JFK being asked to not run by side of the car, just before the limo takes a turn and the fatal shooting happens. the video clearly shows the frustration of the bodygaurd. who has the power over Secret service? not Lee harvey for sure
b) While taking oath on Air Force one, LBJ winks at another person.. is this the behavior of a vice-president? - we can brush this off as greed
c) the guy who shot Lee harvey oswald, died mysteriously in prison.. in one video, he does mumble something about the guy in power being responsible..
d) LBJ's mistress says she was told by LBJ about tomorrow being end of irish mafia or something..

2. 9/11 - tons of videos out there about this being inside job..
The way the building fell.. esp building 7.. looks quite clear its a demolition.. if bldg 7 can be demolished, why not WTC 1/2

3. Taj Mahal being a palace and not really built by shahjahan.. --> this one is quite interesting..
the few things sticking out are - if this is a burial place, why have so many rooms? no mughal records of massive 22 year building undertaking.. many rooms are still sealed today and no one allowed to enter.. while i want to know the truth, i fear if it turns out to be a hindu palace, then there will be riots and loss of life.. but if there is some truth, then indians (including muslims) need to know the truth..

being Daddy

Recently became proud dad of baby girl. Remember the day i got the news.. i happened to be in different continent (thousands of miles away) from where my wife delivered our child. i was expecting some great emotion to overcome me..but frankly i was just numb.. definitely happy, teared up a bit, but this sort of weird feeling that i have become a dad. what does that mean? nothing seemed to have changed. yet.. i still was alone.. had to get my lazy butt to work.. but 2 days later i got to see her on webcam.. was very exciting..then later when i saw her pictures i was genuinely happy.. i come home from work and check out her photos in slide show.. cheered me a lot.. still didnt quite feel like iam a dad.. then 2 weeks later was in india on vacation to see my wife and child..

some of my friends warned me that my life would never be same.. first day with my family, no change.. she slept well.. second night, she was like 'ok dad- time to do some real work.. she was restless.. didnt sleep for more than 10 minutes. was up literally all night.. patting her, walking up and down.. man that was something..and then it hit me.. i had new immense respect for my wife and all mothers.. she had patiently dealt with it for many days.. didnt sleep for more than 2 hours (that too in patches).. she never complained.. thats mother/child bond i guess.. i aint going to lie.. after that night of no sleep i was freaking out inside as to how the heck will i deal with this every night..luckily she was ok the next night..ofcourse ok still means feed her/change her diapers every 2 hours..

fair n lovely

lived for 26 years in india, and never saw an issue with an off the counter beauty cream named 'fair and lovely'. iam amazed that it never occured to me that it had a biased tone 'biased against ppl who aint fair skinned'. do you have to be 'fair' or light skinned only to be lovely? dont think so.
but in india, so many ppl are prejudiced against dark skinned fellow indians.. cant even call it racism, cuz we all are of the same race 'indians'.

so why is it that many indians (esp males) prefer 'fair or light' skinned indian women?
is it because the color of skin distinguishes between 'high society' as opposed to common folks?
the richer women who stay away from sun have lighter skin and the middle class/poor indian girl who may be more exposed to sun and hence darker. is this preference to light skin due to british influence? british ruled india for many years and we subconciously see ligther skinned people as more authoratative? i dont buy this as much.
if you ask an indian guy this question (below), more often than not, he will choose answer a)
If there are identical twins (girls). both same height, weight, education etc etc.. only difference is one is light skinned and the other is dark. will you prefer a) lighter skinned b)dark skinned?

can we categorize guys who choose a) as 'prejudiced jerks'? or could the reason be more fundamental? we all know that 'white' color reflects more sunlight, as opposed to black. could it be that lighter skinned ppl are more visible and hence catch the attention of ppl quicker?

i am not suggesting that a light skinned person who is not as attractive as a dark person will be preferred always. All iam saying is: given all things equal, lighter skinned ppl are more visible
and perhaps considered more attractive

final note: hindi movies have to start changing their lyrics.. they have songs with 'hey gori' and equate gori with cute.. its not good.. hopefully they will start changing it.. but then again, its hindi movies.. u cant expect much.

i swallowed a benadryl tablet.. making me drowsy....zzzzzzz.... later..

ibcd

you desis would have heard about abcd 'american born confused desis'.. i think there is also 'ibcd' indian born confused desi.. i am an ibcd. i'll tell u why. born and raised in Tamilnadu, speak v. good tamil and not so much malayalam, though my mother tongue is mal. i could never fit in with hard core mallus.. never understood their filmi jokes (atleast not first attempt), never understood their gaana songs (thanana thandhana. thanana. etc good stuff i hear, too bad i dont get it).
the only mallus i could converse easily were half ass mallus like me.. and pallakkad mallus spoke slow mal.

only time i feel iam mallu, is with cooked food. i love those shredded cocunut in almost everything..

iam sure there are many ibcds out there. things get worse if u are southie and raised in north india or vice versa.. big diff in culture. i will open another thread on culture diff some day..

if you are an ibcd, send me an email about ur experiences. there were times some hard core mallus almost gave me the finger for not knowing to speak fluent malayalam. its silly. i mean mother tongue doesnt stand a chance when u lived for 25+ years in a state where everyone speaks diff language.

this is my first thread in a blog..my mind is racing with 10 million topics to write.. iam like slow down fella...i wanna compose my thoughts, organize it and make it enjoyable.. but then again iam a biiiiig procrastinator. .hope this aint my first and last post.