Zen and the art of automobile driving

Do I even think of 'the how' of driving while driving? Steering left or right; Stepping-up on the gas; Easing down by caressing the brakes; Shifting gears to a vibration shift; pumping up the stereo volume; switching the aircon on and off. My car is like on autopilot really. And me too.

What looms infront through the windshield is the vision of my future. It looks different the closer I come.

What I view in the rearview and side mirrors and the glimpses of my past. They appear closer than they are.

The route is a beaten path. I cannot think of anyway else.

The present is within the car capsule, and all I'm thinking is the video collage for the music flowing out of the 6 surrond-speakers.

Corporate Bull

Rewind 12 years

 

I am an excited developer and am presenting my prototype to a manager at a company. A relatively new employee (and soon-to-be my lead), intent on impressing me and the manager, barges into our private dialogue.

 

Here is an excerpt of the proceedings. Names changed for privacy reasons

 

...

Me	So Sirji what I am saying is that we have made an exit in the code so that the user can customize it according to their requirements (What I really wanted to say was that there is nothing in the code, it is left for the customer to write what they want)
Manager	No, No, No, I'm not clear. Can you restart from beginning?
Me	<<It's already an hour of waste>>
Intruder	Sir-ji, what Sujith is saying is that we can leverage the customizing technology in the core system so that the customer can tailor it as per their business exigencies
Me	<< WHAT?!!! And this fellow understood that line in a second?!! >> (And almost spraying out the hot coffee from my mouth)
Manager	Aah! OK
Me	Okay?!
Manager	But what I really wanted you to do was to conceptualize a sort of 'Flexi-Developer' system
Me	And what should that do Sir-ji?
Manager	You see Sujith, The challenge we have is that our company continues to engage in multiple custom developments within implementations these days. And so my tool should enable our customers to quickly build new modules, reports and screens
Me	<<Duh! Isn't that what SAP ABAP Workbench is supposed to achieve?!>>
Me	But Sir-ji that is not possible! How can one program that?! (Looking at the two pitifully)
Intruder	No problem, I understand and will help you Sujith. We will create one higher level of Table control which we can categorically split into its reflective views.

 

...

 

Like it says in the Dilbert strips, all you need for a corporate conservation is a shuffle between the Most-Frequently-Used words. Note all the highlighted words above, it helps even today.

 

Sujith has matured a lot since but to this date cannot comprehend the connection between any of the words in that last line.

The Science of Transformation

Sorry, this post is back in my head for re-composition

Karmic Credits

This post is not mine. I liked the analogy so much that for once thought I will just do a paste on my blog. All credits to the original author of this write-up. Man, you did then what the film Matrix did to the many of us!

"Hinduism is so complex. I do not understand it most of the time", said Eesha, a young girl to Uncle Ashok. Ashok had come over half an hour ago and Eesha was so engrossed in her video game then that she mechanically said "Hi" to Ashok, and continued with her game.

Ashok watched Eesha play Super Mario Brothers. He watched her move Mario to the right, hit and get hidden mushrooms and get bigger, or get a fire flower or a cape, collect coins, punch his way thru obstacles, climb ladders and occasionally get chomped by turtles. After the end of a life Mario would start his next life, from where he left off. Now that Eesha had finished one level she noticed that uncle Ashok, whom she met every week when her parents took her to the temple, was still there.

"Eesha, you are really good at this video game!” said Ashok. She nodded and added "Yep! And I can even beat my brother at it".
"You know you can learn many ideas of Hinduism from the video games", said Ashok.
"How Uncle Ashok?" Eesha asked.

Let us say if you got a video game and it gave you only one chance to beat it, will that be fair?” Ashok asked.
"No, that is why they give you multiple lives. Actually, with a new game it is very difficult to advance much further. It takes practice. When we had just bought this game, I used to 'die' in just ten seconds, every time", said Eesha.
"Hinduism is similar too. Most people do not lead a perfect life. So according to Hinduism, you get many chances to improve yourself. You get many lives. This is called reincarnation". He continued," and just as in a video game, if one life ends, you start over in the next life where you left off".

"Now what will happen if you do not go towards the right in your video game?" asked uncle Ashok.
"You will not move to the next level. You will not make any progress and time will run out", Eesha said
"Exactly! If you do not move in the 'right' direction, you will not make progress. Thus YOU determine the right direction and how far the progress you can make. 'What you do, determines the result' this is called the law of Karma. Your actions bear fruit accordingly. Now what happens in a video game if you keep making same mistakes?” Ashok asked.
"You go back to the start of that level" Eesha replied.
"Law of Karma similarly tells you that if you keep making same mistakes over and over again, you will move backwards. Now in a video game you get rewards and receive setbacks. In this video game a mushroom will make you grow bigger or an attack of a turtle will make you smaller, in real life too you may become rich or poor, but that depends where you start at and what actions you take. Yet getting big or small in itself does not mean progress. Does it?", asked Uncle Ashok.
"You are right, being big or small does not necessarily mean you will move forward in the game or even to the next level", Eesha replied.

"Now tell me what happens when you go to the next level?" Ashok asked.
"It gets tougher at the next level" Eesha said.
"Same is true in spiritual practice as per Hinduism", Ashok added. "Now tell me what happens if you get stuck at a level, what do you do ? and why ?", he asked.
"I ask my cousin Ojas. He knows what I should do. He knows where to the keys are hidden, where secret passages are. He has beaten the game already, Some times he even takes the controller to help me", Eesha said.
"In Hinduism, similarly a Guru helps you move to next level. A Guru or a master has already 'beaten the game'. She or He knows where the key is hidden that will unlock the door. She or He knows what where the secret passages are. She or He can even show you a 'warp' zone, to go to the next level. But unlike a video game, in real life a Guru cannot play for you. You have to play it yourself", said Ashok.
"You keep referring to Guru as She or He, why?” Eesha asked.
"Good question! Hinduism considers man and woman as having equal potential to become a master, a Guru. Just as you are better than your brother at video games, a woman can reach the highest state also. In fact there were many women who contributed to the Vedas, the Hindu holy books. There were many women Hindu saints in the past, and there are many women saints even now" said uncle Ashok. He continued, " alsothere are many ways you can go to next level, so some Guru will show a easier way and some a harder way, all depending on your capability.
Buddhists have Buddha as a Guru; Jains have twenty four Tirthankars as Gurus while Sikhs have ten Gurus whose guidance they follow".

"Now tell me what happens when you beat the last level?” Ashok asked.
"I have not beaten the game yet, but my cousin Ojas says that you see fireworks, music plays for long time, and then you see the name of the programmer", Eesha said.
"Interestingly, that is what Hinduism says also, when you go beyond the last hurdle you hear the music and you see THE PROGRAMMER - that is God and then you do not need to play the game again, except to help others" Ashok said.

"Let me ask you one more question. You get so absorbed playing a video game that you feel that you are being Mario or Luigi on the screen. But are you really Mario or Luigi? Who are you?” He asked
"I am Eesha, of course. But while playing the game I forget that I am Eesha and am only concerned about Mario or Luigi on the screen", she replied.
"Exactly, Hinduism believes that we go thru different lives believing we are the body or the name in that life. But we are neither that body nor its name. We are the Atman or soul which plays as a character of Mario or Luigi (or whatever). That is something we must never forget. We are not this body, but we are the Soul, or Atman". Ashok continued.

"Eesha have you noticed, that from video games you just learnt Hindu concepts of reincarnation, Karma, Guru and Atman." He asked, "Was that complex? “
"Not complex at all!" Eesha smiled, Her face was glowing by the realization of Hindu concepts, a knowledge she already had in the form of video games.

Free Radicals

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the Catholic Church. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the radical Martin Luther.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the British Empire. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the half-naked radical Gandhi.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was Feudalism. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came a radical concept called Socialism.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its employee or wannabe. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the corporate IBM. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the radicals Steve Jobbs and Bill Gates.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man people became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the United States of America. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the radicals called terrorists.


OK, you get the pattern.

All the above dragons are today diseased and weak.
All the above radicals were influenced, if not the product, by the respective dragons.

And?
What happened to the radicals? They just mutated into different sorts of … dragons!

Martin Luther’s bold act inspired and gave birth to a whole generation of radical Protestants. Born out of revolt; awakened out of suppression; blinded by their concepts; these ‘believers’ collectively form the Hydra, the dragon of the new age. It cannot be reasoned with. Cut of one of its head and ten others form in its place.

Mahatma Gandhi’s bold act inspired and gave birth to a whole country of radical satyagrahis. Born out of revolt; blinded by their concepts; the awakened cattle class knew and practiced only civil disobedience. To the point, that the whole country spawned a generation of non-performers with zero civic sense. The general Indian carelessness is today its own terror, its own dragon to fear.

Socialism inspired and gave birth to a whole generation radical communists. Born out of revolt; awakened out of suppression; blinded by their concepts; this workers union polarized the world into two, brought promising countries to a grinding halt, sucked the excitement out of their citizen’s life. Though weakened now, they were once collectively the Hydra, the dragon of the new age. It cannot be reasoned with. Cut of one of its head and ten others form in its place.

Bill Gates and his contemporaries inspired and gave birth to a valley! Born out of ingenuity and entrepreneurship these fresh and exciting companies have today grown big, fat and as corporate as the original adversary dragon. Corporate career has today become nothing but a joke. Look around you and you can map a Dilbert strip somewhere.

USA’s acts inspired and gave birth to a whole generation of radicals called LTTE, PLO, IRA, Taliban and ISI. Born out of revolt; awakened out of suppression; blinded by their concepts; these ‘freedom fighters’ collectively form the Hydra, another of the dragons of the new age. It cannot be reasoned with. Cut of one of its head and ten others form in its place.


And? And the cycle will continue. It would be interesting to learn how the Hydra can be stopped.

Component Object Model

In the animation movie Horton Hears a Who! there is a world of living beings on a dust speck, which Horton carries on a clover and which he tries to frantically protect after having known that such a world exists.

The universe seems like an lot of space if we are alone. While we keep discussing on the possibility of similar beings like us (that means intelligent) elsewhere in the universe, we neglect the probability that the universe as a whole could be one organism. ... Maybe even a component or cell of another! If could be true, many more such universes could be part of a more complex organism.

Changing from the telescope to the microscope and diving deeper into our own basic units, doesn't the picture of inner space have similar patterns as with the outer space? Electrons around the nucleus; atoms together forming galaxy like cluster; and it is an awful lot of space in there too, proportionately the nuclei is like a peanut in middle of a football stadium of electrons. There could probably be many earths in the many layers of worlds as we go deeper.

If this sort of imagination gives one the creeps it is because of our self-made importance. It is only arrogance that makes us shun this line of thought. We believe that we are the most significant ones, the chosen tribe, the caste that knows God by default, Lord of the Earth. We should be at the centre of the universe. In the Middle Ages, Galileo was forced to recant and do penance for downgrading the importance of earth by taking it out of the center of the system!

Macrocosmically or microcosmically it is scary but intriguing to think that there may not be any end. There may be world within worlds within worlds within ... you get the picture. The word ‘salvation’ as per Eastern philosophies may mean nothing but allowing oneself to exit living on this earth and having the pass to enter the next ‘higher’ world.

The idea can also make one feel so insignificant, empty and meaningless.

A story from the Puranas (Courtesy www.mahashivratri.org):
"
Shiva once intervened to settle a dispute between two of the triads of Hindu Gods: Brahma and Vishnu. He assumed the form of a flaming linga and asked them both to measure this gigantic phallic symbol of Shiva.

Brahma took the form of a swan and went upwards while Vishnu took the form of a boar and went into the earth towards nether land. Both searched for eternity (as per our timings) but neither could find the ends of the linga.

While on his journey upward, Brahma came across a Ketaki flower which was supposed to reside on Lord Shiva's head. Brahma exhausted with his search to find the uppermost limit of fiery column, he made Ketaki assent to lie that he had seen the top of the column. Brahma then asserted that he had indeed discovered the origin of the cosmic linga.

Shiva appeared and then explained to Brahma and Vishnu that He is both the alpha & the omega and that both of them were born out of him and that the three were then separated out into three different aspects of divinity.

But Shiva was angry with Brahma for making a false claim. Shiva cursed Brahma that no one would ever pray to him. (This legend explains why there is hardly any Brahma temple of significance in India.) Shiva also punished the Ketaki flower for testifying falsely and banned the flower from being used as an offering for any pooja (worship).
"

Maha-maya

A portion of 'The Matrix’ movie script:
"
…
Neo: Right now we're inside a computer program?
Morpheus: Is it really so hard to believe? Your clothes are different. The plugs in your arms and head are gone. Your hair is changed. Your appearance now is what we call residual self image. It is the mental projection of your digital self.
Neo: This...this isn't real?
Morpheus: What is real? How do you define real? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. This is the world that you know. The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century. It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix. You've been living in a dream world, Neo
…
"

Coming to think of it, what is reality? Is what we see real? What if our eyes are deceiving us? What if the color of this wall is not white but something else that our human eyes cannot register? Does Bats see it better because they do not see light but see sound! Bonzu the dog's vision is blurred where it is two dimensional. He cannot see photographs or watch television, but sometimes barks at nothingness....ghosts?
So who can see really? Us or them? I read once that cats see in black & white, so is that the real reality of the world? Are our eyes distracting our real vision of reality with 'unreal' color?
Elephants can hear sounds that are on one extreme end of the sound spectrum; Bloodhounds and bears can sniff out their objectives many tens of miles away. We cannot. So are we incomplete in our concept of reality?


Now read this para about solidity by Deepak Chopra:
"
...
At a deeper level, there is really no boundary between ourselves and everything else in the world. When you touch an object, it feels solid, as though there was a distinct boundary between it and you. Physicists would say that we experience that boundary as solid because everything is made up of atoms, and the solidity is the sense of atoms bumping against atoms. But consider what an atom is. An atom has a little nucleus with a large cloud of electrons around it. There is no rigid outer shell, just an electron cloud. To visualize this, imagine a peanut in the middle of a football stadium. The peanut represents the nucleus, and the stadium represents the size of the electron cloud around the nucleus. When we touch an object, we perceive solidity when the clouds of electrons meet. That is our interpretation of solidity, given the sensitivity (or relative insensitivity) of our senses.
...
"
So we perceive solidity wherever we 'feel' a force-field AND when we 'see' there is something to touch?

Sense organs scan the surroundings and send the information, within their limit ranges, to the brain which then create the experience of the world around. How are we to know that this experience is the right one? Are our instruments of reality sensors ineffective or inadequate? Was this a deliberation or isn’t there anything called reality?

Are we dreaming?! Are we living in a (virtual) reality that is only a generation by our brains?

Blind men sizing up an elephant?!