Adding fresh paint to the freshman year –

 

 Adding fresh paint to the freshman year –

Some random thoughts on reforming first year engineering curriculum

 

Recently there has been some discussion in my institute on reforms in undergrad curriculum.

I don’t know about the later years, but there are a few things I was thinking that can be inserted in the first-year curriculum.

 

During my days at IIT Madras (in the late 80’s), in the first year, we had something called “workshop”, an elaborate mind-numbing, body-breaking form of drudgery.

For example, we had classes on carpentry where we were taught how to make a cuboid out of a piece of wood! Why cant get out of these dress rehearsals and thrust the young student into the full-blown, magical world of woodworking? They can be taught, for example, how to build treehouses. We can take advantage of the forest around us (*) and build lovely tree houses on our large and accommodating banyans! The kids can easily turn this skill into startups later.

https://nelsontreehouse.com/blog/a-slice-of-pnw-paradise-nelson-treehouse/

 

*IIT Madras campus is built literally inside a forest.

 

Ive read somewhere that German artist Albrecht Durer of high renaissance era had mastered the art of woodcuts, while his contemporaries busied themselves with painting. The advantage of woodcuts is that you can use them to make prints, which Durer exploited and a made a handsome sum for himself! If only some of our inspired undergrads can learn the art of making fine wood carvings, and combine that art with the technology of 3D printing and AI-based design… investors will make a beeline.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albrecht-Durer-German-artist

 

Our workshop had a few other things like welding and filing (phew!). I can think only a few other memories that are more traumatic. But our workshop didn’t have cooking. Wish they had! Let me recount an incident.

Once my wife and I were visiting this snazzy hotel on the outskirts of Chennai. Although the menu was long and fancy, we wanted to order something plain and simple. We asked for some saambaar saadam (sambar rice) and tair saadam (curd rice). What was served to us then were the most delectable bowls of the two dishes, dishes that were otherwise considered the most commonplace and  rather dull in south Indian cuisine. We wanted to meet the chef who could transform such routine dishes into something so adorable. The chef turned out to be young girl in her early 20s. She spoke of her struggles to convince her parents to let her take up this career that is so close to her heart.

That day I realised one thing. Someone who can turn out such incredible dishes doesn’t have just a skill for livelihood. They have a dangerous and enviable power over the minds of men!

 

One can go on and on. The list is rather long. Dancing, acting, film-making, reading and writing fiction, turning trash into artwork, origami, gardening, floral arrangements… just think about someone who knows how to make perfect floral arrangements. A boy who can do it will have girls standing in queue, and a girl who can do it will unleash an untold confusion in the society of boys – because they will be hard pressed to choose between the lotus of her face and the bouquet in her hand!

 

So why cant we add some color to the freshman curriculum?

Talking of color… brings to my mind another anecdote. My wife and I waited for hours in the rain before we could gain entry into Muse’e D’Orsay in Paris. I liked this one better than the more famous Louvre. There are galleries and galleries of paintings… but this particular one really got me. It’s titled “The Woman with a Parasol” by impressionist artist Monet. It portrays a lady in a long white dress holding an umbrella. A pale blue sky was looming over her. She stood there calm and royal,  as  if held in a passionate embrace by the light. And I stood there with my mouth wide open and eyes unblinking. I even forgot that my wife who was around somewhere wouldn’t appreciate such unbridled gaping! How do these people hold you still in your tracks, make you completely oblivious of your surroundings, with a display of a few sloshes of color?

https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.61379.html

 

Life is all about having enriching and fulfilling experiences. Why cant we give to our freshmen not just information, dull and dead, but inspiration that will propel them for life? Why should engineering curricula be all about serious and solemn “problem solving”? How about replacing, just for a brief year, the “problem solving” with a “riot of creativity” or a “flood of inspiration” or “thoughts that can run on a thousand tracks all at once”?

It will give the freshies certainly a career, but more importantly a life filled with magic, beauty and undying delight.

 

Regards

Srini

 

 

 

Garden cities of India (?)

Ebenezer Howard, an urban planner from late 19^th century UK was quite unhappy with the filthy cities and towns of the newly industrializing Britain.  

Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928)

Howard saw a deep dichotomy between the cities and the countryside. Cities offer opportunities for work, but are filthy and unliveable. The countryside is obviously beautiful and nice to live in but offers no jobs.  Ebenezer Howard conceived of a city that combines the merits of the two, which led to the Garden City movement.

He described the above three aspects urban attraction as “three magnets.” The first is the “town magnet” that attracts with its job opportunity. The second is the “country magnet” that attracts with its greenery and opportunity for a comfortable and healthy living. The third is new “town-country magnet” that represents a combination of the other two magnets.

The Three Magnets

The Garden Cities are “ self-contained communities [that] are surrounded by "greenbelts", containing proportionate areas of residences, industry, and agriculture.” (Wiki)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_city_movement

In the original plan laid out by Ebenezer Howard, there is a central city of about 58,000 population spread out over an area of 12,000 acres. Around this there are 6 satellite cities connected to the central city by rail and road. The open space between the central city and the satellites is  a green belt.

The entire network of cities (1 central + 6 satellites) will have a population of 2,50,000 over an area of 66,000 acres.

Once the limit of the population is reached, Howard suggests that is time to build a new city.

66,000 acres = 267.09 sq km.

Therefore, if you do a simple calculation, the above city will have a population density of

Population density = 250,000/267.09 = 936 /sq km

which is more than twice the population density of India.

The current population density of India is 460/sqkm

That is, even we pack the entire population of India in garden cities, we will still be occupying only half the land of the country.

But perhaps such a calculation is too naïve. If the half the area of a country is inhabited where do you have farmlands that produce food? How do you accommodate mountains, rivers and other geographical features where habitation is either impossible or impractical?

Furthermore, there is one recurrent complaint against the garden city approach to urban planning. 

The influence of garden city approach can be seen in the planning of a lot of world cities. It led to the division of the city into a crowded and busy business center (the downtown) and   a suburban area with a lot of greenery. People live in the suburbs in spacious homes and commute to the city center for work every day. This created the infamous “urban sprawl” and an unsustainable model of city building.

But the point that is exactly what Howard was arguing against in his garden city model. To me it looks like the “suburb” approach to city building is not a realization of the spirit of urban planning promoted by Howard. It simply tried to bring the village closer to the city and renamed it the “suburb.”

Howard’s vision of a garden city is more organic, cellular and therefore closer to the Nature. In the biological world, every organism is made of fundamental building blocks called the cells. An individual cell does not grow in size indefinitely. As a cell grows and ages to a point of maturity, it divides into nearly identical cells.

A dividing Cell


 A single cell does not grow into a giant central cell surrounded by a bunch of peripheral cells.

But that’s exactly how a lot of modern cities seem to grow.

See this article about how the city of Chennai is planned and developed:

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/the-tough-business-of-building-a-city/article31071614.ece

“Chennai’s planners have always imagined and conventionally planned the city: a stable city core that is expanding outward. Their plans are based on separating the city as core and periphery, where the core is the all-important epicentre, and the peripheries are thought of as spillover spaces.”

But where exactly is that “all-important epicentre” of Chennai, one wonders.  The downtowns of great world cities are filled with skyscrapers that amplify the land area by efficient use of 3D space, creating an enormous carrying capacity, with modern the infrastructure to support a high population density. Unfortunately, Chennai (26,500 /sqkm) has nearly the same higher population density as Manhattan (25,800 /sqkm), while the infrastructures of the two cities are hardly comparable.

Why are our cities allowed to reach such abominably high population densities without a commensurate growth in the infrastructure? The problem seems to arise from the special brand of urban planning – or the lack thereof – that is practiced in India. (See the extremely well-researched chapter on Urban Planning in India in Ankur Bisen’s recent book “Wasted”).

https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/the-tough-business-of-building-a-city/article31071614.ece

The same  article on Chennai further goes on to say that instead of core-periphery model one must identify the “multi-centers” in the so-called periphery and develop them as independent entities. Apparently Dutch city planners use such a philosophy of urban planning – not “inside-out” but “outside-in” planning.

If you think about it, that’s exactly the spirit of the garden city. Let each city be developed as a self-contained unit with different zones for business, manufacturing, education, residence etc. The zones will be swaddled in a rich greenbelt giving the city the look and feel of the country. Once the city grows to a certain size in population, further development will be prevented, and a new city will burgeon at a certain distance from the original city, always ensuring the existence of a green buffer zone between two adjacent cities.

But one problem is, if we take the garden city approach for Indian cities, we will have to turn half the land into an inhabited area, which may not be acceptable, because as per the original conception garden cities have less than 1000 people per sqkm.  What then is an acceptable population density for a city?  If we take the example of Amsterdam, and London, both well-planned cities, with population densities of about 4,500 /sqkm, much higher than 936/sqkm.

 
Therefore, if can build garden cities with densities of about 4,500/sqkm, which is 10 times the current population density of India, we will still be inhabiting  only a tenth of the land area, leaving the rest of the land to the Nature.

The population of India is thought to reach its maximum of about 1.6 billion by  about 2060. By that time our imaginary green cities will only have a population densities of about 5,600/sqkm.

Can’t help fantasizing a future India where there are no more filthy, crowded cities and towns. The entire peninsula is filled with green and glorious garden cities as shown in the figure below.



Garden Cities of a Future India

Writing is like producing movement

Writing is like producing movement. There is the simplest kind of movement that is produced by the brain… it is produced as a fast reflex to a shock received from the world. It involves no thought. It is a simple conversion of one form of information into another, one form of energy into another. The movement that is released is informed by the stimulus. In the world of writing, certain kinds of translation work are similar to this movement.

Then there are movements that are still dependent on and are specified by the sensory information from the world. But these involve thought, a certain permission from the will of the performer.  But here too it is the world that does most of the work.

The more serious kinds of writing, something that can be said to be original, are like voluntary movements.  

Here too there are types of voluntary movements. In the classification of William James, the 19^th century American psychologist, firstly, there are the ideomotor movements in which there is a pre-existing idea that guides the movement, like for example a well-practiced dance movement. This is like writing about the visit to a monument, or at a slightly grander scale about the history of a nation.

There is a second type of voluntary movement, - it is as voluntary as voluntary can get – in which movement emerges purely from within. Like a strong gush of fuming water from the depths of a geyser, it issues out of the depths of consciousness. It flies unaided, propelled by nothing but the strength of its wings, and soars free like a giant eagle. Writing always needs a subject. One necessarily writes about something. But there is a world of difference between writing that rolls out on a prefixed idea, and writing, in its purest and most original forms, that leaps out of the writer’s mind, charts out its own course, brings with it its own idea-companions, chooses the vehicle that can carry and stabilize its movement, with the writer remaining through the whole time a pure and transparent instrument and nothing else.

The best and the truest kinds of writing simply writes itself. The less the writer gets involved in the business the better. From somewhere inside... ideas and words and lines emerge, like dainty objects from a magician’s hat, from the depths of the writers being. Water molecules find their own clever pairings and form the enchanting geometries of the snow flakes, just when the weather is right. Likewise, in the purest forms of writing, torrents of words self-organize into lines that are lyrical, apt, shimmering with a supernal meaning. All that the writer has to do is supply that inner atmosphere and remain calm.

Sometimes the first few lines might be triggered and impelled by a few superficial objectives the writer may have on his mind. The first few words that emerge might be a clothing on those first thoughts. The Consciousness simply uses those thoughts as calling cards, an invitation for the writer to tune into Itself. Once the connection begins, and the channels of expression  open, the river of meaning that flows out is often vastly greater than what the writer originally intended to write about. He is pleasantly surprised by page after page, tome after tome, that seems to be welling up from within. Where is all this coming from? What exactly is in him? He will find his own depths bewildering. Because these depths are  actually not “his” depths, just as when you dig deeper than the foundations of your personal dwelling, very soon you will find yourself in the bowels of the Earth far from anything that is “yours.”

In this sense, writing is a form of exploration of the Self. Very soon the writer will come to realize that there is a whole universe of things inside, a universe that was there all along but he never knew. It would be too vain to say that that universe is inside him. A more apt language would be to say that the writer is only a channel, a willing or a fortunate portal onto the infinite world of Consciousness.

Image credits: https://www.livescience.com/49244-imagination-reality-brain-flow-direction.html

Why did the world pause?

Why did the world pause?

Musings on the significance of the Covid Crisis for the future humanity

-          

With the covid lockdown we, the people of the world, are facing an unprecedented situation. As a good fraction of the humanity is under confinement, in a forced state of global inaction, the engines of the world are grinding to halt. The modern life and world is all about action -  ceaseless, indefatigable and dizzying action. Introverted tendencies are discouraged, quietist traditions are becoming obsolete. The world is in the grips of a scientific-economic view of life. Man is a biochemical engine. Money is the sole token of  value and meaning in  life. There is  hardly any space left for alternative views. Seen through the lens of that view, things seemed to be going well with the world in the recent times.  The internet brought in the knowledge explosion. The wealth of the nations is growing steadily. The world was racing along like a giant train with a gas pedal and no brakes. That’s when Covid struck.   This is an odd time to press the reset button of the world. Why did it happen?

In life, there are times when we lose ourselves in immense action, in pursuit of some named or nameless goal our mind conceives. Then there are times, when the energies flag, when the vision is clouded. Then we retire for a little while into solitude to take stock of things  and figure if we need a course correction. But in the present global context, just when everything going so perfectly what course correction can we contemplate?

Perhaps all is really not well with the world. Perhaps the perfection is only imagined or misplaced or, to use a clichéd modern term “overrated”. Perhaps the scientific-economic paradise after which we are trying to fashion our world – a paradise that verily defines the modern world, a paradise that we celebrate every day in every part of the world, in the West as much in the East, is probably a paradise that may turn out ultimately a living hell since it is a paradise that will progressively drag us deeper into a state of confinement – like our current covid-induced state of petrifaction – and not grant to us some ultimate promised salvation on Earth.

There was a time, not too long ago, when different nations and cultures of the world thought about life differently. They felt differently, emoted differently, believed differently. The original diversity of world cultures was a confirmation that there can be many approaches to life, many directions and dimensions to life. But with all the intensive commingling and communication among cultures for over a century now, differences are being erased. The scientific-economic view of life, predominantly driven from the West, is being accepted worldwide as the one singular way of living. There are no two thoughts about it. In a world that had a cultural diversity, some could be right and some wrong, or some could be more right and some could be more wrong. Then only the errant groups would need a course correction – like the Nazis of WWII. But in a perfectly homogeneous world, either everyone is right, as it will be in a perfect situation, or, worse,  everybody is wrong. That’s when there will be a worldwide course correction. The great Reset Button will have to be pressed.

Let us consider what those Goals were that different word cultures pursued through history, and where things probably went amiss. Let us adopt a simple binary view and speak of the West and the East.

After languishing for more than a millennium in the dark ages, the West emerged about half a millennium ago.  Europe began a massive effort to restructure its life around the Light of Reason. It invented Science and began to enjoy the new powers bequeathed by Science. It set out initially on an exploration of a strange and unmapped world, which culminated in a successful and nearly complete world conquest.  Armed with Science, the West explored every nook and cranny of the physical world. From the bowels of an atom to the edge of the visible cosmos, Science seemed to understand everything.  The same rigorous understanding of Matter was directed to life and people. The billions of little I’s that populate the Earth – that’s “us” – too are atoms and cells of this huge biological machine. What about “me”, my feelings and fears, dreams and dreadful desires? one may ask. “All that is an emergent effect,” Science answered, “of electric shocks storming your grey matter.” Consciousness and all things akin were scooped out of the Matter and discarded, like the seed-filled goo inside a pumpkin. People were cheered on as they learnt to enjoy the scientific-economic paradise from which the Self was permanently exorcised.

“A purely rational society could not come into being, if it could be born, either could not live or would sterilize and petrify human existence.” - Sri Aurobindo (in The Human Cycle).

The Orient, particularly India, - if we are permitted to take India as a key representative of the Orient – has approached life from the other end of things. For nearly one and a half millennia we obsessed over Mayavada and Sannyasa. The world is an illusion, a mirage, we were told. The real thing – Atman, Brahman, whatever, - is behind, beyond, elsewhere. It is not this, definitely not this, neti, neti. Give up this false world and run away to the real one. A terrible tradition of abandoning the world and life to its fate began to lace all activities of Indian life. At some point people found it impossible to live with a philosophy of life that is so anti-life. So they discovered an antidote – God. A God that is, - thankfully, - loving, lovable and lovely. But after a few centuries, the new solution also turned out to be not in any sense a cure, but only a palliative, a heady anesthetic that taught us how to live with the pain and ignore the fester.  Our disparaging outlook on the world of Matter and an attitude of deep disconnection and escape from life continued to extract from us a heavy price. Because we rejected it, life took its revenge. Our life energies were drained out; our material circumstances were a rubble. Aliens trampled upon a fallen race.

                                                          Ruins of Somnath Temple

So here we are. The West pursued Matter single-mindedly and lost all sense of the Spirit. It hit a blank wall, a dead end, or is in the process of fast getting there. The East, particularly India, walked away from Matter, trying to find its final liberation in the Spirit. But disappointed, wounded and spurned she began to search for alternative salvations. (The West seemed to now provide them, - easy and enticing. In her early enthusiasm, eager to make up for lost time, she began to take rapid steps on the path of the West … only perhaps to hit the same wall at a later epoch?)

At the end of a long, traumatic human journey we traversed two paths and arrived at two dead ends.

Is there a different path that the world can tread, a path that is discovered and laid out based on the wisdom gathered by the previous half successes, a path that has no dead ends and is blessed by a constant widening and interminable progression?

What happens when all the instruments and opportunities for outward action are removed and one is locked up in a cell – a situation experienced by a big part of the world at this moment? His mind slowly emptied of thoughts, overcome by depression, a person might slowly descend into insanity. But there are stories of individuals who responded to the incarceration in a miraculous fashion and actually grew from the experience.

James Nesbeth was a major in American army when he was captured in the Vietnam war. His enemies held him captive for more than five years in a tiny dingy cell. When he saw that all the outward paths are blocked, he decided to walk along a new inward path. An avid golfer, he began to get back to his favorite sport -  in the fertile, verdant fields of his mind! Every day he would mentally kiss his wife goodbye, relish the breakfast she prepared, drive to a luxuriant and expansive and imaginary golf court, and play a full 18-hole game. There were singing birds, there was dew on the blades of grass, there were tiny ponds with mirrors of water, there were cool zephyrs blowing on his face, there was an other-worldly fragrance in the air. After living as a denizen in his exotic inner world for over five years he was released. One of the first things he did to get back his strength was to get back to his golf. To his surprise and that of those around him, he demonstrated that he has not lost touch with the game. Because the practice never stopped!

The technological advances of the modern world amplify human power a million times. By pressing a mere button it is now possible to destroy the whole world over and over again. But without the technological crutches man is as impotent as ever – a miserable ape that can swing no more from the branches, but now acquired language and some cunning. The crutches dehumanize us. The crutches as growing in power and scope every passing day. Writers painted dystopian futures when the robots rebel and enslave their masters. The way forward therefore is to deemphasize the crutches, and increase our natural and innate capacity, and reconfirm our stature as masters.

Increasing the native capacity of people seems to be the essence of the self-help revolution that began in the West more than a century ago. In the recent decades it began to spread like forest fire in India – one more examples of India’s hunger to learn what she can from the West right now. Follow your heart, find your calling, pursue your life’s mission and discover your life’s meaning, increase your will power, increase your memory, overcome your fears, expand your capacity for empathy and love, learn and learn all the time, turn your life into honey and do the same for those around you, and at long last leave the world a little more divine. Such is the essence of the self-help spirit. Society after society had responded to that spirit and tried to contextualize it in accordance to its own culture and history. The gospel of realizing the man’s inner potential is a great counter to the rise of the machine. It may not be adequate, but it is a robust first step.

India too had its own brand of “self-help” culture. But since our “self-help” tradition did not adequately readjust to the modern world, and seemed to be ineffectual, we chose to quietly drop it. In ancient Indian traditions of education, contrary to that of the West, knowledge is not something you gather through the senses, organize by reason, and apply for practical use. Knowledge is always there latent in the depths of your consciousness. By purifying the human instrument, you awaken that knowledge which flashes forth in your consciousness when your being is ripe. The Gurukul presented just the setting for that multifaceted purification. Unquestioned obedience and devoted service to the Guru dissolved the ego. A life of abstinence and self-control – known as Brahmacharya – allowed the individual to rein in his/her own unregenerate elements. Learning large volumes of text by rote expanded memory.  This trajectory of growth, however, is quite alien to the manner of growth in a world that is carved by Science. But is it still possible to incorporate some elements of our ancient educational tradition and integrate it with its modern counterpart, and extend it far beyond anything that was conceived in the antiquity?

There is one aspect of human consciousness that fascinated thinkers for a long time. You may use words like creativity, genius or intuition. These terms refer to the edge of human capacity that apparently does not depend on technological wizardry. It flies on its wings and strangely chooses to manifest in some people. It brings into the world beauty where there was ugliness, harmony where there was chaos, sparkling clarity where there was dullness and unknowing. It magically brings forward answers where there was unyielding and longstanding ignorance. Is it possible to reorient traditional Indian spiritual methods of preparation of consciousness, turn it away from its native domain of religion for the moment, and use to rebuild life and world?

It is obvious how development of such a capacity can revolutionize many domains of life. A doctor can arrive at diagnosis with minimal measurement without resorting to brute force and expensive testing. A mathematician can witness in his/her mental landscape a torrential outpouring of theorems and corollaries and laws, the proofs of which can be worked out by lesser minds, applying standard tardy analytical methods over the centuries. Legendary Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan is a prime example of such a capacity. In domains of modern science, like biology for example, where a theoretician has to sift through mountains of data to formulate an effective theory, strong intuitive capabilities can be a boon. By the power of intuition, the slow, trudging progression of science can be accelerated. The rare and epoch-making Kuhnian paradigm shifts can be induced to occur more frequently. Medicine will undergo profound changes since there will be paradigmatic shifts in our understanding of health, of human body, of human psyche. There will a more targeted search for the roots of our ailments in our consciousness rather than in our body. The above trends, which will perhaps evolve over a century or two from now, will be a demonstration of a deliberate application of the powers of consciousness in terms of life and world.

The above trends, seemingly revolutionary since they signify a departure from the strong materialist position that hardened over the last half a millennium, is still not half as radical as what would happen when we bring about a further change in our relationship with consciousness. In all the aforementioned potential developments, we will be regarding consciousness either as a product of our brain, an inexplicable “emergent effect,” or in the best case as a power channeled by the human brain. We may not be willing to give to consciousness a greater independent existence.

This is where ancient Indian tradition departs radically from modern approaches to consciousness. In ancient India, consciousness is taught to be the substratum of all reality. In its more condensed forms it appears as Matter, and in rarer, ethereal forms as Spirit. Matter and Mind and Spirit are all different modes of the continuum of Consciousness, just as violet and green and red are different colors of the spectrum of the visible light. It must follow then that just as there is the physical universe, - or universes as per the recent notions of the multiverse, - there must then be entire worlds of consciousness. These universes of consciousness are possibly greater and vaster than our physical universe. There is perhaps a hierarchy of such universes, each subsumed by and embedded within the one immediately higher. The realization that there are entire universes of consciousness immeasurably vaster than the known physical universe marks the most momentous epoch in the history of humanity.

Five hundred years ago, the belief in the existence of a vast unknown world out there spurred European adventurers to set out on daring voyages. Thus began the Age of Exploration, the first one. This age lead to discovery of new continents on our home planet – Earth. The second Age of Exploration, that of space exploration, began more recently when we journeyed beyond the von Karman line or when we set foot on the Moon.  The sense of existence of vast realms consciousness may trigger a Third Age of Exploration, incredibly more profound, more radical and riskier than the previous two exploratory ages.

Our earliest voyages into the fields of consciousness might be brief, tentative and cautious. Our earliest efforts will be like those of the voyagers of medieval Europe who travelled close to the coast, fearing a dreadful fall in the abyss at the edge of the world, should they strayed too far. However, emboldened by the initial familiarity and a minimal understanding of the new realms, a daring band of pioneers will set out on most unimaginable inward adventures that humanity had ever known. Like Sri Aurobindo, they might discover “illumined continents of violet peace.”

“Wide rapturous landscapes fleeting from the sight,

The figures of the perfect kingdom pass

And behind them leave a shining memory’s trail.

Imagined scenes or great eternal worlds,

Dream-caught or sensed, they touch our hearts with their depths;

Unreal-seeming, yet more real than life,

Happier than happiness, truer than things true,

If dreams these were or captured images,

Dream’s truth made false earth’s vain realities.

In a swift eternal moment fixed there live

Or ever recalled come back to longing eyes

Calm heavens of imperishable Light,

Illumined continents of violet peace,

Oceans and rivers of the mirth of God

And griefless countries under PURPLE SUNS.”

-          Sri Aurobindo in Savitri. (pg 120)

The pioneers will leave behind them difficult yet robust trails that others can follow. There will be martyrs, however; there will be sacrifices. Wave after wave of individuals will follow these paths to hitherto unknown, unimagined destinations. They will be the first settlers of the New World or rather an innumerable array of the New Worlds. The vision of our future generations leaving the cradle of humanity – the Earth – to proceed to populate the entire Milky Way, pales in contrast to a future diaspora into the innumerable, unbounded, inexhaustible Realms of Consciousness.

“If mankind could but see though in a glimpse of  fleeting experience what infinite enjoyments, what perfect forces, what luminous reaches of spontaneous knowledge, what wide calms of our being lie waiting for us in the tracts which our animal evolution has not yet conquered, they would leave all & never rest till they had gained these treasures. But the way is narrow, the doors are hard to force, and fear, distrust & scepticism are there, sentinels of Nature, to forbid the turning away of our feet from her ordinary pastures.” – Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms).

In moments of captivity our thoughts always turn to dreams of great journeys, our minds are filled with a longing to break out into something vaster. Perhaps this covid-related domestic incarceration is only intended by the Intelligence that governs life to point out to us the greatest of journeys that awaits us sometime this millennium, a journey, -  or journeys, - that might mark a great turning point in human evolution.

http://theiphonewalls.com/rising-sun/

A different kind of Self-realization

“I’m concerned with the earth, not with worlds beyond for their own sake; it is a terrestrial realization that I seek and not a flight to distant summits.” – Sri Aurobindo.

“Salvation is physical.” – The Mother.

The idea of self-realization has been an integral part of Indian conception of human life. It has been, in some sense, the backbone of our multi-millennial history. Teacher after teacher, prophet after prophet, bard after bard, Avatar after Avatar have taught, in various ways, what it is and how to achieve it. One had said that you would be self-realized when you have discovered this great Void called Nirvana, which marks and end of all your suffering. Another had said that self-realization is the discovery of this great unitary Self that reveals itself when you understand that the universe you see – the blazing suns, the wetness of the rains, the people that surround you, their tiny joys and haunting agonies –  is all a profound illusion. Pursue that Self, and be done with the world. Because once you find it, you do not have to be born in this wretched world ever again.

 Another had said that the Self is not a lonely, cold emptiness but a living, loving Entity, a lasting Friend and a rapturous Lover. Lost in His love you will find all things of this world pale, colorless, devoid of meaning.  Find Him, melt away in His embrace, and you will not want to have anything to do with this world again.

For two and a half thousand years these powerful and profound ideas have permeated the Indian psyche. They shaped our world views, our attitudes toward life and nature. Life on earth is a painful sojourn, a terrible curse. Life is impossible, insufferable. Hard it is to swim across oceanic life in the world, iha samsaare bahu dustaare. Live life right, do the right things, follow Dharma and at long last you can get out of this prison.

These ideas perhaps have a great truth in them in their origins. But over the millennia they are reduced to a dull, unthinking practice, calcified in rigid and absurd social tradition. Unknowingly we have cultivated an attitude of contempt towards the world and paying for it dearly to this day. Because we think it is intrinsically something inferior, we do not want to improve it, make it beautiful. Because we think it is an illusion, we do not want to study it, understand it, master it. Slowly we lost our grip on life and world. Conquerors rode over our prostrate bodies; colonialists sucked the life-sap out of our society. Our deepest strength, ironically, also turns out to be our greatest vulnerability.

There is a different kind of self-realization that comes to us essentially from the West. The idea is not new but it is gaining momentum in India in the recent times. The idea may be expressed as follows. Every single one of us carries inside us a beautiful seed, a promise, a spark of a talent, that seeks to come out and express itself. We are obliged to take the trouble to find out what it is and express it action. To make real in the world without, a power that is hidden inside, is the definition of the new Self-Realization. A Disney feels within himself a talent to “make people happy”, envisions an organization and breathes life into it, creating the Disneyworld.

For the new Self-realization too, God is within. But that God is simply that luminous idea that is buried in your heart which you must seek and find out.  Life, for each of us, is a quest, like in the tales of Greek myth. Greek heroes  voyaged to distant lands seeking adventure and unspeakable treasure. The quest is to “find yourself”, conceive that vision of yourself, and give it a shape in the real world, thereby fulfilling yourself. That something in you is your own personal “God.” Finding that something is “God-realization” for you.

The new Self-Realization is not the pursuit of an extracosmic God, nor does it preach an escape into a world Beyond as a solution to the miseries of this world. In fact, it urges people towards a full-throated engagement with the challenges of the world.  You are asked to take the bull of the world by its horns. You grow in stature, your powers increase as you grapple with the world. Your mind develops, your creativity blossoms, your energies are amplified as you work towards your own self-chosen Goal of life.

The new Self-realization not only inspires the individual to grow; it exhorts him/her  to nurture and develop a patch of life connected to him/her. It does not abandon the world to its fate. It in fact embraces the world, heals its wounds, nurtures it, makes it whole, and imparts to it a lasting glory.

These ideas are now seen to be permeating popular thinking in India. They come to us in the form of self-help literature. The self-help movement had swept across the world for more than half-a-century. In the pre-self-help era, people looked up to God, the church, the priest, the monarch, or the State for support. In the self-help era, we learn that all the help that we need is inside ourselves. The founts of a tremendous power and genius are inside human psyche. Therefore, by invoking it, we help ourselves and help each other.

Isn’t it high time we brought in these elements into our Indian brand of spirituality? Or perhaps these elements are already there but deserve a stronger emphasis. The Gita speaks of life as a battle that must be fought – turning away is unacceptable because it is un-Aryan – with the help of the guidance of the Indweller. But perhaps since such ideas are too strong a medicine, the majority idly and passively gravitate towards a senseless and easy religiosity.

What is the use of a spirituality that does not accept the burden of developing people as the first and foremost objective? Are not these legitimate concerns in a country where literacy rate is a mere 75%, and 90% make less than Rs 12,000 a month?  What is the point in keeping ourselves busy praising the beauty and harmony of God, while all the time living in material surroundings that are filthy, chaotic, dangerously unhealthy and often times revolting?

There is a need to recognize and correct the slow, tenuous and insidious distortion that had set in our spiritual tradition in popular practice.  

Let the new Self-realization lay the foundation for life in the new India.

An Open Letter to The Indian Scientist

Published in Confluence from the Indian Academy of Sciences

http://confluence.ias.ac.in/an-open-letter-to-the-indian-scientist/

Our Hall(rr)owed Spaces

A few years ago I had an opportunity to visit, along with my wife, the holy temple of Viswanatha in Varanasi. Every Hindu looks forward to visit Kasi once in his/her lifetime. There is a general belief in Hindu ethos about Kasi: “Even if you cannot die in Kasi – a fortune not easily won by one and all – at least visit it once while you are still alive.” So there was a lot of expectation.

But what we saw there was a contradiction, a mockery of that expectation. We went slightly late in the night when the crowds have dispersed and they were about to close the temple. The queue lines were nearly empty of people but there were other things that slowed our progression. Clay tumblers in which Kasi-ites like to drink their milk were strewn around in gay abandon. We had to walk slowly, calibrating our footfalls, just to avoid the shards from penetrating our souls….err… soles. Cows were roaming the queue lines too, depositing everywhere the famously sacred dung and urine. There were also open toilets as you walk along the queue lines, giving the pilgrims a way to unburden, not just their world-weary hearts, but their kidneys too, all under the public eye. When we entered the main temple building, the sanctum sanctotum, we could see entire walls that had collapsed, with no signs of any effort towards restoration. The Darshan itself was quite quick and undramatic, thankfully, since we were too eager to get out. We came out with a feeling, quite contrary to what you would expect to feel after a visit to one of the greatest and the most ancient Hindu temples.

Pilgrims at Varanasi

Coincidentally, only a few days ago I happened to get a copy of the book “Wasted: The messy story of Sanitation in India, a Manifesto for Change” by Ankur Bisen. In  this most remarkable book, in the very first chapter titled “We the people,” the  author describes Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to the temple of Viswanatha in 1903. Gandhi did not like what he saw in the temple. “The swarming flies and the noise made by the shopkeepers and pilgrims were perfectly insufferable… Here one expected an atmosphere of meditation and communion, it was conspicuous by its absence.” Gandhi visited the temple again thirteen years later to attend the stone-laying ceremony of Banaras Hindu Temple. This time he wrote: “If a stranger dropped from above on to this great temple and he had to consider what we as Hindus were, would he not be justified in condemning us? Is not this great temple a reflection of our own character?”

Not much seemed to have changed from 1903 to the second decade of the third millennium. Why?

(Just about 10 km from Kasi, however, in the Buddhist temple of Sarnath, a very different spectacle greeted us. The place was far cleaner and quieter. People were speaking in hushed tones. The only notable sounds were those of the quaint spinning bells that you see in Buddhist temples. There were pilgrims from Sri Lanka and Japan saying their prayers in low tones.)

It is not just the main temple, the city of Varanasi is itself a specimen for demonstrating the kind of decadence that one witnesses in most Indian towns, particularly so in the northern part of India. As we were driving through the city, at places I could see large dilapidated buildings filled with garbage up to the second floor. There were canals filled with dark, inky flowing material, a stream that can only be compared to the river Styx that adorns Hell in Greek mythology.

We also visited one of the fabled ghats of Ganga. The river was at that time in spate. The waters were dark brown in color and not exactly inviting. We could see pilgrims waddling and struggling to swim in that waist deep dirty water. One the way back, we began to pour out our despair to the cab driver, lecturing about the virtues of hygiene. He heard us for a few minutes and retorted angrily in Hindi: “Please don’t talk like that. Ganga mayya is always pure!”

Where are the roots of India’s social backwardness? As an educated Indian one asks oneself this question quite often. The answer I tell myself, which is repeatedly confirmed by experiences like the above, is as follows. “We have adopted a world-view that is inspired by our religion, perpetuated by tradition, a world view in which what is actually horrifying and unacceptable, seems to be a picture of perfect harmony.” We have fixed ourselves for all eternity in a perspective for which the problem is simply non-existent. Our problem is that there is no problem!

My visit to another temple, this time in the north-eastern city of Guwahati is slightly different but essentially the same. The Kamakhya temple is one of the Shakti Pithas, temples dedicated to the Goddess in her various forms. I wanted to take the pedestrian route, hoping to enjoy the natural beauty of the hillside, and climbed the mountain path. The steps were broken at most places and pilgrim is greeted often by the stench of human feces.  The temple premises are occupied not just by pilgrims looking for salvation. It was  goats this time around – not cows. You could see them roaming the marble floors depositing their solid waste, as a solid demonstration of our spiritual egalitatianism that treats all creatures equally.

(Priest getting ready for goat sacrifice at Kamakhya Temple)

There is an interesting theory that all the stench and struggle, the pushing and the shoving that one often experiences in Hindu temples is there by design. The negative has to be there so that you can truly appreciate the positive. Without the ugly façade you cannot truly appreciate the enshrined Divine who is, by His very nature, the All-beautiful. But when we visited temples or hallowed spaces of other cultures we realized that such a theory is merely a perversion created by our unwillingness to change.

A case in point is our visit to the delightful little Kinkakuji temple of Japan. Kinkakuji is a Zen temple on the outskirts of Kyoto, a cultural center of Japan. The temple is called the Temple of the Golden Pavilion  because the main temple, rather small in size, has a golden plating. It is perhaps much smaller than the Golden temple of Amritsar, or the one in Tirumala. But what is most remarkable is the pristine pure manner in which its surroundings are kept. The only sounds you hear on the temple premises – in addition to the incessant chirping that fills the wooded surroundings – is the constant scraping sounds of rakes with which the monks, clad in spotless white robes, clear dry leaves off the pebbled paths. Actually it appeared that there is no need to clear the leaves all the time. Perhaps twice a day should do. Perhaps once a week. But for the monks the act of cleaning seems to be a kind of prayer that one does with one’s body, it is a way to do their devotions.

                                                                Kinkakuji temple 

Even minor temples in Kyoto, small street side temples, temples made of wood without the luxury of gold and silver, uniformly present one characteristic: unostentatious yet perfectly clean and tranquil surroundings.

Why is it such a hard ideal to achieve back home, everywhere, all the time?