The Rational and The Spiritual

One of the earliest memories of my childhood is of the reveries I used to lose myself in, triggered by a snatch of music, the sight of a new landscape and even while staring at myself in a mirror. These reveries where a state that was above and beyond the everyday concerns and desires of a child and quite pleasurable. As an adult as I look back they seem to have been in the spiritual realm.
And then I got an education and these reveries disappeared only to come back of late as I begin to pay as much attention to unlearning as I do to learning.
One of the primary aims of modern education is to inculcate rational thinking. And quite rightly. The modern world runs on rationality. Like they say you cannot eat spirituality.
But is it an either or world when it comes to the rational and the spiritual?
Lets compare this dichotomy to the dichotomy between classical and quantum physics.
Classical physics, at whose core are the three laws of Newton, is sufficient to explain the world that we directly observe and underpins most of the rational domains of science and engineering that create the modern reality that we all live in.
Einstein's theory of relativity takes classical physics to the extremes of the observable universe in terms of speed and distance and give us a glimpse of the what lies at the edges of commonplace rationality.
But it is quantum physics, the physics that tries to penetrate the deepest of nature's mysteries to get to the very core fundamentals of reality, that everyday rationality goes only thus far and no further.
I believe quantum physics is the deepest manifestation yet of human thought. Roger Penrose's book "The Road to Reality" will give you a comprehensive introduction of what it is. It is the most entertaining read especially if you give up trying to understand what he is saying and just flow along that mighty river of mathematical genius that has been the evolution of quantum physics (I love reading books written by physicists and cosmologists that explore, for lay readers like me, the deeper reaches of modern physics. Perhaps they are the pleasurable adult counterparts of my childhood reveries).
Sample this from quantum physics. It is the act of observation of a reality that makes reality happens. That is reality is a wave function of probabilities that collapses to particular version of reality upon the act of observation! And why does the probability function collapse to a particular reality? Because it is entangled (or as the quantum physicists call it, quantangled) with another reality that has already been observed in some other part of the space-time. Delicious isn't it?            
It is my contention that even a hard-core, stick-in-the-mud rationalist muggle upon reading a well-written account of quantum physics will experience a fleeting glimpse of the spiritual and the untold delights it has to offer. It is because the rationalist cannot deny the strong mathematical and scientific credentials of  quantum physics and thus leaves his mind open for the first intimations of the spiritual world to sneak in.
Einstein spent the last years of life struggling and failing to arrive at the Grand Unified Theory that would combine classical and relativistic physics with quantum physics. The struggle continues till date.
Similarly humanity is yet to reconcile fully rationality and spirituality.
However, to my mind, Roger Penrose in "The Road to Reality"  shows us a way to reconcile the two (though the reconciliation of the spiritual and rational is not a concern of  the book). I had written about this in a post on this blog dated February 1, 2010.
The post is reproduced below:
http://www.hardrainindia.com/2010/02/road-to-reality.html

The Road to Reality

Roger Penrose is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford.

That he is one of the world’s greatest scientists, does not stop him from being a skilled writer who has to his credit lucid books that take the lay person into the fascinating realms of high physics and metaphysics.

His book “The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe” lives up to the title while being within the reach of the intelligent and interested lay reader.

His two earlier books:”The Emperor’s New Mind” and “Shadows of the Mind” vividly bring alive the road that Penrose traveled before he could bring himself to write the complete guide to the laws of the universe.

There is a concept in “The Road to Reality” that continues to fascinate me and I go back to it often.

Penrose calls the concept “Three worlds and three deep mysteries”.

The concept is that mathematical existence is different not only from physical existence but also from an existence that is assigned by our mental perceptions.

And yet there are deep and mysterious connections between the three worlds.

Only a small part of mathematics has relevance to the physical world.

The vast preponderance of the activities of mathematicians today has no connection to physics or to any other science.

Implied, I think, in Penrose’s visualization of this connection as reproduced in this post is that the world of mathematics can explain the whole of the physical world.

The second mysterious connection is that the Mental World comes about in certain physical structures that are a small-subset of the physical world (most specifically, healthy, wakeful human brains- and to smaller extent the “brains” of other living things).

Think about the above two mysteries in conjunction with the third mystery which is that the Mathematics World is only a small sub-set of the Mental World and you get a cycle that folds on to itself and gives me, when I meditate on it, a deeper glimpse of reality.

If you don’t hate thinking, take the time to think about it. It could be worth your while.                  
                

Modi the Meme

Last week my post "The Unhappy Election" was about a bitter, enervating campaign that had the whole nation on a boil.
This week we have emerged out of the tunnel and it smells like new beginnings.
I am a left-leaning, English medium type who voted Congress in all previous elections but this.
According to a whole host of gurus - political, marketing, branding etc- and a whole lot of general gas bags currently pontificating on TV screens and newspapers, I was persuaded to vote against all my inclinations and past affiliations because "brand Modi" was "marketed" so well.
That I think is just the kind of glib, mindless analysis that is so common in our media on any issue that requires even scratching below the surface, forget about doing a deep dive,
I am sure that we will over the next few months and years have serious, well-researched analysis of what happened during this astonishing election and of the phenomenon called Narendra Modi.
One strand of analysis will be about the changing nature of the Indian electorate. The obvious one is of course the demographics - the 100 million first time voters and the total of around 500 million below the age of 30. Going beyond the demographics and perhaps related to it, there could be lurking a deeper change. Ironically among the first spotters of this trend, at least among those who get widely quoted in media - was P. Chidambaram, the outgoing Finance Minister. Indian society has rapidly moved away from being a petitioning society to being an society driven by aspirations -simply put even the poor and the disadvantaged in India do not want handouts they want jobs and a better quality of life. In other words they want the opportunity to fish for themselves not just be handed small portions of rotting fish.In that sense it was India's first middle-class election.
The second strand of analysis will be about for what made for winners and losers in this election.
In my post dated November 20th 2013 titled "Memes and the Coming General Elections"  I had written about how memes are much more powerful entities and brands and what role memes are likely to play in elections. To my mind the landslide nature of the results of this election is a sure shot sign that what was operating in this election was a  powerful force that was not a brand but a meme. Brands create markets and market shares, memes create civilizations, societies and revolutions.
The thesis could be that Modi is much beyond a brand, he is a newly-made meme.A meme that digs as deep and resonates with the generic timeless memes of "Change", "Success" and "Youth". The harnessing of the power and promise of Change, Success and Youth is the result of a conscious strategy brilliantly executed by Team Modi. However that alone would not have lead to the astounding results but for a happy accident: Modi evoked across a wide swathe of the electorate the meme "Indian". It is my hunch that every Indian, except for perhaps among the most Westernized of us, recognized in him a kin. In his scraggly appearance, in his earthy idiom, in his unfettered aggression all of saw a personification of the Indian gestalt - of a tough life faced with courage, forbearance and innovation.
Well the above are just thoughts and perhaps just as glib as the ones I was complaining about. Let me end by wishing the man well before I go back to contemplating what my stock portfolio will be worth a couple of years from now.

The Unhappy Election

The heat and dust of this scorching summer has got to all of us who live in India. Adding to the heat, the noise, the dust and the countless irritations of daily life has been the cantankerous din of an unhappy election campaign.

I say unhappy because the overwhelming sub-text of this campaign has been unhappiness as much as the sub-text of the 2009 elections was happiness. 

Nearly everyone is unhappy with the central government's functioning over the past five years. For many of us this has translated to voting for Mr. Modi. Others have decided, unhappily of course, to vote against Mr. Modi, driven by mankind's oldest enemy - fear (see my post titled "Fear"  dated 23rd March 2014).

One of the slogans that is driving Mr. Modi's campaign is 'Acche Din Aanewale Hain" which in spirit ( not in exact translation mind you) means "There is light at the end of this tunnel'. 

For some of us, the hope is that we emerge into the light on the 16th of May, whatever the result! For this apolitical lot all politicians are basically the same and elections are like a visit to the dentist, to be borne with forbearance.

For many ardent fans, new and old,  if Mr. Modi  emerges to be the next Prime Minister, it will feel like they have emerged from Stygian darkness to a brilliant vista of unending delight. Caution my friends. Remember nothing much would have changed for ordinary people like us. The quality of government services will remain abysmal if not absent on the 17th of May. The depredations of pervasive corruption will still be with us. It will take hard resolve, hard work and time to make change happen. So mute the elation, lower the expectations and wait and see. Because after emerging from one tunnel if we enter another, the depression of darkness would be multiplied manifold by dashed hopes.

And those among us for whom a Modi victory feels like the beginning of a nightmare, I can only say, please wake up and smell the coffee. India and the idea of India are much too strong and rooted for any one government let alone any one man to harm its basic fabric. And also do remember that the past is seldom a good predictor of the future. Furthermore the pervasive color of humanity is grey and not black or white. And if you believe in secularism (by which I presume you mean the separation of the State from religion - all religions) than you must also believe in democracy. And if the people have spoken, accept the fact with a smile, reiterate your belief in the mysterious wisdom of the collective and give the man a chance, even if it is in the form of a long rope.

All in all it has been a summer where the zeitgeist has definitely been blue. And if the general unhappiness continues after the 16th I will seriously consider retiring to a remote mountain top and descend only with happier times.

PS Here is something to wash away those election blues:

   

Exit Interview

Good morning Mr. Singh. Can I get you some coffee or tea?

Thank you. A glass of water will do. Room temperature please.

Sure. Subra could you send in a glass of water please. Room temperature. Right Mr. Singh may I begin with asking you the reasons fro quitting your job? 

Isn't that obvious? There is somebody else eagerly waiting to take my place.

Sir I did not ask the reasons for your demitting office today. That as you say is very clear. The question is why did you quit your job years ago? Let me rephrase the question Sir. when and why did you quit doing your job Mr. Singh?    

Silence

Mr. Singh?

Well I respect your right to be rude to me but time will be a much kinder judge.

Well as a wag once said time is what happens while we are busy doing other things. But Sir many people feel that sometime after the election of 2009 you went on autopilot. Unseeing. Unheard. Unknowing. What happened? Was it the illness? Or was it the sterile bubble that power produces suffocating you into a stupor.

I have a very simple philosophy about power. The less you use it the better it gets just like the yogis control lust to reach a higher state of being. And then history judges you kindly. Also one more thing. I always thought of myself as a servant.

A servant of the people you mean?

Umm.. that too I guess.

Are you surprised that there is already a book about your years in office. It is like an obituary before you are finally and actually dead!

See the wheels of history have been set in motion already and did you notice how this book, for all its faults, underlined a trait in me I am most proud of - my  unending capacity to be a good, sagacious and uncomplaining servant. Umm. Of the people. I mean.

Sir since you are refusing to open up and I am not inclined to be any ruder to you let me end this interview by asking you who would you like to thank as you leave this august office.

I am a man of few words. Thank you Madam.

     
   

The Importance of Forgetting

I have been practicing meditation for years now. A simple daily 30-40 minutes routine end-capped by breathing exercises. There have been many gifts that this practice has given me. The chief among them is the realization that the default state of human consciousness is happiness.

So where does unhappiness come from?

J.. Krishnamurti, the philosopher, has approached the human enigma of the pursuit of happiness from many angles. To my mind the deepest and most fundamental of which is captured in this paragraph from one of his lectures:

Happiness is not the product of time

The thought process brings about psychological progress in time, but is it real, as real as chronological time? And, can we use that time which is of the mind as a means of understanding the eternal, the timeless? Because, as I said, happiness is not of yesterday, happiness is not the product of time, happiness is always in the present, a timeless state. I do not know if you have noticed that, when you have ecstasy, a creative joy, a series of bright clouds surrounded by dark clouds, in that moment there is no time: there is only the immediate present. But the mind, coming in after the experiencing in the present, remembers and wishes to continue it, gathering more and more of itself, thereby creating time. So, time is created by 'the more', time is acquisition. And, time is also detachment, which is still an acquisition of the mind; therefore, merely disciplining the mind in time, conditioning thought within the framework of time, which is memory, surely does not reveal that which is timeless.

Collected Works, Vol. V,139,

The operative thought is that happiness is timeless and conditioning thought within the framework of time, which is memory, does not reveal that which is timeless. 

In other words forgetting is the key to happiness. Countless pop psychologists have told us that it is important to live in the moment. And like with many a worn-out cliche, beneath this commonplace assertion lies an abiding truth about the human condition.. 

Living in the moment is to let go of the past. This letting go. it has been my experience, cannot be a consciously willed act. It is a scrubbing that is accomplished by the deeper reaches of human consciousness.  Dreaming, I believe, is a manifestation of this scrubbing but it is slow, done in small doses, painful, unproductive and not under our control. Meditation is quicker, far less painful (in fact after a point quite joyful) and under our control. However the most striking manifestation of this scrubbing is in the highest of human activity - the act of creativity and creation. Most artists, sportspeople, writers, scientists, thinkers and even managers will tell you that their highest achievements happen when they enter the "zone". This "zone" is the same "zone of acute consciousness" that results from deep meditation but the crucial difference is that it is entered through the act of doing as opposed to the act of withdrawing. In other words in losing oneself (all one's memories, disappointments and joys) in the here and now of an act. It is the "blink" that Malcolm Gladwell writes about. It is the central core teaching of devotion to selfless "karma" or duty that is the central teaching of the Bhagwad Gita:

karmaṇy evādhikāras te

mā phaleṣu kadācana

mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr

mā te sańgo 'stv akarmaṇi

In fact one of the strands of thought that the highest reaches of physics is now exploring is that time itself is a chimera that is only a manifestation of the mind and not a physical reality. Julian Barbour in his provocative book "The End of Time", Barbour lays out the basic evidence for a timeless universe and shows how at the same time we experience in the world in a intensely temporal way. It also points the way towards the bridging of the greatest chasm in modern science - the gap between classical and quantum physics- leading to the holy grail of The Grand Unification Theory. 

 For those of us who dismiss high faulting philosophy, physics and/or teachings and would like to see direct and more tangible evidence that "forgetting" is anything more than one of the numerous in-capacities that advancing age subjects us to, may I point to an abstract of an article from a recent issue of Scientific American titled "Forgetting is Key to a Healthy Mind". So there you have it, any which way you like it. Or you can just forget it and turn the page.

   

              

  

Drafting Change: A Letter to Narendra Modi

Dear Narendrabhai,

It looks like you are set to be the next Prime Minister of India.

If you do, it would be clear that the singular mandate you have been given is the mandate to change the status quo.

Here is an idea that I believe can bring lasting change at the core of Indian society:

The Draft: A year of mandated  and paid community service for all young people through internships with the various arms of the Government and the Services. To begin with we could start this program with all college graduates.

As soon as I put this idea down on paper I can hear the hue and cry rise from all side. "An impingement of individual rights" some will protest. Others will say it is impractical and too expensive to afford. In fact one of the themes you and  your current election campaign is pushing is that of "Less Government. More Governance" and this idea seems to fly directly in the face of such a theme.

"Less Government More Governance" is an idea from the capitalist right, borrowed by your campaign, lock, stock and barrel, from the Republicans of US and the Tories of UK. India is a unique place and time where change will not come through borrowed ideas. Anyway what does "governance" mean?  Wouldn't the involvement of the people directly and hands-on in projects of the government be "more and  good governance"? Wouldn't the direct scrutiny by eager young minds of acts by the government be "less and better government"?

As for costs, yes the costs will be untenable if we put this army of young people on unproductive tasks. But surely we can avoid the MNREGA trap of putting people, figuratively speaking, to dig trenches and then refill them? Surely we can use the talents and the clear-eyed enthusiasm of India's educated young to productive use in sectors where the government has a role to play? If we do so, I can bet my bottom rupee that the money we spend on the Draft will be more than repaid in both qualitative and quantitative terms through impact on the quality of life  as well as impact on GDP.

As for the rights of the individual, what good are rights without responsibilities? Total freedom is a contradiction in terms. Like Vivekananda says you cannot give up the world unless first you earn and have something to give up.

Narendrabhai I am told that you are a believer in the teachings of Vivekananda. As you would know, a central tenet of his teachings on education is "man-making". And a person is made in the first few years of working life. That is when he or she assimilates ideas and passions. A year in community service will give this assimilation a far greater scope and depth than landing straight into the rat race, which is what most young people currently do.

In community service a person is much more likely to imbibe the paradigm that what we give to our work is much more important than what we get. A paradigm that not only makes for greater productivity all through a person's life but for greater happiness too.

Finally, it is my belief that a year spent in public service  will persuade a lot many brilliant and dynamic young people , for the right and informed reasons, to choose politics and public service as a profession.

With best regards  

    

      

   

Comfortably Numb

Time was when my generation was young. And pain was our fuel.

Time was when rebellion was our default state. Rebels without a cause maybe but rebels still.

Time was when  money was just those few notes in our pocket, soiled and crumpled, something to pay for the cigarettes and the bus fare and the occasional street food treat and not a string of electronic zeros defining our self-worth.

Time was when we rooted for the underdog because we were him and not because it made us feel good.

Time was when we had the freedom of the dirt road instead of being prisoners of the white lines of the freeway.

And then life happened.

Success happened. The underdog became someone who didn't make it and the devil did take the hindmost. And money became the deep shadow in which forgotten, long dead dreams lay.

Middle-age happened. And as the aches and pains of an aging body multiplied the aches of the soul are forgotten.

Life happened. And we all became comfortably numb.


PS In the 70's when I first heard "Comfortably Numb" from the seminal Pink Floyd album "The Wall" I thought of chemically-induced mind expanding trances. How was I to know that 40 years or so down the line it would take on a meaning almost exactly opposite? Whatever the meaning, it remains one of rock's greatest songs with an all-time great guitar solo embedded in it. Enjoy.

             

                                                         

                                                              "Comfortably Numb"

Hello,
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone at home
Come on now
I hear you're feeling down
I can ease your pain
And get you on your feet again
Relax
I'll need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts

There is no pain, you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I've got that feeling once again
I can't explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb

O.K.
Just a little pin prick
There'll be no more aaaaaaaah!
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb.