Some founding values for society

1. Life is valuable

1.1 No unnatural death

1.11 No murders

1.12 No capital punishment

1.13 Design systems which are not accident prone.

1.2 No poverty

1.3 No preventable diseases

1.4 No wars

2. Intelligence is in cooperation. This is an extension of strength in unity.

2.0 What is intelligence? Intelligence is the ability to decide on the activities required to

reach from point A to point B. It may involve identifying resources available, space-time

availability and the ability to manipulate those resources in the given constraints to reach

the end.

2.1 Conflict is irrational.

2.11 Avoid conflict.

2.12 A group of people with a common aim must not act as long as there is a conflict of

opinion.

2.121 Group of people can be any family, organisation or government.

2.2 Implications for research and development (engineering and science)

2.21 Research groups must share information, knowledge and expertise.

2.22 The agenda for research must be decided in accordance with other basic principles.

2.3 Cultivate intelligence for individuals and for groups

2.31 Implications for pedagogy

2.311 Let each child develop its own form of intelligence

2.3111 Offer choices but don’t impose. Recommend and help if asked.

2.3112 There are often more than one way to do the same task.

2.32 There are many forms of intelligence like plants, aquatic animals, terrestrial animals

and humans are all intelligent in their own way.

2.4 Human body and mind is the most advanced and sophisticated intelligent system that

we know about.

2.41 This can be used to unlock secrets of self.

2.42 Secrets of self are secrets of the universe.

2.421 The features shared between self and universe - networks, connections, nodes,

primordial intelligence and a self-correcting algorithm or code.

2.422 Knowing one thing completely is not exhaustible.

(Every point has an infinity of senses.)

2.5 Anger, hate, jealousy, fear, delusion, false consciousness, ignorance, lust and other

such negative emotions are not to be nurtured and cultivated.

2.6 Love, beauty, goodness, truthfulness, honesty, simplicity, humility are to be appreciated

and cultivated.

2.61 Knowing thyself is good.

2.62 Self is beautiful.

3. Behaviour is the ornament of the person.

3.1 Display of pride is ugly.

3.2 Display of power is ugly.

3.3 Display of wealth is ugly.

3.4 Unhygienic and unsanitary places and bodies are ugly.

3.5 Ugliness is to be tolerated when it agrees with 2 and when it cannot be avoided.

3.51 Efforts to mitigate ugliness must never cease.

3.6 Act according to goodwill.

3.61 Goodwill treats every individual as an end, intends no harm and aims for positive results.

3.62 Goodwill is simple, gives strength, acts as your compass.

2.63 Demands of goodwill can be enormous.

3.631 When demands of goodwill are enormous, seek help.

3.632 Always believe help can be found.

4. The aim of life is enlightenment.

4.1 Nothing is understood by knowing the word enlightenment.

4.11 One must embark on this path to even know the meaning of this word.

4.12 You may put in rigorous effort still not find a glimpse of it. You may fall back again

and again but must try again and again. Like the spider trying to reach the ceiling fails

but succeeds eventually.

4.13 Belief is the prerequisite for embarking on this path. There are umpteen accounts

of seers who set out on this path and found some peace and bliss.

4.2 One who aims for enlightenment wills enlightenment of all.

4.3 Enlightenment is not for lazy person.

4.31 It is an incentive for work.

4.32 Work done in accordance with duty without attachment to rewards and punishments

is inevitable in the path of enlightenment.

4.4 True and right knowledge prepares one for enlightenment.

4.41 Absolute knowledge is an infinity of infinities. 

4.411 Absolute knowledge is the aggregate of knowledge of all disciplines. Knowledge

of a discipline is the aggregate of knowledge of all particular entities under that discipline.

4.42 Dilemma faced in pursuit of absolute knowledge: When you are at a point K(t), how

do you know there is no K(t+1)?

4.421 Absolute knowledge is not possible.

4.43 To test one’s knowledge one should continuously doubt and trust.

4.5 As one makes progress in the process of enlightenment, one becomes more and

more compassionate.

4.51 Empathises with other suffering people.

4.52 Nurtures no ill-will.

4.53 Is willing to help anyone and everyone who seeks help.

5. Love is the hidden principle of everything.

5.0 Love breeds care. A loving person is a caring person.

5.1 Love is at the core of the theory of everything.

5.2 True love happens spontaneously and is not willed.

5.3 True love is infinite.

5.31 It can only give. It cannot take.

5.32 It is the source of much strength.

5.4 Love is a cause for celebration.

5.5 Love knows no hate. But can have pity on those who do not recognise it..

5.6 A meaningful life is life lived with dictates of love.

5.7 Love is truth. Everything else is ideology.

5.71 When you experience true love, analyse and observe it. It is the basis of all activities

in the universe.

5.72 True love kills. It kills the evil in you. It's a sharp knife that separates milk from water.

It separates pure from impure. Purity is divine. You are pure in your essence. This purity

is also at the core of matter. It is at the core of all celestial bodies - Earth, Sun, Moon,

Black Hole. It is this which exploded at the Big-Bang

6. Justice is the first principle of every formal organisation.

6.1 Demands of justice are more important than those of swatantrata and samanayata.

6.2 If one sees injustice in the world and does not do anything (immediately or

subsequently) then they are a participant in the act of injustice.

6.3 Time for justice is always always now.

(Needs to be developed)

7. Laws

7.1 Reason for evil in the world. When one suppresses one's conscience and instead

acts on the basis of self-interest or received knowledge, one does evil. This suppression

gets regimented and conditioned over time.

7.11 Listen to conscience and act accordingly. You will become firm in your beliefs.

You will become gentle in your conduct. You will be more loving and caring.

7.2 Do not participate in anything you don’t agree with. That is good will.

(Needs to be developed)

8. Hope that our tomorrow will be better than our past. So, act in the present!

Is

 

For the upcoming test

 On questions

I once asked a wise man - Do you have a heart?
What do you mean 'heart'?, he replied back.

You know heart, I said,
That which makes you cry at the sight of hungry child,
That fills you with joy looking at the blossoming flower,
That holds you back in your track,
That gives you courage to take one more step.

And what about silence, the wise man asked, does your heart know silence?
What do you mean? I don't understand for my heart is never silent.

Of all the things I have contemplated, I have contemplated silence the most.
Know it, my friend and all your curiosity will fall,
and all your questions will be answered!

Water

Water, Oh! Water! What a lively force!
You are the flow of rives,
You fill the seas,
You quench the thirst of Earth.
You are blue, you are green,
You are white and you are transparent.
Is there a joy you can't bestow, is there a form you cannot take?

Water, Oh! Water! You elixir of life!
You clean all filth, you support all life.
I love you, dear water and pray you love me back!

Shattered illusions

Where there is a will, there is a way!
So it is said by all who have known.

What is the way out of the world, I have wondered.
This world of momentary pleasures and subtle pains,
Out of the world of magnificent colours and terrible sounds.

I am weary of all reason and emotion, of all thought and feeling.
A land beyond, I was promised but have lost its sight
amongst the many and varied illusions.

Why no wise illuminate the way or is wisdom an illusion too?
For wisdom is not found amongst mere mortals.
Or that land beyond is an illusion and this world is all we have.
And what we will it to become, it becomes!

Joy

 

Birds on the line

 When the stakes are high and there is a fine line between dream and fantasy, life and adventure, when you have spent ages sitting on the edge stuck onto the wire waiting for something interesting to fashion out of nowhere, when nothing evades your attention, when you are tired and bored by the drudgery of things, when you want with all your heart to escape - you find something unmistakably filled with joy and rapture and you want to sit on the sunny-side-down hand sure footed and impervious to perturbations and you start to revel in the cheerful smile of your patron, your inspiration and source of desire and you bid them to make yourself a part of their game, you wish to wash away some part of their weariness and cheer them on, to not stop, to touch the finish line, a bit more, little by little, you try to fashion yourself in their image, their infectious joy, their awesome beauty, their freshness and liveliness.

You say you have found everything, you desire for nothing more. You want to become the source of their inspiration, to return the favour. You are a bit uncertain. Can this be so simple and plain? Can the world evade us out of our blindness to the obvious, the pure simplicity of it all?

And you decide to hang on the line a bit more for another day, for another flight, for precision, for another wind perhaps to knock you over, to eliminate all doubts of yourself and theirs, to be sure of their desire to carry you on on their shoulder.

Yoga and Yagya

In Indian thought the highest goal of the individual is to get into union with their higher self. This union it is claimed results in such sublime ecstasy that desire and need for something baser dissolves itself and the way towards a life commiserate with the deep and ever present nature reveals itself and becomes easier to follow.

A little reflection on the knowledge of vedas reveals the centrality of the institution of Yagya. Yagya is usually described as the holy sacrifice wherein offerings are made to holy fire with constant evocation of holy spirits representing various important elements which are essential to life like Sun, wind, rain etc.

In my own interpretation, I consider Yagya to be an exchange. Whenever two or more agents come together to exchange their gifts, the products of their labor, with each other - a Yagya is seemed to be have performed. The goal of all Yagyas is Yoga.

The Yagya is performed when a teacher pours his knowledge out to the pupils and pupils try to imbibe as much as possible vis-a-vis teacher. Yagya is also performed even in the simple act of eating when a morsel of food is joyfully received by the body - it is the exchange of the all providing nature and yourself. Yagya is also performed when an artists picks up his brush and paints the canvass - here it is the exchange between the artist’s imagination and the viewer’s imagination. Yagya is also performed when a customer and a businessman come together to perform a mutually beneficial transaction.

I understand that so emphasising a symbol which is so representative of a particular way of life carry the possibility of alienating others but it is so simple a symbol and so simple an observation that anything and everything of value we do is made possible by the tacit compliance of the nature. I think humans of all disposition and varieties will find resonance in this interpretation of life.

Whatever we do, if the act itself carries any meaning, is as much done for my own benefit as for the benefit of some other. Nothing in this world can live on its own without the help of others.

When we realise this and act accordingly with utmost goodwill, with no malice towards anyone, our acts appear as sacrifice for something refined, good and pure. These Yagya’s we perform on a daily basis are our means to the final union, the Yoga.

I also believe that our bodies mark the passage through which the pure elements can reach their goal - the highest self. What is breathing but the most important act to continue our lives and what are lives but a journey our spirits take to dissolve into the divine. This whole life then becomes an elaborate Yagya.

I also believe if someone somewhere will find meaning to life, they will stop to wonder at the possibility that there is no higher meaning to life that living most gently, lovingly and with utmost care.

If we consider universe to be a perfect thought and human to be the most developed and advanced life form and also believe that there cannot be two perfect thoughts and hence to conclude human, in its present form, is a stage aspiring and trying to imitate the perfect thought i.e. the universe.

Dreams

Science 

Science has come very far but still it cannot be said how far along it still has to go. 

We do not understand gravity, particles like photons and electrons, we know nothing of singularities like interior of black holes and Big Bang and do not have an intuitive understanding of quantum mechanics.

We do not understand consciousness. We do not understand beauty, love and pain. We do not understand life and we do not understand evolution. A virus has caused much destruction and there is no cure of cancers.

We do not know how deep mathematics goes and if all the knowledge and experience can be expressed within its purview. We do however understand as a symbolic game it is unbounded and is the only language in which much of our understanding can be definitively expressed. Still what new forms it can take and how its complexity may unfold, we yet do not know.

It can be arrogant to assume that a life form like humans can have a total understanding of everything in the universe. Still the yearning after knowledge has been the fundamental and most distinguishing trait of our life form.

The world

With progress of science there have been tectonic shifts in ways we live. The varying uses of electricity, developments in transportation and communications and inventions of newer materials would all seem magical to a person from as recent a time in human history as say 18th century.

Still, the world is rift in conflict. People steal, deceive and fight one another for a chance at better life. Though no one can definitely say what better life is, for some the material comforts are paramount and for some spiritual longing takes precedence. Most of the constitutions of the free world identify freedom as the most fundamental right of every one of us. Yet it must be asked what would freedom amount to when whole communities are living in poverty or are sick and the wealth and power of others causes much envy.

Education is considered as a great emancipator but what would even the best of education be to the masses who have no opportunities to get out of the unfortunate situation they find themselves in. The responsibility of job creations is mostly left out to the private businesses. But businesses aim to get the most done with minimum possible workers so they have no incentive to generate employment in numbers that addresses the problem in any meaningful manner.

This has resulted in a state where millions suffer in most abject and desperate situations while some maintain impossible standards of living. The artificial boundaries between nations sustained due to different views formed out of often times limited political and social imagination and a fundamental failure to recognise that humans everywhere have much more in common than what sets them apart results in a world which is highly lopsided and unequal.

The problem

This inequality within and amongst nations is like an active volcano waiting to explode if some fundamental changes are not made to our organisation of the world. Some countries have managed to reap the benefits of their geographical and historical situation at the expense of the others. It is a well known fact that capital grows on capital and capital attracts all forms of creative energies to itself more strongly than anything else. This means even the best of talent goes into serving the causes of the machinery that sustains and maintains this inequality.

Entrepreneurial innovation is important and must be allowed the freedom to grow to build better products and ease standards of living. These, however, cannot bring respite to the masses on an immediate basis especially those who are struggling with poverty and disease. For that there is a need of political, social and economical reimagination.

Dream

The people of the nations must come together to allow for greater movement of people and resources. The political north is abundant in resources but supports much less population as compared to the political south. By allowing greater movement of the people and recognising the need for employing talent to solve problems of developing world, there is a chance of a more equal and just world. We must realise that people suffer in poverty not out of will but due to misfortune which is man made. It is our ignorance which sustains and perpetuates poverty and it is our empathy and understanding which can remedy it.

Those who can find employment anywhere in the world must be allowed to relocate and work. Those who cannot find work at sustainable wages must be provided for by an international system of rationing. The relevant technologies and innovations in financial engineering can contribute significantly to address these issues as well.

A positive movement with particular aims and goals must be developed. This will require combined efforts of academics, politicians, policy think tanks and a consensus building among citizens of the world. The United Nations can be a significant partner in this process but it has been plagued by labyrinthine procedures and processes which renders it ineffective to make effective decisions. It often times even fails to stop wars which are blatantly immoral.

A world needs to be envisioned where each child born anywhere in the world receives good education, food and care. It is to be recognised that meaning of economics is judicial allocation of resources amongst all. The economic system where people get filthy rich on the labor and hard earned money of others without proportionately giving back needs to be significantly reformed. I believe that when the struggle for survival is significantly reduced, there will be a great unleashing of the creative energies which will result in much art and joy. We may then even be able to solve the deeper mysteries of universe and being.