4. Choice of Destiny & Gita's God

Choice of Destiny & Gita’s God

Preface

Choice of Desitiny as ‘God In Dialogue with the Self’ emerged out of e-mail interactions, initially with a former, junior colleague and later out of e-mails, internet and face-face interactions with many others including siblings, relations, friends, and former colleagues. How interesting to note that almost all had their own spiritual beliefs and dilemmas. I sincerely thank them all for their contribution to my. For most part, the thoughts reflect undigested readings of books and articles on Hindu Philosophy, Gita and Upanishads authored by both foreigners and Indians including learned Bengalis like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore. The entire responsibility of my weird views certainly rests with me and I would be happy to join you in ridiculing such views.The serial in this part were composed during 2003 – 2004 and posted later in my blog at Stochastic Destiny: Principle and Process: God, Stochastic Destiny and Gossip http://basudebsenland.blogspot.com

Exploring Gita Life is a continuation of My Essence of Gita, Part Two of Sensing Gita For A living, printed earlier. Both My Essence of Gita and Exploring Gita Life were posted during 2009-11 in my blog GitaSense: The Scientific Theory of God at http://senland.blogspot.com


I dedicate this print version Choice of Destiny & Gita’s God to my son’s Sowmdeb Sen and Kapi(e)ldeb Sen.

Basudeb Sen
Kolkata October 15, 2011





PART ONE: CHOICE OF DESTINY


1. Dharma

G: Sir, in Hinduism, the religion allowed exchanges / challenges / criticisms. This had led to reforms, adaptation, change and development of new or modified principles. Thus, Hinduism is a religion that has developed through the ages based on interactions, debates and discussion, very much like science has progressed. The basic principles of Hinduism are, therefore, time-tested and have the progressive adaptability to deal face the challenge of Time.
S: Dear, please note first that what we all now refer to as Hinduism is a religion that, I suspect, did not call itself or name itself as Hinduism. In other words, those who pioneered the basic principles of this religion did not call themselves as Hindus. Others and foreign scholars coined the words Hindu and Hinduism, probably because the people who lived in the Indus valley and surrounding regions were commonly referred to as Hindus. Much later, following what outsiders coined, the people in the country named Bharat which outsiders named India, started calling their land as Hindusthan and the religion they inherited from the long past in this land as Hinduism
G: That seems an interesting interpretation of history. Hindus did not call them Hindus, outsides named them. But isn’t their religion, Hinduism, an old one that is time-tested?
S: Please note again that Hinduism is not based on any ‘ism’ religion. What we really have with us is a body of knowledge received from people who inhabited India millenniums before Christ. This body of knowledge is called Dharma. Sometimes, Hindus call that Sanatana Dharma. The philosophies and principles of Dharma expounded by the sages and saints of the ancient ages were reflection of their endeavor to seek Knowledge and Truth and explain the ground realities of life.
G: But Hindus have their epics and stories that preach religion. They have methods of worship, rituals and practices that are different from those of other religions.
S: You are correct. But Sanatana Dharma is independent of those methods of worship, rituals and practices. That the philosophies and principles of Dharma led to the development of a religion is a different story. When you put knowledge into practice in life, you may have to adopt various standards, norms of behavior including methods of worship and rituals. You also have to have stories or epics to illustrate the way the Dharma is practiced with what effect and when Dharma may not be practiced with what effect.
G: OK. But did the body of knowledge called Dharma evolve through debates and deliberations.
S: Yes. This knowledge of Dharma and the resultant religious practices got enriched through deliberations and debates. And, Dharma has been adapted in different ways by different individuals and groups to form their own life-guidance principles and practices only some of which are religious n nature. That is why sometimes, Hinduism is called as a way of life rather than a religion.
G: About this way of life practiced by Hindus, the name given by the Arabs to our forefathers residing around and south of the river Indus is now called Hinduism by adding ’ism’ is to the term Hindu. Thus, our categorisation as Hindus following a religion called Hinduism is of very recent origin, after Buddha’s preaching spread from Bharat to other countries and after the birth of Christ. The, what is the religion that we have inherited?
S: We did not have any religion to start with; we only evolved religions. We have inherited Dharma, the universal principles of living that is reflected in human behaviour as an integral part of the Nature or the Universe or the Creation. These principles explain the Creation and its various parts and facets including the ways of life of different human beings. These principles are themselves part of the Creation. Though not prescriptive in nature, these principles work themselves out to influence different people in different ways and lead human beings to evolve different rules and regulations that get known as different religions.
G: What you are saying is Greek to me. What we practice now, as Hindu religion is not a prescription of Dharma!
S: You are correct and that is the reason I would consider Hindu Religion or any other religion as practiced today or any time as particular cases evolved by human beings due to the operation of Sanatana Dharma. Sanatana Dharma or Eternal Universal Knowledge as gathered by the ancient wrishis, munis, sages and learned persons who at some point of time in history started living in the land to the South of the Himalayas. Since the very beginning Sanatana Dharma has gone through continuous evolution and become progressively liberal and flexible to explain all that happens in the Universe. Thus this Knowledge also explains the development of various religions including the Hindu religion. This body of Knowledge of the Principles of Creation or Universe naturally has served across civilization and yugas (ages). These principles explain why most people believe in the existence of God as the creator and source of all knowledge and power reflected in the creation, maintenance and destruction of anything and everything in the Universe.
G: I really cherish Hindu religion for its flexibility. It seems to cater to all problems and all aspects of life throughout the ages. I think all other religions are also based on this basic belief system. I find many of the prescriptions, illustrations and stories common across all religions.
S: You are correct. Actually, all religions, including the various versions of what are normally referred to as Hindu religion, may be considered particular cases of Sanatana Dharma, the General Theory. To my mind there is no single Hindu religion. Based on the different principles of Dharma and philosophical knowledge handed over by the ancient sages in the form of Dharma, different ways of life have evolved in different regions in and around India. Virtually innumerable variations in life are consistent with Dharma. That is why Sanathana Dharma has no quarrel with any other religion or sect. While religions and sects may have quarrel among themselves, Sanatana Dharma accepts all religions as acceptable including those theories that do not believe in the existence of God as a creator of all. That is why this Dharam or religions based on Dharma are not “ism” religions. “ Ism” religions tend to differentiate and seek special status in society. For brevity, let me refer to Sanatana Dharma as only. Dharma does not differentiate among people adopting different ways of life. “Ism” develops rigidity, conservatism and narrowness. Dharma shuns ‘isms’ but does not quarrel with any ”ism”.
G: But there are fundamentalists among Hindus.
S: Yes, there are fundamentalists in all religions. That there are fundamentalists is also due to the operation of the Principles enunciated in Dharma. But Dharma is independent of fundamentalism. You remain subject to the principles of Dharma whether or not you adopt any particular way of life consistent with Dharma. Dharma does not ask any one to practice Dharma and form a group on that basis. Living a particular way of life is not a prescription of Dharma. No fundamentalist can find Dharma as a source of inspiration or justification.



Dharma & Destiny

S: How do we learn about Dharma?
G: You search yourself to find out the Knowledge or read the scriptures supposedly containing help and guidance to acquire that Knowledge.
G: I am always of the opinion that we need Guru in this world to acquire Knowledge. Guru can spot out his students and make them contribute to the Humanity. In Ramayana, Rama’s skills came to the knowledge of his father when the sage Vishwamitra told him. Those sages preached Sanatana Dharma or Universal Principles of Life. The principles are in the nature of Guidelines. These do not constitute a Manual of Procedures. Religions may prescribe manuals for life. Dharma does not. Similarly, Drona spotted Arjuna as his elite student and Krishna chose Arjuna to fight the war of Kurushetra. The Guru spotted the student. Narendra transformed into Swami Vivekananda is only because of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa spotted him.
S: None spotted any. The teachers and their disciples were destined to meet for the continuation of the cycle of human civilization. Guru is there in the Atman of every living being. No body contributes to humanity. Humanity progresses as per Natural Law or God. We are in the illusion thinking that Rama, Vishawamitra and Ravana are different, that Drona, Arjuna and Duryodhan are different, that Narendra (vivekananda) and Ramakrishna are different. Truth is that all these persons are the same. All are the manifestations of the Natural Law or God. Ultimate Goal of practicing Sanatana Dharma by a human being is to realize that Truth.
G: I do not agree with you that Guru-Disciple combinations do not contributes to Humanity. It is the same with the case of Chanakya who chose Chandra Gupta. Chanakya’s contribution is a lasting contribution. Since Chandra Gupta’s descendants did not follow Chanakya’s preaching, the same dynasty’s rule could not last long.
S: So you agree that Chanyaka’s preaching was not followed after a while. Really speaking, no one except God can make any lasting contribution. And, the Guru-Disciple combination cases you have cited are definitely cases of contribution to humanity. But there cannot be any lasting contribution. Even Krishna’s contribution of Gita is not a lasting contribution. We do not follow the preaching of Gita all the time. The Principles of Dharma or Destiny is the only lasting, permanent contribution. But these principles make all other actions, forms, ideas or contribution as non-permanent, non-lasting. Great sages have come, but over time the society forgot the preaching of the sages. Fresh sages came to preach the same things again and again. That is the
Principle of Destiny.
G: Sir, I am still unable to accept your view. You seem to undermine the greatness of Great people. The Ego and Pride or rather the Self-respect and the Conviction are positive sides of Great men. They also have a noble cause that they seek to serve.
S: Yes, everyone has some reason to do something.
G: It is like the Mother’s feeling for her Children. It’s the inner feeling that gives her the right and motivation to do the best thing for her children. In this world we know, every entity born has to die, be it a corporate or individual. Even Gods who have taken human form were no exceptions. However, the institution created by these Men of Pride and Ego also continues in this world. Even after forgetting the names, their role model /service to humanity is carried on. Example: Woods introduced educational reforms in India in 1857. This helped create so many barristers and intellectuals that ultimately led to the downfall of the British Empire. Lord Rippon’s reforms on local management gave the confidence to the Indians that they can govern themselves. Or, consider Napoleon’s care for his subordinates and his show of skill from the front.
S: I am not undermining great people. Great people are indeed great. They are of superior qualities than you or I. But what they did was nothing but what they were destined to do. Whatever happened was destined to happen. And the people with self-respect and conviction in the positive sense had to do what they did. But in general people with self- respect and conviction have a problem of being biased to their own point of view. Their ego and pride make them think that they are greater than others and sometimes they say that they are doing for the society but actually they want to do these things to earn fame for themselves or establish that they are great. That is the problem. Krishna did all the things; he was criticized, cursed and yet he was not all affected by praise or criticism. He knew that everyone is playing his or her role as per his/her destiny as part of natural law.
G: I believe that only the neutral people are forgotten by the world, e.g. Vidhura in Mahabharatha. The good and bad will always be remembered by the world. Therefore, the Pride and Ego should be used to serve the Humanity. It is the infinite love or hatred leads to the positive or negative Ego and Pride. It is the right that we try to muster courage to call all the human beings as Brothers and Sisters, as Swami Vivekananda did. Courage comes from self-esteem, ego and pride.
S: But there were neutral people like Vidhura and Krisna who had no Ego or Pride. They never lacked of courage. They also did what they were destined to do.
G: You seem to say, “ the work you do is on the destined path of emerging/ unfolding future but the realization of your objective or desired result of your work may not be on the destined path of future.” About this, I would like to submit that desired result or objective might be like Thomas Alva Edison’s invention of Bulb after 999 failures. In every “end” there is a new “beginning”. Putting an end to each experiment we need to write a new story with a beginning to serve the humanity with a noble objective. And each story may be new and unique with a tinge of emotions, sacrifice, failures, successes, betrayals and touch of reality, but one day to be discussed by human beings. But at least one story of our life may be on the destined path of future.
S: Your understanding is only partly correct.
G: Please explain why you have a different view?
S: One of the Fundamental Principle that is part of Knowledge or Dharma is that the Destiny Process is part of Natural Law. Your actions are all destined including the way you think, decide and do things (and the consequences like the state of your happiness or sorrow). So only in the future you come to know that what you did was what you were destined to do. The objective of any of your actions or thought may not materialize. The actual results of your actions may be different from what you thought of when you did something (action). So the actual results are those that are destined and were lying in destined path of your life or future after your action. You may remain happy irrespective of what results your previous actions lead to: your destiny makes you happy or sad irrespective of what action you do or what results those actions bring.
G: You are talking of Fate or Luck. No body will accept such things in the twenty first century.
S: Even that somebody does not accept something is because of destiny. Whether Edison or anyone else, all did what they were destined to do as these actions were on the path of their life cycle destiny. In history we write them as successes and failures, we feel good or bad. These are interpretations we give but they are only patterns that we identify by looking at past incidents and our lives. These may help us predict the future to a certain extent. But such predictions are probabilistic only. We cannot know the future with certainty. There may be examples of Great persons making discovery without any failure and others who have tried 999 times but could not discover anything

Destiny and Karma

G: I agree that all creations in this world are manifestation of God. But once he creates a human being, he gives a mind and intellect and places the karma before that life. That living being can strive to attain godliness by using his mind and intellect and attain the eternal bliss or he may be carried away by the worldly pleasures. Only the birth of an individual is because of his karma and destiny. The rest lies in the hands of the individual. This is my understanding of the philosophy of karma and destiny.
S: My dear, the Fundamental Principle of Destiny subsumes your theory of Karma and it operates before, during and after birth – all the time. Nothing lies in the hands of the individual... all are destined in the sense that everything happens in what scientific minded persons call cause and effect sequence. What you think you have thought or decided is what you were destined to think or decide. You cannot even exercise choice between following and not following Sattavik life, between submission of all that you think and do to God or do not submit fully to God, and between being happy or sad irrespective of what happens to you and the World
G: I am unable to understand your words “Your actions are all destined including the way you think, decide and do things (even the state of your happiness or sorrow).” If everything is destined, why we need a mind and intellect. Are we the dolls in the hands of destiny? If we are all dolls of destiny, what God does in this universe?
S: Yes, we are dolls of destiny and we do not know our destiny in advance. Even our peace of mind and happiness depends on destiny. God may or may not be there.
G: What is God’s role in helping us? How does the principle of Karma work?
S: According to my understanding, the principle of Karma is the principle that binds past karma with present Karma or future Karma. That means Principle of Karma is the principle of destiny. To my mind, this principle is too complicated to comprehend, as destinies of so many individuals are inter-linked. So to apply Karma principle to one individual’s destiny is only a partial analysis. We have to grasp the general model of destiny. I am at present only thinking about these aspects and cannot really explain now. Maybe I will be able to think out and arrive at my own understanding later when I can venture to explain.
G: Sir, I would like to share a story. Once a student went to a Guru and asked him to enroll him as his student. The guru saw the student palm and rejected him. The student asked why he is being rejected. The Guru explained to him that the line of reasoning in his palm is not strong, therefore he can not be good in studies. Then the student left the place and came the next day. The student showed his palm and asked his guru, whether now he can enroll him. The guru saw a deep cut in the palm made with some sharp instrument. Touched by his determination, the student was admitted and later he wrote the Sanskrit grammar and his name was Bhargavi. These things tell me there is a destiny to create obstacles and test the character / mental strength.
S: Up to this you are right
G: But we write our own destiny when we overcome these obstacles with sheer determination and conviction.
S: Here you may not be correct. Only if you are destined you will be able to overcome obstacles and you will get determination and conviction You may have noticed Smugglers and Goondas also have great determination and conviction. And some of them succeed in what they do. They achieve wealth and comfort. They were destined to what they have done and achieved. They are also destined to face the music later on.
G: As I understand, in this world, every human being born is with a heavenly fire in him. But to realize and achieve the eternal bliss lies in the use of his mind and intellect through continuous introspection. In the process, every life needs an inspiration or some catalyst for awakening.
S: You are absolutely right.
G: The entire thing can be summarized as to “Be of it but not of it”. The so-called ‘detached attachment’.
S: Not absolutely correct. Detachment is from the consequences of whatever happens to external environment and impact of that on you so that you can never be sad; it is like seeing some entertaining cinema... nothing happens to you thereafter. Attachment is only to the feeling of oneness with the entire Universe.
G: I feel the Zen Buddhism, one of the ways to practice Hinduism, is now best to express this ‘way of life’ (Hinduism). According to my understanding of Zen philosophy, the entire belief is based on the word “Circumspect”. Being careful in what we say and do, we realize god. By troubling our body we cannot enjoy good things and at the same time allowing worldly pleasures also will not move us towards God. So the self is more important to realize God.
S: You are right. Zen Buddhism may also be linked to the basic principles of Sanatana Dharma. Yes, self is the most important. But this self means the Atman (God inside one’s own entire existence; all of us exist in God).
G: They have a Zen tea ceremony, where the followers are taught to take the tea with full concentration of taking it and enjoying the tea. Another story is a Zen Monk, burning the Buddha idols made of wood to withstand the cold and next day worshipping Buddha in a piece of stone. The Zen philosophy says for every sinner there is a remedy and future. By serving the humanity, the sins are washed.
S: There is nothing like sin and sinner. Some people are destined to do something that is not good from the point of view of social and natural justice. But such people and what they do are also the manifestations of God and is a part of the destiny process.
G: I think that the entire belief is something in-between Grahastham and sanyasam.
S: Grahastham and Sanyasam are phases of social life. One can become a Sanyasi while staying in his own house or Gruha like Sri Rama Krishna did. Sanaysi is the ultimate seeker of Eternal Truth, which is the state of intellect and mind where one is always pleased with him and the entire world irrespective of what happens in the World. But so far as you are concerned, you can be a Sanayasi working in XYZ company or business and serving your family and simultaneously striving to shun all Tamasic and Rajasic thoughts and deeds. With Sattavik inclinations you try to reach the Ultimate State of Mind And Intellect that is filled only with the Ultimate Truth. But whether you will seek Truth and what manner, if at all, is also part of destiny process and not your choice. What I am telling to you will be very difficult for you to digest. You rather not try to digest all these at this stage. But keep remembering what I said/write. Ponder over them for a few minutes once in two years or whenever you happen to feel that you need to recall these words.
G: This is something like being insensitive to a sensitive issue
S: There is nothing Sensitive really. There is nothing insensitive either. We need to go beyond this classification and see all issues as the same.

Karma, Choice and Destiny

G: I am not able to digest your statement that I have or make no choice at all and I am only playing the role as per my destiny.
S: You need not at this stage. Nor is it possible for you now; at your stage, I also could not. Don’t worry about this. You may or may not be destined to accept what I say I believe in. You are doing your Karma. You have no choice.
G: I cannot accept that we should keep quiet.
S: You will not be able to keep quiet if you are not destined to do so and some one who is destined to keep quiet will keep quiet.
G: How can one tolerate even after watching atrocities forced on us. At any point of time if I think that I may receive some punishment on the X issue, I am unable to bear that thought.
S: Do not keep your mind on what happened in the past and its impact on present and future. Think only of what you do NOW at present. You are only one of the many persons whose interactions result in certain actions/ impact over which you have no control. Each person seems to have decided and acted rationally for him and her and you had to face the adverse consequences. That is what is happening all the while in this world. Sun has to burn for no reason of its own, Moon cannot see the Sun from all its side even if it wishes to and we have tides because of the Moon. Someone looses his parents young; some others have to care for their sick and old parents. Why can’t everyone’s parents die at the same age of say 65 years?
G: But advances in Science can explain the causes of all happenings you are talking about.
S: Yes, Science establishes links between causes and events/ effects. But Science, logic or rationality does not explain why the Sun and the Moon have to exist the way they do: only explanation available is the process in which the Sun and the Moon exist. Science can only explain in terms of differences in body structures, genetics, food and other habits and other external happenings like car accident. But such an explanation does not help. For we want to know why a particular individual is chosen to suffer a particular impact. Science and logic have limited explanatory power. They can only relate present happenings/differences in terms of past happenings/ differences. All this is part of Knowledge and is consistent with the Fundamental Principle of Destiny. With that civilization progresses ahead in an exponential manner every century. But science and logic cannot explain why is that in the Universe each Sun has to be there to burn for such long periods. We cannot really explain why a man died and another man did not die in the same accident.... Why the first person was in the coach of the train that caught fire and the second person did not get the chance to be in the same coach? Why we have to have people with differences. Why can’t the universe have all persons identical in all aspects?
G: I understand that the people are different. But, I am unable to forget those people (right from juniors to seniors) who instigated all to blow our issue out of proportion. N tampered the documents. RN and SR treated me dishonestly, unfairly though they were not my enemies.
S: Those people did what they were destined to do. Their actions now are the results of their actions in the past and thoughts and their future destiny will be influenced by what they did in the recent past.
G: If not for me, but for the good to prevail and to prevent these kinds of people harming others, I feel I need to do something at some point of time.
S: Good prevails ultimately. Your feelings are perfectly legitimate. If you are destined to do something to prevent them, you will do it. But prevention is not ultimately in your hands. No one could stop India being divided in 1947. Even Krishna could not stop the war of Kurukshetra. No one could stop Hitler. No one could stop Hiroshima Atom Bomb. No one could stop Godhra. No one could make India a super-economic power despite 50 years of Planning in the last century. No one could stop the great famine in China, nor its economic liberalization. You do what your conscience tells you and your guts and emotions forces you to do, but don’t expect that you are the person who will deliver the results by your actions unless the results are in the path of destiny.
G: I need further clarity on your definition of destiny. As I understand from your explanations, if a ‘being’ fully submits to God, for him everything is happiness in the world. This is case of Epicureans. On the other hand, if a person does not fully submit himself to God then he is supposed to have fluctuating melancholia.
S: This is your interpretation to which you are entitled. You cannot submit to God by your decision. If you submit to God that is your destiny...many developments happen before you submit to God. Submission to God is a path in which you are trying to be in peace of mind irrespective of what happens in the environment or your body or your mind. The Goal is not submission to God; it is merely a path to free your intellect and State of mind from the bondage of the World
G: Further, as I understand, nature will not allow any being to discover the Truth about itself. If someone attempts to, it creates all trials for him and checks him whether he is fully qualified to know the Truth and secrets about itself. This attempt is to find out the truth I call as Determination. For this, one need not be destined.
S: Whether one has determination at any point of time or not is also determined by the operation of the Destiny Principle. Not all found out the Truth about Law of Gravitation. Only one, Newton did.
G: The point is that one should have the determination to fight against destiny.
S: Determination is a very attractive word. But a thief also requires determination to be successful in stealing jobs. If you are destined, you will have determination. So, determination is not a fight against destiny... determination and lack of determination are parts of a being’s destined path.
G: It is the “never, never give up” attitude we find with a spider or Robert Bruce or Lincoln or Dhuruva or Nachiketa. This determination ensures progress towards achieving positive goals in the service of the humanity.
S: All these great men were great and had determination not because they wanted to be great or decided to have strong determination, but because they were destined to be Great and have determination. None could stop India being divided in 1947. Even Krishna could not stop the war of Kurukhsetra. One merely does what one’s conscience tells in accordance with the Principle of Destiny. It is your guts and emotions that force you to do. You therefore do what you are destined. You have only the right to do destined work. But don’t expect that you are the person who will deliver the desired results of your actions unless those results are in the path of destiny.
G: Even after knowing all these things why I am not able to digest the facts around me? I am not able to find the reason for this. Maybe I have the ego that I have been so good and sincere and have not thought any bad for others. Therefore this arrogance leads me to ask the question: when I have been so good and when I am not at fault why I should suffer?
S: What you are doing is absolutely natural and as per your destiny. That is the part and parcel of destiny of a living being with body and mind. You and I think we are independent separate entities and that if we have done right, others will do no wrong to us. We are destined to think that way. But that thinking does not have any rational basis. Nor is such thinking relevant to the Reality. The water vapor traveled up, combined with others to form rain-clouds and then it came down to earth back as part of rain. But it cannot ask why she was in the sky for 29 hours with another vapor, which stayed as part of cloud for 3 hours before falling down as rain. This is the principle of destiny written in simplistic form.
G: I wish I could meet you instead of discussing with you through emails.
S: Your wish can be fulfilled if we are destined to meet someday, somewhere in future.
G: The insight I get from your writing is convincing. But, we don’t know the purpose of our birth and what we have to accomplish?
S: Yes, we don’t know and we need not know except that the purpose of our birth is to continue in the bondage of destiny and move along the path of destiny. And, we accomplish what we are destined to do.
G: I was pondering over your statements. A few things came to my mind. According to me, the principle of Karma is a linear equation in the hands of God.
S: I don’t know whether it is an equation or if it is linear. But whatever it is, it may not be in the hands of God. Rather God is bound by the principle of destiny and we are all linked to that. Thus, we are both in and part of God that symbolizes the time path of destiny of the Universe and all that the Universe contains.
G: I seem to agree that there is destiny.
S: We agree and probably we are right.

Duty And Destiny

G: The law of destiny seems to be complicated because of the interwoven duties of an individual. Where our actions and those related to us are valued against our previous karma and the derived factor is achieved which is our future karma. Therefore, I see this life as a duty
S: When we cannot but follow destiny that becomes our only and unavoidable duty. We are all doing that duty: no one is capable of not following the path of destiny.
G: I still would argue that we have to prioritize our duties: first, the duties as children of our parents, then as a student, then as spouse, parent, friend, relative, colleague, then as citizens of our country and the world. Finally, comes the duty of self-realization and to attain Bliss. I feel that the stages of life prescribed by the (Hindu!) scriptures of ancient Bharat or India, namely, the stages of Brahmachariam, Grahastham, Vanaprastham and Sanyasam are nothing but the stages of realization of duty. In the Vanaprashtam, we do the duty towards humanity after settling our family and children. The Sanyasam is the stage of duty towards self-realization.
S: Well said. All these stages are part of the general formulation of destiny... the actual stages through which one goes is as part of individual destiny.
G: Therefore, is the dereliction of duty like being a bad son, bad parent, and bad citizen also part of our destiny?
S: Dereliction of duty to parents, wife, children, and society is also part of destiny or destined duty (lack of duty or negative duty or zero duty)
G: Here I feel that the astral science helps to understand the karma factor better. According to palmistry, for men they say the left hand is the fate and the right hand is what we achieve. If we see both our palms we would find there is a slight difference in the lines. It is said every 7 years the line changes. According to science, clasping of our hands in the womb forms the lines on the palms. Then, why do the lines vary from hand to hand across billions of people? Since every being in the world should be duty bound, any deviation / aberration affects the linear equation of karma where a certain percentage of the other variables and constants are also added.
S: I have no idea of linear equations of Karma or duty. When we come to know irrespective of whether we are able to accept or digest this knowledge) that we are only the dolls of destiny, we learn to live comfortably with our destiny, discharging our duties on the destined path ahead.
G: This is what Krishna says in Bhagawad Gita,” Do your duty, don’t expect any fruits of duty, and leave the results to it to God. So what we have to do is only to discharge our duties.
S: Yes, you are right. We have no choice but to do our duty or lack of duty as ordained by destiny. Better to do cheerfully what you are bound by destiny to do. If we destined we will be cheerful.
G: Having acquired skills and not utilizing it, is a dereliction of duty.
S: But both acquisition of skills and the extent of their usage are fully conditioned by destiny. You cannot have any choice really. Man took so many years to discover and use fire and another so many years to know that earth moves around the Sun and so on. Why did it take such a long time to discover all these simple things? It is destiny. Nothing can happen before destined time and everything happens as per destined time path.
G: The best epic to explain the clutches of destiny is Silapathikaram, written by Elango Adigal in Tamil. A Prince who became a Buddhist monk and wrote this epic that tells the story of Kovalan, Kannagi and Madhavi. The timid housewife Kannagi destroyed Madurai, the capital city when the Pandian king delivered an injustice and beheaded her husband Kovalan thinking that he has stolen the queen’s Anklet. The interesting fact about Elango Adigal (saint) is that he was the second prince. An astrologer who visited the palace had told that the second prince only would rule the world. On hearing this, the first prince was disturbed. To prove the astrologer that the predictions were wrong, he became a Buddhist monk. However, he was more popular than the king because of his nature and literary contributions.
S: Your interpretation seems correct because a popular person with literary contributions rules the hearts of people if that is his destiny, while a king may be the ruler of the land if that is the destiny.
G: As I understand, poor does not necessarily mean economically poor, but also people who are short of love, affection, appreciation, acknowledgement and recognition.
S: You are right. Poor does not mean merely poor in terms of income or wealth. Those who are short of love, affection, health, appreciation, and acknowledgement are also poor. If people require empowerment and opportunities to earn more income to come out of poverty, some other people need similar support to come out of bondage and enjoy liberty. Still some others need assistance to get and give love, affection, and recognition. The definition of “poor” is human creation. Inadequacy of something in relation to desired level/ amount/ measure is the criterion to judge whether one is poor or not. However if the principle of destiny is to be believed, then there may always be some people who are poor in terms of something or the other. So, this definition of poor is not very helpful although Man is destined to use this definition of poor.
If we examine the destiny path of different individuals each has a basket of what people call good and bad luck. As in economics, these need to be aggregated and over time. But we do not have market prices and interest (discount) factor to aggregate the different elements on the destiny path. Moreover, even if one had some prices to value them, the problem of interpersonal comparison would remain. For we see many poor people apparently more happy than many rich people irrespective of how you measure poor or rich (income, wealth, love affection, worries, etc.). Was Ramkrishna Paramhansa rich or poor? If he had submitted all his actions and time path of life to God, he did not own any poverty or lack of any thing. If he did not ask for or require anything beyond what his destined life thrust on him, and lived happily, then he must have been a rich person. Were Vivekananda rich because he was recognized by the World or he set up Ramkrishna Mission? I think that was part of his destiny and destiny of the World. He was rich because he submitted his thoughts and deeds to God. He owned nothing and yet did as he was destined.
G: In one of the religious discourse, the speaker was saying the urge for each individual in the world to excel and to attain goals, originate from the moment of our conception in mother’s womb. In the sperm even though over 6 million living organisms are present, only one is able to swim and fertilize the egg in the uterus. In a few cases, two are able. It is this race right from time of our conception that makes us crave for recognition and acknowledgement.
S: Whatever you have said now, all the more clearly points out how, what will happen when and what one will do at any moment is determined by a logic/ principle/ law over which none has any control. That is the principle of destiny. Its operation starts much before a human child is conceived and continues after death. If such a powerful principle determines the logic of conception, it must be more intelligent than human beings. That principle is destiny and that is nothing but God, the indestructible and infinite. Since that principle applies throughout all conceivable universes, man is too small to decide what he will do. Whatever we do individually and collectively get determined by that principle and that is why I term this as the Principle of Destiny. Individually and collectively we do what we are destined to do, we have no choice. And, the laws of destiny determine whatever we do. So far we have come to know only a few of the laws that are part of the Law of Destiny. For example, you have the law of gravitation. Why is this Law there? It is destined to be there. No one can change it but one can use it as per destiny.

Altering Destiny

G: Though we commonly agree that there are rules of destiny in this world, I have a slight objection to accepting the concept of the destiny. According to my understanding, the birth and death are part of destiny as our living and the attainments are. But, there is also a rule of exception and there are ways to alter this destiny.
S: You are bound to have difficulty in accepting the absoluteness of the principle of Destiny. Even that is as per destiny. So do not worry or get excited.
G: This is what we see in the case of Nachiketa, Dhruva, Vishwamitra and so many others. There was a destiny for them, but they altered it. It is by good thought and determination through meditation.
S: No, they did not alter their destiny. They could not have done so. They acted as per their destiny only. It was destined that they will have a major change in their lives. This happens in many human lives as also in stars. There is no exception to the Law of Destiny in the entire Universe. The examples you have given all the more prove this. The persons you mentioned were destined to turn to good thoughts, to imbibe determination and to do meditation. One cannot have determination unless one is destined to so have.
G: In Tamil, one of the words for God is “Kadawul” where “Kada” means going beyond or cross and “Wul” means inner part (internal) or inside part denoting the mind. If we go beyond and search for Him, then only we can see him. In one of the books, I read that God lived with human beings, but human beings began to pester him asking for silly things and complaining about silly things. So, he decided to hide himself. But because of the intelligence He has given to the human beings, wherever he hid, he was traced. Therefore, he thought about a place where these human beings would not discover him. Thus, he hid himself inside each living being. Men searched everywhere externally but not internally.
S:This is a nice story. It captures the essence of Sanatana Dharma. The Principle of Destiny and God are to be sought inside. The observations may be outside. But, the discovery of the Law of Gravitation was from inside.
G: Now also, the destiny for each individual is to be as a doll. But whoever wants to be a rebel and know the secrets of Nature and alter their destiny, the Nature after testing them enough rewards them. To choose their destiny and live by it or not always lies in the hands of the individual. The Rishis and the siddhas knew the secrets and they worked and altered their destiny. We can see like this, there is a tide in the affairs of each men, either we can reach a new shore or give up and be killed by the tide. If killed by the tide, it is destiny but if we reach new shore it is our alteration of destiny.
S: Well said, but this is incorrect interpretation. Human beings will always have problem in accepting the Rule of Destiny but no option but be bound by Destiny. This is also a part of Destiny. In Sanatana Dharma this is called Illusion or Maya. Look, accepting Half Destiny and Half Human choice is a logical mess. This may give me great satisfaction that as a Man I am great because I have choice and freedom. But then it is better to say that we always determine our destiny. Unfortunately, no one can claim this. So, when one succeeds in his aim, he says he has achieved this by his effort and determination. So he has altered his destiny. If he fails to succeed, he says this is because of ill luck or accident or fate or destiny. This kind of reasoning is fallacious even in scientific endeavor. No Rishi has ever altered destiny. They did and act and lived as per their individual destiny. They also did not have any choice. You cannot be a Christ or Buddha, or Vivekananada or Bill Gates or Bin Laden or Saddam unless you are so destined. Mind you, don’t think that Destiny is arbitrary. Like Law of Gravitation is not arbitrary, Law of Destiny is a coherent, logical principle.
G: The greatest thing about God is that He dwells in each one of us. He has hidden great powers in us. We need to search and invoke it. We face so many trials and ordeals in this life that we abandon our search and we fall in the hands of destiny. He has given us the mind that is so powerful.
S: You are talking about the principle of destiny only but becoming illogical while talking about the power of destiny. If God has given all powers inside us, why we fail searching it. It is because the Law of destiny does not make it possible that all human beings realize all the powers given by God at the same time. It is the Law of destiny that makes one struggle and fail or succeed. No entity or element is independent in this universe and cannot exercise any choice. All elements and entities have to function as per the Law of destiny. The mind is powerful because it derives its power from the Law of Destiny, which is the Ultimate, and the Supreme power/ force/ principle/ intellect.
G: We would have come across some old people who are in the deathbed but still not dying. The elders and religious people used to say that they have some bondage for gold, so they dissolve gold and pour in his mouth. Even after that if a person did not die, they would say he had attachment for the land and they would dissolve the soil and pour in his mouth. Even then if he did not die they would ask his beloved ones to pour milk. Then he would give up the last breath. This is not a story. This has happened in many people’s lives. Sometimes, when we truly wish for something in the mind, it happens. Certain things appear to us in dreams; some indications are given by nature in the form of omens. I am not talking about superstition. Because we lost our knowledge to interpret the things before us, many things are not known to us. Sigmund Freud made a few attempts to read the mind. Psychoanalysts call it ESP. But ancient Indian rishis had made larger contributions in this field of knowledge.
S: Assume what you have said just now is completely true. But the Law of Destiny can explain all these. Remember that Law of Destiny is a logically consistent and coherent principle. Destiny Principle is not for blaming fate or hiding failure or depriving credit of success or consolation for the unlucky. You have to strive hard to understand it and will understand it only if you are destined to do so. But if you are destined to understand the Law of Destiny, you will be first destined to realise that no man can really make any choice independently: all choices are the result of a process over which no human mind has any control.
G: True, destiny has created the planets in this world and also specific orbits created for them. The Saturn in its orbit should have some impact, similarly other planets, on human beings. But this destiny is also subject to alteration when the man knowing it circumspectly determines to alter it with the sense of devotion and determination. If we assume all the happenings are because of destiny then we may have to justify the suicide as part of destiny.
S: To commit suicide is to alter destiny. But one cannot commit suicide unless one is destined to do so. Whether planets have impact on individual human beings is not the issue. The simple Truth is that whatever a person does is only as per the principle of Destiny. I X tells Y that Y will be affected by Saturn and will be soon killed, and then Y goes and wears a stone and worship Lord Kali and then lives for hundred years. The story only proves and does not disprove operation of the Law of Destiny and its absoluteness. The entire sequence of events from X telling Y was all destined.
G: According to me God is some combination of gravitational force, electricity and magnetic force. Each man has some combination of these energies or forces, but when it is acquired beyond the average level, he is able to perform some inordinate tasks, which could not be performed by other human beings. Therefore, by discovering the self we may be led to know the purpose of our lives. Once we know the purpose of our life, definitely we know our destiny and we may alter it. So our duty lies is exploring us. What do you think?
S: We will talk about this next.

Exploring Life And Destiny

G: When we have a purpose of life, we know what destiny we should explore for. Then, we make a choice and we change our destiny.
S: The entire lives of all human beings are explorations only. Each human being is in continuous search for discovering the self. This search will continue as rivers continue to search the ocean, the stars the sky, the scientists the knowledge, the devotees the Lord, the lover the loved, and so on. But this search is destined as per the Law of Destiny. When a search ends and a new search begins is yet to be known by Man. At present, there is no hope for anyone to escape from the Universe and hence from the Law of Destiny. If you think you have changed your destiny one day, check on the same day if you have fallen into trap of another destiny. The reality is that you cannot change your destiny. Destiny is the Ultimate Truth. That destiny makes you believe that you determine your destiny, makes you feel that you know your purpose of life and makes you feel that you can change your destiny. Clearly, you are in Illusion.
G: All that you have said appear true. It took so many days for me to swallow what you said on the last occasion. Yesterday, when I was talking to my friend he was telling an incident that in an Earthquake a girl child was saved from the debris after three days. Now a very rich person adopts her and an amount of Rs. 25 lakh was placed as fixed deposit in her name at the time of her adoption. All set to tell me we are only puppets.
It reminds me of a few lines from Omar Khayyam’s Rubbaiyat,
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety not Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all the Tears wash out a Word of it. “
Now, I am a bit confused. If the Law of Destiny does everything, what do we have to do? What I have to do? Then what is our duty? What do we explore?
S: Thanks for your mail. It is going to take quite a while to digest Law of Destiny. And, that is the time we spend on exploring life.
A Bengali saint named Ramprasad Sen had sung thus centuries back:
“Tomaar (Your) Karma (Duty) Tumee (You) Karo (do), Ma (Mother),
Lokay (People) boley (Say), Karee (Do) Aaamee (I).”
In other words, the Law of Destiny makes things happen through you and I.
But everyone and we think that we do what we are doing.
Even if you subscribe to the Law of destiny, this is not because you chose to do so, but because you are so destined.
G: Ultimately, this is all about your Destiny Principle. There is nothing more to understand.
S: I wish it were so easy to understand and become fully conversant with this Law. If you are destined to become conversant, you will also come to know:
(a) What all destiny covers and what not (i.e. the space/ domain over which
Destiny is defined), (b) What are the assumptions underlying the Law of Destiny, (c) what the different components of the Law of Destiny like destiny of an individual, destiny of a group, destiny of mankind, destiny of other living beings, destiny of non-living things, destiny of ideas, (d) the possibility of destiny prediction, and (e) the use of the Law of destiny. I am currently exploring these aspects.
G: What are your plans?
S: I do not know how far I am destined to go along this line. But it seems to me that the Law of Gravitation is a small part of the Law of destiny, so is the Law of Competitive evolution. All the principles of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Genetics, Astronomy, Medicine, IT and telecommunications as well as of all social sciences including economics and all religions are manifestation of the Law of Destiny. You were destined to question me on this so that I think about these more. And, I thank you for this. This is also consistent with the Law of Destiny. If my destiny permits, you and I will be able to come up with detailed answers to the questions you have asked now.
G: If the Law of Destiny does everything, what we have to do? What I have to do? Then what is our duty, what do we explore?
S: The short answer is: It’s the Law of destiny that causes you to explore life and do that which is your duty. Gita is prophetic as much as it is tautological. This is the way I have understood the Law of Destiny. You and I will do only that is our duty, which is as per the process of destiny. There is no correct or incorrect duty. There is only duty that is programmed by Destiny. So you are destined to make these questions. To ask them was your duty and you could not have stopped yourself from doing this destined duty.

Exploring Destiny Principle

G: You have been saying that the Principle of Destiny is what determines what happens. And, we cannot change our destiny. Can you explain this a little more?
S: There are three ways of explaining this Principle. First is the simple tautological proof. The destiny principle is stated in a manner that the statement can never be proved wrong. It Destiny determines what happens and nothing happens that is not destined, it automatically means that whatever happens is what is destined to happen. Of course, you might say that earlier you were weak and were beaten by others in competition but now you have changed your destiny by going through a course under a guru to make yourself strong after which you have started beating all others because of your enhanced power. Interestingly, this example of yours proves rather than disproves the principle of destiny. For, I would say that you were destined to start as weak, then destined to get strength with the help of a guru and finally destined to establish your supremacy over your competitors. Thus, the Destiny principle cannot be proved wrong.
G: Where have I gone wrong by giving the examples to prove that destiny can be changed?
S: The problem is that in each case you see a dramatic change in the course of a man’s life, you are assuming that the change was not destined. You are assuming that a man would remain weak was his destiny. But through his own efforts he has become strong and therefore changed his destiny. Your assumptions are wrong. The destiny included the dramatic change in one man’s life as compared to no change in another man’s life.
G: What are the other explanations of destiny principle?
S: The second approach to explaining the destiny principle is to construct a model of the functioning of the Universe on the basis of assumptions that cannot be proved wrong and then show that destiny cannot be changed. This method is also tautological in the sense that the assumptions are essentially the implications of the Destiny Principle. However, since the assumptions are explicitly stated, this method gives a logical insight of the mind of those propounding the Destiny Principle.
G: Would you now explain this Second approach?
S: I can only try to formulate the model. But I am not sure whether this model is the best representation of the Destiny model. This model makes the following three simple assumptions:
1.The Universe is under a predetermined continuous process of change.
2.This is reflected in a process of continuous actions by and interactions among the entities contained in the Universe.
3.The process of actions and reactions results in a process of continual change in the status and property (of change/ response/ reaction) of each entity.
From these follow the Destiny Principle.
G: How?
S: Because of assumption 3, any entity at any point of time does not remain the same entity the next point of time and thus undergoes continual change in its status and properties. So, the only destiny of an entity is the emergence and extinction of a status within an infinitesimal time interval. Now, due to the assumptions 1 and 2, each entity has to accept the change in its status and property at each successive point of time. The process of change of the Universe determines each action of each entity. The status of each entity at any point of time is what is destined for it, given the process of change of the Universe. No entity can alter the predetermined process of change of the Universe and therefore its own destiny.
G: I have a problem with the predetermined process of change of the Universe. Who has predetermined the process?
S: Maybe God. If you do not believe in God, you have to find out who determined. But so long as it is predetermined the destiny of each entity and the Universe is unalterable.
G: Why do you say that the process of change is predetermined?
S: Let us say it is not predetermined. But is the process a defined, definite process (it is yet not known to us)? If it is a defined, definite process, the status of each entity and therefore the destiny of the Universe and all entities are defined and determined by the process.
Thus the destiny of the Universe and all entities in it cannot be altered. Alternatively, let us say that the process is undefined and therefore arbitrary. In that event, the destiny of the Universe and the entities are totally indeterminate. Any thing can happen at any time in the Universe. In such a case, every thing that happens is not within the control of any entity in the Universe. Thus each entity faces a destiny irrespective of whatever it does. It is like the determination of prices and quantities bought and sold in a perfectly competitive market: Demand and Supply forces determine them but no individual or group of buyers can determine the market prices at any point of time or over time.
In either case, whether the process of change is defined or not defined, each entity in the Universe is dependent on destiny for its future and is unable to influence its future with certainty. However, all the best brains of the mankind have tried to discover the defined, definite process of change of the Universe.
G: Why are you getting into so complicated things?
S: There is no complication. It is simple. If we think that Man can or has built his destiny, then this would mean that Man is outside or independent of the Universe, which is continually changing. This is the fallacy or illusion that a human being is constantly suffering from because human beings are destined to do so. This illusion or Maya is a property of human beings that produces the destined actions from them (they do not do anything on their own). Is it not so very elementary and simple?
G: It seems so at the moment. Now tell me about the third approach.
S: Before I come to the third approach, I need to elaborate on the concepts used in the second approach so that one can understand the assumptions and appreciate how the conclusion about destiny principle is understood.
G: What concepts? You talked in plain English. There is no new concept!
S: Nothing is new but the concepts should be clarified. First, consider the term entity. There are broadly three types of entities. There are form-specific entities like cells of a living body, parts, components or constituent elements of a living or non-living body (hand, finger, fossil, root of a tree, electron, proton, atom, tiger, teeth, fish, water, atom, house, club, schools, kingdom, table, chair, oil, Sun, Moon, Mars, airplane, ship, missile, fruit, fertilizer, shirt, virus, etc). A collection of parts, elements or whole of living or non-living bodies can also be form-specific entities (like family, troops, administrators, rulers, judiciary, dinner-set, books, library, fleet, flock, etc). Then, there are form-free entities (including their parts, components or constituent elements) like electricity, heat, energy, air, pressure, force, sound, etc). Another group of entities may be called formed entities like idea, language, thought, feelings, symbols, logic, mathematics, sciences, technology, rules, laws, codes, customs, religion, sports, warfare, marriage, knowledge, beauty, love, hatred, anger, etc). Components or parts or collection of formed entities are also formed entities.
G: You are giving too many illustrations.
S: It is just the opposite. Considering the infinite number of different types of entities, I am giving too few examples. But beside entities, I have to elaborate on Process. Processes are cause and effect sequences expressed without or with time lag. Processes may be defined mathematically. The processes may have properties like stability, stationarity, etc. The movement of the earth is a process. So is the flow of water from river to ocean to clouds producing rain a process. Similarly, the conception of a child, its birth and growth into adult and till aging towards death and the growth of a tree from a seed are processes. The making of a decision to consume and save are processes. The conversion of fossils into fuels, wheat into loaves, molasses into alcohol and mineral oil into kerosene are all processes. The teaching of mathematics in school is a process as much as the training of a manager into a better manager or the development of love / hate relationship between two human beings.
G: What about the concept of properties?
S: These are physical, chemical, biological, psychological, thermal, genetic, cosmological, astronomical, astrological, sexual, social, political, ethnic, and economic properties. Properties may also be processes. Entities exhibit or acquire these properties and are subject to undergoing these processes as are applicable to different entities. The processes and properties define the actions and reactions of entities at different points of time.
G: What is meant by Status?
S: Status is the snapshot at a point of time giving the condition of the entity in terms of properties, processes, actions and interactions. The status tells us what the entity is doing, what it is capable of doing and the forces operating on it at that point of time. It also tells us the specific sequence/phases in various processes through which it is passing, its composition, its combination or relation with other entities, its location, its feelings, etc.
G: Why are you talking about these various things? What does all this have to do with Destiny?
S: These help define the concept of destiny. If we take the snapshots over successive points of time in the future, we get the destiny of an entity. For example, the destiny of the Sun is what it is going through. If it has been burning for long, today’s Sun is not the same Sun that was burning 20,000 years back. The Earth has been orbiting the Sun for long. It has gone through changes in its composition and weather conditions. Man was not there from the very beginning. Many species have gone under extinction. The landmass has changed in shape. Is it the same Earth? The human society has changed. Each person is changing by the second. A Man of 25 is not what he was at the age of 5. Is it the same Man? This is one form of visualizing the destiny. The other form is to visualize the process that is responsible for the change. If there are processes that are generating changes in the entities’ status and imparting them with properties to act and react, how can the entities independently determine their destiny? The processes that affect the entities define all their actions and the results of their actions. So, the process or processes that describe the Universe define destiny of each entity in the Universe. The entities and their status at different points of time are only a series of transient outcomes of the various change processes at work in the Universe. This is the essence of the Destiny Principle as explained by the Second Approach.
G: What about the third approach to explaining the Destiny Principle?
S: The third approach is one of finding counter examples to disprove any theory that says that Human being as a group or an Individual can determine or influence its destiny in some way or the other. All the three approaches complement each other in our understanding the Destiny Principle. And, all these arguments for and against the destiny Principle are also entities that are again nothing but transient outcomes of the processes of change and the property of human beings.
G: Will you not explain the third approach further?
S: No. It does not require explanation. It has to be demonstrated. In the beginning, you had given examples to disprove destiny, which in fact only proved destiny. That is the way the third approach works. You must remember that to argue for and against the Destiny principle is a property of human beings. Some people argue for because of the experience they have undergone through various processes. Some others argue against because of the same reason. Only their experiences under the change processes differ and the processes have imparted to them opposite properties of action/ reaction. All this again is as per the Principle of Destiny.
G: At this point, I need some clarification. From what you said it seems no one and nothing in the universe has any control over what happens to it or anything in the Universe. There is no real choice. It so happens that there can be a few human beings who are destined by the process to reach peace of mind and happiness independent of their destined environment. But whether a particular person will know that this is not something over which the person has any control. Entire thing is as per destiny, but many who get liberated are destined to go through a path that is based on the concept of God - though in reality God may or may not exist. One who gets liberated (reaching peace of mind and happiness irrespective of whatever happens) gets into the State of Godhood or becomes God. So, one will come to know that he is on the path of liberation only by the process itself. That I believe in this is not my choice. I am destined to believe all these.
G: I think the destiny process can be expressed in the form of mathematical equations with parameters belonging to the domain of real numbers, allotted by our Almighty to each individual. In other words, everything whatever is happening in our life, whatever we are thinking and whatever qualities we are exhibiting, are time dependent variables, showing the results at every point of life following those equations. These sets of equations are our Life-path equations. We are just displaying the equations at every point of our lives from the birth unto death. The people with a very good mathematical background and interest in acquiring knowledge of human features/ behaviours can undertake this kind of research and develop the equations.
S: Maybe you are right. If some mathematicians are destined to find out the equations, one day they will. The Hindu Astrology is an effort towards that end. But nobody knows how their models and their calculations work. They are not precise. More fundamentally, I do not believe in deterministic destiny. I believe in stochastic destiny.
G: What is this stochastic destiny in contrast to deterministic destiny?
S: May we discuss this later.

Continuous Stochastic Destiny Process

G: We were to find out why destiny is not deterministic but stochastic?
S: For me, an element or thing or entity or living being in the Universe does not really have a distinguishing independent existence except for infinitesimal moment of time. When you see dust particles do you distinguish among different particles and name each of them? You do not. You may at best classify them into different categories only. Yet different particles travel to different destinations. No destiny is really written nor is required to be written for each particle. The entire thing in which we see dust particles or human beings or the planets and stars are nothing but an umbrella of stochastic dynamic process for each dust particle, each being, each planet and each star and each anything. The state of each thing is always changing whether you can observe that change or not. In this transformation each thing is transformed into a different thing in less than nanosecond. So we are unable to measure or perceive this continuous transformation. In such continuous transformation, what we give names to are only ad-hoc parts/ phases of the transformation process. The baby that came out of the mother’s womb, you may name it Basudeb Sen and you keep the name Basudeb Sen till he dies although each moment we have seen a different human being in Basudeb Sen because of continuous transformation. In reality, therefore, there cannot be a single Basudeb Sen for 50 or 85 or 100 years. What we have given name as Sun is an entity that is continuously changing over million years. It does not make sense to give such names. Yet we do because we are destined to do like that as part of the same stochastic dynamic process. When you really realise that this is what is the reality, you lose your identity with a name or with any particular phase of that process /sub-process that you are destined to observe with your senses. When you lose such identity, what remains is the stochastic dynamic process. That is God. That is where all names, space and time get submerged. That is what I and you and all things in the Universe are. It is in that sense we are all God and therefore we are all equal. But till we (self) realise this ultimate truth, no two things are equal in our senses: so we say Sun is bigger than the earth, someone is elder to me, ice is colder than water, waves are smaller than the ocean, Einstein is superior to me, women are mothers, everything is different from everything else. We are destined to see everything differently by name, space and time because our senses are part of the integrated stochastic dynamic process that creates this property in us. At some point of time within the process, the self realises that this differentiation by name, space and time is an illusion or Maya. And the self, at that point, becomes what it actually is - it is nothing but the power or the rule that binds the entire Universe.
G: The “Almighty” is “Destiny”! And, yet we may have some choice?
S: Maybe Almighty is same as Destiny. Or, maybe they are not the same. I do not know. For me, it is only the Power or Rule that is inherent in that what I observe and describe this power as a continuous stochastic dynamic process. This process is what always existed. All the rest including the concepts of Almighty, God, Destiny, Man, Sun, Moon, smile, law of gravitation, advancement of science, war, love, hatred - everything are only transient manifestation of that Power. What we mean by choice is nothing but an observed relationship between what some persons did and the effect of that. This is no real choice. We had no control over what we did in the past or what happened in the past. What happens now or in the future are conditional upon choices we make now. All so called choices are all the result of the stochastic dynamic process arising out of that Great Power of which we as yet not been destined to know much.
G: So, what appear as choices made by us is really not a choice but a destined event/ action.
S: You are right: we have no choice whatsoever. That I say all this you have heard in this conversation, is not by my choice: it is because I am destined to say this now. Similarly, the person who says that there is a choice is only destined to say so. He really does not have any choice to say anything different.
G: The God or Almighty or Nature, which has control over everything, is only an imagination or idea created by us.
S: You are right. All concepts of God or Almighty or Nature or whatever else, are mere human imaginations. But what we imagine is what we are destined to imagine. What I refer as the Principle of Great Stochastic Dynamic Process is also imagination, which was destined to take place. No one has so far been destined to write down any equation for this process or its sub-processes. Yes, the equations for small sub-sub-sub processes equations have been written down. But the writing down of equations for small sub- processes is itself a part of the Great Stochastic Dynamic Destiny process. The equations for the Brownian motion, gravitation law, the orbit of the Saturn, the path of a tornado, the path of an airplane, the path of a space craft, the path of sound waves or light – all these were part of a processes of stochastic destiny. There discoveries and their applications in the advancement of technology are also part of the destiny process. No scientific discovery or technological breakthrough has happened because of the choice or independent efforts of Man. All that Man did in science and technology as well as in arts and religion was destined to happen at points of time determined by the destiny principle.
G: Why do you say ‘stochastic’ and not deterministic, destiny principle? Destiny can only be deterministic.
S: Stochastic process is a process in which the outcomes of the future are not fixed with certainty. It is not like that if I am at a state of sleep at 6-30 AM in the morning, I will be awake after some time, say 6-35 AM next. It is like this: I am at sleep at 6-30 AM and the probability of my being awake at 6-31 is x<1, at 6-32 is y<1, at 6-35 is z <1, and so on. No outcome in future is certain or has probability = 1 or 100% chance of occurrence. In other words, many outcomes are possible but with different probabilities, each probability is less than unity. It is also possible that the nature of stochastic process itself may gradually change over time. The only thing that seems certain is the power underlying the stochastic process. This is the power we often refer to as God, Almighty or Nature. Since it is certain, it is the only thing that exists, while all other things that we can see or feel or perceive or conceive of, are temporary phenomenon in relation to the vast expanse of time. Even if I know that a child grows into an Adult with the passage of time, we cannot say with certainty which child will become an adult and which will die before becoming an adult. That is why all our forecasts about anything in future are probabilistic in Nature. It is unlikely that the outcomes at different points of time in a future second, minute, hour, day, year, decades, century have been pre-determined or fixed by some one or by the process that the whole universe and its infinite constituents is undergoing. The process itself is such that the outcomes that it generates over time are not ex-ante pre-fixed. Each possible outcome has less than 100% chance of occurring.
G: I guess what you are saying that the destiny or fate is not written down or fixed by any rule or any god or any power. All future outcomes are determined by the Great Process, of which we know very little.
S: What happened in the past is the manifestation of the process; knowledge of the past may help understand the relationships of different simultaneous and inter-temporal happenings in the past in a scientific, deterministic way or empirical, probabilistic way. But nothing is certain. We know if you throw a ball up it will come down. But when you actually throw a ball, it may not come down, throw the probability of the ball coming down is very high indeed. Out of the many times you actually try to throw a ball up, you may not be really able to throw it up all the times. Either your hand will get tired, or you will lose grip over the ball and slips down before you throw it up. While the Law of Gravitation rules without fail, in real time the probability of a ball being tossed up in less than unity and the ball may go up at times to get stuck in a tree or a terrace. The Dynamic Process of destiny is a process that encompasses all Laws of Physical Sciences but also the calendar time path of all events. You may toss an unbiased coin. Although the probability of a head is 0.5, the first eleven tosses in real time may show up the tail.
G: But all these still leave scope for Man to deal with probabilities and uncertainties.
S: Yes, Man does deal with them given whatever knowledge he has. But that Man does so now and does in the manner he does now is only the manifestation of the Grand Principle of Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Process implicit in the Great Power that we sometimes call God or Nature.
G: You mean to say whatever Man did in the past, is doing now and will do in the future is not of Man’s doing of independent choice and effort but the manifestation of the Grand Process of destiny you are referring to.
S: Yes, exactly. Man has no choice of his own. He is bound to do what the Process implies at all times. That he thinks that he has made choices and doing things is also a manifestation of the same process. This includes what I am saying now and what goes on in your questioning mind.
G: But Man has made great strides in science and technology. In the last 100 years we have gone to the stars, produced clones of animals, brought comfort to man’s life. See the progress of information technology, telecommunications, biotechnology and genetics.
S: All that Man has done during the last 100 years or ever since recorded history and before is only as per the destiny principle. Man did not and could invent computers in 2000 BC, as that was not part of the destiny process. The history of science and technology is also a part of the process of stochastic destiny.
G: Then what is the meaning of saying that Man is the best creation of the God or Nature?
S: Everything has only one meaning. We say what we are destined to say. Otherwise, if Man is the supreme creation, whom do we say that we are the great? Only to us, Man. The dogs, the Sun, the trees and the rivers are not listening and appreciating that saying as we do.
G: If we have really no choice but acting over time only in accordance with certain principles or processes, we are no different from animals or water or trees.
S: We are no different. All are the same. That is what Sanatana Dharma is all about.
G: Then as human beings we have no goals of our own.
S: There is one and only one goal or destiny and that will always be achieved: we pursue what we are destined to pursue. We are pursuing continuous transformation of body, mind, soul, appearance, intellect and knowledge over time as per the Great Stochastic Dynamic Process. This is the meaning of repeated cycles of beginning in God, staying in God and ending in God only to begin again.
G: All you say therefore is tautological and so simple. There is no complicated science or high-level spiritualism in all that you say.
S: You are absolutely right. The ultimate Truth can only be tautological and simple. The process of arriving at the Truth and then realising this Truth all the time is the only complicated, long and probably never-ending process.
G: Shall we ever remain bonded in the process?
S: The real answer to this question is simultaneously Yes and No. Yes, because nothing exists that is beyond this process. No, because we, as the manifestation of that process, along with the process itself are nothing but the Great Power we call God. As God, it is our will that created and maintains the Great Process. It is we who have created all sciences and knowledge, and all, concepts including the concepts of Nature, God, Power and the Principle of Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Process. So, we are not bound by it. But all knowledge and concept we have acquired are true only if we are bound by it.
G: This is pinnacle of tautology.
S: My dear G, beloved God, my respected Guru, what other pinnacle can S, that is I as your Sishya (disciple), Sen by surname, my sole Self, am capable of reaching!

Destination God

G: Why do you refer to me as G, Sir? And, to yourself as S when you record our conversation?
S: Since you call me Sir, I am S. Since my surname starts with S, S is suitable. Since I refer to my own Self, S is an appropriate abbreviation. Most importantly, you are helping me in my path to knowledge; I am your disciple or Sishya, which starts with the letter S. So, I refer to myself as S. You are my Guru and you are also a manifestation of my God. Both Guru and God begin with the letter G. So, I refer to you as G. I am serving God as a servant, so I am referred to as S.

G: That may be a nice way of explaining the abbreviations. But how do you think that I am a manifestation of God. What is the concept of God do you believe in?
S: In my concept of God, there can be nothing anywhere anytime which is not a manifestation of God or God pure, not manifested in any form.
G: I understand what you say. You are saying that God is everywhere and in everything all the time. Then you are yourself a manifestation of God?
S: Yes, I am a manifestation of God. But I am exploring the possibility to go beyond this manifestation to know the pure formless, un-manifest God.
G: Isn’t that an exploration in futility? Will you ever reach that stage of knowledge?
S: Most probably, the exploration may turn out to be futile and I may never reach that stage. But I believe as a rational human being I have to make a choice between trying to know and not trying to know. Whatever I have been doing since my birth does not appear to me as something based on a sound rationale. I want to seek that rationale even as I continue to live the future days, as I have done in the past days, doing without knowing the rationale.
G: But great philosophers, the spiritual leaders, and scriptures, The Gita – all these give you enough to know the rationale.
S: You are absolutely right. Great souls and minds have given us precious knowledge about the purpose, the meaning and the ideal ways of living our lives as human beings.
But I have not been able to understand and comprehend them in a manner that would satisfy me and give me a feeling that what I do is based on a rationale that binds all my past, present and future doings. So, I have to try my own way even if I am certain to fail.
As far as I understand, the ultimate realization of the Knowledge is not based on following the precepts Gurus, philosophers, prophets, seers and scriptures have preached or recorded, practicing their advice and thinking about such available knowledge. To realize the Truth on has to move beyond all these. The Gita also prescribes the path to realization?
G: Why don’t you follow such a path that has already been prescribed? Take the help of a competent Guru,
S: All the paths indicated appear simple but very difficult to practice. I do not find myself naturally given to practice the various paths. It would seem I am doomed to failure. Yes, a Guru can definitely help. But chasing or choosing a Guru with all earnestness is again something that does not come naturally to me. So, I do what comes naturally to me without much effort. This is how the Destiny Principle works out in my case.
G: In other words, you are doing as per what you are destined to do in accordance with the Devine Stochastic Destiny Principle that you always refer to. And, you have no other choice.
S: Yes, I am therefore doing exactly what I am destined to do since I have no real freedom to choose. Even if I am doing something that appeals to me as a path towards Knowledge, it is not my choice. Neither is the continuity of the path that I am currently following is certain. Nor can the chance of failure to acquire the knowledge ruled out.
G: It seems that you are not a man of strong will and determination. You seem to be a lazy person without strong convictions.
S: You are probably correct in your assessment. My own assessment is also similar. But I still have no choice but to do what I am doing to know God.
G: We come back to old question again. If everything in this world or the universe is a manifestation of God, you know God already.
S: No. Unless I know the un-manifest, formless God, I cannot fully know the various manifestation of God.
G: Fine. But for that you need to do something, which as I understand you will perforce do as per your Stochastic Destiny Principle. But what is this concept of Pure, un-manifest and formless God you have?
S: My God is the Creator of all.
G: But that is the way God is defined by all except those who do not believe in God.
S: You are right. And, my God is also Creator of Himself in the sense that he is an integral part of the creation. Conceptually and logically, I find difficult to accept a Creator who is not part of the Creation itself.
G: How do you then define Creation?
S: We take a break and come back to discuss Creation

Existence and Transformation

S: We were to discuss Creation. Creation is existence. The Fundamental Axiom of Existence explains this. According to this Law “ something that exists (whether perceived/ perceivable or not) is a form of manifestation, or transformation, or un-manifest condition of something/s that existed earlier, or is something that always existed ”.
G: But this does not explain much.
S: Yes. Before that you may note some corollaries to this Axiom. These help understand the Axiom better. First, ‘Nothing can be created out of nothing”. There is no magic in the Creation.
Second, “ Non-existence of something is the due to the emergence of something else into existence”. Third, “ Destruction is the other name of creation; for nothing can be destroyed without giving rise to the emergence of existence of something else. In other words, Creation is the cause and consequence of destruction and vice versa”.
Fourth, “Nothing in this Creation is fundamentally new”.
G: These corollaries help drive the point that Creation is a self-sustaining never-ending system of which Creator is an integral part. But I still need elaboration of the Fundamental Axiom of Existence requires extensive elaboration.
S: I agree. Let me try this elucidation. First, let us consider those things whose existence we can perceive by our body, senses, minds and intellect directly or with the help of instruments like telescopes, microscopes, computer and other instruments. All these things are only a manifestation of transformation of something that existed earlier. Say for example, a beautiful building. It is made out of things like brick, mortar or iron or steel or wood or cement that existed in the past. In turn brick is a transformation of clay and fire/heat of the past. Similar is the case with other materials that goes into making a building. The building is designed to be beautiful. So the building is also a transformation or manifestation of a design by a human brain/ imagination. But the design in turn is a transformation of a thought in the human mind. The thought in turn is the transformation of a need for shelter or a concept of beauty or the knowledge of the principles of physical sciences that preceded the design of the building.
G: It seems that I understand what you are saying. All material things and also thoughts and emotions are transformation of certain things that existed already. So there is always a change of form, there is nothing new. This is true of coal and petroleum underground, the computer, the inter-net technology, the earth, the sun, the planets, everything.
But, how do you explain a man or a tree or an animal?
S: They are, of course, the result of a reproduction process and therefore linked to something that existed before as a man and women, as seed, or egg, or sperm or seed or flower and so on. Even a man of today is a transformation of the man of yesterday. The human race as a whole has come through an evolutionary process. Nothing is new.
G: I understand that you can in the same way show that all chemicals, all physical forces, rains, clouds, sunshine, all scientific and social theories, all concepts in different disciplines, all analytical tools, all new technologies, new paintings, new music compositions, all discoveries, all emotions are nothing but transformation or manifestations of some thing or some things that existed in the past. Fine, but what about life?
S: Life is also the same: a product of the past in the physical and biological sense. You may say there is something that goes away when death comes. Death is recognized when a living body stops functioning altogether permanently. It is another transformation. It would also help if at this stage I introduce the Fundamental Axiom of Non-existence. According to this axiom, anything that does not exist, it must have given rise to the emergence of existence of something else. For example, if life does not exist in a body, then it has given rise to the existence of corpse. If light is not in existence, it gives rise to the existence of darkness. If were to visualize that the entire universe and beyond did not have any light at any point of time, it would mean all light has been absorbed in darkness and darkness is what exists. So light only transforms into darkness. Transformation is an integral part of the Creation.
G: What is Transformation?
S: According to the Fundamental Observation of Transformation, a process resulting in a change of form and properties is Transformation. A transformation process exists and is the result of one or more transformation process/es that exist or existed or always exist.
G: What does always exist?
S: We are in search of that. But note that: “ That which always exists is ever present in all that exists and all that is currently non-existent”. It is in this sense that Creator is, has been and will be always an integral part of the Creation.
G: Sorry to interrupt. What happens to the spirit?
S: Hold on for a while. We will take up this question shortly. Before that let us note the Fundamental Observation of Infinite Existence: “ That which always exists is infinite,, ageless, omni-present everywhere (in all forms, all transformations and even in those that are non-existent) all throughout time”. Infinite Existence is therefore formless, not restricted by space and time, and is unaffected by the processes of transformation. Yet it is the Infinite Existence that is the source of all limitless and continuous transformation.
G: All this seems to become abstract and complicated.
S: Yes, it may seem so. But it is really not so. It is straightforward and simple. Apply these concepts and trace anything that you see overtime backwards and forward. All Finite Existence transforms into other Finite Existences or into Infinite Existence. Non-existence resulting from transformation of Finite Existence is a part of Infinite Existence. Further, whatever is not known to be in existence is either as yet undiscovered finite existence or part of Infinite Existence.
G: I need help of examples.
S: Yes, you do. Take the case of the storage battery. As a battery it has a finite existence. But whatever was there in the battery form sooner or later got transformed into different things/ works/ processes. But do all constituents of the battery get transformed? We do not know. The assumption is that there is something that gets passed on through transformation without being affected. That something is part of everything that exists and does not exist. Or, just consider the transformation of death of an animal. Some physical form of bodily existence comes to an end and further transformation of decay leads to emergence of some other physical existence of finite period. But death does not transform something that always existed and that is a part of everything. Material things, substances, bodies, forms, ideas, names, thoughts, feelings, identities, stars, egs, sound, light, darkness, attitudes, temptations – all these are part of Finite Existence. Infinite Existence exists simultaneously as an envelop with all Finite Existences.
G: Is this thing that always exists, the one of Infinite Existence, called spirit or soul?
S: What is spirit or soul? These are conceptual constructs. Some people believe in their existence and some do not. As a concept, they owe their origin to some concepts that existed before or represent vacuum/gap in understanding life. This gap is transformed into a concept. Now if spirit does indeed exist, it is either a manifest or un-manifest condition of something that existed before. Someone calls this Atman and therefore says that Atman existed always. Atman was never born, never faced death and never changed. It is a thing that can never be seen. It can manifest itself into something else (that is, its presence can be felt in something else). It is infinite and so on.

G: Fine. Do you accept that Atman exists?
S: I will put this differently. The Fundamental Law of existence itself defines Atman or God. This Law defines the existence of all things, whether perceived or not by human beings. You cannot show anything that defies that Fundamental Law. That Law is God; that Law defines the entire Creation. The Creator and the Creation is the result of that Law. Do not ask who created that Law. For the Law itself defines the creation of all things including the Law itself. Creator is fully reflected in the Creation comprising all Finite Existences and Infinite Existence. But Infinite Existence is the source of all Finite Existences. Fundamentally, something basic to all in the creation existed all along the time whether we can perceive that or not. That is my God. If it can transform in so many numerous ways, expand or contract, grow mega-size or reduce to nano-size, it has enormous power. Such enormous power can reside in manifest form or un-manifest condition in anything that exists.
G: Fine. What do you do with such a God? You know this God as you explained. So, what are you implying when you say that you are trying to explore un-manifest God?

Exploring Infinite Existence

S: You wanted to know what I mean by exploring Un-manifest God. Infinite Existence itself is un-manifest. I want to realize, feel, see and observe that.
G: But how? Is there any method, any instrument to do that.
S: Let us call Infinite existence as Om for the sake of simplicity. As far as I know, nothing that is in my body and mind, nothing that is invented by scientists and technologists that can help me realize Om, the Infinite Existence. Yes, great leaders have prescribed different paths of Love, Prayer, Devotion, Worship, Meditation, etc to realize Om. But they say that these methods help come close to realizing Infinite Existence, but do not place you there.
G: This looks odd and funny that you believe that there is something called Om that is indestructible and formless, that is always in existence everywhere and in everything. You also believe that this Om is God that you wish to realize. Finally, you say that there exists no method by which you can realize Om. All this is meaningless.
S: Absolutely. You are right. But what appears meaningless to you is the most logical and meaningful to me. Just consider the properties of Om. It cannot be seen, perceived, proved, measured or felt. Om pervades all that exists (and does not exist). Now by definition, Om cannot be realized by anything else but OM itself. If I have to realize Om, I have to fully identify myself with Om.
G: How do you do that?
S: By cultivating the properties of OM.
G: Please explain this.
S: The main property of OM is that it is the same everywhere and always. It does not differentiate between any two or more things because it is all pervading in the entire creation. For Om, everything is the same one and only one thing. So, I need to feel and think the same way. It means I have to stop thinking that I am different from any thing else in this creation. I am OM. I exist everywhere. Therefore, there is nothing but me in this entire creation.
G: But you are different from me!
S: No, I am not different than you or anything else. Everything is OM. I you, he, she, this, that, they and all are OM. They are the same and indistinguishable. I am just trying to think and feel all the time this way only.
G: But really you cannot do that because when you are talking to me, you are a person different from me. If you think that everything is same OM, you cannot work.
S: What you say is not correct. An actor plays different roles in different plays. An individual plays the role of a child, an adolescent, an adult, a father, a son, a friend, and a foe.
But his ability to play roles is absolute. This ability is like OM. The different roles are only the different manifestations of the pure/ un-manifest ability to play roles. This existence of this ability pervades all roles. And, it is one and the same thing across all roles. That ability is the power; it transforms a player in to different roles at different points of time. If I am that power, I do not identify myself with a particular role. So, I identify myself with that ability. Once I do that I will be soon able to identify myself with all persons who have that ability. Once I do that I will be able to identify myself with all persons in the world since each one in the world is playing one or more roles without being conscious of the acting ability.
G: This last point seems not so logical. But let me grant this to you to save time and avoid digression at this stage. Now, what you are saying appears simple in theory. I have to do whatever I do but I must think that behind my actions and everyone else’s actions lie the unique OM, which is what I really, I am. My body, mind and everyone else‘s body and mind are only manifest transformations of the same OM. In practice this is difficult to apply.
S: Ah! You are absolutely right. That is what great leaders, saints and sages and learned people have told us time and again. They had told us that we develop ego of being different from others: different from non-living beings, different from living beings who do not behave like humans, different from people of other lands, countries, states, cities, villages, localities and houses and rooms, different from our father, mother, siblings, children and so on. This ego has to be given up. You see many old people give up their egos once they retire from work, become physically weak, lose eyesight and memory and as they await death to come over. So it is possible that the sense of being different goes away as one continues to live and interact with others. But it is difficult.
G: If it is difficult and if you are not certain that you can reach the goal, why try at all?
S: No one tries this unless one is destined to go through this path. I am not asking you to take lessons from me and apply. I am only narrating what I have understood of things about which I have not found full explanation from whatever I have read or seen or been told. You are destined to ask “why”. I am destined to respond the way I have done. Nothing could have been different for you and I at this point of time than what we are passing through.
G: Fine. But let me also know how you are trying to get rid of the sense of being different from others.
S: I try to follow what others have said and to the extent I like doing so. See prayer, worship and devotion to God are one way eradicating ego because you submit to someone. Another way is love and service: loving and caring others may help you feel that you are loving and caring yourself. Meditation is another way because you go on thinking about the oneness of all things in the Creation. I try to do all these things but not consistently, not following any routine, or method prescribed. I try this way because I am destined to do this.
G: How does this Destiny principle relate to your concept of God.
S: This is something we take up another day.

Stochastic Destiny Principle

G: Today, we wanted to discuss the relationship between your concept of God and your concept of the Principle of Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Process.
S: Yes. In my concept of God, there are three elements: Infinite Existence, Finite Existence and Transformation. Now, Infinite existence is the cause of transformation and all Finite Existence. But Infinite Existence is not affected by Transformation. Transformations are also Finite Existence.
G: It may be useful to re-state why you say so.
S: All right. Infinite Existence is formless but exists behind all forms and Transformations. Atman (Infinite Existence) exists in everything, every form perceived by human body, all senses, mind and intellect. That is a fundamental assumption (this assumption itself is a finite existence in the form of a concept or idea). O.K.

G: Yes, this is O.K. But you admit that the concept of Infinite Existence is itself a Finite Existence. And, still you have no problem?
S: Yes, I have no problem. Because all that emerges from human mind and thought are Finite Existence. So all my three elements of Infinite Existence, Finite Existence and Transformation are concepts. As concepts they are Finite Existences, but the elements these concepts are referring to are not all Finite Existences. Infinite Existence is not Finite Existence. It remains everywhere all the time as a constant, formless limitless enveloping entity. Conceptually, there could be a time point when the entire creation could consist of Infinite Existence only as nothing is under any transformation. So dealing with the Finite concepts to explain Infinite Existence causes no problem. You may tomorrow define Creation in a different manner and no body will remember the concepts I have been using. So, all concepts are subject to change by Transformation. But that does not mean that we cannot try to understand the Creation using the concepts that are part of the Creation. It’s a closed, but infinite, system in which we have to operate.
G: Seems that I have understood what you are trying to convey. Let me accept that and you proceed further.
S: All Transformations and all forms are Finite existences. All forms are subject to Transformations that destroy some forms to give rise to new forms. Is that O.K?
G: Yes. Go on.
S: Now, consider all forms. There is infinite number of forms. There is also infinite number of Transformations. At any point of time, infinite number of Transformations (processes) is acting on infinite number of Forms and Transformations. All right?
G: Yes. Proceed.
S: Some of these transformations are interrelated. A person meets with an accident. His son then comes from abroad to visit his father. The accident was caused by truck. The truck driver gets arrested. The foreign airline got a passenger who booked the ticket at the last moment. The hospital doctors and nurses got ready to amputee the father’s legs. The news got published in the morning paper. Some friends of the person became sad. Numerous interconnected things or finite existences occur. How do we explain them?
G: You explain.
S: Do these finite existences happen without any reason? What causes them? Maybe there is no reason. In that case, these are chance occurrences. But they happen again and again. Therefore, we are led to believe that these are the results of one or more stochastic processes. Maybe there are reasons why the finite existences appear. But we do not know the reasons. In that case, the reasons are of definitive nature or stochastic nature. Mind you, the reasons themselves are finite existences. We may try to find out reasons behind reasons. Maybe we arrive at the ultimate unique reason / cause. But the question remains what is the cause of the cause. It’s never ending. So, until we have solved this cause and effect chain puzzle, we would tend to assume a stochastic process generating these sequences of causes and effects (all finite existences).
G: Do you mean to say therefore that whatever happens in the Creation is the result of an unknown stochastic process and not the time path of a complex but deterministic model of cause and effect?
S: I suspect so. I have not yet been able to think out how a deterministic model would be able to explain the entire time path of the Creation. But that is not the reason why I believe in stochastic destiny principle. Here destiny is defined as the time sequence of the form and content of a single finite existence or a series of finite existences that are thought of as forming a single finite existence. Each moment a person is changing and therefore the person can be thought of different persons (a series of finite existences) or as a time profile of a longer duration single finite existence till the person dies. I hope you understand what I mean by destiny. It is the time sequence of the state of physical, emotional and mental condition of a person, the behavior and actions of the person along with the external events affecting the person.
G: And, you say that these states are in some sense random variables. Therefore, the destiny process is stochastic.
S: Yes, I know that these states may not be finite and may not be assigned a single value or number. I may not talk about probability distributions in the usual sense. Yet, for at given point there are alternative destiny outcomes with different chances of their actually materializing. Thus, from the perspective of an individual human being (for that matter any form of finite existence), the future or destiny is nothing but a stochastic process whose parameters are unknown. I suspect the discipline of astrology based on the time of birth is an attempt to chart destiny is some kind of an effort at estimating the parameters of the stochastic process.
G: I thought astrology believes in deterministic destiny.
S: I do not think so. Indian astrology linking destiny to time and place of birth is not necessarily a deterministic model. People born at the same time and same place may have different destinies. Because while the time and place remains the same, the transformation process implied by the birth may not be same. The parents are not the same. Indian astrology obviously believes in destiny. Destiny cannot be changed does not mean that it is known or predictable with certainty. So, from the point of view of an individual living being or finite existence, the transformation process yields a time profile of future happenings that are not known with certainty. If one wishes to predict one can indicate only likelihood or probability of alternative outcomes in the future, or even make conditional forecasts based on conditional probabilities.
S: Fine. I have now some idea as to how your Stochastic Dynamic Destiny Principle is related to your concept of God in terms of Finite Existence, Infinite Existence and Transformation Process. In fact, they are but the sides of the same coin.
G: You are right. Everything is after all God. Prelude to Destiny of Choice


G: In this round, I wish to clear out the mess your discussions on God and destiny principle, have created in my mind. Would you consider giving me some straight answers? I wish to make a summary of what all you have said.
S: Yes, I will do that if I am so destined. Shoot your questions.
G: Is there a God? Who else is there in this Universe and beyond?
S: There is a God. And, there is only one God. And, there is nothing, except this God, in this Universe and beyond. There are numerous things you can or cannot see or hear or touch or feel or conceive or perceive or imagine or taste or conceptualize or analyze or manufacture or paint or write. All these and whatever else are nothing but God.
G: If that is so, then why are there different things?
S: Because, God can manifest Himself in different ways.
G: Why does the God do so?
S: As yet I do not know. Probably, He cannot but do otherwise. He is that way only. I do not know why?
G: In that case, do you admit that your God has a limitation?
S: Yes, I would admit that if I knew that there was never was a time and there will never be a time when the Entire Universe did not or will not contain different things. It is quite possible, there was at certain time only one thing. The process of destiny principle is consistent with a time when there are no different things for God to manifest. He just manifest as one thing.
G: What could be that one thing?
S: I really do not know. But I guess that is pure knowledge of the destiny principle.
G: Where will that knowledge lie?
S: It lies in itself. In other words, that is the one that I referred to as permanent existence that is infinite, indivisible, indestructible and never changes.
G: I do not know whether I can really imagine that situation. I better skip now to a different question. What do you do with your God? Do you worship that God or pray to Him?
S: I am not sure what is really meant by worship. There are a number of ways one can feel the need to worship. First, because one fears God’s immense power to harm him, one worships God to please him. Second, one thinks that by pleasing God, he might gain materially because God will use his power to benefit him. So, one worships God. Third, one is so overwhelmed and awed by God’ immeasurable diversity, size and beauty of the entire Creation that one worships God out of great respect. Fourth, one tends to develop love and affection for the great power that he respects so much. Fifth, one worships God to forget the earthly, material losses and sorrows. Sixth, one worships God because he wants to participate in the race among people who worship God. Seventh, one worships God because he wants feel the presence of God in his Self. I worship God for some of the above reasons. But I think I worship my God in the sense that I really love to think about and explore God. And, of course, I am at present destined to pray to God.
G: What do you pray To God?
S: I pray that that certain good things happen to my near and ones, to others, to the World and, of course, to me. I also pray that certain bad things do not happen.
G: Does your God listen to you and grant what you pray for?
S: My concept of God allows Him to be aware of everything that happens in this World and therefore of what I pray for. That I pray for is part of the Destiny Principle and therefore part of God’s Creation. Similarly, the extent to which some of my prayers may or may not come true is also part of the process of Destiny Principle. I worship and pray to God notwithstanding my doubt whether God exists to grant my prayers and wishes.
G: This last part of the answer is not very clear. Maybe I should ask you differently. What is your religion?
S: All along I have been declaring myself as Hindu. But that is because of family tradition. No body told me that I should consider something else as my religion.
G: I understand. You did not consciously choose a religion for yourself. But are you religious? Do you follow what Hindu religion preaches?
S: I do participate in some Hindu religious activities. But I cannot really claim to be religious in the popular sense. Nor can I say that I practice what Hindu religion preaches. In fact, I do not have very clear idea what all Hindu religion preaches. From my childhood days, however, I have carried over certain practices followed in my family those days, which many religious Hindus also follow. But following certain so-called Hindu traditions may not mean that I am religious.
G: You seem more like most people who do not know much about their religions. Fine, but you may have read Hindu scriptures, mythologies and holy books.
S: Hindu scriptures are supposed to be written in ancient languages. I do no know these languages. But I read some of these in Bengali and English languages. These are translations and interpretations by authors born in 18th century or later.
G: That is enough for you to be eligible to answer my next set of questions. What do you understand from the saying like “ God appears in every age to protect the good and the weak and destroy the wicket and the strong”?
S: To my mind, it means that God is always there throughout all ages and times and He manifests Himself in various forms in accordance with the Destiny Principle. This Destiny Principle binds him and all his manifestations.
G: Hindus believe in fate and destiny? Your Destiny principle seems to suggest that you believe in fate and destiny.
S: I do not know exactly how different Hindus define fate and destiny. But for me, destiny is the path. Between any two points of time, there is a time interval, however small or large. One of these time points is the initial point of the time interval. The later point is the ending point. Something happens at these two points and during the time interval. The ending point is the destination and the experience and the journey through to the destination point is destiny. The principle governing these experiences and journeys is the Destiny Principle. Nothing happens which is not consistent with this principle. Irrespective of and not because of our belief that we choose or make certain things happen, all things happen only as the fallout of the operation of the Destiny Principle over which no one has any influence or control.
G: But in the end all this means that no one made history and no one can make the future. It is only the Destiny Principle playing out. In that case, how do interpret the saying “ one has the right to do/ act and no right to the consequences of action”?
S: To me this saying means that the right one really enjoys is to do what he is destined to do. It means one has no other option to do as one is destined to do. The second part of the saying means that one cannot change the outcome or the consequence of what one does. It does not matter whether one can predict with certainty or with some stochastic confidence, the outcome of an action. If one cannot really choose an action but do what he is destined to do, the consequences of actions are not also within his control. The relationship between a person’s actions and what lies ahead in the future is not definitive. The intended consequence of a person’s actions may or may not be realized. It all depends on the interactions among so many sub-processes of the Destiny Process of which a person’s action is a also a sub-process.
G: But to act or do something you need some motivation.
S: Yes. Desires and capability within lead to an action. No one without desire and capability can act. But desires and capabilities one has is not his choice but imparted to him by the process of Destiny Principle. If you have certain desires imparted in you and certain capabilities in you, in a given situation you can act only in a certain ways. That is what we are doing all the time. These desires imply a desired outcome or consequences. The desired outcomes may not exactly match the actual outcomes or consequences. The consequences cannot be avoided even if they include some that was not part of the desire motivating an action or intended consequence of an action.
G: Do you have desires?
S: Yes, I do. But the number of desires has come down with age. And, most of my desires have always been of week intensity to spur me into action to get them fulfilled. The intensity of desire is important for the intensity and quality of action.
G: You have a desire to discuss all this with me.
S: Yes, I do. This desire is linked to my desire to explore God.
G: Why do you upload all this on your web page?
S: There is a week desire that some other persons like you may interact with me to help my exploration of God.
G: Why don’t you circulate your thoughts on these to many more by publishing a book? Why are you not trying to get your ideas across to many people?
S: Ii seems that I am destined not have that desire. I do not have a strong desire to become an author of such a book. I have no desire to let many people read about what I think. What I think about God may not be interesting or may be completely useless to others.
G: If you know that for sure why do you think about God the way you are doing?
S: I am destined to do that only for my pleasure now.
G: But what is the harm in publishing?
S: No harm to me. But I do not have that desire. If you have that desire, you publish what you discuss with me.
G: Fine. Let us now discuss about you desire to explore God. What is your objective and what is your methodology?
S: My objective is to be in a state where my body, mind and intellect are synchronized and attuned to the knowledge that each and everything in this universe, though apparently different in form and structures, are nothing but finite manifestations of the Infinite Existence. My objective is to be in consonance with that State of Infinite Existence.
G: Can you illustrate this a bit for me to understand you?
S: Yes, take the example of a hypothetical tree. This tree has life. It has a body. It grows. It takes certain things from the environment and gives back certain things from the environment. It, however, does not move, or see or touch or feel or imagine or think or hear or conceptualize or feel or desire or take decisions or actions the way we human beings do. It does not become jealous or happy or sad or feel hurt. We assume therefore that the tree does not have a mind, ego or intellect. It has no knowledge. Let us now assume that it has the knowledge that everything in this Universe is nothing but different manifestations of Infinite existence. It has the knowledge that this knowledge is what runs the Universe. It identifies itself with that knowledge. What will this tree think and do if it is given an intellect and mind. Its mind and intellect will be filled with that knowledge. It will therefore see all things including itself as one and the same, although all are in different forms, acting differently and show different behavior. The knowledge-filled mind and intellect of the Tree will not change the behavior of its body. It will continue to respond to external environment the way it has been doing so long. It will continue to generate flowers, fruits, lose leaves, grow fresh leaves, breath in air, breath out what it does, draw water and food from the soil, remain mentally and emotionally unmoved by rain, storms, extreme temperatures, axing of woodcutters or nests formed by birds on its branches. The Tree can now look at all that it does as its destiny and as part of the process that the Destiny Principle as it plays out. My objective is to attain that state where the Knowledge of oneness with God or Destiny Principle or the entire Universe completely influences my intellect, mind and body.
G: Will you be able to achieve your objective?
S: Maybe not. Maybe I will make some progress towards that and ultimately fail. It all depends on how the Destiny Principle works out in my case.
G: OK. But how will you make progress and measure your progress.
S: I still do not know how I will make progress. But it is easy to make out whether I am progressing or regressing.
G: Why do not you adopt the standard methods of achieving progress towards that state?
S: I will follow the method I am destined to follow. At present, I will only explore the concept of God and Destiny Principle in my mind further and further.

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Part Two

Exploring Gita’s Life

1. Preparing for Rebirth?
Monday, December 14, 2009

With the current birth having been with Hindu parentage, the threat of almost certain re-birth has been a thought nurtured from very childhood, questioned during the college and university education days of romance with scientific methods, almost forgotten during working career life before it started looking up at the face when one is much closer to death. Whether you have reasons to worry about re-birth or not, you like exploring the idea. At many places in the Gita, Lord Krishna talks about re-birth, though one could surmise that the relevant verses re-birth were grafted into Gita by believers other than the original composers of the verses in the Gita.

How far is the concept of Re-birth consistent with the concept of God in Gita? To explore this, one needs to ask the question: who is going to have a re-birth? My existing physical body will not have rebirth: this seems almost certain. Unless of course there is some way to use my body for a thorough repair and surgical reconfiguration. But that would not be a real re-birth: it would be re-conditioned body. So, what will be a rebirth? My memories of the past? But the relevant brain cells will go dead when my body yields to death or even before that. So my memory cannot have rebirth. Even assuming that memory some how lives after my death and gets into a new born babies brain when it is born and after my death, the rebirth of my memory will not be accessible to the new born baby as it grows with accumulating new memories not consistent with the ones that my body had accumulated earlier. I could have written a detailed dairy of events in my life and got it published and a reader could get that in to his memory but that would not have made a rebirth of 'I'. In Gita, Krishna says that nothing is known to a person before birth and after death: what is observed that there is continuous transformation.

Could my ego or intellect that drove my body and mind so far have rebirth? I have to identify my rebirth with a new born human child or a mosquito or bird or animal as my rebirth. It will have developed its own ego and intellect: how would at the same time operate with my ego and intellect. Even if I assume that my ego and intellect can after my death hang in the air for a while before entering into a new born baby, how can this be my rebirth?

My ego and my intellect were fully developed ones: how will it operate as me in a new born baby? Why does these have to enter the new born baby and not a fully matured adult are some others I have to find answers to.
Can my soul of self or atman be subject to getting reborn after I lose my existing body? Yes, that would seem to be a possibility because atman has no ego in itself and no personality so it would have no difficulty in getting into another body. But Atman is unborn and indivisible as is Paratman which is never born and never dead. How can therefore Atman be ever born or dead or therefore have a rebirth. My Atman, I learn, is unattached and covered by the illusion of Maya, which I have to overcome through Yoga to reach this Atman of mine that is not attached to anything. When I reach my Atman, I do not any longer exist but merge in Atman that is indivisible part of Paramatman.

It is only an illusion that I think that I have a soul or Atman that is different from the Atmans of other beings: when I discover my own self or soul, I am supposed to realize that all souls are nothing but the same indivisible, indestructible, ever present, never-born, never died, and infinite Paramatman. Atman is thus a mere concept that helps us realize that God exists in all beings and non-beings in this Creation and all these beings exist only in God. That is how God = Creation = Creator.
Atman or Self therefore cannot have rebirth by definition.

Then who can have rebirth? I can have rebirth only as Maya or Illusion that pervades the body, mind, and intellect and covers the Self or Atman of an individual being. Illusion is a common property of human beings and it is the combination of three Gunas of varying strengths that work in the environment of Illusion, the Maya. The Guna properties are what are either solely in the body cells or partly in these cells and partly in the mind- intellect and the ego. In a new born baby, the body is genetically/ biologically determined and hence my existing body after death can in no way impart the new baby's genetic code or cells (unless the baby is biologically related to me. But the guna properties that my mind, intellect and ego are enriched with may be hanging somewhere like invisible sound waves after my bodily death and before being captured / absorbed by or getting attached to a new body. That is the only way something can have rebirth - a kind of continuity of a particular guna-combination personality of illusion (GCPI) from one body to another. Whether or not there is any correspondence between particular new bodies genetically imparted with certain guna property combination attracts particular GCPI or not may be a matter of detail and not relevant here.

This GCPI is under continuous transformation while it uses a body and then gets into another body. By composition, each GCPI in each body will be different and under continuous development. Maybe at some stage, a particular GCPI under its continuous path of transformation lose all the strength of Gunas and shed the illusion while being attached to a body: it is at that time the body's atman is realised in its true form and the Paramatman is realised even in a physical body.

GCPI drives my body, mind, ego, intellect: GCPI is my false identity. On the death of my body, my GCPI may become attached to another body for continuation of its transformation. But that is not my rebirth. I am always there as Atman to be realised in a body one day by demolishing the GCPI. I have no rebirth - I am always there to experience and witness and once in a while experience the realisation of my own nature while remaining attached to a body.

The GCPI is subject to some kind of rebirth but I am not. This GCPI transformation possibility may be consistent with Gita. The rest of rebirth theory may be designed by some preachers of religions for the purpose of influencing the common people to do good deeds and get better rebirth than worse rebirth (Rebirth & Karma relationship theory.

2. In Search of Rebirth
Sunday, December 27, 2009

The best way to search for Rebirth is to ask who would be re-born. Atman or Self being indistinguishable part of the never-born, never-dead Paramtman or God will remain there always and can go through rebirth. The Self or Atman or Paramtman being the only source of everything is inhere rent in everything and everything including the dead body is contained in the Self or Atman. So, the body when dead is still in Atman even as it transforms into ashes or into other elements in the grave. Though the body may not have the gunas / properties to realize the Self or Atman. The body transforms after death and cannot have rebirth the way I wish to see a rebirth.
It is in a live body that the Self may be realized. But for that the mind must become still, the mind and the intellect must meditate on the Self and the ego must go. Then the Self appears and a person may merge with the Self or Atman or God. But who is this person who merges with Atman. He is not the body. He is not the ego or the intellect. He is not the mind because mind becomes still when the Self is realized. Then who is this person who merges with Self and detaches from all gunas, intellect and ego? Yes, I am That (Self). But who is that I that merges in That Self? Is it that the ego unable to use the intellect and mind and therefore the senses becomes unable to give expression to the Gunas? And, therefore ego is that which ultimately dies to merge in the Self? Before that happens, Ego is what I am! Or, is there a third person who is the I in me? This I is influenced / captured by guna-combination-personality-illusion (GCPI) and when I overcome the GCPI through Yoga that I realize the Self?
It does not matter however who I am so long as I do not realise the Self or Atman.
But I or the Ego or the GCPI are something that this Universe contains and hence must exist in Atman or God. Therefore, the Self or Atman or God must exist in I and the Ego or the intellect or the mind or the GCPI. But these being only the derivative of God or Atman or the Original source must be susceptible to change just as the body changes or transforms. We know how the body transforms after death. But what happens to I or Ego or Mind or Intellect after body's death? Do they also die and transform or they do not die and yet transform? If they transform, they must be always there and cannot ever die or be born again.

If therefore nothing we can identify other than the Self/ Atman/ God / the Original indestructible, immutable source of everything, then everything has to be under transformation. If they transform, they are never really dead - only a particular form may disappear and yield place to another form. That exactly what even the body does while it has life and when it does not have life. If we say the body is dead because there is no life inside it, then every other thing which does not have life in it must be dead.
When does the ego lose the life or does it have a life at all or is it always alive. The Gita and the Upanishads do not consider these questions are relevant. Because, these are part of Apara Vidya and not Para Vidya . Para Vidya is the knowledge by which you know the essence of all other knowledge of science and arts. The question that Para Vidya seeks to answer is where does everything come from? The answer is that it comes from Atman or Paramtman or the Self, the God Almighty. How do we prove or know that. The method to know is Yoga and the ultimate state of Yoga is when the mind has become still, the ego is lost, all desires have gone. It is then when the knower knows the answer by merging with that what is to be known, the original source. The knower, the known and the knowledge become the same. The knower has lost any other identity at that stage; he sees every thing in himself and him in everything else. This is a rare of state to happen within a live human body and rare is a human body that experiences this state. It is the state of bliss that no one has described anywhere for another person to understand or feel. So, the probability of such a state arising in any human body like that of mine is in the infinitesimal distance of zero, even if the method of Yoga is taken recourse to.
Whether there is rebirth of anything or not is immaterial to this scientific theory of God.

3. Prove God: The Eternal Challenge
Sunday, December 27, 2009

Man asks questions and seeks answers to them. They discover and gather useful knowledge only through this process. They discover Truth in this way and later on discover that the Truth they discovered was either not the Truth or not the whole Truth. They are in continuous pursuit of getting to the Ultimate whole Truth. They discover and find proof of the existence of Gita's God in the same way.
The following is one possible way how Gita's God was discovered by Man:
1. Where can we see God?
You cannot see God with your eyes. God being infinite, you cannot photograph him within the frame of any camera either. You could get sense of some picture of the God when you can take a picture of the entire Universe: however you would still not get the full picture of God: things like knowledge, feelings and concepts that exist have no images to be captured in a film.
2. Who has seen Him?
No one has seen HIM. He is not an object to see through eyes that we have or lenses we can manufacture.
3. How is He? Can we describe Him?
He is incomprehensible, unknowable, infinite, ceaseless, unperturbed, always working, desire-less, ego-free, anger-free, unattached, and not limited by physical dimensions and beyond gender classification (use of He is equally good as use of She or It when referring to God)
4. If I don't know how exactly God is, how do I accept HIM?
I accepted my Mother even before I knew that she was my Mother and what exactly was she. I do this. So, what is the problem with accepting God? And, no one needs to accept God.

I accept the impact of recession on me but I have neither seen nor known recession clearly. As a human being, I do not see many things and concepts, I do not comprehend them. But still I accept them if I find that useful to my life. If concept of God is useful to me, I can accept it if choose to so long as that acceptance does not lead me to create problem for others (my satisfaction increases without decreasing the satisfaction of others). If not I need not accept. It does not matter to the existence of God.

5. Has the term / concept of God been coined by to put moral chains to so
that people practice goodness?
The concept of God arose much before the concept of morality evolved. Therefore, God is unperturbed by goodness or evil. Rather, He is the creator/ source of all good and evil. By definition therefore God has caused man to coin the term/ concept of God. It was no man's independent decision to coin the term. But concept of God can and has been used to bund people with the chains of morality.
6. What is the basis to presume that God exists?
The basis of presuming God's existence is the assumption that anything that exists must have a source. Tracing back chronologically in time, one tries to reach the ultimate source of anything and all things in the Creation. But the efforts to go back is an infinite and end-less process. If one assumes that one has reached the end of the process, one has still to seek the source of that end-point. So, one assumes the existence of the Ultimate source even if that remains unidentified. It follows that this ultimate source has always been there. This may be named God. God therefore is in existence since Man assumes that there exists an Ultimate source / cause of the entire Creation. Big Bang is not the source as there must have been a source of the Big Bang. Some scientists believe that there was nothing prior to the Big Bang. How do we prove that except that a consistent mathematical model of the Creation that we know now does not need to assume anything prior to Big Bang of rapid decline in infinite density initial condition?
7. Why it is said that God exists every where and in every thing? Because the infinitely dense initial condition contained all that is there even now in the Creation.

4. Soul Searching
Sunday, February 28, 2010

Soul (often referred to as Atman) is a term in Upanishads and Gita that helps generate confusion. The greater the confusion the better - no one knows. Everyone has the right to discover the meaning of soul. Some in search of the nature of soul ask questions and seek answers to them. That is the scientific way. For example: What happens to a soul when one commits suicide?

Soul is immortal. Soul does not die. Death is meant for the body and its organs. Death can come due to age, disease, accident, murder, legal punishment, or suicide. Irrespective of how death occurs, soul is unaffected. Suicide is the result of a disease or accident resulting from the interaction of properties/ gunas of objects and forces in the creation. Soul is not concerned with such things.

Attempt to suicide need not always result in death. Even if it does, the soul is not involved. It is only an illusion to think of soul suffering: suffering is possible for those things that have appropriate gunas to experience suffering. Soul does not have such property or guna and hence cannot experience suffering. Suffering is experienced by one or more of this: body, mind, intellect and ego.

Then who gets rebirth? Body or mind or intellect or ego? That question has no meaning and irrelevant. Every thing transforms over time. Nothing remains the same. There is nothing that needs to take birth or rebirth. Day and night takes rebirth roughly every 12 hours? That is silly, we know. These are phenomena resulting from interaction of certain forces in the creation. So are life and any particular life form. Just as 25th March night does not get reborn after 365 or 366 orbits of the Earth around the Sun, nothing gets reborn. Soul does not.
But any life that is born has soul/ atman. The soul being indestructible, infinite and indivisible, it is inconsistent with the definition of soul to identify as soul of this person or that person.

Gita's soul is Atman or Paramatman or God. It is not the term that is used to praise John because he is/ was a great soul. It has nothing to do with the term soul mate.
Terms like Soul, Atman, Pramatman, Self and God may have different connotations and meaning depending on usage. But for Gita all these are one and the same. It is waste of time to differentiate them for any analytical or spiritual purposes.

Gita's theory of God is consistent if one accepts these terms as Synonyms or exact equivalents.
5. God's Desire
Sunday, February 28, 2010

The creation they say is the desire of God. Whatever happens in the Creation is God's desire. Naturally people would want to know how or why is it that God desires in the way He does. Why does he desire Sun to burn, Moon to reflect light, Universe to expand, have a Big Bang, one to become a murderer and another saint, Tsunami and earth quakes to occur, Indian to remain poor and large in numbers, Americans to remain too rich for long, Chinese not to be tall, and so on and so forth. Why did he not desire differently?
These questions are valid. By pursuing them, Man realizes that the questions are irrelevant.

Desire is observed to be a characteristic/ property of beings. Sun and moon and stars do not have desires. Languages do not have desires. Probably trees do not have desires. Desires are actually seen to be arising with the existence of ego, intellect, mind and senses.
But Gita's God by definition, though all pervasive and contains everything in the Creation, itself has no ego, no mind, no intellect, no emotion, no senses. God is not like another human being of super capability. God is the source and container of everything but has no desire. Desire affects those which are afflicted by desire. God is not afflicted or affected or impacted by anything. Thus there is no way that God can have desire.

God by definition is the Supreme and complete by definition: there is no scope for Him to desire or wish. Desire or wish can arise only from incompleteness. If there is completeness, there is no scope for a wish or desire to arise for seeking completeness. The Supreme has every thing in Him and never feels inadequate. Without any inadequacy, the Supreme has
no need to wish or desire. The Supreme who is complete has everything: He
contains everything in the Creation and is in existence in each and everything
in the Creation. All wishes and desires of everything/ everyone are contained in
Him and He exists in all wishes and desires possible in all creatures. So the
Supreme does not need any desire or wish of His own. That His Creation functions
the way it has been doing and will continue, fully satisfies Him. With nothing
remaining to be satisfied, the Supreme has no scope for any wish or desire of
His own. Any thing / any one even a little less than Supreme and less than Complete can only have a wish or desire.

To put it differently, all that happens in this creation is nothing but His wish and desire getting fulfilled! That is how people see God's desire in everything that happens. It is just like saying that the Sun desires to light the Earth.

7. Doer's Imaginary Existence
Monday, March 1, 2010

Gita says that since no body is a real doer, to think that ‘I am/ you are or he is doing’ is delusion or illusion. The mind is not the doer, the intellect is not the doer, and the Self is not the doer. Man is not the doer. Then, who is the doer? Is this all mystery?
It is a perfectly valid question. And, one should if possible and to the extent one is capable must explore this mystery.
To start with, best is to forget what Gita says. Just observe a phenomenon and ask who does something to create this phenomenon. Sun rises in the East. Does the Sun rise? Really speaking the Sun does not rise. We assume that the Sun, Moon, Clouds, Ocean Water, Trees do not have mind or intellect or Self. Sun burns and gives light, the Earth moves round the Sun, Moon reflects Sunlight, Clouds burst and transforms into rain, Ocean water churns and evaporates to form clouds. Burning takes place, so do earth’s orbiting, rains’ falling and water’s evaporating. These things do happen. But we only say that certain things do certain things as doer. But do they really do anything? They do not do anything. It is the property/ guna/ nature of these things that they seem to be associated with certain events and phenomena. These things happen but no body does: none is the doer of these things.

The Truth is that there does not have to be doer to explain the observed action of doing. The concept of doer is a convenient imaginary product of mind and intellect. In reality doer does not exist and does not need to exist for any phenomenon and event to take place. The human race and the Universe would continue the same way it has been doing even if we assume that there is no Doer. The concept of “Doer” is consistent with all that happens but is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to explain whatever happens. The concept of the existence of a ‘Doer’ therefore is a superstition and matter of faith.
To explain all that happens in the Creation/ Universe, the assumptions that are needed are various properties or gunas that lead certain objects including life forms like human beings to behave in certain manner under certain conditions. A car runs but stops if there is no fuel. Car does not do anything. The phenomenon of car running happens given the properties of the car and certain properties of other objects in the environment of the car. A man eats at certain times if food is available. Man eating is a phenomenon that results from the properties / gunas/ nature of the man and other objects surrounding the object man. Similarly, it is not necessary to really believe that a man acts or does: the phenomenon of man's behaviour occurs. There is no doer.
The concept of doer is an illusion. We do not need a door for the Universe, Creation and the processes that continue in the Creation. Thus, the basic question as to who is the doer just does not arise. The answer to that question is simply that no body does: doer does not exist. Things happen without any doer. Since this is the Truth, Gita says remove the ego of doing.

But if I am a scientific man, I need more than the above logic to prove the non-existence of ’Doer’. I should be able to empirically test that ‘Doer’ does not exist. So, better I collect and use empirical evidence on the existence of ‘Doer’. How? If I can show that a particular human does indeed behave differently under the same internal and external conditions, I would have some reason to suspect that the a ‘doer’ may exist. If my suspect ‘doer’ does the same thing every time under the same set of internal and external conditions, I would tend to doubt the existence of ’doer’: for, this man acts exactly as the car does when running: same road, same traffic, same driver, same passenger, same fuel, same traffic, same temperature, leads to same behavior and performance by the same car. Man becomes just like another car that has no ‘Doer’. (I am not confused with the driver being a ‘doer’ because the driver is an external condition).
Unfortunately, seldom does the same person remain in the same external and internal condition over time. The internal and external conditions change. So, the behavior also changes. Even if I observe a child trying to learn walking, it learns from the first few failures and then succeeds to balance and walk. The behavior changes over time due to change in internal conditions: increased learning and experience. What is the alternative way to test for the existence of ‘Doer’ in Man? A somewhat less rigorous but scientific approach would be to do control experiments over many people. This is the method the psychologists follow.

I select two samples of people. One group I treat with some information and training, keeping the other group as it is. Then I put the groups into an experiment. If the behavior of the controlled group and the other group differs statistically significantly, it would tend to cause worry to me as training and information becomes the cause of behavior rather than the existence of ‘Doer’. On the other hand, if I have chemical/ biological/ cellular statistics on the individuals and make my control groups formed on the basis of similarity of characteristics based on such diagnostic/ laboratory clinical test data and then observe that groups behave differently under given problems to solve/ external conditions to respond to, I would suspect that my suspect ‘doer’s in different persons are nothing but chemicals/ cells, proteins, acids and DNA/ RNA, etc. Then, the concept of ‘Doer’ loses relevance. I do not any more need the concept of ’Doer’ to explain variations in behavior of people: I can directly explain that the cause of behavioral differences are the properties of the biological and atomic composition of different persons. The ‘Doer’ vanishes because it does not anymore serve my scientific inquiry.

Gita is based on such empirical methodology of science: the’ Doer’ essentially is an imaginary artifact that is nothing but a bonded slave of the Gunas. Thus, we arrive at the conclusion that emerges is that no one is a doer. If I remain steady and settled in that Truth, I will identify myself with an identity of non-doer. As non-doer, all are the same - equanimity follows automatically. That non-doer cannot logically have any desire and therefore any action to satisfy any desire. My body, mind and intellect may still be part of the phenomenon of satisfying desire through certain behavior. Just like the Sun burns but the Sun is not the doer of burning. The phenomenon of burning of a type is what we call burning: that is the guna of Sun. I do not do anything nor does he or she: none is a doer. The gunas play them out.

One that realizes this Truth every moment is the Self: But the Self also does not do - it is not a doer of realization of Truth. The Truth realized state is named Self or Atman or Paramatman or God.
Self is not like a grand old man who cannot work / do and therefore is thinking of God all the time. Self is not a man or woman or animal or a physical object: it is the state or realized truth as against the state of slavery of Gunas. Both exists simultaneously - the first never changes and continues indefinitely while the later changes virtually every moment and transforms and at some stage just disappears. The first is not observable by the senses; the second is an observable phenomenon for the senses.

8. Transforming "I"
Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Why is the resistance to accept the Truth that all that is here and there and everywhere is nothing but God (Vasudeva Sarvam?). Exalted souls show symptoms of this realization, seemingly having taken refuge in / merged in God by loosing their existence (I-ness). Why can’t I?

God is everywhere and in everything and everything is in God (Basudeb Sarbam in
Bengali and Vasudeva Sarvam in Sanskrit) is the Truth so easy to
understand and prove. I may have no scientific or intellectual resistance to
accepting this Truth. (I accept the Truth that Cigarette smoking is injurious to health, but I resist any thought or contemplated action to quit smoking. Similarly, I fail to live every moment of my life in accordance with this Truth. Gita says only rare is a person showing symptoms of living this Truth.

The resistance comes from the illusion/ delusion (Maya) that gives birth to ego (‘I’ as distinct from others) and desires and actions to fulfill desires.
Yoga (Karma, Gyan and Bhakti) is the only method to overcome this illusion, says Gita.

But it is so difficult to practice Yoga. Even as I write this, my mind subconsciously says that I am writing, I do not exist in the phenomena of thinking, desiring, acting, enjoying and suffering that is produced by certain operating gunas of the cells in what I call as my body and mind and the gunas (properties) of the cells surrounding my body.

I do not exist and hence I do not think or act and hence I am not writing this out. This composition is destined to take place and has nothing to do
with my belief that I exist or do not exist. I agree. But it is the habit from Childhood that I believe that something in this body named Basudeb Sen thinks, decides and does things
independently and in response to some impulses from the external environment.

This habit is the resistance, this habit is the difficulty. This moment I decide that I have no existence, the next moment I think that I am doing
something. Reason: to give up the illusion of my existence, I am under the illusion that I exist at least to give up the thought I exist. This is the crux of the issue.

An alternative is to imagine “I’ being merged in God Almighty (I am that) and witness the fool in the body called Basudeb Sen thinking that it is doing something and therefore it exists. Even then the thought of ‘I’ still persists as the particular one merged in God. So long as thoughts and actions for anything including giving up ego or desire or anger and/ or in pursuit of being merged with God is identified as
emanating from a particular identified body or force, ‘I’ persists. It is probable that the moment there is no
identified source/ cause/ owner of thoughts or actions; ‘I’ vanishes because all thoughts and actions lose their identities as well. When boiled rice gets crushed under the teeth, no grain of rice gets distinguished. All identities and distinctions get lost. When water flows along the river or floods submerge lands, individual hydrogen molecules are not distinguishable. Individual atoms or cells do not have names: they are there everywhere but
no distinction, no identity. Electric power lights all homes but no distinction which kWh unit powers which home or which bulb. Neutrinos pass through everything in this Universe but no particular identified neutrino is distinguishable. All this is Vasudeva Sarvam.
I can get lost if all other things also lose their identities. That is only a state or phenomenon: the state of Self Realization - it is not my self realization.
So, I cannot achieve Self-realization by definition. The question of why can’t I practice Vasudeva Sarvam or live a life of equanimity does not arise. It is not what Gita prescribes for me. Gita just says that Yoga may lead to the emergence of such a state of equanimity as a phenomenon associated with the behavior of a living body. I cannot realize the Self: the Self is always in a realized State. A rare body may give expression to or exhibit the symptoms of such Self Realized State where "I' does not exist.

Why should I try to get rid of ‘I’ if the attempt is more or less guaranteed to fail: maybe the quality of 'I' changes in the process and that may be a gain to ‘I’? But that is a separate issue.




9. Old Age is Yet the Golden Age
Wednesday, March 3, 2010

How old was Krishna and Arjuna when the later gave the former a lesson on Yoga just before the Kurushetra War? That would be any one’s guess. Probably Krishna and Arjuna were of the same age group. Krishna treated Yudhistira as elder. When the Krukshetra war took place, Krishna was already in Dwarka, after having spent the childhood and adolescent period in Vrindavan. He must have been around 18 when he killed Kangsha. Then, he married and spent time in Dwarka as a potential leader of the Oligarchic Yadav Kingdom. Then he attended the Sawambara of Druapudi. Arjuna won Draupadi but Krishna did not contest. So at that time Arjuna and Krishna might have been aged19-22. Arjuna spent lot of time in exile – 14 years. The Kurushetra war started after that. Krishna’s son fought bravely in the War. He must have been around 15-16 years’ old. So, at the time of War Krishna and Arjuna must have been in the age group 35-40. Not after too long a time after the War, Yudhisthir and his brothers went for, in a sense, real vanaprastha. So, Arjuna and Krishna could have been close to 50 at the time of war.

Why am I concerned about their age at the time they were discussing Yoga? They were not children or in the prime of their youth. They have lived through much of their Gruhastha. So, they were old. Old age is golden period for Yoga.

It happens that many start seriously thinking of Salvation, Self. Atman, God and Yoga when they become old. They might have been praying and worshipping God religiously with a view to living more peaceful, comfortable lives and face little problem with God’s blessings. But only few thought of death, after death, and salvation. But they worry about the constraints in the form of physical and economic deficiencies at that stage of life.

Certainly, with age and retirement from income earning activity, it may be a great problem to live life in Vanaprastha and Sanyas stage, unless, of course, one and in most cases, both husband and wife together, prepare for that life. The only preparation that is needed is complete submission to God. Old age is the most ideal and convenient stage for all this. Once a person or a married couple submits to God, by definition, they no longer rely on their limbs or income / wealth, they no longer fear ill health, disease, weakened limbs, senses, organs and approaching death: they no longer need to long for food and drink or clothes or even bed or shelter. In such a state, worries need not arise. On the other hand, persons who reach such a stage find food, drink, clothing, shelter, help, medicines, assistance, etc just flow to them even from quarters they had never anticipated earlier. God seems to take care of those who submit all worries to God and just become intensely keen to merge with God.

True, such persons are rare. What do the others do? Old age problems are bound to come and would have to be faced. There is no way out. One can only try to forget about these problems or bear with these problems by continuous praying to God for relief, protection and liberation, and by giving up ego, anger, opinion, expectations, desire and attachment to personal habits and tendencies of the past. Tolerance and endurance is the only valuable attribute of old age - the greater the tolerance, the better the life is. People do all these to various degrees and make their living better to that extent comfortable. Those who continue to try to manipulating others, emotionally or otherwise, to live more comfortably, almost always fail and suffer all the more.

There was an illiterate old man whom I knew would not go to a doctor even if he had fever for a few days. He would say that he had to bear the discomfort and pain as these are the result of his prior karma or fate. In old age, there is no way to do fresh Karma to avoid suffering resulting from past Karma.

I cannot do anything if I get lung or other cancer now having been a smoker for over 40 years. I cannot get back my perfect eye sight whatever I may do. My digestion ability powered by the micro-biological cells and atomic sub-particles within me can only worsen: I need to adjust my food habits. I have to enjoy now a different life than when I was younger: the only thing that I can do is to prepare myself to tolerate or endure the old age physical and mental pain and suffering. I can only endure what I cannot cure. I can, if I so wish simultaneously pray to God to forgive me, protect me and liberate me. I can look at diseases, hunger, suffering and death as God Himself. I can also stop thinking bad about others and stop criticizing others. If I do these, I hope God will take care of me through some means. Even if God does not, my suffering would reduce because of my higher degree of tolerance/ endurance and zero degree of disappointment with my situation.

Probably, it would have been easier for me to live Vanaprastha and Sanyas, had I realized all this when I was in Brahmacharyya and Gruhastha. That was the period when I could have started building up my capabilities to deal with Vanaprashtha and Sanyas, that is the period from when I should have learnt to give up anger, disappointment, fear, expectation, desire, greed and tendency of manipulating others: I should have learnt to pray to God with all of my heart rather than ritually, learnt to avoid smoking, spending away money and give up habits that would be difficult to give up later. I did not do much then. Fine, but it is better late than never. I try now and learn to live with weak / malfunctioning aids like eyes to see, hand and feet to do, ears to hear, mouth and teeth to eat, memory to recall, mind to think, hearts to pump, etc. I will do now whatever I can do to keep these going as long as they can to help me. Maybe one day God, if He exists and is capable, will finally take care of me. There are many people who suffer from birth until death at old age: can I be one fortunate enough to minimize that suffering at this old age. I do not know. But I can try. Sorry, I cannot preach any solution that I have not experienced as satisfactory.

If Arjuna and Krishna had lives that ended pathetically after a phase of old age, great loss of relatives and friends, as perceived by common standards of evaluation, why should my life at this end-phase be any better? Rather, this is the time, if God allows my mind to work logically and scientifically and my heart becomes bereft of anger, ill-will and fear, my ego will progressively decimate to allow the Realized Self to takeover from me.

10. Right to Experience Yoga Path: Salvation Not Assured
Thursday, March 4, 2010

Before I realize God, all of a sudden sadhana ends abruptly just before death. Like Maharaj Bharat, I remember a Deer that I killed; I lose all the benefit of my sadhana and get reborn as a Deer. What is the use of all sadhna activities if I am going to have a miserable result for not being careful enough? Who guarantees my salvation through Sadhna or Yoga. Gita seems to say that the thoughts at the time just before death affect the nature of future birth. If I think of God at that time, I get liberated. If I happen to think of evil and sensual desire, I have to struggle again in the next birth to get salvation. This may continue birth after birth. Since there is no guarantee that I would get liberated, why should I try again and again in vain? This is a valid and legitimate question that arises in the mind? I should answer to this question.
First, I recognize that no one can guarantee fulfillment of desire even if the desire happens to be one of attaining salvation or merging with God. God says in Gita that I do not exist except in delusion. God says that Self / Atman never dies and never born. He says Self is always in the state of realization in the sense of being in God Himself. Then, why should He say that I will have problem if I happen to think of something else than God? God in Gita is obviously not a child or an ignorant person. He cannot say what I interpret as having said. The only meaning of what he has said about thoughts at the time just before death could be that he is saying that a person following and practicing Yoga can slip very easily from the path of Yoga. And that could happen even just before death. This highlights the great difficulty in remaining steady on the path of Yoga. The objective of Yoga is to remain on the path till the last moment that one can be in Yoga, i.e., the moment one leaves his breath and then dies. This is the only interpretation that is consistent with the essence of Gita. The God in Gita could not been illogical person to say inconsistent things.

Human population or the life form has been growing all the time. There is birth of a new life form every moment. Each of the new born has God contained in that life in the body, mind, ego and the Self. It does not mean that some specific body, or specific mid/ intellect/ sense/ ego or Self has to be born again. It only refers to the continuous cycle of creation, maintenance, destruction and transformation. The purpose of Yoga is to experience in the live body the complete unison of the ego, intellect, mind, thoughts, actions and senses with the Self (that is always in Realized State). When that experience of unison is in its complete state, the ego vanishes, the mind becomes still and thought-less, desires disappear and senses work without desire. It is such a state that there is no experience of pleasure or pain and no experience of action or death.

Maybe my interpretation as described above is wrong. But still I have to question the question. If I am so interested in salvation with intensity increasing over time, why should I be afraid of slipping from the path of Yoga any time at all? Yes, there is great probability of deviating from the path of Yoga due to influence of the Maya influenced Gunas. But that is exactly what I am fighting to overcome and win over. I do not go to War just thinking that I may get defeated. God has told me that I have the right only to action/ work/ performance but not the consequences of such action/ performance. My only desire is Salvation and nothing else. My only work for that is to perform Yoga and be in Yoga. If I am in Yoga continuously, even the desire for salvation will vanish and I am in bliss. I want to experience that. State. When I am in that state I have no further desire and I remain there ad infinitum. Where is the question of being in vain?

Finally, assuming that I get defeated by the Gunas and they make me fall out of the path of Yoga, what do I lose? I have already experienced the quality of living on the path of Yoga. That should encourage me to come back to the path of Yoga to fight again with the Gunas influence with greater resolve. Failures are the pillars of success.


No one can guarantee salvation. Even if one is not successful in realizing God, the progress one makes towards that goal makes the person achieve a different life. He/ She may be satisfied with this life-time achievement or he/ she may not.
If he/she is satisfied, it does not matter whether or where he/she is born in the next birth. Even for believers in rebirth, the next birth is a different try/ attempt one has to make to realize God. It is said that the Purva Samskriti (the inheritance of the Sattavic gunas that one developed in the previous birth) could help him / her to continue the progress to the realization of God. Of course, much will determine what he actually happens to do in the next birth. Whether this is true or not does not matter. If in this birth, a person has been able to attain a fair degree of equanimity, he/ she would not be at all upset by the possibility of his/ her next birth being as deer or pig or mosquito or tiger or poor beggar in a poor country: for he/she would have realized that every being in this Creation is the same and one should be indifferent to the type of next birth.
If one is not satisfied with his/ her progress towards the path of realization of the Self/ God, he could be still be happy with the progress that he/she has made in this life and would look forward to the next birth to continue to the progress towards the ultimate goal.
Those who are interested in Bhog and want just to keep themselves fit through practicing Yogic methods of sadhana can at best achieve that goal. The goal of self-realization cannot be achieved through partial devotion to that goal while pursuing material goals in life. There could be such Sadhaks who want to develop some mystical / magical powers through Sadhana. They may achieve only that.
The possibility of any thought other than God arising in the mind of a Sadhak arises only if one is still not focused on the single goal of realization of the Self and God. Even when people get into accidents, they pray to God before they die. The sadhakas are likely to think of God all the time even while they are eating, discussing, bathing, and reading newspaper: so they are unlikely to get into trouble of unwanted rebirth because at the time of death they were sleeping or discussing politics or property. Because at the back of their mind, the thought of God is expected to remain. For example if at the time of death, a person was reading about a criminal's life or the beauty of a deer, the sadhak is only thinking of these as the Creation of God. If he/she is thinking about investment in property, he is thinking that God has been guiding him/ her to take a decision. If he is thinking of eating fish, he is thinking of God instructing him to eat fish. Thus, he has lost his ego to God. The thought of God remains all through. Why should he be worried about what his/ her next life could be?

If a Sadhak is serious in continuing along the path to Salvation, he shall at least be prepared to continue his/ her efforts in the next birth. That resolve is always in the back of his/ her mind. He/ she does not have to worry about what his next birth would be if he happens to think of a jackal or a thief or a murder or a rape incident. Even if he/ she happen to be angry at the moment of death, a Sadhak is aware that this is God's play. He/ she has completely submitted to God.

11. Allotting God Some Time!
Friday, March 5, 2010

Minds bring in new questions and new ways of looking at God. One common question is: ‘How can I develop intense longing for God or the Self? I want to become totally restless for getting God?’ Once this question is explored, one could come to a conclusion: continue to explore the question, continue to search for God or stop thinking about longing for God.

One is not seeking to attain the state of intense longing for God or restlessness in search of God. One is seeking God. If the objective and goal is only God, why try seeking restlessness. Restlessness is not the objective - getting God is the objective.

If I find myself restless for many other things, I would not be able to concentrate thoughts continuously on God. Without the help of God one cannot reach either God or avoid restlessness for other things. I can only pray to God continuously for helping me to remove all other thoughts from my mind and concentrate my mind on God. I can do whatever I do but simultaneously and continuously thinking that God is making me do all these things. I can continuously explore what is God is all about even as I do other things. I can fill my mind and ego with only the desire to get God, irrespective of whether it is feasible or not.

One way to reach the state of intense longing for God is to follow the paths of those who had experienced such state and pray to God for His grace. Without His grace, I cannot develop intense longing for Him. I heard stories of what Mirabai did or Shree Chaitanya Mahaprbhu did and about so many other great Sadhaks. If I so wish I may follow their path and experiment as a scientist does to explore what happens as one tries to and, if successful, able to submit all of one's moments exclusively to Him and not use any moment thinking of anything else other than God. Maybe I will reach that stage of intense longing for God. Maybe not.

The past and current life has been expended swimming in the deep waters of Maya and sensual desire fulfillment. Maybe in future, I may feel that I am gasping for breath swimming without any destination to reach. Maybe then only I may start seeking God with progressively greater intensity so as to be able to get out of the water and achieve liberation from this bondage. Maybe I will continue to be in the delusion of life of sensual pleasure and pain with God as a spare time recreation. I do not know the future for certainty.

But I know that I will cherish the idea of being with God for moments together if He exists and allows me that chance. That is the gain so far, given the operation of the three gunas and their interaction with the external environment.

12. Seeking God- A Selfish Desire?
Friday, March 5, 2010

Gita prescribes giving up Ego and Desires and recommends pursuit of Salvation or the Bliss of Liberation. But isn't pursuit of Salvation or Liberation or God a Selfish Desire? Some brilliant minds wonder, struck by the words we use and their different connotations.

Liberation/ Salvation/ Moksha/
Merging with God is all selfish, even if believers of Gita may
object to the use of the term desire and selfish pursuit with these great objectives of life. Words have different connotations and different persons do not like all these connotations.
That Salvation is a desire and a selfish desire does not
in any way create problem for me. All desires are desires and
all desires are looking forward to self satisfaction from the fulfillment of desire. But there is a great difference. The path to liberation and the attainment
of liberastion is of a different class/ category than all other desires/ objectives of
human beings. When one is on the path of liberation, any other desire is a constraint. All other desires are for sensual pleasures. Striving for
liberation calls for giving up all sensual desires. All other desires when fulfilled satisfies ego. When liberation takes place ego vanishes. The path to liberation is to shed ego and submit to God Almighty.

Desire for Salvation requires giving up all other desires. Those who have one or more sensual desires may also have desire for getting God's power to
some extent at least in order to be able to satisfy some other sensual desires. All other desires are driven by ego: desire for salvation requires
driving out ego. When one is trying to drive out ego, he is being anti-Selfish.
The desire for Salvation is calling one to give up self-interest or self-satisfaction through enjoyment of sensual pleasure through actions driven by ego and the gunas/ properties of the body, mind and ego. Even when someone is worshipping God, or giving alms to the
poor or helping the weak or trying to be perfect in his work or praying for protection / comfort, he may be doing this to satisfy his ego and enjoy the sensual pride of being a great
man or a pious man or a famous man or a man accumulating Punnya or wealth. But this
is not the desire for Salvation or liberation or achieving God? Only when someone is worshipping God, or giving alms to the poor or helping the weak or trying to be perfect in his work only and exclusively for the sake of trying to concentrate on the thought of God, as actions to live a life of equanimity,
as step to give up all desires, is he treading the path to fulfill the desire for Salvation?
It is clear and simple to understand this essential difference between the ego-driven, sensual desire- killing objective of Salvation and all sense- gratifying, ego-bolstering objectives.

It does not really matter whether I call the objective of Salvation (in the sense that it has been defined in Gita) as a selfish pursuit of desire. Words can confuse. If I happen to know the difference, I am fortunate. Gita says those who travel the path of Salvation are rare: of them the rarest attain. Rarity does not signify common selfish desire as we usually understand.

13. Desire Free Vegetable Life
Friday, March 5, 2010

Someone pointed out: without desire or ambition one becomes a vegetable and do not remain a human being. If one classifies human beings as those creatures which have desires, then the desire less creature is not a human being. Everyone would have to agree with him, given his definition. But does that mean that desire less creatures are vegetables? No, because if vegetables are desire less then, so are the rocky mountains fish. So a desire less entity maybe a fish also. We seldom think logically but think that we are great at logic.
Does vegetable mean useless or worthless? Vegetables are useful to human beings. If Krishna who spoke Gita to Arjuna was desire less, he was a vegetable and yet useful to Arjuna, a human being with desire.

Are not desires common to all beings? The desires work independently through the Gunas in the body cells, DNAs, RNAs, etc. Animals show desires. Vegetables also have desires to grow operating through the working of their cells when live
and desire to get rotten sometime or when cut out from plants for human and animal food intake. Human beings with desires and ambitions are therefore some from of animals and vegetables.

What may distinguish a human from animal or vegetable is that the human has also cells inside that can work against desire. The human being often does not act against one kind of desire - like to enjoy sex or food or comfort and allow only the desire to know the Creator, the Creation and the creative process to be pursued. Those who have such strong desires to know may become scientists, and, when they give up all sensual desires but the only desire that remains is to know the Creator, they become
superhuman beings. And, when such superhuman beings realize the God, they cease to have any more desire. They do everything without being connected to desire. They become one with the Creator and God. Vegetables have not been seen to
become one with the God, nor do animals.

Try being vegetable: a human would not become an attractive vegetable. By giving up desires and ambitions, a human being will become more attractive to other human beings and will enjoy greater peace and many other things (that other human beings desire and may or may not get fulfilled) without desiring them.

The point is not whether a person without desire is a vegetable or animal. The point is why to pursue a goal of becoming desire less? Only very small percentage of population tries to become desire less for the rest of their lives. The rarest is a person who has given up all desires. Let me see one and find out if such a person is more like vegetables or something better than a human being. I do not think that I will ever get such an opportunity to be near or in the company of a desire less person.

Gita is a science. It defines a learned and wise man as one who strives to be always on the path of Yoga to realize the Self or God. Gita defines Salvation as the state of a human being who is ego-less, desire-less and immersed in equanimity and therefore totally unaffected by whatever goes on his body or the external environment.

How to achieve that State? Should achieving that State desirable? Can everyone achieve that State? These are the questions Gita seeks scientific answers to. But these issues need to be explored in detail.

14. Why Desire God?
Monday, March 8, 2010


Man believes in/ wants/ does something or the other depending on what the properties he has genetically inherited make him believe, make him want/ desire and forces him to do. Ultimately Man does not do anything beyond what the God-sent message implanted in him (through His creative and transformation process) enables and directs him to believe, think and do. Each being is a toy manufactured and operated by self-sufficient Guna-filled software. Man has no independent status: a toy is the slave of the properties and gunas that makes the toy. Only some toys have software that makes them desire God. Desiring God is not an independent decision of a toy but the result of genetically inherited guns software responding to the external impulses activating the software.

The question is what does God want by creating toys such as Man or other things?
God's Creation evolves and behaves in the variety of ways and since He is desire-free, ego-free and attachment-free, He can have no want. He just witnesses, by being everywhere and in every thing, the drama that the illusive properties of desire, want, ego and attachment and etc, enact in the process of infinite existence and transformation of His Creation.

It is for the same reason of differential guna properties inherited and the external impulses, one Man wants to know what Man really wants, while another Man does not see any purpose of trying to know that. The first man may perhaps come to know one day the answer, the second man may also come to understand the answer without the urge to know: the chances of any Man knowing the entire thing however is very low - just about zero.
Still, the software and the external impulses, forces some people to desire God, some others to desire knowing God and still some others not worry about God while a few to preach that since God does not exist, there is no need to try knowing or desiring God. Different toys do different things.
Let us assume that God does not exist and hence the toys were not made by God but the result of some chance factors which are unknown as yet or unknowable (so far no one and no scientist has been able to claim full knowledge of who created these so-called toys that compose the entire Creation). Some toys therefore can just call that that unknown factors or the unknowable factors as nothing but a single God. It is just a term for the ultimate source of or cause of all that is in the Creation. So, simple an idea: God is the yet Unknown or the Unknowable ultimate cause/ source of everything that science is trying to find out without success so far.

Thus, if the Unknown or the Unknowable exists, God exists. If something exists, it is possible that some toys may desire to know the Unknown or the Unknowable. The scientist toys as a group are programmed to do that ceaselessly and the method they follow is the method of science. But there are some other toys which are programmed to believe that the scientific methods may not succeed in knowing the ultimate Unknown or the Unknowable (since no scientists can provide a scientific guarantee to that effect, even though Science has discovered many Truths that were not known earlier and some celebrated scientist had admitted about a century ago that he knew very little of the what all has to be known). So, some "non-science" toys try to know the Truth/ Unknowable by alternative methods like faith or meditation and the like. But to know or desire something these toys needed some definition of what they are to desire or like to know. Different God-seeking program toys have different definitions.

All who desire God to start with generally have ego, desire and functioning senses. That's common to those who do not desire God. The desire for God is often a subsidiary desire. First, the desire may be to avoid fear of adverse things to happen: by desiring God and praying the fear goes. Ruling out adverse situations is the primary desire, getting over that fear and desire to get God's help is the subsidiary desire. Second, some people desire to see beautiful and amazing things. The subsidiary desire is to pray and thank God who creates such beautiful and amazing things in the Universe and in life so that He gives or continues the boon of satisfying the desire to enjoy beautiful and amazing things. Third, some people has the primary desire to acquire some powers from the Almighty infinitely powerful God: the subsidiary desire is to get in touch through some subsidiary desire to get in touch with God like prayer and good deeds so that God gives the power to do great things and achieve success. Fourthly, there are some persons who desire to have peace and bliss that they think only God can give: the subsidiary desire is to try to get into God's fold by prayer, austerity and good deed. Fifth, some persons just want to know God and desire to merge with God for no other reason. Many people have more than one of these desires, depending on the software of ego-guna-sense combination they inherit and the external environment they happen to face at different points of time.

The 'non-science" toys are programmed to desire God/ the Ultimate Unknown: from a scientist' point of view this may appear unscientific and meaningless. But these toys exist in reality among our midst: they include rich and poor toys, educated and uneducated toys, men and women, children and parents, scientists, engineers, medical doctors, politicians, and so on. God in Gita says such 'God desiring programmed toys' of various types exist and this is empirically verifiable hypothesis. Gita says all such toys have programs that are desirable but the best or the rare programs are those seek God as the Single and the Ultimate aim. This also is an empirically viable hypothesis that can be tested. And, the rarest realizes that aim of realization of God. But what is the utility of such god-seeking programs inserted in the human toys?





14. Rationale of Seeking God
Tuesday, March 16, 2010


Irrespective of whether God exists or not and what form does God takes, God-seeking programs are self-serving programs in most human beings. Some people hate to believe in doing things that have no scientific basis. Some people love to do things that make them feel better. Some play cricket because they feel better: some people just love cricketers playing cricket because they feel better during that time. Some people go on top of mountain peaks at great pains to see the Sun set or rise because they feel better although they know the phenomenon is the result of the earth's revolution.

Some persons listen to music to feel better. Some people just sing to themselves to feel better. Some compose poetry and feel better. Some people indulge in day dreaming to feel better. Desiring God is a similar activity. Most people desire God because they feel better when they do so. God-seeking programs in human toys are internally consistent: the program makes a human being to feel better and helps the program to run efficiently than otherwise. People pray and worship God to feel better; they discuss about God because they feel better by doing so. The more a God-seeking program human toy is under stress and strain, the more it gets relief by desiring God. They do not worry whether God exists or not: they just believe in God and develop faith and devotion on what they have not found proof of existence.

God seeking may seem to be a kind of addiction or blind faith superstition. It is just similar to people believing in the power of the national army to defeat the army of the enemy nation’s army. It is just like the blind faith that revolution led by the Communists will soon end the oppression of the poor by the rich. It is just like the superstition that the Government is powerful enough to eradicate economic recession, unemployment and inflation. It is just like the small child’s belief that its father is the most powerful in the World. It is just like the scientists' dream that one day human beings can destroy and recreate the Universe.

Irrespective what notion a human toy has about God, the desire to be with or without God - however superstitious or scientific - is an integral element of the software program that runs the human toys. By praying to God, some human toys get peace of mind. By praying to God, some people get confidence in themselves. By singing prayers, some people enjoy both peace and happiness. Concentrating on God helps some to forget all worries and problems. Some people come out of fear by desiring God to protect them. Some love god to enjoy the pleasure of loving one who does not reject love or want some gift of love. It is so simple to Trust God because one knows that God will reveal your secrets to others. When one feels bad because one has done something one would not have liked to do, one finds relief in seeking pardon of God. Seeking God helps one to forget failure in discharging responsibilities assumed by one. It is so simple to derive benefits out of God-seeking. Human toys software therefore often has this God-seeking element to enable other parts of the software to remain active. And, because of its prevalence, God-seeking it appears to be the most popular concept in human beings. If God really existed and asked for rating, God would have received overwhelmingly dominating rating. Just try taking a few repeated large sample surveys asking people to rate, on an anonymous basis, God and many other popular things in the world including sex, nation, soccer, any government on a 10-point scale. God's popularity can be measured empirically.
It may look surprising that a concept over which there is no agreement, something whose existence has not yet been scientifically established is so popular. But, it would not remain a surprise if this God-seeking program is the most widely found element in human software.

Most people seek God because God-seeking guna is the most common genetic inheritance. Yet, getting God seems to be the rarest of events among human being. To realize God all the time as an infinite, ceaseless source of all things in creation, as something inherent in each infinitesimal part of the creation, and as both contained in and container of creation is perhaps beyond the sensual and mental capability of human toys. The probability of this part of the human toy software getting activated appears to be as close to close zero as possible. Gita says that this realization is the ultimate objective worthy seeking. The method is Yoga, something almost impossible to practice with perfection.

All god-seeking is desirable but the best is when that ends in becoming unceasing, infinite, ego-less desire-free, action-less, unperturbed existence of equanimity.

15. Viswaroop Darshan - Vision Beyond Eyes
Wednesday, June 9, 2010

In Gita, Arjuna had wished to see the True form of God as expounded by Lord Shree Krishna. The Lord gave Arjuna the power to envision the True form of God for a temporary period. And, Arjuna did behold the True Form of God. This clearly seems to be an unnatural event: something mystical, magical.

But is that so? Not really. It was simply a natural phenomenon. What would have been unnatural was Arjuna being able to see God's True form with his eyes. Human eyes have limitation: they cannot see 360 degrees at the same time. They cannot see things at far distance. With the help of modern cameras, the human eyes can see photos/ images taken and transmitted by satellites and unmanned ships traversing in the distant space. Three-dimension instruments can make the pictures closer to the reality. Yet, with all these, the human eyes cannot see all that is in the entire Universe through all times all at the same time.

The human mind, however, is capable of seeing things that the eyes cannot behold: that is a separate, special kind of vision that powers human beings to do things that would seem impossible till such things are actually performed by a human being for the first time.
Not every human mind is capable of drawing the diagrams of the n-dimensional space or understands them within the limitation of two dimensions. But talented and trained astronomers can envision and understand them. Arjuna needed a similar but far superior capability of the mind to see through the True form of God even if partially. Lord Krishna helped Arjuna to develop this faculty/ capability for a glimpse of what the Lord referred to as the True Universal form of God.
With the help of such a mental vision, Arjuna could see a glimpse of the entire Universe on a single mental screen. Looks like fairy tale writing imagination!

What vision did Arjuna have? He just could see what was going on in the Universe over time. He saw
the Universe as simultaneously containing the following and more:
1. Innumerable known ad unknown faces of human beings that existed in the past and were present at that time or in infinite time, and their eyes,
2. Numerous physical bodies like the stars, planets and suns in the space,
3. Uncountable arrays of powerful objects that looked like weaponry,
4. Fire, air, brilliant lights, water of infinitely larger or greater dimensions than he had seen with his human eyes.
5. All kinds of various powers and forces that human beings had named as various gods and goddesses, demons and the like.

And, he saw all these or more in consciously and limitlessly expanding mode and space. The entire scene that he had a vision of was so expansive and widespread that it did not have a beginning or centre or an end. He was unable to tolerate the glow of thousands of burning suns that were simultaneously appearing in his vision. He saw everything that he saw to be in a state of helplessness and bondage of an enveloping, limitless container.

This is a broad and brief description of Viswaroop darshan elaborated in Chapter 11, slokas 7 through 49 in Gita (for ready reference see Chapter 11 at http://senland.blogspot.com/).

This was nothing but simply some knowledge about the entire Creation or the Universe that modern science has established as Truth through application of mind and scientific methods of exploration through centuries' efforts in search of Knowledge. This is the Knowledge that Arjuna gathered through what has been referred to as Viswaroop Darshan. The entire Creation was thus possible to be envisioned as the Creator or God. The access to this simple knowledge is even now possible only for the learned and educated.

There is nothing so magical about Viswaroop Darshan. It is only a simple natural phenomenon that trained human minds are capable of envisioning through simple logic. That the entire Creation is the Creator God itself is such a simple Truth after all! You do not require any eye to behold this Universal Form of God.!


16. Simple Truth about Meditation
Sunday, January 23, 2011

Meditation is so normal and common in human life that one does not need a Gita to elaborate for understanding. It is only incidental that ancient Indians had observed this so minutely as a Truth some 4000 plus years ago. We know that when we are fully engrossed in a particular thought (thinking about the beloved or solving a mathematical problem or drawing a sketch or composing a poem or cooking a particular dish, we do not get to know what is happening elsewhere in the surrounding environment and never get to know how long we have been focused on a single thought and involuntarily skipped meals, drinks, smoke, nature's call, other appointments and responsibilities. That is the State of Absolute Concentration that Meditation seeks to be in. In Chapter 6 of Gita, Krishna says:

1. Be seated in a proper posture (asana) in a clean, unpolluted and level place, neither too high nor too low [covered by Kusa-grass, a deer skin and a cloth, one over the other : not to be taken literally as kusa- grass or deer-skin are not commonly available now as 4000 years ago].
2. Concentrate the mind, controlling the thinking faculty (Chitta) and the senses.
3. To firmly hold body, head and neck straight and steady and fix the gaze at the tip of the nose and not to look at any other point or direction.
4. To shut out all external objects from mind and senses, and to fix the mind on the point between the eyebrows. having
5. To regulate breathig evenly with the Prana (outgoing) and the Apana (incoming) breaths flowing through the nostrils
6. To mediate now only on the concept of God Almighty as the Supreme Goal of life.
7. Constantly and continuously meditate in this way, the Yogi of disciplined mind attains the everlasting peace and Supreme Bliss, and finally reaches the State of Nirvana or Salvation in the midst of God.
8. To facilitate progress in meditation be moderate in food intake, do not eat too much or too little, does not sleep too much or too little, do not act under impulse and do not get into much recreation.
10. To facilitate progress in effective meditation, the one needs to free oneself from all desires including those for sense enjoyment and pleasure. The goal of meditation or DhyanaYoga with a steady and resolute determination in mind is disconnection from the union with all worldly pains and pleasures.

17. Sacrifices for Effective Meditation
Sunday, January 23, 2011

Meditation by its very nature, as anyone can observe, involves sacrifices. Sacrifice means here withdrawal from every thought other than the thought about God Almighty and suspension of all actions that is consistent with God as the doer of everything. So, in Chapter 4, what does Krishna advice us to sacrifice for effective Yogic meditation? He recommends sacrificing attachment to: Ego and sense of doer-ship, Desire, All objects of sensual pleasure, and Free functioning of the senses.

Yogi in meditation and through meditation 'frees all undertakings from "Sankalpa" (mental resolve) and desire, fully controls mind (inner faculties) and body, renounces all forms of hoarding even while performing actions for the maintenance of the body, remains completely devoid of attachment, establishes the mind in the knowledge of Self and works for the sake of sacrifice alone. Some Yogis offer hearing and all other senses as sacrifice into the fire of restraint; while others offer sound and other objects of senses into the fire of the senses. Still other Yogis offer sacrifice with the functions of their senses and those of the life-breath (vital energy), into the fire of Yoga of self-restraint, (Samadhiroop-yoga), kindled by knowledge. Many such forms of sacrifices (yajna) have been described in detail in the Vedas. Know them all to be born of actions and knowing these by performing these sacrifices, one will be liberated from the bondage of action."

This is extraordinarily difficult and seems impossible to do.
But says Krishna that He himself is always in this State of meditation. Though He is unborn, imperishable and Supreme Lord of all beings, He has to incarnate Himself through His Meditation on divine potency, keeping His Nature (Prakriti) under control: whenever there is a decline in righteousness and an upsurge in unrighteousness, He manifests Himself (in human or other form to restore Balance. In other words, Man being nothing but a manifestation of God can emulate Him and Meditate on Him, sacrificing all other things from mental or sensual recognition to remain the balanced state of peace and bliss.

18. Alternative, Mutually Connected Paths
Sunday, January 23, 2011

In Gita's Chapters 5 & 6, Krishna shows the equivalence of all sacrifices under various paths of Yoga. All paths aspire to reach the same Goal: become the knower of Knowledge, Truth and God Almighty and merge with that Knowledge, Truth and the God. The one who has mastered his senses, is exclusively devoted to spiritual practices attains Knowledge (wisdom) with complete faith in the Ultimate Truth that one is pursuing to know and realize, gains that knowledge and attains the supreme peace.

On the way to this Realization, the person sacrifices all differential relationships (equanimity), become detached from all actions and their consequences, removes all doubts arising from ignorance to fill the heart and establishes oneself in Karmayoga. Sannyasa (Sankhayoga/ Gyanyoga's pursuit of Knowledge) and Karmayoga (discipline of action) both lead to salvation (supreme bliss); though beginning with 'Karmayoga' is relatively easy as compared with starting with 'Sankhyayoga'.

Ultimately, the Yogis following these different paths will know not to hate anyone, desires anything from anyone, and will have risen above all dualities (pairs of opposites. The one, who is well established in either path, gets the fruit of both (God realization). In real terms, Sankhyayoga and Karmayoga are one and the same, entailing the same fundamental sacrifices and yielding the same benefit. Sankhyayoga is difficult to practice without Karmayoga. The sage adept in Karmayoga, quickly attains to the Gyan/ Knowledge of the Absolute Truth. One whose mind is freed from all bondages/ attachment of ego, sensual pleasures, desires, distinction between good and bad or favorable and unfavorable, has achieved all these by controlling his/ her body, subdued his/ her senses and by perceiving and treating his/ her own Self in the Selves of all beings.

The Sankhyayogi ultimately comes to realize the truth that all of his/ her actions/ activities like seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, sleeping, breathing, speaking, answering the calls of nature, grasping, opening and closing the eyes, are really not his/ her activities and disassociates himself/ herself from the movement and attachment of senses among /to the sense objects'.

Similarly, the Bhaktiyogi offer all actions to God, performs actions abandoning all attachment while he Karmayogis, having shaken off attachment, perform actions with senses, mind, intellect and body simply for the sake of self-purification that allows Knowledge to reveal the Truth to himself/ herself.

All these Yogis following different paths come to realize and behave consistent with the Truth that neither the sense of doer-ship nor the nature of actions does the Lord determine for the world, nor does He link actions with their fruits: to the All-pervading Lord there is no virtue or sin committed by anyone: all beings act deluded by ignorance anyone; as knowledge is enveloped by ignorance and illusion that obscures the True knowledge/ wisdom. With their mind and intellect completely absorbed in God, the realized Yogi remains constantly established in identity with and become one with God. To all such realized Yogis, a learned and humble Brahman, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a pariah (lowly, out caste) and also God are all the same. The realized souls of a Gyan Yogi, a Bhaki Yogi and a Karma Yogi are filled with the same understanding and none of them rejoices on obtaining what the senses would regard as pleasant or feel perturbed on meeting with the events or beings the senses may regard as unpleasant. They realize early that the pleasures that are born of contact with sense objects, are simultaneously and the only sources of pain, and therefore detach themselves from thoughts and activities that senses would be naturally inclined to pursue. They find happiness and bliss from whatever happens and goes on because they come to realize that all events that happen and all that what goes on is nothing but part of God even though God is unaffected by them.

He who discharges his duties without desiring its fruit is both a Sannyaasi (Sankhya / Gyan yogi) and a Karmayogi. He is not a Sannyaasi (renounce), who has merely renounced the sacred fire and is not a Karma yogi, who has merely stopped all actions: none becomes a Yogi without renouncing thought of the world (i.e. without giving up subtle worldly desires).

The contemplative Yogi seeks perfection in desire-less Karmayoga (Samtaa or equanimity) and performs the duty without selfish motive. The Bhakti-Yogi or the Karma-Yogi derives the same Knowledge through sacrificing all desires and finally sees God in every thing, every phenomenon and every one.

When the Yogi succeeds in becoming free from attachment to any thing and any one whether the objects of senses or for the actions (Karma) and has completely renounced all subtle desires, he / she has conquered his/her (lower) self by the (higher) self: he has replaced the enemy implicit in the lower self by the friend resident in the higher self. Being in perfect serenity in the midst of pairs of opposites, such as cold and heat, favorable and unfavorable events, joy and sorrow, and honor and dishonor, the Yogi remains in constant communion with God, treating alike all- the well-wishers, friends, foes, neutral persons, mediators, the hateful, the relatives, saints and sinners. That is the essence of Sacrifice in Yoga.

19. Mind That Attains Bliss
Friday, February 25, 2011

As I go on doing all that my inherent properties (gunas) make me do, can I get rid of the habit, cultivated by the Illusive Maya, of desiring the fruits of whatever I do so that I become both Sannyaasi (Saakhya yogi) and a Yogi (Karmayogi)? How can I renounce all thoughts of worldly sensual pleasures?
Performing all my actions without selfish motivation of enjoying Worldly sensual pleasure is the means to establish myself in Yoga and to God-realization. If and when I cease to have any attachment to all objects of senses and all actions (Karma) and renounce all subtle desires of the world, I will be in the perfect state of Yoga. I will have conquered lower self by the higher self. I go beyond the perishable I to experience the infinite I.

My mind would be perfectly serene and unperturbed by any distinction of pairs of opposites like love and hate, like and dislike, cold and heat favorable and unfavorable, joy and sorrow, and honor and dishonor. My mind would be in complete equanimity, perceiving well-wishers, friends, foes, neutral persons, mediators, the hateful, the relatives, saints and sinners, foes as one and the same - all alike.

How do I prepare my mind to get to that stage? I seat in whatever my mind considers as clean, unpolluted and level place that the mind finds neither too high nor too low (covered by Kusa-grass, a deer skin and a cloth, one over the other) and then control my thinking faculty (Chitta) and the senses by firmly holding my body, head and neck straight and steady and fixing my gaze at the tip of his nose, without looking in other directions, and then concentrating on meditation on the Infinite I or God. Only that order of perfectly disciplined mind can attain the everlasting peace consisting of Supreme Bliss, abiding in God (Nirvana) and thereby remove of any perception of any kind of suffering.

To get my mind disciplined, I need to eat and drink whatever things and as much quantities - not too much, too little, and also rest and sleep just enough so that my mind is not disturbed by any physical inconvenience. As a light of a lamp does not flicker but burns with a steady flame in a windless place', my disciplined mind shall be in steady, undisturbed meditation on the Self. Initially my mind may be restless and unsteady and may wander away, but I need to pull it back from all such material objects, actions and desires by repeated efforts to concentrate my thoughts on Self or Atman or God. Holding the intellect firmly, progressively my mind transcend from the world and my intellect) stops thinking of anything other than Atman or God. As I go on practicing this, one day my disciplined mind will hopefully becomes tranquil and be able to behold and merge my contented existence with the Self (Atman. It is then that I go beyond my lower self existence to live the existence of the Truth of the Atman. I will then hopefully see
Supreme (Sattavika) happiness certainly filling my pure, calm mind bereft of any passion (Rajas Guna) and I become one with Brahma. Can I practice this Sankhyayoga or Dhyanayoga that enables the mind look at all with an equal eye, sees me present in all beings and all beings present in me? Once my mind get to attain that, all my previous existences vanishes and the only existence that becomes permanent and everlasting is the oneness with everything and all things in the Universe and beyond. Having established a sentiment of oneness with all beings, I may still be engaged in all forms of activities without any bondage or attachment.

But only my Gunas and their interactions to external impulses generated stochastically will determine whether and how far my mind gets prepared to travel on the paths of any Yoga as also how far do 'I' actually travel. I am not a doer – not even of practicing Yoga.