WHY MIND NEEDS MORE ATTENTION?Why do we believe or disbelieve in things?
Can we really choose what we believe or do not believe?
I disbelieve in Ghosts but cannot believe that Srilanka is north of India!
I believe that my status of beliefs today is the result of my biological composition , my brain function and the knowledge that i have acquired through my life experiences.May be I did not have too much of a choice.
The scientific discoveries of the last few hundred years have given us a wonderful opportunity to question long standing dogmas and it has given us a stubborn capacity not to accept supernatural and simplistic explanations that easily satisfied our grandparents.
While family and social orientation pushed faith on to us forcefully, accumulated knowledge and analysis directed us towards positive disbelief.When some social groups and political outfits promote governmental religiosity,they want to obstruct knowledge that creates secular minds! When personal secularity is compromised, people talk of a Hindu India or a Christian America or a Islamic Pakistan.
When there is an overwhelming consensus that God belief is a prerequisite to morality,and where the general public lack a scientific outlook,such environment creates faithful conservative minds and in turn creates barriers for secularity.
The long term trend towards secularity will be real when there is explosion of critical knowledge.
Our brain is only 2% of our body weight, but consumes 20% of energy we consume.
This brain had to do a lot of work because GOD did not reveal science to man!Man had to meticulously create the structure of science.No revelation in any religious book taught man, astronomy,geology, chemistry or physics or engineering as we know today.Obviously, there was no revelation as to how to build aeroengines or mobile telephony. Man is NOT a potential criminal who is prevented from crime by religious morality. Morality existed in our brains long before it was revealed by God.Morality comes out of an adaption of feelings from the brain to the society around us.Morality is just a product of brain and evolution.Moral feelings created moral laws.It has absolutely nothing to do with revelations or afterlife.It is a highly comforting thought that the growth of mind, knowledge and understanding have given us a tremendous power to make human life more purposeful and better.

ANTI CORRUPTION-YES. FASTING ON THE ROAD? NO.

We have been watching the grand spectacle of a well meaning mass leader creating awareness about the scourge of corruption that is destroying our social fabric. There can be no doubt whatsoever about the impeccable integrity of Sri.Anna Hazare and the timeliness of the topic that he has chosen. But we need to think, if this brand of instant populist dispensation of public will is what a matured democracy should opt for.Any amount of frustration about our inability to do away with the evils of corruption cannot justify destruction of democratic institution and processes,even with the glorification of this brand of patriotism by the media which simply want to sell itself. While print media showed a lot of equanimity and restraint, the visual media went all out to make the event sensational as sensational can be. Passive internet activism is so easy as it can be expressed with the click of a mouse.

Here is what Dr.B.R.Ambedkar had said:

"
We must abandon the bloody methods of revolution.It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non cooperation and Satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the grammar of anarchy and sooner they are abandoned, the better for us."

I think what we need more than new institutions and authorities to curb corruption, is better implementation and awareness. What we need is not armchair mouse-click solidarity with populist expressions of discontent, but active confrontation of corrupt people and their actions.This is not as easy as lighting candles at road junctions and posting messages on social sites.We can exercise our franchise to eliminate bad elements from getting into positions where they can steal. We can be the whistle blowers against practiced corruption in daily life. Even if we successfully install a super duper Jan lokpal above Chief vigilance commissioner, CBI, Lokayukta, court judges and ministers, can there be a guarantee that the system that breeds corruption consisting of Industrialists, big businessmen, babus, government structures, politicians... will cleanse themselves overnight and create the Utopia that we are dreaming of? I have my doubts.

What we need to do is to strengthen the character of our nation by educating our people, strengthen our institutions and processes rather than looking for filmy like instant arm twisting to solve long standing systemic problems.We need massive reforms, political, educational, financial and legal reforms.There is no romantic short cuts and it is dangerous to make our youngsters believe so.

Every evil... and that includes corruption...originates from the human mind and that is where the cleansing need to start.

DO WE NEED TO APPEASE "SOULS"?
Today is KARKIDAKA VAVU and we mortals are expected to feed the souls of our forefathers so that they get eternal salvation!


I have been asked as to why I do not celebrate this traditional ritual?

I DO. OR AT LEAST I DID... But for completely different reasons.

I simply enjoyed the idea of arranging some good food which my ancestors liked, use the occasion to remember fond snippets from their lives and thoughts and to create a feeling of gain and power of not worrying about loosing them. Nothing more than that. Then I realised that I can do this any time. Just close the eyes and think of the tender moments with my Mother or Father and enjoy those moments.This memory does positive things if the memories about our elders who passed away are inspiring.

There may not be any gain by remembering an ancestor who was a criminal, because the effect of remembering him is only going to work inside the mind of the person who remembers and not on the soul that does not exist.

But the religions are telling us that souls are craving for Moksha and they desperately seek your action to accomplish that. Not only in Kerala, this deception goes on... In Tamilnadu they celebrate Aadi Amavasi to appease the spirits and bring in good fortune for the living.In North India, they celebrate Pitrupaksha shraddh. This religio philosophic theory is there all over the world. Chinese people in Singapore and Malaysia celebrate Hungry Ghost Festival in September.Halloween was originally born to appease the spirits.In Ancient Rome, there was LEMURIA, which was like our vavu in most respects.All saints Day of Christians was a rectification or depaganisation of Lemuria.In Nepal they have Balachathurdashi. In Nigeria, they have EGUNGUN festival for the dead.

So practically all religions and regions in the world have their soul/ghost memorials and all those religions have their own God/Soul stories which do not match each other. So the obvious conclusion is that these ideas are originating from Anthropological and social concerns.

Purpose of all death rites and soul related festivals and rituals is to simply reaffirm societal bonds and social structure itself.

Nobody likes the death of a dear one.To ease the anxiety of numerous crises faced by fragile human life and particularly the sting of death, humanity invented Karkidaka vavu and the various other rituals parallel to it from various faiths.

DEATH is an unpleasant but necessary END.It must give way to new LIFE.By celebrating souls and symbolically offering them salvation , we just want to erase the blackness of death.. and to this end the rituals are OK as a diversion.

SOUL is no GHOST that changes from body to body as we are made to believe by using impressive sounding prose.

There are three types of SOUL

1.RATIONAL SOUL(Means MIND or INTELLIGENCE)-It makes all the decisions for us.

2.SPIRITED SOUL(Means WILL)-WILL to do what the intelligence dictates

3.APPETITIVE SOUL(Means our emotional element that wants and feels)

Let us learn to accept that there is absolutely nothing beyond this.

To put it in the most simple way, "SOUL" is just a poetic synonym for MIND.If any Swamiji says otherwise, you don't have to believe him or her.

My explanation is very simple.If I have to differentiate between a physical ME and a spiritual ME, then I will be forced to conclude that The Law Of Conservation Of Energy is all wrong.I am not yet prepared for that suicidal thought.

Do you remember your childhood when religion explained how rain and thunder occurred.Soon we learned that they were all lies. Today SOUL is explained in the same way.

So let us not allow Devaswam board, RSS, SNDP, VHP, Bible society or Islamic council to dictate how we must remember our elders.

That is an honest thought for the day.

A.P.Jayanthram

IS GENERATION GAP REAL?

We always talk about GENERATION GAP.

Is t real? Is there something really called Generation Gap? I tend to believe that it is a grand myth.

Progress of human race is constant and continuous and every slice of history has its share of knowledge and ethos that keep changing. This is natural reality and mankind is conditioned to live with this exponential change.

So where is the relevance for the Generation Gap which we like to label as a complaint?

I feel, at all times, there are good people and bad people. There are responsible people and irresponsible people, there are knowledgeable people and dumb people, there are smart people and dull people, and there are progressive people and conservative people. But, all these gaps are intra generation and not inter-generation.

Then why do older people complain that things were better during their times… and why youngsters do complain that the elders will never understand them.

The answer I think is not GENERATION GAP, but communication gap. We do not communicate enough between age groups.



A youngster may appear to a parent, not as an independent individual, but as a representative of a formidable collective force which can seem profoundly threatening to all that the parent stands for and believes in, as an individual.

And when the parent appears to symbolize the power and vision of a whole generation, the child may feel terrified and overwhelmed.

For the GAP to disappear they both need to TALK and the Family is the stage for this.

We tend to associate inextricably with our childhood experiences. Those who grew up listening to a particular singer decides for ever that , this is the sovereign standard for music and will never accept other types of music that came later and got entrenched in the minds of the next generation. Again the bottom line is that there has been good and bad music at all times.

We follow religious practices and habits followed by our parents and insist that our children follow the same, forgetting that there have been outstandingly brilliant atheists, and God fearing killers centuries before.

The children decide that their parent’s views are anyway antiquated and merits rejection, without bothering to analyze the good and the bad.

The issue essentially is the difference in attitudes, priorities and views between people and never a generic Generation gap.

People get associated with the art and literature or the type of entertainment available in a given period and condition their minds that this is the ideal and anything that came later is frivolous.

Tastes keep changing and no one should grudge the change. Then, there is no generation gap.

Another important task for the elderly, is updating. Updating on change, updating on technology, updating on modernity. This helps to avoid gaps. I had a colleague from the old school, who learned to use computers at the age of 55 and retired as an expert at 60. He never felt alienated from the SMS generation.

Traditions, culture, technology, morality standards… all change. It is unwise to criticize or ridicule these changes, which will only create generation gaps.

For the young, change should be a natural occurring, but never a blind adoption of the shell of change without the element of value improvement that goes with that change. A lot of so called matured people are afraid of change, and a lot of youngsters are contemptuous of tradition. Majority of young and old who do not get the positive import of this transitional domain, fight battles to preserve and justify their way of life. A little bit of empathy on both sides will dissolve the gap.

I have a word of caution for the very young. They get carried away by the eulogizing and celebrating of youth that is found in the mainstream media. This is just a trick played by the commercial world though no one is in doubt about the paramount role of youth in building future. The elderly are not a marketable slice of demography and corporations compete to sell technology, gizmos and goodies to the young world, which are puffed up. Corporations do not waste money to develop products for the elderly. So the advertisements bombard the youth with an outrageous concept of style and diffidence that creeps into their value system. The bright youngsters do not fall for these gimmicks.

It is simply the overall changes in society over a period, in terms of technology, business, government structures, religion, faith, cultural norms etc that creates the illusion of a Generation gap and never individuals themselves being young or old.

When the elderly complain about youth, they must concede that the new generation is simply responding to the world that their previous generation has handed over to them.

They deserve an honest FEEDBACK and not JUDGEMENT.

This needs DIALOG and this needs FAMILY.

Both sides should avoid stereotyping and free themselves from age bias.



FAMILY holds the key for generations to communicate with each other and create harmony and value systems independent of age and dependent only on rational minds that may be young or old.



A.P.Jayanthram



.

This is troubled times and we all should be extremely cautious and uncompromisingly impartial in our analysis of violence. We are living in a world where religious sentiments are on a short fuse and people often take sides and positions with no scope for the other point of view. An old painter can be banished and a harmless teacher can be relieved of his arms when this fuse gets blown.


History of religion, to a large extent , is the history of violence. Most religious books prescribe penalties and punishments for not following the laws created by them for their followers.But, unfortunately, GOD is not the only authorized authority to punish the non-conformists.Most authors of religious texts have authorized representatives of GOD at different levels to carry out this punishment.And... there are too many people who believe that they have this delegated authority.

Religions generally accepted human sacrifice.

Did not GOD ask Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac?

The word, "THUG" was originated from the Sanskrit word STHAGA, meaning SCOUNDREL. For over 10 centuries, there was a group in India called Thugs who killed people to please KALI.

When Moses brought the Hebrew tribes together,war was declared against people who were living in the area called Palestine today.As those people did not believe in Hebrew God, they were required to be killed.

Islamic theology believed in converting non believers by force.

I just took random examples from different religions to prove that all religions sanctioned violence.

What Prophet Mohammed actually meant by JIHAD, around 600 years after Christ, was a creative struggle for salvation and political redemption.Later some people defined it as fight and use of violence against anything that goes against their idea of religion.Some organizations in the middle eastern trouble spots believed that JIHAD can be achieved by suicide bombing and young bachelors who undertake this will go to paradise in the arms of 72 virgins.Such thoughts appealed more to frustrated fringe of some wronged and demoralized societies, and thankfully not to the peace loving majority.

The heart of the problem in Ireland is religious rift created by the British who encouraged Protestants from Scotland and England to settle in Catholic dominated areas.

While religion can do good things, it also provide justification for violence.

Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King... all have shown that people of different religious origins can coexist peacefully.

But, my prescription would be.. AVOID DESTRUCTIVE RELIGION(Opium of the masses) and replace it with a new GOD called RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Managing your money is no nuclear science!
A.P.JAYANTHRAM.
“Honesty is the best policy…. When there is MONEY in it. “Said MARK TWAIN.
Whatever is one’s philosophy of life, it is certain that Money does help substantially. But, the problem with Money is that it stays with people who respect it and do that extra bit of organizing and goal setting and planning. This does not need the brains of a chartered accountant, though most “Aam Admi” consider Finance as a complicated subject and do not give it a rightful place in their thinking space.
It is said that Money is the servant of the Wise and master of the Fools. For any reasons including religion or morality , if you happen to think that money is evil, possibilities are that you will only attract minimal amounts of it into your life. Money is not evil if the methods to channelise it towards you are not evil. Wealth is basically a state of mind and anyone can create wealth almost out of nothing, provided…. You PLAN and set goals.

To start with you should know how much money is coming to you, from where it is coming and where it is going. Stark reality is that most people do not know this first fundamental about money management. Is it not a first deficiency to remove?
When it comes to spending, even accountants are not rational because most of them think that if a product is priced higher, it must be of higher quality .There is hardly any real relationship between IQ and wealth.
In India, where a Wealth manager is still not a certified identity, the best course for anyone interested in planning for creating money will be to try and be his own manager. In fact, though we have banks, insurance agents, mutual fund distributers, and chartered accounts, all of whom loving to be called Wealth managers, we really do not have real wealth managers and even if you locate someone with a massive effort, he is only interested in millioners whom they call HNIs or High Net worth Individuals.
Bottom line is…But, even for these HNIs the relationship Manager will end up selling financial products with which he has a distributor relationship and of course which give his bank the maximum remuneration. The very design of his job prevents him from giving you real advice. You are the best wealth manager that you can ever find!
Can any wealth manager know what your life goals are and how badly you want to reach there? Only you can do it and how?
All that you need to do is, to be disciplined. Keep records, resist instant gratification of your irrational desires, and make your own budgets. Write it down, in a note book, in your computer, spend wisely, save wisely, plan for specific events.
Does it mean that anyone- Just anyone- can be his own financial planner? The answer is a resounding YES. But take care of the following:
Keep meticulous records and monitor periodically
Do not procrastinate. Find some time to do what needs to be done today.
Do not live by credit cards. Live within your means.
Acquire a basic insight into the process of personal finance planning by making use of information freely available.
Make a simple action plan .

Pretty easy. Isn’t it?

SHOULD YOU WORRY ABOUT SOUL?

I have often heard animated discussions about "SOUL". We often wish eternal bliss for "departed souls".We call it "ATMASHANTHI".
I am reminded of the skeptic prayer:"Oh my God!-(If there is a GOD!), Save my Soul!(If I got a Soul!)"
I feel "Soul" is the fanciest creation of human wishful thinking that created an idea of afterlife, which made most humans feel good to be living for ever.Being a realist, I always considered the neuroscientific view that the mind is what the brain does and "soul" is just poetry, which the Indians are very good at."SOUL" is the powerful tool which was used by religious clerics to take control of the followers and make them fear death. It is known that in the past 50000 years, 106 billion humans were born. About 6 billion are living now.Out of the 100 billion, dead and gone, not one soul has come back to us to tell how the life after death has been...
We have been brainwashed to revere our ancient yogis who "REALISED" and experienced oneness with the soul. If you are willing not to be brainwashed with this kind of delusion, there is simple scientific explanation.All such fantastic beyond-body experiences that yogis and gurus and priests talk about for centuries can be induced in any one's mind by subjecting our temporal lobes to magnetic fields. Posterior superior parietal lobe in a region of the brain that helps us to orient our body in space.If this area is damaged in an accident,people cannot find their way inside the house.In deep meditation, this area goes into sleep mode and the distinction in the brain between self and non-self breaks down.When this happens, the great Guru or mystic profoundly says that he is experiencing a sense of oneness with the BRAHMAN. With this experience the nuns or the Mullas say they are actually feeling the presence of GOD!I think it is just enough to understand that brain chemistry is responsible for all delusions that religious interpretations provide awe-inspiring names and colours.
If you question these grand deceptions, you are looked down as being an undergrown human who cannot comprehend the great secrets of philosophic wisdom. Dont worry.You will never need such certification to lead a moral rich contented informed life.
Since our normal experiences of stimuli come into the brain from outside, when one part of the brain, abnormally generates these illusions, another part of the brain interprets this as external happenings .
If you convince yourself not to get yourself confused with the pompous jugglery of words used by phosphors and gurus and prophets and resort to your own common sense, it will be clear that "SOUL" is an attempt of an idea by religion to deconstruct your self esteem and rebuild it around a core of religious concepts.
If at all there is a soul remaining after our death, it simply cannot hold any of our memories, the reason being that memories are stored in the Hippocampus, the Amygdala and the striatum as known to any student of elementary biology.These parts of the brain can be damaged. Your soul, again has nothing to do with your personality and brain damage can severely affect personality. Ask any doctor and he will confirm that if temporal lobe of the brain is damaged, one cannot recognise any faces.This is called Prosopagnosia.
So, if such a powerless soul by chance exist, why bother about it at all.Save that trip to Rishikesh !
Jayanthram