ON HUMAN MIND:
We can never get a standardised human mind.The so called effort towards standardising human minds said to have been made by our rishis is as fake as the fantastic claims of Indian philosophy which is the most unreal of anything that has ever been written about philosophy.Mind is not an organ elegantly designed by GOD, but a very clumsily stitched together contraption of an organ .Evolution and natural selection over millions of years have created this entity called human mind which is imperfect by any standards, but this imperfection is its strength.So trying to standardise this mind is as futile as standardising electricity!I will only consider mind as a complex, physical,dynamic information processing system.So, consciousness is a fallout of the complex process of the brain and it has no separate existence of its own.Anything said to the contrary is a part of our make-believe heritage which I have selectively rejected long back.But I am aware of the power of this imperfect mind..Human memory is not as good as computer memory though it is fashionable to say the reverse.Anything that is written on a computer disk can be retrieved, but sometimes we cannot remember what we ate yesterday for dinner!
It is human nature to revere what is distant.We respect Gandhiji who is far away but not necessarily Baba Amte.Similarly, we have an irrational respect towards the writers of vedas and Upanishads as they are so far away in time, irrespective of the fact that there are much more ignited minds living today and they have the backing of much more collective wisdom.
All the Upanishads(I have been able to read the gist of many of them), handle the same topics of Brahman and Atman Ad naseum.Indian philosophical activity has gone on for a long time since 6th century BC or earlier.By repeatedly describing this wonderful Brahmam, they were able to bring it down to peasant level without anyone understanding anything or without it doing any good to anyone.There is a big difference in Europe.Rightly or wrongly,the thoughts of eminent philosophers like Bacon, Kant, Descartes and Hegel remain primarily with with specialists in philosophy.But here peasants and small time godmen, all dabble in philosophy.

The fact remains that these grandiose concepts like Maya and Moksha,Brahman and Karma did not give us anything worthwhile except a chaotic nationhood.
It will continue this way for many more centuries.But we all have only one life and it is each one's personal business if one chooses to search some meaning in these fantastic illusions.If that gives solace to some minds, it is perfectly Ok for those individual as it is a one to one need to be contented in mind.It is one of the effective ways.Another way is to smoke Ganja, another way is to learn science.Everyone has a reason.As I have already established that there is nothing that ever existed, which can be called a standardised mind, no one is entitled to question anyone's choice.The argumentative Indians that we all are, the debate will always end here.
Since the present is based on past, we can make the present to design the future.For this we need to bury some part of the past.When we bury, I would like to put all the Vedas and Upanishads in that pit.Again it is a matter of opinion that comes from my imperfect but firm and happy mind.
Jayanth