Unstoppable change

                                                      

I recommend everyone to study history (particularly cultural); doctors, actors, IT professionals or whosoever want to understand how time changes and society changes for the betterment (Sometimes opposite of it) of human race.

There is change going on in Indian society because of love/social need/education i.e. inter cast/religion marriages. In past, only few powerful were privileged to do so. Therefore it is not new thing for Indian society, however this is the time when it should be supported more than ever any time in past. To be world power, more stable and to create unbiased society, India must look beyond cast and religion to avoid division of people at political, social, cultural and mental level.

Love marriages are playing a big role in creating such society. Mainly this generation is cause of this change, therefore they are going to bear price of this change. They have to fight with their parents, close relatives and society. People are being warned, tortured and killed for it; however it is keep increasing instead of being stopped.

Why society is against it? What do we gain by not allowing couple to marry? Owners of religion/society say that marriage should not be allowed in same community since they might be most likely to be sisters and brothers, which is why there should be minimum of seven generation gap(depends on society and culture) between bride and groom , if possible. Well, logical and scientific reasoning. Not allowing marriages in same community is related with human immune system . This cause is also supported by medical science. Otherwise the child which would get birth by marriage in same community will have fewer chances to survive and will have less susceptibility to deal with diseases. However, why people are against for marriages in different cast and religion, they are far apart from thousands of years, and there is no close relation at all. Is it  all because of their false pride of cast and religion.

If we see closely, we find that it is also concerned with social prestige. Parents think what society will say, what others will say, otherwise in maximum cases parents are agreed on inter cast/religion marriage for the happiness of their children. Prestige of anyone should be based on his/her moral views, education and values. It should not be based on social heredity or ancestral name and wealth.

Love marriages and its resistance is all because of self conflicting life philosophy. Parents are sending their children in co-education classes for better education and personality growth, and on the other hand they do not want their children to marry in different cast, how it is possible. First you are creating the surrounding for your children for inter-cast marriage and then opposing the same. Many times in our life we take many decisions which conflict itself at later point of time to have good/bad consequences.

I am really proud of such people who dare to take such steps and are cause of this change. They might be not aware of it but this is what their society needs it today badly. Entire Indian politics is based on cast/religion, we should think beyond cast/religion to achieve extraordinary. I hope, in next generation it should happen like nuclear chain reaction to have bigger impact for better and unbiased society. We are the cause of this change and I would like to say it evolution of human consciousness.

World around us-Sound without listener

                                                             

How does human mind experience/interpret the sound. What is sound? Typical definition of sound (in perspective of human ear) you can find out on google/any science site/journal/book is “it is a disturbance in air which produces pressure waves”. Waves travel in all direction and its energy dissipates as it propagates.

As shown in below picture, at some places molecule density is high and another place its low, this is how wave travels. One place of molecule’s energy gets transferred to another herd of molecules. In actuality, more molecules at particular place mean more pressure and low molecule density means low pressure.  

This is how it reaches to your ear as shown in below figure:

Sound wave travels through outer part of ear to inner part of ear. The main part of this process is cochlea which contains many hair cells and generates auditory nerves pulses and sends to brain.

Now the question is where the sound is? I am not talking the one which is generated by your vocal card or some other means and travels through medium and reaches to your brain. This is all we have discussed and found that it comes in form of energy contained by air molecule, however we are interested in practical/conceptual understanding of it because this is what we human being experience.

Now signals which are converted in auditory nerve pulses, they also are signals which contain energy. Then how does our brain interpret these signals in audible sound? How mere pattern of energy is experienced as sound?

These all are the energy patterns which are getting generated by a disturbance and come to our ear. Then from outer part of ear to inner part of ear, and then converts into auditory nerve pulses. In these processes where actually the sound is?

Before we find where actually the sound is let’s examining similar phenomenon in some other species. As we know that snakes do not have ears, then how they listen, so they must have some different mechanism to fulfil same task as we human being do i.e. help in survival through listening. Snakes feel vibrations which come to them through earth surface, and their skin is enough sensitive and developed to find out sound producing object location and direction. For them where the sound is? Similar phenomenon we can find in fish, fish are known to produce very different and vast variations in frequencies of sound signals, they do for their survival (attracting mate, to scare intruders etc.) too.

For some species signals are travelling through air, for some through material and for some through liquid. All are the energy signals called sound, however interpreted in different way in different species for their own sake of survival. The energy wave is experienced as sound in nervous system depends on million years of evolution of that particular species.

So, does sound’s experience exist only in mind and it is interpreted in different ways in different species? If there is no listener where the sound is? Can we ever know the real nature of sound?

                               

An Exchange

There were two neighbours. First one was lacking a child since last 8 years; he had been consulting world class doctors and had great faith in God and was keeping fast for 9 days from last 8 years. Second one was non-believer and suggested many times to his neighbour not to spend time in unnecessary rituals and superstitions. He believed in helping people and being honest to everyone around him. He believed in serving others and society selflessly to create a better tomorrow.

On 9^th year, first one was blessed with one baby boy. He wanted to organize a big 9 day festival on first birthday of his child. He brought a big statue of Goddess and got installed in his courtyard. At 2^nd day of festival, at dawn when everyone was asleep, his baby boy was crawled and reached to courtyard near to big statue. Before statue fell down on child, his neighbour saw it from his home, and ran to save the child. He saved the child but he was crushed under the statue and died.

The first one started teaching his child the belief of his neighbour. And, the second one’s child started to believe in first one’s belief.

Education and Literacy

                                                   

Education is supposed to create unbiased society whose standards should not be based on cast, creed, religion, region and other unintentional inherited social doctrine. Education produces a great nation, social values, industries, moral science and provides vision to life. In an educated society, people must get their right with ease and must not face any hurdle getting their work done. It might be getting passport, ration card, government services and so on. However why we face problems to get even basic rights?  Indian government data shows that nearly 75% of population is educated in India. For India it is good number to make system better and corrupt less.  Highly educated politicians, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, financial experts and all other persons (so called educated) are responsible for poor administration, order and law, healthcare and so on.

However, if a doctor is educated then how come he/she can allow gender inquiry before baby’s birth? If an IAS is educated then how he/she can pass a tender of construction to one, who offers bribe? If a politician is educated then how he/she can ask for vote based on cast and religion? If private company’s employees are educated then how come they produce fake bills for reimbursements and tax exemption?  We can cite many more like this, but the question is, are they really educated, if they are, then there is something terribly wrong with our education system. Our knowledge system does not educate people, but make them skilled in particular field, which make them literate in that area (even basic definition of literate is the one how can read and write language). It means someone is literate in particular area i.e. doctor knows how to cure the disease, administrators know how to govern a district, politicians know how to rule (serve) and so on. These are their job and they must be expert in these fields, however we should not tag them as educated but literate in their respective field.

Aim of education is to raise the standard of life, not living standard. Literacy must include moral values, honesty, unbiased decisions, and integrity to be education. A literate man can achieve all needs of his life but cannot add value to create a corrupt less and healthy system. Tomorrow our nation’s literacy rate might be more than 90%; however we will be able to fail to produce unbiased system until we get educated people.

But now the question is what kind of persons can be educated, how a person should be educated? A conditioned mind cannot be educated. What is conditioning, and how can we get rid of this? When one is born, one starts getting conditioned of one’s civilization which includes culture, religion, region, nation, social belief, customs, traditions, rituals, etc. after some time span these social conditionings become so deep rooted in our mind that we start behaving in same manner as we have been brought up. Even we do not realize and we become slave of these conditionings and cannot separate our self from this to see the actuality. If we were born in some other nation, state, cast, religion then we would have been believe and practicing something different instead of our own. Therefore conditioning of mind is not the reality and lead to incoherent society. To make our mind unconditioned we must relinquish all unintentional inherited conditioning from society. More you are unconditioned the more you are educated.

Is there Guru

                                                                      

Since thousands of years we have many gurus who teach us about life and its values. They have been showing us how to live a good life, how to free self from anger, greed, jealousy and such other human natures which are considered hindrance in spiritual journey. Have they succeeded in this? Even in recent times, they are offering meditation and other spiritual courses to attain something which is mystical, unknown, beyond thought or transcendental. However, in today’s spiritual market, meditation has been confined to get mind relaxation for a while. People are so stressed of their life that they consider meditation as a tool to get some recreation. Is this the purpose of meditation and is it what gurus are offering us? If meditation is for just relaxation, it can also be achieved by listening music or any means.

Why do we go to guru, because they lead us to reach to something new, something totally different? Or we want to fulfill some of our temporal needs through them. Is this our selfishness which pulls us towards them? Someone needs job, someone wants to get cured, and someone wants salvation and so on. Desire to get better in life is good thing and everyone must put their efforts to gain all prosperity of life what he/she wants. However, why do we believe on gurus to fulfill our desire and needs, what makes them to be the adviser of your life? I am not talking about students who need teachers to study subjects, of course they need, but when one is enough conscious and educated to take decision of one’s life then why we approach gurus, if someone thinks that he is not capable enough to take some decision then he can go and consult some expert in that field to take advice for his/her betterment. For any health issues you can approach doctor, for financial issues CA, for property, relation, crime and other issues advocates are there, and so many other experts for various fields. In what area guru is expert?

Any experience cannot be shared exactly the way it is experienced; it might be spiritual experience or any other. Experience loses its meaning when described in words. Systems and paths have been created to pass it generation to generation, and today gurus are utilizing those systems and paths to fulfill their psychological and physical needs.

People of this era must understand the need of spiritual seeking and way of seeking. These modern gurus will lead you nowhere. Whole religious system, spiritual paths are only meant to provide the solution of human race’s problem. Therefore, any system that does not improvise human life and which is not relevant in recent time must be discarded.

We must believe in something before we start seeking, because if we believe in nothing it will be impossible to start with. Before we believe on some creator, guru or someone else we must believe in our self, we know that we exist and we are aware of this. Now once we are sure that we exist and aware, we can start our search by using our thought, intellect and reasoning. Anything in which we should believe must be based on evidence and logical approach.

Anyone who is visiting gurus must ask these questions to himself, what he wants from guru, what he has not achieved that he can get easily without any effort with grace of his guru, and how does this system work. Once you start thinking in this way you can find simply if guru is required in your life or not.

world around us-color

                                                        

                                                                   Colour perception

Working in camera domain as engineer is the everlasting experience and change in my life. It has been only few weeks studying about camera I realized that we human being perceive world around us almost in same manner as Camera.

 I have been student of science, so this article is going to be little science oriented.

How do we see color? If we think little logical and scientific we find that a camera cannot capture photo without light at all, so the eyes. How does a lifeless object can recognize colours. Let us find it out. As shown in below picture, light rays come from an object to camera from its each and every point and camera stores image information in memory card in form of pixel (the smallest part of an image).

How do our eyes know/recognize that the chest part of dog is white and leg is yellow?  It just knows or eyes do not know at all and just passes all information to brain through synaptic network and our brain decides it.

As we know that light travels in form of photons i.e. energy packets and photons do not have colours. The main part of camera is sensor on which light falls. All colours have their own frequency. When a bunch of different frequencies fall on the camera sensor they cause current flow on the sensor (CCD). Amount of current flows on each part of CCD sensor of camera depends on frequency. Camera stores these in form of voltage and charge and uses the same information to develop the picture.

But still camera does not know the colours. It recognizes all the outside data only in form of current, voltage and charge. Similar way our eyes do not recognize any colours. Light amount that is falling on our eyes are converted into biological signals of different strength and passed to brain.

As Shown in above figure, retina is responsible to convert light into biological signals and then it goes onto brain through synaptic network. Brain interprets the signal and decides the colours. So when frequency changes colour also changes.

Therefore, in nature there is no colour at all except number of waves with varying frequencies. Colours are constructing of our mind and it is not the true nature of any Object. If evolution of mind is different in other species they might be seeing these all frequencies as different colour than human being. So, is there any way to find out reality?

Corruption-unintentional piracy

In child hood, in my house there was a Philips magnetic tape recorder, a TV and a radio, only these three electronic instruments were there for entertainment. Magnetic cassettes were used to play the song by tape recorder. I clearly remember, that time mainly three music companies (HMV, Tips and T-Series) were producing these cassettes. I used to save money to buy new movie songs cassettes from my pocket money, that time HMV cassettes price was nearly 30-35 INR and t-series 25-30 INR. To watch movies we used to hire VCR/VCP (recorder and player) or used to go to the cinema hall once in 2/3 months, otherwise evergreen TV was there to fulfil these needs. Typical ways of entertainment for a lower middle class family.

Today in era of computer and internet these things can be accessed easily. Movies, songs can be downloaded through internet and are being downloaded worldwide. I was too involved in this before few years ago and stopped totally when I learnt that this is illegal and piracy. Today we earn many more times than what we were getting in schools\college for expenditure, then why we cannot simply spend some money to buy DVDs, CDs as we were doing in childhood? We have mobile, laptops worth rates of 20K, 35K, and 50K etc but all song, movies are pirated.

I am not talking about those who are buying online or from stores and then playing in their electronic devices; this is about those who are intentionally/unintentionally involved in this crime. As we know it is very less likely to be caught and very tough to stop it through any means because of its complicacies. Those who are interested in statistics can find out easily from internet that most of the money involved in piracy is going for terrorism and other unethical activities around the world. And because of piracy, entertainment industry is going in deficit of billions of rupee per year. Not only this, piracy is also generating black money.

We used to talk about corruption, dishonest leaders, and corrupt system and so on. Have we any time realized that everyone is involved in wrong deeds at their own level. They might be leaders, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers or any other ordinary man. If we cannot bring change at our own level how we can expect change at national level. Any change starts from within and goes long way to change the world.

Tradition-Rakshabandhan

Raksha bandhan

Last week there was a famous Indian festival called “Raksha bandhan”. This festival is celebrated nearly all part of India with little difference in name and the way rituals are performed. This is another auspicious day and falls on the full moon tithi(day). Nearly all the Hindu festivals are originated from religious background, if not, then somewhere in the path of time they have been attached to religious path and can be found its origin in religious books. There is a story in Puran (ancient religious book) where God Vishnu was doorkeeper of king Bali and Goddess lakshmi wanted him back. She went to King Bali and tie a Raksha sootra(thread of protection) and made king Bali her brother and asked for God Vishnu.

My aim is not to find out its origin but to find out its relevancy in current time and society. Now it is well known that it is symbol of love between sister and brother, and has been celebrated from hundreds of years. It is considered that sister ties Raksha sootra in her brother’s wrist and brother promises to protect/help her lifelong.

Culture is created by human and once culture is created humans are created by culture. Culture creates human bit by bit and the end product represents the entirety of that culture. As time passes custom/tradition/culture gets customized and gives new meaning to the same old tradition.

If today I ask any girl does she really want protection/help from her brother and this is the reason she is tying this knot? What will she answer? And why she is looking for protection from her brother, and if she is asking for it, does really she get it? We must not forget that such cultural conditioning starts from childhood and goes lifelong which creates a cultural distortion in her mind and unintentionally she accepts that she really needs help/protection in various phases of her life. This is social upbringing partiality against her. effect of such traditions can not be seen directly however such tiny traditions are responsible for male dominated society.

In this 21^st century, when she is moving parallel to her brother and equally capable of achieving millstones of life on her own then why this tradition is not changing and stops backing her down. She must be free from such unintentional conditioning. Everyone in one’s life needs support and must get it, however it should not be from one side. For a good and healthy society it must be form both side. If sister is tying Raksha sootra then brother also must do the same, and instead of brother, both should promise to help each other lifelong.