Spiritual and Logical Questions

The Spirituality and Chemistry of Fear

2006-11-27T17:15:00.000-05:00

I spent most of last week in this consciousness of fear of God. Consequently, somehow I was drawn to listening to one song from Matisyahu where the last weekend contemplation came from. ( Yes I love intersections like a Hasidic Jew singing Reggae)

But today the questions trouble me, what causes fear of God.

I believe that it is that base human emotion of fear of the unknown. Its common knowledge that humans are scared of anything they cannot understand. It is why we are scared of the dark as kids, scared of aliens as adults, scared of the supernatural as boring people. Fear is the creation of the Ego and meant to overpower the work of the divine.

Follow me carefully, because this is a bit of a winding path.

The sole purpose of the Ego is to make one think that they are perfect without God. They are faultless in their current state. Even while wading in guilt, the ego makes them feel that this is perfect.

In the process of learning something, the ego flourishes. For example, lets say today you learn how a planetary transmission works. ( Its one of those things that are pretty simple but looks complicated. ) So why does the ego flourish when you learn something? Because at that posint of understanding, the mind says, "I know this. I am its ruler. PWNED!!1!!1. Veni Vidi Vici" The Ego lays claim to have conquered a process, a skill, a thoery, a concept or even an idea. Thus bolstering the idea of the false monarchy of the Ego. That is why, the true spiritual masters don't focus on guiding their students on learning some specific skill, but rather unlearning all the concepts that the Ego thrives on.

Where does fear come in? Fear is not just a creation of the Ego. Actually is the finest work of the Ego. It is the shining diamond on the crown of the Ego. So His False Highness, the Ego is sitting there up on his throne, and like any false king he knows his days are numbered. Nevertheless, he will still fight to the bitter end. So to delay that end, he wears this diamond called Fear on his crown.

Fear is what will keep a person away from anything that it does not understand. It shuts down reasoning, completely blankets all divine intuition, redirects full power from engines to shields and initiates fight/flight mode. This way the moment the mind encounters something that it is incapable of enveloping or even reducing into its own understanding is met with fight/flight. Either you run away from it or attack it. ( Atheists: I am not picking on you again. I am serious, this was unintentional. )

So in the grand battlefield for the soul, when the ego is confronted by that which its trusty mind cannot envelope, it casts fear in a desperate attempt to get away. Taking that one step forward; when the divine is at work, and the ego is cornered and resorts to fear. Here the mind signals its faithful black ops unit, the Amygdala to release the necessary barrage of chemicals to engage fear. This is the most common form of bio-warfare in existence. The entire situation where the Divine has an opportunity to make a breakthrough, is then fled from, and Ego slinks back to its throne, alive to fight another day.

That is the mechanics of the fear machine, however in the middle we stepped on a controversial point.

So Science - the work of understanding the processes of the universe - is evil and just the work of the Ego? Well, I am not completely sure, I highly doubt it. The work of science contests fear when it is used by the ego in a Pavlovian manner. Also, in the hands of those that care, Science promotes values for a more divine life. So it cannot necessarily be categorized completely as work of the Ego.

As such, I find that those with a intuitive scientific mind can be those most accepting to a start on the spiritual path. The reason is as follows. Due to their lifetime search for meanings and understandings, analytical people will have definitely realized that the sum knowledge of the universe will never be able to encapsulated by the human mind. Well at least by the age of four. Before that you are allowed to think that you know it all, because you do.

Despite being the most beautiful and powerful computer known to man, the brain is not infinite and those who have pursued anything scientifically and empirically will know so. They may not admit so, but at their very being they will be aware of the incapability of the human mind to fully comprehend any topic.

This leads to but one realization. The full truth of the universe cannot be understood by the minds of man, and as such, its sovereign, the Ego, is false. This full and complete concession of perfection, to a Higher power is the first and deadliest blow to the Ego in the timeless battlefield of the individual soul.

Update: Added link to Arstechnica that posted proof of my propsal today

Weekend Contemplation: #3

2006-11-24T17:13:00.000-05:00

Fear nobody but His Majesty,
My spirit, you retrieved,
For you I wait silently,
It seems that you belive in me.

-- Matisyahu

Heresy: Not always a bad thing.

2006-11-09T14:03:00.000-05:00

My last weekend contemplation pulled some quotes from Galileo Galilei, a famous mathematician, astronomer and catholic. The Galileo Affair quite possibly is the greatest, most publicized and popular conflict between Science and Religion. In a nutshell: Galileo Galilei was condemned as a heretic for his theories in physics and astronomy. These theories were accurate, however they contested the notions of the church of the day. Not only contested, they completely undermined many foundations the church held authority on. He was proclaimed a heretic in 1633 and many trials ensued before the Spanish Inquisition.

Nothing is wrong with Religion providing answers for that which cannot be understood. It is in fact the very basis of a religion (remember religion is different from spirituality). If a belief system is based on absolute values that cannot be changed or questioned that is the defining characteristic of religion. Even if the belief is atheism, if athesim holds as an absolute without reason then it becomes religion. (Comically ilustrated in the second image here)

The important point is that religion must know when to bend to accomodate that which it couldn't manage to begin with. A truly poor example of this was the Galileo Affair. Not until 1979 was some effort made by the Vaitcan to reconcile this affair by the late Pope John Paul II. Even then it took the Pontifical Academy of Sciences until 1992 to present its case to the Pope that Galileo Galilei should be exonerated.

So where should one stand? If Religion is unreliable, and Science cannot give you all the answers for your questions? That is where trust in intuition comes. Karma is unbending. Your position in the world and understanding of concepts are critically hinged on her work. Thus there is nothing more you can do than trust your intuition and follow Galileo's advice: I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Use sense, reason and intellect to as much as you can in deciphering the verity of anything before you

Weekend Contemplation: #2

2006-10-27T15:45:00.000-04:00

Mathematics is the language with
which God has written the universe.

I do not feel obliged to believe that
the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has
intended us to forgo their use.

-- Galileo Galilei

Hate is only a word

2006-10-24T15:00:00.000-04:00

I just stumbled upon the works of Hugh Macleod today. Some works are hilarious, but this one is downright spiritual. Here is another mischievous piece:

Swami Yukteshwar

2006-10-18T15:24:00.000-04:00

This is possibly the only video of Swami Yukteswar in existence. He was the guru of Sri Parmahamsa Yogananda. A guru of immeasurable scientific knowledge. I will be posting about him in the future. Swami Yogananda said once that if Sri Yukteswarji's words had not been so sincere, he would have been the most followed Guru of all India.

This is one aspect of all Gurus that we must come to accept, their words will be sincere and sometimes searing, but completely necessary for our own spiritual development. If they were not so, then there would be crowds always assembled to hear sweet words, and never progress spiritually.

Swami Sivananda

2006-10-10T13:46:00.000-04:00

Swami Sivananda, is possibly one of the most straightforward spiritual gurus of our time. One only needs a cursory study of his extensive yet freely available wealth of knowledge published on the internet to recognize Swami as a true guru.

I hope you enjoy this YouTube find.

Carl Sagan and the Gautama Buddha

2006-10-03T15:41:00.000-04:00

Carl Sagan was an atheist and a humanist. He was actually a proponent of scientific skepticism. Hardly someone that you would expect on a blog about spirituality. This brings up an important point. A fundamentally important point actually. Religion and spirituality are two completly different things. They cannot be considered interchangable terms. This will be a recurring topic and be explored further in later posts. One topic for today is that theism is quite possibly not a requirement for spiritual development. No matter what type of theism you are speaking about. Not monotheism. Not polytheism. Not eutheism. Not dystheism. None of these little words we have made up to pigeonhole God into our haplessly incapable minds is a requirement for spiritual enlightenment.

For example, Buddhism is a growing "religion" across the new continent and the old. One reason for this is because there are growing numbers of people seeking answers rather than instructions. Spiritual answers rather than cultural instructions. Buddhism is singlehandedly turning thousands of people onto the spiritual path and generally rasing the consciousness of millions of people. Desipite this, Buddhism is categorically non-theist. Our dearest, Siddartha Gautama Buddha never told his disciples, "Pray to this God to get Nirvana". He teachings in a nutshell were, "This is what you do for your inner peace. This is what you do to help others around you achieve that nirvana".

Carl Sagan relates to this in one fundamental aspect. He, like the Buddha was a humanist. He very much cared for the dignity and worth of all people. One can see this as a very initial stepping stone to spiritual heights. The celebration of the beauty of humans. How can one come to love God in any of his myriad forms without ever learning to love those people which He has provided to be so close to you. Humanism is very much a valid means of spirituality when it is based on the basic human values existent throughtout our species. Although there is the uncomfortable fact sometimes it may be seen as a haven for those wishing to cast aspersion upon theist religions.

Possibly the definitive and most thought provoking work in this field can be attributed to the late Dr. Carl Sagan. Someone who most "religious" leaders will gladly decry as a misleading atheist gave a speech almost 12 years ago that only echoes the very foundations of all religions. Yet there was no mention of God, nor heaven but only humans.

Below I quote the passage known as "Reflections on a Mote of Dust" or "Pale Blue Dot". This is one of my favourite passages and upon rediscovering it again today, it provoked this (t)rain of thoughts. I am quite sure you can see the dot in the following image without distracting arrows or circles. The rays in the image are from the sun, so you can have an imagine of how big it is compared to the dot.

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

The Theory of Spiritual Energy

2006-09-27T18:33:00.000-04:00

Previously I noted that I had the opportunity to attend a seminar held by His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I had not attended to seek out a Guru, learn some special secret path to enlightenment, or engage with Him in some of the embarrasingly petty small talk that took place. I went solely for one purpose: darshan of this beacon of Spiritual Energy.

Ok, lets backtrack for newcomers to Hindi words. Paraphrased from Wikipedia: "Darshan" means seeing, however in the context of " to see with reverance and devotion". The term is used specifically for beholding highly revered people with the intention of inwardly contacting and receiving their grace and blessings.

Now it should come as no surprise to you that I wish to uplift myself spiritually. And as such, seeking the darshan of such saints is a prescribed activity to achieving those ends. Also because of my scientific upbringing (which some may see as a complete paradox to my desire to progress spiritually) I usually try to understand what I am doing rather than go through the motions of rituals. I am quite sure that such rituals and practices are of benefit to the spiritual aspirant, however I am fully confident that their effectiveness is exponentially increased when the asipirant does them wholeheartedly. Doing so sometimes requires a little bit of wisdom and insight into the ancient yet scientific practices that still survive today.

Back to Darshan and Spiritual Energy. The human nervous system is a highly complex electical circuit made up of completely organic components. I should have mentioned this in my fruitfly post but I didn't. My apologies, dear readers. As you will eventually find out, this fact is a key to many understandings about the spiritual process.

So we have a electronic system and a highly complicated one at that. Actually the human nervous system is the most complicated system known to man. One invariable result of electrical systems and the bane of audio visual engineers around the world is Electromagnetic(EM) fields. All electrical systems where a current flows results in eletromagnetic field being generated. The stronger the current the stronger the EM field around the system. The variance of the current varies the shape, direction and size of EM field around the system. The more complex the system, the more variations of the EM field. The subtler the current variations, the subtler the deformations of the EM field around the system. So thus we can expect that every human being to have a very subtle, complex EM field around them. One that resonates at an impossibly complex frequency.

Astute readers will by now have realized that this EM field is equivalent to what is known as a person's aura. There are many names and exaplainations of this occurence, however I believe that the underlying science behind it all is the same.

Mastery of the nervous system (and by extension mastery of the creature known as the mind) is the stepping stones upon which the path to spiritual enlightement is paved. As such it can be inferred that such saints as His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, have complete mastery of their nervous system. And by extension, they also possess a well organized EM field.

Where does darshan come in? Transformers. Not the type in the movie coming out next year, the type that used to be found on electricity poles. His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is a generator of well organized, peaceful and overall spiritually excellent EM field. What else would you expect from a saint? This is no doubt as a result of a well disciplined inner system. I on the other hand am nowhere as disciplined and balanced. So theoretically, being in proximity of saints will attune my nervous system to more peace and stillness within. Being in His aura, makes my nervous system start working on a subtler and more peaceful level. An astounding fact to believe in teh simplicity of its execution. That is all you ever really need: To be in the presence of the Master.

But of course we want better. We want to maximise whatever little time we have with the saint to harmonize ourselves as much as we can with that source of spiritual oneness. To achieve this, we seek darshan. Darshan, training our eyes in reverance to that figure emanating the peace within that we seek. By seeing, we are focuing those organs designed to pick up EM radiation within a very small band of frequencies on a source of EM radiation. Understandably we don't "see" anythign different. The importance is the density of receptors and direct link to our nervous system that our eyes provide. It is that which we use to maximize the benefit of being in the presence of a saint.

Ina nutshell this is the real reason a spiritual aspirant should seek darshan of saints. It is a concerted effort to pull the experience of peace and stillness from a master to aid one in achieving similar heights by using eyes which were helpfully provided by evolution as amazing receptors of EM radiaition. This exotic EM radiation at a very subtle level is the Spiritual Energy that real aspirants thirst for.

Understandably, this also works in reverse where the corrupted and crazy EM field of the populace will have a negative effect on the saint, but remember this energy has consciousness (that is the subject of another post) and one of the distinctive properties of the saint is the ability to recharge their system with peace and stillness in the midst of a herd of devotees.

Disclaimer: Please, understand that these views are only mine. They are not the wisdom of the ancients although any verity in my statements are attributable to the original understandings of these processes passed down by said wise ancients. Any wild assumptions are the result of my monkey-like mind.

Important: This is also part of the disclaimer for this article, but it is important that it be stated clearly, and I pretty serious about this one. Always remember when you approach a saint that they are a person. Darshan is given to you for free (or should be), there is no need to push yourself to touch a Saint. It is important to respect their space. I know that bulk of this post could be cited as a reason for the stupid and frantic attempts by some to get close to saints and scramble like greedy monkeys grasping at their feet. Put succintly and clearly: I do not condone hysterical scrambling at Saints, you will achieve nothing by doing so. Always understand you will reap depending on the level of purity in yourself, no matter how close you get to the saint. This is because this energy has a consciousness and will transfer to you as necessary (as I previously mentioned, the subject of conscious energy we will broach at a later date). Please respect our saints as the fountains of bliss that they are.

Weekend Contemplation: #1

2006-09-15T15:25:00.000-04:00

Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow;
They toil not, neither do they spin;
And yet I say unto you,
that even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

-- Matthew 6:28

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

2006-09-14T17:22:00.000-04:00

Today, I had the great opportunity to have darshan of possibly one of the most famous saints of current time. His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar visited Toronto today. There was a one day course.

Having Darshan of this very beautiful saint was a desire of mine for over a year, today I was lucky to bow briefly to his feet. I will write more on today's meeting in a subsequent post.

Proof of this illusion we live in.

2006-09-12T17:48:00.000-04:00

Researchers have figured out how to introduce conditioning to the larval form of the infamous fruitfly. Now thats nothing new, Pavlov has done this with his canines a long time ago. Here is the interesting part. They taught these larvae to associate a certain aroma with food without ever giving it food. There things were never fed so they have no idea what food is. Hopefully our [genii|geniuses] eventually fed the poor creatures.

Now how did they do it? In a nutshell: they used a blue light to cause a chemical reaction in the nervous system of the larvae which flipped the correct bits in its simple "brain" to make it think it was fed. This was proven using our friend's Pavlov's conditioning theories. The larvae was conditioned to think they were going to be fed without ever being fed!

Poor Pavlov must be turning in his grave right now. Anyway, posthumous sympathy for Pavlov is not what this post is about.

Lets take this one step further. A larva's "mind" could be conditioned by a blue light, that much our boffins have established. I will go so far as to establish that all life on earth has a neural system built on relatively the same hardware (ok wetware). So that means with a sufficiently complex system of Little Blue Lasers^©, the human mind can be given thoughts, emotions or dare I say memories that never existed.

Such extrapolation will obviously take many many years of research and refuting of Moore's law. However it is possible. Where does all this conspiracy theory lead to spirituality? .... one word....Maya.

Maya in the Hindu religion means illusion. That is a really simple translation. I encourage you to read up the Wikipedia article if you want more explaination to understand where I am going with this.

I cannot take full credit for this theory, alot of it I have pulled from Dr. B.S. Goel and his excellent, albeit extremely rare book - "Third Eye and Kundalini". In this book, Dr. Goel first proposes that the mind is nothing more than a "... cluster of nerves..". I wish to take his observation one step further.

I believe that this experiment done by researchers in Germany tap into the very existence of Maya. Everything you know, I know, anyone knows, feels thinks or believes is nothing more than an illusion. It is only a bunch of little nerves in the head of one humanbeing firing electical responses like it should.

If memories can be fabriated, then what is to say that our current memories are not fabricated. I know noone has been in your head with my Little Blue Lasers^©, but what about yourself, you could be massaging those little electrical responses in any way you want because the human brain is complex and intricate enough to do it. Trust me I know humans that routinely fabricate their realities. But what I am talking about is on a much more subtle and pervasive level.

This is the Maya, everything experienced via the senses becomes a bunch of little electrical impluses firing in the grey matter of a human being. It is not reality; it is a bunch of electric signals. It is nothing more. You cannot prove that any memory ... any thought of yours, is reality since you have no idea what your brain has done to those electrical signals since it gotten a hold of those sensory inputs. So therefore we all live in an illusion fabricated by our own brains.

Therin lies my proof of this thing that Mystics have been ranting about for ages called Maya, is very real and is observable.

Disclaimer: Please don't take what I say to be the word of God and run off starting religions based on my extrapolations. I take no responsibility for failed psychology exams or getting kicked out of your Church.

Who is Sri Namagiri Lakshmi?

2006-09-11T14:01:00.000-04:00

Sri Namagiri Lakshmi is the Hindu Deity that whispered solutions to complex problems into the ear of Srinivasa Ramanujan. Ramanujan was a mathematician that shocked his contemporaries with solutions to supposed unsolvable problems. He attributed all of his discoveries to the Goddess Sri Namagiri Lakshmi.

With a humble prayer to Sri Namagiri Lakshmi, I begin an open exploration into the various threads connecting the world of the Spiritual Mystic and the world of the Mathematician.

Understandably, both mathematical and spiritual mountaintops are currently out of my reach, however I believe that they are connected by a most interesting valley.

A note of warning though, this is not a mathematical blog, references will be made to various mathematical and scientific concepts, however my full interest is only in the ancient wisdom of mystical spirituality.