The last rites

DEATH is quite final and sudden. But the process a soul and then the body goes through is quite tiresome. We may not understand some things and criticize our tradition blindly, but there’s something much deeper and bigger. And you can only understand that if you got the knowledge which lifts you above this materialistic world.

I’m a Hindu and some people may differ from my opinion and ideologies. I respect their beliefs and expect them to do the same, no one can say anything for certain. All we can do is BELIEVE!

 Our life is all about Karma and that is how we are bound to this world by it. Nothing is permanent and we know it. Death has always been related to bad and evil. It should not be, death is the end of all pain and miseries as it all belongs to the body which is turned to ashes. The death of a person is difficult for his/her loved ones though, as they still are bound by the strings of this materialistic world.

Only the body perishes. The soul is an eternal thing, which is the part of GOD  Himself. A little-detailed explanation about soul – What is a soul? .The soul carries on through its karmic index and being a believer or incarnation I would say death is just a new beginning, a fresh chapter.

People have some doubts about the system of burning bodies vs burying them. But burning is better and I’ll tell you why. The person has gone, his/her soul has wandered off to a new beginning or moksha. But if you bury them, the loved ones will be forever attached to that piece of land. As it preaches, we should break all the strings attached to the soul deceased and carry on with our karma. That is why we burn the body so that no material of the deceased person is left with us to hold on. Even his clothes and belongings are given away. His/her soul is free too then. The ashes are mixed with land and water as the body is nothing without a soul, but a waste.

I love the way the customs are designed to help the family go through the loss of a loved one. We may not like some because we are not able to understand it. First and the most controversial custom – “Only men can do the last rites and give fire to the body”. Hinduism doesn’t even allow women to go to the ghats. All the feminist may be triggered now, but hear me out.

Women are supposed to be life givers. They bring a soul to this world. Their emotional and psychological build up is such that it enables her to nurture and protects her baby no matter what. This is what enables them to go through so much to bring a soul to this world. On the other hand, men are given the responsibility of the departure of the soul from this world. Men are bought up like that, emotionally strong and mentally cold. We have to be. We have to grow to be a little insensitive and practical. You may say we don’t show emotions or even lack them. But we have to learn to be like this, or how can you expect a person to put his own parents on fire and watch them as they burn.

Burn, burn and burn. You carry them on your shoulders. The people who bought you into this world. Who made you what are. Who fed you, cleaned after you, took care of you, did things for you that not even GOd Himself would do for you. How can you carry their body and put them up to be lit and then sit there and watch them burn, while the smell gets into your head? You can see the gut falling out, the water from the body rising as steam and then poof! All is ash. Like that person never ever existed.

Even if you’ll try to imagine it you’ll get a weak stomach. And we all have to do this one day, all of us men. I may be bashed for this but we always talk about the pain a woman goes through labor but no one talks about the silent pain a man goes through when he lights his own parents and waits there for them to turn into ash. Why only men are allowed because they need to see this as soon as they exit teenage. If any guy has been there, your life can no longer be the same. You know that life is nothing when you see body lining up to be burnt, it’s all a big illusion.

Then some people criticise the long line of rituals that follow in which the son has to sit separately for 12-13 days. Well, it is because even he doesn’t show, he requires the most attention. Food is cooked only once in a day because women need to get a break from chores and spend the time to mourn the deceased. The diet and everything that happens is for a reason. The gathering, the rituals are a distraction. Imagine living alone after you lost a member of your family. Haunting! Those days the family come together to pass the toughest phase. After all, that is what family is all about.

That is why do your duties, don’t be too attached to anything as nothing is permanent, not even you. After you die, you’ll only be remembered for the things you did. That is why do something which makes this world a better place. Serve your family, that is your first duty then society. Put smiles on faces, it’ll earn you blessings. Just look up and do your KARMA!

Why religion?

Presently, the image of religion is not that good among the liberals because of the problems caused by it. Being an agnostic  I have always questioned the origin and tactility of religion. We have a new religion called atheism which originates from science. But if we try to wonder the world without religion, would it be feasible? I don’t think so.

In the early days when the cavemen were forming settlements and adopting agriculture, it was important for people living in that immediate area to work together as a society. We have come soo far because the society is such structured that the work is divided and as we work together as a single community (religion or country) we progress.

Now the people living together in a mass of land has to come together and agree on some common beliefs. If everyone had their own different beliefs then the conflict of interest would never have led to the successful establishment of a civilization. Therefore it was necessary for them to agree to some common beliefs so that they can relate to each one and work as a singular body. And that is why I think humans evolved at the top of the food chain. Because they were able to unite and form settlements. We have conflicts/wars between different countries and communities. But if there was no community to start with, we would be just fighting among ourselves and be among the other carnivores. If there was no religion to start with, we would also be living in packs like other animals and this face of human civilization should never have come into being.

And the geographical constraints led to the initialization of different forms of religion in different areas. But the idea was the same. Now to get them to follow this, a powerful, maybe imaginary figure was placed and that led to the blind following of religion. A religion by fear.

Over the years the concept of religion has been adulterated. It has been enterprise into one of the most successful business models. And also nowadays communities refer to a country, not religion. So the concept of religion is now obsolete. But with the firm ground of it, the idea still prevails.

It is necessary as it keeps every individual under a check. A check by his own conscious, which is a very effective way to keep the evil under control. And if the country consists majorly of one religion it works just fine. But in a multi-cultured country like India, it can place many hinderances.

Plus, we had to understand that the rules of religion and so-called culture were formed thousand of years ago. We have come a long way since. So don’t just blindly follow everything. Reason and then do. Everything had a logic. If that logic is archaic, then drop the practice. Update religion and do it the smart way!

What is a soul?

This question has been on my mind for long and there are some conjectures I have come up with. But recently, finding my conjecture as a theory stated in Bhagavad Gita validated it as an acceptable one.

Let’s start with my conjecture. I used to wonder what’s the difference between a living person and a dead body. I mean what’s missing from the dead body that was keeping it alive before? Atma or soul. And does this soul has a physical existence? The answer is,Yes.

The thing which keeps the heart beating and organs running are the electrical impulses flowing in the neurons of the body, through the synaptic gap. And when a person dies, the physical body is intact but these impulses are absent. By basic logical reasoning, we can conclude that these electrical impulses were the force keeping the body alive. Even some scientific experiments were carried out in which they observed a dying person and they observed some interference around the body at the time of death, naming it as ‘SOUL’. It was nothing but EM waves leaving the body.

Then where these EM waves go and where they come from? Let’s see what Bhagavad Gita has to say about it.

The soul is described as imperishable. Of course! Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed. If the soul is electrical impulses, it can’t be created (conversion of energy from matter, i.e, fusion reaction, in a body, is not possible)  nor be destroyed. So the theory that organisms are eternal being is true because our body can be destroyed, but soul being energy, can’t be destroyed.

Also, here it is said that the soul is spread all over the body. This is justifying everything I stated above.

Now the physical size of the soul is given as 1/10,000th part of the upper portion of hair. If we measure it, this is 1/10,000th of 10^-3 meters, i.e, 10^-7 meters. If we now try to imagine the amount of current in the nervous system, which is in micro-amps, the amount of electrons flowing would be around 10^11 electrons per sec (see for yourself). And an electron is of the magnitude 10^-18 meters. So, if we multiply the number of electrons to a size of a single electron we get,  10^-7 meters. THIS IS AMAZINGLY ACCURATE!

The building block of a soul is referred to as a spiritual atom which is said to be smaller than the material atom. Duh! We all know the ratio of the size of electrons to a full atom!

Then the word spiritual SPARK is mentioned, another evidence supporting our theory.

Here, first, the soul is said to reside in our heart. And as we all know the most important function of the impulse is to make the heart beat. The SA &  AV node. Which is the primary activity keeping us alive? So this statement is also relatable.

Second, the spiritual atoms are compared to the sunshine molecules,a.k.a, the photons. And we all know the size of photons depend on the wavelength of light. And wavelength of white light is around 10^-7 meters. AMAZING! Our Vedic science was soo accurate even before the metric system was developed or the microscopes came into play.

Here 2 kind of souls is described – The Supreme soul and the other is particle soul, which is a fragment of that supreme soul. Now imagine the Supreme Soul or Krsna as an infinitely big reservoir of cosmic energy. And our souls are derived from that huge pool. And as we all know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, that pool exists since forever and we being the fragment of it also exists since forever. And also we cannot die. Our body perish but our soul because energy can’t be destroyed.

The body is subjected to change, not the soul. The soul is unaffected by all this and remains the same for eternity. It has no beginning and no end.

The properties of the soul are written here. The soul is called all conscious and all knowledgeable. Let’s see why. If the supreme soul is a big(infinite) pool of energy then all kind of signals should be present there. So, an infinite pool of signals means and an infinite pool of data. In this infinite pool of data, all the information of this universe or any other universe is present. EVERYTHING is present in these signals. Just like the sequence of the number ‘pi’. That’s why it is a very sacred number.

Hence the soul is all conscious and knowledgeable.

So, in the womb, the fetus derive energy from this reservoir and gain consciousness. Lives and dies and the soul return to that pool and the process is repeated unless the soul is able to increase its energy (by means of yoga) to escape the energy barrier (same as electron transitions in an atom) to break from this cycle and attain position in GOKUL, the planet free from the material world.

Another thing I would like to add is that it is stated in Gita that “THE SUPREME TRUTH OR KRSNA”. If we consider our above logic, that we are a fragment of that infinite pool of energy , hence the characteristics we have, our whole should also have them. And the infinite source of energy has infinite possibilities of shapes and sizes and we can’t picture it, as it is in higher dimension but any visualization of that pool will be valid because the number possibilities of the arrangement of the atoms are infinite. Thus the picture which is described in our Vedas, ‘Visnu floating in the cosmic ocean’ is as true as any other imaginable scene.

 

Doctor Strange and Vedic Science

Saw the new Marvel movie Doctor Strange today. Even the comic universe is turning back to our Vedas for a new source of superheroes. Not giving you any spoilers, Dr. Strange becomes a sorcerer through gaining knowledge from our Vedas, written in Sanskrit.

So now one wonder if it is all hypothetical or real, these mystic arts, Sorcery, astral projections and all. Well, we have all heard stories and legends, and it may not be exactly true but they can’t be all false. Let me explain.

Superheroes are fictional. Yes. But they are always based on some real life observations. Human imagination is very powerful, but the brain cannot imagine things which have never been observed.  Like superman, he can fly and all. Humans saw the birds fly and imagined what would if a human could fly. Every superhero and the fictional story are inspired by some rare real life incident. Our brain cannot develop a concept on its own.

So if there is a concept of sorcery, alchemy, magic, spiritual art and manipulation, this must have existed. Maybe its existence was restricted or hidden, but the one who imagined it draws the inspiration from somewhere. Maybe we exaggerate and put it in a flamboyant way. But it must have some roots. Maybe the art is extinct but it doesn’t mean it is false.

Hence, we should not disregard our Vedas because we don’t understand it. Sometimes you have to keep the knowledge you have aside and look the universe in a new way. Arrogance won’t help it as there is very high chance that all the things we now about the universe are false.