Monday, April 30, 2012

Abstract



When you are abstracted, the neuro-biological scan of the inside of your brain might look like this. Only guessing, in an abstracted way. Not to be taken seriously, or to be investigated by opening up somebody's unsuspecting skull and peering into it.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Forbidden


In the Old Testament, in the Book of Genesis, the apple was forbidden to Adam and Eve as the fruit of the tree of knowledge. How does one interpret this? Should we infer that we would all have been unborn if Eve had not disobeyed God's proscription? Because Eve and then Adam ate the apple, man was born and evolved. So was it God's purpose that no knowledge should dawn? That would have meant great foresight on the part of God, because we would not have evolved and put the rest of his creation, including Him, in fear of mortal danger. But then, the question arises: why the hell (or in heaven) did He create both Adam and Eve, and an object of temptation not to be experienced. In other words, these three objects were created not to unite. What a colossal paradox. Would it not have been wiser if He had not created a man and a woman who were not expected to know that they were man and woman, and potentially sexual beings capable of procreation; and then a fruit which could give them this knowledge, but which was forbidden? His best choice was not to create any of the three; second best, to create, if He had to, a man or a woman, and not the fruit; last, to create the fruit, and no man or woman (and eat the fruit Himself). Isn't something odd about this edict? Was God confused, or am I? How about you?

-----------------

Bhashwati wrote:
... the odd thing i realised as i was reading it is, that while it is 'tempting' to give a tongue in cheek shade to your words, actually you sound neither blasphemous nor impertinent.
As always, as with everything, your build up of the argument is impeccable and at the end that inviting question is like a cherry atop an apple.

im unable to visualise a god but i feel that it had to be a very fine mind that created this myth, essentially to embed in the collective human consciousness the paradox of conscious life, and for those who wish to heed, a faint subtext of caution. 

Evolve and self destruct
or 
Seek no further and go to seed, in other words desist and decay.

And the colours, so striking, so appropriate, temptation on a shiny platter with the blackness of sin lurking under.
thank you.
-----------------------------

pravingandhino1 said...

I am confused too: Adam was a man. Then how by eating an apple, a man was created? What were Adam and Eve, if not man and woman already? Fourth choice: not give procreational capability in Adam and Eve Also, the first few generations would have been so incestuous
------------------------------------
Charu said...

I interpret your caption to mean, you are "forbidden" to question words of bible.

Genesis is about unquestioning faith in creationism, sins, repentance and hell. There is no place for reason, questioning, and evolution (I prefer to use the word evolvement).

Path of faith, I mean "faith", can only be explained with faith. Reason and logic are inoperative faculties here. The twain shall never abut; let alone cross.

I prefer to understand this beautiful picture to say "an age of reason is dawning over the dark ages".

charu

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Flight

as an Extension of Mind


-----------------
Charu wrote:
Bhai,
The Caption and the Art: simultaneously complemetary and complimentary
charu 

Rain, Rain




RAIN, RAIN
I MUST BE REALLY PARCHED
SCORCHED AND BARREN
EVEN MORE THAN THE EARTH
WHICH YOU CRUELLY CONSUMMATE

TO WELCOME
RAPTUROUSLY
YOUR ADVENT,
HERALDED BY PROPER CEREMONY
OF DARK, OVERBEARING CLOUDS
LIGHTNING AND THUNDER-CLAPS
OR UNANNOUNCED WITH TEMPERAMENTAL OUTBURSTS

YOUR COOL SPRAY ON MY THROBBING TEMPLES
THROUGH THE WINDOW
THE SOUNDS OF YOUR CARESS
ON THE MILDLY PROTESTING PANES
AND WHISPERS
COAXING THE LEAVES TO SUBMISSION
AND THE INTOXICATING AROMA
OF AROUSED PASSION RISING FROM THE EARTH
DIFFUSE INTO MY BEING
AND STIR TO LIFE THE DEADENED HOPES

IN HUMILITY I SMUGLY FEEL WRAPPED
WITH VISIONS OF YOUR POWER
INFUSING LIFE OR DESTROYING IT
AS YOU REIGN UNRELENTINGLY
BESTOWING MOODILY YOUR FAVOURS
TENDERLY IN A COMPASSIONATE SHOWER HERE
OR LASHING IN DEVASTATING FURY THERE
GERMINATING NOW OR UPROOTING
IMPETUOUSLY, INEXORABLY
IN A STUPENDOUS ACT
OF INCLEMENT COPULATION
URGENT, HYSTERICAL
INSATIATE AND OVERWHELMING
DEMANDING NOTHING LESS THAN TOTAL SURRENDER

AND EVEN AS YOU DEPART
LEAVING THE EARTH
RAVAGED AND RAVISHED AND FECUND
IN PAIN IT PINES AND THIRSTS

AS ALSO I DO
AS I LIE ON MY BED BY THE WINDOW
CRIPPLED, WASTED, DISCARDED, EMPTY



----------------------
Charu wrote:
Bhai,
Obligingly and wistfully reliving a day in memory.
charu 

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Existentialism According to Ramesh Gandhi

For those who either did not know it, or, if they knew it, did not understand it; understanding it now, not guaranteed.




Around the age of 12 (1948), in a Gujarati charitable school, millions of questions, ideas, curiosities, began to make their rounds through my mind.  Today I am unable to fathom how it happened, when the school did not have a library with works of thinkers or scientists, nor a teaching staff which was educated enough to rouse the fire of hunger for knowledge. Among many names, from various mythologies, sciences and civilisations and history, which threw themselves at me for me to grapple with, were philosophers of the past two or three hundred years, mainly from the West, like Socrates, Schopenhauer, Voltaire, Kant, Heidegger, Hegel, Nietzsche, Camus, Bertrand Russell and, most relevant to my writing today's essay, Jean-Paul Sartre. I had no access, either to the English language or to a mentor for consultation or engagement. My familiarity, therefore, with these and countless others, forever would remain a mystery to me.


I am writing today specifically about how existentialism became a brand philosophy, and Sartre its ultimate spokesperson. I confess I was no less fascinated by it than was war-torn Europe, especially Eastern Europe, which, impoverished and forlorn, embraced existentialism in its variegated forms. It probably still continues to do so, even as, as far as I know, Sartre's relevance, if any, is fading elsewhere.


For four to five years (between the ages of 15 to 20), I began to feel that I had found my ultimate calling: existentialism was my philosophy and my religion. But then, I became another man, which is another story (Theory of Contingency and Inevitability of Inevitability). But I did not lose my verve as an explainer or spokesperson for Sartre and company, and began, in lighter moments, to claim that my frivolous interpretation of it was the real one. In other words, I re-shaped it in words and in my narratives, and in parables that I built to illustrate existentialism.


Today my wife, Nancy (@nancygandhi), came across the 3-minute video by Will Braden, Paw de Deux. The moment I saw it, by happenstance, I found in it the definition of my interpretation of  the brand of existentialism which was perpetuated by Sartre and others, which the author of the video almost certainly did not intend.


I am delighted to present, through the courtesy of M. Will Braden, my brand of existentialism. I hope you exist as you enjoy, or vice versa. Bonjour. (Please watch both Henri Part I and Henri Part II - Paw de Deux, below.)





--------------------------------

--------------------------------
Charu wrote:
Bhai,

If I did not understand your version of existentialism the cat, a twin of my Murphy, did a good job of explaining it.

The cats do lead a life of existentialism. I have seen it led, first hand.

While you do not like them as much I think Murphy will do a great job being an insignia for your version of the theory.

Just joking.

charu 

----------------------------
Rameh Sir,

I never had a cat in my house. I used to not like dogs till we acquired a great dane. He was all of eight inches high when we got him as a two month old puppy. In three months thereafter he grew to thirty two inches and he was huge. He reminds me so much of the cat featured in the video. I was seeing my dog and not the cat in the video.

Dogs, too, lead a life of existentialism.

Unfortunately, my dog does not exist in our house as we had to give him away. 

I do not know how I exist without my dog.

Thanks for the tour.

V T Narendra

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Lunacy of Hope




As far as is known to us on our planet that we call Earth, humans are the only surviving creatures in which Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has gone awry; actually, we came into being by the only known aberrant DNA, and therefore exponentially proceeded towards going beyond the rudimentary and up to the time, the only purpose that it came about with, and formed the first microcosm of life.

That purpose for billions of years remained Survival, and nothing else, period. Survival entailed, as a natural selection but in a strictly limited way, foraging and reproducing. Consciousness of being was not inclusive.

In our altered DNA, before it proliferated and became manifest in countless manner, form, imagery, articulation, malice, pre-meditation, invention, etc., the first thing that happened was that it brought consciousness into our being: we became aware, and quickly proceeded to name ourselves, and things living and non-living that we could hear, see, and palpate, creating language and articulation.

We are the only creatures who know that they are born, that they exist, and that they will die. This is the simplest form of what we mean by consciousness. Then we began to make tools, the most crucial and dangerous of which was imagination, by its own definition unceasing and infinite.

The scope of our DNA just had no limit, even if it meant, at some point, that it may cause its own obliteration, and with it, perhaps, the expiration of all forms of DNA and, in other words, life.

-------------------------
Charu wrote:
Bhai,

Annihilation of life is imminent

It is slightly remote if the source of disaster is unman- made like a giant asteroid nudging and hurling the earth out of orbit and on into oblivion; or our life-giving sun exploding into a super nova and incinerating all in its vicinity including earth or the earth churning up its innards to cause a polar shift. 

DNA has no hand in any of these events but indeed has in that a brain of science will learn, understand, explain and ultimately seek refuge from these events to survive.

Of quite the closer imminence are the disasters that are of man made nature. Rampant re-productivity, excessive stripping of earth's generosity, extreme religiosity and utter and un-replenishable bankruptcies at ethical fronts, collectively will bring about the annihilation. The gears are locked and events are in motion; earth opening up to swallow or ocean whipping up to engulf are some of the disasters in this category

DNA has a big hand in these. DNA that allowed us consciousness also granted us, by extension, the sense of one-upmanship; a sense of individual profit over collective loss. There is no stemming the flow now.

Perhaps, DNA is programmed so that evil triumphs over good; sort of as you say "evil finding its own level".

I spot a blurry moon; I see the tracings of double-helix strand in your picture; a ladder to self-destruction already built in the DNA structure. Telling.
--------------------------------------------------

Preeth Parthasarathy wrote: ""We never see in consciousness that the mind is like an ecosystem - a self-corrective network of circuits. We only see arcs of these circuits.

And the instinctive vulgarity of scientists consists precisely in mistaking these arcs for the larger truth, i.e., thinking that because what is seen by consciousness has one character, the total mind must have the same character.

Freud’s personified ‘ego’, ‘id’, ‘super-ego’ are, in fact not, truly personified at all. Each of his components is constructed in the image of only consciousness (even though the component may be unconscious) and the ‘consciousness’ does not resemble a total person. The isolated consciousness is necessarily depersonified.

The whole iceberg does not have those characteristics which could be guessed at from looking only at what is above water. I mean: the iceberg does - mind does not. Mind is not like an iceberg.

But the vulgar scientist talks and plans as if mind resembled iceberg. He plans and acts upon his plans. Invents atom bombs and feels hurt when a beneficient deity screws up international relations and sends fall-out.""



Friday, April 20, 2012

Calcutta Kolkata

Time, unhurrying, almost standing still, appeared to be watching me as I looked out the window. The trees and vines that I planted, exuberantly filled the vision and teased the stillness by their gaiety. And beyond that, the sea appeared to be atop a mountain of clouds, its roar contained. My mind fell into a time warp, and weakly yearned for a fast-forward button in vain.

1956

Irony, as usual, struck hard:  while time does not stop, and therefore obliterates any sense of present, as every lapse between heart-beats becomes past the moment they become present; and while it does not allow you to take a swift and terminal ride into the future, it always manages to sharpen the consciousness with burdens of the past, as if it did have a rewind button.

My bones and skin, tissues of my body, my physical and mental being, the very blood that courses through my brain, contain tiny, indestructible molecules of my history, my past, and keeps vitalising the persistence of memory, and exhausts me.

1952

Outside my window, it is raining.  A building crumbles, unrealistically, like a toy-model.  But the piles of brick and broken glass and twisted metal are real.  As are the dying or the maimed people.  I recognise the streets of Calcutta, Bhowanipore, Chitpore Road, Pollock Street.  Calcutta is my home.  It is in me; or it exists as a fantasy, a belief that my roots have inextricably sprouted out of it, and that somehow I am bound to its streets, walls, houses, people.  How is it that I am in it, there, and yet now, almost certainly, unreachably far away from it.

1958

Life goes on; or rather, time goes on, unaware or unhindered by life or events that weave in and out through its passage.  Some live, inexplicably, as some perish.  There is decay and death, and yet also renewal of life, instinctively celebrating and ensuring its continuity.  Inexplicably also, I live on, purposeless, unmotivated, unbelieving of everything, unhinged.  I want to go home, but I have irretrievably lost my address. (1986)

1970

---------------
Charu wrote:
Bhai,

Indulge me and allow me to post excerpts from my old blog posting; merely as reminiscence...

"According to my niece who spent about six months with us, she has never heard anybody in our family talk about Calcutta as much as she has from me.

She is right. 

Calcutta is almost never out of my mind.

I often visualize the spacious road we lived on; the neighbors we had; the games we played. I map out the everyday walking route I took to my school. I remember the way but not the shop keepers except a fabric merchant, Primus repairer and a snack shop owner. I believe there was a pottery store at the corner of main road and the side street. During Monsoons, I remember treading the road in knee deep water mixed with sludge. Rains were so heavy that drainage system could not cope with water. Many times we would step on some crawly creatures we did not know what they were. An eeck would go through my body. Most of the times we would be soaked through to the bones for the lack of umbrellas. Umbrellas were, often, ineffectual in torrential rains.

Then, I left Calcutta for good. But......... Calcutta never left me."

charu




Thursday, April 19, 2012

Visarjan ki Kahaani


In the film Kahaani, Sujoy Ghosh has poured his heart out in compiling, in the crucible of his mind, a great narration of homage to womanhood, which Vidya Balan, unforgettably, has incarnated.



Homage also to the city of Kolkata, in its visceral exposure: warm, palpitating, alive, despite continuing decay and malfunction. Homage to Bengali pride in the only Renaissance this country has experienced and enriched itself by, and now lost, allowed to decompose and become compost. Homage to the unashamed language of Bengal, in Bengali and Hindi.

The film's shortcomings, arising from a too-complex, at times unbelievable, and alien plot, have been deftly handled by Sujoy's use of multiple time-lapse montages of Kolkata street-life, people going about their routine work, walls, trams, busses, taxis; glaring, gaudy posters, tea stalls, and life bursting at the seams so rapidly and, sometimes, in vertical strips of overlapping events. They serve to  shake off the concentration of the viewer from the story-line. This is pardonable in view of the overall excellence of crafting of the film.


For such an extraordinary artistic expression, I am unable to reconcile with the plebian title, Kahaani. The whole story is about the variegated evil that pervades us, and its destruction, which all of us, in our collective consciousness, long for. There can be just only one, and only one, name for it: Visarjan (Visarjan in Sanskrit, is immersion, the winding up, the extirpation, the end).

Please also peruse Kahaani: A heart-pounding work of staggering creativity, by Trisha Gupta.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Rage Within



I have swallowed earth, and am eternally tremorous. I therefore do not feel the earth's tremor.

I have no impermanence and therefore have no incarnation. I am ubiquitous, and therefore without future or past. Krishna and Rama had to invent themselves by incarnations and reincarnations. I am forever, and therefore never.
--------------------------

Charu wrote:
Bhai,

This is you on yourself. No comments.

If I did not know the source, swallowing earth and being tremorous conjures up hilarious imagery.

As for incarnate/reincarnate:

कृष्ण उवाच:

यदा यदा ही धर्मश्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत
अभ्युत्थानम धर्मश्य तदआत्मनम सृजाम्यहम
परित्राणाय साधुनाम विनाशाय च दुश्क्रताम
धर्मसंस्थापनारथाय स्वयम्भवामी युगे युगे

Roughly translated:

Krishna Speaks:

In each age, when I see good and right
Are eclipsed by bad and wrong,
I selfcreate myself to destroy the evil, Re-lay the foundation of Dharma-good deeds


What has that gotten us?

charu
--------------------------------
Ramesh Gandhi replied to 'What has that gotten us?':

Earthquakes
--------------------------------
Bhashwati wrote:


Thinking about "i am forever" it struck me that if time is forever present (i am not aware if that has been denied or countered anywhere in human history or science or philosophy), then all that weaves through time is permanent?
That would make all of conscious life embedded in permanence…

And the photo:
One part dazzling light and the other a tangled dark
Tamaso ma jyotirgamaya acquires a new meaning in the light of your text.
The conscious self floats in and out of light and dark for one contains the other...