Hindu philosophy explained with 3rd grade math

One of the chapters that I remember reading in History class is the "Bhakti Movement" between 8th and 12th centuries in India. During this time, India was at it is peak of productivity in terms of religious exposition, philosophy, and spirituality. The movement was made by three great saints, who in turn, founded three interpretations of Hindu Philosophy - Advaita (monism) propounded by AdiSankara,  Vishishtadvaita (qualified monism) propounded by Ramanuja, and Dvaita (dualism) propounded by Madhwacharya.

Though there are numerous Gods depicted and worshipped within the umbrella of Hinduism, fundamentally the Vedas (scriptures) emphasize that there is only one God and he is the Creator (interestingly "theory of evolution" seems to be weaved within the concept of a "Creator", as I mentioned in an earlier post). With that as a given, various scholars since have tried to understand the relationship between that one God and us humans by way of interpreting the vedas and supplementary documents such as the upanishads (appendix to vedas), ithihasas (epics), and puranas (mythologies).

Personally I feel that this is the most distinct feature of Hinduism compared to most other religions, where the focus is not just on how God wants humans to behave, but more on what the relation between the two is. Rather than taking the "God is the Creator" concept for granted, it tries to probe further - Who is He? Is He the same as me? If not, how are He and I related? What makes Him a Him and me a me?

In programmatic terms, I would say that Hinduism focuses on the class hierarchy (sub-class, super-class, abstract class) as well as interfaces (behavior of a class) while others tend to elaborate only on the interfaces! You need to have a strong foundation of your class hierarchy first before you can start extending the behavior by means of interfaces.

While eminent scholars over time have provided a number of interpretations what the vedas describe as the relation between God and human, three are the most popular enough to be in history text books. I have always held a simplistic summarization of these three philosophies:

• Advaita says God is the same as human (in other words, God lives in humans or when humans die they merge back with God)
• Vishishtadvaita says humans are not the same as God, but by devotion throughout life, they can eventually become one with God after death (moksha)
• Dvaita says God and humans are always distinct and never the 'twain shall meet.

This suited me well for the last 20 years. However, there is really no pizzazz in this explanation. It sounds, well, as dull as a history textbook! Recently, I received an email forwarded to me by my dad that provided a much better, more fun, and a more profound definition. This was by Sri. Chandrasekharendra Saraswati (fondly called Periayaval - not to be confused with Periyar - or the Elder One), who I personally consider to be the last "true" saint that India has seen, and who himself was the head of an Advaita institution.

He had an inimitable quality of explaining complex philosophies in a way that commoners can understand. He was down-to-earth, unassuming, and most importantly focused purely on spirituality without getting into politics - a quality that no one else seems to have nowadays.

Here goes his definition (interpretation from Tamil to English by me) of the three philosophies in the form of 3rd grade Math!!

According to Advaita, the relationship between God and Human is like the relationship between the side and perimeter of a square. Like how the perimeter of a square is always four times the side, Advaita preaches that if you follow a proper path, then you WILL reach God (or become one with God). There is no ambiguity there.

In case of Dvaita, the relationship between God and Human is like the relationship between diameter and circumference of a circle. Unlike a square. the circumference is PI times the diameter. The issue here is that PI is an irrational number and cannot be accurately defined. Likewise, Dvaita says that no matter how much humans try to be close to God or be one with God, it will not happen and that there will always be a difference, however minute. The diameter is a whole number in itself and the circumference is another whole number by itself, but the relationship between the two cannot be defined absolutely. With this established, Dvaita philosophy then goes into the details of the inequality of the relationship and defines the various intermediary stages between God and Human (called 'tAratamya'). This can be roughly translated into the precision of PI.

Lastly, Vishishtadvaita takes a midway (similar to Aristotle's Golden Mean). It says that the relationship is like a square being perceived as a circle. By default, Humans perceive their relationship to God as that of a circle's diameter and circumference - that the two can never be the same. As they gain enlightenment by devotion, the confusion is resolved and the "square" nature of the relationship is revealed at which point, the enlightened person becomes one with God. The thought here is that humans can become egoistic if they believe that they are God (Advaita) and can get disillusioned or depressed if they believe that they can never reach God (Dwaita) and hence a middle path is proposed.

The analogy here is that each individual has a distinct identity by default, but when they get into a train, they all become "passengers" for the conductor, thereby losing their individual identity and becoming a part of a bigger entity.

A simple, but powerful explanation! What I love even more about this is that he leaves enough room for the three schools of thought to claim superiority over others - an apolitical person but with a perfect political speech!

Origin of Creative Prophecies

OK. I'll admit it - I check Daily Mail once a day. I blame my wife for hooking me to the site - it's mostly useless drivel but a good way to pass time in the train or when I am bored - although I am getting increasingly tired of repetitive news.

A few days back among a bunch of Kim Kardashian news articles, there was an interesting article about Srinivasa Ramanujan - the mathematical genius. Apparently Ramanujan, in his deathbed, wrote a bunch of formulas and sent them to his mentor G. H. Hardy saying that they were important and were revealed to him by Goddess Namagiri, who he worshiped and believed to be his source of genius. A century and change later, it has apparently been found that those formulas that were cryptic at that time, could now hold the key to understanding portions of how black holes function. Interestingly, black holes were not even discovered during Ramanujan's time (1920s)!

 
In many of the news sites, the comments are sometimes more interesting than the article. Most of it is irrelevant trolling, but it also gives some window into the general public's psyche.

Not surprisingly, there were many comments initially dismissing Ramanujan's notion that the formulas were revealed to him by the Goddess. Alternate explanations were Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, etc. - anything other than spiritual intervention.

Now, if you haven't read the famous biography of Ramaujan - "The man who knew Infinity", I strongly urge you to do so - it's a fascinating read.

 

In the biography, the author reaffirms Ramanujan's spiritual beliefs and some insight into how his 'genius' originated. The comments reminded me of a notion by Elizabeth Gilbert that I had mentioned in my earlier post "Will we ever be alone with our thoughts again". In her talk, she mentions the notion of ideas passing through as waves and that inspiration is essentially who happens to be at the right time and right place to catch the wave.

Maybe in Ramanujan's case, he happened to catch the 'wave' that contained the mock theta functions. Maybe what differentiates genius and mediocrity is the level of luck - geniuses are more lucky and tend to catch more waves, while others are not so much! Then the question becomes "who creates the wave in the first place?" and that's a nice little space for the spiritualists to play in!

Of course, the alternate explanation is also rooted in chance or probability - may be Ramanujan's brain happened to wire itself in such a way as to figure out the formulas. Spiritualists can argue that the wiring was done by the Goddess and atheists can argue that it was mere probability and that he happened to luck out.

So, we can go either way - believe that it is all probability - a quantum fluctuation if you will - and that nothing has anything to do with God, or we can believe that there is a 'hidden hand' that creates waves or rewires brains to surface 'genius' every once in a while. Whichever may be the truth, I think the latter assumption is worth pursuing because a) if it is pure probability, it doesn't make a difference what you believe in and b) if there is a hidden hand, maybe the belief will make you more tuned to catching the waves than others who may not realize it passing through!

Honorable Plagiarism

"Don't plagiarize" - this message is drilled into every student in school and college. With abundance of information and increasingly easier and smarter ways of finding that information and match it to your needs, it is becoming more and more difficult to adhere to this even as teachers are doing their best to use smarter software to detect plagiarism.

However, everyone 'copies' - be it a Bollywood music lifted (or as the artists say - 'inspired') from earlier works or even major innovations like the one witnessed via the Apple vs. Samsung battle. So, with copying of intellectual information happening all around us, the line is getting blurrier on what is considered plagiarism and what would be an acceptable 'inspiration'.

Working in the Content Management space, this particular issue crosses work and life for me, as part of an effective content management solution is in securing intellectual property so that only right content is available to the right person at the right time. In addition, the issue of "plagiarism" becomes all the more confusing (and critical) in the IT consulting space where we are generally compared to 'bees pollinating flowers'. We move across companies, working at different projects. While there are well-defined guidelines in terms of what we can and cannot take from an organization once the project is completed, putting a restriction on what the consultant internalizes and potentially uses that as an inspiration in another project becomes more murky, unless we have a Men In Black style pen that would erase memory when leaving a project!

My general take is that we are a sum of our influences and our environment. So every action we perform (book we read, music we hear, person we listen to, etc.) will inevitably tend to have its mark something that we may create down the road. So, the best we can do is to ensure that we use the essence of an idea infused with our own thoughts rather than make a copy of something that exists and worse, without attributing it to where it came from.

With that said, I was pleasantly surprised when I read my recent book - "Steal Like an artist by Austin McKleon".



The premise of the book is that there is nothing new to create - everything has been created already. So, all we can do is to read and experience and get influenced by many things and  then come up with our own "remix" or "interpretation". This especially resonated with me, as I recalled a verse in Mahabharatha:

yad iha asti tad sarvatra yad na iha asti na tat kvacit |

imaM samasta-vij~jAna-shAstra-koshaM vidur-budhAH || (thanks Vasu)

"Whatever is here is mentioned everywhere else, and whatever is not here cannot be anywhere else.
This, the wise consider to be the complete collection of science and scriptures."

The book itself seems to be part motivational and part pragmatic, but the author does a pretty good job of balancing the two and not making it sound too preachy or 'self-help-y'. While most of the content is one that you may already have known (evidenced by the many "that's what I'm talking about" moments I had while reading), I think it's still worth a read as he puts them together nicely, supplemented by a number of quotes from famous thinkers/artists/philosophers.

It's a pretty small book (I read the whole thing in two to three hours) and fairly inexpensive and lends itself to giving it away to others easily.

So, at the end, what is the difference between plagiarism and inspiration? I will quote the book in this regard.

Good Theft	Bad Theft
Honor	Degrade
Study	Skim
Steal from many	Steal from one
Credit	Plagiarize
Transform	Imitate
Remix	Rip off

Plagiarism transforms to inspiration if you - "reference many places; go deep into links; understand the concepts; summarize in your own words; cite your sources; augment with examples from your experience."

Duty, Reward, and Performance

I grew up watching the long running Mahabharatha by B.R.Chopra in Doordarshan. One of (if not, THE) great epics of all time, Mahabharatha was fun to watch, especially with bows and arrows with cheesy special effects almost always guaranteed in each episode.

As a kid, this was a good Sunday show with fight sequences and fancy costumes. The story is so captivating that the language barrier (I had even little knowledge of Hindi back then) was not an issue. Of course, I never really understood the philosophy or the moral behind the stories, and I can fairly bet that no one else cared much either.

However, thanks to the magic of TV repetition, some verses - especially the ones in Bhagavad Gita, which is a subset of the epic - were stuck in my head. One of them has stuck with me longer than others.

कर्मन्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर मा ते सनगोस्त्वकर्मनि ।।

karmaNi eva adhikAraH te mA phaleShu kadAcana |
mA karma phala hetuH bhU mA te sanghaH astu akarmaNi |

This is an often quoted verse typically to describe the essence of Karma Yoga (the work-oriented way of life - roughly) - like the pithy one-liner in most ads (or a jingle that you can't get out of your head). As in most cases, it has been further condensed into a "do your duty, don't expect results" format.

Over the years, I have come to understand and appreciate the depth in this simple statement. The verse itself translates as follows (thanks to my brother who teaches Sanskrit)

"You are entitled to perform actions but never to its results. The results should not be the motivation for your actions".

The subsequent verse continues to expand on this to say "When you are detached from the results and follow a righteous path (yoga) you will be equipoised regardless of success or failure".

There are similar statements out there such as Alexander Pope's "Blessed is a man who does not have expectations, for he shall never be disappointed". However, I believe there is more to it than just that. 

My personal interpretation is "to do the work that you have undertaken without expecting its benefits" - be it expecting a promotion at the end of the year, kudos from friends, family, or colleagues for a job well-done, or even criticisms that may arise if the job well performed did not end as planned. 

When I have tried to explain this to those who bothered to ask, I've received either skepticism ("You would be stupid not to ask for a promotion - you have to fight for it - that's how it works") or tangential statements ("does it mean you shouldn't have any goals or ambitions in life that you work towards?"). 

I believe that neither are warranted. Yes, it is true that sometimes you have to fight for a promotion, but that doesn't mean you have to do your work to the fullest because you are expecting a promotion. The fight comes AFTER you've worked without expecting a promotion and during annual feedback you are simply stating your case as best as possible - without expecting a result. Similarly, a goal is different from result aka "aspiration" is not the same as "expectation". It's good to aspire for something, but what is important is not to expect that your aspirations are realized because you've worked towards it.

As a New Year dawns, I hope to continue to give my fullest to my work without expecting its rewards - hopefully it won't be as ephemeral as a New Year resolution!

30 Day Challenge

Many times, I have found that it is easy to come up with an idea, but a lot harder to put it in practice. Think about the New Year resolutions that have come and gone - we feel guilty, think of a bunch of things to do in the new year, and forget about it in the first or second week. According to Wikipedia, 52% are confident of keeping up their resolutions, but 80% fail.

Obviously there is a disconnect between what we want to do and what we actually end up doing. So, why is there a disconnect? Why are we not able to keep up such commitments? I believe the issue is primarily that of scope - either we make the issue so broad that it is not actionable, and along related lines, we have the duration so long that we lose momentum quickly.

For the first one, there are numerous ideas and concepts such as Getting Things Done model by David Allen that describes how to break down and organize your to-do items so that they can be acted upon.

New Year resolutions fall more into the second category, where 1 year is just too long to keep track of and complete something. In many cases, it is so long that we don't even wait till 6 or 7 months - we give up in a couple of weeks in most cases. So, what can be done to make it stick?

Recently, I came across this video from TED, where Matt Cutts talks about the 30-Day Challenge and I think it addresses both the roadblocks to commitment nicely.



What's nice about the 30-Day Challenge is that it is simple - you just pick ONE single topic and stick to it for 30 days. Picking a single topic makes it easy to remember and the 30-day is a reasonable time frame to make a reasonable attempt (Scrum methodology is based on 30-days sprints for example).

I can think of a number of things - both work and personal - where I can apply this. Here are some examples I could think of:

1. Take a picture each day
2. Listen to a song by a new singer or a new genre that you would otherwise not listen to (to me - listen to one new carnatic raga each day)
3. Write a blog entry each day (although this can go beyond 30 days and hence may not apply)
4. On the more technical side, review one code package each day
5. Complete a certification within 30 days

The list can go on in a variety of ways. In fact, here's a website where a bunch of people have posted different challenges already.

http://30daychallenges.net/challenges

You can also read about Matt's personal 30-day challenges in his blog to get some inspiration.

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/30-days/

Something like this also lends itself nicely to an app - you can have a countdown/reminder for your challenge for the month for example.

So, what are you waiting for? What's your 30-day challenge going to be? Give it a shot - I am going to and will update on this blog.