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Showing posts from July, 2012

Bureaucrats in service are a different species

Bureaucracy is faceless and ruthless. It cannot have emotional or moral values. So says a writer. Absolutely true. By definition they are trained to serve the system good or bad. More efficient they are, the more the system uses them for the purpose it wants to. Just as much good can get accentuated by bureaucracy if the system is oriented to national prosperity as in case of China, evil too gets accentuated by many orders more by the same bureaucracy if the system is evil as in case of India. The leadership who gets control of the system determine the direction. Bureaucracy is like a machine delivering with multiplier effect what ever you desire exercising the power vested in you. Exceptional odd ones do fight the trend of the system whether good or evil, but when working against the system, will be forced to spend more than 90% of time just survive and cannot aspire to make a career. Probably every bureaucrat is unconsciously aware of these facts, and each one tunes him

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

After this therefore because of this is a logical error  while establishing cause and effect relationship  particularly in multi-dimensional and long cycle of 10k years  spread natural phenomena. Observed facts and our mental effort to connect  has to carefully factor in this aspect. Earlier ice age occurrence  pole shifts which have left footprints in  fossil world also are strong scientific evidence that  has to be explained by causes other than  humans contribution to raising or dropping temperatures. In the cosmic world the magnitude of forces at play  and energy deployed appear even by our own perception  many orders larger and mammoth than what we can imagine.  Even if we burn fuels 10 times or more it is almost  like a firefly trying to compete with a small torch light comparatively. Sometimes I wonder what is inevitable following the natural  cycles dictated by interplanetary forces, we humans  with inflated egos and overstated but less than honest  application of scien

Tertullian's Rule of Faith

We read in Balakanda (Canto 18): “Six full seasons elapsed, that is twelve months since the end of the great Ashvamedha. Then on the ninth day of the month of Chaitra, under the lunar asterism of Punarvasu, when the  Sun was in Mesha, Mars was in Makara, Saturn in Tulâ, Jupiter  and the moon in Karka, and Venus was in Mîna, of Queen Kaushalyâ was born Rama, the Lord of the Universe, the adoration of  the Three Worlds, the joy of the Ikshvâku dynasty, and incarnation of half of Vishnu. The child bore many auspicious marks:  His  eyes were rose colored, his arms very long, and his lips deep red. His voice resounded like a kettle drum. Kaushalyâ too  looked glorious, like Aditi holding Puramdara.   Then Kaikeyî gave birth to a son, Bharata by name, incarnating  a quarter of Vishnu and with divine qualities too.  Cheerful  Bharata was born  under the star Pushya when the Sun  entered Mîna. To Sumitra were born twin sons, Lakshmana and Shatrughna, under the constellation Ashlesha when the S

God particle

On the God Particle [ with gratitude to Prof. V.V. Raman] A friend of mine, with peripheral interest in physics, was perturbed, if not offended, by the association of a particle’s name with God. He pictured particles as specks of dust. Bringing God from the pinnacle to a particle is, as he saw it, not going from the  sublime to the subtle, but rather moving from the rapturous to the ridiculous. What is technically called Higgs boson acquired this epithet from a publisher’s choice to change a proposed book-title from The Goddamn Particle to The God Particle. The first suggestion expressed the frustration of physicists at not being able to detect the most fundamental of all the entities swarming the microcosm. It was theoretically predicted by a small number of theoretical physicists in the mid-1960. One of them was Professor Carl Hagen of the University of Rochester, the city where I live. The term particle refers here to one of a plethora of super-subtle entities that populate the

Bose & bosons

Many a great person walked on this planet: in own life time not all liked nor praised them. But they kept doing what they had to do and eventually passed in to annals of time. Posterity barely remembers or does it matter to to that man who left whether history remembers him or not? But the moment & space that they lived and performed belonged to them  and these great individuals must have experienced the greatest reward of joy while playing at the frontiers of knowledge at that time and to their competence doing what they wanted to do and seeing for themselves the play of the natural forces. True knowledge seekers are happy by by own pursuit of knowledge and hardly care for any recognition or reward. They are sufficiently evolved within, that they only seek satisfying company of similar noble persona to interact and nothing more! The reward or recognition by society is actually an act of gaining reflected glory from the work of such great thinkers. Bose appears to be a g

Nyayamrta

Nyayamrta [ Extract from Dvaita Vedanta  by R.K Paramahamsa  Pages 134-137] In his work Nyayamrta, his magnum opus, Vyasatirtha undertakes a complete vindication of the philosophical power and prestige of the realistic metaphysics of Madhva, Anandatirtha. The first chapter discusses the central idea of ‘idealism’, the unreality of phenomenal world, and refutes the doctrines of Advaita in all their manifestations. The second chapter refutes the doctrine of Akhandartha and its application to Upanisadic texts. He shows that ‘Difference’ is real, cognizable and characterizable with the help of ‘Visesas’. He establishes that Madhva’s scheme of five-fold difference has the sanction and support of the three Pramanas. The chapter ends with a discourse of the Dvaita view as to the atomicity of the soul. The third chapter critically examines the place and significance to be assigned to the scriptural injunctions regarding the various means of realization such as sravana, manana

Shri Shri Vyasathirtha Swamigalu : a brief

Vyasatirtha [ from pages 132-133 of Dvaita Vedanta by Shri R.K Pramahamsa] General Vyasatirtha, Vyasaraya or Vyasaraja Svamin, as he is variously known, was born in 1478 and passed away in 1539. His birth name is Yatiraja. He was given the name of Vyasatirtha by his guru Brahmanyatirtha at the time of his ordination as a monk. The complete and reliable account of Vyasatirtha’s life and career is recorded in the biographical account of Somanatha, titled Vyasayogicarita. Vyasatirtha was almost the second Founder of the system of Madhva. In him, the secular and philosophical prestige of Madhva’s system reached its zenith of recognition. That the system is a living and flourishing faith in South India as a whole today, is due to the strength and labours he infused into it. His three works - the Nyayamrta, the Chandrika and the Tarkatandava are considered to uphold the philosophy of Madhvaism in the fields of logic and metaphysics, Nyaya, Mimamsa, Vyakarana and Vedanta. H

What we missed in our "education" trying to make up now!

How much I wish during  school period over 12 years, formal study and understanding of Upanishads in original Sanskrit with interpretations of Shankara, Ramanuja , Madhwa acharya  also got covered in addition to the routine education ! We all would have been able to debate more rationally rather than expressing strong opinions: less the knowledge , stronger the opinion. Recently heard excellent pravachanas of scholars (over one year ) through 32 works of Sri Madhwacharya which covers also the interpretations of earlier Acharyas. How vast and practically relevant to our life which we missed was the constant regret I had. This knowledge does influence our lives positively to make the best use of our precious time granted in any one life. Yes Sir, the jnana is the only Kama one should have and lead life as Sri Raman did. Saatwic avoiding greed anger, harsh utterances, jealousy and be kind and helpful to all living & non living. Further evolution automatically takes place d