Interesting article

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/india-china-biggest-talent-factories-but-dichotomy-in-workforces-stark/articleshow/19884769.cms?intenttarget=no

Of money and faith

Why does Faith need money?


I have yet to see a faith that does not ask for your money. When your spouse has sex with you does he/she ask for money? Asking for money in religion is prostituting it.Tithes, Daanam, whatever ! And we hear all sort of humbug, spirit of sacrifice, putting God first and who uses that money- a group of humans; what decides the fate or use of that money- humans again!
Granted some of it goes for charity, some of it even for private jets, and some for spreading the superstition of divine punishment.

Hear preachers confidently saying God wants you to do this or not do this as if they are his private secretary and you cannot but wonder how much of organized religion is a marriage of  convenience between  spiritualism the venal needs of the corporate! 

Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others. Left Brain Dominance: (9) Right Brain Dominance: (9) Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz

Consciousness and Matter

I have been introduced to Amit Goswami by Alka Rhode. The gist of what he postulates is that anything exists because it is observed, i.e. some one is conscious of it. Now how do we collectively then, become aware of anything? Each observer may or may experience or be conscious of an empirical commonly observed phenomenon to a different degree(how pink is pink?). To me this is stretching relativity, beyond a limit.

Almost like a "kulanashin" this concept seems to sound the death knell of all previous concepts. Oversimplistic and iconoclastic, it seems but a logical flaw in the postulate is hard to find as it means that communication is impossible.Now this very blog shows, that communication is possible, though perhaps imperfectly. So extending Mr Goswami's postulate, we each live in a Universe , the collective of which is a multiverse, that is constantly expanding with each new birth.

21/8/2010:Another conundrum is the concept that has been evolving in my head that consciousness could exist at the subatomic level. Entanglement seems to reinforce this, but we are none the wiser about how it works!

An energy matter continuum

What if there is an energy mass continuum? What if matter is merely a knot in this energy mass continuum that extends through space? Will this explain away the lensing experiments? If all the quanta indicative experiments are considered through this view then are our own observations so far are merely because we are also part of this energy continuum?
Let us look at the various particulate experiments and see if they can be explained as concentrated energy frozen at a point of time, at speeds that follow Newtonian mechanics.

Science

Some rather exciting things have been happening in our world today. An entire organism's DNA has been synthesized in a lab. It is planned to introduce this into a cell and see if the cell lives. Should be quite interesting to see what theists like myself will have to say to that.
I am certain that I will be in some degree of future shock , but will soon accept it into my worldview, though I do not know how this will change things.
Stem cell research, has also done some wonderful things, in helping us understand that nebulous substance that is called life, if substance it is indeed.

So who is he?

They took my son Kartik and still my heart is beating! My laughter still rings out heartlessly at a joke or a humorous situation, what is it that keeps me alive? Not once, but twice over with Dhananjay too and still I live!!! Who is this person who is so strong, though my heart feels so weak with worry??
Who is this fellow who assures me that God will look after them, and with such amused and clinical detachment , whilst I pop pills to still my worries? Who is he ? Why does he keep reminding me "Bash on regardless" why does he remind me of Kipling's "If" ;of the verses on the Gita that say"yield not to unmanliness"; who is he?
Why does he smile as I try to distract myself with a search for a reason to exist, why does he keep me from suicide? Why do I struggle to exist, when every organ in me is failing, who is he that urges me on? Is he my friend or foe? My benefactor or tyrant? My survival or my death?
He knows my every emotion, my every weakness , my every foible and yet why is he my companion? Who is this raconteur of my tale who spells it out , glories and shames alike?
Merciless, there is no love , no hate , just an existence, emotionless, devoid of the throes of feeling, yet he torments me with my failings and exults in my glories... Who is he?

Religion , Power and Sex

I have often wondered how much of religion is about power and sex. I am now convinced that most of it is. The anti abortion lobbies across all religions is about priests , largely male ,wanting to control women by controlling their right to reproduce, supported by a patriachal society where males wish to control women, because of their fears of losing their women to a younger more virile male. Simple as that, no more rubbish. Period. Amen.
Popes, Archbishops, Cardinals, Mullahs ,Imams, Pundits, Namboodiris all have been known to exploit women for sex, this is recorded history and I often wonder how women let themselves get cheated by religion , again and again and again!!!!
No bigger mind game ever existed in history, yet every religion has this barnyard of cows who tamely get brainwashed, and in a pathetic manner seek to enlarge the herd by serving as poster girls for the benefits of religion.
Even today, about 25 % of married priests in the Anglican Church indulge in extramarital affairs , by their own admission. I am sure that other religions would exceed this percentage by far.
When will we humans lose our fears and move on? Wasn't religion supposed to give us spiritual courage?Instead it seems to foment our fears so it can cheat money out of us, and then use that money for feeding on all that is good in Society and corrupting it with its foul dogmas and so-called miracles???!!!
Let us link our emotions to Reason and let its clear light guide us , as this is what really comes from God, not the nonsense some vicious fanatic feeds us. A truly godly person need not evangelise, you would follow him by being inspired by his example , not some fatuous speeches. Only if you can trust yourself to be able to discern this , can you consider yourself human, else you are part of the priests barnyard. Isn't it amazing how many priests try to catch you when you are at a psychological low, strip you of your self esteem with moral judgements purporting to come from God, so he or she may exercise POWER over you . How often have you heard them say "This is what God wants" as if they are constantly getting emails from God about you! Enough !!! Call an end to this madness and tell the priests where to get off. It is all about Power and Sex , not about God.

Of Men and Women

First let me apologise to anybody who did read my previous post for that intemperate and negative post. What I'd like to do now is to examine how the relationships between men and women have changed, not from the status point of view, where the move to equality is very laudable.
Let us look at the Quality of the relationships, from the point of view of adult-adult relationships from the Transactional Analysis point of view. In my opinion, where there was trust in the past now there is a greater degree of distrust. Men who succeed are suspicious of women as they do not know if the woman is marrying them, or the lifestyle that comes with their station in life. Women are suspicious of men dumping them for a trophy wife, very often after supporting a partner through either University or even the early part of their career.
With the result that we have a mish-mash of short term relationships, with neither men or women or the resultant offspring secure or happy in the relationships that exist. Okay , Okay I know that this is an oversimplification, but when one analyses the various experiences of our friends and acquaintances, and strip them of individual nuance, then this trend of underlying factors seem to emerge, or perhaps we shall say, be accepted as probable cause.
And another trend seems to emerge that we humans get more accepting of our partners "clay feet" with age/maturity..

Looking at the horizon

There is something that looking at the horizon does for me, it sort of gives me perspective- that sort of , hey you know, you are not the centre of the universe kind of stuff!!
Very useful when you want to deal with problem... gives me that , hey there's a whole new world that you dont know about , a place to go to, from the nasty here and now. A promise of hope. Guess that why I like Astronomy, so much, to know we can go somewhere, after we have infested the earth.
Wonder if cockroaches feel the same way!

questions and a conman

How much of the Faiths today are about about God ?

Why do religions have to pretend to know everything?

Why does everything have to relate to a book?

So much of rubbish about the word and the book, both are human inventions? I have never seen a word bring a dead amoeba to life, let alone a human?

Why do we pretend to be better than animals ? I believe that chimps might even be ashamed of us !!

Saw a preacher yesterday, he was in this 5 star hotel doing miracles in the name of a humble carpenter, who never saw such opulence in a much more meaningful life?!! He had a private jet, and says “the meek shall inherit the earth” failing to add “as for me, I shall have a private jet”!!

Never in my life did I see such an abuse of faith, had taken my video camera along thinking I will experience something worth capturing on my camera, but when I saw how the seating of the audience was being manipulated I knew there was nothing worth recording.

Have seen so many confidence tricksters, I knew what was to come, slick smorgasbord of timeless truths “manipulated to make a trap for fools” like me wasting their precious time watching this circus of Falsehood!

How we insult God everyday

Let me first state that I am a Theist. That is to say that I believe that there is a Creator. Beyond this I am open to suggestion, as that is all that I believe, till I know better .
Now let us go to the attributes that we as mankind have built around this Creator:
1) That It is Omnipotent
2) That It is the Truth
3) That It loves us
4) That It is Good
Let us even assume that all of the above is true and we will see how we abuse this concept of God every day. Why do we arrogate the right to introduce those amongst our brethren who have not bothered to think about these concepts to God? If God is omnipotent It will do so if It wishes, certainly does not need our help. We insult the Omnipotence of God when we preach.
Coming to the Truth part of it, why do we have to proclaim his truth , given that we assume that we are all equal, we are equally capable of recognising the Truth as the other, what makes us think we are special? We insult God when we implicitly state that he produces lesser beings than us so we have to proclaim this truth
Coming to the Love part of it , how come we wage so many holy wars when It has made all of us and loves all of us, why do we compete and fight for things instead of serenely being confident that he will provide us with all we want? We insult God again.
As for God being good, why do we preach that we should fear God? In some parts of the world , parents teach children to fear the policeman, this is as ludicruous as that. Another insult to our own concept of God

Guess who ?

Come my friends , and see if you can spot who is who in the pen pictures that follow:

1) A shy smile from peridot eyes and a blonde fringe set off this intelligent icon of faith
2) A teenage grin from humorous eyes and a gangly gait are the trade mark of this much travelled Janaab-E -Ali ( Man of the World)
3)An intense yet friendly smile beams out this charming Officer of God who runs a factory
4) A volcano of Intelligence, simmers out of this explosive Preceptor, with a peppy schoolgirl grin
5) The light house of humour , and simple direct wisdom mark this mathematician with a life philosophy that would make a sage green with envy
6) The most honest eyes , that mirror a practical mind and the humility and hardwork that are the hallmark of gentlemen
7) Fun and laughter are the trademarks of this irrepressible mother of 2 , along with courage and enterprise.

more to follow....

My 14 dollar Angel

My fourteen dollar Angel!

FOURTEEN dollars to meet an angel! That’s what I paid. The year was 2002- the southern summer of Auckland, and I was a lonely immigrant who moved to New Zealand in March that year.

The little enclave of units nestled off a busy street, yet was a space lost in a time warp of old –world comfort and charm, where folks had time for each other. The common spaces had little strips of lawn lining the concrete drive way, and of course they needed to be mown!

The gentle residents of this cross-lease, had an arrangement for this- a professional mower would mow the lawns and each one paid fourteen dollars in turn to him, said the little angel, and so now it is your turn!

Little then did I know that she was an angel, complete with twinkling blue eyes and a halo of white hair , Trudi permeated the air with mischief, more associated with elves than angels.

As I stayed on, this grand-maternal angel, introduced me to the other fine residents of the enclave, each charming in their own way, from the young Chinese students, to the young Samoan nurse, the Filipino couple, the attractive Fijian single parent to three boisterous boys and the retired Australian builder, the Kiwi couple and last but not the least crusty Charlie, the owner of the cat.

They live in the garden, angels do! Her garden was the best and mine very easily the worst, so this Austrian octogenarian, helped me and my soul by introducing to the gentle art of gardening.

Growing up in the concrete jungle that was Bombay, my spirits were the hard brassy kind, gardens meant flowers or weeds- either visual gratification or pesky weeds that needed removing, and since weeds too have flowers, I did not know which was which.

Naturally, I asked the owner of the best garden, Trudi, and she gave me kindly instruction as to what I needed to remove and what I needed to keep.

As we met another day when she invited me to tea, she told me stories of child hood which had me in splits of laughter and a span of four decades was bridged, instantly- after all laughter is the shortest distance between two people. As enlightenment dawned, I began to see the youth of this lovely person, who had moved to these magical bits of heaven that floated down to earth, to form the isles of New Zealand, just, when I was just a child.

Never did I hear an unkind word about any one, yet she gave me insights of her brave approach to life, as a child who grew up happily in Europe; emigrated from her war-torn continent, in her youth to England; her cheerful struggles with another language, a sojourn in sunny Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia and her stint as a house mistress in Dilworth’s a school for poor children in Auckland.

This friendship deepened during the visit of my beloved mother from India, in the third year of my move to New Zealand, who was another of this kindred of brave women, who face life calmly and gracefully. They hit it off instantly, and Trudi came to visit daily. In one of this visits, she took ill, and I received a call in my office from my panic-stricken mother-who did not know what was to be done. A quick call to the efficient 111 Emergency services saved us from losing her and happily I still have my fourteen dollar angel, Gertrude Bernt!

Is it so difficult?

Is it so difficult to understand that knowledge’s strength is that it is not linked to the egos of a specific group of humans?
Is it so difficult to understand that a large population exposes alleles that are poorly equipped to survive?
Is it so difficult to understand that the walls we build to divide us, of language, culture, religions, enslave us instead of protecting us?
Is it so difficult to understand that even after resolving the mystery of the Human Genome, we are one species?
Is it so difficult to understand that all we have done is reshaped God’s materials and created nothing?
Is it so difficult to understand that God’s relationship with us is that of the creator and the created?
Is it so difficult to understand that the most important part of language is imagination?
Is it so difficult to understand that every culture is shaped by the earthbound circumstances in which that culture flourished?
Is it so difficult to understand that every religion is an attempt to explain what God feels and wants from us from one mans’ point of view- be it son , avatar, or prophet of God?
Is it so difficult to understand that it is only when we know compassion that we are human?
Is it so difficult that we on earth are not the only life that the creator has made, how incredibly arrogant it is not even to envisage that?
Is it so difficult to understand that nature itself is a miracle, what further miracle do we need from God?
Is it so difficult to understand that the only reason we have 2 sexes in nature is only to churn genes as part of evolution?

Jesus , the facts

This is a story about a middle eastern son of a carpenter who started preaching and faith healing at the age of thirty, for three years of his life. He had twelve disciples representing the twelve tribes of Israel, all of whom betrayed him in his hour of need and was crucified at the age of 33 by the Jewish establishment of the time.

His mother claimed that his birth was parthenogenic. He was born most probably when the planet Jupiter was in the constellation of Aries and could be seen to stop over Bethlehem when viewed from the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, on April 17^th 2006 years ago.

As per all reports he preached that one had to love God with all ones’ heart and love ones’ neighbour as oneself , as his main doctrine, amongst other various utterances were those favouring monogamy and the permanent nature of the marriage bond. He was reported on in the books written by one Matthew and one Mark who lived around that time.

A little while later, other authors called Luke and Paul wrote about him, mostly Paul based on revelations purported to have been received on the road to Damascus from Jerusalem. Since Paul had a lot to lose and little to gain in claiming these revelations, it can be safely assumed that these were his firm beliefs.

However all of these authors knew little of his personal life, and though they recorded various anecdotes in his life seem to have recorded little of his opinions on life in general, or his philosophic principles, possibly because they wished to remain factual and objective in their reporting, or possibly because they just did not know him well enough.

As a result, what can be deduced about his philosophy is only based on anecdotes, which practically makes any sort of interpretation justifiable. Another author called John reported seeing Jesus in a dream in which he spoke metaphorically, about the future of mankind and the earth, foreboding doom to those who did not believe in him. The exact nature of this doom, in the context of physical life as we know is not clear, nor is the paradise, delineated as a Kingdom belonging to himself/his father/ a spiritual entity. The nature of this belonging in the unspecified absence or presence of other claimants to this kingdom is also unclear.

Most of his worldview seemed to be based on the beliefs of the Jewish gene pool into which he was born and he did not make any corrections to the existing beliefs then that the Sun revolved around the earth or that of genesis versus evolution, though those who believe in Him as a Saviour, claim that he would have known differently.

As can be deduced from reports about him he appeared to place a high premium on belief and trust and little premium on scientific knowledge or logic though there were established schools of logical thought before him. Little is known or referred to about his education, whether he was literate beyond the needs of his life as a carpenter.

The matter of his remains after his death on the cross also is shrouded in controversy, with believers claiming that he rose after his death and ascended to the sky, in which direction they believe Heaven, a state of bliss, exists. It appears that this process happened over a period of several days during which several people claimed to have seen and spoken him.

A detached observer however, cannot discount the possibility that the group of his followers, all of whom did not rise to his defence, saw an absolution of sorts in claiming his appearance before them, in order to assuage feelings of guilt and peer pressure, especially when the most doubtful of the lot, one Thomas, was reported to have even felt a wound inflicted by a Roman spear.

The religious group that he inspired, however, though in myriad splinters now, has contributed tremendously to charity as a result of his message of Love, and has served the cause of education and knowledge to a remarkable extent. They have done so selflessly for the most part and work toward developing their social model tirelessly in a manner that is unparalleled amongst all other religions.

It has in the process accumulated enormous wealth, because of the practice of tithing wherein every convert must give 10 percent of his income to the organisation, the Church, that propagates the faith. It is interesting to note that this Church was never recommended by its inspiration and the founders were amongst those who betrayed its inspiration.

Just my worldview

Have often thought about various things and felt like sharing them with those that know me and those that don't , so that I could see if I have struck a resonant chord with the thoughts of others. Since this is the most common way human beings have determined an experience to be the truth, that is to say , if everybody has had the same experience, in a circumstance, then it likely that this is a scientific fact. Hence the name truthscan.
My apologies if that sounds bombastic, which I am afraid it does , but this is the simple logic behind the title.Not sure, however , if this touchstone of empirical observation, applies to thoughts as similar thoughts may not guarantee that these thoughts are indeed fact, even reflect facts.
For example, in the past,every one believed that the Sun rotated round the earth and not vice versa and that even seemed apparent, but history and science have revealed that to be untrue.
Nevertheless, most of our thoughts arise as a reflection of experience, and sometimes sharing of the same actually leads to learning which is what I am all about. So, everybody, come to this weblog, with a view to express , listen and perhaps even learn!
Feel free to criticise , try not to abuse , and just join the fun!
Rakesh Krishnan