Category: Religion

  • FAQs

    A couple of weeks back, Sunday Times had a poll, conducted among 1000+ people across India on their beliefs about God, religion, after-life, ghosts and various other things that we think about, on starlit nights…
    I’ve just about finished Book Five of the Ramayana Series, and coincidentally also came across this article, which also raised a few questions on mythology and God…Imagine all the characters that we are so familiar with – Rama, Ravana, Krishna.. were they just characters of imagination or did they actually exist, a long, long time ago, and over a period of time the story of their lives got embellished to such an extent that they became gods and demigods… the amazing similarity between the different myths from civilisations around theworld also point to their actual existence… the remains of Dwaraka, the remains at Mohenjodaro resembling a nuclear holocaust, the drawings of Pushpak – the celestial flying machine, now believed to have been powered by a mercury based fuel, all add to this…
    And thus adds on another set of questions to our FAQs – are our myths based on actual facts, or were they made by the creators of God? the almost eternal question of whether god created man or man created god? but i also believe that it might be just a matter of time before we find the answers.. after all, its only been a few thousand years since we have been around and we had lives before and after the discovery of fire, metals, and even civilisations, and we have managed to find the answer to some questions, and hopefully will learn to tap the resources beyond our five senses sometime in the future…of course, for us, these still remain faqs with several possible answers..

    until next time, if only He had user support…

  • Memories

    …of the relatively ignorant bliss of childhood… of the roller coaster ride of adolescence, the exhilrating times of youth… so far.. and perhaps as we grow older, the realisation of middle age, and the inevitability of old age… by the time we reach the twilight of ourlives, perhaps these memories become one of the pillars of our lives…
    something that we never work towards, and assume that our minds would automatically record and catalog it – by person, by time, by taste, smell and hordes of other things that cant be described..
    I saw a malayalam movie recently, a movie i was looking forward to seeing, featuring my fave actor and directed by a one movie old director, who had set an extremely high benchmark with his debut movie.. and thankfully, it delivered, and how!! it reinstored my faith in actor whose performance screamed out that all he needed were good scripts and he would do the rest.
    that was a necessary digression, because even the trigger for a post has to be acknowledged, specially one as deserving as this movie…the story of a man who, while having never accomplished his dream, retains his faith in his intellectual abilities, and hopes that he can live his dream through his son. a man who has to balance his duty towards his father with that towards his son.. and while he focuses all his energies on all these happenings in his life, gets struck with alzheimers…. i cant remember a malayalam movie in years which can come remotely close to this one .. and no, thats not because of any ailment, its because there hasnt been a movie like this in years…:)
    its a movie that made me think.. day after day after day, we go around focusing ourselves on the short term and long term things we aspire to do.. some get a joy out of a night with friends, some get it with the knowledge that their investments are safe and sound, some get a joy out of having achieved something..but all of us get a joy out of remembering the good times we have had in our lives… what if we cant remember those.. in His infinite wisdom, perhaps he has answered this too, for if we dont know that we cant remember, theres no pain… we will live small lives, with joys and sorrows we would never remember later…
    until next time, remember to drop in again 🙂

  • Evolution and the Theory of God

    have finished reading a book called ‘Tomorrow’s God’, which got me to relook at my spirituality, thereby adding some twists to my earlier posts on the issue…
    though i wtote of a system, i had God in it. this book eliminated God as we know him (to be fair, the book warns of this at the outset)… it spoke of a system, of which everything is a part and evolution happened because random objects/organisms moved to a higher state of frequency randomly.(this might help)..the book vehemently opposes the present version of God, because it believes that things become far too easy when we can blame it on a God over whom we have no control, our actions,our behaviour etc can be easily attributed to the way God made us… actually, we are all messiahs of ourselves with our own selfish agenda.
    the book advocates a system, with every part of the system being responsible for whatever happens in the system…that is, all that occurs in the system is our responsibility, collectively and directly proportionate to our actions…it means that whenever we do something, anything, we should also think of the effects that action/inaction will have, not just on ourselves, but everything else in the system…good thought, huh??
    but, meanwhile, i also get reminded of mel gibson’s words from ‘signs’…something that meant “there are two kinds of people in this world… group 1 – who believe that nothing happens by chance.. in times of crisis, deep inside them, they believe that someone is watching over them, that gives them hope… and group 2- who believe that everything is a random occurence.. in times of crisis, deep inside, they know, they are all they’ve got, that fills them with fear…
    until next time, have faith in your god…

  • I, Robot?

    saw the movie last weekend and immediately decided to revisit a certain mr.asimov…. once upon a time i was an asimov freak, more into the foundation series than the times and therefore works before the foundation..so “i, Robot” was just one of the books i read because it so happened that it was written by asimov and i couldnt find any good ‘foundation’ book in the library… ah, those were good times, times i spent in cochin, rainy days spent reading books and listening to music.. but thats another post..:)
    without revealing the plot and suspense, asimov discusses a future with robots able to do a whole lot of stuff humans did and even further, when “random bits of code got together” and developed emotions in robots, to the level where they decide to protect us from ourselves by making us, their creators, virtual prisoners…
    so i ask myself, am i my creator’s robot, who has developed feelings and emotions over time….
    because i am but a mass of flesh and bones much like the metal that constitutes a robot’s body..when my creator says deactivate, i die, much like the robot which responds to the human ‘deactivate’ command…
    have i evolved to this state because of random bits of code, in my case, genetic matter, which got together, over centuries to become what i am now…millions of centuries from cell to plant to animal to a thinking, feeling human who can record his history and develop a feeling that there is someone who made him, and then debate that belief.. one who can stare at the night sky and wonder about his existence….
    will my future generations discover god , physically, and further on decide to protect him from himself and also decide to write their own future, make their own set of robots who will ultimately do to them what they did to their creator? will i see it happen, from somewhere?
    maybe, but what you can definitely see now is
    manuscrypts trivia
    a good forward
    Marriage
    after the wedding, the groom lays down the following rules:
    “I’ll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want-and I don’t expect any hassle from you. I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won’t be home for dinner. I’ll go hunting, fishing, boozing and card-playing when I want with my old buddies and don’t you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules. Any comments?”
    His new bride said, “No, that’s fine with me. Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o’clock every night…whether you’re here or not.”
    Marriage (Part II)
    Husband and wife had a bitter quarrel on the day of their 40th wedding anniversary!
    The husband yells, “When you die, I’m getting you a headstone that reads,’Here Lies My Wife – Cold As Ever.’
    “Yeah?” she replies. “When you die, I’m getting you a headstone that reads,”Here Lies My Husband Stiff At Last.’”

  • One on One with the One – Part Deux

    the sequel to the hugely popular (huh?) post “One on One with the One – Part One” 😉

    M: lots of people have been questioning on similar lines, but havent found answers yet
    G: some of the smarter guys in your species, aristotle , einstein etc have said that if the right question is asked, the answer can be found
    M: why didnt they ask the right ones then?
    G: oh well, maybe that wasnt the purpose of their existence…
    M: is that the Truth then? finding a purpose for your existence and then doing it ? actually Wilde has said “Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived.
    G: ah Oscar, he was a smart one..hehe… reminds me, he has also said that “When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.”
    M: is that a truth too?
    G: hmmm, let me put it this way, there was a time when prayers were made only when you guys reached the limits of endurance,
    these days you actually think its my job to live your life…
    M: you put us here, so….
    G: when you drive a car, do you use the handbrake for emegency or always?
    M: okay, i think i get your point, and yeah, i still dont have a car, thank YOU
    G: here we go again, once in a while look around you
    M: i do, and believe me, lots of people have cars.
    G: grr, what about the people who cant even buy a bicycle?
    M: yeah, but they were born that way
    G: oh, and i suppose you had a hand in being born the way you are? lemme share some facts with you
    – If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep .. you are richer than 75% of this world.
    – If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace .. you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.
    – If you woke up this morning with more health than illness … you are more luckier than the million who will not survive this week.
    – If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation .. you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
    – If you can practise your religion without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death ..you are luckier than three billion people in the world.
    – If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful ..you are lucky because the majority can, but most do not.
    – and you can read this, you are luckier than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
    G: i should say “count your blessings and thank the lord” , but then you’ll start saying that i have an ego.
    M: but whats behind selective answering of prayers?
    G: well, sometimes the answer is ‘no’.
    M: but what do you get by making people suffer?
    G: you create the problems, i dont …….
    M: like i said, rather, like you said, i dont chose where/how i am born..
    G: what about the opportunities you are given?
    M: you are saying that i have a choice..
    G: yes, and all that happens is by your choice, there might be strings attached to all the choices, but you choose..Trust me. Life is wonderful if you know how to live….smell the flowers, love, be loved, be kind, be fair.. be human, in the way i wanted you to be…
    and now in
    manuscrypts trivia
    try this site, its a color- personality test, think its good…
    got this as a fwd
    NIIT : Not Interested in IT
    WIPRO : Weak Input, Poor & Rubbish Output
    HCL : Hidden Costs & Losses
    TCS : Totally Confusing Solutions
    INFOSYS :Inferior Offline Systems
    HUGHES : Highly Useless Graduates Hired for Eating and Sleeping
    IBM : Implicitly Boring Machines
    SATYAM : Sad And Tired Yelling Away Madly
    C-DOT : Coffee During Office Timings
    CMC : Coffee, Meals and Comfort
    TISL : Totally Inconsistent Systems Ltd.
    TNT : Till Next Time…….. keep the faith 🙂

    P.S..readers are requested to use ‘post scrypts’ and not ‘comments’.. thank ye!!