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Saturday, March 16, 2024

Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus: Is the future a utopia or dystopia?

Is Yuval Noah Harari an ideologue and futurist, or is he a charlatan and a dreamer? The line that separates an ideologue from a charlatan, and a futurist from a dreamer is really thin, and it is probable that Harari has traits of all four. He is an ideologue, a futurist, a charlatan and a dreamer. 

Harari’s book Homo Deus deals with philosophical issues like humanism, individualism, transhumanism, mortality, nature of consciousness and intelligence, and the future of mankind. ’Homo’ means man, Deus means ‘God.’ One of the issues that the book examines is modern man’s quest to transcend the fear of death, and be an immortal like the Gods. 

According to Hariri, these transhumans—the Gods of the future—will not be anything like the omnipotent and omniscient deity of Abrahamic religions. The modern immortals, if they come into being, are likely to resemble the Hindu God Indra and the Greek God Zeus. They will have the power to do good and unleash destruction on an epic scale.

The history of the 21st century might not be underlined by wars, revolutions and the fight against famines and disease—war is obsolete, famine is rare and disease is on the retreat, says Hariri. He foresees the history of the 21st century being underlined by the desperate desire of the elites to become immortal. He cites some Silicon Valley tycoons who believe that they could be the first of human immortals. These tycoons often brag that they don’t intend to die ever. 

Harari takes note of the social, economic and political imbalances that must occur if a tiny elite section of society finds ways of extending their life to 200 or more years. If those who control the levers of political and economic power do not retire or die for 200 or more years, then how will political and economic transformation happen? Won’t civilization stagnate and decay?  

Another important issue that Harari examines is the connection between intelligence and consciousness. In the 21st century, mankind is engaged in building artificial systems (AI) which are intelligent but not conscious. The AI is capable of managing complex data but, as of now, it is incapable of doing things like falling in love, having political ambitions. 

Harari rejects the idea that humans are made by divine intervention; he sees humans as a form of artificial intelligence, or data-processing machines, created by fluke accidents in the natural processes of evolution. But we have consciousness, we have the capacity to fall in love, we have political ambitions and we have the will to choose whether we want to be good or destructive. 

What if the man-made AI manages to develop these human traits? What happens to the world if AI becomes conscious? How will this AI treat humans? Hariri says that to find the answer to this question we have to look at how humans treat other creatures. He believes that the progress of science and technology might lead to the decoupling of intelligence and consciousness. 

Homo Deus is an interesting book. Hariri writes with the flourish of a pulp fiction writer. But the content of his book is deflating and depressing. His materialist conception of a future world owned and run by machines is nihilistic and inhumane. Humans like us would be obsolete in this future world. If they continue to exist in this future world, they would live like the animals live today—we would be at the mercy of the machines. 

Political and economic power would be in the hands of intelligent machines and a tiny band of human elites who control the resources to upgrade themselves through the use of technology. In this future world, a tyrannical government won’t be necessary to suppress the masses and maintain order—people would be transformed through manipulation of data. 

“The individual will not be crushed by Big Brother; it will disintegrate from within,” Hariri writes. Ultimate form of collectivism would be the reality of the world where intelligence has been severed from emotions and consciousness. Will this future world be a dystopia or a utopia? Hariri does not take a clear stand. He is groping in the dark, at times sounding optimistic, at times pessimistic. His future world is dominated by powerful entities (AI or AI-powered humans) as different from us as we are from the neanderthals. 

I believe that the single biggest truth of history is that the intellectual and political elites always fail to predict the future. I believe that this will hold true in Hariri’s case as well. His predictions on the power of AI and the end of humanism will fail to materialize.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Existentialism: The quest for perfection that led to nihilism and perdition

Sarah Bakewell’s book At The Existentialist Café covers the history of existentialism in the 20th century. Set in post-Second World War France, the book presents Jean Paul Sartre as the monarch of existentialism and Simone De Beauvoir as his queen. 

The book begins with an introduction of the philosophical thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Kafka. These philosophers, according to Sartre and other major philosophers in his circle, were the early existentialists.

Full of confidence in the superiority of their own knowledge, mental capacity and intellectual authority, these existentialist philosophers devoted themselves to finding the ultimate answers to the fundamental questions of philosophy: How should we live? How can we be free? How can we be happy? What is the universal system of morality?

The existentialists were motivated by one ideal—to discover a theory to describe what humans are and how they should live. They wanted to develop an existentialist system that would delineate the political and cultural structure of a perfect society, where all, or majority of human beings (the chosen ones), could be equal and live without strife. 

Other than Sartre and De Beauvoir, the book offers good insights into the lives and philosophies of Heidegger, Husserl, Camus, Karl Jaspers, Merleau-Ponty and other European philosophers who were dominating the existentialist philosophical movement in that period. Bakewell’s book is critical of existentialism but is sympathetic to the philosophical quest of the 20th century existentialists.

But existentialism was plagued with a fatal agenda, which was to contrive a union between French nihilism and traditions. The monarch and queen of existentialism—Sartre and Beauvoir—were nihilists in their personal life. They were good in literature and in philosophical argumentation but they were incapable of conceiving a better society. 

There were flaws in other existentialists—for instance, Heidegger was in bed with Nazis. 

Ultimately nihilism won. Instead of building a perfect philosophical system, the existentialists found themselves trapped in an immoral, corrupt and crooked world. Instead of reforming European nihilism, the existentialists worsened the cultural situation.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

The futility of philosophy

A wise philosopher would know that the human mind is not designed to discover the ultimate answers to the fundamental philosophical questions concerning human life, existence and the character of the universe. 

But he carries on tirelessly with the quest for answers. To him the answers are not critical—the striving for answers is. He wants to change the world not through his answers (he doesn’t have the right answers), but by tirelessly, albeit futilely, proposing philosophical arguments and theories to explain what is certainly inexplicable. 

There is not one philosopher in the avenues of history whose ideas have not been attacked and refuted by contemporaries and successors. Every philosopher of the past was wrong. The future philosophers are also doomed to be wrong.

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Philosophies and political movements

Philosophical ideas do not travel through history on their own. They travel through the medium of political movements. How influential a philosophy becomes depends on the strength, determination and popularity of the movement that carries it. 

Karl Marx’s ideas took the world by a storm in the late 19th and the 20th centuries, and continue to dominate the politics of all nations till this day, because the Marxist ideas were being carried by powerful political movements led by charismatic and ruthless leaders. 

If a philosophy is unable to find a powerful political movement to propagate and carry it through society and history, it starts to fade and is quickly forgotten.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Karl Sigmund’s ‘Exact Thinking in Demented Times’

I am reading Karl Sigmund’s Exact Thinking in Demented Times

The book narrates the story of the Vienna Circle that was spearheading logical positivism, during the 1930s, in the backdrop of Nazism in Germany, Bolshevism in the Soviet Union and Neo-colonialism in Britain. The philosophers of the Vienna Circle believed that exact philosophical and scientific thinking is possible to human beings. They believed that they were on the verge of discovering the “ultimate metaphysical truth,” through which they would be able to explain every philosophical and scientific truth known to mankind. Wittgenstein was initially an important philosopher for the logical positivists, but his work, the logical positivists soon realized, was useless.

As they continued their deliberations, the Vienna Circle found itself descending deeper and deeper into a philosophical rabbit hole from which it could not extricate itself. The quest for ultimate metaphysical truth petered out by the time the Second World War ended. Having failed to find the ultimate metaphysical truth, Vienna Circle broke apart.

What do the liberals fear? What do the liberals like?

Liberals fear two things—first, the influence of the religious and cultural elites; second, a popular uprising which might empower the poor and middle classes. 

The sections of society with which the liberals are very comfortable are the intellectuals, the oligarchs and the Deep State. The intellectuals are primarily the leaders of the big universities, mainstream media companies, entertainment and sports industry, the artistic establishment and the progressive think tanks. The top bankers, industrialists and tycoons are the oligarchs. The Deep State consists of the bureaucracy, judiciary and the military establishment.

When the liberals capture power, they focus on denigrating and weakening the religious and cultural elites. They indoctrinate, brainwash and divide the poor and the middle classes to make it impossible for them to unite to fight for their political and economic rights. The liberals also take steps to increase the power and wealth of the intellectuals, oligarchs and the Deep State.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Conservatives versus leftists: Why does leftism have the upper hand?

The idea that the conservatives will save the world from Marxism, socialism, communism, nihilism and religious fundamentalism is wholly ignorant and naive. The principle of conservatism is to conserve the traditions. If the tradition is Marxist, socialist, communist, nihilist and religious fundamentalist, then that is what the conservatives will conserve. 

The conservatives cannot protect culture because they lack ideas and vision to differentiate between culture and counterculture. All conservative movements are plagued with intense divisions about which traditions they should conserve: Should they conserve the traditions of 2000 years ago or the traditions that existed 500 or 100 or 20 years ago? 

In most democratic nations, the conservative leaders are easily tricked by the leftist intellectuals into accepting the elements of counterculture as their traditions which must be saved. In any political battle between leftism and conservatism, the left will always win in the long run because the conservatives will end up fighting to save counterculture.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

History: The mythologies and philosophies of civilizational decline and fall

We examine the history of past civilizations through the stories of decline and fall. 

When civilization is being built, the society is led by men of action—warriors, engineers, explorers, slavers, expansionist politicians, traders, and preachers of mythology and religion. There are hardly any men of ideas or intellectuals—philosophers, writers, historians, academics—in a rising civilization to imagine and propagate history. 

It is when things start falling apart, when there is irreversible economic, cultural and political collapse, that the class of intellectuals comes into being and they start philosophizing, fictionalizing and mythologizing the history of civilization and its people. The intellectuals are not the fountainhead of civilizations; they are the climax. 

After the intellectuals have done their work, civilization gets wiped out: The collective memory fades, traditions are lost and the survivors of the civilizational collapse flee in different directions to find a new identity and home.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Democracies: Battleground of nationalists & counter-nationalists

Every Democratic nation is a battleground of two irreconcilable forces: the nationalists and the counter-nationalists. 

The nationalists fight for the cultural, financial and political aspirations of the majority community and the counter-nationalist force represents the anger, alienation and destructive aspirations of the politically active minority groups. In most democracies the nationalists enjoy mass support but the intellectual classes, being alienated by the political and cultural power of the nationalists, tend to gravitate towards the counter-nationalist side. Such intellectuals try to develop theories and arguments which denigrate the nationalist project while glorifying the counter-nationalists. 

When there is a balance of power between the nationalists and the counter-nationalists, there is peace and stability. But if the intellectuals are successful in refuting and discrediting the mythologies and legends, which inspire the nationalist groups to be politically and culturally dominant in the nation, then the balance of power shifts, resulting in political instability and there is civil war or full-fledged war.

Saturday, February 10, 2024

On Shlomo Sand’s history book: The Invention of the Jewish People

I am inspired by the books of Leon Uris, especially his book Exodus, which describes the founding of the nation of Israel. But I have always known that Exodus is not a book of history—it is full of falsehoods and is a work of fiction. 

In this book Uris has contrived a fictional account of the founding of Israel against the backdrop of his imagined-history of the Jewish people in the last 2500 years. The book is very entertaining, very inspiring, very nationalistic, but as I said earlier, it is a work of fiction—the historical and contemporary events that Uris describes in his book never happened. 

History is a controversial subject. Even the works of reputed academic historians suffer from ideological, religious, ethnic and political biases. To gain knowledge about any historical event, you cannot afford to rely on a single book. You have to examine several books by writers of different backgrounds and then apply your own judgement.

For those who are interested in the history of Israel and the Jewish people, Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People, is a must read. Sand is a Professor of History at Tel Aviv University and he is not free of ideological biases. He is a radical leftist and he argues against nationalism like a typical Marxist intellectual. 

But the arguments and historical evidence that he presents are convincing, and probably correct. 

In his book, Shlomo Sand attacks the core idea that forms the fundamental basis for the idea of Jewish Israel. This core idea is that more than 2000 years ago, the Jewish people were driven out of the area, where modern Israel exists today, by Roman emperors. This forcible exile gave rise to the Jewish diaspora in Europe and North Asia. 

Sand rightly argues in this book that there is no historical record of the Roman Emperors forcibly driving out the Jews. He argues that this exile never happened and that the Jewish population in Europe and North Asia are not the descendants of refugees from the Middle East. They are the products of religious conversion. 

He argues that Judaism was the world’s first monotheistic religion that tried to convert people of other religions to its own faith. The ancient Jewish preachers went to Europe and parts of Asia and converted large parts of the population to Judaism. According to Sand, the millions of Jews around the Mediterranean and elsewhere are the products of religious conversion of locals. 

He argues that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith, and that the ancestry of most Jews can be traced to Europe and Asia, and not Israel or Palestine. 

Sand’s book is a convincing attack on not just Jewish nationalism but every other kind of nationalism. The arguments and historical evidence that he uses to refute the idea of Jewish nationalism can easily be deployed to weaken and destroy American, British, French, German, Arab, Chinese, Hindu (Indian) and other nationalisms. 

The biggest threat to Israel, I believe, is not from groups like Hamas or PLO. It is from brilliant Marxist historians like Shlomo Sand who possess the historical evidence and arguments to refute the “nationalistic mythology and falsehoods” that serve as the foundation on which Israel’s national identity has stood since the 1940s.

Sunday, February 4, 2024

History of Sanatana Dharma & the Hegelian End of History

The history of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) is a history of maya. It is the history of Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas. It is the history of myths, metaphors and metonymies. It is the history of real events which are inseparable from the maya or matrix. 

It is the history of Yugas, Manvantaras and Kalpas which represent overwhelmingly large time spans. A kalpa is a day in the life of Brahma, but it represents the entire period of the endurance of the solar system. A kalpa is equal to 12,000 years of the devas, or 4,320,000,000 earth-years. The day of Brahma is also divided into fourteen manvantaras and 1000 yuga-cycles. 

This history does not move linearly. It operates in a quantum world, where things are in flux and the major events defy definition in terms of geography and time. It is hard to comprehend the correlation between cause and effect in this history.  

Hegel could philosophize about the End of History because his focus was only Western history, which has been interpreted by the Western historians in such a way that it appears to move linearly, while following the principles of cause and effect. But what happens to the West after the Hegelian End of History? It is not clear. 

The question of what happens after the End of History cannot arise in context of Sanatana Dharma, where history is not linear; where history is driven by myths, metaphors and metonymies; where Yugas, Manvantaras and Kalpas represent the timescale of history. In Sanatana Dharma, there is no beginning, no middle and no end to history.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Excerpts from Anand Ranganathan’s essay, “Injustice Towards Kashmiri Hindus”

“Truth be told, Kashmir has turned into a snake-and-ladder game. The ladders are provided by Pakistan and the snakes by Indians. I say Indians but I wonder if these people think of themselves as Indians. Their first allegiance is to religion, second to Pakistan, third to China and fourth to dynasty. 

"It is a fact that Hyderabad could so easily have been what Kashmir is today—and fools in the media would be writing column yards on its ‘Struggle’—but for one man—Sardar Patel. And Kashmir could so easily have been what Hyderabad is today but for two men—Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah.” 

"Kashmiri Hindus are the Jews, but unfortunately, India is not Israel. They call Kashmir the Switzerland of the East. Wrong. It is the Srebrenica of the East. And it will remain so till such time every Kashmiri Hindu is returned home."

~ Anand Ranganathan in Hindus in Hindu Rashtra: Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of state-sanctioned apartheid (Chapter: “Injustice Towards Kashmiri Hindus”)

Saturday, January 27, 2024

The hollow claims of secularism, multiculturalism, diversity

Secularism, multiculturalism, diversity—these lofty sounding but naive ideals were conceived by Europeans who lived in nations dominated by ‘One Race, One Religion, One Political System’. These Europeans had no experience of how difficult life can be in nations which are multi-religious, multicultural and diverse. 

Until the middle of the 20th century, it was primarily the Europeans who were fleeing from their own homeland in millions to settle in other parts of the world. But after the 1990s a reverse trend started—people from the Middle East, Africa, South America and other parts of the world started moving into Western Europe. These migrants took with them their ideas of supremacy of their own religion, culture and political system.  

If this wave of migrants continues to pour into Western Europe for a couple of decades, then the caucasians will become a minority in several parts of their original homeland, and the continent will become a battleground of cultures and religions. Then the Europeans will realize that secularism, multiculturalism and diversity are not humane ideals; they are the fountainhead of dysfunctional, poor, brutal and uncultured societies. 

In diverse societies, political struggle and civil wars between religious and ethnic groups is unending and intense. 

In the last 500 years, maximum economic, cultural and scientific progress has always happened in nations which were not secular, not multicultural, not diverse and were dominated by one powerful religion and culture. Examples: Britain between the 16th and 19th centuries, the USA in the 19th and 20th centuries, Japan in the 20th century, South Korea in the 20th century, and China in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Sanatana Dharma: The Importance of Economic Gods and Goddesses

Economic success has weakened the appeal of the Gods in the Western countries and has led to the social problems of atheism, alienation and nihilism, and political problems of communism and fascism. One of the causes for this is that the monotheistic religions do not have access to Gods who will appreciate and spiritually reward economic pursuits. 

Sanatana Dharma has never been wholly spiritual as the monotheistic religions (of the West and the Middle East) tend to be. Materialistic or economic pursuits have always been an essential part of the Sanatana way of life. The ancient Vedic thinkers found a way of ensuring that economic and worldly success would not drive the Gods and religion out of society—and this way consisted of a pantheon of Economic Gods and Goddesses who appreciate and reward worldly success. 

Lord Ganesha, Goddess Saraswati, Goddess Lakshmi, and other Gods and Goddesses, including Demigods like Lord Kubera, are there to bless and guide those who wish to achieve success in economic affairs. The wealthy and powerful have as much chance of attaining swargaloka (heaven) in Sanatana Dharma as the poor and feeble.

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Civilizations on rise versus civilizations in phase of decay and decline

When a civilization is on the rise, it excels in engineering, infrastructure projects, global trade, warfare and conquests, and religious and collectivist movements. 

When a civilization is dying, it excels in intellectualism and philosophy, music and arts, atheism and individualism, environmentalism and hopeless quest for world peace. 

The civilizations on the rise are led by wise, religious, ruthless and ambitious characters; the civilizations about to die are led by effete, vacillating, atheistic and weak characters. 

The dictum—All’s well that ends well—does not apply to civilizations. History tells us that the story of every civilization ends badly, very badly, with decline and death.

Sunday, January 7, 2024

The Parallels between the Hindus and Zoroastrians of the Middle Ages & Americans and West Europeans of Modern Age

The Americans and the West Europeans are making the same civilizational mistakes today that the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent and the Zoroastrians of the Middle East made in the Middle Ages. 

The Hindus and the Zoroastrians of the Middle Ages became complacent about their Gods and their religious theology. They developed contempt for their traditions of warfare and started believing that they could protect their civilization from their enemies by making compromises and offering philosophical arguments. They allowed their youth to become woke and weak. As a result, the Zoroastrians were almost completely finished (in Persia and other parts of the Middle East), and the Hindus lost a significant part of their territory and culture. 

Wokism is not a Western philosophy—this philosophy originated in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East through Hindu and Zoroastrian thinkers. The Hindus and Zoroastrians became woke more than 2000 years ago before the modern West was born. There is a lot that the Americans and West Europeans can learn from the history of the Hindus and the Zoroastrians.

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Rama temple in Ayodhya: History, hopes and imagination

History moves in one direction, hopes and imagination in another. The future, however, is directionless. Neither history, nor hopes and imagination will give you a clue about what the future has in store.

Who could have predicted ten years ago, when the Congress government, led by leaders alienated from traditional Hinduism, was in power, that a massive temple would be built at Lord Rama’s birthplace in Ayodhya? But the temple has been built, it is attracting thousands of pilgrims daily and is set to be formally inaugurated on January 22. 

Perhaps the Rama temple in Ayodhya will prove to be a landmark cultural event, one that will move India’s future history in a new direction.

Monday, January 1, 2024

10 interesting books I read in 2023

Among the books that I read in 2023, these 10 standout:

The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition
by Narendra Singh Sarila  

Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy
by Costin Alamariu 

Hindus in Hindu Rashtra (Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State- Sanctioned Apartheid)
by Anand Ranganathan

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service
by Michael Bar-Zohar, Nissim Mishal 

The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process
by Robert Spencer

Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East
by Warren Dockter 

Adi Deo Arya Devata: A Panoramic View of Tribal-Hindu Cultural Interface
by Sandhya Jain

The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy 
by David Graeber

The Peripheral
by William Gibson

Conspirators' Hierarchy: Story of the Committee of 300
by Joan Coleman

I don’t agree with everything said in these books, it is just that I found them thought provoking.

Sunday, December 31, 2023

On Reforming the Hindu Personal Law

You can’t prosper and you can’t protect your life, your property and your society if you don’t know what your Dharma (religion, culture and history) is. 

The Hindu personal law is in need of reform. A major part of what is known as the Hindu personal law is not based on Hindu Dharma or the ancient Hindu texts—it is influenced by the British (Colonial) perception of Hindu theology, philosophy and society. 

In the last fifty years, Hindu personal law has moved further away from Dharma because of the influence of Western ideas. 

Instead of bringing people close to Dharma and strengthening the country, the Hindu personal law is enfeebling the country by driving people towards the worst ideas of Western countries: wokism, progressivism, Marxism and multiculturalism. 

There are much bigger problems in the personal laws of other religious groups in India. It would be better if personal laws of all religious groups were discarded and a Uniform Civil Code was strictly applied on the entire country.

Saturday, December 30, 2023

Narendra Modi: In comparison to Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev

Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi seems to be a better reformer and politician than the four other reformist world leaders of the last 50 years: Margaret Thatcher, Deng Xiaoping, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. 

During their tenure as premier, Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev were focused on economic reforms and foreign policy. They did little to strengthen the culture, and the religious identity of their country. Thatcher and Reagan were multiculturalists and globalists. Xiaoping was a materialist anti-Maoist. Gorbachev was a naive dreamer. 

Under Thatcher and Reagan the economy of the UK and the USA grew at a healthy pace, but there was decline in the traditions of conservatism and Christianity. Under Xiaoping and Gorbachev the old communist system was overthrown but no attempt was made to revive the ancient culture (Confucianism in China and Orthodox Christianity in Russia) that existed before the communists had usurped power. 

It can be argued that the policies of Thatcher and Reagan pushed their countries in the direction of globalism, wokism, progressivism, and conservative and religious decline. Gorbachev bequeathed Russia to the KGB oligarchy, and Xiaoping bequeathed China to militaristic CCP tyrants.

In 2014, when Modi became the Prime Minister, there was speculation that, like Reagan and Thatcher, he would be focused mainly on economic reforms. Since 2014, the Indian economy has done reasonably well—GDP has been growing at around 7% every year. In the areas of foreign policy and military strength, there have been some improvements.

But the big success that Modi has achieved is in the area of culture—he has aroused the religious and nationalist sentiments of the masses. For the first time, India has a Prime Minister, who takes initiatives and launches movements to restore ancient Hindu culture, and make people realize what it means to be a Hindu (follower of Sanatana Dharma).

Monday, December 25, 2023

There are no good civilizations and evil civilizations

Laws of morality apply only to individuals, never to civilizations—therefore, there are no good civilizations and evil civilizations. There are only civilizations with a strong sense of culture and religion, and a strong will to survive and thrive. To develop a civilization based on a long-lasting culture, and a vision of God and man’s place in God’s universe—this takes sacrifices and struggles of all the past generations, and this is the greatest achievement that any large group of human beings can aspire for. A civilization’s only true value is to produce men of character and courage who will safeguard their culture and religion.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

To be successful a nation needs friends—to be very successful it needs enemies

“To be successful you need friends and to be very successful you need enemies.” ~ Sidney Sheldon, The Other Side of Midnight

This line by Sidney Sheldon applies to nations too. To be very successful a nation needs powerful enemies. History tells us that the citizens of nations, which lack powerful enemies, become complacent, intellectually deficient and morally corrupt. They get deluded into believing that peace will last forever and that they will never have to fight wars to defend their life, property and nationhood. They lose their sense of culture, and slip into nihilism and wokism. They take the world for granted, and fail to take note of emerging geopolitical challenges until it is too late.

The most successful nations in history were those which fought lengthy and brutal wars against powerful enemies. Nietzsche was right when he said, “What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger..” Nations become stronger when they defend their country from powerful enemies. A nation without powerful enemies is doomed.

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Territory versus property

Territory is natural. Most animals—dogs, lions, hyenas, wolves, and even humans in a state of barbarism—tend to grab as much territory as they can defend by their own strength or by the strength of their group. 

Property is not natural; it is a product of manmade laws and the enforcement of the laws by a government. Territory does not require the existence of a government, but property cannot exist unless there is a government with the capacity to enact laws and the power to enforce laws. 

The brutes among human beings seek to capture territory, the civilized among human beings seek to acquire property.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

History does not repeat itself; the future is unknowable

It is not true that history repeats itself. If history were repeating itself, then the future would be predictable. The future is anything but predictable. 

The history of every age was different—life in every age was driven by its own challenges, achievements, religious and cultural movements, and wars. The intellectuals and political thinkers in every age were taken by surprise by the major events. 

Today we have access to massive historical records, but this voluminous amount of history will not tell us what the world will be like in 2030, 2040 or 2050. How can we predict the future, when we can’t properly understand today’s political and cultural events? 

Today’s breaking news stories are tomorrow’s big joke. When we fail to judge which contemporary events are important, deserving the tag of breaking news, and which are frivolous, then how can we predict what the world will be like in 10 to 100 or more years. 

We can be certain of only one thing—the future will be unlike anything we can imagine.

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Two failed ideologies: socialism & capitalism

Socialism creates tyrannical and nihilistic nations; capitalism creates schizophrenic and woke nations. Socialist nations die from economic and political decline; capitalist nations die from cultural and intellectual decline. If socialism and capitalism are the only two choices, then mankind is doomed.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Journalism: The Frightful Monstrosity and Delusion

“Journalism possesses in itself the potentiality of becoming one of the most frightful monstrosities and delusions that have ever cursed mankind. This horrible transformation will occur at the exact instant at which journalists realise that they can become an aristocracy.” ~ G K Chesterton ("The New Priests”, 1901)

In the atheistic and nihilistic world-order of the twenty-first century, the journalists have become the new clergy. Under the guise of “breaking news,” they preach their daily sermons to brainwash their flock of readers and viewers. The power of the mainstream media to promote pseudo-science as real science, frivolous buffoons as great thinkers, and fake news as the ultimate truth is frightening. 

Chesterton’s view of journalism has become a reality. Journalists have become part of the crooked aristocracy. Journalism is the most frightful monstrosity and delusion of our time.

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Rama Rajya: The Civilization of Faith & Reason

The Rama Rajya (Godly civilization) envisioned in the ancient Hindu texts is more magnificent, advanced and happy than the utopia of the communists and the ‘woke AI-world’ of postmodern tech-oligarchy. 

Faith and reason are eternal attributes of the human mind. To create a healthy and balanced society, you need both faith and reason. In Rama Rajya, faith and reason are given equal importance and they balance each other to encourage morality, economic and scientific progress, political stability and social harmony. If a society rejects faith and relies solely on reason, it must fall prey to nihilism, corruption, alienation and decadence. 

There is no room for faith in the communist utopia and the ‘woke AI-world’, which are founded on the idea of supremacy of reason. In the communist utopia, the General Secretary is the biggest repository of reason. Whatever the General Secretary is accepted by all as the voice of reason. In the ‘woke AI-world’, the tech oligarchs have the monopoly on reason. Woke oligarchs like Bill Gates are viewed as the repositories of reason.

Sunday, December 3, 2023

“Reason is always a kind of brute force”

“Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

The history of the last 250 years shows that the so-called ‘men of reason’ are generally violent, tyrannical, cultish and foolish. The French Revolution of the 18th century was spearheaded by the self-proclaimed men of reason who believed that theirs was the “Age of Enlightenment”. They butchered millions of people with the aim of creating a utopia of reason, secularism and science. 

In the 20th century, tyrannically revolutionaries and warmongers like Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Hitler, Mussolini, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mao and Pol Pot strongly believed that they had the right to rule all of humanity because “reason” was on their side. The American progressives believe that reason is on their side but they are constantly using their country’s economic resources to wage senseless wars. 

The postmodernists and the libertarians proclaim that they have a monopoly on reason. But they are out of touch with reality and their political and cultural opinions are often silly. Pop fiction writer Ayn Rand proclaimed the supremacy of reason but she went on to found a dumb cult, which glorifies adultery, abortion and even non-consensual sex (Howard Roark on Dominque) as a sign of creative individualism. 

I am in full agreement with Chesterton—reason is indeed a brute force. The men of reason are as dangerous, as psychopathic as the religious fundamentalists.

Saturday, December 2, 2023

4 Most Powerful Geopolitical Forces in History of Civilization

The 4 most powerful geopolitical forces in the history of civilization are: pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God. The propagators of these forces are the great movers of history who have forged new empires after destroying old ones. 

In the last 1500 years, the empires of the Middle East and Europe have used the fear of pandemic and apocalypse, the slogans of war and the idea that their God is the only true God to control their own people and conquer and enslave many other lands. 

In the postmodern digital-information society, in which a significant part of humanity lives today, not much has changed. Geopolitics is still being driven by the mass movements related to the forces of pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God.

The richest and most powerful tyrants in the world today are those who control the mass movements which propagate some aspects of the four geopolitical forces.

Sunday, November 26, 2023

Life is not rational; reason is unknowable

The notion that life is rational is a myth propagated by materialistic Western philosophers. Life is not rational. Life is governed by the irrational. 

Love is not rational. Hatred is not rational. Hope is not rational. Greed is not rational. Happiness is not rational. Sorrow is not rational. Faith in the idea that the good always wins in the end is not rational. Man has no way of knowing how to make the right choices through reason. He has no way of knowing the rational course of action.

'Reason' and 'rational' are based on subjective principles and standards. What is rational for one man can be fundamentalism for another man. What is 'reason' for one man can be naivety and foolishness for another man.

Saturday, November 25, 2023

Self praise is a sign of weakness

When a man praises himself, he is revealing his lack of wisdom and knowledge. When a nation praises itself as the best in the world, it is revealing its loss of culture and sense of history. When a religion is praising itself as the only true faith, it is revealing it has no spiritual values and is motivated solely by the political agenda of world domination.

Sunday, November 19, 2023

Bill Gates: The World’s Worst Book Reviewer

Who is the world’s worst book reviewer? It is Bill Gates, the Microsoft tycoon. When I see a book being recommended by Gates, I know for sure that this book is trash. I will never waste my valuable time reading the books he recommends. 

The books he recommends are invariably by authors close to the powerful and crooked progressive establishment which rules the world. In the list of his recommendations, you will find books by wheeler-dealer lobbyists, vapid celebrities, power-hungry politicians, nihilistic film personalities, crooked journalists, corrupt oligarchs, pseudo-economists, money-laundering bankers, unhinged and fake scientists, naive anarchists, out of touch academics who harbor delusions of omniscience, and tyrannical leaders of taxpayer funded super-powerful institutions. 

The books in Gates’s list are full of pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and political propaganda—they are on politically correct themes such as extinction, climate change, extreme environmentalism, epidemics, saving the planet, sustainable development, sustainable energy, creating a global multicultural utopia. 

Does Gates read the books he recommends? I doubt it. I believe that he recommends books with the sole purpose of creating the impression of an erudite man. But a man who is really erudite will not read this kind of thrash. I peruse his book recommendations regularly to know which books I should avoid. If a book is being plugged by Gates, then it isn't for me.

Saturday, November 18, 2023

Rereading Exodus by Leon Uris

“It was not a melting pot, it was a pressure cooker, for they came from every corner of the earth and had lived under every variety of circumstance,” Leon Uris in Exodus.

Exodus was published in 1958, ten years after Israel became independent (on 14 May 1948). Not much has changed since 1958; Leon Uris’s description of Israel holds till this day. The country is still a pressure cooker—this is one of the key reasons that it has survived and thrived for so long. 

Had Israel followed the melting pot (multiculturalist) model, it would have lost its Jewishness after being swamped by its cultural-religious enemies, and perished. With the pressure cooker model, Israel has created an intense civilizational identity which is worth fighting for. As long as Israel retains its civilizational identity, it cannot be overthrown. 

I read Exodus two decades ago. It is not a history book; full of myths and legends, it is a great work of propaganda for Israel. I liked the book then. I am planning to reread it.

Sunday, November 12, 2023

On Catherine Nixey’s book ‘The Darkening Age’

I just finished reading Catherine Nixey’s book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. The book’s leitmotif is that the early Christians destroyed pagan religion, art and culture, and also obliterated a significant part of the knowledge developed by pagan societies of Ancient Greece and the Middle East. 

Catherine Nixey is a left-leaning atheist journalist. Ideologically, she is against all religions and traditions. There is a surfeit of exaggeration and half-truths in The Darkening Age. The book fails to acknowledge that the best pagan societies were located not in Europe but in the Middle East and they were destroyed by early Islam (not early Christians).

However, a part of what Nixey says in the book is correct. 

The conflict between the pagans and the early Christians began in the Roman age and went on till the 18th century when the last pagan communities were assimilated and digested by the European Christians. The conflict between Christianity and pagans was intense, though not as violent as the conflict between Christianity and Islam which goes on till this day. 

Nixey fails to inform her readers that the conflict between the pagans and Islamic movements was always very violent. Zoroastrianism, a very sophisticated pagan culture of the Middle East, was destroyed by the early Islamic forces, not by the early Christians.

Another important aspect of Christian-pagan history that Nixey does not cover in her book is the impact of pagan philosophy, literature and art on European culture and politics. She does not honestly cover the extensive efforts that the European Christian establishment made to collate, digest and reinterpret pagan knowledge.

European historians have tried to prove that the philosophy of Ancient Greece is the fountainhead of modern Western culture. This is a myth. Ancient Greece was polytheistic, skeptic and it followed a city-state model—it could not have served as an inspiration for the monotheistic, materialistic and world-empire model of European Christianity.

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Teaching of Bhagavad Gita: Dharma is superior to morality, ethics, legality

During the times of great religious and civilizational wars, the tenets of morality, ethics and legality become less important for the warrior and political class. In the Mahabharata war, Krishna does not allow Arjuna to quit the battlefield over moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.  

In the Bhagavad Gita, the battlefield of “कुरुक्षेत्रे” (kuru-kṣhetre) is described as the “धर्मक्षेत्रे” (dharma-kṣhetre), or the sacred ground of supreme and timeless dharma. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to overlook the manmade tenets of morality, ethics and legality, and focus on fighting to win the great civilizational war. He reminds Arjuna that he is standing on religious ground and his primal duty is to wage war and annihilate the forces of evil that are threatening dharma and civilization.  

The tenets of morality, ethics and legality, being manmade social constructs, are not superior to dharma and civilization. These tenets apply only in times of peace. When dharma and civilization are under threat, then the warriors and politicians must overlook morality, ethics and legality, and fight to destroy the enemy by every possible means.

Sunday, November 5, 2023

The important lesson of history

It takes thousands of years of religious thought, philosophizing, spiritual advancements, agriculture, political struggles, religious and political schisms and movements, scientific movements, trading activity, linguistics, wars, massacres, revolutions and industrial activity to create a major civilization. 

Ruins of Nalanda University in Bihar 

(Started in the Vedic Age, before 1200 BCE)

But the civilization created from such pain, struggle, sacrifice, science and intellectualism can be ruined in one generation—in less than 25 years. 

Every generation must exercise care, lest they become the “doomed generation” under whose watch the civilization gets wiped out. If people understood the history of their own civilization, they would, perhaps, do things differently.

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Reason and morality are subjective, transitory and fallible

Reason is not the ultimate way of arriving at the truth, the laws of morality are not final. Both reason and morality are subjective; both are transitory and fallible. Those who believe in reason and morality can do as much harm to society as those who reject reason and morality. 

The Vedic texts preach that human beings should strive to transcend reason and morality in their quest for truth and dharma. The principles of Sanatana Dharma are rooted in spirituality (divine consciousness) and timeless historical experiences, not in reason and morality.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Leftists are top capitalists; Rightists are incompetent capitalists

The idea that leftism is anti big business is a myth. 

The reality is that the supporters of leftist ideology have been driving the global economy in the last 100 years. The leaders and investors of all top multinational companies are left-leaning.

In America, Western Europe and India outspoken socialists are running business empires worth billions of dollars. In China, the Communist Party has founded the world’s biggest business empire, worth trillions of dollars. In Russia, the billionaire oligarchs are outspoken Marxists.

The rightists are not good in business. I don’t know of any major multinational company being funded and run by rightwing conservatives, libertarians and free market advocates. The leftists are the best capitalists; the rightists are incompetent capitalists.

Sri Aurobindo: Gandhian politics, Tolstoyism and Bolshevism

Sri Aurobindo

In 1920, Sri Aurobindo said that Mahatma Gandhi’s political method, founded on Tolstoy’s ideas, could lead to the imposition of Indianised Tolstoyism or Bolshevism on India. In a letter (written in April 1920) to his brother Barin Ghose, Sri Aurobindo wrote:  

“People now want to spiritualise politics – Gandhi, for instance – but they can’t get hold of the right way. What is Gandhi doing? Making a hodge-podge called satyagraha out of ahimsa paramo dharmah [non-violence is the highest law], Jainism, hartal, passive resistance, etc.; bringing a sort of Indianised Tolstoyism into the country. The result – if there is any lasting result – will be a sort of Indianised Bolshevism.”

Sri Aurobindo was probably right in caricaturing Gandhian politics as Indianised Bolshevism. After independence, India became a soft-Bolshevik state. Nehruvian socialism and Indira Gandhi’s personality-cult socialism were the manifestations of Bolshevism. 

In a talk in July 1923, Sri Aurobindo said, “Gandhi’s position is that he does not care to remove violence from others; he wants to observe non-violence himself.” On the linkage between Gandhi and Tolstoy, Sri Aurobindo said in June 1926, “Gandhi is a European – truly, a Russian Christian in an Indian body. And there are some Indians in European bodies?” 

(Quotations in this article are from India’s Rebirth, by Sri Aurobindo)

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

On Day of Vijayadashami: Four Mahavakyas from the Upanishads

Rama story carved in wall of Shiva temple

Ellora Caves, 8th Century

On the day of Vijayadashami, the festival signifying triumph of good over evil, we should remember the four Mahavakyas (the Great Sayings) from the Upanishads: 

1. Prajnanam Brahma (प्रज्ञानम् ब्रह्म) — “Pure Consciousness is Brahmana" or "Brahman is insight” (Aitareya Upanishad, verse 3.3)

2. Tat Tvam Asi (तत् त्वम् असि) — “You are that” or “You are the existent” (Chāndogya Upanishad, verse 6.8.7)

3. Ayam Atma Brahma (अयम् आत्मा ब्रह्म) — "This Self (Atman or soul) is Brahmana" (Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, verse 1.2)

4. Aham Brahma Asmi (अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि) - "I am Brahmana" (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, verse 1.4.10)

The Upanishads place great emphasis on understanding the “Brahmana,” which can be defined as the divine mind (Brah + Mana). Brahmana is ananta (an + anta: infinite). The earliest Vedic texts can be dated to 6000 BC.

Monday, October 23, 2023

Victor Hugo’s fallacious argument on ideas whose time has come

"No army can stop an idea whose time has come." 

This saying, often attributed to Victor Hugo, smacks of the "hindsight is 20/20" fallacy. It is deterministic and wrong. You can look back and see which ideas have been victorious and make the claim that the time for these ideas had come. 

But this is an absurd way of analyzing history. It will not lead to an understanding of the factors that led to the victory of any idea. 

A powerful army can crush any idea. A well-armed, well-trained and powerful army, led by a ruthless and visionary political leadership, is the ultimate force in history. History is made by armies, not by ideas. 

The Middle Eastern religious and political ideas won (from 8th to 16th centuries) because the Middle Eastern empires had powerful armies. Imperialism won (from 16th to 19th centuries) for the same reason—the European empires had powerful armies. 

Marxism won in the 20th century because leaders like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Castro were leading powerful political movements and armies.

Saturday, October 21, 2023

Vishnu, the collectivist; Shiva, the individualist

Parvati and Dancing Shiva 

Ellora cave

Vishnu is the collectivist, Shiva the individualist. In his avataras, Vishnu builds great coalitions which destroy the forces that are trying to rip apart civilization and culture. Conserving the forces of civilization is the primary task of Vishnu’s avataras. 

In his Rama avatara, Vishnu builds a coalition with kings and communities to destroy Ravana who threatens civilization. In his Krishna avatara, he plays a pivotal role in strengthening the Pandava alliance to enable them to destroy the evil Kaurava alliance. 

Shiva does not intervene to conserve civilization. He lives in the mountains and forests. From time to time, he acts individually to fulfill his divine task of annihilating powerful forces which threaten humans and Gods. The destruction of evil armies and empires is his primary task.

The tradition of Sanatana Dharma rejects the idea of dichotomy between individualism and collectivism. During the Vedic period (more than 3000 years ago), the sages saw individualism and collectivism as the two inseparable attributes of civilized society. 

The idea of dichotomy between individualism and collectivism is a myth crafted by the European intellectuals of the nineteenth century. These intellectuals propagated the false idea that collectivism implies communism and individualism implies capitalism. 

Civilization and culture are fundamentally collectivist. Modern civilization is the outcome of thousands of years of collectivist tendencies: religions, movements and philosophies. Without collective thinking, there can be no culture, no civilization.  

Sanatana philosophy awards equal importance to individualism and collectivism. The Vedic and Puranic texts exhort us to develop our individualistic way of thinking, perform our original acts, within the framework of culture and civilization.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

The Frankensteins that America & Israel created in the 1980s

In the 1980s, the American CIA funded, trained, glorified and armed the Taliban in Afghanistan because they wanted to use the Taliban to destroy the Soviet Union. 

Charlie Wilson's War (by George Crile) and several other books provide a description of America’s close collaboration with the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War.

In the 1980s, the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet facilitated the rise of Hamas because they saw Hamas as a political weapon for weakening the Palestine Liberation Organisation. 

What does world history from the 1980s to 2023 tell us? 

It tells us that the political establishments in America and Israel are not interested in solving the world's problems. They intervene in other nations with the agenda of causing large-scale mindless destruction and creating new Frankensteins.

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Israel versus Palestine: The human quest for meaning

All humans crave for land, but only a few quest for meaning. The ones who quest for meaning are capable of making fruitful use of the land. 

When two civilizations clash over a piece of land, it makes ethical and political sense to support the side capable of questing for meaning and making fruitful use of the land for the larger good of humanity. 

A war is raging in the Middle East—Israelis versus Palestinians. Which side is capable of questing for meaning? Which side is capable of making fruitful use of the land? 

The Israelis excel in science, technology, entrepreneurship, medicine, agriculture, defence, political theory, philosophy, art and literature. What are the Palestinian achievements?

Which side should we support? Those who believe in humanity, those who want a betterment of the human condition, have no alternative except to support the side that is capable of questing for meaning and making fruitful use of the land: this means Israel.

Sunday, October 8, 2023

Perfection is not possible; Lord Agni’s fire is enveloped in smoke

The quest for perfection is futile. Even the powerful Gods cannot create perfection in the universe. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna reminds Arjuna (verse 3.38) that Lord Agni is enveloped by smoke. 

Lord Agni is one of the most powerful Vedic Gods. In the Vedas, he is often invoked along with Lord Indra and Lord Soma. In the Vedic tradition, Lord Agni is regarded as the mouth of the Gods—through Lord Agni’s mouth the offerings reach the Gods. He resides on earth as fire, in the air as lightning and in the cosmos as the sun and the stars.

Yet even Lord Agni cannot attain perfection. In his manifestations, his fire is always enveloped by smoke. When Lord Agni cannot attain perfection, then there is no chance for humans to themselves be perfect or create anything that is perfect. 

The history of the last 2000 years shows that the civilizational movements that have quested for perfection have always led to bloodbath and destruction. 

In the Middle Ages, the Islamic armies rampaged across Asia, and parts of Europe and Africa, to create a perfect society of God. Instead of perfection, they unleashed death and destruction wherever they went. Their wars and violence are still raging in the Middle East and many other parts of the world. 

Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin tried to create a perfect Bolshevik society through nationalization of all property and wealth, imposition of five year plans, and banishment of dissidents to concentration camps and firing squads. Hitler and the Nazis tried to create a perfect Aryan society through World War and gas chambers. Instead of perfection, they brought destruction to their society. 

The libertarian movements dreamed of creating a perfect capitalist and individualistic society but they got mired in nihilism, cultism, naivety, amorality and social-alienation. 

Human efforts can never lead to perfection. Our best will never be perfect. The human mind, all human actions, and all human creations have good and bad aspects, and they lead to good and bad consequences.

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Bhagavad Gita: Metaphysical and moral implications of the theory of rebirth, redeath

Every birth is a rebirth, every death is a redeath. This applies to everything inside the universe and to the universe itself. 

Every entity or conception—living and non-living, mental and physical, time and space, memory and history, smallest atom to the largest stars and blackholes—must one day die or be destroyed. Death or destruction is not the end—it is the prelude to rebirth or recreation.  

In the cycle of rebirth and redeath, creation and destruction nothing is lost. Mass and energy are always in a state of equilibrium irrespective of the universe being in the phase of creation or destruction. History and memory are not lost at the time of death—their essence gets transferred to the mind of the new generations, making them wise or naive, moral or nihilistic, and leading them to perform good or bad deeds, attain success or failure in their lifetime. 

The philosophy of rebirth and redeath has metaphysical and moral implications. 

The metaphysical implication is that the universe is a battleground of mass and energy. Energy seeks to rip apart the physical bodies, while mass seeks to empower itself by absorbing and digesting the energy. The contest between mass and energy lasts for as long as the universe (time and space) lasts and leads to the creation, motion and eventual obliteration of all heavenly bodies—atoms, moons, planets, stars, supernovas. 

The moral implication is that the good or bad things that happen to us are not due to “chance”; they are not the outcome of “God’s will” either. They are the outcome of our past karma. In this life you are reaping the fruits of your deeds in your past lives, and what you do in this life will have an impact on your subsequent rebirths. One must live morally because immoral conduct has implications for not just this life but all future lives. 

All this is one of the important teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

The Saptarshi in the asterism of the Big Dipper

In ancient Indian astronomy, the asterism of the Big Dipper is described as the physical representation of the Saptarshi, the seven sages who are extolled in the Vedas, Puranas, the Mahabharata and several other ancient texts.

The seven bright stars of the Big Dipper are the universal forms of the seven sages whose names, according to Shatapatha Brahmana and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, are: Atri, Bharadvaja, Gautama Maharishi, Jamadagni, Kashyapa, Vasistha and Vishvamitra.

The Mahabharata gives their names as: Marichi, Atri, Pulaha, Pulastya, Kratu, Vasistha and Angiras. Other ancient texts give slightly different names for the seven sages.

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Culture, collectivism and civilization: What the Upanishads say

Stone wheel engraved on walls of

Konark Temple

Collectivism is the fountainhead of culture and civilization. The more sophisticated the society, the more collectivist its institutions and philosophies are. In contrast, the primitive societies were simplistic; they were collectivist to a much lesser degree.

In the broad prehistoric period known as the Stone Age, humans lived in small groups of 5 to 100 individuals linked by ties of blood. The process of building large-scale civilizations began 25,000 to 15,000 years ago, when the concept of religion came into being and people started coming together in the name of God to build large groups. 

Religion was the first collectivist movement of mankind. The successful religions brought millions of people together and got them to cooperate for developing other collectivist philosophies and movements. Some of these collectivist movements became powerful city-states and empires where collectivist tendencies continued to grow.

The postmodern man is a product of tens of thousands of years of collectivism in the form of— religions, movements, philosophies and other civilizational forces. The antithesis of collectivism is individualism, which is anti-culture and leads to nihilism, immorality, atheism, anarchy, weakness and decay. 

Why is religion the fundamental force that binds civilizations? 

One of the teachings of the Upanishads is that to live a fulfilling life we need meaning and challenge. We have the natural urge try to understand our place in the universe and we want to achieve something that is challenging, perhaps impossible, something that we believe no one has achieved before. 

Religion is the fundamental civilizational force because it offers avenues for both meaning and challenge. 

The Upanishads preach that the urges for meaning and challenge are part of mankind’s collective evolution. We try to find meaning in the notion of divinity that our culture and civilization has bestowed on us and we try to excel within the framework of the society with which we identify. In the modern or postmodern age, some try to find meaning in the secular philosophies which too are products of thousands of years of collectivism and culture. 

The adventure of human life is to join the human struggle for discovering who we are, what is our place in the universe, what is morality, what is the significance of the life that we get to lead before we die—this is one of the key teachings of the Upanishads.

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Rationality is a myth; man is a creature of emotions

Goddess Saraswati 

(10th century)

The idea that man is a rational creature is a myth propagated by the power-hungry intellectuals and politicians of the modern age. They proclaimed themselves as the “voice of rationality,” because they wanted to propagate the myth that they were superior to everyone else and hence best suited to wield political power. 

Man is a creature of emotions who is capable of rationalizing. Too often we confuse our rationalization with the aspect of being rational. But rationalization has nothing to do with being rational. A super-advanced computer (an AI) can be rational, but Man is incapable of being rational. 

What is the rational course of action in any context is impossible for man to decipher. All the knowledge of humanity is not sufficient to decode the mysteries of the limitless universe. With his limited knowledge and experience man is incapable of identifying the ultimate truth. How can man be rational when he is clueless about the ultimate truth? 

The man who says that he knows what is the rational course of action is either a fool, who does not know what he is talking about, or a power hungry tyrant. 

The ancient sages of Sanatana Dharma did not exhort people to be rational; they told them that the world was a sea of consequences and the eternal truth is hard to find because it resides within infinite myths and falsehoods. They told them that one can try to move close to the eternal truth by being patient and by developing wisdom and empathy. 

Dharma is more about wisdom than rationality, it is more about empathy than ethics.

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Lord Kalki: The end of metaphysics, the beginning of new universe

Lord Kalki, an avatara of Vishnu, appears at the final or ultimate moments of the Mahayuga. 

Metaphysically, Lord Kalki represents the end of everything: mind and matter, space and time, life and non-life, the cycle of birth and death, all history and memory come to an end with his coming. The universe goes out of existence. But the end of the universe is the fountainhead for the creation of a new universe. 

The cycle of a new Mahayuga and new universe begins after the dissolution of the earlier Mahayuga and universe. The Upanishads mention that there are four yugas in every Mahayuga: Krita (Satya), Treta, Dvapara and Kali. The current universe is in Kali Yuga, which began in 3102 BC, and will last for 1200 divine years, or 432,000 human years.

The Puranas describe periods of time much larger than the yugas and the mahayuga—these are called manvantaras and kalpas. One manvantara comprises 71 mahayugas; 14 manvantaras comprise one kalpa, equal to a day in Brahma's life. Thus, a day in Brahma’s life consists of an infinite number of years from the human perspective. 

Since Lord Kalki appears at the end of the Mahayuga, it can be surmised that, according to the Upanishads and Puranas, the universe comes to an end and is reborn several times in each manvantara and kalpa. The Puranas talk about thirty kalpas. The present kalpa is the Varaha Kalpa which came after the passage of the previous kalpa, the Padma Kalpa.

Sunday, September 17, 2023

John Galt: Ayn Rand’s world-destroying, world-conquering conquistador

John Galt was the postmodern conquistador who happily presided over the slaughter of tens of millions of people and the destruction of an entire civilization to create a social and political vacuum which would be filled by a mythical way of life based on his own philosophical and political opinions. 

He was convinced that he knew what was the best possible way of life and that he had the moral right to decide how every other human being should think and live. 

In the climax of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, John Galt and his acolytes destroy all the major industries, they facilitate bridge collapses, plane crashes, rail accidents and nuclear explosions, they engineer the collapse of the monetary system and the political establishment, they decimate the law & order machinery, and they become indirectly responsible for the death of tens of millions of people. 

In Ayn Rand’s convoluted worldview, these mass murderers were the good guys. They were the good guys because they did their destruction and killing in the name of Ayn Rand’s so-called values—the values of reason, atheism, individualism, freedom and capitalism. 

Ayn Rand was a big fan of Columbus, Hernán Cortés and the conquistadors who had wiped out the native population of the Americas to create space for the rise of modern America. In her historically-ignorant and morally-decrepit essays, she has denigrated the Native Indians and suggested that they deserved to die. She believed that America had lost its way in the early 20th century and that a new band of conquistadors must arise to utterly destroy society and pave the way for the development of a new world in which every human being would accept and live by her values.

She did not preach violence but she realized that most people in the world would NEVER accept to live by her set of foolish values, and give up their religions and traditions, unless they were demoralized and tyrannized by large-scale social and economic collapse and mass slaughter. This is what John Galt and his acolytes (conquistadors) set out to achieve in her novel. The conquistadors of the 16th and 17th centuries killed by swords and spears, but Ayn Rand shunned violence, so she got Galt and his men to destroy by words.

In Atlas Shrugged, Galt is the smooth-talking pseudo-philosopher who brainwashes people with his words and gets them to do the dirty work of destroying and killing. In the final part of the book, he gives a long speech, of around 60-pages, which is an elucidation of Ayn Rand's rather silly and insane philosophy. The tone of speech is hectoring and dictatorial. He is clearly stating that either you accept everything that I say as the ultimate truth or you will be left to rot and die. Every human in the world is given a stark choice: dreary death or slavery to Ayn Rand’s values. 

Ayn Rand is seen as a philosopher of classical liberalism and libertarianism, but she was not a philosopher. Her knowledge of philosophy and history was atrocious—this is obvious from the naive and laughable comments that she has made on Aristotle, Plato, Kant and a few other philosophers. She was a mediocre fiction writer and politically, she was a tyrant. She believed that the world belonged to “only one type of people”—those who lived by her system of thought. 

In the last three decades of her life she tried to start a movement. She attracted a small ragtag bunch of semi-educated and ill-experienced youngsters. The intelligent ones in this bunch quickly saw through the contradictions in her thought and they fled from her, never to come back again. Only the mediocrities stuck with her. She spent the final years of her life in the company of these mediocrities, who pampered themselves with the notion that they were like John Galt. They venerated her as their God and her movement became a cult.