‘TIRED OF SPEAKING SWEETLY’ by Hafiz

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.

 

If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.

 

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth

 

That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,

 

Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.

 

God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.

 

The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:

 

Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.

 

But when we hear
He is in such a “playful drunken mood”
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.

 Unless you had been ‘held upside down, and shaken violently till all the nonsense in you comes out’, you can’t even begin to comprehend what Hafiz is talking about. It is all madness; a madness that seems like, well, madness :), and perhaps nonsense, and stupidity. You can’t empathize with it unless you had been in that madness at least once, had a glimpse of it, and can vaguely remember, and hardly recognize it when you see it again. Khalil Gibran said “Think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.” Those are wise words, I have to say. And when love does find you worthy, and is directing your course, you are too busy fighting it, ignoring it, and hightailing it out of there. It takes courage to accept the madness, and dive deeply into it. Unless you are brave enough to make a complete fool of yourself, and accept that you are no longer the master of yourself, you can’t embrace it.

This meaningless search for a meaning

Hafiz wonderfully summarizes, in his poem, my wanderings hither and thither. Examining God under a microscope, dissecting her with sharp scalpels, and searching in the vast sky with a huge telescope, it seems, are all futile activities:

A wine bottle fell from a wagon and
broke open in a field.

That night one hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered

and did some serious binge drinking.

They even found some seed husks nearby
and began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.

Then the “night candle” rose into the sky
and one drunk creäture, laying down his instrument,
said to his friend  for no apparent
Reason,

“What should we do about that moon?”

Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music

Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.

~ Hafiz ~

(The Gift — versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

The Lord weeps

O my child,  how long are you going to keep me waiting? won’t you ever get tired of your little games? Here I am patiently waiting, hoping you would come running for me. Do you remember your promise? Didn’t you say you would come back to me in the blink of an eye? How cruel of you to keep me waiting this long? Little one, it is about to get dark, come to me before it is too late. Come seeking my comfort when you still have strength to run on your feet and catch hold of me. You stubborn child, you ignore every messenger I send for you. You weep endlessly at the slightest interruption to your silly pastime, blaming me for all your misery. Heartbroken at your meaningless sorrow, I have to surrender to your tantrums, and pacify you by the only means that you see fit, by restoring your little game. Stupid kid, why do you love these worthless toys so much that you throw away my infinite love, and go chasing them. Is it not  my just right to get offended by your rude negligence? Wake up dear one, stop testing my love for thee. No matter how long you indulge yourself in your childish games, you have to come searching for me. Why are you so selfish, why do you call me only when you need me in the darkest of the hours. Why do you make me disappear when the Sun is shining, and the flowers are blooming. You forget to spare a tiny thought for me in the pleasant weather. You call me as soon as it gets a little cold, to tide you over the cold winter. You tiny little tot, I am here carrying you on my shoulder, bearing all your burdens, giving everything you need, patiently waiting for you to return my love. Why are you so heartless, how much longer are you going to keep me waiting.

‘We have a predisposition to believe in God’

“‘We have a predisposition to believe in God” so says research conducted by several independent groups led by Oxford university. That’s what I read in the newspaper (none other than the TOIlet paper) this morning. They didn’t mention which journal this research was published in. Anyway, the  conclusion from this research is not a surprise at all. But I do hope they had enough data from people who weren’t exposed to the idea of God in childhood. They also seem to have come to the conclusion that children easily believe in superhuman abilities because it is hard to understand natural limitations.

Omniscient God, and the search for an ultimate answer

We all know that frustrating feeling of being stuck with a hard problem that we just don’t know how to solve. When you are really lost without any hope, isn’t it comforting to know that there is someone who knows how to solve it, for eventually you can get a solution to the hard puzzle? That is exactly the role that an omniscient God plays when you begin to ponder over the mystery of the universe. Eventually you realize that no matter how much you learn or hope to discover rationally, the chain of reasoning never comes to a terminating point. It’s like peeling an onion that is infinitely big; it never ends. Let’s see how that goes:

You basically start with, how did we come into existence?
And you know the answer, it’s the making of evolution.

Oh yeah, how did the raw material come in place to start the evolution, you ask?
Exploding stars produced all the elements necessary to make you and me, and with a little help from gravity and sheer chance that was a certainty given the vastness of the Universe, those elements in clouds of dust formed into planets.

Where did those exploding stars get their hydrogen to start with?
It all started with a Big Bang of course;

Well then, how did it happen?
hmm; let’s say quantum fluctuations, or may be it was the collision of Branes?.

Really? how did that happen, and what was that nothing from which everything came from?
Sorry, we really don’t know.

You see, with these hows and whys we are always in an infinite regression without any foreseeable termination point that can answer everything. Because no matter what the answer is, you can always add a how or a why to that answer and keep the loop going. This realization dawned on me when I was quite young, perhaps even before I entered into my teens. And the only comfort I could find at that time from this constantly nagging question was in the concept of an omniscient entity. It was relieving to know that there are answers to those questions though I can not comprehend them at the moment. The promise of a solution that would be self-evident once you are privy to it, to this apparently intractable riddle was alluring. What more, there are known ways to access that elegant solution. You just have to be patient and follow what was demanded of you. That was how I was sold to the idea of God when I was just a kid in school.

I know, when you bring in God into the equation, the hows and whys don’t really go away; and of course God itself needs explanation. But the beauty of the concept lies in its ingenuity in answering all those questions with a single stroke. And that answer is: yes, there is an explanation for God as well, but you know what, you will have to work hard and realize God to gain the insight required to understand those answers.

Of late, I have new-found hope that some day we might even be able to find an ultimate answer to this riddle; what made me think of this possibility is not the amazing progress humanity has made in understanding the universe; I’m still convinced that the recursion can’t be broken by anyone however intelligent she may be, at the current level of human consciousness and the rationality that is afforded by it. I think it’s conceivable that evolution is running its course and our brains may acquire a completely new level of ‘intelligence’ that might be able to see things in such ways that we can’t possibly imagine now. Can a monkey even comprehend what it’s to have the consciousness that humans have, let alone theorize about it?. The development of our brains to their current state led us to this amazing understanding we have about the universe. That is a huge leap compared to our immediate ancestors on the tree of life. What would another such leap do to our brains?

Here is an interesting idea: our brains might already have such higher faculties but most of us might not be accessing them. Some gifted people might be able to use those brain functions easily while the rest of us may have to learn it the hard way to exercise and master their use. I am considering the possibility that spirituality/self-realization might be a way to access those higher functions in our brains, and unlock the secrets of the universe.

[meta notes: This post had been sitting in my drafts since Feb 24th; The conversation at Malavika’s blog prompted me to fish it out and finish. There is a little more that I wanted to talk about: the common denominator of Quantum mechanics, String theory, and spirituality is the apparent ‘weird’ things that they do to our world. I will talk about it some other time]

Did we evolve to believe in God?

Last week I happened to chance upon this interesting post about someone’s personal journey from atheism to faith. I was surprised to see evolutionary theory mentioned as one of the reasons for that switch. It got me thinking about God and science, again :). One of the threads led me back to one of my earlier conclusions that we, Homo sapiens, might have evolved to believe in God.

About three years ago, I watched this amazing talk that Jill gave at TED, about her stroke and the insights that she had drawn from that experience. When she lost her left brain functions due to brain hemorrhage, she couldn’t distinguish her body from her surroundings. Her experience of being one with the universe, losing the boundary between her body and the rest of the world, which she described as nirvana, was akin to spiritual experiences described by Yogis and other mystics. That’s what got me closer to the idea that spiritual experiences can result purely from our brain functions, or the lack of them as was in Jill’s case.
Recent neurological studies have demonstrated that stimulating certain areas of the brain can induce spiritual experiences in the subjects. There are documented cases of religious experiences resulting from temporal lobe seizures ¹. This means one can have the wonderful experience of being in unity with the rest of the universe, without requiring some external supernatural entity to bestow it on oneself. At the very core level that is what eastern philosophies like Hinduism, and Buddhism teach. Ancient Indians have found ways to train our brains and induce such experiences as those that Buddha had, through meditation. It is not very clear if meditation, temporal lobe seizures, and the electrical stimuli that induce religious experiences are all closely related in the way they operate on our brains; More importantly, do they all achieve similar results by exciting the same set of neurons in the brain? There was some initial speculation on the subject suggesting there might be a dedicated component in our brains that is responsible for our belief in God etc. , The popular press went ahead and called it ‘God module’². But it seems it is more complicated than initially thought, and is perhaps linked to many other functional parts in the brain³.

Irrespective of how complex it is or how thinly spread across it is in our brain, it is certain that there are groups of neurons in our brains that are responsible for our emotions and experiences related to God and spirituality. It can be argued that we gained those brain faculties through evolution, just like the rest of our brain functions. This implies that we have evolved to be spiritual/religious and believe in God. So what, does it have any implications on the existence of God itself? none that I can think of at the moment. Thus I still can’t figure out how evolutionary theory can uphold faith in God. However if that link can be established, it would get a lot of support from monotheistic religious groups that are fighting theory of evolution tooth and nail, and perhaps wipe out the whole intelligent design (creationism) hypothesis.

References:
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml
2. http://www.naturalnews.com/023055_the_brain_religion_consciousness.html
3. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/12/4876.full

Life is what it is: an adventurous journey!

Sometimes it is hard to believe,
there isn’t someone up there with a big grin, saying,
“I got your back, go have fun in the adventurous journey that is life”.
Just like there are times that make you feel you have been given a really hard test.

But then, you are sure to lose your mind,
if you try too hard, to figure out what all this means.
Life is what it is, a journey sans any destination,
in the beautiful landscapes of this amazing world.
Sure, there are tough peaks to climb, and deep valleys to cross,
But there are also cool breezes whispering soft kisses,
and nice taverns full of ripe wine.
those joyful kids making playful chatter,
with chirpy birds singing melodies of yore,
along the long streams of voluptuous curves,
teasing among those distant mountains.
Life is indeed beautiful,
if you have the eyes to behold,
and the heart to cherish.

When there are beautiful sunny days here,
why do you complain of a dreadful winter,
of a long gone era?

Be thankful for what you have,
and be grateful for what you don’t,
for here you are, happy and healthy.
Share what you can, with those not so wealthy,
care when you can, for those in pain,
rare it is, for the good to go in vain.
Learn to rejoice the dance in rain,
you will never find a reason to complain.

Go live life to your heart’s content,
there is nothing to regret,
when you live in the moment;
yesterday was an experience while tomorrow is an imagination.
All that matters to you is here and now,
go have fun in the sunshine,
knowing everything would be fine.

Please God, please be there

For the most part of my life, I had believed in some form of God. It ranged from a close, personal God that I almost talked to, to an abstract entity that was probably just realization and understanding of the Universe. As I grew up, and started examining God under the lens of rational sense, there were more questions than answers. At the same time, I also started understanding the scientific view of the world better, and went through the history of many breakthroughs that form the foundation of our current understanding of the universe. God, even at the very high philosophical level doesn’t seem to fit into the scientific framework that informs us of the workings of the universe, and forms the very base of our modern life. The conflicts of God theory with modern science were obvious. As I went through the quest to understand life better, I slowly started leaning towards the scientific view, and started letting go of God. A couple of years ago that process reached its culmination and I have more or less abandoned God completely.

One of the many good uses of God is, this enormous positive energy that you can freely draw from. No matter how bad the situation seems to be, you can be eternally optimistic and never lose hope. When there is an omnipotent entity that is taking care of you, there is no reason for you to worry about anything. You just go about doing the right thing, and you will be fine. The obvious downside of not believing in God is that you have to generate your positive energy internally, and keep marching forward against all odds without any help whatsoever from some form of destiny or whatever that is; basically you are on your own, and no matter how well you do what you are supposed to do, no matter how impeccable your planning is, no matter how scrupulous you had been, no matter how hard you worked, no matter how well you deserved it, there is no guarantee that you will get anything that you aspire for. As Robert Burns put it,  “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”, and there is nothing that you can do about it except keep fighting with an unwavering determination.

I was well aware of what I was getting into when I had let go of God. I had a few really serious setbacks, and went through some very tough times in the past few years. But I managed to cruise along without ever losing hope or turning to God for help. Recently, I went through some really hard times when suddenly everything seemed to go wrong.  It was like all the hell broke loose at the same time, at a time when I was least expecting it, and I was almost reduced to a passive entity without any means to fight back. In the midst of all that I fell ill, and what started off as a harmless fever lasted for more than a week. The sickness, and the antibiotics that I had to take made me very weak. The antibiotics killed off all the good bacteria in my body, and I got a fungal infection in my mouth. I couldn’t eat anything at all, and of course that made me even weaker. I was staying in bed under multiple blankets, with my sweater on, but I was still shivering. I could not remember the last time I was this sick. Blood tests seemed to give conflicting results. There were several unexplained symptoms that could potentially point to very scary and serious health issues. My only  reasonable hope to get out of the situation seemed to be something positive happening on its own. And why exactly would something positive happen on its own, when things that certainly had no chance of going wrong were utterly going wrong though I had taken care of every contingency humanely possible? I was exhausted both physically and mentally , and drained out of energy. I almost broke down. That’s when it occurred to me how much more easier it would have been if there were a God that I could turn to, and transfer my burden over. Even if there was no answering service, even if God is not really going to do anything for me, just the fact that i have faith in a powerful entity that would take care of me, would have been an enormous morale booster, and lifted heavy burden off me. But then I can’t just fake faith into some entity that I have no reason to believe in; can I?

I knew I had to pull myself together, and draw on my own willpower to keep moving forward. Even if I utterly failed at everything that I was doing, even if my worst fears came true and I were to be diagnosed with some monstrous disease, there was no reason to lose hope, it was not the end of life. Well, even if it meant the end of me, there was no point getting depressed about it. I had to keep living in the moment, enjoying every little thing that life offers, remaining as happy as ever. After a week, fever seemed to come under control. After another week, I could manage to take little food, and slowly started recovering. All the diagnostic reports came out, and there seemed to be no reason for panic. After around a month, I’m almost back to my normal health except for an alien bitter, salty taste on my tongue due to the infection. I got back to doing my things, and started working to make the best of the challenges staring at me.

Quotes

I was utterly surprised when I came across the following quote attributed to Audrey Hepburn. It must have been due to the prejudice against Hollywood actors, but I couldn’t believe such a successful Hollywood actress had the insight to say something so sensible:

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

I wasn’t at all surprised that Einstein said the following, in a letter to some philosopher:

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.