Man's body and mind have ever remained an enigma. The sometimes weak and sometimes strong human body or the sometimes happy and sometimes sad human mind, origin of life and matter itself and many related issues occupied the attention of the philosophers from time immemorial. Whether it was an inquiry for the ultimate "truth" or a search for "controlling" the nature, the basic and fundamental questions always defied solution.
In the ancient times the religious leaders monopolized the explanations for the puzzling phenomena of life. Religion occupied a central place in the life of a society. However, keeping in tune with the prevailing state of knowledge, special vocabulary and jargon was also evolved from time to time by various thinkers in order to offer a convincing explanation. Several words like love, happiness, and sin and inexplicable words like soul, atman, and nirvana acquired special meanings with an aura of not only holiness but also mystique around them. An attempt is made here in understanding religion and many such words firstly from a global perspective keeping the universe as a whole in mind and then from the perspective of an individual with all his/her compulsions, travails and tribulations at the center.
1. THE TWIN QUESTS
We all have desires. Any serious thinking person can identify 'desire' as the root cause of all misery. It is in general despised by religion. If 'desire' is such an unworthy thing, why is it that we have this tendency to desire? Why are we prone to desire something or the other? In the ultimate analysis, all types of desires converge towards basically two goals: (i) freedom and liberty -- freedom from all controls and liberty from all authority and (ii) mental and physical happiness -- where the physical and mental comfort is seamless, undiluted and infinite. The urge for freedom and happiness is inborn and wired into the human body and mind. Such an urge is driven by the genes in order to protect, preserve, propagate and perpetuate themselves.
The most conducive atmosphere for the continuity of genes exists when the organism enjoys freedom and comfort. Any constraint on the free movement or any discomfort to the organism restricts the chances of the genes in their reproduction (and hence perpetuation). This is true for all living things and not merely in the case of man. Therefore, man's desire to be free and comfortable arises from the fact that the genes get the best chance for their reproduction and continuity in that situation. Thus the body (and the organism) is merely a sheath and the real masters are the genes. Freedom from all fears and happiness where no want exists are the ideal mix for "Life" to perpetuate itself infinitely and indefinitely through the genes. And, therefore, man is propelled helplessly to pursue these twin quests for freedom and happiness, as he is also merely one of several carriers of "life".
2. LIFE PERPETUATES ITSELF
Life is there everywhere not necessarily in an oxygen and carbon dependent form as familiar to us. Normally we are able to acknowledge the existence of Life only when it manifests in some form or shape that is recognized by us. Researchers found a couple of years ago evidence of life in the form of bacteria (archaea) in subterranean caves in oxygen poor environments surviving on elements like iron, manganese and others having a distinct DNA capable of replication. The bacteria constantly reproduce themselves changing, in the process, the chemistry of the rock material on which their life depends and consequently the environment around.
Physics tells us that the universe originated around 14 billion years ago in a big bang from a point of singularity where the known physical laws fail. The latest theory in Physics, the M-theory with the concept of eleven dimensions, attempts to go beyond the big bang with the postulation of parallel universes in four dimensions. Thus all theories of creation and subsequent evolution expounded require an a priori assumption of an initial existence of some energy or matter. The perpetuation of life is then seen as a movement of an initial energy into various insentient and sentient forms. The initial energy may be strings, bosons, fermions for physicists or shakti for vedantins or God in most of the other monotheistic religions. The various sentient and insentient forms may be subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, viruses, bacteria, unicelled protozoa to bryoza to multicellular organisms or in other words the whole range of floral and faunal species. But no body - either religious stalwarts or scientific experts - could explain the very origin of life or its quality to perpetuate itself at zero time, though mechanisms of creation or evolution are offered to explain subsequent developments. This quality of Life to perpetuate itself surviving under all eventualities appears to be something that is in Nature. If what is present all around is visualised as life, Life itself can be viewed as a self-perpetuating movement from somewhere unknown to an unknown nowhere replicating through a highly organised auto-cannibalizing and evolving forms, matter and species being merely incidental intermediaries in this movement.
3. CONSCIOUSNESS
Though the word had been a taboo for a long time for scientists, research for the last decade or so has been able to provide an understanding of what is consciousness. Organisms evolved a variety of survival mechanisms so that they can pass on their genes to their offspring before they are dead. Consciousness also appears to be one such mechanism in this process of perpetuation and preservation. Mathematician Physicist Penrose and Anesthesiologist Hameroff in their theory on Orchestrated Objective Reduction indicate how the creatures could have attained consciousness sometime in the Cambrian Period (550 million years ago) resulting in an explosion of a variety of species. Prior to that period the neural structure and the number of neurons in their nervous system were perhaps not adequate to give rise to consciousness in the animals (proterozoa) through quantum reduction. Thus consciousness served as a useful mechanism for diversification of the species and also in ensuring a greater survival chance for the individual so that "Life" itself can continue. One should, however, note that, at no time a particular species was important or a necessary condition for "Life". Graptolites in the Silurian Period, a variety of fish in the Devonian Period and several reptiles towards the end of the Paleozoic Era reigned supreme in their respective periods but became extinct later. The dinosaurs ruled the earth as the unquestioned highest forms of species of life for about 160 million years (that is Triassic to Cretaceous Periods). But at the end of Cretaceous (about 70 million years ago), all the dinosaurs disappeared, though life itself did not get extinguished. It continued into other forms. The huge mammoths were everywhere on the earth till geologically Recent times (about a million years ago). But they exist no more.
In the long history of the earth ever since its birth, there have been many examples of mass extinction of several species of animals and plants and evolution of new life forms. Today a human being appears to be the unquestioned ruler of the world blessed with a big cranial capacity and rich consciousness unsurpassed in the past. Whatever steps we may take in conserving the environment and preserving ourselves, there is no sure way to say that the human being is going to be there on the earth for ever and ever. Nor can one say with any reason that the ultimate form into which life has evolved is Man. There is no uniqueness associated with man. Nor does the earth look to be the only planet to support life. Over 400 extra solar planets have been discovered during the last decade. In January this year (2004) a planet in the Pegasus cluster was identified with carbon and oxygen escaping from it. Thus earth cannot claim for carbon (and hence carbon based life) as unique for us. It, therefore, looks that Life itself is not interested in the perpetual preservation of any species, let alone any specific individual. The movement of life continues from one species to another unendingly. There does not appear to be an end to this movement and one cannot predict what form and shape the future creatures take. Therefore, Man is just one form of the species for Life to continue. The Homo sapiens , notwithstanding their consciousness, may also become expendable just as the dinosaurs were.
4. ENERGY AUDIT
Comfort and being comfortable are a fallout of freedom and happiness. Comfort extends to both physical and mental well being. It has both physical and mental dimensions. It is not entirely mental only. I am comfortable if I have no external pressures of authority to comply with or if my own natural state of being is not threatened. Any force on the body causes discomfort, as the person has to spend energy to counter or adjust to that force. Or in other words, in order to feel comfortable, I should be free to be what I am. If we would like to analyse and understand comfort more precisely, we need a working definition and a measure for it so that proper formulations can be made for hypothesis and testing.
How do we define comfort? Careful analysis shows that the less one expends one's own energy, the more comfortable one is. To wit:
I am more comfortable in an air-conditioned carpeted room than standing in scorching sunlight because my body has to spend very little of its own energy in maintaining its temperature, fluid and electrolyte balance etc. in an air-conditioned room unlike in the hot sun. So also it is true that if some body else does my jobs, does the worrying for me, I am that much more comfortable (e.g. a chauffeur driven car rather than having to face the tension of driving through heavy disorderly traffic looking for street signs etc).
One may feel that comfort and happiness are momentary. Even if they are momentary, what happens in that moment? When the body is getting adjusted to an altered ambient condition, what biological and biochemical processes are taking place within the body (internally and externally)? Any process of alteration or adjustment acting on the body implies effort and effort implies expending of energy (potential, kinetic, chemical, electrical etc.).
In other words, the less the energy that is expended by me, whether it is a physical job or a mental one, the more comfortable I am. "The energy dynamic between organisms and their environments--that is, energy expended in relation to energy acquired -- has important adaptive consequences for survival and reproduction." Integrating this idea from the level of an individual to the level of all the species, the less the energy (that is all forms of resources) that is consumptively utilized (expended away), the greater is the comfort of the species. Comfort is thus an indicator of the energy audit. With minimal consumption of resources, higher comfort levels are achieved for the whole species. When a whole species is comfortable, then there are higher chances of its survival and self-propagation and self-perpetuation.
With such a definition of comfort, Intelligent Quotient can also be better understood. Given a problem, perhaps all people may eventually process it and find a solution. But an intelligent individual will process faster consuming less energy (a fact shown by functional MRI scans of brain activity).
5. FEAR AND LOVE
Psychologists, neuroscientists and religious teachers see a great difference between love and fear. (As used here, love includes all its other manifestations like mercy, kindness, forgiving, affection, sharing, cooperation etc. So also fear includes all its variations and forms like anger, hatred, revenge, competitivity etc.). But if we analyze deeply, it is not difficult to see that these two feelings are the same having an identical single purpose of facilitating self-preservation and self-perpetuation.
Fear helps in the self-perpetuation and survival of the individual whereas love helps in the self-perpetuation of a group - family at one level or the whole species in a larger sense.
In the non-zero sum game of Prisoner's Dilemma, the economists demonstrate how cooperation
(i.e. love or care for other's needs) rather than competition amongst the participants leads to the highest common good. Thus love in all its manifestations assures the highest common good for the creatures in the group and helps in the successful survival of a group as a whole. If love for one another amongst the members of a group, society, or clan is absent, that group would have annihilated itself by internal quarrels and fights. So called altruism (sacrifice by an individual for the greater good invoking the feelings of patriotism, family prestige, superior values and eternal love for a greater cause) helps towards the propagation and perpetuation of the species at the cost of an individual.
6. NONVIOLENCE IS A MYTH
Many religious leaders exhort nonviolence to be cultivated as a desirable quality. Truly this is an asset for the smooth living of a group of people. Otherwise, the group can destroy itself totally by inter and intra-violence. But nonviolence is an unnatural trait. Non-violence does not exist in nature. In fact, it is violence, which is prevalent in nature. There is nothing like a violence-free living. It is an artificially cultivated virtue.
After all, every creature needs food to live. Unless it eats, there is no life in it, for it dies of starvation. How does it secure its nutrition? Is it by love and nonviolence? It is by naked and even fierce exploitation of the weak. Watch how each of the prey tries to run away from its predator -- whether it is a cruel chase of a bison by a pack of tigers in the wild or the silent chase of a roach by a lizard in a house. The run for its life by the prey is most pitiable. But there is no possibility of life to continue without this predator-prey "life and death" fight which can hardly be described as nonviolent. Vegetarianism, though apparently does not look so violent, it too causes its worries to the plants as some tests showed. Violence is part and parcel of the order of things as long as the predator pyramid is there in nature.
Note also how our body manages to stay alive. We are bombarded by a variety of microorganisms and viruses all the time when we are alive or dead. The body is not suddenly exposed to a new set of germs after our death. They have been there all the time. But a dead body rots so soon because of these microbes and germs. There is an incessant fight with them when we are alive, by our immunological mechanisms and white blood cells. It can hardly be described as nonviolence unless we give a limited definition to the word "nonviolence" keeping our well being only at the center of such a definition. When we die, our body loses this capacity to fight and soon the microbes and germs take over. It is our fight to kill the killing germs that makes us stay alive. Therefore, nonviolence in nature is a myth.
7. SOCIAL ORDER AND GOD
Man (or for that matter any creature) finds soon that he/she is very inadequate in facing the Life's momentum and natural forces alone all by himself/herself. It is easier to face stress when a person is backed by a group. Group living helps in not only better protection from predators but also in taking care of the young ones. Living as a group brings forth, however, the play of group behavioral dynamics. Management of conflict (exploitation, aggression) and leisure (boredom, loneliness) is very important for the success of group living.
Resolution of conflicting individual interests and imposition of an accepted order in the society obviously become a necessity. This does not happen automatically because man inherently desires freedom from all authority as already discussed in para 1 in the beginning. It then follows that these functions have to be assigned to an individual with unquestioned obedience to that individual's dicta by the rest of the society. Thus a center of authority comes into play. (This 'authority' itself will have an interest in its own self-preservation and perpetuation. But that forms another essay). Command and control are maintained through a system of reward and punishment, invoking, or in the name of, a higher authority. A hierarchical order for policing gets established in the society, the right to reward and punish being vested with the police. The seeds of religion get established the moment such a system of policing gets codified. I could see increasingly clearly that religion itself is such a code of governance for public good designed by great seers in the past. In stead of having an external enforcer of the regulations constantly monitoring the behaviour of the individuals, self-regulation increases the total efficiency of the system. A Godhead is a policeman internalized within each individual to ensure, through self-regulation, a behaviour that is in line with the designed objective of overall welfare, comfort and well-being of not only the individual, the whole society but also the total environment. For a person who lives and acts with concern for everything around, God is as unnecessary as the presence of a traffic constable for a disciplined and caring driver with a good sense of road etiquette that underpins itself on concern for other road users.
In a situation of plenty and when a person does not have any pressing need to act, the resulting leisure needs to be managed so as not to fall into the trap of "boredom". Boredom, though may occasionally serve as a springboard for creativity, is usually detrimental for healthy living either at an individual level or at the level of the whole society. The idle energy has to be channeled into mass participatory activity in the group. Rituals and routines with promises of rewards both for the individual and the group can ward off 'boredom' and its unwanted consequences in a social organizational structure. This is another important function that religion deals with.
After all, religion was at the back of governance in ancient social order, the objective of the governance having dual goals -- preservation of the individual at one level and preservation of the species itself and the environment at a larger level. Therefore, the everyday rules and regulations of life for individuals in the society were framed in the backdrop of a religious authority. No wonder, most of the religious codes and diktat preach love not only towards one another but also towards the environment because they are based on conservation of resources in a holistic manner in order to ensure longevity to the whole species. It is interesting to note in passing here that the most commonly worshipped Hindu Gods come from the stratum (Kshatriya) of the society that was vested with these "reward and punish" functions. Even Shiva (whose origins are said to be unknown) is married into the same stratum. It is also to be noted that it is very naive to say that only a particular type of religious method or any of the isms will ensure a permanent and all-pervading preservation of the society. To extend the traffic analogy, no one can argue that keeping left is superior to keeping right. What is important for smooth traffic flow is a commonly accepted rule for all the road users. And that becomes the religion for that society's preservation and perpetuation.
8. AGGREGATION AND DIFFERENCES
At the basic component level all houses are the same. They are all built with cement, sand, bricks etc. But as these elements are aggregated, different buildings as separate entities stand out. If all the houses are broken down to finer and finer elements and heaped, they become indistinguishable. So is the case with living things. If they are all broken down to gene level, all of them contain the same DNA material - ACGT (Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine, a sort of sugars). Similarly, if all elements are broken down to subtler and subtler levels, we end up with the same electrons, protons etc which can further be broken down to various quarks, strings and so on. At that level, one can hardly distinguish a particle that has come from one element from another particle coming from a different element. Thus, aggregation seems to bring in differences. This becomes overly manifested with human beings too. Man from any country has basically the same worries and concerns. But when a group of individuals from one locality or language or customs gather, this aggregate becomes markedly distinguishable from another aggregate. Clanship, parochialism and many such features have their origin in this process of aggregation. At finer and subtler levels, there is an unquestionable oneness.
9. MATTER
All the known matter that we can see, touch, smell and taste is composed of, as per chemists, about 115 elements discovered to date and described by the Periodic Table where the elements are arranged with increasing atomic number. Hydrogen with the simplest structure of one proton and one electron is the most abundant element found in the universe. Our own earth has, in addition, oxygen, silicon, iron and aluminium as the most abundant elements. But the statistical tests performed on pairs of quasars and fast-moving supernovae, as well as studies of the abundance of galactic clusters in the universe, studies on the gravity of the heavenly bodies and the composition of interstellar material, as per astrophysicists, indicate much more missing material in the universe. The latest studies on the structure of the universe through the satellite born Hubble telescope and Chandra observatory coupled with many astronomical data lead us now to understand that the material as known to us comprises hardly about 4% of the total possible matter. It is estimated that there exists another 24% of matter in a way not known to our chemistry. It is called as 'dark matter'. Much of the universe (that is the balance of 78%) consists of some of form of energy, which is not understood by the physical laws known to man. Hence it is called as 'dark energy'. Thus all the matter that we understand is only a minor fraction of what is in the universe.
The Upanishadic philosophical concepts attribute three qualities (gunas) to all that is known (or roughly matter). In a way all matter is made up of these three qualities. In other words, these are the three fundamental particles that the matter is composed of. These qualities are described as tamas, rajas and satva in increasing order of fineness. Tamas can be understood to represent the grossness or that property which gives rise to form or the dimensionality of space-time. Rajas is the quality that gives raise to movement or force. Satva is the quality that has so far no known equivalent in physics. It can be roughly translated as 'the sense of isness or beingness'.
Physicists have described at subatomic particle level fermions, which occupy space and bosons, which give raise to force. Two fermions cannot occupy the same space and, therefore form bodies. Bosons do not require space and can pass through a body. Some of the Quantum physicists dealing with consciousness are tending to believe that consciousness is also a fundamental property of all matter yet not measured. All modern physical laws are developed to measure the other two properties viz. Space and Force only. There are no known physical laws to measure consciousness. Presently neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) are being developed. Chalmers, a professor at the UCLA, believes scientists will discover eventually that human consciousness is an irreducible quality of the universe, like space, mass or time. "Instead of trying to explain consciousness purely in terms of its physical processes, you should take it as a fundamental entity in its own right," he said.
Speculatively speaking, if tamas can be correlated to fermions and rajas to bosons, physicists have yet to discover the fundamental "particles"(?) corresponding to satva. Perhaps consciousness may correspond to this satva. Thus then all known matter will be comprising these three fundamental qualities. Prayer and meditation are perhaps the techniques of manipulating the fundamental particles of consciousness, just as we can manipulate matter and force to our advantage using the known physical laws. The consciousness that the neural system in animals is endowed with (Para 3 above), manifests only after certain critical levels of neural mass are attained by the creatures as proposed by Penrose and Hameroff theory.
The Bhagavad-Gita says that all the known is a result of the three gunas and urges man to be rid of them in order to attain a state that is beyond them. That is the state when man does not any more react or respond to the objects and environment around as a reaction to the stimuli but experiences an unseparating oneness, the fourth state (see para 14 below).
10. EMOTIONS AND KUNDALINI
Emotions too are survival mechanisms. They help the body in arriving at fast decisions for action when life is faced with a hostile or favourable situation. Emotions also serve as a way of quick communication amongst the members of a species for collective effort in facing a perceived threat. In this sense emotions can be considered as precursors to language. The communication of a baby is essentially through a show of emotions (crying or smiling). No wonder that, even today, our communication is over 90% non-verbal (i.e. emotional including body language). The central hub for emotions is the amygdala (located deep inside the brain). The route from senses to amygdala to thalamus to muscles is much faster and provides an inferential short-circuit in responding to a situation than from senses to thalamus to cortex (using logical faculty) to muscles.
The most basic emotions are two namely (a) fear and its derivatives and (b) love and its manifestations. There are specific triggering mechanisms, pathways and feedback circuits in the production of the hormones giving rise to various emotions. The hormones are secreted by the endocrine glands directly into the body organs when signals are received from the brain through the neurotransmitters. The endocrine system of ductless glands functions autonomically. The different glands comprising the endocrine system are gonads, adrenal gland, pancreas, thymus, parathyroid, thyroid, pineal and pituitary glands. The pituitary is the master controller. The instructions from it are carried by neurotransmitters to the other glands. Some of the chemicals which act as neurotransmitters are serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine etc. Testosterone, estrogen, androgen, insulin, oxytocin, thyroxin, somatotropin, glucocorticoids etc are examples of hormones produced by the various glands on receiving instructions from the pituitary. In general, the levels of the hormone reached in the blood provide a feedback to the pituitary for giving further instructions to the glands either to continue production of a hormone or to stop. The locations of the various endocrine glands in the body correspond to the locations of the seven chakras identified in the Kundalini.
Fear and its forms like anger, competitivity etc. are produced by adrenaline. Love is a lumped up term used by us to the feelings of lust, affection, attachment, sharing etc. Love as lust (with sexual urge) is generated by testosterone; love as affection by dopamine and love as attachment (friendship) by oxyticin produced by the pituitary. Studies at the University of Pisa, Italy showed that romance is akin to obsessive compulsive behavioural disorder with high levels of dopamine and norepinephrine and low levels of serotonin. The thymus near the heart functions when the child is growing but later becomes inactive.
High serotonin and norepinephrine levels that were necessary for courageously facing an adverse situation with focus by a primitive man often mark the person in the present day as socially aggressive. When a person is in euphoria, he has high levels of testosterone and it becomes infectious too. [The fire cracker euphoria after an Indo-Pak cricket match is an example. The testosterone levels go up not only in the players but in the viewers too!]
Irrespective of the hormonal levels in the body of an individual, the society expects him/her to behave as per accepted norms at all times (say while performing duties in day shifts and night shifts). Our body is not suited for that. As the body needs rest, melatonin is secreted. As we wake up, cartisones are secreted. We are trying to change this in flight duty personnel, shift workers etc. demanding the same service irrespective of their body chemistry. This produces a conflict in their bodies. The brain tells something but the social response requires a different thing.
The primitive man and woman had a narrow range of reproductive life with puberty coming up much later and mortality earlier than setting in of menopause. With modern age, puberty is coming much sooner. Even before the child is ready for reproduction, there is a sexual urge. Old age is too extending, thus increasing the effective span of reproductive age at the present times. Therefore, new problems are cropping up with respect to geriatric management and population stabilization.
Obviously, these hormones which are not under our conscious control are not really suited to the present day living. Endocrinologists also tell us that much of the endocrine glandular system has no function for our existence now. But the brain keeps on producing the hormones just as it does with the antibodies and sends instructions for different organs. They suited the primitive man as the instinctual behavior pattern triggered by the hormones has evolved to enable him/her to face hazardous situations in the caveman age. The expected (required) behavioral norms of group living developed by the human being are at variance with the hormone-induced emotions. The individual is in constant conflict with what the brain tells the organs to do and what our logical reasoning requires us to do. A conflict of purpose induces unhappiness, sorrow and depression (because of an imbalance in dopamine, serotonin etc). Arjuna (as portrayed by Vyasa in the first chapter of Bhavadgita) faced such a state when there was a conflict in his mind. In order not only to attain a balanced state of mind free from conflict, but also to succeed as a group, there is a need to negate the effects of these hormones.
As a pre-requisite to obtaining a composed mind, we are advised by our ancients to conquer the antah satrus (kama, krodha etc.). There appears to be a rough one-to-one correspondence of these unwanted arishadvarga emotions and the hormonal secretions of the glands. Though people may differ in the identification of the different glands corresponding to different chakras and the arishadvarga, a suggested scheme is given below subject to modification by experts:
Kama Sexual urge Muladhara Gonads
Krodha Anger, fear Svadhistana Adrenal gland
Lobha Greed Manipura Pancreas
Moha Infatuation Anahata Thymus
Mada Pride Visuddha Thyroid/parathyroid
Matsarya Jealousy Ajna Pineal
Sahasrara Pituitary
While it has been established that rigorous exercise helps in re-establishing the balance of dopamine and serotonin (say in times of depression), it is a mute point open for research if some breathing and other forms of exercises as advised by Kundalini yoga can help bring about a similar result.
The latest research findings indicate that you are what you are (in terms of your emotional personality) because of the hormonal balances when you were in your mother's womb. The fetus tries to optimize its survival capacity depending on the nutritional supplies and the various hormones available for it. In a condition of paucity of adequate nutrition, preference is given to the development of brain over some other parts of the body. As a result, the undernourished fetuses grow larger heads. In such a situation the fetus also learns to produce less insulin in order to save on burning of the carbohydrates. When the baby is born after the gestation period and faces a different nutritional environment as it grows (for example: excess availability of food), it may not be able to adjust so easily and therefore, becomes ill.
The human being looks at disease as something to be avoided and blames his/her luck when afflicted. What has to be remembered is that disease is only a symptom of a natural process that is going on within the body organism. That natural process is also a tool that man is endowed with to help him/her in survival. When man is faced with a life-threatening situation, the built-in body mechanisms automatically produce the required defensive strategies. The most commonly experienced phenomenon is the production of adrenaline, which is often described as the 'fight or flight' hormone. The release of adrenaline is so triggered as to activate certain body muscles (for example, more blood supply for the calf muscle in the legs to facilitate fast running in case of flight) and reduce blood circulation to certain other tissues as per the needs of the situation. Such a concerted effort of the hormones in a focussed way changes the otherwise equilibrium position of the organism. If the normal equilibrium position (homeostasis) can be described as "healthy', the shifted state may be called as "disease". Our bodies experience stress in an effort to bring it back to normalcy. Looked at this way, acting against the natural stress is counterproductive and harmful. However, continued stress, which is a response to a particular threat, can often tend to diminish resistance of the body to other forms of threats occurring at the same time because of the prioritization of body needs. Continued chronic stress or a feeling of desperate unsurmountability or even anticipation of such a condition can bring about permanent damage to the body. Excessive stress produces the chemical 'cortisol' which is known to kill the brain cells. Barring such continuous stress producing a condition known as Long Term Potentiation, disease can be seen as a readjustment technique for the survival of the species.
Stress-induced hormonal changes in the body over several generations may go to the extent of affecting the genes, sometimes with beneficial results. Such genetic mutation will change the species for better survival. An interesting example in this context is a species of arctic frog, which becomes hard like a stone with freezing sub-zero temperatures. It has developed the ability to stop all its metabolic and other bodily functions to the extent of stopping its heart beat. With receding winter, as the waters thaw, gradually, the frog comes back live with the heart beating again. In the absence of such adaptability of the arctic frog, continued stress will result in immune deficiency and exposes the organism to more ill health.
Research is being done at several reputed institutes to evolve techniques to intervene and block the neurotransmitter pathways from the brain to the endocrine system in order to combat the ill effects of stress and anxiety. We tend to do what is pleasant depending on the brain's reward system. This is a complex circuit of neurons, that evolved to make us feel flush after eating or sex -- things we need to do to survive and pass along our genes. A key component of the reward circuitry is the mesolimbic dopamine system, a set of nerve cells originating near the base of the brain, and send projections to target regions in the front of the brain. A recent study at the University of Wisconsin showed that the negative and depressing thoughts produce activity in the right prefrontal cortex of the brain and cause reduced levels of antibodies. Positive happy thoughts produce activity in the left prefrontal cortex and also higher levels of antibodies and therefore, more resistance to infection. This shows why positive and good thoughts are encouraged by religious preachers as a precept to be followed - they ensure a healthier society and therefore, better survival of the individual. The ceremonial underpinning behind important events in the life of an individual (like birth, marriage, and death) help bring about an emotional closure and get on with life rather being lost and be incapacitated psychologically.
11. PRAYER AND MEDITATION
Man is endowed with an ability to think (that's what the brain does and that's what the mind constitutes) essentially as a tool for his/her survival. Having a memory, cognitive capabilities and feelings and emotions help to preserve one from dangers, to secure and store food, and to interact with the others in the group for better survival. Thus mind (sum of thoughts) is essentially a gift of nature to help one's own survival. However, man being weak in front of the natural and life forces (after all, we have already noted (Para 3 above) that Life is not interested in any individual species, let alone individual being), one has to mentally rehearse the threats and opportunities in order to ensure his/her survival. Worry is such a mechanism provided by the nature as believed by the psychologists. Therefore, it is naive when people advise that one should be free from worry! Worry helps in the preparedness to face a situation and hence need not be totally despised upon.
At the same time, an agitated and disturbed mind is the last any one would like to have in stressful or difficult times. Prayer helps him/her in gathering all his mental faculties and go with a pointedly desired outcome. If one prays with such intense feeling and emotion with whole of his heart and body, it does help man to overcome the problem. Experiments conducted in UK and USA hospitals reported the beneficial results of prayers in curing patients of even serious diseases. Even remote prayers by well-wishers unknown to the patient had had salutary effects on the health of the sufferers.
Meditation, unlike prayer, helps man in developing a sane and balanced mind, which does not run after trivial desires, and thus reducing his/her wasteful spending of energy. Having such a balanced mind through meditation in turn helps in reduced consumptive use of the natural resources. The Buddhist Monks of Tibet were observed to be able to raise the temperature of their bodies to the extent that they could dry cold wet towels spread on their bodies even in subzero temperatures because of their meditation techniques. There is as yet no known clear scientific explanation for this ability. However, it is observed that temperature in the fingertips of even persons uninitiated into meditation raised by about four to eight degrees Fahrenheit when they are under relaxed state. Even soothing music brought about the same result. Anxious state of the mind or ruckus music constricted the blood vessels in the fingers and brought about a lowering of temperature.
Both prayer and meditation capabilities are endowments a man is born with. This may be because of the fact that consciousness is also a fundamental quality like space-time and force (see Para 9). Prayer and meditation are the techniques of channeling this into enhancing self-confidence, which helps in one's own survival. The word confidence is derived from Latin 'con' meaning with and 'fidere' meaning faith. Thus self-confidence implies having an unwavering faith in one's own self to surmount a hurdle and many of us must have experienced how prayer and meditation are helpful in building up this confidence. Prayer and meditaion also help in avoiding "boredom" (para 7 above).
12. SIN, THOUGHT AND LIBERATION
If an act, word or deed is termed as sin, it goes without saying that there is an opposite of it, which is not sinful and is a good desirable act, word or deed. This obviously will imply a comparison - either against one another or against a set standard, which in turn will mean that these are all relative statements. They have no intrinsic absoluteness about them. If there is a law that says that one should drive on the left side of the road, driving in the center or on the right side of the road is a sin. If the law says that you should keep right, well that is right and not sinful.
There is nothing absolute or meritorious in either keeping to the right side of the road or to the left. Similarly, if a standard is set for the production of goods with certain specifications, it is not sinful if the produced goods conform to the standard. If the specifications get changed, the produced goods too should comply. Otherwise, it is a sin. But nature has never set any such laws except for a momentum of its own. All such laws sanctified by religion or otherwise are artificial and man-made in order to facilitate smooth social living. They are contextual and their relevance and very existence depend on an "authority" who prescribed the laws. The authority of law and order is obviously required for the day-to-day functioning of the society - like a license to drive, following traffic rules, avoid punishable offences. However, extending such concepts to issues beyond the world is a mere projection of the pure every-day-worldly issues into unrelated realms.
Therefore, one has to appreciate that in naming some thing as sinful or otherwise depends on (i) the existence of a set standard (law, practice, and dictum) and (ii) a process of comparing of what has been done with reference to that set standard. In other words, measuring the relative separation between the standard and the actual fact. The relationship connecting any two statements, in fact, is an expression of the perceived relative separation of two or more distinct entities (events, statements etc.), the separation having been perceived by 'thought' either in time or space. The moment of a comparison, the moment of a separation evolves from conceptual models learned through experience, knowledge, tradition etc and stored in mind and a thought process of evaluation. But all such conceptual models and standards are artificial and imaginary. They are stored as images in the brain. All knowledge is nothing but stored knowledge of the past learning. Therefore, neither sin, which is a mere concept, nor its opposite, which is purely imaginary, does exist in nature. Vyasa clearly says through Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita that He neither dispenses sin or good to people, He being above all such matters.
Hence sin or otherwise occurs only when a thought process begins. A desire to be free from all this sin and samsara (world which is seen as sinful) is a fanciful notion and nothing great to commend about. After all, even such a desire is a reflection of a thought process inculcated into the mind by the society describing the actual world we live in as despicable and an unknown and imaginary 'other' world as something desirable. There is no way of doing only the fancy no-sin-accruing-meritorious-acts. True Liberation is there when one is free from one's own thoughts. Quoting from Gita again, a true renouncer is one who has renounced even the seeds of thoughts (sankalpa). Such a person neither can hurt nor can be hurt.
13. TIME AND REBIRTH
Philosophers describe the world we live in as phenomenal or causal world. It is characterized by certain properties that we are familiar with. The properties are: the three-dimensional space with length, breadth and width; light and colors; sound; heat; pressure; and finally smell and taste. These are all the characteristics, which we recognize with our senses. We do not know if there are other properties than these, because these are the only things that we have capability to recognise with our built in sensory organs. Most of our sense is visionary as around 20% of the brain is occupied by visual cortex. As we all know, our sensory ability has certain defined range (bandwidth) beyond which we cannot recognize. Such of those properties, which fall beyond the limits of the range of our senses, have to be manipulated to be brought within the range of our senses so that we can understand. That is how we understand x-rays or the existence of bacteria. Thus our ability to understand our world is twice confounded, first by the limited number of our senses and second, their limited range. Another important limitation is not so commonly appreciated. It is that our senses can detect only when there is a contrast between the signal and the background. If there is no contrast, we cannot detect any thing. Our common association of good and bad, happiness and sadness, profit and loss etc., dualities has its origin in this basic inability of our sensory system. We habitually look at the edges and perceive things by comparison to something else. We cannot see anything absolute. If there is all only white light, we see nothing. If your face merges with the background without any difference in the reflected light, I just do not see you. We cleverly manipulate even the computer by the technique of edge enhancement in pattern recognition.
All of us are familiar with another character of the world that we live in. It is the arrow of TIME. What is this arrow of time? Is it really there? How do we see it?
Ours is a three dimensional world. That is to say that our eyes (and the associated stereovision, stereosound) basically see the physical parameter of distance, viz., length in three directions. If we were only two-dimensional creatures, we would not have been able to see length, breadth and width all at once. We can see only two of the dimensions and the third has to be interpolated by incremental sections like in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging. That is to say that the extra dimension is seen in steps, one after another and NOT all the dimensions at once. As two-dimensional creatures, if we look at a chair, we see two sides of it and gradually build an image of the depth of the chair mentally, but seeing only a cross-sectional area of two dimensions at any given point. So it is the mind that intervenes to compensate for our two dimensional restriction.
We have listed a few physical and chemical characteristics of the world we live in. We have various sense organs for their detection:
Physical parameters:
Light and colors - Eyes
Distance - Eyes
Sound - Ears
Heat - Skin
Pressure - Skin
Chemical parameters:
Taste - Tongue
Smell - Nose
Have you ever wondered what is that organ or tissue that we are built with to detect time? None I am afraid. Because of the inherent limitation of our three dimensional capability, our mind provides an imaginary continuity and helps us to see an extra dimension. We call that extra dimension as TIME. If the mind does not interpose, there is no 'time' in the sense that we see it (as an arrow) though it is a dimension. When the mind is snubbed or stunned, as in an altered state of consciousness (say under anesthesia) or when the mind faces sudden life-threatening situations, it loses all sense of time. The body is able to perform umpteen numbers of tasks in a sudden dangerous situation. Accomplishing so many tasks in such a short time at times of catastrophes is a wonder commonly experienced by all of us. When the mind gets snubbed, there is no sense of time that remains. Therefore, arrow of time is only a mental imaginary construct and not a fundamental property of the world we live in!
As we see the world in progressive steps of three dimensions, the mind gives the connectivity by linking one cross section as emerging out of its predecessor, the first as the cause of the second. A cause and effect relationship is established and the mind is trained to interpret all events in this fashion. The continuation of cause - effect duo gets further amplified to cyclicity and even rebirth. If the mind does not provide this continuity, there is neither a cyclicity nor rebirth. All events have taken place all at once. We see three dimensions and a fourth by interpolation in the mind. The total brain has always been there, not the incremental sections of MRI scans in time. So also the total chair has always been there, not incremental sections of depth in time as visible to a two dimensional creature.
Vyasa aptly described this in Bhagavad-Gita Chapter II sloka 26 when explaining the nature of the world. He provided a model: world as constantly being born and perished or like a waterfall where the water droplet that was there is not there any more, even though we still see a waterfall continuously. The human body is under constant change with death of existing cells and creation of new cells - whether it is the soft muscle, skin or the hard bone. The red blood cells are replaced at a rate of 350 million per minute. Our body gets replaced totally in less than a year. The child that you were, was long ago gone and dead; but it is the mind that says you are continuing. The mind provides us this illusion of continuity through the unidirectional 'time'. The astrophysicist, Prof. Dobson says that because of the illusory nature of our perception with our mind, we see certain fundamental properties of Nature differently than what they are actually. We see oneness as gravity, infiniteness as electricity and changelessness as inertia.
14. THE FOUR OUTCOMES AND NIRVANA
The current concepts of the neurophysiologists do not agree with the Descartesic idea of body-mind duality. Mind is understood to be what the brain does; though the word 'mind' itself requires a more precise definition. In order to understand the state of Nirvana, an approximate model can be constructed based on the body-mind duality somewhat on the lines of Gaudapada's karika (commentary) on Mandukya upanishad. The neurophisiological aspect does not, however, invalidate the model.
Broadly speaking, in a layman's perspective at an aggregate level, a human being can be viewed to be composed of two entities:
(i) An ensemble of all the sensory and action organs - viz. the body; and
(ii) An ensemble of all our knowledge, experience, memory, culture, thoughts, emotions, 'qualia' - viz. the mind.
These two entities can be either in an active state (existent) or in rest (inert or nonexistent) state. The two entities and the two states together can give raise to four outcomes. The four outcomes are:
(a) Mind and body both entities active: this is wakeful state (our every day so called reality).
(b) Mind active but body inactive: dream state.
(c) Mind and body both inactive: deep sleep, buddhistic satori, nirvikalpa samadhi, and finally death depending upon how inert or nonexisting the condition of the entities is. And lastly the fourth outcome:
(d) Mind inactive or nonexisting or totally at rest, but body active: the state of nirvana or advaitic (nondualistic) brahmi state. In this state life and its processes continue in the body but the mind and the ego at its center are non-existent or totally inactive.
The four states are mutually exclusive. That is to say that one cannot simultaneously be in two or more states. You cannot sleep in a wakeful state nor can you be awake in a dream state. I am confident that all human beings experience the four states every day. Just as one slips from a wakeful state to sleep and dream states without any effort, the fourth state too is experienced without any particular effort. Again just as it is impossible to experience sleep or dream when one is awake, nor can it be proved by any external agent, it is also equally impossible to experience the fourth state in our wakeful state, nor can an external agent could demonstrate its occurrence. Each person experiences the state and lives in it by oneself. Vyasa, the great storyteller that he was, showed this very well in the eleventh chapter of Bhagavad-Gita. The chatty, questioning, inquiring Arjuna was totally silent when he experienced the cosmic "Viswarupa" in his fourth state. Vyasa uses the technique of narrating the experience of Arjuna's state through the words of Sanjaya as Arjuna himself was unable to communicate using his mind (for words and language) in that state. Arjuna was shown to speak again only after he was out of that state and came back to 'wakeful' state.
I venture to speculate here that just as the states of sleep or dream are never continuous throughout the sleeping time but are episodic (of about 90 minutes duration), perhaps, the wakeful state too is episodic with lapses into the fourth state for fractions of time spans. Thus every body must have been experiencing all the four states effortlessly. Only when we consciously try to attain a specific state through an effort that we lose it!
A question on how body can act when the mind is inert in the fourth state may be raised. We have the answer in the Bhagavadgita. Such an action is inaction when the mind with its judgemental attitude of the good versus bad, the happy vs uncomfortable, hot vs cold etc opposites is absent. The actor remains satisfied with what comes of its own accord. Vyasa states content with what comes to him without effort, unaffected by the pairs of opposites, even-minded (non-reacting inert state), though acting, he is not bound (Chapter IV, sloka 22)".
15. REALITY
Each state is real on its own terms. Unless we posit an artificial reference extended from one state to the other for judgement, we cannot say that a specific state is real and the other is unreal. So also the pecking order imposed on the states is artificial and judgmental. One cannot set absolute order of superiority of one state over the other - for example: there is no rationale to assert that the religiously meditated state of mind (where mind itself does not exist - a zero-thought state or satori) is superior to wakeful state. The religious teachers recommend the pecking order with an interest in creating a stable orderly society for the perpetuation of the species as a whole and for conserving energy and minimising consumptive use of resources.
16. NIRVANA AND NEAR ZERO ENERGY CONSUMPTION
In the fourth 'outcome' discussed above, the body is active just for its survival expending minimum of resources (energy) and hence is ordained as the most desirable state to be in by the religious teachers. Because of the fact that minimum energy is spent for the survival and self-propagation, it is also the most comfortable state (Para 4 above) to be in when the body is living.
17. A NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF NIRVANA
As we all know, the sensory signals inputted into the respective cortex of the brain take a few hundred milliseconds before they are interpreted to give raise to a meaningful understanding of what the signal is. In that fraction of a second, the memory and other cognitive processes take place within the brain, consuming energy. If the signals through the sensory organs are received but if subsequent processing is eliminated by the thalamus and prefrontal cortex etc., the sensory organs will be acting as mere peep-through windows. No meaning is given to the signals by the self (from the standpoint of an egocentric self-conscious mind). Nor a spatial separation between the source of the signal and the self as a distinctly different receiver of the signal is felt. (Because there is no more a feeler to have a memory and feeling). No distinction of ambient objects is experienced from the signals emanating from various objects. In this state obviously, only a oneness exists between the signal receiver and the signal emitters without a line of demarcation between different objects. Therefore, this state when the mind (and attendant neurophysiological processes) is absent (in its action of cognition and recognition giving raise to a meaning to the sensory signals and thereby bringing in a feeling of 'self' as a distinct onlooker of the objects and the surrounding universe), may be the state of Nirvana. Does the ABSENCE of neurophysiological processes of recognition and giving meaning to what is perceived offer a definition of the state of nirvana?
18. IN CONCLUSION
Both religion and science are based on a spirit of query. However, there appears to be a sense of finality in religion - that's it and no need for questions attitude. Science on the other hand is a continuous probe, never ending questions, including why we question as expressed by Prof. Feynman - "I wonder why! I wonder why I wonder why!" However, science, when it becomes a dogma, ceases to be a science.
The nineties were the Decade of the Brain. As a result, there is now a tremendous amount of functional MRI, PET and CAT scan data on the various states of brain, the pain and pleasure circuits, neurotransmitter receptors and blockers, NCC (neural correlates of consciousness) etc. Parallelly, the unified string theory in quantum physics with its eleven dimensional multiverse possibility is giving raise to a new physics. Both these developments are contributing to a better understanding of cognition, consciousness and mind.
With all this said and done, still some of the basic questions about Life, its origin, where it is contained before it originated etc are unanswered if no a priori assumptions are made or no authority is invoked. Our mind, the only tool that is at our command for such an investigation, acquires its knowledge from the inputs received through the five sensory organs. The bandwidth of these organs being very limited, the mind too is constrained in its ability in comprehending many issues, which are beyond these bandwidths. But in the fourth state when mind itself does not exist, all thoughts disappear and, therefore, all questions get dissolved, as basically all questions are also forms of thoughts. The mind is humbled and in that humility, the quest for an answer takes a different turn. Whatever has to happen had already happened, as the quantum physicists put it, soon after the big bang when the universe was still at Planck's dimensions [one divided by ten raised to the power of 43 second and one divided by ten raised to the power of 32 centimeter (10^-33 cm, i.e. the shortest possible length, and 10^-43 sec, i.e. the time it takes for a light beam to cross the Planck length, i.e. the shortest possible time tick)]. And all the events that happened or going to happen may not be in a unidimensional time frame but within an incomprehensible Big Bang and Big Crunch taking place simultaneously at once.
Collating information from different fields as linguistics, anthropology, hominid migrations, dietary influence and cranial development in primates, and combining with the latest developments in neurophysiology, I am more and more tempted to believe that an individual needs no God. It is the society (the compulsions of group living and the consequential behavioural dynamics - both within the group and without with the environment) that need a GOD. As a corollary, one may say that the state of living without being affected by the society and the ambient environment itself is moksha - moksha even from the requirement of a god!
Reverting to the two urges mentioned at the beginning of this essay, under these circumstances, the only choice we have is to free ourselves from the 'urge to be free'. We should just be happy riding along with the movement of events without any feeling or consciousness of a separate existence as an independent and distinct entity. We will have no distinguishing identity and will be unseparable with every thing around that makes the whole. After all, when we look at the man in front, we do not look at the nose, the eye, the ear, the chin, the beard, the body, the hands, the dress etc. Or measure the distances between various parts, their sizes. We just take all those components together as one whole and at once see a man. Can we not take the whole life, the world, the actions, the plants, animals, the houses, the roads, the ups, the downs, the darkness, the light - see the whole at once as ONE - that nameless, unlimited and wholesome thing - TAT?
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