Bare Basics by Santosh Jha - HTML preview

Even in our educational books for all ages, we still cram them with unscientific and childishly inaccurate information, which all gladly accept. The trouble is not that kids cannot be told truths on the basis of objective science. The trouble is, parents (educationists and teachers) are not willing to trouble their brains as for them too, understanding a question on a holistic basis and answering them on the same synthesized knowledge pool of humanity is a tough and troubling task.

Humanity is the victim of this choice of convenience for accepting questions and answers. It is very difficult to understand a large range of existing knowledge of humanity and then formulate answers. The easy way is to be adamant and say a firm ‘no’. Humanity has objective answers but this does not penetrate individual minds as subjective doors are closed since ages. We all are quick to point out, science and objectivity is not trustworthy as it itself changes, contradicts and improves itself.

True, very true. It is actually the true validity of objectivity. Objectivity only can have the courage, reason and self-initiative to take and accept the difficult task of contradicting and improving itself. Subjectivity is happy being adamant and opting a convenient and easy choice of saying ‘no’ and being happy with status quo.

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Ordering A Disorderly Order

There is a law in physics relating to thermodynamics. From this law emerges the idea of Entropy. The stated position is a law of physics, which says, “In a universe condemned to inexorably increasing entropy, humanity values extropy (the inverse of entropy)”. 

This opens up a box of great potential of troubles as well as solutions. The nature or space around us, as the entropy rule says, is full of ever enhancing disorders. But then, the human intelligence is in finding ‘order’ in all things that come to him.

This itself results in something that unleashes a series of trouble for humanity. Someone said, “We are drowning in information, while still thirsty for wisdom”. One of the attributes that makes us human is that we try to make sense (order) of things that don't make sense. We often assign order where there may be none. These traits occasionally can lead us to form conclusions that don't correspond to reality and fall in the realms of entropic faith, mysticism and skepticism.

As autonomous living intellects, every human need to understand and accept the entropy of nature and limitations of human intelligence for extropy. The term entropy is very important and must be very clearly understood.

It is a universal assertion based on laws of physics that nature tends to take things from ‘order to disorder’. The human intelligence is in reversing this. This is a part of our common experience. Spend hours arranging your desk and cupboard and it seems to spontaneously revert to disorder. The day, you wish to reach office early, there are greater chances of you getting caught in a traffic jam. A bread slice slipping from your hand would often land on the floor with the buttery side down. Or, if some day it lands the other way, someone would more probably walk on it unintentionally.

Now, in the above contexts, understanding entropy should be easy. Entropy is a measure of disorder and improbabilities, and the scientific fact is that nature tends toward maximum entropy for any isolated system.

This disorder has to be understood more as ‘multiplicity’ of happening. The precise way to characterize entropy is to say that it is a measure of the "multiplicity" associated with the natural state of the objects. The simple rule is, if a given state can be accomplished in many more ways, then it is more probable than one, which can be accomplished in only a few ways. For example, when "throwing dice", throwing a ‘seven’ is more probable than a ‘two’ because you can produce seven in six different ways but, there is only one way to produce a two. So seven has a higher ‘multiplicity’ than a two, and we could say that a seven represents higher "disorder" or higher entropy.

The mechanism of entropy and extropy is no ‘miracle’; it is a science. The universe, the nature system, as said earlier, is an increasing entropy. In simple words, there is so much multiplicity and measure of disorder in nature system and universe that to a common human, if he or she is not trained in the scientific approach towards things, every second thing he or she sees and feels would look like a miracle. The vastness of this entropy of our universe (or the nature around) can make anyone feel perplexed. Mysticism and skepticism creeps in naturally.

We need to understand it. Get water in a glass and in a similar glass, fill it up with large chunk of ice. The second glass would probably get filled up in five chunks of ice. Now, pour down both the glasses from a certain height. The water would be spread in larger area than ice. Repeat the act and you will find that there may be some discernable pattern in the way the ice chunks are arranged naturally as there are only five chunks. The water would however never ever follow a repeat pattern. Water has very higher entropy than ice chunks. The nature, universe is also like water. Very very high entropy and incessantly increasing at it.

An unscientific mind would be very much lured to see miracles, mysticism, skepticism, God of gaps and fear in this entropy of the nature. But, human intelligence is all about understanding the mechanism and dynamics of this entropy and value extropy. Human intelligence is in creating and valuing order and singularity within this colossal framework of disorder and multiplicity of the universe. And, while doing this, still accept the interplay of entropic limitations.

There is a lot for all humans to understand objectively about this cosmic entropy and learn from the huge information base of “modern human knowledge”. Nobody can truly understand humanity and its seemingly entropic troubles if he or she cannot understand and accept the 21^st century knowledge about the universe we all live in.

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Now, He Fails Like A Stupid And Why?

Conflict is the critical energy of the cosmos, the causa sine qua non for evolution of all forms, including the human brain, the seemingly most important theatre of conflict, but just a small model of cosmic conflicts. Stating this is nothing new, the theory of dialectics is known to all. But then, managing this conflict in contemporary world of humanity is the most arduous task, even when, the fact remains that human evolution is the best possible example of the success of the ‘conflict-management’ skills of humanity.

The evolution from the tribal life of jungles to a debilitating drudgery of metropolis has been a long one and in between, a hell lot has changed in a man’s intuitive capacity to solve or overcome the conflicts. Since millions of years, man has been a terrific and very smart conflict-buster and his evolution owes it to his this skill. But, what he had been solving till now was conflicts and problems that were outside him and from an environment that was external. His problems were objective and mostly confined to changing the nature for his survival and then comfort. And, he did it brilliantly.

But now, all of mankind's remaining problems are those he has generated himself and lie within. These are subjective problems which did not come from external environment but from within him. And, he is not at all equipped naturally and instinctively to solve them. Despite the fact man believes he is so intelligent and so resourceful in all things, he is dumb as a rock when it comes to solving his subjective problems as he is not equipped. This skill is not part of his evolutionary intelligence.

Of course, evolution provided for a conflict summation matrix, the intuitive brilliance, all thousands of elements of intelligence in a man but all these facilities were designed by evolution for an entirely different set of problems, the objective and external ones and not the current ones. He is brilliant and impeccable now in constructing a dam on the mighty flow of a river but when it comes to reigning in his own emotions and subjective crisis, he fails like a stupid.

And, as if it was not enough for his already overloaded troubles, man has very successfully added the three ultimate but annihilative options and choices in his repertoire which he very dearly calls as the ultimate ‘problem-solving-mechanisms’.  These are making things worse. Suicides, drug dependency and overt religion/spiritualism are the major threats to mankind in contemporary world. They are destroying man’s age-old skills of conflict-solution. they are annihilating and misguiding the intuitive ‘value-summation’ matrix of mankind and thus augmenting the trouble.

We all live in a world not what we evolved from. The metropolis, the concrete jungle is not the jungle from where humanity evolved. We conquered almost all objective and external conflicts and problems but in turn created a huge load of subjective and internal conflicts and problems. And, instead of stretching our innate abilities to solve them, we are taking recourse to the three annihilative mechanisms of Suicides, drug dependency and overt religion/spiritualism instead of the objective science which made us what we are today.

The most prevalent subjective and internal conflicts ones are – faith/trust deficit, emotional-delinquency, consumption-optimization-chaos, stress, psychic-atrophy, fatalism, fundamentalism, etc…

The figures of mental disorders, drug dependency and suicides are all indicative of the great crisis humanity is in and it also is a great reminder of where mankind is heading for in the coming half a century or so. The urban part of humanity, especially the huge conglomeration of humanity in metropolis is more threatened.

According to a rigorous health survey conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2004, an estimated 25 percent of adults in the U.S. reported having a mental illness in the previous year.

The data collected from various CDC surveys measuring depression suggest that at any given moment, the rate of depression is somewhere between 6.8 percent and 8.7 percent. That means that in the U.S., somewhere between 1 in 11 and 1 in 14 people meet criteria for clinical depression. It surely is much than what is desirable. Then, there is also a huge co-morbidity factor, which is a two-way street. Another disconcerting fact.

According to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2004), an estimated 19.1 million Americans age 12 years or older were current users of illicit drugs in 2004. This represents 7.9% of the population 12–17 years. In 2004, 19.2% of unemployed adults aged 18 or older were current illicit drug users. About 22.5 million Americans aged 12 or older in 2004 were classified with past year substance dependence or abuse which is 9.4% of the population. About 15.2 million were dependent on or abused alcohol but not illicit drugs.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that each year approximately one million people die from suicide, which represents a global mortality rate of 16 people per 100,000 or one death every 40 seconds. It is predicted that by 2020 the rate of death will increase to one every 20 seconds.

In the last 45 years, suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 (male and female). Suicide attempts are up to 20 times more frequent than completed suicides.

Although suicide rates have traditionally been highest amongst elderly males, rates among young people have been increasing to such an extent that they are now the group at highest risk in a third of all countries.

It is now evident, nothing ambiguous about it that for survival, man's social thought must be restructured. The current problems in the stage of evolution calls for a solution mechanism which necessitates restructuring of man’s current and popular cultural edifices. Many societal and cultural ideas and matrix will have to be rebuilt. The so-called contemporary and popular ‘faith-structures’ of mankind must also be replaced with scientific factsheets. As a section of scientists say, ‘mankind needs to scrap his non-science education system and enlarge his scientific studies, with all of its rigor, to cover subjective man himself’. And while doing it all, he must admit, he is the only predator of himself so, he be wary of and warned against his own subjective genius.

The tragedy of mankind today is more accentuated as human mind is being led by a contemporary education system, media and leadership which are most specifically and deterministically inimical to objective goodness and wellness. This is so because, they base their ideas and actions on unscientific principles of life and living choices. It is not easy, accepted. The liberalized world as it is, the toughest thing is to make a mind listen to what a simple and common sense objectivity may like to put up. But then, evolution has always been tested with the toughest.

Saying things beyond that is of little use. It is for every individual to accept and appreciate. Restructuring a thought, contemporary and popular thought has always been the toughest of human enterprise. Today’s liberalized world has made it almost impossible. But, look at the past. It shows magnificently as how mankind has overcome the toughest of physical and external challenges and conflicts of survival and well-being. If our ancestors could do it, we too can. After all, we are all the more resourceful and more intelligent than our ancestors. At any given point of time, the present is always far superior to our collective history. It should be, it has to be.

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Rainbowish Realisms At Mind Level

At purely mind level, realism has completely novel set of experiences and it introduces one to a wide new universe, as against the routine to which we are all attuned to. It then beautifully juxtaposes together different aspects and dimensions of self to form a new ‘whole’. For example, either hydrogen or oxygen alone manifests as a gas, whereas their combination can be a liquid – water.

At mind level, it is easy to apprehend a very basic thing, which helps us rise above a very crippling effect. Humans have to keep pace with changes in physical environment. Evolution is a slow process as it involves synthesis of mind. Physical environment however changes fast as it involves changing bodies, which is easy and fast. There are conflicts in contemporary human societies and these conflicts and struggles are growing fast as we humans are far behind in evolution, compared to changes in physical environment. And these physical changes are being accentuated by fast technological advancements every day.

At mind level, it is also very easy to understand DIVERSITY, which baffles most of us and leads us astray in our day-to-day life actions. The idea of evolution embodies a belief that there is an inner blueprint, which guides our growth. In plants, such a hidden pattern is suggested by the growth of a seed into a mature plant. Each acorn, for example, sprouts and develops following a specific sequence. As bark and leaves are formed they display characteristics that are the same for all oak trees. Even so, each tree develops a unique arrangement of branches. This is a pointer to singularity of energy (wisdom) amid diversity of actionable patterns in we humans. It is easy to understand and appreciate at mind levels.

At mind level, human being is conceived as an energy system. Actions, images, emotions, and thoughts may be seen as basically varied forms of energy. As people begin seeing their behavior simply as energy, without the usual labels of heart and soul, the possibility of transformation becomes much more real and alive for them, opening many new options for expression.

A behavior pattern or belief system or typical emotional reaction may seem very difficult to change for a common person, yet when the underlying energy of these patterns is contacted, it can be redirected. For example, one will say,  ‘Here comes my usual angry reaction’ and then, he or she will say, ‘I sense this negative energy: do I want to express it by yelling, or simply stating that I'm angry, or withdrawing, pouting, asserting myself, artistically creating something, moving, or instead, playing with it?’ Look, how once seemingly optionless behavior opens up to varied potentials.

Thinking in terms of energy is also valuable for getting inner guidance. Through energy awareness, perception extends beyond the forms of one's life into the realms of higher consciousness. To live and move in the world of energies evokes intuitions, revealing new inner qualities and sense of the next step ahead.

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The Gold Coin On The Table

There is a story about a thinker. In 18^th century England, there was a famous thinker who was German but lived in London. He was a bachelor and therefore, every evening, he would go to a nearby club for his dinner.

He would sit in a decided corner and put a gold coin on table. As he would finish his dinner, he would pick up his gold coin and go back. This was a routine for over 10 years and the same waiter, who would serve him and see him doing this ritual daily, would always be curious why this old man did it.

This waiter decided one day to get to this and asked the thinker about it in a most polite and gracious way, befitting for a British. The thinker replied casually, “I have decided that I would give this gold coin to charity in the church the day I would see the young British men here talking on any topic other than their women and horses.”

He said that every day he took out his gold coin in the hope that it would reach the charity box placed in the club but sadly, not only the men talk of only women and horses but talk solely about their pedigrees.

The waiter was also not a British. He smiled; picked up the gold coin, polished it with his apron and gently put it in the pocket of the thinker. This gold coin of human prudence seems to be still lying on the table of sanity, since last many centuries. The day humans would stop talking of goodness and wellness as an external idea and embrace it as an individual and internal process, the gold of humanity would find its destiny.

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Choose Your Choice… Rejoice…

Culture is very societal… very much a collective entity…. more suitable for the masses with herd attitude… and rightly so…. it is prescription for an average mind.

For those minds… who really lead to things only after revelations, these cultural benchmarks are very suffocating. They need their own set of explanation to dissect the popular benchmarks of a culturally incline society.

Somewhere…. to them…. it seems that the mind training, as per the popular culture, is not amenable to higher levels of joys and satisfactions. This popular mental training of counting pleasure and discounting pains defined in terms of utility, possession and consumption actually restricts the spectrum. It kills more joy than it creates and adds more pains in ultimate analysis….

It shortens the horizon of satisfaction; does not allow one to be what he or she is truly capable of. For example, a lover says to his beloved, ‘my dear, I would pluck the moon and stars and stitch them on your silk dress, I would buy all the flowers of the world and pour them on your feet.’ And, our popular cultural mind training accepts this as ultimate joys and satisfaction….

Let us drop the hackneyed and try this for a change. Let the lover say, ‘My love, join me, be in my arms so that together we see the beauty and exuberance of the beautiful moon and stars, come and breathe the fantastic fragrances of the rose, the different flowers that God has been so kind to bestow us with. Let us pray together, thank God for such joys in our lives and beseech his blessings for making us together…allowing us the satisfaction.’

Someone may say, “…how boring and stupidly matter of fact…!”  But then, let us ask ourselves, why is this training to pluck a beautiful rose from the Garden of the God and tuck it in the locks of our beloved? Who trained our minds to define the worth of things on the basis of our personal utility? Why does our mind understand pleasure only in possessing things for our personal utilities? Why success and status is defined in terms of how much we have available for our personal consumptions?  Why do people value and respect a man who has million dollars in his pocket but knows no poetry, no music, no dance and not even the decency to respect fellow human beings? Why is it that love and compassion in mind is considered a threat to individual success?

This is our faulty mental training! … ain’t it…..! And then, people are full of complaints with their lives. Just being there in a rose garden…. enjoying the beauty and fragrance of roses seems such a futile joy and satisfaction. As our mind training is, we are happy and satisfied only when this rose garden we can call as ‘mine’. Possession is the chase and great people have always told us, ‘chase the dream till you drop dead.’

It is all a waiting game… which comes first…. possession of dreams or the death. Success is only a poor percentile…. the later is however, 100% ! A wise person said, “you are what your ‘choices’ make you.’ So, choose your choice and then, rejoice…!

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Battlefield of Losing Righteousness

Our societal mental training wires our sense of conviction and attainment with a preposterous obsession for action-oriented ‘karma’. Even greats have said that life is a battlefield and everyone has to ‘fight’ his or her own ‘battle’. This is truly reflective of a ‘choice’ to imagine ‘battle’ out of seemingly innocuous situations, triggering off an unconscious proclivity to structure a ‘fight’ of sorts….

The battle of most lives starts with what looks like a simple thing. As in Mahabharat, the epic in India, a simple issue of ‘righteous’ distribution of wealth came to such a stage where one party ceded all rights to kingdom and was willing to settle even with only five villages…. other party refused to give even a shred.

The battle was made a ‘dharma-yuddha’ (War of righteousness) and what happened in the last… those five protagonists of the winning party did not remain in the scene to enjoy the kingdom. They left everything and proceeded to a journey for heaven…

Everyone is trained by society to win his own battles of life and all of us devote our lives to win the battle. Most can’t even think that if you lose, you are not there (alive) to feel sorry. And if you win, you are still not there to relish the spoils of the victory. In either case, you lose those who were once near and dear to you.

Nut still…. battles are fought daily…. within billions of individuals…. and it is not the battle of five villages…. it may start with it…. but then…. in the last reckoning…. battles are made out to be something for ‘righteousness’.

It is altogether different issue that everyone thinks he or she has ‘righteousness’ on his or her side…!  A compassionate and affectionate positioning builds up an innocent advocacy. What if the five brothers would have given up the demand of even five villages and would have proceeded to where they finally went, renouncing all possessions of war? When this had to happen…. at least such colossal losses would not have happened.!”

This is what usually happens. People attempt to win bringing upfront their ingenuity, their smart inventiveness, inflated out of an unconscious insecurity to keep ‘righteousness’ on their side and the very moment they do it…. they actually lose…. not the ‘five villages’ but their dear ones. This metaphor of Mahabharata looks like something people love to miss out.

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Attainment, Acceptance And Pain

If life happens… something has to be done with it. It is a human fixation of sorts to ascribe a ‘purpose’ or ‘design’ t