Inner Metamorphosis

We live in an age of analysis! In an age where we are choked with news but starved of history! Where people know more & more regarding the less & less, thereby lacking a perspective which integrates wholly all these experience into a coherent belief system! Of such a busy lifestyle arise loneliness, emptiness and purposelessness. Information that never translates into knowledge! Knowledge that can help us run machines, but fails to quench our thirst of understanding ourselves better. Intelligence that assists us in manipulating others but fails to guide us to a better living! Science helps us understand nature in retail but when is totally clueless on understanding it in wholesale. While a scientist can explain why a certain phenomenon occurs, without coordinating it to our experiences we would not find it useful in our daily life. Such isolated bits and pieces of information leads to more confusion than understanding. Indeed, so much is the sheer emptiness th...

It may appear almost inexplicable to many people with scientific bent of mind that religion with all its absurdities; incredibilities survives even in this age of analysis. How did it withstand the steady and determined onslaught of rationalism and reason? Religion is the last thing that intellect begins to understand. To understand this we must also seek assistance from history. The period - The Age of Reason (18th century) when religion was receding from the political domain to a mere moral domain. When Bible became just another piece of literature, miracles ignored, faith dethorned by intelligence and the concept of genesis laughable. The philosophers of the age, chief among whom were Francis Bacon, Pascal, Galileo, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Voltaire and many others elevated reason to be superior to than faith and were against the Church's blinding influence which inhibited men from better mode of living. The Church whose functioning was above all, was put ...

Time is an ultimate magician, capable of bring about changes that one would dismiss as flight of fantasy or a vain thinking or nightmarish imagination. Reproduced below is a poem I wrote in my engineering, ironically at a time when I was optimist supreme. Life as it appears is not without paradox. I came about a full circle when I came to appreciate pessimism of Schopenhaeur and immorality of Nietzsche as more representative of truth than optimism which appeared to be mockery of sorts. The courage of explorers of 16th century stimulated my imagination a lot and I was deeply fired by these men who travelled new roads armed with nothing but their own vision and stood against public opinion, cruel circumstances, fear of unknown and eventually connected the whole world with their resolute will. The protagonist of the poem is one such explorer who after a prolonged struggle finally makes it. ============================================== --> Behind him lay the s...

--> Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth – Then Blessed are the geek, for they shall inherit the earth  - Now No invention has been as groundbreaking and none as responsible for initiating a shift of power as was the invention of printing press. It undoubtedly contributed to the rise of Renaissance in middle ages which in turn gave rise to modern and progressive thoughts which ultimately resulted in the weakening of monarchy’s and church’s hold over masses. Printing press made possible the easy circulation of revolutionary ideas and played vital role in the awakening of masses. To cut short a long yet interesting story the words of ‘monarchy’ and ‘religion’ were soon transformed into ‘democracy’ and ‘secularism’. Prior to its invention, literacy was the luxury of privileged few, now it has wide reach cutting across all sections of people. Little realized is the fact that we are now at the threshold of another shift of power very similar to that of ...

--> “Every conscious virtue   is an effort to conceal or correct a secret vice.” – Baruch Spinoza, Dutch Philosopher. (Spinoza here puts in one line what psychologists speak in volumes.!!  ) There are few interesting observations I have come across these days which make me feel that our understanding of intelligence and skill is somehow incomplete.( Maybe the varied public perception of me as wide and paradoxical as intelligent, stubborn, arrogant to dumbo, confused, etc has something to do with this introspection). Four months into work, for the first time, I am seeing world to be as complex as it really is. Never was a dynamics of human emotions was so clear and the traditional categories like “good” and “bad” as SRK says in MNIK appear so naïve. It is a common phenomenon that in our earlier schooling days we tend to look to toppers as absolute numero-uno i.e. complete supremacy over “intelligence” etc etc. This concept obviously is skewed for intel...

--> In 'Sarkar'(movie) Selvar Mani says “Jiske paas power hai uska wrong bhi right ho jata hai”. The extent to which the character was correct was something I grossly underestimated. As I have come to see it these days, the very definition of right and wrong is defined by those in power!!! Anyway, what is power? How does one define it? If you would have asked an uncivilized man of Stone age, he would have defined it as the physical strength one has to overwhelm another person. But soon, men would have realized this manner of resolving things is eventually detrimental to all concerned. Hence, men would have associated themselves into groups, so that he can receive security from these people and in turn must pay back to the group his service and loyalty. Thus despite his personal weakness, by owing allegiance to his group, he can rest assured of protection and security. Thus, the shift begins to a brutal crude method of settling matters to a more ...

( This is extravagant indulgence in my memories of college days….others not involved may find it boring….read at your own discretion…) If a man is all about what he is and not what he was then undoubtedly I would pinpoint my years in Sastra University as a golden era wherein I learnt the hard ground realities of life. While college days are in general recalled with pleasure by all people, in my case it assumes bigger role because it comprised a complete change in me and it is in tribute to this period where I changed tremendously I named this blog “Inner Metamorphosis”. Every single thought of mine, every idea, and every virtue or vice or any influence on me can be traced back to this period and was in effect was a preparation for me for the life to come and I fancy one fine day when I make it big I will be in a position to brag about this better. Adversity invariably teaches us more than pleasant atmosphere. And this was an age of turmoil and turbulence an...