# 012 Excellent article Co authored by Deepak Chopra on need for Humans to think on reality.

DEEPAK CHOPRA co-authors an article highlighting the incredible differences in the world view of humans and other species, based on sensory perception

Reality Is An Illusion

Albert Einstein said: “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” Quantum mechanics has shown for more than 80 years now that the perceived reality of hard objects that senses give us, is an illusion. Yet, if things lost their thing-ness, which our senses make us believe in, we’d have little choice but to re-evaluate what is real and what isn’t…

The Mystery Of Perception

If we follow the mystery of perception, many issues arise than the fairly simple one of hallucinations. They are rare, but the brain’s ability to turn electrical impulses and chemical reactions into a world we see, hear, touch, taste and smell, is baffling. There is no light in the brain. Yet, the light of the sun is blinding. This disparity is crucial, because without someone to see it, the sun is invisible.There is no visible light in nature without an eye to perceive it. What if your brain, having taken a totally different evolutionary path, didn’t ‘see’ light but ‘heard’ it? There’s no obstacle to such a development. (During the LSD ‘60s, trippers discovered they could taste colours or see music.)

Different Realities

Sensory abilities differ vastly among the millions of species on the planet. What is real to one species (like a bat’s sonar) is hidden to another (a deaf paramecium - a single-celled freshwater animal which has a characteristic slipper-like shape). Even among seven billion humans, every person has a different ‘mix’ of reality depending on personal acuity, predispositions, habits, memories,and upbringing (the child of a horticulturalist might automatically see 20 different wildflowers in a meadow where you see a blur of colour). We tend to ignore that sensory abilities differ from one person to another, unless the difference is striking, as between one person who is stone deaf and another who has perfect pitch. Yet, the larger truth is that each of us uses the brain like a personal CGI (Computer Generated Imaging) factory, creating a 3-D movie of the world unlike anyone else’s. Are we illusion makers or reality makers? Big question!

Visuals differ

Humans have one lens in each eye, and our eyes are trichromatic — we have three types of colour sensing cells, or cones, which allows us to distinguish combinations of a million or so colours. But even within humans, there is a twofold or threefold physical difference from one person to another in every aspect of our visual system (eg: the size of the optic nerve, lateral geniculate nucleus and primary visual cortex, etc).

Dramatic Difference

However, colour vision and eyesight vary even more dramatically among different species, many of which are monochromatic, such as seals, sea lions, and owl monkeys. If a species is a rod monochromat, then for it, the world is free of all colours other than shades of grey. If a species is a cone monochromat (with only one type of cone), then it can see about 100 shades of a single colour or its combinations. Cats are dichromatic, which means they can see only about 10,000 colours. There are gender differences in animals — among New World monkeys, males are dichromatic but many females are trichromatic, like us. Honeybees are trichromatic but they cannot see red; and they can see ultraviolet frequencies.

Evolution Differs

Evolution hasn’t ordered living creatures in a straight line from crude sight — as we humans would judge it — to more evolved sight, meaning our own. Many birds, insects, and fish are

tetrachromatic, so that some spiders and birds can see ultraviolet, which humans cannot. This would make insect prey glow green in the dark. The reason that we cannot see UV is that our lens blocks it from striking the retina, but people whose lenses have been removed in a cataract procedure or who were born without a lens (aphakia), have been reported to detect UV light.

No Normal Way

As evolution has developed different sensory systems, reality shifted.There is no ‘normal’way to decode photos of invisible light. Pigeons and some butterflies are actually pentachromats; in theory, such creatures could distinguish up to 10 billion colours even though we have no way to prove this. The Mantis has 16 different receptor types, including four types of receptors just for seeing UV light, and four others for polarised light. A human would need many distinct kinds of sunglasses to duplicate the sensation. Many snakes can also ‘see’ infrared, or heat radiation, using special detectors that send thermal information through their visual system.

What The Eye Cannot See

It’s hard to escape our assumption that eyesight connects us to the real world, but every living thing is connected to a created world. The question of matching our creation to a possible ‘real reality’ will come next. The conclusions of quantum mechanics will certainly have to be brought in. For the moment, we need to realise that the world created by other species is inconceivable to us….

Defective Perceptions

Finally, the mystery of perception must be sorted out from defective perception. Humans suffer from certain peculiar visual defects. For example, we can fill in information that we partially see (if an edge is blocked out) but some animals don’t do that. Optical illusions have proven that our visual system is often wrong in its detection accuracy for size, shape, colour, motion, and depth. (Think of desert mirages where shimmering hot air looks like water.) Yet, in a sense, confining our examples to eyesight is misleading, since the world is created by blending all the senses, and variations in touch, taste, hearing, and smell lead to bewildering riddles…

Where Do We Humans Stand?

So while feeling superior to chickens with their hundred taste buds and ignoring bees, who can smell something miles away, or sharks, who can detect faint, distant electrical impulses, humans must take advantage of one extrasensory gift — our ability to reason — in order to find out where we stand in the shadowy realm of illusion versus reality.

From Speaking Tree

# 011 Dvaita, Advaita and Vishishtadvaita - An explanation from Kanchi Mahaperiyava

From one of the talks of the great Kanchi Mahaperiyava – short, simple yet profound, lucid …. .. all adjectives and superlatives including humorous.

Whether we take Dvaita, Advaita or Vishishtadvaita, the goal is Paramatma - there is no second thought. Each path defers only in detail, as to how and under what circumstances Paramatma can be reached.

In Advaita, the relationship between the Jivatma and Paramatma is like the relationship between the sides of a square and its perimeter - four times the length of a side, 4a. It is very rational and there is no place for any ambiguity.

In Dvaita the same relationship is described as between the diameter of a circle and its perimeter – Πd. Here the number 22/7, Π is an irrational number. Its value is an approximation only. Even if you go to crores of decimals you can approach very close to the value but not the actual value. There will remain a minute difference between the values arrived at by the multiplication of Π with Diameter and the exact value of the Perimeter. Likewise Jivatma can never become Paramatma – it can only approach Paramatma very closely. Just as there simply is no known number of decimals of Π to reach the exact value of the perimeter of a circle so also the no of steps a Jivatma needs to take to reach or become Paramatma will forever remain uncertain. This limitation is described as Taratamyam brought about by Panchaboothatvam. Thus the relationship between Jivatma and Paramatma remains uncertain and irrational in Dvaita. The beauty is even in Einstein’s relativity theory also this Π is figuring in. He says there is uncertainty in all things in this universe. This is what Madhwacharya’s Panchabeta or un-equableness is about. An insentient object is different from sentient one. Why, there is difference between one sentient object and another too. And sentient beings (Jivatmas) are different from Paramatma. If Paramatma can be said to be a particular stage of Jivatma like the perimeter of a square is 4a, then the very rational relationship will be limiting the Paramatma. This will then contradict the saying of the Vedas that Paramatma is limitless, Anatha. Therefore Madwacharya’s  perimeter= Πd.

What about Vashishtadvaitam of Ramanucharya? He says Paramatma is a square looking like a circle by Maya, Illusion. He in a way accepts both Dvaita and Advaita. He says a Jivatma will lose heart if you say you can never attain Paramatma (as in Dvaita) or will become proud if it is said that he IS Paramatma (as in Advaita). So he advocates, like Aristotle’s golden mean, a path in between which says that Paramatma is an uncertain circle as long as you remain ignorant and a clear square when wisdom dawns - like Kuppan, Subban, Kandan, Kannan all different people become a ‘ticket’ to a Conductor when they get into the bus !!

# 010 Meaning of elephant form of Ganesh

Elephant form of Ganesh indicates uncontrollable strength. The ‘Angusam’, used to control an elephant, in his hand indicates that he is self-controlled. Both these aspects are the hall mark of a great leader. That is why he is called Vi-Nayak meaning there is no leader like him.

Grass in his hands – the first thing to appear from earth, and Yarukku that flowers in Ash - the last form of anything, indicates that Ganesh means the beginning and end of the world.

He was created out of the dirt from Parvati is okay to be told to children, but the deeper meaning points to the origin (Big Bang) of this world from matter (dirt) and energy (Parvati)

சுகி சிவம் சொல்ல கேட்டு எழுதியது (fromSuki Sivam's talks)

# 009 The basic problem of human being

All human beings want to be happy. Problem is that each has their own ideas about what is it that is going to make them happy. Swami Dayananda Saraswati says that one will be happy when one is at peace with oneself. This comes by self-validation. Self-adequacy leads to self-validation. Therefore key to happiness is self-adequacy. All basic problems arise due to lack of self-adequacy. How to get rid of self-inadequacy? Read on:

1.    In this universe with life forms, only human beings are self-judging and self-conscious.

2.   Self-judgment leads to self-loathe and self-non acceptance or self-inadequacy.As long there is no self-judging there is no problem (of self-inadequacy).

3.  Self-inadequacy leads to self-non validation leading to the basic human problem of unhappiness.

4.   Every human being is seeking solutions to the basic problem of self- inadequacy.

5.   One has to see oneself as an adequate person through adequate knowledge and thus enjoy being oneself.

6.   Vedas provide the knowledge that one is Purnah (the whole) which provides a basis for one to know that one is adequate.

7.   Solution therefore lies in studying and understanding Vedas.

8.   Vedas being cryptic, one needs to study it under a competent Guru.

9.  How to know whether one is a competent Guru? Competent Guru is one who has studied the Vedas under another Guru who in turn is coming from an unbroken chain of lineage called Guru Shishya Parampara starting from Lord Dhakshinamurthy himself as the first teacher.

# 007 Levels of beauty

Beauty has 3 levels - indication, expression and exposure.

Spirituality is that indicates or reveals it gently. This is the subtle aspect.

Art expresses beauty and science exposes it.

All theses 3 aspects are to be found in creation. There is beauty in every aspect of nature - Creation, Operation and destruction. Understanding or knowing this makes life Beautiful.

Based on a lecture by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

# 005 Who or what is God: it is for you to find out yourself !!

Dr. S.I. Tulaev, Russian Indologist : A man who has no belief in religion, who does not adopt any rituals, never goes to the temple or church, does not heed any dogmas, but always thinks good and does good throughout his life. Could you kindly tell me, Sir, whether such a man has any salvation at the end of his life?

Mahaperiyaval (Chandrashekarendra Swamigal):  Yes.

His Holiness : (enlarging His answer) " Do not think that I am giving you this answer. No, this is said in our ancient scriptures themselves. There are different types of aspirants.

The Agnostics, those who enquire into the concept of God and by using their own reasoning, come to the conclusion that there is no God.

Secondly there are the Buddhists, especially the Sunyavadins, who believe in non-existence.

Thirdly the Jains, who believe in suffering by putting their body to various austerities, vratas.

Fourthly Saivaites, Vaishnavites and others who believe in a personal God and spend their life in devotion; and

Lastly the Advaitins, who believe that the entire world, the cosmic reality is the apparent manifestation of one and the same ultimate Reality.

All these aspirants get to the truth. The difference between them lies in their proximity to God (Truth). If one enquired into the nature of God by using his own mind, whatever is the conclusion arrived at, even if it is a total rejection of Godhood, such an aspirant is far higher than the idler who never worries about the search after truth. This also is not my saying but is from our scriptures only."

I am sure every human being at some point of time in his/her life  starts wondering on what the ultimate reality is and starts asking fundamental questions like who am I, how life or consciousness manifested in this body, what is the purpose of life, who or what is God etc..

I have started asking these questions. Have you?

And fortunately I have found some very credible answers from Vedas - like the one above from Mahaperiyaval down to incredible number of other great Acharyas - opening up a clear trail in an otherwise jungle. Journey has just begun. It is said there is no end to this journey.  

# 004 A great quote from Jiddu Krishnamurthy

You are not to understand the teaching: you are to understand yourself. The teachings are only a means of pointing, explaining... Do not try to understand what the speaker says, but understand that what he says acts as a mirror in which you look at yourself. When you look at yourself carefully, then the mirror will not be important, you will be able to throw it away.

JK