Dreams and Reality..

What do you make of your dreams?

Several people try to interpret their dreams, that is, if they can remember their dreams.

Throughout a lifetime, there are perhaps a handful of dreams that people remember for a long time. A dream might have been extremely dreadful, pleasurable, memorable for the actors in the dream, etc.

But, do you ever think of dreams as carrying any value beyond just your own subconscious imagination playing out in some random order?

Here are some observations on the characteristics of dreams (before I get into arguments on whether dreams might correlate to reality):

1. Dreams seem not to follow earth time
• How often have you gone to sleep and woken up after 8 hours, wondering how that short sequence that played out in your dream had lasted so long?
2. Actors in dreams
• Several of my dreams have involved actors from my own life. Friends, family members, etc. Sometimes actors have the appearance of a friend or family member but may play an entirely different 'character'.
3. Real experiences
• A friend once described how he dreamed of coconut chutney and how when he woke up he still had the taste in his mouth. Clearly, while the dream may have been all virtual, the experience was as real for him as eating a spoonful of coconut chutney. 
4. Nightmares
• A lot of us remember dreams because they had a scary sequence. We feel real fear, sometimes sweat and shriek for real, and ultimately wake up to relief.
5. No rules or logic
• If you try to piece together your dream, based on what you remember of it, you may only remember bits and pieces. Sometimes, we remember nothing (which perhaps indicates deep sleep, which is good!). Most of my dreams make so sense. Either the location, or the people, the dresses, the situation - so many things about my dreams make no sense.

The Dwaita Vedic school of thought lays out dreams as being one of the tools that Brahman (God) uses to give souls different kinds of experiences. Real-life experience, ones that we experience in our waking state, are what they are. However, our dreams many a time surpass our worst waking state experience.

If you believe in God, Brahman's use of dream as a tool becomes easy to appreciate. If God can put non-earth space and time into play for an individual's dream, then He does not have to apply rules and logic the way He does for the real world we inhabit. A range of experiences can be administered to the soul, hastening its journey through the cycle of birth and death. Belief in a compassionate God may also help one see dreams as being easier punishments to one's sins.

Whatever you make of schools of thought such as these, and your level of theistic fervour, that dreams provide us real experiences is undeniable. That dreams are entirely due to one's imagination is difficult for me to believe.

By the way, we've not discussed our own actions in our dreams - whether we are accountable for them or not in some way (perhaps in the court of Yama?), etc. We've also not included day dreaming our discussion here, for obvious reasons, since they occur in more or less a waking state.

There is a somewhat tangential example from a Purana (I don't remember which, but I remember this from researching the topic of Kali) where a lady is tricked into believing that an impostor was her husband, and they proceed to make love. The child thus born is considered to be the true husband's son, according to the Purana, since the wife was imaging that it was her husband with her, not the impostor. Make what you want of this account, but 'dreaming' or 'imagination/attribution' in this particular case indeed equates dream with reality. 

Creation doesn't necessarily have to conflict with evolution

Image courtesy: smithsonianmag.com

I see endless debates between creationists and evolutionists, and have always felt that there doesn't necessarily have to be a debate.

Usually it's a Christian church vs atheist debate, where the atheist pooh-poos the Christian theory of God creating the world over a few days, due in part to the existence of fossils that suggest evolution over millions of years.

Hindu traditions have theistic theories of creation that do not necessarily go headlong against evolution. The 4 yugas, starting with the pristine Satya yuga, play out endlessly in a cycle of creation and destruction over a period of millions of years.

Vishnu, on Lakshmi's urging, creates the universe, and in it the planets and stars, from primordial matter (jada) and puts some of the endless numbers of souls (jeevas) into a cycle of birth and death, starting with Brahma, who is delegated this task. Several puranas describe different aspects of how the universe ('bhoogola', 'brahmaanda') and the elements, and so on, are created. The souls themselves are said to progress from lower forms of life, such as microbes, and on to higher forms of life, such as mammals and ultimately human. The souls, of course, all are said to be given 'equal opportunity', a fixed number of (something in the lakhs) births through which they do 'saadhana' (a process of self-realization) and progress on to their rightful destination.

The puranas and the Ramayana and Mahabharata describe men of different heights and gaits that we see today, ape-men ('vaanaras in the Ramayana'), fruits and vegetables, and other food items such as rice and mustard of different sizes, indicating that there has been evolution through the yugas.

None of what the puranas and other epics in the Hindu tradition describe need fit exactly well with our current geological evidence and scientific understanding, for we learn something new every day. Our interpretations of the puranas and epics may also not be accurate, due to missing portions or the lack of tools necessary to unambiguously interpret ancient (even somewhat recent) works. And, of course, the 18 puranas have conflicting accounts of the same events, making reconciliation difficult.

Still, that an omnipotent God could not 'create' by setting off an evolutionary process, is a major weakness in the Christian theory of evolution, which has allowed the prolonging of the creation vs evolution debate, and made the atheist position stronger by default. 

Does (should) God have a gender?

Courtesy: godofindia.blogspot.com

Does God have a gender, or should He?

Of the many takeaways from our epics, one is that of Vishnu (or his avataras such as Rama or Krishna) being the male protagonist and Lakshmi (or her avataras such as Sita or Rukmini) being the subordinate female protagonist. Of the lesser divine beings in the epics, couples abound, with the female usually being the subordinate consort.

So, it is clear why in Indian society (and families) the female, while not slighted (at least in theory), is still somewhat lesser in stature to the female; the male being at least the first among equals. 

A better way to think about the role of gender is through the prism of division of labour. Yet another   prism is that of the needs of society and its future generations. The father provides protection to the family and procures resources, the mother make decisions on allocation of resources, feeds and raises the children. The mother and father also usually play good cop-bad cop with the children to provide them the right stimulus, usually gender-sensitive as well. The daughter is taught certain things, the son others. 

Beyond the family, it is clusters of males that usually conduct public life, governance, and more. Still, beyond societal imperfections, if any, in theory or practice, past or present, does God have a gender? Why do we refer to God as He/Him?

My theory is that God chose to create society, natural order, reproduction, the whole nine yards (in conformance with the Vedas, of course) in a form where the male dominates (or can dominate) public life and the female dominates the home; and it is for this reason and His incarnations are as male, and that of his consort are as a female. 

Still, God provides us several examples where his incarnations are not male, why, not even human, in some cases. The first few incarnations in the dashaavataras (an evolution of sorts) are Matsya (fish form), Koorma (turtle form), Varaha (boar form), Narasmiha (male+lion form). The Vedas and Upanishads describe God (Brahman/incarnations such as Rama, Krishna etc.) not in physical terms but variously as 'satyam-gnanam-anantham', 'gunabhrun-nirguno-mahaan', etc. meaning that He is essentially composed of boundless non-material characteristics such as knowledge, happiness, compassion, etc., in infinite quantity and in blemishless fashion. i.e., He is not just a 'great guy' but completely independent of any other being or thing. Of His boundless qualities, Lakshmi is described as being in a perpetual state of discovery. 

Therefore, if God had a gender associated with Him (being male/female) there would be something material about him, and the physical limitations and needs that come with being male/female. All the boundless qualities described cannot, therefore, be ascribed to a 'mere' male. Further, in all the avataras where God is described as being born, e.g., as Rama or Krishna, the epics also describe a birth without any garbhavaasa ('immaculate conception'). For, if garbhavaasa was involved, that would be a material occurence, not something the God that we've defined can undergo. 

I'm unsure whether we should classify His consort as female (yes, perhaps), but still that he provides Himself to her in male form could not be for His own sake, but her's, given the independence from everything that is ascribed to Him as a quality.

In reference to God, it is always 'sriman' not 'srimaan', the latter being a reference to a male, while the former, not. Still, for common purposes, it is good to focus on a male God, while diving into the philosophical (Brahman) requires us to stop ascribing any gender to Him to get anywhere meaningful. 

The Mohini avatara is an interesting case of Vishnu incarnating in female form during the 'samudra manthana' (churning of the ocean for divine nectar) where Mohini 'outwits' the ashuras and distributes all the nectar to the devas. During the Mahabharata (Dwapara yuga), Vishnu's incarnations all appear to be aimed at doing whatever it takes (usually in sly fashion) to outwit evil. Krishna avatara proves this over and over, and Mohini avatara proves this too. In addition, it is for us to not ascribe a gender to God, and to not treat Mohini as a case of perversion involving God. 

Emulate whom - Rama or Krishna?

A short post on the eve of Krishna JanmAshtami.

Of the two iconic characters of India, both incarnations of the Lord, which one should we try to emulate?

In answering this question, it is important to consider the context - the yugas during which the Lord incarnated.

During the Rama avatara, the Krita Yuga was still largely dhaarmic. Rama explicitly did the right things (we, even today, have no doubt that his actions we the right things to do), except perhaps the episodes of seemingly doubting Sita and of eliminating Vaali from a hidden perch. So, it is easy for Indian parents to push their son to be like Rama, devoted to his father and mother, to his kingdom and his people, to dharma, etc (and daughters to be like Sita, too!).

On the other hand, during the Krishna avatara, the Dwapara Yuga was still mostly dhaarmic but there were injustices against individuals and the people, the rule of tyrants and the like. In this context, Krishna's actions reflect the need to act street smart for the cause of the people and of upholding dharma. There are several episodes where Krishna finds loopholes to outwit the tyrants, especially during the 18-day Mahabharata war.

Given that Kali Yuga is worse off than Dwapara in dharma, Krishna should be the right model for us to emulate. Emulate Rama, whenever possible, of course!

Why rebirth must be true

The Phoenix bird - courtesy Wikipedia

I had part of this conversation with a friend recently, and thought I should share with others.

The topic of our discussion was rebirth (somehow a lunch conversation veered to this, don't ask me why). 

Some religions support rebirth (Hindu religions) and some do not (christianity, except for Jesus Christ?). My argument for why rebirth must be true, though, is not based on religion or theology, but on the more fundamental principle of natural justice. Whether you believe in a God or not does not matter for our purpose here.

So, here's what I consider is the principle of natural justice:  it is a natural order that pervades our world and everything in it. One that ensures that 'justice' is served 'somehow' and one that at least all humans (except the cynical) believe in. Work hard and one shall get rewarded, commit a crime and while you may get away with it for sometime but will eventually pay somehow, etc. are common beliefs we all hold irrespective of our religious beliefs.

Once we accept the 'principle of natural justice', the argument is fairly straightforward. 

Our life experiences show us a lot of extreme examples, and some not so extreme, of things just not adding up. How many of us have seen people that do not work hard at all getting lucky all the time; criminals living a good life; hard working, honest people suffering and being unlucky all the time; and on and on? The principle of natural justice just doesn't seem to hold in so many examples from our life experiences. We may take solace in believing that a criminal may not be able to sleep peacefully despite all riches, etc., but... we all have worries, and this cannot be a good explanation! At the end of the day we do end up saying 'life is unfair', precisely because the principle of natural justice doesn't seem to hold. That is because we tend to close out a person's 'book' at the end of his life (and start accounting for his/her deeds 'at their birth'; and why should we?

If we allow for rebirth in our belief system, the principle of natural justice will 'balance', somehow. We may not see it happen for an individual across a cycle of births and rebirths, but our belief in a principle of natural justice is not stretched unduly by adding rebirth to the equation. So there..

Additionally, rebirth brings with it a lot of explanations for many other 'injustices' we may observe. All of us wonder why one person may be born into a rich family, while another may be born into a poor family or troubled country. There just can't be an explanation for this without beginning to account for an individual's deeds ab initio, at the start of the cycle (wherever that was). Starting to account for deeds at 'this birth' just gets us nowhere. So there, again..

Why it's difficult to trace root cause - the Dharma conundrum today

Sivaji Ganesan presenting his case in court;
 Parasakti - courtesy gokul-r.blogspot.com

'Root Cause' is a phrase you hear a lot in international relations these days, especially as it relates to terrorism. Essentially, a terrorist can blame the victim (of some unjust thing in the past) for his aggression, and in most causes there is a cycle or chain of events (each worthy of blames and counter blames) that leads up to the act(s) in the present day.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how one might deal with root case analysis, and where one might draw the line in determining what might be right or wrong. And.. most importantly, what is rightful revenge?

In yugas past (krita, treta and dwapara) the responsibility of dharma was vested in units larger than the self. For example, in the dwapara yuga, the family was the unit that was collectively responsible for upholding Dharma. So, if Duryodhana did a wrong, Bhishma should not have stood silent. If a kshatriya decides to stop participating in protecting his people (and perhaps - in today's scenario - succumbed to a lobbyist to award a defence contract to a substandard vendor) his family would do good to force him to mend his ways.

Now to the present day.

As a solid example of root cause analysis from recent times, the Post-Godhra Gujarat riots of 2003. Hindu Kar Sevaks were burned alive in an entire rail bogey. The Muslims (per prevailing understanding of the case) that committed this act of terrorism blamed the Babri demolition by 'Hindus'. It wasn't the same Hindus, but belonging to the same community was sufficient justification for this group to indulge in the act. The Babri demolition itself was more or less a desperate last resort after decades (and perhaps centuries) of frustration in the Hindu communities. Babar may have demolished the Ram temple in Ayodhya, but the Muslims of today are not in any way related to him, surely? Should the Muslims though disown the mosque as not rightfully having belonged to them, acknowledging the demolition of the temple in the 1600s?

As we can see, many questions can be raised regarding entire communities' responsibilities, without having any clear answer in the end.      

1. Rich and poor alike evade taxes. Whatever the tax code, someone is bound to be unhappy. Either the evader is being fraudulent, or is stretching the spirit of the law and the tax code to his benefit (example, Apple setting up a Nevada office). Here, the evader is going to rationalize their behaviour by accounting for their 'other' contributions to society, job creation perhaps. In this case, the evader's complaint may be that there is no other benefit to job creation, just whatever profits he is able to make. Society (the government or the people collectively) is unable to meet all the needs of the individual at a sufficient level of granularity (even in something like the tax code) thereby guaranteeing legal noncompliance. How does one determine what the 'right' level of tax is, anyway?
2. In the kali yuga, families continue to exist more or less as the institution they once were. However, the son or daughter does their own thing even if the parents object, not something one would be able to do in an earlier yuga (and still have a clear heart, because one is really breaking Dharma). That the mata and pita are to be respected comes with its caveats (arbitrarily assigned by the son or daughter) today. For example, if the father owed money to someone, not every son is going to feel the responsibility to repay. I bet that a good majority would want to shrug responsibility, citing one or more reasons that may actually seem reasonable. "My father has no assets, so no inheritance, no loan repayment" is an argument one can definitely make, and probably win in court as well. 
3. How about pre-marital physical contact? The Dharma for a man (or boy) is to not lust after any woman who isn't his wedded wife. Similarly, the Dharma for the girl is to gain approval from her parents and be wedded to the man first (as her first husband of course; Elizabeth Taylor and her 4 marriages aren't a great example of Dharma compliance here). "She was willing"/"I didn't make the first move", etc. are perfectly acceptable today (read the story of Ahilya and Indra on another post for reference and the repercussions both face for adultery). What relaxation, per our needs, of Dharma, leads to is a twisting of the first principles of Dharma and its institutions (marriage, family, etc) that make it difficult to track right and wrong.

Parikshit and the advent of Kali Yuga

Image courtey: Wikipedia. Raja Ravi Varma. 

It is during King Parikshit's reign that Dwapara Yuga ends and Kali Yuga starts.

Several Puranas talk about Kali (not to be confused with KaaLi), but I believe that the Bhagavata Purana provides the most accurate account of Kali and his advent. (Why not all of the 18 Puranas are to be considered accurate is a topic for a different day).

A few years after the Mahabharata war, Krishna and the Pandavas depart the earth. Parikshit, the only surviving prince of the Kuru lineage (son of Abhimanyu and Uttara) becomes the king of Bharatavarsha.

Parikshit encounters Kali beating a cow and bull (the cow representing the earth and the bull representing Dharma). Curiously the bull stands on one leg, Dharma being on its last leg in the Kali Yuga). Parikshit first aims his sword at Kali to finish him off, but lets him stay on in a handful of locations (on earth?): where there is gambling, alcohol consumption, animal slaughter, prostitution, and finally gold.

And of course, after Parikshit departs, Kali (as was destined) spreads to other places, but I'd think that these five locations would be of special interest to Kali.

Vedic schools of thought talk of Kali and his influence going beyond mere 'locations'. What really is impactful is Kali's ability to influence human thought, and draw the individual towards Adharmic activities. Kali's influence essentially pervades all that is based on the five essential material elements (pancha bhoota). The Dwaita school of thought holds that Kali's influence does not reach (in addition to Vishnu and Lakshmi) Brahma and Vayu, and their consorts Saraswati and Bharati. Gods that are further down the ladder (taaratamya) do get influenced.

Now, who is Kali, and what is his agenda? My answer to this question starts at the basics, with the classification of souls according to their innate nature. Souls are classified as (predominantly) sathva, rajas, and thamas. Most are familiar with what these stand for. Still, I'd like to call out rajas (also called nitya samsaari in some vedantic treatise) as being the class of souls that are not evil, but those that do not recognize Vishnu (Brahman) as the supreme being that runs the show. Thamas is the class of souls that actively refuses to recognize Vishnu and indulges in activities that disrupt the saadhana (path towards liberation) of the Saatvic souls. Kali (who also incarnates as Duryodhana in the Mahabharata) is considered the foremost of the Thamasic souls, and hence his move to influence other souls (and derail them in their saadhana) as much as possible.

The Kali Yuga is estimated to run about 432,000 man years, starting about 5000-6000 years ago. When no Dharma is left on earth, the Puranas foretell great misery (periods of subsequent drought, scorching heat, incessant rain, etc.) and the incarnation of Kalki who destroys the world and kicks off pralaya for the birth of a new world.

This page contains a good description of what Kali Yuga is expected to bring (progressively). Reads like a doomsday prediction, but I'm sure many see it coming.

The bad news is that even after just 5000-odd years of Kali Yuga (and 400,000+ more years to go) cultural relativism has set it deeply amongst us. A simple answer of 'no' to something clearly evil like abortion, for example, is difficult for many to accept, and debated endlessly as if there is no simple answer based on Dharma.