A Sufficiently Large Value of Zero

Constructing false equivalences comes naturally to the science- and logic-illiterate seculars in India coming out of the assortment of humanities departments in the west and India. For example, see this tweet:

JDU leader Anwar Ali says, there's no difference between Al Qaeda and RSS. The last few members of dinosaur era :( pic.twitter.com/LZvMtjU9xR
— Kiran Kumar S (@KiranKS) September 7, 2014

False equivalences like these eventually rest on the following theorem:
"For sufficiently large values, zero can be rounded up to one".
Proof: Take any zero. Press on both sides long enough.

Corollary: "For sufficiently small values, 1 can be rounded to 0".
Proof: Take a unity shaped balloon and blow sufficient hot air into it.

When you begin to treat Boolean true vs false as merely unit rounding error, a whole lot of things are possible. By repeatedly applying this "rounding rule", you can make anything equal to anything else. All it takes is vivid imagination, and this department, one must concede that non-dharmics do rule the world.

Examples

'For sufficiently large values, the 300-yr rule by Mughal invaders was the pinnacle of Indian historical achievement' (All their genocides and native dharmic achievements rounded down to zero by repeated application of corollary, etc.)

'For sufficiently small values, Hindu dharma is negligible and can hence be rounded down to zero' (non-negligible residuals are either some Neo-Hinduism 0-to-1 fabrication or generic 'South-Asian' Gaussian noise)

'First there was nothing, then there was something'. Genesis - a restatement of  the main theorem.  'First there will be something, then nothing' is an application of the corollary. Judgement-day and Jahannam. This before/after miracle has sustained thousands of marketing campaigns. This belief is the bedrock of marxism, history-centrism and its monotheisms. Non-dharmic thought will always prefer Magic over Yoga, Prophesy over Forecast, and Dogma over Karma. (Karma and Punar Janm represent the clearest refutation of this "something to nothing" adharmic fallacy).

Sometimes, applying this theorem can fail badly.

1. 'For sufficiently large values, Rahul Gandhi > Narendra Modi'. Sadly, some zeros are irreversibly, irretrievably, absolutely zero.

2. 'For sufficiently large values, Nalanda university can be brought back to life'.

Nalanda university was destroyed by Jihadis centuries ago. Round that fact down to zero, round up some funds from gullibles, and you end up with the brand-hijacking led by Mr. Sen, the numericidal genius whose body of work has convinced millions that there is a place for fantasy in economics and public policy.

To honor the secular magician and his university, this rounding rule is named "ø0", The Null-Anda Theorem.

Digestion of Hinduism: Inside the American Veda

The first part of my notes-to-self covered my interpretation of digestion, a term coined by Rajiv Malhotra. This lead to an active twitter debate that led to many questions, mostly centered around Phil Goldberg's 'American Veda', which was previously critiqued elsewhere as facilitating digestion, and a stand which I support. I fact, I have found that AV does a lot more than that. It also directly digests and misrepresents Hinduism, and celebrates the digestion of Hinduism, perhaps unintentionally. This second set of notes will add more substance and take some of those follow-up questions as a starting point.

Throughout these posts, the emphasis in bold/underline/quotes are mine. Often direct quotes are italicized. Let me state upfront that I admire Goldberg's candid admissions. I believe he is Jewish, and therefore does not proselytize. This is my critique of his work, as well as the other interviews and articles he has written. There are places in the book AV where he even agrees that Indian methods and dharmic ideas have been misappropriated. But his disappointing response is to kick the can down the road to the Hindu advocacy groups to deal with the Hindu image issue, and washes his hands off, i.e. 'it is not my problem'. Fair enough. He is not Hindu, and this book is not about Hinduism. AV is a book written by the west, of the west, and for the west. Hindus and Hinduism are but props in the AV stage.

[update Dec 23: typos fixed]



Cover Page
American Veda: How Indian Spirituality Changed the West

American Veda and Indian spirituality implies that Hindu religious concepts are tied to a geography. There is no call-out in the book of the universal truth claims of Karma and Punar Janma of Hinduism and the universality of dharma - the latter is the single-most important thing, in my opinion, a Hindu reader should look for in such books: Ask what is the status of dharma in the book? It is totally ignored in the title. The title suggests that the book starts with some fuzzy "spirituality" from India toward building a new American Veda suitable for western consumption without the stench of Hinduism's caste, cows, and curry.

Strong words? read on and make up your own mind.

Foreword by Huston Smith
Who is this Huston Smith and why did Goldberg pick him to write the foreword?
He's described a 90+ year old "rock star of religions". My ignorance. I never heard of this chap, so I looked him up. Here are some interesting snippets.

"Smith was born in 1919 in China, where his parents were Christian missionaries...."

Smith: "... "I happen to be a Christian. I was brought up and drenched in that," he said. "I am very orthodox in thinking that Jesus acted in his life the way God would have acted if God had assumed human form... I think that God imploded, like a spiritual big bang, to launch the eight civilizations that make up recorded history and the religions in those civilizations.""

Zero connection with dharma so far, but we see Mr. Smith clearly state where his roots are: History-centric Christianity.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on his religious practice that examines other religions (including, and in particular, Hindu Vedanta) for many years, he returning to his Christian roots to write this book:
"The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition"

 Here's an Amazon.com blurb on what this restored Christianity looks like:
"... "I have tried to describe a Christianity which is fully compatible with everything we now know, and to indicate why Christians feel privileged to give their lives to it."
—Huston Smith

.... In his most personal and passionate book on the spiritual life, renowned author, scholar, and teacher of world religions Huston Smith turns to his own life-long religion, Christianity....Smith cuts through these to describe Christianity's "Great Tradition," the common faith of the first millennium of believers, which is the trunk of the tree from which Christianity's many branches, twigs, and leaves have grown. This is not the exclusivist Christianity of strict fundamentalists, nor the liberal, watered-down Christianity practiced by many contemporary churchgoers..."


Right in the introductory pages available for free at Amazon.com, you can clearly see Smith states that he visited India may times and learnt of "dharma" before proceeding to digest Dharma into the Christian notion. His exact words on how he redefines dharma: "It is the duty that God has imposed on me". Being a Christian, he is of course referring to a monotheist God who is a task-master.  The meaning of dharma has been totally inverted. This is the abysmal level of scholarship and mis-translation of Sanskrit, which we see in other chapters of the AV book too.

In the first chapter of Smith's book, after the introduction, Smith talks of his new Christian world view, where the very first set of paragraphs attempts to mangle the dharmic idea of "Purna" made famous by the famous Shloka. Next, tackles at causation (related to Karma...), at which point I cried halt. The foreword to AV cites a single verse from the Christian bible where false equivalences for Bhakti, Jnana, and Karma is given! Rock star.


Foreword writers are deliberately and carefully chosen, and usually for deep reasons. AV's foreword writer is a famous and devout Christian, the son of two devoted missionaries who studied Vedanta for long, and visited India several times, and ultimately used this information, not to become Hindu or dharmic, but to repair and re-invent an improved Christianity for the west using digested versions of Hindu concepts.

This is how American Veda begins and ends. This is the template.

Theme of American Veda
Goldberg is sincere westerner who is looking to improving the condition of his country and repairing their society and religion. To achieve this task, he, like Huston Smith, uses Hinduism as a tool-box containing an useful assortment of nuts and bolts, from which the west can freely select compatible parts to plug the gaping holes in their systems. Chapter after chapter in this book is not about how Hinduism and India benefits from the interaction with the west, but the total opposite.  Which begs the question:

If AV is about utilizing bits and pieces of Hindu ideas deleted from their Indian context, and suitably modified to enhance Christianity, Judaism, and western health care, etc., why the heck are the useful Hindu idiots cheering, showcasing, and funding such works? What has India and dharmic systems got in return from the US for this? ZILCH.

Much of American Veda is a biographical celebration of who's who of U-turners and digesters:

Maslow, Bensen, Ken Wilber, Carl Jung, Father Keating, ....

and a bunch of opportunists like Deepak Chopra who have made a lot of money selling faux-Vedantic snake oil to a gullible western audience. This blogpost links to a video lecture of Rajiv Malhotra that walks through an entire list of U-turners and digesters. We won't go into these biographies, even though they make for fascinating and bewildering reading. In this remainder of this part of the self-study, I cover the introduction and the first chapter of AV, focusing on Goldberg's own words and annotations. I highlight just a few of the many gaping holes in this book that makes a mockery of dharmic concepts and try to point out how these mangled ideas facilitate digestion.

For more background and context on American Veda and Phil Goldberg, readers can read this blog: digestingveda.blogspot.in. We owe the writer a thanks.


Chapter - Introduction
1. Here, PG starts off providing a list of excuses about why he has not used Hinduism in the title. Clearly, he is aware this would become an issue. Some reasons include:
a.  "people will misconstrue the nature of this book". (Exactly how?)

b. [Opportunistic] gurus who came to the west said they were not preaching Hinduism (so?)

c. Yoga and Vedanta do not have to be viewed religiously at all ...

2. As far as Buddhism, he equates the Buddha to Jesus as a reformer. I would seriously contest this as another false equivalence, but some other day. This book does not credit Buddhism in the cover either. Of Jainism or Sikhism, I could find no mention.

3. He calls Yoga and Vedanta, India's major export. Despite that, India has not seen one dollar in returns yet!

4. He finds India's epic 'tales' of Ramayana and Mahabharata to be rich in 'magic and mystery', and makes the Iliad and Odyssey look like short stories.

5. Page 10:
Goldberg offers us this gem: infinite divine can be called Allah, Lord, or Brahman, which is justified citing 'Ekam sat Vipraha bahudha vadanti'.
 
Shockingly poor scholarship fills the American Veda. Goldberg is honest enough to concede that he is not confident about the completeness of the translation of the Vedantic principles he cites by adding caveats such as "does not pretend to do justice to Vedanta...". What can we be sure of in AV then?

The above reasoning is a distortion of Hinduism, designed to propagate the myth of sameness. Doing so allows him to move on to his next, and by far, most serious error, which opens the door to wholesale digestion.

6. On Page 11, Goldberg claims:
 "Vedantic principles are accompanied by Vedic concepts of Karma.... and reincarnation. Most applications of Vedanta-Yoga do not require these supplementary ideas, and ordinary practitioners in the west do not necessarily believe in them"

Supplementary ideas?!

Karma (cause and effect) and Punar Janma (Reincarnation) are central and fundamental truth-claims of dharmic thought system. Hinduism (and its pluralism of manifestations), Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists subscribe to this. These dharmic fundamentals are precisely the ones that the Judeo-Christian system is incompatible with, and this is also exactly why Goldberg has deliberately brushed them aside as unimportant waste material that can be rejected! Once we get rid of these crucial dharmic elements, the mutilated remainder of the Hindu concepts can be digested into JC systems, without hurting their history-centric dogma.  This is exactly what was stated in part-1. In Philip Goldberg's own words, we have clear evidence of digestion being facilitated.

7. On the same page, PG favorably compares Vedanta to perennialism. Rajiv Malhotra has previously stated that "The whole Perennial Philosophy is merely stage-2 of the uturn." AV systematically glorifies (as Rajiv Malhotra put it) these so-called western pioneers, who in reality, just reassembled and repackaged many of the original ideas from dharmic systems.

8. In Page 12, he says "whether it's a falafel or philosophy, Americans embrace foreign products when the circumstances are right, and conditions in the United States were right for Vedanta-Yoga from the start"

Falafel. Vedanta-Yoga. foreign product (!)

Wow, such reverence and seriousness.

This is the author that Ms. Nirmala Seetharaman's foundation found worthy enough to invite for a talk, and for RSS to promote? that certain Sanathana Dharma institutions showered money on?



These are just the first few pages. Toward the end of the book, there are sections where it appears like Goldberg is practically showing Padres/Rabbis how such digested Vedanta-Yoga' can improve the situation in their church and synagogue without impacting their central dogma. He also does this in a Huffington Post article. Indeed as early as page 23-24, Goldberg very honestly states his intentions. Indeed, AV is a very honest book. I'm sure PG believes in his mind that he's doing a lot of good.

9. In his own words, we can find the real reason for deleting Hinduism/Buddhism/Sikhism/Jainism from this book:

 "This [book] is not a threat to Western religions; Americans are not about to abandon their churches, synagogues, and mosques, for Hindu temples. Figures of Shiva and Krishna will not replace crosses in American homes."

It is very, very clear. Hinduism has NO role in this book, and he sees no role for Hinduism in American homes. He is seeking not to replace dogmatic Judeo-christian ideology with dharmic ideas as many gullible Hindus believe. Instead, he is seeking to complement and solidify the existing dogma with a digested Hindu layer. This is precisely what was mentioned in part 1. In his own words, we have the evidence of the outcome of digestion.  Once this happens, this enhanced Christianity can be re-exported to India. Conversion in India will be a piece of cake. This is what India gains from digestion.

Still not convinced? then read further ...
"Exposure to eastern spirituality is more likely to strengthen a person's relationship to his or her native religion than to destroy it".

Goldberg has gone out of his way to calm his western audience and his publishers. This book is not about bringing dharma to replace dogma. This is about making Judeo-Christianity stronger to stem the flow of disenchanted members out of their system.

I could go on. There are nearly 400 pages in this book, and I have covered less than 25 in this post since I do not have a digital copy to expedite this work. There are more fallacies and errors to point out, but that will take up a lot of space and is left as an exercise to the reader. I will however add one final point on the comments that Goldberg makes in page 292, to illustrate the kind of lame arguments used to justify digestion.

"One physician told me "But replacing the the orange robe with a white lab coat opens it up to a lot more people". So does calling meditation a stress-reduction technique, not a sadhana for achieving moksha. We will never know how many heart attacks were prevented, or how many millions of pills were not taken, because of that decision.

There is another place in the book where a false argument of "Indian philosophy versus Western science" argument is given. Digestion of Yoga into all these medical buzzwords is justified since it gives these methods the requisite "scientific legitimacy".  Mr. Goldberg: Indians, Tibetans, Sri Lankans, Indonesians, and many millions in Asia (not just India) for centuries benefited scientifically from Yoga, without having to mutilate Yoga and delete moksha, and did not require white lab coats to "make it look" scientific. It always was scientific, and dharmic religions have never been in conflict with science. This silly justification insults intelligence.
 

Conclusion and Summary
Based on my study, I personally find American Veda to be a mediocre and error-ridden piece of work that directly enables, and also (perhaps inadvertently) celebrates digestion while moving toward a goal of ensuring that western society derives maximum benefits from the Hindu toolbox, taking what it deems to be compatible and useful (dharma-nirpeksha stuff), and discarding the rest.

Digestion is not an end-goal. It is not easy to spot unless you examine the end-state of the Hindu concept being appropriated. It is merely a means to an end. Usually, that end-goal is to preserve and enhance Western religion. The primary goal is neither to harm or help the cause of dharma. Rather they are indifferent to it. Impact on Hinduism and dharma is collateral damage, which authors may express regret about, but is not really their concern.

It's time we stop celebrating every new and shiny piece of work that comes of the west just because it is superficially favorable to Hinduism. That's a symptom of mental colonization. Let's first fund and support those among our own who are busting their backs coming up with high-quality work. Being brown should not be a disqualification.

The Moksha Probability Cycle

[work in progress]
 
Plan A: Moksha this time
The chance of that happening is finite but very slim, so we have to retry.

Plan B: Rebirth in dharmic faith and re-try plan A
Given the current population ratios, and assuming that we are born into a family that actually practices dharma rather that just provide lip-service, this is no more than 20%. In other words, if we don't try to attain Moksha this time, there's at best a 20% of even getting another chance to try in the next birth. It may be possible that if we really, really tried to follow dharma to the extent possible, this may work in our favor and increase the odds of dharmic rebirth in our favor. Conversely, if we devote life to adharma, the chance of being born human itself may decrease. There's a 80% that we move to iteration #3, and see if we get lucky.  After N rebirths, assuming that dharmic faiths are miraculously still around in this Kaliyuga and form 20% of humanity, the chance that we are born in a dharmic faith = probability of at least one success in N births = 1 - probability of no success in N births = 0.8^N. For example, the probability of being reborn dharmic in our next seven lives is no more than 79%. However, we can increase this probability by adopting the dharmic way of life in every birth, regardless of where we are born. This leads to plan C.




Plan C: Reject exclusivity and follow dharma regardless of birth
This requires that pluralism, righteousness, and dharma be respected and prevail for ages to come, so that the dharmic way of life is a popular option. This is the only way we can reduce our dependency on luck. Better start working towards that right now, and improve our chances in the Moksha probability cycle!

A Finite State Model of the History-Centric Soul

(Work in progress, to be updated)
In this post, we show that the theological soul associated with a History-centric thought system (HCTS) can be adequately represented using a deterministic and finite programmable model (there's an almost Turing Machine like feel to it). As always, feel free to submit substantiated corrections or suggestions.

From previous posts, we know that the human membership associated with a HCTS can be encoded using exactly one bit of information:
1: fully accept the input historical prior P. Output: qualify as a member
0: not fully accept input P. Output: disqualified (all non-humans by default).

There is no other state possible and no other inputs are necessary. Thus HC systems are associated with a finite bounded true/false state, that is only externally controllable and defined only for humans (undefined for non-humans).

Programmable Model Template of History Centric Souls (HCS)
1. HCS have finite starting points denoted T_start and a finite end points (T_end), thus of total duration (T_end - T_begin) and is undefined for any other time.

2. There exists a 1:1 binding-mapping between HCS and human body, i.e., one instance of HCS can be associated with exactly one human instance, thereby precluding the possibility of reincarnation, among other things.

3. The end state of all HCS is collectively and deterministically tied to the acceptance or non-acceptance of the corresponding extraneous input static data set associated with historical prior P (e.g. Nicene Creed). Other inputs are neither necessary nor sufficient.

4. At time T_end, HCS lapse and deterministically receive unconstrained output incentive enjoyable in human form, only if the associated human body validates the static input data within prior P before their mortal end. Thus, infinite reward is at hand regardless of the quality and quantity of all prior finite human acts. This boundless reward is available in an exclusive domain removed from the mortal world and is not accessible to non-members. Note the total absence of causality, sense of proportionality, and Karma, and an exclusive emphasis on continued membership and the keying in of a single collectively valid password.

5. As Rajiv Malhotra notes, the domain of HC God, matter, and the individual HCS are non-intersecting (duality of domains), i.e., the  intersection of any pair of domains = {∅}.

6. It follows from (4) that HCS of non-members are guaranteed to receive infinite penalty in a non-exclusive domain regardless of how virtuous their mortal life was. 

7. Thus the end state for HCS is deterministically determined, is absolutely uncontrollable by the human and absolutely controllable by and dependent on an extraneous, infinitely distant 'God', i.e., strictly binary: either infinite penalty (-∞) or unbounded incentive (+∞), depending only on a single human decision to fully accept or not accept static input data from a historical prior P. There is zero probability of a 'middle-ground' between these infinite extremes showing up in the output, and zero possibility of 'a second chance' to alter an undesirable end-state via rebirth. Claiming ignorance of prior P is not an acceptable excuse either.

8. The starting state (DNA, socioeconomic condition, etc.) of the human form associated with a HCS soul is a one-time randomized draw from an urn, i.e. a human lottery with no chance of a re-draw.

9. At time T_start, all HCS are uniformly scheduled to receive 'infinite penalty' (-∞) upon termination. This default state value is assumed to be sexually transmitted and can be altered (to +∞) only if the human will officially accept the input historical prior P before mortal end. (An example of the direct consequence of this important history-centric property is the aggressive 'harvesting of souls' practiced by agents of Abrahamic theology. In fact, a posthumous attempt was made on the Christian HCS of Mahatma Gandhi recently).

Thus the structural properties of HC soul are (infinitely) different from the 'Atman' of Dharmic thought systems (there are many more differences beyond those addressed here). A key reason for the pattern of a 'bounded, deterministic and programmable model' that repeatedly shows up in Western thought is attributable to a near-exclusive emphasis on history-centrism and its resultant human-centrism, rather than beneficial metaphysics and development (or genuine acknowledgement) of  Dharmic inner sciences that help a human move away from bodily ego and maximize their inner potential. History-Centrism dictates that Yoga may help in the short term, but ultimately, only third-party intervention via a monotheist 'God' can seal the deal (human and HCS being the primary parties). Refer to Rajiv Malhotra's book 'Being Different' for complete details.

intro to : The Fire Ceremony

This was an attempt to comprehend the shocking nature of two events related to the Godhra massacre in 2002 that led to retaliation and riots (not a pogrom):
1. How can humans even consider killing civilians, including women and children just a few feet away?
2. How can the newspapers and television spin such barbaric and tragic events, year after year, to score points and increase profits?

It feels like it is impossible to try reconcile the irreconcilable madness that was Godhra & its aftermath and find some closure (thats the in-word now a days). I've been trying various thought experiments. One such was imagining a humane conversation between the conscience/Atma of a killer and a toddler victim (a child is conscience itself) in the ill-fated train coach before the event and wondering if there was even a small chance that somebody in that train station had a flicker of understanding that we all come from and are part of the same unity consciousness ...


After ten years, it is apparent that the story tellers (the media and the eminent historians and the Darth Vaders they serve) come across as the truly inhuman ones in this disaster. What happened over the hours and days exactly 10 years ago was frenzied manslaughter and response on a terrible scale, but in the end it is the story teller who is guilty of the cold-blooded murder of justice for ten years. Ten years and counting.

The Fire Ceremony

“Hi”, I greeted a co-traveler who appeared before me as I took in the tea-stained set of clothes he wore for this journey. “Hello lady” he replied immediately noticing the pretty Salwar that I was wearing, “Nice Indian color. I see you are getting ready for the fire ceremony”. “Yes”, I replied, smoothing my dress that seemed to be creased with nervousness. Sensing this he said “Don’t worry, it’s going to be just fine. Besides, I heard that you will get a brand new dress on your next trip”. That lightened me up a bit. His timely appearance of course meant that he would be one of the priests who would initiate the fire-ceremony later today. Although we all were people of Purna, I noticed that his Bhu-log costume and my Agni-jan dress did kind of clash and so I pressed him for more details.

He went on: “Yes, we are all people of the Purna, make no mistake, despite what the story-tellers say. I’m one of the Bhu-log on this trip and may be part of Agni-Jan the next time. At least that’s what the seers say. They see things quite differently from the story tellers.” I nodded and innocently asked him “Will there also be Agni-Jan priests who will be performing this ceremony?”  He replied “Not this time. I always go by the book in this journey.” I realized that this person meant business. He continued: “All this must be a bit confusing I know. The Agni-jan can get initiated into the ceremony by Bhu-log and on a few other occasions it’s the other way around. The story tellers who do not understand Purna confuse matters further by claiming that while such no such distinction can be drawn among priests, the same does not apply to those who undergo the ceremony. I'm afraid my dear, that after this journey, they will tell very little about you. Besides, you are too young to be initiated into a fire ceremony. There are a few more ceremonies coming up in the next few days …,", he trailed off. ".. But not to worry sweetie. I will be there with you. Did you know that but for the ceremony, you would have had a chance to visit the birthplace of a journey of Purna itself. In fact some Agni-jan say that during this particular journey, he took the form of a great and kind king who initiated his queen, the daughter of Bhu-lok into a fire ceremony. Let me tell you his story”. Like all kids, I loved stories and gradually became immersed in it and dozed off as he whispered “bye” and floated way to his position.

The Queen gently woke me up with her divinely soft voice “its time now, my little one. Don’t worry, I know how it is. It will be over soon and maybe you will have a longer trip the next time if you so wish”. As she drifted away, I looked out of the window and saw that he was now waiting at his tea-stall in the station that my train pulled into, looking as determined as he said he would be. Did he still have a choice? Our soulful eyes met briefly and perhaps that made him flinch a bit before those eyes emptied and a pair of hands tossed the can of gasoline into our coach to initiate proceedings. He must have seen me at the end, my tiny melting hands folded in prayer as the Maryadha Purushottam came and took me back into the loving arms of Purna to signal the end of the fire ceremony. As I looked down at my ridiculously small heap of mortal ashes in the debris, I was curious how the story tellers who would end up retelling the toddler's journey ten years ago. Their fire-ceremony is not too far away either. Who will tell the story of the story-tellers, I wondered.