In awe am I

A student met with me for the first time.  She is new to the state and the university.  As always, my first order of business was for me to know a little bit about her, and for her to know who I am.  "I like to know who my students are and where they come from.  I want the student to also know who I am," I told her.

And then, of course, I had to be funny.

"That way, students can then decide whether or not they want to work with somebody else instead of me," I added.

Fortunately, she, too, thought it was funny!

We are now a couple of weeks into the term and students are getting to know me.  "Are you being sarcastic now?" one student asked/commented in class.

"I have no idea what sarcasm means" I replied.

After the class laughed one student added, "it is difficult to tell whether you are being serious or funny."

I thought to myself that, well, it is the story of my life! ;)

The older I get, the less I take myself seriously.  I think with age, I have come to understand more and more that nothing really matters.  We die.  We will be quickly forgotten.  Once that is internalized, everything becomes a joke.

But, to get to that level every minute of the day is not easy; a mere mortal I am.  Like everybody else, I too think that the world revolves around me.  Well, of course, there is a yuge difference in scale between me and the POTUS, for instance, on how we think it is all about us.

Even a scientific understanding that it is not all about us is very recent, compared to the length of time that we humans have been around.  We are yet to truly understand that.  In the cosmos, we are insignificant.  Nothing.  But, we have been spinning stories that made us feel special, and we have one hell of a problem walking away from those stories that are deep within us.

We prefer religious and anthropic explanations that the universe was created and fine-tuned for us because they put humans right back in the center of the cosmos anthropocentrically—it is all about us. But 500 years of scientific discoveries have revealed that it isn't about us.

When I look up at the sky, I am always reminded that the cosmos does not care.  It simply is.  And, as insignificant as I feel, I am awed by it.  If only more of us would be awed by our insignificance!

Miracles on a pale blue dot

Over the years, after reading some of my blog-posts that I have packaged into collections, my father has understood that I have wandered far, far away from the religious reservation.  He also knows that I am not one of those atheists who goes around dissing religions for the sake of dissing them.

I stay silent when he talks about one of his beliefs--miracles.  I remember all too well how as a faithful young boy everyday I waited for miracles to happen.  The older I got, and the more I understood science, I figured that there are plenty of things wrong in interpreting the happenings via miracles.

As the polymath physicist Alan Lightman writes in this essay,

Miracles, by definition, lie outside science. Miracles are incompatible with a rational picture of the physical world. Nevertheless, even in our highly scientific and technological society, with most of us profiting enormously from cell phones and automobiles and other products of science—indeed depending on the consistent workings of science—a large fraction of the public believes in miracles. Most of us do not ponder that contradiction. One of my aunts was certain that her dead father visited her house and spoke to her every few months, and she got a tape recorder—a device of science—to document his voice. (Thereupon, the ghostly visits ceased.)
Miracles come from the world of imagination, of dreams, of desire; science from the world of practicality, of logic, of orderly control. I’ve always been fascinated by our ability to live simultaneously in these two apparently opposing worlds. Each in its own way, they reflect something deep and essential inside of us.

That excerpt gives away why I was drawn to that essay.  Through a number of posts in this blog, I have been trying to understand the simultaneous existence of people in "two apparently opposing worlds."  For a number of years now, I have asked quite a few science-educated people, including one who has a doctorate in astronomy--about their "faith" and how they reconcile the two.

I have also come to understand via this maniacal inquiry that people believe in their gods because it gives them that concise narrative of why we are here.  Without that clear narrative, we will be forced to think about questions like: who am I? What does life mean? What happens to this "life" after death?  Why is there death?  How did all these come about?  Those are all troubling questions.  Religious narratives, whether it is Buddhism or Catholicism or Scientology, provide answers to those questions.

And that is exactly what Alan Lightman also says:

Belief in a spiritual universe, I would suggest, arises to a large extent from a human desire for meaning, meaning both in our individual lives and in the cosmos as a whole. While science provides the psychological comfort of order, rationality, and control, it does not provide meaning. Such deep philosophical questions as “Why am I here?” “What is the purpose of my life?” “What is the meaning of this strange cosmos I find myself in?”, and such moral questions as “Is it right to kill an enemy soldier in time of war?” “Is it right to steal in order to feed my family?”, cannot be answered by science. Yet these questions are vital to our mental and emotional lives. We turn for answers to the spiritual universe, the realm that contains eternal truths and guidance, the realm that has some kind of permanent existence, in contrast to the fleeting moment of our mortal lives. In such a realm, logic, rationality, and regularity are not even part of the vocabulary.

It is like when we play a sport like football or cricket.  There is internal logic to how that is played, of course, but if you are not a "believer" then you find that the rules are irrational, bizarre, and comical.  We make fun of off-side and ineligible receiver and more.  But, to those who are passionate about the sport, well, there is nothing funny about those rules.  It, therefore, does not surprise me one bit that atheists are rarely found in the sporting world--way rarer than in society, I think!

I believe that father has also understood my profound appreciation for this universe that is awesome, beautiful, and mysterious. Which is why sometimes he even says things like "you refer to that as the cosmos."  To me, a wonderfully sunny day in fall is a miracle. So is the sparkling river, a rainbow, the blue waters of Sahalie Falls, the loving lick of a playful puppy, the unadulterated laughter of a two-year old,  ... Which is why I so easily agree with Lightman's concluding comments:

My wife and I spend summers on a small island in Maine, far from any town. At night, the skies are quite dark. Sometimes, when there is no wind blowing and the tidal flow is small and the ocean is very still, I can see the reflection of the stars in the water near our dock. At such moments, the water looks like a dark carpet with a million tiny sparkles of light, which gently bob and ripple with each passing wave. Even though I know all the science, I am totally mesmerized and awed. For me, that is miracle enough.

Have yourself a miraculous Sunday!

In search of that cosmic identity

Serious believers, of which there are far fewer than those who reflexively mouth their faiths in their gods, think about their existence by reading the holy books and reading commentaries on them.  They contemplate on what their gurus have to say.  They might go on pilgrimages, even if the holy places are on hills, in their quest to understand how all these came about.

I remember how reverential the old and frail Japanese tourists were at Ajanta.  A Korean tourist, who didn't seem to have any friends or family with him, was at one point sitting quietly as if he was meditating in that setting.  In this post, after the visit to Costa Rica, I wrote:

With every step, the spray from the falls increased.  It was delightful. Soothing. Comforting. Welcoming. Peaceful. I was overjoyed.
I reached the railing at the end. I could feel a lot of the spray. I felt the waterfalls washing away my pain. My disappointments. My problems. My worries. I stood there with my arms stretched outwards on the sides.  I remember feeling one with the waterfalls. There was a strange sense of oneness with the world.
Perhaps that is what the faithful feel when they go for a holy dip in the Ganges. The river washes away the problems if they feel that oneness. Oneness with the water. With the world.
I had always speculated, tongue-in-cheek, that most of my travels are my own versions of pilgrimages. In this case, it seemed so much to be the case.  It was bliss as I stood there getting damp from the spray from the falls.

I suppose the difference between the holy scriptures that the believers read and the great literature that I read is this: the holy books claim that they have the answer.  Which is when the follow-up question arises; to quote Tolstoy:

You say to yourself, "It can't be that it is so simple and that still people do not see that if two affirmations contradict each other, then neither one nor the other can hold the unified truth that faith must be.  There is something here.  There is some explanation." ... Why is the truth held not by Lutheranism, not by Catholicism, but by Orthodoxy?

We struggle.  Or, as John Steinbeck puts it:

We continue to ask "why?"  The Hindu philosophy contends that taking the cause-and-effect route will never get us to the answer, which is also what Steinbeck writes as "an answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions."  The Hindu philosophy, therefore, directs us to turn the inquiry inward, which is also what the Buddha did in trying to sort out the whole damn thing ;)  I am not willing to trust any book that claims to have the definitive answer, nor any mortal who claims to have the definitive answer.  I will, therefore, continue on with my pilgrimages and scriptures, though it doesn't seem like I can become the Path itself.

You are the cosmos. The cosmos is you.

As I read this NY Times op-ed on "our cosmic selves," I was, yet again, reminded of the mahavakyas, especially "तत् त्वम् असि"

Ok, I am getting ahead of the story.

A question that practically everybody on this planet would like to know the answer to is this: where did we, and everything else, come from?  An awesome mystery ever, right?

If you are talented and creative enough, and have enough charisma, you can then offer your own narrative and gain a few followers.  If the numbers keep growing, then you gain notoriety as a cult leader.  If your cult manages to survive for a hundred years, which will mean you are dead by then, that cult becomes a religion based on the narrative that you offered.

I grew up with interesting narratives that had survived over the centuries.  But, after a while, the puranas, which are stories about the gods, didn't deliver any meaning whatsoever.  They just seemed like awesome soap-operas, with complex subplots.  And, yes, most stories had some element of moral instruction too.

Then there was the fascination with prophets, who turned out to be as clueless as I was--but were master manipulators.

Source

The narratives that appealed to me during the final phase of the religiously agnostic life were whatever I could understand of the vedantic approach.  There were no stories here. No prophets. Only ideas.  Thus, there was no trivial discussion like whether Sita was chaste enough after her time away from Rama, or whether Krishna's rasa lila with the gopis were metaphors to illustrate the deeper points about the soul.

The vedantic ideas were abstractions.  It was like doing math. Imaginary numbers--in this context, you, too, will find it interesting that "i" is discussed there!  Anyway, the vedantic stuff is where I came across the mahavakyas.  And I found it interesting that a commentator on these vedantic aspects was Sivananda, who was from grandmother's village, Pattamadai.  His childhood home was only a couple of doors from grandmother's.  How about that!

One of those mahavakyas is  "तत् त्वम् असि": That thou art.  You are that.  The sentence and the philosophy works well even without bringing in any creator into the discussions.

A wonderful philosophical idea that once we strip from ourselves all the identifications that we use to define who we are, well, the self is "that."  In the vedantic philosophy "that" refers to the "brahman."  (Not to be confused with the brahmin.)

In physics, "that" is cosmic dust.

The iron in our blood, the calcium in our bones and the oxygen we breathe are the physical remains — ashes, if you will — of stars that lived and died long ago.

We are all stars ;)

science continues to show just how intimately connected life on Earth is to extraterrestrial processes. In particular, several recent findings have further illuminated the cosmic origins of life’s key ingredients.

You and I are all the same. Whatever our skin colors ;)

Amid the material comforts and the relentless distractions of modern life, the universe at large may appear remote, intangible and irrelevant, especially to those of us who are city dwellers. But the next time you catch a glimpse of the Milky Way in its true glory, from a dark outpost far from city lights, think of those countless stars as nuclear factories and the starless hazy patches as molecular breweries. It is not much of a stretch to imagine the inchoate seeds of life emerging in the distance.

The universe has never seemed "remote, intangible and irrelevant" to me.  Towards the last couple of years of my "Indian" existence, I felt that deep connection to the vast universe via "तत् त्वम् असि".  Now, it is via cosmic dust.  

And, dust to dust it shall be in a few more years.  Before then, there are papers to grade ;)

I worry even when good things happen! What's wrong with me?

I printed the boarding passes for the flights back to Eugene.  The first--for the long four hour leg--had me in a row that was not the same as what I originally had.  I looked closer.  "First."

I had been upgraded all the way from economy to the front of the plane.

You would think that I started celebrating, right?

I worried.

The last couple of times I was upgraded to first/business class, well, the cosmos made me pay big time.  The latest was the awful experience at Denver.

Which is why I worried that I would have to pay for it.  There is no free lunch, after all!

I suspected that the cosmos would strand me in San Francisco.  My connection was a late in the night flight, after which the next flight home was in the morning. I was convinced that it would be a replay a la Denver.

Seated directly across from Gate 67, I booted up the laptop.  No wifi in the airport.  So, now, two hours to kill, without wifi, and with increasing level of worries over my free upgrade.

Turns out that I am one bad luck charm. No wonder at work and in personal life, nobody wants to be around me.  In this case, it was in the form of an announcement--the flight out of Gate 68 was cancelled because of the bad weather in the northeast.  I felt bad for the passengers; after all, the plane was there, the crew were there, ... but, a no-go.

But, life is all about me.  I now wondered if the cosmos had exacted the price for my upgrade via canceling the flight out of the next gate.  I know, I know, it is all a coincidence and there is no causation at all.  But, hey, whoever said emotions are triggered by logical thinking!  Check with any woman ;)

I boarded the plane. The flight steward seemed surprised that I didn't care to have wine or beer.  He kept coming back to me with "are you sure you don't want anything?"

As the plane neared San Francisco, the setting sun produced impressive sights.  I looked around--it seemed like most of my people--as in we first-classers, hehe--were focused on their devices, reading or watching.  Like even the passenger in the seat that was in front of me--the reflection provided the evidence:

I wondered whether she was aware of the phenomenal colors in the horizon right outside her window.  Perhaps not; after all, this not a first experience either of passengers entertained by devices and not knowing about the fabulous show outside.

As the plane started descending, the sky turned dark, and so did my optimism.  I was reminded of the price that I had yet to pay for the free upgrade.  I wondered what awaited me.

The plane taxied and almost reached the gate when it stopped.  A minute later came the announcement: another plane was parked at the gate and that we would have to wait for at least twenty minutes.

So, was this the price that I had to pay the cosmos?  With this and the canceled flight, was I even with the cosmos?

I really didn't care because the the connecting flight was more than two hours away.  We finally reached the gate thirty minutes after wheels-down.

After grabbing dinner, brushing my teeth--a good student I am--I settled by the gate.

Fifteen minutes before boarding time, the guy at the adjacent gate cleared his throat and made an announcement.  About a flight cancellation "because of a crew situation."  Aha, so this was the Denver replay that I was sure would happen.  But, I lucked out--my bad karma had been transferred on to yet another flight.

I am glad I am home to tell this yawner! ;)

On the insignificance of this naked cosmos

"You often refer to the cosmos" my father said in an extended conversation that was about the latest collection of my blog-posts that he had read.  "You talk about the river, clouds, nature, deer ... I call them all god" he said.

Fair enough.  What's in a name, right?  Ultimately it is the cause and the effect aspect of god that bothers me, not the names of whatever is around us.  If one were to claim that praying to the clouds above caused the monsoon rains, well, then I will have to figure out an equivalent of "Houston, we have a problem!"

I like that usage. Cosmos.  It is a wonderful reminder of how insignificant you, and I, and our lives and everything else are.  Here is one measure of that insignificance:

We all reside on a small planet orbiting a single, middle-aged star that is one of some 200 billion stars in the great swirl of matter that makes up the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy is but one of an estimated several hundred billion such structures in the observable universe—a volume that now stretches in all directions from us for more than 270,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (2.7 × 1023) miles.

We are tiny.
We know well how tiny we are compared to the planet on which we live.
We know well that our planet is tiny compared to the sun, around which it revolves.
We also know that the sun is nothing but ... oh, well, we are damn insignificant.

In the context of such insignificance, we stress about our balding heads, our paunches, the bank balance, whether enough friends "liked" our Facebook photos, ... We fight over corporate tax rates, gay marriage, torture, when life begins and whether, therefore, man spilling his seeds is a sin ...

If we stepped back from it all, we would laugh at ourselves.  Our collective laughter will be so loud that it will rock this tiny planet.  But, we don't.

In our efforts to assess our significance, we face a conundrum: Some discoveries and theories suggest life could easily be ordinary and common, and others suggest the opposite. How do we begin to pull together our knowledge of the cosmos—from bacteria to the big bang—to explain whether or not we are special? And as we learn more about our place in the universe, what does it all imply for our efforts to find out if there are other living things out there? How do we take the next steps?

That is what education and learning are all about.  It will be a phenomenally rich experience if students at any age were to constantly reflect on how the lessons help them with the big picture.  Instead, we and they get hung up on the quadratic equation.  Or whether the A- is a reflection of one's inability to earn an A+.  The big picture gets hidden, overlooked, forgotten, when the nagging question is nothing but, "will this be on the test?"

On the other hand, if we were to cook a tasty meal, or put in a day's work, or laugh with friends, all with an understanding that these are all pieces that help us make something significant out of the insignificance as a way to understand that big picture, wouldn't that be a life that is lived and examined?

If only every single day we stopped to think about Carl Sagan's poetic "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

More on the darkening space, Pongal, and gods in India

Since the earlier post, I have been thinking a lot about physics--a love for the subject that goes all the way back to high school days.  And, about the wonderfully gifted popularizer of science and physics: Carl Sagan.  Of course, growing up in India, and without television, meant that I had no idea about Sagan; I hadn't even completed high school when PBS began airing Cosmos here in the US.  It was much later in life, as a graduate student, that I started reading/watching Sagan.  (One of my greatest regrets was that I missed out on an opportunity to go to a Richard Feynman lecture at Caltech, during my first semester in this country, and a year later he died!!!)

Anyway, thinking more about how lonely we humans are in this universe, which is rapidly expanding, made me go back to Carl Sagan's Cosmos.  What a coincidence it was that I should watch it now, as in during this time of January--"Pongal" that Sagan talks about in this video was two days ago, and I watched this video on "Maattu Pongal"!  Of course, Sagan butchers the pronunciation, but that is ok :)

It is shame that even a series like Cosmos has not been able to rid the creationists who make a caricature of American scientific enterprise.  The pursuit of science and truth is being ridiculed on a daily basis, when it really ought to be the other way around.  This ought to worry us a lot as a metric of the decline of America :(