Models of God

A Scientist need to create models and use them to prove or disprove his theory. Such models are not the exact replica of reality, but embeds few critical elements of the real objects and the environment. This kind of research is generally accepted in all disciplines of Science, and the solutions developed through the use of models are implemented in real environments, including human beings - in case of medicines. 

Now coming back to the subject, if God had created this Universe, then some elements of God would surely manifest in his creations (this can be proved scientifically also) - and that includes everything in this Earth. 

Considering the above two premises, if we (Man) create a model of God, then that model will surely have the element of God in it -  because whatever we are going to use for the creation of model - is all taken from the creations of God only.  So, the conclusions are: 

• God (or at least elements of God) manifests through his creations

• We can't create God, but we can surely and easily create a model

• Elements of God are present in all models.  

In today's world, different religions and different sects within a religion all propose their own models of God, and fight with each other, claiming their model of God is the right one! - the fact is that all models of God are right for sure - as all of them contain elements of God, and therefore no one can go wrong ! in modeling (the system of) God, which is the real wonderful and beautiful thing of this Universe.   

P.S: It's unfortunate to note that (many) people involved in blackmagic too use models, and then try to improve the accuracy of that model by collecting samples of the targeted person. 

Strong Beliefs - Part 2

Extending my previous blog post on Self-belief based on the incidents from the two great epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata, this time, I found similar statement in this story dedicated to Lord Siva.

Parvati (wife of Lord Siva) questions Siva, is it true, whether anybody who takes bath in Holy Ganges can get rid of their sins ? If that is true, then all people in the World can they get rid of their sins by taking bath ?

Siva takes Parvathi to the holy Ganges river bank, and disguises himself as an old man who was about to die. Parvati disguises herself as the wife of the old man (old woman) and pleads to everybody there to help her husband to be alive by providing him with water for drinking. Many people come forward to help with the water, but Parvathi says, "whoever among you is absolutely sinless alone can rescue my husband from death", and on hearing that everybody turn back.

On hearing this, a thief goes to Ganga river, takes a dip, and then takes water from the river and brings it and feeds the old man. The rest of the people were taken by surprise as most of them know him as a thief !

Now the old man gets up and ask the thief, "Are you a absolutely sinless person ?", and the thief replied saying "No, I am a thief and therefore was a big sinner, However I had taken a dip from the Holy Ganga river and therefore all my sins have been washed away, and so, when I fed you, I was absolutely a sinless person and now, I will become a sinful person, only if I starting stealing".

Parvathi, on hearing this, was happy and the moral of this story is that even though it is said that Holy Ganga is said to get rid you of your sins, unless otherwise, you believe it in firmly, there is no point in taking a dip. 

Belief and Self-Belief : Lessons from the Indian Epics

Two different incidents from the great Indian epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata, strike me about the importance of belief and self-belief. Though I had talked about belief in my earlier posts, I would like to take it a step further with examples / incidents drawn from the above two epics.

First, the belief - In Ramayana, there comes an instance, when Hanuman, the great devotee of Lord Ram, had to disobey the orders of the latter, due to a promise given by Hanuman's mother to save some king from Lord Ram. Hanuman under these circumstances decide to stand by his mother's promise, and protects the king. Lord Ram with no options left, aims to attack Hanuman, and Hanuman simply keeps chanting and praying Lord Rama in full faith, and the powerful arrows from the bow of Lord Ram could not cause any harm to Hanuman. Ram upon frustration, aims to use even more powerful arrows, but of no use, as none of them could do anything to Hanuman. Later, ofcourse Gods intervene and stop it, and it is revealed that whoever has strong unshakable faith on Lord Rama, they cannot be attacked even by the powerful Lord Ram himself.

The point to be noted is the strong belief - which is highlighted in several ways throughout Hinduism. This is one of the traits that make Hinduism accept different ways and methods of worship - simply put, if you have full faith on anything and believe in it completely (absolute surrender), God (or powers that may be) manifests through it to make your beliefs come true.

Second the self-belief - In Mahabharatha, there comes an instance when Duroyadhana seeks the help of Sahadeva (Remember that Sahadeva is one of the Pandavas, whom Duroyadhana will be fighting against in the war), for telling him a suitable day to perform the sacrifice to Goddess Durga before the start of the Kurukshetra war. Sahadeva being righteous and virtuous tells him that the up coming new moon day is the auspicious day for doing the sacrifice, and it is widely believed that whoever does the sacrifice first, will be the winner of the war. Krishna on his pursuit to make the Pandavas win the war, plays a game to make the Sun and Moon (depicted as devas) meet, a day before (or probably hours before) and ask the Pandavas to immediately perform the sacrifice.  (Technically new moon day happens when Sun and Moon are in straight line and their angular degree is Zero). Duroyadhana on knowing this, becomes angry and argues with Sahadeva & Krishna regarding the correct new moon day, and though Sahadeva says that whatever he said was right, Krishna simply answers saying that Yudhistra believed him, and you (Duroyodhana) believed Sahadeva, and whoever has strong belief will win. Later when Pandavas question Krishna, he goes on to say that, to win a war, self-belief is more important than anything else, emphasizing all other rituals are only secondary to self-belief.

May be more and better examples could be extracted from these two great epics, but these two strike me the most!

P.S: An interesting link that I discovered about 15 people (or characters) common between Ramayan and Mahabharatha was: https://wiralfeed.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/ramayana-to-mahabharata/

Baahubali Movie and Just a thought on Historical Inspiration

Being a History fan, I was smitten by the movie Baahubali: The Beginning  and watched it last year. The movie was excellent with great picturization (as per Indian Standards) and a historical fictional story being told in a superb style, and ofcourse as evident it had drawn inspirations from the great Indian epic Mahabharata.  

After coming out of the theater, a question was lingering on my mind, why the Kalakeya kingdom (portrayed by Prabhakar and others) was characterized as dark people and the most cruel fighters? Has the director, Shri SS Rajamouli,  had just done it to give a sense of 'fear' to the audience or is their a history behind it ? 

When we look at the History in general, it is filled with wars and the associated cruelties committed by people, who primarily belong to the fairer skin color!  A couple of days or months later, Shri SS Rajamouli was present in a Rediff Chat - and I posted this question, but it went unanswered. 

Had he got inspired by the Asuras from the many Indian epics including Ramayana ? or from any pre-British-era wars that were fought in the Southern side of India or was it a casual depiction ?  Also has the movie got any connections with the Bahubali - the first teacher of Jainism, as speculated in these article. We don't know. Anyways, will look forward to the second and concluding part of the movie (yet to be released) to see if the director has given any clues and of course to enjoy the movie !

The Year 2015 - for me

As usual every year, I am starting my blog post this year with a recap of events I encountered in the previous year. So, here it goes.

Pleasant Learning:

• Pleased with the smooth operations of  a critical infrastructure that I struggled and established few years ago.
• Glad to note that one of the difficult activity of promoting digital signatures to various Government staffs across the nation progressed smoothly in the later part of the year.
• Had an opportunity to give a vent for my creative thinking - Wrote the script and narrative for an animation movie - to teach the concepts of Public Key Infrastructure - and the movie can be found here.
• Creating and Fostering Virtual Communities of Learning: Started a YouTube Channel on my (current) favourite subject - Public Key Infrastructure and slowly built up the community.
• Started to build another Indian technical community - this time focusing on Internet Protocols and Standards - Details can be found here, here, and here .
• Had an opportunity to perform a review of the academic activities of the computer science branch of a prestigious institution
• Knowledge Consolidation - Over the years, I have diversified myself  into many technical areas: Applied AI, Community Informatics, Content Delivery, Contextual Intelligence, Network Security, Usability, Information Security etc..  However this year, I was able to anchor myself under the umbrella of Cryptographic Applications - though I worked on PKI, Internet Standards, and DNS Security
• Personally - bought (more) than a decade old flat !  -  have come a long way from my thinking against the flat system (in my young days) and now realizing the benefits of community living
• Travel (Many places, this year): Mangalore (Visited many temples), Varanasi (Ganga and many temples), Visakhapatnam, Meghalaya (Shillong, Cherapunji), Delhi, Noida, Trichy, Srirangam,Alagar Koil (Madurai), Chandigarh, Arani, Vellore Golden Temple, Tiruvanamalai Temple. 

Tough Learning:

• Discovered how tough to restore a tape backup, when it really matters!
• Realized that how easily you can be taken for a ride, when managing enterprise level systems and infrastructure.
• A Proposal on an effort that started in 2013 is still dragging and no light visible even this year too,with so many back and forth happening and eating my time and efforts
• Patiently waited another whole year for the recognition from the office, which did not come as usual. Expressed them in formal ways, but of no avail.
• Realized what a big folly is to buy a washing machine like Bosch in India. Will blog about it soon.
• Health of my parents was a big concern, and especially my mother had to undergo a surgery. Tough times during that period, but we overcame, thanks to almighty.