Philosophy of Philosophies

The Thinker or a Philosopher in Action...

Definitely not a cherished topic for many; even utterance of the word ‘Philosophy’ can disperse the otherwise gleefully debating crowd. The trigger to write about this topic was like always a harmless meaningless chat. Some of my modest friends shy away from any debating or thought provoking topics by saying “these high thoughts are simply out of my league” or worse “my pea size brain in incapable of comprehending these thoughts” and every time I am like “what is the matter with you guys!!??” (and that's putting it mildly/nicely). The other day through one such chat I stated "Philosophy is not about explaining things but more about understanding and a way of living..." and instantly came a reply “Kindly explain it in simpler words…. With some examples…”; at least this person showed some willingness to explore the mystical realm so here I am trying to explain the Philosophy of Philosophies.

If we try to find the meaning of this word in dictionary we would get many results like “a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means” or “an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs” or “love of wisdom”. These results instead of simplifying the problem seem to complicate the situation. So let us take another approach to understand the meaning of 'Philosophy’ by having a look at a few philosophies and the philosophers.

There are innumerable philosophers and philosophies so let us talk about Socrates, Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi considering my limited knowledge and time.

Socrates^[1,2] was a Greek philosopher a giant amongst the philosophers. Coming from the city of Athens and a real humble background wherein his father was a sculptor and his mother was a midwife. I am not aware how he came to trod upon the path of philosophers but somehow he did and his love for philosophy was unmatched. He never wrote anything, most of his work known to generations is due to his disciple Plato who documented all his teachings/philosophies. Anyway coming back to his teachings; his philosophy was that of quest for knowledge. He questioned the very reason of the ‘existence of humans’, the purpose of life not only in the larger scale but also on small terms as what is purpose of his life? What are real causes for happiness?  What makes people good? His quest was to find answers to these fundamental questions of life. He lived his life by trying to answer these questions. He was of the opinion that we already know the answer to every question just that we have forgotten them at the time of birth. His way of teaching was not preaching but rather engaging in discussions. His most of the discussions or dialogs are on the ethics and life. And the way of his life became his philosophy.

Lord Buddha^[3,4] is venerated by millions and is the originator of the religion ‘Buddhism’. Lord Buddha never called himself a GOD but he rose to that level because of his quest for the knowledge to relieve people from their sufferings. His story goes by as follows:

He was born as a prince and was known as ‘Prince Siddhartha’; at the time of his birth a sage prophesy that this child would become a Great King or a Great Spiritual Leader by finding answer to misery and sufferings. As any caring father would do, the king made strict rules so that the prince is never exposed to the reality of life, the Prince was shielded from all the truths of life about any pain or misery. Anyone growing old or having disease was not allowed in the palace; if the Prince ever left the palace to walk in the city all the necessary preparations were done beforehand. All went fine till the prince was 29yrs old. Once on an impromptu ride to the city the Prince saw a procession carrying a dead body. Since the prince had never heard of ‘Death’ he was curious and asked his charioteer where are these people taking the man when he is asleep? The charioteer told the Prince that the man is not asleep but dead and made him aware of the reality. The Prince was shocked and perturbed with this revelation. He couldn’t understand the reason behind all the misery and sorrow and as predicted years ago the prince left the palace in search of the Truth; in search of an answer which will liberate people from their misery. When he achieved enlightenment he came to be known as Lord Buddha. If anyone sought answers for the misery in their life, Lord Buddha explained them and told them a way of life which could relieve them of the burden of sorrow and pain. As lord Buddha’s followers grew, as people started to accept his way of living, his teachings and his philosophy took the form of religion and came to be known as “Buddhism”.

M. K. Gandhi^[5] fondly known as Mahatma Gandhi; used the philosophy of Non-Violence or Ahimsa for fighting against British Rule in the freedom struggle. Though people have different opinions about this philosophy but nonetheless it was used extensively in the freedom struggle of India. Gandhiji lived his life by these principles and believed that there is nothing which cannot be achieved by non-violence. His way of living, way of thinking was adopted by millions and was used to fight for their rights. Though it was not a philosophy developed by Gandhiji rather he lived by this philosophy and successfully promoted this philosophy. He promoted this philosophy so well that it came to be known as “Gandhi’s philosophy of Ahimsa” though it is an integral part of many religions like Hindu, Buddhism, Jainism etc. Not only people of India were influenced by this philosophy but it even created waves in the Western countries. Many leaders of those times adopted this philosophy for their struggle; the best example to quote would be Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now from these few examples if we try to find out the common things then that would be; some people were troubled by certain questions and it bugged them so much that they dedicated their life in search for those answers; (in a way these ‘men of thought’ does not differ much from the ‘men of science’ just the domains are different). When these men got their answers it had already changed their way of life. These philosophies are nothing but the explanations or details of how these men (now tagged or recognized as “Philosophers”); lived their life and by what principles. These men had some problem to which they found a solution and followed it throughout their life. People asked them to explain and when they did, it became a philosophy. Whatever we read as a 'Philosophy’ is just more distilled and refined content of pure knowledge that philosophers acquired through their quest. So any philosophy is more about understanding the relation of cause and effect and finding a way best suited to live with it. So it can be safely concluded that "Philosophy is not about explaining things but more about understanding and a way of living..."After all said and done I have my own philosophy; what is yours?? J J

References for more interested readers:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/17/socrates-philosopher-man-for-our-times
2. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/athenians.html
3. http://www.bhutanmajestictravel.com/buddhism/lord-buddha
4. http://www.iep.utm.edu/buddha/
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa

Dreams...

Today a question came “what’s job of your dream?”
In the minds of many their past streamed…

All the passion that they felt,
Caused their silence melt,
Everyone came up with their first loves,
That was lost in this world’s moves…

As a child we all were sure,
This is what we were born for,
But between this worldly lure,
And childhood passion we all got torn…

Now as the time passes by,
Do I try to avoid childhood dreams of my,
With all the time at our disposal,
Do we try to meet our proposal…

Some say my dreams were meant to be dreams,
But inside I hear that someone screams…
Some say I didn’t get what’s my calling,
But isn’t it about time to stop drifting…

All say wake up wake up,
But I would prefer if we all go back to sleep,
For once dare to see all the dreams that ran deep,
Refresh those memoirs,
That were our heart’s choirs.

Find your dreams of past,
Time is running out very fast,
Before it is too late,
Unlock your dreamland’s gate.

We all have set out on a journey,
That should end with many more things than money…
Reach to the depths of your heart,
And find that one dream which is your very own part…

Dedicated to MY FRIENDS…

void main (void)… Not really…

I read a status update on Facebook by my friend stating “void main ( )” and it triggered a train of thoughts. For people who thankfully are not Software Engineers; “void main (void)” is simple piece of code which marks the beginning of a program in C language but its correctness is disputed; from standards to standards this might be true or false. Frankly, I am not writing about the technicality of this code line but the philosophy it reminds me of. This code line brought together my two planes of thought, scientific and philosophical; seemingly disjoint but not really.

Amongst many other categories in which the entire world population is classified; there is one worth mentioning here. The classification goes as under:

a.       “Men of Science” who believe only in the scientific facts and for whom GOD is a mere figment of imagination

b.      “Men of Religion” for whom science in itself is UNHOLY and should be abolished

c.       “Men of Reason” for whom GOD could be a science which is yet to be properly understood

d.      And “Men of Whatever”… the people who can’t care less…

If we believe in the above classification then I am one of the “Men of Reason” so its obvious for me to relate things from science to philosophy. And this notation “void main (void)” seemed so strikingly analogous to the principle of life that I could not resist penning down my thoughts.

Before I trod into the philosophy let us have a little background and a walkthrough of this piece of code. According to latest standards of C coding “void main (void)” is incorrect way of declaration and would generate a warning or error on compilation. What this line of code actually means is “main” is a function which does not accept any input “(void)” and does not return any value (indicated by “void”). It is quite possible that there are no input arguments to the “main” function but it always does something and should return a value to mark or indicate that this function was executed. So according to new standards the declaration for the function most generally used or by default is “int main (void)”; indicating that the function returns a numeric value.

Now let us take a break from this coding and move to literature. I recently read a book “The Five People you meet in Heaven” by Mitch Albom. This is an amazingly simple and entertaining book (there is also a movie based on this novel). The book is about a man who dies and goes to HEAVEN. He has to meet 5 people who were affected or who affected his life so that they can teach him something that he missed to learn through this tenure on EARTH before he enjoys his stay in HEAVEN.

The Five Life Lessons to be learnt were:

a.       Everything that happens has a purpose. Every life is connected even the strangers are Family which we haven’t come to know yet.

b.      Sacrifice. It’s the noblest deed we as humans could do. It should be cherished and honored instead of carrying a sense of loss and holding grudge because of that.

c.       Forgiveness; just Let it go. Hatred is a curved blade. The harm we do to others by hating we do that to ourselves too. Hate is built over the years from the things we don’t say; with the things we bury. In the end you need to just let it go.

d.      Love never dies. Love lost is not really lost it just changes from one form to other. Life has to end love doesn’t.

e.      We are where we are supposed to be. Each life affects the other and other the next. The world is full of stories but the stories are all one.

 These five lessons do ring a bell. But how do these relate to the programming function protocol “void main (void)”; and what is the common principle between Philosophy of life and this code line?

Suppose each and every life or person is the “main” character and his entire life is the function/program that executes till the person is alive. As the life comes to an end, it has affected some or the other life and has “returned” something knowingly or unknowingly. Just as there cannot be a warning/error free program with a declaration of void main (void); similarly there can not be a single life that does not affect someone or the other. Even the life which ends even before coming to this world affects a lot. There are loads of people who are “Nobody” but have made a whole load of difference to “Somebody”. Had there been no “Nobodies” in the life of the great men like Alexander the Great, Lord Buddha, Sir Isaac Newton, Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Genius Einstein; they might not have been this great and this world would not have been as we see it today.

So all in all, “void main (void)”… not really… J

Are we ill???

Today I woke up pretty early for a Sunday and according to latest habit checked the comments/status on Facebook. One thing evident from comments on facebook was the complete chaos. Every passing day the chaos is increasing that it is smothering. It is kind of suffocating to just listen to the news these days. Every channel is flooded with some or the other crap. I had forgotten the reason why I stopped reading news papers and watch the news and for that matter even cricket after the great match fixing. This constant chaos and unconstructive discussions has made me wonder “Are we ill?? Are we suffering with some sort of serious disease; is it Cancer??”

From the times I remember about myself I was pretty serious about contributing to my country and I am even now. A patriot, serious about everything, passionate about almost everything I talked about and mostly my country India. I felt so proud about INDIA; the legends right from Lord Ram, Lord Parshuram to Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose. As a kid I felt yeah there are a few things wrong in my country but those can be set right. I have to prepare myself for that, I was born for a purpose; it would be just a matter of time that I sort it out and till a few years back I felt I have sorted it out. But now suddenly I feel so powerless, suddenly every Indian great achievement seems so mythological so fictional so insignificant in current situation.

Every other day there is new NEWS from some part of India about corruption, about blasts, about politics, about wastage of money, about wastage of time, about hooliganism, about price hikes, about inflation; it is as if whatever can go wrong is going wrong and whatever was not supposed to go wrong even that is going wrong. Where are we as a country heading to? What kind of leadership do we chose for ourselves when we get a chance every five years? Why is it not possible to live an honest and peaceful life? Why can’t everyone do their jobs with sincerity with honesty? Why can’t we smile at the fellow Indian standing besides us in traffic jams? Where are we heading where are we heading?

Have you seen people when we won against Pakistan or world cup in cricket a few months back? They were simply jubilant and celebrated as if we were in a war since centuries and finally won it. It felt so good to see people coming together every stranger on road was coming together even Indians abroad were celebrating it making rest of the world know about our achievement. But where does this enthusiasm goes when it is time to vote when it is time to stand for a purpose, to be together to drive a change. Are we so shallow that our patriotism surfaces only during cricket matches?

Why is cost of education so high and increasing day by day? Why cost of living spiking every year? Why is it becoming difficult for a middle class man to keep frown away from his loved ones beautiful faces? Why medical expenses sky rocketing? Why doctors are becoming apathetic to the pains and discomfort of their patients? Doctors were regarded next to GODS why are these GODS now reduced to mere businessmen wearing masks?

My country was not this a few years back. I grew up with so much pride in my country, the Land of Greats, ‘Sone ki Chidiya’, a future Superpower, Land where people from worldwide come to find solace. What a paradox!!! I feel the reason why rest of the world looked up to India was because of our customs our traditions our family values those were the subtle things which gave us the real power to face any adversary. Where is that now? Why are teachers becoming nightmares? Why are kids becoming disrespectful of elders? Why aren’t elders capable of coming with wise decisions? Why are maximum politicians, senior citizens or criminals? Why we have to go to World Bank every time begging for a loan? Why in spite of Indians being the brains behind most of the technological advances we are falling back? Why Indians have to leave their land to earn the merit to get the recognition for their work? What have we really achieved since freedom? Why do we still have the constitution, laws and reservations based on caste which was made 60yrs back? Are those even valid in today’s date? Are we truly a free nation?

We boast of being the largest democracy. Are we really democratic or whole of the nation is just disillusioned by this while a select few RULE the COUNTRY. Is the anger of masses of India just being used for some illicit benefits? Are the masses of India taken for a ride? As a citizen of democratic nation how many of us are aware of our Rights and how many of those Rights we truly exercise? Is the ignorance of Indians being used by a few for their own benefits? What are we going to say to the next generation? Or will the next generation really give a shit about it?

The tide that has risen against corruption is really appreciable. But the real question is whether the people involved in this revolt this upheaval really aware of the intentions and are they able to take right decision when it really matters? Is this ignorance, this inability, this tendency of the crowd being carried away blindly the disease we as a nation are suffering from? Does this disease have a cure?

Could we as individuals and as a community really contribute to really rebuild our nation brick by brick? There is no doubt that today’s youth is eager to set things right and they are completely capable of it. The thing is the revolution required need to come in such a manner that it covers each and every sector, right from politics to education system, the health sector. This kind of revolution is not possible unless people with like thought from different sectors come together and starts the movement. The need of the time is to educate ourselves about our broken system find the loopholes and fill it up. The time calls for all the educated fraternity to be united and take steps towards finding the problem and fix it. It is time we returned to our roots our fundamentals and develop the resistance against this disease. India is not Egypt where the things need to be taken to the extreme of violent revolts but yes we need to start acting now!!! Each and every individual needs to be strengthened to stand together with the sole purpose of restoring the glory of our dear country. We are the pillars of the future India. It is our attitude today that determines the future tomorrow. It is time to reevaluate on which path we are trotting. What is it that we want to leave for our descendants? Just stop just stand still and ponder over this and see if there is a calling for you.

The Introduction...

Many of my friends have waited for me to create a blog and save whatever I wrote especially Yamini. I never understood the purpose of the blog so kept postponing to create one. But today with so many things happening around the world especially in India and me doing all the stupid thinking I felt it is time I share my thoughts beyond a select few.

As the name suggest this blog is meant for me to just dump my series of thoughts and relieve my mind of its load. Now I realize that this can be a good place to know other people's opinions and understand things from different perspectives too.

I tend to write more under emotional outbursts than really well thought articles though I want to progress towards it and over time I know I will. But till then everything that I put are more of personal views and not intended to hurt anyone's sentiments; if it does please ignore or you are most welcomed to express your views and enlighten me of the new angle on the topic by adding your comments in my pensive bowl.

Welcome to The Pensive Bowl!!!