Thinking on the wild side

2011-05-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

How to make yourself heart attack proof

Dr. Esselstyn is an ivy league (Yale) graduate, Olympic gold medal winner, surgeon, clinician and a researcher at Cleveland clinic. He is tall, thin and gives presentation standing ram rod straight. He looks young and healthy at 77 years of age. He and his family follow the same diet for the past 25 years that he prescribes his patients. He claims it makes any one who follows it heart attack proof.

Esselstyn goes a step further than Colin Campbell in proscribing the food that you can eat. His list of don't is:
-No animal product (meat, fish, poultry)
-No dairy product (cheese, butter, milk-even no fat milk)
-No eggs (even egg white)
-Any thing that has mother or face :)
-No added salt
-No refined sugar, honey, or modified sugar forms
-No nuts (almond, walnut...even soy)
-No oil (even olive oil, canola oil)
What that list leaves are:
-Whole grains (rice, wheat, quinoa, oats etc.)
-Greens (spinach, swiss chard, collard green, kale, lettuce etc)
-Vegetables
-Fruits
-Beans (pinto, black eyed, chick peas, kidney beans etc)
-Lentils
Beans and lentils provide all the protein you need and the greens provide all the calcium. The only supplement recommended is vitamin B12.

Esselstyn was referred to for 24 patients by Cleveland clinic cardiologists who believed that the patients had very little chance of treatment and survival during 1985. Esselstyn put every one on the diet listed above. Six of them could not handle the dietary restriction. The rest eighteen of them had no cardiac related incidence in the next 5 year period. He still follows them up and after twenty years except for a very few every one is hale and hearty. When they checked after five years he found not only the diet had arrested the heart disease but has reversed it!

It is an amazing story and a documentary has recently been release about it. His son, Rip Esselstyn who is an athlete and a fireman is a strong believer and he has written a book about this diet.

I will try to summarize my personal experience and the results of following the plant based diet in a latter post.

2011-04-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

China Study or why the Cancer grows

T. Colin Campbell, a Penn state graduate and a Cornell PhD., already famous for the study of dioxin, was asked to examine the cancer link of aflatoxin, a toxic fungal product that is found mixed in peanuts. Peanut was freely distributed as cakes in third world countries to alleviate protein malnourishment.
What he found was that even though the aflatoxin amount ingested was the same, people who were wealthy and ate a lot of animal protein were significantly more susceptible for the liver cancer than the poor who scraped their daily ration only on plant based food. He then came across an animal study done in India that showed that the cancer rate increases significantly when the protein intake goes up.
Campbell did his own animal study and showed that the cancer growth rate increases with the animal protein ingestion and plant based protein does not affect the cancer growth rate. The cancer foci, the number of spots where the cancer cells take root and grow, is significantly high with the animal protein intake. He could switch the cancer growth rate on or off based on the animal protein dosage.
Campbell then did a population study and saw that the people who live on plant based diet avoid a whole slew of diseases that he calls as "diseases of affluence" such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. When the same people moved to western countries (like rural Japanese moving to Hawaii) and followed the standard American diet they ended up having all the diseases that they had avoided before. He has done the same study in China with the collaboration of a Chinese scientist and a British scientist and comes to the same conclusion.
Campbell has published the summary of his finding in "The China Study, startling implications for Diet and Weight Loss and Long-term Health".The book is available at $10.23 and is worth every cent of the price.
The summary of his study is that the animal protein not only kills you through cancer but also through myriads of other diseases. That finding particularly appealed to me.

2011-02-23T06:47:00.000-08:00

The Enlightenment

The search for truth starts out differently for different people. Buddha tried to find his under a tree, Jesus in the wilderness, and Muhammad in a cave. Mine started out in the internet. The question that was constantly troubling me was why two calamitous diseases (cancer and heart attack) struck me so close in time when I thought I was leading a reasonably healthy life.
The best and the most satisfactory answer I got was from a book by T. Colin Campbell. He terms these diseases, "diseases of affluence" and directly correlates them to dairy products and animal protein.
The best way to treat these diseases and to develop a sustainable lifestyle is to follow the plan outlined by Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn in his book.
I will give a synopsis of these two books and my personal results in following the plan in the posts to follow.

2011-02-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

Walking through the valley of shadow of death - II

It was late August 2010. I was driving through New York city on Cross Bronx Highway. It was Friday 5:00 PM. The commuter rush was at its peak by the daily commuting crowd and the weekenders fleeing New York City. Frenetic drivers weaved in and out of the lane in front of me using up the large spaces I like to leave ahead of me as a sedate Ohio driver.
After a rather stressful drive I was just in time for the start of a wedding rehearsal dinner that was taking place near the NY-Ct border. The dinner was wonderful but was heavy. By the time I went to bed I was tired and a little worn off. It didn't help that I re-enacted Linda Blair's Exorcist act of projectile vomiting. I attributed it to the food not agreeing with me and tried to sleep.
Next day I was very weak and had to excuse off from the reception. Next two days were spent in trying to enjoy New York City life that I usually love but was feeling unusually fatigued at this time. By the time I drove back and saw my doctor it was almost a week after and he promptly put me in the hospital under observation suspecting pneumonia.
It was mid night when two residents appeared next to me and asked excitedly how I was feeling. I was not feeling any thing special except general weakness and told them, "sleepy". They told me that the blood test and the EKG showed that I was having a heart attack.
That started a whirlwind of activity and I ended up with a stent in my heart artery LAD also known as the "widow maker". The cardiologist told me that I had the heart attack a week back and a part of my heart is permanently dead. I was one of the "walking dead" during the time I was in NY! My groin became a public place where doctors and nurses roamed freely with their fingers to check for swelling and infection. After four weeks I ended up with three more stents to open up partially blocked arteries.
The first crisis made me enjoy life more but this crisis sent me on a hunt for the causes and the possible cures for these conditions. In the next few posts I'll try to report my findings.

2011-02-15T07:52:00.000-08:00

Walking through the valley of shadow of death

I opened my eyes refreshed and happy. I saw the surgeon standing next to the bed telling me that the initial biopsy showed that I have non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The message however did not penetrate through as I was feeling full of life and vigor.
It was the end of 2008, just before Thanksgiving, and I started looking around for an Oncologist. Further checks followed and it was determined that I had stage IV cancer. The treatment originally proposed was CHOP-R protocol. The CHOP stands for a jack hammer that destroys all fast growing cells in your body; since cancer is fast growing it destroys the cancer cells but also unfortunately takes out all the good white cells while it is doing so. R (Rituxan) is a genetic wonder drug that kills the cancer cells selectively. The oncologist agreed to treat me exclusively with Rituxan.
That started my treatment regime that lasted seven months and thanks to the wonder drug the side effects were minimal and I was pronounced to be in remission; all the visible and palpable signs of cancer were gone.
That experience led me to put my life in order such as writing a will and the health power of attorney. It also made me realize how sweet the life is and savor every day to its fullest and move playing golf a notch higher in the order of things.

2008-08-07T13:39:00.000-07:00

A Church Evolving

I am an Episcopalian. It is an American off shoot of a worldwide Anglican Communion. Catholics would like to say it is “Catholic Lite”. However I believe it is more of a progressive form of Catholicism with its grand Liturgy that also accommodates marriage of priests, divorce, birth control and women at all positions of worship such as deacons priests and bishops. The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church now is a woman and is of great accomplishments that includes being an oceanographer.

Currently there is a great storm raging across the Episcopal Church for consecrating a gay person who was selected by a Diocese to be its Bishop. It is threatening to cleave the whole world wide Anglican Communion in two parts, one believing that Bible does not permit homosexuality and the other believing that the ultimate message of Bible is love. When the Biblical literalists challenge me I answer like this:

“Bible is an inspired book. Biblical inspiration is like a musical note. Even though you play the same note in different instruments such as piano, flute or violin, they all sound different because of the overtones. People are the media that the Holy Spirit uses to convey God’s message. The basic message is amazingly clear and unified throughout the Bible that God loves you and expects you to love others to show your love for the God. Of course this message comes through people who add their overtones such as the culture, understanding and the historical time frame. A mind tuned to the Holy Spirit allows you to extract the underlying message of love and discard the overtones.”

Some agree, others don’t. To me it is as silly as discriminating left handers vs. right handers. Episcopal Church slowly came around on the slavery issue even though Bible explicitly permits it. It will finally come around on this too.

2008-04-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

To all of you who are moping about the meaning of life, print out and read this:

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/pauschlastlecturetranscript.pdf

I love his brick wall metaphor. His life story is truly inspiring.

2007-11-16T09:49:00.000-08:00

Why do we blog?

First, why do I blog? I blog because:

I like to think and I would like to jot it down before I forget my line of thoughts. Blog helps me immensely as it is something I don’t have to carry around physically like a journal or a diary and the entries are stored automatically in a chronological order, which helps some one who is organizationally challenged as I am.
Writing it down and reading it later is a great way to identify and eliminate fallacies in my thinking and to sharpen my focus on the thesis.
Blog format allows me to explore cornucopia of ideas rather than staying in one narrow line of thought.
It is a pleasure to catch up with my long forgotten thoughts – I usually go back a year or so and enjoy reading some of the things I had thought through which I had totally forgotten.

What about others? I cannot realistically speak for all others; however, the blogs I have been reading fall into some broad categories:

· Diary of every day happenings mainly to keep a record for later enjoyment of their children or for their distant relatives or for themselves.

· Writing exercise of some kind; people who are very good writers and some not so good use it to polish their own writing styles. Feedback and positive reinforcements help them to finish (or at least try to finish) their writing projects.

· Trying to obtain feedback support and counseling while passing through some difficult patches in their lives – usually the blog community is extremely generous with advice and some of them do provide comfort and consolation to the blog writers as they themselves had gone through similar bad patches.

· To amuse others and act the class clown – they turn every day happenings into hilarious comedic acts and make people laugh. It takes a lot of effort on their part and they are rewarded with a loyal following of people who can do with a little laugh in their daily grind.

· To attract attention and to be the center of a vivacious conversation; it is similar to the previous category, the only difference being they use other than comedy to attract the attention such as sexual talks, arts, photographs etc.

· To influence people’s views, actions and outlook – this includes political, product advertisements, or social statements like environment, security, freedom etc.

· To disperse information regarding some of the things they are truly interested like hobbies, security etc.

I enjoy reading all of them and it would be dull day without them. I thank them all.

2007-10-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Are Christians Polytheists?

Judaism when it first appeared was a clear break from all the existing religions at that time. It holds that there is only one God (Monotheism) and that God in no way or form can be visualized. Clearly in an environment that was filled with idols and nature worshipers, it was a quantum jump in the idea of God.

When Christianity came around, they had to account for three Persons viz. God the creator, Christ the conciliator, and Holy Spirit the comforter. The last thing the Christians wanted to give up was Monotheism. Therefore they had to struggle through to convince themselves that these three Persons are the same and at the same time they are different. The result of their efforts is the Athanasian Creed. Go ahead and take a peek. If your head swims after reading that, it is quite normal.

When Mohammed set up shop to create Islam, he admired both Judaism and Christianity so much that he made them part of Koran. The part he abstracted from Judaism was its strict Monotheism and iconoclasm and also its various purity codes and social strictures. He made Jesus a prophet and left out the Holy Spirit and thus reconciled the Christian account within Islam without altering the Monotheistic belief. He abstracted proselytism from Christianity.

Of course when these religions competed in the same space, the greatest insult thrown against Christians was that they were Polytheists or more specifically Trinitarians. Any protest by the Christians fell on deaf ears and it is not easy to win any argument by brandishing the Athanasian Creed.

Well how best then is to envisage the Christian Trinity if you do not wish to delve into the abstract world of Athanasian Creed? I would point to a lighted candle as an analog.

Paraffin in lighted candle exists in three forms, a solid support surrounding the wick, a molten liquid feeding the wick, a vapor that comes out of the wick that catches fire, burning with oxygen in the air and casts light to the surrounding.

In our analogy, the solid paraffin is God the Father, the liquid paraffin that is produced by melting of the solid is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit is the paraffin vapor. When Jesus enters the heart of a Christian analogous to the wick, the Christian actions bring out the Holy Spirit into the world.

The net result of these actions is the spreading of love to satisfy the community needs. Pushing then our analogy to the limits, the community needs is the oxygen and the evident love in the Christian actions driven by the Holy Spirit is the Light. The unity of the Trinity is clear in this analogy, whether solid, liquid or vapor the substance is still Paraffin. Keep this analogy in mind, go back and re-read the Athanasian Creed. It would not appear as abstract as it did when you read it first.

I like the lighted candle as a symbol for Christianity than a cross. It is positively focused to the community than a cross, which is inwardly focused as a symbol of reconciliation between God and man and what better way is there to illustrate “the Trinity that is Unity” concept than the Lighted Candle?

2007-09-18T12:03:00.001-07:00

You Are Very Happy

Your life is totally together, and you enjoy every day.
And you don't need a quiz to tell you that!
You know how to find pleasure in the little things...
And even when life isn't so great, you have a good sense of perspective.

How Happy Are You, Really?

I am not sure why this quiz rates me this high on happiness - I know I am content and at peace with myself. Is it their definition of happiness? By the way, is it my inner woman peeking out? :)

2007-07-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Politics 101

US is the most powerful country on earth. It is ruled by a system of government that was designed with robust checks and balance. It is fundamentally a democratic government that faced with any significant event, obtains feed back to the highest echelon a corrective action that majority of people deem appropriate. Since it is not a direct democracy where each issue is voted on, and rather is a representative form of government, some times there is a delay in the corrective action willed by the majority to reach the highest echelon.

So the power ultimately rests with the majority. This piece is a simplified analysis of what this majority is and speculation about the dynamics of this majority.

Demography is a major factor in determining the majority. By that reasoning, in US

70% - Caucasians

30% - Minorities.

However, there is another factor that comes into play. i.e. gender. If you take 30,000 feet above the ground look at the problem, trying to identify the forest rather than individual trees, we end up gathering the crowd (statistical) behavior rather than individual behavior. By that measure:

White Male – 35% - Republican core supporters

Minorities - 30% - Democratic core supporters

I know, I know there are individuals in both spectra who don’t belong to the categories we have allocated. However we are looking at statistical tendencies and not quibble about individual preferences. What we are saying though is that however badly the republican ruling combine behaves, there is a solid 35% support for that. If you fall below that you as a republican are in real trouble (Bush II is flirting around 29%, Nixon before his resignation was around 25%).

The interesting aspect to the whole equation is the behavior of white females in whose hands the power ultimately rests. If they split 50/50 then,

White male+50% white female – 35+17.5 = 52.5% - republican supporters

Minorities + 50% white females – 30+17.5=47.5 % - Democratic supporters

This number should be familiar to us – that is the kind of margin that usually sweeps the polls. Reagan won it that way against Carter and Dukakis.

If they split it 40/60 then,

White males + 40% white female – 35+14 = 49 – republican supporters

Minorities + 60% white females – 30+21=51 – democratic supporters

This was the kind of number Clinton had when he won against Bush I. Of course he had a higher split when he won against Dole for his second term.

So what is the moral of the story? The fulcrum of political power rests firmly in the hands of white females. If they organize themselves, they can move the nation to the direction they want. How do they organize? If they can start a book club or a tennis league, they can easily use the same technique to organize similar interest power groups. They don’t have to stage a grand protest like Cindy Sheehan. They can do some thing much more powerful – they can write to their representatives as a group. Any representative worth one’s salt would sit up and take notice.

Some feed back from organizations like,

Moms for Health care

Moms for Homeless

Moms for Secure Homeland

etc.

would act like a charm in getting the voices heard in Washington. (“Women” is ok but “Mom” is the best hammer you can use against the curmudgeons in Washington)

In short,

Know your representatives

Organize

Communicate your concerns.

Watch democracy do its magic.

2007-07-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

Two Lives

Remember the time you climbed the attic of one of your old relatives and came across an old trunk and opened it and found it full of letters tied in bundles and souvenirs? You guiltily go through various bundles and find precious nuggets and trivia such as your grand ma’s love letters and your grand pa’s correspondence with the insurance agent. If you love people, and love to find out what makes them who they are, you would be sitting there studying each item totally absorbed and transported to a different era with every find.

Reading Two Lives (author:Vikram Seth) results in similar experience. I came across this book when I was browsing through the bargain section of Barnes and Noble and found it marked quite cheap for a hard cover book and bought it on an impulse. I found it more absorbing than the “Consciousness Explained” by Dennett that I was reading and ended up reading it cover to cover using whatever little time I had to spare.

Two Lives is a biography of Henny and Shanti who are from from entirely two different worlds and meet in pre war Berlin. He is a dental student from India and she is one of the two daughters of a Jewish widowed mother who takes him as a paying guest during his stay in Berlin. Her other daughter Lola loves Shanti, Shanti is more keen on Henny but keeps his distance as Henny already has a fiancé Hans, who is half Jewish and is her boss’s son. The mom Ella likes Shanti over Hans. The pre war turmoil interrupts the lives of these people and each one is impacted in a different way. Shanti cannot get a job in dentistry in Germany after he finishes his studies and he has to go to UK to requalify and become a dental surgeon. Henny gets out of the oppressive Nazi regime by the sponsorship of one of her boss’s acquaintance in UK. Shanti is the only familiar face for Henny in London. Lola and Ella end up and die in the killing fields of Nazi Germany, Lola in the notorious Auschwitz and Ella in an old people home designed as euthanasia center rather than a home. Hans to escape his fate marries a Polish Christian. Shanti joins British Army and sees action in African and Italian fronts. He loses his right hand in Italy and comes back to London. In spite of the loss of his right hand, he perseveres and becomes adept with his left hand to become a much sought after dental surgeon. Finally Henny relents and marries Shanti and they have a wonderful thirty-eight years of married life together. Henny gets painful cancer dies at the age of 82. Shanti dies nine years after her death, living out a lonely life and missing her terribly every day.

This is a true-life love story told by Vikram the author who has a superb way of working with the words. Being a poet does not hurt his mastery of the prose. Shanti is a younger brother of Vikram’s maternal grandfather Raj who supported Shanti in his quest to go abroad and study dentistry. Vikram stayed with Shanti when he was in London during his high school and college days. Vikram and Henny become close when he has to learn German as part of his entry requirements to Oxford within six weeks. She becomes his intensive tutor and he gets to know her soft side.

Vikram after publishing “A suitable boy” (a Dickensian novel touted highly for Booker prize) is looking for inspiration. His mother suggests him to write about his great uncle Shanti’s exploits. He takes her suggestion and starts his research. By the time he starts gathering the material, his great aunt Henny is long gone. So he sits down with his Shanti uncle and interviews him intensively for background. Fortuitously Vikram’s father finds an old trunk of Henny in the attic filled with Henny’s letters to and from her friends from pre and post war Germany. He pieces together an engrossing tale of love, intrigue, tragedy and joy amidst the suffering.

If you like to piece together people’s lives by fascinating tidbits, you would love this novel. You will get a healthy dose of banality and the terror of evil Nazis and will join the group of intrepid warriors who gave their lives and limbs for a large cause. You will end up wondering whether Henny did really love Shanti or her true love was Eva and whether Shanti was a genuine hero or had feet of clay and what will old age make you. Reading this will take you through an utterly thought provoking journey into Two (memorable) Lives.

2007-06-15T04:50:00.000-07:00

Cavs lose!

Cavs lost big today.
An elephant rolled and cast to
wind the wild flower.

2007-06-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

Exploring Truth

Can we define Truth? What is Truth? Can we extract the meaning of “Truthiness” from what we experience every day? That is what I am going to explore today and if you are interested, come along for a ride.

We all know that certain things are true or false:

Earth is round – true

Men are mortal – true

Moon is made of cheese – false

1+1=10 – false

The ratio of the circumference to the diameter is constant irrespective of the diameter of the circle - true

On a bright sunny cloudless day, the sky is blue – true

When we look at this analysis, we see the common aspect is that all of them are declarative statements. These are all premises that we examine for truth or falsity. If we are looking for the Truth, it is immanent to the “true” statements and is absent from the “false” statements. So the Truth is not a substance or a material object per se, it is in our understanding of the substance or an event. Our knowledge of the reality dictates what is true or false. If it is close to reality then we say it is true, otherwise we say it is false.

Now let’s examine the statements one by one. If a cartographer looks at the first statement, he may balk at it saying that the earth is truly a spheroid, more like an oval than a round. He may mark it as false.

The second statement at first glance looks incontrovertible. However, if we locate the genes for mortality and youth, theoretically we can modify it to live as long as we wish to lead a healthy youthful life. It is also possible that we may achieve immortality by transferring ourselves into a more durable media such as silicon chips rather than the biological skin in which we reside. These are the stuff sci-fi is made of and nobody can say that it is not a possibility even though it is highly improbable.

The third statement “Moon is made of cheese” cannot be proved false by a primitive tribe. If a shaman says that it is made of cheese, the tribe will accept it so. It is the knowledge we have accumulated as human beings through the ages that rules out this statement being true. We have brought a moon rock back. It is a rock and not cheese.

The fourth statement ”1+1=10” is true if you are doing binary math for computer science. It is false for decimal system and is true for binary arithmetic where there is no number symbol greater than 1.

The fifth statement regarding the constancy (pi=3.141…) of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter for a circle is true for a flat Euclidean plane and can be shown to be false on a spherical topography. Let’s imagine that you are standing on top of the North Pole and try to draw a small circle with the string attached to the North Pole as a center. You will find the ratio to be pi. Now you gradually increase the diameter of the circle and larger the circle you make the smaller the ratio would become. In the extreme case when the circle is at the equator, you will find the ratio is closer to 2 and not pi.

Can we dispute that the sky is blue? Yes, if we are totally colorblind and what we see are only shades of gray, black and white. Since we cannot see the vivid color spectrum available for the average human being, we don’t see much of a difference in various colors. We would say the sky is gray. (Of course in space the sky is black as there is no atmosphere to scatter the sunlight)

What does this collection of statements prove? Essentially whether the Truth resides in a statement or not, is decided by the knowledge level, the location, the time, and the observer.

Truth then is the collective knowledge base of the society on the reality and a premise is true for that time and for the observer if it is within the knowledge base that exists at that date. Since the knowledge base of the society is derived from the senses and the collective logic, we are really talking about the shadow play in Plato’s darkened cave where the men are chained facing the wall and the outside reality can only be glimpsed through the shadows.

Looking at the problem in a modern perspective, we compared the Faith on which the world views are based to an operating system of a computer. What then is the Truth? The Truth is then a database program on the computer. If the premise falls within the database, it is true otherwise it is false.

If we have to choose between Faith and Truth what would you choose? Faith (operating system) of course, as it is the foundation on which Truth (database program) resides. You need to choose the Faith first which would automatically lead you to a set of Truth that are available for you to access the true premises.

Which faith and which truth then should we select? That is the topic of another post.

2007-06-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

Cavs Win!

Cavs won big today
Once ev'ry thirty sev'n years
A wild flower blooms

2007-05-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

2007-04-21T15:11:00.000-07:00

On Faith and Science

Faith is the foundation of any religious system. It is the belief system on which the world view of the particular religion rests. They are the unproven and untestable assumptions you take for granted which are axiomatic. Based on these axioms the religious philosophical thinking is evolved.

It is antithetical to any critical thinking to have unchallenged assumption as the foundation of the understanding process of the society, the world and the universe. It is however essential to any religious world view. You cannot get away from it if you want to be part of the religious process.

Of course this leads to superior smirking from the scientifically bent who believe that they are above this type of axiomatic thinking process. They react petulantly when it is pointed out that the science rests on as much unprovable assumptions that are axiomatic as Faith based religions.

The world view of Science is based on the assumption that the order exists in the universe and can be searched out by systematic scientific methodology i.e observation, hypothesis, testing and verification.

It is like the kids going on an Easter Egg hunt. They have faith that the Easter Eggs exist and can be found out by diligently searching for those. They are not at the stage to wonder why there should be an Easter Egg carefully hidden for them to find out. The scientists are similar to the kids on the Easter Egg hunt. They use scientific methodology and find the Easter egg that is a new scientific order.

Scientists do not question why the order exists; they only assume that the order exists and go about looking for it. That is fundamental assumption or an axiom. Thus Science is clearly a subset of world views that uses Faith as an under gird. It is slightly unsettling for the scientific rationalists to take it in but this is the truth they have to face one time or another if they sincerely look at their foundational philosophy.

Coming back to the existence of order in the Universe. There are two streams of thoughts on that - one would say that the order exists because some one planted it much as the adults know that the Easter Egg hunt better be prepared carefully to make it enjoyable for the kids, and the other point of view is that the order is the creation of human mind - what we have in our mind is reflected in reality. Light is a simple example of how the explanation evolved as the human mind evolved - Newton said Light was made of particles (Corpuscular theory), Huygens said it was made of waves and the later quantum theorists would say it is a wave and a particle simultaneously. Every one of the explanation made sense at the time of pronouncement. The order we seek thus is constrained by the knowledge at the time of discovery and is essentially a reflection of our own mind set at that time.

Humanity needs Faith to understand the Universe and function in it. It cannot be avoided. The only real question is how do we choose between different Faiths? That is a subject matter for another post.

2007-03-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

Lenten reflections

The greatest accomplishment of Christianity is the abolition of slavery. To think that the original founders did not find it so loathsome that they had to speak out against it, when they were living on earth, is instructive. Jesus moved in a circle consisting of blue-collar workers and common people we come across every day, the type of people who didn’t own slaves and so he scarcely talked about the slavery. Paul on the other hand moved in high echelon of the society and had a fairly good grasp of the slavery issue. His only advice on the issue was that the slave owners should treat their slaves fairly. Both treated any mundane earthly matter with little regard, as they thought the society they were building (their kingdom) was not of this world.

However, the slow corrosive influence of the kernel of Christianity, to “show love to others” as an imperative, over the centuries resulted in snapping the chains of slavery some time in nineteenth century. The Abolitionist movement in the British Isles was the finest expression of Christianity that there was.

The result is astounding - US followed suit and now slavery is unthinkable. Two men, William Wilberforce and Abe Lincoln, working tirelessly and at a great sacrifice to their own personal lives, changed the humanity for the better. Except for few countries such as southern Sudan or Saudi Arabia on the sly, the modern practice is to shun it as a plague and work diligently against it. It is astonishing that a practice that was taken for granted from the earliest days of human existence, started I suppose when the first tribe conquered its enemy tribe, is no longer followed and is considered morally wrong.

That is the power of Christian idea – the idea of Love.

2007-02-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

When you delve deeper into Hinduism, you soon learn it is more a way of life defined by moral codes (Dharma) for each one’s station in life, which is largely decided by birth, than a religion. The axiomatic assumptions made by Hinduism are:

Karma- every action has a consequence and you can never escape the consequences of your action. Good consequences for good action and bad consequence for bad action
Re-birth – if you escape the consequence of your actions in this birth you will experience it in your next.

Within these parameters, Hinduism becomes a quest for understanding the nature of God. There are three streams of thoughts in this search:

Dvaita – Dualism; God and You are different (Judaism and Islam follow this thought)
Advaita – Non-Dualism; You and God and Others are the same in different forms (Buddhism pioneered this concept followed by Hindu Philosophers such as Shankaracharya)
Vishistadvaita- Modified dualism; You and God are different but of the same unity; think of a necklace – the beads make up you whereas the string makes up God ; however both combined makes a unity that is a necklace. Christianity would fall within these parameters. The Christ within you reconciles you to God to make one Perfect Whole.

Thus any religion can be interpreted through Hindu view of our Spiritual Existence. Here I would like to interpret Christianity in the language of Hindu thoughts. This is an interpretive exercise to understand Christianity more in depth.

An ideal Christian would do following things:

Golden Command:
1. Love God with all your soul (Christianity is a Bhakti Marg -Songs, prayers, dances, and verse are performed to celebrate the closeness to God)
2. Love others especially the weak and the vulnerable whether they are Christians or not and treat them with love and respect the same way as you would like to be loved and respected by others.
The Great Commission:
3.Witness to every one that the God loves every one and if they reject the message turn and walk away to a place that welcomes that message.
These in essence are the responsibilities of a Christian.

The Christian at the same time believes:
1. God exists.
2. God loves all people
3. God is perfect and imperfection has no presence before God.
4. All people are imperfect in words and deeds.
5. Imperfections in deeds and thoughts have real consequences.
6. God sent Jesus to bridge the imperfect with the perfect.
7.Jesus took the consequences of the imperfections through his acceptance of the savage Roman punishments and the sacrifice of his life on the cross.
8.Jesus stands as the door for the people who believe to come to the presence of the God as he resolves the people's imperfection with his blood.

Christianity is thus based on Karmic doctrine. Only in Hinduism you carry your karma from birth to birth without end. Unless you stop doing either good or bad you cannot escape this cycle in Hinduism. Christianity cuts the loop by offloading the Karma at the feet of Jesus who carries the consequences for you.

2007-01-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

When you belong to a religion, it is hard to get a perspective of how others outside your religion look at you- for instance how the Christians are viewed by the non- Christians, the Moslems are viewed by the non-Moslems etc. Since the attachment to one’s religion is primal, it is very difficult to look at it from the view of an outsider. Here, I have tried my best to take a dispassionate view of the problem. :

Christianity:
There is Us and there is Them; Love Them and teach Them the ways of Us even if Them is kicking and screaming.
also known as White Man's Burden.

Islam:
There is Us and there is Them; Make Them Us or destroy Them.
also known as the Jihad

Judaism:
There is Us and there is Them; screw Them.
also known as the Chosen People

Hinduism:
You are whatever you are; don't you dare to change it.
also known as Manu Dharma

Buddhism:
There is no Us and there is no Them - only It; If you can get over the illusion of Us and Them, you can merge with It.
also known as Nirvana

For those who believe that their religion has been unfairly stereotyped, remember, it is not how you feel about your religion, it is what others think about your religion that I have tried to summarize.

2006-12-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

To appreciate Christmas, we need to define what Christianity is.

“Christianity is a firm faith that Christ within you makes you perfect before God, and that you demonstrate your justification by evident actions of love.”

It is Pauline statement of faith combined with Johannine exhortation to love.
Christianity is a two-sided coin – faith and love. You know that you are a Christian by your faith and the world knows that you are one by your actions.

It is easy to spot any one whether they are Christians or not, by whether their actions are guided by love or not.

If we accept that definition, Mother Theresa was a Christian, Pat Robertson is not and Jim Jones was not even though each one claimed that they were. Good Samaritan was, Levi was not.

What has that to do with Christmas?

The first Christmas was God’s demonstration of love to humanity - we in turn each year in remembering the original Christmas give thanks for God’s love and spread the love around.

The true spirit of Christmas shines more in Dickens’ “Christmas Carol”, than in the non-stop commercial that is currently passed as Santa Claus.

With that in mind, let me wish you all a very merry Christmas, and very many happy new years.

2006-02-10T17:02:00.000-08:00

How come religion is such a primal force?

It is one thing that can move people to do crazy things that is totally against their own survival instincts. Jim Jones and cool aid comes to mind and let us not forget David Koresh and his followers.

The most effective way you can raise common man to uncommon fury is to insult his religion. Rogues find that as an easy path to power and rebellion by moving mob to do their bidding.

When I think about it, religion appears to be the means for society to impose its moral code on its members. It is like an operating system on a computer. We are all born with the same hardware and unfortunately are booted up with different operating systems - some with windows, some with MacOS, some with Unix. Once the OS is installed our world view changes - we can interact with people with our world view and any one else's world view appears to be garbage.

And of course the world view is what makes us what we are - and any attempt to tamper with it produces the most ferocious reaction from us.
The human evolution brought us the religion and the question becomes:
Is there any way we can set up an operating system (moral code) independent of the religions? History has taught us that any one who has tried has wreaked terrible havoc (Hitler, Stalin, Mao...). It does not mean the answer does not exist - only those who have tried so far have failed.