Robotics versus sudying mind, consciousness

A very close friend dad called me to request me to teach robotics to his kid and their team of thirty five students.

I respectfully declined.

I told him that learning nature of consciousness and the importance of studying it would be a better subject than robotics when I talk to kids.

While robotics is important,  I honestly do not understand why it is more important than mind and consciousness.  The most important  thing anyone can do is understand mind, consciousness,  self and the cosmos.   This is discussed as athaho brahma jijnasa aphorism in sanskrit.

It is disappointing that in our schools we teach children everything except themselves. The root of happiness is in the self.

Guru Nanakji, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

I got the article from someone in the context of central message in all religions being the same. Sharing it here for posterity.

In a paper entitled Guru Nanak in Oriya Sources, author Raghubir Singh Tak describes an Oriyan palm leaf manuscript preserved in the Jagannath Temple Museum, which documents the point in history when Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Guru Nanak were visiting the holy dhama at Puri Jagannath at the same time, along with other associates. Raghubir Singh Tak, formerly a Professor in the Department of Guru Nanak Studies, GNDU, describes the manuscript:
"There is an entrenched tradition in Sikh religion that Guru Nanak during his sojourns visited Jagan Nath Puri and recited Arti- `Gagan main thai ravi chand deepak bane..: enshrined in Sri Guru Granth Sahib
There is an excellent narration of Lord Caitanya's meeting with Guru Nanak at Puri Jagannatha, delivered by H.H. Srila Bhakti Sravan Tirtha Goswami of Gaudiya Matha. He writes:
"A contemporary of Mahaprabhu, Guru Nanak was older to Mahaprabhu by 16 years. He departed five years after the disappearance of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Nanak sought a religious path that avoided the formal structures of both Islam and Hinduism. However, in the Guru Granth Sahib, there are frequent references to Har Krishen, Gobind, Gopal and Ram.
Thus most of the names for God in Gurbani come directly from Vaishnava bhakti school. Clearly, Nanak dev ji believed in a God that was both formless and full of form. Nirgun as well as Sagun. One does not negate the other. Both coexist at the same time, resonating with Sri Chaitanya's philosophy of `Achintya Bhed Abhed' (inconceivable unity in duality).
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Guru Nanak both met at Puri and spent some time there. This incident is recorded in Chaitanya Bhagbat of Iswar Das written in Oriya in 17th Century.
The author, Ishvar Das, was one of Mahaprabhu's close associates in Puri, and the only biographer to mention the event, perhaps because the meeting was brief and only the eyewitness devotees of Puri knew about it.
Ishvar Das writes: (Ishvar Das's Chaitanya Bhagavat, Adhyaya 61).
Srinibasaye Viswambhara
Kirtan madyare vihar
Nanak Saranga ye dui
Rupa Sanatana duibhai
Jagai Madhai ekatra
Kirtan Karanti Nritya
"In the congregational singing led by Shri Chaitanya in Nagar Purushottama (Puri dham), Nanak and Saranga (another name for Mardana who played the sarangi), the two bothers Rupa and Sanatana along with Jagai and Madhai also joined in. Gopal Guru, for whom Guru Nanak had deep affection, was there as well, along with Nityananda Prabhu, who was considered an incarnation of Balarama. They all relished the kirtan at Jagannath Puri."
(Ishvar Das's Chaitanya Bhagavat Adhyaya 64).
A popular legend is told of how Guru Nanak was entering the temple of Lord Jagannath, he met Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who was coming out. Both offered pranams to each other. Then Nanak turned and started to leave the temple. Mahaprabhu asked him why he was not going inside to have darshan. Guru Nanak replied `I have already seen the Lord'.
According to Padmabhushan Dr. Durgadas Basu, a National Research Professor, Guru Nanak was given mantra diksha by non other than Prabhu Nityananda while the latter was traveling through Bangladesh (Bengal). That Sri Nanak was a `mantra shishya' of Nityananda Prabhu has been written down in his autobiography and the last chapter of the Guru Grantha Sahib, while elaborating the greatness and glory of the holy `Naam'.
In the Granth Sahib, it is written:
"Swasi grasi harinam samali
Simar bus vishwambhar ak"
"In order to attain salvation, one must chant the holy name of Ram, Hari or Vishwambhar."

True happiness

Paamahamsa Yovananda writes:

Whenever you eat, drink, play, ride, picnic, fish, go to the movies, tour around the world, earn a million dollars,  meet the finest friend, bcome the healthiest man, or king of an earthly empire , these things will never give you the tangile ever-increasing joy born of the ever-increasing depth of meditation.

Violence, peace and Religion

Hi all

So I never understood violence in the name of  religion. I love teachings of sage Kapila, son of Devahuti. I am a follower of Gandhi. I believe in world peace.

SB 3.29.21: I am present in every living entity as the Supersoul. If someone neglects or disregards that Supersoul everywhere and engages himself in the worship of the Deity in the temple, that is simply imitation.

SB 3.29.22: One who worships the Deity of Godhead in the temples but does not know that the Supreme Lord, as Paramatma, is situated in every living entity's heart, must be in ignorance and is compared to one who offers oblations into ashes.

SB 3.29.23: One who offers Me respect but is envious of the bodies of others and is therefore a separatist never attains peace of mind, because of his inimical behavior towards other living entities.

SB 3.29.24: My dear Mother, even if he worships with proper rituals and paraphernalia, a person who is ignorant of My presence in all living entities never pleases Me by the worship of My Deities in the temple.

SB 3.29.25: Performing his prescribed duties, one should worship the Deity of the Supreme Personality of Godhead until one realizes My presence in his own heart and in the hearts of other living entities as well.

SB 3.29.26: As the blazing fire of death, I cause great fear to whoever makes the least discrimination between himself and other living entities because of a differential outlook.

Honestly,  I have no idea about God.  But SB does indeed teach nonviolence- the key to individual and societal peace.

What is the purpose of human life?

I am transcribing from a lecture by a wiseman:

"What is the fifth stage of consciousness? The fully bloomed stage of consciousness. Now who has this opportunity? Does an animal have this opportunity? Who has this opportunity? That is why the human form of life is so special. Otherwise what is the definition of a human being? How many of you remember? Although I didn’t mention in the class but then there is an understanding, a common saying, “Man is a civilized animal”. An animal kills it prey and eats it. Men goes to a very exclusive restaurant and eats his food. Actually it’s the same, eating. The goal of life becomes eating. Sleeping; an animal sleeps in a cave in the forest and a man lives in a palace in a metropolis. Mating and defending. So obviously these animal activities should never become the goal of a human being, rather the purpose of human life should be to achieve the ultimate goal of spiritual emancipation, spiritual awareness, recognizing its own spiritual identity and recognizing his relationship with the Cosmos. That is the meaning of the word self-realization. That is the goal of human life, to pursue the science of self-realization, not computer science."

I add that anything else is a terrible waste of what one has been given: intelligence.

ALS Ice Bucket challenge, Indian medicine

I write this post to seek inputs from intellectuals, medical professionals and create a debate on alternative approaches to medicine. It is wonderful to see that 40 million dollars has been raised for the ALS disease research via the IceBucketChallenge. I hope that some of it is used to explore alternative approaches.

Modern medicine is wonderful at bacterial infections, emergencies, surgeries, etc. However, there are lots of problems for which it just does not have any clue. The ALS disease is one such area. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. I propose an alternative line of research towards this disease: leverage the understanding of traditional Indian medicine. Traditional Indian medicine is superior to modern medicine in dealing with Alzheimer's disease (read up on Alzheimer's prevention trust by Dr. Khalsa). It holds quite a lot of promise.

Modern medicine hardly pays any attention to one's inputs: what you eat, what you listen, what you read, what you watch, what you think. All these do indeed affect your health. For instance, most diseases come about because we eat when we are not hungry and drink when we are thirsty. The biggest mistake people make is suppression of their natural refreshment indicators. In fact, most of us overeat and overdrink way beyond our capacity resulting in overall reduction of health. The body itself has sufficient ability to cure itself of many diseases, if only we allow it. The interventionist nature of modern medicine, where business interests have overtaken the science, does not really help holistic healing.

The other thing modern medicine does not understand that the secret of being healthy is to be closer to the root of consciousness. The modern medical hospital environment with televisions for 15 hours a day is hardly allows one to focus on the root of consciousness and healing.  The root of consciousness has unimaginable abilities to heal, if only we allow it.

Our body cells are polluted by the toxins in the environment. Modern medicine has not truly figurred out how to get the toxins out of the cells. If you can get toxins out of individual cells, all the other medical problems become much more tractable.Once the toxins are out of the cells, the normal process of cell regeneration can continue normally. All cells in our body die and are replaced by new cells. The estimates I have seen vary from 21 days to 2 years. So, if the toxins are out of the body, and individual cell's "intelligence"is restored, the normal process of cell regeneration will cure the so called (chronic) disease. Even for diseases like constriction of vessels, this approach provides a natural solution.

The traditional Indian medicinal system, called Ayurveda, does a wonderful job of addressing the above two items: inputs to body and detoxification. My wife and I lost about 6-10 pounds in three weeks at the Vaidyagrama Ayurveda resort due to strict diet control. Then, after sufficient preparation, they make you drink a large amount of herbal medicine and clarified butter (ghee).  This gets digested and ingested into the bloodstream. They saturate the body with ghee. Then, they induce diarrhea to flush the fats out of the body. Besides the patient feeling more healthy, blood tests have shown that the overall fat content in the body goes down after the treatment.

I illustrate the Ayurvedic wisdom in another disease: hypertension. I forget the exact name of drug used. But this drug is a chemically manufactured  compound to resemble a compound found in a nature of the bean. Ayurvedic remedy for hypertension is to eat the bean. The hypertension goes away without any side effects. The chemical drug causes lots of severe side effects in some people.

Thus, Ayurveda goes beyond palliative care. In fact, the Ayurvedic approach to diabetes is more convincing than the modern medical approach to diabetes, which is only disease management as opposed to a cure. Kindly read the articles listed below where I outline a chemical free medical approach for common chronic (non-bacterial) diseases such as psoriasis, spondylytis, etc.

Another interesting observation: In Ayurveda, they make you log your food and drink intakes. And then details about your excretion, including color and texture. This kind of discipline is missing in modern medical professionals. If anything, I have seen  many doctors eat very unhealthily and live unhealthy lives. In truth, a number of doctors are very stressed. Some fail to adhere to Sun's clock, due to which patients' and doctors'  melatonin clocks are confused resulting in higher risk and reduced health.

The other remarkable difference between Indian medical system and modern western sytem is the emphasis on eating freshly cooked meals (those cooked with love!). Somehow western medical doctors have been brainwashed into believing that industralization of food with all the chemicals does not affect health. Ayurveda recommends that food be consumed within three hours of cooking. Ayurveda does a better job of understanding the link between food, health, mindfulness and overall happiness and quality of life. In contrast, the emphasis in modern medicine is mostly on interventions to maximize the revenue. Somehow, modern hospitals are desensitized. The nurses are hardly effulgent in their charisma. On the other hand, the nurses in ayurveda hospital Vaidyagrama are much more effusing in their love and compassion.


I would like to credit HH Bhakti Charu Swami for convincing me to try Ayurveda. After a heart attack, once the emergency settled, he switched to Ayurveda successfully and told me of its benefits and side-effect free treatment. He communicated this to me in ten minutes. When he told me this, I was facing the serious prospect of a surgery needing to be redone (exact surgery repeat from five years ago). Now, the situation is much better; whole situation casused by anti-biotic side effects. I am now trying to convince my dad to try Ayurveda so he can get off the long-term side effects of the 9 pills a day he takes due to heart-attack.

HH Bhakti Charu Swami is working towards establishing a medical research center/hospital in Ujjain, India in collaboration with other hospitals to take this line of research forward.

I am raising money for a charity Yoga Foundation to research and espouse these ideas for future study and research; please donate (link). We recently helped organize an event where 300 medical professionals attended a seminar in New Jersey to understand Ayurveda, traditional Indian medicine, can transform health care in America. The keynote speaker was CEO of Carrier Health, New Jersey.

Kindly read some write ups I have written on the subject below. I acknowledge that my ideas are half-baked. Please look beyond my errors and omissions.


My Review of Vaidyagrama hospital
Reviews of other people on Vaidyagrama
Profile of a person cured by Ayurveda from extreme allergy
Thoughts penned on the sad news of Mr. Jamie Dimon's cancer.

Catch 22 in cancer treatment

Thoughts, reflections, nature of the mind

Thoughts and reflection of the mind give rise to desire. The symptoms of the mind are determination and rejection, which are due to different kinds of desires. We desire that which is favorable to our sense gratification, and we reject that which is not favorable to sense gratification. The material mind is not fixed, but the very same mind can be fixed when engaged in the activities of Yoga consciousness. Otherwise, as long as the mind is on the material platform, it is hovering, and all this rejection and acceptance is temporary. It is stated that he whose mind is not fixed in Yoga must hover between acceptance and rejection. However advanced a man is in academic qualifications, as long as he is not fixed in Yoga consciousness he will simply accept and reject and will never be able to fix his mind on a particular subject matter. By meditating on one can become free from the agitation of acceptance and rejection.

This post is inspired by Kapila, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, philosophers born in India.