A glimpse of Vedic Civilization - Part 1

आ नो भद्राः क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वतः  (rig veda)
(May good thoughts come from everywhere, from all the world)

 I have always been fond of civilizations and history or more so itihasa ( iti + ha + āsa - 'so indeed it was'). Although i am no expert in the field, it is curiosity towards the subject which has made me read about it. I think it is a deep injustice to call the vedic civilization as mere hindusim, As Vedic civilization is more of a ideology on how best to live than mere set of mindless traditions( Although i won't say we don't need traditions at all, my views are here). It hurts even more to see  that the contributions of vedic civilization is trivialized and tabooed in the name of secularism.

I have always wondered when we have archaeological evidence of stone inscriptions/scriptures to know about the earlier civilization, what would happen if our generation of silicon driven would go to dust, It would literally be sand with no trace of what we have achieved, may be it had happened earlier too.

If you have followed my earlier posts, you would have noted that I quote a lot of gita/ Indus scriptures, based on which there were quite a few who wanted to understand the vedic culture and were asking my source for what i quote on, as the list was exhaustive thought of writing a blog about it.

1. If you want to know more about the civilization itself there are quite lot of books, few of my favourites are  sarasvati-river-and-the-vedic-civilization by NS rajaram, or this interesting video by David Frawley. You can search for several books by these authors to know more about the civilization itself.

2. One of the biggest contributions of the civilization has been the vedas when it appears gibberish in the outset it has deeper philosophical meaning, Given the fact that The vedas, especially rig veda which is written in about 4000 BC is one of the oldest known written scripture available in the world makes it even more interesting. Most of the vedas and upanishad text are available here. 
Aurobindo's hold on the vedas according to me is unquestionable, You can find most of his books here, Including the secret of the vedas. 
Kannada audio discourses by shatavadhani R Ganesh here : 
Vedamantra-Parichaya-Vol-1 and Vedamantra-Parichaya-Vol-2
There are a lot of published books on upanishads especially by Ramakrishna Math.

3. For a novice like me,  Interpretations of vedas and upanishads are quite loaded  and thus it makes sense to start with Gita/ Mahabharahta.
It is not for neigh that it is written in Mahabharatha that which is not found here cannot be found anywhere , Because it goes in depth in dealing with the Dharma sukhmas ( Although Dharma loosely translates to religion, it is not correct, It just means What is right situationally, One should note that what is right at a particular situation may not hold always, perception of right is always contextual more about it later, On a side note regarding this topic of sample space and contextual there is a book Fooled by Randomness by Taleb!). 
Best books on Baghavad gita (Part of Mahabharatha ) I have come across are : 
a) Gita Rahasya by lokamanya Tilak 
b) Search for historical krishna  by NS Rajaram
c) Essays on the Gita by Aurobindo.
d) Audio discourses on Bhagavat Gita by Shatavadhani R Ganesh :
                                          Sri-Krishnana-Baduku-Mattu-Bhagavadgeete 
                                          Shrimadbhagavadgeethe
                                           Mahabharatha-Upakhyana-1
                                           Mahabharatha-Upakhyana-2
Also the list is not complete without the teachings of Vivekananda, You can find the link to his book here. If interested there are also quite a lot of books in sanskrit converted here.
I guess I have given quite a bit of books related to spirituality and philosophy, I would like to cover more on the science/material aspects of in coming posts. Also I would like to write on misunderstood concepts of take on vedic culture on women, caste etc of whatever little I come to learn over a period of time.

Om Tat Sat
Note: Most of the links that are provided for books are free to download books, All the links to audio discourses are free as well. Also they are available in pdf format, you could convert it to any ereader format using calibre.

Big Bang - Universe and some random thoughts...

I have always wondered why sunset and nightsky makes me elated and sad at the same time, so when lot of thoughts were running in my mind reading this cartoon strip on xkcd came to me as a surprise, there is nothing as pleasant as the awareness that your craziness is shared.

Ok I guess i might have spilled enough beans to tell that i'm talking about universe.It's no surprise that it is coming just after I read simon singh's Big Bang theory, It would be an under-statment if I said I love his books!, It is the same amalgamation of history and science in all his books be it Fermat's last theorem/Code Book that grips me. Also I just happened to see this video about the magnitude of universe. Coming back to universe and his book, It covers quite a lot about how the cosmology has evolved and big bang theory was arrived at, but then it all stops into that assumption of primordial atom, expansion of which gave rise to space and time, It amuses me that science based on the inferential logic has to always stop at that, and fall back to meta physics or philosophy and still resort to never ending debate of that vs this.Only complaint i have about the book is that it completely ignore the beautiful concept of time and universe in the vedas, which you can read here.

Ideally when one looks the night sky there is an overwhelming feeling of humbleness and all the troubles seem to just seem like a whiff of dust(pun intended), truly the first thought that comes is, does really things matter ? and then what makes one motivated to live and keep morality ? , may be that is why there came the concept of karma theory or 72 virginal women waiting in heaven
or the judgmental day , so that one has something to look for or playing with the
factor of fear.

But there should be something more rational to have driven billions of people over years to have lived and propagated, this question is well captured in yaksha prashne that when yaksha asks yudhistira what wonders him most and yudhistira replies "Day after day countless people die. Yet the living wishes to live forever" .

so when you look further into gita krishna says

नैनं छिन्दन्ति शस्त्राणि नैनं दहति पावकः .
न चैनं क्लेदयन्त्यापो न शोषयति मारुतः २.२३
( Weapons cannot destroy it, fire burns It not, water moistens It not, wind dries It not)
The closest fit that comes to this definition in science is energy, as it is fundamental from the law of conservation of energy we as in the miniscule entity as that source of energy live on forever, so our actions matter after all!  Just like how a slight imbalance in air pressure or a small corruption in memory can crash a plane or a system respectively, we matter in the greater scheme of things. Just to think that one is responsible in the evolution of universe is good enough reason to live on in the present and not worry about day to day problems. You have a role to play remember :-).

At the end of the day Existence Exists !

My experiments with Life - I

I have been listening to discourses of Prof K S Narayanacharya for about 2-3 weeks now thanks to 2 of my friends for triggering my thoughts and ego to listen to those discourses and also for sharing the link.

http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Discourses/home/Indina-Jeevanada-Mele-Mahabharathada-Belaku.php
http://www.kannadaaudio.com/Songs/Discourses/home/Vishnu-Sahasranama.php

OK so why blog ? It has changed the way i look at myself and world . It has also strengthened my faith on Indian Scriptures . so i would like to share my understanding with examples.
One major take away was what krishna told arjuna "Do anything that you do with utmost dedication without any expectation" [I would like to add prejudice to expectation].This may sound either way too simple or way too complex.But But.. there is an extraordinarily simple yet powerful hidden secret in this statement.That is the belief factor .

Normally it so happens that when you believe in what you do without considering any factor of "success-failure" "like-dislike" you normally tend to do things that you are really passionate about or what you are good at without wasting effort on crap.It results in satisfaction allowing harmonious co-ordination of body and mind.
Otherwise had you concentrated on the outcome , it is general tendency to have fear of failure , fear of not living up to the expectation of yourself or others. Now once you fear, mind starts simulating scenarios where it places you as a loser thus disconnecting body-mind harmony and thus resulting in stress/failure .
Now that paul the octopus is dead I still think Netherlands lost to spain because of the predictions of paul! as Netherlands had already accepted defeat even before putting up the fight!

Expectation is a monster that eats you irrespective of whether you win or lose.When you expect something and reality is closer to what is expected then you dont learn anything new as you already knew. Now if it so happens that it did not turn out to be what you expected you are so disappointed that your mind shuts off without taking anything in!.
Had we all learnt getting prejudiced or expectation when we were born , I guess none of us would be walking today.

Now let me take examples , Recently i had to travel to Bombay and Hyderabad. On one hand I was heavily inspired by David gregory Robert's shantaram and his description of Bombay and on the other hand deeply apprehensive as i was travelling alone without family or friends for first time and had heard several stories on mumbaikars being rude.Now had i gone with this expectation i would have been thoroughly disappointed as the Bombay i saw in 8 hours was not even close to DGR's description but way better and people right from my driver till the consulate really friendly.Although i wouldnt say same thing to Hyderabad its not a bad place either and its amusing to read telgu characters similar to kannada but with spirals[chakkuli in kannada, Marathi is devanagari script i suppose or is it that I read hindi boards :D ].Anyway the point is its fun to explore life without prejudice or expectation.

When the concept is so simple ,i have realized it is the toughest path to tread , After all these realization , when i started off to read SL byrappa's Kavalu i was totally disappoined after the prelude itself ! I was expecting another Avarana/Parva and it turned out to be different! so expectation is just built into our system which we need to start rebuilding. solution ? Practise practise and more practise! I'm set!!

Now other take away was to see god in everyone
Sarva Bhutaanaam cha atmanaam |
sarva bhutaani cha aatmaani ||
Ikshate yoga yuktatma |
sarvatra samadarshanam ||
When everybody curses Hinduism(typed sanatana Dharma from now on) for being non secular , which other sect says that there is god in every one and everyone should be treated with respect. It upholds equality not just among humans but across species.It also makes one humble as one realizes that everybody is good as I am as they all have portion of the same god which i consider as ultimate and is within me.