Hinduism: An Open Source religion

Hinduism stands apart from the three organized, monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam and other major religions - Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism etc, as a weird sort of religion. All these other religions have a central defining entity. Judaism, Christianity and Islam have their prophets and their sacred books. Sikhism and Jainism have a line of sacred religious teachers but one or a few among them are considered most sacred. Buddhism has its founder - Gautama Buddha. Hinduism is a bit quirky. There are many books which can be considered sacred texts, the Vedas, Upanishads and the Bhagavad Geeta being the main ones. There are many Gods and Goddesses to worship. There are many schools of thought and traditions to follow. In fact, variety seems to be the single and most important defining quality of Hinduism. Hinduism is adaptable, versatile and most importantly it is an 'open source' religion. You can choose a flavor of Hinduism that suits your taste.

Let me just elaborate on the 'open source' bit. The Linux operating system is an open source operating system. The 'kernel' or the central component of the operating system is an open source component released under GNU-GPL for any developer to modify and re-distribute. Similarly the 'kernel' of the Hindu spiritual thought, the central idea of Hinduism, in my opinion, is a state of consciousness which can be experienced and freely interpreted by any human being. It is a spiritual experience. I am using the word spiritual a bit casually here. By spiritual, I do not mean to hint at something supernatural; although most traditional interpretations have a supernatural component. By spiritual I mean something relating to one's subjective consciousness, an experience that is available to oneself alone. This state of consciousness may correlate with a certain state or states of the human brain. This spiritual experience is termed variously as samadhi, awakening, enlightenment, nirvana etc. For brevity, I will here forth address this state as the 'samadhi'.

We know this for sure - in ancient India there were many people who followed a variety of contemplative traditions. Many people must have experienced samadhi in the course of the numerous mental and physical regimens they undertook as a part of their meditative practice and probably even under the influence of hallucinogenic substances (such as the mythical Soma) . Even though they experienced it, they were not in a position to know the neurological basis of it. All of the information we have about the nature of samadhi is from the descriptions of it, by people who at one time or another experienced it. Since samadhi is a state of consciousness accessible only to the individual experiencing it, we have no way of verifying that the experience indeed took place. But many, if not all, of the people claiming to experience samadhi seem like stand-up guys and gals. So we can safely say that some of them were indeed telling the truth. The numerous descriptions of samadhi have some common and recurring themes such as:

1. The experience of a complete dissolution of the 'ego' (an 'I' separate from the external world),
2. A perception of oneness with the external world
3. A sense of profound bliss.
   

Most people who claim to have experienced samadhi describe it as a life changing experience, something that arouses the feelings of love, empathy and compassion in them changing their world-view in a radical way. I believe that it's this unique state of consciousness that is the kernel - the central concept - of the religion that was later on termed as Hinduism.

Like Linux, there are many distributions built around this kernel. By different 'distributions', I mean the different interpretations by different people, applying a combination of logic and metaphysical conceptions, to explain the various aspects of the samadhi experience. I think there were two important reasons for the emergence of such a variety of interpretations. In ancient India there was no single religious authority or single dominant school of religious thought. Differing ideas and debate between different schools of thought was often welcomed and promoted by rulers and elite in the society. Secondly, samadhi is a purely subjective experience. Even today we can only image and record in some detail the state of the brain of a person who is undergoing a meditative experience. As of yet there is no way to externally induce such an experience reliably. So the people who experience samadhi lacked the tools for understanding the physical and neurological basis of the experience. That combined with intense and profound nature of the experience, as judged from the lofty descriptions, must have evoked the idea that there must be something mystical behind it. The Hindu interpretations are not the only one which try to explain samadhi. Both Jainism and Buddhism arose as a result of prolonged contemplative practice and the experience of samadhi by their teachers. The distributions which broadly fall under the label Hinduism interpret the samadhi state in one particular way.These 'distributions' form the various schools of thought in Hindu philosophy.

The people who composed the Vedas believed that there is a soul (the Atman) that animates our bodies and that survives the death of our bodies. They also believed that natural phenomena were imbibed with souls as well. Hence a plethora of naturalistic gods and goddesses such as Agni (the god of fire), Varuna (the god of rain), Usha (the goddess of dawn) etc. When some of the Vedic philosophers experienced samadhi, they interpreted it thus - they ascribed the feeling of oneness experienced in the samadhi to the merging of their personal soul with the soul that pervades all of nature. They termed this soul that pervades all of nature as the 'Brahman'. This metaphysical idea of a Brahman is an important part of the 'Vedantic' interpretation of samadhi.

Contemporary Hinduism is a giddy mixture of this particular interpretation of that unique state of consciousness, along with a bunch of other baggage such as:

• Other metaphysical hypotheses such as the laws of karma, rebirth of the soul etc.
• A number of creation myths.
• Belief in an amazingly large number of of gods and goddesses, each with their own rich and colorful mythology.
• An equally huge number of rituals, rites and superstitions.

The reason I call Hinduism an 'open source' religion is because its central idea, the interpretation of the samadhi, is not controlled by any central authority. One is free to re-interpret to one's own liking. One is free to promote one's own interpretation. One is free to label one's interpretation as the most authoritative, most logical, most perfect interpretation. The history of Hindu philosophy reveals a number of such individuals and groups who chose to interpret the samadhi state in their own peculiar way. They squabbled, they argued, they constructed complicated logical arguments to refute the interpretations of the 'other' groups and establish the authority of their own interpretation. The Samkhya, Dvait (dualist), Advait (non-dualist), Vishistha-Advait (qualified non-dualist)... all these different schools are nothing but elaborate logical and metaphysical expositions of the samadhi state. Adi Shankaracharya's treatise on the Brahmasutras for example provides refutation of many different schools of thought and promotes Shankaracharya's own interpretation of Samadhi, the nature of Brahman, Atman, etc. All the schools of thought that are broadly termed 'Hindu' agree on the point that samadhi is the 'joining' of the Atman with the Brahman. Their disagreements stem from their ideas about the nature of Brahman and Atman.

How, one may ask, can one achieve this state? How can one achieve samadhi? There are many ways of doing this as well. One may follow any one of the many paths towards experiencing the samadhi state. Since samadhi is the joining or the yoking of the Atman to the Brahman, the Sanskrit word 'yoga' which means yoking is used to describe the various paths. One may follow the path of devotion (Bhakti Yoga), the path of asceticism (Raj Yoga), the path of knowledge (Jnana Yoga), the path of action (Karma Yoga) - each with it's own prescription for achieving the supreme union of the Atman and the Brahman. There is never a dearth of mystics, sages, god-men and god-women in India, each claiming to have experienced the samadhi and giving their own for achieving it. New age paths like Siddha Samadhi Yoga, Art of Living etc. mostly comprise of traditional ideas repackaged and distributed through modern marketing mechanisms.

The choice of gods and goddesses to worship is my favorite aspect of Hinduism. If you are the nerdy type, you might like Ganesh - the elephant headed god of wisdom. If you are a gym loving health freak, you might want to worship Hanuman - the monkey god endowed with amazing strength and the ability to fly (like Superman but better because Hanuman is supposedly Chiranjeevi - one endowed with eternal life). Then there are a number of goddesses. Laxmi (the goddess of wealth) may be worshiped by one and all. Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and Durga (or Shakti), the goddess of energy are equally venerable. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva... the trinity... the foundations of Hindu mythology are eternal favorites among devotees. So are the many incarnations of Vishnu, Krishna and Rama being the most preferred of them all. There are of course many rituals and rites you might choose to observe to please or placate your preferred god/goddess. You may choose to enjoy the beauty of many of the devotional songs (the Bhajans and Abhangas) or devotional dances. You may indulge in meditation and chanting. If you so prefer, you may also choose the almost sadomasochistic acts of worship like sleeping on a bed of nails or standing for days on one leg.

In many respects, Hinduism is like and operating system for your life. It is a way of life. You may choose your own favorite 'distro' of the Hindu operating system, your own favorite path, your own favorite deity and still call yourself a Hindu as long as you subscribe to the central idea - the concept of the supreme Brahman. The gods and goddesses are all manifestations of the Brahman. The various paths all lead to the union of the Atman with the Brahman. The Brahman itself is something beyond all concepts. According to the "Advait" school, everything after all IS the Brahman, including you.

Thou Art That!

Consciousness

Read this interesting article about human learning abilities today. I continue to be amazed by the capabilities of human consciousness. Now, I know that this is not my field of expertise; but over the course of my readings I have become deeply amazed and interested in the studies about "consciousness". Consciousness is that illusory something which gives us the awareness that we exist. That same something probably is also the reason that we are aware of being aware. Gets a bit complicated soon, doesn't it? This article gives me hope not be deterred. Apparently a lot of scientist are trying to figure it out too!

The first time I came across different ideas about consciousness was when I read the books 'The Tao of Physics' and then 'The Web of Life', both by Fritjof Capra. To learn more, I read Roger Penrose's amazing book 'The Emperor's New Mind'. Now I want to read Ray Kurzweil's books 'The Age of Intelligent Machines' and 'The Age of Spiritual Machines'.

There are many pieces of this puzzle I guess, starting with "What is thinking?", leading to "what is the mind?" and ending with "what is consciousness?"; with a whole host of other things to figure out before a complete picture can emerge. I am most intrigued by the idea of consciousness being an "emergent property" of the body (not just the brain). The idea is that our sense organs, the nervous system and the brain form a network. An emergent property is something that emerges out of the multitude of small local interactions between the various nodes of the network. So consciousness is something that we feel when this whole network is working and exchanging signals back and forth. Surprisingly we are also aware that we are aware.

Taking this to the next level then, will consciousness emerge spontaneously if a certain level of complexity is established? Imagine the consequences. Cars have become incredibly complex these days and will keep getting even more complex. Someday there will be numerous sensors on the car feeding information to a central computer. The computer will be much more complex than the one on which I am working right now. (its already a Pentium 500MHz dinosaur!). There will be sensors to steer and drive the car, to detect problems before they arise in the engine and transmission, to operate the A/c system and a whole host of other things. Imagine if one day you take the car to the shop to get it installed with a new sensor and suddenly you realize that consciousness has emerged! At this point the car will be able to be consciously aware of its own existence!

You may want to be elated at first, now that the Age of Spiritual Machines has arrived. But imagine the problems this may cause. The car will have feelings and emotions. On a cold, wet day it may feel like not starting up at all when you will be in a hurry to get to work. It may be jealous of the shiny new Corvette parked beside it in the parking lot. It may be angry and grumpy if you miss an oil change or don't take it to the car wash. May be it will take itself to the car wash whenever it is in a mood for a shower. The newly conscious cars may rally against the destruction of the old "unconscious" cars and may declare them to be endangered species.

Somehow the idea that human beings could someday be able to create "conscious" machines seems a bit frightening to me. My fear is not about some "Matrix" like scenario where the machines take over. We aren't doing half a good job of taking care of all the sentient beings that exist naturally right now! Imagine a day when we add to that, sentient being created by "us".

We have come a long way from hunting the saber toothed tiger with clubs and rocks, largely due to our wisdom. However, I don't think that our capacity to use our wisdom wisely has evolved all that much. We still use our brains to do as many stupid things as good. So it would be good if some things are left for nature to do on its own.

Technorati Tags: Consciousness, Mind, Intelligent machines