Can religion have a scientific explaination? (Part - 1)

I have always wondered if there was a scientific explanation for all the religious creations (gods, tradition, customs, etc.). This is my first blog on this area on which I have been thinking for a long time.

I know about Hinduism better than rest of the religions. Hence most of my questions and explanations have come in the same area. I believe that Hinduism has cryptic messages and symbolism in the way gods are described and their mythical stories

Disclaimer - Before reading the contents below, understand that this is only my interpretation and feel free to disagree with me (I would be happy to have healthy debates).

Trimurti - The Holy trinity of Hinduism

Trimurtis, the holy trinity, are the three deities who are considered to be the most important gods of Hinduism. Following is my interpretation of the Trimurtis.

Brahma

 Brahma - The creator

According to Hinduism, the Universe was conceptualized and created by Brahma.
My interpretation is that he is the abstracted form of every creator, designer, the prime-movers of the earth (as put by Ayn Rand), and thinkers. To create something, one needs to think, needs a wealth of knowledge. The knowledge drives creation. It is so apt that his wife is Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge. My interpretation of Hinduism makes me say that Hinduism believes that women always were the drive force and male were the acting force. Evolution is the best example for the same. Two factors which were primarily responsible were to survive and to impress the female species. The female species drove male species to evolve, but the male species changed, over a period of time, evolved. Even if Brahma is a much respected god, it is hard to find temples for Brahma (I know of just one dedicated temple for Brahma - at Pushkar, Rajasthan). Lord Brahma is conceptualized with four heads (powerful thinker), white beard (wisdom), seated on a lotus and travel on a swan (Hamsa). The swan is symbolized to be living on nectar from the blooming lotus of knowledge. I relate Lord Brahma to the people of mind, who create, invent, innovate, etc., who do not enjoy the status of a businessman or a warrior, however, is regarded with a great respect.

Vishnu with his wife Lakshmi 

Vishnu - The Preserver

Vishnu is looked upon as the god of sustenance, the one who took many forms (avatars) to save the world when needed. I see the power of Vishnu in every person who help people in trouble, save people, people who run business (needed for business to survive), in good leaders. To sustain or to preserve, one needs good leadership skills. Also, wealth is a driving force for survival. Wealth here is not just money, but also spiritual wealth, health, courage, luck, etc. It is apt that Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of Wealth (8 forms of Lakshmi for different forms of wealth), is his wife. Since, Vishnu is the Preserver; there is a huge amount of people who worship Vishnu. Lord Vishnu is conceptualized to wear beautiful attire, sleep on a lake of milk, on top of a 5 headed snake(Aadi-seshan). I read a blog of a friend of mine which linked the 10 avatars (dasavatar) to evolution of humans. Found the idea to be very interesting.

 

Shiv with his wife Shakti

Shiv - The Destroyer

Everything that is created needs to live and then eventually come to an end once its purpose of existence ceases to exist. It is like letting a program to loop even when what is supposed to achieve in the loop is done, or, saving your clothes even after you grow out of them, or, keeping the remains of what was food after everything is juiced out of it by our body. Everything created, needs to be destroyed eventually, gracefully, timely and ONLY when its purpose ceases to exist. This is the job of Lord Shiv. I see Shiv in anyone who does the above function. To destroy, one needs power. Hence, Shakti, the goddess of power is his wife. Lord Shiv is conceptualized to wear attire made of dead animal skin, cover body with ashes which are obtained by cremation of the dead, covered by snakes all over the body and use a bull (Nandi) as his vehicle. Since human fear death the most, Shiv is one of the most worshipped god in Hinduism.

(end of Part - 1)

Are we independent yet?

When British were ruling India, they were exploiting our resources and taxes were sent to England.

Now we are still exploited and the taxes make its way to the Swiss bank accounts of Powerful people (not just politicians).

Is there truly a difference?

Yes there are differences in the external way in which the setup looks.

We elect our leaders and people who represent us in the parliament. If they are truly our representatives, then why is the government in favor of the minority and not the majority? Are they truly our representatives? Do we really have the power to elect our representatives and leaders?

We have freedom of expression, at least as per constitution, however, movies against government gets banned, media needs to support the leaders in order to survive, the truth is conveniently forgotten and voice is suppressed. Do we still have a freedom of speech?

In the other countries, censor board views the movie and rate them for the minimum age group for viewership, not remove scenes from the movie, and yet they do not claim to have freedom of expression to be their right in constitution. Isn’t this hypocrisy?

And we are happy to celebrate 65th Independence Day. Do we have the independence yet?

Where did it all go wrong? How did British who ruled India for their profits bring about more development in India than the politicians for the last 64 years? What happened to all the people who stood up to throw British out of India, have they slept once India got freedom?

I learnt that the preamble to our constitution was changed from describing the state as a “sovereign democratic republic” to “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic” in 1976. What an irony? There has been more reservations everywhere ever since. Then, why do we proclaim ourselves to be secular?

Every one of us is responsible for the failed India that we have seen over the last 64 years. India has grown around the hurdles of the political system. We just crib about the failure and do nothing (continuing the tradition I do the same here). We like to blame others for the failure. The blame is on every one of us. We are the biggest hypocrites, biggest racists and still we call ourselves secular. No other country in the world sees so much of divides within themselves. We never look at a fellow Indian as Indian. Rather we look at them as Madrasis, South Indians, North Indians, Marathis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Biharis, and what not. We call Europeans and people in US to do racial discrimination. We do that within our country for our own people.

We talk of being culturally rich country and respect women and make fun of the family values of some of the western countries. Yet, we have so many rapes (mostly by known people), prostitution (people are proud of having gone to one), murders for various reasons including religion (when did god ever ask you to kill for him?).

We talk of corruption, supporting Anti-corruption bill and yet, we would rather pay Rs. 50/- as a bribe to the Traffic cop rather than taking the pain to pay the fine of Rs. 200/- at the court not just for the money but also for the time spent on doing so. We try to find a “jugaad” out of situations by paying bribes in various forms and yet we expect our politicians to be clean.

We would elect someone only if they manage to convince us with their “promotions”, they give us good offers for voting, they spend well on elections and yet, we expect them to take a salary of mere Rs. 30,000/- and be happy with it after having spent Rs. 20 crores in the election campaign.

We are big fools to follow without knowing what we follow. Best example is following Anna Hazare. 90% of those who follow do not know how’s, what’s and the feasibility of the bill, yet blindly support it, just like the support given to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Once the bill is passed, everyone will go back to sleep for another 50 years, only to be woken up by reality.

I am not a political mind to think of a solution for this problem. But I can tell you that the so called selfless structure of our government is flawed. We expect the leaders to spend money from their pocket in crores to sit in the position of power, get a very small pay and be very happy with it. Why is it not run like an organization where we pay the top management a lot to keep the company profitable? They take shares in profit and hence work towards the success of the organization, not because they are selfless and would work for a salary of Rs. 1.

Just some random thoughts, not in any sequential order, however, these have made me wonder for a long time, is it just me feeling this way? Is everyone else very happy with the system? If not, they why do we wish everyone a very happy Independence day? I am not truly happy because I feel I am truly not living in an Independent country.

I wish I would see a day when I would be truly happy to wish people for Independence Day. Till then, hope is all that I have.

“Hum honge kaamyaab... Hum honge kaamyaab...

Hum honge kaamyaab... Ek din!!”

A Journey to the stars

At the very beginning, it was exciting to be a part of the journey aiming to reach the stars. There were many of us passing through a passage in a fluid, uniform line. When I looked around, I saw that there were a few young ones as excited as I was and a few indifferent faces least excited about the journey to the stars. This made me wonder why. We marching together arm to arm, had to have a uniform movement to keep our movements fluid. To be truthful, it was hard at first; I then played the tune of my favorite song “Rain drops keep falling on my head” inside my head and marched with the song. I was as smooth as I could be.


It was not too long before I was in front of the giant circular device accelerating those ahead of me at lightning speed. In a single sling, thousands were set on their journey. Looking at this, I was feeling both excited and uneasy. It was worse than my first roller coaster ride; it was my first journey to stars. This was the first instance I heard people next to me point at the giant device and say that it operates on the basis of the principle of centrifugal force, I could recall the class on centrifugal force I had a couple of weeks ago came to my mind. Yes, how could I have missed it?

It was now my turn, by now our movement was very fluid and purposeful. Within seconds of entering the giant device, I realized that I was already on my way to the stars. I was feeling proud and excited. Goodbye earth, hope to see you soon. I was feeling weightless as we still were moving in a very well defined path. I looked at stars with the best of hopes.

The hope was shattered when I realized that we were slowing down and started to move towards the earth, it was scary. There was an experienced voyager next to me who said ‘Relax, everything is going to be alright’. I could feel the force pushing me downwards with a greater force every ticking millisecond, I now realized the power of gravity for the first time in my life. It was a free fall. I did not want to die, at least not this way. Before I realized, splash I fell into the pool, and slowly got pulled to the bottom of it.

I found myself back on the passage to the giant device. It was only then that an experienced voyager said ‘We are a part of what humans call a fountain, we go through the same cycle every moment of our day from now on. The humans stop the fountain only on days they call GO GREEN days or SAVE ELECTRICITY days. On all the other days, be it burning summers or freezing winters, the journey continues. During summers, the older folks burn away as they separate from the pack, the humans call it evaporation’. At this point I asked, ‘why do they do that? What do they gain from it? After all they call us the elixir of their life!’ ‘They somehow find it entertaining and enjoyable to watch us getting our hopes shattered, going high up and falling down. It is always a part of them. They laugh at a person slipping and falling over a banana peel and call it comedy. It is tough to understand them.’ Clearing his throat he continued, ‘It is up to us to make the best of the time we are over here.’

Those words have kept me going for a long time now. Soon I will evaporate as well. I wish humans would learn harmless ways to have fun. I wish they could show some respect to their life giver. After all they are the ones who complain about the scarcity of water. It is ironic to see what they do when they have water. Hope there is a human who listens to this hopeless cry of just A DROP of WATER!!!