Thursday, June 15, 2006

Does GOD play DICE

The famous Stephen Hawking speech was an inspiration to this post.

Basically I used to get excited to know about all the new research going on in astrophysics. Quantum physics trying to find or search for GOD was one of the topics which I used to extensively read about. But yesterday I had a strange thought. Instead of thinking about M-theory or strings, I started to think about randomness in our lives. Is everything happening according to some order? Right above the ozone layer... Is there a bearded guy/wise lady who is having the latest supercomputer trying to jot down what every good /bad thing each living being on earth does. Her / His assistants the other glowing enlightened ones also helping her/him judge whether in the next life{if reincarnation exists}where, when ,how and what conditions they should be born. The fact that I am born in a place which does not have wars, hunger, poverty and slavery is decided by these numbers which flash on the screen of the god head.

second scenario
Is there a set of dice which decides where I should be. You can have a counter argument that even people under slavery, the poorest of the poor may be happy inside but we may think otherwise. But at least in my view -Existence for many in the developing world is a crime. Poverty is a curse. Living is just waiting for death.
So I wonder aloud whether the only reason that I have food to eat, clean drinking water and most other comforts which billions can only dream about is because of a roll of dice...

The fact that the ozone layer is burning would have naturally spoilt the god-head's supercomputer. So we have to depend upon the dice...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW...YOU HAVE A HOMEPAGE !!!!

Anonymous said...

Incredible...YET TRUE !!!

astrocrazy2005 said...

venkat,rajan...

yaaa

Anonymous said...

Bhagavad Gita and the Law of Karma
The Srutis (four Vedas), the Sutras, the Smritis, the Puranas and the Itihasas (Ramayana and Mahabharata) constitute our scriptures. The Mahabharata composed by Vyasacharya contains 100,000 verses. Bhagavad Gita is a part of Mahabharata comprising 700 verses presented in 18 chapters. Bhagavad Gita is considered as the essence of all our scriptures. Bhagavad Gita is a document on the art of living. It teaches us how to conduct ourselves successfully through life. It illumes us on how to maintain equinamity under all circumstances. It also helps us in desire management. The principle in Bhagavad Gita which explains the cause of sufferings and happiness in human life is called “The Law of Karma”.
Karm means action and Karma or Karmaphalam means the result of that action. The law of karma is as true as Newton’s 3rd law of motion. Newton’s 3rd law of motion states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Law of karma also states that every action big or small done by us produces an appropriate result called karma or karmaphalam.
The karmaphalam is divided into two types – drushtaphalam and adrushtaphalam. Drushtaphalam means visible result and adrushtaphalam means invisible result. Both these drushtaphalam and adrushtaphalam are further divided into punyam and papam. Good action results in punyam and bad action results in papam.
All the adrushtapunyam will get fructified into drushtasukham or visible happiness. All the adrushtapapam will get fructified into drushtadukham or visible sorrow. How long it will take for the karmaphalam to fructify is not fixed. It will vary from karma to karma, punyam to punyam, papam to papam. It may fructify next moment, next day, next month, next year or in the next birth. A papaya seed may sprout quicky and become a tree in no time while a mango seed or a coconut seed takes a very long time for the same. The period of fructification depends on the potential of the karma. These adruhtapunyam-papam are classified into three types
Sanchita karma
Prarabdha karma
Aagami karma
All the unfructified punyam and papam accumulated over all the previous births are called sanchita karma. Sanchita means “that which has already accumulated”. Of this huge amount of sanchita karma a portion fructifies giving a physical body i.e. our present birth. This fructifying portion is called prarabdha karma. Prarbdha means “that which has begun to fructify”.
Prarabdha alone determines the type of body we get, type of parents we get and type of husband or wife we get. It also determines the type of job we get. Dr Manmohan Singh, though a great economist and human being, would never have expected that he would become the Prime Minister of this nation one day. Everyone knows that he was not even a politician and he did not make any efforts to become the prime minister. According to the law of karma, his purvajanma punyam has fructified into his prarabdha of becoming the prime minister. If your prarabdha is strong enough, honours and positions will come searching for you. We find several instances of good people suffering in their life. Great saints like Ramana Maharishi and Swami Ramakrishna suffered from severe illnesses towards the end of their life. We wonder why these great saints, who have done only good throughout their life , should suffer ? Law of karma says the cause of their suffering is their prarabdha. The prarabdha has to be exhausted by everyone by undergoing through various experiences of happiness and sufferings. When prarabdha is fully exhausted our present life comes to an end.
In this birth while we are exhausting our prarabdha we are simultaneously acquiring fresh karmas. This fresh karma acquired in this birth is called aagami karma. Aagami means “that which is arriving”.
Thus we can say accumulated karmas are Sanchita, fructifying ones are Prarabdha and arriving ones are Aagami. Sanchita is like money back policy of LIC in which we keep on contributing premiums regularly. That part of the money which becomes payable at the end of fifth year is the prarabdha and the fresh recurring deposit we now start is our aagami.

In this birth we are exhausting prarabdha and earning aagami. Some aagami karma frutifyin this birth itself. These fructified aagami also get exhausted. The unfrutified aagami willjoin the sanchita karma. Out of this sanchita another portion becomes prarabdha leading to next birth. Thus the cycle of sanchita, prarabdha and aagami goes on and on.
The law of karma makes it clear that life is neither a mere accident nor a coincidence. Whatever we are experiencing today is the result of our past actions. We cannot modify our sanchita and we have to exhaust our prarabdha. So sanchita and prarabdha are choice less for us. But the aagami which we are going to earn now is in our hands. Just as our present situation is determined by our past actions our future will be determined by our present actions. In the present we have the benefit of our free will. It is this free will which differentiates us from other living beings. By properly exercising our free will, we can select good actions and thereby earn good aagami. We can use this free will to do good to others. Even if we are not able to do any good at least we should not do any harm to anybody. Not doing any harm is itself a good action.
Some people believe that one should learn Bhagavad Gita in the old age after retirement. Learning Bhagavad Gita in the old age will not do us much good because by then we would have already acquired a lot of undesireable karmas and will once again be in a choice less situation. So the right time will be the middle age when we have almost settled down in our life and are in a position to determine the future course of our life. By understanding the teachings of Bhagavad Gita and practicing them in our real life we can definitely make the rest of our life peaceful and happy.
Bhagavad Gita is not a document to prove the superiority of one religion over the other. It is a philosophy of life, understanding and assimilating which, everyone, irrespective of his caste, creed and religion, can make his life harmonious and happy.