Experiencing God

How do you experience God? In normal state of consciousness, it’s not possible. Simply because there is too much of background noise. By that I mean distractions from outside and our own thoughts running amuck in our brains. God can only be experienced when the mind is calm and we are in an altered state of consciousness. This state can be induced through techniques such as meditation. Or some people just seem to snap into it, for no particular reason. I have had such experiences when all I feel is an awareness of something so powerful communicating with me, unstoppable tears and a feeling of awe in everything that I see. During the moments, I feel perfectly at peace with myself. The feeling is there for some time (hours and minutes) and then I return back to my normal state. I’m sure everyone experiences this in their lifetime.

Objectively experiencing God is through convincing  our logic which really is not that effective. If you are looking at an object, who is the person that is observing the object? That you can say is yourself. But you get a feeling that you are aware of you watching this object. Where is that awareness coming from. There cannot be two of you. One watching the object and one watching you, watching the object. This awareness simply is called consciousness. The first one watching the object is simply trying to analyse the object, which is our brain. In other words it is our thoughts. The second person who is watching all of this is consciousness. In fact, if you look clearly, the first person is a myth. It’s just a thought. It exists only for a second or two, but the second person is always there watching us. And this is our consciousness.

When our mind is quiet, we can experience this watcher first hand. It does not judge, nor does it discriminate. It just observes. And that’s all it does. So what’s the point? The observer is experiencing the world through us. We are just a medium. Why does the observer do that? Well, the world is full of so many wonderful things that the observer is enjoying what it perceives. So who is this observer? It’s our consciousness. If you read the Bhagvad Gita, God says that he/she is the knower of the field. In short, this observer is God. The field refers to the external world. Or nature. Going a bit further, God also says that he/she is the field itself. In short, God is observing God created things. This is to get that feeling or experience.

As we go progressively in various stages of meditation, we come across both of these. First stage : we feel that we are the knower of the field. In short, we are experiencing purusha or our soul. The second stage: We feel that we are Prakriti or nature (what is being observed) which simply means that we are also the observed. And the final stage: There is no distinction between the observer and the observed. Both are myself. And now the wall crumbles down. We are in union with the universe, where we feel that we are the universe itself. It’s very tough to explain this. We have to experience it ourselves. The best way is to calm the mind and start meditating. We don’t need external stimulants to achieve this. We are all individual waves in the ocean that connects us all. Souls immersed in a universal soul. In short, we all come from the same place and return to the same – the ocean. This life is just a short itinerary in those millions of voyages that we have to undertake till we become one with God.

Best Wishes,

Guru30

Consciousness explained

Consciousness is an elusive thing, because we all have it, but somehow we fail to nail it, as to what it is exactly. Some people correctly identify consciousness to be something we have all along except, when we are in deep sleep. Even while dreaming we can be aware of consciousness. Some think that our brain produces consciousness. This theory does not hold water, as in deep sleep also, the brain is active. So where does our sense of consciousness go during that time ? The greatest damage has been done by Descartes saying ‘I think, therefore Iam !’ Thinking is not to be equated with consciousness. Our thoughts emanate in the brain. And consciousness is not in the brain. It’s non-local. So here are some aspects of consciousness to ponder upon :

1. It is fundamental

Like mass, space, time etc, consciousness seems to be a fundamental concept imbibed in our universe. This calls upon a scientific theory for the same. However the reason why we have not been able to make much progress in this front is because consciousness is subjective. Although we all seem to have consciousness, our experiences are varied. No two are the same. Neuroscience suggests that there are trillions of possibilities embedded within our brains. These possibilities are images and stories. We always connect our experiences with these built in possibilities, and either strengthen or weaken them. Where do these images and stories come from ? Well, they are collected as we grow from childhood to being adults. Some even say past karma. However these memories don’t suggest that they are the only ones out there. Some spiritualists also claim that we have access to Akashic records outside the brain. This brings us to the concept of mind, the brain being the physical expression of that. The mind is thus much more than the brain.

2. It is universal

This is the panpsychic theory of consciousness which suggests that consciousness is embedded into everything from a human to a sub-atomic particle. However their complexity varies. While we are much complex creatures, a subatomic particle has a very low degree of consciousness. This theory seems to be a natural offshoot of the above point that we made a while ago. Thus we have group consciousness, societal consciousness, internet consciousness, global consciousness and a universe that is sentient. The idea in religious literature is of a super soul that is God and we being a miniscule part of it. However, small it may be, it has the same properties and potential of the super soul. Like the poet Rumi said it ‘We are not a drop in the ocean, but the ocean in the drop’. Even worms, insects and cats have soul’s. Forget that, even walls do. Everything is immersed in the soul energy. However, the degree of awareness is different. For eg: your cat may have an awareness that does not exceed yours but does when compared to an earthworm.

3. It is non computational

Not all theories can be explained by mathematics. There are many places where mathematics simply cannot answer the conundrums. For eg: parts of

• Classical Physics
• Field theory
• Quantum Mechanics
• Things outside quantum mechanics

The soul does not seem to work on computations. The experience that we go through, is not a set of ADD, SUB, MUL, DIV instructions. It’s a feeling, that is produced by various factors like the emotions, senses, processing, memory etc. Spiritualists give the term ‘Qualia’ for experiences that are fundamental for example the shape circle or the color red. These somehow add up to give us a summative experience. We are not sure as to how it works, but it does. The difference between a computer and consciousness is that a computer cannot be selective about it’s input, whereas consciousness seems to know what to filter. This property can also be seen in the brain.

4. It is information intensive

The more the information a system holds, the higher the degree of consciousness in it. This is naturally so. We are complex beings and we have a high degree of consciousness. A computer which holds lesser information is not as conscious as we are. However, the difference is in the processing. Unlike a computer which executes a set of instructions, consciousness can be experienced through things like epiphanies, deja-vu’s and law of attraction, to name a few. Our experiences seems to have visualized the state before itself. A computer cannot beforehand predict the outcome, without going though the instructions. Yes, looking at the data, some amount of predictions is possible. But in the case of consciousness, even data does not seem to be required. It’s a far more form of an advanced technology.

If in some words, we were to explain the term beauty, only consciousness can do that by giving us the experience of it. Can you ever define it? The beauty of a sunset can only be felt and never be explained by words.

To your awakening,

Guru30

Software is eating the world

Software is eating the world. (Marc Andreesson)

Software comes in various flavours. There is the OS, the middleware and the applications. There is a host of other software falling into categories like utilities, plug-ins, games etc. Software has the following characteristics:

• It works on top of hardware. Thus hardware is a must.
• Software has a personality.
• Deep down it’s a bunch of zeroes and ones.

Here are some varieties:

The know it all

This kind of software is the one which chases the holy grail. The best example is Windows 10 which claims to work on all kinds of devices (hardware). That is as far as the OS is concerned. In applications, it would be ERP, which claims to work for the entire organization. These software tries to keep up to the integration challenge.

The specialist

This is a niche seeker. For example, Salesforce.com which is a CRM software. These software solve a single problem of an individual, a department or the organization. Most of the software in the market follow this model.

The change seeker

These kind of software keeps on getting updated with changes which are frequent in nature, say in days and weeks. Good example would be OS’s which keeps releasing patches or anti-virus software which keeps updating its signature list.

The leader

The software in this category aims at a leadership position. The no. 1 database software is ORACLE which until now did not have a contender. Another example would be Wordpress, which seems to vie for the position of blogging leader.

The follower

For a particular category of software, there are many followers. For instance, blogger and tumblr are followers of Wordpress in the blogging world. ORACLE ERP is a follower to SAP. SugarCRM is a follower of SalesForce.

The above is just a peep into the many more kinds of software categories. Software development is both art and science, as well. The new category of self modifying software is quite eerie, as they promise a world of software which will arise without human intervention. Whatever maybe the case, we are in a world where we cannot live without software.

Best

Guru30

How are we similar to a Machine

If you consider yourself as a Computer, there are five things important to you :

• CPU
• Memory
• Storage
• Bandwidth
• Network

CPU

Our brain acts like a parallel processing computer. One where there is no single CPU but multiples. These CPU’s crunch incoming data from our senses and produce reactions. There are three parts of the brain:

• The reptilian brain (Fight / Flight Response)
• The Limbic system (Emotions)
• The pre-frontal cortex (Day to day survival needs)

The reptilian brain is synonymous to exception handling in CPU of a computer. The limbic system are the instructions which trigger the output- for example displaying a video. The pre-frontal cortex is like the Operating System which does things like Garbage cleaning (some are done by the compiler/interpreter itself), Deadlock resolution etc.

The brain can be in any one of the states of consciousness:

• Beta (awakened state)
• Alpha (Relaxed state)
• Theta (Nearing Sleep)
• Delta (Deep Sleep)

In a CPU this correlates to the Clock speed of the computer. The CPU further consists of the microinstructions (instruction set), the registers and memory. In our brains, this is the beliefs and values and the different kinds of memory that we possess.

Memory

The brain has memory (both short term and long term). Even the cells have memory,in it’s DNA. Memory that is used for day to day activities is the short term memory, whereas memory inside a CPU is in the ROM (instruction set) . The long term memory is the RAM of the system. Note that when we sleep, the RAM is no longer required. But the short term memory is. (Instruction set in ROM)

Storage

For a computer, the storage is in the form of Hard Disks or SSD’s. For the brain, we have memory in the form of subconscious which can be compared to storage.

Bandwidth

Is the throughput, or how much of data can be processed. This refers to the size of the data bus of a CPU. (32 bits / 64 bits etc). For our brain as it’s a parallel computer and responds through many neural pathways, the bandwidth can be very high.

Network

This is the external senses through which we perceive the world and respond. For a Computer it can be the ethernet connection or the Wi-Fi speed.

It looks like we and our silicon neighbours are quite identical and as time passes by we will see the similarities increase, till a point where a human will be half machine and half human.

And that will be the arrival of Kalki, the next avatar of God.

Awaiting

Guru30