As I sit in my chair, the world whirls around its axis, the earth swings around the sun, the sun hurtles around the center of the galaxy, the galaxy plunges around the center of the local group, the local group screams around the strange attractor of the supercluster, which itself flies blindly through the void of voids – and yet, I am able to find stillness within my heart.
Time is money. Silence is golden. A moment of quiet meditation is a treasure without price.
Pain is a strange thing, especially when I can’t simply banish it. I have to choose how to react to it. I try to understand it. Even if I fail at understanding, the effort allows me to better tolerate it and to be more patient when I experience it. Pain, to me, is no longer an unwelcome companion, but a stern instructor that I can learn to respect and value.
While I am pleased to hear the sound of my own voice, it has betrayed me on more than one occasion. My noble ears, on the other hand, have never done anything to embarrass me.
Age is relentless. Pains, aches, doubts, diseases: these are the wolves of time. They hunt us down in ever-increasing numbers as our days mount in number. Victory is not in banishing these things, but in not letting them destroy faith, hope, charity, and bravery. The day of our demise draws near. Blessed is the man that can greet that day without complaint or fear.
I am of a school of thought that God tries to communicate to man in ways that the man of the day can understand. But, always, is the caveat from God that his ways are not man’s ways. His thoughts are not man’s thoughts. His view of life and its purpose is not man’s view. But none of those things stop God from doing what he can to make man more like him.
And when I say God communicates in ways that man can understand him, it’s not that God limits his communications. God’s communications take a certain level of preparation in order to understand and to realize that they are, indeed, messages to us from a person that has a great deal to say to us, if we will but receive those messages. And so much of that communication is mathematical.
I’m not speaking of taking numbers of things in scriptures to manipulate them to get deeper meanings. Rather, mathematics is what defines the entire universe. To me, it stands to reason that mathematics defines that which is beyond our universe, as well.
As I read the scriptures, I am fascinated with the statements that things that seem numberless to us have their number known to God. When God says that there is no time in his realm, that he has made worlds without number to us, and that his course is one eternal round, I take notice. To me, they imply of a number system that exists to properly count and manipulate the universes, to sum each beginning and end of a time-space continuum and to connect it to the ones ahead of it and to the ones behind it.
“Ones” is not even the right word to use to describe to us these bounded near-infinitudes. We exist as mortals, with our spirits barely intersecting with the time and space of this universe, completely unable to see curvature of space from our vantage point. Indeed, all that we can conclude from looking up at the stars is that our view is imperfect.
And when we look at a number such as pi, we find that, again, our view is imperfect. We have calculated 13.3 trillion digits or so of that decimal and never does it repeat, terminate, or even show signs of being a random generation. Our efforts to get to the end of that number can only be finite in this time and space that we have. A few hundred digits suffice for even the most sophisticated of our calculations, so we round it off and move on with things. Yet, there it is, its digits continuing on and on. Because we have not found the termination, we say it does not terminate. Yet, we do not know for sure. We can never know for sure because we have no way of viewing what seems to us to be infinite.
And pi is not alone: nature and natural phenomena are constantly described by numbers such as pi. The square root of 2 has been calculated out to 2 trillion places, making it the second-place number for how determined mankind is to get more digits of. The number e has only been calculated to a few billion digits. These numbers seem out of place among a people more comfortable with tapping fingers to get from one to ten. Yet, there they are. Are there operations we do not know and numbers we do not use that cleanly produce neat, exact representations of both those numbers as well as the integers we desperately cling to?
And what of the beginning and end of our time-space continuum? In ten to the tenth power to the fifty-sixth power years, a universe can go from big bang to heat death to quantum tunneling that produces a new universe. While the causality between elements exists from bang to bang, we do not see a way for causality to continue across such events. Time, therefore, exists between the bangs, but not across them. Eternity, therefore, embraces not just two or three generations of time, but all of them. Such a perspective would have a way of numbering all these things, and that way of numbering would be capable of precision beyond our comprehension, because time would not exist for those that are eternal.
So what mathematics would exist for God and those in his realm? What geometries do they comprehend? What operations are necessary for the angels to execute in order to number the generations of time and space and the matter and energy within them through eternity?
I cannot pretend to answer those questions authoritatively, but I can begin to probe in those directions and, in so doing, I find great beauty and wonderment in mathematics, more so than I did before.
I live in the United States of America, and today is the holiday of Thanksgiving in the USA. Like Christmas, it has been poisoned with commercialism. While this day is set aside for the giving of thanks and expressing gratitude, the day following has fallen victim to advertising campaigns that have stipulated that it is a day for grasping, greedy consumption. It is a day for assembling at the shrines of acquisition with a frenzy sufficient to trample anyone in one’s path, even unto death, that one might forget thankfulness in a rage of worldly want.
And so it goes for most people through to Christmas. The bombardment of advertising is with us all through the year: Valentine’s Day is for buying flowers and chocolate. St. Patrick’s is for buying green beer. Easter is for buying chocolate and eggs and that horrible fake grass that gets everywhere. Mother’s Day is for buying things for mothers. Father’s Day is for buying things for fathers. July 4th is for buying lots of meat and fireworks. August is for buying things for returning to school. September is for buying things in general, at Labor Day sales. October is for buying candy and costumes. But in November, the advertising takes on a sinister quality. It drives people to deadly frenzies and deep depressions. In a time that Christians have set aside to contemplate the birth of Jesus Christ and the message of love, compassion, and truth that he brought, we face the demeaning chants of mammon that overwhelm that message.
We hear and see evidence that we are worthless without making new purchases. We buy things that we don’t really want or need, but we do so and experience some form of psychic release and joy because of the imprint that advertising has burdened us with. Make no mistake: the advertising these days is a highly polished product, capable of infecting even the most stalwart of men that declares, “I’m not affected by advertising!” Yes, you are. It’s that effective. Legions of psychologists have constructed those ads to cause you to believe, with all your heart, in the lies of worldly consumption as salvation.
For the film, “Czech Dream” (Czech: Český sen), the filmmakers showed how easily a lie could be fashioned to the point of driving a mind to madness. They started by shaving their beards and getting some sharp clothes – provided free to them, if they but made an advertising mention for the product in their film. Next, they created an ad campaign for a store that would never exist. The advertisers refused to tell an outright lie, but the filmmakers got the advertisers to go with a negative campaign. “Don’t shop.” “Don’t buy.” “Don’t show up.” Those were the slogans of the campaign, which, legally, were not false advertising.
Next came the psychological touch to the construction of print ads. The filmmakers showed how the makers of the ads study the layout on the page so that they produce not only a document that informs, but that convinces the reader to desire an opportunity to pay for the goods advertised. Was there deception involved? Legally, no. But, ah, there’s that qualifier that the advertisers and psychologists hide behind as they create their propaganda! “Legally.” “Technically.” Words like those mean that, while there is no legally-defined illegal activity taking place to the best of the knowledge of the participants in the activity thereof, oh, yeah, it’s totally unethical and manipulative.
Honestly, I believe that one day, a host of outraged parents could engage in a class-action suit against Nickelodeon, Walt Disney, and, to a lesser extent, McDonald’s, for causing their children to become affected with ADHD and/or ADD. By brandishing the “kid-friendly” adjective, these agents fooled parents into trusting their children’s attention spans to their advertising onslaught, leading to minds made pliant and submissive to the whims of anything flashy. I saw this affecting my child and put a parent block on those channels. With only a few days of withdrawal, she was reading again. She was also no longer nagging me incessantly about how we needed to have a vacation in a Disney property or that we needed to purchase a DVD with a Nick or Disney label on it.
Turning off the advertising on television is only part of a solution. Sadly, I still live in a world of people that are awash in ads. The ads surround me on road signs, on the airwaves, and on whatever sneaks past my adblocker software. It’s a constant mental assault. There are even programs dedicated to the best ads, as if, somehow, the advertising itself is the content to view and not just the things we allow ourselves to endure in order to see non-advertising content. And there are ads, as well, in that content. “Product placement” is as pervasive as it is perverse.
The antidote to this advertising, in my experience, is true devotion and service. I find this in my religion, which teaches me of the constant need to express thanks and gratitude, to avoid the influences of the world, and to seek after the better things that God offers us. The time I spend in devotion and service gives me true joy. Those times give me precious memories with family and friends that are beyond the prices that the pure free-market libertarians want to put on everything, even the breaths that we take. No, there are things that have no way to be bought or sold. They are much more real than the material goods that pass through our fingers on their way to the garbage dump or resale shop.
True religion is not the cause of woe in the world. False religions do cause woe, but look at the causes of false religion: one sees grasping materialism, lusts for power, and desires for control at their roots. Those things are also the causes of many, many other woes in the world. Those things are mammon. Mammon is not some deity of old – it is the Hebrew word for “money.” One cannot serve both mammon and God. The priests of mammon know this, which is why they poison the year, and especially the religious holidays, with their propaganda. Even though service to mammon destroys humanity, it appeals to our lusts and allows them to be unbridled while blinding us to the consequences that surely follow. True religion asks us to restrain our wildness, and shows us the consequences of our actions. It then encourages us to do what is right, to do what is loving. It encourages us to seek after treasures not of the world, but the treasures of true love, for God is love.
I have never bought my wife a diamond ring, and I never will. My love for her is not of this world, so why would I want a token of the world to express it? No, I bought her a small Swiss cowbell as a token for our love. It has a meaning to us (as well as anyone else that has seen “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” or DDLJ). The bell can pass from this world, but the symbolism contained in it is eternal. It is not a sign of my earning potential or folly: it is a small material representation of a vast, infinite network of devotion.
Thanksgiving, at its heart, is about humbling oneself. It is about realizing that there is much to be grateful for, even in the worst of circumstances. It is for accepting that the material world will pass and all the things of the world with it, but that something greater yet endures. It is not nation, it is not corporation, and it is not even land or sea. That which yet endures, which is greater than all things, is love, for God is love.
My nation might plunge itself into a conflict which I know to be immoral and abominable: yet I will give thanks for my family and friends. I might be ridiculed for my fidelity towards something that I cannot prove exists: yet I will give praise to my God. I might be assailed with messages that tell me I am nothing without a certain worldly possession: yet I will find joy in knowing that I am a child of God, and that He is part of my family and friends.
There is much that can be done to fend off the impact of the servants and followers of mammon. We serve and follow love when we give service. We serve and follow love when we humble ourselves and give thanks. We serve and follow love when we can find the quiet stillness within each of us, that allows us the simple, yet eternal, pleasure of discovering our unity with God.
We can all find this quiet stillness, each in our own way and after our own journey to that place. The secret to finding it, however, is not in wrath, but in patience. We find it not with purchasing, but with giving. We approach it not with grasping consumption, but with loving compassion. Mammon is found through acts of violence. Love is found through acts of non-violence.
Therefore, I wish peace unto one and all this year. Find a quiet place and a quiet time, and discover that loving stillness within yourself and let it grow in its influence upon you.
The search for truth is something which I have been engaged in all my life. It is also something which has led me to study science, history, scriptures, and all manner of things, that I might be able to put together an idea in my mind of what is truth. I believe that all truth emerges from a common, perfect source and that all truth can eventually be reconciled with all other truth. I know that truth can suffer from the limitations of bias, but that there can be truthful experiences that have no bias to them in their purity and clarity.
I know that there is a God. I can’t prove that to anyone else. All my proofs are internal experiences, but they are proofs nonetheless. From that knowledge, I arrange all the rest of my learning and experiences around that pillar, hoping for further light and knowledge needed to fill in the gaps, to remove the biases, and to reconcile with what I think to be true with what I know to be true.
There is what I wish, in my limited, mortal folly, to be true. There is what, if it were true, would make for fewer struggles in my life. But truth is not a matter of wishing or convenience. When I discover a truth, I must change my life to conform to that knowledge, for I do not want to deny truth with my thoughts, actions, or beliefs.
In that, the search for truth is, at the same time, a process of self-purification. I have to be tolerant in my process. When I see things in others that prick my heart and remind me of my own struggles in that respect, I have to be patient and allow that, for them, wherever they may be in their search for truth – if even they are actively looking – they have not yet decided to be as I wish to be. My struggles are not necessarily their struggles, and I have to be tolerant and patient, especially if I am called upon to explain why I do this or why I do not do that.
My search is not a static one. At no point can I say, “Here is all truth and in knowing this, I need seek after no more learning.” I have my own manner of approaching God, but I can learn from others who have their own manners of approaching God. I am, at heart, a pluralist. I believe that I am on the right path, but I allow that I can still receive navigation signals to guide me further.
There are, to be sure, signals that deliberately try to mislead me. Discerning between those and the signals of truth is a massive, internal struggle. Yet, I must be patient and tolerant. I must forgive those that, in their incomplete knowledge and error, have decided that worldly gain is the greatest thing to attain in this life and that dishonesty is justified in the getting of that gain. I must forgive them because one of the truths that I have learned is that I cannot continue on my search for truth if I have not forgiven all.
Like forgiveness, there are many things that I must get right in my life if I expect to be able to continue successfully to search for truth. I don’t have to get them all right all at once, but the more right I have them, the better order I have in my life, the more efficiently I make progress towards my goal of finding that complete, wonderful truth.
I have always invited all I know to join me in my search, even if they do not walk exactly in the path that I have taken. While I am saddened when I see my invitation to go unanswered, I delight when I see someone show progress in living the kind of tolerant, patient, forgiving, faithful, disciplined, and compassionate life that is necessary in order to be able to best search for and find truth.
As I make ready to leave Hyderabad, I have to reflect on the beauty of the city. For it is not cleanliness or skillfulness of craftsmanship that makes a thing truly beautiful. It is devotion, it is love, it is dedication. That makes something or someone truly beautiful. Eyes do not always see beauty: it is felt in the heart, it pierces the soul.
Today I went to Birla Mandir here in Hyderabad. The asphalt burned my bare feet – I have a blister – but those things will heal and I will still have the beautiful memory of the place. And why? Because of the devotion that I felt there.
Although I do not share an identical faith with the people who worshiped there, I do share a yearning for contact with a power greater than me. Finding that connection is not only done in prayer and fasting, but acts of devotion that extend and reach out to other people. When we touch lives for good, we have a chance to make the world more beautiful.
In the Bhagavad-Gita, it is taught that there are three ways to live life: with inertia, with passion, or with true disciplined devotion. Inertia is the basest of those ways: one does nothing, live passes over and flows around. The inert person is useless to others, for he takes no action.
Passion is better than inertia, but it lacks discipline. One may crusade to do what is right, with great stridency, but one’s laws are not perfect laws. Passion can lead to excess, which can lead to pain for others. Passions can lead to harm.
But disciplined devotion – dharma – means that one lives actively, but within bounds set by one who is wiser and more knowledgeable than one’s self. The bounds require at times to restrain one’s passions. The bounds require at times action when one would rather not take action. The bounds require that one be not as one is naturally, but to be a person that lives above that level and who strives to bring peace, joy, and love into the world through compassionate service.
As I walked through the Birla Mandir with my friends, I thought of these things. And though I may not approach God in the same manner as they do, I do cherish that teaching of the Gita, as it is something that is true. It is something that, if I apply to my life, will make me a more perfect person.
For if we all approach God with sincere intent, we will one day all arrive at the same place. If we all live our lives with devotion, compassion, and love, all bound up in the discipline of a higher rule, we will make the earth a place where more people will have sincere intent. We will make the earth a place where it will be easier to find God.
And that world, I assure you, will be a beautiful place.
Not a paid endorsement. That being said, they served up *7* cups of rice – *1.5* liters of rice – cooked very well with plenty of sauces. It was delicious, but I hit my “cheap and best” value mark after getting the eggs and about 2 cups of rice. My friend Andy had the chicken biryani, and there was about a half of a chicken in there, easily. I loved it, but next time I eat there, I will plan ahead on how I’m going to do it.
And for 140 rupees – just less than $2 US – this was a fantastic bargain. For it to be so good for so cheap, it’s amazing. And I will nosh on it again. It’s got a killer good blend of herbs and spices, like all great local hero fast food should have. The biryani in the 5-star restaurant at the hotel was better, sure, but this stuff is a *very* close second. If you’re down to your last 200 rupees and wonder what you’ll eat for the next 2 days in Hyderabad, the answer is simple: Paradise Biryani. You’ll live like a king off of that big ol’ bag of deeeeee-licious rice!
Video evidence of how big this pile of rice is: https://youtu.be/-wNhtA669Pk