Its not about “IF”….its about “WHEN”

Proposition 1: Our Life is a sum of Inflows and Outflows.

The more I delve into questions relating to Astrology, God, Fate, and study people around me, a belief is reinforcing itself in me. It is the belief that God fills our lives with equal number of opportunities. Lets categorize these opportunities as “inflows” and “outflows”. Inflows are windows of opportunities that allow entry into our lives. These could be material goods entering our lives, special relationships entering our lives or anything else that gives us positive energy. Outflows are times when we witness a going away of what we feel are important to us and our happiness. The attachment to these things or people being taken away from us is illusory and the pleasure we receive from these things or people is nothing but a product of our senses and/or ego. Our Life is made up of these inflows and outflows.

Proposition 2: Law of Natural Equilibrium

Number of Inflows=Number of Outflows=Universal Constant

We tend to forget that our life is not over till it actually is. Genesis as well as Vedic astrology considers a human’s life to be 120 years long. Thanks to lifestyle changes we have reduced it to around 75 years. So, by natural laws we still have 75 years to live. We should not judge God or His kindness on us by taking into consideration only 30 or 40 years of our lives.

In the long run, the number of inflows that God blesses us with are always equal to the number of outflows. And this number is the same for every individual. This is the universal constant.

Proposition 3: Karma determines the timing of the Inflows and Outflows

While as stated above, the number of Inflows and Outflows is the same, God rewards and punishes human beings for their past life karmas by changing the timing of occurence of these inflows and outflows in a person’s life. If He wishes to reward you during your youth, He will bless you with a phase where a number of inflows will come into your life one after another. Similarly, He might punish you during your middle age by filling your life with consecutive outflows. This, God fixes by judging your past life Karmas and then aligning your astrological planets to reward or punish you accordingly.

Proposition 4: Change is around the corner

Following the above stated propositions, it is evident that one of the keys to Happiness is knowing that nothing is forever. At times when inflows are prevalent in your life, be aware that a time of outflow is around the corner. Save for that time. Recall how Joseph (son of Jacob) saved Egypt by storing grain during the seven years of abundance to provide for the years of famine that followed.

Similarily, during phases in your life when outflows are weighing heavily on your mind, creating anxiety, fear and suspicion, know that God has not abandoned you. Good times are around the corner. Just hold on.

Proposition 5: Happiness is a state of mind and not meant to be connected to inflows and outflows. The one who has achieved this separation of Happiness from Inflows and Outflows, achieves eternal bliss and enlightenment.

It is not a question of “If”, but “When” does God want you to get the things you desire. And your past life karmas have a lot to do with that.

Comments welcomed.

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fast.faster.fastest….to nowhere.

The thoughts in this post were inspired when I read “Context and Content”.

Objective: To study the apparent “need for speed” observable in human behavior of recent times.

Data:

Vimshottari Dasa system of Vedic Astrology considers a normal human life to be 120 years long. For benefit of this post, and considering the huge change that lifestyles have witnessed over the last 3 millenniums, we shall reduce that figure to a more modest 75 years. So in numbers,

Average Human Life = 75 years = 900 months = 27000 days = 432,000 awake hours

Observations:

1) I have been using Lean Tools to optimize my movements in my house. And I don’t like it! Its become an obsession. Every movement of mine is coordinated to do the maximum amount of work in least time. Its become so bad that when I place a cup of water in the microwave, I can’t just stand there for a minute while it gets heated. I have to occupy myself with some other task, like filling the water bottle, to make the most of that 1 minute. I can’t even sit on my desk waiting for my laptop to boot!

2) A lot of my friends have been asking me the processor speed of my mobile phone. I don’t get it! I remember when the most important parameter in judging a mobile phone used to be its strength and not its speed. If my phone survived a 20 feet drop, it was a good phone!

3) I am getting increasingly impatient at traffic lights. I honk at the car in front of me even when the light is red!

4) At my wedding, I asked my priest to conclude the rituals within 45 minutes. Under normal circumstances, it would have taken close to 3 hours.

5) I am embarrassed when my mobile phone does not stream an online video within 10 secs of clicking “play”.

Explanation:

We have become wholly entrapped in a web of illusion, a world where our minds have been tuned to think that “Time is Money”. We have been manipulated into choosing the fastest journey, without knowing what our destination is. We are made to believe that the speed is important, not where we are headed or what stops on the way we have missed out. It is like sitting in train going at the speed of light. You cannot see anything outside the window of the train, the train has no stops and your destination is the point you started from. You pay for the thought of traveling at the speed of light and nothing else.

Is God Still Relevant?

In an earlier post I argued the complementary nature of Karma and Astrology. “Our past life actions determine the quality of life that we lead in our present lives”, says Karma. And the tool it uses to implement this principle is Astrology. Schedule the time and location of a person’s birth in a manner, that the natal planetary positions influencing the life of the person result in an existence that conforms with the past life deeds of the person, good or bad.

By this very reasoning, God’s significance in the whole scheme of things becomes pretty untenable. Assuming God existed, His role would be limited to judging the actions of a person’s past life. I am certain that this judgement is not subjected to an arbitrary scale, but follows a well defined scale of good and bad. And I trust God to be virtuous enough to not cheat the system by favoring a  person who has visited the Church every single day. Since God’s role is limited to being a judge that honestly follows a well defined set of laws, we can rule out that He has any powers Himself. Think of it this way, worshiping a Supreme Court judge does not change either the probability of you being punished nor does it change the severity of the punishment. Both parameters are governed by the Constitution and an honest Judge is subservient to the written word.

So that has pretty much ruled out the need to worship God. And since most religions are based on the very act of worshiping God, they are rendered redundant. Or are they?

We need religion. Period! Governments need religions to control their subjects. Yes, we are subjects of our governments no matter how much freedom and democracy our leaders sermonize. They fall back on religion to justify their policies, they fall back on religion to divide people and play vote-bank politics, they need religion to colonize countries, and they rely on religion to suppress people’s intelligence and prevent a revolution.

And we the subjects need religion too. It is our only hope when things seem down, it is the refuge we turn to after committing sinful acts. It is the sanctum that lets us be bad and evil, because we always know that there is forgiveness to be attained by worship. It is the source of calm that arises from the belief that we have bribed an incorruptible God.

I leave rest of the reasoning to you. I saw my astrological chart this morning, and something in it tells me that I better go worship my God now 🙂 .

Free Download Coupon Code for my new Ebook

I must admit. This ebook comes totally out of schedule and was not planned until yesterday. A friend of mine who teaches at a local village school asked me if I could put together seven of my posts that she had selected in the form of an ebook. She wanted the essays in a compiled manner to facilitate discussing them in a Debate club that she conducts at the school. So I spent a whole day putting together an ebook for her and her students, yes it took me a whole day because I edited a lot of the posts with thoughts that had come up since they were published.

And since I put in a day’s work into producing this, I decided to share it with you all as well. The ebook is published on Smashwords and as always, for readers of this blog it is free 🙂 (for a week at least).

Just follow the following steps to grab your free copy.

1) Go to the books page here

2) Enter the Code EZ47H prior to checkout to get your free copy.

I have edited the essays to incorporate thoughts that have developed from subsequent discussions with readers of the posts. Some of the posts are from a while back and you may enjoy reading them. I look forward to your harsh critique 🙂 Please bear with the editing if you find any glitches. I continuously work on correcting any oversights.

Making My Life Public: Of Astrology,Gods and Karma.

If you believe in astrology then you would agree that sharing one’s astrological chart is equivalent to sharing one’s entire life. So why am I going ahead with it? Because instead of spending hours seeking answers, I hope that someday an enlightened astrologer will stumble upon this post and be kind enough to foretell my future.

Belief in Astrology serves as a good subject to study contradictions. On the one hand we pray to Gods and are convinced of their abilities to change our fortunes. Conversely, we look to stars and planets to read a predestined fate. Well, if fate is predestined by the position of planets and stars at the time of our birth, then how do Gods have the power to change that fate!

However, Astrology and Karma are two schools of thought that compliment each other fairly well. Karma holds one accountable for his actions by creating a future or next life based on their righteousness. This forms the basis of a predestined fate designed around a person’s karmas. So depending upon the nature of your past life karmas, Gods decide the date,time and place of your rebirth in a way that your next life fortunes (based on planetary positions at time of your birth) conform with the predestined fate accorded to you.

Belief in Karma and Astrology strips Gods of their powers to change your state of being. Which side are you on?