Life through a version control system
Friday was a holiday - why because saturday was kannada new year's eve! Don't I love my company - especially because I don't even celebrate Yugadhi. Had a fantastic extended weekend - a series of events each of which merits a post. Here's one.
Had the chance to meet up with ~S on friday for lunch - Short story writer and budding script writer, very sensible and cerebral, candid, 30 something, married, beautiful in a very traditional sort of a way, excellent conversationalist, very enterprising and most importantly, one of those people you meet for the first time and can talk with for five hours. From religion, to caste to scientific beliefs - we finally reached the topic of many births
Personally, I am a cynic - 21 years of science has made me question every belief that my parents share and profess. I believe in god - in a personal sort of a way, as a friend, as my reason to do good things to people and definitely not in a way that's idolatory or preachy. Similarly I believe that all this beliefs about karma, multiple births are just cultural memes that our forefathers put to make sure we are good; we are not supposed to take them literally. We - as in our mind, and our genes are extremely selfish. We are not genetically designed to do good things to people or care for fellow humans. These memes give us a reason to do so and hence facilitate the whole concept of society to function. If any one comes up with a second hand account of rebirth et al, I would be convinced that it's all just a mental construct, reasons we give ourselves and believe in so strongly that after sometime we start thinking it's true (case in point: case study by Brian wise, where when he hypnotised a woman afraid of closed spaces and realized she was an egyptian buried alive in a coffin in a previous birth. QED. Me thinks, This whole coffin thing is something a person like me can think of to glorify my existence and hence believe in so strongly that I am convinced it happened in my previous birth)
But talking to ~S, I heard a first hand account of someone who has a psychic for a mother, and who with her help was able to peep into the previous birth (where ~S was some Veronica in the UK), and a whole list of coincidences that was hard to refute. I wouldn't say I was convinced but the conviction in ~S's voice couldn't be questioned.
That night it was raining and I was on my way home in a bike - luckily for us, the signals kept changing to green just as we reached them. That's when epiphany stuck - there are two kinds of people in the world. Ones like me who would believe that the signals changing to green is just a coincidence, one of those days I am lucky, unrelated events following rules of probability. The rest who believe that someone above made it happen that way so that I could reach home sooner. None of this changes the actual events that happened - just the way you look at it. You might be reminded of a particular scene in Signs - but let me tell you - ephiphanies are like lightning; watching it dawn on someone and being hit by one are two totally different things! :)
Had the chance to meet up with ~S on friday for lunch - Short story writer and budding script writer, very sensible and cerebral, candid, 30 something, married, beautiful in a very traditional sort of a way, excellent conversationalist, very enterprising and most importantly, one of those people you meet for the first time and can talk with for five hours. From religion, to caste to scientific beliefs - we finally reached the topic of many births
Personally, I am a cynic - 21 years of science has made me question every belief that my parents share and profess. I believe in god - in a personal sort of a way, as a friend, as my reason to do good things to people and definitely not in a way that's idolatory or preachy. Similarly I believe that all this beliefs about karma, multiple births are just cultural memes that our forefathers put to make sure we are good; we are not supposed to take them literally. We - as in our mind, and our genes are extremely selfish. We are not genetically designed to do good things to people or care for fellow humans. These memes give us a reason to do so and hence facilitate the whole concept of society to function. If any one comes up with a second hand account of rebirth et al, I would be convinced that it's all just a mental construct, reasons we give ourselves and believe in so strongly that after sometime we start thinking it's true (case in point: case study by Brian wise, where when he hypnotised a woman afraid of closed spaces and realized she was an egyptian buried alive in a coffin in a previous birth. QED. Me thinks, This whole coffin thing is something a person like me can think of to glorify my existence and hence believe in so strongly that I am convinced it happened in my previous birth)
But talking to ~S, I heard a first hand account of someone who has a psychic for a mother, and who with her help was able to peep into the previous birth (where ~S was some Veronica in the UK), and a whole list of coincidences that was hard to refute. I wouldn't say I was convinced but the conviction in ~S's voice couldn't be questioned.
That night it was raining and I was on my way home in a bike - luckily for us, the signals kept changing to green just as we reached them. That's when epiphany stuck - there are two kinds of people in the world. Ones like me who would believe that the signals changing to green is just a coincidence, one of those days I am lucky, unrelated events following rules of probability. The rest who believe that someone above made it happen that way so that I could reach home sooner. None of this changes the actual events that happened - just the way you look at it. You might be reminded of a particular scene in Signs - but let me tell you - ephiphanies are like lightning; watching it dawn on someone and being hit by one are two totally different things! :)
posted by Rathish at 9:16 AM
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