Mortification of the Flesh: Essence and Practice

Mortification of the flesh is a term used to describe a phenomenon which is common to almost all religions in the world. It entails putting one's body through some sort of discomfort in an attempt to attain divine salvation. It can include anything from denying one's body certain pleasures such as abstaining from alcohol, certain foods, sex to more harsher forms such as fasting, self flagellation etc.

The essence of this phenomenon in my opinion is to be able to pay attention to one's inner unrest beyond the obvious outer unrest. We are born with certain desires which Sigmund Freud referred to as Id. These desires are essentially for survival and include things like food, sex and shelter. These are common to all animals but I believe as humans became more cognitively sophisticated and started controlling their environments, their desires grew beyond just the basic survival needs. Now man started aspiring more from life: wealth, fame, recognition etc. Sometimes these desires take over one's life and start controlling him/her. One compromises his/her morals, principals and everything he/she stand for to earn more money, fame or recognition. Eventually this grows to the point that those desires become who you are and you are ready to beg, borrow, steal, lie, subdue, kill etc to achieve those desires. On most occasions this is very evident to everyone around that person but him/her. And this is where mortification of the flesh played a pivotal role historically. The very fact that it is common to almost all faiths, makes me believe that it has a very strong spiritual basis. This phenomenon allowed one to give up those desires and focus on something more deep, understanding one's own unrest and be at peace with yourself.  In my opinion, the easiest way of describing this phenomenon is by the quote of Blaise Pascal: All of the man's problems stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

It was only time that man found a way around this, and here comes the practice part of this phenomenon. In my opinion, this phenomenon has been lavishly corrupted. Simple example: I have seen people fast and all they do is think about food. Even worse is the transactional nature of this phenomenon. People of all faiths use this phenomenon as a bribe to the divine power they identify themselves as. They put one's body through these 'inconveniences' and feel that they have done something huge for "God all mighty" to take notice and grant them their wishes. This is something which baffles me. If there is an existence of the so called God which resides in some heavenly place why would he/she/it notice you when there are many millions (if not billions) doing the same thing. I believe this corruption is the result of man's desperation for those desires. Lets look at how it started, I believe this practice is not the result of the entire human race but is the product of a few. The salesmen of God industry (priests) have utilized the ultimate power of God to keep masses scared. Scared masses are easy to control, they are a good source of revenue and being scared stops the logical and rational thought process, so they don't question the salesmen. Scared masses feel respite in a feeling that a divine force is watching over them and feel that it is their duty to protect the honor and respect of that divine force. Most of the wars in human history have been fought around this contrivance, millions of lives have been lost and billions of lives have been and currently are tormented by this.

All of the major religious texts talk about focusing inwards and have focused on the divine energy inside you and not in a book or a statue or a figurine. The divine salvation is when you are at peace with yourself. That is moksha.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your comments!

© 2012 Bhramastra. All Rights Reserved.

Why is India so dirty?

This is a post which is a product of my reply to one of my friend's emails. This friend emailed me congratulating me about the blog while raising her frustration and apathy towards the lack of cleanliness in India. I replied her with my take on the causes behind this: 

I think that is a culmination of several factors. Lack of civic sense, lack of infrastructure (dust bins, regular cleaning etc etc etc) and apathy of people seeing the lack of infrastructure. But I believe the most important factor is putting too many people in a small place with lack of opportunities for everyone to make a decent living. Cleanliness and civic sense involves one's responsibility to take care of his/her fellow citizens. When you use a public restroom, to use it in a fashion that the next person can have a good user experience as you did. But the lack of resources create this atmosphere of survival, self-centeredness and lack of concern and remorse of the wrong that one does. This leads to a domino effect. You take 100 people with this attitude and you get this big mess. Then the next 300 people feel apathetic about their helplessness and feel that them doing the right thing will not make any difference. 

Consciousness plays a big role in sustaining this behavior. Consciousness is something which does not stop us from doing the wrong thing, it stops us from enjoying it. But when you do the wrong thing ample number of times, your conscious will normalize the wrong behavior.

What India needs is hope, hope that one person's right behavior can make a difference, hope that things can change, hope that people will change. Right deeds can also have a domino effect and we can all live with unburdened consciousness. But the foremost thing is that, for majority, earning a decent livelihood should not be such a herculean task. This will lead to people having more time and willingness to understand their surroundings and to be involved in nation building.

I was particularly impressed with one such movement which is based in Banglore City. "The Ugly Indian". They have a website and a facebook page.

Cheers!

© 2012 Bhramastra. All Rights Reserved.

Did Kasab deserve a fair trial?

2008 Mumbai attacks were one of the major terrorist attacks on Indian soil that left over 200 people dead and over 300 people injured. Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab is a Pakistani terrorist who was involved in these attacks. He was the only terrorist among 10 attackers who was captured alive by Indian law enforcement agencies during the attacks. Ajmal Kasab was tried under the Indian judicial system and was found guilty of conspiracy, murder and of waging a war against India. He was sentenced to death penalty by special court on May 6th, 2010. This was appealed by Kasab in the Mumbai High Court which upheld the death sentence on February 21st, 2011. This was again appealed by Kasab in Supreme Court of India which again upheld the death sentence on August 29th, 2012.

The trial itself had a lot of twists to it. Lawyers refused to provide defense counsel to Kasab citing ethical reasons and (unofficially) also to avoid being targeted by nationalistic groups. Later the courts assigned several defense counsels, some refused, some were attacked, their homes vandalized and were even given death threats if they provided counsel to Kasab. In December 2008, the chief justice of India K. G. Balakrishnan said that for the trial to be fair, Kasab needs to have adequate legal representation. Finally Mr. Abbas Kazmi was appointed as Kasab's defense counsel and the trial proceeded in April 2009. The trial has garnered a lot of negative internet as well as media attention in India. It has been ridiculed with inaccurate and lofty figures of how much Indian taxpayer's money has been spent on keeping him alive and at the inefficiency of Indian Judicial System. I have read several news reports which blamed government of defending Kasab. One headline on one of the most respected and world's highest circulating English daily newspaper "The Times of India" said that the hanging of Kasab will only cost 50 rupees (< US$1) while Indian Government spent millions of rupees to keep him alive. In my opinion these reactions come from people who do not understand our democracy. First of all the Judiciary is an independent branch of India and the Executive branch has no control over it. So, people who suggest that Indian Government has any role in this is factually incorrect. The current administration by UPA (United Progressive Alliance) has rightfully become a punching bag for the inefficiency and corruption but I believe that this criticism of UPA is not justified.

Now coming to those people who feel that Kasab should have been hanged without trial. Although I respect people with these views for their love of nation and wanting to see a terrorist suffer from some consequences, but I feel that these views undermine our democracy and the civil society we live in. If we hang a terrorist without trial, then what differentiates our society from an extremist, totalitarian and fanatic society? What differentiates us from the terrorists? Again some would say, he shot and killed people on national television and the whole world saw it, what more evidence do you need? But who has the right to make decisions in such cases about what punishment is adequate? The only way to go about is going through the time tested impartial justice system. Given the time period from April 2009 (when the defense counsel was established) to August of 2012, 40 months is all it took for a person to go through not just one tier of judicial system but three tiers of judicial system which given any international standards is pretty good!

I believe this trial is not just a trial of a terrorist who caused mayhem on Indian soil but a statement to the rest of the world about the maturity and fair-mindedness of not only the Indian Judicial system but also the citizens of India as a whole. It is also a statement by the civilized world to the uncivilized world about how we handle criminals. It states that we don't decapitate or stone the criminals to death. We will provide you fair legal representation and right to defend yourself and will try you under our laws and if you are found guilty, we will give you adequate consequences. If we ridicule the very thing which differentiates us from them, then are we not ridiculing everything we stand for? So in the end it is not the question, whether Kasab deserved this trial or not, it is as a civil society we deserved it!

© 2012 Bhramastra. All Rights Reserved.

While Arab Spring is all about fighting the dictators, is India fighting for one?

Arab spring is a phenomenon of protests and revolutionary waves across several countries in the Arab world which started in December 2010. These protests were against the dictatorial regimes and to date the rulers have been forced out of power in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain and Syria; major protests have broken out in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco and Sudan; and minor protests have occurred in Lebanon, Mauritania, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti and Western Sahara.

There has been a parallel movement in India, the Anti-Corruption movement spearheaded by Mr. Anna Hazare. There are a lot of similarities between these two movements. Most notably the involvement of masses especially the youth, the use of social networking to mobilize the masses, the frustration & anger of the public at large towards their respective governing bodies. But, there is one fundamental difference between these two movements. While Arab Spring is the fight against the oppressive dictatorial regimes, the anti-corruption movement of India is against the inefficient and corrupt, but democratically elected government.

The ubiquitous corruption in almost every government sector in India is a matter of great concern. Various branches of the government: Judiciary, Executive, Civil Services have utterly failed the nation and its countrymen in terms of controlling the corruption. This has led to a simmering anger and frustration in the public. This anger and frustration demands radical and fast solutions.

Anna Hazare is a Gandhian (with beliefs of Gandhi) who is respected by public and administration alike for his contributions to the nation. He is a non-corrupt leader of the masses, who is regarded as an ideological figure by many. He seems like the leader India has been needing for over six decades. There is only one problem: history. History tells us that for someone to make radical changes as the anger & frustrations of this magnitude demand, one needs to have absolute power. And when you have the absolute power all of your energy goes into maintaining the power and not using it for the good intentions you had. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini all started in a similar fashion. But when they achieved the power they were seeking to make the changes they wanted, they found themselves using all their power just to maintain it. All men are not corrupt but all men are corruptible and power corrupts the most.

When people live in Democracy, they start taking the freedoms the democracy provides for granted. As evidenced by history, challenging the democratically elected government by one man who millions idealize to be the fixer of all their problems has a great potential to be a threat on those freedoms. This becomes an even bigger threat in a country where a human being can effortlessly attain super-human tags and can be worshiped as someone divine. India has a choice here, to make it a Anna Hazare movement or a real anti-corruption movement? Thomas Jefferson (3rd president of USA) said, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism", but we should dissent against the inefficient governance and not the existence of government at the first place. Indian public should meet with their representatives and let them know that they will not tolerate corruption anymore, so that in the next elections, corruption is at the centerpiece. Then India should vote for their representatives based on their record on corruption and give a clear message to our house of democracy that the whole of India rejects corruption. This will be democracy in action at its best, the real grass root democracy and not a one man show which can lead to, yes Dictatorship!

Disclaimer: My views are my own and I am not a representative of any organization, corporate house or a political party. I would like my followers (if I have any) to be civil in their comments. I would not be very strict with the civility but if it gets to the level that would be unwelcome for the readers in general, I would delete/modify that comment. I understand that this blog is not immune to derision and I welcome alternate views. I would like the dialogue in the comments to be constructive. Please try and make it not an argument but a discussion. If anyone is deeply offended by my views, the Internet world is full of blogs with like minded views. Kindly browse for those.

The contents of this blog are my own original work and any act of plagiarism will be subject to the copyright laws of the area of jurisdiction.

&copy 2012 Bhramastra. All Rights Reserved.

The egg took a while to hatch...

I created this page more than a year ago and left an introductory message with lofty plans of publishing one post a week at least. Well what can I say, I am a procrastinator!

I received an email few days ago from AdSense (a Google program which allows advertisements on their webpages) stating that my application has been denied and the reason cited was "lack of content". That left me confused as I never applied for it and then I did some investigation and found that I had checked a box that I would allow AdSense on my webpage. Long story short, I visited this webpage after almost an year and was embarrassingly relieved that I had no followers. Embarrassed at the unfulfilled promises made on public platform and relieved that I had no visitors who would visit my blog expecting something. 

Anyways, I am back with a resolve (may be that is a big word), to not embarrass myself this time on a public platform. Now updates about myself, not much has changed in the last one year, last year I was a resident and now I am a practicing Psychiatrist and I have lost few million brain cells!

I will post in few days about my take on the anti-corruption dissent in India.

Cheers!

© 2012 Bhramastra. All Rights Reserved.

On your marks...Get...Set...Go......

I am Moneesh Mittal aged 30 yrs who is originally from a small town in Punjab, Faridkot. I am currently based in Wichita, KS, USA where I am doing my residency in Psychiatry. I am happily married and I have a one year old daughter Adiva who really is “A Diva”.

I am starting this blog to essentially have a platform to share views and have a healthy discussion. My topics of discussion would be generally related to India and US.

I am not an expert on any of the fields I'll be writing on and it will not be on any specific area. I do have varied interests and I feel that each one of us who are conscientious individuals do not constrain our thoughts in the boundaries of our area of expertise. But we also care about things around us, things that matter to us and things that evoke strong emotions (which can be multi polar in direction).

One thing which I would like my blog to have is not just my opinions, views and thoughts but I would like to back that up with facts and statistics from credible sources. (I consider Wikipedia a credible source….this too is a topic of great debate though, but I would like to quote only widely & credibly referenced pages on Wikipedia).

The reason I am doing this?

This is an important question and I had to give a good thought to it as I wanted to be honest. When I was in India and striving hard to come to US to have a career and earn my living, I had a lot of negative emotions towards India which were essentially a product of my desperation for a good career. Now that I have a fairly decent career, I miss my country and this is one of the ways I choose to connect with my country and countrymen.

I have been thinking about starting this blog for the last 3 years now and my recent trip to India just gave a much required shot in the arm for me to do this. I plan on returning to India after having some financial security. And for this reason I have been keeping track of things happening in India. When you are keeping track of things based on TRP driven journalists and media, I believe you at times loose the track of reality. One motive of this blog is also to get some feel of the ground reality in India.

About US, the current economic meltdown is no secret and I will try to look into the core reasons behind this meltdown and will also try and draw comparisons with current Indian economy.

I am not a jingo or a cynic. I like to think of myself as a realist but at times emotionally driven (so at times you can expect an intense piece from me - they usually make a good read ;-)).

I would post at least once a week but would check for comments almost everyday and try to reply to each one of them (I am assuming that I would have more than one follower).

© 2011-2012 Bhramastra. All Rights Reserved.