I mean good

Peeking at me from those last few pages of the book was my own name. In his expedition to prove quality as the Tao and universe as being inherently moral, Robert Pirsig in his Lila was looking for a similar line of thought in the human history to as far back as he could go. While looking at the meaning of the word 'good' in the thesaurus the Victorian virtue lead him to the Greek arete and he had stopped there in his first book. As he was investigating the true root of the word in this second book, I found myself impatiently shouting out 'It is Rta, it is Rta'. Rta- the vedic term for the moral order of the universe, or in other words whatever is true, or reality in general. Thats where my name comes from - 'RITESH'(Rta - Eesh). He did eventually find it.

Metaphysics of Vedanta

I have almost reached the end of the book 'Vedanta Treatise'. The book has become fascinating in the last section because it has started talking about the metaphysical aspects of the philosophy. I will just write my interpretation of the philosophy, parts read in the last week.
God and RealityThe Brahman (or God, or Supreme Entity or the Self) is incomprehensible. The senses operate within the domain of the Brahman. Brahman is the subject of perception. It can not be made the object of perception. Space, time and causation are characteristics of the Brahman. They too operate within the domain of Brahman. To make it clearer, these three are just manifestations of Brahman and applying them to the Brahman would mean making Brahman the subject. This would mean exiting the domain of Brahman. But these three manifestations will cease to exist outside the Brahman which is a paradox. I always had doubts about the reality we perceive and this has just given a structure to those doubts.
ReincarnationThis section started by talking about death. It said that the Brahman is all-pervading and the body does not disappear after death. The brain is still there. So what disappears is the Mind-Intellect. Or this conditioned consciousness. It goes on to say that if nothing can be destroyed (as per our science) this conditioned consciousness returns as another birth. If it is a self realised person where this conditioned consciousness( or vasanas) do not exist, there is no rebirth and only complete oneness with brahman. It does say that it is just a theory and can not be proved. It can neither be logically deduced without anyone being able to dispute it. And hence it is a theory, an opinion which can become a belief if you accept it.
I have always felt metaphysics is more about what seems more plausible to a person. Vedanta has a lot of concepts which are just amazing, but few which would rather be shelved at the moment. Reincarnation is one such concept. My experience says that life is definitely much beyond the chemical reactions. But accepting the God as being Reality, we put everything inside the boundry of the God (if there is such a boundry). This includes knowlege and perception. Our world is a sum total of object-qualities and subject-thoughts and the underlying reality - the Brahman. Death and reincarnation lie beyond our world and hence we make these half baked theories. But living is within our world boundaries and there are various techniques to live well. We should atleast try to live a good life and leave the metaphysics for later, if such a time ever comes.

Purpose of Life, Vedanta and Ayn Rand

Been a long time since my first post. But you gotta have something to write, right? So here we go. This one originates from some stuff I read about Ayn Rand and her philosophy on Wednesday. And it got me all excited because, a lot of these concepts were quite similar to what I have been thinking, but her inference from them was different from mine. The statement that struck me was that 'A man's own happiness is the only moral purpose of his life'. She then goes on to describe the concept of 'happiness barometer' and how happiness is an evolved human trait, which is at a higher level as compared to the biological instincts of other animals, obviously because of much more varied awareness. She said that the purpose of a man is to sustain his own life and happiness is an indicator of that fulfillment of purpose at any point in time.
This exactly matches with what I have been thinking and writing for the last few months, and so to speak I have never read Any Rand (which I intend to do soon). I agree with her till here but then take a few steps further and dig a bit deeper. Yes, happiness is the dashboard of the car of life, but making happiness the only indicator is like looking at the dashboard and assuming that the car is fine. Ofcourse she proposes the use of reason and intellect, and that is what I am going to do now.
I agree that human happiness is definitely an evolved trait which indicates the level of success in fulfillment of one's life's purpose. But rather that make happiness the purpose, I propose to make sustenance the purpose. Sustenance of not just my life but humanity and all life. Because if you look closely, this struggle for individual sustenance has let to the extinction of weak characteristics and the development of the more useful of human characteristics through the process of natural selection. A rational evaluation of this characteristic of individual sustenance will show that the underlying purpose is the sustenance of life.
So that would mean that though we make happiness an indicator of our purpose, we take the identification of ourselves to include the whole universe. We are the universe and not separate from it. This would include concepts such as environmental protection and social service within the domain of selfishness. This is the selfishness we should strive to achieve. Where an understanding is achieved that the self is all inclusive not just this piece of flesh, or family, or city, or state, or nation, or this world. The self is everything. Vedanta meets Any Rand? Well, it does. To be sure I have to read more of her work.

My First Post

Until recently, I never had anything to write, atleast that is what I thought. There were thoughts, but I didn't see any beauty in them. These days I do, and hence this blog. I guess they have grown up with me. I believe my writing will be more analytical rather than creative. Will someone ever read it? It does not matter. I think, they are worth putting up on the blog. Thus ends my first ever post on my first ever blog.