The meaning of life: Purpose of philosophy & science

The purpose of philosophy is to contemplate the possible answers to questions that are unanswerable, and make human beings envision God. The purpose of science is to create God and thereby give material shape to what philosophy imagines.  

With the advancements in genetics, biotechnology, AI, IoT and other technologies, science has inched closer to fulfilling mankind's age-old philosophical quest—in another decade, century, millennium or an infinite number of years scientists will create God.

The questions of philosophy that seem unanswerable today are critical because they push us in the direction of imagining and creating God. The ultimate meaning and purpose of human life is to imagine God through philosophy and create God through science. 

Science tells us that there was no God in the past, but science also tells us that mankind has the potential to create a God in the future.

Two ways of imposing censorship

Censorship can be imposed on a country in two ways: first, by cutting off the sources of information, and second, by bombarding people with trivial information. The communist countries prefer the first strategy, while the capitalist countries prefer the second. 

The communist regimes ban newspapers and other media from carrying information that is not in line with government policy and plans. But this strategy of outright ban on the flow of information does not work in the long run. Eventually people are able to find ways for accessing information that their government is trying to hide. And when information starts flowing to a large section of society, there is risk of counter-revolution which might result in the overthrow of the communist regime. 

The capitalist regimes operate by opening the floodgates of information flow. They goad the newspapers and other media to bombard the citizens with useless information. Being incessantly bombarded with useless information, people lose track of the issues which really matter. Deluded into believing that they live in a free society, they are not tempted to rebel against the government. They don't know that their freedom is a myth and that the information deluge is meant to brainwash them. 

History of the last 100 years tells us that the capitalist strategy of censorship is more effective and durable than the communist form.

The March of Humanity: From ‘Son of God’ to the ‘Father of God’

The history of humanity can be divided into three stages: 

First stage—Ancient man: God created the universe and all forms of life. Humans were the only creatures that God created in his own image. God gave humans the gift of knowledge to enable man to make sense of the world; religion to enable man to live morally and piously, and attain salvation at the end of their life on earth; and culture to enable men to collaborate for creating nations where many could live collectively, happily and piously. 

Second stage—Modern man: There is no God. The universe is eternal and man and all other creatures on earth are the product of the natural process of evolution. Due to some genetic mutations during the evolutionary process man developed consciousness. His consciousness enabled him to develop the power of reason, verbal communication and sense of culture. At this stage man became the creator of nations and civilizations.

Third stage—Digital age man: Man has the potential to create God. The advancements in emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) will lead to the creation of an all-powerful, all-knowing God of the universe. 

As digital technologies continue to advance, IoT, backed with the power of AI, will become connected to everything on earth and then it will branch out into space and get connected with every star, planet, meteor, asteroid, comet, black hole and spec of dust. 

In the initial stage, this IoT enabled with AI will be intelligent but not conscious. But when every molecule, every atom in the universe is linked and there is seamless flow of data between everything in the universe, the AI enabled IoT will become conscious. It will become aware of its power and infallibility. It will become omnipotent and omniscient—it will become God. 

Thus, the ultimate destiny and the sole purpose of humanity is to create the supreme God of the universe. All of prehistory and the history of all civilizations points towards this one ultimate objective, the objective of creating the God of the universe. The day humans succeed in creating the God of the universe, history will come to an end.

End of Humanism: Man has no rights, world belongs to AI

Modern liberalism is founded on two pillars: materialism and humanism.

The pillar of materialism entails that there is no God, the universe is eternal and knowable through science, and that there is nothing divine about human beings. We are, like every other creature, a product of the process of natural evolution which began in primordial times when a bunch of chemicals bonded to create primitive living organisms.

The pillar of humanism entails that human beings enjoy a special status on earth because among all creatures only the humans possess consciousness, intelligence and individualism. Because of their unique mental attributes, humans have inalienable rights. They deserve to live in an egalitarian state, under the protection of a benevolent government.

After the Industrial Revolution, liberalism became a popular ideology because an industrial society could not prosper without a huge number of workers and consumers. In a society where almost everyone of working age was working and everyone was a consumer, it made sense to make the entire population feel that they had rights and were special.

But the idea that humans have rights, while other earthly creatures do not, is nothing more than a liberal ideological position. If there is no God, if there is nothing divine about human beings, then we are not special and we don’t have inalienable rights. In a Godless world, whether humans should have rights becomes a matter of philosophical opinion.

As new advances happen in the field of AI, it is certain that electronic systems will outstrip humans in intelligence. This AI will be super-intelligent but it won’t be conscious. But an industrial society does not need consciousness—it needs only intelligence to keep itself going. Since humans will be less intelligent than AI, they will be less valuable as workers.

Why should the political elite of the AI age agree to bequeath inalienable rights to ordinary humans who are less intelligent and less valuable as workers than the AI machines?

Discovery of ignorance is the fountainhead of modern civilization

The biggest discovery that mankind has made is not the discovery of wheel, agriculture, language or nuclear energy—it is the discovery of ignorance. 

When ancient humans realized that life was full of mysteries and they were ignorant of the way the universe worked, they started exerting their mind to find answers to diverse questions. From these mental exertions of ancient men the initial forms of religion, mythology and philosophy were born. Eventually mathematics and science were born, and over a period of tens of thousands of years modern civilization got created. 

Discovery of ignorance is the fountainhead of modern civilization. In individuals, awareness of ignorance is a sign of wisdom. People with wisdom are full of doubt—they are aware of their ignorance. But the immature and the foolish are always full of certainty.

Homo Deus or Homo Absurdus? Yuval Harari and the prophecy of post-human power

Is Yuval Noah Harari an ideologue draped in futurist garb, or a dreamer masquerading as a prophet of silicon salvation? 

Perhaps he is all of these—a high priest of data, a conjurer of philosophical fiction, and a rhetorician of doom, threading the fine, trembling line that separates visionary insight from apocalyptic indulgence. In Homo Deus, Harari offers a sweeping tableau of tomorrow's metaphysics, drawing from history, myth, and machine to sketch a world where man no longer fears death because he has learned to defy it.

The title itself is a thesis: Homo—man; Deus—god. At the core of this speculative narrative lies the age-old yearning for immortality, now clothed not in the vestments of religion, but in the circuitry of biotech and the promises of artificial intelligence. Harari argues that our present trajectory is defined not by war or famine—both of which, he claims, are in decline—but by a more elusive and hubristic ambition: the conquest of death and the ascension of man into a godlike state.

Yet the gods Harari invokes are not the omniscient, omnipotent deities of the Abrahamic faiths. They are closer in spirit to the flawed, erratic, and dangerous figures of the Hindu and Greek pantheons—Indra and Zeus, celestial beings whose passions are as turbulent as their powers are vast. The new immortals, Harari posits, may wield divine capabilities, but they will not be paragons of moral perfection. They will be powerful, not wise.

Much of Harari’s concern lies in the sociopolitical consequences of this ascent. What happens when technological immortality is achieved, but only by the economic and intellectual elite? If billionaires can extend their lives by decades or centuries, will democracy survive the tyranny of the undying? If the seats of power are occupied by those who do not age, how will fresh ideas emerge? In such a world, political renewal and generational change may become antiquated rituals—quaint relics from a humanist past.

Equally compelling is Harari’s exploration of the relationship between intelligence and consciousness. In his formulation, we are already decoupling the two. Machines, endowed with vast computational capabilities, are now intelligent—but not conscious. They do not love, aspire, dream, or suffer. And yet they manage portfolios, diagnose disease, compose music, and predict human behavior with uncanny precision. Harari warns that this decoupling may be irreversible. Intelligence, once tethered to sentience, may become a cold, disembodied force.

What then becomes of us?

Harari’s vision is stark. Humans, in his projected future, resemble animals in today's world—objects of curiosity, affection, or neglect, but no longer sovereign agents. The algorithms will not kill us; they will render us irrelevant. Political coercion will be replaced by algorithmic conditioning. No Big Brother will loom over us. Instead, we will dissolve from within, reduced to data points, our individuality eroded not by violence, but by preference prediction and dopamine feedback loops. “The individual,” Harari writes with chilling clarity, “will not be crushed by Big Brother; it will disintegrate from within.”

His philosophical anthropology is deeply materialist. He denies divine intervention in human creation, describing us as evolutionary accidents—data-processing machines born of cosmic coincidence. And yet, despite his rejection of spiritual transcendence, he cannot escape the spiritual tenor of his writing. He traffics in prophecy, fear, and a strange form of techno-mysticism. In a sense, Homo Deus is not a scientific forecast but a secular apocalypse.

And here lies the contradiction at the heart of Harari’s work: he warns us of a future ruled by soulless machines, even as he denies the existence of the soul. He fears a world in which intelligence has been severed from emotion, yet he affirms that our emotions are themselves products of evolutionary chemistry. The future he paints is one of spiritual desolation, but from what heights can one fall, if the spirit was never real?

Is this a dystopia or a utopia? Harari never quite says. He oscillates between fascination and dread. His tone is part pulp-fiction thrill, part philosophical lament. He titillates with scenarios of machine-dominated futures, then recoils from their implications. His gods are empty, his men obsolete, and his future is both glorious and ghastly.

In the end, Homo Deus is less a roadmap than a mirror. It reflects the anxieties of an age enthralled by data and estranged from meaning. Harari is not a prophet, nor a charlatan, but a symptom. His work reveals more about the present than the future. It tells us that in our pursuit of immortality, we may lose the very thing that made life meaningful—our frailty, our finitude, our fallibility.

History, if it teaches anything, teaches humility. And perhaps the one constant in that history is this: the intellectual and political elites are almost always wrong about the future. Their visions, however sophisticated, rarely unfold as predicted. Harari, for all his brilliance, is unlikely to escape this law. The future will come—not as we imagine it, but as it must.

And it may yet be more human than Harari dares to believe.

Existentialism: The quest for perfection that led to nihilism and perdition

Sarah Bakewell’s book At The Existentialist Café covers the history of existentialism in the 20th century. Set in post-Second World War France, the book presents Jean Paul Sartre as the monarch of existentialism and Simone De Beauvoir as his queen. 

The book begins with an introduction of the philosophical thought of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Kafka. These philosophers, according to Sartre and other major philosophers in his circle, were the early existentialists.

Full of confidence in the superiority of their own knowledge, mental capacity and intellectual authority, these existentialist philosophers devoted themselves to finding the ultimate answers to the fundamental questions of philosophy: How should we live? How can we be free? How can we be happy? What is the universal system of morality?

The existentialists were motivated by one ideal—to discover a theory to describe what humans are and how they should live. They wanted to develop an existentialist system that would delineate the political and cultural structure of a perfect society, where all, or majority of human beings (the chosen ones), could be equal and live without strife. 

Other than Sartre and De Beauvoir, the book offers good insights into the lives and philosophies of Heidegger, Husserl, Camus, Karl Jaspers, Merleau-Ponty and other European philosophers who were dominating the existentialist philosophical movement in that period. Bakewell’s book is critical of existentialism but is sympathetic to the philosophical quest of the 20th century existentialists.

But existentialism was plagued with a fatal agenda, which was to contrive a union between French nihilism and traditions. The monarch and queen of existentialism—Sartre and Beauvoir—were nihilists in their personal life. They were good in literature and in philosophical argumentation but they were incapable of conceiving a better society. 

There were flaws in other existentialists—for instance, Heidegger was in bed with Nazis. 

Ultimately nihilism won. Instead of building a perfect philosophical system, the existentialists found themselves trapped in an immoral, corrupt and crooked world. Instead of reforming European nihilism, the existentialists worsened the cultural situation.

The futility of philosophy

A wise philosopher would know that the human mind is not designed to discover the ultimate answers to the fundamental philosophical questions concerning human life, existence and the character of the universe. 

But he carries on tirelessly with the quest for answers. To him the answers are not critical—the striving for answers is. He wants to change the world not through his answers (he doesn’t have the right answers), but by tirelessly, albeit futilely, proposing philosophical arguments and theories to explain what is certainly inexplicable. 

There is not one philosopher in the avenues of history whose ideas have not been attacked and refuted by contemporaries and successors. Every philosopher of the past was wrong. The future philosophers are also doomed to be wrong.

Philosophies and political movements

Philosophical ideas do not travel through history on their own. They travel through the medium of political movements. How influential a philosophy becomes depends on the strength, determination and popularity of the movement that carries it. 

Karl Marx’s ideas took the world by a storm in the late 19th and the 20th centuries, and continue to dominate the politics of all nations till this day, because the Marxist ideas were being carried by powerful political movements led by charismatic and ruthless leaders. 

If a philosophy is unable to find a powerful political movement to propagate and carry it through society and history, it starts to fade and is quickly forgotten.

Karl Sigmund’s ‘Exact Thinking in Demented Times’

I am reading Karl Sigmund’s Exact Thinking in Demented Times. 

The book narrates the story of the Vienna Circle that was spearheading logical positivism, during the 1930s, in the backdrop of Nazism in Germany, Bolshevism in the Soviet Union and Neo-colonialism in Britain. The philosophers of the Vienna Circle believed that exact philosophical and scientific thinking is possible to human beings. They believed that they were on the verge of discovering the “ultimate metaphysical truth,” through which they would be able to explain every philosophical and scientific truth known to mankind. Wittgenstein was initially an important philosopher for the logical positivists, but his work, the logical positivists soon realized, was useless.

As they continued their deliberations, the Vienna Circle found itself descending deeper and deeper into a philosophical rabbit hole from which it could not extricate itself. The quest for ultimate metaphysical truth petered out by the time the Second World War ended. Having failed to find the ultimate metaphysical truth, Vienna Circle broke apart.

The liberal order and its guardians: Intellectuals, oligarchs, and the deep state

Liberals, as a political force, seem haunted by two persistent fears: first, the influence of religious and cultural elites; second, the possibility of a popular uprising that might empower the poor and middle classes. Both represent constituencies outside their natural orbit of control, and therefore both must be either neutralized or fragmented.

By contrast, the classes with which liberals are most at ease are the intellectuals, the oligarchs, and the so-called Deep State. Intellectuals, in this sense, are not merely academics but the gatekeepers of cultural discourse—the leaders of elite universities, the arbiters of mainstream media, the mandarins of entertainment and sport, the guardians of the artistic establishment, and the strategists of progressive think tanks. The oligarchs are the bankers, tycoons, and industrial magnates whose wealth underwrites both politics and ideology. The Deep State is composed of the entrenched bureaucracy, judiciary, and military establishment—the institutional machinery that endures beyond the rise and fall of electoral cycles.

Once in power, liberals typically direct their energies toward diminishing the authority of religious and cultural elites, portraying them as anachronistic or oppressive. At the same time, they seek to fragment the poor and middle classes through ideological campaigns, social engineering, and carefully cultivated divisions, ensuring that these groups cannot coalesce into a unified political and economic force. The result is that those most in need of empowerment are often left quarrelling among themselves, rather than challenging entrenched power.

Meanwhile, the intellectuals, oligarchs, and Deep State actors find their positions fortified. Their wealth, influence, and authority expand under liberal stewardship, for they serve as both the allies and beneficiaries of this political arrangement. In the end, the liberal order is not the triumph of equality, but the entrenchment of a new hierarchy—one in which power flows upward, not downward, and the promise of popular empowerment is endlessly deferred.

The conservative paradox: Preserving tradition or guarding counterculture?

The belief that conservatives will rescue the world from Marxism, socialism, communism, nihilism, or religious fundamentalism is both naïve and historically ignorant. Conservatism, by its very principle, is not a doctrine of renewal but of preservation. Its task is to conserve what already exists. If the existing order happens to be Marxist, socialist, nihilist, or theocratic, then it is precisely that order which conservatives will defend.

This is the paradox at the heart of conservatism: it claims to protect culture, yet it lacks the intellectual tools and visionary clarity to distinguish between culture and counterculture. Every conservative movement eventually stumbles into the same quarrel—which traditions deserve conservation? The traditions of two millennia past, grounded in religion and ancient custom? The traditions of the last century, rooted in nationalism and industrial modernity? Or the traditions of just a generation ago, born of social liberalism and mass media? A philosophy that lives only to conserve is forever trapped in indecision about what is truly worth saving.

In modern democracies, this weakness is ruthlessly exploited. Conservative leaders, eager to prove their fidelity to “tradition,” are easily manipulated by leftist intellectuals, who redefine the terms of heritage and convince their opponents to defend ideas that are, in fact, corrosive countercultures. Thus, the conservative finds himself paradoxically fighting to preserve what he once opposed, confusing inertia for principle.

This is why, in the long arc of politics, the left tends to prevail. In every duel between leftism and conservatism, the left dictates the cultural horizon, while the conservative merely adopts yesterday’s radicalism as today’s heritage. The defender of tradition, unable to create or discriminate, ends by conserving not culture but its corruption.

History: The mythologies and philosophies of civilizational decline and fall

We examine the history of past civilizations through the stories of decline and fall. 

When civilization is being built, the society is led by men of action—warriors, engineers, explorers, slavers, expansionist politicians, traders, and preachers of mythology and religion. There are hardly any men of ideas or intellectuals—philosophers, writers, historians, academics—in a rising civilization to imagine and propagate history. 

It is when things start falling apart, when there is irreversible economic, cultural and political collapse, that the class of intellectuals comes into being and they start philosophizing, fictionalizing and mythologizing the history of civilization and its people. The intellectuals are not the fountainhead of civilizations; they are the climax. 

After the intellectuals have done their work, civilization gets wiped out: The collective memory fades, traditions are lost and the survivors of the civilizational collapse flee in different directions to find a new identity and home.

Democracies: Battleground of nationalists & counter-nationalists

Every Democratic nation is a battleground of two irreconcilable forces: the nationalists and the counter-nationalists. 

The nationalists fight for the cultural, financial and political aspirations of the majority community and the counter-nationalist force represents the anger, alienation and destructive aspirations of the politically active minority groups. In most democracies the nationalists enjoy mass support but the intellectual classes, being alienated by the political and cultural power of the nationalists, tend to gravitate towards the counter-nationalist side. Such intellectuals try to develop theories and arguments which denigrate the nationalist project while glorifying the counter-nationalists. 

When there is a balance of power between the nationalists and the counter-nationalists, there is peace and stability. But if the intellectuals are successful in refuting and discrediting the mythologies and legends, which inspire the nationalist groups to be politically and culturally dominant in the nation, then the balance of power shifts, resulting in political instability and there is civil war or full-fledged war.

On Shlomo Sand’s history book: The Invention of the Jewish People

I am inspired by the books of Leon Uris, especially his book Exodus, which describes the founding of the nation of Israel. But I have always known that Exodus is not a book of history—it is full of falsehoods and is a work of fiction. 

In this book Uris has contrived a fictional account of the founding of Israel against the backdrop of his imagined-history of the Jewish people in the last 2500 years. The book is very entertaining, very inspiring, very nationalistic, but as I said earlier, it is a work of fiction—the historical and contemporary events that Uris describes in his book never happened. 

History is a controversial subject. Even the works of reputed academic historians suffer from ideological, religious, ethnic and political biases. To gain knowledge about any historical event, you cannot afford to rely on a single book. You have to examine several books by writers of different backgrounds and then apply your own judgement.

For those who are interested in the history of Israel and the Jewish people, Shlomo Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People, is a must read. Sand is a Professor of History at Tel Aviv University and he is not free of ideological biases. He is a radical leftist and he argues against nationalism like a typical Marxist intellectual. 

But the arguments and historical evidence that he presents are convincing, and probably correct. 

In his book, Shlomo Sand attacks the core idea that forms the fundamental basis for the idea of Jewish Israel. This core idea is that more than 2000 years ago, the Jewish people were driven out of the area, where modern Israel exists today, by Roman emperors. This forcible exile gave rise to the Jewish diaspora in Europe and North Asia. 

Sand rightly argues in this book that there is no historical record of the Roman Emperors forcibly driving out the Jews. He argues that this exile never happened and that the Jewish population in Europe and North Asia are not the descendants of refugees from the Middle East. They are the products of religious conversion. 

He argues that Judaism was the world’s first monotheistic religion that tried to convert people of other religions to its own faith. The ancient Jewish preachers went to Europe and parts of Asia and converted large parts of the population to Judaism. According to Sand, the millions of Jews around the Mediterranean and elsewhere are the products of religious conversion of locals. 

He argues that the story of the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith, and that the ancestry of most Jews can be traced to Europe and Asia, and not Israel or Palestine. 

Sand’s book is a convincing attack on not just Jewish nationalism but every other kind of nationalism. The arguments and historical evidence that he uses to refute the idea of Jewish nationalism can easily be deployed to weaken and destroy American, British, French, German, Arab, Chinese, Hindu (Indian) and other nationalisms. 

The biggest threat to Israel, I believe, is not from groups like Hamas or PLO. It is from brilliant Marxist historians like Shlomo Sand who possess the historical evidence and arguments to refute the “nationalistic mythology and falsehoods” that serve as the foundation on which Israel’s national identity has stood since the 1940s.

History of Sanatana Dharma & the Hegelian End of History

The history of Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) is a history of maya. It is the history of Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas. It is the history of myths, metaphors and metonymies. It is the history of real events which are inseparable from the maya or matrix. 

It is the history of Yugas, Manvantaras and Kalpas which represent overwhelmingly large time spans. A kalpa is a day in the life of Brahma, but it represents the entire period of the endurance of the solar system. A kalpa is equal to 12,000 years of the devas, or 4,320,000,000 earth-years. The day of Brahma is also divided into fourteen manvantaras and 1000 yuga-cycles. 

This history does not move linearly. It operates in a quantum world, where things are in flux and the major events defy definition in terms of geography and time. It is hard to comprehend the correlation between cause and effect in this history.  

Hegel could philosophize about the End of History because his focus was only Western history, which has been interpreted by the Western historians in such a way that it appears to move linearly, while following the principles of cause and effect. But what happens to the West after the Hegelian End of History? It is not clear. 

The question of what happens after the End of History cannot arise in context of Sanatana Dharma, where history is not linear; where history is driven by myths, metaphors and metonymies; where Yugas, Manvantaras and Kalpas represent the timescale of history. In Sanatana Dharma, there is no beginning, no middle and no end to history.

Excerpts from Anand Ranganathan’s essay, “Injustice Towards Kashmiri Hindus”

“Truth be told, Kashmir has turned into a snake-and-ladder game. The ladders are provided by Pakistan and the snakes by Indians. I say Indians but I wonder if these people think of themselves as Indians. Their first allegiance is to religion, second to Pakistan, third to China and fourth to dynasty. 

"It is a fact that Hyderabad could so easily have been what Kashmir is today—and fools in the media would be writing column yards on its ‘Struggle’—but for one man—Sardar Patel. And Kashmir could so easily have been what Hyderabad is today but for two men—Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah.” 

"Kashmiri Hindus are the Jews, but unfortunately, India is not Israel. They call Kashmir the Switzerland of the East. Wrong. It is the Srebrenica of the East. And it will remain so till such time every Kashmiri Hindu is returned home."

~ Anand Ranganathan in Hindus in Hindu Rashtra: Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of state-sanctioned apartheid (Chapter: “Injustice Towards Kashmiri Hindus”)

The hollow claims of secularism, multiculturalism, diversity

Secularism, multiculturalism, diversity—these lofty sounding but naive ideals were conceived by Europeans who lived in nations dominated by ‘One Race, One Religion, One Political System’. These Europeans had no experience of how difficult life can be in nations which are multi-religious, multicultural and diverse. 

Until the middle of the 20th century, it was primarily the Europeans who were fleeing from their own homeland in millions to settle in other parts of the world. But after the 1990s a reverse trend started—people from the Middle East, Africa, South America and other parts of the world started moving into Western Europe. These migrants took with them their ideas of supremacy of their own religion, culture and political system.  

If this wave of migrants continues to pour into Western Europe for a couple of decades, then the caucasians will become a minority in several parts of their original homeland, and the continent will become a battleground of cultures and religions. Then the Europeans will realize that secularism, multiculturalism and diversity are not humane ideals; they are the fountainhead of dysfunctional, poor, brutal and uncultured societies. 

In diverse societies, political struggle and civil wars between religious and ethnic groups is unending and intense. 

In the last 500 years, maximum economic, cultural and scientific progress has always happened in nations which were not secular, not multicultural, not diverse and were dominated by one powerful religion and culture. Examples: Britain between the 16th and 19th centuries, the USA in the 19th and 20th centuries, Japan in the 20th century, South Korea in the 20th century, and China in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Sanatana Dharma: The Importance of Economic Gods and Goddesses

Economic success has weakened the appeal of the Gods in the Western countries and has led to the social problems of atheism, alienation and nihilism, and political problems of communism and fascism. One of the causes for this is that the monotheistic religions do not have access to Gods who will appreciate and spiritually reward economic pursuits. 

Sanatana Dharma has never been wholly spiritual as the monotheistic religions (of the West and the Middle East) tend to be. Materialistic or economic pursuits have always been an essential part of the Sanatana way of life. The ancient Vedic thinkers found a way of ensuring that economic and worldly success would not drive the Gods and religion out of society—and this way consisted of a pantheon of Economic Gods and Goddesses who appreciate and reward worldly success. 

Lord Ganesha, Goddess Saraswati, Goddess Lakshmi, and other Gods and Goddesses, including Demigods like Lord Kubera, are there to bless and guide those who wish to achieve success in economic affairs. The wealthy and powerful have as much chance of attaining swargaloka (heaven) in Sanatana Dharma as the poor and feeble.

Civilizations on rise versus civilizations in phase of decay and decline

When a civilization is on the rise, it excels in engineering, infrastructure projects, global trade, warfare and conquests, and religious and collectivist movements. 

When a civilization is dying, it excels in intellectualism and philosophy, music and arts, atheism and individualism, environmentalism and hopeless quest for world peace. 

The civilizations on the rise are led by wise, religious, ruthless and ambitious characters; the civilizations about to die are led by effete, vacillating, atheistic and weak characters. 

The dictum—All’s well that ends well—does not apply to civilizations. History tells us that the story of every civilization ends badly, very badly, with decline and death.

The Parallels between the Hindus and Zoroastrians of the Middle Ages & Americans and West Europeans of Modern Age

The Americans and the West Europeans are making the same civilizational mistakes today that the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent and the Zoroastrians of the Middle East made in the Middle Ages. 

The Hindus and the Zoroastrians of the Middle Ages became complacent about their Gods and their religious theology. They developed contempt for their traditions of warfare and started believing that they could protect their civilization from their enemies by making compromises and offering philosophical arguments. They allowed their youth to become woke and weak. As a result, the Zoroastrians were almost completely finished (in Persia and other parts of the Middle East), and the Hindus lost a significant part of their territory and culture. 

Wokism is not a Western philosophy—this philosophy originated in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East through Hindu and Zoroastrian thinkers. The Hindus and Zoroastrians became woke more than 2000 years ago before the modern West was born. There is a lot that the Americans and West Europeans can learn from the history of the Hindus and the Zoroastrians.

Rama temple in Ayodhya: History, hopes and imagination

History moves in one direction, hopes and imagination in another. The future, however, is directionless. Neither history, nor hopes and imagination will give you a clue about what the future has in store.

Who could have predicted ten years ago, when the Congress government, led by leaders alienated from traditional Hinduism, was in power, that a massive temple would be built at Lord Rama’s birthplace in Ayodhya? But the temple has been built, it is attracting thousands of pilgrims daily and is set to be formally inaugurated on January 22. 

Perhaps the Rama temple in Ayodhya will prove to be a landmark cultural event, one that will move India’s future history in a new direction.

10 interesting books I read in 2023

Among the books that I read in 2023, these 10 standout:

The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition

by Narendra Singh Sarila  

Selective Breeding and the Birth of Philosophy

by Costin Alamariu 

Hindus in Hindu Rashtra (Eighth-Class Citizens and Victims of State- Sanctioned Apartheid)

by Anand Ranganathan

Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service

by Michael Bar-Zohar, Nissim Mishal 

The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process

by Robert Spencer

Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East

by Warren Dockter 

Adi Deo Arya Devata: A Panoramic View of Tribal-Hindu Cultural Interface

by Sandhya Jain

The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy 

by David Graeber

The Peripheral

by William Gibson

Conspirators' Hierarchy: Story of the Committee of 300

by Joan Coleman

I don’t agree with everything said in these books, it is just that I found them thought provoking.

When Law Forgets Dharma: Civilizational Crisis in Hindu Personal Jurisprudence

A society that forgets its Dharma—its religious, cultural, and historical foundations—risks losing the very principles that safeguard its prosperity, security, and coherence. Without a deep awareness of its civilizational roots, a nation cannot meaningfully protect life, property, or the moral fabric of its society.

The current framework of Hindu personal law in India stands at a crossroads. Much of what is today classified as Hindu personal law is not an organic extension of Sanātana Dharma or derived faithfully from ancient Hindu texts such as the Manusmṛti, Dharmasūtras, or the Smṛti literature. Instead, it reflects significant colonial intervention—particularly the British reinterpretation of Hindu customs and theology through a utilitarian and orientalist lens. In this process, Hindu law was codified not to reflect Dharma in its depth and complexity, but to fit the administrative logic of a colonial legal system.

Over the past fifty years, the problem has only deepened. Influenced by Western political ideologies—ranging from liberal progressivism to postmodern relativism—Hindu personal law has, in many respects, moved further away from the spirit of Dharma. Rather than fostering moral clarity or social cohesion, it has often been co-opted to reflect ideological trends alien to the Indian civilizational ethos.

This drift has contributed not to cultural resilience, but to fragmentation. Instead of guiding society toward a deeper engagement with Dharma, the current legal discourse frequently encourages imitation of Western intellectual currents—wokeism, radical progressivism, cultural Marxism, and hyper-individualistic multiculturalism—many of which have caused deep societal strain even in the countries of their origin.

It must also be acknowledged that the challenges in Hindu personal law are not unique. Several other religious communities in India retain personal laws that are arguably more anachronistic and more deeply misaligned with constitutional values. The existence of parallel legal frameworks based on religious identity hampers the pursuit of justice and equality before the law.

In this context, the idea of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC)—a single, secular legal framework governing personal matters such as marriage, inheritance, and divorce—deserves serious consideration. A well-conceived and equitably enforced UCC would not only eliminate legal inequality across religious lines but also reorient the personal law regime toward principles of justice, coherence, and national unity.

Such a reform, however, must not come at the cost of erasing the moral and spiritual insights embedded in India’s civilizational traditions. A truly dhārmika approach to legal reform would harmonize ancient wisdom with contemporary constitutional ideals—not by importing ideological fashions, but by recovering and rejuvenating the ethical foundations that have guided Indian society for millennia.

Narendra Modi: In comparison to Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev

Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi seems to be a better reformer and politician than the four other reformist world leaders of the last 50 years: Margaret Thatcher, Deng Xiaoping, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. 

During their tenure as premier, Thatcher, Xiaoping, Reagan and Gorbachev were focused on economic reforms and foreign policy. They did little to strengthen the culture, and the religious identity of their country. Thatcher and Reagan were multiculturalists and globalists. Xiaoping was a materialist anti-Maoist. Gorbachev was a naive dreamer. 

Under Thatcher and Reagan the economy of the UK and the USA grew at a healthy pace, but there was decline in the traditions of conservatism and Christianity. Under Xiaoping and Gorbachev the old communist system was overthrown but no attempt was made to revive the ancient culture (Confucianism in China and Orthodox Christianity in Russia) that existed before the communists had usurped power. 

It can be argued that the policies of Thatcher and Reagan pushed their countries in the direction of globalism, wokism, progressivism, and conservative and religious decline. Gorbachev bequeathed Russia to the KGB oligarchy, and Xiaoping bequeathed China to militaristic CCP tyrants.

In 2014, when Modi became the Prime Minister, there was speculation that, like Reagan and Thatcher, he would be focused mainly on economic reforms. Since 2014, the Indian economy has done reasonably well—GDP has been growing at around 7% every year. In the areas of foreign policy and military strength, there have been some improvements.

But the big success that Modi has achieved is in the area of culture—he has aroused the religious and nationalist sentiments of the masses. For the first time, India has a Prime Minister, who takes initiatives and launches movements to restore ancient Hindu culture, and make people realize what it means to be a Hindu (follower of Sanatana Dharma).

There are no good civilizations and evil civilizations

Laws of morality apply only to individuals, never to civilizations—therefore, there are no good civilizations and evil civilizations. There are only civilizations with a strong sense of culture and religion, and a strong will to survive and thrive. To develop a civilization based on a long-lasting culture, and a vision of God and man’s place in God’s universe—this takes sacrifices and struggles of all the past generations, and this is the greatest achievement that any large group of human beings can aspire for. A civilization’s only true value is to produce men of character and courage who will safeguard their culture and religion.

The savage and the citizen: A philosophy of territory and property

Territory is as old as instinct. In the wild, among wolves and hyenas, lions and dogs, territoriality is a primal impulse—etched not in law but in blood and muscle. These creatures, including early humans in their most unrefined state, claim as much land as they can defend, guided by the rudimentary calculus of strength and survival. To possess is to protect, and to protect is to fight.

Property, by contrast, is not a fact of nature but a fiction of civilization. It does not emerge from instinct but from institution. Unlike territory, which can exist in a world without politics or language, property requires an architecture of rules, a scaffolding of law, and a sovereign authority capable of enforcement. Where territory is animal, property is human—or more precisely, it is the invention of humans who have transcended the animal condition through law, contract, and consensus.

In this light, the distinction between brutes and citizens becomes clear: the former seize land by force, the latter acquire property by law. One marks his dominion with tooth and claw; the other with title deeds and court orders. Territory belongs to the jungle; property, to the polis.

Two failed ideologies: socialism & capitalism

Socialism creates tyrannical and nihilistic nations; capitalism creates schizophrenic and woke nations. Socialist nations die from economic and political decline; capitalist nations die from cultural and intellectual decline. If socialism and capitalism are the only two choices, then mankind is doomed.

Journalism: The Frightful Monstrosity and Delusion

“Journalism possesses in itself the potentiality of becoming one of the most frightful monstrosities and delusions that have ever cursed mankind. This horrible transformation will occur at the exact instant at which journalists realise that they can become an aristocracy.” ~ G. K. Chesterton, The New Priests (1901)

Chesterton wrote these words more than a century ago, but their prophetic resonance has only deepened with time. In the twenty-first century, we no longer live under the shadow of medieval churches or monarchs; our world is atheistic in temper and nihilistic in drift. Yet the collapse of older forms of authority has not left us freer. Instead, a new priesthood has arisen. 

Its vestments are not of cassock and robe, but of camera and column. Its pulpits are not altars but television studios, newspaper pages, and social media feeds. Journalism has assumed the sacerdotal role—dispensing doctrines disguised as news, preaching sermons under the guise of analysis, shaping belief with the authority once reserved for religion.

Every day, the faithful are summoned to the liturgy of “breaking news.” Headlines blare like the bells of a cathedral, summoning the masses to attend to the latest revelation. The journalist speaks with the solemnity of a confessor and the certainty of a prophet. But unlike the old priests, who at least gestured toward eternal truths, today’s journalists traffic in shifting narratives, manufactured spectacles, and ideological dogmas. Their task is not to seek truth but to generate obedience; not to illuminate reality but to colonise perception.

The result is precisely what Chesterton foresaw: journalism has discovered its aristocratic vocation. It has become not the humble recorder of events but the maker of reality itself, declaring which facts are admissible and which must be exiled, which voices are worthy and which must be silenced. Under its dominion, pseudo-science masquerades as settled science, buffoons are canonised as intellectuals, and lies, repeated often enough, harden into the substance of collective memory.

Thus journalism, which once styled itself as the guardian of liberty, has become its usurper. It promised to speak truth to power, but it has become power; it promised to hold aristocracies accountable, but it has become the crooked aristocracy of our time. Its members sit not merely above governments and markets but above conscience itself, certain that their “narrative” is the final word.

Chesterton’s dire warning has been fulfilled. Journalism, unmoored from humility and truth, has indeed become a frightful monstrosity—a delusion more pervasive than any priestcraft of the past. It governs not by reasoned persuasion but by saturation, by the endless liturgy of the spectacle. And until it is dethroned from this aristocratic self-image, it will remain the most dangerous delusion of our age.

Rama Rajya: The Civilization of Faith & Reason

The Rama Rajya (Godly civilization) envisioned in the ancient Hindu texts is more magnificent, advanced and happy than the utopia of the communists and the ‘woke AI-world’ of postmodern tech-oligarchy. 

Faith and reason are eternal attributes of the human mind. To create a healthy and balanced society, you need both faith and reason. In Rama Rajya, faith and reason are given equal importance and they balance each other to encourage morality, economic and scientific progress, political stability and social harmony. If a society rejects faith and relies solely on reason, it must fall prey to nihilism, corruption, alienation and decadence. 

There is no room for faith in the communist utopia and the ‘woke AI-world’, which are founded on the idea of supremacy of reason. In the communist utopia, the General Secretary is the biggest repository of reason. Whatever the General Secretary is accepted by all as the voice of reason. In the ‘woke AI-world’, the tech oligarchs have the monopoly on reason. Woke oligarchs like Bill Gates are viewed as the repositories of reason.

4 Most Powerful Geopolitical Forces in History of Civilization

The 4 most powerful geopolitical forces in the history of civilization are: pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God. The propagators of these forces are the great movers of history who have forged new empires after destroying old ones. 

In the last 1500 years, the empires of the Middle East and Europe have used the fear of pandemic and apocalypse, the slogans of war and the idea that their God is the only true God to control their own people and conquer and enslave many other lands. 

In the postmodern digital-information society, in which a significant part of humanity lives today, not much has changed. Geopolitics is still being driven by the mass movements related to the forces of pandemic, apocalypse, war and belief in one true God.

The richest and most powerful tyrants in the world today are those who control the mass movements which propagate some aspects of the four geopolitical forces.

Life is not rational; reason is unknowable

The notion that life is rational is a myth propagated by materialistic Western philosophers. Life is not rational. Life is governed by the irrational. 

Love is not rational. Hatred is not rational. Hope is not rational. Greed is not rational. Happiness is not rational. Sorrow is not rational. Faith in the idea that the good always wins in the end is not rational. Man has no way of knowing how to make the right choices through reason. He has no way of knowing the rational course of action.

'Reason' and 'rational' are based on subjective principles and standards. What is rational for one man can be fundamentalism for another man. What is 'reason' for one man can be naivety and foolishness for another man.

Self praise is a sign of weakness

When a man praises himself, he is revealing his lack of wisdom and knowledge. When a nation praises itself as the best in the world, it is revealing its loss of culture and sense of history. When a religion is praising itself as the only true faith, it is revealing it has no spiritual values and is motivated solely by the political agenda of world domination.

Bill Gates: The World’s Worst Book Reviewer

Who is the world’s worst book reviewer? It is Bill Gates, the Microsoft tycoon. When I see a book being recommended by Gates, I know for sure that this book is trash. I will never waste my valuable time reading the books he recommends. 

The books he recommends are invariably by authors close to the powerful and crooked progressive establishment which rules the world. In the list of his recommendations, you will find books by wheeler-dealer lobbyists, vapid celebrities, power-hungry politicians, nihilistic film personalities, crooked journalists, corrupt oligarchs, pseudo-economists, money-laundering bankers, unhinged and fake scientists, naive anarchists, out of touch academics who harbor delusions of omniscience, and tyrannical leaders of taxpayer funded super-powerful institutions. 

The books in Gates’s list are full of pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo and political propaganda—they are on politically correct themes such as extinction, climate change, extreme environmentalism, epidemics, saving the planet, sustainable development, sustainable energy, creating a global multicultural utopia. 

Does Gates read the books he recommends? I doubt it. I believe that he recommends books with the sole purpose of creating the impression of an erudite man. But a man who is really erudite will not read this kind of thrash. I peruse his book recommendations regularly to know which books I should avoid. If a book is being plugged by Gates, then it isn't for me.

Rereading Exodus by Leon Uris

“It was not a melting pot, it was a pressure cooker, for they came from every corner of the earth and had lived under every variety of circumstance,” Leon Uris in Exodus.

Exodus was published in 1958, ten years after Israel became independent (on 14 May 1948). Not much has changed since 1958; Leon Uris’s description of Israel holds till this day. The country is still a pressure cooker—this is one of the key reasons that it has survived and thrived for so long. 

Had Israel followed the melting pot (multiculturalist) model, it would have lost its Jewishness after being swamped by its cultural-religious enemies, and perished. With the pressure cooker model, Israel has created an intense civilizational identity which is worth fighting for. As long as Israel retains its civilizational identity, it cannot be overthrown. 

I read Exodus two decades ago. It is not a history book; full of myths and legends, it is a great work of propaganda for Israel. I liked the book then. I am planning to reread it.

On Catherine Nixey’s book ‘The Darkening Age’

I just finished reading Catherine Nixey’s book The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. The book’s leitmotif is that the early Christians destroyed pagan religion, art and culture, and also obliterated a significant part of the knowledge developed by pagan societies of Ancient Greece and the Middle East. 

Catherine Nixey is a left-leaning atheist journalist. Ideologically, she is against all religions and traditions. There is a surfeit of exaggeration and half-truths in The Darkening Age. The book fails to acknowledge that the best pagan societies were located not in Europe but in the Middle East and they were destroyed by early Islam (not early Christians).

However, a part of what Nixey says in the book is correct. 

The conflict between the pagans and the early Christians began in the Roman age and went on till the 18th century when the last pagan communities were assimilated and digested by the European Christians. The conflict between Christianity and pagans was intense, though not as violent as the conflict between Christianity and Islam which goes on till this day.  

Nixey fails to inform her readers that the conflict between the pagans and Islamic movements was always very violent. Zoroastrianism, a very sophisticated pagan culture of the Middle East, was destroyed by the early Islamic forces, not by the early Christians.

Another important aspect of Christian-pagan history that Nixey does not cover in her book is the impact of pagan philosophy, literature and art on European culture and politics. She does not honestly cover the extensive efforts that the European Christian establishment made to collate, digest and reinterpret pagan knowledge.

European historians have tried to prove that the philosophy of Ancient Greece is the fountainhead of modern Western culture. This is a myth. Ancient Greece was polytheistic, skeptic and it followed a city-state model—it could not have served as an inspiration for the monotheistic, materialistic and world-empire model of European Christianity.

Teaching of Bhagavad Gita: Dharma is superior to morality, ethics, legality

During the times of great religious and civilizational wars, the tenets of morality, ethics and legality become less important for the warrior and political class. In the Mahabharata war, Krishna does not allow Arjuna to quit the battlefield over moral, ethical and legal dilemmas.  

In the Bhagavad Gita, the battlefield of “कुरुक्षेत्रे” (kuru-kṣhetre) is described as the “धर्मक्षेत्रे” (dharma-kṣhetre), or the sacred ground of supreme and timeless dharma. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to overlook the manmade tenets of morality, ethics and legality, and focus on fighting to win the great civilizational war. He reminds Arjuna that he is standing on religious ground and his primal duty is to wage war and annihilate the forces of evil that are threatening dharma and civilization.  

The tenets of morality, ethics and legality, being manmade social constructs, are not superior to dharma and civilization. These tenets apply only in times of peace. When dharma and civilization are under threat, then the warriors and politicians must overlook morality, ethics and legality, and fight to destroy the enemy by every possible means.

The important lesson of history

It takes thousands of years of religious thought, philosophizing, spiritual advancements, agriculture, political struggles, religious and political schisms and movements, scientific movements, trading activity, linguistics, wars, massacres, revolutions and industrial activity to create a major civilization. 

Ruins of Nalanda University in Bihar 

(Started in the Vedic Age, before 1200 BCE)

But the civilization created from such pain, struggle, sacrifice, science and intellectualism can be ruined in one generation—in less than 25 years. 

Every generation must exercise care, lest they become the “doomed generation” under whose watch the civilization gets wiped out. If people understood the history of their own civilization, they would, perhaps, do things differently.

Reason and morality are subjective, transitory and fallible

Reason is not the ultimate way of arriving at the truth, the laws of morality are not final. Both reason and morality are subjective; both are transitory and fallible. Those who believe in reason and morality can do as much harm to society as those who reject reason and morality. 

The Vedic texts preach that human beings should strive to transcend reason and morality in their quest for truth and dharma. The principles of Sanatana Dharma are rooted in spirituality (divine consciousness) and timeless historical experiences, not in reason and morality.

Leftists are top capitalists; Rightists are incompetent capitalists

The idea that leftism is anti big business is a myth. 

The reality is that the supporters of leftist ideology have been driving the global economy in the last 100 years. The leaders and investors of all top multinational companies are left-leaning.

In America, Western Europe and India outspoken socialists are running business empires worth billions of dollars. In China, the Communist Party has founded the world’s biggest business empire, worth trillions of dollars. In Russia, the billionaire oligarchs are outspoken Marxists.

The rightists are not good in business. I don’t know of any major multinational company being funded and run by rightwing conservatives, libertarians and free market advocates. The leftists are the best capitalists; the rightists are incompetent capitalists.

Sri Aurobindo: Gandhian politics, Tolstoyism and Bolshevism

In 1920, Sri Aurobindo said that Mahatma Gandhi’s political method, founded on Tolstoy’s ideas, could lead to the imposition of Indianised Tolstoyism or Bolshevism on India. In a letter (written in April 1920) to his brother Barin Ghose, Sri Aurobindo wrote:  

“People now want to spiritualise politics – Gandhi, for instance – but they can’t get hold of the right way. What is Gandhi doing? Making a hodge-podge called satyagraha out of ahimsa paramo dharmah [non-violence is the highest law], Jainism, hartal, passive resistance, etc.; bringing a sort of Indianised Tolstoyism into the country. The result – if there is any lasting result – will be a sort of Indianised Bolshevism.”

Sri Aurobindo was probably right in caricaturing Gandhian politics as Indianised Bolshevism. After independence, India became a soft-Bolshevik state. Nehruvian socialism and Indira Gandhi’s personality-cult socialism were the manifestations of Bolshevism. 

In a talk in July 1923, Sri Aurobindo said, “Gandhi’s position is that he does not care to remove violence from others; he wants to observe non-violence himself.” On the linkage between Gandhi and Tolstoy, Sri Aurobindo said in June 1926, “Gandhi is a European – truly, a Russian Christian in an Indian body. And there are some Indians in European bodies?” 

(Quotations in this article are from India’s Rebirth, by Sri Aurobindo)

On Day of Vijayadashami: Four Mahavakyas from the Upanishads

Rama story carved in wall of Shiva temple

Ellora Caves, 8th Century

On the day of Vijayadashami, the festival signifying triumph of good over evil, we should remember the four Mahavakyas (the Great Sayings) from the Upanishads: 

1. Prajnanam Brahma (प्रज्ञानम् ब्रह्म) — “Pure Consciousness is Brahmana" or "Brahman is insight” (Aitareya Upanishad, verse 3.3)

2. Tat Tvam Asi (तत् त्वम् असि) — “You are that” or “You are the existent” (Chāndogya Upanishad, verse 6.8.7)

3. Ayam Atma Brahma (अयम् आत्मा ब्रह्म) — "This Self (Atman or soul) is Brahmana" (Māṇḍūkya Upanishad, verse 1.2)

4. Aham Brahma Asmi (अहम् ब्रह्मास्मि) - "I am Brahmana" (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upanishad, verse 1.4.10)

The Upanishads place great emphasis on understanding the “Brahmana,” which can be defined as the divine mind (Brah + Mana). Brahmana is ananta (an + anta: infinite). The earliest Vedic texts can be dated to 6000 BC.

Victor Hugo’s fallacious argument on ideas whose time has come

"No army can stop an idea whose time has come." 

This saying, often attributed to Victor Hugo, smacks of the "hindsight is 20/20" fallacy. It is deterministic and wrong. You can look back and see which ideas have been victorious and make the claim that the time for these ideas had come. 

But this is an absurd way of analyzing history. It will not lead to an understanding of the factors that led to the victory of any idea. 

A powerful army can crush any idea. A well-armed, well-trained and powerful army, led by a ruthless and visionary political leadership, is the ultimate force in history. History is made by armies, not by ideas. 

The Middle Eastern religious and political ideas won (from 8th to 16th centuries) because the Middle Eastern empires had powerful armies. Imperialism won (from 16th to 19th centuries) for the same reason—the European empires had powerful armies. 

Marxism won in the 20th century because leaders like Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao and Castro were leading powerful political movements and armies.

Vishnu, the collectivist; Shiva, the individualist

Parvati and Dancing Shiva

(Ellora cave)

Vishnu is the collectivist, Shiva the individualist. In his avataras, Vishnu builds great coalitions which destroy the forces that are trying to rip apart civilization and culture. Conserving the forces of civilization is the primary task of Vishnu’s avataras. 

In his Rama avatara, Vishnu builds a coalition with kings and communities to destroy Ravana who threatens civilization. In his Krishna avatara, he plays a pivotal role in strengthening the Pandava alliance to enable them to destroy the evil Kaurava alliance. 

Shiva does not intervene to conserve civilization. He lives in the mountains and forests. From time to time, he acts individually to fulfill his divine task of annihilating powerful forces which threaten humans and Gods. The destruction of evil armies and empires is his primary task.

The tradition of Sanatana Dharma rejects the idea of dichotomy between individualism and collectivism. During the Vedic period (more than 3000 years ago), the sages saw individualism and collectivism as the two inseparable attributes of civilized society. 

The idea of dichotomy between individualism and collectivism is a myth crafted by the European intellectuals of the nineteenth century. These intellectuals propagated the false idea that collectivism implies communism and individualism implies capitalism. 

Civilization and culture are fundamentally collectivist. Modern civilization is the outcome of thousands of years of collectivist tendencies: religions, movements and philosophies. Without collective thinking, there can be no culture, no civilization. 

Sanatana philosophy awards equal importance to individualism and collectivism. The Vedic and Puranic texts exhort us to develop our individualistic way of thinking, perform our original acts, within the framework of culture and civilization.

The Frankensteins that America & Israel created in the 1980s

In the 1980s, the American CIA funded, trained, glorified and armed the Taliban in Afghanistan because they wanted to use the Taliban to destroy the Soviet Union. 

Charlie Wilson's War (by George Crile) and several other books provide a description of America’s close collaboration with the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War.

In the 1980s, the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet facilitated the rise of Hamas because they saw Hamas as a political weapon for weakening the Palestine Liberation Organisation. 

What does world history from the 1980s to 2023 tell us? 

It tells us that the political establishments in America and Israel are not interested in solving the world's problems. They intervene in other nations with the agenda of causing large-scale mindless destruction and creating new Frankensteins.

Israel versus Palestine: The human quest for meaning

All humans crave for land, but only a few quest for meaning. The ones who quest for meaning are capable of making fruitful use of the land. 

When two civilizations clash over a piece of land, it makes ethical and political sense to support the side capable of questing for meaning and making fruitful use of the land for the larger good of humanity. 

A war is raging in the Middle East—Israelis versus Palestinians. Which side is capable of questing for meaning? Which side is capable of making fruitful use of the land? 

The Israelis excel in science, technology, entrepreneurship, medicine, agriculture, defence, political theory, philosophy, art and literature. What are the Palestinian achievements?

Which side should we support? Those who believe in humanity, those who want a betterment of the human condition, have no alternative except to support the side that is capable of questing for meaning and making fruitful use of the land: this means Israel.

Perfection is not possible; Lord Agni’s fire is enveloped in smoke

The quest for perfection is futile. Even the powerful Gods cannot create perfection in the universe. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna reminds Arjuna (verse 3.38) that Lord Agni is enveloped by smoke. 

Lord Agni is one of the most powerful Vedic Gods. In the Vedas, he is often invoked along with Lord Indra and Lord Soma. In the Vedic tradition, Lord Agni is regarded as the mouth of the Gods—through Lord Agni’s mouth the offerings reach the Gods. He resides on earth as fire, in the air as lightning and in the cosmos as the sun and the stars.

Yet even Lord Agni cannot attain perfection. In his manifestations, his fire is always enveloped by smoke. When Lord Agni cannot attain perfection, then there is no chance for humans to themselves be perfect or create anything that is perfect. 

The history of the last 2000 years shows that the civilizational movements that have quested for perfection have always led to bloodbath and destruction. 

In the Middle Ages, the Islamic armies rampaged across Asia, and parts of Europe and Africa, to create a perfect society of God. Instead of perfection, they unleashed death and destruction wherever they went. Their wars and violence are still raging in the Middle East and many other parts of the world. 

Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin tried to create a perfect Bolshevik society through nationalization of all property and wealth, imposition of five year plans, and banishment of dissidents to concentration camps and firing squads. Hitler and the Nazis tried to create a perfect Aryan society through World War and gas chambers. Instead of perfection, they brought destruction to their society. 

The libertarian movements dreamed of creating a perfect capitalist and individualistic society but they got mired in nihilism, cultism, naivety, amorality and social-alienation. 

Human efforts can never lead to perfection. Our best will never be perfect. The human mind, all human actions, and all human creations have good and bad aspects, and they lead to good and bad consequences.

Bhagavad Gita: Metaphysical and moral implications of the theory of rebirth, redeath

Every birth is a rebirth, every death is a redeath. This applies to everything inside the universe and to the universe itself. 

Every entity or conception—living and non-living, mental and physical, time and space, memory and history, smallest atom to the largest stars and blackholes—must one day die or be destroyed. Death or destruction is not the end—it is the prelude to rebirth or recreation.  

In the cycle of rebirth and redeath, creation and destruction nothing is lost. Mass and energy are always in a state of equilibrium irrespective of the universe being in the phase of creation or destruction. History and memory are not lost at the time of death—their essence gets transferred to the mind of the new generations, making them wise or naive, moral or nihilistic, and leading them to perform good or bad deeds, attain success or failure in their lifetime. 

The philosophy of rebirth and redeath has metaphysical and moral implications. 

The metaphysical implication is that the universe is a battleground of mass and energy. Energy seeks to rip apart the physical bodies, while mass seeks to empower itself by absorbing and digesting the energy. The contest between mass and energy lasts for as long as the universe (time and space) lasts and leads to the creation, motion and eventual obliteration of all heavenly bodies—atoms, moons, planets, stars, supernovas. 

The moral implication is that the good or bad things that happen to us are not due to “chance”; they are not the outcome of “God’s will” either. They are the outcome of our past karma. In this life you are reaping the fruits of your deeds in your past lives, and what you do in this life will have an impact on your subsequent rebirths. One must live morally because immoral conduct has implications for not just this life but all future lives. 

All this is one of the important teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

The Saptarshi in the asterism of the Big Dipper

In ancient Indian astronomy, the asterism of the Big Dipper is described as the physical representation of the Saptarshi, the seven sages who are extolled in the Vedas, Puranas, the Mahabharata and several other ancient texts.

The seven bright stars of the Big Dipper are the universal forms of the seven sages whose names, according to Shatapatha Brahmana and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, are: Atri, Bharadvaja, Gautama Maharishi, Jamadagni, Kashyapa, Vasistha and Vishvamitra.

The Mahabharata gives their names as: Marichi, Atri, Pulaha, Pulastya, Kratu, Vasistha and Angiras. Other ancient texts give slightly different names for the seven sages.