Avoidable distractions

It is said that the main purpose of understanding other religions/traditions is to gain new perspectives on one’s own religion. Of course, this works much better after one has understood one’s own tradition at some level of depth. To me, this has been the main benefit of reading Rumi. For example, one of the ideas about Jesus Christ that touched me very deeply (that the greatest miracle of Jesus is himself) was triggered by reading Rumi (see Miracle).

Recently, I came across the following words from Rumi (From the story ‘Moses Learns a Lesson’ from the book ‘Rumi: Tales to live by’). "I have bestowed on everyone a way of believing and worshipping according to his understanding and temperament. Praying and worship is a kindness I have bestowed on my creatures so they may be tied to me with chords of love. The Hindu worships me in his own way, and the Jew in his. Let them pray any way they know. Do not seek rules or methods of worship, but love me however you can!"

Considering that there are so many divisions in Christianity that often fight among themselves based on differences in rules and methods of worship, and thereby creating distractions that lead away from the core of Christianity, this is indeed a highly useful perspective!

My newfound love for history

When I was in school, I never used to like history much. My favorite subject was physics. In the last couple of years I have found myself getting increasingly attracted to history. Initially, I did not know why this was happening to me. Now I feel that I might have a clue about what is going on. There are two factors involved - my changing perception about what history is all about and a better understanding about how my mind works.

Earlier, I used to view history as a description of a series of events/happenings . Now I am beginning to see the connections between these events and also the underlying patterns (social, cultural and psychological) - the forces that cause/ shape these events*.

Again I have realized that I have a 'connection seeking and pattern recognising' mind (my top two strengths in Gallup 'Strength Finder' are 'Ideation' and 'Strategic') - whenever I get an idea (a connection between two apparently unconnected things) or recognize an underlying pattern in apparently random data, I get a jolt of energy. I feel more alive and happy!.

I also realize that my love for physics is also largely because of the fascination with 'laws of physics'. A law in physics is nothing but a statement of the patterns underlying a set of phenomena. Earlier, I was viewing the events in history only at the phenomena level - as discrete happenings. Now I view history at the idea level - in terms of connections and patterns - in terms of the underlying principles of sociology, cultural anthropology and psychology - and hence my newfound love for history. By the way, understanding of the patterns* in the past events would also help us to make predictions about the future - making the study history even more useful!

I don't feel that the discovery/addition of 'pragmatic reasons' for doing something takes away anything from the original pure/aesthetic reasons for doing that thing. While it can be argued that 'engineering is prostitution of science', no one can argue that the the tremendous benefits derived from engineering has hurt pure science, so long us study of pure science does not get neglected because of the pragmatic reasons for studying engineering. After all, pure scientists would also need computers/databases to easily access relevant information related to their field of study, funds to support their research and aeroplanes to go to conferences !

*Note: I realize that many of these 'patterns' or 'trends' are retrofitted (i.e. they emerge only in retrospect). Now, if one looks for 'patterns' one is likely to find patterns - if the data set (or database) that one is looking at is sufficiently large. Some of these patterns would be purely accidental - and hence might not mean anything. So theorizing (especially theorizing that involve establishing cause and effect relationships) and predicting on the basis of these patterns can be problematic. From a 'scientific method' point of view, it is a much better approach to 'create a hypothesis first and then look at the data set to test the hypothesis' as compared to proceeding the other way around. Of course, hypotheses don't come out of nothing - often they are triggered by observations. So what one should guard against is the tendency to look only for data that confirms the hypothesis as opposed to looking at all the available data to test the hypothesis. So I understand that some of the patterns that I see don't mean anything. But that does not reduce the pure joy that I experience when I see patterns or the importance of pattern recognition in my life - as pattern recognition is a very key part of my individuality. I think I can safely indulge in this activity in its pure form (even without the precautions mentioned above) so long as I am doing it for intrinsic satisfaction and not for deriving actionable inferences!!!

What shapes my perspective?

The introduction to this blog talks about exploring and celebrating life from my unique perspective. So what is this unique perspective? Answers to this question can be attempted at many levels - from very material ones to very mystical ones. To put it in another way, it can range from those from the point of view of my self to those from the point of view of my Self - 'self' meaning my 'personality' and 'Self' meaning my 'ultimate Self'. This post is essentially at the level of 'personality'. It is also the level of my biases, prejudices and assumptions. I feel that exploring the factors that that have shaped my perspective is an essential part of exploring and celebrating life. This series of posts strives for a deeper understanding and appreciation of these factors.

I feel that one of the key factors that influences my perspective is my double heritage - that of being a Christian and an Indian (a Syrian Christian from central Kerala to be precise). I am not sure about the extent to which this has influenced/biased my perspective. After all, exploring oneself is a tricky venture.

If we examine Christianity in Kerala, it has some very interesting dimensions. Syrian Christians in Kerala claim 2000 years of Christian heritage - dating back to the arrival of St.Thomas in India. Now this 2000 years of coexistence has influenced both Kerala and Christianity. The impact of Christianity in Kerala is quite apparent - especially in fields like education. For example the word for school in Malayam is 'pallikootam'. 'Palli' means a church building and hence pallikootam literally means an annexe/extension/wing of the church.

What is not so obvious is the influence of the Kerala culture on Christianity. While this influence might not be obvious, I feel that the influence runs quite deep. For example, though Christianity reached Kerala 2000 years ago, only about 20% of the population in Kerala is Christian. I feel that one of the key factors that has influenced this is the basic Hindu philosophy of 'universal acceptance'. It was this cultural context/background that welcomed Christianity in Kerala. Thus culturally speaking, the Christian 'way of life' was assimilated into the mainstream of Hindu 'way of life' to a large extent and this made the need of having to forge a very distinct cultural identity less pressing. While a somewhat distinct cultural identity evolved over the centuries, the identity was not radically different in most dimensions. Again, as mentioned earlier, this Christian way of life also influenced the mainstream Hindu way of life - making the cultural distinctions even less pronounced. For example Christmas is celebrated across Kerala and 'Christmas stars' would be found in many non-christian homes also. Similarly Christians also celebrate 'Onam'. While Onam is a harvest festival, the mythology that underlies Onam is a distinctly Hindu one (that of Mahabali and Vamana). But this has not in any way affected the enthusiasm with which Keralite Christians participate in Onam celebrations. It is interesting to note that Keralire Christians are quite open to study/learn (and also open to let their kids study/learn) the religious texts/ philosophies of other religions. In Kerala, knowledge is given high importance/status. Most of the Keralite Christians view the religious texts/ philosophies of other religions essentially as knowledge - and hence worth studying/ learning ! I feel that knowledge of other religions would enable us to understand our own religion better.

Another relevant factor here is the 'bed-time stories' told to young children in Christian households in Kerala. They hear stories based on Hindu mythology in addition to the stories from the Bible. I feel that this leads to greater understanding, appreciation and respect for the Hindu way of life. May be, more religious harmony gets created through these stories than through the formal initiatives of the religious leaders!