Reviving and Revitalizing Sanskrit Language

                                                                                              *Saumitra Mohan

            Language has always been a very powerful tool in the evolution and development of any civilisational entity. It has often been successfully harnessed for uniting or diving people as also witnessed in the Indian sub-continent. It was the basis of British Raj’s notorious ‘Divide and Rule’ policy, resulting in the emaciation and eventual colonisation of the glorious Indian civilization.

            Linguistic feud and persecution was one of the principal reasons that saw the creation of Bangladesh. It was the language-based solidarity movement which saw the creation of many states after India’s independence in 1947. In fact, the linguistic chauvinism and related agitation almost saw the unravelling of the nascent Indian state at one point of time, but it was India’s consociational politics, dirigiste welfarism and distributive justice steered by its founding fathers’ vision which turned this express weakness into strength.

            However, the language debate is still not over in this country what with the issue of Hindi hegemony or its top-down imposition often lurking and looming on the horizon from time to time. But this is also a truth that India is one country where umpteen languages and dialects are spoken. Most of these languages have been surviving and evolving by dint of their individual strength in their own specific ways. As per the 2011 Census of India, 19,569 languages were said to have been recorded as the mother tongues. While there are 22 official languages listed in the 8^th Schedule of Indian Constitution, the number of actually spoken languages and dialects were said to be 1652 as per the 1961 Census of India.

            As an individual, many of us have a fascination for learning newer languages. And one such language which should readily catch our fancy is Sanskrit. I, for one, picked up the basics of this beautiful language way back in the early nineteen eighties during my school days. Fortunately, I cut my teeth on Sanskrit at the hands of one Latika Renu (the third spouse of the legendary Hindi litterateur Phanishwar Nath Renu). One really loved her classes in the semi-government school named Ram Mohan Roy Seminary in Patna, established and run by the Brahma Samaj.

            Belonging to the Indo-European, Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan family of languages, Sanskrit is one of India’s 22 official languages. While it was spoken as the mother tongue only by 14000 Indians as per the 2001 Census, the number swelled to 24,821 as per the 2011 Census. However, Sanskrit is widely used all across India and beyond as a language for different religious and ceremonial rites and rituals by Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. Even though the number of people actually registering Sanskrit as the mother tongue appears really measly in a country of over 1.3 billion people, still the number of people actually conversant and capable of speaking the language is estimated to be in millions.

            While Latin as a ceremonial language of the Europeans may have met with a worse fate, Sanskrit as a language has somehow been surviving in this country. Sanskrit is not only taught and pursued as a subject in millions of educational institutions across India, it survives also because of the few dedicated language gladiators taking up the cudgel to revive and promote this classical Indian language with all their efforts.

            Organisations like Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan and Sanskrit Bharati led by the ilks of Chamu Krishna Shashtri, Kutumba Shashtri and many other devoted stalwarts have ensured that Sanskrit becomes much more acceptable than it ever was. Unfortunately, like Urdu is wrongly associated with Muslims despite having been germinated and developed in India through the collective efforts of Indian scholars and hoi polloi, similarly Sanskrit is also wrongly associated with Hindus and viewed as a language belonging to a particular religion which is something very gross.

            Carrying an entire history and civilization in its womb through its well-endowed cornucopia of literature and manuscripts, Sanskrit is way much richer than Hindi and many other Indian or European languages. While Hindi traces its origin to Hindustani which originated and evolved during 900-1100 AD, but the actual Hindi is actually said to have developed as a distinct language only in the 18^th century.

            So, while Hindi language can claim to be as old as 1000 years (if we treat Hindustani as its variant and original precursor and progenitor), the history of Sanskrit goes as far back as 4000 to 6000 years. And as such its literature and the knowledge enshrined therein is much richer than one could ever imagine or find in any other classical language. But for some strange reason, we have deliberately allowed it to rot in the wilderness, leaving it to the mercy and goodwill of some valiant language warriors.

            Today, Sanskrit as a language does not promise many livelihood avenues for its practitioners apart from the job of a teacher in a school, college or university. However, there are said to be thousands of vacancies of Sanskrit teachers in the educational institutions across India which remain unfilled for years together. While not many new vacancies have been created, the already sanctioned and existing vacancies have not been filled up on one or the other ground, thereby further discouraging its practitioners to take up Sanskrit as an optional subject in school or college. Notwithstanding being an ‘easy-to-learn-and-understand’ language with extremely rich vocabulary, it is often touted as a very difficult and incomprehensible language, thereby discouraging newer learners and students from taking it up at the school or college level.

            All our love and pride for our Indian civilization, its rich cultural heritage and profound knowledge base would come to naught if we don’t really do something to aid and encourage the revival of this rich language for being better equipped for ferreting and foraging through its hugely richer literature. It is true that a good number of such Sanskrit literatures have been translated into other languages including Hindi. However, there still remain many more millions (more than 45 hundred thousands) of untranslated manuscripts and literature which need to be perused and publicised for further enriching our knowledge and acquaintance with our own cultural roots.

            The truth is whatever most of us know today about ancient India and its rich cultural heritage is through secondary sources, brought before us through translated works. Very few of us have actually bothered to peruse and pore through the originals to fathom and appreciate the richness and profoundness of the same. Every time you read and study such originals, one always comes across newer facts, information and insights because everyone’s understanding brings better elucidation and clarity about the knowledge contained therein.

            Studies and practice have proven that many of the facts and insights in ancient Sanskrit literature on the subjects of medicine, law, mathematics, literature, music, drama, politics and statecraft, economics, architecture, science and commonsensical understanding are still very germane, approximating contemporary wisdom. It is also a fact that while many of us remained aloof or cut-off from some of the profound scientific and technological knowledge base hidden in ancient Sanskrit literature, many Western scientists and scholars benefitting from such knowledge, presented to the world the knowledge, wisdom and inventions which were originally lifted and recycled from our ancient Sanskrit literature and manuscripts.

            While imposition of Hindi as a national language still has the danders up for many in this country, Sanskrit could still have the potential to be a more acceptable lingua franca in this country because any and every Indian language excepting Tamil traces its origin to Sanskrit. Sanskrit definitely deserves to be treated much better than it has so far, more so when it has been dubbed as the best ‘computer-able’ language.

            As such, Sanskrit’s credentials to be a language of future India are definitely better and greater than we have understood so far. Revival of Sanskrit would not only renew and revive the pride in our own cultural heritage, but would also bring spiritualism and the concept of a meaningful life back into our life, thereby bringing order and peace all across the country, a desideratum for any developed society.

           

Living in a Spiritually Better World

            As per the Hindu mythology, the Almighty created the world in the beginning of time and is said to have entered every living and non-living objects thereof. As per Biblical wisdom, He is said to have created the humans in His own image. It is believed that while He sent the chosen souls as humans to earth, He deliberately took our memory as part of His larger plan. So, while we play out our incessantly mutating roles as part of His larger design, we do the same as a tool in His hands, stuck in a never-ending ‘cycle of birth and death’.

            While we were deprived of the memory of our past lives, we were also deprived of the knowledge and belief that we all descend from Him even though numerous sages, saints, prophets and messiahs have tried to convince us about us being an inalienable part of His eternal being as well as about the ‘Grand Vision’ behind the play of cosmic drama as we see around us every day. Nevertheless, there have been few takers for this line of thinking.

The wheels of time, our selfish ‘Ego’ and the illusion of worldly drama have further added to our confusion and self-doubts, reinforcing human ignorance about the actual purpose behind ‘Creation’. With more and more scientific and technological progress, the humans have hypothesised and theorised different conceptions regarding creation of the world, ranging from ‘natural evolution’, ‘natural selection’ or a ‘chaos theory’ to explain the same. However, none can convincingly explain and explicate the real purpose behind the actual need for ‘Divine Drama’.

This is more so when all the living beings including humans live their lives only for a brief period, never to come back and connect with the deeds of a particular life. The Indian philosophy and spiritual thinking, as enshrined in its hoary scriptures and books, do give a clear understanding of the same. Many new-age Hindus, though, often debunk the same, influenced by the so-called rationalist-scientific discourse on the subject. This appears surprising, particularly because the Occident itself has been delving deeper into the spiritual explanations of Creation, approaching the same through gradually evolving scientific theories and discoveries.

            People in the West have, in recent times, started approaching the subject of spiritualism, Creation and rebirth with much more seriousness than ever, something the East has classically and culturally done. Countless stories of rebirth and reincarnation of human beings, because of human felicity to recount and speak unlike other animals and organisms, have surfaced over the years with a good number of them having been verified and confirmed through many empirical researches and studies.

            The phenomena of ‘past life regression (PLR)’, ‘séances’, ‘near death experiences’ and ‘out of the body experiences’ have been widely reported from across the world. Celebrated PLR practitioners like Dr. Brian Weiss and Dr. Raymond Moody in the West are the leading exponents of the ‘rebirth’ theory, long propounded and civilizationally believed by the Hindus. The PLR performed on many of their patients have amply revealed numerous interesting stories of their past lives, utilizing the instrumentality of ‘clinical hypnosis’.     

            Notwithstanding the PLR and many other confirmations of past lives, more than 99.9 percent people can’t remember their past lives as part of God’s larger design. As discussed above, God deliberately erases our memory of past lives so that we don’t remain stuck with the inconsequential details and complications of the same in our next lives. But He does allow the humans to carry the dominant learnings and impressions of past lives to the next one by grafting the same onto individual consciousness.

            It is because of the variously evolving individual consciousness that humans appear so different from each other in terms of their capabilities and faculties despite being made by the same God in His own image. The societal inequality and individual differences could be explained by variously evolved consciousness due to varied experiences of individual souls through their various incarnations.

The divinely ordained human amnesia also cushions him/her from becoming rather mechanical in his/her conduct while playing and performing his/her sundry roles and responsibilities. As a result, we all start almost on a clean slate, left to fend for ourselves to discover our inherent strengths and capabilities slowly, through trials and errors. Our learnings vary and are conditional upon the environs and backgrounds we find ourselves in.

            The wisdom and knowledge gleaned through all the studies on past lives and afterlives as we as PLR therapies do suggest that our life roles proceed as per a definite plan that we ourselves decide. Life’s major events and incidents are predestined as per our own felt spiritual needs rather than something handed down by the Almighty as part of our ‘Karma’ as believed by Hindus and some other religions. The humans are said to decide on a potential life trajectory in consultation with their putative ‘Guardian Angels’ who guide and help them in firming their decisions on their upward spiritual evolution. A rebirth is accordingly planned and executed. There is said to be no ‘Hell’, purgatory or hellish punishments after death and before rebirth.

As per some PLR findings, all souls are said to first undergo a deep, relaxing slumber or soak in the most soothing and pacifying shower of light following which they all see their life in reverse like watching a film in a flashback. It is while watching our own lives in flashback that we realise the sundry mistakes and lapses committed by us in our last life and accordingly, we plan our next life to correct the same including finding ways to indulge in reparations against all those whom we might have hurt in our previous lives. Much of this is in conformity with the Hindu beliefs on afterlife and rebirth as delineated in ‘Garuda Purana’.

            All the living beings including humans evolve from their lowest to highest forms, due to their own efforts, to slowly move from being an unenlightened being to a perfectly enlightened being. They gradually learn to see themselves as extensions of the Almighty, merely playing their role as part of the larger cosmic plan. According to this plan, we all intend to slowly merge ourselves with the cosmic consciousness. We strive to further stretch the limit of human knowledge while simultaneously stretching and extending our individual consciousness. Thus, we all together partake in the spiritual effort to further glorify God’s creation and being.

            While we do so, we ought to ensure that we live a righteous and noble life, helping fellow living beings in their journey of evolution to the top of spiritual hierarchy. However, many of us think of the humans as selfish beings who, while doing good to others, expect return on the favours done. We usually indulge in our altruistic escapades only when we ourselves have sufficient or when we don’t need something. We share only those things which we ourselves don’t require, but that does us no credit as there is no sacrifice involved therein. Sacrificing something that we ourselves need and if we still decide to share the same with others at the cost of our own pain and privation, then it reflects our real humanity.

            Likewise, when doing good, we usually do good to only those people who are capable and well-heeled but all these people return the favour sooner or later. Besides, we often help people because either they have helped us in the past or they may help us in future because we find them useful and resourceful. So, more often than not, our help is actually inspired by our selfish desires to get the returns on our help and utilitarian altruism. But these are more in the nature of bargains than true acts of altruism and do our spiritual growth little credit.

            As truly selfish, we should actually help those who can’t return our favour, who are really so helpless and powerless that they can never do any good to us, something Dalai Lama also advises. Doing good to these people not only keeps our favours unreturned, but also does a world of good because by uplifting the condition of such fellow humans who are otherwise weaker and downtrodden, we contribute to the betterment of our world. Such altruism shall make the world much more beautiful and liveable than the one we live in. The same shall also help us in our upward spiritual evolution while positively contributing to the betterment of the material and spiritual world.

Challenging the Frontiers of Human Knowledge

            Many of us, while going through the grind of humdrum human life, often pause to think of the endless races we find ourselves sucked into. Howsoever may we try, we still remain mired in this often needless and senseless chase after the goodies of life. While the hoi polloi has neither time, aptitude or faculty to even go beyond their daily routine to ponder over the existential philosophies of human life, those who have the time, interest or capabilities to brood over the basic existential questions of life remain ever disillusioned and disoriented.

            Many religious philosophies including Hinduism have attempted explanations of the reasons and logic behind the fathomless architecture of cosmic creations. But the common man still remains oblivious and unconcerned with the same, preferring his/her preoccupations with the daily chase after mindless stuffs of material life. Mindless because this chase never ends. The satisfaction of one desire often leads to another, thereby giving rise to a spiral of endless desires, thus keeping us all trapped into the here and now.

            This incapacitates and keeps us from getting into the deeper recesses of Divine Creation. Most of us find no time to delve into the various mysteries and secrets of cosmos. After all, the questions like ‘why are we born?’, ‘what are we doing here?’, ‘what’s the purpose of entire creation’ and ‘where do we go after death?’ keep nagging us all the time. Such questions and the pursuits to unearth their answers find more patronage and benefaction from those who have gone beyond the worries and struggles of quotidian survival.

            With the hindsight and with the benefit of the knowledge enshrined in the classical and modern philosophies, we can somehow grope about wangling an answer to some of these questions. For example, as believers and students of some of these philosophies, schools of thought and scientific discoveries, we now know the humongous size of the Divine Creation and our insignificance vis a vis the same. Many believe that we are all born and reborn on physical, spiritual or other planes and dimensions to learn our lessons through time and space.

            We do so to gain varied experiences for the gradual evolution of our eternal consciousness to finally merge with the Supreme Consciousness. These experiences and learnings are required for us to get rid of our various imperfections gradually to become equipped for better and bigger challenges and responsibilities as we may face through our myriad avatars and incarnations on our way up the evolutionary ladder. This also means acting as the extension of the Supreme Soul to guide and enlighten the unenlightened souls to further beautify and extend the glory of the Almighty.

            We now know, thanks to the widely-accepted spiritual and scientific expostulations including First Law of Thermodynamics and Quantum Physics, that all manifestations of the Cosmos are nothing but different combinations and permutations of energy. There is a constant exchange and assimilation of different forms of energy, with energy never being created or destroyed but only changing its forms.

            We all not only come from and return to the same source, but all the organisms and matters as combinations of energy are only changing their forms. They keep reverting to their basic elemental forms from which newer forms and objects of Creation take shape. Be it humans, animals, plants, trees or other matters, they are all constantly being created and destroyed, thereby acting as the raw material for each other’s constitution.

            Howsoever may we detest each other, it is a truism that our basic constituents may have come from those organisms, groups of humans or non-sentient matters we call unchaste and unholy. Similarly, our mortal remains may become the life supporting building blocks for our antagonist human groups or other expressions of Creation. We now know that there is actually an immanent unity in Creation at a very basic level and no aspect of the Creation is permanent except our ‘soul’ or ‘consciousness’ (whatever we may call it).

            We know that our chase after material and non-material possessions like property and fame in this temporal world is nothing but meaningless. It is we who create the value and it is we who keep running after them. The concept of money, assets, possessions and valuables is actually spatio-temporal. The same is also different for different individuals. No form of these material and non-material possessions that we hoard through our life goes with us to the other world. But we still keep chasing them.

            We seldom realise that it is actually our experiences and interfaces with the material and non-material manifestations of Creation that is more important than the possessions themselves. It is the learnings derived through these experiences and interactions that are more vital than the possessions themselves as they help our ‘eternal consciousness’ or ‘soul’ to move up the evolutionary ladder by getting implanted into our consciousness as permanent impressions.

            So, it is more than advisable for us to remain engaged in the real, loftier and uplifting pursuits of knowledge to keep enriching and elevating the human wisdom as may help the humanity in comprehending the higher truths and intricacies behind the infinite expressions of Divine Creation. Doing so, we can better understand the yet unexplored facets of Creation to further stretch and enrich our knowledge that may still be available in the still unfamiliar multiverses.

            Through our persistent and positive pursuits, we must attempt to stretch the human wisdom, knowledge and intelligence than we have known so far. Proponents of science and spiritualism have both been engaged in pursuit of the same since time immemorial. However, this pursuit can become more productive and useful if we can get away from the needless contretemps, conflicts and frictions that humans always find themselves embroiled in, thereby frittering away their precious time and energy in mindless chase and rage.

            However, there is a flipside to this basic understanding. Often, some of the humans after they become capable of hazarding an answer to these eternal questions, slowly become alienated and estranged from the mundane material life, losing their interest in continued engagement with the humdrum human life. At this stage, some either end their life or lose interest in myriad role-plays of a human life, finding them completely inane and meaningless. They often find themselves withdrawn or disengaged from life’s sundry races or pursuits.

            While the Hindu deity Lord Krishna in ‘The Bhagwad Geeta’ does talk extensively about ‘Nishkama Karma’ i.e. selfless engagements in worldly pursuits without an eye to the outcomes. But that does not mean that one should become completely disinterested in life or its varying pursuits otherwise we shall cease to explore and unfold the multi-splendoured genius of God’s incredibly beautiful creation. So, even while we remain preoccupied in various pursuits, the outcomes should not move us or impact us negatively.

            Our experiences and pursuits should have an uplifting influence on our consciousness. And all such uplifting and loftier learnings should lift and enrich the collectiveness consciousness of the entire humanity, thereby creating newer possibilities and unlocking newer mysteries of Divine Creation. Unless and until we do so, the same shall continue to make us incapable or unqualified towards any future engagements in superior pursuits.

            The truths of human life become starker when we keep losing our near and dear ones at regular intervals. This often drives us towards the realisation of the mundane character and emptiness of our existence unless we start comprehending the spiritual nuances of our various worldly experiences and encounters. These days, when I see someone fighting, getting angry, getting arrogant or becoming vile and vicious, I am immediately drawn into a different world. The vile and vicious, the uncomfortable people or interlocutors are actually God’s ways to put us through tougher tests and ordeals for preparing us for better and bigger responsibilities in this or the afterlife.

            Seeing them as the children of the same Almighty as created me, I am often transported to a thought whereby I start looking for the reason for which God might have sent these uncomfortable people to the earth or into my life for making me and many others learn some of our lessons. After all, as they say, if things are happening your way, it is good. But if they are not happening your way, it’s better as the same is happening God’s way and God definitely knows better than us. And one can definitely say with certitude that all our negative experiences have been followed by positive and better ones. One loss has always been compensated by much bigger gains.

            Spiritual rationalisation has been found to be a very effective and helpful tool in correlating present life’s incidents with past lives’ ‘Karma’, thereby getting away from life’s many woes and getting ahead in life. While talking to all kinds of people, I often see myself talking to and interacting with a frame of bones covered with a pile of earth, eventually going back to nature. I also visualise these people including myself sooner or later departing the scene, leaving the causes or the outcomes of the said fight, anger, arrogance or viciousness behind, so behind that people would hardly remember any of us.

            More so, because most of these people would also soon be replaced by others who would hardly know most of us as most of us would be lost through the time, without any traces. All the ordinary and extraordinary people end up either in graveyards or cremation grounds sooner or later, being consigned to insignificance unless we really leave our footprints on the sands of time.

            Moreover, when life throws stones at us, it is more than advisable to use the same for making a bridge or constructing a beautiful edifice as would satisfy our creative self and would also glorify the Almighty. If life gives us the sourness of a lemon, we should make lemonade of it. So, while life’s various quirks and turns make us feel low or disheartened, we should immediately change gear to rediscover ourselves to engage with something different and positive preoccupations of life rather than remaining stuck on the negative and depressing stuffs of life.

            However, if rebirth were to be the truth, as Hinduism and many other religions believe, we ourselves can’t identify ourselves with those great causes, outcomes or feats in our newer incarnations as we usually are reborn with no memory of past lives. But the learnings and lasting impressions of our previous lives remain ever so etched on our eternal consciousness to guide us through our future roles and responsibilities. That’s why, some individuals have better felicity, knack or talent in certain fields than many others because of their past learnings and experiences.

            The prodigies’ talents could be traced to their remarkable successes and learnings in their previous lives, thereby getting implanted onto their eternal consciousness and helping them in their extant lives. That is why, it is more than advisable that after we have provided ourselves with the basic necessities for a comfortable human life, we should start delving into the deeper truths of human life and divine drama, simultaneously trying to stretch the human imagination and knowledge to better understand the vastness of the multiverses.

            Mind you, it is these lasting impressions and learnings, positive or negative, that we take with us to the other worlds or the after worlds. That is why, while we keep striving at human excellence in every sphere of life, we should nevertheless be wary and chary of any of these human experiences or encounters negatively affecting the evolution of our eternal consciousness. It is the imperfections of our soul which keep us mired into the incessant cycle of birth and death. The faster we get rid of the same, the better for our souls to go beyond the trap of repetitively mundane human life to engage in loftier pursuits of knowledge.

            Against this background, this is really very ironical that notwithstanding the fact that we are all born of the same God, we still keep sparring over the various expressions of the Almighty. Knowing very well that each one of us may be reborn or re-expressed tomorrow on the other side, we still conduct ourselves to accept our extant positions or forms as something permanent. After all, the Hindus could be reborn as Muslims or a Pakistani could be reborn as an Indian. But we still keep drawing so many boundaries among ourselves.

            All those who believe in the superiority of their God or their power, they also believe that all expressions of the Creation are actually born of or created by their God and as such all the followers of different castes, races or religions have also been made by the same God. As such, we should have no reason to engage in internecine conflicts with one another. But for some strange reason, we refuse to accept and understand this.

            And as long as we don’t understand this, we shall neither have time, energy or the inclination to engage in the higher pursuits of knowledge. As the highest and most intelligent expression of God’s Creation, we must move away from the parochial concerns of a single planet by resolving its many problems and ought to go beyond the same to further stretch our knowledge and wisdom in consonance with the humongous possibilities created by the Almighty.

Need for a National Water Policy

                                                                                    *Saumitra Mohan

            The Rain God has been playing pricey for sometime in this country. All the skyward prayers and purported rain-invoking rituals seem to have been in vain with the rainfall still remaining elusive and erratic in many parts of India. The erratic and delayed onset of rains is said to have negatively impacted agriculture in this country. With the water crisis looming large on the horizon, the subject experts and scribes are seemingly having a field-day diagnosing the problem and related issues, while also prescribing endless solutions.

            This is where the nub lies. We have all known the problem and solutions for long. But when it comes to acting on the sundry recommendations, everyone everywhere falls short and comes a cropper. And this has somewhere to do with the way we do our politics today. Our decision-making is beholden to the generosity of the political class who, more often than not, shrink from taking right decisions while playing to the gallery of the voters. It is this attitude and the emergent situation which have been playing havoc with the way we deal with every issue in this country including water.

            The almost ‘free water’, ‘No User Charge’ or ‘free electricity’ policy has somehow cost us dearly, with the same resulting in the extensive and mindless use of ground water by all the stakeholders, almost verging on the criminal. The stakeholders including agriculturalists, industrialists or the hoi polloi see no merit in water conservation by way of a prudent and discrete consumption of the same. However, the time has definitely come for all of us to soak in all the available water wisdom by doing a rethink on our water consumption patterns. 

            Today, the 18% of the global population living in India has access to only 4% of its usable water, with 163 million Indians lacking access to safe potable water. The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) in its recent report has painted a very grim picture of India’s water scenario. As per a report shared by the NITI Aayog, 22 Indian cities including New Delhi shall run out of water by 2020. One could only imagine the ensuing chaos and mayhem as a result thereof unless we start bracing ourselves for the eventuality in right earnest immediately.

            As we know, 21% of our diseases are water-borne and with no access to safe drinking water, almost 200000 Indians reportedly die every year because they don’t have access to safe drinking water. It is suggested that a humongous 600 million Indians face ‘high to extreme’ water stress in the country. The situation is only going to aggravate in times to come. Thus, we are virtually sitting on a ticking time-bomb in the form of a potential health emergency waiting to unfold. Poor state regulation and gross mismanagement over the years by our water managers have today resulted in our rivers and water systems being heavily contaminated by the presence of solid waste therein. The high coli-form content at many stretches of these water systems make the same unusable and unfit for human consumption.

            It is really painful to note that notwithstanding 70 years of independence, India has seen the safe piped drinking water reaching only 70 percent of urban and 19 percent of rural households in this country. It is really laudable though that the Government has finally given piped water supply its deserved attention by not only committing to reach the same to all the rural households in five years by way of launching a ‘Nal Se Jal’ (Water from Tap) scheme, but also creating a dedicated Ministry in the form of ‘Jal Shakti Mantralaya’ for a more holistic and coordinated approach to India’s water problem.

            A better convergence of the same with national programmes like ‘Namami Gange’, ‘Swacch Bharat Abhiyan’ and similar state government initiatives could pay rich dividends to ensure better policy outcomes, thereby addressing the problem of inegalitarian access to water resources in certain parts of India. If we don’t wake up in time to come out with a geographically-customised water policy, our dreams of becoming a developed country or a ‘superpower’ is sure to be dashed against our water woes, not to speak of our health and food security being severely compromised.

            Be it a sound watershed management, building of smaller check-dams rather than big-ticket behemoths, construction of more percolation tanks linked to main service tanks, popularising dedicated ‘on-farm tanks and ponds’ for agricultural purposes, better networking and deepening of our canal systems, imposing a population-specific progressive user charge, a regional river-linking plan to be gradually upgraded into a full-fledged national river-linking project, incentivising water harvesting and water conservation behaviour, encouraging more and more afforestation, renovating and redoing our traditional water systems while creating more water storage capacities for better recharging of our groundwater aquifers are some of the solutions that the Government needs to consider with more gravitas than has been done so far.

            The required policy and regulatory support should be immediately in place. It is felt that all the municipal and PRI bodies should hugely incentivise and make it mandatory for all the private and public buildings to have a ‘roof-top water harvesting structure’ as far as practicable, while also recycling most of the water we use to make the same usable for different purposes including drinking. The regulatory machinery must ensure zero discharge of industrial, household and municipal waste into our rivers and water systems, thereby not only improving the quality of water, but also saving the entire aquatic ecosystem therein.

            We also need to do a rethink on our cropping patterns. By traditionally cultivating water-intensive crops like rice, sugarcane, soybean, wheat and cotton, we have been unwittingly depleting our water resources. The export of such crops actually means indirectly exporting water to the recipient countries. We must selectively switch from the more water-intensive crops to the more water-efficient crops like pulses, oilseeds and other cash crops which give better returns on the investment of all kinds of resources including water, labour and capital.

            According to the Central Water Commission, India receives 4000 billion cubic metres of rains, while it requires only 3000 billion cubic metres of waters for its populace as of now. However, as per the recent Composite Water Management Index Report by the NITI Aayog, country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply by 2030. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an individual requires 25 litres of water daily for meeting one’s basic needs for hygiene and foods.

            While India’s per capita average water use is much more than this as of now, the same is going to be severely compromised in near future if we don’t sit up and take corrective measures instantaneously. And while we do all this, we must raise the general awareness among all sets of stakeholders regarding the looming water crisis and the related imperative to conserve the same. We urgently require the framing of a National Water Policy today to nudge every stakeholder to imbibe a more responsible water ethos than we have cared so far. One only hopes that with an intent and determined Government leadership, all stakeholders could come together for taking the water problem bull by its horns.

Enriching Our Eternal Consciousness

            The proliferation of a mindboggling array of ‘Baba’ and ‘Guru’ within and without the length and breadth of this country adumbrate to the increasing alienation in human life which keeps multiplying with increasing complexities of our day-to-day life. The growing alienation and estrangement are actually more from the carnal and material world, thereby pushing people in search of the reason and relevance of our daily struggles to make ends meet.

            This often pushes people towards the supposedly better-endowed spiritual savants to make the ‘head and tail’ of the generally inscrutable turn of events in their life. The people would rather make their life more meaningful than remaining stuck in the mundane mumbo-jumbo. After attaining and enjoying the basic comforts and pleasures of human life, they long to stretch themselves further to explore the real purpose behind a repetitively boring and unexciting life, often trapped in a routine rut and rat race.

            We the humans are often stuck in a habitual chase of false gratifications. We seldom realise that the pleasure we seek and achieve turn out to be very short-lived after the same is achieved and we again begin the same race in search of another holy grail of happiness and contentment, shifting our goalpost further. These attainments and achievements could be aiming for the possession of physical objects or non-physical and amorphous chimaera like cherished pride, ethos or values.

            It is the latter which is more trouble and tricky than the former. Our fight and struggle for championing and securing a set of ethos and moral values often bring us more pain than pleasure, thereby compromising the very quality of our life. Besides, we know very well that these ethos and values are spatio-temporal, changing with space and time.

            Many of the values, ethos, mores traditions and customs which were very sacrosanct and worth fighting for in the distant past have suddenly become outdated and passé today in one part of the world while they still remain valuable in other parts. ‘slavery’, ‘Sati’, ‘untouchability’ and prohibition on widow remarriage’ were parts of Indian culture at one of Indian history and have become unthinkable in modern India.

            The human society has multiple codes and ways of establishing human and marital relationships in different parts of the world. Whatever is profane in one part is acceptable and permissible in other part of the world. An incestuous relationship in one part of the world appears perfectly normal in other part. So the human society has itself not evolved a consensus about the values and ethos to structure its social and communal life.

            And why not, these values and ethos develop and evolve in keeping with the variable circumstances and conditions specific to a people or its geography. The cultural diversity and differences as visible in human society across the world makes our life really interesting and attractive. The problem arises when we unnecessarily fight for the supposed superiority and one-upmanship of one’s own culture.

            It would be more than advisable for us to accept the beautiful variety in our life. We must learn to respect the ‘salad bowl’ nature of human life unless and until the following of one’s culture starts interfering and conflicting with the enjoyment of cultural rights of others, while simultaneously trying to evolve common societal ethos. The human society and consciousness won’t evolve and enrich itself unless and until we learn to simultaneously evolve a sense of discrimination for respecting the cultural values and ethos of others.

            Let the superiority, if at all required, of cultural values and ideas be decided through time, practice and individual choice rather than trying to impose one set of values over others, often at the expense or to the exclusion of others. Some of us who lack a healthy sense of discrimination, an ability to tell chaff from the grain, not only live in the darkness of ignorance but also suffer endless miseries. Like Don Quixote tilting at the windmills, their life gets wasted in fighting an imaginary battle with imaginary enemies without getting any time for indulging and exploring their lives further to add values to their eternal consciousness.

            Most of us live through our lives like zombies, without ever pausing to understand the reason and rationale behind the ‘whys and wherefores’ of human life. We, thus, waste a beautiful opportunity afforded by the Almighty to improve and enrich our eternal consciousness. If we walk carelessly, we shall surely bump against a stone or get knocked down by an obstacle. We are actually repeatedly engaging in behaviour which hurt ourselves no end.

            But the problem is we have all been doing this unknowingly without our ever realising the same. We must exercise better discrimination and discretion in our quotidian day-to-day lives to use the same as our permanent guide in all our thoughts and actions, to know the value or relevance of one’s vocation or avocation, to know what is it which we are doing or going to do is of permanent value to our eternal consciousness rather than haggling over trinkets and trivia of carnal existence.

            Our problem is that despite often knowing and comprehending the difference between the right and the wrong, we still choose the latter. We must not forget the golden advice enshrined in the ‘Bible’ saying, ‘Don’t do unto others what you don’t want to be done unto you’. More often than not, we try to get even with someone who has hurt or humiliated us, thereby bringing us to their level and eliminating the difference between them and us.

            We must remember that as long as we are trying to get even with others, we can never get ahead of them. Let’s learn the right lessons from the wrong people rather than doing the other way round, as we invariably do. By gloating over the hurt and pain of others we dislike, we are actually debasing ourselves and devaluing our eternal consciousness. If we are always engaged in the rat-race for keeping up with the Joneses, we can never realise the eternal peace and satisfaction as would afford us an opportunity for self-exploration.

            It is only when we look beyond our personal comforts and selfish desires by denying and depriving ourselves the mundane pleasures that we enrich ourselves, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Only when we raise our consciousness and individuality beyond the routine and ordinary, we become extraordinary and begin to realise the intoxicating power of altruism and doing good to others. The ensuing empowerment from evolving perfection and upliftment of our being is nothing less than heavenly bliss.

            Perfection means a mental and spiritual state when all our desires and senses are under our control and we are the absolute master of our ‘Ego’ masquerading as our ‘Self’. It is our false Self as Ego which keeps blurring our vision and constricts our understanding of our real eternal ‘Self’, unsullied and untouched by the hydra-headed clutches of the selfish senses. We may not have control over how someone behaves and treats us, but we definitely can choose to decide as to how should we respond and react to an external stimulus coming in the form of a positive or negative overture. Our free will should be harnessed and prepared well enough to be our true pathfinder.

            Remember, the sun shines over all of us equally without any discrimination. It is completely up to us to feel the pleasing, soothing and life-giving stellar rays. If we shut ourselves in dark corners or close our eyes, we shall never feel and savour the life-giving divine bounties. Similarly, the divine grace is equally available to all of us; it is up to us to explore and feel the same. Only those near fire can feel the heat, not those away from it.

            We should find time and ways to feel the divine and glorious presence of the Almighty all around us. All our high positions and possessions keep us tied to the plane of mortals like millstones round our neck. It is advisable that even while we attend to our duties and responsibilities in the material world, we still find time to explore the deeper recesses of our sublime and eternal ‘Self’. That’s why, all the kings and rulers of ancient India were saints or saintly, being repository of all the uplifting human virtues and values, almost like Plato’s Philosopher King. Some of the examples would include Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira and King Janaka.

            As has been duly proven, our thoughts, being energy vibrations in motion, are very powerful. We are all children of our thoughts. We become what we think. If we think of worldly or material pleasure, we shall attain them. If we desire permanent, unchanging bliss, we shall get the same. Electricity does not have a name, but appliances do even though it is electricity which animates them all. Similarly, the soul does not have a fixed name or identity but the physical bodies definitely have.

            While in body, the soul takes a name, acquires multiple identities and remains entangled in them. After death, the soul goes back to being a possibility of numerous lives as part of unmerged cosmic consciousness. The fact is that we are always attached to the present in spite of the fact that it shall soon become the past. But we still continue doing all wrongs due to our affection and attachment to an elusive present, while ignoring our eternally present spiritual ‘Self’ or consciousness. We must not spoil and starve our eternal consciousness for the false nourishment of the mortal and impermanent physical forms.

Can We Defeat Death?

                           *Saumitra Mohan

            The ‘Second Law of Thermodynamics’ says that entropy results in the gradual decline and death of all systems including stars, people and the universe. The ‘Law of Natural Selection’ has ensured hereditary transfer of immortal genes through generations. This has also guaranteed the replacement of the present with the posterity through the instrumentality of death.

            Death, defined as the permanent cessation of all biological functions sustaining a living organism, is brought about through ageing, predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, accidents or major trauma resulting in a fatal injury.            The remnants of an organism naturally merge with the biochemical cycle on death. Such remnants and residues become food for other predating or scavenging animals.

            The organic matter is further decomposed by detritivores (including earthworms or fungi), transferring and transforming the same for reuse of others in the food chain. All such material, eventually decomposed as chemicals, get consumed and assimilated into the cells of one or the other living organism. The process keeps repeating itself forever, thereby ensuring the sustenance and continuity of the ecosystem.

            With the enlightenment and epiphany afforded by the continuous march of science, we all know today that nothing in this world ever ‘gets lost’ and wasted. Every organic and inorganic matter being different permutations and combinations of energy, they simply change form on their eventual depreciation and disintegration as energy could never be destroyed. Even as organic bodies deteriorate and die, they also undergo a similar process of formative mutation, by becoming or providing building blocks for other living or non-living beings in the universe.

            So, energy including the one forming our ‘soul consciousness’ does not actually end. It simply metamorphoses from one state to another.     That being so, why are we ever so frightened of death? It is our perennial fear of death or love with our earthly life that goads us into seeking, exploring and unearthing the secrets of death for keeping it at bay perpetually. In our daily struggles to make the ends meet, most of us hardly find time to pause and ponder over such esoteric matters as death and life thereafter.

            While it is a truism that almost all the religions and cultures have dealt extensively with the subjects of death and afterlife within the confines of their own cognitive perspectives, this is also true that man has forever tried to explore and unearth the mysteries of death, not to speak of making an untiring effort to defeat death in his desire to live forever. The eternal human desire for immortality by getting around the biological death of organic life has always inspired civilisations since time immemorial to discover the ever elusive ‘elixir of life’ or a ‘philosopher’s stone’ for a permanent victory over death.

            Notwithstanding a series of failures in doing so, the human endeavour has never ceased and continues with renewed vigour and fervour. And this is but natural. As humans get more and more comfortable with their day-to-day problems of survival, they think of continuing and extending the pleasing experiences of human life forever though there have always been a significant number of people who wish to do otherwise because of their negative and miserable life experiences.

            Different schools of science at different phases of human history have explored, propounded and declaimed differently on diverse ways to tame the hydra-headed monster of death of a living organism for realising the human craving for immortality. One of the ways includes transplanting the head of a physically disabled person on a fully-functioning brain-dead body. There is also a phenomenon of ‘whole-body transplant’ where the brain of one organism is transplanted into the body of another organism.

            The ‘whole-body transplant’ is a procedure distinct from the head transplant, which involves transplantation of the entire head into a new body, as opposed to the brain only in case of the former. After a 2014 Harvard study noted significantly enhanced memory and ability to learn in the older mice who were injected with the blood of the younger mice, harvesting teens’ blood has since been promoted for acquiring eternal youth. How successful the same would become, only time will tell.

            Cryonics, a specialized stream of science, proposes to attain immortality through freezing, preserving and reanimating the cadaver of a living organism by way of pre-stipulated formulae. Here, the human memory in the form of individual body is cryo-preserved infinitely until we have the right technologies for reanimating it. If frozen embryos could be brought back to life, why can not the human memory? However, a brain being much larger and many times more complex than an embryo, the freezing process is likely to set in entropy and destroy the neurons carrying the individual memories, thereby destroying the ‘Self’ itself.

            Then, we have ‘Singulartarian’ scientists who propose to immortalise us by uploading the composite patterns of our thoughts and memories into a computer. By intending to upload human consciousness on cloud, the idea is to transform a human from a biological being into a non-biological being to such an extent that the biological part becomes redundant. It is the non-biological part which dominates and by dint of being non-corporeal and non-biological transcends the eternal cycle of birth and death to make a human being immortal.

              In an age of information technology, advanced robotics and artificial intelligence, it won’t be long when we shall soon be able to afford any android body with options to upload a mind of our choice. This could become possible as and when science succeeds in uploading human consciousness or mind onto the humongous pool of interconnected ‘cloud’ as the virtual repositories of brains/minds/consciousness and, thus all human knowledge and wisdom, possessed by all individual human beings. It would then become possible to share or exchange our minds with others.

            One may flaunt as many android bodies as possible depending upon one’s desire, predilection and matching financial condition. This would, however, give rise to another kind of inequality in the world unless the future Government comes out with support and subvention for meeting such needs of its citizens. Whatever be the financial capabilities of the people, the science could definitely facilitate our choosing from a bouquet of minds of different genders and different ages available on the cloud.

            So, even if our physical bodies die, we could still be around by way of our uploaded individual consciousness which could again manifest and express itself through the media of available android bodies. It would become technically possible for an individual to show off as many android bodies as possible, depending on the fact as to whether human civilization is able to solve the problem of poverty and inequality by then or not.

            Nevertheless, the idea of uploading human consciousness into a computer or on an online interconnected database called ‘cloud’ and expressing the same through the instrumentality of androids also has its limitations. This actually traps the humans into another cycle of birth and death, rather than liberating from the same. The knowledge, expertise and administration of new levers for our manifestation through androids or downloading desired minds from the cloud, if fallen in wrong hands, may wreak havoc with human existence.

            Our manifestation through android or downloading the required consciousness would depend upon the mercy and efficiency of those entrusted with the knowhow of the entire mechanism surrounding the conception, design, manufacture and distribution of the androids and administration of the ‘cloud’ containing all our minds. This forebodes the creation of another religion and another God in future. If humans could actually create and work out an efficient and effective system for the same coupled with the technologies for teleportation and telepathy, the same shall open the avenues for colonisation and population of other habitable celestial bodies.

            To get around the problem of dependence on a human agency, the human capacities aided by science and spirituality shall need to be enhanced to the extent of manufacturing their own bodies at will as and when required. The requirement of permanent physical expression shall require to be reduced to the minimum. The human capacities would require to be enhanced to an extent to be able to materialize, travel and express at will at the speed of thought without in any way compromising the similar liberties and rights of others.

            Any such continuation of human consciousness through scientific breakthrough would, however, strike at the roots of the belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death. As the spiritualist and reincarnation studies have already suggested the existence and survival of human consciousness through eternity notwithstanding physical demise, such a development would actually ensure the convergence of spiritual and scientific perspectives, thereby making the Homo sapiens immortal forever. This would also corroborate and confirm the Hindu belief in the eternal existence and immortality of human consciousness.

            Against the above very futuristic solutions to the problem of ‘death’, there are many who believe in the more feasible and practicable goal of extending human life to the maximum extent possible. The intercellular competition in the animal body for eliminating and replacing the damaged cells does have the potential for immortality. If our body could just keep doing this indefinitely, theoretically we do have a decent chance of living an interminably longer life. The human life could be very well extended by slowing the rate of ageing, periodic molecular repair, rejuvenation or replacement of atrophied cells and tissues.

            The average life of a human being could actually be extended by slowing or reversing the processes of ageing through a balanced diet, calorie control, regulating human vulnerability to natural and man-made calamities and accidents, regular exercises and cultivation of healthy habits like avoidance of health hazards like consumption of tobacco products or carcinogenic foods. Doing so, one can very well avoid premature deaths or lifestyle related afflictions and ailments like cancer, diabetes, obesity or cardiovascular diseases. 

            Yet, the life extension methods could only reduce the rate of ageing and postpone our death, but that will not take us anywhere close to the realization of the cherished immortality because of inescapable ‘senescence’. Even if a living being is able to survive all the possible life-threatening accidents or calamities, s/he would still expire due to ‘senescence’ referring to the process of ageing and old age due to the deterioration of cellular and other bodily functions.

            Though there are ‘biomedical gerontologists’ who are trying to understand the various nuances of ageing while also developing treatments for reversing or slowing the process of ageing to ensure improved health and youthful vigour at every stage of human life, still death catches up sooner or later. The ‘trans-humanists’ come on the scene here, promising to create a ‘superman’ with vastly enhanced capabilities to tide over the problem of senility, dotage, caducity and ageing.

            The ‘trans-humanists’ seek to achieve their goals through a combination of behavioural changes, body enhancement techniques and genetic engineering. This inter alia includes diet control, physical exercises, breast or cochlear implants, organ transplants e.g. artificial knees, hips and hearts as well as biological tinkering via genetic engineering.       The new-age ‘nanobots’ or micro-robots are proposed to be pressed into service to get into our bloodstream to annihilate the targeted pathogens, clear the accumulated vascular and arterial debris, rid our bodies of all life-threatening clots, clogs and tumours and carry out the required DNA corrections.

            All this is done with a view to reverse the ageing process for regulating our evolutionary process to transform our species into a stronger, faster, healthier, and more erogenous species with vastly superior cognitive capabilities. So, even if we are not immortal, we can very well become ‘amortal’, i.e. one who is unable to die from disease or ageing.   The modern ‘Rejuvenation Biotechnology’ and ‘Regenerative Medicine’ are convinced that humans will be able to live forever one day.

            Regulating and stopping the molecular and cellular damage or dysfunctions in a human body through state-of-the-art technologies as stem cell, gene therapies, better drugs and vaccinations would soon ensure the same. It would soon be possible to generate human organs using 3D printers loaded with living cells, making them much more accessible and affordable than they are today. The humans shall be able to fix their bodies at will and could rejuvenate it every time they feel so while effectively living in the cloud by being able to link their minds to the interconnected and uploaded minds of all the sentient beings. This will be as good as living in a real world.

            Countering the natural entropy through ageing, the ‘extropians’ like trans-humanists aim at lengthening our biological life, enhanced intelligence, greater wisdom, vastly superior physical and mental abilities while simultaneously aspiring to eliminate political, economic and cultural limits to our personal and social growth. Immortality could easily follow the achievement of these more achievable goals. All said and done, our mortality appears to be immanent and naturally programmed into every cell, organ and system in our bodies as of now. The same shall continue so till the time we are capable of resolving the multifarious issues at different levels of complexity including those relating to ageing and senescence.

            The truth is even if manage to break through the upper ceiling of 125 years by solving the many problems associated with ageing, there are likely to come around newer issues if we succeed to live 200 or 500 years as many of the spiritualists are claimed to have achieved already a la the character of ‘Babaji’ and other beings as mentioned in books like ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ and ‘Living with Himalayan Masters’. Hence, instead of vying for the utopian goal of immortality, a more modest objective of living for 150 years with a better functioning human body through the aid of modern science could be something well worth aspiring for.

            However, one also needs to visualise the many problems emerging from the possible attainment of ‘amortality’ or a longer life of 150 or more years. What would happen to the problem of population? Won’t the very natural evolution of human beings be compromised as a result thereof, thereby trapping many humans in the time warp forever, not to speak of compromising their spiritual growth? We shall need to realise the goals of teleportation and telepathy for real-time transportation and communication with life on other celestial bodies before we make them habitable to tide over the problem of population. Our spiritual growth and advancement may also be severely compromised if we seek to extend our stay in a physical world forever or for an unduly prolonged life.

            One hopes that with scientific growth, we shall also attain corresponding spiritual growth and insights, thereby unveiling and unravelling the mysteries of life, afterlife and rebirth more authentically and authoritatively. If that happens, the humans may lose interest in a longer life or immortality, realizing that they already live forever through the instrumentality of newer physical or spiritual bodies, acquired after every pause called ‘death’ through reincarnations in physical and other dimensions. This would convince the human race of the futility of chasing the chimaera of immortality.