Ignorance is Bliss.

I remember this quote by Cypher in The Matrix, when the agent offers him a deal to become a traitor.

Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.



This is something I often think during my search for knowledge.

Is Ignorance Bliss? Trust me it is. but guess where the issue is. no one is truly ignorant. It is just the relative difference in the level of knowledge one has compared to others. We start gaining knowledge already by the time we are born and implicitly learn a lot of things. this implicit learning is the reason why some one should start seeking real knowledge.

so in case of people being agnostic towards god/anything, these are people like cypher who want to be agnostic for not being effected by the reality and try to stay away from trouble. what is the result? not every one is agnostic. infact most of them are religions, which is more dangerous than being agnostic. i.e., the blindly believe in dogmas, do not have real values inside, create ways to escape the sins/karma by circumventing it using various escape routes like forgiveness, pariharam(just to convince their conscience) etc. This kind of religiousness does not make one civilised or evolved. they are locked up in a time when the religion was created, makes them conservative and on top of this the basic uncivilized wild nature of humans are not removed. combine this with worldly expectations, materialistic interests and nexus between politics and religion, more dogmas are created to circumvent the core ideas and the result is mayhem. I think since people are religions, one needs to be aware of the issues created by this and seek knowledge to destroy ignorance.

For me I am an atheist(an atheist is not agnostic or anti god, but an informed decision of an individual who has realised or wants to realise what god/everthing is. Being atheistic is a good start to understand god/everything and its concepts than being devoted or religious) and I believe god is a concept and try to understand the ideas behind the concept differenciate between good ideas and bad ideas, understand real philisophy and just take the gist or the essence of the ideas and follow them in spirit, than blindly believing in god/religion and its dogmas. for others who want to be a theist, be so but with deligence, openess and seek knowledge. dont let dogmas and devotion come on the way. some one said When you meet the Buddha(or your favourite god) on the road to enlightenment, kill him. I really mean this if you understood the meaning of it.



When I say ignorance and agnostic, I am not just talking about ignorance about god alone, it is ignorance about anything and everything in everyday life which affect us as an individual and as a society and find ways to solve it. This is the real purpose of human existance(karma/gnana yoga).

This is the very catch in these theistic concepts. i.e., to make man search of the unknown and in the process improve his knowledge on so many things in this world, get a big view of things and help the development of humanity and the creation. this is exactly what every sadhu, swami, saint, mysteic and prophet has done.
and I believe when people move beyond a certain level of knowledge and get to know the unknown dimensions of this universe(the brahman/Sunyata?), they are in true bliss as they have already become ignorant of this/our world.

So du want to be ignorant? du want to be cypher?
Even I wish I was completely ignorant. but it is just not possible.
so I requote. complete Ignorance which is bliss.

Reincarnation and rebirth

you can get definitions and explanation of reincarnation and its association with karma here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation#Hinduism
and contrast this with this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebirth_%28Buddhist%29


In my view, I believe that reincarnation as a concept is based on the law of conservation of energy.
i.e., considering life, knowledge and consiousness(soul/Atman) are forms of energy that power the human being, according to this theory, "total inflow of energy into a system must equal the total outflow of energy from the system, plus the change in the energy contained within the system. In other words, energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed."

So when the body dies, the soul has to get into a new system. i.e, the life energy has to be converted to some other form or move into another system. It need not be another living being but just another form of energy and ultimately it has to reach the source of the energy(brahman, the sum total of all energy and matter in creation). This is the logic of soul reincarnation.

With regard to karma being the basis of next rebirth or reincarnation, this is a dogma. This was created in good faith to control human beings.

the meaning of this can be interpreted this way,
1. In todays world your karmas affect you instantly or within the same physical life. i.e, what you do today affects your tomorrow. if you do good, it pays tomorrow. if you do bad, it gets back tomorrow.

2. what karma you do affects your next generation(or any one in your domain). if you do good and teach them good, they become good an vice versa. you mould the character of your/the general next generation, implicitly or explicitly. i.e, your thought energy (knowledge and conciousness) transforms into the thought energy of the next generation(or any one who has been affected by you). This is thought rebirth.

Now we hear stories of rememberance of punarjanma etc. This can be explained by my interpretation of rebirth of thought energy.

My philosohpy on God, religion, rituals, brahman, creation, etc..

After a lot of searching and research I am more than convinced that the "concept" called god is needed for humanity. But religion is a curse on humanity(see my other blog on religion).
prophets and gurus created god to get control and order into the barbaric humans. But ironically that has added more barbarism in the so called cultured humans as we are still figiting in the name of religion. remember for any civilization the other culture is barbarian.



When was god created?
well if we look at the history of religions, you will understand this.
lets take the most modernmajor religion. Islam, this was a reformation of christianity and judaism.
reformation means both social and changes to the concept of god. similarly christianity was a reformation on Judaism. Judaism itself was based on beliefs in zoroastraism and some more imagination to the conditions in which Abraham lived.
Zoroastraism itself was an offshoot of the vedas (concept of god/devil, i.e., dualism evolved) with some more non vedic concepts.
similarly in the east we had a similar thing happening, with vedanta dharma(modern hinduism) borrowing from jainism(vegeterianism), buddhism(non violence) and other pagan beliefs(idol worship) and western concepts from zoroasrtianism(dualism), judaism(god as an entity) and christianity which had come into india by 1st mil a.d. and reforming ancient (vedic) hinduism giving less importance to spirituality and more to bakthi cult. buddhism itself was a reformation of hinduism and borrowed from jainism. buddhism and jainism were contemprory and had some the same effect and were the best interpretations of the vedas regarding god. they are atheistic and wrote dharmas for people to live a righteous life and not about religion and religious worship etc.

So we can see that the concept of god itself comes from the vedas. and vedas did not have god as an entity. vedas only had demi gods, worshipped nature objects(not in the bakthi/devotion sense) for thanking them and believed everything is brahman. Brahman is not god but the creation itself(advaitha). Brahman is not worshipped or needs any devotion. Brahman is ultimate truth. i.e., everything is the universe/creation. from now on when I use the word Brahman I will mean the creation/universe.

The vedas created science and not religion. They gave the knowledge of what we are and whats around us, whats the universe etc and just thanked these and not pray to them. infact you don't pray to anybody in the vedas. you just tell your self to be something(gain knowledge, be good, destroy ignorance, etc) . Similarly Rituals were created to give social and legal messages. They are equal to todays contracts, affadivits, celebrations, parties etc. since writing was not developed then.

Now we can see that this concept of Brahman and rituals were confused by various people thus creating god as an entity and various religions and the original idea has been blown out of propotions. Society, philosophy, science and other knowledge were mixed too and thus several religions came.

So is god any kind of entity like a super power or creator or almighty or trinity or what ever?
The answer is no. There is no entity called god.
(Well this are Abrahamic concepts of god which crept into Indian society post vedic period. )

Even according to Vedic Hinduism god(Brahman, the source in "the matrix") is another name for the creation and the source of all energy(including life/thought energy) .
This is also my interpretation of true advaitha, if you remove all social, political and other aspects of it. This is the true belief in Hinduism and so in Buddhism. These religions can be called as atheistic by believers of Abrahamic religions. Theistic interpretation of vedas is technically and scientifically incorrect(doesnt appleal to intelligence/common sense), though it could be socially correct.


So why do people believe in god, why dont they realise/accept the truth. why does humanity need god. the answer was given by Morpheus in movie "The Matrix" when Neo asked the same question about why people live in the matrix and why cant they get out. This was the reply from Morpheous "You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."

You get the idea? God has formed the basis of our civilizations.

Ok. in simpler words, I believe god represents the good part of us and is just a funcion of the 6th sense of the brain, just like what we call the mind and heart.
To live a ordered and cultured life without god is very hard. one needs to get to a cetrain level of maturity, independence and control to do that. Until some one reaches there, belief in a super power or what ever called god needs to exist.

An ignorant person is made to imagine a god, this imagination is made possible because of the brain's thinking capabilities. This god is just inside you and a part of u, the good things learnt by you.

Most of what people call god is because of ignorance. When ignorance is removed you realise truth. If this truth is called enlightenment or atheism whatever be it. The truth is that there is nothing as god. It is just a guide line like the latitude and longitudes. It helps you in navigating life until you become a good sailor. After which you can continue to use if you feel. I dont feel the need to use it anymore. So I am Atheist or Buddha(some one with buddhi/intelligence/ knowledge), you can decide what I am. If I am a buddha, I am a Pratyeka Buddha trying to be a Samyaksam Buddha, hehe ;) .


So why do knowledgeable people like saints and prophets and other intelligent people even after realising this truth, continue to profess the concept of god and say they see god in everything and every one. Think about it. the answer is social reasons. To avoid the implications of a godless ignorant society and to build a amicable society by saying every one is the same.

Godless ignorant society? When the truth is known how is the society ignorant? that is the question.
Well reason
No 1. just by preaching the truth, people and society don't change (how many of us follow religious preachings or even know it. remember what happened to islam because of wrong interpretations of preachings). They are so immersed in their worldly thought that they cannot so easily break out of it. It take not just knowledge, experience but fearlessness and courage to do that. i.e., the agents in the matrix control u and u need to fight it. Not every one can do that.
No.2 not all knowledgeable people good. they use this to expolit ignorant people in various ways.
No.3 This truth cannot be preached or taught. it needs to be realised by one.

So why do I tell this? Just to tell u that when u have realised the truth, don't be afraid ur alone and don't confuse yourself further.

So the next question of the seeker is who created everything or who created the brahman itself.
This is beyond my comprehension and should be beyond any humans comprehension and researching this tends to infinity. Some might say its god or what ever, this is just some kinda placeolder for the unknown/not knowable and imagination.
then I can ask who created god?
Humans of course, so it gets back to that chicken and egg situation.

The basic axiom is Brahman exists and always existed and will always exist. we cannot go beyond this.
there are many mythological stories in hinduism which substanciate this. do you know the story of thiruvannamalai jyothi? it says you can never find the adhi or antham of Shiva(representing the creation here). if some one said so. They are lying.

unfortunately the brain and the body(sense, including the sixth) has limited capabilities while the brahman is infinite. So no amount of thinking can get you beyond a certain point. Our scope is limited. whats beyond us can be called as god or infinite or what ever, its upto you. for me, I simply dont care about whats beyond any humans capabilities. we simply dont posses the logic to feel it. and what ever we presently say, feel or believe as god or not is just our imagination.

Is this the ultimate truth?

To conclude I should say, be good, be good to others. take life as it comes. do some decent planning for the near future. give your 2 cents(or may be more) worth contribution to humanity/world/Brahman. gain all possible knowledge. differenciate the good and bad in that. do what your common sense tells. make sure you learn good things so your common sense tells u good things. enjoy life and dont worry if god exists or not. if you think you are strong enuff you wont need to. if you are weak it helps. thats it.


PS:- ofcourse I am not against god or a blind Atheist. Blind belief in anything be it in god or being atheist is not good. Basic principles of any good religion asks you to ask questions and gain knowledge. The more you do this the more you will agree with what I has written here.