The Human Species is so Special

Another 'Special' article by Dr. Ranade: [Credits TOI. Click here for Article link ]

Human beings feel very vulnerable. Totally at the mercy of destiny, and forever battling circumstances, waging a war against financial, emotional and social insecurity. We are perennially choosing from a myriad options and we keep hoping we’ve made the right choice. The fear of the unknown tends to loom large and we spend most of our present worrying about the future.


This despondency drives many to soothsayers, clairvoyants, astrologers and palm readers and futurologists. If we look around and take a few cues from nature, it seems animals and birds live life with scarce planning, manipulation or worrying about tomorrow. And they manage all right, too.

Humans are unique in that they are bestowed with frontal lobes, those extensions of the brain that insinuate between the eyebrows and the hairline, which also cleave us from our immediate ancestors, the apes. Frontal lobes are the seat of abstraction, intellect, and empower us with qualities like imagination, and conceptual thought.

Our primitive nervous system was designed to enable us to perceive and interact with the environment. Successive evolutionary improvements in the nervous system served to increase the speed and complexity of the response, albeit only as a reaction to the environment. But with the frontal lobes appearing in us humans, we could engage in abstraction.

Philosophy, poetry and culture are some intangibles that the human brain could delve into.

But then came the catch. This added faculty - the power to use creative imagination - also became a tool to conjure abstract fears. The fear of the unknown, the concept of destiny, suspicion, anxiety and the entire spectrum of
"imaginary" fears and angst. But then was that the objective of this latest edition of the brain?

To believe that this device was designed only to make life more comfortable is a bit far-fetched. We can take the credit for advancing technology, making inventions, and generally utilising the tool effectively. But we still have to realise that we just utilised the tool. We are not the creator of this tool. So what is the objective of this very versatile complex nervous tissue that has helped man transform the external world? Was it to distort and manipulate the external world? Couldn’t the creator have done so himself?

Abstraction was given as a boon to us to comprehend the 'inner' world. It is unlikely that other species would query "Who am I?", or "Why has this creation been made?" These are doubts that can arise only as an extrapolation of the thought process beyond the travails of daily mundane living.

So this heightened ability of imagination and comprehension was made available for the human mind to fathom itself.

An ability no other animal possesses. Needless to say almost all fears arising in the mind are a side-effect of this enhanced cognitive ability. Nothing more than that. The knife with a sharp cutting edge is a very versatile instrument if it is used appropriately.

We as proud owners of this add-on gadget need to realise that this tool has to be utilised for the appropriate objective of self-knowledge. To understand the self. To look within and not misuse it to end up as hypertensive and diabetics, disorders very human-specific stemming from gross misuse of this magnificent evolutionary upgrade.

(The writer is a consultant neurosurgeon. E-mail: deepakranade @ hotmail.com)

Sankara takes you on an Unusual Pilgrimage

A nice article by Pranav Khullar was published in the Speaking Tree of TOI.

In the Brahmn-Sutra Bhashya, Sankara says: “Brahmn alone is real, the world is illusory. The individual and the universal soul are One”. Using everyday references to illustrate abstract advaitic concepts, Sankara begins by stating that the Atmabodha will serve as a primer for those who wish to experience liberation, equipped with the tools of discernment. The second declares that knowledge alone can be the cause of liberation, just as fire is the direct cause of cooking. This may include the requirement of water, pots and pans but it is essentially fire that makes cooking possible.

Sankara saya that karma or action is powerless to destroy ignorance for “...it is not in conflict with ignorance”. The Self can be known only through knowledge, just as light alone can dispel darkness. He compares jnana abhyasa or the practice of knowledge which purifies by removing ignorance, with the traditional method of purifying muddy water in rural India with kataka-nut powder.

Just as the powder sprinkled on the surface of the water forms a film and drags all the impurities to the bottom, leaving pure water on the surface, constant use and practice of knowledge removes the dirt of ignorance. And just as the kataka-nut powder dissolves in the water after doing its work, knowledge too disappears after the Self emerges.

Sankara uses the example of the illusion created by oyster shells scattered along the beach on a moonlit night. We mistake them for silver, only till we recognise the reality of the oyster shells. Similarly, the world of names and forms exists only till self-knowledge dawns. The phenomenal world exists in the mind of the perceiver alone, and names and forms exist like ornaments. Vishnu, the allpervading consciousness, is like gold. Sankara reinforces the spirit and content of the Upanishads by alluding to the Mahavakyas, in his delineation of the nature of Brahmn, reiterating the wellknown method of arriving at the definition of Brahmn, through the process of elimination “...neti, neti...not this, not this”.

Meditation is essential to refocus on the Self. The flame of knowledge can only be kindled by constant meditation, Sankara compares this to the act of rubbing two pieces of wood together to create fire. Meditation is the friction between the mind-wood and the Om-wood pieces. The story of Rama is allegorised as Atmarama, who derives satisfaction from the Self alone, having crossed the ocean of delusion to vanquish the creatures of passion, just as Rama crossed the ocean to kill Ravana.

In the concluding verses Sankara seems to speak from a meditative trance, as he alludes to the nature of Brahmn — sat-chit-ananda or knowledgeexistence-bliss. These verses reflect the cosmic nature of his thought. He says, “...all things which can be perceived or heard, are Brahmn itself and nothing else...and though atma is reality, it can be perceived only by the one who has the eye of wisdom”.

Sankara asks us to undertake the real pilgrimage to “the shrine of the atma”, which will bestow upon us real equanimity. The Atmabodha, like its companionpiece the Vivekachudamani, is a call from the heart. It reflects Sankara’s attempt to reach out to not only the intelligentsia of his time. It conveys the profound, yet simple philosophy of Oneness to anyone who is curious to know more about the nature of consciousness and the path to liberation. It is a pilgrimage of the mind.

Thirukkural verses 3: The Merit of Ascetics

English Translation of Kaviyogi Maharishi Shuddhananda Bharatiar

No merit can be held so high
As theirs who sense and self deny.

To con ascetic glory here
Is to count the dead upon the sphere.

No lustre can with theirs compare
Who know the right and virtue wear.

With hook of firmness to restrain
The senses five, is heaven to gain.

Indra himself has cause to say
How great the power ascetics' sway.

The small the paths of ease pursue
The great achieve things rare to do.

They gain the world, who grasp and tell
Of taste, sight, hearing, touch and smell.

Full-worded men by what they say,
Their greatness to the world display.

Their wrath, who've climbed the mount of good,
Though transient, cannot be withstood.

With gentle mercy towards all,
The sage fulfills the virtue's call.

Flashes from Swami Vivekananda - 4

Philosophy of Education - 1

Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man

Knowing is unveiling

Knowledge is inherent in man, no knowledge comes from outside; it is all inside. What we say a man 'knows' should, in strict psychological language, be what he 'discovers' by taking the cover off his own soul, which is a mine of infinite knowledge. We say Newton discovered gravitation. Was it sitting anywhere in a corner waiting for him? It was in his own mind; the time came and he found it out. All the knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe. The external world is simply a suggestion, the occasion, which sets you to study your own mind. The falling of an apple gave the suggestion to Newton, and he studied his own mind. He rearranged all the previous links of thought in his mind and discovered a new link among them, which we call the law of gravitation. It was not the apple nor in anything in the center of the earth.

All knowledge is within

All knowledge therefore, secular or spiritual, is in the human mind. In may cases it is not discovered, but remains covered, and when the covering is being slowly taken off, we say 'we are learning', and the advance of knowledge is made by the advance of this process of uncovering. The man from whom this veil is being lifted is the more knowing man; the man upon whom it lies thick is ignorant; and the man upon whim it has entirely gone is the all-knowing, omniscient. Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge exists in the mind; suggestions is the friction which brings it out. What we call powers, secrets of nature and force are all within. All knowledge comes from the human soul.. man manifests knowledge, discovers it within himself, which is pre-existing, through eternity.

Infinite power is within the soul

No one was ever really taught by another. Each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion which makes the internal teacher to work and understand things. Then things will be made clearer to us by out own power of perception and thought, and we shall realize them in our own souls. The whole of the big banyan tree which covers acres of ground was in the little seed which was perhaps no bigger than one-eighth of a mustard seed. All that mass of energy was there confined. The gigantic intellect, we know, lies coiled up in the protoplasmic cell. It may seem like a paradox, but it is true. Each one of come out of one protoplasmic cell, and all the powers we possess were coiled up there. You cannot say they came from food, for if you heap up food mountains high, what power comes out of it? The energy was there, potentially no doubt, but still there. So is infinite power in the soul of the man whether he knows it or not. Its manifestation is only a question of being conscious of it.