Ishwara : The only antidote to all delusions

Every university has four kinds of teachers. The first set of teachers give marks in exams based on the name or face of the student, irrespective of what they write in exams. Even the best universities have such teachers to some extent at least. If you are in their good books, you will become the topper, otherwise good luck with your career! The second set of teachers give marks based on how precisely the students remember what was written in the notes given by the teacher. These teachers basically don't encourage thinking and mainly promote rote memorisation. The third set of teachers discourage memorisation and give marks for original thinking and creative problem solving. The concepts of God that different human beings have can also divided into similar categories. Some people think that God will be pleased with them just because of their name or family background or community to which they belong. Some others believe that God will be pleased with them just because they do as S/He says. Then there are also others who believe that God will be pleased with them because they apply their own rational thought and perform good actions for the welfare of all, and will grant them an eternal abode in the heavens above. Although these three categories are different, they are all about performing some actions to get some material benefits and pleasures in different ways. But who among them is actually right about the concept of God? 

Work-Life Balance : A Practical Perspective

This blog is a short summary of 8 YouTube videos made by me and my wife (Shweta) on Work-Life Balance. The goal of these videos is to provide a practical perspective into this very important topic, and also some effective techniques that can be used to maintain a balanced lifestyle.

The Myth of Moksha

All religions of the world, without exception, are based on the concept of deliverance from suffering. Human beings, no matter how rich or poor, go through varied experiences in their lives, some of which are good and some bad. The bad experiences lead to suffering, and create a stronger impression on the mind than the good experiences. And since there does not seem to be a way to get rid of suffering in this earthly life, the human mind starts looking for it in the heavens above. The first stage in this striving is to imagine an eternal heaven with unending pleasures that one can get access to after death of the body, if one belongs to a certain group or does certain good actions as per wishes of the heaven's gatekeeper called God. After some more evolution, the human mind realises the fallacy of this desire, and understands that no such pleasures, earthly or heavenly, can be eternal and so after a certain period, a return to earthly life of mixed pleasure and pain is inevitable. But this answer also does not satisfy the human mind, and so it goes on to construct or accept the concept of "Moksha" where one goes beyond both pleasure as well as pain permanently through dissolution of the "soul" or subtle body comprising of the prana and manas. There are elaborate texts of Vedanta and Yoga written to help human beings in progressing on this path and finally achieving the goal of Moksha or ultimate freedom/liberation, through a sustained effort over many lifetimes. But is Moksha an achievable goal, or is it just another myth constructed by the human mind? More importantly, do the Vedantic scriptures clearly support this idea of Moksha?

What I Learnt from my Failed Experiments with Entrepreneurship

 I am from a business family, most of my relatives are into business of some kind, and so a lot of our family conversations revolve around business. If you think the word "business" occurred too many times in the previous sentence, you can well imagine how much intertwined it has been with my life since my early childhood! Now you may think that someone from this kind of background would naturally be good at entrepreneurship, but thats not really the case. Talking about business and actually doing it are very different things. That was my first lesson back in 2005 when I started a coaching centre for IIT-JEE at my native place (Balasore, Odisha) after finishing my B.Tech. from IIT Madras. During my final year at IITM, I was considering two options : starting a JEE coaching centre at Balasore or going for a PhD. Although I was very passionate about science, I was not sure if I had the patience to pursue a PhD. When I began my undergrad, my sole aim was to learn software programming and earn money in the industry. But over the course of 4 years, I completely lost interest in this trajectory due to various reasons and was mesmerised by various concepts of physics. At IITM, I was also deeply involved with Vivekananda Study Circle as a volunteer, which had ingrained in me a deep desire to contribute to the society. The coaching centre idea was motivated by a mix of both these reasons, i.e. to stay in touch with physics and to help students from my native place in reaching the best institutions of higher education. So, as soon as my final semester exams got over, I packed my bags, came back home and rented a small room near our house to start my JEE classes!

How do I find my soul mate?

Finding a soul mate is a hard problem, and we all know that very well! But the good news is that if you are truly looking for a soul mate, it means that you are looking for a deeper experience of life and are not just satisfied with superficial things. That's a sign of evolution!

Prevalence of Manipulative Fake News in Indian News Media

Media is the fourth pillar of our democracy and a significant source of getting correct and precise information about various events around the world. In the present digital age, online news websites have become an important source of news and information for an ordinary person. However, nowadays, it becomes difficult for us to get precise information, due to the menace of fake news. There can be two types of fake news, one which is factually incorrect, and the other which is factual, but presented in a manipulative manner and thus, representing fictional style of writing. Both these problems are equally serious and can cause a lot of social damage if not tackled properly. A lot of work is already going on in the domain of detecting incorrect factual information published by online news agencies, but the latter problem of manipulative news content is hardly paid attention to.