Online Education : Rationale and Effective Methods

The process of evolution does not follow an optimisation protocol to minimise or maximise a single cost function. And it is this which leads to the limitless variety in living systems that we see all around us. Plants, insects, bacteria, viruses, animals and humans, all belong to this one big family of living organisms, but are so different from each other. Each has its own trajectory of evolution and they all share a common goal, i.e. to live and grow! Interestingly, this immense variety that we see among living systems also exists within the human family too. Even humans living under very similar circumstances often turn out to be so different from each other. For example, although Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle are sisters and famous singers, their style of music is so different from each other! Just see your own siblings and cousins. Very rarely will you find someone who is just like you. As far as we know, this is a unique human trait and not shared by any other living organisms. Should not this very important feature of the human species be factored in while designing our education system? Obviously, yes! 

What does it mean to be a Sthitaprajna?

Enlightenment, Moksha, Nirvana and Liberation are some of the commonly used terms used to define the goal of the spiritual process. Although these terms are very popular and often serve as an inspiration for people to take up spiritual practices seriously, they have some very serious limitations. Most importantly, usage of these terms often creates a negative attitude towards the material/physical world. Serious seekers of Moksha often look down upon the physical world as impure and wish to spend long hours in seeking the pure consciousness. These terms also creates unnecessary friction between the so called spiritual seekers and the so called materialists. The former often consider the latter to be ignorant and selfish, while the latter consider the former to be lazy bums who do not wish to contribute to society. This artificial divide between spiritual seekers and materialists seems to be a latter development in Indian history since Ramayana and Mahabharata do not provide any evidence for it. In both Ramayana and Mahabharata, the main protagonists, Rama and Krishna, are both spiritually enlightened as well as ruling Kings. In fact, in verse 2.55 of the Bhagwad Gita, Krishna provides a precise term to describe people who have struck the perfect balance between the world of spirit and the world of matter, and strongly urges Arjuna to seek this state of being:

प्रजहाति यदा कामान्सर्वान्पार्थ मनोगतान् । 

आत्मन्येवात्मना तुष्टः स्थितप्रज्ञस्तदोच्यते ||

O Pārtha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense gratification, which arise from mental modifications, and when his mind finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be of steady intellect (Sthitaprajna).

Is committing suicide a good idea?

"Life is so frustrating. I feel caged in a prison and not able to move. Why is the world around so suffocating? I don't want to live any more! I want to die." 

These are not the thoughts of a person suffering from depression, but of Joe, who is one of the most intelligent and innovative students at Imperial College of Engineering. Remember that guy from 3 Idiots who could not built the drone on time and Virus refused to give him even a small extension? Virus's attitude was surely despicable and he has himself paid a huge price for it (by loosing his own son), but thankfully he at least had a change of heart later on! Hopefully that saved a few young lives at least. But are all suicides caused due to such insensitive people around us? What about Raghav from Chhichhore? He seemed to have very cool parents and equally good friends. We also don't know of any such insensitive teachers, relatives or neighbours that he may have had. But still, he did jump off his friend's balcony after not being to clear the coveted JEE! As Raghav's father recollects later on, "I told him how we would celebrate once the results are out and he clears the exam. But I never said what we would do if he could not clear it". Raghav could not stand the fact that both his parents were JEE rankers and he could not clear the exam. That led to a complete loss of self-worth, which  then led to him taking such a drastic step! So seemingly cool parents and supportive environment could also not prevent it. Whether what Joe and Raghav did was right or wrong is hard for us to judge since no one else can truly understand what a person goes through in a given life situation, and why s/he is forced to take such a drastic step. But in general, is committing suicide a good idea?

Mind-Brain Interaction

Essence of Quantum Mechanics :

What cannot be calculated, cannot be measured. What can be calculated, can be measured. And most importantly, not everything can be calculated.

Calculation : 

Write a mathematical equation to predict the future state of a system using information about the present and past history. Systems for which this is possible are henceforth referred to as physical systems.

Measurement : 

Take a classical system with a calibrated scale. Make it interact with a quantum/classical system, and note the change in reading. 

Essence of Physical Science :

This change of reading of a classical calibrated apparatus in a measurement is expected to agree with the theoretical calculation.

Educational reforms for cultural and spiritual integration in India

Introduction

India is one of the most diverse nations on this planet where people from many different cultural backgrounds live and work together. Tamil Nadu in the south is very different from Kashmir in the north, and Gujarat in the west is very different from Assam in the East. Even people from neighboring states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala speak very different languages (Tamil and Malayalam, respectively) and have several cultural differences. Despite these diversities, there has been a civilizational continuity in India at least for the past few thousand years and the major unifying force has been the Vedic tradition. Great Vedic saints and scholars have been born in all parts of the Indian subcontinent ranging from Swami Rama in Garhwal Himalayas (north), Adi Sankaracharya in Kerala (south), Swami Vivekananda in Bengal (east) and Saint Tukaram in Maharashtra (west).

One teacher at a time

Ravi has been a school teacher at Indore since the last 5 years and is quite popular among the students for his lucid explanations and warm disposition. Though just in his late 20s, he exudes wisdom beyond his years while at the same time maintaining a boyish charm. When he enrolled for BSc in Physics at one of the most reputed college of India, his primary aim was to become a world-renowned scientist like CV Raman. However, interactions with some of the best teachers in college made him get seriously interested in teaching as a profession. Ravi thought that research is surely very attractive with the possibility of becoming world famous, but teaching could offer him a deeper level of satisfaction. Being able to positively impact the lives of young minds started looking very promising. Finally, in his final year of BSc, Ravi gave up the idea of research and decided to get into physics teaching. At first, he thought of doing a PhD and becoming a college teacher. But later, he started feeling that in order to groom students into becoming good citizens, one needs to start from the school level. Hence, he finally decided to do an MSc in Physics and then a B.Ed., so that he could become a school teacher. There was some reluctance shown by his parents initially, but they finally accepted their son’s idea after some discussions. Ravi was not just smart at studies but also good at convincing others, especially those he deeply cared about! 

Allah : The manifestation of Rudra

Prophet Muhammad was born in 570 CE in Mecca at a time when the Arabian peninsula was manifested with warring tribes. Prophet was orphaned at a very young and spent his childhood with various relatives. After growing up, he started working as a diplomat, and around the age of 40, started getting very concerned with the prevalent social problems of his times. He began to spend a lot of time praying to God for guidance in a cave called Hira in Mount Jabal al-Nour, near Mecca. During one of these prayers, the angel Gabriel appeared before him and started revealing to him the verses of the Quran. These revelations continued till the end of Prophet's life. The Quran is a compilation of these revelations, considered to have come straight from God, and so unquestionable and unchangeable. Since the first revelation of the Quranic verses in 610 CE, the religion of Islam has spread far and wide, largely through the use of force, and as on today controls large parts of Asia and Africa, and is now making inroads into Europe and America, through terror financing and other channels. 

Dealing with brainwashing in India

India is a unique country in many ways, one of them being its extreme diversity of language, culture, belief systems, food and lot more. Even within Hinduism, the number of Gods that people worship, the variety of processes of worship and the diversity of philosophies is mind boggling. And diversity is surely a good thing in general since it makes people living in the society be more open to new ideas and more tolerant to people who have divergent opinions. However, for a diverse society to function smoothly and prosper materially, it is also important that proper security and stability of its territory be maintained. Road accidents, fatal diseases and the like surely need to be curbed down since they cause a significant loss to the country's human resources as well as economy. But lot more problematic for India are those people and countries which make targeted attempts at causing chaos and disharmony in India by various ways. And the first step in neutralising them is proper identification. Who are these people and these countries?

Sanskrit : Origin, Evolution and Importance

Sanskrit is not an ordinary human language. It is a collection of sounds that leads to the deepest experiences that human beings have ever had. It is true that even music of many varieties can lead to such experiences for some people, but the most important aspect of Sanskrit in this regard is that it offers a systematic and objective way to reach such experiences. The most important source of these mystical Sanskrit verses is the Veda, which is considered to be several millennia old. The Vedic mantras have a power no less universal than that of modern science and engineering! An interesting aspect of Sanskrit is that it is not only available in the form of these powerful verses, but also in the form of a spoken language that humans can use to communicate with each other. There are various theories about how this language came into existence and how it evolved. Though there is a lot of debate going on about its geographical origin and extent, what we will examine here is its temporal origin and evolution. How did humans come to acquire this almost magical language? What effects did it have on the society? And what effects did society have on the language? As they say, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction!

Yogic Siddhis, Science and Samyama

When a child is born, does it first become aware of its own existence or that of its mother? We will perhaps never know the answer to this question. But what we know for sure is that as soon as a child comes out of the Mother's womb, the mother becomes the other! The mother is then no longer a part of the child's sense of Self, but is still someone the child feels deeply connected with. For some months after the child's birth, there is also perhaps the confusion about whether the child and the mother are two separate individuals or the same. Though this confusion subsides over the years, there are other things the child gets to interact with at varying levels of intimacy. There is a sense of separateness with certain things at certain points of time, and then there is also a feeling of oneness. The love and hatred that a person experiences for his/her favourite sports teams is also a result of his/her own changing mental landscape. There is a world that exists outside, and there is its reflection that exists inside. Another perspective could be that the world outside is a reflection of the world inside. Which of these perspectives is right, and which of these worlds is more real is hard to say. But the two worlds do exist and they are not really the same. The world outside is made of matter. And the world inside consists of the mind and consciousness. The world outside can be measured. And the world inside can be experienced. Can a measurement be experienced, and an experience measured? 

Maintaining Good Health

Scientific developments of the last century have led to unprecedented advancements in healthcare facilities and medical treatment which have significantly improved the average human life span. However, this improved understanding of the human system and associated chemical compounds has also inadvertently led to huge health related problems mainly in three ways. Firstly, as Michael Moss describes in his book titled "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us", many companies and establishments in the food industry cleverly design foods that will get people hopelessly addicted and make them indulge in over-consumption finally leading to huge deterioration in health and prevalence of deadly diseases. Secondly, there has been an increased use of pesticides and artificial ripening agents which get inside healthy looking foods and cause irreparable damage in the long run. Thirdly, most of educated people nowadays work in sedentary jobs with minimal physical activity and their work is usually so demanding and/or the personal ambitions are so high that they hardly get any time for exercise. One approach to solving these problems could be resort to science itself. But as Albert Einstein once said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them".

Does a stitch in time always save nine?

Proverbs are some of the most powerful collection of words in any language, and one good example of such a proverb is, "A stitch in time saves nine". The literal meaning of this proverb is that if there is a small cut in a piece of cloth, getting it stitched as early as possible prevents the cut from getting bigger and requiring more number of stitches. But the actual intended meaning is that if there is a problem, fixing it early prevents the problem from growing bigger and getting worse. Now, if its just about a cut in a cloth, the problem is easy to identify and equally easy to fix. But, for good or bad, real life problems are neither so easy to identify nor to solve. And many times, if one person identifies a particular problem, not everyone around necessarily agree that the problem exists. And even if they agree, they may not agree about the extent of the problem and the need for an immediate solution. And sometimes the justification for this is another equally important proverb, "Time is the best healer"! The idea is that some problems may actually get aggravated by human intervention and are best resolved on their own. For example, if we get a mild fever, its sometimes better to allow the fever to subside on its own rather than popping a pill as soon as the thermometer crosses 100.

Managing the Academic Phase Transitions

Most of times, life feels like a continuous process going from one point in time to the next in a smooth fashion. However, there are several points in time when this smooth flow is broken and one has to go through very discontinuous jumps or phase transitions. These transitions bring in many unforeseen challenges which one is usually not well prepared to handle. These jumps can be heart-wrenching for those who are unable to handle the new situations, but can also be a great opportunity for others who were lagging behind in the previous phase of life. There are many people who do well in the early stages of life but loose out over time, and one of the main reasons for this is their inability to maintain success across various phase transitions. We should not assume that what made us successful in one phase of life will naturally lead to success in the next phase. It is very important to prepare ourselves accordingly and acquire new skills as and when required. In life outside college, these phase transitions can be quite unpredictable and so that much harder to be prepared for. But within the academic system, these phase transitions are actually quite well defined upto the senior professional level.

The first phase transition comes after 10th, when most good students are expected to start working towards cracking a professional examination at the end of their 12th class. Then the next phase transition is from 12th to college life, where often there is too much freedom than what one can handle. For most people, academic life ends with a bachelors or masters degree but for those who choose to pursue a PhD, thats another huge academic phase transition. A PhD is nothing like usual academics pursuits and requires a totally different approach. Most people who complete a PhD naturally look for faculty positions, but are again seldom aware of the totally new set of challenges it brings along! We will take these four major academic phase transitions one by one and try to analyse how one can be well prepared to handle these.