Thought Blog

I attended a Seminar on "Goal and Purpose of Life" by a Swamiji on campus yesterday. Though he was not that learned he reminded me of the logic present in the Hindi Spirituality Theory. I believe that Hindi Religion Minus the mythology leaves you with a good "spiritualistic" theory. This is a reasonably theory and might be claimed to be having some logical reasoning behind it.

This thing reminded me of philosophy. That there are so many mutually inconsistent but individually irrefutable philosophies that have been invented since centuries. The Hindu (Vedanta) Philosophy is one such philosophy out of thousands.

I felt I needed to learn more about philosophy.

I had a long debate after the Hindu talk with a fellow Indian at USC - Parikshit, he was on the side of Hindu religion, and I on the side the western society. Well, it was a fruitful debate. We both learned different perspectives. I now think that Hindi spiritualistic theory is a sound theory (of course, a theory among thousands - doesnt make it true - in fact, i dont think it is true, but just that it is sound enough to be a valid theory), but going deep into it requires reading a lot of books, which i dont have time for. I also brought from forgotten memories to conscious mind that Meditation is a thing worth looking at. More control over mind and thoughts? Useful for me!! In that debate with him, I told him that pre-marital, ex-marriage sex that is normal in the US (and a taboo in India - hence very low there), is not immoral, and does have some advantages, and no significant disadvantages. So its not bad. He, however, was of the view that it is bad, only marital sex is ok. I managed to convince him that ex-marital, pre-marital sex, if done in a controlled, "non-addictive" manner was not wrong.

Then today after the midterms, I attended a Philosophy Club meeting on Neitzsche, and was a pillar at the meeting with all the other attendees being philosophy majors, and I being the only know-nothing person (no background at all in philosophy!!). Most of what was said went above my head. However my going there was not a waste. I learnt the progress the American society has made -- they now have research going in philosophy at so many schools here -- now even when philosophy generates no money. In India, theres no thing as research - in any field. Conclusion: When you crave for money, the society benefits overall, even for things which dont have monetary benefits. (more in a later post) I also learnt from the meeting about the analytical thinking, individualism, independent thiniking, that is present in Americans, which is completely absent in Indians. These Americans had potential in them to do something in life, unlike many/most Indians. Living in such a materially prosperous society has lots of advantages!!!

There was one person in that meeting who particularly impressed me. He was simply brilliant. He was a philosophy grad student at our USC Philosophy Department, aged 29, and was able to speak at the level of the faculty member who was giving the talk. He was simply - in one word - brilliant. The way he talked, the way he argued, the way he analysed, the knowledge he had....I thought - oh America has so many great people - it will go very high, higher than it is today. The American system is great..

I came back to my lab, and tried to find his site -- now this person must have a great background - in everything. I found his site. I learnt a lot about him. His website was good. I liked it. That is, until I reached his life line page, where he mentions in detail the events that happenned in his life, chronologically.

Now this hit me badly and unexpectedly. Read that page. His life has been mostly only travel, sex, girls, datings, break-ups, drugs, etc etc. And no firm life. He has been mostly depressed because of his such a life - because of no parental love, no "one wife", too many break-ups, parent's divorce, etc etc.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Parikshit was right. After all, the "customs/traditions" in India of being close and loving to parents, and having sex only after marriage and only to one wife, divorce in the very difficult circumstances, a sound family, marrying before age of 25-26, ...does have some advantages.

But then, why is the Western society so prosperous and Indian society in such a bad shape....maybe there's some other reason for that....maybe Indian values do make sense.....

I am still thinking...........................

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