John Bunyan (1628-1688), in his seminal book, The Pilgrim’s Progress, writes about “the Man with the Muck-rake… who could look no way but downward.” He was shown to the pilgrim at the “House of the Interpreter.” John Bunyan created this metaphor for the carnal mind, which is always concerned with the earthly things that carry the heart away from the Divine. “There stood also one over his head, with a Celestial Crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown for his Muck-rake; but the man did neither look up nor regard; but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust of the floor.”

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1858-1919), President of the United States from 1901 to 1909, was the first to bring muckraking into public discourse. While he acknowledged the importance of people pointing out wrongdoings of others for the well-being of society if done indiscreetly and as a trend, it becomes counterproductive. At the time, a group of American writers were providing detailed journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption by the big business houses in a rapidly industrializing United States, and it was an important contribution to nation-building.

The muckrakers had historically taken on profiteering, deception, and low standards of public health and safety. They also raised awareness about social ills like child labour, prostitution, alcohol, and the pathetic conditions of city slums. Later, pouring scorn on legislators had become fashionable and journalists enjoyed portraying political leaders as pawns of industrialists and financiers. The big businesses struck back and bought the media houses and today, muckraking has become a corporate warfare tool, rather than a social service. 

The French philosopher, Alain Badiou (b. 1937), felt that everyday life is constantly ruptured by “mediated” events. Things happen – both good and bad – but muckrakers talk about only bad things. Moreover, when muckraking becomes rife, it even feels as if the whole world is run by rogues. Badiou feels that “We pose only those questions whose answers are the pre-given conditions of the questions themselves.” Watch any debate on TV and you know it is all muckraking. The Anglo-Irish philosopher, George Berkeley (1685-1753), said very aptly, “We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.”

With two billion people on social media, we are indeed deluged with a cognitive surplus. And this deluge is no different than the great flood in the deluge myth that destroys civilization as an act of divine retribution. When Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil (b. 1948), sets the date 2045 for the “Singularity,” it can’t be brushed aside as some Nostradamus prediction. 

American social scientist at Stanford University, Brian Jeffrey Fogg (b. 1963), is hailed as the father of persuasive technology. He calls social media a flower on a behaviour-change tree. Social media is indeed being used to unleash new behaviour loops apparently designed to convert human beings into desiring-machines for the products and services that are promoted for a fee by the technology companies that have “created” social media itself.

Ramsay Brown, neuroscientist and Co-founder and COO of Boundless Mind (formerly Dopamine Labs), works at the intersection of brains, minds, and machines. He claims of developing technology to manipulate human mind. So, are we heading for a day when by adjusting some knobs on a dashboard we would be quietly changing our behavioural patterns? What is scarier is to imagine that these knobs are operated by others to change our natures! 

I do not see anything stopping it from happening. The helplessness of the world was severely tested by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our great medical system was exposed as treating individual ailments and incapable of handling any public health calamity. Our governments are already working as the markets tell them to. If you watch a TV channel carefully, you can very accurately predict what is going to unfold in geopolitics, weeks in advance. The currencies, stock markets, and commodity prices, from oil to eggs, are decided by algorithms, which have already gone beyond human control. Living in the Age of Muck, our destiny seems to be that of becoming a “desire machine.”

There is a lot of cognitive noise everywhere – ideas, opinions, comments, debates, opinion polls… And as if this is not enough, there is internal noise – what is right, what is appropriate, should I fight it out or give up, struggle, or let go. The old has already crumbled and nothing new, beyond muck, has emerged. Let us give a pause to the thought machines inside our skulls and mind our physiology – our breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure, sleep, bowels – and try to connect with the “life force,” the Immortal present inside. 

The Buddhist sage, Nagasena, who lived around 150 BCE, described a human being as a chariot. Just as a chariot is nothing but a collection of wheels, frames, handles, and horses that pull it, similarly, we are a body of flesh, bones, and organs, wrapped up neatly under skin, driven by our perceptions and emotions. Examine your thoughts and feel your emotions and instead of being carried away by them, settle them down by sprinkling some water of contentment upon them. 

It is also time not to rake the straws, the small sticks, and the dust of the floor but to learn to live a simple and local life, sparing the environment from litter. The high-priced urban estates are de facto concrete jungles, as risky and hazardous as the forests of the past. It is time to create self-reliant communities based on the principles of simple living, which maximize self-sufficiency, particularly in food production. Please find your livelihoods away from cities. Even if you make less money, it will suffice if your life is a little simpler. 

The American biologist and writer, Edward O. Wilson (1929-2021), said in his 2016 book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, “The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible.” Wilson proposed that half of the Earth’s surface should be designated a human-free natural reserve. 

My personal take is, “Want less, buy less, choose well.” The decision rests with you and not others. Don’t add to the muck already there in plenty and refrain from raking it as far as possible. It is high time for a little peace. 

Everyone knows the internal drives – emotions, feelings, and, of course, thoughts – that keep buzzing inside one’s head and indeed drive the responses and reactions to the events in one’s life. Everyone also knows the dreams that every night brings a weird world. I am identifying this system as an Operating System – a familiar term in the modern world, known even to every mobile user, who is asked to update the Operating System (OS) every now and then. 

According to the eternal religion of the Hindus (Sanatan Dharma), each living person is born with a subtle body that carries forward the impressions from one’s earlier existences. As the body grows and later, ages, this subtle body keeps updating itself – bringing to fruition what is stored as well as registering the new impressions. At the time of death, the updated subtle body leaves the gross body, which is disposed of through cremation, and assumes a new body. Let us call this subtle body as your kernel, your centre, or your axis, around which your life happens. 

A lot of intellectual work has gone into our inner world over thousands of years and has created an enormous load of ideas and theories packaged as religion, traditions and culture. The burden and noise of this work is so much that it puts off a normal person from even knowing about it. Everyone ends up following a dogma. Not surprisingly, it hardly has any effect, except training one like an animal in the zoo. But that is a big sell-off. The destiny of an animal is not to live in a zoo, but in the wild. This blog makes one realize this loss of ours.

Know yourself as a part of the same infinite that is the universe outside. Don’t take this world as your reality; rather, realize that the universe in which this earth exists is like a mere speck of sand in a desert. Stare at the star-filled sky in the night, watch the sunrise every morning, or sunset, and you will know this without a doubt. Sit quietly, cut off from the world for a while, close your eyes and feel this infinite inside, starting with watching your breath going in and out and slowly sinking deeper in the body.

You will soon become aware of different sensations – itches, twists, aches, pains, burning sensations. Allow them to pass. Next to arrive would be memories, appearing on the mind’s horizon, as clouds appear in the sky. Allow them to disperse and drift away. And then, you will ‘taste’ a moment of peace. That is infinite; that is Sat-Chit-Ananda – a consciousness that is eternal, placid, and blissful. Through practice, these moments will become longer spells and you will know what is good for you thereafter.

The Mundaka Upanishad (3.1.1) declares:

द्वा सुपर्णा सयुजा सखाया समानं वृक्षं परिषस्वजाते।

तयोरन्यः पिप्पलं स्वाद्वत्त्यनश्नन्नन्यो अभिचाकशीति ॥

Two birds, beautiful of wing, close companions, cling to one common tree: of the two one eats the sweet fruit of the tree, the other eats not but watches his fellow. It is there, but as a witness. Not participating in your actions. But if you can access it, engage with it, wonderful things can happen.

The Indian mystic poet, Kabir (1398-1518), says:

उठो ग्यानी खेत संभारो, बिगै निसरेगा पानी। 

निरत सुरत के बेल बनावो, बीजा बोवो निज धानी। 

Get up, O wise farmer and mind your body (the field), else, the drama of this world (the rain) will wash it away. Live a disciplined life (make a weir around your field), regulating your vital energy (holding the water) and lead a flourishing life (your crop).

The Irish philosopher, George Berkeley (1685-1753), said very aptly, “We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.” Later, the Scottish philosopher, David Hume (1711-1776), declared, “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” Hume even pointed out, “Custom is the great guide of human life.”

The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), called the presence of an immortal self in our body, the watching bird, as a ‘thing-in-itself’ and “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.” According to Kant, “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.” So, stop running on the ‘treadmill’ of being successful – more money, more work, name, fame…. All this speed is going to bring you to a halt sooner than later. Bring moderation to every aspect of life, especially your indulgence with the affairs of the world. 

Steven Covey, in his 1989 book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, distinguishes between “one’s ability to focus on what one can do and can influence” and “focussing one’s energy on things that are beyond one’s control”. Irrespective of who wins the elections, which stock rises or crashes, irrespective of what the price of petrol and conversion rate of dollar is, mind your sleep, your bowl and above all, your mood of general happiness and ease. 

Have a proper goal in your life, appropriate to your age and the conditions around you. Work on that and do not allow any other matter or issue to disturb you. The Infinite knows what can be done by you. The Infinite is aware of your subtle body and will get whatever best you can deliver, done from you. For infinite wisdom and care, for your life to be constantly sustained, all you need is to let Nature flow through you, and to be engaged in the work that you can do best without straining yourself. Too many thoughts are noise. Learn to quieten your mind. 

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) popularized the answer given by the God of Death (Yama) to the child Nachiketa, mentioned in the Katha Upanishad (1.3.14), “उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत”, meaning, “Arise! Awake! Approach the great and learn.” Swami Vivekananda exhorted, “Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it; dream of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success. That is the way great spiritual giants are produced.”  

Your operating system is designed to bring out the best in you. It is not designed to change others. Your attempts to change other people are such a waste of energy. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time, lamented, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) summed up the secret of life, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

I started reading English books with mass-market fiction. One such book was The Carpetbaggers written by American novelist Harold Robbins (1916-1997). I was thrilled by the big life of the characters in the novel. “From New York to LA they brawled, lusted, and carved out an empire, blazoned in banner headlines and their enemies’ blood–only to learn that money and power, revenge and renown were not enough. . .The higher they soared, the more their ambition demanded . . . the darker and deadlier their fiery passions grew.”

“Carpetbagger” was a new word I learnt. In the novel, it was used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who had come down for business to the Southern States after the American Civil War and were perceived as exploiting the local populace for their own financial, political, and/or social gain. I could see later, people rushing to first Mumbai and then Bengaluru, playing our own Indian version of carpetbagging. Even politicians moved to different states to acquire power at the Centre. 

A few years down on my literary road, I had I read The Prize, a novel written by Irving Wallace (1916-1990). This novel delves into the dreams and nightmares of people aspiring for the Nobel Prize, and others in the game of the decision making involved in the Nobel Prize, life in Stockholm, and the state of world politics in the years following World War II. Irving Wallace’s words, “Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure,” were like a matchstick that lit the tinderbox of my young mind. I would walk and talk vainly. 

Providence saved me when I found Dr APJ Abdul Kalam who stripped me off my false notions about myself and put me on a spiritual track. He taught me about the negative power of Iblis (Satan) on the prowl in the mortal world and how he snares people by inflating their egos by false praise and bestowing upon them undeserving appreciation and rewards. I could see thereafter, scientists ruining their careers by believing in their unsound hypotheses without testing them and businesspeople investing in their fantasies. Thanks to Dr Kalam’s presence in my life, I remained grounded and modest. 

The lure of money can mask most people’s negative behaviors. It is easy for the financially strong and those in positions of power to get away by doing bad things when they are young. However, when they become old and face problems of their children, they often realize their folly. A whole lot of bad effects on their health like high blood pressure, diabetes, ulcers, and piles set in. One complication leads to another. I know dozens of my once-upon-a-time high-flyer acquaintances now suffering chronic ailments and living in miserable loneliness.  

I relished recently reading the spiritual classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come, written by English writer and Puritan preacher John Bunyan (1628-1688). Written as an allegory, the book presents complex theological ideas in a captivating story form. As reported by The Guardian, a British newspaper founded in 1821, “there’s no book in English, apart from the Bible to equal Bunyan’s masterpiece for the range of its readership.”

The protagonist of the book is a poor married man with four children, named Christian, who feels the “burden” of his sins and undertakes a journey from his hometown, the “City of Destruction” (which means this world), to the “Celestial City” (the afterlife Heaven) atop Mount Zion. He faces difficulties, obstructions, and outright opposition from evil forces. The path of the pilgrim crosses the Town of Vanity. There is a festive market in which, every sort of vanity is sold, and it is open all year-long. It struck me that we all are living in a Vanity Fair, which is not only a year-long event but is open 24×7.

I had read some time ago, a beautiful novel written by Tom Wolfe (1930-2018) The Bonfire of the Vanities, portraying life in New York City in the 1980s, driven by ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed. It was later made into a Hollywood film of the same name, starring Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis in their early careers. “Bullshit reigns,” says police detective Martin in the novel. 

Dictionaries describe vanity as inflated pride in oneself or one’s appearance. It is something that is vain, empty, or valueless. It covers a very wide terrain – from dresses, cosmetics, to mannerisms, false appearances, and even outright superiority and arrogance. Vanity is essentially false and cannot stand a reality check. Flop films of big movie stars, the defeat of powerful leaders in elections, and the failure of sports heroes are so commonplace. 

English writer Jane Austen (1775-1817) in her famous novel, Pride and Prejudice, clarifies, “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” It gives a big clue. The whole purpose of vanity is a good public image. More important than what “I am” is how “I appear” in public. The number of “Likes” is the new measure of “stature” in the modern world.

Technology companies have very shrewdly snared billions of people through the Internet and established a robust consumer culture with their advertising messages that appeal to physical beauty, and vain achievements. “Honorary Doctorates,” “Life-time achievement Awards,” and “Person of the Year” are auctioned. There are surveys, bogus and dubious, declaring the highest bidder “award” for whatever. “Ratings” mean everything. Being amongst the world’s top 100 will also do if India’s top 10 is costlier.  

In 2010, public relations practitioners from 33 countries met in Barcelona, Spain and established seven voluntary guidelines to measure and evaluate communications activity in a meaningful and relevant manner. Known as the Barcelona Principles, these were updated in 2015 and 2020. The idea is that by measuring what is important, and continually testing and validating procedures, the industry can save itself from vanity metrics.

Life is all about outcomes and no output guarantees a peaceful exit from this world, which is essentially a Vanity Fair. Everything here is ephemeral, impermanent, and transient, including one’s health and life. So, be aware of your Immortal Self and mindful of not violating it by being a hypocrite and hankering after false objects, bogus positions, and sinful relations. Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) has declared the secret of a good life with the words, “Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.” Try it. 

This is the first blog of the New Year 2022. What is new about the New Year? Nothing, except for the fact that we start counting from the first day of the month of January. TheChinese count their year from the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February. In India, in the regions that follow the solar calendar, the New Year falls on Baisakhiin Punjab, Rongali Bihu in Assam, Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Vishu in Kerala, Pana Sankranti in Odisha and PohelaBoishakh in Bengal, on the 14th or 15th of the month of April.For those following the lunar calendar, the New Year starts with the first day of the month of Chaitra, corresponding to March-April and is called Ugadi in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, and Gudhi Padwa in Maharashtra.In Gujarat, the New Year begins with the first bright day of Kartik, which is the next day of the Diwali festival. So, every day is a New Year and your birthday as the start of your New Year is, perhaps, the most realistic event.

Change is the hallmark of existence. Nothing that exists is stationary. The entire world of substance, including stones and clay, are composed of atoms that are buzzing with electrons flying around the nucleus eternally. The sunlight is protons raining over the earth. The river changes every moment as the water keeps moving downstream. The gas flame in the kitchen is burning of new gas coming every moment from the cylinder. The 5-litre blood inside the human body gets renewed every 120 days. Lord Buddha was the first person to observe this dynamism 2,500 years ago and it was later recreated by the discoveries of modern science. The Electromagnetic Theory of Matter has established that all matter is radiant energy. All objects are transitory and are ceaselessly mutating and transforming. What is life but a series of manifestations of becoming and extinction? We are living as a stream, forever changing its coordinates in time and space.

The English poet Shelley (1792 –1822) writes in his last published poem, Hellas:

Worlds on worlds are rolling over,

From creation to decay,

Like the bubbles on a river,

Sparkling, bursting, borne away.

It is impossible for any process that starts to not end, anything that is originated to not be destroyed, and anybody who is born to not die. The difference is only in the degree of duration. A bacterium lives for a few hours, a flower for a day, a mosquito for a week, an ant for a few months, a mouse for afew years, a for cat for 10 years, a dog for 15 years, a horse for 40 years, a camel for 50 years, elephants for 70 years and a tortoise for over a hundred years. Human beings live for a wide range of years and identification keeps changing, from a child to a boy to a youth to an old man, for one life. The seed, plant, tree, flower, and fruit are all one. Any identity is a succession of change. A thing is only a series of states in a cause-effect chain; what came earlier, caused the later. The world is a sequence of events, ever–changing and being renewed at every moment. They appear, replacing the earlier set, only to be replaced by another set.

 We must not deceive ourselves into the belief of living forever with the people we have around us owning the things we have accumulated as our property. When we whirl a glowing stick,it produces the appearance of a disc. When we say it is raining, a very large number of water drops are falling in quick succession. There is nothing which is rain. There is nothing but movement, no doer but deed, nothing else but becoming. So, be alarmed when you find yourself stuck up, feeling pride in doing this or that and clinging to your honours and titles. Everything, our own life included, exists because of an origination (the parents), staying (community and family), and growth (education and livelihood). Know yourself in these terms and without losing sight of the inevitable end of all this.

It is pity to see the dance of stupidity in our public discourse. People are sticking to primordial identities which only exist in their minds and nowhere else. Leaders are talking about ideologies that are as fossil and obsolete as bloodletting is to medicine today and a steam engine is for pulling a train. The world is changing and those who do not change with it will perish as laggards and die destitute after running their appointed times here. There is no mechanical succession of movements in the right direction. Each one of us must feel the change, align ourselves with the change and move forward with the change. Lord Buddha identified 24 conditioning forces as causal energy, paccayasatti, which is forever creating the future. Those who are in harmony with these forces, flourish, and those who are at cross-purposes with them, perish.

So, what are the operational forces in 2022? I would like to share what I see.

At the macro level, the era of the West–dominated world is over. The Western civilization is decaying and their power,weaning. At the general level, technology singularity is taking grip over the state of world affairs. All leaders and political parties are haplessly dependent on social media. On the microlevel, people have turned materialists, out to acquireriches by whatever means.

Let me take another vantage point. At the macro level, there is a serious threat of climate change and the end of the world of an economy based on fossil fuels has begun. Virtual organizations are the new power structure. The real power moves through the Internet. At the micro level, there is a pandemic of despair and substance abuse. Anything which is done ignoring these forces would be superfluous and ineffective.  

So, what do we do? Anchor yourself in the immortal Self that is embedded in you. While the wheel moves, axel remains stationary. We must cease to live in the world of shadows before we can lay hold of eternal life. Sit quietly for a while every day and feel the Infinite outside (the sun and blue sky in the day and stars in the night) and the Infinite inside (by being conscious of your breath and other body sensations, your thoughts, and your feelings, rising and falling like ocean waves). Practice to connect to them. Even if you don’t succeed initially, the effort itself will bring immediate benefit.

Finally, stop intellectualizing things. Avoid news channels, if possible. The 24 forces are going to decide the future, and these are bigger than all man-made entities. By being anchored in the eternal and infinite, you will become a part of these forces and act upon the world, rather than the world acting upon you. These forces will ensure that you are part of the solutions and not the problems.

Life is an enigma. The randomness of events and the unpredictability of human nature make things complicated at times. Not only are people so very different from one another, even individuals change with time and their behavior with different people is tinged with many different shades. One can be kind and compassionate with one person and cruel and heartless with another. So, it appears that human beings indeed function as groups and understanding a person is best done by examining his behavior with the people around him. A mathematical term, “dyad”, meaning an operator which is a combination of two vectors, perhaps best defines the situation.

I felt this by observing my father, Late Shri Krishna Chandra Tiwari. He was the kindest and the most God-fearing person. But at times, he would use harsh words and not hesitate in rendering physical punishment when I erred. Hours later, he would be regretful and even making amends. Even as a child, I wondered about this switch in his behavior. Later when I grew up, I found that it was not my father alone, but a common trait in every human being. People carry multiple personalities, layers upon layers, and show up differently to different people at different times. And when I examine my own life, I can say for sure that there is a lower and a higher self, embedded inside me and it all depends on when, which one of them get activated, and takes over my actions.

In the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Lord Shri Krishna declared the twofold nature of God (VII. 4-5). One is the external fold made of five elements – earth, sky, fire, water, and air – and the mind, intellect, and ego—together as the eight components of material energy. Then, there is the inner energy, which comprises the embodied souls who are the basis of life in this world. So, it is the mind, intellect, and ego that differentiate a mortal man’s animalistic and divine nature.

Persian poet Rumi (1207-1273), put it straight and rather bluntly, “Hungry, you’re a dog, angry and bad-natured. Having eaten your fill, you become a carcass; you lie down like a wall, senseless. At one time a dog, at another time a carcass, how will you run with lions, or follow the saints?” [Translation by Kabir Helminski (b. 1947)]. Rumi sees the duality of human beings as their biggest challenge. “The angel is free because of his knowledge, the beast because of his ignorance. Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872 –1950) described human life as essentially divine. He sees all problems of existence as problems of harmony arising from the instinct of separateness of “I” from the rest of creation. Sri Aurobindo sees human existence as “…a divine life in an animal body, an immortal aspiration or reality inhabiting a mortal tenement, a single and universal consciousness representing itself in limited minds and divided egos…”.

I have learnt from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (1931 – 2015), the seven forms of Nafs, meaning “self” in Arabic, that one must overcome by conscious living and practice the fixation one’s “I-ness”. These are: Takabbur (pride), Tamaa (greed), Hasad (jealousy), Shahwah (lust), Gheebah (backbiting), Bokhl (stinginess), and Keena (malice). Dr Kalam said with sincere humility that with the grace of God and the blessings of his parents, he could achieve quiet early in his life an-Nafs al-Mutmaʾinnah, what he described as being at peace with himself.

Tolstoy (1828–1910) who had read best the human nature and left his observations for posterity through his novels, sees the emotion of love as the greatest mystery of life. “The whole world is divided for me into two parts: one is she, and there is all happiness, hope, light; the other is where she is not, and there is dejection and darkness.” According to Tolstoy, “All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.” In either case, a man is a traveler through this world – Musafir Hun Yaaro…   

American author, Neale Donald Walsch (b. 1943), published a series of books called Conversations with God, starting in 1995. Though the writer claimed he received personal revelation, to me, he was presenting Srimad Bhagavad Gita. Nevertheless, he wrote well. “All human actions are motivated at their deepest level by two emotions–fear or love. In truth, there are only two emotions–only two words in the language of the soul…. Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to and clutches all that we have, love gives all that we have away. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends.”

Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926), lives in France and is considered an influential living figure in Zen Buddhism, a school of Mahayana Buddhism. He writes about Buddhist insights into the nature of the mind most eloquently. I am yet to find a better and more practical definition of compassion than that provided by Thich Nhat Hanh, “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.”

The way to access one’s higher self is by contemplation – withdrawing one’s senses from the external and sitting quietly for a while – and then the higher self emerges out and embraces one’s consciousness. Know your mind and senses not only as instruments given to you to navigate through the world but also to access your higher self. A life lived without accessing your higher self is indeed a life wasted. In the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita (II. 55), the truest existence of a human life is defined as “आत्मनि एव आत्मना तुष्टः” – satisfied in himself with himself. So, use your lower self to access your higher self, as a tailor uses scissors or a carpenter uses a saw, or a plumber, a wrench. Neither shun off the lower self, nor get captivated by it. If there is any art of living, it is this knowledge and this skill.

When I accompanied Dr APJ Abdul Kalam to Patna in Bihar State in 1999, he was the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India. The Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC), which Dr Kalam chaired, had initiated an agriculture project in Paliganj, 55 km from Patna on 2.4 hectares of land. He took me to see what could be done to help assist the healthcare system there, which together with livelihoods, were the two basic problems of the poor.

After becoming the President of India in 2002, Dr Kalam continued his tryst with Bihar, where he thought solutions to all problems of societal transformation can be developed. He made me a part of his entourage in his 3-day visit to Bihar in May 2003. We went to the Jain shrine at Pawapuri, the archaeological site of the ancient Nalanda University, the most sacred of Buddhist shrines – the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya, Takht Harmandir Sahib in Patna, and the Bihar School of Yoga at Munger. We traveled in the “presidential train,” a relic of the British Raj, from Harnaut to Patna. I felt as if I was living one of my past lives. 

President Kalam got entangled in the declaration of President’s Rule in Bihar in May 2005. The Bihar Governor had recommended the dissolution of the Assembly, the Union Cabinet approved it and forwarded it to President Kalam, who was on a visit to Moscow at that time. He signed it there. It was challenged in the Supreme Court and the five-judge Constitution Bench, in a majority verdict, declared the proclamation unconstitutional. President Kalam was penitent saying he should have rejected the Cabinet’s decision and thought of resigning from his office. He was persuaded to continue.  

My bonhomie with Bihar continued. In February 2010, I travelled to Muzaffarpur, pursuing my Don Quixotic mission of connecting all district headquarters on a telemedicine link, which we had restricted to Tele-radiology by that time. My student at Hyderabad Central University, where I was teaching MBA (Healthcare and Hospital Management) in School of Management Studies as Adjunct Professor, Dr Janki Raman, who was a native, escorted me. The picture is from the road trip from Patna to Muzaffarpur clicked by him. 

Bihar continues to struggle with backwardness, which was inherited like any other hinterland of the British-ruled India but then perpetuated by severe form of caste politics and finally, rampant corruption made the best of Bihari youth migrate out of Bihar. Dr Kalam used to say that unless we solve the Bihar development tangle, India can never be a developed country. And who would do the honors? Of course, the people of Bihar. The opportunity is that they are the best of human resources anywhere in the world. The challenge is their political division. 

To put things into the right perspective, Bihar, with more than 120 million people, is the third most populous state in the country after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. But there is scarcity of land. With so many people and not even 100,000 sq. km., Bihar accounts for 3% of India’s land mass but 9% of its population. This skewed population density, which is three times of the national average, is the root cause of the backwardness. Bihar was ruled from Calcutta by the British. It was already lagging before independence. The difference got exacerbated after liberalization in the mid-1990s. While the other states grew, Bihar languished. Bad became worse. But why?

The creation of Jharkhand in November 2000 to separate out South Bihar took away much of the mineral repository. All the industrialization done in Bihar since independence had gone in a whiff. The problems of persistent poverty, complex social stratification, unsatisfactory infrastructure, and weak governance are well-known, but not well understood. With 80 million people younger than 35 years of age, Bihar needs jobs and that needs investment. Now, investment would need SEZ kind of arrangements, roads, electricity and above all, law and order. It is very easy to blame the government but who elects it? The despair is palpable.

I am not a visionary, but I live by hope. I consider imagination more powerful than knowledge. For me, myths are more potent than history and dreams are more powerful than facts. So, it is time to go a little bold and ask for a medical college in each of the 38 districts of Bihar. It is hard to believe and yet true that half of the 38 districts in the state have no more than three government doctors for every 100,000 people. The situation in Siwan is most acute where there is just one doctor for 100,000 people I am told. To put this into perspective, the national average is 134 doctors for 100,000, a little better than the WHO-prescribed level of 1:1,000. Of course this would also mean a nursing college and a paramedic college in every district. 

Lack of funding is not an excuse for not doing what is needed. The government should show  political will, make a sound proposal, circulate it globally, invite partners and seek investment through bond schemes. The people from Bihar living outside the state themselves would contribute the necessary funds if an honest and transparent scheme is put in place. The same model can be used to create thermal power plants and smart water grids to mitigate the chronic problem of floods, especially in North Bihar. And there should not be any politicking on this. And the best way to do this is to make the system free of political muddling. 

Thomas L. Friedman, in his 1999 book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree writes, “You can be a rich person alone. You can be a smart person alone. But you cannot be a complete person alone. For that, you must be part of, and rooted in, an olive grove.” When I asked Dr Raman, currently living in Sydney, Australia, with his family, what would bring him back to Bihar, he said a Neurology & Plastic Surgery Speciality hospital, which he wishes to establish with his younger brothers, Dr Radha Raman and Gopi Raman in Muzaffarpur by 2025. 

And I have no doubt that he is not alone in his dream to return and serve his own people. Dr Kalam used to say that if we forget whom we belong to, and if we forget that there is a God, something profoundly human in us will be lost. And after our return from our 2003 trip, he gave me Bertrand Russell’s 1951 book, New Hopes for a Changing World, highlighting the text that read, “Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.” He indeed knew his country well.