Imbibing the Theory of Being

Over the last few posts, I have been writing down my thoughts on the "Theory of Being" in my attempt to re-create the way of thinking that characterized ancient Indian thought. With my familiarity with modern day scientific thought that has its roots in ancient Greece and with the emerging theory of systems and rational games, coupled with the kind of upbringing we had in our homes, where dharmic way of thinking was practiced, I believe it gives me a unique perspective to re-create the underlying worldview of dharmic thought process.

Let me start with examples to provide evidence for the fact that the dharmic way of thinking is indeed different in characteristic than the Western model that we learnt in school.

It is common to encounter debates in educational circles, about whether students should be encouraged to "pursue their dreams" or have "realistic ambitions". I even saw a Quora answer by a famous physicist about how students should be taught to be realistic with their ambitions, and provided several examples of people whose lives have fallen apart in their pursuit of their dreams.

It started me to think why we (at least me), never had this dilemma. In fact, I did not really have a separate "dream" that was separated and compartmentalized from the reality around me.

The reason was not hard to see. In our homes, we were imbibed with a meme that we should always "uphold our dharma". While the concept of dharma has been distorted to give this meme several weird interpretations like we have to uphold our religion, uphold our ethics, etc. our culture has internalized this meme over several millenia. People are implicitly taught to strive for sustainability in every pursuit.

The moment we add "..in a sustainable way" to our advice, the dilemma is resolved. We can advice our students to "pursue their dreams in a sustainable way" or even "be realistic in a sustainable way" (i.e. don't get bogged down and depressed by reality to the extent that it threatens your sustainability).

Both of these pieces of advice are much more stable (sustainable?) than the earlier sets of advice "pursue your dreams" or "be realistic".

This is the most significant potential I find with the theory of being.

Imbibing the Theory of Being, into our modern day theoretical physics helps us understand a very complex system by reducing it down to its sustainable states and the transitions between them. "Strange Attractors" from chaos theory, anyone?

Imbibing the Theory of Being into engineering and architecture helps us analyze and design large systems by focusing on their stable states. It also helps in understanding the growth of cities, the complex interplay between its different subsystems, and strategies to manage such complex systems.

Imbibing the Theory of Being into education, humanities and social sciences helps us understand both humans and societies in terms of their stable states, rather than their ideologies. In fact, a staunch ideological stance like fanaticism, indicates a stable cognitive state -- a local minima -- which only gets reinforced by our vociferous disapproval of it. We stop looking at social problems through the lens of ideology and morality, and stop blaming, attitude, apathy, greed, etc. for our problems. Instead, we will start looking at greed, apathy, etc. as stable systemic states that a person's or community's mind is stuck in, and is getting reinforced by self-fulfilling prophecies.

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So, here is a quick recap of the essential elements of the Being theory of the universe. 

There is only one kind of element that the universe is made of -- called "being" (Atma).Beings compose to become bigger beings, with the entire universe as the ultimate Being (Paramatma). 

Beings can be in different states (of being). Not all states are equally stable. A being in an unstable state tends to settle down to a stable state. The stable states of being are called its dharma. 

The dharma of a being is not a property of the being alone -- but also of the environment (vidhi) in which it operates. A being's dharma is the best response function that maximizes its sustainability, given the characteristics of its vidhi. 

As humans, we have our dharma, and the social system in which we operate has its own states of dharma. The system as a whole, tends to settle down in its stable state, which in turn requires us to find our own stable state, given the state that the system has settled down in. 

Hence, for instance, given the state of our roads, lack of driving sense, lack of public transport, dogs, etc. commuting by car to work is my best response function -- even though it costs me a lot. My ideal commute would be by a multi-modal public transport, to which I can walk on well paved footpaths and am reasonably assured of my safety from stray dogs, rogue drivers and other such factors. But then, the vidhi has settled down in some stable state that is not conducive to this ideal. 

At every stable state that a being settles into, it has a given capability (prana). Every being tries to settle down in a stable state where its prana is maximized. Given two stable states with different levels of prana, beings prefer the one with higher prana. This is for instance, the reason why IIT grads emigrated to "settle down" in the US rather than looking for a job in India. Settling down in India (used to) have a much lower level of prana (capability) than settling down in the US. 

This is true not just of "living" beings -- but of all beings. If we excite molecules of a crystal with energy, they change the overall shape of the crystal. This is the new stable state with the higher level of prana that the beings are endowed with. 

While I've used prana (capability) in the sense of "energy" there is a subtle, but important difference between energy (urja) and capability (prana). Consider a tall building and its operations. Every day it consumes several megawatts of electricity to be the building that it is (for its lighting, elevators, air conditioning, pumps, etc.) This electricity is part of the larger system and interactions that gives the building its capability. Now suppose that the building is one day stuck with lightning, and even more electricity flow through its cables burning away all the appliances connected to it. What just happened, was that the building obtained a lot of "energy" (urja) but lost its "capability" (prana). The system of the building has now settled down to a lower state of dharma with lesser capability (where we cannot use the lights, the elevators, etc.).

What makes a being move from a lower state of dharma to a higher state of dharma? This happens when the being is endowed with more prana, so that the current state of dharma is no longer the best stable state, given the state of the prana. 

This process of taking a being from a lower stable state to a higher stable state is called pranayama. The idea of pranayama is holistic upliftment of being to help find a new stable state. Empowerment of only some parts of being will not improve the overall capability. Hence for instance, running into wealth without an improvement in our education about how wealth works, is not likely to increase our capability. 

Pranayama hence, starts with internal capacity building -- be it for an individual, a family, an organization or a country. We can "shoot for the stars" only after we have built an internal capability to sustainably shoot for the stars. 

It is hence, no surprise that mega achievements in aviation and space technology have all but disappeared. No country is interested in putting a man on the moon anymore. No one seems to be too keen on building supersonic passenger jets. No one even seems to be keen on building space colonies that was widely expected to happen after the International Space Station was built. None of these achievements were a result of the increased capability of humanity as a whole. These stellar achievements were made at a time when large parts of the world were fighting one another or were literally starving to death. 

If we wish to build a sustainable world, we need to increase overall capability. This not just means financial and material capability of humans, but also their educational and spiritual capability. Pranayama for the world includes increasing the prana of the world that we are endowed with -- its forests and its diverse set of flora and fauna.