Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "rational-thinking"

No knowledge comes from the outside world or an imaginary supernatural paradise. No knowledge comes from some sort of divine entity, regardless of how effective they are. All knowledge, scientific or philosophical, ancient or modern, rises from the human mind. These minds are by all means just as human any other person on earth. But rigorous training on the self puts them at a higher level of intellect than the general population. However, this height of excellence has its own peculiar purpose. At this level, we thinkers hail ourselves to be the servant of humanity. And this trend of servitude goes back not decades or even centuries, rather a few thousand years. In every age, there are these individuals upon the shoulders of whom the entire human civilization progresses.

But like any other person, we the scientists and philosophers, are ordinary human beings. Today you have Ramachandran, Dawkins, Hawking, myself and many others - and all of them are humans, not gods. And all the work we do - all the scientific and philosophical literature we create, we do so by the use of our very natural human faculties, which have evolved in us, that is all the humanity, through the natural process of evolution. All the knowledge and wisdom that we give to the species are constructed by the biological circuits of our brain, and not by some sort of God. And the same goes to the knowledge that the ancient thinkers of India and some other civilizations came up with. All their knowledge that later constructed the organized textual scriptures of early humanity, were their creation, and not God's.

However, think about this. If I say that my insight of the human mind came not from my own brain through rigorous nourishment and utilization of my intellectual faculties, rather from the Lord Almighty - say Brahma, it is more likely for the vulnerable masses with no scientific awareness whatsoever to embrace my knowledge as divine will. They would embrace the texts created by me as irrefutable gospel. They would submit to every single word at an innate emotional level and hail those words as eternal knowledge, even if I intentionally put some negative elements in those texts to serve my own personal interest and not the interest of the society or the pursuit of truth. And this is exactly what happened to the ancient texts of the Vedas. They say the Vedas are eternal - the knowledge within it came not from the mind of man, but from Brahma himself.

Now imagine the ancient society of India, and in fact all over the world a few thousand years ago. In those days, rational thinking was quite scarce. Ignorance was the default mode of thinking. Only a handful of individuals were capable of higher intellectual thinking. Among them were Vyasa, Susruta, Charaka, Aryabhatta, Vatsayana, Patanjali, Brahmagupta and a few others. These people were the real scientists and philosophers of the ancient Indian society. They were neither gods, nor angels, or any sort of divine beings. They were just ordinary flesh and blood human beings, who happened to be exceptionally intelligent for people of their time.

These great minds despite being born in a superstitious society, were able to break free from their own shackles of prejudices and ignorance. Unfortunately, over time, their scientific contribution started to get hugely overlooked by their own people. Later generations of their motherland began to hail them as some sort of divine beings with supernatural powers, and thus emerged the term “sage” or “rishi”. Even though the term technically means a profoundly wise man, today people abuse it in the worst manner possible.

Sages or Rishis are present in all times. The term itself refers to any ordinary human being who possesses extraordinary expertise in his or her field of work. There is no supernatural element involved in it. In the ancient times, India was full with such brilliant human minds. And in the hands of some of those individuals, we received the most effective and glorious natural means to maintain a healthy anatomy - we received the Knowledge about Healthy Life - the Veda of Ayu - the Ayurveda.

The term "Veda" means knowledge, and even though the innate, primordial, superstitious part of the human mind that has a knack for paranormal stuff, would very much like to believe that what we call the Vedas, came from the mouth of Brahma - that, they are "Apauruseya" (meaning 'not of man' or 'authorless') - in reality, they came from the mind of some ancient Indians, just like "Republic" came from Plato, "The Art of War" came for Sun Tzu, "On the Origin of Species" came from Charles Darwin, "A Brief History of Time” came from Stephen Hawking, "The Selfish Gene" came from Richard Dawkins, "What is Mind?" came from Naskar, "Capital" came from Karl Marx, "Sapiens" came from Yuval Noah Harari and so on. Greed of hierarchically higher people always drives them to incorporate imaginary divine intervention into human creations, so that through these creations, they can have authority over the people in their national society as well as the global society. Hence from the primordial urge for authority rises the need to attach the term "Apauruseya" to the Vedas.

The Vedic Hymns were skillfully crafted by the sages of ancient India through rigorous mental exercise. The sanskrit word Veda is derived from the root "Vid" which means "to know". The Vedic literature was among the earliest written texts in human history, and indeed they are of great scientific and philosophical significance. The Vedas are divided into four folds, namely - Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. Of these, the first three were the principal original division, also called "trayi vidya", that is, "the triple science" of reciting hymns (Rigveda), performing sacrifices (Yajurveda), and chanting songs (Samaveda). The Rigveda is the oldest of all the Vedic texts, which is approximately from the period of 1900 to 1100 BC.

And what you today know as Ayurveda is a sub-section of the fourth Veda - the Atharva Veda. Like it happens to all the ancient scriptures, the Atharva Veda is an amazing mixture of wonderful scientific truth and mystical and prejudicial non-sense such as metaphorical magic spells. The scientific part of this text is what we call Ayurveda, which deals with various physical and mental ailments. And when we talk about Ayurveda, the three most important minds that you need to get acquainted with are Charaka, Susruta and Vaghbata. All the knowledge of Ayurveda rise from the scientific compositions of the first two of these scientists and detailed elaboration of the third one.

Charaka (1st century A.D.) wrote Charaka Samhita (samhita- meaning collection of verses written in Sanskrit). Susruta (4th century A.D.) wrote his Samhita i.e Susruta Samhita. Vaghbata (5th century A.D.) compiled the third set of major texts called Ashtanga Hridaya and Ashtanga Sangraha. Charaka’s School of Physicians and Susruta’s School of Surgeons became the basis of Ayurveda and helped organize and systematically classify into branches of medicine and surgery.

In the ensuing years sixteen major supplementary texts or Nighantus were composed by a few other brilliant minds, such as Dhanvantari Bahavaprakasha, Raja and Shaligrama to name a few – that helped refine the practice of Ayurveda. New drugs were added and ineffective ones were discarded. Expansion of application, identification of new illnesses and finding substitute treatments seemed to have been an evolving process. Close to 2000 plants that were used in healing diseases and abating symptoms were identified in these supplements. Dridhabala in the 4th century revised the Charaka Samhita. The texts of Susruta Samhita were revised and supplemented by Nagarjuna in the 6th century.

Thus, several scientific minds of a society which was at large mostly ignorant, gave rise to a fantastically effective natural system of maintaining health, comprising eight major branches, that later became known as Ayurveda. The eight branches of this system were:
1. Kaya-chikitsa (Internal Medicine)
2. Shalakya Tantra (surgery and treatment of head and neck, Ophthalmology and ear, nose, throat)
3. Shalya Tantra (Surgery)
4. Agada Tantra (Toxicology)
5. Bhuta Vidya (Psychiatry)
6. Kaumara bhritya (Pediatrics)
7. Rasayana (science of rejuvenation or anti-ageing)
8. Vajikarana (the science of fertility and aphrodisiac)

All the advancement in Ayurveda was based upon the core scientific compositions of Charaka, Susruta and Vaghbata – mainly the compositions of Charaka and Susruta. Charaka, a 1st century man of medicine is perceived as the father of ancient Indian medicine. He was the Raj Vaidya (royal doctor) in the court of Kanishka. He is most celebrated for his scientific work known as Charak Samhita. It is a remarkable book on medicine. It has the description of a large number of diseases and gives methods of identifying their causes as well as the method of treating them. He was one of the early scientists in the world to talk about digestion, metabolism and immunity as important for health and so for medicinal sciences.

Susruta on the other hand was a brilliant surgeon who lived around 1500 years ago. His work Susruta Samhita is literally the earliest scientific work on the methodology of surgery. Let me bring up an excerpt from my book Prescription: Treating India's Soul in this context:

"He (Susruta) considered surgery as “the highest division of the healing arts and least liable to fallacy”. He studied human anatomy with the help of a dead body. In Susruta Samhita, over 1100 diseases are mentioned including fevers of twenty-six kinds, jaundice of eight kinds and urinary complaints of twenty kinds. Over 760 plants are described. All roots, bark, juice, resin, flowers etc. are mentioned as useful in health purposes. Cinnamon, sesame, peppers, cardamom, ginger are household remedies even today.
In Susruta Samhita, the method of selecting and preserving a dead body for the purpose of its detailed study has also been described. The dead body of an old man or a person who died of a severe disease was generally not considered for studies. The body needed to be perfectly cleaned and then preserved in the bark of a tree. It was then kept in a cage and hidden carefully in a spot in the river. There the current of the river softened it. After seven days it was removed from the river. It was then cleaned with a brush made of grass roots, hair and bamboo. When this was done, every inner or outer part of the body could be seen clearly.
Susruta’s greatest contribution was in the fields of Rhinoplasty (plastic surgery) and Ophthalmic surgery (removal of cataracts). In those days, cutting of nose and ears was a common punishment. Restoration of these, or limbs lost in wars was a great blessing. In Susruta Samhita, there is a very accurate step-by-step description of these operation procedures. Surprisingly, the steps followed by Susruta are strikingly similar to those followed by modern surgeons while doing plastic surgery. Susruta Samhita also gives a description of 101 instruments used in surgery. Some serious operations performed by him included taking foetus out of the womb, repairing the damaged rectum, removing stone from the bladder, etc."

Another important name behind Ayurveda was Vaghbata. Even though his work was not as original as the two major founders of Ayurveda - Charaka and Susruta, he made the works of these two scientists more lucid. Vaghbata in the 5th century compiled two sets of texts called Ashtanga Sangraha and Ashtanga Hridaya. In his work, he shed light on the Internal Medicine of Charaka Samhita and the various surgical procedures of Susruta Samhita.

Now the most important feature of these scientific works is that in all of them, their composers emphasized on the physiological aspects of human life, unlike the contemporary abundance of spiritual perspective in the society. They talked about science and rationality in a society, where everyone else was talking about demons, gods, ghosts and witches. Even when they were surrounded by ignorance, going quite against their society, they nourished their intellect and made it so strong and pure that it gave rise to some of the most glorious works in human history.

Today, the Ayurveda that they created, falls under the category of Alternative Medicine with all its natural remedies. As I have said in Prescription - "Ayurvedic remedies actually introduce active natural ingredients to the body. Ayurveda places great emphasis on prevention of illness and promotion of wellness. And that’s precisely what many of the Ayurvedic remedies do. Ingredients like ginger, honey, turmeric, cinnamon, clove, garlic etc. have in fact proven to have significant influence in promoting health and preventing illness."

However, you must remember that Ayurveda is no substitute for modern medicine. Modern Medicine has evolved through rigorous efforts of thousands of scientists through centuries. And I must admit that Modern Medicine as it is today, is predicated on the core principle of treating ailments, while the ancient system of Ayurveda is mostly predicated on the prevention of ailments. Therefore, utilizing various natural substances recorded in the Ayurvedic literature, in your daily life can help you maintain a healthy body as well as deal with minor bodily issues, and can greatly prevent major ailments, but if a major disease does rise, remember that Modern Medicine is the most effective tool that you can have, not any ancient system, be it Ayurveda or anything else. Hence, use Ayurveda - it will keep you healthy, but sometimes the body needs more advance treatment than Ayurveda can provide, and that need can only be met by Modern Medicine can provide.

Nevertheless, quite similar to us modern day scientists, all those scientists of ancient India were ordinary humans with excellent minds. There was nothing supernatural about their intelligence. So, start seeing them the way they actually were. Stop the paranormal fanaticism right now if you want your society to grow. Grow a brilliant and rational mind within yourself just as the scientists of ancient India did. Use your ability of reasoning to distinguish the genuine scientific works from the hodge-podge of fantasies.

Ayurveda if embraced properly can become a great promoter of heath in your life. In fact, all the Vedic texts can become a great tool in the path of humanity's progress, if their adjacent primordial fanaticism, such as they being written by a mystical figure called "Ganesha", is torn apart. Today you know that “Rahu” and “Ketu” were imaginations of the ignorant mind in an unqualified attempt to explain the phenomenon of eclipse - you know how positions of the sun, earth and moon occasionally give rise to solar and lunar eclipses. Likewise, one after another you need to get to rid of all the prejudicial concepts in your society and only then the good and beneficial ideas of the ancient texts shall rise to aid humanity. It is only through rational investigation of the ancient texts that they can become a true help to human life.

Today, religion gets beaten up in the world of rational thinkers because of what it has become. Religion has become a matter of blind faith upon doctrines, without the slightest bit of rational intervention. And that, my friend, is called religious orthodoxy, which, though being related to the term "religion", has, in reality, nothing to do with true religion. The religion that I advocate, and so did the mortal humans known as Jesus, Buddha and Nanak, is the religion of love, compassion and self-realization. I don't want to take away anybody's religion, but simply to make them see what religion really means.

You need to find the highest form of divinity within yourself, not in any book, creed or institution. That is the true essence of religion, which, unfortunately, we see nowhere in today's world. And from this standpoint of true religion, the atheists are a billion times more religious than all the blind "orthodogs". Religion, in the world of thinking humans should be compatible with reasoning and progress. Any religion that impedes in the progress and rational thinking of the human society, is no religion at all.

"Progress" sounds like a fascinating word to be proud of, yet it comes at a price. A price that most of the human society is often unwilling to pay. It is the price of all bigotry, prejudices and barbarian practices. Without sacrificing these primitive tenets of human character, there cannot be any true progress or any true religion. True progress begins with the recognition of your innate evil. Only after recognizing those evil elements of your mind, you can take action towards having a healthy conscientious control over them. It is this control that distinguishes a civilized human, from the primitive cave-people.

As I have said in my book We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

"Good and evil are both fundamental features of the human mind."

In a civilized human the good outweighs the evil, whereas in a primitive human, the evil outweighs the good. And one of the most disgraceful and evil tenets of the human mind is today's so-called religion - i.e. religious orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is the biggest obstacle in the path of peace, progress and wellbeing of the society. Take away religious orthodoxy and all the violence in the name of religion and God shall disappear for good. In the face of rigorous rational arguments, any man or woman who, out of blind faith, consistently keeps saying, his or her dear scripture has all the answers in the universe, is either suffering from delusional disorder or simply an idiot. A creature that does not have the basic mental faculty of reasoning, is not worth the title "human".

Here one may confuse orthodoxy with traditions. So, I must make it clear, that you should not confuse traditions with orthodoxy. Traditions can be both healthy and harmful. By choosing not to eliminate the traditions that over time tend to become a harmful impediment in the path of progress, one leans towards orthodoxy, that ultimately drives a people back to the stone-age. Various traditions of various cultures throughout the world make the human species filled with colors. But these traditions must keep evolving through adoption of new practices and elimination of the useless ones, based on the needs of the time. Either one evolves or gets extinct - this is the principal law of Mother Nature.

So, here one may wonder, how can we eliminate the evil tradition of religious orthodoxy, and turn religion into a progressive endeavor of the progressive society! It will not happen by engaging yourself in a worthless debate with the intellectual idiots of religious orthodoxy, as you may think. Because those idiots do not have the cognitive capacity to recognize any rational argument against their dear doctrines. The real answer lies in you - or to be specific, your children. The transformation from a primitive, orthodox society into a real civilized society, can only begin with your children. This means, that your children shall determine the fate of the human society. They shall determine whether religious orthodoxy will keep on prevailing throughout the world, or conscience triumphs over all evil. Hence, it is in your hands, to shape their minds to become real civilized humans of a progressive, loving and conscientious world. Teach your children - "there is no religion better than love, no color better than the color of happiness and no language better than the language of compassion" (quote from my memoir Love, God & Neurons: Memoir of a scientist who found himself by getting lost). Once you do that, rest assured, the world will become free from all sorts of prejudices.

Orthodoxy, bigotry, prejudices - these primitive traits only lead to chaos and destruction of all humanity. Hence, it is your existential responsibility to raise your child as a human being above everything else - catholic, muslim, jew, asian, caucasian or whatever. These human beings shall determine the fate of humanity. Remember, orthodoxy has no place in a world of civilized humans. We are not medieval monsters any more, we are civilized beings, and as such our most priced possession is our rational thinking, not mindless orthodoxy.

No tradition is greater than the mental and physical progress of the human society. However, traditions do indeed add value to the survival of a culture, but they must be scrutinize by each generation of that culture in order to get rid of the useless and harmful elements. Traditions that advocate bigotry, misogyny, racism, and fundamentalism, must be thrown away at ones by the responsible, civilized and conscientious beings of a culture. Then only they shall be qualified to be deemed as humans. Remember, no being is a human unless it elicits a character of courage, conscience, compassion and reasoning.

Further Reading
Love, God & Neurons: Memoir of a scientist who found himself by getting lost
The Education Decree
We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

People often assume that science is only about empirical research - that it's merely about facts and figures, which happens to be nowhere near the truth. Facts are the fundamental building blocks of science, but bringing those facts together to have an insight of a certain phenomenon requires a rational, conscientious and creative mind. It's only through rigorous analysis and observation, as well as, creative contemplation, of the empirical evidence, i.e. facts, discovered through decades of research, that we can understand a certain phenomenon. Science cannot exist without empirical evidence, but evidence alone can't take science ahead and upwards, for that, we need some rather naïve and conscientious minds who can pierce through the evidence in order to have a practical insight of the big picture of a certain phenomenon. In short, there's more to science than facts and figures. Think of facts and figures as bricks and cement, and science or scientific understanding as a building. Without the vision of the architect, it's impossible to construct the building no matter how much bricks and cement you have.

Healers don't exist,
Only humans do.
Once you step outside the self,
You'll see the world anew.
Gods don't exist,
Only goodness does.
Prayers may soothe your soul,
Action is what change requires.
Psychics don't exist,
But sanctity is everywhere.
Once you stop conning your soul,
The bridge ahead will vividly appear.
When the heart awakens from superstition,
Everybody will be hometown human.

Say o brave, o soldier of eternal heights,
May I be decapitated before my head bows.
Say o brave, o explorer of impossibility,
May I feed another while my stomach growls.
Say o brave, o pedestrian of purity,
I obey no law for I'm the epitome of rightness.
Say o brave, o athlete of amor and amity,
I am sheer insanity exuding real saneness.
Say o brave, o bearer of benevolence,
I am disaster, blaster and master of destiny.
Say o brave, o vessel of valiance,
I devour fear, greed, pride and insecurity.
Say o brave, I am the seed of all assimilation,
The first one standing, earthquakin' egalitarian.

There's a tale we hear of a heavenly kingdom,
Which is passed on through generations.
Because once you place salvation outside life,
Accountability vanishes from all prioritization.
Self-determination makes one unfit for slavery,
Reason makes one unfit for manipulation.
If you take charge of your life and community,
Institutions fail to dictate your ambition.
Heaven and hell exist here and now,
They are manifestations of human behavior.
Acts of oneness bring heaven in a moment,
Deeds of division breed hell from thin air.
The paradigm we have was made yesterday.
It is our world, let's build it our way.

Celebrities and influencers are not health experts,
Stop taking medical advice from halfwits of wellness.
Stop being a two-bit doctor from ten minutes of googling,
For Google is not a substitute for doctors and nurses.
Compared to that of a trained and experienced doctor,
Even as a neurobiologist my diagnosis skills are insignifant.
Then why can't you accept that when it comes to medicine,
Your opinion is worth no more than a counterfeit coin.
One goes through years of training and many sleepless nights,
Then they earn the right to wear the white coat of service.
And yet upon spending an hour surfing on the internet,
You put on the personality of a grey-haired neurologist!
Lack of expertise is by no means the same as lack of dignity.
But denial of expertise indicates a definite lack of senility.

Science is but a bridge of time, it can,
Either take us forward or dump us in prehistory.
Science alone does not ensure our advancement,
Unless it's practiced with warmth and accountability.
Sheer reason without any sentiment is,
As dangerous as sheer sentiment without any reason.
In order to forge a world fit for humans,
We must break the ice between reason and emotion.
Problem is that we like picking sides,
Either we are too emotional or too rational.
A civilized human ought to be none of that,
A civilized human acts upon the need of the situation.
So I say o mighty human, be not an intellectual moron.
Science is a means of service, not intellectual gratification.

Fate and future both are servant to the determined,
For they are nothing but creation of human determination.
Yet most of humanity remain oblivious to this simple fact,
For they’re born and raised in a society run by indoctrination.
Reason and questions are seen as treason against heritage,
Submission and guilt are praised as honorable righteousness.
Calling ignorance as righteousness doesn't make one righteous,
You are righteous when you have the guts to mend mistakes.
Ignorance is part of life, so is our drive for self-aggrandizing,
It's human to make mistakes, what's not, is their glorification.
Acknowledge your mistakes, biases, ignorance and prejudice,
We start to rise when we acknowledge our degradation.
Our ancestors were primitive humans with unused goodness.
If we die primitive like they did, why live in the first place!

Hard as steel and soft as flower,
That's the motto for a civilized human.
Tough as thunder, sweet as honey,
That's the motto for a braveheart human.
Not too much unguided sentiments,
Not too much intellectual coldness,
To give either of them total slack,
Is to bring destruction and lifelessness.
Corazón primero, después dinero,*
Thus speaks the human of revolution.
Humanidad primero, después verdad,**
That's the motto for the being of evolution.
Strength, warmth ‘n reason, all are needed.
And all are to be guided by oneness uncorrupted.


(*Heart first, money later. **Humanity first, truth later.)