Preface
Today, I’m officially 28, in my late 20s I’m still not successful, not achieved anything drastic, nor in my healthiest state as I could be. However, something I am growing myself into is someone who is interested in the inner workings of the universe. I delve into philosophies and question myself a lot of things so that I could understand what’s the reason for my birth, or anyone’s birth for that matter. Each and every living being in this world definitely has some purpose. My theory used to be that there are multiple kinds of beings and there are only a few beings that truly have an actual purpose, while other beings are there to just help them or in some cases guide them. For lack of better reference, the NPC (Non playable characters) and the actual player in video games fits my analogy much better. The player has a purpose, a mission, a path to follow while the NPCs are usually not doing much, as a player we can interact with them, we can use them to fulfil our mission, or some of them help us to fulfil it, but that’s it in their life, no purpose, no meaning, no path. It could also be that I used to play games such as GTA vice city and others similar, but my thought originated from there. However, I also used to think there’s nothing out there, no purpose, no meaning, we’re just beings formed out of the right combination of chemical reactions, from the formation of primordial soup, to single celled organisms whose willingness to live over a billion of years formed us. With the changing environment we were forced to adapt, change and be better suited to the ever changing criteria for survival. A lot of experiments and findings seem to come to the same conclusion, it’s just a coincidence. Our lives are nothing but a game of survival, in better terms “Survival of the fittest”, where fit might mean you should do anything to preserve your living body the most and for the longest time and if you did, pass your genes to the next generation. Life is a never ending competition, you should compete for material success and be better than anyone else before you pass on your genes and die. But like most of us humans, this theory of nothing before and nothing after our life doesn’t fill a void which we crave for, a purpose. Why is it there, why do we even think about having a purpose in the first place, and where did it begin? And just like that, the duality of my philosophy forced myself to merge both of these theories into one. This might be a simulation, with a developer just like we have game developers in this world simulating worlds and characters. If we look at current games after just a few decades of inventing computers, the realism and the physics in the games, it’s incredible what humans can do. So, if there’s a being with a powerful enough computer and ability to think and optimize, it could definitely make a simulation just like our universe. We are also bound by laws of the universe, such as speed of light, Planck’s constant, gravity, space time etc,. No matter how much we progress and discover new things, to get around and bend elements to our will, we will eventually hit a dead end in many places (at least based on current scientific understanding). So, my theory is that the developer created the universe, maybe or maybe not with the purpose of creating intelligent life eventually. And based on the computing power of the device being used, a billion years for us could be a day, an hour or even a second in the developer’s world. Meaning we do not matter much, our whole existence, experience and philosophies, and even the whole history of our planet is just a blip for the God out there. There exists a God, but they really do not care about us, they just created a simulation which we’re a product of. And this theory doesn’t collide with the findings and scientific discovery as well. We can think of the limits like speed of light as the optimisations put in place by the developer to save computing costs.
Hidden chapters
Till now I’m pretty sure nobody is against me as most of the things I wrote are within the boundaries, however anything written after this won’t be agreed upon by many if not any person. With that in mind, I will now discuss the patterns, some I observed, some I believed, and some I came up with. I was agnostic, like I wrote above, I fully believed the scientific findings as the truth however did not deny/understood the existence of a Godlike being, although I was skeptical over how much they care about us. But what changed my mind, is something I never thought I would believe, which is Astrology. And this is where I didn’t implement any empirical studies and findings but based only on my own observation and feelings. After I understood the concepts of astrology, Vedic to be more precise, however it would have applied to any other forms or methods, I found certain paths we took in life are actually not decided by us. The friends we find, the bonds and connections we form with people, our nature, how we react to things are already decided. It makes sense because some people are born as introverts and some as extrovert, so if both of them had same environment growing up, they will very much differ in how they end up as adults. Which, in my view the Vedic astrology can predict depending upon how learned the astrologer is. At least I am convinced on that the core behaviour of a person can somehow be predicted by the system in place. As I’m just into this, I want to understand how much of it can be true, as it could be 100% true on predicting things as it can predict basic things, just need someone very learned. However, with its discovery, I was fascinated and interested in what are the fundamentals of it, and I got to learn more about one of the core mechanics of this system, called Karma. I stumbled upon many things, like the lokas, devas, free will, niyati, and many more stuff including karma itself, but for now it seems to be one of the binding forces that needs proper discussion before we get to know things.
Chapter one: Karma
Karma is one thing that is common knowledge in the eastern hemisphere of the world and was supposedly also common across the world during the pagan era but was not called the same by everyone. It’s fascinating topic for me, as I grew up with the concept, as most of the things that happens to us that is beyond our control was believed to be the bearing of our past karma by people who follow Hindu/Buddhist philosophy. According to the philosophy, even though we are born with certain things we cannot control, there is a bit of free will within us as well. And karma is calculated based on what you do with your free will. Let’s say for example, your past karma might determine how much money you will earn/win in a lottery, but your free will is how you spend it on. If you donate some to the poor people, you will gain good karma, but if you spend it on something that causes harm to others, including animals and insects, you will earn bad karma. And as what will happen to you in this life is already predestined, this calculation of bad karma and good karma will determine how your next life is going to be and what kind of lessons you are going to learn in them. That is kind of the crux of karma, but it gets much more complex when we discuss the types of karma, based on Vedic astrology. And the reason I call karma a binding force is because it is the key to get Moksha/Nirvana, the ultimate goal of any being that is born in this world. Karma, either positive or negative, bounds you in this world as it will be the reason for your rebirth. Positive karma will bind you as you have to reap its benefit, and negative karma will bind you for getting the lesson on what you did wrong, both ending in rebirth, hence fuelling the cycle. Even if you were born with 100% positive karma only, you might do something good/bad with your free will, which will continue your cycle of rebirth. This is why karma is the most important part of these philosophies, as you can get attached to this world so much, you will never be able to escape, and no one likes to be born again and again here, as it comes with both pain and pleasure. And the escape from this bondage of rebirth caused by karma is called Moksha by Hindus and Nirvana by the Buddhists. So, what about the “Instant karma” that people talk about, how does it fit to the picture? As I discussed the basics of how karma works, I am going to dive into different types of karmas, how they are connected to our destiny and how they control our past, present and future. Just to make sure we are currently in the same page, these are my theories, which I believe personally, and are based on the already existing philosophy. I am currently discussing the work of other people and the cumulative theories that I find to match what I feel at a personal level and mixing with things that I ended up thinking independently. However, certain blocks of those thought matched with how other previous philosophers approached these topics, including The Buddha, also known as Siddartha Gautam. I’m not necessarily saying I gained Buddhahood, however, delving into these topics, certain thoughts I had later seem to match with that of the buddha. When I cross referenced my thoughts on the internet, I found certain blocks of them matched with what the buddha preached. I also acknowledge this might be the result of growing around Buddhism, although I never read any Buddhist texts and what the buddha actually said. Karma, as money is stored in a bank, but as different currencies. There is no inherent good or bad karma, usually it depends upon the intention of the person, and it’s stored as such. There are not just two currencies (good or bad) in the karma bank, however it’s like a spectrum of deeds. The accumulation of the karmas stored is called Sanchita karma. Sanchita in Sanskrit means stored/accumulated, that’s its literal meaning. And from that Sanchita karma, certain portion is used to define how your next life path is going to be, or the things that are destined to you are defined from a certain portion of the karma. If you have a huge amount of karma, one life is not going to be “supposedly” enough to reap all of it, however it’s debated by many including me. Then, there is Prarabdha Karma, that certain portion from the accumulated karmas, which is going to define your current life path and the fruits that you need to reap in this life. Things discussed before, like certain conditions, benefits, loss that you are going to reap in this new life that you cannot control is defined by the Prarabdha karma. Your childhood, parents, wife, career, personality, speech, and overall life path is chosen according to the prarabdha karma that you’re going to reap in this life, which is where Vedic Astrology plays a role. Vedic astrology can understand how your Prarabdha karma is and how it’s going to affect your current life, however it will not have any power to understand your overall accumulated karma, as well as your free will. The assumption behind this concept that only a portion of karma is experienced in one life is that the human life is short in itself, and experiencing everything that you’ve accumulated, in one short life is physically, mentally and spiritually overwhelming. As well as there might be many conflicting karmas like beneficial as well as harmful one, that to experience in one life does not make sense. Also, it would abruptly end everyone’s cycle of rebirth as well after just one life. At least that is the theory behind it, however as I mentioned before it’s debated.