HOW LONG WILL HUMAN RACE SURVIVE?

The human race is nearly two hundred thousand years old. Perhaps we are the youngest species of all life forms on earth except the fast mutating mono cellular organisms and viruses. All other primates, mammals and reptiles have inhabited this earth for longer periods.
The advent of man on earth was a land mark in the history of this planet and that of the universe known to us. Unlike other animals and life forms on earth, man is the creator of his own destiny and that of the planet itself. Till recently, man has been more or less like other animals depending on the nature for his livelihood and survival. Not that, even now, he is totally independent of nature - but he lives in a transformed environment. Instead of the energy produced by the intake and assimilation of foods into his system for his activities, he has come to depend more and more on the energy released from the fossil fuels. This has tremendously enhanced the scope and reach of his activities.
Plenty in the availability of foods always influences the number of any species. For example, when the bamboo flowers once in half a century in the north eastern states of India, mice and rats multiple in astonishing rates playing havoc to crops. During this period the rodent population explodes owing to the increased availability of food. Similarly, when man invented agriculture, and started farming in organized and mechanical ways, availability of foods improved and consequently human population has reached more than seven billion.
The Wisdom of Nature, which some people would like to call God, is amazingly superior to human intelligence: in fact human intelligence is only a minor subset of the Universal Intelligence. This all-encompassing wisdom has decreed that on the planet earth, the number of such and such species, be it an animal or tree or plant, should not exceed a certain limit. If it does, it will be at the expense of other species. The increase in the number of deer in a given system will exert great pressure on the system. To counter this, the population of predators like tigers and leopards will increase. The triggering factor will be increased availability of prey. If the deer population dwindles owing to the increased predator population, the predators will have less food and therefore, fewer kids. In some cases mothers themselves may eat up the cubs.
It is simple logic that man is but another mammal and if human population exceeds the permissible limit, the limit beyond which other life forms on earth will face irreversible ruin, the Ultimate Wisdom will see that human population is cut down to a reduced level.
Human civilization and technological advancement have made the planet a global village and movement of people from one place to another cannot be stopped. It therefore follows that, if the ultimate ruin or near extinction of human race is destined to be through a pandemic, no force can prevent it. Governments around the globe put up frantic efforts to prevent the spread of the bird flu virus and the H1N1 virus without any result. In a few months the virus reached every nook and corner of the globe. If nature opts to prune down human population to the first century level with a pandemic like the Spanish flu, it is easier now than ever before. Only a few isolated tribes in the deep Amazonian forest or the still uncharted areas in Africa or Asia might survive. Human population will go back two or three millennia both in number and sophistication.
There is certainly some inbuilt mechanism by which both the number and material advancement of human race will be kept in check. It may the climate change. It may be a meteoric shower. A nuclear war or any other momentous event which will send a shock wave around the world triggering the economic time bomb, which will annihilate the present day human civilization.
If Homo sapiens are allowed to multiply and mutilate planet earth for another half century, not only the human race but also other forms of life on earth will vanish for ever. The Ultimate is not likely to allow this to happen. It is likely that scattered and unconnected clans which have not so far got exposed to the comforts of the present day civilization will survive.
Scientific knowledge and technical innovations always depend upon the ideas left behind by past generations. You always step on the shoulders of the stalwarts of the past to attain newer heights. It would, therefore, be impossible for the survivors to reconstruct the sophistication of the present day world.
In other words, the cataclysmic end of the world, prophesied by seers and prophets, is certainly close at hand. In a way, there is some poetic justice in what is going to happen. Human hedonism has reached such a level that man will destroy not only himself but the planet itself if he is allowed to go on ‘progressing’ like this for half a century more.

Islamization of the West, Further Thoughts

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the complete islamization of the West without any jihad. Here are some after thoughts on the subject.

When two cultures, one rather ‘primitive’ in the view of the more ‘advanced’ one, are allowed to co-exist, frictions and fears naturally arise in the minds of people belonging to the majority culture. The white people in the West have, over half a century, welcomed fugitives, job seekers, students, and scholars from the third-world countries in Africa and Asia. A good percentage of this great demographic flow belonged to the Islamic faith. Not only because their culture was totally different from that of the host country, but also because the immigrants identified many of their cultural peculiarities with their religion, most Muslims steadfastly refused to be assimilated into the mainstream of social life.

In a democracy votes matter much. No politician can afford to ignore a minority. Therefore, even when the social behaviour of Muslims collided with the accepted norms of social conduct, politicians tried to ignore it. Islets of alien culture, with virtually nothing in common with the mainstream social behaviour, came into existence in different parts of Europe. Into this secluded areas, law enforcement agencies are very often denied access.

The major area of conflict is the treatment of women by Islamic communities. A white woman has complete freedom in her sexual or married life. But among Muslims, the sexual behaviour of a woman is always dictated by the community, that is, by men. This varies from coercion in the choice of husbands, to honour killings. Displaying body parts including the face is taboo and as a result, self esteem among Muslim girls is very low.

As Muslim power and influence in Europe grow and liberal Muslims are browbeaten or suppressed, the reaction of the majority culture is likely to assume harsher tones. Europeans, despite their apparent tolerance to alien models of social behaviour, are capable of extreme cruelty and bloodshed. We have any number of examples before us. Recent Christian- Muslim conflicts in Serbia, assumed the proportion of genocide. What Germany under Hitler did is another example. Six million Jews are believed to have been sent to the gas chamber simply because they were Jews.

Democracy is the only dispensation which will protect minorities anywhere in the world. Though conservative Muslims shun democracy as an unscientific western invention, as long as the West is democratic, minorities, especially Muslims do not have to fear anything.

If islamophobia is used as a clever political plank to grab power by a person or movement, and if democracy is substituted by dictatorship in a major European country, the fate of Muslims in that country will be sealed. The world will discover that all the talk about human rights, freedom of expression, freedom profess and propagate any religion etc are letters written on water. The cultural credentials of Germans have never been suspect for centuries. But they witnessed the massacre of a multitude without a whimper of protest.

It is therefore, in the interest of Muslims in the West to strengthen democracy. The elite and liberals among Muslims have a duty to transform Islam to a modern, peace loving religion, compatible with the mainstream social order. It is the duty of Muslims to free the community from the clutches of bearded and chauvinistic religious teachers with medieval mindsets.

The end time prophesy of Jesus Christ warns of widespread unrest and clashes among religious and ethnic groups towards the close of the prevailing phase of human history. Such bloody conflicts, ruled out as peculiar only to less civilized African countries and communities, can happen in Europe unless the policymakers and Islamic leaders are careful.
(Please also see my posts titled Islamization of the West, Religion and Culture, religion and Conflict and Islam and Terrorism)

Again on the economic time bomb

Economists assume that by the ever expanding spiral of more consumption and more jobs, economic growth and prosperity could be kept on growing.

In some countries, there is a statutory regulation that furniture in offices should be replaced by new pieces even if the old ones could be used for a number of years more. The aim is to promote the furniture industry. During the Great Depression of the thirties, Roosevelt’s exhortation to common people was to spend more. By increasing the money circulation he hoped to increase consumption and thereby bring about economic recovery.

All throughout human history, this has been the story of economic growth: more consumption, more production, and more jobs. Even today, governments around the globe apply this method to stimulate the economy. They pump into the system more funds, causing a spurt in consumption and thereby energising the economy.

There is the story of Pakistani agents dumping fake currency notes in the border districts of India, hoping to ruin the Indian economy. The outcome astonished not only the Government of India and its Pakistani antagonists. The border areas rained with fake currency notes witnessed a brisk economic growth.

We hear a lot about economic stagnation in developed countries like Japan and the US. What is the actual reason? Consumption has reached a peak, so that further increase in consumption and creation of more jobs become difficult.

The economists of all hues assume that further increase in consumption in any economy is possible and a decent growth rate can be sustained. But this may not be possible under all circumstances. On the other hand, it is possible that a sufficiently important but unexpected event can sent back the global patterns of consumption and consequently, job opportunities, to those prevalent a hundred years back. Such a catastrophe has never happened before, because the present level of globalisation and interlinking of world economies is something new. Besides, consumption at the present rates has never before been achieved.

The table below gives the patterns of consumption in Kerala, the South Indian state, now, and a century back. The rates of consumption are not as high as in the wealthier countries, but, definitely higher than those prevailing in most developing countries. However, a hundred years back, patterns of consumption in most parts of the world were similar except in footwear, clothing and housing. Cold climates always called for more sophistication in these areas.

Item	Consumption now	Consumption in 1910	Remarks
Housing	Units built by skilled labour using industrial products	Units built mostly by the user, using locally available materials	Job opportunities created in these areas are tremendous. They are not proportional to the growth in population. The percentage of people engaged in the production of foods has fallen sharply. Food self sufficiency is a thing of the past.
Electricity	Universally used	Use was not known
Footwear	Everybody uses	Only a selected few used
Phones	Almost everybody owns a phone	Use was not known
Clothing	The cost and quantity of clothes used by men and women are on a par with those used by the people in the West. .	Scarcely. Only young women wore upper garments
Transportation	Vehicles powered by petroleum fuels are used for travel and transportation of goods.	People mostly travelled on foot. Vehicles drawn by animals were used in the transportation of goods.
Farming	Most people have abandoned agriculture and those who are still in the profession have shifted to cash crops.	Majority of people were engaged in agriculture

In my previous article on the subject, I pointed out that some great event of global impact may send the demand of most goods as well as stock indices plummeting ruining the world economy. Just imagine the extent of job loses if the economy suddenly slid back to 1910 levels.

The fate of the world depends on how far the level of consumption may go back in a crisis. If it goes back to 1910 levels billions of people around the globe will be thrown out of employment and the fate of humanity will be doomed. It may take another millennium to regain the present level of industrial production and employment generation.

No government can totally prevent a global catastrophe caused by the sudden shrinkage in demand. However, by ensuring regional food security, much can be done. Food production should be heavily subsidised so that farmers may be dissuaded from straying into more lucrative areas such as rubber and soy cultivation.

Many of the cottage and village industries everywhere in the world used to produce goods with locally available raw materials. Industries using coconut fibres, jute, bamboo plies, etc. gave employment to millions of workers. Surky, a mixture of sugar and lime was used even in building dams. Invention of cement and plastic has ruined these industries. Government policies can revive the old industries ensuring employment to millions of workers in the event of a collapse of the present industrial culture and consequent loss of jobs.

In half a century, we have forgotten, discarded or destroyed the survival methods evolved through millennia and it is impossible to fall back to the old ways overnight. A gradual reinvention of the age old methods may ward off a total ruin.

Mahatma Gandhi advocated for the revival of the rural small-scale industries in India But the intellectuals of that time like Russel mocked the idea. A global crisis will show how prophetic and wise the ‘half clad fakir’ was.

How Safe is Modern Medicine?

Diseases, including the terrific ones like small pox and malaria, are the products of unnatural living, that is, they are the consequences of civilization.
No animal in the pristine forests suffer from disease or old age. They are the curses of man only.

As soon as diseases appeared, man divined cures for them. These remedies were mostly herbal in nature. If you visit a traditional herbal shop in Kerala, India, you will be surprised to find heaps of dried leaves, roots, berries, and nuts there. A concoction of a few of these often aromatic plant products used to cure almost all the diseases known to the local people. There were also mono cures, that is, a single dose of a particular leaf, root, or nut that could effect a miraculous cure of a particular ailment.

All life forms are filled with the Universal Life force Energy, the energy that manifests itself as growth, regeneration and response to stimuli in living things. More than the chemical composition of the ingredients the Life Force in them, cause the healing. For example, when the njavara kizhi, a very effective Ayurvedic preparation in the treatment of acute rheumatism and consequent wasting of the limbs and muscles, was subjected to chemical analysis, nothing other than the usual compounds common to milk and rice was discovered. Still, in practice, the cure brought about by the preparation is undisputable.

In the eighteenth century, Pasteur discovered that many diseases were caused by microbes. Search for methods to prevent the infection of viruses like the rabies virus, and medicines to kill harmful bacteria in the human body resulted in the invention of vaccines and antibiotics.

To alleviate aches and pains and to stimulate retarded body functions, medicines were invented. For quicker action, the practice of injecting medicines intramuscular or intravenous came into practice.

There are only two ways in which foreign materials can enter the human body, the mouth and the nostrils. By piercing the muscles or veins and introducing medicines into the human body is clearly against nature, and therefore, unscientific. Most injections do not kill people but many do. In any case, the number of cases in which human lives are saved are not greater than the number of people killed immediately or gradually by injections.

Most drugs used in modern medicine are synthetic products. Man has lived on plant products for the last two hundred thousand years and, instinctively, human body can assimilate or eliminate plant products. In the case of low molecular weight chemicals, human body is incapable of breaking up or eliminating them. For example, aluminium hydroxide, used as an antacid, is converted into aluminium chloride in the stomach and finds its way into the bloodstream. Human body has no experience and mechanism in expelling this chemical. It may, therefore, get deposited in some part of the anatomy causing unexpected and often catastrophic effects. There are people who believe that the Ulshimer’s disease is caused by aluminium deposits in the brain.

In the desperate and often vain attempt to eliminate drugs from the system, the kidneys are damaged. The unprecedented increase in the nephrological disorders is a direct result of the use of modern medicines. Even the apparently harmless painkiller like paracetamol may damage the liver and kidneys in the long run. The thalidomide tragedy is one of the numerous misfortunes the advent of modern medicine has gifted human race.

Because modern medicine is the contribution of the West, which has had undisputed say in matters relating to science in the last few centuries, and because the political clout of the Europeans during this period was overwhelming, other system like Ayurveda and Acupuncture did not receive the attention and admiration they deserved. Even in India and China, where these great sciences got evolved, these systems of healing were neglected.

For most diseases, effective treatment without side effects is available in Ayurveda. It is high time that people in this globalized era woke up to the dangers of modern medicine and thought about ancient parallel systems of medicine.

Levels of Consciousness

Consciousness can be defined as the awareness of the surroundings. A stone or rock is not aware of the goings on around it: An earthquake or forest fire cannot in anyway influence it.

Plants, on the other hand, have been proved to respond to external stimuli. A man with an axe with the intention to chop down a tree will send a shudder up the tree trunk. In trees awareness of external stimuli like light heat and sound are evident but consciousness is not developed to a high degree.

An organism has awareness of its surroundings only up to a degree that is essential for its survival.

In the animal kingdom, microbes that depend on air or fluid currents for propagation or locomotion can be considered to have zero dimensional consciousness. That is, it is unaware of its movement along the x-axis of the Cartesian coordinate.

Take the case of an earthworm or centipede. It crawls along a surface, and in its progress is aware of the linear distance covered by it. Suppose an earth worm in its progress in a particular direction comes across a pebble on the way. It cannot overcome the obstacle and therefore takes a deviated route. Although it is aware of the distance covered, it is not conscious about the space covered by the original and deviated directions. We can assume that the earthworm has a mono dimensional consciousness.

Consider the movements of a cockroach. It is aware of the distance and area covered by it during expeditions for food or mates. However, it cannot distinguish a man leaning against a wall and the picture of a person propped against a wall. In short, its awareness is two-dimensional. While the area covered by the x and y coordinates is understood by it, it cannot conceive the thickness of objects defined by the z coordinate.

Mammals including man have three dimensional consciousnesses. That is why you can distinguish a picture from the object. To define the position of an object in the space you need to apply x, y and z coordinates. If an animal can distinguish a picture from the object, it has three dimensional consciousness.

Although mammals have three dimensional consciousness like man, in the case of man, it is much more developed. Objective thinking, abstract reasoning, storing memories of past events or facts for future use etc are unique in man.

Man has three dimensional consciousness of the highest order known in the Universe. This does not mean that man’s level of consciousness is the highest possible level in the Universe. In the first place, three dimensional consciousness in man is of a greater order than in animals. Similarly, different men can have different levels of consciousness.

Is four dimensional consciousness possible in human beings? The fourth dimension is supposed to be time. If a man has four dimensional consciousness, he can see the future, which is hidden to common man. Such people who can prophesy the future are called prophets or seers. Some people are congenitally endowed with the faculty of perceiving things to happen. Some others may be able to acquire such gifts by meditation and spiritual practices.

If you cut a lime into two pieces, the cross section is a plane, a two dimensional figure. If you take the cross section of plane, for example a sheet of paper ignoring its small thickness, what you get is a straight line, a one dimensional figure. Further if you intersect a straight line with another you get a point which has no dimension. It follows that a point with no dimension is the cross section of a mono dimensional figure, and one dimensional figure is the cross section of a two dimensional figure and every two dimensional figure is the cross section of the three dimensional space. It can be argued that the three dimensional Universe as we see it and perceive is the cross section of a four dimensional universe to which a few have occasional glimpses. Similarly, worlds with any number of dimensions are possible. When we deny such possibilities, we are like cockroaches who would deny the existence of a three dimensional world simply because their brain cannot perceive it.

Teleportation, a technique by which an object in a locked up room is taken out without actually unlocking the room can be explained if we agree that a four dimensional world exists. The performer enters the four dimensional world which exists side by side with the three dimensional world. The lock and key apply only to the three dimensional world. So he goes in and comes out with the object and

re-enters the three dimensional world.

Heaven and hell, life after death, and many religious beliefs which atheists deny can be explained if we admit a four dimensional world around us. We reason, positioning ourselves in the three dimensional world, and refuse to admit anything which our limited consciousness cannot perceive. You are asked to measure the voltage of a power line and what you have with you is only a metre scale. Do not argue that that the power line has no electric current passing through it simply because you are not provided with a suitable instrument to measure it.

Adam and Eve and the First Sin

Adam and Eve, according to the Bible, were the first parents. Until they sinned against God by disobeying Him, they lived in the beautiful garden, the Paradise. Satan the devil tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. On the advice of his wife, Adam also ate the fruit, and infuriated by their disobedience, God drove the couple out of the beautiful garden. Henceforth, man was destined to live by toil and die eventually. Originally, God intended the crown of all His creations to live without poverty, hardships or death ever threatening him.

When the Bible was written, this story had probably been in circulation for many centuries in the Middle East. Without any natural barriers to prevent the easy and essential demographic movements in the vast semi arid area, this legend of an era of plenty and happiness had been told and retold down many generations.

Started undoubtedly by a genius, the legend tries to explain the uniqueness of human misery in the whole of animal kingdom. All other animals and insects and plants fit perfectly in the grand pattern of the universe. They have no miseries, worries, poverty, old age, fear of death or disease. Wretchedness, like superior intelligence and perception, is known only among humans.

Undoubtedly, eating of the forbidden fruit is symbolic of something else. Some believe that it was the sexual act. This argument is foolish and absurd. Man, like all other animals, has the sexual instinct and to forbid it is not only wicked but also preposterous. The God that forbids sex is the creation of a perverted or troubled mind.

What, then, was that actually symbolised the forbidden fruit?

Sex was intended as the supreme act and expression of love without conditions between man and woman. Man was of course blessed with the supreme physical, mental and spiritual elevation and pleasure out of the sexual act. But when a man has sex with a woman, and when there is no love between them, the couple are having physical pleasure only, that is, they are indulging in degraded sex.

Man could eat and enjoy the pleasurable taste of fruits and nuts and other edible things in nature. But when he eats to enjoy the pleasure it is something else. You can make a pair of shoes in which your feet are perfectly comfortable. But you are not expected to cut and shape your feet so that the shoes fit perfectly.

The perverted way of satisfying two of the basic needs and gifts was the first sin. In order to have plenty of foods, man started agriculture. Gluttony and sex for physical pleasure only, followed. When man cut the first tree to satisfy his exaggerated needs, he started on a path to destruction from which no going back was possible. Instead of living in nature in harmony with it, he tried to modify it, and mould it to his advantage and fancy.

Man’s level of consciousness dwindled and he has fallen to the sate of an intelligent animal from the state of a god. His wisdom and intelligence are curses rather than assets. Animals in the jungle fare much better than man.

As man ‘advances’ in technology, his soul diminishes in excellence, and most modern men and women are intelligent but soulless animals. The way out of this quagmire is the undoing of human civilization, which is clearly impossible.