The deception of invention!

“ஆனி மாத நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள் (Aani maadham nal-vazhthukkal)!” is how தமிழர்கள் (Thamizh speakers) wish each other as the solar month of Aani (Sun in Gemini ️) kicks off today. It heralds the interface between Greeshma Ritu (summer) & Varsha Ritu ️ (monsoon), two of the six bi-monthly seasons in the northern hemisphere, the others being Sharath (autumn ), Hemanta (pre-winter ️), Shishira (winter ) & Vasantha (spring ), in that order. Best wishes for the new solar month, Gemini ️, beginning today & celebrated with much fanfare especially for its first four days as the cool water element comes in contact the hot earth element, giving rise to an uniquely intoxicating fragrant scent. Mother Earth is personified as Bhu-devi, w/o Puri Jaga-nath (literally, Lord of the Earth) in Odisha. Recently ravaged by cyclone Amphan, it’s time for the Odias (ଓଡ଼ିଆ) to cheer up with Raja Parba, welcoming rain with health & immunity-enhancing barefoot dancing to the folk songs of Raja Gita, while munching on poda-pita! Most people, even though of Bharatiya origin & even till date to the utter delight of a Macaulay on life extension n.0 (thanks to ventilators @ his anglicised manasika putraseven in post-Independence governance & the reigning educational policy), are either blind to or, at the most, have ultra-narrow visions of our rich cultural heritage & its scientifically practical significance for daily life. For instance, most of us are unfortunately aware of Sankranti only as an annual harvest festival in mid-January & would be surprised to know that there are actually a dozen sankrantis every year, occurring at the middle of every Gregorian month, with useful seasonal implications (as outlined above) amongst many other dynamic characteristics of life itself. This is because san-kranti (literally, auspicious revolution) is actually a technical term used for the latitudinal shift of the apparent solar orbital path ️ in an Earth-fixed reference frame, from one constellational background (simply put, zodiac sign, for dummies!) to the next. At 6:50AM today (when viewed from Bengaluru), as life energy (Sun ️) moves on from its bullish growth (Vrishabha or Taurus ️) for the last one month to expend itself onto intellectual dichotomy (Mithuna or Gemini ️) for the next one month, we need to understand the limitations of our precious tool of a cutting-edge intellect (buddhi) & its associated faculty of discrimination (viveka). Else, life energy could be squandered away through an overemphasis on intellectual pursuits, which of course have their own rightful place, but definitely not at the cost of access to the natural & holistic universal intelligence, which is far more potent & widespread, in fact omnipotent & omnipresent. As I recently explained to a distinguished aircraft ️ engine designer & scientist, “Our Vedas are so profoundly comprehensive that there’s absolutely no room left for anything absolutely new, though there’s always the possibility to immensely wonder for the truly perceptive amongst us. Thus, it’ll always be old wine , perhaps in a newer & fancier bottle at the most. Contemporary packaging is the key for technological utility. In fact, in my pristine perception, there’s no such thing as an invention nor an inventor, with due respect to all those who’ve been bestowed upon with such a title over the years around the world. In reality, every one of their so-called ‘inventions’ is a mere discovery as Mother Nature already has elements of it in some basic form or the other, but inadvertently hidden, purely due to our lack of clarity in perception. When we uncover something which has been too deeply hidden from most people, we tend to call it an ‘invention’ colloquially, knowing fully well that, leave alone our ‘invention,” even we ourselves are but a product entirely of this universe. Irrespective of how tirelessly striven for, how highly innovative & how tremendously ingenious our outputs might be, at the end of the day, all our works are thus products of a product (ourselves) & thus can never be truly original! The value we seem to add to existing products & knowledge, for others to also see them from a different perspective, is what makes our contributions, be it technical or spiritual, so worthy for as large a section of our society, nation & humanity as we are capable of reaching out to.” For example, it’s only because we could naturally move & walkthat we ‘discovered’ vehicles ️ ; only because we could naturally hear & talk , we ‘discovered‘ communication devices ️ ; only because we could naturally see , we ‘discovered’ scopes