Expressing the Infinite

A language possesses utility only insofar as it can construct conventional boundaries. A language of no boundaries is no language at all, and thus the mystic who tries to speak logically and formally of unity consciousness is doomed to sound very paradoxical or contradictory. The problem is that the structure of any language cannot grasp the nature of unity consciousness, any more than a fork could grasp the ocean.

Ken Wilber, Philosopher
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Metaphysics of the Infinite

Zero and the infinite are two sides of the same coin. The utlimate reality includes all, and is made up of nothing. Enlightenment is finite disolving into the infinite, either by becoming nothing or by becoming everything.

Small self belongs to the finite. No self belongs to the infinite.

So how can one reach the infinite?

There are two paths. One can become smaller and smaller and simply disappear into nothingness. This is the approach of Zen, which through insight negates all identification in order to experience the ultimate nothingness or nirvana.

Or one can expand oneself and become bigger and bigger, until one loses all identification with anything smaller than the infinite. This is the approach of christianity, which through love can make one infinite and experience I AM everywhere.

Mathematics of GOD

The mathematics of GOD is based upon three premises.

Premise 1: Existence is Infinite
Premise 2: The total Joy and Pain in existence are equal and opposite
Premise 3: GOD experiences infinite joy

Let the word Joy signify all positive states of being (like love, happiness, bliss, etc.), and the word Pain signify all negative states of being (like fear, anxiety, suffering, etc.). Under the above three premises, consider two types of existences.

Under existence A, God and Devil exist as equal and opposite. Though, both are infinite, God experiences infinite joy, and Devil experience infinite pain. However, such an existence would be devoid of any compassion for the devil, who would suffer eternally.

Under existence B, the infinite universe is made up of time, space, and other dimensions, in which joy and pain are distributed across infinite living beings (bacteria, plants, animals, humans, etc.) over infinite time and space. Each of these living beings experiences finite amounts of joy and pain.

Under existence B, all living beings, except GOD, on avearge experience x units of joy and x + e units of pain, where e is a very small number close to zero. For example x = 100, and e = 0.00001. Since 100 is almost the same as 100.00001, living beings on average experience almost the same amount of joy and pain. Without experiencing the pain, they could not know joy (premise 2, above), so they don't mind experiencing both in almost equal amounts.

Since the universe has infinite living beings, and since each living being on average has a deficit of e, representing a little extra pain over joy, GOD must experience infinite joy to balance out the infinite pain resulting from the product of e and infinity. This makes premise 3 consistent with premises 1 and 2, and yet no single living being experiences infinite pain under existence B.

This is the magic of GOD's mathematics. It explains how the infinite joy consciousness of GOD is created from a finite joy/pain consciousness of living beings. Under existence B, there cannot be a hell of eternal suffering (Christianity is wrong about this), as it is not needed for the existence of GOD.

Finally, as mentioned in many spiritual traditions, the inifnite living beings can get enlightened and merge into GOD.

The consciousness of the infinite living beings separated from GOD to allow the game of joy and pain.

Since, we are all GOD separated from itself, we go back to GOD, upon our enlightenment.

We as finite beings are necessary for the infinite GOD to be.

Big-Self Capitalism

The poem I wrote in the previous post captures the essential reality of all great civilizations, from Hindu (the “untouchables” suffer even now after three thousand years), Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Mogul, to the modern European/American. Each and every civilization was built using the blood and sweat of the lesser human beings. Modern nations and modern economic systems evolved from this broad human reality. The original cause behind the fatal attraction of the proletariat to communism was centuries of exploitation by feudalism and capitalism. Communism was simply a revolt by the masses. Like any revenge of the mobs, it was a release of anger, hate, and insanity by big parts of humanity. And, of course, revenge is often crueler than the exploitation that causes it. Science, communication, and weapons made it possible for the proletariat and the insane rulers in their “name” to kill twenty million in Soviet Russia, sixty million in China, and few more millions in other countries. Trying to achieve the impossible task of making all human achievements equal, communism led to the repression of all freedoms, economic, social, and spiritual.

In contrast, free-market capitalism worked well in spreading democratic values and general uplifting of the living standards of many people, though many were exploited and left behind. Two essential instruments of capitalism were innovation and exploitation. Historically, exploitation was not only its main instrument, but was often used as the bow that shot the arrow of innovation. Some men could think because others toiled in slave labor. The biggest exploiting groups gave birth to the greatest innovators. This continues even today, may be in more subtle forms, even though after FDR’s New Deal and advancements in technology, there was hope that innovation would replace exploitation as the main instrument of capitalism. Curiously, libertarians such as the famed economists Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and the pop philosopher Ayn Rand spent their whole lives preoccupied with the instrument of innovation, never acknowledging seriously the instrument of exploitation in the success of early capitalism.

The interaction of innovation and exploitation creates three forms of capitalism. Small-self capitalism, which increases efficiency mostly by exploitation (of workers, customers, and the environment). Modern capitalism which increases efficiency using both innovation and exploitation. And, big-self capitalism which increases efficiency mostly by innovation. The influence of money on government is highest in the stage of small-self capitalism, and lowest or non-existent in the stage of big-self capitalism. Only a complete elimination of the influence of money on law-makers can guarantee that laws against exploitation can be effectively passed without being blocked by the exploiters. In the 20th century, the western countries moved from small-self capitalism to modern capitalism. The big question confronting most industrialized nations today is whether we can move from modern capitalism to big-self capitalism in the 21st century?

Wounds and Scars

Once upon a time lived two tribes
The men of first tribe were unhappy and evil
The men of second tribe were happy and noble
One day the evil struck the noble
Took over their land
Raped their wives
And enslaved their men

The happy tribesmen now worked twelve-hour days
Under the threats of hunger, fear, and pain
The physically strong were kept alive with food and shelter
The weak ones abandoned without any care
The unhappy tribesmen were freed of bodily labor
They could now pursue thinking and contemplation

To the unhappy tribe were born the children of privilege
To the happy tribe were born the children of misfortune
Over time these children bore more children
The bodies and minds of the two tribes adapted to their new roles
Institutions developed to help strengthen the new realities
Both tribes forgetting how they came to be

The children of the unhappy tribe had minds full of wonder
The children of the happy tribe had hearts heavily burdened
The children of the unhappy tribe created science and technology
The children of the happy tribe watched with envy
The children of the unhappy tribe celebrated life
The children of the happy tribe feared for their lives

Centuries later children of the unhappy tribe discovered
The many injustices of their ancestors
Their hearts filled up with undeserved emotions
Of sadness, remorse, guilt, and anger
They freed the children of the happy tribe
And shared with them a piece of their pie
But their acceptance came from a heart of contrition
Not a heart flowing with love and benediction

The children of the happy tribe wanted affection
Not the pity arising from the historical infraction
Though their wounds were beginning to heal
They could not see blinded by the scars
Some children of the unhappy tribe saw the scars
Quickly announced that sharing of pie created scars
So the children of the happy tribe were abandoned
With their partially healed wounds and their visible scars

The Intellectual and the Wise

An intellectual circles around and around to prove a premise hidden in the emotional middle brain.

The intellectual is very skilled at hiding the "emotional" origins of the premise, not only from others, but even from himself, by using logical arguments of the upper brain.

The premise invariably is rooted in some small-self identity of the intellectual (i.e., American, conservative, liberal, etc.).

But how long can one move in circles? Five years, ten years, fifty years? Whole life?

A wise person quits circling around, and moves inward, towards the very center of the circle, right into the middle brain.

The wise one sees the small self.

In that seeing both the small self and the premise lose their grip.

Meditation is seeing directly into one's middle brain, with a silent upper brain. It is the journey of a small self into the big self, a transformation of the intellectual into the wise.

Living 100%

A divided Self consists of many small selves pulling the consciousness in opposing directions. The consciousness of a divided self may range from simple indecisiveness, to chronic procrastination, to paranoid schizophrenia.

Insanity is total separation of small selves. Self-actualization is total integration of small selves. A self-actualized human being is fully integrated in body, mind, and spirit. Such a being lives 100% moment by moment.

The small selves must be loved unconditionally for them to die and merge into the big Self. For example, the gluttonous over-eating self must be loved unconditionally for a compulsive eater to go beyond the guilt of overeating and thus, attaining freedom from addiction to food. The guilt of eating too much keeps one trapped in eating without awareness. By enjoying food 100%, eating slowly with full awareness of the taste buds, allows one to eat less. This applies to all mental addictions from food and love to money and career. Enjoying life 100% is the easiest way to find the balance and harmony that is beyond the grasp of small selves, but is the very nature of the big Self. Loving a small self unconditionally and totally is the way to allow the small self to merge into the big Self. Conscious death of the small selves is the birthing of the big Self. Loving every single small self within, deeply and unconditionally, however bad, ugly, evil, unworthy, the small self may seem, is the quickest path to big Self-realization.

Only a big Self can live life 100%

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Einstein's Advice for George W. Bush

Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius-and a lot of courage-to move in the opposite direction.

Albert Einstein

Global Warming: The Scientists versus the Conservatives

Global warming is an important but confusing issue for most people because this issue has economic significance, but perhaps not as much statistical significance. Conservatives claim that statistical significance of the relationship between human action and global warming cannot be demonstrated. Much of the scientific establishment opposes this viewpoint. However, the scientific community needs to rethink how it approaches this issue.

The first thing that must come to the mind of any scientist when confronting an issue that is economically significant but statistically insignificant, is the concept of POWER. Lack of power is called “type 2 error” in statistics.

Type 2 error measures the probability of “failure to reject the null hypothesis,” given the alternative hypothesis is true. In the case of global warming, "lack of power" is the error related to the failure to reject the null hypothesis that “no relationship between human action and global warming exists," if the alternative hypothesis that "human action is causing global warming" is true.

Scientists don’t have to prove that human action is causing global warming at 95% level of confidence, even if this can be proven. All they have to do is demonstrate the “lack of power" in the conservative argument. Just because some hypothesis is statistically not significant at 95% level of confidence, does not make that unimportant in an economic sense. And given what is at stake for humanity, the huge economic significance cannot be ignored, even if the effects of global warming are statistically significant only at say 50% level of confidence.

An economically significant event that is statistically insignificant at 95% level of confidence still calls for an effective response. For example, if there is only a 40% chance that one may die after eating food in a restaurant, one would still not eat there, regardless of the fact that the null hypothesis that "the restaurant food does not cause death" cannot be rejected at 95% level of confidence. Economically significant events don’t have to be always statistically significant at 90% or 95% level of confidence for them to deserve an effective response.

The global warming debate is different from debating whether one should devote one's entire life in preparation for not getting hit by lightening. In this case, the probability of being hit by lightening is virtually zero, and so it is unwise to devote significant time and energy to deal with such an occurrence.

I don't think any climate scientist thinks that the probability of the entrapment of greenhouse gases causing severe damage to earth is so small, that no action is warranted. And yet "no action" is the typical recommendation by most conservatives and their think tanks. These conservatives are hiding behind the claim of statistical insignificance, while cleverly evading the type 2 error related to economic significance of the severe damage that can result from entrapment of the greenhouse gases.

The intellectuals are divided as “small selves” on the issue of global warming. The conservative small selves are obsessed with statistical insignificance, while the environmentalist/scientific small selves are obsessed with statistical significance. Both need to come together by focusing on the issue of “lack of power” or the type 2 error to resolve this debate. Just like buying insurance or creating conditions for elimination of terrorism (and not creating more terrorism as being done at present) are right responses for statistically insignificant but economically significant issues, taking concrete steps to significantly reduce greenhouse gases is urgently needed to avoid a potential catastrophe in the making.

The Blindness of Small Selves

John Godfrey Saxe's ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend,

It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approach'd the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," -quoth he- "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," -quoth he,-
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said- "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," -quoth he,- "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL,

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

Small Selves

Do we ever keenly observe our many selves within and without? Why do we get attached to the identities that separate us into nations, religions, races, and economic classes? Dosen't such attachment make us insensitive to the pain of others not included in our identity. For example, as an American, does one feel the pain of 600,000 Iraqis who have died since the Iraq war began in 2003? As a radical Islamist, does one feel the pain of the thousands of Americans who died on 9/11? As someone from the Indian upper middle class, does one feel the pain of the poor Indian farmers, more than 15,000 of whom commit suicides annually?

Why do we humans split ourselves in such a manner, that we stop feeling any love for another who is not a part of our "small selves?"

As individuals with small selves, we seem to recognize multiple personality disorder only when it becomes pathological. But what we may think is normal may not be so different from what is pathological, when seen from the viewpoint of the one who is fully self-integrated. A self-integrated being sees our insanity in the same way, as we see the insanity of the pathologically insane.

How can we recognize this insanity of being split, when everyone around us is also split?

This is the challenge of meditation.

Meditation is not an effort to become the whole. Meditation is the simple non-judgmental seeing of one’s fragmentation.

In that seeing, the first act of wholeness begins...

Self-Integrity

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

Albert Einstein

Maximize Shareholder Wealth or Self-Utility?

Standard textbooks prescribe shareholder wealth maximization as the main goal of financial management. Yet, mangers are known to give themselves huge pay packages, often at the expense of shareholder wealth. This behavior is traditionally known as "agency" cost in the business literature. Agency costs exist due to only partial observability of managers' actions by the shareholders, and loopholes in the legal infrastructure. The traditional solution to this problem is to give managers bonuses and options to align their interests with the interests of the shareholders.

However, any human behavior not recognized and accepted, only creates higher order perversions. Free human beings living in free markets must rationally maximize their own self-utility. Maximizing shareholder wealth cannot be an absolute rule, but a constrained maximization, which should be subordinate to maximizing one's own self-utility. For example, if two choices both give self-utility of 100 units each, but the first choice makes shareholders richer, then the managers take that choice. Of course, due to unobservability of the managers actions by shareholders, often managers will and do maximize their own utility, at the expense of shareholder's wealth.

The ex-ante knowledge that shareholders have the right to fire or sue managers, generally keeps the managers behaving in line consistent with shareholder objectives. But its almost tautological that managers always maximize their own self-utility, even when they increase shareholder profits with some self-imposed constraints or objectives (arising due to self-integrity or greed). For example, for some managers the constraint of not hurting a worker is not a serious issue (encouraged by the draconian anti-labor laws in some states, which impose only a small monetary fine for killing a worker even with an intentional safety violation), while for other managers, not hurting another goes beyond their "small-self" fiduciary duty to shareholders, to serve their "big-self" human responsibility.

Modern capitalism sprang from the twin forces of innovation and exploitation, both feeding and reinforcing each other. These forces framed the laws of many western nations. So for example, if one knows as a manager that some labor practice causes serious arm injuries, but keeping that labor practice maximizes shareholder value even after paying for all monetary expenses for the arm injuries, then it becomes one's fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.

But what is legal is not necessarily what is ethical. Ethics relate to one's SELF-DEFINTION, while law is defined with respect to the system. Ethics are a function of one's individual utility function, while law is created by the dominant forces that come to rule the govt agencies. If one lives under the tyranny of Saddam, then what is ethical may be very distant from what is legal. Similarly, just because Blacks or women or men without property were not allowed to vote legally in 18th century did not make that ethical in USA. So if our rich, racist, but intelligent founding fathers designed labor laws that basically hurt the workers (small monetary fines in some states even for killing workers with intentional safety violations that maximize profits), and we continue to practice those laws, then we may end up hurting the workers to serve our fiduciary duty, but our ethical human Self may revolt at that idea.

If our human Self is much bigger than our identity as a manager at a company in a system designed to hurt the workers (e.g., meat-packing industry), or the customers (e.g., pharmaceutical industry), or the environment, it is very desirable for us to question our fiduciary duty and behave in accordance with our larger human responsibility. If we are willing to take the chance of getting sued by the shareholders or fired by the shareholders, we can see it as very ethical to try and stop practices that are known to hurt the workers, or the customers, or the environment.

Of course, if we abuse our power and spend company money on installing the most expensive diamond studded carpets in our offices, then we will most likely get fired. But since we know that that outcome is a possibility, we will most likely not engage in such actions using our utility function. But we still use our own utility functions to make such decisions and not the shareholders' utility function. Our utility functions calculate, ex-ante, the possibilities of getting fired or sued or whatever, depending on the actions we undertake.

So in conclusion, we may very often see it as our BIG-SELF HUMAN responsibility to serve the exploited workers, naive customers, and the environment, and not solely focus on maximizing shareholder wealth, by taking the chance that we may get fired or sued. Of course, we do what we can to increase shareholder wealth to the extent it does not compromise with our self-integrity. No one can force one to maximize someone else's utility. One may feel "self-richer" in not compromising with one's integrity, than someone else who may be a millionaire but may injure or kill a couple of workers every other year.

Rich and Poor

Though outwardly few are rich and many are poor, even the few rich are inwardly as poor as most of the outwardly poor. What makes one rich is not just wealth and power but the richness of the inner Self. A self-rich person can never be a slave to another. She cannot do anything that sacrifices herself for another's utility, whether it is the King of Saudi Arabia or shareholders of Halliburton. A self-rich person empowers other selves, because the wealth of selves multiplies when you make others inwardly richer. Self-richness can happen to anyone, anytime, from mother Teresa to Warren Buffett, from a stripper to a bartender. Effort is the method of becoming outwardly rich, effortless seeing of oneself is the way to become inwardly rich.

What is No Self?

No-Self consciousness is experienced when cravings and aversions arising from a small self end. No-self moments happen unexpectedly, since expectations are creations of a small self. A melody heard after many years, a beautiful sunset seen on a vacation, an unexpected gift from a stranger, all lead to the experience of the no-self moments. Meditation can make the most ordinary moments seem extraordinary because it shifts one's consciousness from the cycle of small-self desires and frustrations to the enjoyment of pure witnessing of that which is unfolding. This witnessing has no ego, no personality, it just IS. The only difference between ordinary existence and extraordinary living is that no-self moments happen rarely and accidentally under the former, and frequently and consciously under the latter.

Self-Cooperative Games

Most people understand only two types of games. Games in which competition wins, and games in which cooperation wins.

The more gross games of life on the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy are best played with the spirit of competition in which free markets do well. The subtle games of life on the higher levels of Maslow's hierarchy are best played with the spirit of love in which cooperation wins.

Communism is a game in which love is forced by the method of cooperative game theory. Capitalism is a game in which individuals are free to maximize their unidimensional utilities using non-cooperative game theory. Since love can never be forced, and unidimensional utilities are unreal, neither system has brought lasting peace and well-being to humankind.

But games don’t have to be divided only between cooperative and non-cooperative game theory models.

By allowing a multi-dimensional utility, such that one's utility is a positive function of another's utility, one can play a third type of self-cooperative game in which cooperation results endogenously even when individuals behave in rational self-interest. Economists don’t have a monopoly on the definition of “rational,” and their small-self attempts to define “rational” have kept them imprisoned in their prisoner’s dilemma games. The schizophrenic nature of the Nash equilibrium in a prisoner’s dilemma game is easily seen once humans embrace their big-self multidimensional utilities.

Self-cooperative games allow both love and freedom, as they use multidimensional utilities and are free of any force of coercion by the government agency. In these games one loves out of one's freedom, and feels free because one is loved.

The challenge for economists and politicians is to create conditions through human values-based education, elimination of poverty, etc., such that the self-cooperative games don't devolve into self-destructive games in which one's multidimensional utility is a negative function of another's utility.

The number of people playing self-destructive games has grown exponentially (e.g., terrorist groups, communal rioters, revengeful nationalistic citizens, etc.) over the past quarter century. Unless economists and politicans acknowledge the existence of multidimensional utilities in the real games played by human beings, they will fail in solving the problems of war and terrorism.

Only if we acknowledge that multidimensional utility functions exist, can we take appropriate actions to encourage such utilities to have positive weights for others' utilities? Creating conditions that influence multidimensional utility functions to have positive weights of others' utilities is needed as much as increases in the GDP. Unfortunately, economic and political thinkers remain obsessed only with the latter.