Entanglement

Let me start by way of an aside. Via a forwarded e-mail that begins, "Perhaps largely because of reading Times of India....." and ends up labelling the ambiance in Mumbai as "anti-intellectual". Mind you, this guy is a guru. Not just a guru, but The गुरु. This smart, brainy, nerdy, techy guy called Guru was raised in Mumbai - and now we know why he moved to Bangalore. 

What surprised me was not so much his diatribe against the IQ of Mumbai, but his partiality towards the Times of India. While we are happy that the scales have at last fallen from his eyes, we are happier still of the lesson this teaches us.

Very often, things begin within us (like our desire to subscribe to newspapers whose USP seems to be the answering of questions of the most intimate nature, in the most brazen fashion). And before we know it, we end up blaming entities that don't even remotely connect - like the cerebral quality of cities.

To be fair, I have to admit I've been guilty of the same offence I accuse Guru of - and not just once, but millions of times. 

Wouldn't it thus be ok to say that we are apt to get so entangled it becomes easy to lose perspective? So then, what is the antidote, the atonement? Let go completely, says Valluvar wisely -

யாதனின் யாதனின் நீங்கியான் நோதல் 

அதனின் அதனின் இலன்    

My rough translation - You no longer suffer pain from that you have renounced.

The Rev. G.U.Pope's - 

From whatever, aye, whatever, man gets free, 

From what, aye, from that, no more of pain hath he

So much for the entanglement that arises from our attachments, our biases and our prejudices.  Over the past few months, I have been exposed to some compellingly different ideas about our minds, bodies and the way we perceive reality. Quantum entanglement (or non-locality) is one such very counter-intuitive but reality-changing concept. I do hope to explore this and other ideas here on this blog, so watch out!