Why Astrology?

Astrology has always been a favourite topic of discussion for the elders. They told me lots of stories about how the celestial beings (Navagraha or Planets in solar system) affect the way we behave. Sadly, it never convinced me to believe as no one was able to give me an explanation in the way I expect. And some would even get annoyed (the older the person you question, the more annoyed they’ll get…that was like directly proportional).. I even questioned some young people..”Do you believe in horoscope?”..they say “Oh yes, I do”..and so I asked “Why?”..and the reply was, “I don’t know”.. So people believe in something, but they don’t know why.

Let us look at how astrology works. Astrology (be it Hinduism or any other kind) believes that human behavior is greatly influenced by the positions of celestial beings (or Navagraha, according to Hindu belief). The list below shows the names given to these celestial beings according to Hindu Astrology:

1)      Sun                        - Suriyan

2)      Moon                    - Chandiran

3)      Mars                      - Chevvai

4)      Mercury               - Budhan

5)      Jupiter                  - Guru

6)      Venus                   - Sukran

7)      Saturn                   - Shani

8)      Rahu

9)      Kethu

Rahu and Kethu according astrology are the two points of intersection of the Moon and Sun path around the Earth. Refer the diagram below.

Source: http://www.sanskrit.org/www/Astronomy/Rahu.html

So, Rahu and Kethu are not celestial beings or planets, but are much associated to the occurrences of Sun and Moon eclipse. All these are said to have influence on human behavior. Using a person’s birth date, horoscope and zodiac, astrologers would predict which planets would give you the dominating effect at a particular time.

This means that there must be something from these planets that reaches us in the form of vibration (wave), energy, or particle. So, it must be a measurable effect. Logic, right? Now, these effects will have to travel billions of kilometers before reaching us, and in the course of its travel, it can lose some of its energy, and thus reducing its effects when reaching humans on earth. In other words, planets closer to earth like Mars (average distance : 225 Million KM from Earth) would have greater effect on humans compared to Saturn (average distance : 1.4 Billion KM from Earth). All you need is pure logic to figure that out. Right?

But the Astrologers say that distance does not play any role on the magnitude of effect, but only the position of planets. What they mean is that two planets regardless of how far it is from Earth can have similar effect on humans at the same time. Example, the Sun and Moon can have dominating effect on us. But how can that be true? By right, Moon should have greater effect because it is much much much closer to us than the Sun, right? Now, the Astrologers’ claim will be true if we assume distance has no influence on the planetary effects on humans.

If distance have no effect, then we humans should also be influenced by planets like Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, dwarf planets like Haumea, Makemake, and Eris,  Moons like Europa, Triton, Titan and countless others. But why aren’t these things taken into consideration? If you do, can you imagine how complicating things can get?

To sum it up, these are the few things that keep me skeptical about Astrology

      1) Time is important in using astrology to predict your past, present, and future. Hindu Astrology dates back thousands of years, developed by the great Rishis from India. Back in those days when watch was not invented and a day was not defined as having 24 hours,each hour having 60 minutes, each minutes has 60 seconds, how was time measured accurately to study a person’s fate 1000 years ago? If they had used positions of the Sun and Moon, then how reliable can the results be?

      2) Why isn’t Earth’s effect on humans taken into consideration in Astrology? The way I see things, it is the Earth and only Earth that influences our mind. Nature, people around us, animals, the air, the atmosphere, flow of water, chirping of the little birds, rainbows, children, war, poverty, religion, culture..these are the things that my mind can accept as the responsible parties that shape the way we think, behave, and act. 

   

      3) The possible explanation of why Earth is excluded in Astrology is that at the time Astrology was initiated, Earth was assumed to be the center of Solar System, and everything else moves in a circular path around the Earth. We know that is wrong. In fact, the path is not circular, but elongated. 

    

          4)  What about stars and planets in outer space, from other galaxies? Why did the astrologers ignored the effects from Alpha Centauri (the closest star to Earth after the Sun, about 4.3 lights years away). Maybe Alpha Centauri is too far to affect human behavior on Earth, but wait a minute, distance has no effect, as we discussed earlier..remember? 

      

      5) If it is true that we are living a pre-determined life, then faith in God fails, right? What is the point in having faith in God if whatever that’s going to happen to us is already pre-determined by the planets? What are you praying and hoping for? 

      

      6) In the case of Hindu astrology, it should have been designed using the ancient calendar system. For instance, the Tamil Calendar. But at present, we are no longer using it as we have adapted the western English calendar. How can you relate modern western English Calender with astrology that was developed using ancient calendar? Obviously these calendars are NOT the same. That’s why we are not celebrating Pongal on the same day every year. 

      

       7) There are many ways to determine your fate. There are Astrology, Palmistry (Palm reading), Nadi Astrology (reading pulse), Numerology and many more I guess. By right, all these methods of predicting past, present and future should give a consistent result. But, do they? Try it by yourselves. 

      

      8) All methods of prediction dates back thousands of years ago. How sure are we, the humans, are practicing EXACTLY the same methods developed by Rishis and sages in the past? How sure are we that there are no any kind of misinterpretation along the years? 

      

      9) Karma, is responsible for putting you on Earth. Astrologers believe that too. Based on your actions in the past life, karma will make sure you’re born at a particular date,time,place,during a certain orientation of planets. These, depends on how you lived your life in the past. If you’re good/bad in the past, your life now will be good/bad also. That’s fine to me. But what I can’t accept is that there are also ways of “Avoiding” the effects of karma. In other words, you can also avoid punishments for the mistakes you made in the past. Read the short story below:

A man met an Astrologer to find out why he is having countless problems and challenges in his life. His life was miserable. The astrologer says that the cause of his problem is his past. In his past, the man was a king/prince/some kind of powerful guy and had committed offences like killing innocent people and oppressing them, raping young women, and many other stuffs. So, that’s why he’s having a life with no peace. To solve all these problems, he has to perform certain rituals that of course would cost him some money. After performing these rituals, he lived happily ever after. The end.

That is probably one of many stories you can hear from people who have been to an astrologer. Does that really make any sense? Does that means that people can steal, cheat, rape, kill and still get away with it by just performing some rituals? So where is justice? Where is God? Is this what the astrologers are trying to tell us?

This is the reason why I get confused when people say they believe in God and at the same time believe in Astrology. I’m not going to say the whole thing is rubbish because I do have respect for the works of the elders and I do believe that it contains other meanings. I believe that Astrology is not a subject that you can learn by just reading some books you find in a book store and think you can go around predicting the future. It is an evolution full of changes, it is sad to see many people refused to accept that change. Science taught me that we need to have reason for everything. Don’t believe something just because our forefathers believed things were in such a way. If humans had been like that, we’d still be thinking that Sun moves around the Earth.

Divided we stand, united we fall...

Wait a second; isn’t it supposed to be the other way? Well that was what we were taught in school, but until recently I begin to have my own doubts on the subject of unity. We are not talking about 1 Malaysia, but about the evolution of mankind since the stone age and how did we bring this division upon us. So now let’s wind the clock back to 40 000 years ago and take a look at life before civilization (a time when even clothing was not designed yet  :P), probably men and women begin life on earth with equality in everything. Men and women took turns to do their daily chores (hunting, cooking, and etc.).

When food became scarce, life became tough. Hunting became ever more challenging as people had to leave their home for several days just to find for food, and probably women seem not to cope with the rough conditions, while men had always enjoyed the adrenaline rush in them whenever they see their prey. Obviously, as time goes on, men took over the rougher and tougher chores while women affiliate themselves with much tender, artistic, and tasks that require lots of patience. Women also had to carry more responsibility in nurturing the newborns. Soon, men began to compete with each other to see who the best in hunting and fighting is. The best of the best then becomes the group leader and it is his responsibility to protect the others in the group. Women then go to the strong men to seek protection from other men, and logically the toughest guy “owns” the most women. This is when men became superior and women became inferior 40 000 years ago.

As these groups started claiming their own place, territorial dispute occurs and eventually it leads to war. Who goes to war? Yes, it was men. The inferiority of women kept growing at this period of time. War demanded a more organized social structure within these groups. So then we have a King, his General, the army, and finally civilians. This is how status of a man is measured, while women’s status more than often depended on their spouse’s rank in the social hierarchy. For instance, the wife of the General has higher status than the wife of a soldier.

Things became more complicated when men tried to understand God. The attempt to explain the unexplainable soon evolved into religion. Religion doesn’t exist without holy book/scriptures, and you know what…all these scriptures were written by men, and not women. So priests/holy men/messenger (men of course) sealed their place at the top of the social structure and keep the society divided to maintain harmony. Then what about women? Their status still depended on their husband’s rank.

Probably you know what happened after that. Yes, holy war took place. People started defending their respective religion as the true faith and look at what they had brought upon themselves. Firstly, humans were divided into male and female, then according to hierarchy, and now religion. But wait, there is 1 more. Humans are also divided by RACE!! Now how did that happen?

As religion spread across the continents, it does no longer consist of people from the same skin colour, same culture and speak the same language. But you know, skin colour is what made this huge difference among the other two because it is just too obvious and you can’t hide it, right? Human division should have stopped now. Or does it? Within a certain religion, people were further divided into smaller group based on skin colour, race, caste, and so on. Then came revolution, new ideologies and you name it. Humans were further divided into smaller groups to the extent that unity seems to be impossible.

Now, there may be certain differences among people that come by nature and not by choice. These differences should lead to the discovery of one’s true self and if it brings you towards further division among humans, well then something is wrong somewhere. Probably, after reading this, you would have realized that God only divided us into male and female. The rest, we brought onto ourselves. So the next time you see someone different from you, wind the clock back 40 000 years and you’ll probably won’t notice any difference.

~Be the change you want to see in others~

Hero's and Zero's

I have to say that im extremely proud of Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes, who quite recently received a recognition from Queen Elizabeth. CBE, the recognition given to him (Commander of the Order of the British Empire : pere ketale cumma atherathele). Sadly, not much was talked about that as the media was more concerned about the recent sex video involving some politicians (no worries,we’re not going to discuss that). Not forgetting Dato’ AK Nathan, GMD of Eversendai Corp has made his mark as a successful businessman, currently 24^th richest in Malaysia with net worth $250mil according to forbes.com (Tamizhan peyer forbes-la vanthale perumai thane :D). Very inspirational… Bear in mind, these men were once just like you and I right now (I guess).

As some people are trying to bring changes to this community, I must say that there are still some machas, mikes, jo’s, and kaigels out there who bring nothing but a truck load of bullshit into the community.  I’m sure that you guys have seen this video long time ago in FB and youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DA-7v4oytM

I don’t know who is at fault (you know la, namma alunge kathe katturathele periye puli-ache)as im getting lots of theories on the storyline :P . but whatever it is, there is definately nothing to be proud of this video. Quite obviously, those guys were playing taiko against defenseless girls. Ppttuuii!!! I wish I had never come across this video in my life..such a disgrace. I wonder what they learned at school all these while. I suppose the whole idea of recording the incident and spreading it around was to “teach” lessons to other girls. Therefore, I assume that those “paruppu’s” are super perfect-without any defect  youths who are trying to spread a social message (nasama pochi la).  

Another thing that I realized was the existence of Psychounit wanna-bees in youtube also. Visit the link below and you’ll know. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xve1Vlt6VeE&feature=related

So the thing is, Psychounit came up with a song about some girls (or b*tches,as they claim) some time ago, and I’m surprised that the song got a good response from people. Yenna kodumai sar ithu… So, these new “rappers” or should I say “crappers”, tried to make their mark by doing something similar. Wow, out of all the other beneficial things they could have done ,look at what they chose to do.  Apparently those who created this so-called “song” and enjoy listening to it are guys who had broken relationship/s, and chose to put all the blame on the girls, and definitely not on themselves. Im still wondering what are these people trying to achieve through their music filled with insults, bad words and etc.. anybody got any idea?  Maybe, these guys think that they have seen everything in life, been through the worst things in life, and become so called experts in life (sooo damn expert that they can even judge a girl’s character by just looking at her face). And how old are these guys we’re speaking about right now? Yeah, probably between 15 to 25 years old, and how dare they speak about life? They should get a life first of all, before even talking about it…

Once again, hats off to Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes (left) and Dato’ AK Nathan (right). You guys are great!!!

 

His-story

Yes, we’re going to talk about history this time. But, the difference is that now we’ll be talking about a history which probably most of us chose not to study about. For quite a long time, the history of World War II became my main interest. Any documentary about WWII never failed to plant my back onto the couch with my eyes glued to the television. Now, I have turned my attention to the history of South India, also from where my ancestry can be traced back. Ok, let’s skip all the intro’s and get to the topic.

If you have watched the Tamil movie “Ayirathil Oruvan” , then probably you know which king or empire that I’m going to talk about. Yes, it is the Cholan empire. But why the Cholan and not any other dynasty? The reason for my choice lies behind the construction of the Tanjavur temple ( Tanjai Periya Kovil or Brihadeeswara temple). Trust me people, this is a magnificent piece of architecture, probably as good as Angkor Wat.

What is so great about this temple? Well, if you want to build such a structure or even something bigger than that at present, it won’t be that tough. But what if I send you 1000 years back, where there is no crane, no hard iron, no metal chain, no computers/softwares, no calculators, no drawing boards, and definitely no architects submitting design proposals for the temple. The things you have are pure solid granite stone quarry, soft iron, an army of skillful craftsmen, and not forgetting wild elephants.

  

Here are some facts about the temple that makes it a world heritage. 

1.       Construction was completed in the year 1010 AD (exactly 1000 years ago)

2.       The temple was built by The Great King Rajaraja Cholan (I) during the peak of the Cholan empire. It stands out as a towering monument proclaiming the glory of Cholan empire and their commitment to art and culture. 

3.       Built using pure granite rock, one of the hardest types of rock to exist. In modern world, granite rocks are cut using cutting blades fitted with diamond (hardest material ever known). I wonder how they managed to cut and shape huge chunks of granites 1000 years ago. 

4.       The granite rocks were crafted using soft iron (hard iron was not discovered at that time). Soft irons against one of the hardest types of rock, I guess you can image how it is like :D

5.       The temple tower (Goburam) is 66m high (among the tallest of its kind in the world). But, how did they manage to lift up huge granite rock as high as 66m above ground without any cranes or cables? 

6.       Total amount or granite used is approxiamately 130 000 tonnes, enough to build the pyramids. 

7.       The statue of the sacred bull (Nandhi) standing at 16ft long and 13ft high was crafted with a SINGLE piece of rock. How did they transport those rocks? 

The massive granite rocks were quarried using large pieces of soft iron, and then by using wild elephants the rocks were pulled on logs to the location. From then, it is up to the master craftsmen to shape the granite blocks into sculpture. In other words, the Cholan craftsmen conceived like giants, and finished like jewelers (Fergusson, True Art Historian).

Follow the link below to check out pictures of this magnificent Cholan architecture.

https://picasaweb.google.com/nayakchitra/BrihadeeshwaraTempleTanjore?feat=flashalbum#5495111499425080674