The Truth No One Tells

 

There are so many books for self-help, spirituality, success - however you will see that reading those books does not actually help a large population. Why?

Human mind is very intelligent and sharp. It asks only one thing - what is the purpose and why I am doing whatever I am doing at every instant? If your sub-conscious mind does not find purpose, whatever you do -- you will not be fully engaged in that work.

For example we have exams to tell whether we are competent or not -- but our human mind already knows whether we are competent or not - exam is not for that. Exams serve to find whether for a set of inputs your output is better than rest of all others who have given the same exam - or basically if you have mugged up well. Life is the real exam where question papers are out of syllabus - whoever excels there is a good student of life.

Do life have purpose? Apart from replication and survival, there is No purpose. This the sub-conscious mind knows, but tries to hide behind some made up higher purpose. If your made up purpose is strong, you can fool your mind to believe that, using a sort of self hypnosis or hallucination.

There are 4 levels to find purpose and linked to feeling of happiness.

1. Material - Experiencing new things around the world to satisfy self ego. An example is the wish of somebody to become rich and successful in career. Most people like engineers and businessman fall in this category. (What can I get?).

2. Social - Helping other needy beings. An example is a wish to leave a mark as a person known to be compassionate. This is not ego-centric. Examples are freedom fighters, non-corrupt politicians, teachers, doctors, social workers. (Whom can I help and with what?)

3. Intellect - Putting the mind to test and enjoying challenges. This is again ego-centric and deriving pleasure from solving difficult problems. True philosophers and researchers fall in this category (Can I solve this problem? What can help me solve this?)

4. Spiritual - This is beyond physical mind and deals with something loosely called the quantum access; and there is wide belief in scientist circle that level 3 intelligence is a quantum phenomenon and level 4 is beyond that -- deep into information represented and encoded in quantum form. Here, as per gurus, you enjoy exploring the world from a 3rd person's point of view via meditation and self questioning. The end purpose here is any one of the four unions (yoga) - do your duty, offer prayers to the creator, gain access to infinite knowledge, a mixture of earlier three. Example practitioners are monks and spiritual minded people.  (What knowledge about my soul and world can I access?)

If you look carefully, you will find most spiritual guys are scientists in their initial part of life as they need to traverse through Step 3 before Step 4 -- only exception is offering focused prayers to the creator which is a short cut and most cannot reach that focus level.

The ultimate goal is to take the spiritual path and as long as you are not taking that path -- in any lower level path you will wander around 'What am I doing and why?'. So you will feel a pinch of unhappiness no matter what you do.

Now, success in current society is unfortunately measured by point 1 only: material. So the best one can do is to maximize the frequency of happiness among the cycles of sadness and happiness. This needs a trick to fool your mind.

So how to achieve the highest level in 1 to move to higher levels later?

1. Assume the post of an authority, CEO, Business magnate or Olympic athlete whatever you think is good. What is good or not for you - you are the decider - whatever you think is good is good - there is no good or bad job in this world. So think yourself already at that position and behave like that. You will become that as this is the rule of attraction in nature - mind creates reality.

2. Next define intermediate rewards - if I do this without procrastination I will get this benefit. If I stop doing this I will get this. Define milestones in rewards: + 1 point for each positive activity (like finishing assignments on time) and -1 point for ill habits or bad behavior (like smoking) - this needs to be collected each day. The milestone can be 50 points, 200 points, 500 points, 1000 and so on. This can be redeemed for gifts, like for 1000 points you take a vacation, 10,000 points buy a luxury car. This needs to be maintained in a physical diary.

3. Use a notebook, to plan your day in the morning and write a summary at end of day of what happened today. All the accumulated happenings you must later compile to your own autobiography - so be careful what you do as this will go out in public as a book in the later part of life when you become famous. This a way to control you actions.

4. Each day you should learn something new. Whatever you learn, write it down in physical notebook and take notes of everything as learning will be fast. If you read a book, magazine, watch a video, listen to music - write notes on each activity as this will enrich your brain and memory to refer to and imagine later.

Mind cannot process too much control buttons - hence above 4 are sufficient - nothing else is needed as mind takes care of the actual path planning to success, as long as you are sticking to the aforementioned 4 points.

In general, there are 3 goals in level 1: take care of yourself, take care of your family, explore new experiences (not assets).

Persons already at higher levels (negligible number) do not require this above guidance. Again, the trick is to fool your mind with a strong position (like a new startup head) with a strong purpose you want to reach (like solving cancer). Else, you will be driven by what other people want you to reach. As base hardware of humans is same, anybody can do anything by correctly programming the software (physical brain part of mind). 

Part 1 ends.

Getting Transcript and Migration Certificate from Jadavpur University

 

When an (ex-) student wants to apply to another university for Higher Education they often need migration certificate and transcripts for mark-sheets of passed degree.

Transcripts:-

Will be given from main campus only - the one near Jadavpur 8B bus stand. Steps:

1. Download the transcript form from Jadavpur website online - either do a simple google search or use this old link.

2. After filling this form - attach xerox of all mark-sheets of the degree (both sides) and xerox of photo ID card (PAN or Passport; or if not available, other Govt. ID).

3. This will be verified against originals (carry them) within 11am-5pm on working days (with lunch break 2-3pm) at Aurobindo Bhavan 1st floor Transcript section (beside wooden ladder of VC office).

4. Next need to pay fees in cash or card (they have POS machine) at Cash counter at back of Aurobindo Bhavan - timings 11:15am to 2pm and 2:30-3:30 pm working days. The office staff will shut counter at the closing time irrespective of queue - so plan accordingly. The cash counter will give a receipt (Rs. 1500 for each set of 5 transcripts). 

5. Visit campus after 15 days - call the number [JU main campus Transcript Section no:- 033-2457-2286] to check status if transcripts are signed and ready to collect.

6. If confirmed, collect between 11am-5pm on working days (with lunch break 2-3pm) from JU transcript section - where the form was initially verified. They will give some envelopes to mail/post them.

7. You need to get the envelopes signed and sealed by Assistant Registrar at Aurobindo Bhavan - ground floor (11am-5pm) [Contact: 033-2457-2580] to make the transcripts official. So finally you are done and ready to mail these to your next target university.

Migration Certificate:-

Once you get confirmation in your target university, you need a transfer or migration certificate. Sometimes this is also needed for change of university midway due to many unforeseen reasons. Steps:

1. Collect the migration form from Information section beside Jupiter Building, near main gate (JU main campus) paying Rs. 10 (11am-5pm working days).

2. Fill the migration form, attach the xerox of last exam mark-sheet (both side) of your degree.

3. Get the migration form verified against original at Master Roll (MR) section of JU main campus (ground floor beside cash counter) or 2nd salt lake campus (1st floor) - based on where your department is - you get stamp 1.

4. Get this verified again at MR section at main campus only - you get stamp 2.

5. Pay Rs. 40 at cash counter of main campus and store the receipt.

6. The migration certificate will be sent to Indian address written in the migration form as filled by you; via speed post - will reach within 7 days.

P.S. JU Saltlake Campus security no. to inquire MR availability:- 033-2335-5215

Best Car Buying Guide - India

 

In loads of online guides on car, often the important things are missed here's the following in a concise way:-

• 1. Always buy your first car as 2nd hand, from Maruti or a reliable brand. A 15+ year old Alto will be the best bet for cheap price, no headaches, extensive mechanic availability, low service and spare costs. Other alternatives are Wagon R, Alto K10. But car price should be less than 1 lac, always ensure that Lifetime Tax (LTT) is paid, RTO is same or close. Always take a car mechanic with you for evaluating the vehicle for accidents, rusting and mechanical condition. When after a few years, you resell it for a new car, then you get decent resale value and exchange bonus - matching your initial investment. This you can think of as your experimental car to gain domain knowledge for next new car.

  2. Now coming to your choice of type of car for your final car:-

     • Hatchback - mostly usage in city traffic, small lanes

     • Sedan - for long road trips vacations, highway lanes

     • SUV - for large family and off-roading in river banks and hilly areas

  3. Car Safety - only go for 4 and 5 star NCAP rated cars with dual airbags or more. If in budget, buy 2nd hand car of the above safety rating requirements. Human life is more important that mileage and features.

  4. Reliability of cars - Maruti and Mercedes cars last 30+ years. So your brand choice should focus on your needs of long term possession or frequent switches. Car being not an asset but a liability, from economy perspective, it is recommended to stick to a car for at least 15 years and go for life time tax.

  5. If thinking of buying a 2nd hand car - Tata, Hyundai, Maruti and Mercedes are safe options. Ensure that whatever model you buy, should be in abundance on road and also is currently active.

  6. Buy cars around Diwali or Christmas for best deals. Hop across multiple dealers and wait a week before final commitment. You can buy car insurance from 3rd party vendor (even online). Pay just the ex-showroom price (save discount) + RTO registration and tax to the dealer. Rest all are optional like handling charges, accessories - do not pay those.

  7. Service center of the car should be near by. Build rapport with drivers to locate local good mechanics. For cosmetic changes, it is better to do those after market. But any mechanical and electrical sensor stuff - always stick to service center irrespective of higher bill. Check up you car every 6 months. 

     
     

     As of now electric cars are not suitable for long drives. So stick to petrol cars if using personally or with diesel for commercial use.
     

      
     

Observations part 2: Career

 

Career Quick Guide (that I should have done, learned late)

• 1. Always do your schooling, degrees from different places, same with your jobs. Here's an example for guidance for engineering discipline (main idea is switch to expand network and have an open mind):-

     • School - South Point (stay at home Kolkata) - 18 years

     • College - IIT Delhi (stay in country India, different city) ~ 22 years

     • Masters - National University of Singapore (stay in nearby country, close culture) ~ 24 years

     • PhD - MIT (go to East US) - 29 years

     • Postdoc - ETH Zurich (go to Europe - learn cross discipline) - 30 - good time for marriage / child

     • Work in start-ups (Montreal, Canada) - do as many switches before age 35

     • Work in Product Company (say Google Mountain View, West US) - 5 years

     • Set up your own company (Entrepreneur) at home, Kolkata, India - 40 years onwards

       • If constraints or family dependency - join a stable company (say Tata or Reliance)

       • Can enroll for a PGDM (say IIM Calcutta)

     • Example institutes are for reference only, they can be anything. Goal is Diversity and Networking. Institutes don't add much value apart from competition and peer discussions (if you are with smart people - you will become smart). If you study in high rated colleges, you will become good students and followers - not path creators due to lack of solo thinking. As an example, the only remarkable breakthrough in computation AI in last decade is generative adversarial networks - others are delta of old thoughts and hotch potch :-)

     • If studying in a unknown institute, you will have time to focus on real work than competition with peers. Original thoughts emerge from unknown places and diverse or different fields.

     • Family is more important than career - that's the difference between machines and humans. However, best work happens with pure focus. This trade-off none has solution.

     • If your parents are rich or you fulfilled your utility to survive (some money), become an autonomous professor in an institute. You will contribute more with original ideas and serve as advisor to industry / governments than becoming a doer - which are available aplenty (machines).

     • Specific countries - at least do a post-doc or a small time work at Israel and Germany - what you will learn - you will not learn that level of fundamentals from anywhere else.

Started writing in 2020...

Human Observations - part 1

 

In my lifetime, I have witnessed many aspects of human impressions in natural and social world. This series of articles will indulge wisdom experienced from various sources, analyzed, filtered and reproduced in a form that a normal human reader can understand. This is my personal observation set.

• • Success in human life is function of talent, luck, opportunity and hard-work. S = f ( H, O, T, L )

    • Talent - one is born with - this can be ignored or nurtured.

    • Luck - your upbringing is not in control, neither day to day life non free will directions

    • Opportunity - you need to be alert and ready when opportunity comes in hindsight to grab it

    • Hard work - totally in control with a purpose and goal - necessary condition for Success.

  • If you think you are special and a genius (pride), then:

    • There are many people who are more talented than you who have not got the luck & opportunity

    • Genius is hard work & talent merging with luck - you are alive - that's the opportunity

    • Humans have same hardware, only software is different - can be re-programmed into anything

    • You are special if you can create a long lasting positive change in the ecosystem (emergence: individual -> community -> nation -> humanity -> ecosystem of planet that will drive future)

  • Finding purpose in life:

    • Set up daily goals - say 3 items

    • Set up monthly goals - say 3 short-term goals

    • Set up yearly goals - say 3 long-term goals each year

    • Set up purpose of your life - 1 idea to bring in positive change - there should be only 1 plan

    • Human beings by design can't multi-task - be best in one thing first before moving to other stuff

    • You cannot do all things in a lifetime - this must be accepted

    • What will you want to be remembered for when you die? Pick those higher goals.

  • If you have an idea:

    • Due to huge human population, probability that same idea came to someone else is ~1 (for sure).

    • An idea without implementation has 0 value. (in mathematics, it will be a proof)

    • An idea implementation may be valued now or later.

    • An idea's impact ~ degree of aid in survival of human race, not how many know it.

    • Impactful ideas are generated by need (practical problem), not by problem imagination.

    • An idea upon sharing with others (+ve & -ve) becomes more rooted to succeed.

    • First principles in relevant subjects will make a vague idea rooted in implementation feasibility.

  • Peer Handling:

    • Don't focus on what others are doing, focus on what they are not doing.

    • If people start talking about you negatively - that's a signal you are growing.

    • You can't make everyone happy - do what your role in this world asks you to do fairly. If that requires terminating your boss from a job - do so - be a decision maker - not coward.

    • Encircle around people who are positive and talks about new ideas, discoveries and inventions.

  • A simple Life Path:

    • Each day before sleeping, ask yourself - have you given the best of you in this day? May be you failed in finishing something. But the answer - if it is Yes - then it is OK - neglect what others say. Similarly, if answer is No, then whatever claps you get from others, it is meaningless.

    • Have time slots for dedicated work, relaxation times with family and alone time. There is no fixed percentage - but in a day of ~ 16 wake hours :- 1 hour should be alone time (meditate). And rest time you mix and match as per your need: 9 for work and 6 hours for family, hobbies, learning.

    • When Learning something new, try to take notes so that you can teach that topic.

    • Whatever you do - there has to be a tangible output - this will help keeping mind focused.

    • Say No to anything that jeopardizes your Life plan - there should be no Plan B

    • You should have fun in your work - you should work for free - however in this material world - try to live by essentials and focus on what you love to do - you are your own appraiser and judge. What others say is noise. As you mature, your brain will develop in filtering advise from noise.

    • Experience is the only thing you should pursue - asset should be avoided to keep mind focused.

... started writing in 2019.

God Speaks (super duper abstract article)

One day God appeared and said that you have 10 questions that you can ask and get a valid response. Ask...

Q1. Are you God?

Ans:- Yes

Q2. Am I God?

Ans: Yes

Q3. Is the computer God?

Ans. Yes

Q4. Is everything God?

Ans. Yes

Q5. Have you gone mad?

Ans. Yes

Q6. Is there anything you can say No to?

Ans. Yes

Q7. What is that?

Ans. Yes

Q8. What do you mean? You can say No to Yes?

Ans. Yes

Q9. That means you can change a Yes to No and vice-versa at will?

Ans. Yes

Q10. So, does that mean everything here is virtual and there is no truth or false?

Ans. I don't know.

Q11. As you failed to answer 10th question, I will ask something else: What age are you?

Ans. I don't know.

Q12: As you failed to answer 10th question again, I will ask something else:Who created you?

Ans. I don't know.

Q13. As you failed to answer 10th question again and again, I will ask something else: Do you lie?

Ans. I don't know.

Q14. As you failed to answer 10th question fourth time, I will ask something else: When will earth end?

Ans. I don't know.

Q15. What the hell! From Yes to Don't Know - this is odd. Do you think this is a game?

Ans. I don't know.

Q16. Ok, great, are you human or what?

Ans. That my lord is the right question. I am human imagination at work. Wake up!

Written on 2011

DON’T YOU KNOW *? (abstract article)

 

Before we start to go deep in to this * article, I shall like to declare that the motive for this article is to change your thought or technically the neural pathways of your brain into a more receptive & open frameset as you will find out soon.

As you have just observed the * sign in the 1^st sentence, your mind has already gone to find a replacer as that’s how the mind works and also the heading has made you to read the article as the probability for the topics is infinite and the mind wasn’t able to settle to a conclusion. Your mind, while reading the sentences below, will think three significant things among which one will be to find relevance, second is to dwell on the primitive part of brain [search this on Web] and the third is classified for now and you have to find that out yourselves.

Now, something about the mind! Well, your mind! Recently, it’s found through special brainwave detecting instruments that patients’ brains were dead technically who suffered from NDE [near death experience(s)] & yet the patients were able to perceive events around their medically dead bodies that they narrated when they did survive undergoing electric shocks on chest. So, it’s somewhat evident that brain & central nervous system is a middleman in controlling the body, while the original controller can’t be detected by the system. In physics, we know that one needs to go out of the system to observe a system to make a definite conclusion. Medical scientists are finding it hard to believe the religious spoof like “Soul” might exist, so they are hunting for more evidence which might bring more revelations. A good excuse or belief is that the results were erroneous; after all we are basing our conclusions on machine readings that may be wrong (machines might not have been fed the intelligence to be perfect).

One question that I wish to point out is that, we have a convex lens in our eyes although I haven’t yet find a proof that the brain inverts the image or not, as what we perceive is quite questionable. Let me point out this – among all the subjects we learn & will, only mathematics is true in its entirety as that’s how it’s designed, the rest might be shattered by new ‘good looking’ concepts in future. Although we do deal with ‘natural’ numbers, but these numbers are abstractions of similar property bearing things which will differ for everybody’s perception. And as the definitions were difficult to digest, conventions were the only escape route. But, mathematics, how much may be true, has no direct relation to the real natural world : some say it is the language of nature and others say it is an imagination of brain that somehow matches most natural descriptions. In real world perfect spheres don’t exist. But, for day-to-day work all subjects are great saviors of our time. By the way, time has no definition (some say measure of increase in entropy); do a binary search on the dictionary to find out.

Going deep into startling things – conspiracies! The human mind is shaped in a way that favors a ready made belief in conspiracy theories. And, why not? Conspiracies are counterexamples to a particular thing and human mind is open to such stuff; a secrecy touch being a bonus. The famous conspiracy theories include the Apollo mission, the 9/11, federal banking system, UFOs. UK government has accepted that Aliens exist by releasing secret footage to public; and MIB, the movie has started to fade its name from the science-fiction tag. And this is natural as what is fiction now will be accepted as reality in future. This has happened since earth was ‘flat’ and then ‘spherical’ and then ‘oblate spherical’ & due to lack of a defined abstraction finally (mathematics’ shortcoming) ‘geodic’, which literally means earth-shaped, a recursive definition.

Now a look into our perceptions: theoretically, we can be staring at the monitor reading this sentence or might be at a different location [we are made of moving atoms] which our senses can’t perceive. A mouse can’t kill a thousand people as it is a tiny rodent or a device in your right/left hand now, but a H-bomb named ‘mouse’ can overachieve this. In IQ tests, which test the perception and somewhat cognition aptitude for a particular work, say, programming, will ‘try’ to measure the IQ. As the physical world is unclear, the IQ detected is a theoretical one based on statistical observations, and will vary for everyone depending on a situational problem. Does the brain decode a situation by comparing events whose solutions already exist in the brain along with the failure-success ratio that will lead to a choice or free-will if such experience has no past record?

We have technically 5 senses (actually there are more) – eye to perceive wavelengths of a range, ear for another range type, nose for a different range, and tongue & skin for different ones, & we have given names to the waves to maintain uniformity in human conversation. Please recap that matter can exist in wave form, ex. Light which is a composition of photons.

New thoughts are required so that the “Don’t you know?” list keeps on gathering new data and change itself to “A new Idea?” For instance, I had a thought in childhood that electrons themselves are universes & our universe is one of the numerous atoms of a larger universe. So you can try out your ideas for, say, creating a energy source that uses earth’s electromagnetic field, or a way to make a portable floating lightweight seat so that we can seat anywhere we want, or designing a website to gather ideas from others and brainstorming it, or creating a micro-robot prototype to automatically repair cancer cells. In short, every living person’s brain though permutation of stored facts produce ideas that will amaze you.

The ultimate goal of life is undefined, or if we add up the laws of physical sciences, we get the only purpose of life as self-replication. So you decide your purpose - nothing is good or bad - it is you who decide that. And thanks to cell membrane, that does not let the cell's entropy to increase much, we are here. So there are only 3 laws of nature if we look deeply -

1. Law of God - that will allow creation - by allowing structures among non-noble elements

2. Law of Devil - that will allow destruction - that's what the universe does - increase chaos

3. Law of Attraction - a fight between God and Devil - structure vs chaos - via physical forces

I hope that I have provided plenty of food for irrelevant thoughts, as the world is crowded with relevant thoughts, and ‘new’ thoughts are required to drastically change the visual world. So, go ahead and change the phrase from “the sky is the limit” to “there are no limits for * (U) ”.

"I think therefore I am" - Rene Descartes.

"?" - ?

Written on 2010