Sometime in 2022, I had this strong urge to write my thoughts in a structured form, in words which would make sense to me. What emerged is recorded here. Actually, what emerged is a LaTeX document of 35-40 A4 sized pages. I titled the printable version “Learnings from vedanta“.
The sequence of things which preceded this point were quite strange. A lot of things were in a state of flux in 2021. I had a stroke on 20 July 2021. It was very minor, the symptoms disappeared in an hour. I spent three days in a hospital under observation and came home, none the worse for my wear. All through 2021, a lot of realisations were churning in my head, but sometime in Dec 2021, I decided that the shadow of this stroke needed to be met head-on. So I decided to do one of my usual business trips to Hyderabad by road instead of by air. I drove alone to Hydebad, spent three days in meetings, then drove to Andhra Pradesh, spent two days there, then some three days in Bangalore, and finally, some five days in Udupi. By the time I headed home, it was 10 Jan 2022, I think. During this entire time, lots of things were churning in my thoughts, and a solo drive of 15 days and 2,600km is a good vessel for a lot of things to happen.
As 2022 progressed, this urge to write built up. I must have started writing sometime in Oct, and I had a semblance of a first finished draft by Dec. After 2022, I’ve made only minor corrections to the text.
I’ve decided that if I have any more thoughts in this area, I’ll just write it in this site, instead of adding to the book, now that I have a site.
I don’t know whether one should call something of just 35 pages a book. It’s too small to be a book, too large for an essay. It has many chapters, most of which are less than a page long. One or two chapters extend over a few pages, and they have sections.
1 Introduction
2 Learning happens
3 On reincarnation
4 On physics and vedanta
5 Interdependent existence
6 Prakriti
7 Who am I?
8 Subjects and objects
9 Identity is a mental construct
10 The monkey mind
11 On good and evil
12 The doer
13 On opinions
14 On sorrow
15 On desire
16 The extinction of hope
17 Sri vidya
18 On fairness and justice
19 On “nishkaam karma”
20 Free will and karma
21 Why act?
22 Service
23 On liberation
24 Ananda
25 Epilogue