What makes anything that is beyond the senses useful ? Especially when all that we do, directly or indirectly, is for the senses .
Curiosity and a sense of quest ?
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Arbit
Numbers are like Gods. Symbols having unknowable forms . Perhaps formless . These are concepts which are useful despite the fact that they don't have any feature that can be perceived by the senses ! They don't have a smell, taste, can't be heard or felt and do not have a form . They have symbols. But the symbol is not the number .
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6 comments:
absolutely ! everything is to please our senses :). infact, the word "sukha" can be split as "su" and "kha". "su" is "pleasing" as in "su bhashita" and "kha" is "the senses".
u made sense lady ! :)
by senses, i mean all 5 sense organs and the mind which rules over them.
Being someone who works with numbers, I would find the comparison between numbers and god almost insulting.
Numbers are an idea. Just like the word "idea" is a mere symbol for the idea "idea". Ideas mean a lot in our lives (Happiness, sorrow, love, friendship, philosophies, science, etc come to mind). The question "how many?" is a very natural question in many circumstances. I would agree that most ideas are fueled basically by curiosity.
However, the "god" idea, I maintain, is not really a natural/necessary idea - in the sense that if I were not taught anything right from when I was born, I would still probably come up with the idea of numbers and realise that "1+1=2", but I cannot say that of god. But, that's just me.
@ Deshpande
I was surprised to find your comment here! It _is_ a small world! How are you man?
@Aravind
Agree with you on the fact that God is not a necessary idea. However it's useful to many people in many situations :)
The comparison was only to say how these concepts (both of them) are ,in some sense, beyond the senses.
Somehow this post made me think about the sixth sense which, afterall, I don't think is a myth. And we all use the sixth sense in our lives though unaware of it. Don't we at times interpret symbols and signs and feel certain about something even against what science has got to say? Ironically, numbers which are an integral part of science, themselves often present with cryptic messages which science itself can't decipher. And that's probably why Indira said numbers can be like Gods. It's our intellect that feels there is more to that number than those mere digits. Maybe I got this entire thing wrong. But then, that's how Indira's posts are. They tempt you to think beyond your understanding.
dear indira,
i just came across this poem by Rumi today and immediately remembered this insightful post of yours...sharing the same here:
THE NAME
Do you know a word that doesn't refer to something?
Have you ever picked and held a rose from R,O,S,E?
You say the Name. Now try to find the reality it names.
Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.
If you want to be free of your obsession with words and beautiful lettering, make one stroke down.
There's no self, no characteristics,
but a bright center where you have the knowledge
the Prophets have, without books or interpreter.
~ Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)
looking fwd to ur beautiful insights :))
love,
sangeetha
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