Sense out of Nonsense (part 3) - Why Corona and other disasters?

There are teachers and masters.

A teacher is one who teaches and is surrounded by students. Intelligent teachers talk, argue, preach and attract thousands. A student accumulates knowledge, information and ends up being another teacher. A Master is different. He is enlightened, knows himself and is surrounded by disciples - students are prohibited. He will not teach you, for, it is not his purpose to spread knowledge - his purpose is to transform you.

I aim to be neither. I share myself, my experiences, my knowledge and the process that I went through. If I succeed in sparking someone else's search - I'll have done my bit. Everyone follows their own path, their own destiny and their own goals.

So, today let us turn the enquiry about man-made and natural disasters by travelling within ourselves and probe these questions in a deeper manner. Many thinks that these events are happening because we, mankind have done some sins and this is nature’s way of punishing or warning. So naturally the question arise, are events destined (pre-determined)? Are these events affected by man’s interventions?

Let us look at some facts of Natural calamities. The five highest death tolls till now

1.     1931 AD China floods – 40,00,000 deaths

2.     1887 AD Yellow River floods  - 9,00,000 deaths

3.     1556 AD Shaanxi Earthquake – 8,30,000 deaths

4.     1976 AD Tangshan Earthquake – 6,55,000 deaths

5.     1970 AD Bhola Cyclone – 5,00,000 deaths

Facts and numbers of top six pandemics

1.     1347 AD Black death plague – 7,50,00,000 deaths

2.     1918 AD Spanish Flu – 5,00,00,000 deaths

3.     1981 AD HIV/ AIDS – 2,50,00,000 deaths

4.     541 AD Plague of Justinian – 2,50,00,000 deaths

5.     165 AD Antonine Plague – 50,00,000 deaths

6.     1817 AD Cholera – killed millions

These figures throw open these questions and many, many more

·       Does this mean that the assumption that we have started sinning only in the recent past as the climate crisis is getting intense is untrue?

·       Is the response and reaction of nature is getting more intense?

·       The pandemics and epidemics of earlier times were also signals and warnings?

·       Or is it taking matters in its own hands and cleansing environment to bring back ecological balance?

Nothing in the Universe is random. From the defined movement of every electron to the clockwork precision laws of the solar system, everything is programmed.

·       Why do these disasters happen? What is its logic?  

·       What triggers these programs?

·       Why is it only in the range that extinguishes some lives but does not go beyond to completely finish the world?

While we do not have answers to many of the above questions “Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence”. I need to delve deeper to get answers. Here are two diametrically opposite views:

Nassim Nicolas Taleb a Lebanese- American scholar, whose work concerns problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty has argued that the more we suppress low scale volatility, it will increase the odds of the one calamity which we will be beyond all controls.

Is it possible that modern medicines have been able to solve minor problems and that has led to this major pandemic, especially in developed countries? Much like solving small bush fires, leading to the huge fire in Australia last year. Earlier inflammable materials like leaves used to get burnt in small bush-fires and when that stopped, inflammable materials accumulated, it led to huge fire.

While it is a theory that might explain some of the pandemic, it is still not too convincing.

The second theory is more convincing:

According to the Hindu darshanas, there are three kinds of sufferings – adibhautik (sufferings due to other living beings), adhyatmik (sufferings due to imbalance in elements like vata, pitta and kapha) and adidaivik (sufferings due to natural causes that occur due to collective sins). The science of epidemics and pandemics in Ayurveda is called Janapadodhwamsakara Bhava and is adidaivik in nature. The epidemics and pandemics cannot happen without sinning against nature including humans.

Was reading Charaka Janapadoddhvamsaniyam Vimana: 3^rd chapter on Epidemic and pandemic diseases. It deals with the determination of the specific characteristics of epidemics and pandemics. It says that there are four phases of warning – air, water, land and seasons or time.

Phase 1 – Air with following characteristics is injurious to health

·       Excessive calmness or violent blows

·       Excessive dryness, cold, hot air, roughness or humidity

·       Excessive clashes among each other (wind blowing from one directrion clashing with the one from the other

·       Excessively cyclonic in nature and

·       Association with unwholesome smell, gases, sand, ashes and smoke.

Phase 2- Polluted water that can cause endemic diseases

·       Abnormal smell, color, taste and touch

·       Kleda – excessive stickiness

·       Absence or reduction of number of aquatic birds

Phase 3 – Polluted land features

·       Abnormal smell, color, taste and touch

·       Kleda – excessive stickiness

·       Abundance of serpents, wild animals, mosquitoes, locusts, flies, rats, owl, vultures and jackal

·       Excess of grass and weeds

·       Abundance of excessively branched creepers

·       Withered and dried land

·       Abundance of smoke in the wind

·       Presence of wild cries of birds and dogs

·       Bewilderment and pain in animals and birds

Phase 4 – Pollution of time features

·       Perversion or absence of religion, truth, modesty, manners, conducts and other qualities of the inhabitants of the land

·       Constant agitation and over-flow of water reservoirs

·       Frequent occurrence of meteorites, thunderbolts and earthquakes

·       Appearance of roughness and coppery, white and red colored sun, moon and stars. An appearance of being covered with net of clouds

·       confusion, excitement, apprehension, lamentation and darkness in the mind and atmosphere

·       Manifestations of features contrary to normal conditions of various seasons, unseasonal rains, clouds, hailstorms and weather.

इतना मशगूल हूँ , जीवन के रहस्यों में ,

की अपनों की दस्तक सुनाई नहीं दे रही हैं