Reflections

  Before We Talk About AGI, We Need to Talk About Consciousness Everyone in tech has an opinion on when artificial general intelligence arrives. Lab leaders say it's close — some have spoken of AI broadly outperforming humans at almost everything by 2026 or 2027; others put it at five to ten years. Yet others claim five to twenty. On the other side, some serious researchers like Yann LeCun etc argue current architectures can't get there at all, and broader academic surveys put the median estimate for human-level machine intelligence closer to the 2040s or later.   That's not a narrow band of disagreement. That's the most credentialed people in the field unable to agree within multiple decades of each other. And underneath that disagreement sits a question almost nobody in the timeline debate is asking directly: what actually is the thing we're trying to build toward?   I come at this from an unusual angle — ·        Years of wo...

  WHAT IS CLEANLINESS?   What is cleanliness? This seems like a simple, even silly question; it is anything but. What does being clean really mean – does it mean being personally clean, bathed, spotless; living in a clean spicknspan home and a clean city / surroundings? That is all there is to it, from one point of view. But take a step back – and think. Are you really clean? Think of your actions, your thoughts, your feelings. How can it be true cleanliness if these are also not clean? Think about it.   This is a rather short article – I will not belabour point too much. You are physically clean; but what about the way you earn your keep? Your daily behaviour? Your feelings? Your thoughts? Unless these are clean – it isn’t cleanliness at all. In fact, cleanliness, from a spiritual aspect actually refers to these aspects, rather than the overt aspect of physical cleanliness. It is worth going into this highly demanding level of personal cleanliness as described in...

   DUTY & STRESS USING DETACHMENT, {SPIRITUALITY} AND A SIMPLE TOOL TO DESTRESS UNDERSTANDING DUTY What exactly is Duty? What are its parameters? And, from a spiritual perspective, what is the link – if any, between Duty and Detachment? How do we gain from the combination of these? And what is the practical real world application of this concept if any? Before we can understand these questions, we need to appreciate the concept of duty in depth.   Duty  : This word does not just refer to your current job at a professional level, and self/family at a personal level. Neither are these independent of each other. There are several levels of duties enjoined on an individual; these are :  Duty towards Self, Duty towards Family, Duty towards Employment Place / Organisation {Not towards person - key difference}, Duty towards Community & Society, Duty towards Nation, Duty towards Humanity, Duty towards Environment This is the full concept of a Human Being's Duty ...

ॐ : A Magical Experience This article is about the Divine Word,  ॐ , and my small experiences with it, alongwith a small introductory background based in our Vedant Shastra. This is a road I am trying to walk, and what follows is a true chronicle of my path, in the hope that I can encourage other students like myself to walk on this wondrous path. It starts from my first actual exposure to the Symbol, this Word, and goes on to detail my experiences in full truthful words, culminating in my first small / tiny personal experience of the immense calm, quietitude and impact this one Word has on the human mind. THE FIRST EXPOSURE As befits this Word’s importance and primacy,  my first real exposure to this, beyond the daily hymns we used to sing at home and in temples, was through my Guru, my Management Professor, Dr Hemant Indurkar from Indore.  {May God Bless his Soul}! What could be more fitting – this letter being revealed to me by my teacher? Earlier, t...

A NOTE ON SPIRITUAL SATISFACTION What is satisfaction? What does Santushti imply in reality? When I ask this question, I am speaking of Satisfaction, Santushti in its deepest, most profound state. A state wherein one’s mind is at peace, calm and tranquil, a state where there are no ripples in your mind, or any emotions in your heart. That stillness, that calm is true satisfaction. It is most often confused with acceptance, or even compromise – the difference is in both,   the burning desire to achieve / possess / do something remains. But in a state of satisfaction, this desire is also quelled – leaving a calm motionless lake. In its crudest form, Satisfaction is always used in reference to a specific need or want; that is a superficial look at the term, and is typically a temporary state. In such a temporary stage, the core desire remains, and that, with time, again lights the fires of desire, ambition etc. This leads to a mind that is full of thoughts, emotions, feelin...