A Sophisticated Astronomical Calendar

Last weekend, the School of Philosophy and Economic Science in Dublin celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Sanskrit Week, an event that began in 2015 during the Eastern period, gathering enthusiasts of this sacred language of Hinduism and classical Hindu philosophy. Since covid, the event became an online four days event, mornings only, over the Easter weekend.

I was there! Each day started early, at 7am with chanting, a bit of grammar at 8.30am, then conversation and the comprehensive study of other literature texts.

It was in one of the conversation classes, while talking about days of the week and months, that the subject came up: whether the months of the year in Sanskrit,  in the Hindu calendar, are related to the Gregorian/Julian calendar.

And the answer is... no.

As we know, the Gregorian calendar is derived from the Roman calendar, which evolved through Julius Caesar's reform and later the Gregorian reform, to better align with the solar year, but it retained months named after Roman gods, emperors and numbers, reflecting some political influences of that time.

I was amazed to learn that, on the other hand, the Hindu calendar, a lunisolar calendar system that integrates lunar months with solar years, is based on detailed astronomical observations, including the phases of the moon, the position of the sun relative to the nakshatras (lunar mansions), tithis (lunar days) and yogas (planetary angles), reflecting a sophisticated understanding of celestial mechanics and the cyclical nature of time.

The English calendar, while historically rich and globally standardised, is primarily a solar civil calendar, focused on administrative convenience and historical commemoration rather than celestial synchronisation or profound significance. In contrast, the Hindu calendar system displays a greater degree of astronomical sophistication and cultural richness due to its lunisolar structure, intricate astronomical calculations and deep integration with religious, agricultural and astrological traditions. It functions not only as a timekeeping device but as a living cultural and spiritual framework that guides daily life and ritual practice.

The New Consumer

Advertisements are annoying, no matter what! One might argue that some advertisements are really creative, almost "a piece of art" (sic), but this is not about the content, nor how creative the advertisement might be, not even about the product being advertised... It's about privacy. It's about timing. Not to mention social cost -  fake ads; children as targets; persuasion to make you think you are what you are not and etc.

I remember the old days of telemarketing when we used to receive random calls about different products, promotions, and "unmissable opportunities", usually at dinner time! I remember my father once, after saying 2 or 3 times that he was not interested, saying "Look Joe, why don't you give me your number and I'll call you back when you're having dinner!", and hung up the phone.

Enough of that! Enough of spam mails in the letterbox! Enough of junk e-mails, unsolicited pop-ups in your web navigation, and, most annoying of all, unsolicited ads inserted in YouTube videos (not only in the beginning of a video, but in the middle as well!) and before starting radio streaming.

Unsolicited ads are like unwanted advice: Nobody wants them!!!

Advertising might be causing the opposite effect they very much aim... Instead of creating empathy to satisfied consumers, they are generating repulsion and rejection to a legion of frustrated consumers, which have no much options if they want a way out of this ocean of rubbish and visual/noisy/mental pollution. What can we, consumers, do?

BAN!
REJECT!
EMBARGO!

Do not buy anything that invasively throws an ad into your eyes or ears! The consumer have the power! Down with the ads!

Yes we could...

Unplugging...

Would you dare to press the pause button on this chaotic and crazy life we are all so caught up in? Turn-off your phone, the computer, give up electricity and everything else from the "outside world" that we have grown so dependent on and start all over again? On totally different terms?

Very few of us, I'd say.

The interesting times we are all living in lately offer us a great opportunity for reflection. We might not turn our backs to internet and everything else by moving to a wood cabin somewhere in the countryside, and live on candlelight and wood burning stove -  to our cynical minds it might seem impossible to live a life without money - but if we consider the impact we are having on the planet, it would be a big motivation itself!

Unplugged from modernity, making fire by rubbing sticks together, collecting water from the  spring, foraging in the woods, tending the garden and fishing for pike and trout. A reflective, lyrical account, which is refreshingly free of doctrinaire haranguing or guilt-tripping.

But reality is that we are not pulling the plug. Instead, we were forced to a situation which we all want to see ending, and as we have no assurance of anything, we should at least exam the lives we all take for granted...

After letting it go...

The art of letting things go and detach yourself from the suffering of attachment is magical! It alleviates you from a burden - even if it was not a burden. Frees you from identification - another bad thing to carry with you - and distances you from the object in question, being a thing, a situation or a person - whatever/whoever it is!

Letting something go, sometimes, doesn’t mean you’re not responsible yet for that thing. You might still be accountable, but without any attachment, without being too demanding or critical of yourself and others.

This is good, but it might have an aftermath, where after letting something go, you might be left with disappointment, but then you might come to the understanding that disappointment is not on you - but from you. It regards to someone else, usually based on a behaviour that you’d expect to be different - thus disappointed by someone else. It comes from you, and you can let that go as well!

All you need to do is to accept that we are only humans, and we are imperfect... Beautifully imperfect!

If the people were the priority...

A Fianna Fáil spokesman for Education was on the radio today, speaking about the lack of vacancy on Secondary School for autist children - and children in general. He was very emphatic about how he has been addressing the issue with the government, but a quick research in the WWWW (World Wide Wild Web) shows the same subject has being questioned years and years (and governments) before him!

It is the same bullshit, again and again - politicians don’t give a rat’s ass to people and their problems. They are only there to perpetuate their privileges: this government I attack, the next I excuse. And the people keep voting to them!