July 19, 2009

10 PRINT "DWAPARA YUGA IS HERE "; 20 GOTO 10

In the original home computer era, two generations ago, every machine came with a version of the Basic programming language.

Today, to be able to do that on Microsoft's Windows, Basic is priced higher than the total cost of a modern laptop. Ironically it was Basic which allowed Gates his start in the industry and the capital to begin amassing software written by others (DOS, VMS, Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.) and cornering the market via restrictive licensing.

In the original incarnations of the Web a generation ago, prior to Internet Explorer, as much emphasis was placed on writing web sites as in reading them. Berners Lee the inventor of the world wide web intended it to be a two-way medium linking people, not the one-way totalitarian world of newsprint, television radio where a tiny contingent of executives and/or government officials decide what is news and what is not to be reported in the national and corporate interest.

There are some small oases of independence left, for example, Open Source Software like Ubuntu that continue the old spirit of personal development but other early pioneers like Red Hat have lost the plot.

The examples above are symptomatic of big business' great desire for the public to simply consume products rather than in anyway participate in creating original works themselves -- like a myspace page made up of other's music, videos, paintings and thoughts. Even given names are becoming more and more uniform, with generations of Paris' and Brittney's around the world.

Such big business practices are rather like so-called religious people dressing up for Sunday services, handing in donations largely to pay for fancy buildings and priestly lifestyles, hearing pre-prepared texts and going home with little personal connection to Jesus, Krishna, Sri Yukteswar or any Saints and Sages.

The 1893 Chicago World's Fair at the dawn of Dwapara Yuga brought Tesla's electricity and Vivekananda's Eastern thought to the attention of America but at the same time it was the dawn of the era of Big Corporations and Big Religion, one size fits all, buy it here, already thought out, come in for social and business networking (more attend Church today than in Colonial Times).

The American Theosophists of the era tried to manufacture their own saint in Krishnamurti and Tesla's patents were stripped from him during his lifetime.

In line with Dwapara Yuga, this blog emphasizes personal meditation, personal following of Saints and Sages and personal creativity in all its forms from writing, to music, to dance, to sport, to painting, photography, films, theater, to programming. Everyone started small, like Tesla with a few small devices, Night Shymalan with a home camera, or Linus Torvalds with just an old PC.

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(c) Dwapara 307-312


The views expressed are the personal, independent views of the author and are not intended to reflect the views of any other individual(s) or organization(s). A list of official Kriya Yoga Organizations can be found here.