SPIRITUAL - IT
There is an inevitable link between the developments in the field of Computers and Information Technology and ideals of Spirituality and religion. The more I have been exposed to the various concepts and technologies in the vast field of Computers, the more parallelisms I have been able to draw with Spirituality and the philosophical teachings of the various religions in this world.
Let us take up one fundamental concept in the Hindu Religion that says "Everyone and Everything in this World has a purpose and it functions only to serve that purpose". Computers and Computer Based Systems are outright examples that stand exactly for specific purposes they are meant for arent they? We have dedicated web servers that handles the various requests of the clients, and day in and day out they keep receiving and sending requests and responses and they stand for a specific purpose. Everybody using the services of the server are totally oblivious of its very existence. But the moment the server crashes and all hell breaks loose, only then people realise its presence. I would associate such a server with HIM the 'Paramatma' the Supreme Being. It is he who guides us all the way. But not many of us acknowledge his presence and thank Him for his services. Yes I come to the question that is in everybody's mind. Is it really necessary to thank HIM the Supreme being? Just imagine a client sending a Thank you message to the Web Server for its services. The Web Server would throw up an error to the Client saying Unable to Process request!. Similarly from what I understand God too does not expect explicit gratitude from us, because God is within each of us (* this is a concept by itself which I do not wish to delve upon here).This is a question I am myself searching an answer to. If any of you who come across this article know an explanation kindly send in your opinion regarding this. I tried offering several explanations to this question, none of which seemed satisfactory. Now we move on to other analogies between religious concepts and Technologies.
JSP (JAVA SERVER PAGES) & THE HINDU TRINITY GODS
In the Hindu Religion there are three main deities called the "Hindu Trinity", namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Within the hindu trinity Brahma is the Creator i.e. the Initiator, Vishnu is the Protector or the Preserver who serves the masses, and Shiva is the Destroyer. When I was first introduced to Java Server Pages Technology architecture I was struck by its resemblance to the Hindu Trinity Gods.
If you can recollect, the JSP Servlet has three components the jspInit() equivalent to Brahma or the Initiator, jspService() that accepts Requests and sends Responses which can be equated with the Preserver Vishnu and jspDestroy() which is equivalent Lord Shiva or the Destroyer.
Based on the above comparison of JSP with Hindu Trinity I was able to draw various inferences.
As we can clearly see, JSP is one single component and as a whole provides the programmer a strong tool for generating dynamic web content and processing on the server side. But internally it has several components and functions like the ones we discussed above.
Similarly God too is a Single Entity, but based on the different functions that we associate, God is perceived in various forms. For example Saraswati is the Godess of learning, Hanuman is the God of Strength (both Mental and Physical) etc. etc.
Similar to the analogies I have stated above there are several analogies that could be identified and matched with old religious and philosophical principles, some of which are really interesting. I will try and present to you more of this in the near future.