Yesterday I was talking with an old friend, discussing the age-old and widely debated concept of souls,or atmas as commonly known in Hindi. As usual I was quite overwhelmed listening his strong views and belief regarding the existence of souls. And being a strong atheist I beg to differ 🙂 , and here is what I think based on some research and my current understanding of the human brain  and consciousness.

50,000 years of modern human evolution and multiple genetic mutations which helped us reach the current evolutionary stage might have been the seeding thoughts forcing us to imagine a powerful force behind creation, something which cannot be defined or can has multiple forms overseeing us and nature. The seemingly complex nature and behavior of natural systems around us, including the way our brain works, can be a reason why still most of us believe in spirituality, if not the religious definition of GOD.

Just think on it, throughout the modern human history (last 5,000 years) we have followed a certain pattern with diligence: if we could not comprehend some natural event or occurence, we imagined a force behind it (aka GOD) and assumed this force controlled everything, including us. Going against Occam’s Razor was easy, gave us a peace of mind, and a possible answer to some of the curious brains. But few of us dared to think, go against the tide, discover and invent new new things, and many times their discoveries and inventions went against the pre-conceived notions of the world around us, making some of us feel very uncomfortable with the “new ideas”. As humans, it is natural for most of us to settle down with our beliefs, and resist change. In simpler terms, most of us would instinctively resist a radical change. This may be due a “safety-switch” evolutionary pre-programmed in us which prevents us from taking big risks. We don’t like to accept new theories, ideas or anything that changes our current thought process radically. This mental inertia is an integral part of human nature, a speed breaker to creative reasoning.

Coming back to the topic of this post, since thousands of years we formulated and belived in the concept of a soul. And many of us still do, no matter how many scientific and rational explanations exist invalidating such a concept. Does it exist or not, is a question which is better answered by studying how our brain works, and what exactly is consciousness.

From whatever little understanding of human brain we have, we know that our brain is inter-connected with billions of cells called neurons, which are, in simple terms cells carrying ions. These cells have a special property: they can get “charged” and transmit electrical signals to other neurons via complex neurological pathways. Each neuron will only transmit a signal to the other neuron once its threshold has been reached. So basically if the neuron has a certain amount of charge on it, only then will it let the electrical signal to pass through. This works just like any electrical circuit, for example, when you switch on your light bulb, it instantly lights up. In this case charge is travelling using electrons, which are much lighter than ions. That is why normal electrical signals using electrons are way faster than our electro-chemical signals where charge travels as ions. And that is why we cannot think “as fast as a computer” 🙂

Now an interesting property of moving charges is that they generate an electro-magnetic field (EMF), be it electrons or ions like in our brain. So any electrical movement through neurons inside our brain is bound to generate an electro-magnetic (EM) field. This is roughly what we can call as consiouness. If you shut down this EM field, your consciousness too shuts down, and you would be brain-dead, even though you could be living (for example, a patient in deep state coma).

(to be continued..)

White-water River Rafting in Rishikesh

Rishikesh is quite famous for its white water rafting on the holy Ganges river. About 30 kms from Haridwar, an important pilgrimage center in India, Rishikesh also is a holy destination for Hindus. But for adventure lovers, Rishikesh offers not only grade 4+ rafting, but many other adventurous options like rock climbing, bungee jumping, kayaking etc.

There are the major rafting sretches, in order of ease of increasing complexity:

1. Brahmpuri to Nim beach (Rishikesh): easiest of all the stretches. Total approx. length: 7-9 kms. Good for older people, family members like children who cannot do the tougher stretches or are afraid of water. You will only get grade 1+ rapids here. This is also the cheapest stretch in terms of rafting cost. 

2. Shivpuri to Nim beach: 16kms stretch with Grade 4 rapids. Good stretch with rapids like Gold Course and Roller Coaster. Rafting on this stretch takes about 2 hours.

3. Marine Drive to Nim Beach: 26 kms. You will find Grade 3 rapid Three Blind Mice. There are other small Grade 3 rapids which are quite fun. Takes around 3-4 hours.

4. Kaudiyala to Nim Beach: 36 kms. Takes around 7 hours. Only experienced rafters should try this. Star attraction is The Wall, a Grade 5 rapid where 90% of the boats flip sending everyone into water :).

5. Devprayag to Nim Beach: 2-3 days. For rafting junkies and professional rafters. You take your food, camping equipment etc with you on another raft.

While rafting your guide will let you swim in certain calmer patches of Ganges, and even body surf some of the Grade 1-2 rapids. Near Nim Beach there is a small cliff where you can try Cliff Jumping.

Our Trip 

We planned a short excursion to Rishikesh on the last weekend of April 2011. We left Delhi on Friday late evening. Because our cab driver ditched us, we had to take our own cars which we later realized is not a very good option considering the traffic on NH (National Highway) 58. It is best to take a train from Delhi-Haridwar and then take a cab to your rafting camp. Or better take a cab directly from Delhi. Anyways, we left Delhi around 11 PM on Friday night, and reached Rishikesh around 6 AM next morning.

Our rafing camp was at Byasi, around 26 kms from Rishikesh. Its an hours drive, but there was a big landslide midway, near Shivpuri, and it took 3 hours for the highway police to clear it.

We reached our camp in Byasi around 9:30 AM. The trek down the camp was exciting, and was quite steep at some places. While going down we could hear the river ganga roaring…and the sight of our camp on white sands refreshed our tired souls. Once we put our bags in our tent, all of us straightway headed for the river. Our camp guide, Sunil, told us about a few natural jacuzzi spots near the river bank, where the flow passed through some big rocks and created jaccuzzi like pressure effect. We spent some time there before moving back to tents for breakfast.

Stay in Byasi and Rafting

The tents were in good condition, and the food was really good, much better than what I had in other camps during my earlier stay. Our camp organizer, Sunil, was quite helpful and told us what all we could do that day. The options included rock climbing, trek to a waterfall, kayaking etc. We did the rock climbing session around 5 PM, after that we just lazed around the river bank. Once the Sun went down, the whole atmosphere turned beautiful. There is no electricity available in the most of the camps (to preserve nature) and you would be surprised to see so many stars due to lack of any interefring lights and little pollution. Few of us got really excited seeing a bunch of glow worms flying near the rocks 🙂

Sunil had arranged a bonfire for us, and after that we had dinner. The next morning we got up early and got ready for rafting. We took our bags with us as we had planned to go back to Delhi from Nim Beach, the point where rafting ends. The whole rafting experience was amazing, and lasted for about 3 hours. We crossed around 12 rapids, some of them were of Grade 4 level. I had a thrilling experience of falling into one of the grade 4 rapids, the Golf Course. I was sitting in the middle row, and the moment we entered this rapid, a huge wave came rushing towards me. It hit me so hard that I had abolsutely no time to react. Within seconds I was pushed out of the raft into the middle of the raging rapid. Our guide tried hard to pull me out using first his hands, and then the paddle. But it was almost impossible, no matter how hard I tried, powerful waves kept pushing me in all directions and I felt as if I am being sucked inside some fast whirlpool. It was hard to even breathe, but thanks to the life jacket, I came up again.  The guide then threw a rope towards me, thankfully I caught it and was back into the raft. I cannot forget this experience all my life 🙂

At around 3 PM we reached Nim Beach, had lunch and did some shopping in Rishikesh. We left for Delhi around 5 PM.

Overall Experience 

If you are looking for a short adventure filled weekend trip, then Rishikesh is a great option. The camp closes down by end of June, due to Monsoon, and opens early September. The best time to visit Rishikesh for rafting is from late September to mid-November, and then from early March to first week of May.