Random Musings #29: Why it doesn't matter who wins or loses when MS Dhoni is batting
The IPL is largely unwatchable at times, a two-month long yagya for Mammon with a little cricket on the side. But, not when MS Dhoni is at the crease...
On Sunday evening, my good friend Vivek Kaul messaged: “The IPL has just started.” Vivek, a Ranchi boy, worships at the altar of MS Dhoni and it was the first time this IPL season that he switched on the volume on his TV.
I don’t blame him.
The IPL is largely unwatchable at times, a two-month long yagya for Mammon with a little cricket on the side. The results are immaterial in this tournament where young men, sporting garish jerseys – and who clearly never had a carb in their lives – compete to see who can hit a round object furthest. It’s a game of troglodytes with loud music.
And yet, there are moments that definitely capture the collective imagination and evoke awe even amongst the most jaded cricket fan.
Like when MS Dhoni comes out to bat.
There’s something vintage about this year’s Dhoni.
The unrestrained id and flowing long locks that made Musharraf fall in love.
This goes far beyond the small mundane detail of winning or losing. Dhoni smashed 37 of 16 - a score that was never going to be enough for a win, but at that moment, for CSK fans and everyone else, the result was immaterial. What mattered was that Mahi maar raha hai.
The cricketing equivalent of a Messi shoulder drop or a Federer backhand. The opening guitar riff of Jimi Hendrix’s cover of All Along the Watchtower. The first nasal twang in Bob Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice. The sly smile on Loki’s lips when Thor realises, he's the God of Lightning, not of Hammers. The moment Neo can suddenly see the code and realises he’s the One.
But, why did we as a nation, one that’s obsessed about results – where we have created entire cities dedicated to prepare young folks to get better results – stop caring about them when MS Dhoni is at the crease?
Perhaps the only thing that can explain yesterday’s situation, where fans were happy to lose while watching Dhoni bat, can be explained by the conundrum that exists in Quantum Mechanics, where we constantly try to understand the universe through the reality we perceive as opposed to the real nature of perceived reality.
This duality was flawlessly explained by Professor V Balakrishnan in a video shared by author Keerthik Sasidharan (writer of the sublime Dharma Forest, one of the best modern treatises of the Mahabharata. I am sure it’s no coincidence that such a fine re-interpreter of the Mahabharata would have more than a passing interesting in Quantum Mechanics).
The conundrum, Prof Balakrishnan argued, was that when we start asking questions like: Is an electron a particle or a wave? And then try to explain it by extrapolating our lived macroscopic experiences to a microscopic world.
He says: “These terms are meaningless when explained in the terms of quantum mechanical particles. The failure isn’t on part of the quantum mechanical particle or the experimentalists, but it’s a failure on part of the English language. Words like waves or particles have been coined by us to paraphrase a set of properties, properties of objects with which we have daily experiences, like macroscopic objects.”
This, he explains, provides a unique problem because of how the human mind perceives these objects.
A particle in our heads is like a billiard ball. A wave is like a water wave. And in our mind, we cannot conceive the particle as a wave or vice versa. The matter of fact is that an electron is a state vector, a pure mathematical entity that can’t be comprehended using the tools of the English language.
The inability to understand this particular nature of Quantum Mechanics has haunted the best Western minds for centuries because they have trouble contending with this duality.
This problem isn’t just unique to science.
Take for example the age-old battle between Abrahamic theists and atheists, with neither able to comprehend a world where they are both correct because all Western thought – physics or metaphysics – is corrupted by a search for one unique truth.
On the other hand, Indic thought doesn’t have that duality problem. We don’t need to crucify Galileo for his obeisance to movement because we understand that his understanding of the universe doesn’t have to negate ours.
As Pater Dutta explained (while expressing his own doubt) through the four Mahavakyas, pithy sentences in four Upanishads on the essence of Supreme Reality as per Advaita Vedanta.
1) Prajnanam Brahma (Aitareya Upanishad)
Translation: The Consciousness is Brahman.
2) Aham Brahmasmi (Brihadaaranyak Upanishad)
Translation: I am Brahman
3) Tat Tvam Asi (Chandogya Upanishad)
Translation: Thou art that
4.Ayam Atma Brahma (Mandukya Upanishad)
Translation: This self is Brahman
Essence therefore is that the human is at the centre of it all, that human consciousness decides what’s reality and what’s not. As Adi Shankar wrote (brought to life by the divine voice of MS Subbulakshmi):
Guru-caranamamjia nibhara bhakta
samsaradachiradbhava muktah
Sendriya-manasa niyamadevam
Drakshyasi nija hridayastham devam
(Cherish your guru's lotus feet
and free yourself without delay.
From the enslavement of this world
Curb your senses and your mind
And see the Lord within your heart)
It’s the same message that Swami Vivekananda passed on: find God inside you.
To this, Pater Dutta, then set the proverbial cat among the ontological pigeons by asking: “If that be so (Aham Brahamsmi), if I myself am the ultimate reality, then how do you explain atheism – how can I not believe in myself - more so when I am told that I am indeed ultimate reality. I am totally confused. Maybe it is the incipience of my senility.”
But what Pater Dutta fails to realise (or something that he will realise) is that the self-doubt contradiction is at the very essence of our existence. If we don’t doubt ourselves, we are no longer human. Realising Aham Brahmasmi while being an atheist isn’t some great miracle. It is the same doubt that Lord K cleared for Arjuna during his PowerPoint presentation. Govinda lives in our heart whether we are a Shah Rukh Khan fan or not.
And that can be seen in the way Dhoni plays now, without doubt, without caring for the results.
Like Lord K, he has transcended the sport he plays. He has taken cricket to the divine level that Swami Vivekananda imagined for football.
Unlike us, Dhoni has understood the essence of quantum mechanics or Vedanta, that life exists beyond the preconceived notion of winning or losing. He has understood that our mere existence is joy.
That watching him bat is bliss.
That it doesn’t matter what the result says.
What the scorecard reads.
What rock we are pushing up a hill.
The great footballer-philosopher Eric Cantona is anecdotally believed to have said: “I don’t play against a particular team. I play against the idea of defeat.”
MS Dhoni has taken it to the next level. He just plays.
Perhaps, cricket’s win is a great loss for Quantum Mechanics or Vedanta.
Edited by the future Mrs Nonsensical Nemo
PS: Pater Dutta: A while I ago I sent you a chant by Adi Shankar. Nirvana Shatkam – six stanzas to explain the state of bliss – nirvana. In your Random Musing on Dhoni your concluding line has talked about the same state. MSD has taken it to the next level: “He just plays.” This is the final goal the ultimate state: Turiya.
Mandukya Upanishad states it as the state of consciousness where the individual rests in eternal bliss – SATCHITANADAM.
The same state appears in the chant by Adi Shankar that I have sent you. He sings:
Chidananda rupam shivoham shivoham
(Sung by Swami Sarvagananda - a monk from RKM - who in my world vies with MSS in chanting entelechy)
This TURIYA is the final goal of all Indic pursuit of knowledge - call it Mokshya / Nirvana / Kaibalya and various other words used by Vedic / Buddhist / Tantric / Kashmiri Shaivasism / Vaishnav / Shaktya / Shaivaite or any other school of Indic thought.
When you reach this realisation, then there is nothing more to learn as Lord K explains in Gita 7:2
Yaj jnatva ne ha bhuyo nyaj jnatavyam avasisyate
By knowing which there shall remain nothing more here left to learn.
PPS: Nonsensical Nemo: This means that we can even divide four states into various states in The Matrix that we observe Neo in:
1) Waking: Waking up from his slumber in The Matrix simulacrum
2) Dreaming: Living his life in The Matrix as Mr Thomas Anderson.
3) Dreamless Deep Sleep: Sleeping inside the Matrix and the real world.
4) Turiya: Being fully conscious of all reality and realising he’s The One where he can see the code.