Citta: The Brain (Yoga Sutras Notes #1)

 

In this book, Bryant translated and collected major commentaries and explanations of the famously brief and sometimes cryptic sutras by Patanjali. I especially find his approach of mixing certain Sanskrit keywords in the text to be instructive. In these instances, the non-interchangeability between Sanskrit concepts and their (supposedly) corresponding English words is palpable. Despite sharing the Indo-European roots, the non-translatability is probably due to the massive distance in time. 

It is hard to overstate the vast theoretical context behind the brevity of this manual. I am crawling my way through it slowly, and every few pages I am surprised by the deep insight into human psychology that was gleamed by the ancient Indian scholars and practitioners. I am in awe of these insights, not necessarily as a source of mysticism or exotic wisdom, but rather by the exhaustive and sophisticated examination of ... neurological patterns of the human mind. 

Take for example the concept of citta, which refers to an organ that provides three types of functions: buddhi (roughly translated as intelligence), ahankara (the sense of self, I-ness, ego), and manas (the part of the mind that performs thinking and sensory processing). 

Looking at these three components, one cannot help but be struck by their accuracy in describing some of the major activities of the brain. In the most basic aspect, it is now well established that one of the major functions of the brain is to centrally process and interpret the excitatory signals transmitted from the peripheral nerves (ie, manas), which allows humans to perceive and react to the environment. This neurological discovery in modern medical science was fairly recent and based on the anatomical exploration and understanding of the nervous system. The definition of buddhi, which emphasizes discernment and judgment, largely matches what is referred to as the executive function in neuroscience, which is carried out by the prefrontal cortex. 

Of course, I am by no means saying the ancient Indian theory of the brain is complete or comparable to modern neuroscience. Several other types of brain functions that we now know are not described in this theoretical system, such as the emotional and instinctive activities in the limbic system and the structure and activities related to learning and memory (the hippocampus and more). Their technologies and research framework did not allow the ancients to realize that major bodily functions, such as body temperature, breathing, and heart rate, are linked to the brain stem. Nevertheless, I am greatly impressed by how far they had gone using only direct and empirical observations of the mind. The power of their self observation is astounding and unparalleled. (Perhaps this is in some ways related to the pursuit of "detachment", but that's a topic for another day.) 

The examination of the sense of self is particularly fascinating and sophisticated. Recently I am intermittently reading a book by the German psychiatrist Fritz Simon, in which he explains how every concept is defined by what is inside versus outside a border (ie, what it is versus what it is not). It is a difficult and abstract concept that I have a hard time grasping and have never seen described in basic psychological theories. Yet the ancient Indians realized that the human mind (or what is now widely referred to as "consciousness", a fashionable and self-aggrandizing buzzword since the 2000s) is self-referential. 

Another eerily accurate insight is that the brain's existence is proven through its constant activities, defined as vrttis. The ancient Indians asserted that our endless thoughts, feelings, reactions, dreams, and spontaneous, internally generated sensations, are the manifestations of a physical organ that is alive and working. This insight alone outstrips Descartes by hundreds or a thousand years. The Indian philosophers explained it in an elegant analogy: Citta is the sea, and vrttis is the waves.

Fiction

In the year of 3001, Captain Gerald Clement set up an outpost in the Omega quadrant to monitor the only planet E118208 in the system RTM1921-14, where complex life forms had recently been discovered. The unmanned small space station faithfully orbited E118208, and the robots were able to recorded photos and data on the surface for many millennia. 

When the space station started its monitoring activities, there were at least two species that appeared to be sentient co-existing on the surface of E118208, which were named Nooton and Qadyl. They were approximately the same in body size and level of intelligence. Nootons looked somewhat like octopuses, and Qadyls looked like a little like lobsters. The number of each species on the planet was roughly equal. 

Naturally, it was surprising to humans that two intelligent species could co-exist in peace, unlike Homo sapiens and other hominids. Soon it became clear that these two species were highly dependent on each other for survival. Specifically, Nootons required a nutrient secreted by a fungus living inside the brain of Qadyls, which flows out of Qadyls' shell in the "neck" area, while Qadyls could not complete a reproductive cycle without eating one of a Nooton's eight tentacles. 

The consumption did not kill the organism, unless someone suddenly became gripped with greedy madness and bit off a Qadyl's head or all eight limbs of a Nooton. This would only happen if one species greatly outnumber the other, causing an imbalance in the nutrition supply and widespread hunger. As both species were intelligent, they carefully controlled their appetite and maintained a comfortable equilibrium in numbers to prevent decimating each other and, consequently, their own demise.

It should be noted that both species primarily ate other organisms on the planet for energy. What they needed from each other were certain essential nutritional elements that they could not make in their own bodies or obtain from other organisms. Both species probably co-evolved for millions of years to reach the current state of symbiosis. 

Humans followed the data transmitted from E118208 for a few hundred years. Some research papers were published, but the field remained small. Because neither Nootons nor Qadyls developed space travel technology to pose a threat to humanity, interest in the planet cooled off and monitoring became a low priority, leaving the robots to do the boring work year after year. 

This changed when war broke out among human colonies in the neighboring Psi quadrant. A lone vessel escaped the battlefield, carrying a platoon of surviving soldiers, and landed on E118208. Even though the condition was far from ideal, these humans tried to set up a colony, or at least a temporary shelter, on the planet to wait out the war. As the number of humans increased through reproduction and the colony expanded, both Nootons and Qadyls felt threatened and began attacking humans. The conflicts lasted over a century, and all three species suffered heavy losses. 

When one clan of Qadyl fighters finally invaded the center of the human settlement, they were exposed to a large dose of radiation from the human spaceship. In the post-human years, the subsequent generations of these Qadyls grew bigger and sharper claws. Over time, these mutant Qadyls with improved "bioweapons" out-completed all other clans of wildtype Qadyls. Through crossbreeding and competition, after only a few generations, nearly all Qadyls on the planet had big and sharp claws. Nevertheless, they still all needed Nooton tentacles.

Perhaps it was the war with humans or fierce competition within its own species, this new breed of Qadyls tasted the fruits of increasing aggression and sought to produce ever more offspring. To achieve this, more Nootons were needed, so Qadyls began to domesticate Nootons. They capture Nootons from the wild, confined them in small farms, and bred as many as possible. They would chop off all but one of a Nooton's tentacles to maximize the efficiency of production. As Nootons were as intelligent as Qadyls, they were given treatments to keep them docile and content. Wild Nootons disappeared rapidly to the verge of extinction, as those who refused to be domesticated were killed. 

To increase the number of Nootons on the farms, Qadyl scientists developed a technology to grow their brain fungus in nutritional solutions, making it more convenient to support the Noonton population growth, which in turn led to Qadyl population growth. This went on for another thousand years. 

One of the last few Nooton clans in the wild realized that the key to Qadyls' dominance came from the aliens that briefly invaded the planet. So they found the spaceship, now buried and forgotten, and dug out the engine, which still contained radioactive fuel. The Nootons took the material home and exposed as many among themselves as possible. Some Nootons died, but some mutants emerged, who could produce a chemical in one or more of their tentacles that is deadly to Qadyls but harmless to themselves. The Nootons kept this development secret for several generations and devoted all their resources to breeding these mutants and training them for combat, until the mutant Nootons were so numerous that they could no longer hide from Qadyls. 

In the war between Nootons and Qadyls, the Nootons suffered heavy losses but eventually won. They liberated all the domesticated Nootons. Nooton scientists carefully selected individuals carrying the mutant genes to mate with those previously domesticated, while those without the mutant genes were not allowed to produce offspring. Within a few generations, almost all Nootons were now carrying a deadly weapon against Qadyls. 

Even the mutant Nootons continued to need the essential nutrient from Qadyls. However, the Qadyl technology made it easier to grow large quantity of the fungus. Now Nootons only have to keep a few Qadyls around to maintain the source and quality of the fungus supply. Taking to heart the lessons of the past millennium, Nootons decided not to domesticate Qadyls. Instead, they maintained a low number of Qadyls living freely in the wild, their numbers only a fraction of that of Nootons, so that Qadyls would never become a threat again. The two species still needed each other to stay alive, for now. 

In the year 4001, Captain Hilda Chu arrived at the long-forgotten space station and discovered the extraordinary history in the records. 

The Gaze

 

Today I saw some discussion on action movie twitter about Tiger Shroff (pictured above). But I have not seen any of his action movies and am not going to talk about him. Rather, I have been puzzled for a few years now as to why Bollywood is rapidly filling up with ever-more-perfectly muscled male stars. 

Sure, Bollywood (and Hollywood, and profit-driven cinema in any country) has always been full of very beautiful women. The male gaze blah blah blah. The standard for male beauty was always pretty lax. Even the unquestionable No. 1 leading man of the past generation, Shah Rukh Khan, hardly looked like a magazine model at his peak. I am sure Indian cinema had no shortage of heartthrobs back in the day, but the average level of looks alone among male leads was way lower than female leads. 

Something started to change in the 2000s. When I saw Lagaan in 2001, Aamir Khan looked more buff than an average guy, but still within normal range, but 13 years later in PK the older Aamir had even bigger muscles. There was a wave sweeping through Mumbai, apparently, that was forcing every actor, even the big-name ones, to bulk up to ever higher levels of physical appearance. 

Akshay Kumar, himself a martial arts practitioner, once said that he and another actor were the only two guys in Bollywood who had not used steroids. I believe him. I am not categorically against anabolic steroid use, particularly when it is a necessity for one's livelihood. Who am I to judge? But I am extremely curious about the forces behind this phenomenon. Who are they building the muscles for? The female gaze? Or another manifestation of the male gaze? Or both? (In the US context, excessive body-building has a rather ambiguous meaning of both hypermasculinity and homoeroticism, which might not be mutually exclusive.)

I always suspect that Indian popular culture has the instinct to appeal to the most massive of the masses. So it is fascinating to wonder what this trend says about the masses and the time. Whose gaze are these muscle men appealing to?