Dhruv Adhia – Hello Universe

New Portfolio Website

// January 23rd, 2012 // No Comments » // antarikShamM, Thirdimension

You can view my updated portfolio on
www.dhruvaryan.com

Hawan – Purification of internal & external environment

// August 15th, 2011 // 2 Comments » // antarikShamM, Freedom, Nature, Thirdimension

Hawan as I have known as a child gave me vague but right idea on the way “Pandits” carry them. Just do it for the sake of rituals. As a child I wondered, what are these mantras for? why are these mantras chanted? During marriages, meditation, sandhya, upasana, and the whole of ancient Vedic literature is crafted of beautiful mantras many of which are in the form of poetry. When I used to listen to those hawans at marriages and other temples, while seeing others hardly paying any attention to it. That gave me some idea of these so called hawans which are carried out at most of the places in India for the above mentioned reason.

Now we all know the fruit of performing an action without really knowing it and why we are doing it. Those so called pandits afterall nicely commercialized themselves to fool orthodox mass of India. Only one word comes to my mind that is how “Weak” of them. Because the true definition of Hawan is much more pure, scientific and spiritual in nature. It is the process which when understood, you will only enjoy. A process which is both scientifically and spiritually tested to be for the benefit for not only humans but also environment. The mantras there in are so beautiful that it fills my heart with joy and indeed that those rishis were true scientist in my opinion.

I am not sure how much Michio Kaku, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawkings have come up with the formulation of metaphysical concepts to form the theory of everything. I know one thing that those rishis have provided a Framework that makes sense. Behind any system, there is a framework and without understanding a framework one cannot understand how the system functions. The beautiful part of those ancient Rishis is that they didnt try and provide answer for everything like most of the religion and science try to do so, they just provided a general framework underlying the backbone of cosmos and rest is upon us on how we unravel the mystery. This is beautiful rather than formulating equations and trying to theorize everything. My question is , can you please show me the equation behind a smile? Provided you know what smile means. From computer vision point of view, I know how to detect a smile, but that’s only how an employee smiles to his/her boss.

To understand the framework, was not an easy task. They understood it through various Yogic practices. Yoga as I have mentioned before, meaning “The process of removal of the activities of mind” as said by Maharshi Patanjali. If the mind is clear, you are able to communicate to the mysteries of universe. Hawan is one such beautiful practice which the aryavarta before mahabharat used to perform daily to make our planet more sustainable through not only purifying air, but also through the purification of thoughts. We often think we dwelve in outter world not realizing the problems in outter world starts from inner world(thoughts). Isn’t that so creative to have a process which purifies both air and thought at a same time? That is called Hawan.

Below will I list some of the mantras in Sanskrit and their meaning in English as mentioned in Arya Samaji Hawan. And I have already mentioned the reason for my avoidance for other hawans. As they mostly are both spiritually dumb and scientifically falsified. To me when a process follows a principle, it justifies itself both scientifically and metaphysically(Spiritually here). And Arya Samaji Hawan is one such process.

If you think I am missing out any information or you want to know detail reasoning and information, please do get back to me via feedback. I would love to discuss.

Here are some mantras, which are my favorites I must say:

Om aapo  joyteeraso mritam brahma bhoor bhuwah swar-om swahaa.

In the performance of this sacrifice, I have sought to discover the secrets surrounding.
God, the Supreme-most, All-pervading, and of the nature of Light, Love and Immortality, and
the Earth, Sky, and Heaven

The beauty of above mantra is that yes it tries and defines god in one sentence, but it never utters nouns in the sentence. It is only karma(actions/verbs) that matter.

Om yaam medhaam deva-ganaah pitarash cho-paa-sate. Tayaa ma-madya medhayaang-ne medhaa-vinam kuru swaaha.

O Radiant Lord of Knowledge! Make me knowledgeable today with that same knowledge which the company of learned men and fathers of wisdom strive to attain, so that I may indeed know You and the world.

I call this the prayer of everything. If at all you want to ask for something from universe/god/yourself. Why don’t you ask for instrumental intellect? cause as I told, solutions for all the problems lies in there.

Praying for a discriminating intellect

Om asato ma sad gamaya,
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya,
Mirtyorumam amritam gamaya.

Lead me from the falsehood to the truth.
Lead me from darkness to light.
Lead me from death to immortality.

This is simple and powerful enough to recall from time to time.

Sarve bhavantu sukhinah,
Sarve santu ni-raa-ma-yaah
Sarve bhadrani pashyantu
Maa Kash-chid dukha bhaag bhavet

May all be happy. May all be free from misery. May all realise goodness and may no one suffer pain.

Happiness not just for oneself but for entirety.

Om dhyo shantir antariksham shantih prithivi
shantir apah shantir oshadhayah shantih
vanaspatayah shantir vishvedevah shantir
brahma shantih sarvam shantih shantireva shanti
sama shantiredhi. Om shanti shanti shanti.

There is peace in the planetary region; there is peace in the atmosphere; there is peace on earth; there is coolness in the water; the medicinal herbs are healing; the plants are peace giving; there is peace in the planets; there is perfection in the eternal knowledge; everything in the universe is peaceful; peace pervades everywhere. May that peace come to me.

May there be peace, peace, peace.

One more beautiful mantra which speaks of peace not only for oneself, but for entire universe. In the end there is a reason why peace is chanted 3 times. In vedic times they already knew the causes of problems, misery and sufferings. They knew where they came from.
1) From self
2) From others
3) From physical nature

So peace in that sense is chanted 3 times bringing peace to all the 3 energies which is essentially the universe minus the god as mentioned in Vedas.

Here is another interesting article. Its based on bhopal gas tragedy and how one family survived by just performing hawan regularly.

http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=439710

Namaste
Dhruv

Karma Yoga

// February 22nd, 2011 // 5 Comments » // antarikShamM, Freedom

These are my observation through performing various kinds of yoga over several years.
One of them that we perform consciously or unconsciously its called Karmayoga.

Knowingly or unknowingly we are the part of the wheel. Part of the machinery. We
act like bolts. Some act tight while others loose. But the wonder is that machinery never
falls. And who are we to say, I know even a 1% of universe? forget about ruling it.

What I have come to conclusion over certain years of doing yoga is that it is not about
nouns(Your theory or my theory) its about verbs (the theory, the action). Its about following those
rules which permeate the universe in each and every dimension. It was always the matter
of following principles and not man made theories. Being a young entrepreneur now I can
surely see that we are always trying to permeate our theories without realizing what effect
it might have on world at large. But oh yes, sorry for now I am busy doing my work. It is my
effect. Its clear in Karma Yoga that when word “my” or “I” repeats too much in your life, you are
clearly missing the bigger picture and the picture can only be understood through correct lens and
that lens is the lens of principles.

Its conscious process that can successfully take us through benefits of karmayoga and Krishnaji
has cracked that problem. Infact we can proudly say, that he was one of the best problem solver ever when
it comes to Karma. You might remember he riding 4 horses. The summary behind that is that you are master,
mind is the driver and body is the chariot.

It is through this statement of great rishis, yoga can be perfectly
achieved to its highest level. It is through yoga a bigger picture can be seen.

One more wonderful thought comes to my mind is that of clear cut definition

of Yoga. “Yogaschita vriti nirodhaha” It means that Yog is the removal of the activities

of the mind. Here the mantra has very deep meaning. The vritis defined in yoga darashanas

has various sections and removing those has several techniques. Its like you can

write a book on just that one mantra. I wonder how simple and powerful were those minds, who

first realized this.

Visiting MIT Media Labs

// January 6th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // antarikShamM, MIT, Technology, Thirdimension

I was recently given opportunity to visit MIT media labs and also present the work
we do at Dsign Labs. Nearly 80 prospective students and several industry guests
are allowed to visit the labs in a year. My visit was for 3.5 days and fortunately I could stay
at Seth Hunters place during my visit. Seth Hunter is 2nd year PHD student for
fluid interfaces group at Media labs.

Structuring of Media labs comes very close to SIAT research labs. The only difference
that I found between SIAT research labs and MIT media labs is that of focus.
While SIAT focuses more on content side, Media labs focuses more on interface side. Their internal
culture amongst faculty and student is similar to GNWC as well. At media labs they have
masters and PHD program in the field of media arts and sciences. That means it is
highly interdisciplinary course. Many of the known programs like processing, scratch,
open frameworks were the work of this lab.

They have several groups which focus on the given set of problems. For example,
Object Based Media group focuses on interface related to various objects in our
day to day life. Tangible media group focuses on everything that is tangible and how
that tangible thing can be used to represent relevant digital information.

Because of Seth Hunter, I got a very good tour of MIT media labs and Boston at large.I actually felt
at home as we do similar work at Dsign labs in the field of machine vision based interfaces.

I primarily met with 3 professors; Henry Holtzman of Information Ecology Group, Pattie
Maes of Fluid Intefaces group and Micheal Boey of Object Based Media Group. And all
were quite impressed with our work at Dsign labs. Some of them found our ways of
reaching out to people through interface a unique approach and strong philosophy.

Along with professors, I met around 15 students and they all spent a good deal of time
to explain me what they had worked on and about their current projects. From them, I came
to know about one more similarity with GNWC and that industry guests and affiliates. They very
much encourage a hacking and practical culture. They often have industry guests visiting and
sponsoring the projects. In this way students are not only able to think in terms of innovation but
also in terms of its usability in the relevant market and commercializing their products.

All in all I found I was back to GNWC and SIAT Research Labs in many ways.

Digital Monalisa – Sensification

// November 9th, 2010 // 8 Comments » // antarikShamM, Biomimicry, Fluid Interfaces, Nature, Networking, opencv, organic media, Technology, Thirdimension, Ubiquitous Computing

At Dsign Interactive labs, I am working on my latest creation, which we call “Monalisa.”
Past few months I worked on various computer vision related algorithms. They were to do with
color, object, tracking, gesture, emotion and speech recognition. There were various other small
algorithms like OCR, image analysis etc.

For Dsign 2.0, I am working on Monalisa software which will eventually combine all such algorithms
with Dsign Framework at the center and utilize it for practical purpose.

My personal intentions out here is not to prove that we are just evolved/programmed/tangible beings.
Its actually the other way round

I personally think that the beauty of AI lies at the application level and not at the conscious or intelligence level.

We at Dsign labs believe that we will create a dent in the universe through our approach of humanizing
interfaces that would better equip with human senses.

The project is under NDA.
But over time I will post some pics and videos as I have more freedom

Peace and lots of love,
Dhruv (Currently in love with Digital Monalisa)

Keynote presentation through Hand Gestures from Dhruv Adhia on Vimeo.

Ubiquitous University – “A creative and ever way of learning”

// October 25th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // antarikShamM, Fluid Interfaces, Technology, Thirdimension

We often like gaining information about places, cultures, food, technology etc.
We often also realize that there is no way in which I can gain knowledge in a seamless manner
and knowledge that matters. For example I come across a painting at  museum in Italy.
I love the painting and wish to gain information on authors bio-data and meaning behind the
painting. But as I don’t have any information, I ask people around and start ticking away buttons
on my iPhone to gain the information.

Now I have to be a good googler to get the information that I want. Information that matters pertaining to that painting. Now this certainly does seem to be a waste of time and especially the moment.

Imagine, if I could have wearable augmented reality glasses or some device that could do object recognition and can overlay information on the top of the physical object. The information can further be browsed with the help of gestures.

It could also be creative in some cases. For example, if you look at Mountains and natural elements of life then it might sing out an interesting poem for you.

In future, I see that education wont be just trapped inside a classroom. In fact practical learning will creatively be followed by respective theory introduced.

Law of relativity and Awareness

// September 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // antarikShamM, Thirdimension

Its a wonderful weekend and thought of adding a spiritual topping to start it

Yesterday when I was done with meditation I got this thought.
When we are not aware the knowledge becomes relative by nature as the conscious (chetana) is in the periphery and not in the center. When we are aware of ourselves, knowledge becomes absolute.
When we are aware, we are able to grasp knowledge through conscious(chetana) being in center and we therefore understand the knowledge in its true nature. When we are not conscious
of ourselves, the attention is in the periphery/surface/body/senses. And whatever senses register we get it. However senses do not have “intelligence” i.e. conscious of its own. It is always
changing based on external factors. Therefore it is never still making knowledge relative. Einstein explains it this way

“When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes.
When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours
that’s relativity.”

To understand truth we have to be aware of ourselves and it is only then we grasp absolute knowledge and not fall into believing that senses are intelligent. Some of the yogis have rightly said about brain and senses. Use brain as means to get to final objective. But don’t consider it a driver. You are the driver not the senses and or brain. To complete the analogy. You : Driver :: Brain/Senses : Car

i.e. you are the driver and brain is the car.

Here is a song by M.C. Yogi called Mahatma’s Message (featuring Sukhawat Ali Khan)                       Click on the link below if you see a cross mark. HTML 5 mp3 player support is only for safari and chrome at the moment.

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Mahatma’s Message (featuring Sukhawat Ali Khan)

August 15th, 1947 – The day lives forever

// August 13th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // antarikShamM, Freedom, Thirdimension

The independence day. Once again India was free. However the irony is that Mother was always free. But mother cared for her children’s and to see if they were free or not? It is true we the children’s are not free completely. Cause materialistic freedom is not the only one. We are working, thriving , running , thundering towards it while mother India sings lullaby

Who is weak, who is strong, who is right, who is wrong, who is tall, who is short, who is white, who is black, who is who , who is that? is all dissolved when I look into her eyes. It is all gone and what remains is the light, is the energy, is the India thundering as ever, holding, embracing the whole universe. Is my mother India.

The day will live forever

This song goes for you

Millions of reasons,
in every season,
You were there ,
Holding my hand
While I was walking ,
You were holding
And that hold,
was a light, even at night
you made me see stars
not the darkness,
its your brightness
which lives forever,
Oh Mother
August 15th, 1947
the day will live forever
in hearts of every Indian
and the people who felt India
To the breadth and depth of life
she was the symbol of sacrifice
to see her childrens allright
Oh Mother
you take me beyond senses
you gave me something
which is ineffable to describe
No matter where I go
You made me look beyond tribes
You made me look at the light
it was your gift
without which I never had that sight
it was you who was the reason behind my uplift
Oh Mother
the day, 15th of August, 1947
Will live forever!

From,
Your Son
Vande Mataram

Generative Art

// July 12th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // antarikShamM, Nature, Technology, Thirdimension

Here is the Generative art that I did for Vancouver Olymics as part of prototyping the concept that our team from GNWC had put forward.

Here is the video

Generative Art from Dhruv Adhia on Vimeo.

This was one of my part of the prototype for CODE live on the ground, Vancouver Olympics. It was for the Dharma project combining the elements to move from abstract to known as defined in our first brief concept.

I used Mandelbrots recurring equations concept, starting from simple circle which forms out of itself forming a bigger circle as a group of complex circles. I was also trying to capture the concept of stars and universe. Universes(group of circles) moving apart and stars(individual circles) bursting forming into new glowing ones.

How wonderful to see math being involved in this wonderfuly driven dynamically moving art.
Created using processing library inside Eclipse
Music courtesy : Karunesh – Call of the Tribes

And here is some inspiration to take from master himself.

Benoit Mandelbrot: Fractals and the art of roughness talk on TED

Organic Interaction

// June 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // antarikShamM, Biomimicry, organic media, Technology, Thirdimension

My pursuit for happiness found in nature continues. I am learning how is it connected to technology or how technology can be tied in the ways nature is? Biomimicry is already on its way. The people at biomimicry institute believe that all the problems that are technical and design challenged are already solved in nature. We just need to know how to translate them to human made technologies. This reminds me of how nature is not just “Nature”, nurturing all of us? Its a intellectual treasure. Answer to most of technical designs are already out there is what I believe too.

For example, let us consider the example of Object Oriented programming in the field of computer science. It consists of 5 things basically,

1) Classes and objects
2) Data encapsulation
3) Data Abstraction
4) Polymorphism
5) Inheritance

All of these are basically found in nature. Everything in nature is in some form of inheritance. Some might have single name but multiple forms. Considering the human body as a form of nature, look how many forms humans have? Infinite?

Also look at the way I interact with daily objects and natural life around me. Its like “I don’t have to think at all”, data abstraction isn’t it? And that’s because everything in nature is encapsulated in the form of objects which has behaviours and properties.

Though, what I wanted to discuss in this post was about what are different aspects of natural interactivity compared to that of today’s cutting edge technology.

Today’s technology, is about seamless interaction which provides information on time. Today’s technology is immersing out like mobile web. Information connected on the go.

But what about nature? For example without the help of any technology, if I plan to go for hiking or travelling across the mountain. It takes effort, adventure, thrilling moments to experience, learn, feel and understand that very interaction. Its result is gradual. Why? I don’t know why. But it reminds me that “Process” is more important than results. I also learn that smiling through struggle = Process

So let us now analyse, what did I learn from that natural interaction. I did not only learn, but also felt which was a bigger learning for me. I learnt about the process and learning about the process. I learnt Struggle is a form of smile . Isn’t that interaction worth while having?

Here is some inspiration to take,