Virtual Reality and Nirvana

Virtual Reality and Nirvana

Phaltan, Maharashtra

All our experiences and knowledge of the physical world are through our five senses of taste, smell, touch, sight and hearing. Together with this is our sixth sense the intuition. We enjoy the world or suffer pain through our senses. These sense signals when processed by brain give us awareness, a feeling of individuality, and desires. These desires should be resolved because unresolved desires produce greed and create tremendous long-term psychological knots in the brain. Resolution of desires is the first step towards achievement of spirituality and reduction of greed.

Yet fulfillment of desires requires considerable investment in energy and resources and is the cause of misery and unsustainable development world over. Modern technology of Virtual Reality (VR) may provide a mechanism to satiate our desires at almost zero cost and energy.

Virtual reality (VR) is a creation of virtual 3D world in which one can feel and sense the world as if it is real. It is normally achieved by donning a headgear. The gear contains the screen, which is attached to a computer with the necessary software so that a virtual 3D world is seen. The increasing sophistication in this technology allows the sense of touch (by wearing body suit or hand sensors like a glove), smell and hearing through the headgear. VR experience is akin to sitting and watching a film in a 70-mm film theater or a planetarium but with interactive process where one can change the scenes and be a part of the scenery. It allows one to get a full blast of information to the senses and hence can allow us to enjoy the world and thus satiate our desires to certain extent.

The VR process is being used presently by scientists and engineers for designing technologies. It is allowing engineers to design machines and engines in real time but in 3-dimensional hologram as if the actual machine is being made and worked upon. Thus, engines and whole aircrafts have been designed, fabricated and optimized in the virtual world without a single nut or bolt fabricated. This design then goes to the machines for manufacturing the machine in the final form. However, like Internet, which was initially developed to aid scientists and technologists but came into mainstream, VR will also come into the mainstream and will be used by everybody. The technologies in VR are expanding so rapidly that in a matter of years we will have almost real life experiences of flying, tasting objects, moving them, smelling them and even have a feel of their texture. Maybe pornography will be the first offshoot of this process!

Even today, an individual at will can go to Disney World; can visit some of the finest museums of the world; or go to various tourist destinations without moving out of the VR room. Similarly, he/she can do window-shopping in some of the best shopping malls of the world and in near future may even tryout some of the items displayed. In short, a person can fulfill substantial portion of his/her desires through VR at almost zero cost and energy. With desires satiated individuals can hopefully move on to higher things in life. This may help in reduction of greed also.

Besides fulfilling our basic desires VR can aid in gaining spirituality. Thus one can have a spiritual experience of flying to distant galaxies and see their formation, or closer to home of flying over majestic Himalayas or Swiss Alps. Similarly it can aid in yoga by providing powerful sensory experience of seeing, hearing and focusing on images of nature formation from the minutest to the gigantic. This can help in focusing on a single thought for a long time and hence in achieving Sanyam.

Each individual needs to experience the world. That desire is latent in all humans and has to be satiated. No amount of sermonizing can stop the younger generation from trying to experience it. VR allows a least-cost (energy wise) and non-invasive mechanism to achieve this objective. VR sometimes can be even more powerful than the real world since it allows almost anybody to feel and sense the otherwise forbidden world. It is possible that this satiation of desires so easily will result in overindulgence. However I feel that as the technologies of VR and experiences of individuals mature they will move on to other higher things.

VR is however not a panacea for the ills of the present day world. It cannot satisfy the real hunger, or cure the diseases, and cannot substitute for real human contact. Nevertheless it may allow vast majority of citizens from the developing world to enjoy the world in an interactive mode and may help them to move on to higher goals. This will help the world to move towards sustainability and eventually to Nirvana.

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Published as an editorial article in Times of India, May 17, 2005