Mahanth is Editor of mahanth.org / usindiamonitor.com

Beware of anyone trying to sell you the cheat codes or snake oil to universal good health and the concurrent pursuit of happiness. Including me. People have been at this self-help game for thousands of years, often for unethical monetary gain, and rarely for saintly goals. In any case nobody and no particular religion can credibly claim all the answers, or a monopoly on truth anyway. Still all of the points of THE CODE presented below are steeped in ancient wisdom updated with modern thought leadership. Today you can choose to allocate the time it takes to read this set of personal epiphanies I’m chronicling here for my own benefit first and foremost. Judge and experiment for your own self to find out if any or all of it might resonate for hacking your present life full of its challenges, including but not limited to deadly disease in you or your family, which was meant to be my destiny to overcome. I hope it resonates for you.

I learned THE CODE only through a gamely combination of questioning my previous beliefs to the core, reading numerous books, falling down tons of YouTube rabbit holes, debating my network of fellow travelers, a cultural upbringing as an Indian-American “Quindu” who grew up in many countries, and confronting disability and death at an earlier chapter of life than I was hoping to. For these experiences I feel incredibly blessed today, because there’s all sorts of invisible serendipity involved in making us who we are. But there’s no escaping the diligent work too. THE CODE recognizes the important roles both work and luck play as the Yin and Yang of the mysterious formula that applies to all of our fates. I do not consider any of this thinking as religious, but take your measure as you may.

Figure Out Your Slice and Get After It. However successful we might think we are at our endeavors, however much effort we believe we’ve put in, there is a hard binary split between what is within our control and what isn’t. Most of us probably don’t have as much control of our reality as we think, which I learned the hard way. It’s a yes or no proposition and recognizing the difference means the world. That narrow tract of real estate that we determine is within our span of control is where great success could spring from. We should focus with persistent concentration on that niche of a slice: the people and ideas in our orbit we can hope to impact by word and deed. This has been the most profound epiphany of my life at age 45, which took till 2024, the worst year of my life by far, to finally realize and internalize. We all own a slice of reality and always will. Greatness lies in that slice. Do not get bogged down by the people and events outside of that slice that will distract and disturb your innate desire to enjoin THE CODE. The slice is everything, everything but it must be relentlessly defined and probed by every person for themselves, not according to the expectations and directives of others expounding on what excellence means. That includes “society” and “tribe.” Be satisfied with your slice, no matter how big or small, or work like Hell to expand it or shrink it. The slice too is a living being. Don’t get caught up in victimhood and wringing your hands, or envy from comparison to others, which have particularly taken over an inordinate proportion of modern American life. We can have little idea at best what other people’s internal reality is truly like. Those of us facing serious health concerns in particular have the opportunity to attack our critical slice of this life meaningfully in this very moment, at a pace and of a design we self-tailor. Internal and external change at breakneck speed are inevitable, and ongoing iteration is mandatory, but overall we must aspire to ride the wave rather than being overwhelmed by it. The choice is always ours. If you figure out your slice and earnestly get after it continuously, then every possible result will be easier to accept while the best consequence is more likely. So do your best and allow the universe to do the rest through the ups and downs. Our bodies and its systems are too complicated to comprehend anyway. Take calculated risks following professional medical advice. You will only regret what you didn’t attempt to do. There is no substitute to being in the arena, with action and not just complaint. It’s fine to whine, but only in the service of acting and not quitting. Though there is one exception, a single nagging ghost worth quitting.

Quit Fearing the Death of You or Loved Ones. Not fearing the Reaper is easier said than done, admittedly. The desire to survive is primal for most organisms, deeply embedded in our DNA. Same goes for holding onto people and objects like houses and cars and golf clubs we grow fond of. Accepting death is both extremely frightening and supremely powerful. Might as well surrender to its inevitable nature, and the freedom so gained is parabolic. Just let go! Expiration dates for these meat bag bodies we call home for a short period come for us all. And it’s impossible these meat bag bodies are all there is to all of this. Fear and anxiety of death are byproducts of overemphasizing ego and identity. Since childhood I have been terrorized by what happens if this Mahanth Joishy no longer breathes on this mortal plane? What comes next, if anything? The timing too is unknown. In fact, everything about the future of humans, pets, families, companies, governments, religions, tribes, societies and kingdoms is 100% uncertain if we are willing to admit it. Including when each traveling unit of cells begins and ends. But begin and end all things always do. Every birth requires a death, no more and no less. The ledger always reflects a perfect 1:1 math ratio of add and subtract. You may cheat on your taxes but you cannot cheat death. It might come within hours for microscopic critters, at age 4 or 54 or 104 for humans, or age 2000 if you’re the right kind of tree in the perfect terroir. Countless humans don’t even make it out of the womb, like two of my would-be older siblings. Others die early by tragic accident. If it makes you feel better, the cycle of life as we know it just on this one little flying planet of ours in this one solar system out of hundreds of trillions (or for the nerds out there, “tens of sextillions up to a septillion”) of star systems in the observable universe, began around four billion years ago. Four billion years‘ worth of uncountable organisms have all died. Our little star, the Sun, has been around for 5 billion years and is expected to die in a blaze of glory like all stars ever have and ever will, in about another 5 billion hence. There is no Fountain of Youth or immortality for our ego amidst all the stardust flying around, only a guarantee of its eventual end. As individuals we aren’t even a blip on the radar of Earth, let alone the universe, and ultimate unceremonious extinction is promised to every species from the get-go. We know how to reproduce but we hold no definitive evidence of what happens after death, despite thousands of years of frantically accumulated religion, philosophy, science and technology. Light? Darkness? Reincarnation? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory? Valhalla? Cold? Hot? Multiverses? Who the Hell knows. Why bother worrying about it? We will all find out in due time. Go ahead and have faith in one afterlife theory if it feels good, but it means nothing at the end. Definitely not as much as living out a moral existence regardless of the outcome or who might be watching.

Why should this be comforting again exactly?

Because We Have this Moment. What no circumstances, people, laws of God and Man, financial ups and downs, or health conditions can take away from you is this moment. The present is yours as long as you have your wits about you and your basic needs for survival such as food, water, and shelter are sorted out, so be present in it. The past is all Maya, according to ancient Hindu philosophers and others, or, a divine illusion. It didn’t really necessarily happen, except as old movie reels we make for ourselves to replay in each of our heads to form some sort of temporary identity as they slowly fade. That includes trauma, pain, suffering, and what anyone has done to wrong you in days or years past in your unique and flawed build of perception. None of it helps, none of it matters, and it’s our conscious choice to decide whether we think about all this baggage of hurt or not. Take the superior option to linger on positive memories instead. If you do dwell too much on past slights and misfortune, it’s toxic to loving yourself and others, and there’s no end to it. Unless you use it to your advantage in this moment, such as adjusting plans for the future and changing behavior courageously. Always follow your conscience in all actions. But use abundant caution. Let’s remember what can happen to dreams and aspirations from the best-laid plans of mice and men… Still, one can always aspire to allot time to enjoy good company, your favorite sports team, Christmas or other holidays, a classic movie, a delicious meal, inspirational art or music, or a good book in any given moment’s context. Even those with crippling disease can partake in life’s little pleasures. Especially those with disease. Why?

Time Has No Meaning Anyway. If the trials and tribulations of the past are meaningless, our hopes and fears for the future aren’t entirely real either, because both tenses past and future are beyond our realm of control. We want to escape the pain of past suffering by gunning to get better results in the future. But the odds of better days ahead will only become zero on the last day. Uncertainty and chaos are guaranteed, they should be embraced, and THE CODE calls for being unburdened by past trauma or obsessive future planning on our ideally long and slow journey towards sure death. But we have this very moment, this now, and we have each other, and that’s a lot for love, at least according to Bon Jovi. As adults we have full agency concentrated in this same moment no matter who and where we are. Carpe diem, indeed. Live it, don’t just say it. Love it. Recognizing the futility and meaninglessness of timespans, which I believe quantum mechanics will come to prove mathematically, should not lead to nihilism. It should unleash armies of friendly bon vivants with consciences. Wouldn’t the world be so much better if we lived this joyful way? Shouldn’t accumulating evermore material objects for temporal slugs of dopamine stop being a prime investment of our limited precious time and energy?

ABL: Always Be Learning. One of my favorite postulates of THE CODE is that golden opportunities grow out of lived experience, in good days and bad days. Every morning brings us a new chance to learn some useful lessons. If you aren’t sure which way to turn with the weight of the world crushing you, time can be used to constructively reflect and learn about what it might look like when the window of opportunity cracks open again in the future, however distant that window may seem. In the modern world it’s pretty easy to learn whatever productive or whimsical skills we want at little or no cost on the Internet, at the library, in classes, or from our human networks if we look. Formal education in my opinion, from K-12 to college and grad school should be about “learning how to learn.” That’s why graduation is commencement. Life beyond campus is the grandest classroom- and ballroom. Keeping mentally occupied by learning about the human body and disease, how to sleep better, how to eat better, yoga, meditation, new languages, new cultures, a musical instrument, a new sport, how to harness AI, how to write fiction, career skills, cooking new recipes, etc. Possibilities abound. Knowledge acquisition should not be relegated to educational institutions. Learning is unrestricted by age, environment, or any other limiting factor. Keeping your mind sharp with formal and informal education settings is the secret to plowing through difficult times. For example, I spent a lot of time sipping my favorite coffee, reading, and learning on Duolingo while largely isolated in a hospital for a month of intensive care treatment a year ago. I actually remember that painful gauntlet fondly above all else, because I was determined to enjoy that period as very Heaven instead of very Hell despite what the body was undergoing. I braced to get through it stronger. By cultivating a mindset, dissociated from bodily function regardless of what happened. The most important part of ABL is not what you learn, but that you pick up a little bit of anything all the time while the wits are working. The choice is ours, and the biggest prison (and liberator) is our mindset.

Don’t get sucked into the deadly vortex of current events. I originally launched this site in 2012 eager to make a dent in the world of politics, commerce and foreign policy by writing. Now I’ve completely pivoted to focus on more philosophical matters inside a grotesque society full of clown show horrors unfolding 24/7 on the news and social media. We should pause regularly to remember society always has been, and always will be a raging dumpster fire. It’s a curse of flawed human consciousness and its overarching desire for domination over situations and people. Most of it takes place outside our slice, our ability to impact, and that’s OK. What became clear to me from thousands of hours of nonfiction writing and research is that humans are perfectly set up to do almost everything the exact wrong way, and untangling the wires in hopes of unf***ing the world seems like a fool’s errand almost all of the time. In matters of environmental sustainability, human and animal rights, politics, national news, domestic and foreign policy, the economy, corporations, governments, and violent conflict humanity feels beyond irredeemable on a daily basis, the latest outrages of every news cycle burrowing deeper into a collective sense of helplessness and dread. Current events show an endless disaster porn of crime, corruption, terror and systemic rot. The worst of us takes up most of the frame. Getting overwhelmed by the downward spiral is a choice, and I’ve made the conscious decision over time to largely ignore all the noise vying for our attention for my own mental health. If something is not in our control, then why get all hot and bothered about preventable train wrecks like climate change, destructive wars, poverty, child abuse and gun violence unless we can do something about it? That energy should instead be channeled productively toward the art of the possible, balancing between the extremes of ambitious delusions of grandeur and throwing our hands up and escaping from it all. Your individual rage doesn’t matter. Instead there exists a middle ground where incremental progress in every field stems from, not that progress is ever supposed to be fast, easy or guaranteed. But all has never been lost, and those who take the most pessimistic worldview are not looking deep enough.

Appreciate that this is a Historically Exciting Time to be Alive. Despite all the gloom locally and globally we must face, we are extremely fortunate to be living at this juncture of history. In particular, I am unabashedly optimistic about the unique confluence of ingenuity that will define this era of technology and science we were born into. Artificial intelligence (AI) advancement already underway will usher in the promise of a profound new age full of cool discovery and also looming trapdoors of systemic risk. In the best case scenario, AI will help humanity solve its most glaring failures in environmental destruction, public health protection, and endless devastating warmongering in favor of lasting harmony with nature and peace among humans thriving as one unified, benevolent force. Sure, at its worst AI and other technology threaten to accelerate the darkest impulses of mankind without robust consensus guardrails put in place by those few who wield the awesome power of AI that could unleash apocalyptic chains of events we can hardly imagine or control. As an optimist I choose to have faith in the possibility of the most promising outcomes, with painful failings and lessons learned along the way (ABL: Always Be Learning). Harnessing the destructive nature of fire, bullets, missiles, spacecraft, and nuclear energy could have spelled the extinction of Homo Sapiens several times over already; to date these applied technologies have not burned it all to the ground and hopefully never will. The contours of the coming future in co-existence with AI software and hardware are totally up to us humans with determined collective coordination.

Meanwhile, novel scientific research into psychedelic substances is picking up steam after decades of misplaced government bans and unnecessary restrictions are slowly receding. Better late than never. This growing body of work shows immense promise in treating physical and mental trauma while raising human consciousness to uncharted spiritual dimensions globally. This will certainly result in widely affordable, dynamic, and successful protocols that can be democratically shared from cutting edge labs across any borders to the benefit of all humanity and its relationships with the natural planet and outer space. Mother Earth provides these psychedelic chemical compounds such as MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and DMT in abundance, with potential access to safe clinically indicated doses available for all in the near future regardless of net worth.

Exciting new doors of expanding research are being opened into applied AI, quantum mechanics, deep outer space exploration, consciousness, and psychedelics in particular. We were born to open these very doors we are inching towards sooner or later. It’s our destiny. I for one can’t wait to uncover how these can expand our minds and spiritual understanding to higher levels individually and in tandem than ever before. All the new horizons of groundbreaking knowledge starting to manifest over just the last few years should plant in each of us a confidence that the future looks more bright than we can imagine today despite a dangerous, contentious reality confronting us and our progeny. We are fortunate and blessed to be a witness to this mind-blowing progress. The above graphic design is my attempt to codify this bullish sentiment in a single picture.

Living THE CODE. In conclusion all of the major roadblocks we face ahead are intimidating, but surmountable. In fact, the terrifying dragon we must contend with in every phase of living including aggressive illness are very much a part of who we are, and there is no point in letting fear and anxiety cripple us. THE CODE runs on unabated whether we trust in it or not, just as modern physics seems to demonstrate that energy is neither created nor destroyed. But energy transforms. The force only keeps living on, actively shifting between motion, heat, sound, gravity, etc. in a universe that acknowledges no bounds of time or space, nor stops for any individual.

We might as well try proactively incorporating THE CODE and see if and how the universe responds to our trials.