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To Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti (no family relationship), Jiddu Krishnamurti has contradicted the very fundamentals of his own teaching: "He denounces systems and opens meditation schools, talks of the crippling effects of conditioning then runs schools which foster more conditioning, talks of simplicity and builds worldwide real estate organizations; says you must be on your own, then takes measures to preserve his teachings for the future." It seems that nobody can permanently live the mystical experience of spirituality.Krishnamurti did not recognize any specific philosophy, though much of his teaching is common to Advaita Vedanta.When a man in an audience quoted something a guru had told him, Krishnamurti raised a trembling hand and berated him with the words: “Sir, You must never, ever, submit to the authority of another person.” Unless, it would appear, that authority happened to be Krishnamurti.Krishnamurti TeachingJiddu Krishnamurti said:“Is it possible to live in this world without a belief - not change beliefs, not substitute one belief for another, but be entirely free from all beliefs, so that one meets life anew each minute? This, after all, is the truth: to have the capacity of meeting everything anew, from moment to moment, without the conditioning reaction of the past, so that there is not the cumulative effect which acts as a barrier between oneself and that which is.”“A belief, religious or political, obviously hinders the understanding of ourselves. It acts as a screen through which we are looking at ourselves. And can we look at ourselves without beliefs? If we remove those beliefs, the many beliefs that one has, is there anything left to look at? If we have no beliefs with which the mind has identified itself, then the mind, without identification, is capable of looking at itself as it is - and then, surely, there is the beginning of the understanding of oneself.”“Through complete negation alone, which is the highest form of passion, that thing which is love, comes into being. Like humility you cannot cultivate love. Humility comes into being when there is a total ending of conceit—then you will never know what it is to be humble. A man who knows what it is to have humility is vain. In the same way when you give your mind and your heart, your nerves, your eyes, your whole being to find out the way of life, to see what actually is and go beyond it, and deny completely, totally, the life you live now—in that very denial of the ugly, the brutal, the other comes into being. And you will never know it either. A man who knows that he is silent, who knows that he loves, does not know what love is or what silence is.”These are paradoxical utterances from Krishnamurti. There is a possible interpretation: Nonsense. Either “love” and “humility” and “silence” mean something, and we have some way of recognizing things they apply to and things they don't, or these are just empty words. Krishnamurti is either saying something, in which case he is wrong, or he is really not saying anything. The denial of the reality of distinctions undercuts believers' appeal to scriptures and Krishnamurti books. Because language necessarily involves distinctions and so, if any language accurately describes reality, some distinctions must be real. Therefore, if distinctions aren't real, the scriptures or Krishnamurti books aren't valid.Religious diversity is the most serious objection to the claim that there exist reliable religious belief formation. If there are reliable religious belief-forming practices, they should generate independent agreement. It was a thousand other supernaturals who closed the coffin of any supernatural. The most common agreement held between isolated religious communities is a sort of primitive animism. Reason and sense perception are more widely socially established and more convincingly independent and coherently supported than mysticism. The more we refine our religious beliefs to face the rigor of a public shared reality of experience confirmation, the less remains. Therefore, if the mystical perception clashes with reason and perception of senses, mystical believers can not trust​ably pledge mystical knowledge. Different religions often elicit opposite courses of action in the quest for salvation or liberation. What is the best course, jihadism or vows of silence and contemplation? Why should we say that reports of religious experiences are reliable? The authors of the Bible and the Quran, for example, despite claiming a channel with the divine, have never known the immorality of slavery or gender inequality, the truth of antibiotics or the theory of germs in diseases. Paradoxical, inconsistent, and contradictory beliefs are characteristic outputs of mystical experience. No religious form of belief formation has been found to generate beliefs that are independently corroborated. The most common mystical claim is that all things are one, the reality is an indivisible whole and good and evil are one and the same. We can make no veridical distinction among the claims of a man who eats hallucinogens and sees that all things are one, a man who has epileptic seizures and sees that all things are one, and a man who meditates and sees that all things are one. Mystical states can be induced by artificial electrical stimulation of the brain. Mystical states can be explained in other naturalistic ways that can be independently confirmed, we have no need of recourse to supernatural influence. Religions themselves will have to appeal to such natural explanations in the course of offering an account for most rival mystical experiences that they consider to be non-veridical. So the burden surely lies with them to show that some mystical experiences, those favored by them as veridical, are indeed produced by a God or Brahman or Nirvana. We have no independent criteria for determining that a God, or Brahman or Nirvana plays a role in mystical experiences. Different religions may be equally effective at producing moral and virtuous people but not equally effective at saving or liberating people, and we have no reason to think that the one is a reliable indicator of the other. One’s own sense of confidence in the truth of one’s own religious beliefs does not count as the truth’s foundation because this confidence is equally well shared by believers of all stripes.If we are all in an illusion of our conscience then it makes no sense to talk of illusion, for there isn't an independent way of seeing how well our conscience matches Brahman, the ultimate reality, because to do that, we have to use the same instrument we call into question, our conscience. Is it reality whatever makes me happy in a blissful state? Is a blissful state eternal or it is gullibility? Is the eternal blissful state the ultimate illusion? There is nothing in the data that supports the claim that increased national religiosity is correlated with increased national virtue or happiness. We should surely find it strange that something that is alleged to be a particularly important constituent of moral virtue fails to be significantly negatively correlated with uncontroversial measures of societal dysfunction. Look at the tables that plot religiosities and the tables that plot societal dysfunction, murder rates, rape rates, burglary rates, alcohol abuse rates, drug abuse rates, marital breakdown rates, teen pregnancy rates and so forth in International statistics. Religiosity is not negatively correlated with higher levels of societal dysfunction. We all know that divorce, and murder, and obesity, and so forth are correlated with unhappiness, and so we all know that, when we take the total evidence into account, we simply do not have unequivocal evidence that religious believers are happier than non-believers.The Contradictory Advaita and Krishnamurti’s Concept of BrahmanKrishnamurti's ideas are very similar to Advaita Vedanta's Brahman idea. The most influential and dominant school of Indian philosophy, Advaita Vedanta, rejects theism and dualism by insisting that Brahman, the ultimate reality, is without parts or attributes, one without a second. Since Brahman has no properties, contains no internal diversity and is identical with the whole reality it cannot be understood as a personal God. The only reality contains no diversity and to have attributes is to have diversity. The relationship between Brahman and the creation is often thought to be panentheistic. Unlike pantheism, which holds that the divine and the universe are identical, panentheism maintains an ontological distinction between the divine and the non-divine and the significance of both.Reincarnation and karma doctrines vary as notions of what a person is and what is ultimately real or Brahman vary. Advaita Vedanta is an ontology that holds that underlying the seeming change, variety, and multiplicity of existence there are unchanging and permanent entities. In contrast, Buddhism is an ontology according to which there exists nothing permanent and unchanging, within or without a man. Both traditions hold that the empirical world is a show of appearances and both traditions emphasize the human need for spiritual liberation. Buddhists do not believe that at the core of all human beings and living creatures, there is an eternal, essential and absolute something called a soul, self or atman. Buddhists call atman an illusion, maya. In contrast, Advaita describes knowing one's own soul as identical with Brahman as the path to nirvana. Buddhism has defined nirvana as that blissful state when a person realizes that he has no self, no soul. Buddhism and Shankara's Advaita Vedanta represent independent developments of the non-dualistic metaphysics from the Upanishadic period to the time of Sankara. Krishnamurti doctrine, Buddhism, Advaita, etc., could be painted as a philosophy rather than a religion, implying that it does not rely on faith. But there is plenty of faith within these doctrines. Belief in a cycle of reincarnation, or illusion of a cycle, belief in the possibility of leaving the cycle, or the illusion of leaving, the leaving by specific meditative and non-linked means, belief in Jesus, Allah, Brahman, all these are acts of faith. But, is faith not necessary where evidence is sufficient? And does anyone believe anything regardless of the evidence where there is faith? Why isn't a justification of beliefs by faith imagination completely unrestrained and anything goes? The ancient Egyptians also believed that they were right because their supernatural beliefs were thousands of years old.If Brahman is identical with the whole of reality, and it contains no plurality, then reality as a whole is an undifferentiated unity. The idea of Brahman is logically incoherent because it is a substance without properties whereas, by definition, a substance is what has properties. An entity is a set of attributes, an entity without attributes is a contradiction in terms, therefore an attributeless entity is impossible. To employ "without properties" as the description of Brahman is a mistake, because ordinary language uses it to construct a negative existential statement, it is a logical expression that serves for the formulation of a negative existential statement. If it were admissible to introduce "without properties" as the description of Brahman, the existence of Brahman is denied in its very definition. What could be meant by the assertion that everything that exists constitutes a unity, Brahman? Existence is not a genus, to say that something exists is not to classify it at all. The notion of a unity that includes all that exists is a notion devoid of content. What could be unitary in such an ostensible collection? It has been known for a long time that existence is not a property: “Being is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not the concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing. It is merely the positing of a thing...” (Kant). Some logical notions like identity, existence, are irreducible and fundamental. The notion of existence, like that of identity, is a primitive notion unanalysable. It is highly doubtful that existence is properly conceived as a property or attribute of anything; if it were, then it ought to make sense to say that existence exists or existence does not exist. There is an unavoidable a priori element in our knowledge of the existence of entities of any kind whatever. No single formal definition of existence is satisfactory. It is necessary to reject all attempts to explicate the notion of existence in terms of other concepts. The syntactical form in which modern logic introduces the sign for existence is such that it cannot, like a predicate, be applied to signs for objects, but only to predicates. Even a total description of the universe as unity would still leave us with the question of whether it is as it is described; this description is an empirical truth and the fact of existence remain irreducibly empirical and not logically necessary. If there is nothing which the Brahman existence denies then there is nothing which it asserts either, it means nothing. If an explanation must be evaluated, it must be testable. Religions and Krishnamurti have no warrant, no independent justification, no reliability, no method for decreeing what is and what is not beyond science, what is the ultimate reality. What would have to occur to constitute for Brahman's believers a disproof of the existence of Brahman? A believer cannot point to a description that is satisfied by Brahman alone and not by an imaginary Brahman. If believers cannot demonstrate any necessary implication from Brahman, why would Brahman be a necessary explanation? If there is really no difference between what things are like if Brahman is true, and what they are like if it is not true, we can say that the claim has no meaning at all.Believers refuse to allow that anything conceivably could occur which would count against Brahman/Nirvana and Karma existence, then Brahman/Nirvana and Karma are meaningless. An explanation, to be an explanation at all, must explain why a particular thing occurs and undergo particular events and not something else. Can an “explanation” be unintelligible?If there is no mind-independent object against which to measure my ideas, but rather my ideas help to constitute the object, then how can my ideas ever fail—how is error possible? The Brahman's believer pushes beyond common sense to the view that objects are exactly like our illusion of them. We cannot actually conceive of mind-independent objects, that is, objects existing unperceived and unthought of. Why not? Simply because in order to conceive of any such things, we must ourselves be conceiving, thinking of them. There are no trees when no one is there to perceive them and there is no furniture in my office when I leave and close the door. But the Brahman believer's unperceivable objects, lurking behind the scenes and supporting that which we can perceive, sound a lot like the material substances which he so emphatically rejects. The Brahman believer could argue that our ideas must exist in Brahman when not perceived by us. If our ideas exist in Brahman, then they presumably exist continuously. But Brahman cannot literally have our ideas. Our ideas are sensory ideas and Brahman can suffer nothing, nor be affected with any painful sensation, or indeed any sensation at all. Nor can our sensory ideas be copies of Brahman's non-sensory ones.Brahman from Scientific and Philosophical Point of ViewSuppose for the moment that science and belief in Brahman are actually compatible and they reach compatible conclusions. On the hypothesis that there is an unverifiable difference by principle of conception, it renders superfluous the more complicated language of the Brahman believer about reality. If there is really no difference between what things are like if a certain claim is true, and what they are like if it is not true, we can say that that claim has no meaning at all. If there is nothing which a putative assertion denies then there is nothing which it asserts either. Even though, by construction, Brahman's conception makes the same predictions as the hypothesis that common-sense reality, they are considerably less simple than the common-sense hypothesis. Inference to the best explanation, Abductive reasoning, is a cornerstone of scientific methodology. The common-sense hypothesis is better than the Brahman hypothesis. If a Brahman's Believer scientist, BB, makes the illusory universe object of scientific study, it will find that it behaves with the same complexity as the universe described by a scientist disbeliever of Brahman, a Common Sense scientist, CS. Thus what CS calls "the universe", the BB calls "illusions of Brahman". Presumably having made the case that the BB scientist is actually a CS scientist, make the same predictions, the CS scientist applies Occam's Razor, and suggests to the BB scientist to prefer the CS's standard “reality” language over something like a BB's "reality" language. This is because the standard "reality" of CS fits all the data available to the BB scientist, and on the hypothesis that there is an unverifiable predictable difference by principle of conception, it renders superfluous the more complicated language and explanation of BB about reality. But are science and belief in Brahman actually really compatible and they reach compatible conclusions? How could a CS philosopher-scientist think about the hypothetical Brahman and karma beliefs? The belief in rebirth is on the assumption that the universe is law-governed. Everyone is constrained so as to keep in view the accumulated karma. This requires that there exists something like a supernatural principle of cosmic order that arranges our genes, the family conditions we are born into, and the like to correspond to the moral responsibility worth of your past life deeds. Atoms combine to form such a world as individuals deserve because of their past life deeds. When accumulated merits and demerits become ready for fruition, they can impart motion to atoms. But from the scientific point of view, the laws of nature are no respecters of persons or morality, they are impersonal and natural in character.Physics calculations at the theoretical level suffice for the prediction of experimental results. The successful prediction of the results of observations is by far the most important goal of the physicist. The physicist should check most rigorously whether all our assertions, suppositions appear completely into a description of observed results. Any statement that falls beyond this limit, especially any attempt to express something about the “essence of physical things”, “Brahman”, must be eliminated and declared basically unverifiable and superfluous. There are no descriptions of “particles in themselves” or “waves in themselves.” Pictorial-level Interpretations of quantum mechanics between observations are to be excluded from physics. Why should physicians be required to superimpose mutually exclusive causal accounts and spatio-temporal descriptions upon quantum systems during intervals between observations? A series of highly abstract theories have been advanced recently to account for phenomena in the high-energy and short-time-interval domain. For example, M-theory features eleven space-time dimensions, and one version of string theory features twenty-six space-time dimensions. It no longer is plausible to require a high-level theory in physics that includes superimposed pictures of classical waves and particles. There are difficulties for an “explanation attribution implies causation” thesis, because whereas the behavior of an ensemble of particles may be explained satisfactorily, the behavior of an individual particle is not subject to explanation.If there is a supernatural karmic personal moral responsibility order of the sort postulated by the Indian traditions, it must be something radically different from the impersonal amoral natural order that science can discern and that governs the physical processes of the world. And yet the two orders must be intimately related, for it is precisely these natural amoral physical processes that are said to be disposed of by one’s supernatural personal moral responsibility karma. It is wholly implausible that two diverse systems of cosmic order such as this should arise from unrelated sources and come together accidentally; they must, then, have a supernatural common source. If the common source of the natural impersonal order and the supernatural personal karmic moral order is an impersonal amoral Brahman, we are still in need of some account of how and why it would be such as to produce the coordination of these two quite different sorts of order in the cosmos. Supernatural coordination would be much more readily explained if we postulate a personal supernatural coordination source between the impersonal natural order and the personal karmic moral order, as a supposed supernatural personal moral God, who desired that there be created moral persons, and who wished to provide a stable natural order within which they could live and exercise their varied powers, and not as supposed Brahman’s illusions of coordination, impersonal and amoral. It’s hard to see how there could be apparent karma and apparent meaning in an apparent physical universe governed by increasing apparent Entropy, if the universe is headed to apparent complete disorder. Physics’ long track record of apparent successes is the strongest argument for the exclusion of apparent karma from its account of apparent reality. The ultimate reality concept is unverifiable and superfluous.Most who believe in Brahman would argue that going beyond experience is the very essence of spirituality. However, self-reports from finite people of immediate acquaintance with a supposed transcendent thing don't afford a valid ground for inferring that this refers to Brahman's supposed nature beyond any properties and infinite. Neither would the fact that finite people were acquainted with a supposed eternal thing afford a valid ground for inferring that everything is Brahman. The Brahman's believer may say that just as one who can see may communicate new knowledge to the blind, so Brahman might perhaps communicate to us the transcendent existence of a spiritual world without properties. It is, indeed, conceivable that we might for example encounter animals or beings who tell us about a new sense. If these beings were for example to prove to us the Goldbach's conjecture or were to invent a new physical instrument or were to point out a hitherto unknown law of nature, then our knowledge would be increased with their help. For this sort of thing we can test, just the way even a blind man can understand and test the whole of physics and therewith any statement made by those who can see. But if a hypothetical Brahman encounter informs us something which we cannot verify independently of a specific faith, a belief without independent empirical evidence, then we do not know it for certain either. Therefore a meditation mystical experience of Brahman cannot give us knowledge beyond the empirical. The meaning of words is essentially inter-subjective. The contents of our own thoughts, and so of our very recognition of the words of others and the objects and events to which they refer, themselves depend on our sharing with others a pattern of interaction with the world. In describing his transcendence sensations the mystic does not give us any information about an independently shared reality but a dependent shared faith; he merely gives us indirect information about the condition of his own mind.The difficulty in considering for example the theories of meditation in Advaita, Krishnamurti, or Buddhism as objective theories of consciousness is the same difficulty in the origin of the scientific methodology of the Blind experiment: How to eliminate subjective, unrecognized Bias and Cognitive dissonance carried by an experiment's subjects and the conductors of scientific experiments? If the experiment subjects and the conductors of meditation experiments are the same people the problem is compounded. Justification of a theory consists in appealing to something independent: Meditation's experiences ground the beliefs implied by the meditator's sincere reports of such experiences, provided they can be said to cause those beliefs. But it may well be that the beliefs are part of the cause of the experience rather than the other way round.Mystical Experiences from The Scientific and Philosophical Point of ViewTo Krishnamurti thought was the stuff to avoid at all costs. The aim was to be totally uncontaminated by thought. Krishnamurti had many mystical experiences of a union. Some find the sometimes called "mystical experience" or "rapture," "ecstasy," or "bliss”, "enlightenment", "awakening", "savikalpa samadhi," "nirvikalpa samadhi," "satori", so compelling that they devote the rest of their lives to trying to get themselves back to that state again. But the specific teachings and practices of a specific metaphysical tradition, in this case perhaps Advaita like, may determine what kind of experience someone has, which means that mystical experience is not the proof of the teaching, Krishnamurti, Advaitin, Jew, Christian, Sufi, Buddhist, etc, but a result of the teaching.The same kinds of mystical experiences interpreted by people in theistic cultures as experiences of a comforting feel of the presence of God are interpreted by people in non-theistic cultures as experiences of something other than God. No Buddhist or Advaitin ever interprets such an experience as an experience of God, because Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta reject belief in God. Roman Catholics, as well as Orthodox Christians and Anglo Catholics, routinely report religious experiences in which they perceive the Virgin Mary's presence, whereas Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians never report anything remotely like that. When someone perceives something they take to be God's presence, they obviously cannot perceive by his senses that this entity made the universe and knows everything, or take to be Brahman and experiment something infinite or that everything is Brahman. As mystical experiences contradict one another, it seems more reasonable to suppose that religious experiences should not be thought of in analogy with our sensory experiences: mystical experiences are not connections with some aspect of reality. Everything that can be said in favor of people's reports that they have experienced God or Brahman can equally well be said in favor of other people's reports that they have experienced abduction by space aliens.The lack of objective independent criteria in determining whether some experience of Jesus or Brahman in meditations and mystical experiences are veridical or illusory is the fatal weakness in testimony from an Advaita's meditation experience. If we accept the testimony of physicists concerning the truth of scientific theories, we do so not because of their authority, not because they say so, but because we believe that they can provide strong independent evidence in support of their positions. Is the Krishnamurti's or Teresa of Avila testimony able to provide strong independent evidence in support of Brahman or Jesus? The mystical experiences only seem profound and persuasive because the mind's critical faculties are relatively inactive during them.The words in which we report private sensations owe their meaning to their connections with the physical world. Without connections with the physical world, there aren't independent criteria for the re-identification of particular sensations. Without independent criteria, there aren't correct and wrong concepts, and therefore private sensations cannot be conceptualized. It is because checking our own impressions or memories to see if we are following private sensations concepts correctly without independent criteria it is like we correct our own school test, without external correction what seems correct is correct, there aren't wrong concepts, it is unverifiable coherence by us. If what exactly constitutes a supposed enlightenment awakening is in principle incapable of translation into ordinary language concepts, then the enlightened is unable to make sense of it for us and for himself too. If an enlightened can talk, we cannot understand him, and he himself, because understanding is only possible based on similar forms of life and the supposed radical difference between human and enlightened forms of life would therefore also preclude any correct or incorrect independent concepts for us and the enlightened. Theories of meditation need to be a matter of public empirical investigation.Is there really a need for the knowledge of Advaita, Buddhist or Krishnamurti doctrines to have meaningful and lasting effects on mystical experiences? Are meaningful and lasting effects mystical experiences validation of metaphysical religious doctrines? Some scholars have proposed that many of the qualities of a drug-induced mystical experience are indistinguishable from mystical experiences achieved through non-drug techniques, such as meditation. In 1962 the Marsh Chapel Experiment, which was run by Pahnke at the Harvard Divinity School, almost all of the graduate degree divinity student volunteers who received psilocybin reported profound Christian religious experiences. One of the participants was religious scholar Huston Smith, author of several textbooks on comparative religion; he later described his experience as "the most powerful cosmic homecoming I have ever experienced.” The study cast considerable doubt on the assertion that mystical experiences catalyzed by drugs are in any way inferior to non-drug mystical experiences in both their immediate content and long-term effects. A follow-up study conducted 14 months after the original psilocybin session confirmed that participants continued to attribute deep personal meaning to the experience. About two-thirds indicated that the experience increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction. In 2011, it was published the results of further studies. In a 14-month follow-up, the researchers found that 94% of the volunteers rated their experiences with psilocybin as one of the top five most spiritually significant of their lives. None of the 90 sessions that took place throughout the study were rated as decreasing well-being or life satisfaction. Moreover, 89% reported positive changes in their behaviors as a result of the experiences. (Wikipedia)Are meaningful and lasting effects mystical experiences from drugs different from enlightenment awakening experiences of religious doctrines? Total loss of ego. Feeling as the time becomes meaningless, out-of-body experiences and extrasensory perception type sensations. Merging with the universe. The actual universe, as normally perceived, ceases to exist. Experience of mystical death/rebirth. Connection to an "all-knowing presence" or a "universal knowledge", which many equate with God, Brahman, love, transcendent unity, or enlightenment. All this can be achieved with strong doses of vaporized DMT, very strong doses of psilocybin mushrooms, very strong doses of LSD, strong doses of salvinorin A, and high but sub-anesthetic doses of ketamine.Are the qualities of spontaneous mystical psychosis experiences different from religious enlightenment awakening? Mystical psychosis is a term coined by Arthur J. Deikman in the early 1970s to characterize first-person accounts of psychotic experiences that are strikingly similar to reports of mystical experiences. According to Deikman, psychotic experience need not be considered pathological, especially if consideration is given to the values and beliefs of the individual concerned. The mystical experience may be several causes: psychosis, substance abuse or withdrawal, and mood disorders.It does not matter that one cannot experience another's subjective meditative religious sensations. Unless the talk of such subjective experience is learned through public shared experience the actual content is irrelevant; all we can discuss is what is available in our public shared language. To know the meaning of a word is to know how to use it rightly; and where there can be no check on how a man uses a word there is no room to talk of "right" and "wrong" use. To understand the meaning of words like "mind," "thought," "love," "belief," "dream", "Brahman," "savikalpa samadhi," "nirvikalpa samadhi," "nirvana," and so forth, we must attend to how these words are actually publically learned and shared in the first place.Brahman and MoralityThe Brahman's believer faces two problems: He must characterize the phenomena he takes as basic, Brahman, and must explain how the fundamental phenomena, Brahman, make up the apparent non-basic phenomena, the "illusions". Without this characterization and explanation the Brahman's belief is like any other religious faith. Advaita/Buddhism denies that, ultimately, there are such things as people who could support moral properties as deserving. Why does the teaching of karma and rebirth, even if not strictly speaking true, give those who accept it an apparent prudential reason to be moral, if the apparent reward and punishment generated by apparent karma across lives could never be deserved in the absence of a real transmigrating self? Ultimately there is just a unique impersonal entity. After the apparent sun dies, some 5 billion years from now, there will be other apparent worlds and stars and galaxies coming into being and they will know nothing of a place once called apparent earth, now a mote of apparent dust suspended in an apparent sunbeam. Is there apparent karma and meaning in the apparent universe? What could be the point of the huge apparent superabundance of planets, especially given the fact that humanity will never know most of it? Why does Brahman precede humanity with apparent vast multitudes of life forms, most of which become extinct before human existence? Several apparent creatures evolved eyes and then lost them as they adapted to dark environments. Several apparent parasites, having begun their evolutionary careers as complex organisms, became simpler after taking up their parasitic lifestyles. If a world in which there is apparent evil, natural disasters, and disease in apparently good people, and apparent virtue is not always rewarded, they are not evidencing against the existence of karma and apparent meaning, why should we consider the apparent contrary conditions to be such evidence? Why does Buddha teach that each apparent action has its own specific apparent consequence for the apparent agent, the apparent hedonistic nature of which is determined by apparent causal laws, apparent karma, and in such a way as to require apparent rebirth as long as apparent action continues, if the karma and universe meaning really doesn't exist?Brahman lies beyond the illusions of good and evil. Therefore how can the Brahman concept demand of us any specific duty? If all are merely manifestations of illusory aspects of Brahman, should one person put their own interests before another, or the sentient ahead of the insentient, or the living ahead of the non-living? Believers who are concerned to preserve their individual free conscience must allow that there are non-Brahman minds. If non-Brahman minds are merely manifestations aspects of Brahman, then Brahman is the ultimate determinant of the actions of these minds. The illusion of the burden of moral responsibility for one's deeds is not thus to be borne by the individual. Therefore if Brahman is the sole constitution of everything, it is plagued with serious problems, because it cannot be that distinct minds jointly constitute a unique mind, for the preservation of individual free conscience, and Brahman is otherness, not a conscious mind. If Brahman were some type of all-embracing free conscience he would undermine the autonomous personhood free conscience of finite individuals, for one person cannot be the same of another. If Brahman is perfect and unchangeable, and we are unity, then illusions of finitude, multiplicity, and change cannot arise. If reincarnation and karma are illusions, then there must be someone whose illusions they are, and since by nature Brahman cannot be subject to illusion, there must be persons with a free conscience who are not identical to Brahman. A common mark of religions is the recognition that the human condition is unsatisfactory and their offer to overcome this state through a process of human transformation to some more elevated state. If Brahman is the universe and everything, can belief in Brahman respond to this? Something can only become merged with Brahman, or become Brahman, if it is now different from Brahman. Can belief in Brahman offer the believer hope for a better life if what is distinctive about Brahman is precisely the disavowal of any hope for personal immortality? Why don't impersonality and indiscernibility without qualities mean eternal death?Why is it necessary to assume the existence of a soul?When a patient afflicted with Alzheimer dies, what is it that survives, if precisely, most of his memories have already been lost? How does your mind have experiences similar to what you would have if you don't have an impaired brain? How is it possible that the mind can perceive without sensory organs? Our sensory organs seem to be involved in every activity we try to describe even though we have tried to imagine a mind existing without it. If souls are immaterial and have no spatial extension, how can they be separate from other souls? It would be far from clear what the soul exactly could be if it is not identical to the mind, and what the mind could be without a brain. Occam's razor requires that unless there is any compelling evidence, there is no need to assume the existence of a soul that uses the brain as its instrument. Neurology and psychology are perfectly explained if our minds are located with our bodies in particular, if our minds just are parts of our bodies, but it is much harder to explain if our minds are located somewhere beyond the confines of our universe, or at no place.If every person's soul is a reborn soul, how does rebirth account for the increasing human world population?Varieties of Karma ConceptionKarma refers to the principle of causality where the intent and actions of an individual influence the future of that individual. Good intent and good deed contribute to good karma and future happiness, while bad intent and bad deed contribute to bad karma and future suffering. With origins in ancient India, it is a key concept in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Shintoism.Karma concept in Hinduism developed and evolved over centuries. Over time, various schools of Hinduism developed many different definitions of karma, some making karma appear quite deterministic, while others make room for free will and moral agents. For example, Vedanta school acknowledges karma-rebirth doctrine, but concludes it is a theory that is not derived from reality and cannot be proven, considers it invalid for its failure to explain evil/inequality/other observable facts about society, treats it as a convenient fiction to solve practical problems in 2700 years ago, and declares it irrelevant; in the Advaita Vedanta school, actions in current life have moral consequences and liberation is possible within one's life as a self-realized person. Yoga school considers karma from past lives to be secondary, one's behavior and psychology in the current life is what has consequences and leads to entanglements. Nyaya school of Hinduism considers karma and rebirth as central. Mimamsa school gives a negligible role to karma from past lives, disregards Samsara and Moksha. Each school has sub-schools in Hinduism, such as Vedanta school's non-dualism and dualism sub-schools. Furthermore, there are other schools of Hinduism such as the Carvaka, and the materialists Lokayata who denied the theory of karma-rebirth as well as the existence of God.It’s no good saying that karma shouldn’t be interpreted in this or that manner; there can be a Jain interpretation, a Hindu interpretation, a Buddhist interpretation, and so on, but in a system with no evidence to back it up, and available for anyone to co-opt for their own purposes, there can be no such thing as wrong interpretation. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them. All of us disagree with billions of people all of the time, particularly over matters of faith. Incredulous disagreement is normal in matters of imaginative speculation. How can the believer ever be confident that a particular revelation originates from the supernatural?Rebirths cannot have a soul, Karma doesn’t have an objectThe reward and punishment generated by karma across lives and rebirth could never exist in the absence of a transmigrating self. Karma to work, it is important that the person who is rewarded or punished is the same as the one who lived virtuously or lived sinfully. But the Buddhist perspective is that what we routinely call ego, self, soul, individual personality, are merely conventional terms that do not apply to anything real. Buddhism denies there is any such soul or self in a living being, but does assert that there is a cycle of transmigration consisting of rebirth and death as the fundamental nature of existence. It is no doubt quite difficult to believe that karma and rebirth exist in the form that the Buddha claims. Advaita describes knowing one's own soul as identical with Brahman as the path to nirvana. If one's own soul is identical to Brahman then karma and rebirth are illusions. It is said that Brahman’s existence can be confirmed by those who have developed mystical experience. But this is of little help to those not already convinced that mystical experience is a reliable means of knowledge. Disagreement among modern interpreters of the not-self doctrine attests to the difficulty of providing a definitive account of this core aspect of Buddhist philosophy. It is clear that the body ceases to exist at death. And given the Buddha's argument that mental states all originate in dependence on sense-object contact events, it seems no psychological constituent of the person can transmigrate either. Yet the Buddha claims that persons who have not yet achieved enlightenment will be reborn as sentient beings of some sort after they die. If there is no constituent whatever that moves from one life to the next, how could the being in the next life be the same person as the being in this life? This question becomes all the more pointed when it is added that rebirth is governed by karma, something that functions as a kind of cosmic justice: those born into fortunate circumstances do so as a result of good deeds in prior lives, while unpleasant births result from evil past deeds. Such a system of reward and punishment could be justified only if the recipient of pleasant or unpleasant karmic fruit is the same person as the agent of the good or evil action. It is incomprehensible how this could be so in the absence of a persisting self. The evidence that the Buddha himself accepted rebirth and karma seems quite strong. However, some Buddhists' doubts about non-self and rebirth have led to the rejection of not non-self but rebirth. The pedagogical teaching of karma and rebirth for householders, even if not strictly speaking true, would hypothetically give those who accept it a prudential reason to be moral. But this sort of noble lie justification for the Buddha teaching a doctrine he does not accept fails in the face of the evidence that he also taught it to quite advanced monastics. Buddha teaches the far stricter view that each action has its own specific consequence for the agent, the hedonic nature of which is determined by causal laws and in such a way as to require rebirth as long as the action continues. There is a conflict between the doctrine of non-self and the teaching of karma and rebirth, it is not to be resolved by weakening the Buddha's commitment to the latter.The Immorality of KarmaThis is an example of what Buddhist women, not only in Thailand but elsewhere, can hear over and over: A woman had a ten-year marriage with a husband who was an alcoholic. With immense suffering, she went to see a monk and ask for spiritual guidance. The monk said to her, “Be patient and keep making more merit so that one day the accumulated merit will help improve your life.” That same monk gave similar advice to another woman whose husband was having an affair with another woman. The monk said: “There is nothing you can do about it. Keep being nice to him. Do not ever challenge his behavior, because you have done bad karma to him in your previous life.”(See Objections to Karma and Rebirth, Ingrid Hansen Smythe, in The myth of an afterlife edited by Michael Martin 2015)How do you convince generations of people to muck out your sewers for you? Tell him that due to immoral acts committed in his past lives, it’s his own fault that they were born untouchables, it certainly has nothing to do with expedient social structures that almost seem calculated to benefit the people in the higher castes, who wield all the power. Convince someone that there’s absolutely no way out of his misery in this life, and that his only hope for a better life next time around is to fulfill the duties of his caste to the letter, and those duties just happen to include a lifetime underground covered in human waste. In other words, make someone believe in karma and rebirth and you’ve got yourself a docile workhorse who won’t even question his fate and will even raise his own sons to believe that they, too, must spend their lives covered in human waste in order to work off their bad karma.The concept of karma perfectly justifies the caste system based on birth. It favors the argument that people of lower castes have to blame themselves for their plight because of their bad karma in their past lives. Their pitiable plight is a stern warning to the rest of humanity that the wheel of dharma operates inexorably, sparing none and favoring none. This line of argument is found in many scriptures, including the Bhagavad Gita, according to which people of good merit and those who had developed detachment or dispassion were born in pious families. By combining the belief in karma with the caste system, the ancient lawmakers expected people to follow them sincerely as an integral part of their religious duty. Observing these duties without questioning them was an act of merit, which entitled them to progress on the path of dharma and obtain a better life in the next birth. Postulating rebirth is essential because, obviously, karma doesn’t deliver its promised rewards and punishments in just one.How could animals suffer as a form of punishment when they’ve not done anything wrong? If it is necessary to postulate regression to lower life-forms in order to account for animal suffering, then the number of humans who would have had to exist would be many orders of magnitude greater than the number that has actually existed, and it seems possible that we might all be trapped on the wheel of rebirth forever.To rebirth or karma to work, the person who is rewarded or punished needed to be the same as the one who lived virtuously or lived immorally. But how is it possible?If one person's mind is taken from his deteriorated body and placed into another healthy body, the resulting person has all of the anterior brain memories. Because the same set of memories had rewarded or punished needs to be distinct bodies, the view that persons are identified with their bodies must be false. If the soul is immaterial, not identical to the mind/brain/body, how can we be sure that a soul continues to be the same in an afterlife? If you do not remember being a baby or a soul in past lives, can you still surely claim to be the same soul as a baby/past soul if the soul is immaterial, not identical to the mind/brain/body? How someone could tell that one and only one soul has been associated with a body? We cannot observe a soul, the reason for thinking that a person has the same soul over time is just that the person's body appears to be the same over time. We can never know if our soul is the same as a previous life. There is no intelligible criterion for soul identity to remain the same over time.Might a past being be you if and only if you can now remember an experience you had then? Is memory the criterion of identity of souls? No. Suppose we want to know whether Abel, who exists now, is the same as Cain, whom we know to have existed at some time in the past. The memory criterion tells us that Abel is Cain just if Abel can now remember an experience Cain had at that past time. But Abel's seeming to remember one of Cain's experiences counts as genuine memory only if Abel actually is Cain. If God can recreate a being that has all the memories appropriate to someone, what would prevent God from creating more identical memories? If they all had the same memories, on this account they would all be the same and this contradicts what we mean by personal identity. So we should already have to know whether Abel is Cain before we could apply the principle that is supposed to tell us whether he is. Therefore you cannot know whether someone genuinely remembers a past experience without already knowing whether he is the one who had it. That makes it uninformative to say that you are the person whose experiences you can remember, that is, that memory continuity is sufficient for personal identity. It is uninformative because you cannot know whether someone genuinely remembers a past experience without already knowing whether he is the one who had it.Is a person x who exists at one time identical with someone y existing at another time if and only if x is, at the one time, psychologically continuous with y as it is at the other time? Suppose you are reborn in another body. Will you be the same if you perceive and feel the world with other sensory organs and physical capacity? Why will there be psychological continuity of souls? Psychological-continuity of souls views conflict with our belief that each of us was once a fetus. A 12-week-old fetus is something that will, if all goes well, be born, learn to speak, and eventually become an adult human person. Yet none of us is in any way psychologically the same 12-week-old fetus.Final WordsMystical experiences correlate to observable neurological events that can be independently confirmed, there is no need of recourse to the supernatural. Supernaturalists themselves will have to appeal to such explanations in the course of offering an account for most mystical experiences that they consider to be non-veridical. So the burden surely lies with them to show that some mystical experiences, those favored by them as veridical, are indeed produced by the supernatural. Once you appreciate the widespread tendency of people to arrive at mystical interpretations that derive from the religions with which the subjects are familiar, it is clear that none can maintain that he alone is privileged and rival interpretations are erroneous. Given also the correlations between religious experience, ingestion of drugs and observable clinical neurological events, trust in these experiences as routes to the transcendent are entirely unwarranted. A pure consciousness without concepts, reached by "mystical experience", can be a personal sense of certainty without independent critical objectivity. Mystical enlightening metaphysics and scientific paradigms are so different that almost nothing you can say in the language of religion makes any sense in the language of science; and vice-versa. The challenge is to express a hypothesis concerning the metaphysics of enlightening that makes sense in the independent language of science. Nobody can live permanently in mystical experience, if we have any independent idea of what anyone else means by these words. It seems like religious faith like any other.These and further considerations in DevasGuru's answer to What are the strongest arguments against religion?

By Reading Yourself……!!!!!!Often SSB Aspirants, tend to ask question as What is the best book to Clear SSB, In my view You Yourself.!If you find it hard believe, let me tell you, it’s the normal response, but at the end of the day, actuality is same. It just you and yourself, who have any say to change the Results of the SSB.Crack in my view is not the correct word, crack is kind of word,where you find shortcuts to a destiny, or, just keep practicing without much of brain behind it. You can crack a Exam, But SSB is not a Exam and never was designed to be one. If one knows, in SSB results they never mention the word Pass or Fail, It’s Recommended or Not-Recommended for the Service. It’s a simple change of words, but holds a lot more meaning behind it.Before even i go into details of various entries and procedures, you need to first get yourself prepared till the end, so that you clear every round in One go.I believe even before setting in for above tasks and planning for them, invest good amount of time in yourself. Without Knowing yourself, one can never get through SSB, and that’s how each task is designed to get qualities out of your personality.Self Introspection of your qualities is very crucial. Knowing ones’ Strength and Weakness are the building blocks to success.Coming To Various Stages of Interviews, you can scroll down to the part which says SSB SELECTION PROCESS, if you are interested knowing more about how to Self Introspect, you can read further, otherwise i would suggest, you can stop your reading here.Now, as you have chosen to read further, well first of all congrats because You have PATIENCE my friend. Even before keeping any points in my mind for SSB, my friend you need look into you,i.e.Self Introspection is crucial aspect of SSB, and indeed Life. Unless and Until you don’t know about you Strengths and much more important your weaknesses, it will make things a lot tricky.SSB as a whole is rather very easy testing process, and why not it was designed to be like that, so that your real self can come out, its Us who make tough for us by trying the shortcuts, and this step is taken when someone is to much crazy about achieving something, well both this things don’t go well with SSB.I will what i did, for a start for self introspection, you can have your own way for it, I took a A4 sheet and started with my Strengths, an you know what i got a hell lot of strengths on the paper, but then came climax, When i started jotting down myweaknesses, i could only make 4–5 points max,if you see this in normal scenario its good that i have less weaknesses and even anyone would see it that way,and i am no different, but i took a random thought process, i thought why is it that i have so less weaknesses but then too i am not able to hit the target, answer was obvious, i was not looking in for weaknesses deeply, what my mind did while writing down weaknesses was it started categorizing them common, small or negligible weaknesses, whereas same didn’t happened in case of Strengths, there i had it, I broke down classification, and started finding weaknesses of mine, and believe and made me realize that there were many incidents which overlooked instead of learning from those mistakes.Sorry, for long explanation , but i guess you must have got my point, but don’t just stop at Strengths and Weaknesses, think of what you daily, your hobbies, you sporting activities, this will help you to confidently answer question about yourself, and believe me or not, when you don’t know yourself completely its this Questions On you which take you down.So, when you are out there in SSB, you need to make sure of this things in broader aspects,BE YOURSELF - let others response may sound how much interesting and thrilling, its your response and reaction that matters at that moment, from my experience i thing which i observed, SSB majorly focuses on how you do itordeal with a certain situation. Even if you give an interesting and impressive answers, which you have mugged up, it wont do any good, and in fact do a lot bad, Instead, you can give your answers, and think before answering so that when stressed upon, you can confidently support your point.PRESENCE OF MIND - Its very crucial, a lot go down just because they neglect this aspect. Presence Of Mind not brings in “A” Game of yours, it broadens your horizon of thinking, instead of getting excited and running just for the sake of running without any direction. This Aspect brings in Patience in you, and its no secret staying calm in stressful situation is key to go through it.BE POSITIVE & OPTIMISTIC - Putting you under stress is what SSB does to take your real out, so many times things don’t go the best way you would have hoped for, now at this point you need to have a optimistic view, analyse your mistake and move on, instead of crying and getting worried over it, as doing this just starts a chain reaction which will destroy all your tests.All the above mentioned three points together power up your CONFIDENCE, and it goes in your favor in a big way.SSB SELECTION PROCESSThe aim of five day testing is to assess personality of candidates by three pronged approach – Manasa, Vacha & Karmna, Translating into your thoughts, speech and deed/actions. These three approaches are termed as techniques and they are assessed by Psychologist, Interviewing Officer and Group testing Officer independently. The summation of three approaches in conference gives inputs for identifying a potential and a trainable Armed Forces leader.TESTING SCHEDULE AT SSBThe selection process is spread over five days testing schedule and is conducted in two stages. Stages I is conducted on the first day and the candidates having some chance of getting selected are retained for Stage II based on the performance of candidates in written test and Picture Perception and Discussion Test (PP & DT) conducted on Day 1. The brief program for five days is given below and the same is elaborated in subsequent sections.STAGE -1DAY 1 - Written Test, PP & DTSTAGE – IIDAY 2- Psych Test ; InterviewDAY 3- GTO 1 Day; InterviewDAY 4- GTO 2 Day; InterviewDAY 5- ConferenceREPORTING DAYRECEPTIONYour day of reporting starts with the reception as per the details given in call letter/ SMS sent to you, a reception is organised for all candidates at the railway station. You have to report to the Movement Control Office (MCO) at the time and date given in call letter/SMS. Here a representative of the SSB manning the reception will receive you and direct you to a bus that will take you to SSB.Candidates arriving late or by road/air should proceed directly on their own and report to the SSB. On your arrival at the SSB, you will be given sufficient time to settle down.OPENING ADDRESSThe first organised event at the SSB is the opening address. The duty officer gives and introductory talk, explains matters of administration arrangements, the DOs and Don'ts at the SSB and the routine at SSB in the brief for the next five days. Listen carefully to what he says.DOCUMENTATIONAfter the opening address Documentation check is the next event. You are required to produce your original certificates for verification and fill up certain forms like the TA form on the reporting day itself. You will also be allotted chest numbers for your Stage I testing.DAY 1 – STAGE 1OIR TESTMorning of the Day 1 begins with the Officer Intelligence Rating (OIR) Test. The test would start early, so ensure that you have a good night sleep and wake up in time to be ready for the tests. The tests themselves include verbal and non-verbal tests which require simple and analytical reasoning.PPDTThe second test of Day 1 is Picture Perception and Discussion Test (PP&DT). During this test a picture is flashed on screen for 30 seconds and candidates have to broadly note down certain basic parameters i.e. No of characters, their age, sex, mood and thereafter write a story relating to the situation in the picture. A story that could cover, what according to the candidate’s perception led to the situation in the picture, its present and future development? The time allotted for the story to be written down is 4 minutes.GROUP DISCUSSIONIn this test the picture and your stories would be discussed in a group. For this phase the batch is divided in small groups. The strength of a group is around fifteen candidates. To start the Group Discussion, each candidate would be required to narrate his perception and individual written story. Subsequently, candidates will discuss among themselves and achieve a common consensus about the characters and the theme of the story.RESULT OF STAGE 1Once all candidates have undergone this stage the results of Stage I are declared. Successful candidates are retained for Stage II testing and the balance are asked to leave after a short brief on general shortcomings. The candidates are provided with lunch and transport to go to the railway station. Candidates will also be paid the entitled Travelling Allowance for AC 3 tier class. This travelling allowance is paid to candidates appearing for the first time in SSB on production of the original tickets.STAGE 2The candidates retained for further testing in Stage 2 will be divided into groups of eight to ten candidates. Each candidate will be allotted a new chest number. It is important to remember that you are not competing with other candidates, all of you will be assessed against the common standard of suitability and it is possible that everyone in the group is selected or rejected. You will require to fill up Personal Information Questionnaire (PIQ) with correct and exact details about your life. In case of a large batch some of you may find yourself facing Interviewing Officer in the evening of same day.DAY - 2PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTThe second day sees the testing in the earnest and begins with the onset of Psychological Assessment. The candidates are taken through a series of situations projected as words, pictures and narrated situations. The reaction timings are stringent to bring in natural and subconscious behavioral pattern of individual. As the Psych tests takes time and one has to be fresh and natural, the tests are started early in the morning. Before the tests are administered you will be briefed by the Psychologist about the various tests you have to undergo, also before you undergo actual tests you will be familiarises with the example tests of each type. Psych test are administered on candidates to access the psychological profile acceptable for candidates of particular age group.THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TESTThe first test among the battery of Psych tests is the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). In this test a total of 12 pictures including a blank picture will be shown for 30 seconds each, one after the other. Candidates are asked to write story around the picture shown, covering issues like what led to the situation, what is going on and what would be the outcome of the situation perceived in the picture. The picture is selected in a manner to allow your creative mind to evolve a number of stories.No story is correct or wrong, what matters is it must be a story triggered in your mind by the picture. Remember that the picture is shown only for 30 seconds and then you are asked to write about the picture within four minutes. In the blank picture, you have to imagine a picture of your own choice and write a story around that. Since the timings are stringent you are advised to write the story that occurs to you first on seeing the picture, that way your response will be natural and you will be able to write the entire story within the limited time available to you.WORD ASSOCIATION TESTThe next psych test is the Word Association Test (WAT). In this test a total of 60 words are shown to the candidates. Each word is flashed on the screen for 15 seconds. The candidate is required to write down the first thought or idea that comes to his mind on seeing the word in the space provided in the 15 seconds before the next word is flashed.SITUATION REACTION TESTThe third psych test is the Situation Reaction Test (SRT). This test consists of 60 routine life situations regarding day to day activities. The situations are printed in the booklet and candidate is asked to write his reaction by completing the sentences as to how he would feel, think and act in these situations. A total of 30 minutes are given to candidates to write down reactions to all the sixty situations in the booklet.SELF DESCRIPTION TESTThe last in the battery of Psych tests is the Self Description Test (SD). Each candidate is given 15 minute and is asked to write 5 separate paragraphs on the opinion of his parents or guardian, friends, teachers or superiors, self opinion and qualities the candidate would like to develop/ inculcate in himself.Following is the way how you will mostly probably sited for Psych Test.DOS & DON‘TS PSYCH TESTDOsListen and adhere to the instructions properly.Clarify all your doubts before the commencement of each test.Be as imaginative and spontaneous as possible.Give your first reaction to picture/word shown to you, don’t think twice as there is no right or wrong answer to the situation, everyone is like to respond in his own unique way.Be realistic and logical in your responses and keep track of time.Don'tsDo not use coached/ tutored ideas while responding to psychological test battery.Do not create mental sets about pictures during run up to the SSB as it may restrict your spontaneity and imagination.INTERVIEWOn completion of Psych tests and subsequent refreshment break, some of the candidates have to appear before the Interviewing Officer for Personal Interview. The interviews will continue in the afternoon and evenings of Day 2, 3 and 4. You will be interviewed only once and will be informed well in advance about the time and place.The atmosphere throughout the interview is relaxed and informal. The questions are generally based on your every day experiences and relating to your work, education, family and spare time activities, hobbies and interests. Each candidate is interviewed for a duration ranging from 45 minutes to an hour. The Interviewing Officer will discuss by way of questions and answers the opportunities you had in your life and utilisation you made of them. The Interviewing Officer is fairly senior and experienced in the armed Forces while he interacts with you, he assesses whether you have the essential qualities to be trained to become an officer in the armed Forces. What you have done till date with regard to your academics, your achievements and extra curricular activities, your interest in life, interaction with your parents, friends and society at large. Candidates’ general awareness, physical and mental fortitude, form important facets to assist him in his assessment. No one is perfect and the Interviewing Officer understands and gives more than adequate benefits for the shortcomings or mistakes which you may have committed thus do not try and hide anything. The tendency of lying and making false pretences is easily found and is viewed negatively.DOS & DON'TS – INTERVIEWLook smart, cheerful and enthusiastic.Be audible but not too loud and appear keen to speak and respond to questions.Sit straight and comfortably, do not fidget, do not keep moving your hands and legs as it may distract the interviewer from your responses.If you have not understood anything politely ask for clarification or to repeat the question.You are expected to be aware so as to touch upon current events if asked.DAY 3 - GROUP TESTINGThe third day is full of exciting physical activity in the Group Testing Grounds. The candidates will be briefed by the Group Testing Officer in the morning about all out door activities. The primary concern here is to see how you will face the obstacles and the tasks allotted to you and your attitude towards other members of the group both while working with them and while directing them. Group tests do not require specialised individual skills on your part, logical thinking, coordinated team efforts, work ability to receive and give suggestion is what is looked at by assessors. You will be provided with Sketch Board, Ladders, Ropes, Planks and other such things as your tools to help you in the assigned task. You are given few minutes to form plan and thereafter execute the task within the given timeframe. The battery of GTO tests consists of nine tests/ tasks.GROUP DISCUSSIONThe first task of GTO battery of test begins with Group Discussions on a debatable topic, which is usually given on a current event/social issues. In the first group discussion the group is allowed to select one of the two topics offered.In the second group discussion the topic is of the GTO’s choice. Each discussion will last for approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Each candidate is expected to participate in the discussions. Remember that the discussions involve the exchange of ideas and thoughts. It is not a traffic of words.GROUP PLANNING EXERCISEThe Group planning Exercise is the second test of the GTO test series. In this test a story on a model with a few problems is narrated. What you are required to do is to identify the problems and evolve the practical solution within the given time. You are expected to write down your own individual solution on the paper provided to you. A candidate while giving solution should think logically, write and draw neatly and also examine alternate solutions of the problem. Thereafter your group collective solution will be discussed by the group and you are expected to participate in evolving the group plan acceptable to everyone. One of you may then be asked to explain the acceptable group plan.PROGRESSIVE GROUP TASKProgressive Group Task is the next GTO test. Four obstacles are required to be collectively negotiated by your group along with a heavy load. Certain helping materials in the form of Rope, Planks etc are provided for the task to be completed within 40 minutes. Ground rules will be explained to the candidates in detail before the commencement of the tests. Make sure you and your group adheres to the rules strictly. Also remember that all of you and the load need to negotiate the obstacle together to move on during this test.GROUP OBSTACLE RACEUnlike other tasks here the entire group competes with other groups of your batch over a set of six obstacles. Each group has to carry a roll of tent/ stuffed gunny bags in the shape of snake from the start point to finish point. Therefore the task is commonly referred as Snake Race. The rules of the race will be explained to you, the winner is the group that cover all the obstacles against the challenge posed by opponents. Not to forget to include time, obstacles and load within the framework of rules of the race. After the race there is a short 20 minutes break for rest and refreshments.HALF GROUP TASK (HGT)After the break you will participate in the Half Group Task. This task is similar to the PGT except that it is conducted over one obstacle with smaller group.LECTURETTEOn completion of HGT the GTO will conduct the task called lecturette. Each member of your group will deliver a three minutes informal talk on a topic selected by candidate from the set of topics offered separately to each candidate.Approximately three minutes are given to the candidate to prepare the talk and thereafter speak for three minutes in front of group on the subject chosen by the candidate.DAY 4 - GROUP TESTINGThe balance of the Group Tests are conducted on fourth day. The test begins early in the morning with Individual Obstacle (IO) course.INDIVIDUAL OBSTACLESIn the individual Obstacle there are ten obstacles designed to test candidates individual ability in negotiating them, you are given three min to negotiate as many obstacle as possible on your own. If the course is completed within the time limit, you may repeat the obstacle of your choice. You will be given short break after all members of the group have completed their individual obstacle course.COMMAND TASKThe next task in line is the Command Task, each member of your group will be put in command of the group in turn, the objective being completion of the specified task as commander of a group. You will be first briefed by the GTO regarding the task and thereafter you will explain the task to your group as commander and give instructions to them and also monitor the completion of the task personally.FINAL GROUP TASKAs the name suggest the last GTO test is the final group task, here once again the entire group gets together to complete an assigned task within the stipulated time frame.DOS & DON'TS for GTO TESTDOsPerceive the problems posed correctly and assimilate all details.Have adequate awareness about general/ current affairs.Be quick enough to think and write solutions.Solutions should be logical and realistic.Be spontaneous and forthright in expressing yourself, participate actively.In outdoor task, be energetic, participate and contribute to the group activities.Understand the requirement of the task, plan and try to evolve/suggest workable ideas.Keep the group aim in mind.Be confident and develop perseverance in pursuing the aim/goal.Be effective in communicationDon’tDon’t limit yourself to one type of media-explore various types of media to acquire knowledge/awareness about topics of general interest.Don’t try to put pre-conceived knowledge / ideas, utilize them to generate own ideas.Don’t sit/stand back and wait for opportunity to come your way – grab the opportunity.Don’t shut out others’ ideas.DAY 5 – CONFERENCE DAYCLOSING ADDRESSThe last or the 5th day is spent in the conference. In the continuation of the process of selection, the day begins with the closing address. Closing Address is generally given by Dy President of the board before the Board Conference. During the address officer will highlight the merits of selection system, explain the qualities that we in the Armed Forces are looking for in your personality and provide clarification to any doubts or question that may arise in your mind. This is also interactive forum for you to put forward any problem complaint or any suggestion that you may have experienced during your stay at SSB.BOARD CONFERENCEThe Board Conference is the final event of the five day testing process, during the board conference which is chaired by president, Dy president and all the assessors that is the GTOs, Psychologists and Interviewing Officers, who have assessed you will be in attendance. Each candidate is discussed in detail by the three assessors, who have examined his demonstrated performance through the specific technique independently to arrive at consensus on acceptability of each candidate. Detailed process of validation and counter validation is undertaken to arrive at final decision about the candidate. Candidates will be asked to appear individually before the board. You will be asked some question during the conference. Your answers during the conference are also important. The board makes final recommendation about the suitability of the candidate as well as final marks to be awarded to each candidate.DECLARATION OF RESULTAfter all the candidates have appeared before the board and the result has been compiled, the Technical Officer of the board will announce the result. The candidates who fail to make the grade are seen off at the railway station. All those who are recommended by the board will stay on for the medical examination which may take one week.MEDICAL EXAMINATIONRecommended candidates appear before the medical board for carrying out their medical board after the SSB results. It takes 4 to 5 working days for the concerned Military Hospital to complete the medical board and after that the candidates are dispersed. NDA candidates are examined both for Army and Navy unless otherwise instructed and endorsement of fitness status will be made accordingly. President of the medical board will guide the candidates for Appeal/Review Medical Board procedures. Candidates may seek the advice of President Special Medical Board for review/appeal in case they have been declared unfit.Few Tips from my personnel experienceBE YOURSELF and I mean it, not just for the sake of saying. Trust you actions and Thoughts.Little Self Introspection such as your strengths & weaknesses will give you more clarity about your personality.If you don’t do physical exercise much, start jogging, it will help you to keep up your breath during GTO.Smiling brings positive thoughts. Make a habit to converse with others with smile on your face, but of-course don’t do it for serious moments otherwise i am not responsible for Slap…!!!!!!Don’t over do thingsStick to truth & facts, and they will be happy, go otherwise, and you will be sunken boat.and Once you get Recommended, you can tuck me in for having a McDonald’s or Pizza Party, after all it will be great mile to celebrate upon.All The Best.Humour Corner :→ Bharat Bhushan's answer to What are some funny SSB interview answers?Cheers….BB