'Minus One'

 We are taught basic mathematics with writing and learning multiplications and divisions, addition and subtractions from 1 to 20. Most of us carry on our life with this elementary knowledge without bothering much! However, things are different at higher levels. Statistics also comes as another big problem for those who hate numbers! The author is one such who scraped thru with just passing marks after (dis)grace marks were added at the SSLC level. Disgusted, I dropped the very subject and took to History at the College level, only to face the problem of the Rulers, their dynasty (die nasty?) with years of their regime! Thus, numbers became a big problem! 

  This problem continued up to the Ph. D level where Quantitative Geography with statistical analysis and Factorial Scores had to be calculated and mapped to show the regional disparities (pertaining to the 27 Talukas with 39 Factors) run on an IBM Computer. It is for the first time that such an attempt was made in socio-economic studies in Asia (during 1980). This is how the number game is attached to our destiny!

  Now, coming to this Minus One (-!), its significance was not realized till our Bharat Ratna Former President Sri APJ Abdul Kalam ji. It is this Minus One (-1) that opened up space technology. It deals with Gravity and determine the escape velocity to send the spacecraft into Space. It is not something that our contemporary scientists and mathematicians found out! It is the Vedic doctrine that starts with the mantra-

  purnamdah purnamidam purnasy purnamaadaaya purnamevaavashishyate !    

It is further stated in the Vedic texts that this doctrine is the path of Self-Realization. This turns the spiritual speaker inward by withdrawing the manas, buddhi, ahankara, and the ten sense organs (five jnyanedriya and five karmendriya). Thus, Minus One (-1) takes us inward by discarding all the 25 principle that governs our contact with the external sensuous material world, stated as the illusory one by Sri Shankaracharya. 

 Thus, Minus One is the beginning of the backward journey in Space Time Complex. If Zero (0) is the meeting point of both the forward and backward journey. In fact, every individual has a past and a future. It is all about our past karma (prarabhda) and the coming (Agami) one that binds us to this mortal existence on this mrutyu loka called Planet earth! The only way to break the shackle and get liberated is to begin our mathematics of life from Minus 1.