The recently announced iPad from Apple Inc. is an invention that causes tectonic shifts in the world of computing experience. “Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it,” says The Wall Street Journal columnist. Although many may chuckle upon this, same as Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple did, we cannot deny that in people’s minds inventions like this one collide their own worldviews with a new knowledge, wraps them in the complacency of cognitive dissonance.
At one level in their mind people know a new experience will change perception of ‘computers’ and what ‘computers’ are. Computers are inseparable part of our work and leisure today, our lives. They’re everywhere. Therefore a new concept will change our lives together with ‘the computing experience’.
First whinging reactions around the globe are mostly caused by denial. How come? Let’s put it in a scientific way: an entirely new idea has entered the universal hologram and people, as parts of the hologram, are aware of it on some level. But they are denying it. It’s a self-defending mechanism: humans will have to redefine the entire approach, and change the dictionary meaning of the words such as ‘computer’, ‘browsing’, ’emailing’, ‘desktop’, etc. It’s too big a step for many, considering that we have spent decades getting accustomed to the computers already around us and that haven’t changed significantly during the last 30 years.
Unexpected new hologram program will severely hit the memory cores of so called IT specialists and IT columnists, who will need to redefine their expertise. Imagine this: if everything about 90% of the computing experience becomes so easy to do (and 90% of our computer time is dedicated to everyday stuff), painless and entirely humanised as showcased with an iPad (and even bettered by its successors), what will they have to do, and talk about? Their (self)importance ceases.
In his blog Fraser Speirs, technology writer, notes:
What you’re seeing in the industry’s reaction to the iPad is nothing less than future shock. For years we’ve all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the ‘average person’. I find it difficult to come to any conclusion other than that we have totally failed in this effort.
Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices.
This experience follows the story of Ford’s inventions. When they asked Henry Ford does he value people’s opinions on what is next, he answered that he doesn’t care about what many think about inventions. He added, “If I asked people what would they really need, they’d all answer they needed a faster horse.” It’s almost exactly what many commented about the iPad. With the newly introduced iPad, many columnists and field experts expected a better, flatter laptop, a better phone, a better .. computer they’re already familiar with. They grudge: “Where’s the USB 3 port?, and an SD card slot?, what about a super-fast processor?, where is the full-blown OS X operating system and the whole of its several decades of sacred UNIX core legacy? We need that!”
They just wanted a faster horse, and were ready for it, but they didn’t expect a radical shift in thinking and imagining computer experience. In fact, Apple has completely redesigned everything! Redesigned iPad’s software from inside out, its user interface (adding a giant multi-touch screen that flips as you want it), variety of software keyboards that pop up according to need instead of ‘one-size-fits-all’ hardware keyboard everyone must use. The result is that the whole experience becomes less cumbersome and more natural. Apple’s iPad chief designer Jonathan Ive says that although no one has used it before the announcement, millions of people will be instantly familiar with it — they will instinctively know what to do. It is an invention with its basis in the heart of the problem — computers can do more and can be more, but no one has done it yet.
Vox populi and polls say nothing about the power of a true invention, because by definition no one is ready for it. All statistics deny even the existence of an invention so do any of ‘expert opinions’ or customer survey results about “are you gonna switch to an iPad when it comes out?” matter?
Not at all. iPad is a story all about humanising the computer experience, by imagining and then producing a groundbreaking device that blends seamlessly into our everyday life. It is an extension of a human mind for a human mind. From the stiff keyboard and hard to remember commands through CLI (Command Line Interface) as a main user interface in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, to the mouse and graphical user interface in the late 1980’s and 20+ years later, to a human finger in the second decade of the 21st century and a multi-touch pad, the path is now clear: the idea for those brave ones is to make computers different, less intimidating and more humanised.
They suddenly become something else, not just compute things. Rather enjoy things. A computer decomputerised.
Now a reader may ask: What all this has to do with us here? However, comparisons like this one have a tremendous eye-opening power. In the very much same sense, Universalist Radha-Krishnaism follows the example of the iPad, but in the field of religious, philosophical and spiritual thought.
Let me illustrate. What our every day with a computer consists of? What is the real work we need to do? The real work is not formatting the margins of a document, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finding lost fonts, figuring out how to insert a character from a foreign language using English-only limited keyboard, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update, reinstalling the operating system, fighting computer bugs and viruses.
The real work is teaching the child, healing the patient, minding the house, logging the road defects, fixing the vehicle at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house, reducing waste and greenhouse emissions, organising the party. Think of the millions of hours spent, the lengths that millions of people have gone to in order to acquire skills that are orthogonal to their core interests and their job, just so they can get their job done and just work on computers. How frustrating! But that was considered normal.
Universalist Radha-Krishnaism rewrites how religion and spirituality should be taught, practiced and understood, and brings forth a real world inspiring solution for all those who want the real job done: love for each other, the world, the God-dess, not some cumbersome practices, penances and regulations rooted in archaic world views that have nothing to do with today. Universalist Radha-Krishnaism is an operating system of a spiritual experience completely rewritten — from the ground up — to be joyous and haunting journey to all who venture. Its elegance is not rooted in a philosophy that adds more to layers upon layers of old and fruitless ideas, but rather in getting rid of everything that obstructs the humanising experience of spirituality.
Yes, don’t worry: it is perfectly all right if we walk the spiritual path and not dragging a ton of rules, superstitions, obsolete beliefs and senseless rituals chained to our legs and burdened on our backs. It’s perfectly okay to walk freely and that’s the whole point of walking: to enjoy the scenery and always learn something new and exciting. Spirituality needs to be a human experience, not a frantic race under battle helmets where we lose our sense of humanity and purpose.
It is perfectly fine not to depend on shamans, priests and gurus whose whole purpose of life is “make sure” you get your “dosage” of mercy upon your “poor sinful soul”, exclusively deserved by their “hard work” and prayers they utter “in your name” before “the Almighty”. Universalist Radha-Krishnaism gives you a different reality, a reality in which all-present and beautiful God-dess Radha-Krishna is already here for you, extending you arms and refreshing thoughts that release, overjoy and fulfill. No hard labour required. No penances. No chains rattling behind you. No imposed guilt and fear. No useless chants no one understands. No outdated beliefs. No superstitions. No complicated rituals. No irrational babble no one can prove. No one else’s mercy required. Just be free, be human and love from the depth of your heart because you already know how to do it — it’s in your spiritual DNA. Simply fulfill your loving goal on this lovely planet Earth and spend no extra minute on irrelevant mumbo jumbo.
Universalist Radha-Krishnaism is nothing you can imagine by comparing it to established religious thoughts of old. This is not yet another horse, or even a faster one — something predictable. It’s a whole new category of experience, a wholly unprecedented one.
If the iPad and its successor devices free everyday people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. We aim the same for the Universalist Radha-Krishnaism in the field of spirituality and modern thinking.
Universalist Radha-Krishnaism — a spirituality humanised.
— Zvonimir Tosic