`Lord Ram was born in Pakistan, not Ayodhya`

[JonAsad]

Deleted man, will try not to loose cool going ahead

going ahead your rear will swell- -

 

[Skull and Bones]

Don't laugh you infidel, earth was created by God only 6000 years ago.

 

[Bitter Melon]

Hinduism is not a religion. It is a Dharma. Huge difference.

As long as it is defined one and talked about as one, you have to deal with it. Get the definition of Hinduism changed as per law and then be ready to face the implications of it too with soul vultures claiming they are not hurting any religious sentiments when they abuse Hindus or Hinduism or mine it. Only then come and talk about Hinduism not being a religion.

 

[mpk1988]

Islam can be scientifically proven.

No it cannot. If you believe so, you have absolutely no idea about science. All religions are man made fantasies. I can give you a dozen different faults in every organised religion.. And don't give me interpretations.. By means of interpretations even shamanism can be proven to be logical and scientific.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

No it cannot. If you believe so, you have absolutely no idea about science. All religions are man made fantasies. I can give you a dozen different faults in every organised religion.. And don't give me interpretations.. By means of interpretations even shamanism can be proven to be logical and scientific.

Go ahead and challenge me. Tell me those faults.
I'll have to reply to you tommarow, am going to bed.

 

[Joe Shearer]

What a joke Hinduism is a fake religion . . . .

Along with every other religion.

Islam can be scientifically proven.

Systems of faith and rational systems do not overlap.

 

[mpk1988]

Go ahead and challenge me. Tell me those faults.
I'll have to reply to you tommarow, am going to bed.

Boy.. I lived in Saudi for 15 years. You won't be able to answer a thing. I would like to go right ahead, unfortunately I will be banned because religious discussions are not allowed. We can make our points via personal messages and private conversations though.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Boy.. I lived in Saudi for 15 years. You won't be able to answer a thing. I would like to go right ahead, unfortunately I will be banned because religious discussions are not allowed.

I agree.

Religious discussions are forbidden, and it is best kept that way.We can keep our judgement of people who call any religion scientific to ourselves, the better to understand and discount their posts in future.

 

[dadeechi]

Islam can be scientifically proven.

Like all ****** having the same DNA?

 

[Joe Shearer]

going ahead your rear will swell- -

These are some verses i picked out while skimming through the quran, these chapters explain us about the universe. These verses are just a fraction of all scientific Quranic verses.

And it is We who have built the Universe with [Our creative] power and keep expanding it. [51:47]

And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all [heavenly bodies] in an orbit are swimming. 21:33

He it is who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; ALL ORBS travel along swiftly in their celestial spheres. 21:33

Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe? 21:30

No! If he does not desist, We will surely drag him by the forelock -
A lying, sinning forelock. 96:15-16 (The forelock of your brain is responsible for lying)

These are just verses i JUST randomly found by skimming through the quran. There are many more describing exactly what happens in the womb, that water was sent down by rocks(meteorites) and a massive load of more (around 50 verses).
One of the biggest miracles in Islam however; is the Quran. A illiterate bedouin (Muhammad SAW) challenged all of Arabia's best poets to compose something similiar to it; the Quran it self inspired thousands of Muslims to convert. Caliphs like Hazrat Umar converted to Islam after hearing the Quran from his sister, before that he was considered the biggest enemy of Muhammad SAW. The vocal beauty of the Quran clearly tells humanity that it truly is the word of god. Everything in the Quran rhymes perfectly while retaining a clear message, i urge you to listen to some verses/surah.

@SarthakGanguly






and who exactly told you that?

Please avoid a discussion on religion.

 

[Zibago]

Please dont discuss religion here

 

[mpk1988]

I agree.

Religious discussions are forbidden, and it is best kept that way.We can keep our judgement of people who call any religion scientific to ourselves, the better to understand and discount their posts in future.

I agree..

"Ninte vishwasam ninne rakshikatte"

That's a saying in Malayalam. May your belief save/help you... It's open proselytizing, belief about religious superiority and using it to justify acts against humanity that irks me. Too much religion in the world for me now..

 

[Zibago]

Like Sheikh Rashid said,"Apna akeeda choro nahe dosray ka akeeda chero nahe".

 

[dadeechi]

What a joke Hinduism is a fake religion . . . .

Hinduism: Where Science and Spirituality Intersect

A couple of years ago, I was invited to a panel discussion at Columbia University on science and religion. Not having a background in science, I was a bit uncomfortable with participating, but the group organizing the event really wanted an Eastern/Hindu perspective on how science fits into the Hindu philosophy and tradition. Hesitatingly, I agreed.
Right before the event began, I approached the professor on the panel to say hello. We had met once before, and as I stretched out my hand for a shake I noticed a hesitation on his part in return. Frankly, he didn't look very happy to see me, but I didn't make much of it. During the dialogue and discussion, I noticed he was very aggressive and took every opportunity to belittle all the aspects of spirituality and yoga, of which he had little or no knowledge about in the first place. I realized at that moment that there was a new breed of fanatics on the rise and this breed had nothing to do with religion.
I realized from this discussion that there is a more mature way to approach this dialogue, and in course of doing research for this dialogue, I discovered a wonderful synthesis between my faith and the cutting edge of science. It helped me to understand that science and spirituality aren't mutually exclusive. I also saw how much faith we place in the field of science and its theories.
Some would comment that faith is only necessary when it comes to matters of religion and that science is based on empirical evidence. Although this sounds nice, it's not 100 percent accurate. For example, we all believe in the existence of the atom. But how many people on the planet have actually seen an atom with their own eyes? I'm not in any way denying the existence of the atom. Nor do I dis-believe the people who have measured its existence. The point made here is that we are placing faith in those who have done the experiment and we are accepting their results. The masses are placing faith in the few who have done the experiment.
Another item we place implicit faith in is the "Big Bang Theory," which tells us that the universe began 15-20 billion years ago from a single point. Who can prove to us the reality of a phenomena that took place tens of billions of years ago? There's no instant replay when we're dealing with life and time. We can't be shown what happened that far in the past. There may be some evidence and reason to believe that this is how it happened, but at the end of the day we can't know for sure and that's where faith comes in.
This video clip from the famous astronomer/cosmoslogist Carl Sagan reflects a similar line of thought.

In a recent article, in the U.S. News and World Report, physicist Roger Penrose theorized that the Big Bang might be one in a cycle of such events, suggesting that the universe has had multiple existences. This is common knowledge to one familiar with Vedic philosophy and cosmology, which very clearly indicates that the universe has had many births and deaths.
The centuries-old wisdom of the Vedic texts doesn't stop there. They claim that our universe is just one of many universes, a concept entertained by modern science and referred to as "the multiverse theory." The description given is that our universe is one mustard seed in a bag full of a practically uncountable number of mustard seeds. This concept is toyed with in famous Hollywood movies such as "Contact" and "Men In Black."
In the West, Einstein is credited with the Theory of Relativity. However, one might be quite surprised to learn that there are multiple examples of it in the Puranic texts of India. Einstein's hypothetical experiment known as the "twin paradox" suggests that if one of a pair of twins travels to outer space at high speed, while the other remains on earth, when the space traveling twin returns, he will be younger than his counterpart on earth. The following passages from the Bhagavat Purana communicates the relativity of time:
"... One's life endures for only one hundred years, in terms of the times in the different planets... Eternal time is certainly the controller of different dimensions, from that of the atom up to the super-divisions of the duration of Brahmā's life; but, nevertheless, it is controlled by the Supreme. Time can control only those who are body conscious, even up to the Satyaloka or the other higher planets of the universe."
There is also a story from the Puranas which parallels Einstein's hypothetical experiment. A yogi, upon exiting the earthly realm for the higher planetary realms, was informed by the inhabitants of these higher realms that millions of years had instantly passed on Earth in the mere moments since he had entered the higher realms. They also told him that all of his relatives and everyone he had ever known was deceased. We can pass this off as myth or fable, but one should ponder how these texts of ancient India are coming up with concepts that are so close to modern scientific theories.
There is a wonderful synergy between science and spirituality within the Vedic tradition, and I don't believe there is a real border dividing them. It's all just wisdom and knowledge, which is what the term Veda means. These are all truths that are meant to inform us of the world and universe we inhabit so that we can understand our place in it. These truths help us to ultimately transcend the realm of matter, shed the material body we inhabit and endeavor to re-enter the spiritual realm.

Hinduism: Where Science and Spirituality Intersect | Gadadhara Pandit Dasa


Implicit Science in Hindu Thought

Varadaraja V. Raman
One can find apologists from all the major religions who aim to bolster the standings of their faith by proclaiming its confluence with science. Some have even gone so far as to argue that their ancient scriptures and doctrines presage specific ideas and findings of modern science. As Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad and Martin J. Verhoeven show elsewhere in this symposium, this is a growing trend among some scholars of Islam and Buddhism. But it is also a perennial presence in the great religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism.
From a scientific point of view these claims are untenable, as the findings of modern science spring from observations, insights, instruments, philosophical outlooks, and knowledge that were absent in the ancient world. But the defenders of these claims contend that the philosophers and prophets of distant ages had other means of knowing than logic, differential equations, and the spectrometer — that the scientific insights in scripture are a testament to their divine origin. Though perhaps well-meaning, such claims essentially belong to pseudoscience, not least because they are typically based more on parochialism and questionable hermeneutics than on serious scholarship.
But this does not mean that the search for areas of genuine harmony between science and scripture is always misguided. There is no solid evidence that ancient prophets or religious thinkers were privy to any revealed knowledge of scientific findings in advance of their peers. But ancient thinkers did articulate many of the broad possibilities for answers to major questions that have since been, in a sense, adjudicated by science. Many of the metaphysical, philosophical, and scientific ideas that are so often trumpeted as entirely novel and recent discoveries of modern science were in fact subjects of discussion by ancient Hindu thinkers.
Perhaps the most famous discovery of modern science, the one that launched it as a revolution, was the Copernican insight that shifted the Earth’s coordinates from a defining (0, 0, 0) in a vast, three-dimensional Euclidean space to an insignificant (x, y, z) in a coordinate system whose center is altogether indeterminate. This was followed by the Galilean-Newtonian revolution, which developed the view of a universe governed by inexorable laws written in the language of mathematics, graspable primarily with the aid of instruments of ever-increasing precision. Notwithstanding the considerable achievements of that science, whose methods soon expanded well beyond the realms of astronomy and physics, it took nearly four centuries after Copernicus before the notion of the birth of the universe through purely physical processes at a determinable time was developed and regarded as a scientific finding.
Yet long before modern science, practically every religion had its own version of cosmogenesis, a notion of the origin of the universe at some definite time. Most are based on the idea that an all-powerful god created a world of matter and man. These doctrines cohered with the view of a God or gods who should be invoked and thanked. At another level, they were widely accepted because there was no better hypothesis to explain the existence of the world.
Hinduism has its own idea of a God-created universe. Hindu lore offers a mythic vision of the world emerging from a cosmic egg (Brahmanda), a seed from which the whole universe emerged, not unlike the idea of the Big Bang. In the Hindu picture, the current phase of the universe will dissolve, only to be reborn again. Like in some modern scientific theories of cosmology, this process continues ceaselessly, like a frictionless oscillating pendulum.
This kind of mythical and metaphysical account is not the only aspect of Hindu thought that touches on the origins of the universe. Consider, for example, a passage from the Nasadiya Sukta, or Hymn of Creation, from the Vedas. In a chapter written more than three millennia ago, the author presents various possibilities as to how the universe might have come about, and concludes by rhetorically exclaiming:
...Who really knows, and who can swear,
How creation came, when or where!
Even gods came after creation’s day,
Who really knows, who can truly say

When and how did creation start?
Did He do it? Or did He not?
Only He, up there, knows, maybe;
Or perhaps, not even He.
[Rigveda X: 129]
While raising the question of how the world might have arisen, the poem also expresses a modest skepticism about where one might find an answer. This could be interpreted as a lack of certainty that is uncommon in religious literature, but we should notice the extraordinary leap, not of faith, nor into agnosticism, but into humility. The sage poet in these lines is moved from a mystical meditation on cosmogenesis to the sudden realization that our visions of how it all started are constrained by our finitude. This lack of certainty about explanations of natural events beyond our immediate grasp foreshadows the epistemic doubt often described as a requirement for modern scientific thinking.
Below and Beyond
In the early days of modern science, scientists recognized two levels of reality: the physical world we experience on our everyday scale, and the astronomical world, up there, where every entity is of stupendous proportions. Both levels, scientists thought, had a material basis, a substantial concreteness that make them part of the same palpable reality.
As the scientific revolution advanced, physicists discovered a reality smaller even than the microscopic scale, and eventually began to identify the roots of the physical world. They had uncovered entities that are invisible, undetectable to our normal senses. As they continued probing, these entities became ever more evanescent, fading away into mere mathematical probabilities. Beneath the atomic and subatomic particles that undergird the material world to which we are accustomed, there is a sea of intangibles that emerge and disappear in unimaginably small time frames. This is what constitutes and sustains the physical world. If physics before the twentieth century dealt with nature as we commonly experience it, and religion postulated a supernature that caused nature to arise, then the twentieth century brought to light a sort of subnature, a realm that we know thus far mainly in theory but that seems sure in some way or another to account for our tangible world in essentially non-tangible terms.
Ancient Hindu thinkers too postulated an immaterial, intangible, and all-pervasive cosmic realm, called Nirguna Brahman. Its material manifestation is the physical reality we experience and study scientifically. But the realm also has a spiritual dimension, which was regarded as the source of all consciousness. Nirguna Brahman is thus the abstract impersonal cosmic consciousness pervading the universe, the transcendental equivalent of the personal God of other religions.
The Hindu writings known as the Upanishads talk about Nirguna Brahman in esoteric terms. We find in this literature terse statements like, “Brahman is real; the world is unreal.” It suggests that the physical reality we take for granted is not quite what it seems, and its deeper nature is veiled from our normal perception.
One needn’t dwell overmuch on the details of Nirguna Brahman, which clearly could not have anticipated the specific subatomic theories of modern physics. Rather, it is striking to note how this ancient metaphysical concept of an omnipresent, intangible reality that gives rise to the physical world of experience anticipates the metaphysics of the most promising current theories about the fundamental nature of the universe. Even more striking is a growing strain of philosophical thought, led by David Chalmers, arguing that consciousness too is a fundamental aspect of this universe, something that is present in all of it, and not just in obviously thinking beings such as ourselves. These understandings about the basic nature of reality may not now enjoy the status of confirmed scientific theories, but it is fascinating to consider that the basic metaphysical structure of these ideas has much in common with ancient Hindu thought and related traditions.
Unveiling Reality
Philosophers have long argued about whether there is a separate reality behind the one we perceive. From the scientific perspective, there is such a reality. In fact, the very goal of science, one could say, is to derive from perceived reality what the objective, non-perceived reality is all about. For example, sound is an aspect of perceived reality that science has shown arises from compression waves in an elastic medium such as air.
Classical Hindu thinkers stated that perceived reality, which they called maya, is in many ways a deception. Practically every finding of modern science in some way or another is taken to suggest a similar view. Whether the motion of the sun, or of the seemingly fixed star we call Polaris; whether the apparent substantiality of a rainbow or solidity of hard steel; whether the visible break in a stick immersed in water, or the intrinsic sparkle of the diamond — seemingly every aspect of perceived reality is in some sense an illusion. What we take to be substantial properties of the material world have, in fact, underlying features that are altogether different. Science may well be described as an effort to see beyond the maya, to unveil the world’s concealed reality.
Hindu thinkers also proclaimed that perceived reality is transient. While the ephemeral nature of experiences and of life itself had been recognized by ancient thinkers in many cultures, Hindus asserted something more: that not just human life, but the physical world itself is transitory, and will eventually fade away. This, too, is an idea that seems to presage certain strains of today’s theoretical physics and cosmology. According to one line of thought, not only radioactive elements but all of the basic constituents of physical matter are unstable. Even the proton may have a half-life. This would mean that eventually, albeit after an unimaginably long time, all tangible matter in the universe will vanish. This is another theoretical picture of the universe that, at least in its rough outlines, was articulated by ancient Hindu thinkers.
Ways of Knowing
Beyond the broad outlines of scientific theories about the universe, ancient Hindu thought also presaged some of the contours of the modern debate over the nature of science itself, particularly its seemingly never-ending conflict with religion. For example, Stephen Jay Gould’s notion of “non-overlapping magisteria,” by which science and religion should each concede that the other is a powerful and important mode of inquiry but that they do not attend the same questions and problems, echoes an epistemic view of Hindu thinkers that was posited not as a strategy for peace but a fundamental truth.
Ancient Hindu thinkers of course did not talk about science as we use the term today, or about religion as a set of doctrines and practices. Rather, they said that human beings can acquire two kinds of knowledge. One pertains to the world of everyday experience or perceived reality. This kind of knowledge, called apara vidya — “not-beyond,” or worldly knowledge — can be obtained through experiment, analysis, and logical reasoning. The other kind of knowledge relates to the transcendental, the realm beyond the physical. It was called para vidya, or “beyond” knowledge.
It is fair to say that conflicts often arise when, in pursuit of transcendental knowledge, people attempt to explain matters pertaining to this world. When they do this without having peered through a telescope or a microscope, read a seismogram, handled a Bunsen burner, or made sophisticated calculations, and they expound on the workings of matter and energy, biological evolution, or other natural phenomena, they are bound to provoke practicing scientists. Likewise, when people governed solely by knowledge of perceived reality summarily deny the existence or the possibility of transcendental knowledge without going through the rigorous disciplines demanded for getting a glimpse of it, they too appear naïve and epistemically hubristic.
Yet it is undeniable that these two realms of knowledge are interrelated, and that the study of one may have bearing on the other. We see in the areas briefly discussed here that at least the spirit of modern science, if not always its specific substance, was implicit in a number of contexts among ancient Hindu thinkers. That these thinkers foresaw the broad outlines of many modern theories is a testament to the harmony between Hinduism and science, both of which are a part of the collective human effort to appreciate the world of experience and describe the nature of reality.
Varadaraja V. Raman is emeritus professor of physics and humanities at the Rochester Institute of Technology, president of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science, and the author of Indic Visions in an Age of Science (Metanexus, 2011).

Implicit Science in Hindu Thought - The New Atlantis


Modern Physics and Hindu Philosophy

Emeritus Prof. of Physics, Department of Physics, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) 402 N. Blackford Street, Indianapolis, IN, 46202-3273
There are amazing similarities between implications of theories of modern physics and ancient Hindu philosophy as expressed in Vedas and Upanishads. The basis of Hindu philosophy is the mystical idea of Brahman. The Brahman is usually described by the words “Neti, Neti “meaning, not this, not this! When I went into study of physics, I realized that, as far as knowledge of ultimate reality is concerned, physicists are in exactly same situation as the ancient Rishis. Both cannot describe it in everyday language. In Mundak Upanishad, knowledge is divided into two parts: Para Vidya which deals with the eternal truth that can lead to self realization and Apara Vidya which deals with knowledge about material world. Under this classification, Physics might come under Apara Vidya. But, I would like to convince you that Modern Physics is also Para Vidya!
A number of early pioneers in quantum theory such as Bohr, Schrodinger, Heisenberg and later Bohm, were deeply influenced by eastern mystical ideas. A number of books have been written on this subject. Fritz Capra’s book in seventies on “The Tao of Physics” started the ball rolling. More recently, physicists Subhash Kak, Amit Goswami, John Hagelin (Maharshi Mahesh Yogi’s group) and some others have published extensively on this subject.
Now, I will describe briefly implications of some of the theories of modern physics for non-physicists. Physics which was discovered before the 20th century is known as classical physics which describes everyday physics like major parts of mechanics, heat, electricity-magnetism, optics etc which are used extensively in engineering and technology. At the beginning of 20th century, experimental data and certain inconsistency problems compelled physicists to accept two revolutionary theories: Quantum theory and Relativity theory. Physicists were forced to change their view of nature drastically as a result. Initially, there was immense reluctance to give up classical ideas. They were forced into quantum theory and relativity theory kicking and screaming. First of all, it was found that the world is not made out of rigid firm objects like billiard balls or bricks. At the atomic and sub-atomic level it consists of fuzzy wavelike objects and lot of empty space. So the solid nature of objects we see around is only apparent. As one goes deeper and deeper, one keeps on finding vacuum all the way. This reminds one of the ideas of sunyata and Maya or illusion covering the whole universe, as Adi Shankaracharya said “Brahma Satyam, Jagat Mithya”. Brahman is the only truth; the world is a false illusion. Now, just like us, he must have seen solid bodies, rigid walls and trees. I believe he realized that all of this disintegrates and thus cannot be fundamental reality. Thus, because of the covering of Maya, one does not see the underlying real Brahman. (Previously, the concept of Maya from Mandukya Upanishad was emphasized by Shankaracharya’s spiritual grandfather Gaudapadacharya). Similarly, in physics, one sees only the material objects around and does not see strange quantum fuzzy world underlying all the matter. Moreover, the particles of modern physics are believed to be in some kind of suspended state devoid of any specific properties until they are measured. They are in some sense both here and there at the same time and are described by a wave function, a superposition of seemingly contradictory properties. Such a description is very similar to the description of Brahman e.g. in Ishopanishad: “It moves and it moves not; it is far and it is near; it is within all this and it is also outside all this.” Then the ultimate shock of quantum theory came when Bell’s theorem and subsequent experiments proved the so called entanglements to be right. In such cases, two or more atoms, electrons or photons demonstrate correlated properties even at distances where no communication is possible between them during the given time. These developments are the most important developments in the history of physics and perhaps in the whole of science. They give rise to the idea of the interconnected wholeness of the world and non-local interactions in contrast to the separate identities with local interactions. Thus atoms also exhibit holistic like properties and perhaps some primitive relationship to consciousness. So it is not proper to say that any analysis starting with atoms is reductionist and not holistic. The four Mahavakyas express similar concept about individual and Brahman. Pragnanam Brahman – "Consciousness is Brahman" (Aitareya Upanishad 3.3 of the Rig Veda) Ayam Atma Brahman – "This Self (Atman) is Brahman" (Mandukya Upanishad 1.2 of the Atharva Veda) Tat Tvam Asi – "That Thou art " (Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7 of the Sama Veda) Aham Brahmasmi– "I am Brahman" (Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10 of the Yajur Veda). Thus Brahman is present in everything. This matches very well with the concept of modern physics that everything is made out of the same fundamental particles. Another basic finding of quantum theory is the involvement of the observer in the observed things. It is impossible to separate the effect of the measuring apparatus from the object measured. Detachment of the two is just not possible. Such an idea about the observer and the object of observation is also emphasized in Upanishads. It is behind the holistic philosophy about mind and body.
A leading current model of origin of universe assumes that there was total vacuum in the beginning and the universe arose from a quantum fluctuation. In this way something came out of nothing. At that time it was totally dark since light had not emerged from vacuum yet! Compare this model with the following quotation from Vayupuran about origin of universe. “In the beginning, there was nothing in the universe. The Brahman (the divine essence) alone was everywhere. The Brahman had neither color nor scent; it could not be felt or touched. It had no origin, no beginning or no end. The Brahman was constant and it was the origin of everything that was destined to be in the universe and the universe was shrouded in darkness. ” Nasadiya Sukta (story of creation) also mentions that there was total darkness before creation.
There are strange facts in the theory of relativity also: It requires that measurement of time depends on observer’s motion and also the strength of gravitational field he/she is in. An often recurring mention in Hindu scriptures is that Brahma’s time is different from ours. When one hears about Arjun looking at the past, present and future in the mouth of Lord Krishna in Vishwaroop Darshan (Ch.11 of Bhagvatgeeta), one is reminded of collapse of the space time coordinate system near singularities of general theory of relativity. Also, it is well known that Hindu scriptures came up with the correct order of magnitude of the age of universe of several billion years, when other religious systems insisted on the age to be a few thousand years.
As an example of violation of conventional logic, let me mention one situation. Consider a simple logical inference such as: if in a roomful of 200 people, 50 have brown eyes, then 150 do not have brown eyes. Bell’s inequalities are based on such logical statements when applied to quantum objects. They are violated by experimental results on atomic systems. Conclusions from quantum theory agree with the experiments. Such a situation would correspond to Upanishad’s idea that Brahman cannot be understood by logic! If it can be understood, it is not Brahman! There is a story about two yogis. One meditated all day. The other one read scriptures all day. At the end of every day the second one always said “I do not understand. I do not understand”. Then one day, to the great surprise of the first one, the second one said loudly, “I understand. I understand”. The first yogi asked him with astonishment as to what suddenly happened. “Now you understand everything suddenly!” The second yogi replied “I now understand that this cannot be understood!”
Anyway, to me, it does not appear surprising that when one tries to put mathematical ideas of modern physics in human languages, they look similar to the philosophical ideas of ancient Rishis obtained after deep meditations. In fact it would be shocking if they did not agree. This would be true if e.g. the world was described by classical physics. I think the nature of reality is such that both parties were forced to adopt these ideas. As for Rishis, it is not clear when that classical to quantum transition took place or indeed if there was a sharp transition like modern physics. Some parts of Vedas are full of worship of natural elements like wind, water, fire etc and also picture Gods to look like human beings in the form of avatars. In some parts of Vedas and many Upanishads, we see clearly concept of abstract, omnipresent, invisible, eternal, transcendent and immanent Brahman who has qualities unfamiliar in our everyday life. Just as many things in everyday world are described by classical physics, concept of deities would correspond to classical concepts in our scriptures. There is nothing wrong with that. Concept of Brahman would correspond to quantum concept.
Now, a standard explanation for the seemingly bizarre behavior of particles in modern physics, which most physics professors tell their students, is that we are looking at the systems which are tens of billions times smaller than our everyday world. Thus we should not be surprised that these do not correspond to our everyday life models and our everyday language may very well fail to describe these. One may argue that large objects like us consist of trillions and trillions of atoms. They have to approach classical limit. There is some truth in that. Crawling babies find out pretty soon that they cannot go through the walls like electrons. One caution against these arguments is that physicists have been finding quantum effects in larger and larger systems (such as lasers, superconductivity, superfluidity, Bose-Einstein condensation etc) and entanglements have been found at distances of several miles. Thus it is not clear that quantum mechanics is not applicable to large systems. Also, what about consciousness and thought processes? Is there something quantum mechanical about them? As a matter of fact many scientists such as Penrose, Hameroff and Stapp have suggested that consciousness in our brain may arise from atomic size domains and hence consciousness may be quantum mechanical in nature. Admittedly, these are preliminary models and currently there is no real understanding of consciousness.
Both modern physics theorists and Rishis reciting Upanishads were using their thought processes in brain. Obviously human brain evolved as human body evolved in nature. So one possibility is that some cognitive information about nature may be stored in the brain. A question for physics is that why mathematics works so well when our intuition based on everyday life fails. After all, mathematics is also creation of human mind. In fact, as I mentioned before, Bell’s inequalities bring out in a superb way that conventional logic fails in quantum theory. Thus somehow mathematics describes systems which are outside our everyday experience. Similarly, why Rishis realized something in their meditations which went beyond their everyday intuitions? They were living in the classical world like everybody else in cottages, carrying out the usual human activities. In both cases the analysis looks irrational from the conventional logical point of view. Perhaps deep within our brain, there is some component which goes farther than experiences in everyday world. It is somehow sensing the so called “ultimate reality” which physicists have arrived at by using mathematics and Rishis arrived at by deep meditations. This may be like the story of several blind men touching different parts of an elephant and drawing different conclusions about the shape of the elephant.
Some time one hears the argument that internal world is different from external world. Even some Swamijis emphasize that material and spiritual world are different. I was never convinced by that argument. World is world. How can internal laws be different from external laws? My internal world is actually somebody else’s external world! If we assume that the internal world cannot be independent of the external world, we have to conclude that this similarity in philosophical statements of modern physics and ancient Indian mysticism is not a coincidence. It must be the “ultimate reality” of nature. Most of the western scientists and many Indian scientists believe this to be merely coincidence without any significance. In fact some western scientists have ridiculed such similarities as accidental and misleading. I have been myself wavering for a number of years about whether this is accidental and forced association or genuine. Now I am convinced that it is a real association. I suspect there is an all pervading holistic non-local layer which we may call Brahman. Part of our consciousness may draw on this. This connection may be what is called Atman. Non-local entanglements of atoms may be also related to this layer. Local interactions which one sees in physics and also in everyday life may be superimposed on this. These are much more prevalent. The main point of this article is that somehow sensory and non sensory aspects of the universe agree. A complete answer to these puzzles will come when we understand consciousness and its relation to the nature at large.
Some authors (notably Amit Goswami) conclude that consciousness creates reality including atoms. I have some reservations about this conclusion. From the perspective of Physics, it is well-known that quantum mechanical reactions went on during big bang and stars long before any conscious living being was born. So it is hard to believe this. Similar arguments can be made against Maharshi Mahesh Yogi’s program of unified field of consciousness. The program of grand unified field theory of physics is nowhere near completion, especially as far as gravity and strong interactions are concerned. Also, scientifically we know very little about consciousness. It is really too premature to talk about a unified field of consciousness although it could be true. From the point of view of physics I would like to have a program to understand consciousness starting with atoms or elementary particles i.e. a bottom up approach rather than a top down approach. Starting with elementary particles, inanimate objects like rocks etc, then cells, plants, bacteria, animals and finally human beings would have progressively increasing consciousness. All of this will be related to the ultimate reality and it is our task to understand it. A well known physicist has talked about the search of a fundamental particle (Higgs particle) as “God particle” in a joking manner. But if the mystic association with Brahman is true then the joke would have a sense of reality and we may be closer than ever in our understanding of Brahman.
*This article is based on a paper presented at the First International Conference on Holistic Vision and Integral Living, Oak Ridge (TN, U.S.) Aug. 27/28, 2010.
See Kashyap’s previous article: Science, Creation and Hinduism


Modern Physics and Hindu Philosophy - Graham Hancock Official Website


Science, Creation and Hinduism

Kashyap Vasavada
Published 14th July 2012 -

Articles


Recently there has been a resurgence of discussions on teaching creationism in science classes as a result of the Indiana senate bill. I would like to emphasize strongly that science teachers should not be required to teach these ideas in science classes. Such ideas have not met rigorous standards of scientific research. Let scientists decide what should be taught in science classes. Just saying that God created everything hardly explains anything. Everyone is welcome to challenge a scientific model, but then one has to provide an alternate model which explains the same or more data in a better way. People happily use results of scientific progress, such as technological products, drugs and medical procedures. Then they should also accept conclusions that follow from the scientific method. In science, you cannot pick and choose only the conclusions that are consistent with your beliefs. In addition, school children are not mature enough to understand the difference between rigorously established scientific models and individual beliefs. I am writing this as a scientist and a longtime member of the Hindu temple of central Indiana who believes that religion has a very important place in life, but it is not in the science classroom.
Now I would like to explain briefly concepts of Hinduism, since it is one of the religions mentioned in the bill. Many American readers may not know about Hinduism. Let me start by saying there is no essential conflict between Hindu philosophy and modern science. Hindus believe that there is a fundamental entity called Brahman (God) that created (actually manifested) the universe and pervades everything, living and nonliving. Interestingly this is similar to what modern physics says –i.e., everything is made out of the same constituent particles. You may worship Brahman in any form you choose. This is the reason why Hinduism allows worship of any god who symbolically represents Brahman. The law of Karma, which says there is a consequence to everything one does, is similar to the law of action and reaction of physics. As for creation, Hindu scriptures always maintained that there are cycles of creation and destruction lasting billions (not thousands) of years. According to modern physics, the age of the universe since the big bang is close to 14 billion years. Also, some of the philosophical descriptions of reality of nature in Hindu scriptures are remarkably similar to the description of reality in quantum physics.
Hindu belief is that the soul has to pass through 8.4 million species of living forms before getting to a human birth. Surprisingly, this number is close to the number of species known to biologists! Also, according to the mythological stories, avatars (incarnations) of God came to earth in the form of fish, land animals and eventually human beings. Of course, science would not go that far, but the progressive evolution through various species is the basis of theory of evolution. Thus Hindus have no problem with the theory of evolution. Darwin’s theory was remarkably prophetic, since, at that time, he did not know about DNA evidence of evolution, evolution of drug resistant bacteria or fossil evidence of transition of species etc. which came up much later (see, PBS program on “what Darwin never knew”).
Like other religions, Hinduism also has the usual commandments, such as speak truth, lead a responsible moral life, do not steal, do not commit unnecessary violence, etc.
Finally, we should recognize the differences in methods and domains of science and religion. Science always deals with sensory perceptions whereas, very often, religion deals with extra-sensory perceptions. Thus religion goes beyond verified science. From a scientific point of view, as yet, there is no understanding of consciousness, concept of soul or for that matter, what happens after we die. I believe, most scientists would not have any problem if there is a class on world religions in schools, and such things are discussed there. After all, religion does play an important role in our society. In my opinion, there is no conflict between belief in God (as long as it is consistent with laws of nature) and science.
Kashyap Vasavada is an emeritus professor of physics at Indiana-Purdue University, Indianapolis IN. He is a member of the Hindu temple of Central Indiana and past president of Geeta Mandal (a group associated with the temple).
This article was published in Indianapolis Star on April 14, 2012 with a few changes.


Science, Creation and Hinduism - Graham Hancock Official Website

 

[Bang Galore]

New Delhi: In what could ignite a controversy, a book has claimed that Lord Ram was not born in Ayodhya, but in Pakistan

What controversy? An interested party in a litigation wants to have facts that might suit his argument.

Quraishi argues that it was nowhere mentioned in the Vedas or the Puranas that the Gangetic plain is the birthplace of Ram.

Yawn, I suppose that the river is known as Bhagirathi because the British named it.......