Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

Eternal Law

Members
  • Content Count

    28
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Eternal Law


  1. When we look at the Indian civilization, particularly the great Hindu tradition, we have the Vedas stretching back into the very dawn of history, the great inspired utterances of rsis in thousand upon thousands of beautiful mantras. We have the Upanisads, the Vedanta, representing the culmination of the Vedas both philosophically and chronologically. We have the Brahma-Satras, which give us an intellectual guide and key to the understanding of the Vedas. We have the Puranas, we have the epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Nothing is more magnificent and beautiful than looking up at the sky on a moonless night, when you see thousands upon thousands of celestial bodies all glowing with inner power and light. But among these you will notice that there is one star that shines brighter than the others. It may not be bigger, it may not be closer, but it is the brightest star – what we know as the 'morning star' or as Venus. And as we look at this great galaxy of Hindu texts and scriptures, there is one star that shines brighter than the rest, and that is the Bhagavad-Gita.

    The Gita occupies a unique place. The Gita has a very special position. Adi Sankaracharya, in one of his memorable slokas, says that anyone who has tasted even a drop of amrta or who has understood even a little of the Bhagavad-Gita, need not have any fear of death.

    It has been commented upon by all the great philosophers, by Sankara and Madhva, by Ramanuja and Vallabhacarya, by Jnanesvra, and, in our own century, by Balgangadhar Tilak and Sri Aurobindo, by Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave.

    In my view, after Sankaracharya’s commentary, Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita is the most luminous and magnificent of modern commentaries. The whole galaxy of leaders of our freedom movement were influenced by the Gita.

    What is the reason for this extraordinary popularity of the Gita and its relevance to modern times? As I see it, there are four main reasons why the Gita is so tremendously significant and relevant in this age, and why it is the best known of the Hindu scriptures along with the Bible and the Quran, one of the three most influential religious texts in the history of mankind. The first reason is that the Gita is born in a situation of conflict – in the very midst of the great Kuruksetra war. Both the armies are drawn up, the flight of missiles has begun, the conchshells have sounded, the clamour of war is tumultuous and the hearts of the participants are torn by the conflict. It is then that the Gita teaching comes to Gita is a scripture of conflict, whereas the Upanisads are set in a very calm and peaceful atmosphere.

    Let us remember that Kuruksetra is not only a plain in Haryana. The outer Kuruksetra is still there, of course, but the inner Kuruksetra is within each one of us. It is within our psyche that the asuri and daivi powers are drawn up in array against each other, and it is within the heart of our consciousness that this battle has constantly to be fought.

    Today, with the world poised on the brink of a mighty conflagration, it is a Kuruksetra situation and the Gita, a sahgharsa sastra (scripture of conflict), is what mankind requires, a stirring call to arms, not for personal aggrandizement, not even for national glory, but for the deeper, more difficult task of becoming an instrument of the divine will, a warrior for the divine cause, a fighter for the divine consciousness. That is the battle to which Sri Krishna calls us, and that is why man today, torn as he is in a situation of conflict, responds to the message of the Gita.

    The second reason for the importance and relevance of the Gita lies in the divine personality of the teacher. Every scripture has its guru, its acarya. The Mundaka Upanisad has Angiras, the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad has Yajnavalkya, and other seers and rsis are there. But in the Bhagavad-Gita it is the divine Lord Himself disguised in a human form who is talking to us. Sri Krishna can be looked upon in many different ways. In one view, he is the personification of the Brahman, the great power which, shining, causes everything else to shine, which illuminates everything that exists – tam eva bhantam anubhati sarvam, tasya bhasa sarvam idam vibhati (everything shines only after that shining light, his shining illumines all this world). In the Eleventh Chapter of the Gita, he appears in his great viratasvarupa in which everything that exists is to be found, and by the glory of which Arjuna is dazzled, as if a thousand suns had risen together upon the horizon.And yet this very Krishna comes before us in the Gita as a charioteer, as a guide, as one holding the reins of the chariot. We have God himself descended in the forms of the divine charioteer, and that is why when Sri Krishna speaks he does so with absolute and overriding authority, not simply from the human standpoint but from the divine.

    That is why the Gita is so significant, because it personalizes the Parabrahman (the highest god-consciousness of the Upanisads). The Upanisads say: Sarvam khalv idam brahma (all this is Brahman); the Gita says: Vasudevah sarvam iti (all this is Vasudevah, the supreme). So in the Gita the figure of Sri Krishna personifies that divine splendour and power which is described so beautifully in the Upanisads, and that is why it has a unique impact upon our minds and hearts.The third reason for the Gita's special importance lies in the relationship between the guru and the sisya. In the Hindu tradition this is a very intimate relationship. In the Upanisads the guru uses the term saumaya for disciple, meaning 'dearly beloved'; he looks upon the disciples as even more close to him than his own sons, because whereas the father only gives physical life the guru makes real spiritual birth possible. But in the Bhagavad-Gita there is a closeness between Arjuna and Krishna which is not, as far as I am aware, to be found in any other scripture. One of the most moving verses of the Bhagavad-Gita is when Arjuna, after he sees the viratasvarupa, says to Sri Krishna: 'I bow to you, I prostrate myself before you, and I demand grace from you. Like a father to his son, like a friend to his dear friend, like a lover to his beloved, do thou bear with me.' Where else in the scriptures of the world would you get this composite relationship; the love between a father and a son, between a friend and a dear friend, between a lover and the beloved, all combined in the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna. That is what makes it so significant. It is a relationship of trust, faith and devotion. Krishna is urging his friend, not threatening him. At the end of his entire teachings, Krishna says to Arjuna: yathe 'cchasi tatha kuru (do as you please). He says, in effect: 'I am not forcing you, I am not threatening you, I am not cajoling you. You asked me a question and I have shown you the path. It is now your decision, you have to do what you like.

    'It is this aspect of the Gita which makes the teaching so significant and attractive, specially for the younger generations, because the youth, not only in India but throughout the world, is not prepared to be bullied or badgered by the older generation, or to accept their claim to superior wisdom or knowledge or morality. However, if we guide them with love, if we are friends with them, then perhaps we can influence them more effectively.A fourth reason for the importance of the Gita is its universal applicability. The Gita as a doctrine does not confine itself to any particular creed. In the Tenth Chapter, Sri Krishna is very clear: 'In whichever way people approach me, as long as they do it with faith, I make that resolve firm.' What an amazing assertion this is! Hinduism does not generally wish to make converts, because it is aware that the divine Atman is residing in all beings. Who is it ultimately that it will convert? The universal applicability of the Gita and its wide, all-embracing doctrine is extremely important. It is not a narrow creed. Again and again Sri Krishna in the Gita says that, whatever faith one may have, ultimately that worship will come to him. That is why the Gita has such a great appeal not only to Hindus but to genuine spiritual seekers whatever religion they may belong to.Let us turn now to the content of the Gita. It is multifaceted and many-dimensional; a single sloka can be taken up and developed for days as has been done by many commentators. But, briefly, I will place before you four major aspects of the teachings of the Gita which I consider to be particularly significant. The first is the theory of correct action. I have said that the Gita is a sangharsa sastra and the problem in war is: what is to be done? Indeed, at any given point of time in our lives, whether we are students or in business or in politics or in any other field of life, the question always is: what is to be done, what is our kartavyam karma?This is the most difficult of all questions.

    The Gita itself realizes this, and at one point Sri Krishna says: Gahana karmano gatih (Thick and tangled is the way of action). The theory of correct action in the Gita revolves around a single concept; that action should not be purely for selfish purposes, although the self is obviously involved; it should not be simply as a necessary evil, because we have to act. Action must be a positive, joyous, affirmative action, it must be an offering to the divine. This is the important point. It does not really matter what it is we are doing; what is important is the psychological and spiritual input into that action. In the Eighteenth Chapter there is a very important sloka which says that by worshipping through one's action, the divinity that pervades the entire cosmos man moves toward perfection.So there you have the answer. It has to be an action which is skilful, which is efficient, but which tries to avoid obsession, because obsessive action can easily become self-negating. If the action is detached, there is an inner freedom and inner dedication and you do not become obsessed. I have met so many people in my life, particularly in politics, people of great gifts; but they become so obsessed with their action and the result of the actions that ultimately they destroy themselves as human beings. We must have involvement without attachment and commitment without obsession. It is a very difficult path. Involvement we need, but without attachment. If you do not get involved, then you are evading your responsibility; but if you get attached, you are distorting your consciousness. Similarly commitment without obsession, that is the special type of action that the Gita gives us.There is a story about the building of the great Brhadisvara temple a thousand years ago by Raja Chola in Tanjavur, probably the most beautiful temple in India. The king one day decided to go and inspect the work; so he drove to the temple site, got out of his chariot and walked towards where this temple was being built.

    He came across a man who was cutting stones, and he asked him: 'What are you doing?' The man said: 'Sir, I am cutting stones.' He went a little further, and there was another man who was doing the same thing. He said: 'What are you doing?' The man answered: 'Sir, I am earning a living.' He went further and came to a third person who was doing exactly the same thing. He asked: 'What are you doing?' He said: 'Sir, I am building a great temple.' Now you will see the difference in attitude. They were doing exactly the same thing, they were getting exactly the same wages. But the first man was mechanically performing a task, he had no greater consciousness. The second one had a slightly broader vision, he had the problem of his family and was earning for them. The third one was earning for his family certainly, but he had the broad vision that he was building a great temple to Lord Shiva. That illustrates what I mean by the theory of correct action. Whatever you may be doing, it does not really matter as long as you are doing it with inner dedication and devotion, and as long as you are using action itself as a powerful means of spiritual development. This is the first major teaching of the Gita, the theory of correct action.Secondly, there is the theory of an integrated yoga that the Gita places before us, the four yogas, the four paths to divine union – Jnana-yoga, the way of wisdom, of intellectual discrimination; Bhakti-yoga, the way of emotional outpouring towards a personalized image of the divine; Karma-yoga, the way of dedicated action; and Raja-yoga, the way of psychic discipline, of Pranayama, the discipline of breathing control, and the development of the kundalini sakti (serpent power) within us. These are the four main types of yogas that we have in our tradition, and for each there are scriptures which deal with various aspects.

    Thus, for the Jnana-yoga we have the Upanisads; for the Karma-yoga we have the Karma-kanda; for the Bhakti-yoga we have the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the Siva Purana and other Puranas; and for the Rajayoga we have Patanjali's Yoga-Sutras and other texts. But the Gita is unique in that, in the short compass of 700 slokas, it integrates these four yogas into a single, unified path.The Gita points out that it is no longer enough for us to follow only one of these paths. In the old days, if you were jnani you could go off into the mountains in Kashmir and sit there for the rest of your life meditating, but that is not good enough for the Kali-yuga. In the old days, if you were a bhakta, you could spend the whole of your life going around doing kirtan. If you were a Raja-yogi, you could sit in your-own asrama and develop your powers. If you were a Karma-yogi, you could wander around doing good deeds. But it is not enough now for us to be one of these; we have to be all four. Every individual has to develop his mind, his heart, his physical capacity and his inner spiritual power, and that is the important message of the Gita. It brings us to what Sri Aurobindo calls purnayoga, an integrated yoga. I am often asked about caste, and I say that whatever importance caste may have had at one time, today everyone of us has to have the gunas (qualities) of all the four castes. We need the knowledge and learning of the Brdhmana; the valour and patriotism of the Ksatriya; the commercial acumen and ability of the Vaisya; and the capacity for physical service and work of the Sudra. Each one of us has to combine these four qualities, if we are really to be able to move forward in this age of iron, the Kali-yuga.Thirdly, there is in the Gita a repeated reassurance of divine intervention.

    You are familiar with the popular sloka where Sri Krishna says that from age to age, whenever unrighteousness flourishes and dharma is about to disappear, he will assume human form for the destruction of the evil-doers and re-establishment of the dharma. This is an assurance given to all humanity, and, if we read the Gita with an open mind and have faith in it and Sri Krishna, we must accept this assurance at its face value. It is not simply a bit of hyperbole in which he was indulging. Somebody introducing me to someone mentioned that I have been a minister. As you know, when a minister makes an assurance in the House, everybody holds him to it. I think today the time has come when we have got to ask Sri Krishna why he is not fulfilling the assurance that he gave us. Surely, if we need the divine, the divine also in some way needs us. Sri Krishna had the Sudarsana Cakra (thousand-spoked discus), he could have used it and finished the war himself. Why did he not do it? He also needed Arjuna, may be nimittamatram but he needed the nimitta; otherwise, he could not have won the war of Mahabharata, at least not in the way it was won.Perhaps this is a new thought that I am putting into your mind. If we need the divine, does the divine not need us? Does the supramental power, does the greater consciousness that is seeking to descend or to emerge not need active co-operation from us? I think it does, and I make bold to say that, as Sri Aurobindo puts it, without an aspiration from below there will not be an answering call from above. And that is why it is so important that we shun the attitudes of dejection, despair and negativism that one finds so often in India; people constantly bemoaning and bewailing their lot and saying that the country is going to the dogs and that everything is breaking down. It is no use moaning and groaning like that, it will get us nowhere. We have to arise and be ready to fight the battle of existence.

    If our lives end before it is completed, so what? We had had thousands of lives before, and we will have thousands more. The Atman, as the Gita says, cannot be burnt, cannot be cut, cannot be drowned, cannot be cleaved. But we must have faith; faith in our own inner capacity and in the assurance of no less a person than Sri Krishna.I have spoken of the theory of correct action, of the integration of the four yogas, the four paths to spiritual development, of the repeated assurance of divine intervention. Finally, we come to the Gita's gospel of total surrender to the divine. Ultimately, at the end of the entire discourse, after Sri Krishna has said yathe 'cchhasi tatha kuru, once again he speaks; without a question this time, he speaks on his own. All the rest of his speeches were in response to questions from Arjuna, but the last statement of Sri Krishna is suo moto. And he says: Sarvadharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja, aham tva sarvapapebhyo moksaisyami ma sucah. What a beautiful sloka this is!What is dharma? Dharma comes from the root dhr, that which supports. in the final analysis, what is it that supports human consciousness? It is not wealth, it is not position, it is not political power, howsoever important these may appear to us. Ultimately, it is the divine consciousness that supports us, that supports our very existence. Therefore, Sri Krishna urges us to give up all other supports and come alone to him. Sri Krishna speaking as the divine himself says...'l will free you from all sins. Do not fear' – ma sucah. How much love there is in those two words 'fear not'. When a child is to go into a dark room with the parent behind, the parent says: 'Do not be afraid, I am here; go ahead.' These words ma sucah in a way sum up the entire message of the Gita. Let us not be afraid, and let us give up all lesser supports so that ultimately we get the one true support, the only thing that can support the growth and development of the higher consciousness, the grace of the divine.

    Sri Krishna's flute is still playing in Vrndavana. We may not be able to hear it because our ears are so full of the clamour and noise of daily living, and the conflicts and the tensions around us, but it is still playing. And Sri Krishna is still there as the charioteer riding with us in our own higher consciousness. We do not have to back to Kuruksetra, we do not have to go back to Arjuna. Sri Krishna is with us always, provided we have ears to listen, provided we have eyes to see, provided we do not get totally blinded and deafened by the outer material conflicts which surround us. The outer is also important, but ultimately it is he whose inner consciousness is firmly centred in the divine alone will be able to meet the conflicts that lie ahead.The conflicts are there. There is no easy path to greatness or to spiritual realization, either individual or collective. We must always remember the Vedic exhortation: Caraiveti, Caraiveti (Move on, Move on). Imagine human consciousness as a great current that is flowing down through the dark channels of time. If we do not swim upwards against the stream, we will be carried down to the rapids and the waterfalls below. There can be no standing still for man. Man is a transitional being, half way between the animal and the divine. Man's destiny is to move onwards to the next stage of evolution, for then only can our divine nature be fully developed. But, in order to move upwards, we have to struggle. If we have faith and reverence, then, with the sound of the divine flute echoing in our ears and the voice of the divine charioteer resounding in our hearts, we can move resolutely onwards towards the divine destiny that awaits us. That, in essence, is the message of the Gita.

    - Dr. Karan Singh


  2.  

    Acceptance cannot happen without understanding. And understanding can never be forced upon someone. It can only be cultivated by you. None can help you for this cultivation. Only you have the right to cultivate it in the field which is your own mind. You will have to find you own means and ways to do this cultivation!

     

    I liked this reply! If without reading Quran or Quantum Physics(for example) even once....i keep on repeating ...i don't undertsand it....i don't understand what you are saying..that would be little silly. Sanatana Dharam's philosphy is far more complex , wide and deeper than 50 pages book based religions.....I am not surprised if a person is finding it littlebit difficult to understand who never read Bhagavad Gita , Upanishads.....not even Ramayana and Mahabharta.


  3.  

     

    Agreed. But, this is a Hindu forum. Will I be wrong to ask about these basis in Hinduism?

    I don't know why are you quoting just one line from my whole para. I said i don't want to give usual replies which people of other religion gives...Did i say you are wrong to ask this?

    Please review my questions. Are you saying that 'Self Realization' is your answer to my questions?

    Why should i review? Why you always ask same things again? Yes, i said that in plain simple English.


  4. The History of Yogi Isha Messiah-Jesus the Christ

     

    Posted Image

     

    The spiritual training of Jesus

    In the Himalayan fastnesses Jesus was instructed in yoga and the highest spiritual life, receiving the spiritual name "Isha," which means Lord, Master, or Ruler, a descriptive title often applied to God, as in the Isha Upanishad. Isha is also a particular title of Shiva.

    The worship of Shiva centered in the form of the natural elliptical stone known as the Shiva Linga (Symbol of Shiva) was a part of the spiritual heritage of Jesus, for His ancestor Abraham, the father of the Hebrew nation, was a worshipper of that form. The Linga which he worshipped is today enshrined in Mecca within the Kaaba. The stone, which is black in color, is said to have been given to Abraham by the Archangel Gabriel, who instructed him in its worship.

    Such worship did not end with Abraham, but was practiced by his grandson Jacob, as is shown in the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis. Unwittingly, because of the dark, Jacob used a Shiva Linga for a pillow and consequently had a vision of Shiva standing above the Linga which was symbolically seen as a ladder to heaven by means of which devas (shining ones) were coming and going. Recalling the devotion of Abraham and Isaac, Shiva spoke to Jacob and blessed him to be an ancestor of the Messiah. Upon awakening, Jacob declared that God was in that place though he had not realized it. The light of dawn revealed to him that his pillow had been a Shiva Linga, so he set it upright and worshipped it with an oil bath, as is traditional in the worship of Shiva, naming it (not the place) Bethel: the Dwelling of God. (In another account in the thirty-fifth chapter, it is said that Jacob "poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon." This, too, is traditional, both milk and honey-which Shiva promised Moses would flow abundantly in Israel-being poured over the Linga as offerings.) From thenceforth that place became a place of pilgrimage and worship of Shiva in the form of the Linga stone. Later Jacob had another vision of Shiva, Who told him: "I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me." A perusal of the Old Testament will reveal that Bethel was the spiritual center for the descendants of Jacob, even above Jerusalem.

    Although this tradition of Shiva [Linga] worship has faded from the memory of the Jews and Christians, in the nineteenth century it was evidenced in the life of the stigmatic Anna Catherine Emmerich, an Augustinian Roman Catholic nun. On several occasions when she was deathly ill, angelic beings brought her crystal Shiva Lingas which they had her worship by pouring water over them. When she drank that water she would be perfectly cured. Furthermore, on major Christian holy days she would have out-of-body experience in which she would be taken to Hardwar, a city sacred to Shiva in the foothills of the Himalayas, and from there to Mount Kailash, the traditional abode of Shiva, which she said was the spiritual heart of the world.

     

    Isha's life in India

    For the next few years the Himalayas became Jesus' well-travelled home. During part of that time Jesus meditated in a cave north of the present-day city of Rishikesh, one of the most sacred locales of India, and also on the banks of the Ganges in the holy city of Hardwar. In the years He spent in the Himalayas, He attained the supreme heights of spiritual realization.

    Having attained perfect inner wisdom in the Himalayas, Jesus journeyed to the Gangetic plain to engage in the formal study that would prepare Him for the public teaching of Sanatana Dharma both in India and in the countries between India and Israel as well as in Israel itself.

    First he went to live in Benares, the spiritual heart of India, the city most consecrated to the worship of Shiva and the major center of Vedic learning in all of India. During His time in the Himalayas, Jesus' endeavors had been centered almost exclusively on the practice of yoga. In Benares Jesus engaged in intense study of the spiritual teachings embodied in the Vedic scriptures-especially the books of spiritual philosophy known as the Upanishads.

    He then journeyed to the sacred city of Jagannath Puri, which at that time was a great center of the worship of Shiva, second only to Benares. In Puri Jesus officially adopted the monastic life and lived some time as a member of the Govardhan Math,the monastery founded three centuries before His birth by the foremost philosopher-saint of India known as Adi Shankaracharya. There He perfected the synthesis of yoga, philosophy, and renunciation, and eventually began to publicly teach the Eternal Knowledge.

    As a teacher Jesus was as popular as He was proficient in teaching, and gained great notoriety among all levels of society. However, because He insisted that all men should learn and be taught the meaning of the Vedas and their allied scriptures and began teaching the "lower" castes accordingly, as well as teaching that all could attain spiritual perfection without the intermediary of external, ritualized religion, He incurred the hatred of many religious "professionals" in Puri who began to plot His death.

    Since "His hour was not yet come," He left Puri and returned to the Himalayas where He again spent quite some time in meditation, preparing Himself for His return to Israel. He also lived in various Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayan region, studying the wisdom of the Buddha. Before beginning the long journey westward, instructions were given Him regarding His mission in the West and the way messages could be sent between Jesus and His Indian teachers. Jesus was aware of the form and purpose of His life and death from His very birth, but it was the Indian Masters who made everything clear to Him regarding them. They promised Jesus that He would be sent a container of Himalayan Balsam to be poured upon His head by a close disciple as a sign that His death was imminent, even "at the door." When Saint Mary Magdalene performed this action in Bethany, Jesus understood the unspoken message, saying: "She is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying."

     

    Return to India-not ascension

    It is generally supposed that at the end of His ministry in Israel Jesus ascended into heaven. But Saint Matthew and Saint John, the two Evangelists that were eye-witnesses of His departure, do not even mention such a thing, for they knew that He went to India after departing from them. Saint Mark and Saint Luke, who were not there, simply speak of Jesus being taken up into the heavens. The truth is that He departed into India, though it is not unlikely that He did rise up and "fly" there. This form of travel is not unknown to the Indian yogis. That Jesus did not leave the world at the age of thirty-three was written about by Saint Irenaeus of Lyon in the second century. He claimed that Jesus lived to be fifty or more years old before leaving the earth, though he also said that Jesus was crucified at the age of thirty-three. This would mean that Jesus lived twenty years after the crucifixion. This assertion of Saint Irenaeus has puzzled Christian scholars for centuries, but if we put it together with other traditions it becomes comprehensible. Basilides of Alexandria, Mani of Persia, and Julian the Emperor said that Jesus had gone to India after His crucifixion.


  5.  

    Incarnation of God...

    why did God need to incarnate himself in a limited physical being at any given time?

     

    According to the religion of Vedanta, the incarnation of God means the embodiment of divine qualities and divine powers. It takes place whenever and wherever such a manifestation is necessary. The Lord Krishna, in speaking of divine incarnations, said:

    ‘Wherever true religion declines and irreligion prevails and whenever the vast majority of mankind, forgetting the highest ideal of life, travel on the path of unrighteousness which leads to the bottomless abyss of ignorance, and sorrow, the Supreme Being manifests His divine powers to establish righteousness and true spirituality, by assuming a human form and living in our midst, but at the same time showing to all that He is the real master of nature and absolutely free from all the bondages of the world and its laws’.

    Ordinary people, whose spiritual eyes are not open, may not see the difference that exists between his actions and those of a common mortal and may treat him like an ordinary man; but those, who are highly advanced in spirituality, who understand the true nature of the individual soul and of God and of their mutual relation, see the difference at once, recognize his divinity and worship him as the ideal embodiment of divine powers and divine qualities.

    Lord Krishna, says in the Bhagavad Gita:

    ‘People who are deluded by My mysterious power of maya, do not know Me as unborn and unchanging; I am not manifest to them. They unintelligently regard Me in the light of an ordinary being with a material form which is the result of past actions, and know not that I assume at will glorious and holy forms for the protection of the world’.


  6.  

    In one of his posts, my dear brother and teacher Avinash writes:

    My questions with respect to this are:

     

    Yes. Actual name of Hinduism is Sanatana Dharma which in english language closely means Eternal Laws, which have no beginning and no end.

     

    Actually these Questions are applicable to each and every religion.

    In Sanatana Dharma, Self-realisation is the only answer and there is no short cut to this. I don't want to give usual answers to such questions which people of other religions give.

    Study, research and give time....You will get answers.

    Muhammad Dara Shikoh (1627-1658 AD) the Sufi and favourite son of Moghul emperor , Shah Jehan:

    "After gradual research; I have come to the conclusion that long before all heavenly books, God had revealed to the Hindus, through the Rishis of yore, of whom Brahma was the Chief, His four books of knowledge, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda."

    "The Quran itself made veiled references to the Upanishads as the first heavenly book and the fountainhead of the ocean of monotheism."

    Quran itself says We destroy those who corrupted our Original message and replace them with new ones with a new message as a punishment. We know Vedas are the Oldest Holy books of Humanity and Hindu civilization is the Oldest continous civilization. It is Oldest continous civilization because here Original message (Vedas) is still protected and uncorrupted.


  7. Pseudo-secular Congress govt. of Hindu dominated India should learn from these SECULAR but Christian dominated countries. These countries never compromise with Christianity and indirectly they are always supporting Christian cause whereas Indian govt. is never interested in supporting Hindus who are suffering in Russia, Pakistan , Bangladesh or elsewhere.. just for vote bank politics.

  8. http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/22spec.htm

    Things have become very difficult here after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its fundamentalist allies came to power in 2001," he says. "It has become increasingly difficult for a Hindu to walk the streets of Dhaka with his head held high."

    The ruling coalition -- it includes the Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote, and the Naziur faction of the Jatiya Party -- led by the BNP's Khaleda Zia won 209 of the 300 seats in the nation's single-House parliament. All three coalition partners advocate the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law, in Bangladesh. The Jamaat reportedly endorses the activities of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, and is know for its strident anti-Indian stand.


  9.  

    • Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) aide-de-camp to George Washington and first secretary of the Treasury, epitomized this attitude in these words:
    "When we read in the valuable production of those great Oriental scholars...those of a Jones, a Wilkings, a Colebrooke, or a Halhed, - we uniformly discover in the Hindus a nation, whose polished manners are the result of a mild disposition and an extensive benevolence."

     

    Christopher W. B. Isherwood (1904-1986) Translator, biographer, novelist, and playwright."I believe the Gita to be one of the major religious documents of the world. If its teachings did not seem to me to agree with those of the other gospels and scriptures, then my own system of values would be thrown into confusion, and I should feel completely bewildered. The Gita is not simply a sermon, but a philosophical treatise."

     

    David Frawley."The Hindu mind represents humanity's oldest and most continuous stream of conscious intelligence on the planet. Hindu sages, seers, saints, yogis and jnanis have maintained an unbroken current of awareness linking humanity with the Divine since the dawn of history, and as carried over from earlier cycles of civilization in previous humanities unknown to our present spiritually limited culture."

    "The Hindu mind has a vision of eternity and infinity. It is aware of the vast cycles of creation and destruction that govern the many universes and innumerable creatures within them.".

     

    • Muhammad Dara Shikoh (1627-1658 AD) the favorite Sufi son of Moghul emperor, Shah Jehan.
    "After gradual research; I have come to the conclusion that long before all heavenly books, God had revealed to the Hindus, through the Rishis of yore, of whom Brahma was the Chief, His four books of knowledge, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda, the Sama Veda and the Atharva Veda."

    "The Quran itself made veiled references to the Upanishads as the first heavenly book and the fountainhead of the ocean of monotheism."

     

     

    • Klaus L. Klostermaier, Professer Religious Studies at the University of Manitoba.
    Hinduism has proven much more open than any other religion to new ideas, scientific thought, and social experimentation. Many concepts like reincarnation, meditation, yoga and others have found worldwide acceptance. It would not be surprising to find Hinduism the dominant religion of the twenty-first century. It would be a religion that doctrinally is less clear-cut than mainstream Christianity, politically less determined than Islam, ethically less heroic than Buddhism, but it would offer something to everybody. It will appear idealistic to those who look for idealism, pragmatic to the pragmatists, spiritual to the seekers, sensual to the here-and-now generation. Hinduism, by virtue of its lack of an ideology and its reliance on intuition, will appear to be more plausible than those religions whose doctrinal positions petrified a thousand years ago.

     

     

    • Sylvain Levi (1863-1935) French scholar, Orientalist who wrote on Eastern religion, literature, and history.
    "From Persia to the Chinese Sea, 'from the icy regions of Siberia to the islands of Java and Borneo, from Oceania to Socotra, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales and her civilization."

    "She has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries. She has the right to reclaim in universal history the rank that ignorance has refused her for a long time and to hold her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity."

     

     

    • Solange Lemaitre author of several books, including Le Mystère de la mort dans les religions d'Asie and Râmakrishna et la vitalité de l'hindouism

    "The civilization of India, at root purely religious, is only now becoming known in Europe; and as the mystery surrounding it is unveiled it emerges as one of the highest achievement in the history of mankind. By the very breadth of the outlook it affords on to the destiny of man the Vedic religion offers in abundance the spiritual experience that has inspired the Indian people since the dawn of their history. The vocation of India is to proclaim to the world the efficacy of religious experience."

     

     

    • Stephen Cross, in his book on Hinduism, pg 1, says,
    "It is no secret that we in the West live in a time of spiritual crisis. Western civilization has been guided by Christianity. Now it appears that this period is drawing to a close. Both religious institutions and social structures are in disarray. A great many things that were considered basic assumptions of western thought are being challenged. The reality of the external world, the soul, the linear nature of time.

     

     

    • W. J. Grant

    "India indeed has a preciousness which a materialistic age is in danger of missing. Some day the fragrance of her thought will win the hearts of men. This grim chase after our own tails which marks the present age cannot continue for ever. The future contains a new human urge towards the real beauty and holiness of life. When it comes Hinduism will be searched by loving eyes and defended by knightly hands." <!-- Signature -->

     

    • Robert R. C. Zaehner (1913-1974) British historian of religion.
    "In the family of religions, Hinduism is the wise old all-knowing mother. Its sacred books, the Vedas, claim, 'Truth is one, but sages call it by different names.' If only Islam, and all the rest of the monotheistic 'book' religions, had learned that lesson, all the horror of history's religious wars could have been avoided. Which other religion has its God say, as Krishna does in the Bhagavad Gita, 'All paths lead to me.'

    "If only the Church had the sense to allow so many different and seemingly contradictory approaches to God, how much saner its history would have been!"

    "It was the sublime ancient tolerance of Hinduism that he often stressed, that was the true proof of the wisdom and mature dignity of the Hindu tradition."

     

     

    • Vecente Avelino who was the Consul General for Brazil in India in 1930 .
    "India is the only country which has known God and if anyone wants to know God he must know India."

     

     

    • B B Lal (1921- ) On joining the Archaeological Survey in January 1946, he held charge of the Excavations Branch and participated with Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the excavations at Harappa, now in Pakistan. In 1951 he was deputed for advanced studies at the Institute of Archaeology, London. In 1961, under a UNESCO project, he conducted excavations in Nubia, Egypt, and brought to light valuable evidence relating to prehistoric and protohistoric periods of that country.
    "The great civilization of the Indian subcontinent, has had its roots deep in antiquity, some seven to eight thousand years ago, and its flowering in the third millennium B.C. still lives on. In contrast, when we look round the world we are surprised by the fact that the Egyptian and Mesopotamia civilizations that flourished alongside this Indic Civilization have all disappeared, leaving hardly any trace behind. Why? The Indian psyche has indeed been pondering over this great cultural phenomenon of 'livingness', and this quest.."

    " What is that ‘something’, some inherent strength? Doubtless it lies in the liberal character of the Indian civilization, which allows for cross-fertilization with other cultures, without losing its own identity. Even time (kala), the great devourer, has stood testimony to the fact that the deep foundations of Indian culture could not be shaken either by internal upheavals, however great may have been their magnitude.... the soul of India lives on!"

     

     

    • General Joseph Davey Cunningham (1812-1851) author of A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej says:
    "Mathematical science was so perfect and astronomical observations so complete that the paths of the sun and the moon were accurately measured. The philosophy of the learned few was perhaps for the first time, firmly allied with the theology of the believing many, and Brahmanism laid down as articles of faith the unity of God, the creation of the world, the immortality of the soul, and the responsibility of man. The remote dwellers upon the Ganges distinctly made known that future life about which Moses is silent or obscure, and that unity and Omnipotence of the Creator which were unknown to the polytheism of the Greek and Roman multitude, and to the dualism of Mithraic legislators, while Vyasa perhaps surpassed Plato in keeping the people tremblingly alive to the punishment which awaited evil deeds."

     

     

    • Alan Watts(1915-1973) a professor, graduate school dean and research fellow of Harvard University:
    "To the philosophers of India, however, Relativity is no new discovery, just as the concept of light years is no matter for astonishment to people used to thinking of time in millions of kalpas, (A kalpa is about 4,320,000 years). The fact that the wise men of India have not been concerned with technological applications of this knowledge arises from the circumstance that technology is but one of innumerable ways of applying it."

    "It is, indeed, a remarkable circumstance that when Western civilization discovers Relativity it applies it to the manufacture of atom-bombs, whereas this Oriental civilization applies it to the development of new states of consciousness."

     

     

     

    • Professor Arthur Holmes (1895-1965) geologist, professor at the University of Durham. He writes regarding the age of the earth in his great book, The Age of Earth (1913) as follows:
    "Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book."

    When the Hindu calculation of the present age of the earth and the expanding universe could make Professor Holmes so astonished, the precision with which the Hindu calculation regarding the age of the entire Universe was made would make any man spellbound.

     

     

    • Count Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a Belgian writer of poetry, a wide variety of essays. He won the 1911 Nobel Prize for literature. In his book Mountain Paths, says:
    "he falls back upon the earliest and greatest of Revelations, those of the Sacred Books of India with a Cosmogony which no European conception has ever surpassed."

     

     

    • Huston Smith born in China to Methodist missionaries, a philosopher, most eloquent writer, world-famous religion scholar who practices Hatha Yoga. He has said in Hinduism:
    “The invisible excludes nothing, the invisible that excludes nothing is the infinite – the soul of India is the infinite.”

    “Philosophers tell us that the Indians were the first ones to conceive of a true infinite from which nothing is excluded. The West shied away from this notion. The West likes form, boundaries that distinguish and demarcate. The trouble is that boundaries also imprison – they restrict and confine.”

    “India saw this clearly and turned her face to that which has no boundary or whatever.” “India anchored her soul in the infinite seeing the things of the world as masks of the infinite assumes – there can be no end to these masks, of course. If they express a true infinity.” And It is here that India’s mind boggling variety links up to her infinite soul.”

    “India includes so much because her soul being infinite excludes nothing.” It goes without saying that the universe that India saw emerging from the infinite was stupendous.”

    "While the West was still thinking, perhaps, of 6,000 years old universe – India was already envisioning ages and eons and galaxies as numerous as the sands of the Ganges. The Universe so vast that modern astronomy slips into its folds without a ripple.”<!-- Signature -->


  10. Intellectuals , Scientists and Philosphers of the world on Hinduism

     

     

    Romain rolland (1866-1944) French Nobel laureate, professor of the history of music at the Sorbonne and thinker.

     

    • If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India....For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay.
    • Let us return to our eagle's nest in the Himalayas. It is waiting for us, for it is ours, eaglets of Europe, we need not renounce any part of our real nature...whence we formerly took our flight.
    • Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws, moreover the former is never made a condition for the knowledge they teach, but there are always scrupulously careful to take into consideration the possibility that by reason both the agnostic and atheist may attain truth in their own way. Such tolerance may be surprising to religious believers in the West, but it is an integral part of Vedantic belief.
    • The true Vedantic spirit does not start out with a system of preconceived ideas. It possesses absolute liberty and unrivalled courage among religions with regard to the facts to be observed and the diverse hypotheses it has laid down for their coordination. Never having been hampered by a priestly order, each man has been entirely free to search wherever he pleased for the spiritual explanation of the spectacle of the universe.
    • The greatest human ideal is the great cause of bringing together the thoughts of Europe and Asia; the great soul of India will topple our world.
    • The vast and tranquil metaphysics of India is unfolded; her conception of the universe, her social organization, perfect in its day and still capable of adaptation to the demands of modern times; the solution which she offers for the feminist problem, for the problems of the family, of love, of marriage; and lastly, the magnificent revelation of her art. The whole vast soul of India proclaims from end to end of its crowded and well ordered edifice the same domination of a sovereign synthesis." There is no negation. All is harmonized. All the forces of life are grouped like a forest, whose thousand waving arms are led by Nataraja, the master of the Dance. Everything has its place, every being has its function, and all take part in the divine concert, their different voices, and their very dissonances, creating, in the phrase of Heraclitus, a most beautiful harmony. Whereas in the West, cold, hard logic isolates the unusual, shutting it off from the rest of life into a definite and distinct compartment of the spirit. India, ever mindful of the natural differences in souls and in philosophies, endeavors to blend them into each other, so as to recreate in its fullest perfection the complete unity. The matching of opposites produces the true rhythm of life.
    • Of course, this entire fabric of Indian life stands solidly on faith, that is to say, on a slender and emotional hypothesis. But amid all the beliefs of Europe, and of Asia, that of the Indian Brahmins seems to me infinitely the most alluring. And the reason why I love the Brahmin more than the other schools of Asiatic thought is because it seems to me to contain them all. Greater than all European philosophies, it is even capable of adjusting itself to the vast hypotheses of modern science. Our Christian religions have tried in vain, when there were no other choice open to them, to adapt themselves to the progress of science. But after having allowed myself to be swept away by the powerful rhythm of Brahmin thought, along the curve or life, with its movement of alternating ascent and return, I come back to my own century, and while finding therein the immense projections of a new cosmogony, offspring of the genius of Einstein, or deriving freely from the discoveries, I yet do not feel that I enter a strange land. I yet can hear resounding still the cosmic symphony of all those planets which forever succeed each other, are extinguished and once more illumined, with their living souls, their humanities, their gods – according to the laws of the eternal To Become, the Brahmin Samsara – I hear Siva dancing, dancing in the heart of the world, in my own heart.
    • In the great philosophy of Brahma, such violent turns of the scale are quite unknown. It embraces vast stretches of time, cycles of human ages, whose successive lives gravitate in concentric circles, and travel ever slowly towards the center...."
    Erwin Schroedinger (1887--1961) Austrian theoretical physicist, was a professor at several universities in Europe. He was awarded the Nobel prize Quantum Mechanics, in 1933. During the Hitler era he was dismissed from his position for his opposition to the Nazi ideas and he fled to England. He was the author of Meine Weltansicht

     

    • This life of yours which you are living is not merely apiece of this entire existence, but in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as we know, is what the Brahmins express in that sacred, mystic formula which is yet really so simple and so clear; tat tvam asi, this is you. Or, again, in such words as “I am in the east and the west, I am above and below, I am this entire world.
    • The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. In 1925, the world view of physics was a model of a great machine composed of separable interacting material particles. During the next few years, Schrodinger and Heisenberg and their followers created a universe based on super imposed inseparable waves of probability amplitudes. This new view would be entirely consistent with the Vedantic concept of All in One.
    • Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.
    • Nirvana is a state of pure blissful knowledge.. It has nothing to do with individual. The ego or its separation is an illusion. The goal of man is to preserve his Karma and to develop it further – when man dies his karma lives and creates for itself another carrier.
    • There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction....The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.
    • The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the West.
    Mahatama Gandhi (1869 - 1948) was an advocate and pioneer of nonviolence.

     

    • I am a proud staunch Sanatani Hindu.
    • Hinduism has made marvelous discoveries in things of religion, of the spirit, of the soul. We have no eye for these great and fine discoveries. We are dazzled by the material progress that Western science has made. Ancient India has survived because Hinduism was not developed along material but spiritual lines.
    • Hinduism is a relentless pursuit of Truth. "Truth is God" and if today it has become moribund, inactive, irresponsive to growth, it is because we are fatigued; and as soon as the fatigue is over, Hinduism will burst upon the world with a brilliance perhaps unknown before.
    • I believe that the civilization India has evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestry. Rome went; Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation.
    • The Geeta is the universal mother. I find a solace in the Bhagavadgeeta that I miss even in the Sermon on the Mount. When disappointment stares me in the face and all alone I see not one ray of light, I go back to the Bhagavad Gita. I find a verse here and a verse there , and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming tragedies - and my life has been full of external tragedies - and if they have left no visible or indelible scar on me, I owe it all to the teaching of Bhagavadgeeta.
    • Hinduism is a living organism liable to growth and decay subject to the laws of Nature. One and indivisible at the root, it has grown into a vast tree with innumerable branches. The changes in the season affect it. It has its autumn and its summer, its winter and its spring. It is, and is not, based on scriptures. It does not derive its authority from one book. Non violence has found the highest expression and application in Hinduism.
    • I think I have understood Hinduism correctly when I say that it is eternal, all-embracing and flexible enough to suit all situations.
    • I am a Hindu because it is Hinduism which makes the world worth living. I am a Hindu hence I Love not only human beings, but all living beings.
    • Hinduism is a living organism. One and indivisible at the root, it has grown into a vast tree with innumerable branches. Knowledge is limitless and so also the application of truth. Everyday we add to our knowledge of the power of Atman (soul) and we shall keep on doing so.
    • I am unable to identify with orthodox Christianity. I must tell you in all humility that Hinduism, as I know it, entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being, and I find solace in the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads that I miss even in the Sermon on the Mount....I must confess to you that when doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
    • I have no other wish in this world but to find light and joy and peace through Hinduism.
    • Hinduism insists on the brotherhood of not only all mankind but of all that lives.
    • Hinduism is like the Ganga,, pure and unsullied at its source but taking in its course the impurities in the way. Even like the Ganga it is beneficent in its total effect. It takes a provincial form in every province, but the inner substance is retained everywhere.
    • On examination, I have found it to be the most tolerant of all religions known to me. Its freedom from dogma makes a forcible appeal to me inasmuch as it gives the votary the largest scope for self-expression.
    • Hindu Dharma is like a boundless ocean teeming with priceless gems. The deeper you dive the more treasures you find.
    • Hinduism is like Ganges, pure and unsullied at its source, but taking in its course the impurities in the way.
    • It is impossible for me to reconcile myself to the idea of conversion after the style that goes on in India and elsewhere today. It is an error which is perhaps the greatest impediment to the world’s progress toward peace … Why should a Christian want to convert a Hindu to Christianity? Why should he not be satisfied if the Hindu is a good or godly man?
    Dr. Carl Sagen, (1934-1996) famous astrophysicist.

     

    • The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.
    • The most elegant and sublime of these is a representation of the creation of the universe at the beginning of each cosmic cycle, a motif known as the cosmic dance of Lord Shiva. The god, called in this manifestation Nataraja, the Dance King. In the upper right hand is a drum whose sound is the sound of creation. In the upper left hand is a tongue of flame, a reminder that the universe, now newly created, with billions of years from now will be utterly destroyed.
    • A millennium before Europeans were wiling to divest themselves of the Biblical idea that the world was a few thousand years old, the Mayans were thinking of millions and the Hindus billions.
    Count Hermann Keyserling (1880-1946) philosopher, author, public speaker. He is the first Western thinker to conceive and promote a planetary culture, beyond nationalism and cultural ethnocentrism, based on recognition of the equal value and validity of non-western cultures and philosophies.

     

    • Hinduism at its best has spoken the only relevant truth about the way to self-realization in the full sense of the word.
    • Hinduism has produced the profoundest metaphysics that we know of.
    • The absolute superiority of India over the West in philosophy; poetry from the Mahabharata, containing the Bhagavad-Gita, “perhaps the most beautiful work of the literature of the world".
    • Benares is holy. Europe, grown superficial, hardly understands such truths anymore.....I feel nearer here than I have ever done to the heart of the world; here I feel everyday as if soon, perhaps even today, I would receive the grace of supreme revelation...The atmosphere of devotion which hangs above the river is improbable in strength; stronger than in any church that I have ever visited. Every would be Christian priest would do well to sacrifice a year of his theological studies in order to spend his time on the Ganges; here he would discover what piety means.
    Mark Tawin (1835-1910) also known as Samuel Clemens, one of the most widely loved and celebrated American writers since his first books were released in the late 1860s.

     

    • Land of religions, cradle of human race, birthplace of human speech, grandmother of legend, great grandmother of tradition. The land that all men desire to see and having seen once even by a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the globe combined.
    • India had the start of the whole world in the beginning of things. She had the first civilization; she had the first accumulation of material wealth; she was populous with deep thinkers and subtle intellects; she had mines, and woods, and a fruitful soul.
    • Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India.
    • The one land that all men desire to see, and having once seen, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.
    Dr. Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) the great British historian. His massive research was published in 12 volumes between 1934 and 1961 as `A Study of History'. Author of several books, including Christianity: Among the Religions of the World and One World and India. Toynbee was a major interpreter of human civilization in the 20th century.

     

    • It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in human history , the only way of salvation is the ancient Hindu way. Here we have the attitude and spirit that can make it possible for the human race to grow together in to a single family.
    • So now we turn to India. This spiritual gift, that makes a man human, is still alive in Indian souls. Go on giving the world Indian examples of it. Nothing else can do so much to help mankind to save itself from destruction.
    • There may or may not be only one single absolute truth and only one single ultimate way of salvation. We do not know. But we do know that there are more approaches to truth than one, and more means of salvation than one.’’‘‘This is a hard saying for adherents of the higher religions of the Judaic family (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but it is a truism for Hindus. The spirit of mutual good-will, esteem, and veritable love ... is the traditional spirit of the religions of the Indian family. This is one of India’s gifts to the world.
    • At the close of this century, the world would be dominated by the West, but that in the 21st century "India will conquer her conquerors."
    Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Scientist, philosopher, bohemian, and radical. A theoretical physicist and the Supervising Scientist for the Manhattan Project, the developer of the atomic bomb. Graduating from Harvard University, he traveled to Cambridge University to study at the Cavendish Laboratory.

     

    • Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.
    • The general notions about human understanding… which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find [in modern physics] is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom.
    • The juxtaposition of Western civilization's most terrifying scientific achievement with the most dazzling description of the mystical experience given to us by the Bhagavad Gita, India's greatest literary monumen
    Sir Charles Eliot (1862-1931), British diplomat and colonial administrator, a famous scholar and linguist of Oxford.

     

    • Let me confess that I cannot share the confidence in the superiority of Europeans and their ways which is prevalent in the West. European civilization is not satisfying and Asia can still offer something more attractive to many who are far from Asiatic in spirit.
    • I do not think that Christianity will ever make much progress in Asia, for what is commonly known by that name is not the teaching of Christ but a rearrangement of it made in Europe and like most European institutions practical rather than thoughtful. And as for the teaching of Christ himself, the Indian finds it excellent but not ample or satisfying. There is little in it which cannot be found in some of the many scriptures of Hinduism..."
    • The claim of India to the attention of the world is that she, more than any other nation since history began, has devoted herself to contemplating the ultimate mysteries of existence and, in my eyes, the fact that Indian thought diverges widely from our own popular thought is a positive merit.
    • Hinduism has not been made, but has grown. It is a jungle, not a building. It is a living example of a great national paganism such as might have existed in Europe if Christianity had not become the state religion of the Roman Empire, if there had remained an incongruous jumble of old local superstitions, Greek philosophy, and oriental cults such as the worship of Sarapis or Mitras.
    • Compared to Islam and Christianity, Hinduism’s doctrines are extraordinarily fluid, and multiform. India deals in images and metaphors. Restless, subtle and argumentative as Hindu thought is, it is less prone than European theology to the vice of distorting transcendental ideas by too stringent definition. It adumbrates the indescribable by metaphors and figures. It is not afraid of inconsistencies which may illustrate different aspects of the infinite, but it rarely tries to cramp the divine within the limits of a logical phrase.
    • The Hindu has an extraordinary power of combining dogma and free thought, uniformity, and variety. Utmost latitude of interpretation is allowed. In all ages Hindus have been passionately devoted to speculation. It is also to point out that from the Upanishads down to the writings of Tagore in the present day literature from time to time enunciates the idea that the whole universe is the manifestation of some exuberant force giving expression to itself in joyous movement.
    Niels Henrik David Bohr (1885-1962) Danish nuclear physicist who developed the Bohr model of the atom. His received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1922, for his theory of atomic structure

     

    • I go into the Upanishads to ask questions.
    Sri Sri Ravi Shanker founder of the Bangalore based Art of Living an International Foundation. He recently addressed the UN Peace Summit on Aug 28.

     

    • Hinduism is not a religion; it is just a way of life that thousands of Rishis have written about. It is such a democratic religion where everybody has the freedom to think, write or say whatever they want. We have no opposition for any other philosophy coming into us. We have no opposition for the Bible to be part of our own study. Nobody here will say, 'If you read the Bible, you will go to hell'. It is an inclusive way of looking at life, and that is what we need in the world today. We have no objection taking food from every part of the world, listening to music from every part of the world. So we need to globalize wisdom too.
    • Indian astronomers had calculated that life started 1 billion, 955 million, 818 thousand and 501 years ago and that 28 cycles of yugas have already happened. The ancient sages knew these facts. This is why they devised the mala (necklace) with 108 beads, which stand for the 12 constellations and the nine planets and the 108 different permutations which affect one's life." Everything is this universe is interconnected.
    Annie wood Besant (1847-1933) was an active socialist on the executive committee of the Fabian Society along with George Bernard Shaw.

     

    • After a study of some forty years and more of the great religions of the world, I find none so perfect , none so scientific, none so philosophical and none so spiritual that the great religion known by the name of Hinduism. Make no mistake, without Hinduism, India has no future. Hinduism is the soil in to which India's roots are stuck and torn out of that she will inevitably wither as a tree torn out from its place. And if Hindus do not maintain Hinduism who shall save it? If India's own children do not cling to her faith who shall guard it. India alone can save India and India and Hinduism are one.
    • This is the India of which I speak - the India which, as I said, is to me the Holy Land. For those who, though born for this life in a Western land and clad in a Western body, can yet look back to earlier incarnations in which they drank the milk of spiritual wisdom from the breast of their true mother - they must feel ever the magic of her immemorial past, must dwell ever under the spell of her deathless fascination; for they are bound to India by all the sacred memories of their past; and with her, too, are bound up all the radiant hopes of their future, a future which they know they will share with her who is their true mother in the soul-life.
    • India is the mother of religion. In her are combined science and religion in perfect harmony, and that is the Hindu religion, and it is India that shall be again the spiritual mother of the world.
    • During the early life of a Nation, religion is an essential for the binding together of the individuals who make the nation. India was born, as it were, in the womb of Hinduism, and her body was for long shaped by that religion. Religion is a binding force, and India has had a longer binding together by religion than any other Nation in the world, as she is the oldest of the living Nations.
    • Based on knowledge it need not fear any advance in knowledge; profound in spirituality, the depths of the spirit find in it deeps answering into deep, it has nothing to dread, everything to hope, from growth in intellect, from increasing sway of reason.
    Alfred B. Ford grandson of Henry Ford (founder of the Ford Motor), and Trustee member of Ford Motor Company.

     

    • For me the most important thing is to spread the Hindu knowledge about the soul. This is more important than any other knowledge and is my main priority.
    Sir Vididdhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932 - ) Nobel Laureate

     

    • The key Hindu concept of dharma - the right way, the sanctioned way, which all men must follow, according to their natures - is an elastic concept. At its noblest it combines self-fulfillment and truth to the self with the ideas of action as duty, action as its own spiritual reward, man as a holy vessel. India was trampled over, fought over. You had the invasions and you had the absence of a response to them. There was an absence even of the idea of a people, of a nation defending itself. Only now are people beginning to understand that there has been a great vandalizing of India. The movement is now from below. It has to be dealt with. It is not enough to abuse these youths or use that fashionable word from Europe, 'fascism', There is a big, historical development going on in India. What is happening in India is a new historical awakening....Indian intellectuals, who want to be secure in their liberal beliefs, may not understand what is going on. But every other Indian knows precisely what is happening: deep down he knows that a larger response is emerging even if at times this response appears in his eyes to be threatening.
    • Indian intellectuals have a responsibility to the state and should start a debate on the Muslim psyche, To speak of Hindu fundamentalism, is a contradiction in terms, it does not exist. Hinduism is not this kind of religion. You know, there are no laws in Hinduism.
    • I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the tenth century or earlier time disfigured, defaced, you know that they were not just defaced for fun: that something terrible happened. I feel that the civilization of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions. And I would like people, as it were, to be more reverential towards the past, to try to understand it; to preserve it; instead of living in its ruins. The Old World is destroyed. That has to be understood. The ancient Hindu India was destroyed.
    • The older I get, the more Hindu I become.
    Albert Einstein, (1879-1955) physicist. In 1905 He published his theory of Relativity.

     

    • When I read the Bhagavad Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous.
    • We owe a lot to Indians who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.
    Octovio Paz (1914-1998) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

     

    • The Hindu genius is a love for abstraction and, at the same time, a passion for the concrete image. At times it is rich, at others prolix. It has created the most lucid and the most instinctive art. It is abstract and realistic, sexual and intellectual, pedantic and sublime. It lives between extremes, it embraces the extremes, rooted in the earth and drawn to an invisible beyond.
    Klaus L. Klostermaier professor of Religious Studies at the University of Manitoba.

     

    • Hinduism has proven much more open than any other religion to new ideas, scientific thought, and social experimentation. Many concepts like reincarnation, meditation, yoga and others have found worldwide acceptance. It would not be surprising to find Hinduism the dominant religion of the twenty-first century. It would be a religion that doctrinally is less clear-cut than mainstream Christianity, politically less determined than Islam, ethically less heroic than Buddhism, but it would offer something to everybody. It will appear idealistic to those who look for idealism, pragmatic to the pragmatists, spiritual to the seekers, sensual to the here-and-now generation. Hinduism, by virtue of its lack of an ideology and its reliance on intuition, will appear to be more plausible than those religions whose doctrinal positions petrified a thousand years ago.
    George Bernard Shaw, (1856-1950) a vegetarian and Nobel Laureate in Literature.

     

    • The Indian way of life provides the vision of the natural, real way of life. We veil ourselves with unnatural masks. On the face of India are the tender expressions which carry the mark of the Creators hand.
    • The apparent multiplication of gods is bewildering at the first glance, but you soon discover that they are the same GOD. There is always one uttermost God who defies personification. This makes Hinduism the most tolerant religion in the world, because its one transcendent God includes all possible gods. In fact Hinduism is so elastic and so subtle that the most profound Methodist, and crudest idolater, are equally at home with it.

  11. Namaste Imran,

    Thank you for the post,

     

    "At the same time, People of different religions may disagree with defination of God" does not remain as significant. Understanding is universally communicable. You have very rightly stated that peoples ascribing to different religions differ in their concept of God. I also acknowledge that differences in understanding are quite likely. But I still believe that even if such intricate concepts like the concept of God were presented on the basis of our God-gifted faculty of understanding, we would, at worst, be able to appreciate and acknowledge these differences in understanding and, at best, resolve them.

    Yes, it may not be significant in Abrahmic religions where God is saparate from creation.

    Hinduism has concept of Brahman. Only Brahman exists and nothing else. So, in a way Hinduism is more Monotheistic than Abrahmic religions provided you understand concept of Brahman.

     

    I am not sure if I have understood this point correctly. Please clarify: Are you saying that Gandhi was Gandhi only because of the level of progress that Gandhi's soul had attained and Hitler was Hitler only because of the same reason? Was this level of progress of each of these souls in the hands of these people or was it because of something beyond the control of these people?

     

    Law of Karma and concept of reincarnation is one of the most basic things in Hinduism (Later adopted by Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism).

    If life is one and God is not partial, then Why many people are spiritual from very beginning and some can't even understand divine all their lives?

    If life is one and God is not partial then why God allowed people to take birth in sufferings of Africa and others in divine spiritual enviornment or in comforts of America?

    If life is one and God is not partial then Why that Child was born with AIDS or is without family and another with good Health or in a respected family?

    If life is one and God is not partial and their is only one true religion (Islam or Christianity)..then Why God allowed soul to take birth in false religions and suffer?

    .

    .

    .

    .

    practically their are unlimited Questions like these...

    So, Is God partial? If he is not then why so much diversity and partiality all around?

    No, he is not parital. In Hindu view everything is governed by Law of Karma and Reincarnation(till you achieve Moksha).

    Gandhi was Non-Voilent and Hitler was voilent because Soul in them were at different level of spiritual advancement. The person is suffering because of his own Karmas, nature of person is because of his own karmas.

     

    Do you think that Hitler was devoid of the sense of Moral and Immoral action or would you think that he refused to listen to the voice inside of him and knowingly acted against it, even if he tried to justify his actions to himself and to the world, in general?

     

    We are completely free to do Karmas. Hitler Karmas were negative and against Dharma. Negative Karmas will produce negative effects sooner or later. Positive Karmas will produce positive affects sooner or later. Do psitive Karmas and rise, Do Negative Karmas and fall further.

    Concept of Karma is very deep and there are many types of Karma.

     

    I really do not know how to judge what you term as "Spiritual advancement of the Soul", but I do know that the two people understand the scriptures differently and are very active in trying to propagate their respective understanding to others.

     

    There is concept of MAYA in Sanatana Dharma. Maya is an illusion which prevents soul from realising it's Eternal Nature. As Maya reduces, Spiritual awareness increases.

     

    One can try to understand their respective views on the basis of one's own understanding and decide which of the two are correct. I really feel that this is the only objective way of approaching any subject. i really do not possess any objective criterion to measure the spritual advancement of people around me. But I do possess an ability to understand their point of views and decide if they are wrong or right.

    There is so much diversity. Everyone is doing their Karmas. Some are rising , some are falling. Is there any difference in your eyes between people like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Saints, Suffis , Yogis and people in porn industry, terrorists who kill innocents, dacoits etc.? We can't judge everyone, we can some easily.

    At the end of the day, most important is what you think about yourself? Am i progressing and moving closer towards divine? or Am i falling?

    At the end of the day, most important is Self-realisation.

     

    I fully agree with this. Where would you guide a person to begin, if he wants to take up an understanding of Hinduism?

     

    Try to read Bhagavad Gita.

    Ramayana is beautiful.

    Read commentries on Law of Karma, Reincarnation , Nature of Soul and concept of Maya.

     

    I request you to please let me know how is a person supposed to accept this Eternal Truth, if he cannot understand it. What is the means of realizing it, without understandig it?

    Thank you very much for your generosity. God bless you.

     

    It's a natural process, It happen of it's own. Our body is just a cloth of this Soul and our life is just a small part in the big journey of this soul whose destination is Moksha.

    Thank you


  12. Krishna is Vishnu, Krishna is Shiva. You can worship any diety but with correct understanding.

     

    If you will worship them as separate entity from Krishna (Brahman) , your way is wrong.

     

    If you will worship them as part of Krishna (Brahman) which is not separate from Krishna ...you are right.

     

    I can go even further, Even some Muslims (like suffis) follow Krishna and are completely devoted to Krishna because they follow formless aspect of Brahman. Krishna says those who worhip me as formless and with complete devotion are also right but their path is difficult than those who will worship me in this personal form.

     

    Is there anyone here who remember that legend story of Vrindavan where Krishna as a child came out from Banke Bihari temple to give darshan to his Muslim Suffi devotee because he was not allowed to enter in that temple by temple preists? Even today, grave of that Suffi exists in Vrindavan and people visit it to give respect.


  13. The most sacred symbol in Hindu dharma. Aum (OM) is the sound of the infinite.

     

    Aum is said to be the essence of all mantras, the highest of all matras or divine word (shabda), brahman (ultimate reality) itself.

    Aum is said to be the essence of the Vedas.

     

    By sound and form, AUM symbolizes the infinite Brahman (ultimate reality) and the entire universe.

     

    A stands for Creation

     

    U stands for Preservation

     

    M stands for Destruction or dissolution

     

    This is representative of the Trinity of God in Hindu dharma (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva)

     

    The three portions of AUM relate to the states of waking, dream and deep sleep and the three gunas (rajas, satva, tamas)

     

    The three letters also indicates three planes of existence, heaven (swarga), earth (martya) and netherworld (patala)

     

    All the words produced by the human vocal organ can be represented by AUM. A is produced by the throat, U & M by

    the lips

     

    In the Vedas, AUM is the sound of the Sun, the sound of Light. It is the sound of assent (affirmation) and ascent (it has an

    upwards movement and uplifts the soul, as the sound of the divine eagle or falcon.

     

    Of all the Mantras, the most powerful and the significant one is the single-syllabled incantation called the Pranava. This is the 'OM'.

     

    The available literature upon the significance of these Vedic Mantras is the almost voluminous. Nowhere in this world can we meet with more sacred symbol that has got such a vast amount of significance.

     

    From Vedic times until the present day the 'OM' has been taken as a symbol and as an aid to meditation by spiritual aspirants. It is accepted both as one with Brahman and as the medium, the Logos connecting man and God. The entire history of the syllable is in the revelations of the Vedas and in the declarations of the Upanishads, and this history in the hands of the lager philosophers developed into what came to be known as the Sphota-vada or the philosophy of the word. The perceptable universe is the form, behind which stands the eternal inexpressible, the Sphota, manifested as Logos, or Word. This Eternal Sphota, the essential material basis for all ideas or names, is the power through which God creaes the Universe. Iswara - the Brahman conditioned by Maya-first manifests Himself as the Sphota, the inexpressible word, out of which He evolves as the concrete, sensible word.

     

    There is a verse in the Vedas: "Prajapati vai idam agre aseet" (In the beginning was Prajapati, the Brahman): "Tasya vag dvitiya aseet" (Withwhom was the Word): "Vag vai paramam Brahma" (And the Word was verily the Supreme Brahman). The idea belongs to Hinduism and in the fourth Gospel of the New Testament we read it repeated; "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.". This Sphota has its symbol in the word 'OM'. Thus, in the 'Maitrayana Upanashad' after it has been said that there is one Brahman without words, and a second, a Word-Brahman, we are told that the word is the syllable 'OM'. The sound of 'OM' is also called 'Pranava', meaning that it is something that pervades life, or runs through prana or breath.

     

    The very central theme of 'Mandukya Upanishad' is the syllable 'OM' through which the mystery of Brahman is gathered to a point. The text of this Upanishad first treats 'OM' in terms of the Upanishadic doctrines of the three states of waking, dream and sleep, bu then passes on to the 'fourth' (Turiya) thus transporting us beyond the typical Upanishadic sphere into that of the later "Thou art the sheath of Brahman". That is, 'OM' is the container for the Supreme and, therefore, invoking 'OM' is the container for the Supreme and, therefore, invoking 'OM' is invoking the Supreme.

     

    In every piece of music there are three aspects, viz (1) the meaning of the song: (2) the laws of music and (3) the sound of the song. Similarly, in 'OM' there are three aspects. The first the mere sound, the mere mantra as pronounced by the mouth; the second is the meaning of the syllable, which is to be realized through feeling; and the third is the application of 'OM' to you character, singing it in your acts and so through you life.

     

    "OM" represents the Self, which is the Supreme Nondual Reality. The Self is known in four states, namely, the waking-state, the

    dream-state, the deep-sleep-state and the fourth state, called the 'Turiya'. All these states are represented in the sounds of 'OM' (i.e. A,U and M) and the silence that follows and surrounds the syllable.

     

    The sound 'A' represents the waking-state; the sound 'U' represents the dream state and the 'M' represents the deep sleep state. The waking state is super imposed on the 'A' sound because it is the first of the three states of Consciousness and so is the sound 'A', the very first of the letters of the alphabet, in all languages. The dream is bu a view within the mind of the impressions that had reflected on the surface of the mental lake during the waking state. Besides, the dream-state occurs, between the waking and the deep-sleep-state and comes second among the three states of Consciousness. And so, 'U' being next to 'A' in order of sounds, and also 'M' sound of 'OM' is super imposed, the deep sleep state. The comparison between the last sound of the 'OM' and sleep lies in that it is the closing sound of the syllable, just as deep sleep is the final stage of the mind in rest. A short pregnant silence is inevitable between two successive OK-s' On this silence is super imposed the idea of the "fourth state" known as 'Turiya'. Thi is the state of Perfect Bliss when the individual Self recognizes its identity with the Supreme.

     

    In OM, the sound A, U, and M are Mantras or forms; there is also in AUM, the common principle called the Amantra-OM that which signifies the thing-in-itself, running through and pervading the threefold phenomena of Waking-Dream and Deep-sleep. The law of memory is that one who remembers and experiences must be one and the same individual, or else memory is impossible. So, as we can remember all our experiences in all the three different planes, there must necessarily be a single common factor which was a witness of all the happenings in all the three planes. There must be some Entity within ourselves who is present in the waking world, Who moves and illumines the dream, Who is a distant observer in the deep-sleep world, and yet Who is not conditioned by any of these three realms. This entity conceived as the fourth state (Turiya), is the Real, the Changeless, the Intelligent Principle.

     

    The syllable 'OM' symbolizes both the spheres: (a) the phenomenal, visible sphere of the 'Jagat', wherein the manifestations of time and space appear and perish, and (b) the transcendent, timeless sphere of the imperishable Being, which is beyond, yet one with it. Thus 'A' the "Waking-state" 'U', the "Dream" 'M', the "Deep-sleep" and the silence, "Turiya": all the four together comprise the totality of this manifestation of Atman-Brahman as a syllable. Just as the Sound 'M' manifests itself, grows, becomes transformed in its vocal quality and finally subsides into the silence that follows, so too the four 'states' or components, of Being. They are transformation s of the one experience, which taken together, constitute the totality of its modes, whether regarded from the microcosmic or from the macrocosmic point of view.


  14. Ofcoure, everyone will agree with these basics points. At the same time, People of different religions may disagree with defination of God.

    I believe that the only true universal standard of right and wrong is also provided by this faculty of understanding and the universal inherent awareness of the basic moral values.

    True aim of Soul is to progress spiritually. Every Soul is not equal spiritually. This explains why there is difference between Gandhi and Hitler. Two people read same scripture, one becomes Terrorist and another Suffi saint who has universal understanding. This is because of difference in Spiritual advancement of Soul. For primary class student, Theorems of College are useless, he have to learn basics and advance to understand them. That doesn't mean teachings of his class are not basics of some higher spiritual truths which he will learn in future when that soul will progress spiritually.

    Yes, ultimately there is only one Sanatan (Eternal) Truth which can't be explained but realised.


  15. HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD

     

     

    'Om Isha vasyam idam sarvam, yat kincha jagatyam jagat'

     

    "All this- whatever exists in this changing

    universe, is pervaded by God"

    -Isa Upanishad

     

    "Om purnamadah purnamidam purnaat purnamudachyate, purnasya purnamadaya purnamevaavashishyate"

     

    "That (pure consciousness) is full(perfect); this(the manifest universe of matter; of names and forms being maya) is full. This fullness has been projected from that fullness. When this fullness merges in that fullness, all that remains is fullness."

     

    -Peace invocation- Isa Upanishad

     

    "The Supreme Brahman(God) is the only Reality. The idea of the phenomenal universe is falsely superimposed upon it."

    Swami Nikhilananda of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre, New York.

     

     

     

    THE RISHI'S VISION

     

    The Rishi's vision of a world in which man participates in a seamless existence, indivisibly united with the universe around him, resonates through a discovery called "BELL'S THEOREM". This discovery, first proposed in 1964 by the physicist John S. Bell was first confirmed by experiment in 1972 by Professor John Clauser at Berkley. It is an almost unbelievable result - unbelievable because the logical mind has great difficulty in comprehending how it can be true. Its impact on the physics community has been enormous. Professor Henry Stapp, a physicist at Berkley and an authority on the implications of Bell's Theorem, has called it THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE.

     

    A description of the proof of Bell's theory, as given by Stapp reads:

     

    "If the statistical predictions of quantum theory are true, an objective universe is incompatible with the law of local causes."

     

    Although formidable at first glance, Bell's Theorem seems simpler once key terms are understood.

     

     

    First, an "objective universe" is simply one that exists apart from our consciousness.

     

    Secondly, the "law of local causes" refers to the fact that events in the universe happen at a speed that does not exceed the speed of light. Things happen, in other words, always at the speed of light or less.This limitation is imposed by Einstein's special theory of relativity, and is a mainstay of modern physical theory. To be accurate, in actual experimental situations, it is not Bell's Theorem that is tested, but the predictions of Quantum Mechanics.

     

     

    In 1935, Albert Einstein, together with Nathan Rosen and Boris Podolsky proposed through flawless mathematical reasoning that if the quantum theory were correct, then 'A change in the spin of one particle in a two particle system would affect its twin simultaneously, even if the two had been widely separated in the meantime'. And 'simultaneous' is a dirty word in the theory of special relativity, which forbids the transmission of any signal faster than the speed of light. Obviously, a signal telling the particle 'what to do' would have to travel faster than the speed of light if instantaneous changes were to occur between the two particles.

     

     

    The dilemma into which Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky dragged the quantum theory was a profound one, coming to be known as THE ERP EFFECT.

     

     

    In 1964 Bell's Theorem emerged as a proof that Einstein's impossible proposition did in fact hold true: instantaneous changes in widely separated systems did occur.

     

     

    In 1972, Clauser confirmed the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics, working with an elaborate system involving photons, calcite crystals, and photo multiplier tubes The experiment has since been run several times with the same consistent results; Bell's Theorem stands solid.

     

     

     

     

     

    THE IMPLICATIONS OF BELL'S THEOREM ARE PRACTICALLY UNTHINKABLE

    Even for the physicists involved, the implications of Bell's Theorem are practically unthinkable. Mathematics and experimentation have taken us where our logical mind cannot go. Imagine, two particles once in contact, separated even to the ends of the universe, change instantaneously when a change in one of them occurs!

     

     

    Slowly, new ideas are emerging to explain these unthinkable occurrences. One view is that, in some unexplainable way, the separated particles are still in contact although separated in space. This is the suggestion of the French physicist Bernard D'Espagnat. In 1979, writing about quantum reality, he said that "the entire notion of an external, fixed, objective world now lies in conflict not only with quantum theory, but in facts drawn from actual experiments.... in some sense all these objects constitute an indivisible whole."

     

     

    Physicist Jack Sarfatti of the Physics/Consciousness Research Group proposes that no actual energy-requiring signal is transmitted between the distant objects, but 'information' is transmitted instead. Thus no violation of Einstein's special theory of relativity occurs. Exactly what this information is is unclear, and it is a strange thing which might travel instantly and require no energy to do so.

     

     

    Nic Herbert, a physicist who heads the C-Life Institute, suggests that we have merely discovered an elemental oneness of the world. This oneness cannot be diminished by spatial separation. An invisible wholeness unites the objects that are given birth in the universe, and it is this wholeness that we have stumbled into through modern experimental methods. Herbert alludes to the words of the poet Charles Williams: "Separation without separateness, reality without rift."

     

     

    It would be a mistake to suppose that these effects operate only with relevance to the invisible world of the atom. Professor Henry Stapp states that the real importance of these findings is that they translate directly to our microcosmic existence, implying that the oneness that is implicit in Bell's Theorem envelopes human beings and atoms alike.

     

     

    The interrelation of human consciousness and the observed world is obvious in Bell's Theorem. Human consciousness and the physical world cannot be regarded as distinct, separate entities. What we call physical reality, the external world, is shaped - to some extent - by human thought. The lesson is clear; we cannot separate our own existence from that of the world outside. We are intimately associated not only with the earth we inhabit, but with the farthest reaches of the cosmos.

     

     

    Certain quantum physicists now say that each part of the universe contains all the information present in the entire cosmos itself (similar to a giant oak tree producing an acorn that contains all the information to replicate itself).

     

     

    This assertion is so audacious that it would be dismissed out of hand were it not for the scientific stature of its chief proponent David Bohm, a former associate of Einstein, professor of theoretical physics at Birbeck College of University of London. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent theoretical physicists of our day.

     

     

     

    SPACE AND TIME

     

     

     

    This indivisibility also applied fundamentally to space and time. Relativity has shown that they are inextricably linked, and cannot be teased apart.

     

    Recall one of the possibilities embodied in Bell's theorem involving non-local features of the universe: objects once in contact, though separated spatially, even if placed at distant ends of the universe, are somehow in inseparable contact. Since any change in one immediately and unmitigatedly causes change in the other, this is a nonlocal occurance, meaning that any information passing between the two objects would have to travel faster than the speed of light to cause such instantaneous change. Since it is impossible for the speed of light to be exceeded, according to the special theory of relativity, this event is said to be noncausal-i.e. not caused by the transfer of any conceivable kind of energy passing between the distant objects.

     

    Although these nonlocal and noncausal descriptions are worked out for objects separated in space, Bohm states that the implications of quantum theory also apply to moments in 'TIME'.

     

    What is crucial is that, according to the theory of relativity, a sharp distinction between space and time cannot be maintained.

     

    We all have roots in the universe. Conscious mental activity exerts measurable effects on the physical world - a world that includes human bodies, organs, tissues, and cells. Mind becomes a legitimate factor in the unfolding of health and disease. The inter-penetration of all matter is the rule. The dividing line between life and non-life is illusory and arbitrary. There is only one valid way, thus, to partake of the universe and that way is characterised by reverence - a reverence born of a felt sense of participation in the universe, of a kinship with all others and with all matter. A reverential attitude that bespeaks a oneness with the universe can transform the commonest act.

     

     

    Bhagavad Gita, Ch.13,Verses 15 :

     

    "Without and within all beings the unmoving and also the moving; because of Its subtlety, unknowable; and near and far away is That(God)".

     

     

    Bhagavad Gita, Ch.13, Verse 16:

     

    "And undivided, yet He exists as if divided in beings; He is to be known as the supporter of beings; He devours and He generates."

     

     

    No division in Consciousness is admissible at any time as it is always one and the same. Even the individuality of the Jiva must be known as false, like the delusion of a snake in a rope. Shankaracharya (Aparokshanubhuti.43)

     

    Vedanta and modern science are close to each other in spirit and temper. They are close to each other in their objectives and in very many of their conclusions as well. Even in the cosmology of the physical universe, we find so many points of contact. The fundamental position in the cosmology of both science and Vedanta is what Swami Vivekananda calls the postulate of a self-evolving cause. Vedanta says that there is one self-evolving cause, Brahman, behind the universe. Science says that behind this universe there is one self-evolving cause, the background material, in the words of astronomer Fred Hoyle.

     

    Both believe in the theory of a cosmic evolution. There are a number of such similarities. The truths expounded in the Upanishads are impersonal, Apauruseya, not deriving sanction from any person. Scientific truths are similarly impersonal, objective, not deriving sanction from any person. Because they are impersonal, they are universal, and provide a clear insight into the nature of the world. That is science.

     

     

    When we study the development of science during the last hundred years, we can trace the higher reaches of science slowly appearing on the horizon, and trace also the slow emergence of a non-materialistic outlook in science.

     

    "The most important characteristic of the Eastern world-view- one could almost say the essence of it- is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events…. The Eastern Vedanta constantly refer to this ultimate indivisible reality, which manifests itself in all things, and of which all things are parts. It is called Brahman in Hinduism, Dharmakaya in Buddhism, and Tao in Taoism…"

     

    "The basic oneness of the universe is not only the central characteristic of the mystical experience, but is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics. It becomes apparent at the atomic level, and manifests itself more and more as one penetrates deeper into matter, down into the realm of sub-atomic particles. The unity of all things and events will be a recurring theme throughout our comparison of modern physics and the Vedanta philosophy."

     

    This science and technique for realising the true glory of man, followed with scientific thoroughness and detachment by the sages of the Upanishads, and revalidated by a succession of spiritual experimenters down the ages from Buddha to Ramakrishna, is glowingly revealed in one of the immortal verses of the Svetasvatara Upanishad:

     

    "Hear, ye children of immortal bliss, even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One, who is beyond all darkness, all delusion; knowing Him alone, you shall be saved from death over again."

     

    <!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

×
×
  • Create New...