Scribbles for my daughters - of ancient & modern, rishis & Nobel Laureates and science & dharma

Scribbles for my daughters after Weekend Wandering into the past while Wondering in the present about the Ancient and the Modern, Rishis and the Nobel laureates, Science and Dharma.

This started as my responses to a debate in a WhatsApp group which prompted me put my thoughts together as a FB post and now here as an article on LinkedIn.

I am sure you have heard about the occasional odd Indian referring to the Vedas or Upanishads as a source of great knowledge in some Science Conference etc. only to be viciously attacked or mocked by some of the "progressive" Indians. Disagreement or lack of inclination to pursue a particular line of thought is not only fine, but natural. However, mockery and derogatory commentary are representative of anything but a scientific temper, which is openness to possibilities and openness to sincere enquiry. They represent anything but a liberal mindset especially when you direct them at an ancient culture whose ethos and dharma have been built upon a foundation of enquiry, questioning, openness and samvaad.

Often, moving back towards the past conventionally means regressing, it means moving back towards ignorance, towards the less developed. In the limited context of time and space with which we see existence, this is largely an acceptable hypothesis. We do, however, make two inherent assumptions here. The first one is that time is linear. The second is that, with time, evolution has always moved from less knowledge to more evolved.

Modern scientists have already found out two things about the nature of time. One, that time is not linear and the second that time is not as we have known it to be, and it is at least a theoretical possibility to travel through time! I got an opportunity to study a bit of Sanskrit for three years at school and have been fascinated by the language ever since. You must have heard people telling you that you can never get perfect marks in languages. However kids are also told that one can get 100 percent marks in Math and Sanskrit. I am telling Kaashvi the same, she disagrees lest it put pressure on her to not make mistakes

If we were evolving from cavemen, and today is the peak that we have reached, then how come this ancient language is the most scientific ? It is both grammatically and phonetically perfect, which is unlike any other language in the world today. Knowing this about Sanskrit is not even knowing the tip of the tip of the iceberg, I have started to realize.

One of the greatest Nobel Laureates, T S Elliot, became interested in Sanskrit and the wisdom that its literature contained. The more you get to see the knowledge and wisdom in this land, the more you will agree with Elliot when he summarizes his peep into ancient Indian knowledge by saying, " [Indian philosophers’] subtleties make most of the great modern philosophers look like schoolboys"

It is a different matter that most of us easily refer to Vedic knowledge as "Mythology" - I have stopped doing that. On a different note, I might just point out that the English word “mythology” actually originates from the Sanskrit word “Mithya,” as do many others e.g., mother from matr, brother from bhraatr, navigation from nav gat, path from path, trigonometry from tri+kone+matra, medium from madhyam or maadhyam and many more. The very long list will surprise you.

I remember my father encouraging me to study science "It makes you understand the world better, it makes you open minded, it makes you ask questions," he used to say. Being a scientist, a geneticist, he would take great pride in being an atheist (whatever it means) in his younger days. It is a different matter that the same scientific enquiry transformed him decades ago and thankfully that also inspired me to explore and think about the timeless knowledge.

Though I cannot claim any level of authority on knowledge or wisdom, what I can, however, say is that I have been quite curious & intrigued and often quite confused as well.

Fortunately or unfortunately, partly owing to the little nudge from my father's wise counsel, partly due to me too chasing education based on career options and with an abundant role of mere chance over the decades, it has so happened that my education and my profession have been closely related to science and technology.

It is also true that for Bharat to take note, someone in the West must endorse it or give it back to us. That brings me to talk about Steve Jobs who created the world's most valuable Technology Company. As many of you know Steve was influenced by Neem Karoli Baba and spent two years wandering in the Himalayas in his quest for great knowledge. He had personally arranged for a special gift for all who came for his funeral. It was a book, an autobiography titled "An Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramhans Yogananda. It doesn't prove anything, but perhaps it can make us think.

Ancient wisdom has known that time is not linear (kaal chakra, as they said, talks about cycles of time in great detail). It is a different matter that everything happening around us is just as fascinating a miracle as traveling through time seems to be.

This also takes me back to a many years ago when I read this wonderful book by Carl Sagan called Cosmos. Carl Sagan the famous American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist and author.

“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 innate, 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.” [Carl Sagan, Cosmos]

Please note that he has used the term “Hindu Religion” in a context which is totally different from how some use it today, often to demean and denigrate. It is most appropriate to read it as “Sanatan Dharma”. I can think of at least one fundamental difference between Dharma and Religion. While a profound, open minded, uninhibited, fearless & sincere question is end of Religion; a profound, open minded, uninhibited, fearless & sincere question is the beginning of Dharma. So the last time they asked me to fill my "religion" in my joining form, I struck off "religion" and filled the blank with "Sanatan Dharma"

Science and knowledge of the Rishis are not two different things. It is seeking to know the truth of existence at multiple levels. One fundamental difference lies in their approaches; however, these different approaches are neither mutually exclusive nor contradictory.

Knowledge of the Rishis is obtained by raising the dimensions of perception and diving deep into the source of creation, the source of existence. It is in the observer’s perception that the universe manifests and not the other way round. Interestingly, our Rishis say that meru dandd (spinal cord) is the centre of Universe. Isn't it the physical manifestation of the ability to percieve ? That is why the importance of going to the source - no perception no universe. That makes the knowledge far more profound, all-encompassing and universal but that also makes it far more difficult to prove or even comprehend conceptually. One has to, therefore, progress and elevate to realize. When I think of it, whether it is the structure of the atom or anything else that is not in my realization, it is either a hypothesis or a “fairy tale” that I am more inclined to believe than others. However, unfortunately, there is no short cut to raise our level of perception and that needs saadhna, practice, initiation and close guidance since it is to explore dimensions beyond our limitations wherein all our concepts must be demolished to see the true nature of what is, not what appears.

Conventional scientists of modern times have focused more on the external manifestation and empirical evidence-based research. The inherent limitation here is that it starts and ends with the body and its capabilities or limitations. That said, I am sure that even the modern scientists dive in to the source, knowingly or unknowingly. After all, the source and the light are the same in all.

The enlightened masters have known – and not just conceptually- that it is not consciousness that exists within the domain of space and time, it is space and time that exist within the domain of consciousness and that it is possible to elevate yourself to that level of perception and existence.

You may also have heard of Erwin Schr?dinger and his famous “Schr?dinger’s cat” experiment, amongst many others that he conducted. The Austrian physicist won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.

"The Bhagavad Gita is the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue,” said Schrodinger. His biography and published works show the influence of Sanatan Dharma on his work

“This life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece 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 [wise men or priests in the Vedic tradition] 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.” [Schr?dinger,’Meine Weltansicht’ (My View of the World), 1961]

“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.”[Erwin Schr?dinger, What is Life?, p. 129, Cambridge University Press]

“From the early great Upanishads, the recognition Atman = Brahman (the personal self, equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending eternal self) was in Indian thought considered, far from being blasphemous, to represent the quintessence of deepest insight into the happenings of the world. The striving of all the scholars of Vedanta was, after having learned to pronounce with their lips, really to assimilate in their minds this grandest of all thoughts.” [From an essay on determinism and free will]

“Most of my ideas & theories are heavily influenced by Vedanta,” writes Schrodinger. In speaking of a universe in which particles are represented by wave functions he said “The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics. This is entirely consistent with the Vedanta concept of All in One”

“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.” (Mein Leben, Meine Weltansicht [My Life, My World View] (1961), Chapter 4)

German Nobel Laureate Werner Heisenberg famous for his principle of uncertainty has been one of the biggest names in world of physics and quantum mechanics. Deep influence on Vedanta on his work is well documented.

In Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with Remarkable People (1988), Frtjof Capra writes about the conversation between Tagore and Heisenberg: “He began to see that the recognition of relativity, interconnectedness, and impermanence as fundamental aspects of physical reality, which had been so difficult for himself and his fellow physicists, was the very basis of Indian spiritual traditions.”

“Quantum theory will not look ridiculous to people who have read Vedanta” states Heisenberg.

Continuing with how seriously some of the greatest scientists took this knowledge and wisdom let me quote a few other greats as well, with the hope that people from this land of Bharat wake up to this profound knowledge.

Robert Oppenheimer- the father of the atomic bomb said “Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries”

Nobel Laureate Physicist Neil's Bohr is known to have provided the world the knowledge of the atomic structure said “I go into the Upanishands to ask questions"

Nikola Tesla - The great inventor who inspired Elon Musk so much so he named his company Tesla

“All perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or tenuity beyond conception, filling all space , the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or creative force, calling into existence, in never-ending cycles, all things and phenomena.” [Man’s Greatest Achievement, John J. O’Neal., & Prodigal Genius, The Life of Nikola Tesla, 1944]

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. An ardent student of the Upanishads, Schopenhauer had declared, “In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life. It will be the solace of my death.”

I have wondered about Bharat, I have wondered about the knowledge and wisdom of ancient India. This enquiry has not made me greatly knowledgeable, but it has made me aware of the massiveness of my ignorance. The respect with which some of the greatest scientists talk about this knowledge is often one more reason that the Indians start to look at any knowledge from Bharat with respect and sincere enquiry. Turmeric, Cannabis and Neem are not exceptions, and they became darling herbs only when the west started to talk about them.

With some enquiry and a tiny bit of experience, it has made me see a tiny speck. It has also made me realize that that the tiny speck actually opens up to an ocean of profound knowledge that this waiting to be unearthed and used for the progress of mankind and to quench man's eternal quest.

I write this not to make a point or to prove anything but only to share that such exciting wisdom exists. Neither is this a conversation of "versus" of any kind - east vs west, yours vs mine, old vs new for that has no relevance for one striving to grasp the entire existence. I write this for my daughters to ponder, to stay aware and conscious of the possibilities of the infinite so that they stay curious, so that they welcome the most fundamental questions with utmost sincerity and openness of mind, so that they stay aware of the approach of diving deep into the source and comprehending the perceiver and the perceived, the creation as a whole. So that they can aspire for the infinite and have a spark somewhere to strive to grasp not this or that, not more or less but strive to the comprehend the source of me and you and everything there is, which is in turn is the essence of the Vedas and Dharma and the timeless wisdom contained therein.

I do not think I have any thing more valuable to offer to my daughters than giving them good reason to connect to the highest wisdom and knowledge of value in life, of value in death, potentially capable of making them comprehend the phenomena of life and of death and taking them beyond both.

Let me conclude with the shloka used for the sound track of the movie Matrix taken from the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad.

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Om Asato Maa Sad-Gamaya |

Tamaso Maa Jyotir-Gamaya |

Mrtyor-Maa Amrtam Gamaya |

Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih ||

Om, Keep me not in the Phenomenal World of Unreality, but make me go towards the Reality (of Eternal Self),

Keep me not in (the Ignorant State of) Darkness, but make me go towards the Light (of Spiritual Knowledge),

Keep me not in (the World of) Mortality, but make me go towards the World of Immortality (of Self-Realization),

Om, Peace, Peace, Peace.

PS: This of course is merely some scribbles based on the thoughts of great thinkers, sages and scientists that I have picked up from here and there including quotes of Laureates taken from online resources with gratitude.

Essay Editing Credits to Mishri

Mishri had warned me that is too long for a social media post but I hope interest in some of you has been sustained to reach this far down :)