Comment on "Vivekananda's Contribution"

I recently wrote a blog-post titled "Vivekananda's Contribution" to which I received a very detailed comment over email from Mr. Asish Raha. This comment is so rich in content that it deserves to be a separate post in itself. Here it is:

Dear Kushal,

My hearty compliments to you for analyzing outstanding contributions of Swami Vivekananda, emphasizing in particular that he made us aware that real God was not without but within us.

Vivekananda's Contribution

Its quite incredible how a few humans are able to rise so high above the average that it becomes hard to believe that they share the same genes as us. Vivekananda is one such person to have lived in the 19th century India. He was an untameable rebel all through his life. During the last year of his guru's life it did seem that Vivekananda has finally been conquered, but soon after the guru's demise, the rebellion re-surfaced in all its glory. What happened at Chicago in 1893 is only a glimpse of the infinite energy that this man possessed. But even after 150 years of his passing away, this question still remains unanswered : what was Vivekananda's main contribution? Several answers are provided and we shall carefully examine the major ones.

Understanding Vedanta through Physics

Science and spirituality have had a tumultuous love-hate relationship for the past few centuries. The first sign of trouble emerged when Copernicus declared that the sun is the center of the solar system and not the earth. Galileo’s discoveries further added fuel to the fire and life has never been easy after that. Though the fight between these two human endeavours in the west is out in the open, we in India still try hard to push it under the carpet. Seldom do we realize that dirt under the carpet smells much worse than when it is out in the open. Oh yes, Vedanta surely has no problem with evolution or the heliocentric view, but some of us seem to feel threatened by science itself. Many otherwise well-meaning people often claim that ancient Indians knew everything and western scientists are only re-inventing the wheel. The technology of aircrafts and atom bombs was all known to them and may be they also used iPads (poor Steve!)! The current fascination among some Vedantins is to prove that ancient Indians also knew all about dark matter and God particle.

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Spouses and Siblings

Over the last 100 years, many very interesting and inspiring books have been written on spirituality, the way towards a higher life. And the best thing is that these books have been written by authors from various schools of thought and hence provide a very rich gamut of experience for the readers. However, there is one aspect of many of these writings that is quite funny! I am referring to the advice given to householders by many monks. The standard statement of this advice is : a married couple should live like brother-sister after giving birth to one or two children. As Ramakrishna says, it is definitely true that in order to make serious spiritual growth, it is indispensable to win over the constant hankering for 'lust and gold'. But does this mean that we start treating our spouse as our sibling? God forbid!

Dreams, Death and Moksha

Mandukya Upanishad describes consciousness as having four possible states : waking, dreaming, deep sleep and turiya (state of realization).  But these states seem to be describing only the state of  an ordinary living person and that of a realized soul. What about the state of death? Does not consciousness exist when a person dies?

Information Loss : Blackholes and Brahman

Blackholes and wormholes are two of the most fascinating and most paradoxical objects that modern physics has discovered. Among other things, blackholes hint at the possibility of information loss, which is very difficult for most physicists to accept. In simple words, anything that goes inside a blackhole looses its identity and becomes part of a bigger reality. Wait! Does this not sound very familiar to the concept of Brahman in Indian philosophy? On deeper analysis, it turns out that there are striking similarities between blackholes and Brahman:

The illusory mind

Does the mind really exist? Is it not just an illusion? An advaitin will emphatically answer "yes", but that's not the point of view from which this question is being asked. According to Advaita Vedanta, everything except Brahman is an illusion. However, as long as one is aware of the existence of the body, it is hard to say that the material world is an illusion. After all, are we not perceiving the beautiful colors of the rainbow, the soft murmur of the winds and the music of the water as it flows down the valley? The body exists and so does everything else in the material world. It is also not hard to accept that there is something called consciousness that exists and differentiates the living and the non-living. And this consciousness is also most certainly not the same as matter. It is something beyond this material world. But what about the mind? Where does it reside? Does it have any definitive existence or is it just a figment of our imagination?

Destiny: A physics perspective

Destiny and free-will (or karma) are considered to be opposites by many people. It is commonly believed that only one of these can hold in this world. Either we are all mere puppets controlled by an unseen hand, or we are totally free to do whatever we want.

Kahaani, the story

I had been waiting for the release of the hindi movie, Kahaani, since the last few months but could not go to watch it while it was still running in a nearby theatre. I finally got to watch this movie on my laptop sometime last week. After the movie got over, my first reaction was: paise bach gaye! I mean, the movie is not bad at all, but it is definitely not as great as portrayed by all the hype around it. I wonder if this movie would have been this big a hit if it was not riding on the recent success of Vidya Balan in The Dirty Picture.

A school principal

A school is like a company in some sense. A school also has employees, products, expenses, revenues, profits, balance-sheets, etc. So, a school also needs the equivalent of a CEO, CFO, CTO and a COO. Recently, there also has been the emergence of a new post called the Chief Belief Officer (CBO). As the CBO of Future group, Devdutt Pattanaik's main role is to bring the wisdom of Indian mythology into Indian businesses. This reminds me of the moral science classes that we used to have in school. And these classes were always taken by the principal or the vice-principal. This probably hints at the fact that one of the major roles of a principal is that of a CBO. The principal does not necessarily have to be an expert in mythology. But s/he should surely be able to instill some moral values in the students and teachers alike. However, there should not be any element of moral policing in the process. Instilling moral values should be done in a way such that the students are themselves able to relate to the ideas and accept them whole-heartedly. It's a tough task for sure!

The age of measurement

In the beginning of the 20th century, physicists discovered that measurement was not only a means to quantify things, but something intrinsic to the definition of reality itself. In Newtonian mechanics, objects were defined by their precise location in space and time and had a precise velocity attached to them. But this description of reality is no longer true from the point of view of quantum mechanics. In this new view of the world, all objects merely have a wave-function associated with them. And unless an act of measurement is made, things like precise location and velocity no longer have any meaning for objects. So, an act of measurement is now not only to know the position and velocity of an object, but also to impart these things to the object itself. Unless this measurement is made, the object itself has no precise location or velocity. It could be anywhere and have any velocity (with certain probabilities, of course)!

A seeker in search of reality

A seeker went in search of reality,
At every step he was met with duality.
It seemed hard to choose based on logic,
Following the path of absolute reason suddenly seemed so tragic.
Just when everything seemed so meaningless,
An Angel came by and provided great solace.
The Angel whispered in the seeker's soul,
And the seeker got new energy to again strive for the goal.
The goal did not lie in resolving the duality,
But in accepting both and realizing each one's credibility.
If there was a precise definition of perfection,
On this planet, there would not be so many organisms.
What is there to seek, what is there to find,
We already have that which will finally soothe the mind.
Its something deep within each one of us,
And it stays there in the quiet while we go around making all the fuss.
Turn towards the soul, turn towards the Self,
Turn inwards, and your peaceful months shall always be twelve.

Living in the Present

You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.