Author, 2012

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Content

FOREWORD
When I was a small kid of 5 or 6 years, I had an experience that appeared then to me most terrifying. My father who was running a small restaurant (coffee shop would be more appropriate) took me once with him to the market place to do some shopping. I was joyfully holding his hand and merrily trotting along when he went from shop to shop. It so happened that at one of the shops, I left his hand and was enjoying the market scene and looking at some of the wares being sold there. I did not notice my father moving away to another shop and I followed another man, who was about my fathers build, without

looking at his face. My dad too thought that I was right behind him. After moving a few yards I realized to my utter horror that the man I was following was someone else and I could not locate my dad in that crowded market place. I was appalled and terrified at the thought of getting lost and losing the warmth and support of my dads hands. I cried my heart out and felt totally helpless in the world of grown-up men. Possibly at that instant of agonizing loneliness and helplessness, I offered my first little prayer to and plea for help from God. That scene has remained etched in my memory for ever. Looking at this incident from the perspective of a grown-up, I realized that man has always turned to an imagined

higher power whenever tragedies or disasters or situations of utter helplessness confronted him. The early man turned everything he could not comprehend or control into a God to whom he would appeal time and again to save him from troubles and disasters. Thus men started to fear, worship or pray to the forces of air, rain, fire, mountains, sun, moon and anything beyond his mental reach. More often, when we are doing well in life or have reasons to be happy and comfortable, we tend to take for granted that we deserved these situations in life. Only when troubles, disasters, frustrating situations or major stumbling blocks

confront us we, by our very nature, rush to seek help from some unknown force that we think must exist and will come to our aid. It is only the weather-beaten mind that has experienced many ups and downs in life that can look at life a little more dispassionately and a little more wisely. Even these wise men, in one way or another, accept the need for a higher force without which many questions of life and the universe remain unanswerable. Leave aside the philosophers, scientists, sages and saints who, in their own way, with their own deep study or spiritual experience, tried to provide some answers based on their intellectual insight or close encounters with the cosmic oneness that pervades the universe. For the purpose of

this book, let us consider how the other vast majority of ordinary men and women, including the writer, look at and try to find answers for many inexplicable experiences of life. Common Man here should not be mistaken to mean dumb, unintelligent or low I.Q. human beings, devoid of higher feelings. The term is only meant to indicate the vast majority as opposed to the elite few who have attained greatness, reputation and respect due to their achievements in specific fields. In this context, I recall an excellent poem by Robert Service, which I take the liberty of reproducing below:

The Ordinary Man

If you and I should chance meet, I guess you wouldnt care; Im sure youd pass me in the street As if I wasnt there; Youd never look me in the face My modest mug to scan, Because Im just a commonplace And Ordinary Man.

But, then, it may be, you are too

A guy of every day, Who does the job he is told to do And takes the wife his pay; Who makes a home and kids his care, And works with pick or pen.. Why, Pal, I guess were just a pair, Of Ordinary Men.

We plug away and make no fuss, Our feats are never crowned;

And yet its common coves like us Who make the world go round. And as we steer a steady course By Gods predestined plan, Hats off to that almighty force, THE ORDINARY MAN.

When we probe deeply into the mindset of ordinary mans apparently nondescript life, we can perceive flashes of some deepest feelings and great insights amidst pleasures and pains, ecstasies and agonies he experiences. Every man is a

philosopher in his own way. We can see both dirt and divinity in him. Its true that the concept of God originated out of necessity of the primitive man to look to some greater power for support and consolation, and out of awe of the unknown and unexplained in Nature, and unreachable sky above. But when man began to think and reason, he began his search for God or the ultimate truth also through intellectual means. The need for and faith in a greater force than us, which we call God in common parlance, varies according to the sociocultural and even the geographical background one is born in and brought up. But the bottom line is always the fear,

curiosity and awe of the unknown. Of the pre-historic man we can only deduce how they approached the question of the existence or otherwise of a supernatural being, but the past few centuries of recorded history give ample evidence of how the diverse faiths evolved in different parts of the globe among different tribes and communities. We will briefly survey in this book the core ideas and beliefs of different religions and philosophies. One thing is obvious: The human race has certain common traits and identically wired brains, however advanced a civilization may be or whatever intellectual heights some men might have reached. As we can

see in todays world, even some tribal instincts still exist in different forms in our so-called modern communities. I have tried to trace in this book, therefore, the raw instincts of the common man progressing towards higher levels of intellectual (philosophical), rational (scientific) and deeply religious (spiritual) approaches to the search for a deeper meaning to our existence and the secrets of the universe. When we talk of evolution, either in biological, philosophical or any other sphere, we should also look into every mans individual evolution which can give a clue as to why different men take different paths in life and how he or she

comes to believe or disbelieve the existence of a supernatural being or the possibility of an ultimate spiritual experience. I believe that not only mans status in society, his financial position, his success and failure, are clearly affected by this personal evolution, but also his beliefs, his philosophy and approach to life in different stages are a reflection and direct effect of this evolutionary process. In the chapter on Individual Evolution I will discuss this concept in greater detail. On the one hand, each of us has his or her own little world to live in. On the other, each of us is part of a larger scene, starting with family, community and society; and on a wider scale the earth, the other living beings, the sky, the stars and

all cosmos. This sense of belonging can give each of us at some time or the other, the realization of oneness with a larger reality. Whenever we get in tune with this truth are the occasions when we, so to say, speak to God, the author of this Oneness. Expanding on this thought, we have to also analyze, both in spiritual and scientific terms, mans brief journey in Time and Space. This is essential for a better understanding and appreciation of the gift of life on this planet. And finally, for the purpose of this book it is of vital importance to consider the imperative of a synthesis of science and spirituality, reason and faith. I must emphasize at this stage that the

thoughts, ideas and philosophical interpretations given in this book are of a person born and brought up in the Indian culture and traditions and necessarily this flavor will remain throughout the book even while dealing with the larger picture. But one thing is universal, the heart of man. I again feel compelled to express this thought through the medium of a poem written by Frank Carleton Nelson, whose work I reproduce below:

The Human Heart

There is a heap of love in the human heart, If we just dig down a bit;

Its the masterpiece of the Mighty Hand And He gave His best to it. Theres a heap of good in the most of men, Just underneath the skin, And much would show that we never know, Could we only look within.

Theres a lot inside that we never see, And perhaps we never know,

til fortunes turn and we are down and out, or sickness strikes us low; But the heart is right in the most of men, When the truth is really known, And we often find that the heart is kind That we thought was cold as stone.

We sometimes tire of the road so rough And the hill that seems so steep, And we sometimes feel that hope is gone,

And we sit alone and weep. And then when our faith is burning low And we lose our trust in men, True friends appear with a word of cheer And the sun comes out again.

And so I claim that the heart of man Is about what it ought to be, For its made of goodness through and through, Could we look inside and see.

God made all things and He made them well, On the true and perfect plan; But He did his best in the greatest test, When He made the Heart of Man.

Naturally, I have tried to put both my head and heart into this book.

Acknowledgment:
Finally, I wish to express my deep gratitude to the various writers quoted in this book. The ideas and thoughts expressed in their great works were very enlightening and helped me formulate my own thoughts on the main theme of this book.

CHAPTER 1 - Evolution of Faith

When we talk of Faith we are talking of human beings; it is a product of the human mind. On the one hand, Faith results from the interaction of man with the external world around him and his response to the dangers of living in this world. On the other, it is also a bye-product of the restlessness of the inner world of his selfhood. The great Indian philosopher, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, states in his book Recovery of Faith, that if nature has horror of a vacuum, the human soul has a fear of emptiness. It, therefore, needs

faith in something to fight this emptiness. All of us, once in a while, feel that emptiness, even amidst luxury, happiness and loved ones around us. On such occasions we have a feeling of inner isolation, utter loneliness and purposelessness in life. This feeling of separation or isolation possibly begins when the child comes out from the warmth and protective shield of the mothers womb. We attempt to fill this inner vacuum with any kind of faith that can give us a sense of protection, support, a feeling of belonging and being a part of a higher consciousness. There is also in us a deepseated inner desire for miracles and hence stories of miracles abound in all myths

and religions. If necessity is the mother of invention, we can say with certainty that God was the first invention borne out of human necessity. In the words of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, men insist on believing in something, for we cannot submit to an unknown fear, and man is never nearer to God than in the extremities of his anguish. As he observes, belief may be difficult but the need for believing is inescapable. And Voltaire said in an earlier era: If God did not exist, we would have to invent him. In a different tone Samuel Butler said once: Faith: You can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.

Man first needs to solve the problems of survival. When basic needs are taken care of, he also looks for some form of enjoyment. For the first need, he looks for help from a superior power and he feels the same power can, on prayer, grant him resources for the second need. In an article I read in Time magazine (October 25, 2004) written by Jeffrey Kluger entitled Is God in our Genes? he raises the question (which modern day scientists, particularly biologists have been debating) whether God came first or the need for God. If we go back to the early mans plights, it is easier to conclude that the need for God arose first. Was that need itself orchestrated by God so that His children would eventually go

nearer to Him, is another unanswered question. The need for believing can arise from physical pain or dangers, from psychological and emotional stress or situations of helplessness. It can also arise out of intellectual and rational compulsions to find answers for many unknown areas of life and the universe. This rational curiosity arises out of our inborn trait of trying to match the cause with the effect. A fascinating account of how early man could have pondered over the possibility of a supreme power, is given in the book The Physics of Consciousness by Evan Harris Walker, part of which I am

reproducing below: Let us go back to mankinds earliest times. Think of homo hobilis looking out into the cosmos, gazing into the blackness of a fearful night with sparkling wonder spread across the vaulting sky. Think of such a man alone in the nights stillness, looking at the stars. He blinks his eyes and wonders. His mind transcends the immediate hazards of the day, and he sees things in the sky which he cannot reach. He sees for the first time the edge of his own being and looks beyond, perhaps forming the first thoughts of some new understanding, the first thoughts of some new knowledge and he falls sleep. Somewhere in that early time, in a pattern

of stars seen overhead, in the stirrings of an image in the bush, in a lifeless form that did not move from its forest bier, the first troubled questioning thoughts came to early man The clash between early man and nature has woven a pattern of fact and illusion..We have carved stone God answers. Our carved Gods have failed and have been replaced. Mans divergence from other animals was accelerated by his ability to form thoughts and develop his power of reasoning. Every animal to quote philosopher Radhakrishnan again, is perfect in its own way; it fulfills itself within its life cycle. It is no doubt subject to death but is

not aware of it. This awareness separated man from other animals and made him a philosopher from early times. In the evolution of faith in the humans, one of the causative factors is the relative lack of instincts, whereas in other animals instincts and reflexes play a greater part in their fight for survival. M. Scott Peck, M.D. in his book Road Less Traveled and Beyond, has this to say on this subject. one of the things that seems to distinguish human beings from other creatures is our relative lack of instincts. Having few instincts, we are compelled to learn. Since we dont instinctively know many things, we have to be taught how to

behave and deal with problems in life. With our mind more attuned to thinking than other creatures, we think and react to situations. This thinking part gave rise to faiths and beliefs. Of course these are culturally conditioned beliefs, varying from place to place and situation to situation. Over thousands of years mans faith, consisting of wishful thinking and makebelieve became myths and legends, and gave rise to magic and religion. With increasing role of reason in humans, science developed, primarily as an antithesis to religious faith, and an increasing belief in the primacy of man and his imagined ability to control and

manipulate Nature to his advantage. In the villages of my native land of Kerala in south India, we can see in many places stones depicting snakes which were worshipped and offered milk. In earlier times there were many cases of death due to snake bite as no medical cure was then available. Therefore, men thought that by worshipping snakes, they could ward off the danger of snake bites. And from the stories of Hindu mythologies arose the worship of cows, monkey-God, elephantgod etc. as these gods were said to have divine powers, according to these mythological stories. Similarly we can find that in other parts of the world, worship of natural objects arose for varying localized reasons. Worshipping

the dead in the hope of their return was prevalent in Egypt, for instance, and the dead bodies were embalmed and kept in the pyramids specially built for kings and leading men. Similarly in the island of Bali in Indonesia, there are water temples that dot the rice terraces there. Priests perform rituals there to protect the islands water, which in turn is needed to nurture the islands rice crops. Faith can at times make the believer think that, if you pray to God sincerely, He can make anything happen nothing is beyond God! This reminds me of a story I read in a book (as told by Sir Eric Roll honestly, I do not know who he is or was)

which goes like this: A little boy was observed by a minister in church praying very fervently; but much to the pastors surprise, he was also heard to say from time to time Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo. So when the service was over, the minister went up to the boy and said, Son, I was very pleased to see you praying so devoutly, but do tell me why did you keep saying Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo? The little boy replied, Well, you see Sir, I have just been taking my geography examination in school, and I have been praying to the Lord to make Tokyo the capital of France. The act of believing was evidently a byeproduct of fear of life, need for security,

hope of a hereafter, and fear of loneliness and alienation from close ones and the community or tribe. Death and inexplicable natural disasters added to the need for some kind of faith in an almighty rescuer. The fear of facing ones own death has always been a strong factor in the beginning of faith. It applies to you, me and everyone. We all know that once born death is inevitable. But everyone wants to live long. The great comedian Woody Allen once said, I dont want to achieve immortality through my work I want to achieve it through not dying! Mans fantasy-prone nature created in his mind a colored world of fear and danger and forced him to relate to any higher force he could imagine. What thought

would possibly have gone through the early Neanderthal man is beautifully expressed by John Horgan in his book Rational Mysticism. He says: If a Neanderthal mistook a tree creaking outside his cave for a human assailant, he suffered no adverse consequences other than a moments panic. If the Neanderthal made the opposite error mistaking an assailant for a tree the consequences might have been dire. Over time, as natural selection bolstered our anthropomorphic tendency, it extended beyond specific objects, events, and phenomena to all of nature. We interpreted even the most random-seeming natural phenomena as the acts of a wrathful or loving deity. Religion and mystical visions of divinity underlying reality are

just extreme manifestations of our compulsive anthropomorphising. As a writer said, we create in our mind Gods of our imagination and, if a frog were to think of God, it would visualize Him as a Divine Frog. We could also argue that perhaps religions arose in answer to mans unconscious need for dependence. As children, we have all depended on our parents and elders, whom we then considered as superior to us and hence capable of meeting our wishes and needs.. And when we grew up to adulthood, we still carried that unconscious need for help from someone far superior to us, which belief then translated into a transcendent

God. As James W. Fowler wrote in his book Stages of Faith we look for something that loves us; something to value that gives us value, something to honor and respect that the power to sustain our being. Perhaps, as some scientists and thinkers have speculated, unlike other life forms, human brain is, of necessity, and maybe by natural selection, wired for faiths and beliefs in a God or gods to sustain him. In his book Timeless Healing Herbert Benson, M.D. has expressed the following thoughts: Perhaps, the tendency of humans to worship and believe was rooted in our physiology, written into our genes, and

encoded in our very make-up. Perhaps it is what distinguishes us from other life forms, this innate desire to believe and to practice our beliefs. Perhaps, instinctively, human beings had always known that worshipping a higher power was good for them I speculated that humans are, in a profound physical way wired for God. Even when we acquire new information, even when we conquer mysteries, we feel vaguely empty and unfulfilled. And faith is the only long-term solace. In part that is because faith in an Infinite Absolute is the only adequate counterforce to the ultimate facts of disease and death. But it is also because faith permits an appreciation for the unseen and unproved, generating a

kind of hope inaccessible by reason. as long as humans have roamed the earth, we have entertained beliefs. We have always called upon God or gods to sustain us. We have named and given meaning to nearly everything, sometimes simply in our own quiet contemplation of life, sometimes on a larger scale to stir the thoughts of whole populations, as happens in art, literature, and philosophy. We see the world in the unique way our socialization, life experiences and cultural and religious upbringing permit us to see it. The saints, sages, and others in many walks of life from all cultures have had the awareness and experiences that they

believe to be of God. Others have heard from those they trust about such spiritual experiences and whose lives were affected in important positive ways. This could be one of the reasons why belief in God has continued to this day. The characterization of God has however changed from time to time. The history of Faith from early man to modern times can be divided into four phases. 1. 2. 3. 4. The age of fear-born faith The age of religious faith The Age of Reason Age of Confusion

The early mans faith borne of fear gave way to religious faiths of groups, tribes and communities. Then came the age of reason when thinkers, philosophers and scientists began questioning the mythical and mystical nature of our beliefs and even the existence of God. They asserted that whatever cannot be proved or verified can have no existence in reality. Again, to quote Herbert Benson from his book Timeless Healing: there is not a civilization known to us that did not have faith in God or gods. For millennia, faith has enjoyed relevance to all the worlds people, but when the West began to divide the mind/body spheres, sending faith and reason to opposite corners, faith did not appear to fare as

well as reason because it became a private, personal matter, and reason became a public promotable good. The battles for terrain have often been bitter, as Martin Luther amply demonstrated, saying Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God In his book, The Prehistory of the Mind, Steven Mithen explains thus: Many of the behaviors (of early men) such as anthropomorphic images in the cave paintings and burial of people with grave goods suggest that those Upper

Paleolithic people were the first to have beliefs in supernatural beings and possibly an afterlife. We are indeed seeing here the first appearance of religious ideologies. while it is difficult to identify the features universal to all religions, there are nevertheless a series of recurrent ideas.. a belief in non-physical beings is the most common feature of religion, it may indeed be universal Three other recurrent features of religious ideologies are.. first in many societies it is assumed that a non-physical component of a person can survive after death and remains as a being with beliefs and desires. Second, it is very frequently assumed that certain people within a society are especially

likely to receive direct inspiration or messages from supernatural agencies, such as Gods or spirits. And third, it is also very widely assumed that performing certain rituals in an exact way can bring about change in the natural world The last few decades particularly have been a period of confusion for the human mind. Replacement of old faiths by reason has not given any solace to the ever turbulent human nature; on the other hand, the uncertainties and confusion caused by the battle of science versus spirituality, have created a new phase in the society where even men of science and philosophy are feeling the need to find a synthesis between reason and faith to fill the vacuum created by pure materialistic

thinking and way of life. I have expressed my own feelings on this subject in a poem that I am reproducing below:

Man at Crossroads
Standing atop the sand dune of Time, We wonder whence we came, whither destined And if life we see is real or a shadow Of a deeper reality beyond our finite mind.

Mystics and scientists alike confound us

With opposing visions of reality; To one life is only an illusory drama, As men of science seek proof of finality And aver that Time exists only in our mind, That Space conceals more than it reveals.

Is our Mind mere interplay of neurons, Or, as mystics say, a disembodied quality? Is life playground for the ubiquitous DNA

Or a body endowed with inner spirituality?

Is God a photographer missing in our Picture, standing away beyond our vision, Or have we all divinity in each of us Which to seek, mystics say, is our mission? Standing at crossroads, ill at ease, We seek newer paths to inner peace.

The rapid progress of science and technology, and more particularly the advent of computer and internet and the resulting knowledge explosion and global instant communication during the last few decades, changed forever the social fabric and the way people thought and acted. We could say that this was a 3-rung jump in the ladder of personal and cultural evolution. Every individual, particularly the literate one, whether old or young, has been affected by this technological leap, affecting every facet of life. Naturally, our belief systems also changed. For the better? Its too early to say. The question that arises in common mans mind today is: Where do we go from here? There is now not only a fear of the

present but also a fear of the future. Will the earth produce unlivable conditions? Look at the increasing incidents of hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami and other natural calamities. And of course the already felt extreme climatic changes due to the global warming. Are these signs of the kind of cyclical destruction the earth had witnessed again and again in the past. Anyway, the possibility of any total breakdown is in the far distant future. So let us make the present livable and for this no doubt we need some kind of faith to hold on to. Each can choose his path. Faith here is not only meant as faith in a God, but also in getting good rewards from good Karmas and selfless actions. Or else, there can only be chaos..

One thing is certain. Our mind, like matter, seeks equilibrium. It yearns to get back to order from disorder. When the mind goes through periods of turmoil, it cannot remain long in that heightened state of sensitivity. It wants to settle down to a more normal state, which happens by accepting the inevitable or the unexpected. Faith in some form aids this process.

CHAPTER 2 - The core ideas of main religions

What is meant by religion? How and why different religions arose? It would be interesting to study mans journey from simple faiths and beliefs of his prehistoric era to a new kind of orderly faith formulated by a few inspired men, which came to form the basis of a new religion and which began to regulate all the aspects of life among the groups that became or were forced to become adherents of such a religion. When we are talking of religious faiths,

we must bear in mind that the earliest religion or religious way of life is not much older than 6000 to 7000 years, which is a very short period compared to the existence of man on this planet. Of the earlier unrecorded history of human beliefs and mystical practices, we can only conjecture their nature through the arts and artifacts left behind by these prehistoric men. Religion and religious practices must have ostensibly arisen after man began to live together in groups, starting from the earliest tribes. Religion gave a set of beliefs and practices, both for worship of a supernatural power and also certain codes for personal living in a manner which can ensure their reaching whatever

spiritual goals are sought for. Religion helped also in binding people into communities with common values and goals. Man being a social animal, the craving to be part of a tribe or a community is inborn; otherwise there is a feeling of alienation and even a sense of spiritual deprivation. Group forming is natural to men and even to animals and birds, mostly out of self-interest. Historical evidence tells us that from early times men have developed an addiction to ethnic groups or tribes. Even in modern times, we find group forming in such diverse fields as sports, music etc. and there are plenty of fan clubs. In southern part of India, (in Tamil Nadu) masses are crazy about cinema stars and form such strong fan clubs that they even

influence local elections in a big way. Even temples get erected for their favorite stars! Naturally, religious affinities arose out of this need for belonging to a group. There is also in each of us a basic uneasiness that never allows full or total peace in this life. We all need to find a meaning to our life. This desire lies deep within our souls, an unnamable craving to belong to a larger reality and return to someone or some place full of love, peace and bliss. In our mundane existence, after we meet our basic needs, this unnamed desire will always linger. And at such times we speak through our inner voice to a transcendent omnipotent God with the hope of succor from Him or Her. Thus, religion, which gives a voice to this

desire, is a logical culmination of mans innate craving to get in touch with the Originator. Organized religion that came into existence much later in human history tried to preserve many of the tales and myths forming the basic beliefs of earlier tribes. The role of myth in mens search for answers for the unknown is neatly explained by Daniel C. Matt in his book God and the Big Bang: We have lost our myth. A myth is a story, imagined or true, that helps us make our experience comprehensible by offering a construction of reality. It is a narrative that wrests order from chaos. We are not content to see events as unconnected, as

inexplicable. We crave to understand the underlying order in the world. A myth tells us why things are the way they are and where they came from. Such an account is not only comfortable, assuring and socially useful; it is essential. Without a myth, there is no meaning or purpose to life. Myths do more than explain. They guide mental processes, conditioning how we think, even how we perceive. Myths come to life serving as models of human behavior. In the Indian context, one abiding example is the story of Rama (from the Epic Ramayana). He is considered the symbol of Truth, parental care, obedience and justice. And his wife Sita is synonymous with virtue and all lovable feminine

qualities. They have been thus the models of human behavior for all in India. All the countries have different mythological stories. In India (and Im sure, in other countries too) we learn these stories and their morals and relevance to our daily lives from mothers and grandmothers. Thus they get passed on from generation to generation. The curiosity to understand the mysterious has been also a factor leading to religious faiths. None other than the great Albert Einstein beautifully expresses this thought. He says: The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the

fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery even if mixed with fear that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. Different religions have come to be followed by different groups in separate

geographical regions under varying social and historical circumstances. But basic human nature being same everywhere at all times, it is no wonder that all these religions share common values and goals, though methodology, rituals, assumptions and practices may differ to a greater or lesser degree with each other. Let us look at the worlds main religions and their basic features: Some religions, such as Hinduism, developed or were founded on the basis of ancient myths about powerful Gods and forces of creation and destruction. Some other religions developed through important leaders or prophets, such as the Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. Believers

or followers of various religions tend to follow their particular faiths moral codes or commandments, and also rituals as closely as possible. Three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all monotheistic religions, believing in a single supreme God. Hinduism, though superficially looking polytheistic in that Hindus worship hundreds of gods and goddesses, these are essentially considered as aspects or manifestations of one Absolute force known as Brahman. While giving below some main features of world religions, I wish to acknowledge gratefully the very informative details given in the book Illustrated Dictionary

of Religions edited by Philip Wilkinson. I am trying to note down features of the Indian religions, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, with which, as an Indian, I am reasonably familiar. Also here I owe some clarifying observations to the above book. Those interested to familiarize themselves with the main features of other world religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Japanese religions such as Shinto and Zen Buddhism, I would refer them to the above mentioned book The Illustrated Dictionary of Religions.

Hinduism:

Hinduism is one of the oldest of known religions. In Hinduism, there is not a single founder, unlike some other religions, and no single set of beliefs. Born as a Hindu myself, it will be easier for me to narrate how my life as an ordinary Hindu was affected by our religion. First of all, though this is oftrepeated clich, it must be noted that Hinduism is not a formal religion as some of the other world religions are. It would be more appropriate to call it a Hindu way of life, continued and perpetuated over many millennia, with certain basic moral principles and guidelines for living, passed on from generation to generation. It sustained itself through cumulative traditions.

The first thing that comes to my mind about my childhood after I became mature enough to understand what was going on around me, is the fact that I never found any member of my immediate family (I was the eighth child of my parents) telling an untruth or a lie, even when the truth sometimes was sure to draw a rebuke or punishment from our parents. (It is true that at times speaking truth may have embarrassing consequences too if we are not careful about the timing and place. I was around 6 or 7 years old when such an incident happened. My parents had rented one of the rooms in our house to a young man and his father. One day, I chanced to notice the old man quietly taking a pen belonging to my brother and putting it in his pocket and going out. Immediately,

without further thought I shouted to my mother that the old man has stolen something. My mother asked me to keep quiet but I continued to insist on the truth of my observation. Unfortunately, the old mans son (who was a very decent person) was standing a few feet away and was hearing all the hubbub and I did not notice him. Naturally, my parents were furious at the embarrassment caused to them! Of course, we were not an exceptional family but were just typical of the families of the times I spent my childhood in. (As I wrote in one of my poems: Truth then was natural; now its optional!). Truth, honesty, and not hurting others were values that came so naturally to us,

through both nature and nurture. A few pictures of different gods and goddesses at home became our temple for daily worship. Even in childhood, though, we knew that while different people worshipped different deities, all are aspects of one supreme Absolute being. Tolerance of other religious beliefs came naturally to us. Visit to temples were not frequent (as this was not a routine ritual for us) but whenever we went to any temple, there was an atmosphere of sanctity and an automatic feeling of piety. Generally, during our childhood years, from our mother and grandmothers, at bedtime, we enjoyed listening to various stories from Hindu mythologies, along

with their moral lessons. The Hindu ethos has been historically, socially and philosophically, of an inclusive nature and hence has been generally more tolerant and peace loving. Even other Indian faiths which branched out or broke out from mainstream Hindu faith, like Buddhism and Jainism, reflect this tolerant and peace loving nature, as can be seen from the fact that there has been no inter-religious conflicts between these religious groups in India. When religion becomes too formal and exclusive for a particular group (almost to the point of considering those not belonging to their group as not eligible for Gods grace), then this exclusiveness is bound to create intolerance and conflict between different

religious groups. History is witness to many such conflicts. Oh, how we hate one another for the love of God, was an anguished lament of Cardinal Newman. And the God everyone worships, whichever religion one belongs to, is the same transcendent Absolute, though with different names. It may be apt to quote here from A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy edited by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan & Charles A. Moore: there is an overall synthetic tradition which is essential to the spirit and method of Indian philosophy. This is as old as the Rg. Veda, where the seers realized that true religion comprehends all religions, so

that God is one but men call him by many names. Indian philosophy is clearly characterized by the synthetic approach to the various aspects of experience and reality. Religion and philosophy, knowledge and conduct, intuition and reason, man and nature, God and man, noumenon and phenomena, are all brought into harmony by the synthesizing tendency of the Indian mind. The Hindu is prone to believe even that all the six systems (of Indian philosophy) as well as their varieties of subsystems are in harmony with one another, in fact, that they complement one another in the total vision, which is one. As contrasted with Western philosophy, with its analytic approach to reality and experience, Indian philosophy is fundamentally synthetic. The

basic texts of Indian philosophy treat not only one phase of experience and reality, but of the full content of the philosophic sphere. Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, religion, psychology, facts, and value are not cut off one from the other, but are treated in their natural unity as aspects of one life and experience or of a single comprehensive reality. It is this synthetic vision of Indian philosophy that has made possible the intellectual and religious tolerance which has become so pronounced in Indian thought and in the Indian mind throughout the ages. Recent squabbles between religious communities, bred of political factionalism, are not outgrowths of the Indian mind, but, instead, are antagonistic

to its unique genius for adaptability and tolerance, which takes all groups and all communities into its one truth and one life. Hindus hold diverse beliefs, but all are dedicated to the idea that our life on earth is part of a continuing eternal cycle of births, deaths and re-births. The re-births are conditioned by our Karma in this birth (or how well or badly we spend our years of this life). Once we have worked out all our karmic debts, we are free from the need to be borne again and can then reach Gods realm of everlasting bliss, or so the belief goes. Only by living well (or doing good Karmas), can we be reborn well and eventually after many good lives, achieve release from this cycle.

Life as we see and experience through our five senses, is considered in Hindu belief as Maya or illusion. The real self is within and is one with the transcendent Absolute Reality. The Hindu scriptures give an interesting story, explaining the meaning of Maya. I have borrowed this passage from the book Dialogue with Death written by Eknath Easwaran. Easwaran, hailing from Kerala in South India, settled in U.S.A. and became a popular spiritual teacher. He has narrated this story in his own earthly, humorous style. The story reads: The Hindu scriptures illustrate maya with a haunting story: The main character is a sage named

Narada, who is said to live for thousands of years and to wander freely through all the regions of consciousness from heaven to earth. Narada was on very intimate terms with the Lord, here in the form of Krishna, so he could ask him all kinds of questions. And while they were walking, he asked the Lord, Sir, can you please explain to me the secret of this magic called Maya? Sri Krishna hesitated, because to understand maya is to understand the whole of life. But Narada was utterly devoted to him, so the Lord replies, Of course. Lets sit down here in the shade and I shall tell you everything. But first, Narada, its terribly hot; would you get me a glass of cool water?

Right away, Narada promised, and he set out across the fields. The sun beat down, and though he was a good walker, the little line of thatched cottages on the horizon that marked the nearest village seemed no closer as he strode along. The heat grew unbearable. Naradas throat became parched too; he began to think he would ask for two glasses of water, and drink the second himself. Finally, he reached the village and ran to the nearest house. The door opened and there stood the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She smiled up at Narada through long, dark lashes, and something happened to him that had never happened before. All he could do was hem and haw. Finally, he blurted out, Will you marry

me? That is the Indian way, you know; you cannot just say, What are you doing on Saturday night? The couple settled down to a life of connubial bliss. After a while, children began to arrive. Naradas became a very animated household. Somebody was always being bathed or dressed; there were meals to get and people to be provided for. And all these things filled up their lives. Narada and his wife became engrossed in their private little world, quietly building their dreams. Years passed. The children grew up, went to school, got married in time; grandchildren arrived. Narada became the patriarch of a great family, respected by

the whole village; his lands stretched to the horizon. He and his wife would look at each other fondly and say, Dont you think being grandparents is the greatest thing on earth? Then a great flood came. The village fields became a raging river, and before Naradas helpless eyes, everything that he loved and lived for his lands, his cattle, his house, but especially his beloved wife and all their children and grandchildren were swept away. Of all the village, only he remained. Unable to watch the destruction, Narada fell to his knee and cried for help from the very depths of his heart. Krishna, Krishna At once the raging flood disappeared and

there was Sri Krishna, standing casually on the fields where they had walked what seemed so many years before. Narada, the Lord asked gently, where is my glass of water? There was no further need to explain what Maya is.

Here is another equally interesting story (as narrated in the book Soul Stories by Gary Zukov): In the Hindu tradition, Indra is a god who runs the Heavens. One day he decided to visit the Earth. He didnt come back. After a while, the other gods got worried. They sent messengers to look for him. At last one of the messengers found him. Indra

had assumed the form of a pig. Indra, cried the messenger, you must come back. The Heavens are coming apart. Come back?, said Indra, amazed. I cant come back! I have a she-pig and five piglets. Indra forgot who he was. That is maya, mistaking the apparent for the real and forgetting ones source. What appears outwardly as the real world, is an illusion superimposed on the ego-self. (A simple example is sunset and sunrise. It is a fact known to everyone that the earth is going around the sun, but we still talk of sun setting and rising an optical illusion and mistaking the apparent for the

real!) It is only natural for us to feel that each of us is a separate entity and separate from each other but also from the God above. The Hindu rishis, sages and mystics have known that this duality is only an illusion. Ramani Maharshi of South India who realized the highest truth taught his disciples the non-dual nature of reality in his own subtle way. Here is an anecdote from a Puranic story which he liked to tell, as quoted in a site anandamayi.org: The sage Ribhu loved his disciple Nidagha very much, although the latter had some difficulty in understanding the nondual teaching of Vedanta. Finally, he went to the capital and married there. Many

years later, he was watching the Kings procession when a poor old peasant approached him. Excuse me, this is my first time ever in the capital. Could you kindly explain me whats going on? This is the procession of our king with his elephant. King, elephant whispered the peasant in a thoughtful voice. But where is the king, and where is the elephant? The king is above, the elephant below answered Nidagha in a slightly irritated tone. Excuse me, but this is still not very clear to me; where is above, and where is below? Exasperated by the stupidity of the old man, the disciple told him to go on four legs, rode on his back and said: I am above, and you are below! Who is I and

who is you? Startled by this uncommon question, he saw flashing in his mind the face of his guru, recognized him in the old peasant and fell at his feet. From that day on, the fire of non-dual knowledge was ignited in him, this time for ever. Einstein with his highly intuitive mind worked out the theory of relativity that, after experiments and observations on results predicted by him, has been found to match with cosmic realities. As another scientist put it, more than any philosopher or scientist before him, Einstein demonstrated that our intuition about the physical world based on sensory experience can be fundamentally in error. Here is Maya explained in scientific terms!

Many Hindus are vegetarians because of their belief in reincarnation and their view that all living beings are part of the same supreme spirit. They also believe that by living a peaceful life, studying ancient sacred texts of Hinduism and about Hindu philosophy, praying and meditating, they can eventually reach their spiritual goal of oneness with the Absolute; and also receive help and the grace of God in this life (which is the immediate incentive for leading such a moral life). There is a saying in south of India which literally reads self half and God half meaning that when we do our part of the Karma by living well and in an ethical way, God will help us with his grace, which is the other half.

The most sacred ancient texts of the Hindus are the Puranas (mythological stories), Vedas, Upanishads and the two epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha. As part of the Mahabharatha, there is a section where Lord Krishna, acting as a charioteer, advises Arjuna about the meaning of life and how to do ones duty to protect dharma without looking at the results. This section called the Bhagavad Gita is by itself a highly revered and quintessential part of the Hindu scriptures. The gist of Krishnas teaching is that we should do our moral duty or Karma as our conscience or inner voice dictates, without worrying about the results, which will take care of themselves. Thats to say, any action done in good faith and in pursuance of dharma (righteousness) and

truth, will give positive end results. But any motivated action cannot bring happiness and peace. As the purpose of this book is not to give an exhaustive dissertation on various religions, nor am I a learned specialist on world religions, I refrain from attempting to write elaborately about the details of religious beliefs and practices. My aim here is only to give a brief overview. When talking about the religions that originated in India, we will also have a brief review of Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism:

Buddhism:
Born as Siddhartha Gautama in a princely Indian family, the Buddha lived in the fifth or sixth century BCE. Siddhartha gave up his riches and power to live a religious life, seeking enlightenment, in order to free himself from the cycle of death and rebirth. After achieving enlightenment, he came to known as the Buddha and he taught others how to live so that they too might attain enlightenment or nirvana. The Buddhist religion is based on his life and teachings. Buddha after his own enlightenment gathered the innermost circle of his disciples and passed on to them his teachings (which became famous as the Sermon at the Deer Park). He told them: The world is full of sin and

sorrow, because it is full of error. Men go astray because they think that delusion is better than truth. Rather than truth they follow error, which is pleasant to look at in the beginning but causes anxiety, tribulation, and misery. Looking at Buddhist philosophy, the Buddha takes up some of the thoughts of the Upanishads and gives to them a new orientation. The Buddha is not so much formulating a new scheme of metaphysics and morals as rediscovering an old norm and adapting it to the new conditions of thought and life. The Buddha was not considered a God by his disciples, but as a spiritual guide. He showed people how to free themselves

from the cycle of death and rebirth through achieving enlightenment. And towards this end he taught his disciples the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, which combines moral teaching with guidelines in meditation and concentration. His Four Noble Truths are that there is suffering, that it has a cause, that it can be suppressed, and that there is a way to accomplish this. The most important goal for the Buddhist is to follow the Eightfold Path, which involves full understanding of the Buddhist truths, living well, and avoiding any work that might harm others. In this way, Buddhists hope to achieve a

favorable rebirth after death, or even to reach enlightenment. Buddha advised men to follow the middle path in leading ones life, avoiding the extremes of austerities, self-mortification and penances on the hand and indulgence in worldly pleasures on the other. He said, Satisfying the necessities of life is not evil. To keep the body in good health is a duty, for otherwise we shall not be able to trim the lamp of wisdom and keep our mind strong and clear. He gives the example of the lotus: Water surrounds the lotus flower, but does not wet its petals. Similarly, while meeting the needs of the body on this earth, forget not the main purpose of life which is to attain Nirvana, or release from the cycle of

death and rebirth. Buddhist faith is strong in northern Asia (China, Tibet, and Japan) and in southern Asia (Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Thailand) There are two main branches of Buddhism. One is Theravada Buddhism, which developed first and adheres strictly to the Buddhas original teachings through a defined set of scriptures. This branch focuses on enlightenment for the individual. The other branch is known as Mahayana Buddhism developed later, during the first century BCE. It is more open to different ideas and approaches, using a wider set of scriptures, and emphasizes compassion and enlightenment

for the sake of others. Mahayana Buddhism is more predominant in China, Japan and Tibet.

Jainism:
In Jainism there is no supreme creator God and the Jaina system does not accept the authority of the Vedas. Jains take guidance from a series of teachers (or jinas). One of the most important teaching in Jainism is nonviolence.. Jainism arose in India between the seventh and fifth centuries BCE. Jains are followers of a series of religious leaders who have cast off all worldly concerns

and achieved the highest level of knowledge. They are also called Tirthankaras. Right knowledge, faith and conduct are known as the Three Jewels. Right conduct means abandoning violence, greed, and deceit, being chaste, and taking a series of vows. Mahavira was considered to be the 24th Tirthankara of the current time cycle. He was born during the sixth century BCE and his teachings inspired the spread of Jainism in India. Followers of Jainism are mostly spread over the regions of northern India. Jains believe that the universe goes through many cosmic cycles, comprising

periods of improvement and decline. During times of decline, a great teacher or leader called Tirthankara appears to revive the religion and to show people how to behave and achieve liberation. Laypeople among the Jains try to follow as closely as possible an austere lifestyle and avoid violence and to pursue a career that does not involve doing harm to life. Regular daily worship is commonly found among them. They also make regular pilgrimages to holy places of their religion. They are always kind to and feed animals and birds. They undertake frequent fasts that they believe cleanse their mind and body.

Sikhism:
Sikhism arose out of disillusionment about the divergent Hindu systems. The founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, while respecting the Hindu and Islamic faiths then prevailing in India, believed that their rituals did not reveal the correct truth about God. Sikhism was founded in Punjab in northern India during the 16th century BCE. Sikhs believe in one God and their faith stresses the individuals relationship with God. Sikhs have a strong sense of community and uphold the right to bear arms to defend themselves and their people. They also care for anyone, even outside their community, who is in need of

help. They are very enterprising and hard working people too. Sikhs believe in one God and follow the Ten Gurus, from Guru Nanak to Guru Gobind Singh, who revealed the truth about the deity. They worship the Sikh scripture called the Adi Granth or Guru Granth Sahib and they believe that service to the community is a way of worship too. Sikhism aims to achieve a favorable rebirth or liberation following five spiritual stages. These are called Dharam Khand (living by Gods law), Saram Khand (self-discipline) Karam Khand (grace), Gian Khand (knowledge) and Sach Khand (truth).

The way of life developed by Sikhs gave them a strong sense of identity, which makes them stand out from other groups. Sikhs are taught to help anyone who is needy, whatever their faith, and serving the community is seen as a way of getting nearer to God.

Chinese Religions:
I would like to add a few notes on Chinese religions for 2 reasons: Firstly, they are so country-specific or region specific, like Hinduism. Secondly, Buddhism spread from India which the Chinese adapted and modified to suit their age-old traditional characteristics and the

Chinese psyche. God was less important for them than living the right way. Most prominent religions of China are Confucianism founded by Confucius during 5th/6th Century BCE ), Taoism and then Buddhism that spread from India to China and which received royal patronage in the initial stages. Confucius aimed to teach people to live well according to the values of duty, wisdom, generosity and courtesy. He also emphasized the need for children to respect and honor their parents when they are alive and also after they are dead. Thus emerged the practice of ancestor worship in China. The ideas of Confucius gradually developed into a religious

system. Taoism laid emphasis on the spiritual path. Tao is defined by ancient Chinese sages and thinkers as the source of all that exist in the world and by pursuing the Taoist path, they hope to achieve unity with the forces of the natural world and thus achieve harmony in ones own life. People who achieve these goals are said to become immortal after physical death. Confucius gave guidance for action as a means to achieve success in life essentially a social and moral philosophy. Taoism on the other hand explored the inner world, i.e. the spiritual aspects of life.

As the Taoist philosophy makes interesting reading, particularly because of its similarity to some aspects of Hindu thoughts on duality in Nature, I wish to dwell on it in some detail. I am quoting below some main aspects of Taoism as explained in the Book Classics of Eastern Thought edited by Lynn H. Nelson & Patrick Peebles (published in 1991): It is difficult to discuss Taoist philosophy; the opening of the Tao-teching can be translated as the Way that can be talked about is not the real Way. Basically, it would appear that the early Taoists regarded rational knowledge or, indeed, any knowledge at all, of physical nature as unattainable. Because all

physical aspects of things are purely relative, they are indistinguishable and indescribable. Water is life for a fish, death for man. Moreover, the relativity is such that all things exist only in reference to their opposites. It is only because everyone thinks that beauty exists that they think that ugliness exists Even existence is a reflection of non-existence: a house is a house only because of the holes that comprise the doors and windows: a wheel is a wheel only because of the empty space where the axle is fitted: a jug is useful only because it contains an emptiness, and that emptiness is significant only because it can be filled. All things that exist eventually pass into nothingness, and out of this nothingness, new things emerge. Thus all of nature,

being and nothingness, is all mixed up together. The universe is essentially a single whole and is in reality indivisible. This being so, it is humanly incomprehensible. Since knowledge of the universe is unattainable, reason is of no use to anyone. Human knowledge is only an illusion. Wisdom is the realization of realizing this illusion, accepting that one cannot control nature, and learning to become part of it. By refusing to struggle against the natural course of things, one gains power. By flowing along with nature, rather than swimming against the current, ones ends can be achieved without effort or action. This idea of duality in nature seem to have been identified by other cultures as well.

Hinduism is one of them. Maybe Russian thoughts flow on similar lines. According to an old Russian saying, but for the bad, it would not be good! Though the role of religion might have changed in modern China, some of the philosophical thoughts of ancient China may still be surviving in some form or the other. I must say that I have had no chance to come in direct contact with the Chinese culture. Christianity and Islam are prominent world religions having large number of followers in many regions around the globe. Though in the modern world, many of us belonging to other religions may have a superficial knowledge of these

religions because of social interaction, for a detailed knowledge about their origin, history and main features, I would refer the readers to the aforementioned valuable book The Illustrated Dictionary of Religions. I believe it is good for all of us to know the basic details of other faiths. This knowledge will give us a sense of tolerance and acceptance, since all faiths are in the end looking to uplift the human beings spiritually and morally. Once when I was traveling from U.S. to India, a co-passenger sitting by my side entered into conversation. He was a Korean. He asked me, why is that in India you have so many Gods and even

animal-faced Gods. I told him that historically according to Hindu tradition God was worshipped in different forms in different parts of the country. But everybody understood that according to Hindu philosophy there is only One god but worshipped as different manifestations. This is not peculiar to India. All over the world, while people accept the One Reality, speak of God in different ways as that Reality is beyond words and thoughts. In his book God A Brief Hidsoty John Bowker (a Religious Study Professor) has tried to analyze this aspect of belief as follows: the knowledge people enter into of

God is real, but the ways they speak of it are incomplete. Their words and poems and pictures, as well as their lives, try to share something of the character of God as One of whom they know much more than a distant rumor of a far-off place; but their characterizations of God are always inadequate and are constantly being changed from one generation to another. Some characterizations do of course persist for example, God in the character of Mother and God in the character of Father. Even so, we know that God is not exactly like any human parent.. All characterizations of God are necessarily approximate, provisional, corrigible, and mainly wrong. But they point nevertheless, to the One who evokes

these words and pictures, but remains beyond the verbal net in which we try to catch our fish.. Something like that, however, is also true for scientists as they try to describe and characterize the universe. Of course their methods are entirely different, and the universe presents itself in ways very unlike those through which God becomes a living presence. Even so, when scientists, playing their part in the human search for truth, describe and characterize the universe, their words are approximate, provisional, corrigible, and often wrong from the point of view of later generations. But they achieve, all the same great reliability the same is true in the human search for God: it too has achieved

great reliability in the ways, well-tested and well-winnowed, through which people can know for themselves, in body, in mind, and spirit, the reality of God. These ways then take people beyond knowledge (though surely on the foundation of knowledge) to worship, penitence, adoration, and love. Beyond knowledge lies invitation into relationship. So, we visualize the One god in many forms and even experience Him in those forms as manifestations of His energy. Though the features of main religions may not have changed in their basics, religious practices and religious outlook undergo continuous transformation in consonance

with the continuing social and cultural changes.

CHAPTER 3 - The Ordinary Man

Why do I wish to write a separate chapter on ordinary man? Mainly because everything in life is done and practiced in the name of the ordinary men, whether in politics, religion, philosophy, or in several branches of science. From the hunter age to modern times, there have always been the leaders and there have been the led (who in modern parlance, came to be known as ordinary men, or common men.) I have tried to put down my thoughts as an

ordinary man on the questions of faith, and the concept of God. Of course, some of these ordinary men, the hoi polloi by luck, pluck or destiny became leaders in various fields. But the ordinary men constitute the vast majority; they do not get headline in newspapers, or are considered important by other media. They carry on their lives conditioned by their nature and nurture. In the treadmill of life, they keep continuously running, never reaching anywhere. In the words of a poet, he is concerned with no mighty deeds, just common things, the tasks and pleasures each day brings. The Chinese philosopher/saint Confucius said: A common man marvels at uncommon things; a wise man marvels at the commonplace.

However, while considering the commonness in the common man, it is also evident that each individual by himself is a unique living being. I may have many things common with you, with my neighbor, with the stranger I meet on the road. But my feelings, my thoughts, my likes, dislikes, desires and dreams are uniquely my own. None else has access to my mind. An individuals faith, beliefs and religious or spiritual outlook are definitely conditioned by ones birth, family background, the religious community one is born in, the immediate surroundings, and the social and cultural environments. Nevertheless, there is always something unique in each individual, partly inherited and partly acquired by exercise of ones free will

because men are not automatons. Someone once said: There are three groups of people in every community. There are a few who make things happen; there are many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no idea whats happening. Common men would be found in all these three groups. Talking of ordinary men, a nephew of mine, a bright boy with a sharp intellect, had a friend from ordinary background, who, though intelligent himself, considered that he is above the ordinary level of men. And when this friend failed to achieve some goal he set for himself in his career, he became so frustrated that he was talking of renouncing everything and

retreating to some hermitage. My nephew told him: First try to be a good ordinary person and then attempt to become extraordinary. That was an interesting but apt advice! Again, an ordinary man is sometimes portrayed as a simpleton, and a simpleton is generally considered to be a good person who at times can come up with surprisingly simple answers to complex looking questions. In an old English movie, Forrest Gump there are a few interesting exchanges between St. Peter and the simpleton Forrest Gump at the gate of Heaven, when the latter reaches there when his physical body died. See how a common mans simple mind responds to difficult questions with plain and innocent

childlike answers. Before entering Heaven he had to answer three questions put forth by St. Peter. The questions and the simpletons answers run somewhat like this: Question 1: How many seconds are there in a year? F.G. answers: Simple, the answer is 12. like January 2nd, February 2nd, March 2nd and so on till December 2nd. St. Peter, though surprised at this unexpected answer, accepted it and put the next question to him. Question 2: Tell me the number of days in a week which starts with the letter T

F.G. replied, Four without any hesitation. St. Peter: How did you arrive at it? F.G.: Easy, they are Tuesday, Thursday, Today and Tomorrow. Since St. Peter could not dispute the logic, he said OK and raised his 3rd land last question.

Question 3: What is the name of God? Pat came the reply from F.G. Andy.

Amused and surprised at such an answer, St. Peter asked him to explain. F.G. replied: I learnt from the hymns we sing at Church: Andy (And He) walks with me, Andy talks with me. Looking at the innocence of the simpleton, St. Peter smilingly ushered him into the Heaven. From among the common folk, there are many with practical wisdom and wit who help others around in many ways and from whom we can learn many lessons of life. They pass on the values and morals of good living. My maternal uncle was one such example. He was a very witty person who never lost his composure in the face

of the worst adversities. He extended his helping hand to many and was highly respected in his village. Once he narrated a story that I still remember. I am supposed to be the wittiest person in this village, but another person outwitted me today. Since my mother had an eyesore, I went to consult the local ayurvedic doctor to get some medicine. As soon as I entered his consulting room, he said Hello Iyer what brings you here? So I told him my mothers problem. Okay he said, bring your mother in and let me examine her. I said I did not bring my mother with me. Oh, he said, have you brought her eyes? I was for the first time caught on the wrong foot by a wittier man. His wife, my aunt, an uneducated lady

(those days, the girls were hardly sent to school beyond 3rd or 4th standards and then married off in early childhood), was again an exceptional woman. Their family had seen the highs of prosperity and lows of penury. But in her love to all those around, her cheerful hospitality, quiet acceptance of the bad times, she was unchanged. Whenever I chanced to visit her house, I could feel her love and warmth all the time. It is common folks like these who make the world a better place to live in and renew our faith in human kindness. There are again ordinary men and women who get thrown into circumstances which make them do extraordinary deeds. During

a war, for instance, many ordinary soldiers facing great dangers and even death raise themselves to extraordinary levels to save their fellow-soldiers or defend a position. In peacetime too, there are examples of successful people in different fields who made it big by their dogged determination and efforts. All have their turning points which can change their life altogether. Mahatma Gandhi and Einstein are supreme examples of men coming from very ordinary background becoming legends. Even in our mythology there are characters that seem to suddenly change the direction of their life. Valmiki was a bandit who waylaid travellers and robbed them. But there was a sudden change in him and he went on to become the famous sage who wrote the great

Indian epic Ramayana. Of course, this doesnt happen frequently and not with vast majority of the common folk. But it is obvious that the potential is there in each of us to reach for the sky. Also faith in a cause (whether right or wrong) raises men above ordinary level and makes them capable of facing any danger and make any sacrifice. When I talk of my faith or beliefs, I am aware that there may be some who share these and many others, who have different kinds of faiths and beliefs, Many like me, among common folk, are unknown travelers in the road of life, trudging on and sometimes drifting along,

not knowing where the destination lies or how long the wait on this Earth is. Quite often in my dreams, I travel to a known destination but get lost on the way, leaving me confused and perturbed. Does this dream reflect the reality of our life in some way? Let me touch upon some of the characteristics found in the life of common men. Faith or Fantasy? Quite often, what we consider as faith borders on fantasy and vice versa. When I was a young boy, I was bitten once by a poisonous snake and I thought my life was about to end. Immediately, I prayed to

God and kept before Gods image a coin that I had with me. The normal belief is that by thus doing (the amount is immaterial), God gives protection. As it turned out, the snake at that particular time did not inject venom into my body and I had no ill-effect.. The village snake specialist said that when a snake bites immediately after it has had its meal, the venom does not come out and so I was lucky to survive. Now, is my prayer based on faith or just a fantasy borne out of desperation and hope? But does it matter? If the faith or fantasy gives us comfort and peace and acts as a placebo for the spirit, what is wrong with that? As Benjamin Franklin once humorously said, God heals, and the

doctor takes the fees. Philosophers and scientists may eternally argue on the rights and wrongs of faiths, but in individual life it can be and has been from the beginning of mans evolution a great soothing feature. Of course such faith has to be borne of conviction to be effective. Blind faith or totally irrational fantasies are meaningless and at times may even be dangerous as we so often see in real life. I may recall here memories of three incidents in my own life that has relevance here. First was the incidence of the snake bite narrated above. The second incidence occurred when I was around 35 years old. I was returning from my work to the Railway Station in Bombay (now Mumbai) to travel back home. In the busy

hours the Mumbai roads are crammed with hurrying vehicles and the drivers there care a hoot for the pedestrians. I was waiting at a signal and when the signal was red I hurried with others to cross the road. I was just about to put my foot forward when I felt like a tug from behind and stepped back and felt I was being pulled back. From the other side a vehicle came rushing even before the green signal was on and if I had tried to cross, I am sure I would have been grievously or even fatally injured. When I turned back, there was none behind me and the feeling of the tug was just mental. How can I take this incidence from a spiritual perspective? Was some unseen force helping me out of a disastrous situation, or was it my mental imagery, a fantasy? I do not know. I would

like to believe though that there was an unseen helping hand. The third incidence occurred 10-12 years later, when I was traveling with my wife and a cousin of mine in an auto-riksha (three wheeler) in Cochin (the southernmost part of India). We were going on a bridge across the Arabian sea bay area connecting one side of the city to the other, when a truck came fast behind us and tried to overtake our vehicle. Meantime from the opposite direction came another vehicle and hence the truck driver did not have enough space to maneuver his vehicle ahead of ours and in the process it dashed against our vehicle and along the side railing of the bridge dragged it for a few yards, all the time

pressing more and more against the railing. All the glasses of the threewheeler were broken. The drag was so forceful and strong and we were almost sure that our vehicle would be thrown over the bridge to the water 30 feet below. Two of us could not swim either. We were staring at sudden death. In that stunned moment we could only pray and desperately hope some succor would come. My hand was bleeding from several cuts from the broken glasses and some pieces hit my wife on the head too. From the depth of our heart and soul we prayed for help. Suddenly the truck stopped and we just managed to get out of the three-wheeler. Fortunately, the steel railing on the side of the bridge was

strong enough to hold. With a little more pressure, it would have given in and we would have been in the sea. Normally, when accidents occur, the police try and take statements and make the paperwork before we could even go to the hospital. In this instance however, the police asked us to go the nearest hospital (he gave direction) and in fact ordered an empty three-wheeler coming from the opposite direction to take us immediately to the hospital. In that crowded bridge first of all finding an empty vehicle was almost impossible, but we were surprised to find one on the spot. When we finally reached the hospital the main surgeon was leaving for home and

when he saw us immediately let us into his room and treated us without waiting for any paperwork. (I needed seven stitches for my hand cuts). Are all these just coincidences, or answer to our prayers? At the time of the incidence, it definitely looked to us that it was the latter. There would have been several such incidences in the life of all common folks like me. Man justifies: We all have written into our genetic code certain characteristics. One of them is the need to justify. To improve on his earlier

creations, God possibly gave man a thinking mind. But with the mind comes good and bad thoughts and the fear of sinning. So, God gave him the tool of selfjustification. No one likes to be a sinner to his own self. As Mark Twain said, a man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. When we note the differences between Man and other animals, we see that man has a mind that thinks about tomorrow and man has a guilt complex. The lion does not give a crap about killing for its food an innocent helpless deer. The need for self-justification is a specific inborn human trait. A thief justifies to himself his need to rob another. There is a humorous story illustrating such a justification(as told by the humorist Herbert Prochnow): He says:

I think of that lady who went to the governor of Tennessee and said, Governor, Id like to get my husband out of the penitentiary. Why is he here? For stealing a ham. Is he a good husband? No, sir, he drinks, he beats me, he beats the children. Well, Madam, why then do you want him out of prison? Were out of ham again. The rapist justifies himself that he is

entitled to do it for his pleasure. The killers have their own different selfjustifications. Nations justify wars. The height of this self-justification trait is seen in todays suicide bombers and terrorists. Only they call themselves martyrs for a cause. They believe and are at times brain-washed to believe that their act is a rightful one and not a sin. Without this justification their profession will vanish. Because of the innate feeling of guilt they need and take shelter in the selfjustification for the guilty act. In real life we come across a few people, despite growing up in decent family surroundings, go astray and when they find themselves in hot water (sometimes even in boiling water!), justify the situation as

due to bad stars. They are afraid to face the truth. And then their life evolves in a very negative way. A quote by Anna Quindlen comes to mind here: It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes... It is so easy to exist instead of live. And another writer said: Subdue the anguish of your soul. Nobody is destined only to happiness or to pain. The wheel of life takes one up and down by turn. We all believe in some kind of destiny in our lives. But I have always believed that we must do our part well and in all earnestness and with a positive frame of mind. After that if we still go through a negative phase of life, we can call that destiny or whatever. As Oliver Wendell

Holmes said, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail and not drift, nor lie at anchor. Doing negative things or doing nothing at all, and then blaming bad times on stars is illogical. What kind of faith can such a person develop? Our inborn trait of justification can give each man a different kind of faith. I believe even faith has to be both rational and positive. Then in the evening of life we will have nothing to regret about the way we lived, whatever ups and downs we might have faced. I believe that what we do today becomes our fate tomorrow. Coming back to my own life-changing incidents that I narrated above, anyone facing such situations would have felt the

need of a higher force coming to ones help. At that time I did not try to analyze or theorize about the correctness or otherwise of my own faith. When I write these lines I am 71 years old, and life and experiences have changed me to some extent, may be through a synthesis of faith and rationality. More about this in the coming chapters. Mans beliefs get reflected in his dreams too. We all get some time or the other extra natural dreams, where we find ourselves in strange lands. The one recurring dream of mine is about different levels of existence. I fly or jump from the earthly level to the next one high in the sky, where I meet some special human beings, presumably of a higher level. Most

of them are spirits of known humans. Sometime I get a chance to go to the next higher level with great effort and there I meet (or imagine meeting) some saints and great souls. They explain to me that the next level is Gods domains that take most intense efforts and many births to reach. Naturally, I was never able to have a peek there in my dreams. When I wake up the next morning after such a dream or any other with a spiritual tint, I feel light in the heart and experience an inexplicable kind of peace and happiness. Have you had any such experience? Talking of dreams, most of our dreams are

jumbled subconscious expressions of our real life fears, hopes, desires, fantasies and experiences. To a rational mind dreams are just that dreams - and not a reflection of reality. But there are a few clear dreams with specific content that look very meaningful when we wake up and reflect on them. I had one such dream 3-4 years back. In my old age, after retirement, I wanted to keep myself mentally occupied to avoid filling my mind with negative thoughts. One night, the family deity of our village (called Devi meaning mother goddess) appeared in my dream and told me to write poems and then disappeared after blessing me. Though I generally do not take dreams seriously, whether good or bad, this one actually cheered me up and I started

writing poems. As a scientist once said, chance favors the prepared mind and maybe deep inside me the desire to write was there and this chance dream prompted me to bring that desire to the surface! Faith can change and like everything else can evolve from one generation to another, one era to another. Some old beliefs are replaced by new ones, or even by skepticism. For example, the beliefs and faiths of my generation no longer hold good for current generation. While the religious faiths and social norms were more binding within the family of my generation, in the more modern and, one can say, more materialistic times we now live in, the outlook of the new generation is apparently very different. Every

generation considers the earlier ones views wrong or inadequate. As Alexander Pope said in one of his poems: We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow; our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.

Particularly, for the young educated persons of today in pursuit of wealth and happiness in a highly competitive world, the older ideals and norms are considered irrelevant. Not that they are completely anti-culture devoid of values, but they make their own culture and values and an

agnostic outlook. When in their high in life, they tend to think and feel that they are just getting what they deserve and God or spiritual values have no role or relevance in their success in life. But when age advances, and experience catches up and teaches them many new lessons, they will start thinking and realizing that life is not only about personal wealth, social position and instant pleasures. As someone said (apologies to the author, whose name I cannot recall) they have more in their purse than in their head and heart. Though these thoughts are a diversion from the subject matter of this book, since the chapter is about common man, I do not feel it is inappropriate to reproduce in this context an excellent thought-provoking

poem (rather a prose-poem) by Phil Bosmans Two Ways to Live You learn to drive a car, You dress fashionably, You learn languages, You feel at home with technical things, You learn a whole heap of things. Despite that, one day you find yourself in a corner. You learned everything, Except how to live,

They said to you; Get on in life, make yourself a career, earn money, Take advantage of events, acquire lots of things - as if happiness sat next to greed People are jackals in a vast jungle, They hunt for bread and amusement, They think they are free, But they are chained To their own senseless desires.

There are two ways to live, One begins with restraint And ends in fulfillment. The other starts with a lust for pleasure And ends in dissatisfaction, weariness of life, Disappointment and every kind of neurosis.

CHAPTER 4 - Individual Evolution

Life has evolved (according to our current knowledge at least) from simple to the complex, from unicellular organisms to the complex multicellular living beings, culminating in the highly developed homosapiens who became the most intelligent and skilled living beings and went on to become the dominating species on earth. Many scientists see a parallel between evolution of organic life featuring greater and greater complexity and evolution of complex social structures in human

society. Inertia is obviously the desired state for both matter and living beings. Any change is initially resisted and when inevitable matter or living being settles down to a different inertial state. Evolution is adjustment to the changes until a new settled state is arrived at. Evolution of man as a species has been much debated and documented, covering biological, technological and social evolution. From all accounts, it also appears that cultural evolution (development of language, printing and easier and faster communication, among the few main features being part of this evolution), long ago supplanted genetic evolution as our key adaptive mechanism. This is a matter of debate, though. In a

scientific paper published recently (2006) by Nicholas Wade, New York, states that a gene research study reveals that we humans are still evolving. He reports that Providing the strongest evidence yet those human beings are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, in the last 5,000 to 15,000 years. The genes that show this evolutionary change include some responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone structure, skin color and brain function. Many of these instances of selection may reflect the pressures that came to bear as people abandoned hunting and gathering

for settlements and agriculture, a transition well under way in Europe and East Asia some 5,000 years ago. Under natural selection, beneficial genes become more common in a population as their owners have more progeny. However, here I wish to discuss, for the purpose of this book, about man not as a species but as an individual within the species. As the individual evolves, so do his beliefs. I think I should start with my own story as an example of the generalization I have arrived at. (Everybody likes to hear his own story!) I will try to narrate it as truthfully as possible. I must clarify that

the few autobiographical notes are included here only with the intention of analyzing an individuals path and turning points in life and how various factors influence his outlook and beliefs. I was born in 1935 in Kerala in the Southern part of India in an orthodox Brahmin household. I was the eighth and last child of our parents. Those days it seems eight was the average number. Family planning did not exist, nor possibly was it needed. Of course medicines and medical facilities were not so advanced and many offspring used to die young from illnesses which can now

be easily treated and controlled. Thus out of the eight in our family, only four survived to live till the present time. The earliest I remember is of the period when I was possibly 4 years old and I was with one of my elder sisters in a village in Madras State. Though my sister was married for quite a few years, she did not have a child and wanted to keep me with her for some time. Needless to say she gave me all her love and I was quite happy. My parents visited us, though not frequently. (My sister was living about 12-15 miles away from my parents.) My initial schooling started here. From childhood I was very much interested in studies and I remember that at the age of 5, I used to sit up till late night without any

prompting from anyone, learning multiplication tables (from 2 to 20). And at that age, I was admitted straightaway in the second class (second grade). I even recall an instance when I was taken by the 5th grade teacher to her class and in front of her students asked me questions on the tables which I happened to reply correctly. And the teacher told her students that they should be ashamed they could not answer what a second grade student could do. I was obviously mighty pleased and from that moment on I was keen to excel in my studies. I believe that this part of me, i.e. the desire for scholastic excellence, must have been built into my genes. Whatever happened afterwards could have been due to additional external factors.

Before I could complete my second grade in that village, I went back to my parents, possibly because of some illness, or because my mother could no longer keep me away from her. I studied in a school nearby (10-15 minutes walking distance) up to 5th grade. Also here I excelled in my studies. The teachers grew so fond of me there that whenever I did not go to school due to illness or any other reason; they used to send one or two students to fetch me or to know the reason for my absence. By this time my father became very ill and had to close the establishment (he ran a small but successful restaurant there) and we all left to my elder sisters place in Kerala where my father passed away, when I was 9 or 10 years old. Having just passed my 5th grade with Tamil as

medium of instruction, I had to learn another language Malayalam to be eligible to continue schooling in Kerala. Let us see how my personal life turned out due to altered circumstances. Though father was able to give us (at least me and my immediate elder brother when we were growing up) a reasonably comfortable life, he did not have any saving. So my mother, elder brother and I were more or less left high and dry when father passed away. Without support from another family source, how our life would have turned out, it is even painful to imagine. Fortunately, there was no dearth of family support. My eldest sister in Kerala, who, at that time was fairly well off and who was very much attached to all

of us, took mother and me under her wings. A maternal uncle in another village agreed to take care of my brother and continue his education there. Thus, I ended up doing my secondary education in Kerala. There was no secondary school in the village where my sister lived. There was one 5 miles to the north and another 5 miles to the south. Due to change in medium of instruction, I lost one year in learning the new language. Thereafter, I regained my scholastic composure and started to come on top of the class again. In fact, I was happy to have created sort of a record during my studies in 9th, 10th and

11th grades. There were 3 divisions in these grades and 3 examinations, quarterly, half-yearly and annual. I came out on top of all the 3 divisions in all the subjects in all of these 3 examinations in 9th, 10th and 11th grades. The keen desire not to fall behind anyone else in any of the subjects drove me to study even harder. There was only one exception when I came second in English paper in one test. I knew the reason too. During those days, I used to read English classics taken from the school library and so my vocabulary increased. Unfortunately, I tried to experiment with my new stock of vocabulary and obviously ended up using the right words in the wrong places. And

the teachers preferred text-book answers. Anyway that gave me a taste for experimenting with prose writing. However, after I completed my 11th grade or high school education, my dream to go for higher studies was shattered. I knew it was coming. By that time, my sisters family had increased in numbers and they were into financial difficulties. They could not afford to bear the cost of sending me to college. My elder brother had started working in Bombay and I was to join him to start work myself to earn a livelihood. With the usual vigor, I went into studying typing and shorthand, since the job of a stenographer was easiest to land those days. Looking back, I remember writing shorthand 14 hours a

day (with the help of Key to Pittmans Shorthand) and more or less mastered it within 3 months. I then realized the truth that you will find time for anything you are obsessively interested in doing. I went for typing classes 5 miles away from home (walking both ways) and I enjoyed whatever I was doing. By the age of 17, I was in Bombay (the Anglicised name of Mumbai) and began my working career, starting of course as a stenographer. That was in 1952 when the Bombay I landed in was so different from the Mumbai now. The socio-political scene was totally different. It had to be. The period was only a few years after India attained independence from British Rule. Indian society and the politicians

were experimenting with the new sociopolitical conditions. My mother, brother and I lived together in a 2-room apartment. I began my working life with a starting salary of Rs.90/- per month and with my brothers slightly larger income we lived reasonably comfortably, though not luxuriously. The bottom line was that we were all happy those days and we had excellent neighbors. One of our neighbors coming from almost similar family background, losing their father early in life, went on to do part-time studies in degree courses and ended up graduating in Arts, Commerce and Law. All this while he was working from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. He went on to become a Director in a multi-national

company. He was an inspiration for me to do likewise. I too ended up graduating in Arts and Law and doing some additional courses in Management studies. Those years, my working time was between 5.30 a.m. till 10 p.m. When I was in school, my dream was to become a scientist or a research scholar. However, the part-time courses available those days excluded the science discipline. But I did the next best thing and the efforts gave me immense satisfaction. After an initial bout of jumping jobs, by 1954 I settled down in a job with an engineering company belonging to one of the biggest industrial groups in India (the Birla group) and ended up working for them for 33 years.

My working career was a happy one, starting as a stenographer, and rising to Executive Assistant to Chief Executive, Commercial Manager and thereafter as General Manager (Commercial) and Vice President (Commercial) in other companies. Family-wise, I married the girl I loved (we have now been married for 42 years) though this marriage was within the family. I do not wish to elaborate further on my personal life, as this book is not an autobiography. This book is intended to be an account of the journey of my mind as it evolved through childhood, adolescence, adulthood and onwards towards the

evening of my life. My attempt at writing this book was also the result of my keen desire to leave at least my memories and thoughts behind. Now it is time get back to the real subject matter of this chapter. As an individual, coming from an ordinary middle class background, how much did I evolve in my own lifetime? At the time of writing this chapter, I am 71 years old and so, I had more than 25,000 yesterdays behind me to do a self-analysis. It has been a long journey of self-discovery. Partly the inherited genetic traits, partly effects of circumstances in life and partly influence of the time, place and social environments; all these play their part in

shaping an individuals life. They did in mine too. Circumstances and environments have life-changing effects on individuals. For instance, when my father passed away leaving us penniless, I was still a child and if I had not received support and help from my elder sister and brother-in-law, what turn my personal life would have taken is difficult to imagine. Without the possibility of further education, my life pattern would have drastically changed and I would have evolved in a different direction. The qualities of total truthfulness and honesty were, I surely believe, were inborn and maybe genetically inherited.

But my beliefs and faiths were developed over a period of time where other external factors were involved too. Typical of the time and place I grew up in as a child, the questioning attitude was ever present. Nothing the elders said was taken for granted; actually, the youth of those days wanted to go the opposite way. Thus if, as a teenager, I started off as almost an atheist, questioning the meaning of the orthodox beliefs, it was only natural. Being an avid reader from early age (the written words always enchanted me), I went through many books on materialism and socialism that used to enthuse the youngsters then. I believed in logical reasoning and wanted to find rational justification for anything the elders believed or told us to believe.

After I landed in Mumbai and commenced working, I gathered around a group of men with similar interest and this group consisted of highly educated, intellectual type and as a teenager, I could learn a lot from them, as most of them were much senior to me. When I became older and had more experience of the real world (and not the dream world of early youth), my views too changed and from atheism I moved on to agnosticism, Bertrand Russell being my then favorite philosopher. Believing after knowing was then more important to me. That which I could not understand, I neither believed nor disbelieved and I never interfered with my wifes of anybody elses beliefs. I have always held

firmly to the belief that each individual has the right to have his/her own views. Before I conclude the notes on my personal life, I wish to put down a few thoughts that, I do believe, have relevance to the tension-ridden present day life. I am myself surprised when I look back on certain aspects of my childhood years. Surprise is because of the prevailing culture of the modern era. While the desire to reach higher was always there in me, there was an inexplicable internal contentment. This contentment, when translated into practical terms, gave me happiness under any conditions and ability to look at the brighter side of life. I received lots of love from those close to me in the family and thats all I needed.

Wanting more of any material things was never a compulsive priority. Not that I ignored the material needs, only that I did not consider going after them as the only objective in life. This mental make-up helped me throughout my life. There were occasions when I used to feel sad when my relationship with others, of genuine friendship, sincere love and affection for those close to me (including those who are not directly my blood relations) seemed one-sided. This could have been a mental delusion, or result of my own weaknesses and shortcomings. Everyone has such experiences. But in course of time, more so in my sixties, I started realizing (a la Bhagavat Gita) that the very act of giving love is pure joy

and when you dont expect anything in return, the mind is at peace. And when you dont expect, good things start happening to you. Such an approach and attitude have been very comforting to me these last few years. It has been debated from time immemorial if each individuals fate is predetermined, or in modern terminology, if there is a directionality in every mans life process, designed by a higher power; in other words a Destiny. All that I can say from my experience and what I have seen of life of those around me is that there seems to be a pattern, governed by both nature and nurture in each individuals life. We all have the choice and a free will given to us from birth. As someone

said, God gives us a pen and blank sheets along with an intelligent mind when we are born and it is for us to write our own story. But are we on a leash with limited ability to change our life pattern? Though what choices we make and what we do to activate those choices will finally make a man what he is, I am not sure if we can go beyond a particular pattern our life ultimately takes. The reader has to search himself for an answer. Life throws open many different roads and when you choose one road to another, the pattern emerging along that road dominates and determines your lifes pattern too. Had you taken another road, the pattern would have been altogether different. It is difficult to say if the choice

of the road itself is pre-determined. Apply this to your own life and find out the truth. When you choose or are forced to choose one particular road, life is imperceptibly and inexorably pushed forward, in spite of yourself, in that particular direction. That is our experience. Is that destiny? When talking of choosing ones road, I am eager to share with you a small poem I had penned on this topic. It goes like this:

Let me go East
We all have goals and dreams; some short term and some long term; some aim small and a few dream big,

but how many reach their destination?

Disciples of a great sage Once asked him to show the way To get to their desired goals. Its very simple, said the sage, If you want to go East, dont go West.

Yes, first make sure where you want to go, Learn how to get there,

And persevere in that direction. Going in the opposite route, Will never get you there.

If you want to save, control spending; If you want peace, avoid conflicts; If you want health, say no to junk food; If you want love, Do not cause pain to another. Yes, tell yourself: Let me go East.

Our beliefs are also affected by the pace of life which has changed in the last 5 decades. The old faiths and beliefs are no longer adequate for man. The age of science and reason changed mens outlook. For the better? Hard to say. There is more confusion than acceptance of any new faith in the modern world. The more scientists probe deep into the ultimate laws of nature, the more they realize that many mysteries of life, of nature and of cosmos are still inexplicable. Quite a few of modern thinkers and scientists are in fact going back to the philosophical thoughts of the oriental sages and mystics regarding the origin and meaning of life and the mysteries of the universe.

In this context, a well-known spiritual teacher, Alan Mesher had this to say in his book Just who do you think you are: Today we wrestle with such problems as overpopulation and a toxic environment, and while our advanced technology has improved the quality of our lives, it has also increased the speed of life and heightened the stress under which we all labor. Modern economic, technological, and social trends are relentlessly at work reformulating and redefining our civilization, forcing us to move at speeds far greater than those for which our nervous systems were designed. The increasing speed of life is neither a shortterm phenomenon nor a one-time aberration from the norm, but has become

a constant in our culture. Keeping up with the pace of change as well as the chronic demands that constant change places on our systems, has created a whole new set of problems for us to deal with. One of these problems is that we rarely have time to reflect on lifes purpose and meaning or to discover who we really are. What free time we do have is largely channeled into the endless assortment of mind numbing entertainments that our culture provides, but what relief we find in those diversions is of a temporary nature. Rather than creating a foundation of inner peace in what we do, we lurch instead from crisis to crisis. As our stress builds and our energy diminishes, our patience with one another disappears. We

seldom listen and we rarely forgive. Instead, we accuse and blame, deepen our divisions, and contribute to the growing climate of conflict that is plaguing the world. When we go too fast in life two things happen: we lose our balance, and then we crash. How true. There is always influence of events on ideas (and beliefs) and conversely of ideas (and beliefs) on events. Apart from nature and nurture, it is also essential to have an innate sense of right and wrong. To quote Alan Mesher again, Without a moral compass to guide us, it is all to easy to abandon ourselves to the most destructive elements in our nature. There are plenty of known instances

where members of decent families go astray for various reasons. They can get caught in their own net of greed and avarice and embark on a life drawing them irrevocably towards self-destruction. In a case known to me personally, the individual (call him X) was from a very decent family and other members of the family went on to lead a normal happy life. But X changed mid-course and got into wrong company and began unhealthy practices which took him steadily down the path of self-destruction. How did this happen, despite the fact that he was a very intelligent man with all-round capability? He was also in his own way a religious person. As you can see, Xs life evolved in a totally negative way which affected those close to him adversely too. To my

thinking, it is part nurture & environment wrong association, unhealthy practices and part some chink in the genetic component. By the time such men realize the errors of their ways they find it difficult to change direction. I said difficult, not impossible. Everything is possible provided one is able to overcome the compulsive and false selfjustification and face the truth. It takes efforts but it can be done. Such examples tell us of how individual life can evolve in totally different directions and affect the social fabric in positive or negative ways. Certain things cannot be taught nor examples set by others can have any bearing on every individual. Each person is finally

responsible for his own thoughts and actions. Abraham Lincoln once said: You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was. To get back to my personal story, like everybody else, with the changing times, I also started looking for inner peace and to seek answers to the age-old questions: what is the meaning of life, are we here by accident or design? How did the universe and our own life come about? Is there something to look forward to once our body perishes? Or is that The End with nothing but eternal silence to follow? Is there any meaning to or purpose in life? So from agnosticism, I moved on to seeking spiritual answers to these

questions. But the rational part of me wanted logical, objective answers and thus I looked for a synthesis of science, reason and spirituality. I had gone through my own share of the vagaries of life, the ecstasies and agonies. The most agonizing part was the tragic passing away of my daughter at the age of 18 from a brain tumor. I suppose such experiences are bound to leave their mark in anybodys psyche. There can be no atheist or agnostic who will not look to an unknown higher source for support. When witnessing death of a close and dear one or when facing ones own dying moments, even they are bound to pray and say Oh, God, why should this

happen to me. We cannot but arrive at an obvious conclusion that spirituality is written into human genetic code. However hard one may try to run away from this fact, in the end everyone looks to an unknown supreme being for succor. So, towards the evening of my life, my philosophy veered away from agnosticism and towards a half-spiritual, half-rational kind of outlook. This sounds more like confusion than conviction. But ask any modern thinking man among common folks and I am sure he will echo similar sentiments. Now, after retirement from active work, my search has been more towards finding that elusive spiritual peace but through a rational path. Though

this may sound contradictory, its really not so. Both reason and spirituality look for the same deeper truth. During the last 2 decades, many thinkers, philosophers and even scientists have started to look for a synthesis between spirituality and science. More on this in another chapter. But presently, I only wish to explain how as an individual I had evolved through the last six or seven decades of my life and how each individual goes through his own evolution. As Oscar Wilde remarked we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. And those who looked at the stars were the ones who evolved further on a personal level and went forward in life. Instead of looking at life as a meaningless

drudgery, let us look at it as a journey of self-discovery and we will find there both epiphany and triumph. History is replete with stories of ordinary men and women like you and me evolving to much higher level and adding purpose and meaning to life. Lets see what the spiritual guru, Alan Mesher has to say in this connection: Life is about the choices we make. Those choices determine our future. The wise person chooses to advance his evolution and contribute to the common good. The foolish person wastes his time wallowing in the gulf of confusion, creating more negative Karma that will slow his progress toward lifes inevitable goal. It

is far better to discover the light within us and walk the path of wisdom while we still have the time to travel far down that path. It does no good to come too late to this work. And Nathaniel Hawthorne says: Every individual has a place to till in the world and is important in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not. The ordinary man can take heart from the lives of these great men, who speak from their own experience. Mahatma Gandhi once said: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Most of us stop fighting at the second step.

CHAPTER 5 - We Belong
Five thousand years ago, the Hindu scriptures (eg. Rig Veda) already proclaimed the universe as one living entity within which all beings are manifested. The reflective human mind went on to discover through pure thought the reality of life on Earth and its interconnectedness with the whole of the universe. The scientists in the last 2 to 3 centuries, searching for the external aspects of the physical reality and the laws governing the cosmos and of life in general, have arrived at similar conclusions. They accept not only the reality of the evolution of the cosmos, but

also the fact that life as we know on earth is result of a process of evolution where the whole of cosmos take part. No doubt, life on earth has been possible due to certain fine- tuning and high degree of calibration by forces of nature either by accident, or directed evolution or by design by a higher power. Whichever way we look at it, we all belong together with the rest of the living beings, and in fact with the rest of the universe. Science calls this inter-connectivity. We all think of the plurality and separateness from one another. I am separate from you or he/she. But on reflection we find the underlying unity in this plurality and a common origin. As the scientist-philosopher Pierre Teilhard de

Chardin said plurality, unity, energy are the three phases of matter. When we consider human life on earth, we come to the inescapable conclusion that we all must have come from a common ancestor. Through a slow evolutionary process, permitted and governed by the physical and chemical fine-tuning that occurred on earth, life progressed from bacteria to a man. So, as most modern thinkers concur with our ancient sages and mystics, Man includes and is a culmination of all life forms that went before. When a child is born, the first thing we do is to give him or her a name as an

individual identity. Once the children start talking, after papa and mummy (in any language they grow up in), the next few words they learn are I and my. From that moment on, the child thinks he is a separate entity, different from the rest of the world. Others encourage him or her to think so too. It is only when the child grows into adulthood and starts using his/her faculty of thinking and reasoning that realization dawns that he or she is not an island but is one among the fellow beings and is interconnected with the rest of the world. Like everyone else, I could also not get over the instinctive I sense so easily. This could be the individual survival instinct. I am the center of the world,

around which everything else revolves. And this sense of Iness keeps us separate from others. The sense of belonging is swept away by the I of the storm. The ego of the humans comes with the original packing, and is hard to get rid of. There is a very illustrative example given by the modern spiritual guru, Bhagvan Rajneesh in one of his books. In Indian tradition, men who renounce the world go to the forest to meditate to achieve selfrealization, or Moksha. One such aspirant left all his possessions and renounced all worldly attachments and went to a forest and sat under a tree to meditate. Early in the morning he goes to the nearby river to have a bath and recital

of Vedic mantras. One day when he returned from the river, he found another sadhu (renunciate) sitting under the tree where he used to sit for his meditation. He could not control his irritation and displeasure at seeing another sadhu sitting at his spot and shouted at him What are you doing here? This is my tree. A distant relative of mine when in a temple or a prayer room used to pray loudly Please God, save me alone. Though this was meant as a joke, the underlying thought is an expression of the ego which is so natural in all humans. Are we just unconnected separate individual units? Certainly not. The great scientist Albert Einstein finds unity amidst

the myriad diversity in the universe and says: A human being is part of the whole called by us the universe. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affections for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures.. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. Similar thoughts on man not being just self-centered entity but belonging to a larger picture, have been expressed

beautifully by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his famous book The Phenomenon of Man. Once man rids himself of the vision of our three-fold illusion of smallness, plurality and immobility, he says no longer will man be able to see himself entirely unrelated to mankind, neither will he be able to see mankind unrelated to life; nor life unrelated to the universe. Interdependence and interconnectedness of flora and fauna and of all living beings with the Earth, the planetary system and whole of cosmos, are clearly evident from the study of all branches of science. Even the Earth is a vibrant living entity that affects and is affected by human actions. Look at global warming, the Tsunami, the ever increasing hurricanes. It appears man

is too weak against natures fury, but collectively mankind can cause sufficient damage to the environment and to other flora and fauna to earn the wrath of nature, or in physical terms to upset the balance of the earths life-sustaining capability. This idea of unity is neatly explained by the scientist Daniel C. Matt in his book God and the Big Bang. He says Everything that is, was, or will be started off as one infinitesimal point: the cosmic seed. Life has since branched out, but this should not blind us to its underlying unity. Every living thing is composed of molecules; molecules are composed of atoms; atoms are composed of electrons.. and protons and neutrons, which are composed of three quarks each. The

quarks are held together by gluons. Yet, if we simply reduce everything to the least denominator the simplest elementary particle yet discovered we miss the delicious differences between things, blue jay and white poodles, Eucalyptus and acacia, Koreans and Haisidins No subatomic analysis can explain the wonder of personality, the unique pattern each of us creates, dancing and stumbling through life. The deepest marvel is the unity in diversity, the vast array of material manifestations of energy. Becoming aware of the multifaceted unity can help us learn how to live in harmony with other human beings and all beings, with all our fellowtransformations of matter and energy.

A recent newspaper article states, though in a lighter vein, that we may be remarkable, but were still animals. The article went on to cite the findings from the gorilla pictures collected by noted zoologist Desmond Morris showing these apes remarkable adaptability and understanding of the use of handy tools similar to humans. These astonishing photographs showed a wild gorilla using a walking stick to aid its progress as it walked through deep water. The article continued The pictures made the huge animal look eerily human and, once again underlined the closeness of the great apes to their human relatives. Whether or not we should compare ourselves with apes, the incontrovertible fact is that we all belong together on this life-sustaining

planet the earth. The root of religion is connectedness. Connection with God and His creations. The sages and mystics had earlier arrived at the conclusion about the unity of all living beings and their connectedness with the whole of the universe. The scientists have also found that life on earth is intimately connected with the whole of cosmos. In fact they assert that we are all products of the cosmic dust. A very enlightening excerpt from the book The View from the Center of the Universe by Joel R. Primack & Nancy Ellen Abrams is reproduced below: Each of us is an atomic pastiche: the iron atoms in our blood carrying oxygen at this

moment to our cells came largely from exploding white dwarf stars, while the oxygen itself mainly from exploding supernovas that ended the lives of massive stars, and most of the carbon in the carbon dioxide we exhale on every breath came from planetary nebulas, the death clouds of middle-size stars a little bigger than the sun. We are made of material created and ejected into the Galaxy by the violence of the earlier stars, including some supernovas that exploded before the solar system formed four and a half billion years ago. To understand how this happened is a first step toward feeling some conscious contact with what we are made of and our cosmic history. It is an irony of life that some of the old

prehistoric tribal societies considered the Earth as mother and all living beings children of the same mother, while the socalled modern society made selfishness a virtue and exploitation of nature a right. In his book God A Brief History John Bowker has something interesting to say in this respect. When the Anishinabe (a Native American people from the area of the Great Lakes) go hunting, they go gently. Certainly the hunted animal dies, but hunting is regarded as an act of communication between human and animal persons: animals who have their own languages, need to be persuaded to give up their bodies by the assurance that the humans will make restoration so that the spirit of the dead animal will be reborn: through rituals the hunter and the hunted

are connected to each other. Walking with care is a Native American way of talking about the sacred nature of the world. The Sioux address the Earth as Mother: Every step we take upon you should be done in a sacred manner; each step should be as a prayer. He goes on to quote another Native writer who says: We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills, and winding streams with tangled growth, as wild. Only to the white man was a nature of wilderness and only to him was the land infested with wild animals and savage people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery.

Lets forget for the time being God and religion. Let us look at life (human life in particular) from purely rational point of view. The sheer number of human beings and the need for living in a society compel each of us to live life in such a way that it does not, as far as possible, hurt anothers life because then we can be hurt too. Secondly, the joy of loving another and living harmoniously with those around us or close to us (call it family if you like) is all too evident to us. Extend this need to live together in harmony to the tribe, the society, the nation and the world, and we can see clearly that without this harmonious social interaction, the result will be hatred, war, destruction and loss of peace and happiness. The same applies to mans relationship with other forms of

life too. When we flout this rule, Nature retaliates in its own ways. This is not a theory, but a practical lesson learnt from millennia of human life. In todays global theatre, this truth is even more apparent. Religion and religious faiths per se are conducive to creating a climate for such connectedness, or belonging. How effectively the human race uses this climate will determine its future. The feeling of alienation and depression found in modern times is due to our forgetting this connectedness. In an interesting and trail-blazing book Belonging to the Universe, three great minds, Dr.Fritzof Capra, Ph.D. (the wellknown author of The Tao of Physics),

David Steindl. Rast, Ph.D. a Benedictine Monk and Thomas Mathew, have given us some thought-provoking ideas and explanations in a dialogue form. A few passages are worth reproducing here: David: The new thinking stresses that common religious awareness, which unites it with others in their approach to divine reality. The more this awareness is stressed, the more we realize our common ground, which unites us rather than what divides us. Thomas: My own experience of interreligious dialogue has convinced me that this opening to people of other faiths and to the truth we seek and hold in common intensifies my personal commitment to

truth as such. Ultimately what all have in common is the human reality of living on this earth in a light that comes from beyond the earth and beyond our religions. The same thoughts are echoed in ancient Hindu and Buddhist scriptures. When man lived in caves, with limited mobility, his mind viewed a limited space, and his outlook and knowledge were in a narrow groove. His progress in space on earth and his externalization of the sky and cosmos expanded his mental horizon beyond all imagination. With that came the realization that we are part of and belong to an infinite variety of beings on earth, and the infinite cosmos that

created the earth. Its like the proverbial elephant story: Four blind men exploring different parts of the elephant and each giving a different version of what an elephant looks like. Similar is the case with the human comprehension of reality. The narrower our vision, the less we see the reality as a whole. The connectedness of the parts to the whole is missed when we are blind with our eyes open. We have come far from the cave dwelling hunter stage to the global society of modern era. But considering the geological age of the earth and origin of life on this planet, the modern man is a newcomer. Some scientists have

calculated that if the period of life on the earth is taken as one year, modern men have arrived here only on 28th of December. Also the progress from the hunter stage to modern times has taken only 20,000 generations (or so we are told)! From the narrow confines of the cave to the wide open space below and sky and the vast cosmos above, mans vision of reality has expanded as never before. We are awed by the grandeur but the mind is unable to cope with the transition from the cave to the global society and the space age. The more we know, the more we get convinced of our ignorance of the ultimate reality. But as the human race is still young, it can possibly reach out to the

cosmos and unravel at least some of the mysteries in time to come. One thing however is becoming increasingly clear. We humans and all life forms on earth have come from the cosmic dust and thus belong together. The man-made divisions of caste, color, nationality etc. are just that, man-made, and have no basis in reality. Amit Godswami, a well-known Quantum Physicist in his famous book Visionary Window says: In the new cosmology we see the true enormity of our own evolution. We are not separate from our ecosystem. A viewpoint of reincarnation enables us to see the spectacular vista of the range of the past

lives. We have reincarnated as single cells, as plants, and as animals albeit with group souls or species consciousness and now as humans. Consciousness learns about itself in the course of the vast journey through all these incarnations; each one of us has traversed space and time in this manner many times over. When I was a boy of 10 or 12, I had personally witnessed the prevalence of untouchability in Kerala, South India where I grew up for a few boyhood years. I was born in a Brahmin family and this caste was considered under Hindu customs as the highest caste in the 4-caste system prevalent in India for many millennia. When a Brahmin goes out, the

men/women and children belonging to the lower classes, particularly those of the lowest caste called the Sudras, were expected to keep themselves away from the Brahmin and not to touch him or come near him. When going out with elders in our family, I had often seen the lower caste men and women running away from us and looking at us as their masters. Of course this period then was the dying phase of this age-old system, and in a few years thereafter the practice of untouchability (at least physically) more or less became history. Having been of a logical bent of mind from my early years, even then I could not accept or understand the rationale of treating some humans as inferior beings or separate from another group.

There is no rational basis for considering some groups of the human race as inferior just on the basis of their birth in a particular caste, or color or nationality. With the spread of education, knowledge and communication channels expanded and the narrow view of tribal or caste groupism slowly began to decrease, and the knowledge that we all belong together gathered momentum. Selfishness and purely self-centered actions are part of the animal nature. Man, being endowed with mind and consciousness, is still by and large selfish but is capable of transcending selfishness. I am not using this word here in its negative connotation only but as a fact and even an imperative of human life. Every

individual tries to find happiness in his own way and is driven by his own needs, desires, and survival instinct. All his actions flow from this self-centeredness. But at the same time, he realizes the fact that social constraints bind him within certain limits. In fact even to get his needs and find happiness, he needs interaction with and understanding from other members of the social circle he belongs to. This is the realistic picture of the life of men and women today. Mahatma Gandhi preached the doctrine Each for all and all for each. That is another way of saying that for a life of happiness and peace we must accept the truth that we all belong together. Religions arose to give a sense of

belonging to the general masses by being together in a group, praying together and doing certain common rituals together. In this sense religion had some positive impact. However, treating those outside a particular religion as enemies or outcastes gave rise to religious intolerance and wars. Thus the good and the bad coexisted. But now the outlook is changing, particularly with the spread of education. Though most of us follow a particular religion we were born or brought up in, we have come to realize that adherents of other religions are our equals. Coming to the 21st century, we cannot but ask the question: where do we go from here? Though religious faith is no longer considered the determining factor in

human relationships, we still have not overcome the group animosities raked up in the name of religion. Fundamentalism, which means going back to the beliefs prevailing at the time of the origin of certain religions when the conditions and social compulsions were totally different, is still around. With the advances in science and technology, the resulting conflicts between groups can and are having disastrous consequences. We can only hope that over a period of time people will realize the futility of such conflicts and learn to live together in greater harmony. History has provided various instances of unity in adversity. Maybe man-made and natural calamities will teach us better to

come together. A recent instance was the flooding in the streets of Mumbai in India due to unprecedented heavy rains. The losses were colossal and many perished in this avalanche. After some normalcy was restored, there were reports of many incidents where people belonging to different religions, whether rich or poor, came to each others help and particularly those stranded on roads were given succor in different forms by those nearby. Yes, calamities can indeed make men rise above their differences and bring out the feeling of belonging. But why are we not able to get into this unity mode during normal peaceful times? In an Indian movie song, there is a

beautiful line that says Tomorrow is Gods, today is Mans. What we do collectively today will determine what is in store for us tomorrow. Even Nature follows this rule. As someone said Nature never forgets its past. What happens today is the forerunner of what can happen tomorrow. Mens actions will determine Gods (or Natures) reaction. I do not mean here a personal God seeking to avenge men, but in the general sense of the higher power or intelligence which made life possible. Even hardcore scientists who think life and the cosmos can be explained through natural physical laws and the process of evolution, get stumped when trying to explain the starting point of all this.

Without a pre-existing super intelligence could all these have come about? This has been the eternal unanswered question. Our being part of a greater order, is beautifully expressed by a very popular modern scientist, Fritjof Capra in the following words: When we look at the world around us, we find that we are not thrown into chaos and randomness but are part of a great order, a grand symphony of life. Every molecule in our body was once part of previous bodies living and non-living and will be a part of future bodies. In this sense, our body will not die but will live on, again and again, because life lives on. We share not only lifes molecules but

also its basic principles of organization with the rest of the living world. And since our mind, too, is embodied, our concepts and metaphors are embedded in the web of life together with our bodies and brains. We belong to the universe, we are at home in it, and this experience of belonging can make our lives profoundly meaningful. A disciple of Shankaracharya (the great Hindu saint and philosopher) had been serving him for a long time, but without receiving much teaching from him. One day, the master felt a presence behind him and asked: Whos there? It is I answered the disciple. If you like so much this I, the master said, either stretch it to the infinite or give it up

completely. The I must realize that it is part of everything else in the Universe. I would like to conclude this chapter with another vision of mine (for whatever it is worth) in the form of a poem We belong. On a Sunday morning, sitting on a chair in the balcony, stretching my legs, looking out at the distant hills and trees and grass in front, and a few men walking their dogs,

I feel the world exists for me And I am the center of the universe.

When I go down to the shopping mall And see the endless stream of humanity, I think I am but one in a crowd, Unimportant, and a Miniscule part of the infinity.

When I sit back and ponder,

I realize both visions are mental fantasies. I am not only me but belong To the trees, birds, humanity, Nay, to everything animate and inanimate, To the sky, stars and all cosmos Which gave me life and ability to reflect.

CHAPTER 7 - Synthesis of Science and Spirituality

Age of Reason:
My four year old granddaughter when asked why did she do such and such a thing (mostly something mischievous), replies because and leaves it at that. She knows she has to give some reason but does not know how to express it or what reason to give. With the dawn of the so-called age of reason, starting from 17th century, thinkers, scientists and philosophers believed that by pure reason mysteries of life and the universe could be

unraveled. The French mathematician, scientist & philosopher, Rene Descartes (1576-1650) said cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore, I am). With the arrival of Newton and Charles Darwin, the scientific community and the intellectual elite began confidently affirming the preeminence of reason and scientific methods and the need for God to explain the mysteries of life and the universe seemed to recede. (It is to be noted, however, that some of the eminent scientists of earlier era were very religious and believed that in Nature they could discern the handiwork of God. Chief among them were Newton, and Astronomers like Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.) But from the middle of 19th century, science and reason became an ally of atheism,

materialism and general skepticism. But like my granddaughter, when it came to explaining or explaining away the cause of creation and why a super intelligent designer is not required, they started stating because without giving any plausible reason which could hold ground and which could be comprehensible to the common man (including the literate ones). There was a humorous aside by an anonymous writer ridiculing science that reads: Lesson of the Bumblebee According to the theory of aerodynamics and as may be readily demonstrated

through wind tunnel experiments, the bumblebee is unable to fly. This is because the weight, size and shape of his body in relation to the total wingspread make flying impossible. But the bumblebee, being ignorant of these scientific truths, goes ahead and flies anyway and makes a little honey every day. This is not to underestimate the great achievements by these rational thinkers, scientists and philosophers. They were brilliant originators and pioneers and their discoveries in the field of physical realities cleared many previously held misconceptions and gave rise to new ways of thinking. Objectivity in the search for

truth became an instrument of thought. It was definitely a step forward in understanding physical realities of life and the universe.

God? Who needs Him? Ask some

In his book, God A Brief History, the author John Bowker writes of this period thus: The immense success of postNewtonian science led to what is known as the nomothetic ambition, the determination to find the laws that govern all that happens in the universe, including human behavior. Laplace, when Napolean observed that he had left God out of his system, replied,

Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis. Lemaitre wrote a book with the title Lhomme machine (humans understood in terms of mechanisms that make things go). Darwins account of the Origin of the Species by means of evolution reinforced the nomothetic ambition so that Freud initially hoped that he would become the Newton of the inside of the human head. How could God intervene in such a universe? Deists (a term used loosely of varying writers defending God against skepticism in the 17th and 18th centuries) hoped to rescue God as the one who initiates creation and then allows it to run according to God-created laws.

Philosophical Thoughts Old and New: Thinking aloud on philosophical questions began long ago in the East, much before the scientists and rationalists of West sought answers for them. In the Rig Veda (said to be 5000 years old), there appear the following lines: Neither existence nor non-existence was as yet, Neither the world nor the skies beyond it; What was covered? And where? And who gave it protection? Was there water, deep and

unfathomable?

Neither was there death, nor immortality, Nor any sign of night or day. The ONE breathed without air by selfimpulse; Other than that was nothing whatsoever.

Who really knows? Who can here say? When was it born and from where creation came?

The Gods are later than this worlds creation; Therefore who knows from where it came into existence?

That from which creation came into being, Whether it had held it together or it had not. He who watches in the highest heaven He alone knows, unless He does not know.

And again the Upanishads have the following lines: As is the human body, so is the cosmic body; As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind; As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm, As is the atom, so is the universe.

A great example of philosophical speculation on the origin of the universe and of life on earth!

And that was much before the Big Bang theories. The last four lines from the Upanishads almost read like the road map for modern scientists to understand the Cosmos (macrocosm) the Sun, the Stars, and the Planets by understanding the smallest atom (microcosm). And in fact this is the road the scientists traveled before arriving at the modern theories of cosmology.

There is a story given in the Chandogya Upanishad: When Svetaketu, at his fathers bidding, had brought a ripe fruit from the banyan tree, the father said to him,

Split the fruit in two, dear son. Here you are. I have split it in two What do you find there? Innumerable tiny seeds. Then take one of the seeds and split it. I have split the seed. And what do you find there? Why, nothing, nothing at all. Ah, dear son, but this great tree cannot possibly come from nothing. Even if you cannot see with your eyes that subtle something in the seed which produces this

mighty form it is present nonetheless. That is the power that is the spirit unseen that pervades everywhere and is in all things. Have faith! That is the spirit which lies at the root of all existence, and that also art thou, O Svetaketu. Do we not already get a hint here of the modern scientists atoms and subatomic particles and the unseen energy that make these dance?

In a book Francois Gautier a great lover of India expresses the following thoughts on Hinduism: In the beginning for the Hindus, the world was only the Being without duality, sat. Certain sects of Hinduism even said that

before man, before any living organism, there was only Non-Being, a-sat. But how could the Being emerge from Non-Being? In the beginning then, this world must have been Pure Being, unique, without past, present or future. And then something happened Human evolution had started; the Non-manifest had descended into Matter. And all the forms of life as we know them were going to blossom during the millions of years that followed until the Homo sapiens of today. And the modern scientists express the ancient thoughts in more technical jargon; the universe was created through a Big Bang from a point or singularity of pure

intense energy! It is a historical fact that Western world overtook the East (India and China in particular) in advancement of science and technology. This literally changed the face of the earth and gave rise to new ways of looking at these philosophical questions, viz. who are we, where did we come from, how did life come about, how could something come out of nothing, how did the universe come into being, what is mans final destination and so on. And in the words of one scientist: How did something come to think about nothing?

Diverse views from Science:

The answers that we get from contemporary science to some of these questions are not exactly comforting and scientists know intuitively that these answers are still tentative, inconclusive, and many more aspects of life and the universe remain still a mystery. The current consensus of scientific viewpoint on these matters appear to be, purely from the angle of physical realities, as follows, ( in the words of Chet Remo, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Stonehill College, and author of the book Skeptics and True Believers): We (i.e. the humans) are staggeringly complex electrochemical machines. There is no ghost in the machine, no soul that exists independently of the body, and therefore no self that will survive the bodys

disintegration. Our bodies, minds, and consciousness evolved over hundreds of millions of years from primitive organisms, on a planet that formed from a gassy nebula about 4.5 billion years ago near a star that is just one of a trillion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way is typical of tens of billions of visible galaxies that probably had their beginning 10 to 15 billion years ago in a cataclysmic explosion from a seed of infinite energy (italics mine). There appears to be nothing central or special about who, what, or where we are in the universe of galaxies. We are contingent throw-offs of organic evolution, at least in the details. And why are we here? We are here to make copies of our genes and thereby ensure the continuance of our

species after the deaths of ourselves. (He does not explain what this infinite energy is or how it came to be!) Not exactly the kind of scenario we are happy about. Our instinct tells us (at least for the common men) that the physical reality that scientists paint is only half the story of real life experiences. Though man has progressed from the age of Rg Veda to the era of Quantum Physics, the questions remained, the answers varied but yet inconclusive because the mysteries are vast and not fully comprehensible to the finite human mind. But the sheer adventure of looking for the answers through rational means by the scientists and spiritual and intuitive means by the believers is certainly exhilarating.

Science tries to arrive at the ultimate truth through purely intellectual means (reason, logic, observation, verification etc.) and ignores the equally real spiritual experiences of mystics, sages and many others. Once Sri Ramakrishna gave the following example: The intellectual approach to religion and God leads to partiality, even to denial of certain obvious inner experiences. One day, a westernized Bengali saw a friend of his rushing into his house: I just saw a building collapsing nearby! The intellectual man answered: Wait a minute! I must check in my newspaper! After some time, he came with the daily in his hand: The news isnt in it, so I cant believe you!

The problem is that both the scientist and man of religion takes his own viewpoint as the only correct one, ignoring the essence of what the other side is considering as the reality. In the Indian epic Mahabharata, there is an incident where the king Dhritarashtra asked his son Duryodhana (the chief of the bad or unjust party in Mahabharata war) to go around the world and to find a good person. After a long time, he came home empty handed: I looked well in every corner, but couldnt find any good person! Then, the old king asked his nephew Yudhishtra (the chief of the good side in the war) to go around the world and find a bad person. He also came back empty handed. Each of them had seen the world through the screen of his own

mind. One of the foremost scientists and humanists of modern times, Albert Einstein combined scientific acumen with intuitive wisdom and was never shy of giving his views on science and spirituality. Some of quotes are worth looking at: The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery even if mixed with fear that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of

something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense and in this sense alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise. Such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvelous structure of reality, together with the single hearted

endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. And on another occasion, he says: Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. And again: I cannot conceive of a personal God who would directly influence the actions of individuals, or would directly sit in judgment on creatures of his own creation.

I cannot do this in spite of the fact that mechanistic causality has, to a certain extent, been placed in doubt by modern science. My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality. Morality is of the highest importance but for us not for God. That is how it goes with scientific community. Starting from the sheer mechanistic view of the physical reality of the universe and life on earth, some of the modern scientists and thinkers waver between a rigid scientism and more

tempered viewpoint which allows for the deeply mysterious universe to have resulted from an unknown energy, falling short of calling this energy God. For instance, Chet Raymo, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy has this to say: I am one of those people, trained in science, who cannot quite accept the idea of God nor quite leave it alone. I am less pessimistic than most, however, that science and religion must remain in conflict. It seems to me that science is part of the traditional religious quest for the God of creation. Science delves into the details of the physical realities and is driven by mans innate qualities of imagination and wonder. None has expressed this idea

more imaginatively than the Poet William Blake, in his poem Auguries of Innocence: To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour. The attempt or purpose of science is, or at least ought to be, to find beauty in the deeper reality they try to unravel.

Age of Confusion:

The more we, the common folk, try to delve into the mysteries of life and our role and future that awaits us, we get more confused with the answers that are offered to us. Religion and science have always been at loggerheads, each professing to offer the ultimate truth. Faith, it appears is partly genetically passed on from one generation to another, and partly a product of culture and environment. It is only logical to conclude from this hypothesis that the reason for the third-world countries (having deep-rooted historically visible faith in religions and a culture giving more importance to spiritual longing more than material advancement) rooting for God more than the West with its materialistic culture.

There is always the possibility that both the religious justification of God and the scientific denial of God could both be imperfect or wrong. That is why the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov said once, I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. Since both the religious and scientific explanations are products of a finite human mind, the ultimate reality of life and the universe appears far beyond human comprehension. This, as some scientists point out, could be an unsolvable conundrum. But on both sides the efforts will always be there because curiosity is an inborn human trait. As a writer said, the cure for boredom is curiosity, but there is no cure for curiosity.

I have always found it a stimulating experience to look for meaning in both spiritual and scientific attempts in search for truth. So long as this journey is undertaken with a positive frame of mind, the wonder at the vast unknown is present in both the routes. Both religion and science try to find answers to the same fundamental questions, why and how about life and the universe. There is an innate curiosity to find the cause for everything. The religious argument is: A potter is necessary to produce a jar, mere clay is not sufficient as the Indian saint Shankara said. Religious approach stirs and inner creativity, while science exploits our outer creativity. Both should be complementary and not contradictory.

The basic concept of God (as the ultimate One) may be similar in different religions, but the image of God or characterization of God in human mind varied from age to age and region to region. Some have imagined God as a vengeful and punishing God and hence many cruel and wicked things have been done in the name of God. History testifies this. Among writers, scientists, philosophers and even politicians, we will find supporters for both the belief in God and negation of God. Science is called organized skepticism. Oliver Wendall Holmes view of science and religion, is expressed in his humorous way, Science gives us major answers to minor

questions, while religion gives us minor answers on major questions.

God & Science:

I would like to dwell on the ideas and theories of some of the modern thinkers without pretending that I have understood them fully. In this Chapter my attempt is only to present some of the views of scientists and thinkers without trying to voice my thoughts on the rights and wrongs of their views. It is difficult for me to say whether my own thinking and feeling agree with or are influenced by theirs. Maybe, partly. But I can definitely say that I found reading their books a very

stimulating experience. So, let me get on with jotting down, maybe in a somewhat random manner, what some of these great minds think on the ultimate truth about life and the universe. Necessarily, since the different ideas and thoughts of some of the leading scientists and thinkers have been given in their own words, scientific terminology has been unavoidable. However, I believe that the gist of their ideas is coming through clearly in these passages. I am indebted to the authors/writers for quoting some of the relevant passages from their books. First of all, we have to accept the fact that this is an age of science. As one scientist put it, we can no longer think that the

known can be unknown. We can now not accept that the earth is flat, or that the earth is the center of the universe or that sun goes round the earth. The solar and lunar eclipses are no longer mysterious happenings. Moon is not an exotic land. Astronauts have landed there and brought back pictures of an uninhabitable barren land. Successful space probes have confirmed scientists calculations of distances, space curvature etc. accurately. Twentieth century has witnessed amazing developments in radio and x-ray astronomy, spectroscopy, very fine telescopes (foremost being the Hubble Space Telescope) which made explorations of the heavens more exciting and more accurate, and resulted in some awe-inspiring discoveries about the

incredibly large Universe. When we consider the role of science, it would be wrong to argue that scientists are yet unable to uncover the ultimate truth of life and the universe and hence we must accept the theological arguments to be true. Ultimate and Truth are very elusive concepts. In a recent book The View from the Center of the Universe by Joel R. Primack & Nancy Ellen Abrams (Published in 2006) the authors give their reason thus: How much of the nature of reality science has figured out is astonishing, but most of it is working knowledge, not Ultimate Truth. Working knowledge has turned out to be a far more fruitful goal for beings like us humans who keep evolving and learning. Science tells

us to let go and flow with the data. As long as humans are creative, there cant be a final truth. To insist on Ultimate Truth is to live in an all-too-human fantasy and miss those wondrous aspects of the universe we can actually verify. In this context, it is interesting to note how some very literate and unbiased people are at times not able to accept certain possibilities of science, and looking at present state of scientific achievements, their observations look silly. Here are a few examples: Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over the wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.

From the editorial, The Boston Post, 1865. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible Lord Kelvin, pioneer in thermodynamics and electricity, 1895. Man will never reach the Moon, regardless of all future scientific advances. Lee DeForest, inventor of the vacuum tube. It is obvious to all how all these predictions turned out to be wrong. Scientific progress far exceeded their expectations. No sensible person can now continue to believe that if a cat crosses your path,

there is going to be disaster waiting for you. Such superstitions have no place in modern mans mind. A few events of coincidental mishaps were generalized and orally passed on from one generation to another in the past, which became a bunch of superstitious thoughts. These have no relevance in the present world. Miracles and magic are viewed with caution and cannot be accepted on hearsay or at face value, unless one has personally experienced or witnessed them. The most common of all follies wrote H.L. Mencken, is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. We have to put aside what science has conclusively proved to be false.

This is not to say that there are no miracles. Life itself is a miracle. Nature provides many examples that appear to us as miracles. But these miracles are just experienced, not understood nor can be subjected to analysis. Personally, I have one yardstick, Truth. Truth has been my first love in life. Therefore I look for truth, to the extent I can comprehend, in any hearsay ideas or beliefs. In the evening of my life, I have found this principle has been very rewarding and satisfying. Lifes ups and downs have not changed my longing for truth in everything I do, see or believe. And with truth comes objectivity (even on subjective matters). Now, coming back to the views of modern scientists, some of them adopt an extreme

reductionist approach, saying that anything can be reduced threadbare to its elemental state through laws of nature and we will find that there is no place for any supernatural action at a distance. Physicist Steven Weinberg, in his book The First Three Minutes gives his assessment of the place of humans in the larger picture of the universe, in the following words: It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes (of the universe) but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an

unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. You cannot paint a more pessimistic picture. We humans deserve better than that. Stephen Jay Gould, another great thinker calls Man a Glorious Accident. He says, Through no fault of our own, and by dint of no cosmic plan or conscious purpose, we have become, by the grace of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of lifes continuity on earth. We have not asked for that role, but we cannot abjure it. We may

not be suited to it, but here we are. Most scientists would have us believe that Man is here on earth through a process of evolution from lower forms of life. Charles Darwin has this to say in the final paragraph of his famous book The Descent of Man: I have given evidence to the best of my ability; and we must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system with all these exalted powers Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his

lowly origin. So man, as he is today is the finished product of the evolutionary processes carried out by nature over millions of years so we are led to believe. In the book Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski put this in a cute way: I remember, as a young father tiptoeing to the cradle of my first daughter when she was four or five days old, and thinking, those marvelous fingers, every joint so perfect, down to the fingernails. I could not have designed that detail in a million years But of course it is exactly a million years that it took me, a million years that it took mankind to reach its present stage of evolution.

There is no place for God in this scenario. Nietsche in 1866 asserted without hesitation that God is Dead. But man (including scientists) is restless and his curiosity never abates. Moreover, there is undying need for man to have peace, comfort and feeling of security, to find meaning in life, which religion and faith in an all-powerful God can give him. Chet Raymo the Physicist and Astronomer in his book Skeptics and Believers expresses this thought in his own way. He says: Science provides a reliable rational understanding of the natural world, but it does not address our need for emotional security. There is an irreducible intuitive core to our knowledge that is immune to organized

skepticism: Our sense of self, our sense of other, and our sense of the inexhaustible mystery of the world. We can no more deny these intuitions than we can deny the sensations of sweet or bitter or blue. They are givens. Nothing science says can make these intuitions go away or undermine their veracity. They are the bedrock of religious experience, upon which Skeptics will commence their search for emotional security. Alan Sandage is considered one of the greatest astronomers of modern times. His years of experience and his observations of the cosmos showed how old the universe is (15 billion years is the estimate) and that the universe is expanding. But, as written by Sharon

Begley in one of his books throughout it all Sandage was nagged by mysteries whose answers were not to be found in the glittering supernovas. Among them: why is there something rather than nothing? He began to despair of answering such questions through reason alone. It was my science that drove me to the conclusion Sandage said, that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science. It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence. So here is another scientist who is unable to find the cause of the mystery through reason and maintains that there has to be supernatural explanation.

Mind is Matter?
Mind and consciousness are hot subjects of scientific research in recent times. Scientists wish to have mind and consciousness as physical attributes of the neural circuitry in the brain and not anything extraneous. They call this embodied mind. They maintain that conceptual thought (reasoning etc.) is embodied physically in the body and brain. Obviously, they are reluctant to accept anything extraneous or any out-ofbody experiences, since these are beyond the realm of orthodox science. Some of them even go to extent of asserting that mind and consciousness can be replicated in an advanced computer if it can be made

complex enough like human brain. Such a fantasy is beyond the comprehension of common men and belies lifes experiences. Let us see what some of the modern thinkers and cognitive scientists have to say on this subject. Their views range from extreme reductionism (i.e. that everything can be explained as physical attributes of the body and brain) to total rejection of this thinking. Both religion and science start with good intentions (of finding the Truth) but at times both could be wrong, or both could be right in their own way. Steven Pinker, in his book How the Mind works has this to say on the subject:

We are organisms, not angels, and our minds are organs, not pipelines to the truth. Our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were lifeand-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness or to answer any question we are capable of asking. We cannot hold ten thousand words in short-term memory. We cannot see in ultraviolet light. We cannot mentally rotate an object in the fourth dimension. And perhaps we cannot solve conundrums like free will and sentience. John Horgan, in his book Rational Mysticism expresses the contrary view that there will always be a gap between physiological and mental phenomena. He says: The fact is, neuroscientists cannot

explain how the brain carries out the most elementary acts of cognition for example, how I know the person lying beside me when I wake each morning is my wife. Some prominent scientists and philosophers have reluctantly predicted that the explanatory gap will never be closed. Even if the neuroscientists crack the neural code, so that they can determine precisely which neural events are correlated with a given set of mental events, there may always be a strange incongruity between physiological and mental phenomena; something about the mind makes it peculiarly resistant to scientific reductionism. This philosophical position is called mysterianism. You dont have to be a mysterian to wonder whether the

explanatory gap between neurological theories and mysticism will ever be closed. Neurotheologians face not an explanatory gap but a chasm. Chet Raymo, in his book Skeptics and Believers, voices the following views on this matter: True Believing fundamentalists and many academic critics of science resist the idea that minds are merely computers made of meat (to use a provocative phrase of Marvin Minsky, a pioneer researcher in artificial intelligence). Our minds, they say, are free, creative, and intuitive, qualities that are forever beyond the capability of any conceivable computer. Cognitive scientists respond by saying:

Human freedom, creativity, and intuition are high-level abstractions describing the behavior of hugely complex biochemical systems running programs that are partly hardwired by the genes and partly sensitive to the rich variety of sensory experience. Computers with a comparable level of complexity and an equally variegated sensory input might also be free, creative, and intuitive. It appears scientists too can talk in mythical language to justify their preconceived ideas! As the humorous writer B.F. Skinner said, The real problem is not whether machines think, but whether men do. Man, as a species, is endowed with a

sense of humor. It is difficult to envisage machines with the wit and humor of say, Bernard Shaw, or Churchill or Mark Twain, to name a few. Such thinking is sheer fantasy. Can you have a humorous conversation with a machine, or can it make you laugh? The idea is certainly funny! Look at other human qualities like courage, will power, altruism, love, curiosity, creativity, imagination, appreciation of beauty, ethical conduct, value judgment, etc. Can we replicate these in a machine? The empirically known axiomatic truths cannot be reversed, except in fiction. Yes, fiction; can a machine write an original fiction? This reminds me of the incidence in

Tennis, when the temperamental genius John McEnroe disputed a line call and said to the bald umpire, if you have hair on your head, then that ball is out! If mind is only a mechanical part, subject to physical laws, then God is out! The monistic philosophy of materialism that takes matter as the only reality fails to explain adequately the relationship of consciousness to matter. Talking of creativity, Einstein is said to have developed his theory of relativity through sheer thought experiments. Is it ever possible to have an Einstein machine? Implied in this mind-is-matter contention,

is an assumption that belief in God and reported religious/spiritual experiences are hard-wired into human genes. So, they assert that such phenomena as out-of-body or paranormal experiences are hallucinations like those caused by mindaltering drugs like LSD etc. Some scientists maintain that such phenomena of so-called out-of-body experiences are product of a complex interactive feedback loop between genes and environment, where many genes code for a range of reactions to environmental stimuli within a cultural tradition.

Wired for God:

Herbert Benson, M.D. in his book Timeless Healing writes: Perhaps this tendency of humans to worship and believe was rooted in our physiology, written into our genes, and encoded in our very make-up. Perhaps it is what distinguishes us from other life forms, this innate desire to believe and to practice our beliefs. Perhaps, instinctively, human beings had always known that worshipping a higher power was good for them I speculated that humans are, in a profound physical way, wired for God. Michael Shermer in his recent book How We Believe The Search for God in an Age of Science asks:

Is Belief in God genetically programmed? Michael Shermer continues: The renowned British psychologist Hans Eysenck, not noted for timidity in commenting on controversial issues, rang in on the God Question with this quip: I think theres a gene for religiosity and I regret that I dont have it. Is there a gene for religiosity? No, any more than there is gene for intelligence, aggression, or any other complex human expression. Such phenomena are the product of a complex interactive feedback loop between genes and environment The relative role of genes and environment would be impossible to tease apart

In the past few decades, after the discovery of DNA and scientists claim of having succeeded in decoding the human genome, all human traits and characteristics are attributed to one gene or another (which of course we lay people find difficult to understand fully). But like all scientific discoveries and hypotheses, these also will stand corrected and amended or enhanced by experiments and future discoveries. There is a story ridiculing the reductionist approach of scientists, particularly the molecular biologists who try to learn about humans by reducing the body parts to their elemental components, forgetting that a man is more than these parts. I have taken this story from the book Just a Theory by Moi Ben-Ari. It goes like this:

A mountain climber in the Alps reaches a high plateau, where he finds a shepherd munching on a large hunk of cheese while guarding his flock. Tired and hungry, the climber asks if he could buy a piece of cheese, but the shepherd tells him regretfully that he has none to sell. Undeterred, the climber proposes a challenge: if he can guess the exact number of animals in the flock, will the shepherd reward him with a piece of cheese? The shepherd agrees, and after glancing at the flock for a few moments, the climber reports, There are exactly 329 sheep in the flock. Astonished at the precise answer, the shepherd breaks off a generous hunk of cheese and gives it to the climber. As the

climber gratefully gnaws at the cheese, the shepherd looks at him and says, I will bet 100 Swiss francs that I can guess what your profession is. Youre on, replies the climber. You must be a molecular biologist, says the shepherd. Why, yes I am, but how did you figure that out? asks the amazed climber. Simple, replies the shepherd, those animals are goats, not sheep! The author of this story is accusing the molecular biologist of the grave cultural sin of being a reductionist. A reductionist is supposed to be a scientist

who studies the universe by disassembling everything into its pieces, thereby losing sight of the holistic whole. Molecular biologists are assumed to be guilty of reductionism because they look upon life as composed of dry strings of the letters A, C, G, T (representing the nucleotides (part of DNA) instead of appreciating the holistic nature of life: the beauty of a flock of goats grazing peacefully in a lush Alpine meadow, lulled by the gurgling brook and caressed by a sensuous breeze. Mathematician Phycisist Paul Davies has a different view. In his famous book The Mind of God, reviewing all the philosophical and scientific arguments for Gods existence, he concludes that belief

in God is largely a matter of taste, to be judged by its explanatory value rather than logical compulsion. Personally I feel more comfortable with a deeper level of explanation than the laws of physics. Whether the use of the term God for that deeper level is appropriate is, of course, a matter of debate. Quoting this conclusion of Paul Davies, Michael Shermer comments: If one of the great believing scientists of our age says that Gods existence cannot be proved, it would seem that some weight should be given to the position that belief in God is a matter of personality and emotional preference, also known as faith. The author further states that God and religion are inseparable. People believe in God because we are pattern-seeking, storytelling (i.e. myth-

making), religious, moral animals. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his highly popular book The Phenomenon of Man argues that ignoring mind and consciousness and considering only the physical aspects of the brain is an imperfect method. He says, The time has come to realize that an interpretation of the universe remains unsatisfying unless it covers the interior as well as the exterior of things; mind as well as matter. The true physics is that which will, one day, achieve the inclusion of man in his wholeness in a coherent picture of the world. He considers spiritual experience as heightened aliveness of mind and body as

a unity. There are several reported incidents of paranormal and out-of-body experiences revealed during psychedelic and holotropic sessions conducted by highly qualified psychologists as part of a psychic therapy, and these psychologists contend that these are not hallucinations but expressions of real out-of-body experiences. Susan Blackmore, an eminent but unconventional scientist reported incidents where during these sessions people saying I feel I am floating near the ceiling, the entire universe is expanding at the speed of light, taking everything in, I have got unified.. etc.These paranormal perceptions continue for some days and they feel elated and there is

positive change in personal traits after these experiences, at least for some time. She nevertheless rejects any argument that these astral projections and paranormal experiences reflect any objective reality. John Horgan (in his book Rational Mysticism) reports an interesting discussion with Stanislav Grof.: He (Stanislav Grof) told me about an Austrian-born psychologist who was initially skeptical of the birth trauma theory but changed his mind after a holotropic session. The psychologist had had a powerful vision of his own birth, accompanied by a strong smell of leather. Afterward he called his mother, and without mentioning his session he asked her about his birth. She told him that she

had been working in a shop that made lederhosen; her labor had come on so rapidly that she gave birth right there in the shop. Grof asserted that during psychedelic and holotropic sessions we can recall not only our births but also our past lives. During his own LSD trips, he relived his previous incarnations with a clarity and richness that could not possibly have been solely due to his imagination. You can find yourself in another century, another culture, identified with another person he said. It goes way beyond anything that you knew intellectually. "These are facts, Grof assured me, If somebody can explain it within a materialistic worldview, I will be the first

one to be excited about it The only way to explain these facts, Grof said, is with a new scientific paradigm which accepts that consciousness is not merely an epiphenomenon of the brain but can exist as an independent entity. Thus we hear another side of the story about independent mind and consciousness, belief in reincarnation etc. This implies existence of a soul within the physical body. The soul is also called spirit (originated from Latin word spiritus meaning breath); or breath of life. In Hinduism this is also called Atman. It is at the same time obvious to us that even real spiritually uplifting events can

be experienced only through the physical body and brain. Andrew Newberg in his popular book Why God Wont Go Away explains this from a scientific perspective. Let us have a look at his contention. ...Tracing spiritual experience to neurological behavior does not disprove its realness. If God does exist, for example, and if He appeared to you in some incarnation, you would have no way of experiencing His presence, except as part of a neurologically generated rendition of reality. You would need auditory processing to hear His voice, visual processing to see His face, and cognitive processing to make sense of His message. Even if He spoke to you

mystically, without words, you would need cognitive functions to comprehend His meaning, and input from the brains emotional centers to fill you with rapture and awe. Neurology makes it clear: There is no other way for God to get into your head except through the brains neural pathways. Correspondingly, God cannot exist as a concept or as reality any place else but in your mind. In this sense, both spiritual experiences and experiences of a more ordinary material nature are made real to the mind in the very same way through the processing powers of the brain and the cognitive functions of the mind. Whatever the ultimate nature of spiritual experience might be whether it is in fact a

perception of an actual spiritual reality, or merely an interpretation of sheer neurological function all that is meaningful in human spirituality happens in the mind. In other words, the mind is mystical by default. We cant definitely say why such capabilities have evolved, but we can find traces of their neurological roots in some basic structures and functions, primarily the autonomic nervous system, the limbic system, and in the brains complex analytical functions. Obviously, any spiritual or out-of-body experiences, even when they are real, can be available to man only through his physical brain and other sensory parts. Here the author does not rule out the

possibility of the spiritual or God experiences being real, but only states that we need a physical body to have these experiences. Religion and spirituality also tell us that body is only a vehicle for the soul or Gods energy to give expression. There are obviously many scientists who believe in God though not exactly the way common men believe. Some of them prefer to be agnostics; they prefer to be neutral about things they dont know about. And the rigid scientists accuse that those who try to use scientific uncertainties as evidence of God, is none other than faith in search of reasons to believe!. In other words it is blind faith.

One of the foremost living Scientists, Stephen Hawking has this to say: It is difficult to discuss the beginning of the Universe without mentioning the concept of God. My work on the origin of the Universe is on the borderline between science and religion, but I try to stay on the scientific side of the border. It is quite possible that God acts in ways that cannot be described by scientific laws. But in that case one would just have to go by personal belief. Max Planck, father of quantum mechanics and particle physics, expressed his views on God in the following words: There is no such thing as matter as such! It is not the visible yet transitory matter

that is real, true, and actual but the invisible, immortal spirit However, since spiritual beings cannot exist through themselves but have to be created, I do not shy away from naming that mysterious creator just as all ancient cultures of the world have named him throughout the millennia: God! The ultimate spiritual experiences described by mystics and others who reached these heightened state tell us of their being in the presence of an absolute Unitary Being and that this state transcends time, space and physical sensations and awareness of any material reality. For those of us (including the scientists) who had no privilege of such an experience, it is not possible to

comprehend the extent and reality of such a vision, as this is a subjective aliveness of another dimension not evident in dayto-day life. And such spiritual experiences are reported in different cultures. While it may be called Nirvana or BrahmanAtman in India, it may be called Tao or Unio Mystica in other cultures. But all describe similar nature of spiritual ecstasy. Look at some of the pronouncements made more than 4000 years ago by Hindu ascetics (Rishis): Vasudaiva Kudumbakam (meaning this world is one family); Ekam Sat Viprah Bahuda Vadanti (meaning The Universal Reality is the same, but different people can call it by different names) Four millennia later,

we now talk of the same idea of a global village and underlying unity of all religious beliefs! Some scientists contention that consciousness is a product of the physical brain is debatable. The prominent Quantum Physicist, Niel Bohr had concluded from certain experiments that electrons could be either waves or particles which are actualized to one of the two alternatives only on observation (by the experimenter). If such is the case, asks another modern scientist, where is the objectivity in physics, if consciousness is vital in determining how reality manifests? Thus, if consciousness has the causal power to choose material

reality, it can no longer be an epiphenomenon of matter, he concludes. This conclusion looks absolutely logical. Even according to Eastern thought, particularly the Vedanta, consciousness is not a product of the mind, but it transcends both body (including the physical brain) and mind. Science therefore needs to take consciousness into account for a fuller understanding of life and the universe. Being a non-scientist, I do not claim to understand the finer points of these scientific experiments, but what is obvious is the fact that when it comes to consciousness and mind, science cannot yet offer any final objective affirmation that mind/consciousness is just a product of matter.

Huston Smith, an expert on religious matters, expresses similar thoughts in his book Why Religion Matters: In the process of showering us with material benefits and awesome knowledge of the physical universe, science has erased transcendence from our reality map. He also points out that there are six things science cannot deal with: values, meanings, final causes, qualities, and our superiors, making it obvious that science leaves much of the world of Man untouched. We see that even the best among the scientists, when they come to a dead end when trying to explain the origin of the universe, cannot ignore the concept of God, though by God they mean the

inexplicable energy behind such origin. What the scientists have so far been able to do is attempting to find the laws governing the physical universe, assuming its origin from a Big Bang from a point of singularity. Their assumption of this singularity having such intense energy capable of producing such an unimaginably vast cosmos borders on myth. They are shy of calling this energy God. Nor can they explain how the singularity came to be there. So some of them say take the world as it is without assuming a Cause which itself has no Cause. The interior of things, i.e. in the case of Man his Mind and Consciousness, cannot easily be explained by physical laws by

the scientists; and this is where the concept of God comes prominently into view. The external aspects of things, the visible universe and physical body of living beings can possibly be better understood through scientific methods. Even there, when it comes to the origin they get stumped and attempt to give different theories. Of late, many theologians (particularly Christian theologians) have attempted to prove Gods existence (they are called creationists) using scientific discoveries in support of their arguments pointing out how the greatest scientific discoveries of the century reveal God. They say that behind the laws of nature, outside the large-scale structure of the universe, and

inside the small-scale structure of the atom, lurks a higher intelligence, a spark of divinity (reference: Michael Shermers book How We Believe). A few examples are: Hugh Rosss books The Creator and the Cosmos and Beyond Cosmos and Lee Strobels Book: The Case for a Creator. Scientists unsolved mysteries become their reason for Gods existence. After reading with interest Lee Strobels Book, I sent a letter to the author (to the address given in the book) expressing some thoughts of mine. I never got a reply (despite a couple of reminders), possibly because he was busy touring, or the letter never reached his hands. Anyway, as I feel the thoughts expressed in my letter are

relevant to the context of this Chapter, I am reproducing it in full here:

Dear Lee, Being always interested in searching for a synthesis between science and spirituality, reason and faith, revealed and unrevealed truths, I read with great interest your book The Case for a Creator. You have made a very strong and reasoned case for a Creator, analyzing the latest theories in the fields of cosmology, physics, biology, genetics, neurology etc. The main reasoning running through your arguments seems to focus on the sudden creation of the Universe through the Big Bang and

the fine-tuning observed in all fields leading to intelligent life on Earth, suggesting a super-intelligent Designer. Before proceeding to put forward some thoughts of my own and some queries to you on this subject, I would like to give a little background information about myself. Born in 1935 in a Hindu middle class family in the southern part of the multi-cultural, multi-lingual ancient land of India, I passed through phases of orthodox theism, atheism and agnosticism in that order. In my later years I have tried to look for the meaning of life and to know if there is any ultimate truth. After retirement from active career, I accelerated my inward journey in search of this elusive Truth. Being an avid

reader, I came across your book and was fascinated by the account of your own journey from an atheist to a believer in a supernatural intelligence. Let me now get to my queries. First of all, while not doubting the sudden creation of the Universe in a possible big bang, you have concluded that a transcendent super intelligence was the cause of this creation. A question that can always crop up in the mind of any rational individual would be: why should we insist on a cause for the creation of the universe and subsequent origin of life, while at the same time taking for granted that the superintelligence is itself a causeless cause. This position is rationally, intellectually and philosophically unsatisfying. Why not

stop at what is known and try and improve on that knowledge until we can come to a more certain conclusion. My own position is (philosophically speaking) that I wish there a God (of our imagination) but I do not yet know if there is one. Secondly, you have given extensive evidence about the fine-tuning in all the fields which resulted in life (and intelligent life at that) on this planet earth which, you say, is thus a rare and special creation of God in this universe. This argument is, however, double edged. If our earth is the only special place created for intelligent life to arise and prosper, how can we reasonably assume that a super intelligence, controlling this vast universe, would be satisfied in creating

Man in His own image in only a tiny inconsequential part of the infinite cosmos? Will a great Architect be contented by building just a small rest room in his life-time? Would Michael Angelo have been happy to sculpt or paint a tiny floor on the roof? Would Mozart be satisfied with a two-line symphony? And what about Shakespeare: would a single sonnet have brought out the best in him? No, it doesnt make sense. All these were great because they produced prodigiously and gave full play to their genius. How can we then logically claim that a superintelligent Creator of this infinite cosmos made life possible on just this small backyard the Earth and rested? I personally would have been much happier if we were able to locate intelligent life in

other parts of the universe too. The third point I would like to make is this: Any philosophical or rational deduction about God has to be of an inclusive nature, encompassing all human beings. You have in your book endeavored to interpret the evidences as validation of just Christian beliefs and of Christian personal God. While I respect all religious beliefs, you will also appreciate that every religion gives its own version of God and divine personalities. We are all talking of a single universal unseen Force, ostensibly manifesting in different forms and names at different places and varying historical circumstances. Hinduism (which has never been a religion in the strict sense of

the term, but a way of life) and Hindu ethos have been historically, socially and philosophically, of an inclusive nature, accepting the good in and respecting other religious beliefs. There can be no greater exponent of such an inclusive philosophy than the great Indian saint of the 19th century, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhamsa. In his search for spiritual heights, he even experimented with the spiritual methods of Islam and Christianity for some time. During the period of his deep meditation on Christ, he is reported to have experienced the vision of Jesus walking towards him and entering his body. He finally arrived at the inevitable conclusion that all religious approaches lead us to the same supreme

power manifested in whichever form you worship Him. His spiritual experiences and teachings are noted and reported by his close devotees, foremost among whom was the well-known Swami Vivekananda. There is a final point I would like to dwell on. Mans journey through space and time has been so short and limited that it is not reasonable to assume that our intellect has been capable of understanding much of the mysteries of the universe and our own role in it. Do we have yet the data, wisdom or technical/scientific capability to arrive at a reasonably accurate picture of what transpired over billions of years and what really goes on out there in the vast unreachable cosmos? In the last maybe

500 years we have been able to speculate and in a few cases arrive at some near certain conclusions, but beyond that we are far from reaching even the periphery of Gods (or Cosmos) secrets. While the above doubts and queries are from the rational side of me, I must also admit that I am a great believer (based on lifes experiences) in the positive effects of all great Faiths and the fact that the act of believing (in anything good and positive) gives in some inexplicable way, good results towards a happier and more peaceful life, and even a healthier body. I would be happy if this note of mine reaches you and if you could send me a reply to allay some of my doubts.

I believe that any doctrines, whether religious, political or social, which influence the minds of the masses ought to be of an inclusive nature. Exclusivity is the root cause of conflicts between groups. As Vivekananda said, let there be thousand roads towards the eternal Truth, but remember that all lead to the same destination. Sri Ramakrishna in 19th century and Sathya Sai Baba in modern era have always said that, if you are a Hindu, be a good Hindu, if Muslim a good Muslim, and if Christian, a good Christian. The emphasis is on goodness including righteous living and moral rectitude, and not on rigidity or exclusivity of any particular faith. To a large extent, this would be possible if a positive inclusiveness (sharing in other words) is

inculcated in the childhood stage instead of a negative exclusiveness. I know this is easier said than done because the adults who have to take this step have to change their own negative perspective.

God in our Genes:

Some scientists are excited to look for genetic connection to religious beliefs. In his book The God Gene, Dean Hamer, a well-known scientist, tries to answer some questions relating to God in our genes. Where did God genes come from? He went on to answer thus: At first, that might seem like a question of faith or philosophy rather than science.

But the actual answer is quite obvious. They came from our parents, who inherited them from their ancestors. Those ancestors received them from their predecessors, and so on down the evolutionary line to the very beginning of life on Earth. In his groundbreaking book On Human Nature evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson lays out the evidence that the predisposition to religious belief has a genetic basis. (emphasis added by me). He continues: There is evidence of religious belief more than 60,000 years ago among Neanderthal man. In fact, it is universal; every society, from huntergatherers to postindustrial democracies, has had some form of spiritual belief. He

also says: Our genes can predispose us to believe. But they dont tell us what to believe in. Our faith is part of our cultural heritage, and some of the beliefs in any religion evolve over time. God-in-our-gene idea has other proponents too. Jeffrey Kluger, a scientific journalist wrote in Time magazine (October 25, 2004) an article entitled Is God in our Genes?. Far from being an evolutionary luxury the need for God may be a crucial trait stamped deeper and deeper into our genome with every passing generation. Humans who developed a spiritual sense thrived and bequeathed that trait to their offspring. Those who didnt risked dying out in chaos and killing. The evolutionary

equation is a simple but a powerful one... For one thing, God is a concept that appears in human cultures all over the globe, regardless of how geographically isolated they are. When tribes living in remote areas come up with a concept of God as readily as nations living shoulder to shoulder, it is a fairly strong indication that the idea is preloaded in the genome rather than picked up on the fly. If that is the case, its an equally strong indication that there are very good reasons its there.

Need for Synthesis:

When science tries to analyze subjective

human traits such as religious belief, consciousness and spirituality, they try to apply scientific methods and attempt to externalize the questions. Thus arise the theories of these qualities being activities of the physical brain. Are these methods adopted by the scientists to reduce spirituality to a material phenomenon which they feel can be explained in terms of physical laws, a correct approach to arrive at the truth? At least some scientists object to purely materialistic interpretations. For example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is very clear in this regard. He says: On the scientific plane, the quarrel between materialists and the upholders of a spiritual interpretation, between finalists

and determinists, still endures. After a century of disputation each side remains in its original position and gives its adversaries solid reasons for remaining there. He continues: So far as I understand the struggle, in which I have found myself involved, it seems to me that its prolongation depends less on the difficulty that the human mind finds in reconciling certain apparent contradictions in nature such as mechanism and liberty, or death and immortality as in the difficulty experienced by two schools of thought in finding a common ground. On the one hand materialists insist on talking about objects as though they only consisted of external actions in impermanent relationships. On

the other hand the upholders of a spiritual interpretation are obstinately determined not to go outside a kind of solitary introspection in which things are only looked upon as being shut in upon themselves in their immanent working.. I am convinced that the two points of view require to be brought into union, and that they soon will unite in a kind of phenomenology or generalized physic in which the internal aspect of things as well as the external aspect of the world (italics mine) will be taken into account. Otherwise, so it seems to me, it is impossible to cover the totality of the cosmic phenomenon by one coherent explanation such as science must try to construct.

Some scientists have expressed their strong conviction that both scientific and religious approaches are only partly true and the shortfalls in both approaches need to be accepted with an open mind by both sides. According to Christian and Jewish beliefs, God created both the world and the living beings, including humanity, within a short time. Later on scientists like Nerwton, LapLace and Darwin went on to refute such a Creation theory and replaced it with a mechanical universe following certain universal laws, and an evolving species on earth culminating in the homo sapiens. God became superfluous in such a world.

During 20th century, there were further modifications in scientific thinking. Cosmological researches intensified and then came the Big Bang model of the universe, according to which the Universe came into existence from an enormous blast from a singularity some 15 billion years ago. However, nothing was or has been known about what existed prior to the singularity or from where the singularity came. As the laws of physics cannot go beyond the singularity, the theologians and even some of the scientists contended that this could be the signature of the divine, meaning there ought to be a God behind all this creation. As far as life on Earth is concerned, the theory of evolution was also found to be

foolproof, as there were gaps between the fossil evidence of plants and animals, between reptiles and birds and between primates and humans, as some modern scientists observed. As both the scientific and theological approaches are thus found wanting as a completely credible and satisfying line of thought, reconciliation between both sides is much needed. There are many other eminent scientists of modern times, who would like to see reconciliation between science and religion, reason and spirituality to have a comprehensive meaningful understanding of human life and the universe. Rupert Sheldrake, a specialist in biochemistry

and cell biology, considers that such an intersection between the two approaches is definitely possible. According to him: There are many areas of potential intersection (between science and spirituality). One is the cosmological, because when science is talking about creation, its getting into a realm that has been very much the preserve of religion for a long time. Im not thinking simply of where did the big bang come from?. If we focus too much on the initial moments of creation, about which we know practically nothing, we get into a situation rather like that of the eighteenth century Deists, who thought of God making the world machine and starting it up and then standing back and letting it go on by

itself. Sheldrake continues: Im more interested in the ongoing creativity, which is expressed in the evolutionary process and the evolutionary process must have an inherent creativity and we know that our universe is creative at all levels, physical, biological, or mental, cultural and so on. So, what is the source of this creativity? Well, its really a metaphysical question and materialist science has no other suggestion than chance: which really means that its unintelligible, we cant think about it. However, this does overlap with traditional areas of theological and spiritual enquiry. Therefore this is one area of discussion. Another is the nature of the soul, the psyche, consciousness, which science,

until very recently, has had almost nothing to say about but which is obviously of crucial importance to our understanding of us and of nature There are yet further areas, such as the question of prayer and how it works. If people praying for things to happen on the other side of the world have a statistically measurable effect on what does happen, youve got a kind of action at a distance, which is in the purview of science to investigate. This is precisely what people who pray claim can happen. So I think that as science breaks out of this narrow mechanism that has been its straitjacket for so long, approaching a more holistic view of nature, then much more possibility of fruitful interaction occurs between science and the spirituality.

Sharon Begley, a noted Science writer, voices his thought beautifully about this search for common ground on the cosmological aspect. He says: In the skies themselves, and in what cosmologists are learning about them, the armies of the mind and the forces of the spirit are searching for common ground. Some scientists claim on the other hand that on the main areas where science and religion overlap, the conflict between the two can never be fully resolved. In the book Just A Theory (Published in 2005) the author, Moti Ben-Ari has this to say on the subject: Conflicts between science and religion exist because there are fields in which

there is significant overlap between the claims of science and those of religion. There are now well-established scientific theories describing the origin and subsequent development of the planet Earth, and, most significantly, the development of life, including human life. Most religions contain a description of the creation of the universe and the Earth, as well as of the origin of humans, so conflict is unavoidable. Potential conflict between science and religion exists, above all, in some areas of physics, and in geology and biology, because these sciences are ineluctably bound up with theories that provide natural, nonreligious explanations of the origins and development of the world as we experience it.

Before the rise of the modern science, religion had taken upon itself to explain phenomena that could not otherwise be explained. He continues to give examples of some illogical explanations of prescience religion: If you were sick, it was because God was punishing you for your sins; if there was a drought, it was almost certainly because God was punishing the community for tolerating a sinner in its midst. However, as modern science has offered explanations for more and more natural phenomena, the need for religious explanations has diminished. Sickness caused by microorganism and drought caused by a change in an ocean current have nothing to do with our sins. He concludes: There is a potential conflict between science and religion to the extent

that religion makes claims about phenomena in the world that are studied by science and conversely.Since we cannot step outside the universe in order to verify what the truth really is, this conflict can never be conclusively resolved. Well the discussion continues, and the confusion increases. We are really living now in an Age of Confusion. My 4-year old grandson is very choosy about his dresses. When his papa or Mummy or grandma tries to take out the dresses he should wear for the day; he makes a big fuss and says he wants to pick his dress. When they say in exasperation, ok you choose and take out the dress you

want, he does not know what he wants. We are all generally in such a state of confusion. We are unable to pick the correct approach to the Ultimate Reality that would give us feeling of peace, security and purpose to life. Nor are we fully satisfied with the approaches others have picked. Science wants proof, and our God (everybodys God) refuses to give tangible, verifiable proof, though we feel that there are many intangible proofs of a supernatural force. And the mystics have always concluded that God is by his very nature unknowable. He is not a verifiable fact or actual being but is being itself and ground of all existences. As narrated in the book Why God Wont Go Away by Andrew Newberg, there are

many eminent scientists who have experienced in the course of their work the feelings transcending the material aspects of the world. The author says: The mystics claims are supported by some of the greatest scientists of the century rational thinkers who have peered deeper than most into the workings of the universe and the mind and have described states of transcendent spiritual awareness in words that mirror the accounts of the gurus, shamans, and saints in remarkably specific detail. Robert Oppenheimer, Neils Bohr, Carl Jung, and John Lilly are among the prominent scientific figures whose work has revealed to them a unity and purpose in the workings of the universe that transcend the material world.

Then there are those with total antipathy towards science. Here is a passage from Ruskins book Modern Painters (1856) quoted by Richard Dawkins in his famous book Unweaving the Rainbow: For most men, an ignorant enjoyment is better than an informed one; it is better to conceive the sky as a blue dome than a dark cavity, and the cloud as a golden throne than a sleety mist. I much question whether anyone who knows optics, however religious he may be, can feel in equal degree the pleasure or reverence which an unlettered peasant may feel at the sight of a rainbow. We cannot fathom the mystery of a single flower; nor is intended that we should; but that the pursuit of science should constantly be

stayed by the love of beauty, and accuracy of knowledge by tenderness of emotion: ...is not logical. Negation of science is credo of some educated class too. Look what the American Anthropologist Matt Cartmill has to say: Anybody who claims to have objective knowledge about anything is trying to control and dominate the rest of us There are no objective facts. All supposed facts are contaminated with theories, and all theories are infested with moral and political doctrines Therefore, when some guy in a lab coat tells you such and such is an objective fact he must have a political agenda up his starched white

sleeve. Such antipathy towards science, says one eminent scientist (Richard Dawkins), is like shooting the messenger and that science progresses by correcting its mistakes and makes no secret of what it still does not understand. Apart from the origin of life on Earth, the distinction between physical brain and consciousness, and probable genetic basis for religious beliefs, another major area where religion and science have differences, is the Cosmos and its origin. From time immemorial men have looked at the sky, the sun, moon and the stars and have wondered how they came about and what effect they have on human lives.

Over the last few centuries cosmology as a science has gained prominence, not only in our attempt to understand the Universe but also to learn about our connection with the cosmos. The new knowledge gained over the last hundred years through space explorations, modern high-resolution telescopes etc. give us the picture of an unbelievably vast expanding universe. In the words of Brian Greene, author of the book The Fabric of the Cosmos, The overreaching lesson that has emerged from scientific inquiry over the last century is that human experience is often a misleading guide to the true nature of reality. Lying just beneath the surface of the everyday is a world we hardly recognize. Followers of the occult,

devotees of astrology, and those who hold to religious principles that speak to a reality beyond our experience have, from widely varying perspectives, long since arrived at a similar conclusion. But thats not what I have in mind. Im referring to the work of ingenious innovators and tireless researchers the men and women of science who have peeled back layer after layer of the cosmic onion, enigma by enigma, and revealed a universe that is at once surprising, unfamiliar, exciting, elegant, and thoroughly unlike what anyone ever expected. And the modern scientists find that the more they try to learn about the cosmos, and the origin of the visible universe, the deeper appear the mysteries. But research

and experiments must continue, not only as a part of our intellectual curiosity but also in the larger interest of all Earths inhabitants. We can learn much about solving problems that appear currently unsolvable. There are some television programs to select the best singer in the country from among many aspiring contestants. There is American Idol in U.S.A. and Indian Idol and a few more similar programs in India. The format allows for public voting for picking up the best singer. Quite often we find that a good singer is eliminated and not-so-good is voted in. Can real music skill be spotted by lay public untutored in musical notes? Regional favoritism also becomes evident in the

voting pattern. Somewhat similar is the case with science. Belief of the masses cannot always be correct and should not be guiding factor in scientific progress. In earlier times, only very few knew or believed that the earth is round and goes round the sun! Should those who believed through reason and experiments not be allowed to go forward in their search for better knowledge of the world around us? Quite often they get ridiculed and boycotted in the beginning. This public bias is prevalent even among the present educated classes, at least quite a chunk of them. Political considerations also stifle scientific advancement. Science cannot and should not be judged by a gallup poll! Someone called it a fight between organized knowledge versus organized

ignorance. (I would like to add organized preconceived notions too.) The fickle credibility of the masses also goes against scientific thinking. And some intentionally or unintentionally take advantage of the gullible public, always ready to slap up any kind of miracle, or paranormal illusions. Sometime back in Mumbai in India somebody started the rumor that all the Ganapathy idols in the city are drinking the milk offered to them by devotees. Thousands lined up in front of the numerous Ganapathy temples with bowls of milk to offer to their favorite God. (Even my wife was no exception!) After a couple of days the excitement abated when

some practical explanation was given for the incident in a couple of places and in many places the milk remained untouched. What I mean to convey is that public mood should in no way be an indicator for our need for rational, scientific thinking. I always tell my grandkids when they watch on TV some mythology, horror, violence or even cartoons, that these are just stories and are not real. When they grow up they have to find out for themselves what is real in life. There are some interesting discussions between John David Ebert and modern day Indian Guru Deepak Chopra published in a book titled Twilight of the Clockwork God. On the conflict between Science and Religion, John David Ebert

says: Science and religion may have a lot more in common than most of us realize, and on the basis of these shared archetypal patterns, a reconciliation of sorts might be built. That they may share identical archetypes, however, does not mean that they perform the same functions. The function of religiosity is to awaken a sense of awe with respect to the mystery of the cosmos, and to do so through a transformation of consciousness. The function of science, on the other hand, has never been the alteration of human consciousness, but to render accurate knowledge of the cosmos through an explanation of its processes. Science is addressed to the intellect, where religion

normally bypasses the intellect to galvanize emotional energies. The Scholastic debates of the middle ages between Aristotelian rationality and Augustinian faith have reawakened for us, today, in the conflict between science and religion. The Hindu viewpoint or the Indian philosophical angle was neatly expressed by Deepak Chopra in these discussions. The authors question and Deepak Chopras answer are given below as they are very relevant to the context of this book: John Ebert (to Deepak Chopra): You have mentioned that the scientific world view of the West surprisingly supports the

vision of the ancient sages of India. Could you describe some of the ways that Western science supports Eastern spirituality? Deepak Chopra: I would say, it depends on how you interpret Western science, because there are a lot of scientists in the West who are pure materialists and may not agree with what I have to say. And yet, as we go into the most recent explorations of the quantum physics, I think we are unable to escape the conclusion that the essential nature of the material world is that its not material, that the essential stuff of the universe is non-stuff. But this non-stuff is not just ordinary non-stuff. Its a void that isnt a

void at all, but the fullness of information and energy. And if we go beyond the information and energy, its more than that, its intelligence. And if its intelligence, then it must be consciousness. So consciousness becomes the raw material of creation. Consciousness conceives and governs and constructs and ultimately becomes physical reality. If you look at anything thats material, whether its my body or the table that is here before me or the chair that Im sitting on, you can break it down to its essential components, which are atoms; the atoms in turn are particles that are moving at lightning speed through huge empty spaces; and in turn, those particles are not

material things, they are fluctuations of energy and information in a huge void. Seen through the eyes of a physicist, this chair and this table and this body are proportionately void as intergalactic space. Even those particles that we call fluctuations of energy and information are actually intersections of fields. They are mathematical ghosts, probability amplitudes. So, in reality, we are being fooled by our senses. The senses tell us that theres a material world out there. But what is really out there is a radically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum soup. And the magic occurs in our perception. Some, through our sensory apparatus, we decode that field of information and

energy into trees and stars and physical bodies and thoughts. But, in fact, that is the same way a radio traps a field of information and energy and creates a symphony out of it, or a television traps a field of information and energy and creates a soap opera out of it. Right now the space around me has all this infinite amount of energy and information, there is every radio program and every television program, every cosmic ray, every microwave, every radio wave, all this huge immensity of information and energy is present in every cubic millimeter of space in the entire universe. There is so much activity in what we see as nothingness. Actually, what we see as a material world is less than one billionth of

billionth of a billionth of it and we think thats where the activity is. And thats is what intelligence is. The only difference between intelligence and ordinary information is that intelligence is information which has the ability to evolve, to learn from its own experience, to actually create more abstract, more flexible and therefore more creative expressions of its own self. So we begin with chaos, and then out of the chaotic soup of intelligence there emerges order and then chaos again and then order again. This is the way consciousness behaves. So I think the quantum vision of scientists and the sacred vision of rishis is essentially getting us to the same place. That is a succinct way of putting forth the

Hindu viewpoint. What appears as material, on deeper analysis, is only transformed energy. Behind the material world that appears to us as real, is pulsating invisible energy. Hence in Hindu philosophy the concept of Maya (or illusion). The images that appear to us as real are illusions created by our senses! According to this idea, you can almost say that we are watching a virtual reality show in a simulated world. I must confess that this concept is hard to digest, as it goes against our everyday experience. But then our everyday experience used to tell us that the earth is flat! When we talk of science and religion, we should also make distinction between religion and spirituality. The dictionary

definition of spirituality connects it to religious values. To me being spiritual includes values like love, truth, help ever, hurt never attitude, living in harmony with others, respect of others faiths, and an unending search for the deeper truths of life and the universe. My emphasis has always been on Truth and Love. Expand these two values to the level of the family, society, country, the world and the cosmos; and our life will be meaningful. There are many among us common folk who can be termed spiritual in the above sense, though they may not be strictly religious in the sense of following all the religious edicts and performing all the religious rituals. As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (of the Art of Living fame) says Spirituality transcends

religion and culture. Whatever angle you look at it from, whatever religious color or tint you give it, the experience is essentially from the same tradition.

Fine-tuning the cause for emergence of life:

Ironically, there are some areas where scientists hypotheses purported to point towards random and accidental emergence of life in general and advanced life like Man here on Earth by a process of evolution, are used by theologians to argue in favor of design by a higher intelligence as cause of all life, meaning it is a directed evolution. One such

hypothesis by the scientists is that only because of some finely tuned conditions existing in the universe, life as we know evolved on this planet. Let us see where and how such fine-tuning is existing. Huston Smith writes: (I am putting down these ideas in some detail, as this would help in a clearer understanding of the scientific theories on the origin of life on earth). More and more scientists are finding that if the mathematical ratios in nature had been the slightest bit different, life could not have evolved. Were the force of gravity the tiniest bit stronger, all stars would be blue giants, while if it were slightly weaker, all would be red dwarfs, neither of which come close to being

habitable. Or, again, had the earth spun in an orbit 5 per cent closer to the Sun, it would have experienced a runaway greenhouse effect, creating unbearable surface temperatures and evaporating the oceans; while on the other hand, if it had been positioned just 1 per cent farther out, it would have experienced runaway glaciation that locked earths water into permanent ice. On and on. We get the point: Similar observations are made by Gerard Piel (founder of the magazine Scientific American), in his book The Age of Science (published in 2001). He says: On Earth, a chance combination of circumstances the size and composition

of the planet and its distance from a star of the right radiance allowed atoms to assemble in highly organized ways. Most atoms in the universe are stripped of electrons and gathered by the gravitational force in violent mutual repulsion in the hot plasmas of stars. On Earth, 150 million kilometers from the Sun and cooled down from the heat of its gravitational collapse, electron shells are intact. The right elements hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, all gaseous above 75 degrees K are held by gravity inside their escape velocity. Hydrogen and oxygen, in mutual attraction, self organize as water. In water, early in Earth history, the three light elements combined with carbon in large selfreplicating molecules. Not long after, these molecules had organized in self-

actuating, self-replicating living cells. These are some of the examples of finetuning, according to scientists, which resulted in life on Earth. The religious argument is that the cosmos is uniquely pre-fabricated by God for emergence of life as it exists on earth. Apart from the cosmological fine-tuning pointed out above, there are other areas too where any slight variations or absence of any element would have made life impossible on earth. Let us take the help of the Biologist and Medical Researcher Michael J. Denton to elucidate these aspects. In his book Natures Destiny he gives the following details:

Quoting William Whewell, he says: All philosophers will probably agree that there must be a great number of things entirely without any mutual dependence Laws are unlike one another steam expands at a different rate to air, water expands in freezing, but mercury contracts. Heat travels in a manner quite different through solids and fluids. We have fifty substances in the world, each of which is invested with properties altogether different from those of any other substance. The laws are tempered and fitted together in the only way in which the world could have gone on.

Water:
He also explains how the unique properties of water could make life possible and presents the following arguments for fitness of water for life to emerge: 1. "The anomalous facts that water contracts as it cools until just before freezing, after which it expands until it becomes ice, and that it expands on freezing. These properties are practically unique. 2. When ice melts or water evaporates, heat is absorbed from the environment. Heat is released when reverse happens (phenomenon known as latent heat). The latent heat of

freezing of water is again one of the highest of all known fluids. In the ambient temperature range only ammonia has a higher latent heat of freezing. Waters latent heat of evaporation is the highest of any known fluid in the ambient temperature range. 3. That the thermal capacity or specific heat of water, which is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of water one degree centigrade, is higher than most other liquids. 4. That the thermal conductivity of water, which is its capacity to conduct heat, is four times greater than any other common liquid. 5. That the thermal conductivities of

ice and snow are low. If it were not for the properties given in point 1, most of the water on earth would be permanently frozen into vast beds of ice at the bottom of the oceans. Lakes would freeze completely from the bottom up each winter in the higher latitudes. Without those properties in point 2, the climate would be subject to far more rapid temperature changes. Small lakes and rivers would vanish and reappear constantly. Without 3, the difference between winter and summer would be more extreme and weather patterns would be less stable and the great ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream would be far less capable of moderating the temperature differences between high and low

latitudes. Without 2, again, warm-blooded animals would have a far harder time ridding their bodies of heat Without 4, it would be harder for cells which cannot use convection currents to distribute heat evenly throughout the cell. Without 5, the protective insulation of snow and ice, essential to the survival of many forms of life in the higher latitudes, would be lost. Also water would cool more rapidly and small lakes would be more likely to freeze completely. We get the drift. Without water and its specific properties, I would not be here to write this book. Our gift of sight, visual acuity, and fitness of light are few other important unique

features without which human existence would be inconceivable. Then come the elements we are carrying in our physical bodies. Michael Denton explains that the fitness of the cosmos for carbon-based life is highlighted by the fact that the cosmic abundance of the elements corresponds to their abundance in living organisms. In case after case, the constituents of life water, the carbon atom, the oxygen atom, carbon dioxide, gas, the bicarbonate base turn out to be uniquely and ideally fit in so many diverse and complex ways for their respectable biological roles. The presence of some important metals

(most importantly iron) so essential for life, is another specific property of cosmic origin. The presence of atmosphere protecting us from solar radiation is another opportune feature of our earth. On the biological level too, there are many unique features like DNA etc. that made propagation of life possible. Even the presence of our Moon orbiting the earth is considered a boon in the sense that its size, distance from earth and orbital path help in maintaining a consistent weather pattern on earth making this planet life-friendly Scientists go on in this vein on the uniqueness of various combinations of factors without which life as we know

would not have been possible to exist on this planet. According to John C. Mather (reference his book The very first Light), the anthropic (meaning: relating to human beings period of existence on earth) principle, in its simplest form asserts that current conditions in the universe including the existence of planets such as Earth, the stars, the galaxies, and the huge galactic structures, along with the measured strengths of gravity and the three more powerful electromagnetic and subatomic forces all have coalesced to allow for the existence of life. A stronger version states that only in such a universe could human life have emerged. While some scientists insist that this life-

friendly fine-tuning in the universe is result of random evolutionary process, some physicists opine that this feature is an evidence of an intentional and intelligent designer. For instance, Huston Smith in the book quoted above, says: Physicists of the stature of John Polkinghorne find it impossible to believe that fine-tuning (and the apparent frequency with which it occurs) could have resulted from chance. They toss around improbability figures in the range of one in ten followed by zeros. For them, improbabilities of this order all but require us to think that the universe was designed to make human life possible, to which they add that design implies an intelligent, intentional designer. They do not laugh when a fellow scientist, Dale

Kohler writes We have been scraping away at physical reality all these centuries, and now the layer of remaining little that we dont understand is so thin that Gods face is staring right out at us. An eminent Philosopher like Paul Davies (in his book Are We Alone) has also argued on similar lines. Let me quote him in a little detail: Some scientists maintain that the origin of life was a singular event but, nevertheless, a natural one. It is worth dwelling a bit on what is meant by this because it might be supposed that, if an event occurs only once, the distinction between miraculous and natural disappears. It is important to realize that

the scientific picture of the origin of life focuses upon the complexity of living organisms. The main reason why the origin of life is such a puzzle is because the spontaneous appearance of such elaborate and organized complexity seems so improbable. The level of complexity of a real organism is enormously greater than that of mere amino acids. Furthermore, it is not just a matter of degree. Simply achieving a high level of complexity per se will not do. The complexity needed involves certain specific chemical forms and reactions: a random complex network of reactions is unlikely to yield life The high degree of improbability of the formation of life by accidental molecular shuffling has been compared by Fred Hoyle to a whirlwind passing through an

aircraft factory and blowing scattered components into a functioning Boeing 747. This line of argument leads to the necessity of an intelligent designer behind the complexity. In another version of the origin of life on earth, James N. Gardner, in his book Biocosm talks of a self-assembling cosmos where the life around us must somehow be the natural consequence of the coupling of free energy to forms of matter and thus the picture that Not we the accidental, but we the expected. He continues: It is not only the rudimentary life but conscious thought as well (that are) inevitable consequence of cosmic processes Thought is generated and supported by life, which is itself

generated and supported by the rest of the cosmos. Quoting Paul Davies, another well-known scientist, he notes: I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement (with the cosmos) is too intimate. The physical species Homo sapiens may count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor by-product of mindless purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here. The intimate bonding between man and the

universe is neatly expressed by Carl Sagan in one sentence: If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. To sum up, we have scientists rooting to the materialistic interpretation of life and the universe; we have those who may not endorse the religious viewpoint but believe that behind the fine-tuned universe and complex life on earth, there must be an intelligent designer (without specifically calling him God); there are other thinkers who call themselves agnostics who would not categorically take either side. And then there are you and me, got caught in this confused web of conflicting ideas. It is not for nothing that the present period is called an age of

homelessness. We get consolation neither from the physical home nor can we find our spiritual home. We are neither here nor there. But the irony is that essentially this is a state of our own making.

Religion & Science Theory & Practice:

Both science and religion are products of the human mind and necessarily the follies, foibles and limitations of our mind will get reflected in both these products. The only thing we know for sure is that we dont know everything, either in scientific or spiritual realm. Take religion for

example. The edicts, guidance and pronouncements of prophets and sages, all point to the same fundamental truths in all religions. But we, the followers of one religion or another interpret these and act according to our convenience, our selfishness, our ego, and end up doing things in the name of religion which are not ordained in any religious teachings. This disjunction between theory and practice is what creates all the problems, whether in religion or science. Yet, by and large there is also sanity and goodness in most and if these can be channelised for common benefit, we can go beyond quarrels based on groupism, exclusiveness and insularity. There is also a subtle distinction between

science and practice of science. The Physicist and Writer Alan Lightman expressed this beautifully in his book A Sense of the Mysterious) thus: One must distinguish between science and the practice of science. Science is an ideal, a conception of logical laws acting in the world and a set of tools for discovering those laws. By contrast, the practice of science is a human affair, complicated by all the bedraggled but marvelous psychology that makes us human. The same applies to religion. Teachings of all religions are wonderful which, if followed in true spirit, can make the world a much better place to live in,

besides on an individual scale one can experience greater happiness, peace and security. But the followers of all religions, being only too human, act according to individual or collective convenience. How else can we understand why people convince themselves that their God has given them license to kill or harm another not belonging to their religious group. There is a fundamental error in the perception or interpretation that God can be partisan. Lets say, for instance, that we all love those of our family and home, but do we have a license from God, State or society to harm or hurt the neighbor because he is not of our family. Such an idea could never have been approved by any

enlightened person. Its morally wrong; its spiritually not uplifting; its philosophically not satisfying. And it doesnt appeal to reason. One can accept that, being born and brought up in a particular religion following certain traditions and rituals of that religion handed down by ancestors, one feels comfortable being part of that particular religious group. But, as co-travelers in life and inhabiting the same planet, lets give everybody else too the right to be comfortable in his faith, without having to hurt each other. Let us have a look at the commonness and shared values in different religions: A. Universal Teachings of different

Faiths: (Source: website: Ramakrishna.org) See God in All:

Sri Ramakrishna:
I have now come to a stage of realization in which I see that God is walking in every human form and manifesting Himself alike through the sage and the sinner, the virtuous and the vicious. Therefore when I meet different people I say to myself, God in the form of saint, God in the form of the sinner, God in the form of the righteous, God in the form of the unrighteous.

Buddha:
Goodwill toward all beings is the true religion; cherish in your hearts boundless goodwill to all that lives.

Guru Nanak:
God is one, but He has innumerable forms. He is the Creator of all and He Himself takes the human form.

Jesus Christ:
But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them

that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Judaism:
You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear in sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Krishna:
He who sees the Supreme Lord abiding alike in all beings, and not perishing when they perish verily, he alone sees.

Mohammed:
All Gods creatures are His family; and he is the most beloved of God who tries to do most good to Gods creatures.

Vedas:

The wise man beholds all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings; for that reason he does not hate anyone.

Zoroaster:
Forget self and identify Ahura Mazda in every being and in everything. God is Within You

Sri Ramakrishna:
Do you know what I see? I see Him as all. Men and other creatures appear to me only as hollow forms, moving their heads

and hands and feet, but within is the Lord Himself.

Buddha:
The subject on which I meditate is Truth. The practice to which I devote myself is the Truth. The topic of my conversation is Truth. My thoughts are always in Truth. For lo, myself has become the Truth.

Guru Nanak:
As fragrance abides in the flower, As the reflection is within the mirror,

So doth thy Lord abide within thee, Why search Him without?

Jesus Christ:
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, Lo, here it is!, or There!, for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Judaism:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from the presence, and take not the holy Spirit from me.

Krishna:
I am the Self, O Gudekesa, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings.

Mohammed:
He who knows his own self, knows God.

Zoroaster:
One need not scale the heights of the heavens nor travel along the highways of the world to find Ahura Mazda. With purity of mind and holiness of heart one can find Him in ones own heart.

All these great spiritual teachers have given us similar guidelines on how to search for God and how to reach Him through love and truth. Similarly, let us have a look at some of the shared values of different religions:

Shared Spiritual Values (Source: Book Messages from the Masters by Brian Weiss, M.D. I. Responsibility for ones Actions:

Buddhism:
its natures rule that as we sow, we shall reap.

Christianity:
Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap God will render to every man according to his deeds.

Hinduism:
Thou canst not gather what thou does not sow; as thou dost plant the tree so it will grow.

Judaism:
A liberal man will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.

II. Forgiveness:

Buddhism:
Never is hate diminished by hatred. It is

only diminished by love This is an eternal law.

Christianity:
For if you forgive others the wrongs they have done, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, then the wrongs you have done will not be forgiven by your Father Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.

Hinduism:
The noble-minded dedicate themselves to the promotion of peace and the happiness of others even those who injure them.

Islam:
Forgive thy servant seventy times a day.

Judaism:
The most beautiful thing a man can do is to forgive wrong.

III. The Golden Rule

Buddhism:
Hurt not others with that which pains yourself. Full of love for all things in the world, practicing virtue in order to benefit others, this man alone is happy. Judge not thy neighbor.

Christianity:
Pass no judgment, and you will not be

judged. Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; it is the law of the prophets. The gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow.

Hinduism:
This is the sum of all true righteousness Treat others, as thou wouldst thyself be treated. Do nothing to thy neighbor, which hereafter Thou wouldst not have they neighbor do to thee. A man obtains a proper rule of action by looking on his neighbor as himself.

Islam:
Do unto all men as you would wish to have done unto you; and reject for others what you would reject for yourselves.

Judaism:
What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow-men? That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Judge not thy neighbor till thou art in his place.

And so we can go on and on about common spiritual values and fundamental unity of all religions. The great poet-saint of India, Kabir (c.1440-1518), immortalized the unity of spirit in his most quoted song where he says: O servant, where dost thou seek Me? Lo! I am beside thee. I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash: Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and

Renunciation. If thou are a true seeker, thou shalt at once see me: thou Shalt meet Me in a moment of time And Kabir says: O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.

Bernard Shaw put it in a succinct way: There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it. When at the root of all religions the values and teachings are similar, why there are still conflicts between people of various religious faiths in todays world? It has to

do primarily with human nature, which is conditioned and evolved through genetic traits, environment, socio-cultural factors and economic necessities. The rational part of the human brain needs to be strengthened to develop a more harmonious global environment and this can be done only through education and dissemination of information/knowledge of the positive aspects of religions in particular and of life in general. There is an interesting but ironical aspect of this religious antagonism. Suppose I am a Hindu and among my close neighbors or social circles there are people belonging to various religious beliefs, such as Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, etc. I do not have any inhibitions in dealing in

a cordial and friendly manner with them. The religious differences do not come to the fore at all; we dont even think about them. They are just good people to be with. But when we think of them as a group of Muslims, Christians etc. there are feelings of aloofness, suspicion, apprehensions, intolerance, and even fear. This even leads to pernicious thoughts such as: those who are not in our group or do not share our belief, are our enemies. But why? This is something for the experts in social psychology to answer. Personally I would go with John Ruskin who said: What we think, or what we know or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.

The great British philosopher, Bertrand Russell put it a little differently. Men tend to have beliefs that suit their passion. Cruel men believe in a cruel God and use their belief to excuse their cruelty. Only kindly men believe in a kindly God, and they would be kindly in any case.

Summary:
I find it necessary at this stage to sum up the thoughts expressed in this chapter. 1) Role of Science: Science has contributed in many ways, more particularly in the last 300 years, to our understanding of the physical universe and

of life on earth. It has uncovered many laws governing the various forces of nature and dispelled many previously held misconceptions. Scientific achievements in the field of health, locomotion and communication that affect our day-to-day life, are there for all to see. However, scientific methodology (with its organized skepticism and insistence on verifiable truths) does not by its very nature give us answers to basic questions pertaining to the non-physical realm. We are all concerned with the physical world because that is where we live. But man is also equally concerned with his inner world, i.e. mind and consciousness for peace of mind and finding purpose in life. Also there is the basic need of faith in the supernatural that cannot be wished away.

Thus, we have those who support the materialistic interpretations of life and the universe and those who view scientific truths as imperfect and insist that the religious/spiritual interpretations represent the true reality. Then again even among scientists there are those (like Einstein) who marvel at the beauty and the mysteries of the universe and of life and accept the existence of a force or energy beyond human comprehension. Some of the scientists have attempted to establish that there is God in our genes, meaning that man is genetically wired for God. They say that Faith is built into the human brain and God will not go away. 2) The bias against science is not justified because science also attempts to seek

answers in a rational and objective way to the questions of the ultimate reality of the universe and life on earth, as does religion, though the methods differ This bias is largely due to ignorance and refusal to move away from preconceived notions. On the other side, science should take into account and not turn a blind eye to mans spiritual needs and other nonphysical realities. What sages and saints convey of their experiences appear to the common man as real as the physical world, and science therefore must take a little more holistic and comprehensive approach in its own search for Truth. A synthesis of science and spirituality is essential to get out of the current morass of confusion caused by the demise of old faiths and beliefs, without emergence of

any new credible ones. 3) I have quoted from books of modern scientists and thinkers, particularly of the Western world, but have also attempted to convey the thoughts from the Eastern world. (I have given direct quotations in most cases instead of my trying to interpret or misinterpret others ideas.) Woodrow Wilson once said: I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow. I have similarly borrowed, maybe a bit heavily, for the purpose of knowing first-hand the divergent views on the fundamental issues of spirituality and science. 4) It is obvious that the Eastern thoughts and philosophical speculations are very

relevant in todays world. What the sages and wise men of 4 or 5 millennia back thought on the basic questions of life and reality has only in recent times caught the eyes of the western world. While it has to be accepted that these were still philosophical speculations of an earlier time without the aid of any verifiable knowledge, it is a fact that from such speculative thoughts progress is achieved. Einsteins greatest theories of relativity began from his thought experiments. What is to be marveled is the fact that men in such ancient times could think so deeply and express these thoughts in a language (Sanskrit) that was itself full of depth and meaning. Mystics have concluded that God by his very nature is unknowable. He cannot be considered to be an objective

fact or an actual being: he is being itself, the absolute, undifferentiated oneness that is the ground of all existence. 5) The quotations given in this chapter include thoughts and contentions of those who accept only the physical reality and aver that scientific method is the only way to arrive at verifiable truths, and some of those who take into account the physical and the non-physical realities of life and the origin of the universe. 6) Scientists have attempted in the last few hundred years to decipher the common ancestor of present day man and the consensus among them is that man has evolved from primordial microbes through a series of adaptation, mutation

and natural selection following natural laws. Scientists contend that the origin of life on earth is thus a random occurrence and in this scenario there is no place for a supernatural designer or Creator. 7) Mind and consciousness have always been an unexplained mystery to the scientists dealing with the branch of cognitive science, and they have attempted to define thought and consciousness as an epiphenomenon or secondary phenomenon caused by the functioning of the physical brain and not products of any external source. To put it in another way, mind is matter, or mind is brain. Scientists battle for a credible explanation of the origin of conscious thought in man and there are as many views on this as there are scientists.

To the common man, it is difficult to conceive that his thoughts, emotions, instinct, beliefs, appreciation of beauty, and such other subjective feelings are just a bye-product of the physical brain. 8) Many scientists have come to the conclusion that there is a fine-tuning of various factors which resulted in Earth being a life-friendly place. Any slight variation from what is prevailing, i.e. the force of gravity, earths orbit around and distance from the sun, fitness of cosmos for carbon-based life, abundance of elements and other constituents of life, would not have made life possible. This fine-tuning, according to them, is a unique and random occurrence in nature and there is no hand of God at work here. The

theological/religious argument is that all this fine-tuning which made life possible, could not have come about without an intelligent designer. 9) Regarding the existence of millions of living forms on earth, the scientists conclusion is that all these evolved and diverged from simple beginnings by adaptation, mutation and natural selection. Again, no role for God here. The discovery of DNA and decoding of human genome in recent years has advanced our knowledge of human physiology. Scientists have been able to discover the chemical and physical properties of DNA and protein and their biological roles in replicative (or reproduction) cycle. Scientists say that the genetic data they

have glimpsed shows unequivocally that our species has a single, shared history (with all other living beings on earth). 10) The other area where science and religion have differences is regarding the origin of the universe and how something could have come out of nothing. Cosmology that dealt with these matters came into prominence in the last few hundred years. One of the theories currently supported by most scientists is the Big Bang theory. According to this theory both space and time originated from a sudden explosion from a point of singularity of infinite energy. The processes of nuclear synthesis that followed the explosion resulted in the formation of galaxies, stars, planets etc. A

rival theory is called the Steady State theory that says that the universe has always been there and is continuously evolving. Some vital experiments conducted by scientists and space exploration agencies seem to confirm so far the Big Bang picture, though there are doubts on the finality of this theoretical assumption. This same cosmological argument, i.e. origin from an inexplicable point of singularity, is used by theologians as proof of God as the First Cause. Which of this is true, in common mans language God alone knows. 11) The universal teachings of all religions and their shared values tell us that there are no basic differences between what they teach us on how to live

our lives for peace and happiness and to attain oneness with the Divine and release from human miseries. But it is a fact of life that there are major conflicts between religious groups which can only be due to the frailties of human nature, compounded by ignorance and refusal to change preconceived ideas. Truth takes a back seat in this approach and hence the problems. After going through the views, thoughts, theories and hypotheses of all the learned men I mentioned above, am I more enlightened? Not really. Are you? The more we try to know, the more confused we are about the fundamental issues. Those who seek knowledge are really in a dilemma. In the present day world, there

is a surfeit of information leading to, what some writer called mental indigestion. Of course, I cannot accept that ignorance is bliss. Let me try and note down what I personally feel (as an ordinary person) on these matters after seven decades of my journey through life. Thats for the next Chapter.

CHAPTER 8 - Conclusion
If God were to appear before me (a hypothetical scene) and ask me the one boon I want from Him, I would, at this point of time, request him to give me knowledge; knowledge of truth (if there is any ultimate truth) and save me from the sea of confusion where I can neither swim nor am I ready to drown. But such a scene and such a boon will have to remain, I am afraid, in the realm of fantasy. Though this is the concluding chapter of my present book, there can be no conclusion to its subject matter. This cannot be a book with a happy or logical

ending. I consider this more like a travelogue, account of my minds journey through ideas and beliefs. There has never been any conclusion on our fundamental questions of how and why we are here and where are we heading. How did the universe begin? Is there a God who started it all and if so, how to know Him? These are questions that have bothered Man from the time he started to think. There have been partial answers from mystics, sages and saints on the one hand and from scientists on the other. As one author said, there is no conclusion for the human search for God. There have been explorations to discover the meaning and nature of God that still continue on individual levels. Those who have reported experiencing God nature in some

form or the other, ranging from mystics, poets, artists and even some scientists, have always concluded that the more you come to know God, the more realize that God is more than you can know, at least in this life. Throughout history very few humans had answered with a definite yes to the perennial question if they had seen God! What the rest of us can surmise is that those few who affirm seeing or being with God had experienced, witnessed or had been merged with God nature, i.e. a kind of Unity with the Universe and all that exist. It is also possible they had seen or felt they saw Gods manifestation in the particular form they worshipped.

How do the vast majority of the common folks, ordinary men and women look at and understand the concept of God? Many have experienced some of kind of grace and unseen helping hand at times of extreme distress, but they hardly had any direct experience of spiritual ecstasy. But the need for God or a benevolent loving force always exists. Beginning of 21st century is witnessing an unprecedented chaos in social political, economic and environmental fronts and this in turn has impacted the belief systems too. Modern man is torn between the pull of reason and the need for faith; between what Science asserts as true knowledge and the intangible but very real benefits of spirituality.

In the beginning of this book I had mentioned that what I am attempting to note down here is primarily from the common mans point of view. So, I have given voice to the modern mans confusion on matters of faith and some fundamental beliefs we have grown with. In the corner of mind there is one little thought: the readers may conclude I wont blame them that no new idea, no new truth not uncovered earlier, has been presented in this book. Will some of them say, as I read in a book of humor? Much that you say is true, and much that you say is new.

But unfortunately for you, That which is true is not new, And that which is new is not true!

I believe, however, that we may acquire new knowledge of what is true, but truth per se, or what is, exists independent of us. Nevertheless, it is my desire to jot down, at least for my own satisfaction, what I have been able to understand from my own fascinating journey of self-discovery and what basic values I believe in. Of course, my personal beliefs and conclusions stem from the twin facets of

my Indian roots and my exposure to Western ideas and interpretations. First of all, I firmly believe that God and spirituality are purely individual matters. Each person has to find the answers himself from own individual experiences of life. You can take guidance, but you have to walk the path yourself. As Pablo Picasso said, when you come right down to it, all you have is yourself. There is no superhighway to God with clear directions. The only reliable guide is Truth, whether you take the path of religion or science. And of course Truth takes no sides. In the words of the famous Indian philosopher and teacher, Jiddu

Krishnamurti, Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. A very incisive and enlightening observation from the great teacher.

And Truth implies objectivity where there is no room for bias and prejudice. Truth, I believe, has no religion, nor is it the monopoly of science. As Einstein expressed, Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience. Religions arose partly to meet the inner needs of men and, in the social context, as a safety valve against other groups. This is a historical fact. Science on the other hand arose as intellectual outburst of an elite class with the sole aim of discovering the laws of the physical world. Both developed in different directions, using different methods, but with the same aim

of understanding the underlying reality of life and the universe. Now, let us come to the major question: Do you believe in God? My position is that whether you believe in God or not, it is absolutely essential for the common masses to accept certain basic values and live by some common rules for peace, happiness, security and prosperity. If you are a believer, understand and accept the fact that there are many ways, many beliefs, many paths to take to reach the common goal of spiritual enlightenment. These divergent pathways need not conflict, since the destination is same nor any one religion should claim exclusive rights for Gods grace. Rumi, the great Persian Sufi Poet of 13th century, gives

voice to this thought in one of his beautiful poems thus: My heart holds within it every form, it contains a pasture for gazelles, a monastery for Christian monks; There is a temple for idol worshippers, A holy shrine for pilgrims; There is a table of the Torah And a book of the Koran. I follow the religion of Love And go whichever way His camel leads

me. That is the true faith; That is the true religion.

I would consider myself (in the words of the well-known philosopher J. Krishnamurti) a religious person who is not institutionalized, but deeply concerned with life, with reality and truth. (Ref. J. Krishnamurtis book To be Human Edited by David Skitt). And those who do not believe in God are still living within certain social constraints, now actually global constraints, where it becomes necessary to

accept some basic ethical conducts to live in harmony with the rest of the society. The bottom line is: it is not what you believe, as a god-fearing person, or an atheist or agnostic, but what you do in pursuit of that belief that will determine the individual and collective destiny. What is required in todays world is not only to search for a unified theory of physical laws which scientists continue to do, but also for a unified theory amalgamating science and spirituality. Scientists cannot and must not wish away and ignore the role of heightened spiritual awareness that some have experienced in the past and continue to do so in all periods of human history (whether you call it manifestation of God nature or by

any other name) with beneficial effects in real life. Also many paranormal and outof-body experiences cannot just be brushed aside as unimportant acts of the physical brain. There are realities in the non-testable realm too and this the scientists should have the courage to accept. When it comes to the basic crunch questions, even science cannot give any final picture; all that they have are inferences that may or may not turn out to be true. This applies more obviously in the case of the macrocosm; the cosmological realities. They have no clue about the condition at the start of the universe i.e. the single point of immense energy from which space and time

evolved, according to their theory, after a great explosion (Big Bang). Apart from the neighborhood of the solar system, what happens in the incalculable vast expanse of the cosmos can only be guessed by them and one guess can be as good as another. Even according to the scientists themselves, 70 to 80 percent of the visible explorable parts of the universe are covered by some inexplicable and invisible dark matter and energy, about which nothing conclusive is yet known. The propositions of the expansion of the universe, the masses of galaxies, the secrets of the gravitational force are all inferences and not affirmation of truth, because this again is a non-testable realm. Only indirect estimates have been offered. How true are these estimates, we do not

yet know. When it comes to microcosm, the atoms and subatomic particles, there is nothing that the scientists have been able to pinpoint as the elementary building block of all that is seen. Matter disappears when scientists delve deep into the subatomic particles and only dancing, pulsating energy remains. According to the modern theories of quantum mechanics, the behavior at the atomic level cannot be predicted with certainty but only probabilities can be offered (so- called uncertainty principle). Newtons unchanging mechanical universe has now disappeared. On the matter of life on earth, science

offers the picture of slow evolution over a period of millions of years. While this may be partly true, how perfect this picture is, we do not know. Some scientists have pointed out many gaps in this scenario. Here again, for proof we have to depend on available fossils. While the discovery of DNA and genetic characteristics of all living beings on earth has thrown light on many previously unknown areas, (and there are many practical use of this discovery), when it comes to the origin of the highly complex basic structures of life, no definite answer is available from science. Could life have originated out of nothing? The mystery still remains, from the scientific angle too. As Alan Lightman, physicist and an

engaging writer, says, we have to learn to appreciate both certainty and uncertainty, arising out of the ambiguities and complexities of the human mind. According to him, both are necessary in the world. Both are part of being human. And he continues: the world needs questions with answers and questions without answers. This is true because we dont get answers to all our questions. But the search for answers keeps us engaged. What I have mentioned above are the limitations of science when trying to look for the ultimate reality. However, I am very clear in mind about one thing. Science and scientific search for answers are as important as mans spiritual quest.

Truth of the reality we are seeking can dawn on us from both the routes. Science can help weed out many previously held wrong notions, superstitions etc. particularly about the external world. As explained by one of the scientists, the distinguishing feature of science is the scientific method whereby hypotheses and theories are objectively tested against experiments. If the theory is contradicted by experiments, then it must be revised or discarded. If one experiment is contradicted by many other experiments, then it must be critically examined. Such an objective procedure would seem to leave little room for personal prejudice. It is through this method, universally adopted by scientists all over the world,

that advancement in science is achieved. From Newtons mechanical world, to Einstein relativity to modern quantum mechanics, each step built and corrected and expanded on earlier visions. It was in 1673 that Galileo was tried and punished by the Church for expounding correctly the planetary movements in the solar system. From then to the current time, in just 373 years, the scientific progress has been stunning! Of course, scientists being human bring their ego, their prejudices into their work and sometimes even political considerations change the direction of the scientific efforts. But generally, science has an objective approach when trying to find an answer to any question. I am

talking of real science, pure science, and genuine scientific efforts. There can be pseudo-science as much as there can be pseudo-religion. We should be wary of both.

On Spirituality:
Religion includes spirituality. Besides it gives us a set of rules to live by, certain rituals to follow in pursuance of the particular religious faith and to carry on the traditions of that faith handed down by ancestors belonging to that religion. These are partly written and partly unwritten laws meant for the whole group belonging to a particular religion. My purpose in this

book is not to ponder over this formal part of religion covering the external aspects of human behavior. Spirituality is a deep personal search by the individual for communion with the universal energy (call it God or by any other name) that animates within each of our individual selves, without which the body becomes a corpse. It is this individual inner search for enlightenment and knowledge of the purpose and source of life, which I am concerned with. The attempt has to be to feel and realize the seamless universal energy (call it God or undivided Oneness if you like) which appears bottled up in our individual bodies. Science (or rather the scientist) says that there is only this physical body of ours

and nothing else. Once the parts and the systems in the body get worn out or fail, the body perishes and that is the end of the individual. This picture doesnt jell with the common man and sounds too crude from the point of common experiences of life. There has to be more to life that this mechanical interpretation of living beings. Being an ardent votary of truth and reason, I am not comfortable taking anything for granted based on hearsay or tradition. But from lifes experiences I cannot help but feel certain that the human body cannot be just the physical parts but there is an internal energy that makes life go. And this energy is not fully in the testable realm, nor can the scientists do experiments with it in the laboratory. Cognitive scientists

have of late been researching on the matter of mind and consciousness and have been trying to explain them as manifestations of the physical brain that they portray as a computer in flesh. But none has come out with a really convincing picture. There are reluctant to accept that these might be out-of-body energy pattern built into the human physique (call it soul, spirit or whatever you like) and are independent of the physical body. It may be more appropriate to say that this energy manifests itself in and plays out its role through the physical body. Through our five senses and through a properly functioning physical brain, we become aware of the external world and

also feel joys and sorrows, pain and pleasure. But there is without doubt an inner self that makes us aware of this physical awareness. There is a subtle but fundamental difference between the two types of awareness. It is this inner awareness of the external physically caused awareness that scientists are unwilling to identify as an out-of-body feature of human life. Ramana Maharshi, a modern saint-cumphilosopher hailing from Southern India once asked a person who came to interview him: who are you? He went on to give his name first, but the Maharshi immediately said: That is just the name given to you by your parents, but actually who are you? The interviewer then gave

his religion, where he is coming from, what his vocation is etc. But every time, the Maharshi told him that those are the external identification marks, but does he know who he really is. Thus peeling off layer after layer of the individual self, he made the interviewer realize that he is much more than all the external details he gave of himself. The sum total of all he explained about himself did not add up to the totality of the individual. There was a missing link the real self. A Physicist turned writer, Alan Lightman, in his book A sense of the Mysterious Science and the Human Spirit explains this thought from his own life experience. Lets see what he feels:

When I never let my mind spin freely, without friction from projects or deadlines, when I never let my mind think about what it wants to think about, when I never sever myself from the rush and heave of the external world what have I lost? I believe that I have lost something of my inner self. By inner self I mean that part of me that imagines, that dreams, that explores, that is constantly questioning who I am and what is important to me. My inner self is my true freedom. My inner self roots me to me, and to the ground beneath me. The sunlight and soil that nourish my inner self are solitude and personal reflection. When I listen to my inner self, I hear the breathing of my spirit.

Those breaths are so tiny and delicate, I need stillness to hear them. I need aloneness to hear them. I need vast, silent space in my mind. Without the breathing and the voice of my inner self, I am a prisoner of the world around me. Worse than a prisoner, because I do not know what has been taken away from me, I do not know who I am. Obviously, the inner self in all of us, must be real and not just a human fantasy or hallucinatory side-effect of the human brain, as some of the scientists would have us believe. Everybody including the scientists would feel a kind of emptiness or vacuum without satisfying or communing with that inner self. As someone said, even a man who does not

believe in God, would say: I am an atheist, thank God! Spiritualitys twin foundation pillars are truth and love. By truth, I do not mean speaking the truth but living the truth. From childhood days, I have always wanted to live by the truth and to a reasonable extent I have trodden this path all these years with a great deal of inner satisfaction. If I hear from someone negative comments about another person, I am uncomfortable accepting this at face value. I always think in mind, can it be true? Unless I have a personal experience with that other person commented about, I would not consider my friends comments reflect the correct picture. Even your personal experience gives you a negative

feeling about another person, you would have to think of the possibility of a plausible reason for his/her behavior in a particular way. Maybe stress, maybe irritation caused by some other incidence in his/her life. I prefer objectivity in making judgment of another. I know I am also constantly judged by others. While I am aware of my genuineness, I am also aware of my shortcomings in social interactions. The same may apply to another. It is possible that one persons wavelength does not match with another which in reality we find so often in life when dealing with different persons and in such cases just pass them on as casual acquaintances without trying to pass judgment. Speaking the truth even when that particular truth might cause temporary

personal inconvenience, loss of face or embarrassment, is a great virtue. Then there are some truths, when spoken, will adversely affect another. Keeping quiet instead of telling a lie is always a better option. Each of us will have to judge for ourselves depending on the situation. Total honesty in behavior is a natural concomitant of being truthful. We can find situations in everyday life, when living by the truth is a better way for happiness and peace. Lets say, your wife shouts at you for something you did or did not do. Knowing her better than anybody else, you know her irritation could be due to her own pressure or tensions caused by a particular incident or family problem or maybe you did something really wrong.

Ask the question what is the truth and then react appropriately. That will save a lot of unnecessary conflict because one argument leads to another and the truth is lost in the process. The same applies to the wife or anybody else you are interacting with. In any situation ask the question, is that the truth, and act accordingly. That is what I personally mean by living by the truth. This will help avoid actions based on bias and prejudices. We have seen castles built on lies and deception crumble sooner or later more often sooner like Hitlers Third Reich and Stalins USSR! Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Tolstoy, the saints and sages, all lived by the truth and so they are loved, respected and accepted

as leaders and gurus. Trying to find truth in everything has another beneficial side-effect; you can have a better balance of mind. Serious illnesses, tragedies in life, changes in fortune, all occur some time or another in everybodys life. It always helps to avoid thinking that only bad things have happened or happening to you. Life can never be only black or only white. There surely will be some blessings in everybodys life and that should not be lost sight of in moments of grief and confusion. Like any other common man, I have had my share of ups and downs, major setbacks and very happy moments. Losing father (the only earning member) when I was just a 10-year old boy, losing

a wonderful teenage daughter, financial insecurity my story will read like many other average familys story. But again, like anybody else, I have had my moments of great happiness too. Even in worst moments, I remember those blessings in life. Life is an obstacle race and like everyone else I have had to get through some major and some minor obstacles. But what is satisfying to me is that whenever some obstacles arose some grace or help was always there to clear the obstacle without much damage. There is a saying that when one window closes another opens in life. I have found this happen to me in reality when major obstacles in the form of a disaster or tragedy or misfortune came my way.

To express these thoughts, I wrote a small poem that I am reproducing below (for what it is worth):

Count Your Blessings:

When setbacks and tragedies come your way. When you feel scared even to pray, Just close your eyes and search your soul And look at life not in parts but as a whole.

Lifes never black and white for you and me;

Its many faceted, depends how we view. Between the extremes of good and bad lie Many shades of joys and sorrows going by.

Whenever anguish and despair wrench the heart, Or some sorrow is tearing you apart, Think of others in much worse straits than you, And this will help change your gloomy view.

When fretting over the problems of the day, Look back too on blessings that came your way; Amidst passing darkness of clouds in the sky, You can, if you will, beautiful rainbow espy.

We are all taken in by worries of the moment And memories of lifes blessings lie

dormant. When we list out our sorrows and losses, Lets count the blessings that God passed us.

With Truth as a guide and companion and Love as light, we can achieve a better balance of mind and go through life with lot more contentment, happiness and peace. Besides, truth and love, the highest expressions of spirituality, are beyond any religion or science and no teacher is required to impart this knowledge. These gifts are right inside each of us. This way of life is absolutely an individual

commitment. Love to me means wanting and acting to see others happy; it could be your closest members in the family; it could be the whole society. The greatest happiness of life, said Victor Hugo, is the conviction that we are loved loved for ourselves, or rather he continued loved in spite of ourselves. The famous saint of India, Sathya Sai Baba says: Help Ever, Hurt Never. For more practical purposes, I would say: Help whenever and wherever you can, but Never Hurt another. I am embarrassingly aware that these are highsounding words. But is there any other way for peace and happiness? Man is on trial and he has to choose the best way for his survival as an individual and as a

species. The irony is that he may not even have much time (as a species); nature could intervene or a wandering asteroid could strike to make life difficult on this planet. Ominous signs of global warming (man-made?) are already there. I do not think that the thought expressed by me here, i.e. living in truth and love, is an ideal state which cannot be practiced in the present conflict ridden world. I say that even from sheer practical point of view, this is a necessity to avoid selfdestruction by our species. This little beautiful planet that gave intelligent beings like us a chance to be here deserves a saner human race. I cannot avoid the temptation to reproduce

another poem I wrote expressing these thoughts. Here it is:

Song of Infinity:
Once upon a time, there was no time; Only a silent timeless void. Suddenly with a Big Bang Space and Time came along.

When the exploding energy settled In a cosmic synergy, Light came on and the show was on.

With the setting just right on Earth, Life happened, and after long eons, Man appeared to rule the earth. His skill and knowledge multiplied And above the earth he soared; But his wisdom lagged behind.

Men who traveled inward, Or soared in outer space

Knew life on earth is a priceless gift.

So live, man, live your life With Love as light and Truth as guide; Why waste lifes precious time In hatred, envy, wars and strife.

The Need for Science:

Science, with all its limitations, is the bulwark of reason. And man cannot live by faith alone; thatll be being blind to certain realities. Einstein put it neatly. He

said: Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. As another scientist said: Science is outer creativity, Religion is inner creativity. Man is by his very nature curious. He can never stop questioning. When it comes to the nature of science, none expressed it better than Albert Einstein. Lets see what he says: The important thing said Einstein is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. This curiosity represents in Lord Byrons

words the eternal spirit of the chainless mind. I have almost an obsessive curiosity to know what science has to offer in terms of discoveries in various fields pertaining to the fundamental questions of life, universe and their origins. Of course I have no knowledge of applied sciences (I graduated in arts and law) and therefore my interest is limited to theories, hypotheses and propositions pertaining mainly to the macrocosm (i.e. attempts to know of the cosmos, its origin & cause, the present condition and future predictions) and the microcosm (building blocks of all matter and all life and whence they came).

These are all unknown areas and it is interesting to find out how much the scientific search for truth coincides with or contradicts the theological view in general and the oriental philosophy in particular. The sages, saints and mystics of all backgrounds, with their heightened awareness of the inner spiritual realm, have maintained and given a reasonably logical account of the existence of Almighty (an unseen and unknowable universal energy) and the unity of all living and the non-living in the universe. Lets forget for the time being the personal gods and goddesses borne of human imagination characterized in different ways by different groups of men. The

bottom line is the belief in the existence of a single unknown and inexplicable universal energy that is the ultimate cause of all that exists. Both the believers and the scientists keep wondering at the marvels and mysteries of Nature and life. As Hindus believe, all forms and manifestations of God we worship make it easier for ordinary men and women to meditate on and communicate with this God energy (for instance, God as Mother or Father). Worshipping an abstract concept of a universal energy is beyond most of us. And who can deny the beneficial effects of faith in God towards mental peace and even physical wellness. Many reports keep appearing in newspapers and magazines about surveys

conducted on effect of religious faith on mind and body. One such recent survey report was given by Asian News International, Washington on May 19, 2006 as follows: A study of more than 5,000 African Americans has found that being involved with or participating in religious activities can significantly lower blood pressure, even in those people who are likely to be classified as hypertensive, having higher levels of body mass index (BMI) and lower levels of medication adherence. How accurate such a finding from a sample survey could be, is debatable. Anyway many such claims from around the world appear from time to time, but it

is difficult to take them all to be literally true or applicable to everyone in general. Many factors combine to make for a healthy body and mind and religious belief could possibly be one of them. Hopes, dreams, feelings of security are all sustained by this faith. Maybe as some scientists theorize, we are all born with genes of spirituality! As the scientific method includes hypothesis, experiment and observation to test the hypothesis, for the spiritually inclined, there are many paths available to achieve self-realization. The physicist Amit Goswami in his book The Visionary Window neatly explains

this. Lets read on what he has to say: The quintessential question for each person is: which path is yours? The famous physicist Wolfgang Pauli seemed distraught as he waited for his luggage at an airport. Another physicist tried to reassure Pauli. Dont worry. All the baggage will arrive at carousel two, where we are standing. Pauli responded with irritation, who is worried about all the luggage? I just want my luggage. So also, which path is your path? Amit Goswami continues: Your choice of path depends on your nature. The four Yogas (in Hindu tradition) correspond with Carl Jungs classification of humans into four groups. If you are a thinking-

oriented person, Jnana Yoga is the path for you. For feeling-oriented people, Bhakti(worship) Yoga will be the major focus. Sensory-oriented people may find Karma (action) Yoga to be most appropriate. For those who are intuitive and inwardly directed, Raja Yoga, the path of meditation and Samadhis, may make more sense The idea that different paths are right for different people and possibly at different times for the same person is valuable in a world where, even today, most people enter the path determined by their birth their parents religion. The major problem with all these paths is that vast majority of common people who are uneducated and living below the

poverty line and straining to eke out a life, can neither understand these methods nor have the desire and strength to do anything beyond their daily chores. Yet, they have their elementary feelings and fears, and they hang on to the traditional faiths with the hope of seeing a less hungry tomorrow. But in that vast majority we will also find some of the best men and women who practice the basic principles of religion. As I have mentioned in an earlier chapter, I had an aunt who was uneducated and who lived through both relative affluence and poverty and who was a model human being. Always serving others with a smile, helping many, never angry or jealous, ever loving, and living to see others happy. Such a humble life teaches more than any religion or

philosophy. All of us come across in our life many such examples. And consider the many unfortunate ones, like cripples, spastics, mentally retarded, the poor with serious illnesses or disabilities and such others who lead a miserable life. What can they look forward to. They need to cling on to some kind of faith in an Almighty power to come to their help. We cannot give them a science lecture! But in the case of the vast majority of other normal humans, once minimum needs are satisfied, there is always an inner yearning to know more of the purpose of life and to know our God. Education exposes us to others ideas and

experiences and then we have to work out in our own individual manner how to deal with this enhanced knowledge. In the Foreword, I talked of my getting lost when I was a child. In many ways, I still feel lost mentally not having arrived anywhere in my journey of selfawareness, a journey without end. All I can point out now are some of the signposts along this route. And these represent my current beliefs. Let me see where I find myself as an individual floating in the sea called life. 1. I believe that truth and love represent the highest values a man should live for. These external expressions of inner spirituality cut across all distinctions of

religion, nationality, caste or creed. Individuals born in and following different religions will find inner peace and happiness so long as they lead their life within these basic values. We can be religious, we can be spiritual, we can be atheistic or agnostic, it doesnt matter. So long as what we do or how we act as an individual and as a member of society is based on truth and love, man-made distinctions and exclusiveness will disappear. This we already experience as common individuals within our close circle but what is required is to translate this into social, political and global levels. This is not moralizing or philosophizing. Nor is it sentimental rambling. This is the reality of life and a practical necessity. We see before our

eyes what a mess this world could be when these basic values are ignored, whether in politics, religion or social interaction. It is simply the axiomatic law of Nature and empirical fact that positive actions give positive results and from negative actions dont expect anything positive to happen. 2. I believe strongly that both scientific search for truth and our inner spiritual efforts to know and identify ourselves with the invisible, unknowable One universal force behind all that exist, are complementary and the truths coming out of both the disciplines are welcome, so long as both sides are open-minded. To point out only the evils and dangers of applied science is to be biased and being

blind to some of the greatest achievements of human intelligence in unraveling many mysteries of life and the universe. 3. I believe, as a literate individual, in a combination of faith and reason. I can neither contradict nor agree with those who follow only faith or only reason. But something deep inside me urges me to understand and accept the best of both. Faith should not turn a blind eye to obvious realities reason points out. And human rationality at its best has limitations when faced with unknowable and untestable realities of the inner realm. 4. I believe that I am not qualified, nor am I interested in, putting forth any arguments or taking any stand on religion, philosophy

or politics. I have led a simple life sticking to the basics of my beliefs. I am aware of my shortcomings as an individual and know that I cannot be perfect. But I am contented and happy about what life offered me, despite ups and downs. I am happy too to have an inquisitive mind on deeper matters of faith and reason that keeps me in awe of the unknown and makes me feel younger at heart. 5. I accept the fact that the thoughts expressed here may not register easily with the younger generation. I was young once and I should know. Except for occasional brush with God feeling when some disaster strikes, the young carry on with their active life without any serious

self-introspection, taking life for granted. There may be a few exceptions here and there. But these normal young men and women will have at some time a date with destiny when the stirrings of the inner self will be heard. 6. Now coming to the crunch question: where do I stand now in my belief or nonbelief in God? What has life and my personal search for truth taught me? This unfortunately is not a question that can be answered with any mathematical accuracy or objective certainty. And I believe, this is not a question either that anyone else can find the answer for me. To me, undoubtedly, it looks clear that there has to be a universal, cosmic energy and universal consciousness as the foundation

of all that exist or will exist. And that energy transcends all human thoughts and all knowledge humans are capable of achieving. In any other scenario, nothing would make sense without a creator being there. The complex life as we see on earth, the vast reaches of space and the invisible energy that hold them together could not have been possible without an underlying cause. Science is far from being certain on these issues. Scientists have only been able to offer some tentative theories which get revised with alternative theories. If a mystic, a philosopher, a scientist and a common man were to take an exam where they come across the question, what is the nature of God?, the answers though

expressed in different words, would possibly run along the lines of the following story (as narrated by the great humorist Herbert V. Prochnow during a short talk): A university professor asked his class a difficult question. In answer to the question the first student said I dont know. The second student replied, I dont remember. The third one responded, I am not prepared. After considerable deliberation, the fourth student said, Professor, I dont believe I can add anything to what has already been said. Nor can I. 7. The thoughts expressed above are about the larger picture as I see it. On a micro

level of my personal life, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that what the sages, saints, mystics and many others have reported of their inner spiritual experiences and visions of an inexplicable state of unity with all that exist in the universe, must be as real as any scientific discoveries pertaining to the external world. This state is something each of us has to strive to reach on our own. I firmly believe it is possible for each individual to have these experiences of coming face to face with God nature some time or the other. The effort and the intense urge have to be there. There is a saying in south India: self-half, God half, meaning that when man plays his part correctly, the other half, i.e. Gods grace will follow.

8. I do believe that faith in God (the One universal force whose energy pulsates in each of us) and all that God concept stands for have beneficial effects on mind and body and help molding a better individual, provided, as I said above, we do our part correctly in accord with such a faith. Some scientists call faith a positive illusion. But many have realized a positive reality from faith. I have had many experiences in life that give me a strong feeling of the presence of some force guiding me through major crises. To me, the effects of grace from a benevolent presence in the form of many blessings that came way, seem very real. I may not have come face to face with such a force nor experienced the kind of visions many others have reported, despite my genuine

and intense prayers and meditation. Not even a satori (the Zen expression for a sudden spiritual enlightenment seeing eternity in an instant!) But doesnt matter. Like the dog excitedly chasing its own tail, I am thrilled by the sheer act of chasing my inner self with the hope of catching it sometime or the other. By then, as mystics and gurus teach us, I might realize that the catcher and the caught are one and the same! Anyway indirect grace has been all too evident to me in life in many instances. Of course, from the point of reason, these are subjective feelings. But these feelings are real to me and have given me comfort, solace, confidence and ability to face life in a balanced manner. Where science errs is in totally ignoring these very real emotional needs of

individuals. It is unfair to deprive man his sensitivity and the pleasures of imagination, hopes, dreams, and even a little fantasy, so long as these do not cause any harm to another. Without these attributes, life will be dry, dull and purposeless. Finally, on our never ending inquiry into the unknown, I would like to say this: Standing at the shore of knowledge, looking at the vast sea of invisible force, not knowing what lies beyond, we can only hope that in coming generations the increased reach of our intellect and intuition will help clear the deepening mystery a few miles farther to reveal a little more of the grandeur of heavens. Meantime, let us continue to enjoy the

benefit of the God-given or nature given placebo of faith (real for many, unreal for some): faith in a single universal force whose energy pervades all living beings; faith in the unity of all that exist; faith in the basic values of truth and love. In primitive times man physically hunted and chased animals for food to keep the body alive. Modern man is now chasing in his mind the invisible shadow of his owns self! May God help him in this chase? Or will He just stand aside and smile within His own self as if to say, happy hunting?