Tuesday 6 May 2014

BHAGWAN RAMANA MAHARISHI




Our father Dr N Kuppuswami Sarma was a great Ramana devotee, visiting Ramanashram whenever possible. At Thirumayam, in the erstwhile Pudukkotai State, during the British rule, where we lived, many devotees of Maharishi Ramana used to visit our house. Ramana Padananda was one among them. 

Periyaval (Kanchi Acharyal), who introduced Ramana Maharishi to Paul Brunton, who, in turn, was instrumental in opening the gates of Ramanashram to the West, was very much our family Guru.

We grew in such a holy atmosphere. 

When our father was in Pune, he attended Prayer meetings of Mahatma Gandhi and introduced Prayer meetings in our house also!.

Ulladu Narpadu (40 verses) and Aruchala Siva (Stuthi) were our favorites in our formative days.

Once our father's eyes were locked with Bhagwans eyes and the people told my father the situation was like that for more than 2 hours. It was a great blessing for my father. After that he had lot of earthly trials and tribulations, like losing a dear brother, additional family problems, financial worries but he remained like a solid rock in life with faith in Ramana, and Acharyal and his children and grand children are entrenched in Bhakthi and by any standards well off. 

K Shankar Ram, son of Dr N K Sarma visits Tiruvannamalai every month and goes round the Sacred hill every Full Moon day along with his sons, Ganesh and Mahesh. They are well versed in Sri Rudram and Chamakam also.

When devotees asked Ramana Maharishi to select important slokas from Gita, He said, how is it possible - all are important. But when pestered by them, he told them 2 slokas:

1.   Ahamatm Gudakesha...      In the hearts of all I am residing, I am the beginning, the middle and the end                                                   of all. 
2.   NaThvevaham Nasu          Arjuna - All of us were present - in the past, present and will be present in                                                     the future also in some form or the other.


The greatness of RAMANA MAHARISHI lies in the fact that he transcends the concept of  the Time and space. He belongs to all humanity.


As the time passes, his greatness is being realized exponentially.


Tuesday 3 September 2013

SANSKRIT AS A LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE










Sanskrit As A Language Of Science
There is a misconception that Sanskrit language is only a language for chanting mantras in temples or religious ceremonies. That, actually, is less than 5% of the Sanskrit literature, more than 95% of which has nothing to do with religion...


http://www.outlookindia.com/images/common/printer.gif




Text Size   
http://www.outlookindia.com/image/a1.gif
http://www.outlookindia.com/image/saprate1.gif
http://www.outlookindia.com/image/a2.gif
http://www.outlookindia.com/image/saprate1.gif
http://www.outlookindia.com/image/a3.gif







Full text of the speech delivered by Justice Markandey Katju, Judge, Supreme Court of India  on 13.10.2009 in the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore

It is a great honour for me to be invited to speak in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, which is renowned as one of the foremost scientific institutes in India, and which indeed is recognized as a great centre of science throughout the world. Your institute has produced great scientists of international repute.
The topic which I have chosen to speak on today is `Sanskrit as a language of Science'. I have chosen this topic for two reasons:
1. You are yourselves scientists, and hence would naturally like to know about your scientific heritage and the great scientific achievements of your ancestors.
2. Today India is facing huge problems, and, in my opinion, these can only be solved by science. 
We have to spread the scientific outlook to every nook and corner of our country, if we are to progress. And by science I mean not just physics, chemistry and biology but the entire scientific outlook. We must develop the rational and questioning attitude in our people, and abolish superstitions and empty rituals.

The foundation of India culture is based on the Sanskrit language. There is a misconception about the Sanskrit language that it is only a language for chanting mantras in temples or religious ceremonies. However, that is less than 5% of the Sanskrit literature. More than 95% of the Sanskrit literature has nothing to do with religion, and instead it deals with philosophy, law, science, literature, grammar, phonetics, interpretation etc. In fact, Sanskrit was the language of free thinkers, who questioned everything, and expressed the widest spectrum of thoughts on various subjects. In particular, Sanskrit was the language of our scientists in ancient India. Today, no doubt, we are behind the Western countries in science, but there was a time when India was leading the whole world in science. Knowledge of the great scientific achievements of our ancestors and our scientific heritage will give us the encouragement and moral strength to once again take India to the forefront of science in the modern world.

The word `Sanskrit' means “prepared, pure, refined or prefect”. It was not for nothing that it was called the `devavani' (language of the Gods). It has an outstanding place in our culture and indeed was recognized as a language of rare sublimity by the whole world. Sanskrit was the language of our philosophers, our scientists, our mathematicians, our poets and playwrights, our grammarians, our jurists, etc. In grammar, Panini and Patanjali (authors of Ashtadhyayi and the Mahabhashya) have no equals in the world; in astronomy and mathematics the works of Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta and Bhaskar opened up new frontiers for mankind, as did the works of Charak and Sushrut in medicine. 
In philosophy Gautam (founder of the Nyaya system), Ashvaghosha (author of Buddha Charita), Kapila (founder of the Sankhya system), Shankaracharya, Brihaspati, etc., present the widest range of philosophical systems the world has ever seen, from deeply religious to strongly atheistic. Jaimini's Mimansa Sutras laid the foundation of a whole system of rational interpretation of texts which was used not only in religion but also in law, philosophy, grammar, etc. In literature, the contribution of Sanskrit is of the foremost order. The works of Kalidas (Shakuntala, Meghdoot, Malavikagnimitra, etc.), Bhavabhuti (Malti Madhav, Uttar Ramcharit, etc.) and the epics of Valmiki, Vyas, etc. are known all over the world. These and countless other Sanskrit works kept the light of learning ablaze in our country upto modern times.

In this talk I am confining myself to only that part of Sanskrit literature which is related to science.

As already stated above, there is a great misconception about Sanskrit that it is only a language to be recited as mantras in temples or in religious ceremonies. However, that is only 5% of the Sanskrit literature. The remaining 95% has nothing to do with religion. In particular, Sanskrit was the language in which all our great scientists in ancient India wrote their works.

Before proceeding further, I may take a digression from the topic under discussion. In fact, I will be taking several digressions during the course of this talk, and initially you may think that this digression has nothing to do with the subject under discussion, viz. Sanskrit as a language of science, but at the end of the digression you will realize its intimate connection with the subject.

The first digression is to ask: What is India ? Although we are all Indians, many of us do not know our own country and hence I will explain.
India is broadly a country of immigrants.

While North America (USA and Canada) is a country of new immigrants, who came mainly from Europe over the last four or five centuries, India is a country of old immigrants in which people came over the last ten thousand years or so. Probably about 95 % people living in India today are descendants of immigrants who came mainly from the North-West and to a lesser extent from the North-East. Since this is a point of great importance for the understanding of our country, it is necessary to go into it in some detail (for further details see my article
Kalidas Ghalib Academy).
People migrate from uncomfortable areas to comfortable areas. This is natural because everyone wants to live in comfort. Before the coming of modern industry there were agricultural societies everywhere and India was a paradise for these because agriculture requires level land, fertile soil, plenty of water for irrigation, temperate climate etc. which was in abundance in India. Why should anybody living in India migrate to, say, Afghanistan which has a harsh terrain, rocky and mountainous and covered with snow for several months in a year when one cannot grow any crop? Hence, almost all immigrations and invasions came from outside into India (except those Indians who were sent out during British rule as indentured labour, and the recent migration of a few million Indians to the developed countries for job opportunities). There is perhaps not a single instance of an invasion from India to outside India.

India was a veritable paradise for agricultural societies because it has level & fertile land, hundreds of rivers, forests etc. and is rich in natural resources. Hence for thousands of years people kept pouring into India because they found a comfortable life here in a country which was gifted by nature.

As the great Urdu poet Firaq Gorakhpuri wrote:
“Sar zamin-e-hind par aqwaam-e-alam ke firaq
kafile guzarte gae Hindustan banta gaya”
Which means: “In the land of Hind, the Caravans of the peoples of the world kept coming in and India kept getting formed”.

Who were the original inhabitants of India ? At one time it was believed that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants. However, the generally accepted view now is that the original inhabitants of India were the pre-Dravidians aborigines whose descendants are the speakers of the Munda language who presently live in forest areas of Chota Nagpur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal etc., the Todas of the Nilgiris, and others known as Adivasis. Their population is only 5 to 7% of the total population of India. The remaining about 95% people living in India today are descendants of immigrants who came mainly from the north-west. Even the Dravidians are now believed to have come from outside, probably from the present Pakistan and Afghanistan areas, and this theory is supported by the existence even today of a Dravidian language called Brahui which is spoken by 3 million people in Western Pakistan (see Brahui on Google). In this connection one may also see ‘Cambridge History of India, Vol. I.

There are a large number of religions, castes, languages, ethnic groups, cultures etc. in our country, which is due to the fact that India is a country of immigrants. Somebody is tall, somebody is short, some are dark, some are fair complexioned, with all kinds of shades in between, someone has Caucasian features, someone has Mongoloid features, someone has Negroid features, etc. There are differences in dress, food habits and various other matters.

We may compare India with China which is larger both in population and in land area than India. China has a population of about 1.3 billion whereas our population is roughly 1.15 billion. Also, China has more than twice our land area. However, all Chinese have Mongoloid features; they have a common written script (Mandarin Chinese) and 95% of them belong to one ethnic group, called the Han Chinese. Hence there is broad homogeneity in China.

On the other hand, as stated above, India has tremendous diversity and this is due to the large scale migrations and invasions into India over thousands of years. The various immigrants/invaders who came into India brought with them their different cultures, languages, religions, etc. which accounts for the tremendous diversity in India.

As already stated above India was a country ideally suited for agriculture as it has level land, fertile soil, plenty of water, temperate climate etc. It is only in agricultural society that culture, arts and science can grow. In the preceding hunting stage these cannot grow because man has no free time in the hunting stage, and he has to devote all his time to get his food by hunting animals etc. The struggle for existence compels him to do this from morning to night leaving him no free time for doing free thinking. It is only when agriculture begins that man can get some free time for thinking. Since India was a country ideally suited for agriculture, people had free time here to do thinking. In ancient India there was a lot of intellectual activity. In our literature we read hundreds of instances of Shastrarthas, which were debates in which the intellectuals freely discussed their points of view in the presence of a large assembly. Thousands of books in Sanskrit were written on various subjects, though perhaps less than 10% have survived the ravages of time.

I have made this digression to point out that it was the geographical condition of India (flat and fertile land, temperate climate etc.) which enabled our ancestors to progress a lot in science and culture as our country was ideal for agriculture and hence provided a lot of free time for thinking.

Before dealing with the specific achievements of our ancestors in the fields of Mathematics, Astronomy, Medicine, Engineering, etc. it is necessary to mention that the Sanskrit language made two great contributions to the development and progress of science in ancient India. :-

1. A language was created by the great grammarian Panini, namely Classical Sanskrit, which enabled scientific ideas to be expressed with great precision, logic and elegance. Science requires precision. Also, science requires a written language in which ideas can be written with great precision and logic.

No doubt the first language of people everywhere in the world is the spoken language, but further development of thinking cannot take place unless there is a written language in which ideas can be expressed with precision. A scientist may think out new ideas in his mind, but these will remain rambling, diffused and disorganized ideas unless they are set down in writing. By writing we give our ideas greater clarity and make them coherent and in a logical sequence, somewhat like in a mathematical theorem where each step logically follows from the previous step. Hence for progress in science a written language is absolutely essential in which scientific ideas can be expressed with great precision and logic.

2. A philosophy is required for the progress of science to give support and encouragement to science and scientific development.

As regards the first point mentioned above I will have to make another digression and go a little deeper and must tell you a little about the development of the Sanskrit language.

In fact Sanskrit is not just one language, there are several Sanskrits. What we call Sanskrit today is really Panini's Sanskrit, also known as Classical Sanskrit or Laukik Sanskrit, and this is what is taught in our schools and universities today, and it is in this language that all our scientists wrote their great works. However, there were earlier Sanskrits too which were somewhat different from Classical Sanskrit.

The earliest Sanskrit work is the Rig Veda, which was probably composed around 2000 B.C. However, it was subsequently continued from generation to generation by oral tradition, and had to be memorized orally in the Gurukul by the young boys by repeating the verses chanted by their Guru. The Rig Veda is the most sacred of Hindu literature, and it consists of 1028 hymns (richas) to various nature gods e.g. Indra, agni, surya, soma, varuna etc.

Language changes with passage of time. For instance, it is difficult to understand Shakespeare's plays today without a good commentary because Shakespeare wrote in the 16th Century A.D. and since then the English language has changed. Many of the words and expressions which were in vogue in Shakespeare's time are no longer in vogue today. Hence we cannot understand Shakespeare's plays today without a good commentary.

Similarly, the Sanskrit language kept changing from around 2000 B.C. when the Rig Veda was composed to about 500 B.C. i.e. for about 1500 years. In the 5th Century B.C. the great scholar Panini, who was perhaps the greatest grammarian the world has ever seen, wrote his great book `Ashtadhyayi' (book of eight chapters). In this book Panini fixed the rules of Sanskrit, and thereafter no further changes in Sanskrit were permitted except slight changes made by two other great grammarians, namely, Katyayana who wrote his book called ‘Vartika’, and Patanjali who wrote his commentary on the Ashtadhyayi called the ‘Maha Bhashya’. Except for the slight changes by these two subsequent grammarians, Sanskrit as it exists today is really Panini's Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit.

What Panini did was that he studied carefully the existing Sanskrit language in his time and then refined, purified and systematized it so as to make it a language of great logic, precision and elegance. Thus Panini made Sanskrit a highly developed and powerful vehicle of expression in which scientific ideas could be expressed with great precision and clarity. This language was made uniform all over India, so that scholars from North, South East and West could understand each other.

I am not going into the details about the Ashtadhyayi but I will give one small illustration in this connection.

In the English language the alphabets from A to Z are not arranged in any logical or rational manner. There is no reason why F is followed by G or why P is followed by Q, etc. The alphabets in English are all arranged haphazardly and at random. On the other hand, Panini in his first fourteen Sutras arranged alphabets in the Sanskrit language in a very scientific and logical manner, after close observation of the sounds in human speech.

Thus, for example the vowels, a, aa, i, ee, u, oo, ae, ai, o, ou are arranged according to the shape of the mouth when these sounds are emitted, a and aa, are pronounced from the throat, i and ee from the palate, o and oo from the lips, etc. In the same way the consonants have been arranged in a sequence on a scientific pattern. The (ka) varga (i.e. ka, kha, ga, gha, nga) are emitted from the throat, the (cha) varga from the palate, the ( ta ) varga from the roof of the mouth, the (ta ) varga from the teeth, and the (pa ) varga from the lips.

I venture to say that no language in the world has its alphabets arranged in such a rational and systematic manner. And when we see how deeply our ancestors went in the seemingly simple matter of arranging the alphabets we can realize how deeply they went in more advanced matters.

Panini's Sanskrit is called Classical Sanskrit, as I have already stated above, and it is in contrast with the earlier Vedic Sanskrit that is the language (or languages) in which the Vedas were written.

I may now be permitted another digression here to tell you about the meaning of the word ‘Veda’, but that digression is again necessary to understand what Panini did.

The word Veda (also called `Shruti') consists of four parts :-

1. Samhita or Mantra, which consists of the four books Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samveda and Atharvaveda. The word ‘Samhita’ means a collection, and Rigveda is a collection of hymns as already stated above. The principal Veda is the Rigveda, and it is written in poetic verses called ‘richas’. The Samveda is really Rigveda set to music, while about 2/3rd of the Richas (poems) of Yajurveda are taken from the Rigveda. Some people regard the Atharvaveda as a later addition to the Samhitas, which were earlier known as ‘trayi vidya’ consisting of the Rigveda, Yajurveda and Samveda.
2. The Brahmanas, which are books written in prose in which the method of performing the various yagyas is given. Each Brahmana is attached to some Samhita. Thus attached to the Rigveda is the Aitareya Brahmana and the Kaushiteki Brahmana, attached to the Samveda is the Tandya Brahmana and some other Brahmanas, attached to the white (shukla) Yajurveda is the Shatapatha Brahmana and some other Brahmanas, attached to the black (Krishna) Yajurveda is the Taitareya Brahmana and some other Brahmana, attached to the Atharvaveda is the Gopath Brahmana. As stated above, these Brahmana are written in prose, unlike the Samhitas which are mainly in poetry, and they prescribe the rules for performing the various yagyas.
3. The Aranyaks, which are forest books. These contain the germs of philosophical thought, though in undeveloped form.
4. The Upanishads which incorporated developed philosophical ideas.

The above four, namely, the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyaks, and the Upanishads collectively are known as Veda or Shruti.

The Brahmanas were written subsequent to the Samhitas, and their language is somewhat different from that of the Samhitas, obviously because the Sanskrit language had changed by the time they were written. Similarly, the Aranyaks were written subsequent to the Brahmanas, and, the Sanskrit of the Aranyaks is slightly different from that of the Brahmanas. The last part of the Veda is the Upanishads, and the language of the Upanishads is different from that of earlier Vedic works for the reason that the Sanskrit language kept changing over the centuries, as already stated above. The Sanskrit of the Upanishads is closest to Panini's Sanskrit.

After Panini wrote his Ashtadhyayi the entire non-Vedic Sanskrit literature was written in accordance with Panini's grammar, and even that part of the non-Vedic Sanskrit literature which existed before Panini was altered and made in accordance with Panini's grammar (except some words called apashabdas).

The Vedic literature is only about 1% of the entire Sanskrit literature. About 99% of Sanskrit literature is non vedic Sanskrit literature. For instance, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Puranas, the works of Kalidas, etc. are no doubt highly respected but they are not part of the Vedic literature and hence they are now almost all existing in accordance with Panini's grammar.

To illustrate, some parts of the Mahabharata were written before Panini because Panini has referred to the Mahabharat in his Ashtadhyayi. Even such parts of the Mahabharata were altered and made in accordance with Panini’s grammar. Thus today all of the Sanskrit non-Vedic literature is in accordance with Panini's grammar, except a few words and expressions, called Apashabdas or apabhramshas (as Patanjali has described them) which for some reason could not be fitted into Panini’s system, and hence have been left as they were.

However, it was not permissible to change the language of the Rigveda and make it in accordance with Panini's grammar. Panini or no Panini, one could not touch the Rigveda, because it was held to be so sacred that it was not permitted to change its language. In fact after having been initially composed may be around 2000 B.C. the Rigveda was thereafter never written and it continued from generation to generation by oral tradition from Guru to Shishya.

Thus the Vedic literature is not in accordance with the Panini's grammar. However, the non-Vedic Sanskrit literature (which is 99% of the entire Sanskrit literature) is almost all in accordance with Panini's grammar, including all the great scientific works. This provided for uniformity and it systematized the language so that scholars could easily express and communicate their ideas with great precision. This was a necessary requirement for the development of science.

The spoken language no doubt is very useful, but the spoken dialects change every 50 or 100 kilometers, and hence there is no uniformity in them. A written language like Classical Sanskrit in which scholars could express and communicate ideas to other scholars living far away with great precision and clarity was thus absolutely necessary for the development of science, and this is the great achievement of Panini.

As regards the second factor contributing to the development of science in ancient India, namely, scientific philosophy I would now like to tell you something about Indian philosophy. Hence I am making another digression.

The generally accepted view is that there are six systems of Classical (orthodox) Indian philosophy (Shat Dharshana) and three non classical (unorthodox) systems. The six classical (orthodox) systems are Nyaya, Vaisheshik, Sankya, Yoga, Purva Mimansa and Uttar Mimansa (also known as Vedanta). The non classical (unorthodox) systems are Buddhism, Jainism and Charvak.

The Shatdarshanas are given below, with a brief mention of their viewpoints

Shatdarshana or six classical (orthodox) schools of Indian philosophy

1. Nyaya – presents the scientific outlook . It insists that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience. It was subsequently distorted by the later Nyayiks.

2. Vaisheshik – presents the atomic theory.

3. Sankhya – Probably presents the materialist ontology of the Nyaya Vaisheshik system. However, very little of the original literature on Sankhya has survived, and there is some controversy about its basic principles, some saying that it is dualistic and not monistic because it has two entities, purush and prakriti, in it.

4. Yoga – presents a method of physical and mental discipline

5. Purva mimansa (or briefly mimansa) – lays emphasis on the performance of the yagya for attaining various spiritual and worldly benefits. Hence relies on the Brahmana part of the Vedas.

6. Uttar Mimansa (or Vedanta) – lays emphasis on brahmagyan, hence relies on the Upanishad part of the Vedas.

It is said that the classical and non-classical system of philosophy differ in that the former accept the authority of the Vedas while the latter do not. However this does not seem to be correct as a close examination shows that the first 4 classical systems do not really accept the authority of the Vedas (though some of them pay lip service to it). It is the last two, the Purva Mimansa and the Uttar Mimansa, which certainly rely on the Veda.

I need not dilate on all these systems and it is only necessary to mention about the Nyaya and Vaisheshik systems, which represent the scientific outlook. Nyaya philosophy states that nothing is acceptable unless it is in accordance with reason and experience, and this is precisely the scientific approach (see in this connection D.P. Chattopadhyaya’s What is Living and What is Dead in Indian Philosophy which is a seminal work on Indian Philosophy). Vaisheshik is the atomic (parmanu) theory, which was the physics of ancient India. Originally Nyaya and Vaisheshik were regarded as one system, but since physics is the most fundamental of all sciences, the Vaisheshik system was later separated from Nyaya and made as a separate system of philosophy.

It may be added here that the Sankhya system is perhaps older than the Nyaya Vaisheshik systems but very little literature on it has survived (the Sankhya Karika and Sankhya Sutras and commentaries on them). However, the Sankhya philosophy certainly seems to have given the materialist ontological foundation on which the later Nyaya-Vaisheshik scientific philosophy was built, and hence we can broadly call the Indian philosophy representing the scientific approach as the Sankhya-Nyaya-Vaisheshik system. However, in brief we are calling it the Nyaya-Vaisheshik system, since we know much more about Nyaya and Vaisheshik then we know about Sankhya.

The Nyaya Vaisheshik system is (i) realist, and (2) pluralistic. This is in contrast to Advaita Vedanta of Shankaracharya which is monastic and regards the world as illusion or maya in the ultimate analysis. The word ‘pluralistic’ is in contrast to the word ‘monistic’. The word ‘monistic’ means that there is only one entity in the world. Shankaracharya’s Advaita philosophy says that there is only one entity in the world i.e. Brahman whereas the various objects like table, glass, pen, room etc. are not different from each other, and their difference is only an illusion. On the other hand, the Nyaya Vaisheshik systems says that there are several real entities and the world comprises of not just one entity, but a large number of entities which are different e.g. table, book, room, human bodies etc. Hence the Nyaya philosophy is pluralistic and not monistic.

In this connection it is important to again digress a bit and tell you something about philosophy.
The two most important branches of philosophy are ontology and epistemology. Ontology is the study of existence. In other words, in ontology the questions asked are what really exists? Does God exist? Does the world exist or is it illusion (maya)? What is real, and what is only apparently real?

Epistemology is the study of the means of valid knowledge. For instance, how do I know that this object in front of me exists? The answer is that it is Pratyaksha? I can see it with my eyes Pratyaksha is the knowledge which we derive from the five senses, and pratyaksha pramana is regarded as the pradhan pramana or the most basic of all the means of valid knowledge.

However, there are other pramanas e.g. anuman (inference), shabda (statement of some expert or authoritative persons) etc. Thus, much of scientific knowledge comes from anuman pramana. For instance, Rutherford never saw an atom with his eyes, but by studying the scattering of alpha rays (which are positively charged helium ions) he used anuman praman (inference) to deduce that there was a positively charged nucleus around which negatively charged electrons were orbiting. Similarly, black holes can not be known by pratyaksha pramana (since light cannot escape from them), but we can infer their existence by the movement of some nearby heavenly bodies on which an invisible body (the black hole) is exercising a gravitational pull.

The third Pramana in the epistemology of the Nyaya system is Shabda Pramana, which is the statement of an expert or a person having great reputation in a particular field. We often accept such statements to be correct, even though we may not understand the proof, because the person making it has a reputation of an expert.

For instance, we accept that e=mc2 as Shabda pramana since Einstein has a great reputation as a theoretical physicist, although we ourselves may be unable to understand how he reached that equation (as that will require a knowledge of higher mathematics and physics which we may not possess). Similarly, we accept what our doctor tells us about our ailment, as he is an expert.

There is another pramana called upama (analogy) in the Nyaya system, but we need not go into it here.

As already stated above, the Nyaya Philosophy represents the scientific outlook, and it places great emphasis on the pratyaksha pramana (though this too may sometimes be deceptive e.g. a mirage). This is also the approach of science because in science we largely rely on observation, experiment and logical inferences.

It may be mentioned that Pratyaksha pramana may not necessarily lead to truthful knowledge in all cases. For instance, we see the sun rising from the east in the morning, going up above us in the mid-day, and setting in the west. If we rely only on Pratyaksha Pramana we would conclude that the sun goes around the earth. However the great mathematician and astronomer Aryabhata in his book Arybhatiya wrote that the same visual impression will be created if we assume that the earth is spinning on its axis. In other words, if the earth is rotating on its axis it will appear that the sun rises form the east and sets in the west. Hence along with Pratyaksha Pramana we have also to apply reason, as observation alone may not always lead to truthful knowledge.

It may be mentioned that the Nyaya philosophy developed logic to an extent even beyond what Aristotle and other Greek thinkers did (see D.P. Chattopadhyaya’s books in this connection), and logical thinking is necessary for science.

Thus the Nyaya philosophy gave great support and encouragement to science in ancient India. It must be mentioned that the Nyaya philosophy is one of the Shat Darshanas i.e. one of the six orthodox systems in Indian philosophy, and not an unorthodox system like the Charvaks. Hence our great scientists could not be persecuted by the orthodox people since they could say that they were relying on an orthodox philosophy, namely, the Nyaya. This was unlike in Europe where some of the greatest scientists like Galileo were persecuted by the Church for preaching ideas inconsistent with the Bible.

In ancient India there were everywhere debates or Shashtrarthas which permitted free discussion of ideas, criticism of one’s opponent, and free dissent in the presence of a large gathering. Such freedom of thought and expression led to great development of science, since science also requires freedom, freedom to think, freedom to express one’s ideas, and freedom to dissent. The great scientist Charak has mentioned in his book Charak samhita that debating is necessary for the development of science, particularly debating with one’s mental equals.

In the earliest Nyaya text, which is the Nyaya Sutras of Gautam, several categories of debate are mentioned e.g. vad, jalp, vitanda, etc These were further developed by the subsequent writers of Nyaya

Having explained these two factors which gave great encouragement to the development and progress of science we may now come to the specific subjects of science dealt with by our ancient scientists.

MATHEMATICS

The decimal system was perhaps the most revolutionary and greatest scientific achievement in the ancient world in mathematics. The numbers in the decimal system were called Arabic numerals by the Europeans, but surprisingly the Arab scholars called them Hindu numerals. Were they really Arabic or Hindu? In this connection it may be mentioned that the languages Urdu, Persian and Arabic are written from right to left but if you ask any speaker of these languages to write any number e.g. 257 he will write the number from left to right. This shows that these numbers were taken from a language which was written from left to right and not from right to left. It is accepted now that these numbers came from India and they were copied by the Arabs from us.

I would like to illustrate the revolutionary significance of the decimal system. As we all know, ancient Rome was a great civilization, the civilization of Caesar and Augustus, but if one would have asked an ancient Roman to write the number one million he would have almost gone crazy because to write one million he would have to write the letter M which stands for millennium (or one thousand) one thousand times. In the Roman numerals there is no single number greater than M, which stands for one thousand. To write 2000 we have to write MM, to write 3000 we have to write MMM, and to write one million one has to write M one thousand times.

On the other hand, under our system to express one million we have just to write the number one followed by six zeros.

In the Roman numerals there is no zero. Zero was an invention of ancient India and progress was not possible without this invention.

I am not going into details about the great contributions of our great mathematicians like Aryabhatta, Brahamgupta, Bhaskar, Varahamihira etc. and you can read about them by using Google. However, I may just give two simple illustrations in this connection.

The number 1,00,000 is called a lakh in the Indian numeral system. 100 lacs is called one crore, 100 crores is called one arab, 100 arabs is called one kharab, 100 kharabs is called one neel, 100 neels is called one padma, 100 padmas is called one shankh, 100 shankh is called one mahashankh, etc. Thus one mahashankh will be the number 1 followed by 19 zeros (for further details you may see V.S. Apte's Sanskrit English Dictionary on the internet by using Google). On the other hand the ancient Romans could not express any number larger than one thousand except by repeating M and the other numerals again and again.

Take another illustration. According to the Agni Purana, the Kaliyuga in which we are living consists of 4, 32, 000 years. The preceding Yuga is known as the Dwapar Yuga and is twice as long as the Kaliyuga. Preceding the Dwapar Yuga, is the Treta Yuga which is thrice the duration of the Kaliyuga. The Yuga preceding Treta Yuga is the Satyuga which was said to be four times longer than the Kaliyuga. One Kaliyuga, one Dwapar Yuga, one Treta Yuga and one Satyuga are collectively known as one Chaturyugi (or 43 lacs 20 thousand years). Fifty Six Chaturyugis are known as one Manovantar. Fourteen Manovantars is known as one Kalpa. Twelve Kalpas make one day of Brahma. Brahma is believed to have lived for billions or trillions of years.

When our people do the sankalp, which is to be done everyday by orthodox people, they have to mention the exact day, month and year of the Kaliyuga as well as the Chaturyugi, Manovantar and kalpa in which we are living. It is said that we are living today in the 28th Chaturyugi in our present Manovantar, that is to say half the Manovantar of our Kalpa is over, but the remaining Manovantar is yet to be completed. We are living presently in the Vaivasvata Manuvantar.

One may or may not believe the above system, but one can only marvel at the flight of imagination of our ancestors who could conceive of billions or trillions of years in history.

Aryabhatta in his famous book called the Aryabhatiya wrote about algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry, quadratic equations and the sine table. He calculated the value of Pi at 3.1416, which is close to the actual value which is about 3.14159. Aryabhatta's works were later adopted by the Greeks and then the Arabs.

I am not going into the contribution of the other mathematicians e.g. Brahmagupta, Bhaskar, Varahamihira etc. as that will take too much time.

ASTRONOMY 
In ancient India, Aryabhata in his book Aryabhatiya presented a mathematical system that postulated that the earth rotated on its axis. He also considered the motion of the planets with respect to the sun (in other words there was a hint in Aryabhat’s system of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, though there is a debate about it). The other famous astronomers of that time were Brahma Gupta who headed the astronomical observatory at Ujjain and wrote a famous text on astronomy, and Bhaskara, who also was a head of the astronomical observatory at Ujjain. Varahamihira presented a theory of gravitation which suggested that there is a force due to which bodies stuck to the earth, and also kept the heavenly bodies in their determined places.

I am not going into detail into these theories of these great astronomers, but I would certainly like to say that it is remarkable that even today predictions can be made about the time and date of solar and lunar eclipses on the basis of calculations made by the ancient astronomers thousands of years ago, and that too at a time when there were no modern instruments like telescopes etc. and observations had to be made with the naked eye.

MEDICINE

The names of Sushruta and Charaka are the most famous in ancient Indian medicine. Sushruta is regarded as the father of Indian surgery and he invented cataract surgery, plastic surgery etc. many centuries before it was invented by the westerners. In his book Sushruta Samhita he has mentioned in great detail about the medicines and surgeries, including dozens of instruments used in surgeries, details of which can be seen on the internet by using Google. Sushruta said that to be a good surgeon one has to have a good knowledge of anatomy. Charaka Samhita is an ancient Indian Ayurvedic text on internal medicine written by Charaka and it is central to the modern day practice of Ayurvedic medicine. Both Sushruta Samhita and Charak Samhita were written in Sanskrit, details of which also can be seen in the internet in Google. In this connection it may be mentioned that in the London Science Museum in one floor relating to medicine, there is mention of the various achievements in medicine in ancient India including the surgical instruments used by Sushruta.

It is thus evident that India was far ahead of all countries in medicine in ancient times.

ENGINEERING

In Engineering, too, we had made great progress as is evident from the great South Indian temples in Tanjore, Trichy, Madurai, etc. as also the temples in Khajuraho, Orissa, etc. It is said that there was an institute in Aihole in Karnatka in the 6th Century A.D. which developed structural mechanics. The principles developed by this institute e.g. sloped roofs were applied to structures built in Kerala, eastern Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu.

I may now make another digression, but that too will be relevant to the topic under discussion: The attitude of the British Rulers towards Indian Culture

The attitude of the British rulers towards Indian culture passed through three historical phases.

The first phase was from about 1600 AD when the British came to India and established their settlements in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta as traders upto 1757 when the Battle of Plassey was fought. During that period the attitude of the British was totally indifferent towards Indian culture because they had come here as merchants to make money and they were not interested in Indian culture at all.

The second phase was from 1757 to 1857 AD i.e. upto the Sepoy mutiny. In 1757 the Battle of Plassey was fought after which the Diwani of Bengal was granted to the British by the Mughal emperor. This transformed the Britishers from merchants to rulers, after which the entire province of Bengal (which included Bihar and Orissa) came under their rule. A ruler has to know about his subjects in order to properly administer their territory. Hence, from 1757 to 1857, the Britishers carefully studied Indian culture and made some important contributions, particularly with respect to spread of knowledge of Indian culture to the West.

The third phase begins with the Indian mutiny of 1857 and its suppression by the British rulers. After 1857, the British were determined that there should not be any such outbreak against their rule. For this purpose they did two things: (a) they increased their army in India and particularly the number of Europeans in the Indian Army, and also placed the artillery completely in the hands of Europeans artillery and (b) they started a policy of deliberately demoralizing the India people by spreading the propaganda that Indians were only a race of fools and savages before the British came into India and there was nothing worthwhile in Indian culture as it was the culture of fools and savages. This was deliberately done so that the Indian people may themselves start believing that they were an inferior race and should gladly accept the Britishers as their masters. It is because of the third phase that we had forgotten the great achievements of our ancestors, including their achievements in science.

It is the second phase mentioned above which is of particular interest, because it is in this period that the British carefully studied Indian culture.

Among such Britishers, the foremost was Sir William Jones who came to India in 1783 as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Calcutta. Sir William Jones was born in 1746 and he was a child prodigy who had mastered several languages such as Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew etc. at a very young age. He had studied at Oxford University and had also passed his Bar examination to qualify as a lawyer. When he came to India he was told that there was an ancient Indian language called ‘Sanskrit’ and this aroused his curiosity and he became determined to study it. Consequently, he enquired and found a good teacher called Ram Lochan Kavi Bhushan – a poor Bengali Brahman who lived in a dark and dingy room in a crowded locality in Calcutta. Sir William Jones started going to this person to learn Sanskrit. He has written in his memoirs that when the daily lesson was completed he would glance behind and saw the " Bengalee Brahmin" washing the floor where Sir William Jones sat to learn his lessons as he was regarded as a Mleccha. However, Sir William Jones was not insulted by this as he was a scholar and hence thought that one should accept the customs of the teacher.

Having mastered the Sanskrit language, Sir William Jones established the Asiatic Society in Calcutta and also translated many of the great Sanskrit works e.g. Abhigyan Shakuntalam into English. This work was brought to the notice of the great German scholar Goethe who greatly praised it. Sir William proved that Sanskrit was very close to Greek and Latin. In fact, it was closer to Greek than to Latin because Sanskrit has three numbers – singular, dual and plural as is the case with Greek, whereas Latin has only two numbers – singular and plural, like in English, Hindi and many other languages.

Thus, Sir William Jones established that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin were all descended from a common ancestor and he was the creator of modern comparative philology.

There were several other British scholars who did research in Indian culture, particularly during the second historical phase mentioned above, but it is not necessary to go into detail about it as it will take too much time.

Suffice it to say that these scholars were wonderstruck about the great achievements of Indian scholars whose works were all written in the Sanskrit language.

Condition of Science in Modern India

I have stated above, at one time India was leading the world in science. Scholars from Arabia and China would come to India to learn from us in our great universities at Taxila, Nalanda, Ujjain etc. as our disciples. However, it must be regrettably stated that today we are lagging far behind the West in modern science. We have no doubt produced great scientists & mathematicians like CV Raman, Chandrasekhar, Ramanujan, S.N. Bose, J.C. Bose, Meghnad Saha etc., but these belong to the past.

However, that is not because of any inherent defect in us, but because of certain historical reasons. In fact, much of Silicon Valley in California is today manned by the Indian scientists, particularly in information technology. In most of the science and mathematical faculties in American Universities there are a large number of Indian professors. Hence, it is not due to any inherent inferiority that India has not progressed as much as Westerners in science in modern times, but due to certain other reasons. We have a powerful scientific heritage and knowledge of it would give us the moral courage and strength once again to come in the forefront of science in the modern world.

A question which arises is why did we later fall behind the West in science when we were earlier far ahead. This is also known as Needhams’s question. Professor Needham of England was a brilliant bio-chemist who later studied Chinese culture and wrote books on the history of science in China in several volumes. In one of these volumes he has raised the question why China which was at one time ahead of the West in science, having made great discoveries like gun-powder, printing, paper etc., later fell behind and did not have an industrial revolution. The same question is to be raised for India too.

To my mind the answer to this question is that necessity is the mother of invention. We had reached a certain level of scientific development, but after that, it was not necessary for survival for us to develop further. On the other hand, the geographical factor in Europe compelled the Europeans for sheer survival to move ahead in science. The Europeans who were at one time lagging behind India (which was ahead in the fundamental sciences) and China (which was ahead in the applied sciences) learnt these sciences and then for survival had to make further progress.

In India we have a relatively temperate climate and there is not only a summer crop (called Kharif) there is also winter crop (called Rabi). On the other hand, Europe has a cold and harsh climate with the land covered by snow for 4 or 5 months in the year in which there can be no winter crop. Hence for sheer survival the Europeans were compelled to progress further in Science as their population had increased. Perhaps that is the reason why they moved ahead, while we remained behind. This, however, is only my tentative view, and I welcome the views of others.

To solve our massive problems today we must quickly catch up with the West in science. Only with the help of science can we abolish poverty, unemployment etc. which are our major social problems today.

Friday 19 April 2013

Great Saints of India





Great Saints of India (Incomplete list)...India had and is in a flood of great saints and self-realized soals, Hence this list can never be complete....

- Sri Adi Sankaracharya
- Sri Kanchi Mahaswamigal (Afectiobately called Maha Periyava)
- Sri Seshadhri Swamigal (Tiruvannamalai)
- Sri Ramana Maharishi (Tiruvannamalai)
- Sri Poondi Mahan
- Sri Ramdas (Kerala)
- Sri Ramthirth (Mangalore)
- Sri YogiRamsurat Kumar (Tiruvannamalai)
- Sri Chandrasekarendra Bharathi Swamigal (Sringeri)
- Sri Atma Bodendral (Kanchi)
- Sri Ragavendra
- Sri Chaitany Mahaprabu
- Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
- Sri Vivekananda

- Sri Sarada Devi
- Sri Jayadevar
- Sri Purandaradasar
- Sri Tyagarajar
- Sri Badrachala Ramadasar
- Sri Samarth Ramadasar
- Sri Sant Tukaram
- Sri Sant Eknath
- Sri Dyaneshwar Maharaj
- Sri Sant Namdev
- Sri Sant Kabir
- Sri Sant Tulsidas
- Sri Meera
- Sri Annamayya
- Sri Bala Murugan Adimai (Vellore)
- Sri Vallimalai Sachidananda Swamigal (Vellore)
- Sri Lahiri Mahasaya
- Sri Paramahamsa Yogananda (Yagoda Satsang, USA)
- Sri Arunagirinathar
- Sri Pattinathar
-

Wednesday 10 April 2013

OM - SIGNIFICANCE


                                      OM               OM            OM     


The significance of the term OM?

OM is a sound which is a combination of three Sanskrit letters. Aa, uu, and ma, which, in combination, makes the sound AUM or Om. In Taitriya Upanishad, one of the Upanishads, it is stated, that the Creator of the world Brahma, creates the world saying OM – OM iti Brahma prasauti. That means it is the basic sound of the world. In itself it is a mantra, and when repeated with high degree of concentration with correct pronunciation and intonation, it penetrates to the centre of one’s being, the soul or Atman as it is called.

To achieve stillness of mind is the objective of the meditation. The mind is of a constantly chattering nature and even for a fraction of a second it cannot be quietened. The repetition of OM with proper intonation will surprisingly bring calmness to the tortured mind and a blissful state will emerge. The process will be a gradual one but a sure and certain thing to happen and tested time and again by millions and found to be true.

The above process is called meditation, and when we chant OM thus we feel a vibration which is in tune with the cosmic vibration present universally. The silence between the chants becomes sizable, till at last all thought processes are submerged. And only one OM remains and then that also vanishes. In that mindless state, intellect is also transcended and the individual self merges with the Infinite self which is the pious moment of realization. Such is the immense power of OM to dissolve the petty worldly affairs of individuals. 

 
              OM   peace   OM    peace     OM     peace           OM    peace        OM     


Friday 1 March 2013

ATMA AND BRAHMAN





Atman is Brahman

January 30, 2013
Only the onlooker is real, call him Self or Atman.
Whatever happens, I remain. At the root of my being is pure awareness, a speck of intense light. This speck, by its nature, radiates and creates pictures in space and events in time, effortlessly and spontaneously.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
Observer
That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman−that thou art.
Brahman is the only truth. The world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and Atman.
-Shankara
Atman Brahman
In nondual metaphysics, the observer is referred to as Self or Atman, and the observer’s underlying reality is referred to as Source or Brahman. Atman is understood as the nature of individual consciousness and Brahman as the nature of absolute reality. The direct experience that there is ultimately no difference between Atman and Brahman is the most profound realization that is possible. Amazingly, this profound realization can now be understood scientifically in terms of recent conceptual developments in theoretical physics.
Recent developments in theoretical physics are paradigm shattering, and turn our conventional common sense ideas about the world inside out. These concepts point to that which is truly out-of-this-world. These recently discovered scientific concepts confirm what nondual metaphysics has told us about the nature of reality for thousands of years of human history.
The holographic principle is the most amazing of these paradigm shattering developments. This principle tells us that the usual three dimensional world of matter and energy we perceive is something of an illusion. The world is really not three dimensional at all, but two dimensional. All the fundamental quantized bits of information for everything that appears to happen in any finite region of three dimensional space are encoded on the two dimensional bounding surface of that space. Information is encoded in a pixelated way. The bounding surface is like a holographic screen that encodes all the bits of information. One bit of information is encoded per pixel on the screen:
Information01
The holographic principle implies the existence of an observer. Everything the observer observes in its world is like the projection of images from the holographic screen to the central point of view of the observer:
The Observer, the Screen and the Thing
The perceivable images of things are composed of bits of information, just like the images displayed on a computer screen. The holographic principle is based on thermodynamic concepts. In this sense, bits of information encoded on the screen in a binary code of 1′s and 0′s can flip back and forth due to their thermal energy, but they can also align together due to their interactions and form coherently organized bound states. These bound states of information are the nature of the images displayed on the holographic screen. Just like computer images or the images of a movie, the images are animated over a sequence of events in the flow of energy. Due to their coherent organization, the images tend to self-replicate their forms.
The nature of the observer is understood in the sense of the principle of equivalence. The holographic screen that displays forms of information in the observer’s world is an event horizon that arises as the observer expends energy, enters into an accelerated frame of reference, and follows a time-like worldline:
Observer's Horizon
The observer’s horizon acts as a holographic screen that encodes bits of information. There are many different ways in which information can become encoded on the screen, which defines a quantum state of potentiality. The observer’s accelerated worldline is only a sequence of events that arise in the flow of energy. Quantum theory tells us every event is a decision point where the quantum state branches into all possible paths, and there is always a choice about which path to follow:
Decision point
The principle of equivalence tells us that the flow of time is only an ordered sequence of events that arises on the observer’s time-like worldline. That ordered sequence of events arises naturally in the normal flow of energy that characterizes the observer’s world. Due to memory and mental imagination, the observer can experience past and future events, but the observer is always present now.
A remarkable recent discovery in cosmology is that the observer’s world is characterized by exponential expansion, dark energy, and a cosmic event horizon. The cosmic horizon is a spherical surface in space that is as far out in space as the observer at the central point of view can see things in space due to the constancy of the speed of light. Dark energy is like a force of anti-gravity. Due to exponential expansion of space, things appear to move away from the observer at the cosmic horizon at the speed of light:
exponential expansion of space
Inflationary cosmology tells us the observer’s world begins as a big bang event and inflates in size from a Planck length to its current size of about 15 billion light years due to an instability in dark energy. This instability is like a process of burning that burns up dark energy. As dark energy burns up, heat is radiated away as all the usual forms of matter and energy the observer now finds in its world. As the dark energy burns away, the observer’s cosmic horizon inflates in size. Nothing is hotter than the observer’s cosmic horizon at the time of the big bang, and nothing is colder than a maximally inflated cosmic horizon.
Big Bang
The normal flow of energy arises in the observer’s world as heat flows in this universal thermal gradient from the very hot big bang event to all colder states of the observer’s world defined by an inflated horizon. The observer’s cosmic horizon inflates in size as dark energy burns away. This normal flow of energy is driven by the acceleration of space itself. As dark energy burns away, the acceleration of space deaccelerates, but it never stops accelerating as long as there is more dark energy to burn.
The normal flow of energy in the observer’s world arises as heat tends to flow in this universal thermal gradient and all things tend to follow the path of least action. As heat flows from a hotter to a colder object, energy tends to become dispersed into lower frequencies. Since energy is quantized in terms of frequency as E=hf, as energy becomes dispersed into lower frequencies, more quantum degrees of freedom are created, which is called an increase in entropy. Each photon of electromagnetic radiation acts as a particle or independent degree of freedom. As heat flows in a thermal gradient and energy becomes dispersed into lower frequencies, more photons are created. This normal flow of energy drives all physical and biological processes in the observer’s world.
normal-flow-of-energy
In an exponentially expanding world with dark energy, every observer is surrounded by its own cosmic horizon. The cosmic horizon is a bounding surface in space, and the observer is present at the central point of view. The holographic principle tells us the cosmic horizon acts as a holographic screen that encodes bits of information for everything the observer observes in the space bounded by that surface:
expanding universe
The remarkable conclusion of these ideas is the one-world-per-observer paradigm. Every observer is surrounded by its own cosmic horizon, and all the information for everything the observer observes in that bounded space is encoded on the bounding surface of that space.
galaxies in space
The one-world-per-observer paradigm tells us the observer’s world only has one frame of reference; the frame of reference of the observer itself. As the observer expends energy, enters into an accelerated frame of reference and follows a time-like worldline, all information for all things the observer observes in its world is defined on its horizon, which acts as a holographic screen.
information1
The holographic principle tells us the observer’s horizon acts as a holographic screen that encodes information. The encoding of information on the screen is related to the separation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs at the horizon. Virtual pairs are spontaneously created out of nothing and normally annihilate back into nothing in a short period of time as specified by the uncertainty principle, but from the perspective of an accelerated external observer virtual pairs can appear to separate at the horizon. A virtual particle that separates from its antiparticle appears to become real as it is radiated away from the horizon towards the external observer:
Hawking radiation2
But things appear very different for a freely falling observer that falls through the horizon. The horizon only arises from the point of view of the accelerated external observer. For the freely falling observer the horizon does not exist and there are no radiated particles. This radical discrepancy in observations is called horizon complementarity. What one observer observes to happen in its world may be radically different than what another observer observes to happen in its world, and those differing observations need not agree if there is no possible way for the different observers to compare their individual observations. It is as though each observer inhabits its own private world. Whatever appears to exist in one observer’s world need not agree with what appears to exist in another observer’s world.
If the observer’s horizon is a holographic screen that encodes information for everything in the observer’s world, and if that horizon disappears as the observer enters into a state of free fall, then the observer’s world disappears.
The holographic principle tells us that all information is encoded on the observer’s screen as virtual particle-antiparticle pairs appear to separate at the observer’s horizon. The horizon is a bounding surface in space that limits observations in the observer’s world. Virtual particle-antiparticle pairs can appear to separate, but they are in an ultimate state of positive-negative balance since they are created out of nothing, and all of that virtual energy must ultimately add up to nothing. This is possible in cosmology since the negative potential energy of gravitational attraction can exactly cancel out all positive forms of energy. Things are always in a state of balance in the observer’s world since all things arise through a virtual creation process:
ying-yang
Before anything is created in the observer’s world, nothing exists.
A holographic screen is an event horizon that limits observations in the observer’s world. The screen is a bounding surface of space that encodes bits of information for the image of anything perceived in the space bounded by that surface. That bounded space is the nature of the observer’s world, and the observer is always present at the central point of view of its world.
The observer is immaterial in precisely this sense: the observer is not some thing the observer measures in its world; the observer is the measure of all things in its world:
Measure-of-all-things
The one-world-per-observer paradigm tells us that all things in the observer’s world are measured in the frame of reference of a single observer. The holographic principle tells us that the information for all things that appear in the observer’s world is defined on a bounding surface of space. The observer is nothing more than the consciousness present at the central point of view of that bounding surface. That bounding surface is an event horizon that arises as the observer expends energy, enters into an accelerated frame of reference, and follows a time-like worldline.
It only makes sense to discuss a consensual reality to the extent that the worlds of different observers become entangled and share information with each other. This is possible in cosmology since different cosmic horizons that bound different regions of space can overlap with each other:
Overlapping bounded spaces
The observer is present at the central point of view of its world. The holographic principle tells us that the observer is nothing more than the consciousness present at the central point of view of its world, while all the images of things in the observer’s world appear on the bounding surface of its world. The bounding surface is an event horizon that acts as a holographic screen and encodes information. The observer’s horizon only arises as the observer expends energy, enters into an accelerated frame of reference, and follows a time-like worldline.
A strange aspect of the holographic principle is horizon complementarity. If the observer stops expending energy, stops accelerating, and enters into a state of free fall, the observer’s horizon disappears. The observer’s horizon acts as a holographic screen that displays images of things in the observer’s world. If the observer enters into a state of free fall, the observer’s world disappears. Consciousness itself, present at a point of view, enters into a state of ultimate free fall, and its world disappears. Only the observer’s underlying reality remains as the observer’s world disappears. That underlying reality is only describable as void, or an empty space of potentiality:
Atman Brahman
The observer is the consciousness present at the central point of view of its world. That presence of consciousness is called Atman. The observer’s world is defined on a holographic screen that bounds the observer. The observer’s holographic screen is a bounding surface that encodes information for all the things the observer observes in the space bounded by that surface, and defines the observer’s world. The observer’s holographic screen is only an event horizon that arises as the observer expends energy, enters into an accelerated frame of reference and follows a time-like worldline.
If the observer stops expending energy, stops accelerating, and enters into a state of ultimate free fall, the observer’s horizon disappears, and the observer’s world as defined on its holographic screen disappears. Only the observer’s underlying reality remains as the observer’s world disappears. Just as the observer’s world is the manifested nature of its reality, its underlying reality is unmanifested. The observer’s underlying reality is only describable as infinite void, or an empty space of potentiality. That underlying reality is called Brahman.
The observer’s underlying reality is the true nature of its absolute timeless existence, the true nature of what it is, the true nature of its being. That undivided being is void. That underlying reality is the ground of being. The only true knowledge the observer can ever know about itself is that it exists.
The observer’s world is a holographic illusion of animated images displayed on the bounding surface of a holographic screen. In a state of ultimate free fall, the observer’s world disappears, and only the observer’s underlying reality remains.
Ultimately, there is no difference between Atman and Brahman.
Brahman is the only truth. The world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and Atman.
That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which, like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman−that thou art.
There is nothing inconsistent with the concepts of modern physics and the nondual concept of truth realization and the one-world-per-observer paradigm. These nondual concepts are the inevitable conclusion of basic scientific principles, which include the holographic principle, the principle of equivalence, the action principle, the uncertainty principle, horizon complementarity, and the nature of dark energy, inflationary cosmology and the exponential expansion of space.
These principles tell us that ultimately there is no difference between the nature of individual consciousness and absolute reality. The observer is the nature of individual consciousness present at the center of its world, the observer’s world is defined on a bounding surface of space, and the observer’s underlying reality is undivided infinite void. When all bounding surfaces of space disappear, only the observer’s underlying reality remains. That underlying reality is undivided being.
The observer is the nature of individual consciousness and is called the Self, but the observer is not a differentiated individual entity. All aspects of self in the sense of a differentiated individual entity are a part of dualistic reality. Dualistic reality is like a virtual reality or a dream state, very much like a movie of animated images projected from a holographic screen to the central point of view of an observer. The holographic screen is only a bounding surface in space that encodes information about the observer’s world, while the observer is nothing more than the consciousness present at the center of its world. All aspects of self in the sense of a differentiated individual entity are a part of the observer’s world as animated on its holographic screen.
Those aspects of self are the nature of a holographic illusion. They are unreal in the sense of a virtual reality. They have no being. The true nature of being is inherent to the observer’s underlying reality, but that underlying reality is undivided in the sense of infinite void or undifferentiated consciousness. When all bounding surfaces of space disappear, when the observer’s world disappears, when all differentiated individual aspects of self disappear, only the observer’s undivided underlying reality remains.
Truth realization is described as dissolution. The observer dissolves back into its source like a drop of water dissolves back into the ocean.
Ocean
The Buddha expressed everything there is to know about the enlightened state:
Truly, I have attained nothing from total enlightenment
The Bhagavad-Gita also describes the enlightened state:
In the knowledge of the Atman
Which is a dark night to the ignorant
The recollected mind is fully awake and aware
The ignorant are awake in their sense life
Which is darkness to the sage
The subtle Soul sits everywhere
The Soul’s light shines pure in every place
In its bodily prison-Spirit pure
Never the spirit was born
The spirit shall cease to be never
Never was time it was not
End and beginning are dreams
Birthless and deathless and changeless remains the spirit forever
The unreal has no being; the real never ceases to be.
Chuang Tzu expressed these ideas with the concept of no-self:
The man of Tao remains unknown
Perfect virtue produces nothing
No-self is true-self
And the greatest man is Nobody
The Tao expresses the same concepts:
In the silence and the void
Standing alone and unchanging
Ever present and in motion
I do not know its name
Call it Tao
Knowing the Self is enlightenment
The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return
They grow and flourish and then return to the source
Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature
Ever desireless one can see the mystery
Ever desiring one can see the manifestations
These two spring from the same source but differ in name
This appears as darkness
Darkness within darkness
The gate to all mystery
The farther you go, the less you know
Those who know are not learned
The learned do not know
In the pursuit of learning, everyday something is acquired
In the pursuit of Tao, everyday something is dropped
Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone
The world is ruled by letting things take their course
It cannot be ruled by interfering
It is more important
To see the simplicity
To realize one’s true nature
To cast off selfishness
And temper desire
Being is born of not being
Being at one with the Tao is eternal
And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away
Because there is no place for death to enter
To die but not to perish is to be eternally present
Brings freedom from the fear of death
Empty yourself of everything
Without form there is no desire
Without desire there is tranquility
Tao in the world is like a river flowing home to the sea
He who follows the Tao is at one with the Tao
The form of the formless
The image of the imageless
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination
Stand before it and there is no beginning
Follow it and there is no end
Returning is the motion of the Tao
It returns to nothingness
It leads all things back toward the great oneness
The gateless gate paradox expresses the same ideas:
The great path has no gates,
Thousands of roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate,
One walks the universe alone.
Plato’s description is both timeless and scientifically accurate:
They see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.
To them, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
See what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error.
See the reality of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion.
His eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision.
Nisargadatta Maharaj gives a more contemporary scientifically accurate description of these same nondual metaphysical concepts:
First we must know ourselves as witnesses only, dimensionless and timeless centers of observation, and then realize that immense ocean of pure awareness, which is both mind and matter and beyond both.
The witness is merely a point in awareness. It has no name and form.
The witness that stands aloof-is the watchtower of the real-the point at which awareness, inherent in the unmanifested, contacts the manifested.
Awareness comes as if from a higher dimension.
Awareness is beyond all. Awareness is undivided-aware of itself.
In pure being consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and disappears.
Consciousness is on contact, a reflection against a surface, a state of duality.
As the tiny point of a pencil can draw innumerable pictures, so does the dimensionless point of awareness draw the contents of the vast universe.
The center is a point of void and the witness a point of pure awareness; they know themselves to be as nothing.
But the void is full to the brim. It is the eternal potential as consciousness is the eternal actual.
The ocean of consciousness is infinite and eternal.
In the ocean of pure awareness, on the surface of the universal consciousness, the numberless waves of the phenomenal worlds arise and subside beginninglessly and endlessly.
Timelessly the source actualizes itself without exhausting its infinite possibilities.
Nothing lasts. The void remains.
You remain as pure being.
Whatever happens, I remain. At the root of my being is pure awareness, a speck of intense light. This speck, by its nature, radiates and creates pictures in space and events in time, effortlessly and spontaneously.
Before all beginnings, after all endings, I am.
Names and shapes are hollow shells. What is real is nameless and formless, pure energy of life and light of consciousness.
Consciousness itself is the source of everything.
Everything is a form of energy.
You are and I am-only as points in consciousness.
All consciousness is consciousness of change.
The very perception of change-necessitates a changeless background.
Every moment returns to its source-just as every wave subsides into the ocean.
The objects in the world are many but the eye that sees them is one.
The source of consciousness cannot be an object in consciousness.
To know the source is to be the source.
Realization is in discovering the source and abiding there.
You know yourself only through the senses and the mind.
Whatever you think you are you take it to be true-imagining yourself perceivable.
I see as you see, hear as you hear.
All this I perceive quite clearly, but I am not in it.
I feel myself as floating over it, aloof and detached.
There is also the awareness of it all and a sense of immense distance as if the body and the mind and all that happens to them were somewhere far out on the horizon.
I am like a cinema screen-clear and empty.
The pictures pass over it and disappear, leaving it as clear and empty as before. In no way is the screen affected by the pictures, nor are the pictures affected by the screen.
The screen intercepts and reflects the pictures. These are lumps of destiny, but not my destiny; the destinies of the people on the screen.
The character will become a person when he begins to shape his life instead of accepting it as it comes-identifying himself with it.
To myself I am neither perceivable nor conceivable; there is nothing I can point out and say “this I am”.
Only the onlooker is real, call him Self or Atman.
It is enough to shift attention from the screen onto oneself to break the spell.
It is enough to shift attention to the Self and keep it there.
To know the picture as the play of light on the screen gives freedom from the idea that the picture is real.
This is all imagination. In the light of consciousness all sorts of things happen and one need not give special importance to any.
The world just sprouts into being out of nothing and returns to nothing.
In reality I only look. Whatever is done is done on the stage. Joy and sorrow, life and death, they are real to the man in bondage; to me they are all in the show, as unreal as the show itself.
I see only consciousness, and know everything to be but consciousness, as you know the pictures on the cinema screen to be but light.
Movement is illusory. What moves is the film-which is the mind.
Bodily existence is but-a movement in consciousness.
I am not my body. I am the witness only.
The very purpose of creation is the fulfillment of desire. Things happen by their own nature. From my point of view everything happens by itself, quite spontaneously. I do nothing. I just see them happen.
The person is never the subject. You can see a person but you are not a person.
The difference between the person and the witness is as between not knowing and knowing oneself.
Mere knowledge is not enough; the knower must be known.
Without knowledge of the knower there can be no peace.
I know myself as I am in reality.
I am neither the body nor the mind. I am beyond all these.
You are accustomed to deal with things, physical and mental.
I am not a thing, nor are you. We are neither matter nor energy, neither body nor mind.
Once you have a glimpse of your own being you will not find me difficult to understand.
You must gain your own experience.
We believe so many things on hearsay. We never cared to verify.
You are confused because you believe you are in the world, not the world in you.
You see yourself in the world, while I see the world in myself.
To you, you get born and die, while to me, the world appears and disappears.
There is nothing wrong with the senses, it is your imagination that misleads you.
There is a deep contradiction in your attitude which you do not see.
In ignorance the seer becomes the seen and in wisdom he is the seeing.
When you refuse to open your eyes, what can you be shown?
Investigate your world, apply your mind to it, examine it critically, scrutinize every idea about it.
To question-is the essence of revolt. Without revolt there can be no freedom.
The way to truth lies through the destruction of the false.
To destroy the false you must question your most inveterate beliefs. Of these the idea that you are the body is the worst.
It is the clinging to the false that makes the truth so difficult to see.
You progress by rejection.
Everything must be scrutinized and the unnecessary ruthlessly destroyed.
There cannot be too much destruction. For in reality nothing is of value.
See your world as it is, not as you imagine it to be.
See the person you imagine yourself to be as a part of the world you perceive within your mind and look at the mind from the outside, for you are not the mind.
The world you can perceive is a very small world-entirely private.
Take it to be a dream and be done with it.
What begins and ends is mere appearance. The world can be said to appear but not to be.
Nothing perceivable is real.
Reality is essentially alone. To know that nothing is, is true knowledge.
The world lasts for a moment. It is your memory that makes you think that the world continues.
Memory creates the illusion of continuity.
I see the world as it is, a momentary appearance in consciousness.
The totality of all mental projections is the Great Illusion.
When I look beyond the mind I see the witness.
Beyond the witness is infinite emptiness and silence.
For the path of return naughting oneself is necessary.
My stand I take where nothing is.
To the mind it is all darkness and silence.
It is deep and dark, mystery beyond mystery.
It is, while all else merely happens.
It is like a bottomless well, whatever falls into it disappears.
Absolute reality imparts reality to whatever comes into being.
You are the source of reality-a dimensionless center of perception that imparts reality to whatever it perceives-a pure witness that watches what is going on and remains unaffected.
It is only imagination and self-identification with the imagined that encloses and converts the inner watcher into a person.
The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality there is no such thing.
Feelings, thoughts and actions race before the watcher in endless succession.
In reality there is no person, only the watcher identifying itself.
Self-identifications are patently false and the cause of bondage.
Liberation is never of the person, it is always from the person.
What is liberation? To know that you are beyond birth and death.
Go beyond, go back to the source, go to the Self that is the same whatever happens. See everything as emanating from the light which is the source of your own being.
By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature you create so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream.
What you call survival is but the survival of a dream.
It is your desire to hold onto it that creates the problem. Let go.
Suffering is due entirely to clinging or resisting; it is a sign of our unwillingness to move on, to flow with life.
Your attachment is your bondage.
There is no such thing as free will. Will is bondage.
Your desires just happen to you along with their fulfillment or non-fulfillment. You can change neither. It all merely happens.
As long as there is the sense of identity with the body, frustration is inevitable. It is because of your illusion that you are the doer.
There is trouble only when you cling to something. When you hold onto nothing, no trouble arises.
Give up all and you gain all.
Then life becomes what it was meant to be: pure radiation from an inexhaustible source.
In that light the world appears dimly like a dream.
In the dream you love some and not others. On waking up you find you are love itself, embracing all.
Personal love-invariably binds; love in freedom is love of all.
The reward of self-knowledge is freedom from the personal self.
Freedom means letting go. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go of everything.
Discrimination will lead to detachment. You gain nothing. You leave behind what is not your own and find what you have never lost-your own being.
One you realize that there is nothing in this world which you can call your own you look at it from the outside as you look at a play on the stage or a picture on the screen.
When you refuse to play the game you are out of it.
Find the immutable center where all movement takes birth. Be the axis at the center-not whirling at the periphery.
The seeker is he who is in search of himself.
Give up all questions except one: “Who am I?”
The only fact you are sure of is that you are. ‘I am’ is certain. ‘I am this’ is not.
A false question cannot be answered. It can only be seen as false.
The question “Who am I?” has no answer. No experience can answer it.
All I can truly say is ‘I am’.
I am beyond consciousness and therefore in consciousness I cannot say what I am.
There is nothing wrong in the idea of a body-but limiting oneself to one body only is a mistake.
In reality all existence, every form, is my own, within my consciousness.
Destroy the wall that separates, the ‘I-am-the-body-idea’, and the inner and the outer become one.
In reality all is one, the outer being merely a projection of the inner.
This battle is always won, for it is a battle between the true and the false.
It is the witnessing consciousness that makes realization attainable.
The person is in resistance to the very end.
It is the witness that works on the person-on the totality of its illusions.
Abandon all self-identifications.
It is a vicious circle. Only self-realization can break it.
Self-surrender is the surrender of all self-concern. It cannot be done. It happens when you realize your true nature.
Complete self-surrender by itself is liberation.
Abandon the idea of a separate ‘I’. By focusing the mind on ‘I am’, on the sense of being, ‘I am so-and-so’ dissolves; ‘I am a witness only’ remains and that too submerges in ‘I am all’.
Then the all becomes the One and the One-yourself.
Realize that you are dreaming a dream you call the world.
Look at the dream as a dream. When you see your dream as dream you wake up.
When you have seen the dream as a dream you have done all that needs be done.
The dreamer is one. I am beyond all dreams. I am the light in which all dreams appear and disappear.
Osho also gives a contemporary description:
We call Buddha the awakened one.
This awakening is really the cessation of inner dreaming.
When there is no dreaming you become pure space.
This non-dreaming consciousness is what is known as enlightenment.
The inner emptiness itself is the mystery.
When the inner space is there, you are not.
When you are not, the mystery will be revealed.
When you dissolve, the inner emptiness is there.
You fall into an abyss, and the abyss is bottomless: you go on falling.
That is why Buddha has called this nothingness emptiness.
There is no end to it. Once you know it, you also have become endless.
At this point Being is revealed: then you know who you are, what is your real being, what is your authentic existence.
That being is void.