Hinduism and Science

Thanks to Huffington Post.

Religion comes into conflict with science when it is defined by unprovable claims that can be dismissed as superstitions, and when it treats as historical facts stories that read like legends and myths to non-believers. Other aspects of religion -- what I would consider the deeper and more significant elements -- are not only compatible with science but enrich its findings. The best evidence of this is science's response to the religions of the East over the course of the last 200 years. As the French Nobel laureate Romain Rolland said early in the 20th century, "Religious faith in the case of the Hindus has never been allowed to run counter to scientific laws." The same can be said for Buddhism, which derives from the same Vedic roots.

Most of the Hindu gurus, Yoga masters, Buddhist monks and other Asian teachers who came to the West framed their traditions in a science-friendly way. Emphasizing the experiential dimension of spirituality, with its demonstrable influence on individual lives, they presented their teachings as a science of consciousness with a theoretical component and a set of practical applications for applying and testing those theories. Most of the teachers were educated in both their own traditions and the Western canon; they respected science, had actively studied it, and dialogued with Western scientists, many of whom were inspired to study Eastern concepts for both personal and professional reasons.

As early as the 1890s, Swami Vivekananda spent time with scientific luminaries such as Lord Kelvin, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Nikola Tesla. "Mr. Tesla thinks he can demonstrate mathematically that force and matter are reducible to potential energy," the swami wrote in a letter to a friend. "I am working a good deal now upon the cosmology and eschatology of Vedanta. I clearly see their perfect unison with modern science." Had Vivekananda lived three years longer, he would have rejoiced in Einstein's discovery of E = mc², which united matter and energy forever.

In the early decades of the 20th century, the great sage and Indian independence leader Sri Aurobindo, who had studied in England, blended East and West by extending Darwinian concepts to the evolution of consciousness and the cosmos. In 1920, Paramahansa Yogananda set a precedent by calling his first lecture in the West "The Science of Religion." He befriended a number of scientists, growing so close to the great botanist Luther Burbank that he dedicated hisAutobiography of a Yogi to him. Later, Swami Satchidananda, whose own teacher, Swami Sivananda, had been a successful physician before becoming a monk, encouraged the scientific study of Yoga; one of his early students was Dr. Dean Ornish, whose groundbreaking research sprang directly from Satchidananda's teachings. And Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, even before he became famous as the Beatles' guru, prodded scientists into studying the physiology of meditation, setting in motion an enterprise that has now produced over a thousand studies.

The interaction of Eastern spirituality and Western science has expanded methods of stress reduction, treatment of chronic disease, psychotherapy and other areas. But that is only part of the story. Hindu and Buddhist descriptions of higher stages of consciousness have expanded psychology's understanding of human development and inspired the formation of provocative new theories of consciousness itself. Their ancient philosophies have also influenced physicists, among them Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg and J. Robert Oppenheimer, who read from the Bhagavad Gita at a memorial service for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his landmark TV seriesCosmos, Carl Sagan called Hinduism the only religion whose time-scale for the universe matches the billions of years documented by modern science. Sagan filmed that segment in a Hindu temple featuring a statue of the god Shiva as the cosmic dancer, an image that now stands in the plaza of the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva.

The relationship between science and Eastern spiritual traditions -- which many prefer to think of as psychologies -- is still in its infancy. In recent years, the Dalai Lama has carried the ball forward, hosting conferences and encouraging research. Western religions would do well to emulate this history. Their historical and faith-based claims conflict with empirical science and probably always will; but to the extent that their practices directly impact human life, they can be treated as testable hypotheses.

Current Events - Rant for the month

Its been a while since I saw 'The Daily Show' or 'The Colbert Report' my source of humor, satire and of course, news! Things I learnt over the last few days are:

1. Vivos Doomsday bunker

Fox News is fast becoming Paranoids Anonymous by trying to scare people out of their wits just because there is a black democrat president in the office. While anyone who is an American has to be feeling thankful for the fact that they survived W - the greatest catastrophe let loose on this country, Fox News is trying to scare the living daylights out of anyone who cares to see that moron channel. The dollar is sinking, jobs are being shipped abroad, terrorists are planning to annex America, Mexico is planning to release Swine Flu 2.0 blah blah blah. The top of the scare mongers is this guy Sean Hannity - he is a lying, two faced journo (I'm using the word Journo very very loosely here) who is fine with convicted felons working on his show, but questions Obama's citizenship (which is now so boring that seriously this dude needs to stop referring to it). In fact, I can challenge any one to see Fox News for a week and still say they are not depressed or feeling some kind of psychological disorder.So on top of all this comes this.

Now, come on, do these guys think that people will seriously buy this kinda of scare fueled services? And apart from providing a service that is seemingly safe from Nuclear, Volcano, Terrorist attacks, the best of the features are protection against PLANET X (if a planet collides with Earth), Global Tsunami and ANARCHY. If at all there is going to be any anarchy, then it will be from those folks who are Fox News Patronizers. Those of the tea party group which will not pay taxes but will complain if the roads are not of the pristine quality they expect them to be. Touche, Fox news and terra vivos!

2. English Sports

Be it any sport, England always has a team that is a contender. In fact barring the World T20 title that they have won recently, their soccer and cricket teams have sucked pretty much in every major event. But that does not stop them from tagging themselves as contenders for the title every time. So it was with utmost glee that I saw them being bundled out in their own jock straps to the ol' country. Rooney who looks like Paa Amitabh (he is 24 years old and balder than Rajini Kanth, no less), is a hyped up guy any day. Of all the superstars who came into this World Cup, I think he had the least time under the spotlight. I was hoping he would be his usual self and kick some one in their balls and get red carded out - unfortunately did not happen.

3. Rahul Gandhi

I really do not understand why this guy gets so much attention. After Ilayathalapathy Vijay, one guy who is completely unsuitable for the job he is doing/wants to do is Rahul Gandhi. Looking like a cross between a lost puppy and those 'pseduo intelluctual', jeans and kurta wearing leftist guys (this category of jeans kurta, kurundhaadi, kudumi hairstyle guys deserve an entire post - for being the most wannabe bunch ever), the media tries to hype this guy to glory. Recently, there was a poll on CNN-IBN (yeah, the same guys who are also paid for being the PR for the Congress party) or NDTV (again, belonging to the league of Congress Chamchas) asking something about R. Gandhi's marriage and what he should wear etc. All this when there is a global recession and economic uncertainty. Surely, the Gandhi family continues to be a primary hindrance to any progress that India might make. And on the same topic of how Congress and Gandhi family has screwed India, seemingly, the way that Anderson got let go in the Bhopal Tragedy seems very close to how the Hindujas and Quattarochchi was let go in the Bofors scam. Vaazhgha Jananaayagam, vaazhgha Gandhi Pugazh!

Kill the Brahmin - 1

After a really long time, I saw that Krish Ashok and Hawkeye had had a tete-a-tete, albeit of less friendly nature. Its a subject that has been argued ad nauseum and I hope this post does not end up being one more to the heap. 

Tamizh Nadu has been the recipient of lousy atheist propaganda ever since I could remember. Those calling out against the caste system calling out a section of the population as "Paarpan", a tamil scholar explaining that the meaning of the word Hindu in Sanskrit is 'Thirudan' when sitting and having soup for Ramadan with a group of Islam following folks, bad mouthing the saint of kanchi as a hoax, but not having the nerve to call out that 90 percent of terrorism in India spawns from the faulty interpretation of Islam. But we (Tamizh makkal) of course are 'sotraal aditha pindangal' and so conveniently forget that such hypocritical guys are being called as statesman, pagutharivaali etc.

From what I have noticed recently is that all this 'sick'ularism that we have been force fed from our childhood has made people get confused and more often than not self-deprecating. I have met countless tam-brahm friends of mine who speak about how Brahmins encouraged slavery, how reciting the vedas is a trait of atavism and how we, mankind, is at its technological peak. What I'm trying to do here is to just ask a few questions to this section of the population which says vedas are humbug, trying to pass off as 'modern, sophisticated, educated' folks who will bad mouth brahmins, hinduism at every easy opportunity.

1. Stories based on Vedas are Bullshit - they are not believable.

The most consistent argument I have seen from people who do not want to believe in the Vedas is that how they came about to be. They say how can saints/scholars listen to the wind and write down the vedas? They argue that the cell phone technology is so advanced only now and all the yada yada. The best thing about our current generation/mankind is the kind of arrogance that leads them to say that we are at the technological peak that was never seen before. But there is historical proof that humans from BC era were able to predict movement of stars, the lunar and solar cycle and of course the Vedas, much before Galileo or Kepler, very correctly assumed a heliocentric model. But the yuppie puppies will say that but for Galileo we will be still believing that the Earth is flat. And on the same vein, the same populace do not want to acknowledge the fact that while elsewhere people were nomads, during the reign of Karikal Chozhan, a stone dam was built across the Kollidam river, an engineering feat of no small scale. So the basic assumption that our forefathers were technologically backward though propagated, it is not completely proven. While I don't want to appear puerile or a fantasy lover and say that people in the BC time period had a nuclear reactor or some such stuff, I'd like to just say that we do not know - there is always a chance that mankind lost some technology and we are now discovering them, rather than inventing them. While all pagutharivaalis pounce on me, by your own definition of pagutharivu, kindly prove that such technology did not exist before we go further.

2. Brahmins practiced Untouchability - So they must now be subjugated/submissive

This is a really curious thought that has been drilled into our heads. While no one is going to dispute the fact that Brahmins exploited social conditions and practiced untouchability and other social evils, this tit-for-tat logic seems to be applied to only certain section of the people. India as a country did not have any people following Islam till there was the Mughal invasion. And we all were made well aware of how gruesome the invasion was, how come the same logic being applied to Brahmins not being applied to Muslims, the section of the population who owe their origins to the invaders who raped and plundered India? When the Babri Masjid was demolished by Ram Sevaks, the so called Secularist Flag bearers fondly recalled logic such as "Eye for an eye makes the world blind" but then conveniently bury that logic when it comes to discriminating against Brahmins. While quacks such as Nityananda and other fakesters get their due, Hinduism is portrayed as a barbaric and retarded religion, all the while, conveniently, the secular media in India forgets that the Christian church is being plagued by child molesters and sex offenders who masquerade as men of the faith. Why this double standards? I have no particular love or hate for any religion or community. But why do the so called rational/pagutharivu pazhams not apply the same logic to everyone?

There are a few more thoughts - which shall come later.

(Contd.)

Shutter Island - Scorsese Toys with your Mind

When Tendulkar is at prime form what do we want him to do? Take on the best bowlers - previously it was Akram, Waqar, McGrath, Warne, later Lee and Akthar and now, Dale Steyn. That's what precisely Scorsese has done. He has taken an extremely challenging story and given it in a way that will blow your mind away.

Warning: Please do not wikipedia the movie or read the book. I did not and I enjoyed the movie. Beware of some spoilers below

Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) is a Federal Marshall, a war hero from WW II who is assigned to investigate a disappearing person from the Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane along with another deputy marshall, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). The hospital is situated on an island (source of title) whose only connection to the outside world is a ferry controlled by the authorities on the Island - Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley) and his police force. Teddy suspects that the folks on the island are engaged in some unethical activities with patients they are supposed to treat there. Teddy sees that most of the folks on the island are either insane or are coached to act/lie to him. Parallely, some of his past comes back to haunt him as well - his wife's death in particular. And on top of all this, Teddy's migraine get worser by the hour.

The movie now enters a vortex and the twist that comes is a master twist, though it has many 'clues' in the scenes before the actual twist.

The screenplay and direction are terrific. They cause the intended effect on the viewer. The subtle background score raises the tempo and keeps you on the guessing game till the director chooses to reveal his cards. The cinematography, again, chooses to be pliant to the story's needs :)

On the acting front, it is a 2 man show - DiCaprio and Kingsley and both of them try to out do each other. DiCaprio, after Departed, Blood Diamond, Revolutionary Road and now S.I is firmly on track to join the league of celebrated actors.

I'm constrained to not write more as I do not want to give away anything (spoil the movie for most of you). But if you want to really to come out of the theater thinking "Whoa! What did I just see back there??!!", think about this review!

Bottom Line: Haven't you checked when it is releasing in your locale yet? And if it is already released, haven't you booked for the next show?

Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya?

http://www.clapsandboos.com/reviews/whiff-of-fresh-air

Recently, Tamizh Cinema has been engulfed in a wave of nauseating, stale air of egotistical heroes and creators who have hyped up efforts or have ended up giving movies so bad that at the end of the movie, you saw a wave of people trying to scramble to the exits to go home and douse their burning stomach for shelling out money to another mass masala movie.

Amidst this, விண்ணைத்தாண்டி வருவாயா? (Vinnaiththaandi Varuvaaya)comes as a whiff of odor neutralizer. This movie might not impress folks as one of the classics, but, surely at this point of time when the people who go out to see Tamizh movies are forcefully made to take dip in the 'masala' sauce, Gautam Menon tries to respect the intelligence and the sensibilities of today's audience. He has presented a simple tale - with a good screenplay and of course aided by some very mature, understated performances from his lead pair. And of course, he has also made a masterstroke with some of his casting choices - the best being Ganesh as the Kaakha Kaakha Cameraman character.

The tale in a nutshell is that Karthik (Simbu) and Jessie (Trisha) are living in the same house. While Simbu falling in love is predictable, the twists after that are not the usual fare for the Tamizh Audience. Jessie seems to be modeled on the modern day young woman, who does not know what she wants and the highlight of the movie is that Gautam has shown her wavering mind without making her character seem slightly lunatic, the case with movies like Aanadha Thaandavam. The movie is about whether Karthik and Jessie make the relationship work and make their families happy as well.

Simbu has morphed himself from the his previous unpopular version to a subtle, cool and good looking hero. His reactions and dialog delivery, while reminiscent of Surya in Vaaranam Aayiram - which I think originates from Gautam Menon - are cool and bring that smile on your face. Trisha looks like a freshly minted coin and passes muster in a complex character, based on the scope for heroines in today's movies. I seriously hope that Simbu sticks to this uber cool version and Trisha maintains her radiance and the slight streak of acting talent she has shown in this movie.

The movie has a very strong technical performance from its crew. The first and foremost person who makes you sit up and take notice is Rahman - He has delivered a killer soundtrack with almost every song in the album a noteworthy one. He backs that up with terrific BGM work. I think after Mani, Gautam has been able to get Rahman back to his standards of Alaipayuthey and Kannathil Muthamittal. The psychedelic rock based Aaromale was just a precursor to the influence of rock music in VTV. While Rahman had served classic soft Jazz in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa, here in VTV, Rahman has gone into the Pink Floyd - AC/DC mode with some great rock based BGMs in the movie. All pretenders to the throne in Tamizh Film Music move over, the Emperor who was on extended vacation abroad and in Hindi hinterlands, has come back to reclaim his throne with a killer soundtrack giving hitherto unexplored genre in Tamizh Music and depending on the scene, soul stirring, heart warming, rousing and peppy BGM/rerecording.

The next guy to thank would be the camera man, Manoj, who has made sure that the visuals are pleasing, soft, and of course has made the lead pair look cool and romantic. There are a few unusual shot compositions and camera angles which reinforces he is here to stay, especially with what we had already seen in Eeram. It has been a good sign that Tamizh Cinema is unearthing good DoP in the last decade or so with Ravi K Chandran, Santosh Sivan, Rajeev Menon, Nirav Shah, Mani Kantan and a few others, trying to add to the illustrious bracket comprising of Balu Mahendra and P.C. Sreeram.

The final and the force behind the movie is Gautam himself. My respect for this man grows with every movie. After Mani Ratnam (on whom, admittedly, he has modeled himself), here is a Tamizh director whose movies give respect to the viewer. His dialogs at various points in the movie is very apt. While I have always been a proponent of the director not taking on too many hats is a movie, I think Gautam is a person who does well writing dialogs for his stories as he infuses the necessary feel in to the dialogs. While pondering on this it is curious to note that people complain about English dialogs and over urbane feel in his movies - I feel while we have been led to believe that 'realism' is 4-5 bush-bearded, 'its-been-10-days-since-i-took-a-bath' guys, sickles and lungi and beedi, I guess Gautam's movies are representative of another side of reality - the urban middle-class/upper middle class.

On an ending note, I guess there are two people who reiterate what they can do - ARR and Gautam and a few others who show you that they too are relevant in the current day scenario - Simbu and Trisha, the people in question. I just hope they continue their form from VTV onwards into their future movies as well.

Bottomline: Double Thumbs-Up!!!