Friday 28 February 2014

Savitr : A God whom Hindus have forgotten

"Savitr disappeared as an independent deity from the Hindu pantheon after the end of the Vedic period, but in modern Hinduism, his name occurs in the well-known Gayatri mantra (taken from book three of the Rigveda), which is also known as Savitri." 
"Savitr disappears in post-Vedic literature and is absent from the corpus of Pauranic Hinduism."
        - Savitr

Revivalism should not be confused with fundamentalism.


Hindu revivalism

"Some modern Hindu spiritual thinkers like Shri Aurobindo assign symbolism to the Vedic deities like Savitr. The Vedic deities are not only forces of nature, but also forces that exist within the human intellect and psyche and help the individual in spiritual progress. Shri Aurobindo has enumerated the symbolic significance of the Vedic Gods in his book "The Secret of the Vedas".
According to Shri Aurobindo, the vedic imagery are deeper than mere imagery. The gods, goddesses and the evil forces mentioned in the Vedas represent various cosmic powers. They play a significant role in the drama of creation, preservation and destruction in the inner world of a human being. 
Once the senses are controlled and the mind is stabilized through slaying of all the dark powers, comes the awakening, the goddess Ushas, who brings along with her Ashvins into the world of inner consciousness. After Ushas appear Aditi, the Primal Sun, the God of Light, first as Savitr, who represents the Divine grace essential for all spiritual success, and then as Mitra, who as the Divine love is considered as a friend of the illumined mind (Indra) and his associates (the other gods). The Sun is of Truth, after which appear Rta, Truth in Action and Rtachit, Truth consciousness."
          Savitr



Sunday 2 February 2014

Open Realism - The Philosophy of Bernard D'Espagnat




          Philosophy is the mother of all sciences, it is the root of all modes of thought. Science and Religion are branches of Philosophy, that's why we have Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Religion. If science studies empirical reality and religion studies the numinous, philosophy is concerned with the study of operation and principles of science and religion itself.

Philosophy is the boss, it decides how a science has to operate, what principles it has to follow and what claims it can make about reality and to what extent. I always criticized physicists for their "Shut up and Calculate" attitude without arriving at a stand on the philosophical implications of quantum physics. Of course physics should only be concerned with measurements and calculations but physicists should go on to become philosophers of science and not become like Stephen Hawking who says 'Philosophy is dead'.

I am happy that one man has turned up to bring humility into science and has outlined the philosophical implications of quantum physics in his book On Physics and philosophy. Any sort of appreciation to Bernard D'Espagnat would be very less because he has independently arrived at his philosophy of open realism based on his life long study of quantum physics, even though he is aware of the similarities between his philosophy and the great eastern philosophical systems he has arrived at open realism based on his knowledge of quantum physics.

On Physics and Philosophy - Chapter 1

Scientists should abandon objectivist language at all cost while describing their theories in textbooks and in all modes of their expression and students of science need to be taught that science is only predictive and it doesn't give an ontological objective description of the reality which exists independent of us.

Now this philosophy of open realism should not be treated as just a personal opinion or just a philosophical ramblings of an old physicist instead this should be treated as an empirical fact because it is based on facts established from experiments. No wonder why he truly deserves the Templeton prize.

Statement by Professor Bernard d’Espagnat At The Templeton Prize News Conference

Speech for the diner in Honor of Bernard d’Espagnat

I was always a realist, I am not a proponent of Idealism and it feels so good to see a physicist arguing the same thing and I always argued that Kant was wrong when he said that it is impossible to know the noumenon and even Bernard agrees with it, he thinks that the Real being can be known.

One thing is a fact that is proved from experiments, the properties of a system do not preexist prior to measurements, an empirical fact proved by the quantum information science team. This begs the question which Einstein always asked, "Does the moon exist when we are not looking at it?".

Quantum physics has proved that Einsteinian realism is not feasible, the empirical reality is just isn't the way Einstein thought and actually what QM is saying is that "What we call empirical reality is only a state of mind" - Bernard D'Espagnat.

This further begs the question if reality is only a state of mind then what is mind? This is where the role of western and eastern Esotericism will come into the picture because they already know what mind is, things which you'd have never known if you stick yourself to a scientific attitude. Science isn't everything.

10) I said to Him, Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it, through the soul or through the spirit? 
11) The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision and it is [...] 
(pages 11 - 14 are missing from the manuscript)
          - The Gospel  According to Mary Magdalene

Damn pages 11 - 14 are missing.... But no problem the west might have suppressed this knowledge but we have preserved them.