Spirituality in the age of science – Balancing science, spirituality and audience interest

Most by college program organizers asked me to speak on “Spirituality in the age of science.” Not wanting to speak the same content again and again, I started approaching the topic from different angles in different talks. And I soon discovered that I had enough approaches to address this topic in a full book. One such talk centered on “The hard problem of consciousness” at the Texas A and M university, College Station. I explained how consciousness is the basis of all our knowledge – even the denial of consciousness requires the presence of consciousness. While research may show which areas of the brain are activated when we have different emotions and experiences, the emotions and experiences themselves can’t be reduced to anything mechanical, be it neural or digital.

At the universities where I spoke on the mind, the audience frequently asked many questions about emotions and relationships. Even among Indian college students in the US, dating is very common. While many youths in India demand the freedom to choose their partners themselves, talking with students in a campus where such choices were the norm revealed the flip side of that freedom: anxiety. Most of the students were in various phases of uncertainty, insecurity or animosity based on whether their relationships with their significant other was forming, fraying or breaking.

This article is part of a series of articles about the recent Western tour. Full article can be read here