Spirituality in an age of science – Maximizing human potential

Talk at Denver University

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so thank all of you very much for coming today evening for this talk on spirituality in the age of science am I audible to you behind? so I will start with an anecdote once a group of 10 friends came from a small town to a big city they had come for a picnic they were outing over there and they got a room in a hotel that was a skyscraper, 100 storey and they got a room at the 100th floor, so they went in by the elevator, kept their luggage and came back and came out to see the sights in the city when they came back to their dismay they found that the power had got disconnected, there was no power that meant there was no elevator functioning and they had to climb up 100 storeys now as they were contemplating this onerous prospect they got the idea, one of them got the idea let us entertain each other by telling stories each of us can tell a story and if it is long enough to last for about 10 floors then by the time 10 stories are over we will reach the 100th floor they all agreed and they started some of them told a longer story so by the time the 10th person’s turn came, they had actually come to the 95th floor and they all told tell your story now, 10th person said no, I cannot tell my story why? it’s a tragedy you hear it, it will shatter your hearts come on, tell it no, I can’t tell it yes and no is going on they climbed up 96, 97, 98 I can’t tell the story you must tell the story, they all told the story and finally they came to the 100th floor, in front of their room door they said now I have to tell you the story I have forgotten the key downstairs so actually we live in an age where we have seen phenomenal ascent in human scientific knowledge what to speak of if we compare today’s world with 500 years ago even 50 years ago much of the technology that we have today would have been unimaginable if we had told people 50 years ago that just press some buttons on some small object and you can talk with anyone any part of the world they would have considered fantasy so we have climbed up the skyscraper of scientific knowledge at a phenomenal speed in the last few centuries and especially the last few decades and yet despite having enormous technology and the comfort and ease which it brings to life something seems to be missing actually since all of you are at a height I had a powerpoint here you may not be able to see the details but you might be able to see the broad things that are there over here is this visible to you from there you may be able to read some things I will explain some things also you are not able to read is this better so Martin Luther King has said that our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power we have guided missiles and misguided men so now what is he referring to when he is saying this they can refer to a broad variety of things I will focus on one aspect that ultimately people climb up these 5-10 friends they climb up the skyscraper their purpose is not to entertain themselves their purpose is not just to go to a big height their purpose is to go home get to the room where they are staying and be comfortable there so like that whatever we do in life we ultimately want happiness and we are far more comfortable than we were in the past in terms of facilities gadgets but unfortunately we are comfortably unhappy we are comfortably unhappy that means at a physical level there is a lot of comfort but internally there is unhappiness and this is borne out by various statistics you know the World Health Organisation has said the mental health problems are going to be the biggest problems of the current century and while mental health can have a broad spectrum that it refers to the most tragic among them is suicide according to WHO statistics 1 million people commit suicide every year this figure of 1 million amounts to one suicide every 40 seconds that means since I started this talk around 10 to 15 people have already committed suicide this figure 1 million is actually more than the number of people who are killed in wars in terrorist attacks in murderous crimes all combined together there is one terrorist attack and there is global concern about how to combat terrorism but more than the number of people who are being killed by others are the number of people who are killing themselves so why is it why is it that people are destroying themselves now mental there have always been problems in life throughout history and yet the sheer number of people wanting to end their own lives is historically unprecedented and this is unprecedented not in a positive way it is a tragic way so the the yoga texts which are ancient body of spiritual wisdom from India they explain that we are at our core spiritual beings I will explain what that means a little later but to illustrate what has gone wrong in today’s world they say that as spiritual beings if we live materialistically we are underutilising our potential and that underutilisation not only leads to we not tapping our potential but it backfires so an example to illustrate this suppose somebody has lived in a village where the only vehicle they ever saw was a tractor and tractor is used for ploughing and suppose somehow a friend comes along and gives them a Mercedes Benz and they take the Mercedes Benz and start ploughing a field now if somebody starts ploughing a field with the Mercedes what is going to happen two things the field will get spoiled and the car will get spoiled neither the field will get nor the car will serve any constructive purpose so what the yoga texts say is that our human life is meant to offer us higher unending spiritual happiness just like a Mercedes Benz is meant to take us on a smooth drive across a long distance but when we use the human life primarily for seeking materialistic pleasures then we end up using in a situation similar to a person using a Mercedes for ploughing so when we use human life for materialism two things happen the environment gets spoiled like the field getting spoiled and our own body mind also gets spoiled so now climate change is a serious matter of concern now a days and more and more people are becoming green conscious trying to become green conscious now there are various causes of climate change but certainly the human element is significant and this is acknowledged not just by this is not just pointed out by spiritualists but even sceptics or even atheists for that matter they have pointed it out one of the most prominent biologists E.O. Wilson he is himself atheist he says he did a survey of the interdependence of various species on the planet and he found that every species contributes to the ecology of the planet to the ecological balance in the planet some small or big way if any species becomes extinct that destabilises the ecological balance but curiously enough there is one species if it became extinct there will be no problem for the ecology in fact most ecological problems will be solved if that species became extinct any guesses which species that is yeah we humans now this is embarrassing to say the very least now we humans are often considered to be the pinnacle of evolution to be the most intelligent species among all species now if we have a class and in which you know the particular student is the most brilliant student in the class then we would expect the most brilliant student to make a constructive contribution but if the most brilliant student actually expelling the student from the class would make the class better I think something is wrong here what’s going wrong isn’t it so it’s something like that humans are the most intelligent species and yet it is humans who are harming the ecology more than any other species so why is that what is it that is going wrong just as a Mercedes used for ploughing spoils the field so you got to say that metaphorically that when we humans live we actually in the quest for pleasure we indiscriminately exploit natural resources and this indiscriminate exploitation comes because we have at our core a natural longing for happiness and this comes from our core this longing comes from our core because at our spiritual essence we are actually meant to be happy so because of that we will seek happiness but when we seek happiness by indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources we disrupt the ecological balance similarly when we live materialistically what happens is the body mind the body mind is like the car in this case the body mind also gets damaged much of the suffering in today’s world is actually self induced if we consider addictions in nature also we see there are there are living beings which get trapped by their own actions a fish is caught by a bait or a mouse may get caught in a mouse trap by some cheese but the mice or the fish have excuses their bait looks like food and they don’t know in advance that it’s a trap you know a cigarette doesn’t look like food to anyone isn’t it and who doesn’t know in advance that cigarette smoking is injurious to health and yet millions of people smoke and hurt themselves so the excuses that the fish and the mice have we humans don’t have so there is an old Egyptian saying which is put on the one of the pyramids there were during the reign of the pharaohs there was an epicurean period where some of the rookings were in today’s term we could call them gluttons and they tried to circumvent nature nature we may think oh I want to eat good food fine we can eat good food but nature limits our capacity our stomach has a particular capacity beyond which we can’t eat so they thought they would trick nature so they had their golden or jewel or silver plates in which they would get a feast they would eat it to their hearts content and then after that when the stomach was full they would have another silver bowl in which they would have painless vomiting pills provided by their physicians and they would eat that pill vomit everything out and after vomiting everything out eat again and they did that so desperate trying to get some enjoyment through eating and now it’s not just eating and enjoying it’s not just a matter of how much whether the stomach is empty or not eating means the whole body the alimentary canal has to take in the food and then take out the food, the body cannot sustain that those who tried that for a few for a generation or so they died very young and thereafter they didn’t repeat that experiment so in that connection a saying came up that it said that one fourth of what you eat maintains you the remaining three fourth maintains your physician the remaining three fourth maintains your physician so actually quite often many problems that we get are we need food to eat but over eating causes a wide variety of problems so now here what is happening our suffering again is self induced now of course obesity can sometimes be genetic it can have many complicated factors but there are various factors involved in it but the important thing is that a lot of problems are caused by eating so the underlying point that I am making is when we live materialistically then we damage the environment and we damage our own body and mind and science is basically providing us tools for doing what we want to do so if we have a materialistic vision of life then science will accelerate our journey on the self destructive course so it is with the technological tools that we have developed through science that much of the devastation of the ecology is happening it is through the technological tools that are provided through science I am not blaming science here I am not blaming science at all I am simply making the point that that science is a value neutral tool and whatever conception we have of life whatever definition we have of happiness based on that we will use science so science is actually used to promote through advertisements through technology through advertisements that promote many of the products that hurt us that damage us so here the materialistic definition of life or the materialistic definition of happiness is something which causes the ecology harm and something which causes us our body mind complex also some harm so there is the yoga text describes a better way to live a more fulfilling way to find happiness and that is based on a more complete understanding of who we are so I discussed this earlier at the body and mind level there is depression addiction there is self destruction so the Bhagavad Gita is an ancient yoga text and it offers a three level model of the self just like in a computer system there is a computer there is a hardware there is a software and the user so like that there is the body there is the mind and there is the soul the body is like the hardware the mind is like the software and the soul is like the user now there has to be proper coordination between all these three if I may have the most high tech computer but if the software is corrupted the virus has infected the computer then the hardware becomes useless no matter how good the hardware and I may tinker with the hardware may be replace the monitor, replace the motherboard, replace the battery may spend a lot of money doing that but if the problem is in software changing the hardware will not solve the problem so like that similarly the mind just as in the software there can be viruses which corrupt the software similarly in the mind there can be misleading conceptions there can be misdirected desires there can be negative thought patterns and these become like the virus that corrupt the mind and when the virus is, when the mind is corrupted at that time no matter how good the hardware no matter how good the body no matter how good the physical facilities that we have still we cannot find happiness because the software of the mind is corrupted so technological advancement it focusses on making the hardware better and better making the body providing more and more things for the body and for physical gratification but if the mind is corrupted then nothing can provide us happiness if it’s hot we may sweat because of the heat and if we have air conditioning we won’t sweat but if there is stress inside I will sweat in the air conditioning not because of heat but because of anxiety so the problems of the hardware cannot be problems of software cannot be solved by improving the hardware similarly the corruption at the level of the mind that cannot be solved simply by scientific progress which improves technology which uses better and better technological gadgets so the yogatics explain that spirituality is also a science not a science exactly in the way we understand it but it’s a higher dimensional science is this visible I was trying to draw this just as science has two limbs there is theory and there is experiment at the level of theory we propose maybe Newton saw a fruit falling and why did this fruit fall because maybe there is a theory of gravity a force which causes things to get attracted to each other and then there is experiment which tries to prove or disprove the theory just as in science there is theory and experiment similarly here in spirituality there is philosophy and there is a religion so philosophy is like the theoretical aspect where philosophy uses propositions ok for example the three level model of the self which I just talked about that is a proposition there is a proposition in the philosophy that our existence is physical, mental and spiritual now this is at the level of theory we can’t know for sure whether it is right or wrong the experiment is important so the experiment in the spiritual realm is religion and the word religion has a quite a negative connotation and many people say that I am spiritual but not religious SBNR is the group of people they call themselves that’s because religion is often associated nowadays with narrow mindedness with fanaticism, with intolerance and I will come to that part but what religion in its original purpose is meant to be is a set of practises that give us experience of higher reality that prepare our consciousness to explore and experience higher reality, experience spiritual reality that is what religion is meant to be now there can be misdirect so when spirituality is understood this way as a higher science as a high dimensional science then through philosophy and religion through the integration of these two lens it can bring about inner transformation it can enable us to experience higher happiness but before that this combination is often fragmented so Shila Prabhupada was a great modern day saint he is one of the most prominent commentators on the Bhagavad Gita so he explained the relationship he said if we have philosophy without religion then it is just mental speculation mental speculation means anybody can come and say maybe it is like this maybe it is like that I believe this, I believe that I propose this, I propose that and at the level of abstract philosophy there is no end anybody can prove anything and anybody can try to counter and disprove anything it just becomes a game of argument counter argument and counter counter argument where there is no end to it some people say that ok I am sceptical I don’t believe anything that’s fine, being sceptical is good because if you are sceptical then we won’t be carried away by misleading ideas but scepticism can only tell us what is wrong scepticism will never tell us what is right if I am sceptical, this is not right this is not right, this is not right this is not right, this is not right but then what is right? at some point of time I have to give up my scepticism and I have to move forward only then I will find out what is right so if just abstract philosophy without any practical implementation in things then what the result is? it’s just mental speculation conversely if there is religion without philosophy if there is religion without philosophy then that leads to sentimentalism or fanaticism as it leads to sentimentalism or fanaticism sentimentalism means people just start accept anything and everything they say oh it feels good, I do it but they don’t explore intellectual so it can be sentimental or it can become fanatical fanatical means that my way is the only way if you are not following my way you are going to go to hell and there are some extreme fanatics who say not only are you going to go to hell we will help you get there faster so now fanaticism is a result of a lack of philosophical understanding so when there is understanding of higher intellectual understanding of higher spiritual reality and there is practical application of it then it’s a combination it’s like if I go to a doctor doctor gives a diagnosis and doctor gives a prescription so now if I just get a prescription without a diagnosis I won’t feel very inspired why should I take this? I don’t think anything is wrong with me why should I take this? but if the doctor just gives me a diagnosis and doesn’t give me any prescription what do I do with it? doctor tells me that I have got some disease, now you can go tell me what to do so we need both so the philosophy gives us like the diagnosis and the religion gives us the prescription but now when we go to a doctor at that time the doctor will tell us ok you take this medicine but suppose the patient has gone to 100 doctors and the patient starts saying ok now I went to this doctor and he said that maybe I should take this medicine I went to that doctor and she said like this now this patient just starts repeating 100 opinions like this the doctor says forget it all just take the prescription that I am giving you that will cure you the purpose of this is not to reject all other doctors the purpose of this is simply to create a focus similarly when we are exploring the spiritual path there are many paths to grow spiritually but when we come to a particular path at that time we start keep analysing what about this, what about that we need to get our questions answered but after the questions are answered ultimately the patient needs to take medicine without that the patient will not experience any cure so like that eventually after we get a basic intellectual understanding it has to come to practise that practise is what transforms so now this transformation is that practically incorporating religion in one’s life, does it benefit people so now of course we see today’s world that there is terrorism and there is violence in the name of religion these are very visible and very tragic results of fragmented approach to religion where it becomes fanatical but many researchers have shown this is the Oxford University Press they compiled three researchers Koenig, and Larson, they actually took 2000 published studies from all over the world not only did they do their own studies but they took 2000 studies which had already been done and published in journals all over the world looking at the correlation between religion and health and what did they find they compiled it in a book called Handbook of Religion and Health and they found that people who attended a spiritual programme once a week they lived 7 years longer than their non-believing counterparts so at one level longevity increase it has a correlation with religious belief not only longevity but also the quality of life. Religious youth showed significantly lower levels of alcohol abuse, premature sexual involvement, criminal delinquency and suicidal tendencies than their non-religious counterparts so here earlier we talked about self-destructive behavioural patterns so those were significantly lower and not only among the young even among the elderly elderly people with deep personal religious faith have a stronger sense of well-being and life satisfaction than their less religious peers and overall their conclusion was a high SQ faithfulness to God appears to benefit people of all educational levels and ages so SQ refers to spiritual quotient IQ intellectual quotient EQ emotional quotient, SQ is spiritual quotient so high SQ faithfulness to God means not just a sentimental idea that I believe in God but a intellectually based approach to God it is beneficial so now how does this happen? So I talked about spirituality as a higher dimensional science and then philosophy uses some postulates, religion uses some experiences then I quoted this study which says that religious practises seem to benefit people, so what exactly happens? How does it benefit? Now religious practises are talked about in various traditions in the yoga tradition it is described that it is not just a matter of going to some religious place every week or believing in something, rather yoga is a process of inner exploration, most of the times we associate yoga with certain postures sitting inside the postures for improving the health or for improving the figure which is fine but those postures are the launching pad for raising our consciousness, it is like I come from India where people are mad for cricket in America many people I do not know now, for people cricket refers to an insect not a game so anyway I think a similar game here is baseball so you have a batter you call it batter or batsman? batter so now different batters they stand in different postures when the ball is going to come, some people stand with their legs apart, some people stand with their legs very close to each other, some people may stand with the bat up raise some people may stand with the bat near the ground, now all these postures they have a purpose when the ball comes the person may have a stylish posture but if the ball just zooms by what is the use of the posture? the posture is meant to be able to hit the ball forcefully and effectively when the ball is launched ball comes, so the posture itself is not the end, the posture is meant to launch the ball into a distant trajectory towards the boundary, so similarly yoga offers a certain postures and the postures are meant to launch the consciousness launch the consciousness upwards towards spiritual levels of reality and yoga is also, I talked about philosophy and religion, so using the word religion broadly yoga involves religious practises the practises which give us experience of higher reality, so modern science is experimental experimental in the sense that we can keep the object outside us and we can subject it to experiments but here it is we who want to subject ourselves to the experiment so it is our consciousness that becomes like the laboratory and within that we experience, when we subject ourselves to spiritual stimuli when we undergo spiritual practises we observe, does my consciousness change what happens to me, do I experience peace, do I experience clearing of my consciousness do I become calmer, do I become more joyful, so it is an experiment that is performed in the laboratory of our consciousness and that is why it is experiential it is not experimental and whereas science requires controlled experiments if somebody wants to study the properties of a particular chemical then or they want to study this particular medicine how does it cure people then when they are giving the medicine to the subjects they will make sure that the subject does not take anything else which will either aggravate the disease or cure the disease it is a controlled environment so science focusses on controlled experiments similarly when we practise yoga because it is our own consciousness that is the arena of the experiment so that is not controlled experiment but experiences through self control when we redirect our consciousness spiritually by regulating material indulgence then our consciousness opens to spiritual experience now when our consciousness opens to spiritual experience what exactly happens going back to the earlier example of the software spiritual practises are like the antivirus programme for the mind so basically when we say the mind becomes corrupted what happens the mind gets some wrong definitions of happiness when a person has become an addict of something basically they have associated happiness with some activity which is actually causing them misery the activity which is causing them misery they think it is giving me happiness that is how they got the wrong definition of happiness the spiritual practises give us access to higher happiness and thus the lure of lower pleasures becomes more resistible in that sense it acts as an antivirus programme so when we do meditation just now at the start of this talk what we did was mantra meditation basically it is singing but the purpose is to focus the consciousness on spiritual sound and the essence of meditation is not just again sitting in a particular posture but the essence of meditation is to direct our consciousness from the material to the spiritual so within us often there are conflicts I want to do this, I want to do that I want to do that, I want to do that there are so many desires which are always going on in our mind so for example if we are reading some page on the net now usually almost everywhere on the net if you are reading one page there are often a dozen links nearby and the idea of any website, newspaper, news site or any site that we visit, they want us to read more and more pages so we are reading one page and we see another link click, we go there and we go there and like that often sometimes if we are watching some movies or seeing some pictures sometimes what is supposed to be done for one or two minutes we might end up doing for hours so then we wonder why do I waste so much time so surfing on the net becomes suffering on the net so now imagine that if there were some website which had such technology that if we just glanced at a link that link would open up we don’t even have to click it we are reading something, we glance at the link, immediately that link opens up then we would get lost if I look someone, immediately it pops up immediately it pops up you will get distracted completely our mind is like that kind of browser page say right now for example, say you are sitting and you are hearing, I am sitting and I am speaking so while we are doing all this in our mind there are many other links also ok, what am I supposed to do after I go from here, I have to go and meet that person, but will that person come or not you know, maybe I should send them a message to make sure that they come on time I got a message about 5 minutes ago, I didn’t check it let me check it right now and so many thoughts keep coming and in the mind when one thought comes up it just if you just give it a little attention, it starts growing and in that way we are trying to do one thing but we get distracted by other things often when we plan our schedule, we may decide ok morning I am going to do this, afternoon I am going to do this, evening I am going to do this everyday we have time allotted for various activities often what we miss out is that our time is taken not just by our activities but also by our thoughts also by our thoughts for example, if I come in a class and I see an acquaintance and I greet that acquaintance and that person just snubs me now that snubbing may happen in 10 seconds but in the next whole hour, I am seething with anger imagining revenge fantasies next time how I will snub that person in public view in front of everyone so what happened that one thought it has consumed a full hour and sometimes not just hour, it can take hours upon hours so thoughts take time and if our inner world is disorganised then no matter how much well we plan our outer life our plans will be sabotaged so when there is friction within I want to do this, but this thought is also coming, this desire is also coming that plan is also coming up that idea is also popping up then that inner friction dissipates our energy and we can’t function effectively most of you may have the experience sit in front of a book for one hour and then maybe after one hour some friend comes and says hey you are holding the book upside down we didn’t read anything over there because we are lost in our thoughts so what meditation does is it minimises inner friction and therefore it maximises outer contribution how does it minimise inner friction because when we practise meditation we experience higher reality in the experiencing higher spiritual reality we get peace, we get stability we get calmness and then we are not so shaken by whatever is happening in the world, whether it is anxiety about what may go wrong or whether it is a lure of what pleasure lies ahead just like if I am in a boat if I am if say somebody is in a sea, in the sea then in the sea there are always going to be waves the waves will keep moving the person up and down but if that same person is in a boat and the boat is anchored and the waves will still come but the person will not be shaken so much because the boat is anchored to something much firmer so like that in our life externally pleasures pain, anxieties, dreams all of these will keep coming but if we are spiritually anchored then we will be shaken less by these things we will be able to focus more and by that greater focus we will be able to achieve more so spirituality enhances our ability to tap our ability we all have talents but if we are internally distracted if we are not focused then we cannot optimise our talents we cannot use our talents well most of you probably know people who are talented but they are distracted they don’t have the temperament to compliment their talent so actually talent plus temperament leads to achievement one has to have proper temperament and that temperament can be boosted by spirituality so we are talking about spirituality in the age of science so science can make things better in the external world science can improve things in a significant way spirituality can make people better spirituality can make each of us a better human being a better person whatever avenue we explore in our life if we become spiritual people then we will be able to explore it better we will be able to do better justice to our talents we will be able to make more effective contributions in our life and thus by tapping both these aspects of human knowledge scientific knowledge and spiritual knowledge by tapping both of these we can make the maximum contribution in our life we can do the maximum justice to whatever abilities we have and we can aspire towards fulfilling our dreams. I’ll summarise I started by talking about the topic spirituality in the age of science.
Science has phenomenally progressed akin to this ten friends climbing up a skyscraper but forgetting the key downstairs so like that despite scientific progress somehow the people are not happy people are comfortably unhappy so how is that we discussed how mental health problems are the biggest health challenge and more people are killing themselves than are being killed by others this is both indicators that people are not happy themselves so why is it that despite such inconceivable scientific progress still there is so much unhappiness so the spiritual yoga text explain that this is because we are misdirecting our energies like a Mercedes used for ploughing the Mercedes used for ploughing the field gets spoiled and the car also gets spoiled similarly we human beings are meant to experience spiritual happiness to grow spiritually but when we live only materialistically it’s like using a Mercedes for ploughing so we spoil the environment we discussed E.O. Wilson saying that humans are made extinct there will be no problem on the planet ecological problems will be solved so when we are materialistic conception of life then we indiscriminately exploit the ecology and thereby we harm it and the body mind we are damaging the car body mind are also getting damaged we discussed how much of our human suffering is self induced like addictions especially where where we don’t have to do things but we indulge in things which causes harm and of course we discussed about mental problem before that so this is a Mercedes meant for some higher purpose we human beings are meant for pursuing spiritual growth and finding spiritual happiness and our connection discussed what is what we mean by spiritual so the Gita offers a three level model of the self does anyone remember what is the hardware body the software the mind and the user is the soul so then we discussed how science there is theory and experiment similarly the spirituality there is philosophy and religion so philosophy tells us that our self has this three level model so then religion is not just a set of rituals but it is meant to give us practises that gives experience of spiritual reality and if there is if these two limbs of spirituality philosophy and religion are not brought together philosophy without religion it is just mental speculation now I think like this you think like that and we keep arguing scepticism can tell us what is wrong but it can never tell us what is right so if there is on the other hand only religion without philosophy then that is sentimentalism or fanaticism because then the religion becomes a part of the ego I am great my religion is great and everybody who thinks otherwise they are a threat to me so both of these are because of fragmented approach to spirituality when there is integrated approach to spirituality both philosophy and religion then that brings out inner transformation and spirituality gives us access to higher happiness and this is a experiential science we conduct we experience within the laboratory of our own consciousness through self control and what do we experience we experience peace we experience happiness we experience stability and security within because the spiritual realm is unchanging it is like a boat which is anchored it does not get shaken so much similarly we do not get shaken so much spirituality acts like the antivirus programme which cleanses the mind of the harmful of the negative thought patterns harmful software and this is a software problem cannot be cured by improving the hardware similarly mental problems cannot be solved simply by developing scientific technology and gadgets we need spirituality for that spirituality gives us higher happiness and thereby makes us more capable of resisting self-defeating forms of pleasure and then lastly I discussed meditation maximises outer contribution by minimising inner friction so our time is taken not just by our activities but also by our thoughts the more our thoughts are disorganised the more we cannot be effective and meditation connection spirituality brings organisation in our world and brings focus and thus whatever abilities we have we can tap those abilities more effectively through spirituality thank you very much are there any questions or comments yeah thank you so I can address this a little bit so is it that when we talk about the separation of the body and the soul is it something similar to the nature and nurture argument is it that we are just the way we are by nature or can we change through nurture maybe your soul using that implies that there is a soul is the real driving force in living at the mind the software so often we kind of associate the mind with who we are it kind of makes me wonder if that really is the framework of the soul operations yeah that’s true see when we identify with the mind then we get swayed very easily because the mind is basically when we identify with the body and that which is outside the body we think that is outside that which is inside I think that is me but everything inside me is not me because many times we will see that we do something and afterwards why did I do that why did I do that sometimes we get angry with someone and just blast out at that person and suppose that person records what we speak and then after that when we become calm and they go and ask this is what you spoke really I spoke that how could I have spoken that it’s almost like some ghost entered into this we feel like that so what happens is that there are thoughts desires in the mind but the mind is not who we are we are different from the mind so we need to identify the mind not identify with the mind we need to identify the mind means what that for example say I am studying and suddenly thought comes this is so difficult you are so dumb you will never do this you will never be able to study you are going to fail your exams now instead of getting discouraged I can identify this is pessimistic this is negative thinking I don’t have to think like this so when I identify with it then I become depressed by it but instead of identifying with it if I identify it so then I can distance myself this thinking is like this but I have studied I have achieved till now whatever I have achieved and if I study more I can achieve so what we need to do is whatever is inside us if we uncritically identify with that then we we sabotage ourselves and especially when we start practising the process of meditation quite often when we try to meditate it is not that we can easily focus but when the mind gets distracted at that time we become aware that actually I want to meditate but there is something inside me which is going elsewhere that means whatever is there inside me that is not me so that realisation comes through meditation and when that realisation comes then we become more alert to evaluating whatever thoughts pop up inside us I will give a simple example to illustrate this there are advertising agents say who say you know why don’t you take this cell phone, why don’t you take this gadget why don’t you buy this new dress, new clothes why don’t you buy this car, whatever it is now suppose we have decided I am not going to fall for this advertising agency if I need something I will myself go and purchase it as if somebody comes and markets something to me I am not going to take it now just because I decide to stop purchasing doesn’t mean that the advertiser will stop advertising the advertisers are going to advertise still and I have to consistently say no to them, I have to keep saying no to them so just as there are external advertisers we could consider the mind to be like an internal advertiser so whatever we have enjoyed in the past or whatever we have habituated ourselves to in the past is not even enjoyed because usually what happens when we do something new we enjoy initially but afterwards it just becomes a habit we don’t even enjoy it much but we still keep doing it again and again so whatever we are habituated to the mind starts promoting it, hey why don’t you do that why don’t you go and eat something, why don’t you go and drink something, why don’t you go and watch a movie, why don’t you go here, why don’t you go there so when that comes up, that desire comes up it’s basically just like an external advertiser telling why don’t you purchase this the mind is saying why don’t you buy this why don’t you take this, why don’t you do this so if we are alert then we can resist that so essentially the process of meditation helps us to understand the difference between the mind between the mind and me and that is extremely important without understanding that difference between the mind and me usually we end up doing two things whenever some emotion comes up within us we either express it or we repress it now neither of them is always very healthy, if I’m angry if I express it I might I might hurt other people because I may speak and do things in that rage that may not be just very harsh at the same time if I repress the anger it is going to choke me from within so we need to go beyond expressing emotions and repressing emotions to processing emotions and that processing of emotions can be done when we are able to distance ourselves from those emotions so that is what we can do when we start becoming spiritual because we can understand this emotion is coming within me it is not that I have to reject the emotion nor do I have to accept the emotion I can evaluate okay I become angry why did I become angry yeah because they did this but you know did they do that because of some bad intention or was there some misunderstanding you process the emotions and then you can respond much more mature that’s why understanding that we are different from the mind is vital for our success in life for our progress and success in life is that your point thank you any other points any other questions okay good question so are all types of meditation equally beneficial the often meditation is equated with deep thinking and that is fine it can be any kind of deep thought can be called as meditation but words have general meanings and they also have specific meanings for example if a scientist is doing some research and then they are charged some battery and the battery runs out of power I have run out of energy and after long days work the scientist comes back home and they tell their family member I have run out of energy the word energy is the same but they use in two different context when the laboratory it is used in specific context of the particular device and the energy it has here it is used generically in terms of I am tired so like that in a generic sense any kind of deep thought can be used to refer to meditation can be called as meditation but in a specific when we come to spiritual circles meditation refers to the not just deep thinking but thinking about spiritual reality so only when our thoughts rise from the material level to the spiritual level then actually we are meditating so now for this meditation there can be various starting points so for example some people may meditate on their breath and try to slow down their breath that itself will calm us down some people may focus on a candle, some people may focus on a light, some people may just look at nature and all these can help us to calm down and that is so we can say we are meditating but that is meditation in the sense of deep thought, it is not meditation in the sense of spiritual thinking for spiritual thinking we need a spiritual stimulus so a spiritual stimulus can come from various sources and mantra when we do mantra meditation the mantra is actually not just ordinary sound it is spiritual power encased in sound so it is spiritual power encased in sound, so when we focus on the sound of mantras then we are not just calming our mind so that we can focus on spiritual reality rather spiritual reality is becoming accessible to us and when you talk about mantras this mantra for example we chanted the Hare Krishna mantra earlier this is also a form of addressing the supreme consciousness see we are finite consciousness and then there is infinite consciousness so when we address the infinite consciousness that infinite consciousness reciprocates and helps us in elevating ourselves so just like if say I have to go to a top of a 10 story building I can go by the staircase by my own effort but if there is electric power I just enter into an elevator the elevator will help me rise up elevator is the electric power that is there, it is a power outside me different from me that will help me rise up so normally when we meditate on different objects in this world they can all prompt us towards spiritual thinking but that is like climbing up a staircase where we depend primarily on our effort to elevate ourselves whereas when we focus on spiritual sound when we focus on the sound of mantras then those mantras are like elevators of consciousness just we focus on the mantra and by focussing on the mantra it is like entering the elevator and the elevator rises upwards so we will find the spiritualization of consciousness happening much faster through mantra meditation than through other forms of meditation does it answer your question? any other questions? okay where is the soul? yeah, thank you the soul is non-material so it does not it is not restricted in a physical sense to any particular location the soul is basically a spark of consciousness if I have a spark, from the spark light radiates outwards and then it illumines so like that the soul is a spark of consciousness and that spark radiates consciousness all over the body so it is because of the presence of the soul that we are conscious now this chair is made of ultimately the same material same atoms and molecules that my body is made up of, when it is not conscious I am conscious, it is because the soul is present and in yoga there is a description of different kinds of airs in the body we talk about oxygen, that is the air that we breathe in, but yoga has a different model of the body where it is described that that air inside the body itself is classified in different ways and different forms of air perform different functions so for example there is air which we use for breathing, then we have peristalsis when we digest food, there is an air required for that, when we swing round and round we get vertigo there is an air which maintains equilibrium and when we move round and round that air gets disbalanced, that is why we feel like falling so the point is that these five airs, there are five kinds of airs and these five airs act on the in the body in different ways so in physics you know there are vectors directed forces so these five airs are like vectors and they direct the energy like the flow of air in different directions so the result, the soul exists in the body at the point where the resultant of these five vectors is zero and usually that point lies in the region of the heart so the soul doesn’t reside in the heart soul resides in the region of the heart at the point where the resultant of the vector of the five airs that comes to neutral did you answer it? any other questions? yeah please have you heard about various concepts like no self and no self yeah so what about the Buddhist concept or the no self see Anattavada as it is called now I have to understand this historically first of all Buddhism evolved in India about 2500 years ago primarily as a response to casteist oppression in the prevailing religion at that time and if we saw if we look at Buddha’s life what he essentially taught and what he essentially propagated in terms of conduct and practise it is in many ways similar to what was present earlier we should explore life’s spiritual dimension and we should focus on proper nobler living so now at that time he he rejected the conventional sources of knowledge the yoga text that were there at that time various text that were there at that time they had been misunderstood and misrepresented for perpetuating the caste system the original Vedic original idea in yoga text is that we all have different natures and what is called as caste system now was actually originally based on nature so different people have different natures and they are given occupation according to their natures it was not meant to be birth, it was not meant to be discrimination it was meant for cooperation but anyway the point here is that yoga that because those text were misunderstood, misrepresented and when Buddha gave some teaching of egalitarianism of enquiry, of exploration which was based on based on using human intelligence so the existing orthodoxy of that time said that where is this told in the in the Vedas, in the yoga text so he said if they are, if these text are going to teach something discriminatory then reject those text now if I decide to study physics without any physics textbooks I cannot study physics I need physics textbooks to study physics similarly to know spirituality we need spiritual books but if Buddha rejected all spiritual books then what happened then how to talk about spirituality so he basically adopted largely agnostic attitude towards spirituality so there is a story you know some people came and asked are you god he remained silent are you a saint he remained silent, are you an angel he remained silent what are you I am awake so he gave an answer which was true but we did not address the specific question so basically he remained silent about the spiritual side, he said basically focus on ethical practise, by that the consciousness will develop and eventually spiritual understanding will dawn so he did not, he was silent largely about the soul but subsequent generation of Buddhist thinkers they wanted they wanted theological autonomy from the parent Hindu tradition and that is how the idea of Anattavada, so Buddha was silent, Buddha did not say that there is no soul Buddha was just silent about the idea of a soul but subsequent thinkers say that he attributed to him the idea that he said there is no soul and that becomes a source of perplexity even for Buddhist thinkers because Buddhism accepts reincarnation but it does not accept a soul so then the question comes up, what is it that is reincarnating we have consciousness and somebody else there are past life memories that people remember I was so and so person, I read so and so some of them have very accurate memories also so there is something which is going from this life to that life if there is no soul then what is it that is going so rather than seeing Anattavada as a absolute truth what we could see it as a contextual historical development in response to a particular situation so Buddha himself was open to philosophical understanding and enquiry so actually if we explore spirituality we turn inwards and explore, we can understand that there is a core to our being which is non material I will just tell how even science points to this that Dr.Welder Penfield was a Nobel laureate pioneer of neurosurgery he wrote a book called many books but he wrote one of his prominent books is The Mystery of the Mind in which he reported results of almost 40 years of experimentation done in trying to understand the self so now researchers know that certain areas of the brain are connected with certain bodily functions so say the frontal area of the brain is connected with motor nervous system so for example if a particular front part of the brain is activated say the hand rises so he had a subject and he told the subject raise your hand subject raised the hand and he saw that that part of the brain was activated put your hand down that part of the brain was deactivated then after that he used external probes electrodes to activate that part of the brain and the hand went up what happened? he asked the subject what happened? he said my hand went up did you raise your hand? no I didn’t you did then afterwards he deactivated my hand fell down what happened? did you put your hand down? no I didn’t, you did so now while repeating this experiment by which the hand goes up and hand goes down Penfield also activated other parts of the brain now no matter whichever part of the brain he activated no part of the brain ever gave the person the feeling that I am raising my hand different parts of the brain when activated did different things some memories got stimulated some other reactions came in the body but nowhere did the person feel that I am doing this when a particular part of the brain was activated so to understand the implications of this experiment consider there is a computer and there is a printer attached to it I press the print button and then the printer hand starts moving it’s my computer I can press the print button and the printer hand will move but suppose you come there and you press the print button then also the printer hand will move so now the print there is a connection between the print button and the print hand similarly there is a connection between the frontal lobe of the brain and the motion of the hand now in the second case it is Dr. Penfield who came and pressed the print button because he activated that part of the brain in the first case who activated it who activated it in the first case that there is certainly some person who is activating who says I raised my hand and then later is saying I did not raise my hand so after 40 years of brain researching the brain Dr. Penfield concluded that the source of consciousness is extra cerebral it’s extra cerebral so that source of consciousness which exists outside the body outside the brain that is the soul there has to be a locus of consciousness from which consciousness is being transmitted so Anattavada as I said is more of a historical response rather than a timeless truth does this answer your question? thank you any other questions? thank you very much for your attention