Express YourSelf !

So I was at Vishalakshi Mantap, Art of Living International Centre, Bangalore on 1st May along with my friends. The topic was “Science and Spirituality”. Dr. Duerr is 80+ years old. He was 'decorated' with Indian traditional dress of Kurta Paijama. He warned us that we may not understand most of the thing and he kept us engaged to his talk with his sense of humor. He started with : We are still living 19th century midset about technology and shaping 21st century.

He shared his experience that many people use cellphone, but they are not aware, how it works! Some elctromagnetic waves travels in ether. But ether does not exist! Nothingness exist. Matter and material science is his favorite subject. He spent almost 50 years to do research on this topic and concluded that matter does not exist !!!. The conclusion is not because his failure attempt, but it is truth. Yes, on 18th Jan 2009, we had similar discussion with Guruji. Guruji confirmed “Aisa hi hai” (It is like that only) Here nothing exist. We can touch, we can feel the matter, but actually it does not exist! He suggested to refer Lotus-sutra and Heart-Sutra by Buddhism. Watch this video for details.

Dr. Duerr, being scientist evaluate, judge, measure repetitively before conclude something. We normal people, assume and guess. However, he confessed that after all these efforts, he gained some knowledge and reached to our (audience’s) level. What a humbleness!

The science and scientist are not different. The creator and its creation are inseperable. The observer and object are not different. The object and subject both are one only. The science break that oneness. So an object study a subject! They are same. Life scientist has nothing do with life. If nothing exist then “What is this?” question becomes irrelevant. We need to think in different way. In fact, we experience much more than what we can grasp. He quoted some two fundamental lows about likely and unlikely events, that seems to me similar to Murphy’s law. With few diagrams he explains that faith, wisdom etc belong to one circle. Logic, analysis, science and reasoning is connecting one, the middle circle and the end result is the scientific knowledge and theory, the third circle. Thus, the science only helps us to derive the knowledge from the eternal wisdom.

He showed those famous photographs about illusions ‘an old lady and young girl’ in a same picture. Everyone has its own world. We believe that reality is world. In fact world is not reality it is potentiality. From that potentiality, the energy and matter manifest. We do not look any scene as just with eyes and brain. Our mind puts its own color to it. It is like software. Software is ultimately 0s and 1s only. Still all softwares looks different. So since childhood if we learnt this is photo of an old lady, we tell the same to next generation. Thus, customs are built.

He nicely explain the limitation of science with example of fisherman and its net. He also discussed about the trees, which converts Carbon Dioxide to Oxygen. It cost trillions of dollars, to mankind, while the nature is doing it free of cost for us. So do not believe scintist and economist. As they are limited by what they can observe and measure. (Once Guruji told, what we can measure is MAAYAA = illusion....something like that.) He made the session interactive with thought provoking questions like, what is the color of circle? The color and thickness of circle depends on the pen that one uses. The circle has no color, no thickness. As I understood, he was trying to explain that different religions are like color and thickness but the ultimate truth is like circle.

The recent Tamil movie “Dasavatharam” has dialogue about butterfly effect. If a butterfly flaps its wing then it can bring typhoon at Amazon forest. He explained the logic. The whole system is such an unstable state that somehow if one water molecule got momentum then it impact many other similar molecules in atmosphere and it causes the typhoon.

He continued further that, If a pen standing upside down, then it can fall to any direction even by slightest force. Which direction it will fall? It has highest point of instability. He reminded us the Newton’s law of gravitational force. It exist between all pairs of two objects in this universe. So all remaining objects will try to attract the pen, including himself, the audience and some car passing by. The pen will be as much sensitive as it is at the center. Yes the contentedness brings so much sensitivity in us also, for rest of the world. You are present here also and at the same time in this 17 billion light years big universe as well. (I guess, this is enlightenment. You may like to refer my article about ‘Concave Mirror’, with similar logic. ) So one should not be scared of highest point of instability. That is life.

He explained nicely some science concept with example of pendulum and series of several pendulum. The imbalance to balance is life. There is difference between living and non-living. He also showed some pictures about atom structures. The matter is nothing but energy waves.

The three has magic property to remain imbalance. Guruji had already informed us, that he will tell this statement. And Guruji also added to it, that probably that is the reason that we have 3 DOSHAs (distortions) (VAAT, PITT and KAPH) and 3 GUNAs (Qualities) (Satva, Rajas and Tamas). Dr. Duerr ended, "Our both legs are different, and we canno remain stable on one leg. However when we walk, both legs give us stability dynamically. Same way, in this world everybody are important and we should respect the diversity and get cooperation from different individuals."

Yes, I was not fully comfortable with his German English pronunciations. We noticed that the speaker was so involved in the talk, that sometimes, he faced difficulty to recollect the words, to convey his message. Whatever I could hear, listen to and understand, it was excellent. I lost myself in his speech. After a long time, I attended such a nice speech. I experienced that yes, science and spirituality/religion are really meeting at one place. Whatever (1) a devotee can gain with faith, (2) a Vedanti person can get knowledge of Advaita the same knowledge (3) a scientist gain with his research.

You can also read an article about this event at "Masti Ki Aag" posted by Abhay. Abhay is also fllower of this blog. One more blog "My Experience with Life" by Vinod: Part 1 and Part 2

Here, it is my humble effort to share my notes, as what I remember. Many points are not verbatim. Please correct me, add/modify this content, if you have also attended this session. It brought me back to my school days, when I learnt quantum physics from Bhabha sir at Mithapur high School. It also reminds me the movie “What the bleep do we know?”

Comments are welcome. Always.

P.S. Have you noticed, I added a list of upcoming articles at right hand side bar of this blog?