Exploring the Scientist in Us

Today, 10 September 2008, is going to be major day in the history of planet Earth for Science. At about 12.30 pm (IST), the historic 'Big Bang' experiment is going to be conducted at Geneva based CERN lab in a 27 km deep tunnel beneat the French-Swiss border. CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) is the advanced lab in the world for nuclear physics which boasts of having the fastest and longest particle accelerator where matter smaller than protons and neutrons are made to collide with each other at speeds equal to light (the fastes possible speed that can be achieved).

What is the purpose of this experiment and why is it so special that the whole scientific community is talking about it? Because, top nuclear physicists for 80 countries all around the world have joined hands together to find out what actually happened after the Big Bang (the collision that happened billions of years ago, which is believed to have created the Universe as we see it today). The scientific community spent billions of dollars (6.4 billion euros more specifically) to develop the equipment required for the experiement today.

What they are going to do today is to simulate exactly the same thing (in a controlled manner) that happened billions of years ago. They want to find out what are the matter and energies that are generated in this process that eventually resulted in the Universe today. This experiment is going to last for years as atleast 100000 DVDs of results will be generated every year and scientists have to wait for atleast 5 to 10 years to see anything significant. It is believed that if this experiement fails, the scientific community has to change its understanding of matter and energy completely.

Why am I talking about all this? What I am going to say now is an objective understanding of science and intellect as I see it. This experiment shows that people around the world, top-notch scientists from different corners of the world are still trying to find the very basis of existence. They are experimenting now to find why and how this Universe came to into existence. The theories about matter and energy, which have been published in hundreds and thousands of books, which we intellectuals believe is the truth and nothing else is true, is still questionable.

Top scientists agree that science has its limitations and that they are expanding the reach of science into the unknown realms. The irony is that the 'unknown realms' are basic, fundamental questions of existence - how did the Universe start, who are we, what is mind etc. etc. If we see the basic research which gets published in top scientific journals is all about theories and hypothesis about these basic questions.

The problem is those of us who believe science is the Ultimate are fooling ourselves because the top scientists themselves are still questioning it. Most of the top scientists, if not all, atleast agree the limitation of science because they truly know about science. They are searching newer possiblities in their own way through science. But we, sitting in our house or office, only think we know everything about science and use that as a excuse not to extend ourselves to newer possibilities.

To us who can't be at CERN or any such lab, enlightened Masters have created various laboratories and experiments. Ashrams or monastaries are the laboratories; meditation techniques are the experiments. Let us not close the door to possibilities which are in our reach to seek the truth of our very existence. These laboratories and techniques are available to each one of us, a youtube click away, as Paramahamsa Nithyananda says :) Scientists are doing their bit to answer the same questions which have been answered by enlightened masters thousands of years ago. The Advaithic literature is pure science and this has been attested by Einstein, one of the greatest scientists the world has ever seen. He says, 'where science ends, spirituality begins.'

Nithyananda says, 'science eventually will tend to the great truths expounded by enlightened masters.' We can be the same scientists as those at CERN. They are daring enough to go behind what they have in hand. Let us also have to courage to experiment and see the truth for ourselves, especially when Masters are delivering the experiments at our doorsteps.

(More on CERN experiment: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/359517.html)

Blissful Morning

Anywhere in the world, the first thing that comes on TV in the morning is news. The newspaper boy comes and delivers it early in the morning. Infact in many countries, some kind of abridged version of the newspaper is given free to people in public transport like buses and subways.

That is the first thing that we generally do.. get ourselves updated with news from around the world. And that is the reason why so many channels, whether they are news channels or entertainment channels, show news only during the morning time slots.

Now coming to the contents of what we receive during the morning hours... war in some country.. so many people killed.. petrol prices rising.. inflation rates rising.. economy slowing.. more unemployment.. so and so defeated someone to get rank 1.. etc. etc.

If we carefully analyze the news, most news if not all, continuously adds to our negative feelings. If there is an act of terrorism somewhere, we start feeling hatred to that group. If someone defeats someone else, we get angry about the defeat. If inflation rate, property prices, petrol prices are rising, there is an immediate sense of sadness, fear or anger in us. Whether or not our feeling like that affects the concerned party, I don't know but one thing is for certain - we are continuously feeding ourselves with negativities.

Let me tell you something really scientific. It has been proven scientifically that there is continuous electrical activity that happens in our brain and different kinds of brain waves are generated. Of particular interest are alpha and beta waves. Beta waves are generated when we are in a state of stress, tension or in more general terms when we are in a state of continuous activity. Alpha waves demonstrate the creativity aspect of ourselves. Our ability to learn and grasp things is affected by these waves. These are the soothing waves. They bring deep peace and calmness in us. The brain wave patterns of children shows alpha waves mainly and for adults, it is beta waves. That is the reason why children are more creative and pick up creative things like music, painting, arts, languages etc. faster than adults.

Now here is the most important point - in adults, the brain wave patterns are predominantly alpha waves during morning time. It simply means that in the morning, our natural tendency is to be calm and blissful. But what do we do? We continuously feed ourselves with junk.

This precisely the reason why in Vedic culture the morning starts with a chants called Suprabhaatam. In all temples in India, the first thing that they play are these chants. As discussed in our previous post on chants, the sounds that are generated while reciting chants have tremendous effects on us. In India, especially in villages, we see temples playing these chants on loudspeakers. This is done so that early in the morning when we wake up, at least for a few minutes we can experience the deep inner peace and silence. Same goes with why simple rituals and prayers or puja are done early in the morning. All these are tools for us to enter into a deep silence and experience that bliss.

Only now science is studying the brain wave patterns. The importance of 'Brahmi muhurtam' or morning time is very well researched and described in Vedic scriptures thousands of years ago by enlightened masters and there was lifestyle that evolved on these concepts. In many parts of India, especially in villages, people still follow them and live blissfully with whatever they have.

We so called 'modern' people have the tendency to ridicule ancient practices such as this, calling them baseless, illogical and unscientific. We boast of our sophisticated city lifestyle but all this lifestyle is doing is to keep us continuously in a state of tension, stress and surround us with negativities.

Paramahamsa Nithyananda describes how beautifully people live in Indian villages and describes Vedic lifestyle as way to infuse life into everything we do. There is a beautiful meditation Swamiji asks us to do early in the morning. As soon as you get up, touch every part of the part, from head to toe and express love and gratitude to each and every part. Touch and tell each part - thank you and I love you. You will simply see how your body reacts especially when we do it early in the morning.

So, enjoy the blissful morning sun with peace and calmness...

Vedic Chants... Useless? Think Again.

For most so-called modern people, especially youth, when we are told the word, "chants", thats it. We immediately call it religious and useless. We dismiss the chants instantly. We do not even want to listen to them. We feel our so-called modern image does not go well with the chants. Ironically, this syndrome is seen more in Indians.

To those of us who reject chants in the name of religion or tradition, a simple question, 'have we ever wondered why so many Sanskrit chants were written in the first place? Why were they written in a particular way? Why do they sound in a particular way? Why one comes after the other? What is their significance?'
No! we do not even want to think about these questions, simply because we want to be modern, we want to be non-religious, we want to be scientific. Let me tell you, the sounds of these chants, the structure of these chants are more scientific than modern day quantum physics. Modern day scientists are currently working on the power of these chants, the effects of these chants on human mind-body system.

The people, who designed and wrote these chants, developed them in high states of consciousness. The mere sounds of these chants create vibrations, which have healing and cleansing properties; there are enough scientific evidences to prove this. Many emotional disorders and depression can be healed by the vibrations of these chants. Lifestyle diseases like diabetics, blood pressure, ulcers etc. are being tackled with these vibrations. Experiments have shown that plants that grow better amidst chants. If all this is not modern then I doubt what is?

Paramahamsa Nithyananda says, 'Every language tires us when we speak in that language. Sanskrit is the only language which creates sounds, which creates vibrations that energizes us when we speak it. Sanskrit language is not just linguistic which was created for the sake of transmitting an idea or concept. It has phonetic importance also. The very vibrations that are generated have power on you. And being in the sound of the Vedic chants is an easy way to experience the power these vibrations.'

And we reject them just because our fast paced modern lifestyle does not think them to be cool enough for us. We are ready to listen to music in Arabic or Spanish or Chinese, languages which we don't even understand. Even worse we listen to songs with heavy music, songs where we can't even make out whether it is a music or noise, sounds which create terrible effects in our system but we cannot sit down and listen few minutes of Sanskrit chants. Simply because these chants are not modern enough; we think they are not scientific enough.

Just being in the vibrations generated by the chants can do wonders in our system. The only thing that is stopping us modern people from even trying this is our mind and ego. Drop that mind, drop our so called modern image for a few minutes, so that we can allow these sounds to work on us. Let me leave you with a beautiful video on this topic in our Master's own words.