Tattva-viveka
Congratulations Vivek
Nitaisundara Das - November 22, 2007 10:24 pm
Vivek placed first out of 60 submitted essays!! Great job. Below is the letter he received letting him know his placement, followed by the essay he wrote.
And the essay:Dear Vivek:
Congratulations! The judges have adjudged you the First Prize Winner of the All India Students' Essay Competition having the topic: India should focus on a Balanced Growth of Scientific Temper and Spiritual Wisdom . You will be glad to know that more than 60 essays were received and a 7-judge panel objectively evaluated all the essays. We appreciate your thoughts, ideas and suggestions to make India materially and spiritually developed.
The first three prize winners will get prizes during the 3 rd All India Students' Conference on Science and Spiritual Quest to be held at Tirupati during 22-23 December 2007 and in about 15 minutes time, in an effective manner you have to convey your thoughts and ideas to an audience of about 1400 that why India should focus on a Balanced Growth of Scientific Temper and Spiritual Wisdom. You should prepare some 15 impressive slides with some visuals to make your presentation an effective one. You have to do a good job and I am sure, you will.
To make your presentation effective, we would like to assist you. Please start preparations now. You first make 15 slides assuming that you are directly going to present before the highly qualified participants. You send me the ppt file. My team will review your slides and give you comments. We may do 2-3 revisions. Then when you come to Tirupati, we will have one or two mock presentations, before you go for the actual presentation on 22 December. All these assistances, we want to extend only to make your presentation more effective.
Plan to reach Tirupati on 20 December. Send us your itinerary. Delhi to Tirupati and back, we will reimburse AC-III train fare. We will provide a nice accommodation in Tirupati.
Once again, many thanks from our entire team. We have to go a long to see spiritually and materially developed India. Let us work together.
With best wishes,
I am yours,
Prof. Subhash C. Mishra
Chairman, AISSQ-2007
India should focus on a Balanced Growth of Scientific Temper and Spiritual Wisdom
Vivek Kaul
PhD Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA-30318
Abstract
This essay embarks on the belief that science and spiritual wisdom must go together to achieve real, substantial harmony in the world. Development of science in the west is traced from its ancient Greek roots. Lot of parellels are drawn between science and spirituality, with particular attention given to ancient Indian wisdom. Finally the need for synthesis between science and Indian spiritual wisdom is emphasized which will in turn help plural cultural traditions live together and combine different human endeavours into a new kind of balance between thought and deed, and between activity and meditation
Keywords: religios; theory of relativity; Uncertainity principle;
Vedanta; Bhagavad Gita; Gödel’s theorem
# Corresponding author: Vivek Kaul gtg819r@mail.gatech.edu
1. Introduction
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind”– these are the famous words of one of the greatest scientists of all time, Albert Einstein. In today’s modern world the relevance of this quote cannot be underestimated especially when we see the strife and tension the whole planet has been facing for decades now. On one hand, the great strides made in science have led to a comprehensive understanding of the laws governing nature and the universe. The increasing advances of technology,especially in communication and healthcare, have provided us beautiful, sophisticated gadgets to make our lives easier; and great surgical procedures and medicines to cure and treat innumerable diseases and debilating conditions. In spite of all this, we see that there is an existential crisis in society today because of the lack of purpose or direction in human lives today. Here is where religion or spirituality enters the picture.
Although the modern connotation of the world religion is largely negative due to the behaviour exhibited by extremist elements in organised religion, the original meaning of the word is pretty close to spirituality. Religion comes from the Greek word “religios”: meaning to bind back or connect to the source. It is very similar to the Sanskrit word “yoga”, which essentially means the same thing. I will be using the term with this meaning throughout the essay. According to the wisdom of both eastern and western spiritual traditions, our purpose in life is to move in harmony with the will of the Absolute. We all feel that it is indeed very reasonable and important to ask ourselves how we should try to conduct our lives. Achieving perfection in our relationship with the Absolute and its entire creation is the highest ideal our life can be based on. This presupposes a good deal of conscious thought and self-education. It is undeniable that the enlightened Greeks and the Indian sages had achieved a higher level in this all-important field than what is alive in our schools and universities. If ancient spiritual wisdom is the thesis, then modern science devoid of any influence of spirituality is its antithesis; and we hope to achieve a synthesis, in Hegelian terms, of the two supposedly irreconcilable and conflicting elements of science and spirituality. That will pave the way for great human progress and build a future which all generations to come will cherish. Any development in this endeavour will benefit all, breaking the barriers of nationality, because of the globally connectivity and interdependence of the modern world.
In this essay, I will try to address the issue of bringing the opposing elements of science and spirituality together. Firstly, I give a brief history of science and its development in the west, until now. I then proceed to talk about ancient Indian wisdom and its influence on great thinkers of the west. Finally, I discuss the similarities between the fields of science and religion, and the way in which they can help each other to make a coordinated effort to achieve global contentment and fulfillment amongst people.
2. March of Science in the West
Though science has been pursued in many places in the East and in the Islamic world, but the recent developments in science have largely been in the west. Therefore, I try to trace out the history of this development which will help us understand science with a better perspective.
a) Classical era
In the west, Greeks were certainly the first to see the world as
a question to be answered[1]. They were peculiarly gripped by the passion to understand, to penetrate the uncertain flux of phenomena and grasp a deeper truth; they established a dynamic tradition of critical thought to pursue that quest. With the birth of that tradition and that quest came the birth of the western mind. All the thoughts of the Greek era ultimately culminated in the dual legacy of Plato and Aristotle. In Plato and Aristotle we find a certain elegant balance and tension between spiritual intuition and empirical analysis which will always confound the western mind later. In two centuries following Plato the minds of the philosophers were directed towards the human soul and its relation to God, to the problem of ethics, and to the interpretation of the revelation, but not much to the study of the outer world. This influence of Plato was more evident until the time of the Italian Renaissance when the interest in studying nature was revived. This was in the spirit of Aristotle who thought that world has an order that can be comprehended by the human intellect which he believed was divine. Due to the scientific developments like those initiated by Galileo and Copernicus and philosophical systems developed by people like Descartes, there was an increasing consensus that religion can be kept apart from understanding of nature. The Cartesian division between the domain of religion and science was achieved and this was thought to be the best way of allowing both fields to work well. Ingenious work was carried out by Newton, and then following his lead by many distinguished personalities like Faraday and Maxwell which further clarified workings in nature.
Scientific Determinism
The march of science during the 19th century produced enormous confidence in its success and generality. One field after another fell before the objective inquiry, experimental approach, and the logic of science. Scientific laws appeared to take on an absolute quality, and it was very easy to be convinced that science in time would explain everything. In this time people like Laplace believed that once the position and momentum of a particle could be measured well, all the future events can be predicted exactly. In life sciences, Darwin theory of evolution expressed to some degree that the development of human species can be explained completely by the evolution of matter. Hence, scientific reductionism and determinism dominated intellectual thought in the west. This was the time when devout Louis Pasteur, asked how he as a scientist could be religious, simply replied that his laboratory was one realm, and his home and religion another. Towards the end of the 19th century, many physical scientists viewed their work as complete and needing only some extension and more detailed refinement. But soon after, deep problems surfaced. The world seems unaware of how deep these problems really were, and of the extent to which some of the most fundamental scientific ideas have been overturned by them. Perhaps this unawareness is because science has been vigorous in changing itself and continuing to press, and has also diverted attention by ever more successes in solving practical problems of life with increasingly sophisticated gadgetry and tools of medicine.
c) Modern Era
Two important theories changed the scientific understanding in the 20th century: theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. The theory of relativity, founded by Albert Einstein, has deeply changed our views on the structure of space and time. The structure of space and time which had been defined by Newton as the basis of his mathematical description of nature was simple and consistent and corresponded very closely to the concepts space and time in daily life. This correspondence was in fact so close that Newton’s definitions could be considered as the precise mathematical formulations of these common concepts. Before the theory of relativity it seemed so obvious that events could be ordered in time, independent of their location in space. We know now that this impression is created in daily life by the fact that velocity of light is so very much higher than any other velocity occurring in practical experience. And even if we know the restriction now we can scarcely imagine that the time order of events should depend on their location. The philosophy of Kant had drawn attention to the fact that concepts of space and time belong to our relation to nature, and we could not describe nature without using these concepts. Consequently, these concepts are ‘a priori’ in some sense, they are the condition for and not primarily the result of experience, and it was generally believed that they could not be touched by experience. Therefore, the necessity of change appeared as a big surprise. It was the first time scientists learned to be cautious in applying concepts of daily life to the refined experience of modern science. This warning later proved extremely useful in the development of modern physics, and it would certainly have been still more difficult to understand quantum theory had not the success of the theory of relativity warned the physicists against the uncritical use of concepts taken from daily life and deterministic classical physics.
Another important challenge came on the question of light being a particle or a wave. According to classical physics, which was based on experiments performed at that time, light was unequivocally a wave, not a particle. But by about 1900, other experiments showed just as unequivocally that light is a stream of particles rather than waves. This solution of this paradox took several decades, was accomplished with the new set of ideas known as quantum mechanics. Physicists, today believe that light is not precisely a particle, nor a wave. It can display both properties. For that matter, everything has both properties. We do not ordinarily observe this duality in large objects as they do not show the wave characteristics prominently. Another strange aspect of quantum mechanics is called uncertainty principle, formulated by Werner Heisenberg. This principle shows that if we try to say exactly where the particle is, we cannot say how fast it is going at the same time and vice versa. And so according to this theory, Laplace was wrong from the beginning. The modern laws of science seem to have turned our thinking from a world of complete determinism to a world where chance plays a role, at least on the atomic level. Here chance obviously refers to the fact things cannot be predicted exactly by mechanistic laws of scientific determinism. So, chance here is not spoken in an atheistic point of view where everything is random and arbitrary interaction of chemical elements. Scientists have become much more cautious and modest about extending scientific ideas into realms where they have not been tested.
Scientific laws are often very successful in telling us new things or in predicting things we have not yet directly observed. And yet we should be aware that these extensions can be wrong in different realms and we need to be careful about it. We know today that most sophisticated theories, including modern quantum mechanics, are still incomplete. We use them in certain areas and they work out well. But at times we run into inconsistencies which we do not understand, and here we must recognize that we missed some crucial ideas. We must simply admit and accept the paradoxes and hope that sometime in the future they can be resolved. In fact by best understanding this paradox, we will be able to correct our thinking. Now we move to analysis of Eastern thought, in particular Indian thought
3. Ancient Eastern Wisdom
Ancient eastern civilizations are the foundations of the two most populated countries in the world today: China and India.
While there is no doubt that both ancient civilizations had their glorious past, it has to be acknowledged that a lot of influence of Chinese tradition came from India, especially the influence of Buddhism. Like Hu Shih, the former Chinese ambassador to US said, “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.” Hence, offering due respect to the rich Chinese tradition, I proceed to describe and discuss some things about Indian thought.
Ancient Indian thought is based primarily on Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and a host of related literatures. There were six prominent schools of philosophy: Nyaya(philosophy of logic), Vaishesikha (atomic pluralism), Samkhya(theory of material nature and consciousness), Purva Mimamsa(dealing with the ritualistic portion of Vedas) and Uttara Mimamsa or Vedanta(dealing with the philosophical teachings of the Vedas). All of these systems, though separate in some sense, had a lot of mutual exchange of information in the past, and in fact they learnt from each other. Among these Samkhya and Vaishesikha schools did more analytic analysis of material nature and atomic reality than the others. A lot of development in science took place alongside the development of these philosophical schools and not to mention the sophisticated development of linguistics, music and fine arts. First we look at the development of science in ancient India.
a) Science in Ancient India
Science and technology in ancient India covered many major branches of human knowledge and activities, including mathematics, astronomy and physics, metallurgy, medical science and surgery, fine arts, mechanical and production technology and civil engineering and architecture. Actually many people in the past like the French philosopher Voltaire and historian Rommain Rolland have hypothesized that many of the developments in ancient Greece were as a result of exchange of information with India. Noted British historian, Grant Duff said, “Many of the advances in the sciences that we consider today to have been made in Europe were in fact made in India centuries ago.” Certainly it is hard to go over all the achievements of ancient India in this essay, but they are available in numerous writings [2]. Significant among those achievements are the development of decimal system and use of zero in mathematics; prediction of orbits of planets and the assumption of heliocentric universe; and the development of medical system of Ayurveda and advanced system of surgery developed by Charaka and Susruta respectively. Indian scriptures also have pointed the idea of relativistic time in different planets and atomic measurement of time[3]. One more interesting finding is that prediction of the age of the universe confirms to the day and night of Brahma as mentioned in the Vedic writings. In fact, astrophysicist Carl Sagan confirms that and believes that Vedic tradition is the only ancient tradition which talks about the correct time scale[4]. Another significant development is the 21st century cyclic theory, proposed by Alan H. Guth and Paul J. Steinhardt, to resolve the mathematical incompatibility between quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity. Dr. Steinhardt said there are several ways to explain this theory and one makes use of super-string theory. In this model, the universe is a three-dimensional “hypersurface” embedded in a space of extra dimensions and existing within a thin membrane. The universe undergoes an endless sequence of cycles in which it contracts in a big crunch and re-emerges in an expanding big bang, with trillions of years of evolution in between, almost exactly as outlined in ancient Vedic cosmology.
Spiritual Paridigm of Vedanta and Its Influence on the West
In Vedic tradition, all knowledge related to the material world should be subservient to spiritual knowledge about consciousness and God. Among all the philosophical systems, Vedanta is very comprehensive and clear about the spiritual goals of life. “Vedanta” means the end of knowledge or our ultimate knowledge of truth. Vedanta refers to the conclusions of the Vedas available especially in Vedanta Sutra, Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. Modern science mainly studies material nature, whereas Vedanta studies both the material as well as spiritual nature . The Vedanta incorporates the spiritual reality of the soul and consciousness into the complete understanding of the world which includes us. It demonstrates that only a spiritual dimension of reality can accommodate the reality of the soul and God. The book Vedanta Sutra consists of aphorisms or formulas that reveal the conclusions of Vedic knowledge of truth in a very condensed manner. The first aphorism of Vedanta Sutra (VS 1.1.1) states that in the human form of life, the inquiry of the Absolute truth should begin earnestly. According to Vedanta, biodiversity is a process to accommodate the conscious level of each individual, and there is a gradual evolution of consciousness passing from a less conscious state to a form of higher conscious state according to the subtle laws of “karma”. So the Vedanta Sutra advises that in this highly conscious form of a human being, we should devote ourselves exclusively in the inquiry of the Absolute truth. This echoes the sentiment of Plato who said that passionate and earnest search of the goal is the only true goal of the philosopher. Vedanta stresses that knowledge also includes the development of saintly qualities and virtues which will make oneself more receptive to the knowledge descending from God. These qualities include humility, non-violence, tolerance, simplicity and absence of manipulative behaviour [5]. Hence, it disagrees with the western notion that knowledge can be acquired independent of any practice of spiritual ethics.
Many western scientists have been interested in the idea of consciousness as described in the Vedantic vision. Prominent among them are Erwin Schrodinger, David Bohm, Eugene Wigner, Werner Heisenberg and Robert Oppenheimer. Erwin Schrodinger was enamoured by the writings of the Upanishads and introduced the idea of consciousness in his writings [6]. Heisenberg, who is among the founding fathers of quantum mechanics gained a lot of knowledge about Indian philosophy from his interaction with Rabindranath Tagore during his stay in India. According to him quantum mechanics contains statements about possibilities or better tendencies of a system which can lead to one possible outcome eventually. He found a lot of similarity of quantum mechanics with non-mechanistic explanations of reality found in Indian and Platonic philosophy. According to Robert Oppenheimer: “Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century will claim over previous centuries.” Oppenheimer read the Bhagavad Gita in original Sanskrit and is famous for quoting a verse from the text on the event of nuclear explosion [7]. His belief in consciousness as the primary force was so strong that he would devote substantial portion of time in reading Vedic writings even at the cost of his research work. Obviously other people outside pure sciences also got inspiration from Vedic ideas. Among them were T.S Elliot and Herman Hesse, both Nobel Prize winners in literature; Ralph Emerson, Henry Thoreau and Schopenhauer, great philosophers of their time; and above all Carl Jung, famous psychologist who made eastern mystical terms popular in the west. He said, “The idea that man is like unto an inverted tree seems to have been current in by gone ages. The link with Vedic conceptions is provided by Plato in his Timaeus in which it states that we are not an earthly but a heavenly plant.” He appreciated the Vedantic idea of Superconsciousness or God from which all conscious beings and the world spring up.
4. Integration of Science and Spirituality
Many people in the modern world give the argument that science and religion are completly opposing elements and a scientist’s faith in religion or spiritual principles may cloud his aibility to carry out unbiased research. This premise ignores the fact that great stalwarts like Newton, Maxwell, Pascal, Plank, Einstein and Heisenberg who gave birth to modern science were very spiritual people. In fact their spiritual background lead to greater devotion in their scientific work to unravel the mysterious of God. Although many people like David Bohm, Schrodinger and Fritjof Capra have written about integration between science and spirituality, I would especially like to mention the work done by Wolfgang Pauli, one of leading physicists of the last century, in collaboration of Carl Jung. Pauli’s thoughts on topics beyond physics are likely to be appreciated as inspiring sources for the present and future development of science and culture. In recent years many of his ideas, expressed in his letters provoked an increasing interest in the communities of philosophers, psychologists, and natural scientists [8]. Pauli understood that physics necessarily gives an incomplete view of nature, and he was looking for an extended scientific framework to include the mind and the unconscious elements and hence he wanted to integrate natural science within a greater holistic picture. Pauli said,, “I do advocate an unlimited right of reason to control systems of thought; however, I allude to an extrarational mode of knowledge, which is acquired with resources different from reason. I think that this extrarational mode of knowledge is primordial and essential. There is not only thinking, there is also instinct, emotion, intuition, etc., and these additional psychological functions appear to me of highest significance wherever the wholeness of human beings is apprehended.”
a) Similarities in Science and Religion
The goal of science is to discover the order in the universe and discover laws behind workings of material nature which may include us to some extent. The goal of religion and spirituality is the understanding of the purpose and meaning of ourselves and our connection to God and his creation. It appears that a lot of things in religion and science are diametrically opposite to each other, but on closer examination we can find that this is not the case. One such element is faith which is supposed to be working only in the realms of religion: in fact that is what supposedly differentiates science from religion. But faith is essential to science too, although it is hard to recognize the nature of faith in science. A scientist must have the faith that there is order in the universe and his own mind is capable of understanding some aspect of that order. Without this faith, there would be no point in devoting great energy to understand a presumably disorderly world. Einstein discoveries came from his intuitive and at times rigid devotion and faith in this order of the universe. Many people also believe that while this scientific faith maybe there, it can also be logically demonstrated with mathematical proof. These proofs give scientific ideas a certain kind of authority which religion cannot claim. But even this assumption is very simplistic and does not account for the current stand of mathematics expressed by the Gödel’s theorems. The great mathematician Gödel has shown that, in the most generally used mathematics, it is fundamentally impossible to show whether a set of postulates are even self-consistent. Also, he proved that within a certain mathematical system there are mathematical truths which cannot be proved by applying normal logic. It is similar to the conjecture found in Vedanta Sutra 2.1.11: Logical arguments are inconclusive in arriving at the Absolute Truth. Hence some limitations have to be acknowledged even in our study of science.
Another common thing which people cite as a difference between science and religion is based on their methods of discovery. Religion’s discovery is made often by revelation. Vedanta, in fact, says that though sense perception and logical inference can lead to knowledge, only revelation leads to conclusive knowledge: Infinite Absolute truth can be known by the finite soul only when he chooses to reveal himself. Scientific discoveries, according to public perception, come through logical deductions and through experimental evidence which is repeatedly tested, and finally they are generalized to laws. Contrary to this, most of the innovative scientific discoveries come about in a very different way which is similar to revelation, though the term revelation is reserved for religious realm. A very well-known example is the discovery of the benzene ring by Kekule, who while musing at his fireside, was led to the idea by a vision of snakes taking their tail in their mouths. There is no mathematical or biological model to describe a process which leads to a creation an important and new scientific insight. The great scientific discoveries, instead of coming through “scientific method” come through intuitions and revelations which corroborate later with experimental testing. Obviously we do have paradoxes in religion which are hard to resolve, but so does science. When our faith in science is not shaken due to paradoxes like uncertainty principle in the hope that they will be resolved at a later date, same should be true for our faith in spiritual wisdom.
Lastly, there is the question regarding the experimental validation of a hypothesis which can be done in science but not in spiritual practices. Obviously as spiritual practices are of a more qualitative nature than science it is hard to do so but it is not entirely impossible. For example the individuals should feel an internal change after practicing spirituality which should be reflected in their virtuous, exemplary and saintly behaviour outside. If that individual transformation is not happening, the practice of spiritual practice needs to be flawed. There might be differences between different spiritual traditions as there are among scientists and that should not disturb us. Hence, we have tried to demonstrate some similarities between science, and spirituality or religion.
Modern Crisis and need for synthesis
In the modern era of science and technology, we are facing a crisis, of alarming proportion. The “Doomsday clock”, the scientists’ way of signifying dangerous situations on earth, has been moved close to midnight. This is not just due to tension between countries, religious sects and creeds, but also due to unplanned industrialization and myopic application of technology leading to environmental degradation in many countries. There is an impending water crisis which India will face in the next 15 years; it maybe so severe that all industrial progress may amount to nothing if visionaries do not lead the nation. Giving warning in the health sector, The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that mental disease will be the biggest problem of the 21st century. This makes me remember the famous quote by Einstein: Perfection of the means and confusion of the ends is the characteristic of this century. Since, in the present age, science and technology are prominent aspects of civilization, scientists have the opportunity to rouse humanity to the current dangers and to show them how important it is that all mankind, independent of national and ideological views, should unite to meet the peril. Prosperity and political power depend on the state of science and scientists cannot ignore these practical consequences even if their own interests in science are of a less practical nature. Thus, scientists will have an important role to play in propagating spiritual and ethical values in society.
The objectivity in science can help religionists to be more open-minded and discourage fanaticism. Similarly science can incorporate spiritual principles and work with a more holistic picture to provide maximum benefit to people, not only on a physical level but also on an emotional and spiritual level. Ancient Indian wisdom, as has been discussed in the essay, offers a lot of insights into the understanding the universe and cultivation of spiritual values. We, as Indians, have the special responsibility to preserve and represent the great spiritual wisdom of our past and to incorporate these values in our scientific endeavour. Intellectual humility and honesty are very important values which are required for any earnest search in science and this principle needs to be respected at all times. Scientists have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning, and therefore we need to be open to new ways of knowing things about nature. We must be reminded of the old wisdom that when searching for harmony of life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are both players and spectators. So, this should broaden our conception of harmony to the entire creation of which we are a part. This will be especially beneficial in lieu of the state of the environment we see today. Hence, the synthesis between science and spiritual wisdom will a blessing for all and assuage a lot of pain in India and the world.
5. Conclusion
From the historical development of scientific thought in the west and description of ancient Indian wisdom, we find that science and spirituality are not irreconcilable. In fact, when they move complementary to each other they can provide mankind a great future and the ability to live amicably with multiple cultural traditions. For the future of India and mankind, we must use our best wisdom and instincts, the evidence of history and wisdom of ages, the experience and revelations of saints and heroes in order to get as close to truth and meaning and move in concord with the Absolute.
6. References
1. Richard Tarnas; Passion of the Western Mind, Crown Publishers Inc New York, 1991
2. Rajiv Malhotra and Jay Patel; History of Indian Science and Technology, 2005
3. Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 3, Chapter 11
4. Carl Sagan; Cosmos, Random House, 1980
5. Bhagavad Gita 13.8-12
6. ErwinSchrodinger; What is life?,ISBN 0521427088, Vienna,1944
7. Bhagavad Gita 11.12-32
8. Wolfgang Pauli and C.G Jung; Atom and Archetype: ThePauli/Jung Letters, 1932-1958
I havent read it yet, pretty busy, but I cant wait to!
Bhrigu - November 23, 2007 2:38 pm
Congratulations, Vivek! Are you planning to take part in the conference at Tirupati?
Syama Gopala Dasa - November 23, 2007 7:07 pm
Wow, Vivek emailed me the article sometime ago, haven't had the time to read it, but wow he won a prize with it!
Babhru Das - November 23, 2007 8:44 pm
Pretty darned cool! Congratulations, Vivek.
Vamsidhari Dasa - November 24, 2007 1:37 am
Congratulations Vivek, that is impressive.
Tadiya Dasi - November 24, 2007 5:43 pm
Vivek, glad to see you put that philosophical mind of yours into good use 
Congratulations! 
Vivek - November 24, 2007 8:51 pm
thanks to all of you for your blessings and greetings. I have to go to India anyway for 3 weeks and the dates for the conference are within those 3 weeks luckily. With the blessings of great devotees like you, hopefully, I can present things well. Here is a list of some people and their lecture topics:
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam - Former President, INDIA
Roger Kornberg - Nobel Laureate Chemistry (2006), Stanford
University, USA
New Frontiers in Biology & Implications for Science and Spirituality
Paul Utukuru - John Hopkins University, USA
Science, Psychic Phenomena, Cyclical Cosmology and
Reincarnation
Anita Goel - Chairman & CEO, Nanobiosym, USA
Some Emerging Frontiers of NanoBiophysics and its impact on the
Science and Spirituality Dialogue
Prabhat K Singh - IT-Banarasi Hindu University, Varanasi
Intelligent Design, Fine Tuning & Evolution Theory: A Synopsis of
Competent Rational Theories
A.K. Mukhopadhyay - AIIMS, New Delhi
System-bound Consciousness, Self-consciousness and
Consciousness-as-such
Thangai Malai Thirumalai - Bhaktivedanta Institute, Kolkata
Some recent trends in Consciousness studies: A View from the
Vedanta
M.A. Padmanabha Rao - AIIMS, New Delhi
Remarkable Advances in Science through Yoga
SPEAKERS
Bhaswat S. Chakraborty - Cadila Pharmaceuticals India Ltd.
Unfoldment of Collective Consciousness
Ayush Goel - Oxford University, ENGLAND
Consciousness in Relation to Bioelectric Neural Circuitry
Abhishek Tiwari - University of Illionis, USA
Molecular Intelligence
Vivek - November 24, 2007 8:58 pm
I also have to make some grammatical corrections in the essay as it was written in haste, much like my TV posts, without attention to grammar. So in case any of you can go through the essay and suggest some changes in structuring of sentences, it will be very helpful. I have made some changes already.
Syamasundara - December 31, 2007 3:51 pm
So, how did it go?
Vivek - January 4, 2008 5:31 pm
Actually it went quite well by the mercy of devotees and GM. I had frutiful interaction with some good people. Actually there were a few people tied to ISKCON too and they found the presentation very good and also interacted with me about my understanding of GV. But I can see whenever I speak from my experience( which is mostly the result of Sridhar Maharaj and GM's writing) intelligent people from ISKCON like it so much. Only thing is once most of them get to know about the connection with SSM they just back out and feel that they have to stick only to SP's teachings( as if they are teaching different things).
Loyalty to prabhupada is checked with loyalty to each word of SP's books not the spirit.
Nonetheless I could found some very sincere and intelligent people who want a broad minded approach which is not available in strongly regimented institution like ISKCON.