Monthly Archives: March, 2011
PAUL ERDÖS
We have all heard of unusual geniuses in art and music, even in science sometimes. But there are extraordinary individuals in every creative field. It is not easy for everyone to understand, let alone appreciate, the work and value of their contributions to human thought and culture. In the field of mathematics, for example, there …
Sivapuránam (Civapuránam)
Caiva-ciddántam is a metaphysical-philosophical-spiritual school which takes the Civa (Shiva) Principle as the fundamental substratum in the world. It is very ancient and has a North Indian version as well as a South Indian. In both systems Civa is transcendent as well as immanent, but it also has a personal form, helpful in the worship …
God in the Hindu framework
Here is an NPR program on Hindu Gods which you may like to listen to: http://interfaithradio.org/node/1626
Disaster in Japan
Life-destroying disasters arise from Nature’s periodic whims such as hurricanes and earthquakes. But there are also calamities that result from social injustice and iniquities, fanatical beliefs, racial and religious tensions, and the like. Reflections on these matters are certainly stimulating and clarifying when we are in the comfort zone of home and hearth, but when, …
Scientific understanding of ethics and experiences
People have traditionally attributed love of children to non-natural causes, which is fine. However, suppose that science/empiricism is able to establish that through our efforts to understand fully how all these wondrous dimensions of being fully human (as also the not-so wondrous aspects) happen to arise? Wouldn’t that understanding make us a little richer, without …
How might the discovery of alien life affect religion?
In this context it is also important to distinguish between aliens as conceived by modern extra-terrestrial astronomy and the aliens of mythic lore. In modern astronomical thought, aliens refer to entities which have evolved biologically in distant planetary systems quite independently of terrestrial life, and are believed to have attained sufficient technological and other intellectual …
Lorne Ladner, Ph.D., The Lost Art of Compassion: Discovering the Practice of Happiness in the Meeting of Buddhism and Psychology, 2004.
We live in an extraordinary age of wonderful scientific breakthroughs and marvelous technological achievements. Possibilities for cure of pernicious diseases and for health and longevity keep increasing. But ours is also an age of spiritual anguish and moral confusions, of promiscuous sex and savage violence. Crudeness, combativeness, and religious intolerance seem to be on the …
Divinity in the essence of things
TénukkuL inbam civappó karuppó vánukkuL ícanai-tédi madiyilír ténukkuL inbam cerin-dirundár-pól únukkuL ícan-oLit-tirundáné Is the joy in the honey black or reddish? Searching God in the sky is as foolish. As abundant the joy that honey brings, God is shining in the essence of things. This verse is attributed to the Tirumúlar (7th century C.E.?), the …
Judith P. Zinsser: Men, women, and the birthing of modern science (2005)
In any book on the history of science, ancient or modern, the majority of names are males. Yet from Hypatia of Alexandria and Lopamudra of Vedic India to a good many in current times, women have contributed to human knowledge and culture, often unobtrusively and under hindering restrictions. Nevertheless, in the 17th and 18th centuries, …
When Worlds Collide
An angry man once shot his neighbor because of a fence that had been erected a foot inside his property. If he had any notion of the vastness of the world, he might not have clung to his paltry strip of land with such passion. Though the ends of our universe have been explored by …
