Cosmic Vision : Where are we, Where do we go ?
On whose lips the question of realisation of god does not find place ? In many corners of this world you will hear the following : True realisation starts with metaphysical experience of God. Despite being physically with Arjuna, why did Lord Krishna say, "you do not know Me, I am not this physical body". Lord exhorted Arjuna to know Him in His transcendental form from a wise seer. On being urged, Lord Krishna showed His omni-present cosmic form. Thereupon, all despodency of Arjuna was cleared. He was then ready to fight for extirpation of evil-doers and establishment of dharma.
Taoism teaches that we can attain enduring happiness and spiritual enlightenment if we know and live in accordance with Li, the immutable cosmic law the intuitively discernible aspect of Tao.
To me all this has no relevance in this 21st century. Perhaps it had no relevance at any time of the universe. Description of glory and splendour of God in pedantic and ornamental language and imparting some mantra as "Diksha" is not in the least realisation of God.
Our Quest of the Cosmos has started hundereds of years ago by people of the ancient civilisations. Deciphering the history and current status of the universe has led astronomers to startling concepts about its superdense origin, continuing expansion, subtle curvature, and exotic composition and many more.
In Modern culture, the artichoke view of the world, though transformed from ancient understanding, is largely retained. Thus, physicists look for the fundamental particle and cosmologists for the "theory of everything." Some biologists seek to explain all biological phenomena from cells to human cul
tural in terms of the fundamental particles of biology, the genes.
Astronomical observation is entering a golden age, thanks to the converging technologies of computers, microelectronics, fiber optics, lasers, detectors, gigantic mirrors, and space operations. But, of course, it will be stupid to belive that the solution of the problem to the Origin of Universe lies around the corner. And to my belief, if we expect science to answer all these questions of fate of the Universe, existence of God, we still need to go a long way and will have to be patient. Probably the most unhealthy aspect of cosmology is its unspoken parallel with religion. Both are at the stage where they deal with many but answerable questions. The rapt audience, media exposure, big book sale etc have not been seen possibly in branch of science.
But I believe that a day will come when we may be able to unveil the mysteries of this universe and explain to every common person on this earth. For the moment we should probably only be saying to general public :
It is not unlikely that we primates gazing through bits of glass for a century or two will dissemble the architecture and history of infinity. But if we don't try, we will not get anywhere. Therefore, we, who try to look for answers to these questions, do the best we can to fit the odd clues we have into some kind of plausible story. That is how science ( at least non-repeatable ones ) works and that is the spirit in which our cosmological speculations should be treated. We have built ever complex machines only to discard afterwards in the face of improving evidence. The likelihood may be that this revision will occur again and again and again.
And then probably the truth will dawn upon us.
Perhaps this is best written by the great poet :
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into
fragments by narrow domestic walls;....
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its
way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;....
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my
country awake
On whose lips the question of realisation of god does not find place ? In many corners of this world you will hear the following : True realisation starts with metaphysical experience of God. Despite being physically with Arjuna, why did Lord Krishna say, "you do not know Me, I am not this physical body". Lord exhorted Arjuna to know Him in His transcendental form from a wise seer. On being urged, Lord Krishna showed His omni-present cosmic form. Thereupon, all despodency of Arjuna was cleared. He was then ready to fight for extirpation of evil-doers and establishment of dharma.
Taoism teaches that we can attain enduring happiness and spiritual enlightenment if we know and live in accordance with Li, the immutable cosmic law the intuitively discernible aspect of Tao.
To me all this has no relevance in this 21st century. Perhaps it had no relevance at any time of the universe. Description of glory and splendour of God in pedantic and ornamental language and imparting some mantra as "Diksha" is not in the least realisation of God.
Our Quest of the Cosmos has started hundereds of years ago by people of the ancient civilisations. Deciphering the history and current status of the universe has led astronomers to startling concepts about its superdense origin, continuing expansion, subtle curvature, and exotic composition and many more.
In Modern culture, the artichoke view of the world, though transformed from ancient understanding, is largely retained. Thus, physicists look for the fundamental particle and cosmologists for the "theory of everything." Some biologists seek to explain all biological phenomena from cells to human cul
tural in terms of the fundamental particles of biology, the genes.
Astronomical observation is entering a golden age, thanks to the converging technologies of computers, microelectronics, fiber optics, lasers, detectors, gigantic mirrors, and space operations. But, of course, it will be stupid to belive that the solution of the problem to the Origin of Universe lies around the corner. And to my belief, if we expect science to answer all these questions of fate of the Universe, existence of God, we still need to go a long way and will have to be patient. Probably the most unhealthy aspect of cosmology is its unspoken parallel with religion. Both are at the stage where they deal with many but answerable questions. The rapt audience, media exposure, big book sale etc have not been seen possibly in branch of science.
But I believe that a day will come when we may be able to unveil the mysteries of this universe and explain to every common person on this earth. For the moment we should probably only be saying to general public :
It is not unlikely that we primates gazing through bits of glass for a century or two will dissemble the architecture and history of infinity. But if we don't try, we will not get anywhere. Therefore, we, who try to look for answers to these questions, do the best we can to fit the odd clues we have into some kind of plausible story. That is how science ( at least non-repeatable ones ) works and that is the spirit in which our cosmological speculations should be treated. We have built ever complex machines only to discard afterwards in the face of improving evidence. The likelihood may be that this revision will occur again and again and again.
And then probably the truth will dawn upon us.
Perhaps this is best written by the great poet :
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into
fragments by narrow domestic walls;....
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its
way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;....
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my
country awake
posted by musafir at 10:05 AM
2 Comments:
That is too profound but worth discussing.
The main thing that seperates us from other species is awareness - of the fact that we exist. Why are we aware? What makes us different from other animals like say a dog?That answer can come only from biology.
Next comes the question of where we will go? that will come from astrophyscs. But that science is still in its infancy. I dont understand how just plain observation of the skies will tell us our place in the universe. Maybe I am biased.
@samudrika
I did not want to address the question how different we are from others or what is our place in the universe ( this is too big a question to discuss, maybe ) Of course our existence would have to be explained from biology with inputs from physics and chemistry and the birth of the universe will hopefully be explained from our observations of the skies ( we do know how galaxies and stars are born, their life cycle, their death and we do somehow understand how the universe could have born, though only very superficially according to me ). Though astronomy is in its childhood ( i would not say infancy it has taken giant steps in last years ), the non-repeatibility of many experiments throw many questions, even whether it is a branch of science or not. I am really not so worried at this moment to know why we are alone in this universe, this question is still quite far away, but we do vaguely understand what conditions are required to have life to be present ( may it be humans, dogs, insects) , but I am not an expert to comment on it.
My idea was only to point out to the people the rational way of thinking to understand these problems, one does not need to invoke religion ( even notion of a Creator) in it with the caveat that scientists ( physicists, biologists, everybody ) do have dogmatic beliefs while pushing their ideas like religious people have, one should be extremely careful while doing so, but that does not mean one has to turn ones face away from scientific endeavour.
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