SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY

Overview

• Scientific indicators of spiritual deficiency

• Scientific evidences of spiritual tenets

• Insights from Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS)

• The Unique Opportunity for Indians

The American Paradox

Since 1960, •The divorce rate has doubled. •The teen suicide rate has tripled. •The recorded violent crime rate has quadrupled. •The prison population has quintupled. •The percentage of babies born outside marriage has sextupled. •Depression has soared - to ten times the pre - World War II level.

SCIENCE PEACE?

“ We live in an age of

Guided Missiles and Misguided Men“

Martin Luther King Jr

Handbook of Religion and Handbook of Religion and HealthHealth

Oxford University Press,

Harold G. Koenig (MD), Michael E. McCullough (PhD) and David B. Larson (MD) reviewed more than two thousand published experiments that tested the relationship between religion and everything from blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and stroke to depression, suicide, psychotic disorders and marital problems.

Handbook of Religion and Handbook of Religion and HealthHealth

Oxford University Press,

People who attended a spiritual program at least once a week lived average seven years longer than those who don't attend at all.

Handbook of Religion and Handbook of Religion and HealthHealth

Oxford University Press,

Religious youth showed significantly lower levels of drug and alcohol abuse, premature sexual involvement, criminal delinquency and suicidal tendencies than their nonreligious counterparts

Handbook of Religion and Handbook of Religion and HealthHealth

Oxford University Press,

Elderly people with deep, personal religious faith have a stronger sense of well-being and life satisfaction than their less religious peers.

Handbook of Religion and Handbook of Religion and HealthHealth

Oxford University Press,

Koening’s Conclusion: "A high SQ faithfulness to God appears to benefit people of all means, educational levels and ages."

“An equation for me has no meaning,

unless it represents a thought of God.”

- Srinivasa A. Ramanujan

CHRISTIAN B. CHRISTIAN B. ANFINSEN (1916 – ANFINSEN (1916 –

1995)1995)

CHRISTIAN B. CHRISTIAN B. ANFINSEN (1916 – ANFINSEN (1916 –

1995)1995)““I think only an idiot can be an I think only an idiot can be an atheist.”atheist.”

““I think only an idiot can be an I think only an idiot can be an atheist.”atheist.”

SHARED THE 1972 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY FOR HIS WORK IN AMINO-ACID STRUCTURE AND BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF THE ENZIME RIBONUCLEASE.

SHARED THE 1972 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY FOR HIS WORK IN AMINO-ACID STRUCTURE AND BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF THE ENZIME RIBONUCLEASE.

ALBERT EINSTEIN ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879 – 1955)(1879 – 1955)

ALBERT EINSTEIN ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879 – 1955)(1879 – 1955)

““I only trace the I only trace the lines that flow lines that flow

from God.”from God.”

““I only trace the I only trace the lines that flow lines that flow

from God.”from God.”AWARDED THE 1921 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS FOR HIS WORK IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS, ESPECIALLY THE LAW OF PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT.

AWARDED THE 1921 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS FOR HIS WORK IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS, ESPECIALLY THE LAW OF PHOTOELECTRIC EFFECT.

Soul in the Body

Dr. Wilder Penfield – Canadian surgeon, Noble Laureate

“The brain is a computer…But it is programmed by something that is outside itself.”

Past-life memories

Dr. Ian Stevenson

- BG 2.22

““For religion, God is at For religion, God is at the beginning; for the beginning; for

science, science, God is at the end.”God is at the end.”

-Max Planck-Max Planck

Synthesis of Science & Spirituality

“Religion without science is lame. Science without religion is blind.”

Albert Einstein

Vedic Mathematics

“We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.“

Albert Einstein

Vedic Mathematics

“ Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek geometries derive from the mathematics recorded in the Sulbasutras.”

-Abraham Seidenberg (an American historian of mathematics )

Vedic Mathematics" It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by ten symbols , each receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value , a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very …

Vedic Mathematics ... simplicity , the great ease

which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions, and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Appollnius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.“

-- Pierre Simon de Laplace, (French mathematician, philosopher, and astronomer),

“India has a well-developed academic community with a surplus of highly creative scientists, perhaps with a special inclination towards the more theoretical aspects of science and still maintaining a link to the ancient Indian culture...”

- Dr Richard Ernst, 1999 Noble Laureate in

Chemistry

The Need for Para-Vidya

“I am convinced that India could become once again the cradle of a new school of thought that may significantly influence the fate of the globe during the third millennium. Perhaps the contribution of India to nuclear power technology and space science will turn out to be irrelevant, but the contributions toward a new ethical foundation could be turning the wheel ofhistory in the proper (balanced) way."

- Dr Richard Ernst, 1999 Noble Laureate in

Chemistry

Soul Eye

Subtle Body

Gross Body

Normal VisionNormal Vision

Subtle

Eye Brain

Consciousness pervading

An Internal Firewall

• Body – Computer hardware

• Mind – Sofware• User – You (the self)

• Hare krishna hare krishna krishna krishna hare hare

• Hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

In the Vedic paradigm, not only did science have a spiritual purpose, but spirituality had a scientific methodology.

Toward a synthesis of

science and spirituality