Thursday, February 8, 2018

Science and Yogic Culture - Tasting the same divine

I happened to see some people under the guise of scientists making fun of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev's comments on Twitter, by selectively taking them out of context and making videos out of it.

It is ironic that technology can be used by anybody to suit their needs but if one pays sufficient attention, the bluff can be easily called off.


Here is gem #1.


“Today modern science has admitted that it’s an ever-expanding universe or an endless universe, rather ever expanding is a yogic term, they are calling it a endless universe" ... admitted ЁЯШБ 


Let's explore this first before going into others.


Till 1998, scientists did believe that the universe CANNOT be ever expanding. Till then, most popular Physicists thought the expansion of universe after the big bang would slow down and that eventually gravity would pull the parts of the cosmos back in. But then, they found that not only was the expansion not slowing down, it was speeding up. The universe was expanding at an accelerating rate.


Saul Perlmutter shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery that the universe was expanding at an accelerating rate. Perlmutter explains how supernovae and other astronomical artifacts are used to measure the expansion rate, and explains what physicists are learning about "dark energy" — the mysterious entity thought to be driving the acceleration.


The source for all the arguments above has been Published by National Public Radio (USA): https://www.npr.org/2013/05/10/182861376/exploring-an-ever-expanding-universe


Apparently, the critics of Sadhguru indeed have no clue that physicists themselves have changed their stance fairly recently and 'admitting' that this is an ever expanding universe.

Though the discovery was done in 1998, further studies were conducted thereafter and the Nobel prize was given in 2011 only. However, the expanding theory of universe was not an unknown phenomenon even before 1998. Professor Arthur Holmes (1895-1965), a geologist & professor at the University of Durham, writes regarding the age of the earth in his great book, The Age of Earth (1913) as follows:

"Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book."


Mr Holmes had already mentioned in his 1913 book about the Hindu calculation of the present age of the earth and the expanding universe theory from ancient Hindu calculations.


Dick Teresi is the author and coauthor of several books about science and technology, including The God Particle. He is cofounder of Omni magazine and has written for Discover, The New York Times Magazine, and The Atlantic Monthly. Here are his words about Indian culture's contribution to cosmology:


"Indian cosmologists are the first to estimate the age of the earth at more than 4 billion years. They came closest to modern ideas of atomism, quantum physics, and other current theories. India developed very early, enduring atomist theories of matter. Possibly Greek atomistic thought was influenced by India, via the Persian civilization."


One should go through Teresi's book from 2002 "Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science - from the Babylonians to the Maya" to better understand the intertwining of scientific and cultural aspects in ancient civilizations.


In the yogic culture, there are countless stories about the cycle of destruction of universe through Pralaya and Srushti the creation. Lord Shiva's Thandava dance is supposed to be a symbolism of the cyclical nature of creation / destruction and expansion / contraction.


According to Hindu Vedic cosmology, there is no absolute start to time, as it is considered infinite and cyclic. 
Similarly, the space and universe has neither start nor end, rather it is cyclical per Vedic cosmology. 

Modern scientists are making an assumption that what is infinite can only be cyclical, ascertaining their view of universe, deriving their theories out of Vedic scriptures.

The current universe is just the start of a present cycle preceded by an infinite number of universes and to be followed by another infinite number of universes. Modern Science, on the other hand, is still dealing with only the current universe. Actually, the ultra-modern theory of parallel universes originates from the idea of infinite number of universes.


Ancient Hindu scientists predicted that the cycle of creation and destruction continues forever & symbolized it in Shiva's form, as one who holds the drum that sounds the universe’s creation in his right hand and the flame that, billions of years later, will destroy the universe in his left.


In  his landmark TV series Cosmos, Carl Sagan called Hinduism as the only religion whose time-scale for the universe matches the billions of years documented by modern science. Sagan filmed that segment in a Hindu temple (Chidambaram Nataraja temple) featuring a statue of the god Shiva as the cosmic dancer, an image that now stands in the plaza of the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva.


So, clearly the joke is on those trying to make fun of Sadhguru with half-baked knowledge of both science and ancient Indian culture. 


True Science does not bother where its inspiration to genius comes from, only some fake scientists do. 

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