The Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science by Ravi S. Iyer - HTML preview

Preface

13

About Ravi S. Iyer

15

I am I

17

Divine revelation gems from Chandogya Upanishad:

Chapter 6 (Dialogue between Uddalaka and Svetaketu)

19

Crisp Statements of Belief in God that is Compatible

with Science

32

One can be a Rigorous Scientist and a Believer in God –

Dr. Francis Col ins

38

God vs. Science, TIME, Nov. 2006, Dr. Col ins – a standard

bearer for scientists who believe in God

45

Some Famous Scientists’ Views on God and Limits of

Science

48

Burden of Proof Argument for Existence of God

57

Existential Intel igence & Other Human Intel igences

61

Does Presence of Pain and Suffering Imply That There is

No God?

64

Is Believing in a Personal God Childish?

66

Praying Openly While Doing a PhD

68

Epicurean Paradox – A Hindu Take

69

What I am Joyful about Being a Hindu

71

“The God Delusion”. What Does it Real y Mean?

75

Ignorant Prof. Dawkins Declares to CNN that on Death, It

Just Ends!

80

Wrong Science Being Taught in Some Faith Schools

84

Conversation on 'secular parenting' & religion between

USA scientist & Indian technologist

88

Why I shy away from comparisons between Physics

theories like Higgs field and deep spiritual philosophy like

Vedanta?

108

Has Science Refuted Religion Debate

116

Non-Scientific Knowledge Detection Kit – not Baloney

Detection Kit!

118

Fantastic Espousal of the Good of Religion by Honourable

Mr. Tony Blair in Nov. 2010 Debate

121

List of some other posts of iami1.wordpress.com

125

This book is NOT FOR PROFIT for

author

This document/book in either printed form (e.g. printed book

or printed sheets stapled/bound together) or electronic form

(e.g. pdf file or Word document file shared on the Internet) is

NOT FOR PROFIT for the author. But the publisher (if

publisher is not the author), printer, distributor or seller may

profit from it.

But printed form (hard copy) involves expenses. As of now, I

am actively exploring printing options without any self-

publishing company being involved. In this case I and I alone

am the self-publisher.

I am also exploring the possibility of using a self-publishing

company to print and sell this book. I do NOT want any

royalty. So I plan to explore that option with the publisher

where the book price is based on publisher cost + publisher +

distributor + book seller profit without any profit to me, the

author. I don't know whether this will be acceptable to the self-

publishing company.

However, I believe that if I want to distribute an ebook version

(soft copy) on Amazon, for example, I may have to accept

some royalty.

In cases where I will accept royalty money, I hereby commit to

contributors of content to this document/book as well as to

readers and others, that after tax is paid for such royalty, the

remaining royalty money will be used to pay for:

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 7

a) Other costs involved in printing this and/or other NOT-FOR-PROFIT blogbooks of mine and/or in maintaining my

NOT-FOR-PROFIT blogs, other NOT-FOR-PROFIT social

media accounts and NOT-FOR-PROFIT domain(s) owned by

me,

b) AND/OR printing of this and/or other NOT-FOR-PROFIT

blogbooks of mine as complimentary copies distributed free of

charge,

c) AND/OR contribution to well known and reputed charity

organization.

I will also publicly share information on social media about

royalty money received for this blogbook, and how it was

spent, perhaps on an annual basis.

In other words, I will transparently ensure that I do NOT

PROFIT (financially) from sales of this document/book even if

I end up being paid some royalty money.

If I use a regular publishing or printing company to print this

document/book where I have to pay upfront for a print run of

some copies of this document/book, then I plan to use any

revenue I receive from distributors/sellers of this

document/book to recover that upfront cost that I would have

incurred. Any profit above that, after any tax payment involved

and related tax return preparation and any books of accounts

maintenance charges, will be used like in above royalty money

case, and its use will also be transparently documented like in

above case.

The approach explained above will be used for any other

possibilities for printing and distributing this document/book,

8 iami1.wordpress.com blog book

to ensure that I DO NOT FINANCIALLY PROFIT from sales

of this book.

April 2018

Ravi S. Iyer

Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India

Permission to freely reuse MY

CONTENT of this book

1. I hereby grant permission to anybody, anywhere to freely

reuse (including adaptation) any of MY CONTENT of this

book, provided they give a reference to this book to enable

interested persons to easily cross-check with the original

source. An example of such reuse would be somebody editing

part (or whole) of this book and then publishing and printing it

as their (derived) work. Such reuse (including adaptation) of

any of MY CONTENT of this book need not be limited to

NOT-FOR-PROFIT work – it can be done for FOR-PROFIT

work like publishing & printing a book for profit. I do NOT

WANT any royalty or profit from any such FOR-PROFIT

work reusing MY CONTENT of this book.

2. Any legal challenges/lawsuits filed/made by others (NOT

me) related to reuse of MY CONTENT of this book, against

people who did such reuse of MY CONTENT of this book, has

to be handled by them (people who reused MY CONTENT)

without any legal liability to me, except as required by Indian

law.

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 9

3. If at all somebody is interested in translating any or all of MY CONTENT of this book to some other language then that

is just another case of the reuse that I have mentioned above in

point 1. So anybody is free (I grant them permission) to do

such translation of MY CONTENT of this book and publish &

print it, even FOR-PROFIT for them. I do NOT WANT any of

the profits they may make from this activity.

4. If at all somebody is interested in printing and selling any or

all of MY CONTENT of this book without any changes, then

that too is just another case of the reuse that I have mentioned

above. So anybody is free (I grant them permission) to do such

printing and selling of MY CONTENT of this book, even

FOR-PROFIT for them. I do NOT WANT any of the profits

they may make from this activity.

5. Note that this permission applies only to MY CONTENT in

this book and DOES NOT APPLY to small amount of content

I have used from elsewhere which I have made every attempt

to clearly show as having been taken from elsewhere or from

somebody else. If any content of this book is not shown as

having been taken from elsewhere or from somebody else,

then it can be presumed that that content is MY CONTENT.

6. I also state that I have ensured, to the best of my knowledge,

that all content of others (NOT MY CONTENT) in this book

including Wikipedia and Wikiquote content, is legally

permissible to include in this book and to be printed as part of

this book. Interested readers may want to visit my related blog

post: 'iami1 printed blogbook when sold at some (above-zero)

price: My analysis of copyright issues with usage of Wikipedia

content in it' here: http://tiny.cc/89hzsy [Long URL:

https://iami1.wordpress.com/iami1-printed-blogbook-my-

10 iami1.wordpress.com blog book

analysis-of-copyright-issues-with-usage-of-wikipedia-content-in-it/].

April 2018

Ravi S. Iyer

Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, India

CC-BY-SA (additional) license for few

pages in this book

The following articles/posts in this book use significant

amount of text extracts from Wikipedia and Wikiquote:

1) Some Famous Scientists’ Views on God and Limits of

Science

2) Conversation on 'secular parenting' & religion between USA

scientist & Indian technologist

3) Why I shy away from comparisons between Physics

theories like Higgs field and deep spiritual philosophy like

Vedanta?

Note that Wikiquote’s Terms of Use link at the bottom of its

main page, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page, leads to

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use/en, which

states that "You are free to:" .. "Share and Reuse our articles and other media under free and open licenses."

Further, going by guidelines provided in

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reusing_Wikipedia_c

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 11

ontent, the above articles are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license (CC-BY-SA),

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Co

mmons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License, in

addition to my Free Reuse specification (for MY CONTENT

alone) given at the beginning of the book. In case of any

conflict between the two licenses/reuse specifications for these

articles/posts in this book, the Creative Commons Attribution

Share-Alike license (CC-BY-SA license) should be applied

(override the Free Reuse specification).

Therefore my above mentioned articles/posts in this book

having significant content from Wikipedia and Wikiquote, I

think, satisfy the conditions laid down by Wikipedia and

Wikiquote for sharing its content.

There may be some other articles/posts in this book which use

extracts of a few sentences from Wikipedia. I think that is

covered under Copyright Fair Use laws and so I have not

applied the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license

(CC-BY-SA) for those articles/posts.

12 iami1.wordpress.com blog book

Preface

This book is based mainly on all the iami1.wordpress.com blog

post content which is authored mainly by this author (Ravi S.

Iyer) but has contributions from others too.

The document has posts on spiritual matters and also captures

my humble exploration of and views on the God & Science

conversation.

When teachings of religions or miracles mentioned in Holy

Scripture are referred, very limited or no mention is made of

any contemporary or near-contemporary religious

leaders/founders - the attempt is to emphasize spiritual

teachings/paths/philosophy/knowledge which may be viewed

as universal though the Hindu way of expressing them is used.

It must also be mentioned that a few posts are specific to

Hinduism.

I have written some of these posts in a hurried way. Further, I

have not had the time to spell check and grammar check all the

content in this book (and also the blog posts which form the

source content for this book). I request the reader’s kind

indulgence for spelling and grammar mistakes in this book.

My emphasis has been on getting the basic message across

even if the language is not without unintentional errors which

may irritate some readers but I don’t think will come in the

way of them understanding what I have written. I also have not

spent any time on polishing the language in this book.

At times, my usage of uppercase first letters for some words

may be inappropriate. I have chosen not to correct them as at

the time I composed some of the posts in the years 2011 to

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 13

2013 or so, I was very intensely involved in understanding and discussing the topics covered in those posts. The uppercase

choice for first letters of some words were my way then of

providing emphasis. I don’t want to disturb what I had written

then even though I realize that some such usage of uppercase

for first letter of word is incorrect English language usage. But

then the Internet does have a fair bit of incorrect English

language usage and so I did not feel odd or lonely while I used

that style in some of my posts then .

14 iami1.wordpress.com blog book

About Ravi S. Iyer

Last updated on 11thApril 2018

I (author of this document/book based on my iami1 blog) am

just a spiritual journeyman enjoying my spiritual journey.

I thought I could share some of my spiritual journey views

with interested folks on the net and so this small website and

blog.

Initially (till sometime around the beginning of 2014) I

preferred to be anonymous as I thought that would allow for

freer expression of sensitive views. I guess now I am

comfortable with expressing the views of the type expressed

here under my real name.

My name is Ravi S. Iyer and I am a blogger/social media

writer on spirituality and religion. I am a Physics graduate

from Ruia college, University of Bombay (Mumbai), and a

retired international software consultant, living in Puttaparthi,

Andhra Pradesh, India.

My spirituality and religion blogs

1) This blog, https://iami1.wordpress.com, is a humble

exploration of and views on the God & Science conversation

(done after August 2011), and little more. When teachings of

religions or miracles mentioned in Holy Scripture are referred,

as far as I recall, no mention is made of any contemporary or

near-contemporary religious leader/founder – the attempt is to

emphasize spiritual teachings/paths/philosophy/knowledge

which may be viewed as universal though the Hindu way of

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 15

expressing them is used. It must also be mentioned that a few posts are specific to Hinduism.

2) http://ravisiyer.blogspot.com is a blog about Bhagawan Sri

Sathya Sai Baba and other spiritual & religious matters.

For more about me including my software related blogs please

visit: http://ravisiyer.blogspot.in/p/about-ravi-s-iyer.html.

Above content is based on this webpage:

https://iami1.wordpress.com/about/

16 iami1.wordpress.com blog book

I am I

First posted around Sept. 2011

Who am I?

This is THE Great Existential Question of man.

Great Spiritual Masters and Sacred Scripture tell us:

Koham? Soham.

Who am I? I am He.

Some put it differently. They say:

Who am I? I am I.

AS SIMPLE AS THAT!!!

But it is simple only from an intellectual appreciation, thinking

‘head’ point of view. To REALLY UNDERSTAND IT one

has to understand from the ‘feeling’ heart, from the ‘feeling’

depth of one’s being, in the unchanging still awareness of our

‘feeling’ existence.

In fact, if the understanding is only intellectual then it can be

viewed as a ridiculous statement and dismissed out-of-hand as

something meant only for idiots & fools who are blinded by

their beliefs. The ultimate answer to existence then can get

grotesquely misunderstood.

The ‘feeling’ heart understanding may take months and years

and decades and even multiple lifetimes, they say! Taming

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 17

Desire in general and Lust in particular (Kaama), Anger (Krodha), Greed (Lobha), Infatuation (Moha), Pride (Madha)

& Jealousy (Maathsarya) comes first. That ensures a calm

beingness, a nearly thoughtless but ‘feelingful’ / ‘beingful’

state which allows one to unravel and disentangle the Body-

Mind-Ego Delusion from one’s existential reality. Then and

then alone comes REAL UNDERSTANDING, they say.

That, they say, is the spiritual journey to the reality of not only

one’s existence but that of ALL EXISTENCE which is

projected from the depths of our own being. They vehemently

say, contemptuous of the ignorant and dismissive disbelief of

most materialists and most material scientists, that this ultimate

existential reality IS NOT OUTSIDE US in the outer/sensory

material universe but within the depths of our own being. And

the time taken for this journey to our spiritual center, they say,

varies widely from person to person.

And some Great Masters say that at the very depth of our

being we are Pure Love!!! That’s it, they say. Nothing else

exists but Pure Love. And to reach that understanding, that

existential experience, that enlightenment, they say, take the

path of Service (Seva) with Pure Love (Nirmal / Nishkaam

Prema).

Faith in these sacred statements goes a long way in unraveling

the Great Illusion (Maha Maya) that we are trapped in. The

other great virtue is Patience – Patience of a tall order –

Patience of months and years and even lifetimes. Shraddha and

Saburi i.e. Faith and Patience, they say, can lead one to the

goal of direct experience of existential reality (Atma

Saakshaatkaar).

18 iami1.wordpress.com blog book

They say, Practise Pure Love as much as you can to experience your existential truth, your SACRED REALITY as PURE

LOVE. As simple as that!!! From Outer Expression of Pure

Love to Inner Experience of Divine Love.

Some time ago I heard some group sing,

“Love is the answer; Now, what was the question?”

What a Mahavaakya (Great pithy statement)! Perhaps it is at

the level of the Great Upanishadic Mahavaakyas like Thath

Thwam Asi (You are That).

Above post’s link: https://iami1.wordpress.com/

Divine revelation gems from

Chandogya Upanishad: Chapter 6

(Dialogue between Uddalaka

and Svetaketu)

Posted on April 8th 2018

Last updated on April 26th 2018

The Upanishads (also called Vedanta) are toward the end of

the Vedas, the holy scripture of the Hindus. I must also say

here that I am a Hindu. It is my fervent belief that these

Upanishads contain wonderful gems of divine revelation about

the mysteries of the universe and about divine power (formless

God). Given below are some such wonderful gems of divine

revelation from Chandogya Upanishad,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandogya_Upanishad.

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 19

I have included extracts of Chandogya Upanishad from Prof.

Max Muller’s Sacred Books of East,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Books_of_the_East,

(spelt as Khândogya Upanishad in it) as that is in the public

domain. It can be viewed from the index page here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbe01/index.htm. I have used

the term [MM, SBE] below to refer to Prof. Max Muller’s

above mentioned book.

Readers who would like to see the Sanskrit verses in

Devanagari (Sanskrit) script of Chandogya upanishad can do

so here:

http://www.astrojyoti.com/pdfs/DevanagariFiles/ChandogyaU

panishat.pdf. Note that Chapter 6 starts from pdf file page 50

but which has page number printed as 130 as the pdf file seems

to be an extract from a larger file. I have also uploaded this pdf

file on my blog here:

https://iami1.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/chandogyaupanishat

-sanskrit.pdf as Chandogya Upanishad Sanskrit text is in the

public domain.

The shlokas (verses) below have the original Sanskrit verses in

Roman (English) script followed by Max Muller, SBE English

translation of it.

My comments on the shlokas (verses) below have been

strongly influenced by a near-contemporary spiritual master’s

commentary on Chandogya Upanishad. As I want to

emphasize spiritual teachings/paths/philosophy/knowledge

which may be viewed as universal though I have used the

Hindu way of expressing them, I have chosen not to mention

the name of this near-contemporary spiritual master.

20 iami1.wordpress.com blog book

Chapter 6, Part 1

Verse 3: Yenaashrutam shrutam bhavati amatham matham,

avijnaatham vijnaatham iti katham nu bhagavah sa aadesho

bhavathithi.

[MM, SBE]: (‘His father said to him: ‘Svetaketu, as you are so

conceited, considering yourself so well-read, and so stern,)

have you ever asked for that instruction by which we hear what

cannot be heard, by which we perceive what cannot be

perceived, by which we know what cannot be known?’

Verse 4: Yathaa somya ekena mrt-pindena sarvam mrnmayam

vijnaatham syaath vaachaarambhanam vikaaro naamadheyam

mrttikethi eva sathyam.

[MM, SBE]: (‘What is that instruction, Sir?’ he asked. The

father replied:) ‘My dear, as by one clod of clay all that is

made of clay is known, the difference being only a name,

arising from speech, but the truth being that all is clay’

Verse 5: Yathaa somya ekena lohamaninaa sarvam

lohamayam vijnaatham syaath vaachaarambhanam vikaro

namadheyam lohamithi eva sathyam.

[MM, SBE]: And as, my dear, by one nugget of gold all that is

made of gold is known, the difference being only a name,

arising from speech, but the truth being that all is gold

Ravi: My understanding of the above verses is that there is an

underlying core being-ness (or existence-ness or is-ness) which

is the vital aspect of all existence. It is this vital being-ness

which is manifested in different ways and appears as the

iami1.wordpress.com blog book 21

universe to us. This being-ness cannot be easily known by gross intelligence. This being-ness can be known or realized

by subtle intelligence.

Chapter 6, Part 2

Verse 1: Sath eva somya idam agra aaseed ekam

evaadvithiyam, tadd haika aahuh, asad evedam agra aaseed

ekam evaadvithiyam, tasmaad asathah saj jaayatha.

[MM, SBE]: ‘In the beginning,’ my dear, ‘there was that only

which is (τὸ ὄν), one only, without a second. Others say, in the

beginning there was that only which is not (τὸ μὴ ὄν), one

only, without a second; and from that which is not, that which

is was born.

Verse 2: Kuthas tu khalu somya evam syaath ithi hovaacha

katham asathah saj jaayethethi, sath thu eva somya idam agra

aaseed ekam evaadvithiyam.

[MM, SBE]: ‘But how could it be thus, my dear?’ the father

continued. ‘How could that which is, be born of that which is

not? No, my dear, only that which is, was in the beginning, one

only, without a second.