Let's think : By Dr.King, Swami Satyapriya

Quick links  Pause “As-salamu alaykum”Probably you are surprised to hear some non English words in the very beginning!. These are Arabic words meant to convey peace to the other person – a beautiful way of greeting each other. Salaammeans peace.

Quick links  Pause I am just using a catchy title. By God I am referring to that root cause for the existence of this world. The Upanishads refrain from calling it by any name and they just refer to it as ‘Tat’ or ‘Sat’ - literally meaning ‘That’ or ‘Existence’. Interestingly, many ancient scriptures – whether it is Bible or Quran or even the Upanishads have almost identical definition for God. They define God (or the ‘Tat’ in the Upanishads) as the one from which this world has emerged, the one that sustains whatever exists, and the one into which everything returns.

Quick links  Pause For the past several episodes, we were discussing how father Uddalaka tries to explain the unity of whole existence to his son Swetaketu. Uddalaka arrives at his conclusion by systematically following the modern scientific approach – observation, experimentation and reasoning.

Quick links  Pause In the previous episodes, we saw how father Uddalaka traces the origin of the existence by backward reasoning. He continues, to show the same unity among all the existence by forward reasoning as well.

Quick links  Pause “I read this book with keen interest …. The author has succeeded in providing a comprehensive account on how Yoga can be effectively utilized in alleviating stress in a way common man can understand. The author has critically analyzed the role of mind-body interaction in the genesis of stress, and how Yoga helps in normalizing it…”

Quick links  Pause The purpose of the story that we started discussing, namely the story of Uddalaka and Swetaketu was to declare the oneness of ‘everything’. How do you say two things are same even though they appear to be different?

Quick links  Pause In the previous episode, we saw how father Uddalaka traces the origin of all material things to three basic components – Satva, Rajas and Tamas. Various combinations of these three basic constituents result in various material forms that we see around us. Our worldly science seems to say that material things are everything. But Upanishads disagree.

Quick links  Pause As I said earlier, worldly science tries to deal with the diverse things that exist in this world around us. In contrast, spiritual science tries to see the unified view of this apparently diverse world. The main contribution of the Upanishads is to declare that the apparent diversity is only superficial. Underneath this diversity, there is unity. So the story we have been discussing, namely the story of father Uddalaka and son Swetaketu, starts off with the fundamental question of “how did this world come into existence?”

Quick links  Pause In the last book talk I talked about my book “How does the Mind work?”. That was about our current scientific understanding of the Mind. Interest in this most complex and intriguing entity namely the Mind, is not something new. Thousands of years ago the Greek philosophers and their counterparts in India researched this wonderful subject albeit with almost no gadgets that we have today. Though many modern researchers would like to dismiss their finds as mere speculations, anyone who has studied their contributions probably would think twice before arriving at such hasty conclusions.

Quick links  Pause There was this great sage Uddalaka who had a son by name Swetaketu. Probably this boy was a bit too much pampered. So unlike other boys who normally went to school, this boy did not, even when he reached an age of 12 years. In ancient India, a Brahmin boy was supposed to join the school at an early age of say 5 to 8. If he did not, he was ridiculed as ‘Brahma bandhu’ - someone who merely calls himself as Brahmin, but not actually so.