Science and Spirituality: New Physics Points To Cosmic Spirit

'God is dead' proclaimed a cover story in Time magazine in the 1960s, and held science responsible for it. Case closed? Far from it. By the 1990s, people were talking about things like 'can spirituality promote health?' The pendulum is now swinging in the other direction. Ironically enough, it is the same science that once killed off the notion of God that is now strengthening humankind's belief in a 'supreme power'. Latest revelations in cosmology and quantum physics are fostering this paradigm shift.

Read more here: » Science and Spirituality: New Physics Points To Cosmic Spirit

Some years ago, I called upon the great scientist Prof S Chandrasekhar in Chicago and asked him how seers of the Vedas and Upanishads had two astounding insights that have emerged in modern science only recently.

The first is the concept of anantakoti brahmanda , endless universes. The second is the concept of vast aeons of time through which creation passes, much like the ancient belief that a single day of Brahma is 4.32 million human years long, so that his one year corresponds roughly to the age of planet earth. When I suggested that perhaps this knowledge came to seers in enhanced states of consciousness, Prof Chandrasekhar seemed to agree.

Read more here: » Science and Spirituality: SymbiosisBetween Science Spirit

Spiritism is a religious and philosophic doctrine established in France in the mid 19th Century by Allan Kardec. The term was coined by him as the specific name of the doctrine he was about to publish but, given the fact that the word was created from roots taken from the common language, it was soon incorporated into the normal use and has been used to name other doctrines as well, though the ...

Including:

• Spiritism - Spiritism and Related Religions
• Spiritism - Precursors
• Spiritism - Fox Sisters
• Spiritism - Spinning Tables
• Spiritism - Mesmerism
• Spiritism - An Overview
• Spiritism - Basic Books
• Spiritism - Doctrine
• Spiritism - Leading a Spiritist Life
• Spiritism - Organization
• Spiritism - The Role of Spiritism
• Spiritism - Spiritism as a Religion
• Spiritism - Spiritism as Science
• Spiritism - Spiritism and Other Religions
• Spiritism - Spiritism and Christianism
• Spiritism - Spiritism Through History
• Spiritism - Syncretic Religions
• Spiritism - See Also

Read more here: » Spiritism: Encyclopedia - Spiritism

Too many choices sometimes create conflicts and problems, and lead to unhappiness. Recent scientific and sociological studies done on a large number of subjects show that there seems to be a direct correlation between unhappiness and the number of choices available.

Read more here: » Spiritual Growth: Options for Sustainable Life

All religions and schools of thought have held equanimity to be a great virtue, to be cultivated as a prerequisite to attaining the status of a jivanmukta or realised soul.

The sage-king Bhartrihari defined the man of equanimity: - Let those who are worldly-wise praise or condemn, let riches come or go as they please, let death mow one down now itself, or let it come centuries later Ñ the man of equanimity is not deterred from his determined and steadfast march on the path of righteousnessÓ.

Read more here: » Equanimity: Facing Change With True Equanimity

The Ramayana is the story of Rama. But more significantly, the epic provides a peephole into Vedantic wisdom on the nature of existence, reality and governance.

Vasishtas sagacious discourse to prince Rama was offered at a moment of confusion and crisis in the young princes life, when he was beginning to feel a surge of vairagya at a tender age. While extolling the vairagya state of Rama, Vasishta initiates Rama into the deeper ontological questions of existence and the nature of the mind.

Read more here: » Yoga Vasishta: Vedantic Wisdom in The Yoga Vasishta

Every material thing - every person, animal, rock and tree on the earth, even Mother Earth herself - has its own natural resonating frequency. The Earth's own electromagnetic field, deep space, and people in a meditative state are all resonating at a frequency of approximately 7.8 hertz. This is called the Schumann Resonating Frequency. In human beings, the balanced interaction of all the frequencies resonating in and through our bodies is what makes us work. When our frequencies resonate in sync, we are healthy.

Read more here: » Healing Music: Healing Through Music

  It is wise to bear in mind that in daily life, most of our knowledge is not arrived at through analysis. It is thought by many that the intuitive faculties of the human mind can draw on much more information than we can access analytically, and certainly there are a lot of remarkable anecdotes about the power of dreams and intuition in problem-solving. Thus, it seems worthwhile to take a look at the intuitive appeal of karma.

Read more here: » Science and Karma: Intuitive Rightness - Science and Karma

Our bodies create the illusion that we are separate. This illusion is further reinforced by modern science and technology, which is based on the Cartesian-Newton paradigm, which posited a division between mind and matter and led to a view of the universe as a mechanical system consisting of separate objects.

This view fostered life in society as a competitive struggle for existence and the belief in unlimited material progress to be achieved through economic and technological growth. Modern physics and quantum mechanics are now discovering what the mystics of the East have long known Ñ the basic oneness of the universe.

Read more here: » Subconscious: Infinite Power of The Subconscious

If we are what our thoughts make of us, the question arises: How is thought created? The Dhammapada states: - All that we are is the result of what we have thoughtÓ. Then what is it in our minds that controls our thoughts and thereby alters the entire course of our lives for better or worse? Recent psychological research offers an answer.

Psychologist Kenneth Craik, in The Nature of Explanation says that our minds construct small-scale models of reality. Models are representations of a new, unfamiliar object by a similar, but more familiar object. Based on those models we reason, explain things and anticipate events.

Read more here: » Power of Thoughts: Small-Scale Models Of Reality

If the manual of life is encoded in our DNA, where do we look to find the blueprint of consciousness? This was a subject that fascinated Francis Crick, who, along with James Watson, discovered the double-helix structure of DNA 50 years ago.

Engrossed in the mysterious relationship between mind and body, Crick later felt impelled to turn his attention from matter to mind and from biology to philosophy Ñ but he persisted in believing that one day, consciousness could be explained in biological terms, using the tools of neuroscience.

Read more here: » Consciousness: Mapping the Physical and Mental Universes

J Krishnamurti departed from this world 17 Februarys ago. He was a philosopher deeply sceptical of the smokescreen that is the mind. Krishnamurtis every realisation was the out-come of a spontaneous, non-biased, non-preconceived way of living, with no mind playing the filter. In truth he had little to teach, save that knowledge is not taught but realised. But his audiences made a teaching even out of that!

Read more here: » Krishnamurti: Truth Is a Pathless Land - Krishnamurti

The Bhagavad Gita is a scientific text dealing with the knowledge of life and living. This knowledge consists of the eternal principles governing human existence.

These principles remain as relevant today as when they were expressed thousands of years ago on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

Read more here: » Bhagavad Gita: A Vision Of the Cosmic Form Ð The Bhagavad Gita

Results of recent studies published in the British Journal of Psychiatry pronounce that diet has a direct bearing on the behaviour of juvenile delinquents. Certain types of food brought about - though very gradually - distinct changes in the behavioural pattern of the delinquents.

Foods affect animal behaviour as well. For instance, a dog fed on raw meat for any length of time turns out to be more ferocious than a similar breed fed on vegetarian foods. Sastras explain that mind is also matter, albeit subtle, and, like the body, is nourished by food. The Chandogya Upanishad says: "Mind consists of food, prana (life force) of water and speech of fire."

(See also: Body mind and soul, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

In Vedic times, there were no temples as we know them today. Temples were constructed when kingdoms began to flourish. Anand Coomaraswamy observes that the rise of the temple represents the softening of the practice of yagya or sacrifice into puja.

A constructed temple is only a symbol of the original, the body. Is it wise then to chase the symbol, when you have the original?

Read more here: » Spiritual Practices: Mobile Temples of Mind and Body

Mandala, which literally means circle, largely associated with religions and cults of India and Tibet, was also used as a potent symbol by the American Indians, the original inhabitants of Central America, and by the aborigines of Australia.

Across cultures, the universe is represented as a series of concentric circles, maybe as a model of the solar system. In Tantra, the central point represents Mount Meru around which the earth is situated, and the concentric circles represent the cosmic aspects of the universe, like energy fields and atmospheric zones. In Hindu and Buddhist interpretations, the centre of the Mandala is the ultimate divine principle uniting the object and the subject as they spin out of the centre. This may refer to the cosmos or to the human body.

Read more here: » Mandala: Mandala as Symbol of the Universe

Infinity: The Infinite Nature Of Our Universe

Infinite translated in Sanskrit is anant which means 'without end'. Mathematically speaking, infinity is an indeterminate quantity and has two values - one positive and the other, negative. In Sanskrit these values are described as anaadi and anant , that is, without beginning and without end. Any discussion on this topic can only reveal human ignorance and so humble and inspire us to becoming better human beings.

Read more here: » Infinity: The Infinite Nature Of Our Universe

Science and Spirituality: See the World in a Grain of Salt

Revelation of this excellence in God's creation has been the constant endeavour of science right from the days of Aristotle, Newton and Einstein to the present day.

Realising God's excellence in nature only brought these scientists closer to God - some of them even expressed a feeling of deep religiosity. Einstein said: "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind".

Read more here: » Science and Spirituality: See the World in a Grain of Salt

We learn with the help of four methods, says the Srimad Bhagavatam: through experience, deduction, studying history and oral traditions.

What we learn with the aid of our physical organs Ñ seeing and hearing with our eyes and ears for instance Ñ fall under the category of experience. The second method of learning is deduction.

Read more here: » Body Mind and Spirit: Attaining the Infinite With the Spoken Word

When the mind is peaceful, content and full of positive feelings for all beings, then no amount of negative stimulation can disturb or distract it from its benign state. Even wild animals like lions, tigers, serpents are known to have lived peacefully in the habitats of hermits in ancient times because of the powerful spell of pure and positive vibrations emanating from those meditating sages.

Read more here: » Positive Thinking: Think Positive, Reap Benefits