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True, perfectly true, I agree totally...but wooly...three bags full...
As I said yesterday, I devour both ToI and DC everyday, except for their Physics, Cricket and Movies columns which disgust me somehow. Aging perhaps accounts for it.
In particular, ToI has a Daily Column on its Edit Page calling itself 'The Speaking Tree' whatever that may mean. Personally I haven't yet met a speaking tree; whistling trees yes...in particular the Bodhi (Peepal, Fig) tree whistles in wind. Also the Casuarina groves on the Muthukur seashore:
Anyway, the Speaking Tree of ToI is a religious column. To be impartial to all religions, ToI takes care to print mini-discourses and declamations from all major religions. When surfeit with them, it also prints exhortations by pseudo-religious Inspirational Speakers.
DC has a daily column on its OP-ED page called 'Mystic Mantra'. It is as good or bad as ToI's Speaking Tree...both are musty and gooey.
I am not particularly religious. I can take it or leave it like any of you. I have an uncle whom I call my Literary Uncle. In his youth he was a hard-core card-holding communist often going underground. He was an atheist but he never used to object his wife going to temples or reading religious literature. Often in his spare time he used to browse my auntie's religious books. Once I asked my auntie why her atheist husband reads religious literature. And she smiled and said:
"To poke holes in them"
Later, after his retirement he translated the Gita into charming Telugu verses. I caught him one day and pinned him down and he replied:
"Gita is good literature"
I too dabbled in Gita and the Upanishads and the Bible for somewhat similar reasons.
My today's rant against the ToI and DC columns is that they are NOT good literature. In particular they tend to borrow words from science to make them pompous, needlessly.
For instance, look at the above ToI quote..."space-time" occurs twice. The author doesn't claim to be a physics student. If he is...it is worse.
It is unfortunate that science has to use the vocabulary of lay language for its special purposes. Einstein, in particular, became a poster-boy for several reasons, not necessarily scientific. He used to dabble in God and philosophy after he became too famous and unproductive in physics. And discussed God and possibly Existence with Tagore.
I recall, in my school days, otherwise decent folks used to say:
"Well, salt in this curry is more for me but less for my wife...it is all Relative as Einstein said"
...to my knowledge Einstein never said THAT...whatever else he said.
I used to tell my students (in my youth before I became wiser) that both the postulates of Einstein's STR have to do with invariants that are NOT relative...one, the speed of light and two, the laws of physics. Perhaps Einstein or whoever should have called his theory: 'Theory of Invariants'....but then again...writers of the Speaking Tree would have used 'invariance' to depict Pure Being.
Likewise, people who had no business to talk about it took to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle like lemmings take to sea. I happened to browse a fat book in my mom's bookshelf that was a Bhashya (gloss) on Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. It was bristling with scientific words totally irrelevant to that Upanishad as far as I know from Radhakrishnan's version. In particular, the author was citing Heisenberg and his uncertainty as proof of his God. Nothing could be sillier.
Perhaps, Heisenberg could have stuck to his "Inequalities"...but then again the Speaking Tree would have spoken of his 'inequality' to justify the variety in "Pure Existence" when it manifests itself in "space-time"
When Physicists and Mathematicians were wrangling bitterly over their 'jurisdiction' (like the Delhi Police now), Hilbert said:
"Physics and Mathematics need not have any quarrel...they have nothing to do with each other"
So too I think Religion and Science.
...Posted by Ishani
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"No sooner than the Absolute, pure awareness, manifests itself in the realm of space-time, it brings along its essence, love. As fragrance is the inseparable essence of a sweet-smelling flower, love is intrinsic to Being. Love as essence of existence, being and pure awareness is whole, uncompounded and infinite. However, the dilemma of manifestation is the emergence of duality; the moment love enters the realm of space-time, the possibility of its becoming fragmented and finite is inevitable."
...The Speaking Tree, ToI, Wednesday January 9, 2013.
True, perfectly true, I agree totally...but wooly...three bags full...
As I said yesterday, I devour both ToI and DC everyday, except for their Physics, Cricket and Movies columns which disgust me somehow. Aging perhaps accounts for it.
In particular, ToI has a Daily Column on its Edit Page calling itself 'The Speaking Tree' whatever that may mean. Personally I haven't yet met a speaking tree; whistling trees yes...in particular the Bodhi (Peepal, Fig) tree whistles in wind. Also the Casuarina groves on the Muthukur seashore:
"The soft singing of the air through its innumerable slender twigs is a pleasant sound, which lends it the common name Whistling Pine."
DC has a daily column on its OP-ED page called 'Mystic Mantra'. It is as good or bad as ToI's Speaking Tree...both are musty and gooey.
I am not particularly religious. I can take it or leave it like any of you. I have an uncle whom I call my Literary Uncle. In his youth he was a hard-core card-holding communist often going underground. He was an atheist but he never used to object his wife going to temples or reading religious literature. Often in his spare time he used to browse my auntie's religious books. Once I asked my auntie why her atheist husband reads religious literature. And she smiled and said:
"To poke holes in them"
Later, after his retirement he translated the Gita into charming Telugu verses. I caught him one day and pinned him down and he replied:
"Gita is good literature"
I too dabbled in Gita and the Upanishads and the Bible for somewhat similar reasons.
My today's rant against the ToI and DC columns is that they are NOT good literature. In particular they tend to borrow words from science to make them pompous, needlessly.
For instance, look at the above ToI quote..."space-time" occurs twice. The author doesn't claim to be a physics student. If he is...it is worse.
It is unfortunate that science has to use the vocabulary of lay language for its special purposes. Einstein, in particular, became a poster-boy for several reasons, not necessarily scientific. He used to dabble in God and philosophy after he became too famous and unproductive in physics. And discussed God and possibly Existence with Tagore.
I recall, in my school days, otherwise decent folks used to say:
"Well, salt in this curry is more for me but less for my wife...it is all Relative as Einstein said"
...to my knowledge Einstein never said THAT...whatever else he said.
I used to tell my students (in my youth before I became wiser) that both the postulates of Einstein's STR have to do with invariants that are NOT relative...one, the speed of light and two, the laws of physics. Perhaps Einstein or whoever should have called his theory: 'Theory of Invariants'....but then again...writers of the Speaking Tree would have used 'invariance' to depict Pure Being.
Likewise, people who had no business to talk about it took to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle like lemmings take to sea. I happened to browse a fat book in my mom's bookshelf that was a Bhashya (gloss) on Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. It was bristling with scientific words totally irrelevant to that Upanishad as far as I know from Radhakrishnan's version. In particular, the author was citing Heisenberg and his uncertainty as proof of his God. Nothing could be sillier.
Perhaps, Heisenberg could have stuck to his "Inequalities"...but then again the Speaking Tree would have spoken of his 'inequality' to justify the variety in "Pure Existence" when it manifests itself in "space-time"
When Physicists and Mathematicians were wrangling bitterly over their 'jurisdiction' (like the Delhi Police now), Hilbert said:
"Physics and Mathematics need not have any quarrel...they have nothing to do with each other"
So too I think Religion and Science.
...Posted by Ishani
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