An Agnostic Analysis of Spirituality

 Friends, I like to introduce to you a book I am currently reading. It has a fancy title -- I'll put 3 chips on God, in case there is one, and its subtitle gives a better idea of the content of the book -- An agnostic analysis of spirituality.

This 300 pages book is written by Preeti Gupta.  She lives in NewJersey, USA and she works there as an accountant.  Her parents are from India and she keeps connection with India.  I believe she is around 40 years old now.

 As she grew up, Preeti asked the basic questions of existence such as why we live here and what is the meaning of  our life. With an open mind, and with a willingness to learn,  she listened to whoever claimed to have answers to these questions. She read people like Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra, and she kept herself open to all religions and their teachers

 She does not claim to have found any answers to those questions,  but she continues her quest with an open mind. She presents her current understanding in this book. She shares in this book with the readers some important information she happened to gather. Endowed with a very clear mind she has managed to synthesise the information and has come up with an excellent hypothesis of how we may approach spirituality as rationally as possible. 

 Preeti respects all religions and all the religious teachers, and she is willing to learn from them all, but she prefers to call herself a human being. She does not want to remain a believer of any religious dogmas or doctrines. She describes herself as an agnostic. An agnostic is someone who is willing to admit his or her ignorance rather than hold beliefs about unknown things. A theist believes that God exists, and an atheist opposes the theists for holding such beliefs.  An agnostic does not simply believe in things nor does he oppose the believers, but merely admits his ignorance of the unknown. Such an honest approach is, I think, necessary for any quest for truth.

Let me try to summarise here her primary hypothesis.

Energy is defined as a fundamental force of nature that is transferred between parts of a system resulting in some physical change to the system and usually regarded as the capacity for doing work. Energy can take a wide variety of forms. Human body uses energy. Mainly we use chemical energy, which is generated from the food, water, and oxygen we ingest. These substances combine with others in our body to form certain chemicals or reactions that cause our blood to flow, our cells to metabolize glucose, and other such biological occurrences.

Some people think that there is another kind of energy in our body. A science person may call it life force, a Hindu may call it atman, or prana, a Chinese may call it Ki, but Preeti prefers to call it soul energy. 

Until a few decades ago, we did not know much about many common forms of energy, such as kinetic or sound or light. All types of energy already exist in the world, because according to science, “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.” But we first have to discover a new form of energy before we know it exists.

What if there IS such a form of energy as Soul Energy, but we haven't discovered it yet? Just because we don't know about it now, doesn't mean we won't be able to prove it exists in the future. It's possible, we are discovering new forms of energy all the time.

How do we discover a new form of energy? There are two criteria that must be met in order to establish the existence of energy:

1) Show a force that works to cause a change in a physical system.

2) Show that the force can be converted to and from other forms of energy.

 A microwave needs electricity first, and then it converts it to heat energy to boil water. Some electricity is also converted to light energy to lighten the oven.

In the same way, perhaps our DNA (our microchip) is coded to convert incoming energy chemical energy into other types of energy to perform various tasks. Sometimes our DNA may take chemical energy and convert it to kinetic, sound, or wind energy, which allows the body to perform work such as moving, talking, or breathing. Other times the DNA may instruct the body to convert chemical energy to Soul Energy, which allows the Mind to perform work such as thinking and feeling.

Like the recent discovery of nuclear energy in the 1930s, or solar energy in the 1830s, we may one day “discover” what has been in front of our noses all along. We may finally crack the entire code on our microchip, our DNA, and discover the secret to Soul Energy. Or maybe we never will, because it's not meant for us Humans to discover.

This books further explores some implications of soul energy in human life. 

Conclusion

 This agnostic approach to spirituality broke open by Preeti Gupta can serve to bridge the widening gap between science and spirituality. If Science can discover the Soul Energy as a new form of energy, it will be a great breakthrough. It can serve to cast fresh light on so many age-old puzzles regarding miracles, faith-healing, spirits, ghosts, near-death experiences, and many more similar topics.

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Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism

This book, one of the most insightful one I have ever read, is authored by Rajiv Malhotra, an Indian-American author, philanthropist and public speaker. It was published by HarperCollins in 2011. The book looks at the West from a an Eastern point of view, repositioning India from being the observed to the observer.

Malhotra gives a critique of western culture, by comparing it with Indian culture, as seen from a 'Dharmic point of view.' He postulates a set of characteristics of western culture, and a set of characteristics of Indian culture and religion, characterised as "Dharmic."

The term 'Dharma' is used to indicate a family of spiritual traditions that include Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. He contrasts the family of Dharmic traditions with Abrahamic religions. His intention is not to replace the West-centric view with a Dharma-centric view, but to have a dialogue in which the world civilizations are not seen from the viewpoint of the West alone, but the west is also seen from a non-western, 'dharmic' point of view. In such a dialogue, there must be mutual respect instead of tolerance.

How do we know?

The author argues that the East and West approach the question of how we attain knowledge differently. For the west, knowledge that we need has already been revealed through past events and people, and has been recorded in the Sacred Scriptures. All that we need to do is to believe whatever has been revealed. However, in the East, we don’t depend on the past events for knowledge. We make our own enquiry in the present. We don’t need to believe in anything.

Imagine a country which has all the media channels controlled by the government. People can watch only what the government wants them to watch. They hear only whatever the government wants them to hear. People don’t have freedom there to seek and find the truth. They just have to believe whatever their government tells them. This is how the west is. The Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-- do not give freedom to the people to find the truth for themselves. They just have to believe whatever they are told to believe. Compare this situation with a country in which their government does not control the media, and people are free to watch whichever channels they want. The Dharmic religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism – are like this. People have freedom to discover the truth for themselves. They can believe whatever they want to believe or remain without believing.

Because the Abrahamic religions claim custody of truth, they cannot respect the beliefs of others. Even within these religions, there are numerous sub-sects, and they cannot agree with one another. They are missionary religions, who try to convert people of other beliefs to their own belief system. None of the Abrahamic religions or their subsects can live peacefully in the modern pluralistic societies.

The Dharmic religions, on the other hand, do not claim custody of any knowledge or beliefs, and so they respect all people regardless of what they believe. They are willing to accept all people regardless of what they believe. They can live peacefully in a pluralistic society without any problem at all.  

What do we know?

Regarding the question of what we know, East and West have contradictory answers according to the author. According to the East, the world is really a unity though it appears to be multiple on the surface. According to the West, the world is really a multiplicity, and it needs to evolve to a unity.

For the East, the Dharmic view, there is unity in diversity—real unity at the base, and it appears diverse. Thus unity and diversity co-exist. Chaos and cosmos co-exist. All we need to attain is to realize the underlying unity.

For the West, the Abrahamic view, there is really chaos, and we need to achieve unity. The Abrahamic religions help people to bridge the gaps and create unity so that we can have a peaceful life. There are gaps everywhere – between man and God, between man and man, and between man and nature. All these gaps need to be bridged.

The author further observes that during the age of enlightenment, people like Hegel created a very negative view of Asia and Africa. According to Hegel, Europeans were superior to Asian and Africans, and Germans were the most superior among them. This view of looking down on Asians and Africans still prevails in the world, and it needs to change.

Rajiv Malhotra argues that in the last few centuries, when the west dominated the world, they developed a west-centric worldview, and we have blindly followed it. Although the British left us half a century ago, we slavishly continue their worldview. We need to look at the world from our own eyes rather than through their eyes. The author presents Mahatma Gandhi as our role model in this. His life and ideals is an illustration of how we may view our life and the world, and live a meaningful life.  

Conclusion

I think Rajiv Malhotra is presenting an important point in this book. It helps us to reexamine our view of ourselves. Are we still looking at the world through the eyes of the Europeans, or are we using our own eyes? Do we claim custody of truth, or are we open? Can we live peacefully in the modern pluralistic society?