1. Hinduism recognizes that all understanding
is paradigm dependent in the final analysis. Truth is One, the learned describe
It variedly, it says. As such, it is the most secular of all religions and is
theistic at the same time. If other religionists can recognize this, they will
be able to accept and appreciate the good and bad in all religions just as
Hindus can.
2. Hinduism offers Yoga and various types of Mediation Routines for
physical and emotional health with emphasis on our spiritual well being as
well. Stripped out of their spiritual emphasis, many of these are finding their
way into mainstream preventive physical and rehabilitation therapies. Hinduism
also offers Ayurveda and other natural herbal recipes for chronic disease
management as alternatives or supplements to modern prescription drugs.
3. Unlike non-theistic religions such as
Buddhism and Taoism, Hinduism recognizes that gods, goddesses, angels, demons
and some departed personalities such as departed saints and spiritual masters
are real extra terrestrial beings in worlds of matter, anti matter or spirit. It
also recognizes that there are conflicts amongst them just as in us. They need
us as much as we need them. We can benefit by praying to them, worshipping them
and making deals with them. Idols and photographic images of them help us to
focus our attention on the specific attributes of their personalities.
4. Hinduism reminds us that
central to all Understanding is the Understanding of the source of all
Understanding. With that recognition, it offers a Worldview and Cosmology that
is much more comprehensive than the current Scientific Paradigms leaving it for
innovative scientists to fill in the details. Keep going.
5. Hinduism recognizes that Consciousness
and its attributes of Self Awareness, Mutual Awareness and Environmental
Awareness alongside of the Survival Instinct that evolved into the complexity
of predator and prey mechanisms and associated emotional complexes on Earth could
not have arisen without the potentiality for them preexisting in Space and Time
free Vacuum just as matter and energy cannot come into existence without the
potentiality for them preexisting in the same Space and Time free Vacuum.
Science has yet to come to accept this concept. That potentiality is called
Brahman symbolically. Other religionists can relate to Brahman in terms of
their own God. In scientific terms, the name is irrelevant and unimportant.
6. Hinduism recognizes that Cycling and Recycling are natural processes
not only on Earth but all across all the stars and planets in the Universe.
With that realization, it suggests that Creation, Sustenance and Eventual Dissolution of the Universe occur in cycles
within sub cycles of Space and Time. More specifically it suggests that each
cycle is of 4.32 billion years in duration and each sub cycle is
a multiple of 4.32 million years in duration. Four
sub cycles make a full cycle. Today's
scientists are just beginning to work out the details of this idea. For
instance P. Steinhardt and N. Turok: A Cyclic Model of the Universe: Science pp.
1436-1439, 2002. Much more work needs to be done to bring this idea into
mainstream science.
7. Hinduism extends the realization
of creation, sustenance and eventual decay in cycles after cycles as natural
processes all across the board to the accumulated informational databases of
life forms on earth from the moment of their birth till death. They are
referred to as Vasanas. Roughly they
can be translated as impressions or experiences. Recycling of the matrix of a
lifetime of experiences from moment to moment within the context of action and
reaction mechanisms among the billions of cells and their constituents within
an organism is what is involved in Reincarnation, it suggests. These ideas may
have to be extended to the so called
inanimate matter all the way down to subatomic particles as well to develop a
much more comprehensive Worldview and Cosmology than is presently the case.
Interestingly in this
context, that two eminent scientists, an American doctor Stuart
Hameroff and a British physicist Sir Roger Penrose are said to have developed a
quantum theory of consciousness asserting that our souls are contained inside structures
called micro tubules which live within our brain cells. They argue that our experience of consciousness is the result of
quantum gravity effects inside these microtubules. In a near-death experience,
they suggest, the microtubules lose their quantum state but the information
within them is not destroyed.
Paraphrasing
what Dr. Hameroff says: "Let's say the heart stops beating and the blood
stops flowing. The microtubules then lose their quantum state. The quantum
information matrix within the microtubules however is not destroyed, it can't
be destroyed, and it just goes to the universe at large. It can go back into
the microtubules and the patient says, I had a near death experience. In
the event of the patient's death, it is possible that this quantum information
can exist outside the body indefinitely - as a soul. The role quantum physics
plays in biological processes, such as in the navigation of birds, adds weight
to the theory."
8. Last but not the least,
Hinduism recognizes that extraordinary individuals, incarnating or
reincarnating arise in our midst every now and then with extraordinary psychic
powers just as super heroes come about every now and then in other fields of
human activity. There is no genetic or any other explanation for any of that as
of now in scientific terms. Reincarnation of Information matrices in ways we do
not quite understand at the present time may be involved here.
