Let us THINK : By Dr.King

[Quick links] [Pause] Buddhism that started with its anicca or impermanence theory, gradually developed into many more forms.  First, they said that both the body and the mind appear and disappear in quick succession, both being impermanent. Then some of them came up with the theory that bodies don’t exist at all, and ‘it is all in the mind’ as we discussed in the previous episode.

[Quick links] [Pause] Let me welcome you back to a great new year. As part of the series on Mind, I will now start discussing about Yoga – a way of entering into domains beyond our limited Minds.

[Quick links] [Pause] Buddhism that started as Tera Vada Buddhism, evolved into many more forms over a period of time. Adherents to each form claimed authority from Buddha himself. There was Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen and so on. One interesting development that revolved around the Mind, which is the topic of interest to us, is the so called Vijnyana Vada that got developed as an offshoot of Mahayana Buddhism sometime around 4th century A.D. They had some interesting views about the Mind.

[Quick links] [Pause] Buddhism is generally attributed to the great reformer philosopher Siddhartha Gautama who probably lived during 623-543 B.C. Buddha was more concerned with the miseries that afflicted common people and he gave up his throne and went in search of a solution to all the miseries of mankind. The early form of the religion that got formulated sometime during 300 B.C., i.e. two centuries after the death of Buddha, was called ‘Teravada’ Buddhism – a word that simply meant – ‘the path of the elders’.  Most of what I am going to talk in this episode pertains to this early form of Buddhism which is believed to be based on the preaching of Buddha as recorded in the Tipitakas.

[Quick links] [Pause] Homeopathy is one medical discipline which can cure any disease without any harmful side effects. Nor does it need any invasive procedures, not even any painful pricks. Just take some sugar pills and you can cure yourselves.

[Quick links] [Pause] You probably have noticed that our thoughts are often influenced by our past experiences and memories. One Guru of recent times even goes to the extent of dismissing thoughts as just a jumbling of memories and nothing else!

[Quick links] [Pause] It is all right. Everyone does. That is the natural process. Have you noticed the first symptom of getting old? Yes, you guessed it right. You start forgetting things! Not that you forget everything. You still remember all those nasty things you did in your younger days. Those happy carefree days, those scolding you got from your parents for no fault of yours, and so on. But somehow, you start forgetting where you just left your mobile phone or the spectacles!

[Quick links] [Pause] We often think that what really makes us different from inanimate things is the ‘free will’ that we are supposed to be having. An inanimate thing like a fan for example, can start, stop, run slowly or very fast, not on its own but only when we switch it on or off, or when we tweak the regulator. That is because the fan is not alive, though it can move. It does not have a will of its own. It just does what we want it to do.

[Quick links] [Pause] For the past several episodes I discussed our current scientific views about our Mind. I took some interesting excerpts from my book “How does the Mind Work?” while explaining the scientific views. In the next few episodes, I am going to pick up some interesting ideas about the Mind from my book “Missing dimensions in our current understanding of the Mind”. My idea is to approach the Mind from both sides – modern science as well as ancient philosophy, pick useful things from both, and finally take you to regions beyond the mind itself! So, stay tuned till the end of this series.

[Quick links] [Pause] As usual, I am using the title as a sequence of overloaded words. I am simultaneously implying that Yoga is the solution to all your ‘worldly problems’, as well as all the ‘problems of the world’.  I may appear to oversell Yoga. But it is true as I explain later.

[Quick links] [Pause] Reasoning is a very powerful tool used by our mind to know that which is not directly apparent to our senses. Can we use logic to know everything – even those that cannot be perceived by our senses?

[Quick links] [Pause] You probably have heard about this. Some of us are supposed to be left brain dominated and others right brain dominated. Not that we have two brains. What it means is that in some of us one of our brain ‘hemispheres’ plays a dominant role.

[Quick links] [Pause] Ancient Indians believed that the entire Vedic literature is the recording of visions of various sages when they were in deep states of meditation. They did not compose them. But they merely had the visions that they later recorded. One such record of visions of a sage by name Mandukya, namely the Mandukya Upanishad, is considered to be the essence of all the Vedas by philosophers like Sankara. It is a very short record with only 12 verses. Gaud pada uses this short composition as a basis of his theory that we discussed in the previous episode. What do these 12 verses say?

[Quick links] [Pause] As we discussed in the previous episodes, our Indian Scientist Dr. Krishan Chandra seems to have a magic solution for all the ills of gardening. It almost costs nothing as he puts it. But his claims are not easy to believe. If things were that rosy, why are not everyone doing it? In a matter of few years we could change the entire world and solve not only farming problems but also many of our health problems as well, that are increasingly becoming a menace due to our use of chemicals and pesticides in farming.

[Quick links] [Pause] In the previous episode we were talking about some miraculous finds of a senior Indian scientist namely Dr. Krishan Chandra. Let me continue on that.