Do you think Science is blinded by Religion, or Religion is not illuminated by Science?

Thanks, Marko.

So the Grecian scientists were the first to try to throw scientific light on, or scientifically illuminate, religion and its beliefs?

Did they succeed or fail. If they had succeeded, number of religions should have decreased, isn't it so?

Narayanan

Religion is the core of both human and society. Humans are essentially social animals. A human babies that would not be socialized by the mother, the father and her culture, would not become human. The core of socialization is what religion is, It is what create an human being. Science began to exist in the first large scale civilisations. In these civilisations, hiearchical division of labors, rationalization and specialization of the work were necessary and gradually this practical organisational and engineering and accounting and measurement knowledge began to be systematized and expressed in language and science is borned of this. Science is born of the manipulation and control of objects and of peoples and relies on the part of the mind dedicated to manipulation of objects and manipulation of peoples as if they were objects. Science everywhere in the world was created by an aristocracy.

The religious part of a human being is his creative part, the part of the empathy while the scientific part of a human being is its manipulative part. Science without creativity would dye. Religion/society without control of nature would collapse. Right now in the world, the manipulative part is in controled , there is a deep imbalance which has to be corrected by putting back the religious part of human in control. Not a religious part controled by religious leaders (manipulator) but a communal religion as the one that create humanity.

Dear Narayanan, when you say "science" and "religion" do you mean social institutes or "knowledge" and "faith"?

Sorry to be late. Had some personal problems.

@Olga. Roughly, yes, as is the common perception (ie science=knowledge, no faith; religion=faith, not really knowledge). But a full answer to your question will be an answer to mine too, I feel. Your question assumes that any dark areas in science (ie knowledge!) can be lighted up by only further knowledge gathered by science, and religion cannot do any thing here (since it is just faith). It also assumes that since religion is just faith (it is a matter of faith that God exists, and it is not scientifically provable!), and not scientific knowledge, science can not throw any knowledge on it. In short, science and religion are considered as, sort of, mutually exclusive. Or they cannot throw light on each other; or rather each is blinded by the light of the other. Hence my question.

An addendum will be: Are there any areas or ways for each to contribute to either? Any ideas

I just don't mean scientists being very religious people.

@Louis: Instead of achieving a balance, or considering them as being in the opposing sides of a balance, why cant they be combined?

Narayanan

Narayanan,

In the outside world, you have both, in the inside world, we have both, one for dealing/manipulating the inanimate, the other for social collaboration and creation. The two are necessary but patriarcha , the domination of the manipulation over the creation is the problem. So one has to give up domination for creation. This is the price to pay. We cannot eat the whole cake.

Dear Narayanan,

my ideas are quite simple and arguments are very, very old.

1. The excellent knowledge and strong faith can coexist in the consciousness of a scientist very peacefully, without any "blinding" or other negative metaphorical :-)) processes, but as the social institutions science and religion are often (not always) in conflict. There are no social institutions without internal and external conflicts on the base of "Ours"-"Alians" opposition. So a "scientific", "religious" or a "smth else" in the frame of this opposition are only the small reasons, not the "deep" causes for these conflicts (the conflict analysts know more about this than me). Because of this I don't think that "science and religion are considered as, sort of, mutually exclusive".

2. You say, "it is a matter of faith that God exists, and it is not scientifically provable!" - As you know, we have no any scientific evidence that God does not exist. For this we need to prove that He has never been and isn't being in every point of the Space at each moment of the Time. So... I like better the positive proof by Kulakov (а physicist and mathematician), and his disciples, whо prove the existence of smth like the Single Principle.

Hope, everything will be fine with you!

Dear Olga

I am not saying that Science and Religion cannot co-exist in a persons mind. Many Scientists are highly religious and have strong faith in God. My question is "Are they doing anything to establish the existence of a God?" You say that we have no scientific evidence that God does not exist. It is a negative answer. Why is that no Scientist is trying to collect any evidence to prove existence of God? Why, because they think it is beyond science? or they are not true believers?

Let us leave God and take the case of the Soul/Atman, which I presume is at lower status than God. Has any Scientist tried to work on the existence of soul? No. Why? Is it because it is part of relegion and not science.

This is why I said that Scientist, even those who have fait, are blinded by Religion; in their heart of heart they consider Science and Religion as mutually exclusive or something that wont mix like oil and water.

Real scientific progress will not occur unless science works out a method to study religious facts/ statements. Similarly, those involved in Religion should be able to suggest scientific ways to study religions.

Well why not start with devising some means to study the existence of a soul; I hope some one will do so.

Narayanan

Thank you for your very interesting explanation. But I hope, nobody will do so with human or any other souls. It is too dangerous, and, imho, we are not ready for this. Imagine someone who will have a wish to manipulate with a "separated" (from its body) soul like with a "substance" or "energy" (or smth else). It is better to think for a while that Atman is incomprehensible and indestructible :). Sometimes even atheism plays the role of protective shield from our dangerous curiosity.

Dear Louis,

The outside and inside world. I like this. Can you elaborate on this, please, Please?

Dear Olga,

Well, I don't know what to say about it being too dangerous. After all nuclear fission also was dangerous. Mankind may become mature enough to handle this.

But it is unlikely that Modern science will find a methodology to find the truth about Soul, and other facets of religion.

But it is possible that our ancients did find something in that line, using ways different from the methodology of science. And I think this information is hidden in our Religious books, be it the Bible, Quran or the Vedas. Only thing is that we have failed to see this for two reasons: 1. We have given different meanings to their words, 2. We find it unbelievable that they had high scientific knowledge.

Let me tell a story found in Vedic Literature.

According to Hindu mythology, Surya (the Sun) is a God and he has two consorts (wives). The first one is Prajna. She found Surya too hot and hence she left a woman named Chhaaya in her place and went far away resided there.

Now Surya can be equated with light, and vision. The word Prajna has the meaning of to understand, know, etc. Chaaya means Image, Shadow, etc. So this story has three persons involved. Light, Image and Understanding

Now we know that when light (Surya) falls on the retina, an image is formed there, but this image is deciphered and undesrstood far away in the optic cortex in the back of the skull. In short the story says that Light/Vision is always accompanied by a Image and Understanding.

So did not the 500 year old story just give you this very Modern information. Of course you will not believe this, because 'modern science' understood this only less than 200 years. So what methodology of science did they follow? Are there other methodologies other than of Modern science?

There are more such info in all religious text. If you want to unravel them, you have to believe in this first. Our Ancients were not idiots.

Narayanan

Dear Narayanan, thank you very much for this interesting text example! I like your inspiring idea that "Mankind may become mature enough to handle this", although I'm not sure it will happen soon. And, yes, I hope, “our ancients were not idiots”. But I haven't enough information to agree with your exegesis of the Vedic context. Its interpretation depends on the laws of hermeneutics, because folklore and religious semiotics are always systems. If we find out the following text symbolic system “a gods’ behavior - social or physical relations in their divine community - correlates directly to a human somatic micro-process” (and not, for example, to any cosmogonic macro-process), we will prove that you are right. Otherwise, this conclusion is "folk-scientific". But such conclusions are also useful because they force us to think, analize, to seek the truth, to go further. What do You think?

Dear Olga

You are very right. Just as one swallow does not make it summer, just one "scientific" observation does not mean that religious books are totally scientific. But this should make us at least rethink, reanalyze and reseek the truth. And the basis is the semantics, the meaning of their words. I too only hope that people would start going this. Then only we can see the truth. Their methodology was different I believe. I hope you went through my bio linguistics paper and saw how good they were in coining words. I believe that it is not only the Vedas, but also the Bible and Quran has this.

Narayanan

Dear Narayanan,

Science is restricted method of expression and of justification. Not everything that exist can be expressed nor investigate through this method. Science cannot explain how a scientist find his scientific ideas. As long as the ideas is expressed scientifically and justified after scientifically it does not matter how it was discovered. Maybe it was discovered as the mystic discoverer the content of the sacred books through insignts into the deep layer of the human mind. Religious saying are religious if found meaningfull. We do not know why we find them meaningfull but they do. This is the test of validity of the sacred by a community. It is like the test of the good music by a community. The 5th of beetoven was found beautify by generation and generation of listeners. We do not know why it touches us but it does. It cannot be denied. Beethoven went into his earth and found there precious for all of us. Sacred texts should not be translated into scientific texts. It is like trying to translate poetry into a normal narrative. The meaning is directly felt at the poetic level. Sacred texts are all poetic. If a sacred text feels meaningfull it is because it is already doing its transformation job into you. No need of translation, just let it transform you. Thousand of years before any civilisation, before religions that exist today ancient peoples were teaching their culture through poetic myths that were transforming them. It is a way of teaching that bypass the intellect and transform directly. It is still used today in music, fiction writings. Even business tries to use this method using marketing and are trying to transform us into buying machines.

Dear Louis

Finally it all comes to the meanings of the words and what we have acribed to them and what they actually meant.

It also depends on the questions that you ask.

Thank you Louis, Olga and Markovic for your inputs.

Dear Louis, you mentioned about two world. It is very curious. Can you elaborate please?

Narayanan

Dear Narayanan,

If I say that a text is un-scientific I do not mean to say that it is wrong. I just mean to say that it is not scientific. A scientific text is one that is expressed in the scientific language and that is tested empirically. Philosophical text and religious texts are not scientific texts. It is not a critic but a fact. A religious text may inspire a scientist and guide the scientist into finding a scientific discovery but the text playing the role of the inspiration is not a scientific text. One of the great fiction writer of the 19th century, Edgar Alan Poe wrote a text describing how the universe is and called this text: Eureka in 1848.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka:_A_Prose_Poem

''Eureka is Poe's attempt at explaining the universe, using his general proposition "Because Nothing was, therefore All Things are".[9] In it, Poe discusses man's relationship to God and the universe[10] or, as he offers at the beginning: "I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical – of the Material and Spiritual Universe: of its Essence, its Origin, its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny".''

We do not understand how Poe end up with such views but he was essentially right on many things and Einstein himself was amazed by his foresignt. But Poe never expressed his vision scientifically and there was no way to test what he said. So although this text was truly visionary, it did not contribute to science. We had to wait for science to catch up with Poe's vision, only then we could say: How on earth did he get it right? Poe could not justify his vision and so it was not scientific although it was partially true.

WHAT IF Moses instead of comming down the sinai mountain with the table of laws (the ten commandments) would have come down with the periodic table of elements. That would have been quite a significant scientific progress!!! but it would have been totally meaningless set of laws for his people wandering in the desert. He came down with what his people needed. Science is not the only thing we need.

Dear All

When we say that something is un-scientific, we just mean that it does presentation does not correlate with the methods adopted by modern science. But my point is that there may be other methods of science which may help you reach the same conclusion, and much of this is is regarded as as 'unscientific'. What that method is the Million Dollaar (or may the quintimillion dollar) question; if we can decipher this, modern science will too advance faster.

And the first step again is the meaning of the words. Or rather the meanings that we have been scribing to the words in religious texts.

Let me give another example, again from Hindu texts.

Brahma is the creator in the Hindu Trinity. Biija means seed, germ, etc. Brahmabiija, a word given in an early Purana, then means `" seed of the Veda "' , the sacred syllable %{om} (Given by Sir Monier Williams). Brahmabija also means the mulberry tree.

Now, soon after fertilization, the ovum starts dividing and gets implanted in the Uterus when it is about 8 celled. This stage is called morula because of its resemblance to the Mulberry fruit (morus=mulberry; see the attached photos). Now this embryo can rightly be called the seed of creation, ie Brahmabiija. The interesting thing is that in Sanskrit, brahmabiija also means mulberry (again given by Sir Monier).

So how did this happen? Is this folk science or some other method of science? Are we not being unjust to them and Science, in disregarding these as 'religion'? You may say that this again is just by chance. But what if there are hundreds of such information. Should not we I am not saying that the Hindus only knew a lot; it is equally possible that such information is available in the Bible and Quran too.

One thing I can say about their method; it is not reductionist or deductionist. They learn by seeing a forest as a forest and not as trees.

Narayanan

Yes, dear Louis, surely, our mankind would evolved differently if Moses came down with the periodic table of elements, and thousands of years later Mendeleev saw in his dream the Decalogue :-)).

Some texts include a lot of interesting and not entirely clear information, for example, a well-known story about the folk Time “Compression”. Not about a dream of some characters, like Rip Van Winkle, no. I mean, when a character doesn’t sleep, he is active, and he finds himself out off “this world”, somewhere in paradise or hell. It is interesting that the idea of "time flows differently in different spaces" was expressed in folklore texts long before the Einstein’s epoch. And it is not a stylistic meiosis "an year runs as a minute”. These are the stories about the “personal experience” of folk characters. I am particularly interested in these temporal-spatial “deviations”, because in the Russian religious folklore prose (and not only in Russian, but I worked with the texts collected in the first half of the 19th c.) there are the stories about the folk hero’s "three minutes", "three hours ", or " three days " stay in the “other world". When this hero comes back, on the earth "3 years", "30 years", etc have passed. I can not imagine how it could be possible to “invent” this plot of story (even we develop the idea "when we are happy, time runs fast").

Louis says: “Sacred texts should not be translated into scientific texts. It is like trying to translate poetry into a normal narrative. The meaning is directly felt at the poetic level. Sacred texts are all poetic”. I think this a characteristic of a folklore text, such as some epic texts. But can you say the same about every text considered to be sacred in our time? For example, the Bible contains the texts of various genres, including chronicles or epistles (so almost all biblical symbols are polysemantic, the reason of it is their heterogenesis). The sacralization of some Bible texts isn’t connected with their primary text status, but in the modern European culture we consider the Bible as a source of cultural proto-symbols. However, some parts of Bible thanks to their text features are quite different from folklore texts.

Dear Narayanan, thank you for your interesting example (I studied Sanskrit at my university). An Indo-European root ved- means "knowledge”, “science" in the Slavic languages and actually this morpheme is used widely in the names of sciences. May be, you are right: when linguists, folklorists, specialists of different research fields will unite their efforts in the analysis of Vedic texts, they’ll find out a lot of interesting information :-)).

Narayanan, you write: “You may say that this again is just by chance. But what if there are hundreds of such information”. If we have “hundreds of such information”, we have to gather it and then analyze. I like this second example (Brahmabiija), because it is absolutely “logical”, according to the known laws of formative + functional metaphorization.

Dear Olga,

My affirmation that all sacred text are poetic and are not tranlable cannot as you point out stand scrutiny given the diversity of such texts. It is true of many important sacred texts but not of all. People always played with ideas and the authors of these texts were particularly good at playing with ideas. I am also fascinated by time. When I was about 11 years old I was walking on the side walk and suddenly I reasoned that what I see in front of me while walking will in the near future be in my present and then it will be behind me in the past. It is an experience I never forgot because I strongly felt that I was not understanding something. I went to my chool library and to the city library and look at all children book on time and could not find an answer to this strange feeling about what is time. All these books were talking was how we measure time with clocks and I got no answers in those book. Many years later in my physic course I was teached how to plot the position of a falling body in function of time. I immediatly remembered that experience and I realiize that the variable t in the plot could not be the passing time I had felt. I realized that there were no NOW in the plot and that we are always in only one NOW. Many years later in my Ph.D. in image analysis anf visual perception I met time against: I discovered that STRUCTURAL HIERARCHY in images and in fact everywhere IS HISTORY. At about that time I was walking late at night back from my office to my home on the campus and thinking about time and suddently I had the idea that all the formative events of the past from the big bang were actually happening NOW. It took me many years to begin make some sense of this ideas and I am far from it but suppose that through our very body we are this whole past and that if we vitally need to find our way in difficult situation, don"t you think that we can have access to an answer arising from our own being which is the microcosm. In the past of humanity ,in periods of great needs, anwers had to be found and given in sacred texts by people who open their hearth and listen to these answers coming from the very being. Because in our body, not only is the whole biological past but also the whole humanity cultural past which we acquire through enculturation. Think about the amazing amount of past information which is acquired simply by learning a language , learning the custom and reading some litterature. This information is alive in a human being, it is not dead information, it is the very formative forces which has created the culture we live in. All that is us. In time of needs when we play with ideas the whole past that is concentrated into each of us contribute to find solution. This is happening totally outside of our consciousness, only the answers pop up in consciousness. But the answers to emerge, the right questions, the right motivations have to be there. This is where we have to work, we rest come free.

Dear Olga,

I do have other bits of such information and am gathering up everything, in my way. I hope to bring these out, but can't say when.

Dear Louis

In the present discussion, you initially mentioned two world, but appear to be very reluctant to elaborate. I suspect that you believe, something like Poe (In my pre-Medicine days I was an avid reader of Poe, and read an anthology of his short stories, especially his detective character on whom Sherlock Holmes is based. I had not read his Eureka though I down loaded it a few weeks back when someone else in RG mentioned it), sort of two co-existing universes, Physical and Spiritual, joining somewhere, but where? Time is very probably a property of the spiritual universe. I am sure that you are in the right track. I do not mean heaven, hell, etc; I believe that what the ancients said as heaven and hell are something very mundane.

What you have to do to unravel what the ancients really said is to get into the track of their thinking; I am trying to do that.

You speak of ' ..Think about the amazing amount of past information which is acquired simply by learning a language , learning the custom and reading some litterature.'. But think of all the past information that we all acquire by simply beeing born, even without learning! How did this pass on to us? Just through DNA? There is more to DNA than a physical component.

In this regard someone wrote about Tradition memory. It is a good read, and available in the net (“Where was I?”: Personal Experience Narrative, Crystallization and Some Thoughts on Tradition Memory. Timothy R. Tangherlini University of California, Los Angeles USA)

Narayanan

Dear Olga and Louis,

Regarding science text being written as poetry, Just download and read "Garbha Upanishad'. Upanishads are "Sacred Vedic Texts', and as Olga pointed out the word Veda also is ascribed the meaning Knowledge. Garbha Upanishad decsribes, in many slokas (small poems) the growth of an embryo from implantation to Birh. It was written about 2500 years back, may be before Ayurvedic texts.

Narayanan

Dear Narayanan, sure, if you gather the Vedic contexts with similar symbolic descriptions and publish your collection, you meet many people wishing to decode them from folkloristic, general semiotic, cytological, physic or other points of view. There is no too much research works in this field (like ARNAU, JUAN (2013) Del sacrificio público a la experiencia privada: Metaforología del espacio en las upaniṣad = From public sacrifice to private experience: Metaphorology of space in the upaniṣad in “Contrastes: Revista Internacional de Filosofia”, Vol. 18, p249-264). Besides, some authors don’t use the Sanskrit original text, only its translations (I mean https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268390774_The_Soma_Code_Parts_I-III_Luminous_Visions_in_the_RIG_VEDA_Soma%27s_Birth__Transmutation_into_Indra_Visions_Myths__Drugs_in_the_RIG_VEDA, and other parts of this article).

Dear Louis, thank you for sharing your early Temporal-Spatial personal experience and all other ideas. Time is more abstract (if we exclude its visible results), and it is always conceptualized in visual spatial images: Life (as the Process of life) is Way, Road, Path (Dao :-). I think, our discrete categorization of a holistic temporal process (NOW in your terms) as “Past/Present/Future” depends very much on our native languages. I mean their systems of verbal tenses and aspects, metaphoric specifics. Our linguistic consciousness is both our “time machine” and “time constructor”. It’s very difficult to fly even in thoughts above the natural language grammar net, because usually our research metalanguage is our native language with all its cultural semiotic and grammar “oddities”. I think, you use the very exact words: “feeling about what is time”. A personal time is really a personal feeling in comparing with astronomic time. Reading your wonderful text I remind the idea of Vernadski’s Noosphere.

Article The Soma Code, Parts I-III: Luminous Visions in the RIG VEDA...

Dear Olga

I have not read Nicholson's paper; but I will give how I will approach the Enigma of Soma.

Soma in Sanskrit means mainly the juice of the soma plant, and also the Moon (some more meanings). Then the medicine man in me will remind me that somatic means pertaining to the body. So I will look up etymology of somatic and find that it is from Greek word somatikos which again is from the word soma (yes, soma) of Unknown origin. Then the researcher in me will ask me: Since Sankrit and European languages share the same origin, could the Sanskrit soma and the soma of somatikos be the same? Then the biologist-lnguist researcher in me will work in collaaboration to find out what is the relation between soma juice, the moon and the body. I am sure that I will find it out (Of course I have already found it). Then I may find that what the the ancients meant by Soma juice is quite different from what the Indian and Western Pandits think it to be.

Narayanan

There are many ways to approach the word.

Somnambulism means sleepwalking. As per OED, it is from somna (sleep)+ ambulare. Somna originates from PIE from which also originates the Sanskrit svepna (dream). But there is no furher division and why svep should mean sleep. Also no apparent relation to soma/moon, etc.

Let us try it another way (one among many. One way includes Malayalam, from which I believe, many words have entered even Vedic Sanskrit)

Divide somnambulism to so+mna+ ambulism. So is presumably from PIE swo/so which is related to Latin se (himself). The Sanskrit sva/svaa meaning oneself/ego etc is possibly related to this. The 'mna' could very well be mana/man which is Sanskrit for mind. Then somnambulism will mean something like one's mind/ego part of mind is walking. Actually in sleep walking, it is not the conscious mind, that which thinks is not doing the walking, but ones unconscious, ego part, the part that is just you, the unthinking you, that walks. This word then has no relation with sleep. You may do it when awake too; just unthinking; a walk in a trance.

Isn't it more elegant?

The so given above is also related to the So that you use in 'he is so, so'. Somnambulism is in effect a sort of so, so walking.

There are other ways of interpretation some of them can be linked to soma, but it involves Malayalam. In Malayalam we have a saying: 'walk like a hen in moonlight' meaning just wandering with out aim or rhyme or reason, with an empty mind.

In Malayalam and Sanskrit, each ketter of the alphabet has distinct meanings; the meaning of a word is linked to the sum of their meanings taken in different combinations; but which ever combination you use, you will reach the correct interpretation of the word, just as you would reach the North Pole from any point on earth, as long as you keep walking strictly north.

Now, what is the meaning of North? And other directions?

Narayanan

Dear All

Let us deal with another 'som-' word, somber'. It is derived from French sombre, meaning dark, gloomy, etc., supposedly from the Latin sub+ umbra (umbra means shadow) which thus gives the meaning under shadow. But why should sub-umbra become sombre? Let us try with som-, which is related to soma, the moon. The moon is dark compared to the sun; and full moonlit night, the world is shadowy. So sombre means a feeling in which your psyche is filled with moon and not the sun as when you are feeling bright. I am leaving out the -bre for the present.

Now we have three words related to som- and som can now be called a quasimorpheme. It means that whoever created these words were of high intellectual capacity and had good knowledge of Science, as well as Linguistics. Here the soma Moon signifies much more than a religious or mystic being.

Some ideas are in my papers in RG dealing with 1. Quasimorpheme and 2. Connection between Latin and Malayalam.

Narayanan

Moon, Somnambulism,Daydreaming:

My name is ''Louis'' which means ''Lune'' in French and ''moon'' in English. In childhood I had period of somnabulism and throughout my life the phase of the moons have always influenced me. From how I feel I can tell the phase of the moon. I feel best one week before the full moon and at full moon I am hyperactive. At primary school my reputation was the one that is always in the moon which means the one that is daydreaming. I always love daydreaming but the evening is actually the best time for it.

Very very interesting Louis. Two things to explain here: the relation between soma (moon) and somnambulism, which you had and its relation with moon periods; any relation with your name.

Modern science will say that the Moon does not in any way influence human/animal behavior (other than it being night and the brightness). This is because the moons effect is by gravity, and this will affect only water (the tides), and its effect on the water in the body is not worth consideration. But folklorists will not agree, and I am sure that you too will not. So how can you explain this rationally? Shall I try?

You had mentioned two Worlds. Yes, one point of view is that as far as each of us is concerned, there are two worlds: one the outside world that we live in and the other the inside world that lives in each of us. Our ancients view is that similar things happen in each world (some thing like similia similibus... of Homoeopathy). So we can take it afely that there is a Sun and Moon in within each of us, and they set our bodily rhythm. Their periods will be roughly similar to that of the Outside world's Sun and Moon. It is the waxing and waning of the Inside Soma that affects each of us; it is this Soma that causes the menstrual periods in women. It is this Soma that causes the mental effect that you experience. In some of us, the periodicity of the inside Soma is synchronous with that of the outside soma. The moon ddoes not affect things other than water. Likewise, the effect of the inside Soma is different in different people; may be its effect on the inside water is different. You happen to be one person affected a good deal by the Soma inside (?more water) and one in whom there is synchronicity with outside Soma, and so you think that it is that moon which affects you.

As regards link with your name, many other factors have o be considered such as why that name was given to you.

Do I sound crazy? Or Moonstruck?

Narayanan

Narayanan,

I do not know the explanation. Studies have shown that there is a tendency for women menstrual cycle to synchronize with the moon. Other studies have shown that people have more dreams at full moon. Teachers (at least the one in the school were my wife teach) in primary school also see a correlation between kid behavior that are hyperactive near full moon. Should we be surprised that some biological cycles have evolved and have been synchronize with the cycle of the moon which affect the tides and which affect the amount of light at night, which affect temperature, etc. Light has a lot of effect on mood. During the winter month here the days are short and the sky is constantly cloudy and people's mood is down. So the light of the moon at night might have a stimulating effect. It would be interesting that people at google tries to correlate google activities ( the type of searches, their frequencies, etc) with the phases of the moon. What we remember is very selective and maybe because my name is Louis influenced me to keep these memories. Another memory, actually my first memory (I was maybe 2 years old). I am sitting into a tobogan and it is snowing at night and the snow is falling and the snow is bright because of a full moon.

I agree, but I will add that the synchronisation is between the Moon in our body world and the outside world. Of course, there have to be other parallels demonstrable

Narayanan

Narayanan,

The biologist Von Uexkull had proposed an vision of the evolution of life which resemble a symphony where all part of the living are atuned to other parts. It is a vision that has similarities with the monadic vision of Leibniz which is of a worlds which is a gigantic web of mirror worlds like in the Jewel net of Indra:

Indra, Avatamsaka Sutra:

''Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering "like" stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.''

So going inside ourself, we encounter the microcosm which mirror the macrocosm. The moon in the macrocosm has through billion of years been mirror in the microcosm of life in billion of ways.

A melliflous translation of the Buddhist sutra.

The microcosm indeed mirrors the macrocosm out side (that is what I said: similar things in the body world and outsiide world).

But a more immediate question, before going into the meaning of the sutra, is: Who is Indra. Is there an Indra (as well as Varuna, Agni, Vishnu, Sarasvati, Maruts, etc; all Vedic Gods) and if so where does he/she exist. Are they as real as portrayed or just figment of imagination of some people who had imbibed too much Somarasa (spirituous liquor)?

As a biologist, Linguist and researcher, I would try to link the name/word Indra with indriya which means sense/sense organ. I would then reach totally different, less exotic and more wonderfully true conclusions on the meanings given by the Sutra.

Narayanan

Narayanan,

Humans are theatrical animal. All other animal are one role actor while humans are actors of any role because we have access to the mammalian self-enactive room: mammalian imagination. Other mammals have sub-conscious access to this room for learning and acting their one role. Humans have a special attention which allow them to consciously access the mammalian imagination. The mammalian imagination room containt all the building block of all possible actions and perception and it the conscious self-enaction is human imagination. It is not only possible to create this waking dreams that we call thinking but we can transform ourself all our life. This imagination contains all what the million of year of evolution of life of earth, the book of life. If we want to understand anything, we can allow the vast book of life to do it for us. the natural language of this mammalian imagination is an anthropmorphic language because there is one actor playing all the role. It is why the myth were invented where the forces are played by anthromorphic persona, all of them are aspect of us and of the world and of our evolution. When trying to understand some aspect of our psychology, I very often go back to ancient mythology and I find a rich knowledge of everything. You have to have some ideas in mind but they are vague. In that state , you read the relevant mythology and he it come and it help you clarifying your ideas. If you have no clues, the mythology will not help you but if you have already a vague ideas, these ideas will recognize themself into the mythology and this will open the way for their self-expression. Remember that the authors of these sacred text were the master reader of the book of life.

Actually what I believe and seems to have 'stumbled' on is that what we believe to be myths are not myths, but facts. Unfortunately our ignorance has made us label them as myths, sacred knowledge,religious scriptures, etc.

Any way thank you Louis, Olga and Marko for having appreciated and discussed my question

Narayanan

Dear Louis! Yes... And what refined metaphors are in this text : "a single glittering jewel in each "eye" of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number..."! And what a beautiful photo! And what if anthropomorphism as only a basic metaphor of theomorphism? I mean, if everything was pre-programmed according to “the image and likeness" and evolves in the direction of this "image and likeness"? Or, conversely, in the opposite direction - from the "image and likeness" (savagery is a possible process as evolution)?

About the macro - and the microcosm. I wrote once a bit in my book because I was captivated by the metaphors of neurology (by N.P. Bekhtereva’s, et al.): the nervous centres are miniature copies of the stars, they orbit “the planet” — a group of cells, and the brain is an integral model of the universe, etc. Some Russian dictionaries have even an article "the other/second universe". It means “human brain”. Before this I worked with metaphors from an anonymous text "A Journey into the Microcosm of One of the New Pythagorean Followers", that was published in the Russian magazine "Innocent Activity" (:-)) in 1763. Surprisingly, the text was written before the era of electron microscopes or MRT, but its metaphoric images are quite clear.

Narayanan writes: "Somna originates from PIE from which also originates from the Sanskrit svepna (dream). But there is no furher division and why svep should mean sleep. Also no apparent relation to soma/moon, etc." Who knows, maybe svep and soma/moon are connected metonymically? (And I need to look at the tables of phonetic alternations, but I don't have them here).

I believe, there are so-called "solar" and "lunar" people, their activities depend on Moon and Sun. It's easy to check the lunar or solar type of your correspondents (or yourself ;-)) if calculate the number and volume of emails from/to your friends and relatives. Before the full moon or the sun flares they/you start writing long emails!

Dear Narayanan, for me this was one of the most interesting conversations, and I sincerely thank you for your question and thank our colleagues for answers. Your articles I will read during my vacation, that will start soon (I hope!).

Olga

Mariano Ruiz Espejo

Faith and reason are complementary, not opposed. The religion illuminates with the light of God and the true history of the men in any time, the science serves to the men in their lifes in certain cases illuminating certain moments of their lifes.

Jesus said of Himself "I am the light. Who follows me will not be in oscurity, but he/she will have the light of the life". And, sincerely, the science of Jesus for saving people has not been equalled by medicine doctors of our time.

Dear Olga

While you are on holiday, please do read Garbha Upanishad. Upanishads are Vedantas, supposedly containing very high philosophical discussions; but this one is very different: it details, this Upanishad, written ?in 600 BC, almost as modern science did about 100 yrs back, the conception, development and birth of a foetus (Garbha=pregnancy)!

Take care or your holiday will end up like Busman's holiday.

Narayanan

Dear Narayanan,

I’m reading the Upanishads (translated into Russian). Amazing texts! My attention is attracted with the metaphor schemas that are well known in other text cultures (even in the scientific research texts) and that are used with the same nominative functions. I mean the social (of which we have already spoken) and biomorphic metaphoric units, especially somatic. I’ve noticed that in some phrases it isn’t clear: is a phrase metonymic or metaphoric. Please, look at the use of eye in this context: in the right eye is Atman of speech, in the left eye is Atman of reality (excuse me for my English translation of the Russian translation of Kaushitaki Upanishad, Part 4). The very interesting phrase, demonstrating the functional connections of the speech and visual areas of the cerebral cortex. It would have been interesting if the Upanishads were commented by the modern scientists - specialists in various spheres.

For a smile. The semantic laws of any object nomination, including the man-made objects, are almost the same everywhere. For example, a phrase Mouse worked poorly, and the windows did not open a reader can refer to 1) a folk tale about animals or 2) a system administrator’s report (the technical or other devices are used to be named with the biomorphic and architectural metaphors). I think, many centuries ago the situation in the sphere of technical lexical nomination was the same (by the way, a Russian word окно ‘window’ is etymologically related to око ‘eye’, the architectural lexemes have somatic "roots"). So I’m not sure that an Upanishad’s phrase Mind is of two kinds - pure and impure speaks only of cognitive abilities or the ethical characteristics. May be it is about smth like a "computer memory"… So the Upanishads' text genre remains a mystery for me.

Who knows, maybe, in millennium the system administrators’ reports will be commented by the folklorists!

Sincerely,

Olga

Dear Olga

Welcome back. Hope you had a nice holiday. Make Kerala your next year's destination.

You are right. Long after the next World War, A system Administrator's Manuscript may likely to become a Holy Scripture and Philosophies will be built around it. In the Veda, Aaghamarshana, the 1st Indian Philosopher says 'Philosophy is the exhibition of ignorance as knowledge'. (Read Barua's Pre-Buddhist Indian Philosophy, a thesis written for Oxford PhD. Best book, about Indian Philosophy. Available in the net.)

The eye can mean any sensory receptor; not just the one that is receptive to visible light. Even your skin harbours so many eyes. We call snakes chakshusravanas, meaning the one whose eyes are its ears.

Right and left also can have different meanings, more meaningful than than the present ones. Right, might; Left, leave etc., are all semantically related very logically. Just think about it.

Another thing I just wanted to mention. Three books on Russian folk tales and other novels (Three fat men, Be a man Barankin, Russian folk tales) were the first books I owned. I must have read them at leat 100 times. I still remember Baba-Yaga vividly!)

Narayanan

Dear Narayanan,

Thank you for your kind words. You were right: my “vacation”was a sort of Busman's holiday, but I found time for reading. I hope to find and read “Pre-Buddhist Indian Philosophy”, thank you for your advice. You write: “The eye can mean any sensory receptor; not just the one that is receptive to visible light. Even your skin harbours so many eyes. We call snakes chakshusravanas, meaning the one whose eyes are its ears...”Yes, perception may be synaesthetic. Metaphors such as "look" are often used in the meaning "listen" in many languages. It was so interesting to read that you know those wonderful books about scholars (Gaspar Arneri !), human transformations (Barankin!). I think such type of literature is the best for young brains! Baba-Yaga is a great mistery (some think that her etymon means “snake’!). Who is she? And her house? And other strange subjects...What they could be? Smth, that reacts for human voice. Please, if you have a wish, look at “Morozko”(44:30): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9che4wQ6is