Do we lack scientific temperament ?

The Upanishads, the gyan-khand of the Vedas and other post-Vedas Hindu philosophical treatises which are the pinnacle of Hindu philosophy, teach us that we are not the body; we are Atma - a very minute part of Paramatma - which resides along with Paramatma in the body as its abode or clothes. Atma always wants to merge with Paramatma . Hence the ultimate and the only goal of our life is and should be complete merger of Atma with Paramatma and to get Moksh - liberation from the painful process of birth and death cycle .

They also emphasise that Atma cannot merge with Paramatma without His wish and blessing, and the essential pre-condition to get His blessing is total surrender to and absolute unwavering faith in Him - no question, no inquiry, no discussion, no debate. It comes with the realisation of the truth of Parabrahma Parmatma , and the realisation comes only with His blessing. It cannot be achieved by any amount of knowledge or meditation or renunciation or even with the help of Brahma Gyani Gurus.They may be helpful as means to reach Paramatma only if one has unquestioned faith in and total devotion to Him , and He is pleased to bestow with His blessing

Thus since the Vedic period we have been taught not to criticise or question the teaching of our Rishis about the Ultimate Truth or try to conduct scientific inquiry to know It . Thus, I am afraid, it blunted our curiosity and the capacity of reasoning and scientific inquiry. It promoted the habit of blind faith and acceptance of the teaching of our Rishis , or for that matter ancestors and elders , as final, ultimate and absolute ,without any questioning . All this inhibited our scientific temperament .

2. The Upanishads also teach us that this  world is not real ; everything around us is illusion , and not worthy to be sought for. Thus they make us disinterested in the worldly affairs and render all our efforts to gather knowledge about the structure and behaviour of the natural and physical world through scientific investigation meaningless.

3.They further teach us that actions bind us with their results, and we get trapped in the quagmire of vicious birth and death cycle.Thus our Rishis including Adi Shankaracharya taught us complete abandonment of actions and to adopt Sanyas ( renunciation ).If all actions are abandoned , will the world not cease to exist ? Will it not be against the will of the Parameshwar and will we thus not be committing the sin of trying to interfere in the Parameshwar's desire ? Such teachings of the Upanishads also suppressed the development of scientific temperament.This was however improved upon by the Shrimat Bhagwat Geeta by teaching the path of Nishkam Karmayog  i.e. Energetic Path of Desireless Actions ( instead of abandoning all actions , performance of actions of all worldly affairs as pure duties for the good of others without the desire or hope for any fruits and feeling of being the doer and with the idea of dedicating the actions to the Parameshwar ) . But this was a very difficult proposition and was not conducive for the development of scientific temperament.

               But it is a great irony that despite umpteen number of sadhus and sanyasis giving religious discourses day in and day out on  these teachings, we almost top the list in the world of crimes and corruption to fulfill the unending worldly greed , enmity , thirst for violence,etc. Then, it may be argued, how that the teachings failed to have a desired effect on bad people , but they impacted on good people in inhibiting their scientific temperament ? The answer to this paradox perhaps lies in the fact that the good people are receptive and teachings of ancestors do have impact on them , but the bad people have scantiest regard for the teachings for their elders as they are mainly driven by their powerful criminal mentality.That is the reason that we have innumerable sadhu sand sants , but a very few number of scientists.The need of the hour is to develope a scietific temperament in our children if we want to make our personal, social and national life excellent.

Why do Indians lack original thinkers ?

Recently (April - July , 2012) I visited Germany and other European countries and then USA (June - Oct , 2013 ). I utilised this opportunity to try to find out the answer to the question as to why India does not have scientists, inventors, discoverers, excellent scholars or original thinkers in any field when compared to European or West countries and as to why the Renaissance and again the Industrial Revolution took place in Europe, though they had a very new civilisation in comparison to ours. I tried to observe closely their way of life, family and social fabrics and behaviour - parental and social control over a child , education system , the way they dress, etc. Apart from various other factors, I noticed two basic differences which make the people of West taller than those of India or for that matter , Asia so far as fostering of questioning mind is concerned. Indian children are bound by misconceived concept of obedience and the so-called family tradition. Their thinking patterns; the whole way of life - how to sit, how to stand, how to walk are set by guardians. Questioning the wisdom of parents, elders and teachers is a taboo for them, it is not only disliked but also discouraged and frowned. There are instances where children are even beaten for arguing with parents when they face uncomfortable questions from children and are unable to give a proper answer. They try to silence children not by reason but by brute force. The children suffer from over-active control of either father or mother or grandparents or some other immediate family member. We are not tired of giving example of Lord Ram " who set the highest ideal of an obedient son by meekly obeying the wish of an old father to placate the whims of a young step-mother".Thus they become very meek, submissive and followers of beaten-path. They lose enthusiasm for initiative, courage for doing something new, something adventurous or something different. Elders are angry if a child delays or does not do something exactly the way he was told to do. The elders want to influence the whole thinking pattern of their children, and thus deprive them of all inquisitiveness, habit of inquiry and reasoning, initiative, innovation and courage from their personality.In sharp contrast, these things are unthinkable or at least rare in Western society. Corporal punishment is banned. Their family and social life is such that their children have greater freedom for innovation, questioning, doing new things and doing things of their choice. After class-XII, they are free to choose the way of life they want. The Western education system fosters and encourages self development of a child according to his or her interest, aptitude and ability. Teachers minutely observe the activities of a child in different fields and give elaborate and honest comments periodically - weekly, monthly, 6- monthly and annually - on each important aspect. His future academic career is charted out by parents or the government accordingly. A school student is encouraged to ask any question freely and frankly from his teacher without being branded undisciplined or argumentative. At university level,students are encouraged and given all opportunities and facilities for fostering research works, inventions and discoveries. A student can question even a world renowned scientist. That is not considered discourteous.Creativity is encouraged rather than copying ideas. In India, the academic field to be pursued by a child is decided by his parents without scantiest regard for his aptitude and ability. Everyone is forced to become an engineer or a doctor or an IAS/IPS officer. Teachers themselves have inadequate knowledge and so they do not encourage or even like questions which they cannot answer. The Indian children observe total servility towards teachers in the name of "guru - shishya parampara" For Indian students, to call their professors by their name is considered to be discourteous and is totally unacceptable. They start their question with "sir", punctuate with "sir" and end with "sir". "Sir" does not mean challenging the established norms - it means accepting them in deference to the traditional hierarchies of age, relation, class, gender and ethnicity. Such servility increases as they migrate from university to jobs. Hence if we want scientists like Bose, Bhabha and Raman; scholars like Amartya Sen, Ramanuj and scores of others enriching the labs of Western countries; and litterateurs like Ravindranath Tagore, we, as elders, should change our mindset and should not demand servile obedience from our children. Instead we should encourage questions challenging our established or basic things even if they are traditionally held in high esteem. All philosophies and sciences owe their birth to the tradition of questioning established facts.

Keep your senses receptive

We live in a wonderful world - a divine world full of bliss and godliness. But we are so busy in our mundane life and take everything for granted as they are gifted so abundantly by the Nature that our senses have become numb and we fail to derive the blissful and sublime pleasure gifted by the Nature. You pass through a rose garden, but you turn a blind eye to the beautiful flowers because you do not spare time 'to stay and stare', thinking that you have seen thousands of flowers like them before.Give a thought and you will appreciate that every flower is unique; it has never blossomed before, nor will it ever blossom again. Every petal has its own unique existence,texture, size and shape,colour and fragrance, and reflects golden morning sun rays differently through morning dew dangling on it.It is impossible to find another flower like this again anywhere on this earth. Agreed, you have seen thousands of flowers like this before, but what those thousands of flowers have got to do with this unique one? The fact that you have seen thousands of such flowers before has made you blind to the uniqueness of the flowers presently before you and you miss the joys of blissful and pristine beauty just before you.On many of the occasions, similar is the case when you hear some beautiful music or smell some fragrance or touch something smooth and silky or taste something indescribable. Thus we miss a lot - the whole world! After all, what is this world? It is what we perceive through our senses.Thus the world is dead if we fail to perceive it fully with our senses. So the need is to spare some time 'to stay and stare' and develop our senses to remain alert and receptive to be stirred up by the joyful divine things all around us. There is also a need to teach and train our children to perceive minutely and appreciate the things of the Nature. The life and the world in which we live will become so beautiful for us and our children.