The Re-awakening

The topper of one of the most competitive examinations in India said that the knowledge of “Vedic Mathematics” helped him to ace the test. Vedic? Vedic period was around 3000-4000 BC in India. It seemed unbelievable that such an ancient system would help someone in a modern competitive test. But it is true. Vedic Mathematics is becoming more and more popular in India and is being considered as very advanced.

For me it symbolizes one of the many ways in which our ancient systems and spirituality are reawakening in this modern World. I see that more and more people are looking into the past for answers. And what they find there is amazingly closer to the truth than we are. This seems to be causing this reawakening.

We thought that we could explain the world with some equations, and disregarded the ancient knowledge. But now, we are finding ourselves against the wall in our quest and so we are starting to look more into the past. We seem to living in a world where the modern scientists are shaking hands with the mystics to find answers.

Our understanding of the Universe is a very good example of the wall that scientists are trying to scale today. According to latest String Theory, we are not living in a world of 3 or 4 dimensions, but in a hyperspace having whopping 26 dimensions! What does that mean? Let me give an example from a book by Michio Kaku on hyperspace.

Consider a two dimensional world. Where there is only length and breadth. No height. The world would be as plain as this sheet of paper. Imagine me entering this world. For persons in this flat world, the only perceptible part of me would be the section of my body intersecting the plane of their world. If my neck intersects the plane, they would think that I am a small person, almost circular. But if I intersect here, they see a bigger person.

What would they think of me? Maybe they would consider me as a being that can grow and shrink and change shape? They would not be able to understand the whole me! Similarly what we are seeing around us may be only 3 dimensional images of 26 dimensional things? There may be other universes around that that we do not know of. Wow, that is scary and at the same time humbling!

We are finding ourselves facing similar walls in other fields of knowledge – like medicine, psychology, and even Management. When we look back we see that probably many answers could be lying hidden in the ancient pages of wisdom. Let us look at some examples of ancient wisdom that were closer to the truth.

Modern cosmology calculates the age of Universe as anywhere from 10 to 20 billion years. Rig Veda, one of the four main ancient scriptures of India said 4000 years ago that the age of universe is 8.6 billion years, which is close to the modern finding in astronomical sense. It also said that the Universe would grow and then shrink infinite cycle. Seems like someone figured out the Big Bang Theory thousands of years earlier than we did!

Nature always fascinates us with her mysteries. The mother turtle lays eggs inland and when the hatchlings come out of the eggs, they know precisely which way they should move to reach the sea! Who or what is guiding them? Who shows the Salmons their way back to their birthplace? How do dogs find their way back home even if they are lost miles away?

Ancient scriptures talk of a collective conscience. Is there really a Collective conscience that is guiding these animals? Maybe the ancient sages were able to tap into this collective wisdom for their knowledge.

Studies of the brains of meditating Tibetan monks show that they have figured out the path to happiness. They have been found to be the Happiest people as validated by the study of their brain activity.

Researchers in modern medicine, nutrition and psychology are looking into the past for answers. Yoga, Tai Chi, holistic medicine and so on are regaining their lost importance.

So far we only had to grapple with IQ and recently with EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient). Now we have a new entry: SQ or Spiritual Intelligence Quotient! Research is underway to come up with a quantification method for SQ. Be prepared to face an SQ test in the future! Stephen Covey has stressed the importance of Spiritual Intelligence in his work – The 8^th Habit. Spirituality seems to be invading the boardrooms too.

All these seem to be telling me that we are embracing the past in search of answers. More and more research is validating the knowledge of the past. I think that when we know more, farther we realize we are from the truth. Farther from the truth we are, greater our humility and respect for the unknown. That could be causing this reawakening.

Or maybe we are sickened by our over indulgence in the material world. Or maybe it is just one of those cyclical phenomena. Anyway I feel that the Spiritual World is reawakening. Maybe it is only my feeling. But I like to think that Buddha is looking down at this world and smiling.