From: rmurali@alsvid.une.edu.au (Murali Ramakrishnan)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: A Passage from the Rig Veda
Date: 28 Jan 93 03:26:01 GMT
Organization: University of New England - Northern Rivers (Lismore)

From article <1jt81mINN3gr@platypus.cis.ohio-state.edu>, by jayasim@cis.ohio-state.edu (D Jayasimha):
> In article <1993Jan22.215820.7086@cas.org> nlp54@cas.org () writes:
> 
> [passage from Rig Veda deleted]
> 
>>	ORIGIN OF LIFE IS SO CLEARLY DESCRIBED IN THE ABOVE VERSE.
>>	If you can read and understand the original (Sanskrit) verse of it,
>>	you can enjoy the meaning of it.  The intution of those Vedic Rishis was
>                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>	so great that the theory of origin of life proposed by the modern day
>>	astronomers/biologists/chemists/molecular biologists, is nothing but
>>	the same what is said above.  The English translation does not clearly
>>	disperse the greatest scientific thought of Rigveda.  One has to know
>                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>	Sanskrit and read the original to suck the honey.

        The real enjoyment of 'tasting honey' is not obtained by mere reading
        of the scriptures. One might be an erudite scholar in the Scriptures.
        The honey sucked by mere reading is only an intellectual understanding
      - it can never amount to the actual "sucking of the honey". For this
        actual experience , there is no need for the medium of any language ,
        let alone Sanskrit. And, there have been God-men like Sri Ramakrishna
        Paramahamsa who have "sucked" honey without knowing any Sanskrit. 
        Also , it has been said time and again by Great Souls like Sri
        Ramakrishna that too much of Scriptural reading is a hinderance in the
        Spiritual path.
 
        

> 
> 
> I agree that the passage from the Rig Veda is fascinating and, as you 
> rightly say, the intuition of our rishis is admirable, to say the least.
> It is not the greatest scientific thought, however, since there is hardly 
  *************************************************************************      
> anything scientific about it.  Science not only postulates a result but also 
  ****************************************************************************

> shows an understandable method based, not on intuition but on one or more 
  *************************************************************************
> of the following techniques: experimentation, inference, and deduction.
> ************************************************************************ 
> jayasimha


         Many people think that religion and religious methods as propounded
         by the ancient rishis is unscientific. The reason for this is our
         lack of understanding of what Science is.

         Science , when looked at in a broad sense , is "a search for Truth".
         Thus , any "study" or "process" which has this "search for Truth"
         as its basis for investigation can be called a "Science". It is not
         necessary to study only the material environment of ours to call
         the "study" a "Science". In fact , it has been said by great scholars
         like Thomas Huxley (?) , that it is not the subject matter what makes
         a "study" Scientific - but rather , it is the method undertaken for 
         such a study which gives the process a Scientific character.

         Also , the argument that these spiritual experiences are subjective
         and cannot be validated does not hold , since the very nature of 
         Scientific truth is that the outcome of the experiment should hold
         good for all people and at all times , provided the experiment is
         conducted in the same "environment" - and there had been and there
         are many "experimenters" who have "conducted" the "Spiritual
         Experiment" with the same result.


          

           
-- 
Ramakrishnan Murali      	Internet:rmurali@alsvid.une.edu.au
     University of NewEngland, Northern Rivers Lismore NSW Australia
Phone:	+61 (066) 203634
No significant .sig