433. AT Kovoor - 2

Dr. Abraham Kovoor

Dr. Abraham Kovoor was a well-known crusader against superstition and obscurantism and the scourge of Satya Sai Baba and other godmen in India. In 1963, he threw an open challenge offering to pay 1 lakh Sri Lankan Rupees to anyone who could perform a paranormal or miraculous feat under fraud-proof conditions. He is the author of the books "Begone Godmen" and "Gods, Demons and Spirits".
His assertion was that all those who claim to possess psychic, para-psychic and spiritual powers were either hoaxers or mentally deranged persons suffering from cryptesthesia. He said, " nobody has and nobody ever had supernatural powers. They exist only in the pages of scriptures and sensation-mongering newspapers. "
Dr. Kovoor's main aim was to enlighten people and teach them to go by reason and scientific verification. He was born at Tiruvalla in Kerala, (South India) on 10th April, 1898 in a Christian family. His father was Rev. Kovoor Eipe Thomma Katthanar, the Vicar General of the Mar Thomma Syrian Church of Malabar. He completed his basic education at the Syrian Christian Seminary in Kerala and and received his higher education along with younger brother Dr Behanan Kovoor (who was at Yale University and United Nations), at the Bengabasi College, Calcutta, where he specialised in Botany and Zoology. He was the only scientist in Asia took part in an expedition to the Indian Ocean along with other scientists at the invitation by the " Ernst Haeckel Ecology Center" of U.S.A

Dr Kovoor was very much attached to the rational teaching of Buddha because Buddha was a great social and religious reformer of India, rebelled against Hindu dogmatism and taught a more rational and tolerant philosophy than any others. He disregarded his Christian faith and tradition as he couldn't accept the Bible as the word of an omniscient god. As he gradually matured he became a free thinker and adopted rationalism as his philosophy. He passed away on September 18, 1978 in Colombo, Sri Lanka at the age 80
His most famous Quote is:-  He who does not allow his miracles to be investigated is a crook; he who does not have the courage to investigate a miracle is a gullible; and he who is prepared to believe without verification is a fool!
More on Abraham Kovoor:-
¨Skepticism or debunking often received the bad rap reserved for activities - like garbage disposal - that absolutely must be done for a safe and sane life, but seem either unglamorous or unworthy of overt celebration” -Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary biologist in his foreword to the book, Why People Believe Weird Things, written by Michael Shermer.
Dr Stephen Jay Gould’s statement is only partly true in the case of Professor Abraham Kovoor, the celebrated Sri Lankan rationalist, whose 30th death anniversary falls on September 18, 2008. While Dr Gould is right in saying that debunking is an activity that must be done for a safe and sane life, it was not considered as an unglamorous one - at least as far as Professor Abraham Kovoor was concerned.
Professor Kovoor who took debunking as a full time activity after his retirement from his teaching job became extremely popular in India and Sri Lanka, the citizenship of which he accepted after leaving Kerala. He was a popular guest in radio talk shows in Sri Lanka. He had close association with Sirimao Bandaranayke, the then Sri Lankan president. The Malayalam film Punarjanmam (directed by Sethumadhavan), which was based upon Prof Kovoor’s diary (Son and Mother) and in which he acted in his own role, was a box-office hit in Kerala in the Nineteen Seventies.
Following the success of the film, it was remade in Tamil as Maru Piravi. The only two books (collections of his essays) which were published during his life-time (Begone Godmen and God, Demons, and Spirits, published by Jaico Books, Bombay) have never been out-of-print as of today. These two books have been translated into various Indian languages (Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Tamil) and have been hits with the readers. Professor Abraham Kovoor was indeed a celebrity rationalist!
Abraham Kovoor was born in Tiruvalla, Kerala on April 10, 1898 (Thus, in this year we celebrate his 110th birth anniversary too). His father, Rev. Kovoor Eipe Thomma Katthanar, was a Vicar General of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar. After his education in Kerala and Kolkota, Kovoor took up teaching as a profession, first working in Kottayam Kerala for a short period and later in Sri Lanka. Though born in Christian family, he denounced Christianity in his adult life and became a rationalist as he “could not accept Bible as the word of an omniscient god”.
Kovoor left Kerala, the land of his birth, and adopted Sri Lanka because “most of the Sri Lankans are followers of Gouthama Buddha who taught a more rational and tolerant philosophy than the founders of any other religion” (Page 7, On Christianity, Indian CSICOP, Podannur, Tamil Nadu).
Though Prof Kovoor had been investigating paranormal claims for decades even while he was in service, it was only after his retirement in 1958, at the age of 60, that he openly came out challenging godmen and proponents of paranormal phenomena. That itself is rare in that many people who in their younger days are staunch atheists, marxists, and social revolutionaries often turn, in their twilight years, to ideologies and religious dogmas they denounced earlier. In Prof Kovoor’s case, though he had been an atheist and a rationalist throughout his adult life, it was during the last two decades of his life that he espoused militant rationalism.
Prof Kovoor’s Challenge
In the initial days of his activism, Prof Kovoor realised that his writings and lectures did not have the desired impact on the intended targets of his criticism a la godmen, astrologers, saints, yogis, etc. This prompted him to throw an open challenge to them. The first of his challenges was made in 1963 and was published in the Ceylon Daily Mirror on 17th June 1963. He offered an amount between Rs.1000/- to Rs.25000/-to anyone who can call correctly using his/her mystical powers the serial number on a ten-rupee currency note sealed in an envelope (Page 27, Exposing Paranormal Claims).
The amount offered was subsequently enhanced to Rs.100,000/- along with the number of miracles challenged, which had by then increased to 23 items covering the entire gamut of paranormal claims usually made (See Appendix). Though his challenge was in force until his death in 1978, Prof Kovoor did not lose a single penny because of his challenge. On the contrary, he gained on a couple of occasions, when gullible followers of godmen accepted the challenge on their behalf by depositing the earnest money and later the godmen themselves failed to turn up!
Prof Kovoor - the brilliant science educator
It is not only because of his famous challenge that Prof Kovoor became a celebrity but also because of his essays and lectures that were suffused with rigorous scientific analysis. His essays on life-after-death, rebirth and reincarnation - the pet topics of Indian paranormal-mongers -are splendid examples of his brilliance as a science educator.
In the essay, “Do we survive death?”, he writes: ” I do not hold the view that my life is located in a particular spot in my body. Life is generated in all living cells in my body, and is sustained by the oxidatory chemical action which goes on in them. This chemical action is maintained by my breathing and blood circulation. It is not much different from the production of heat and light energies during the combustion of the hydrocarbon in a burning candle. Heat and light do no depart from a burning candle when it is put out, and return to it when re-lit.
“It is just a case of cessation of chemical activity and production of energy. Similarly there is nothing to get out from my body when it dies as a result of termination of breathing and blood-circulation. If by any chance my dead body is resuscitated by some of the modern techniques, it will be wrong to think that the ‘departed life or soul’ re-entered the revived body.
“My death will not be taking place abruptly at a particular moment in time. I began to die some 70 years ago. I started my life as parasite on my mother. About one-eighth of my body died in the form of the umbilical cord and placenta on the day I terminated my parasitic mode of life. From that day onward I have been dying as well as growing. While numerous cells in my body died daily, numerous new ones were born. Large quantities of dead tissues have escaped my body by way of cropped and shaved hair, peeled off skin, cut nails, dropped teeth, and the million of internal cells dead and discarded as waste during urination and perspiration.
“The process of continued death will go on till the day when there will be no more cells left behind to multiply. Even after the death of all the cells in my body, the cornea of my eyes will continue to live in the eyes of a lucky stranger.
“My last breath will not be any way different from the present ones. Then, as well as now, I shall be breathing out carbon dioxide and water vapour.
“I do not believe that I have a soul or spirit to survive my death and go to heaven or hell, or to roam about as my ghost, or even to be reborn. It at all there is a soul, the major part of it should have escaped from me long ago with the large mass of dead tissues which have left meal ready; and even after the death of the present 125 pounds of tissues, a fraction of that soul should remain in the body of the stranger who would be receiving the corneal graft” (Page 41, Soul, Spirit, Rebirth & Possession).
Divine Miracle Exposure Campaigns
The Divine Miracle Exposure tours Prof Kovoor undertook in India in the 1960s and 1970s was unparalleled. He along with his team members directly confronted a number of prominent godmen in their den. The confrontation his team had with Sathya Sai Baba, the number one spiritual fraudster in India for decades, is memorable. After the Sai Baba failed to respond to Kovoor’s letters repeatedly requesting to have an audience with him, he informed the godman that he would be visiting the godman’s ashram at Whitefield in Bangalore. By the time Kovoor arrived, the godman had absconded and left for his ashram in Puttaparthy.
Prof Kovoor’s campaigns also resulted in reinvigorating the rationalist movements in India. He infused a new vigor into the existing rationalist groups in India. It also resulted in starting new skeptic groups in various parts of the country. Undoubtedly, the skeptic movements in India are indebted to Prof Kovoor’s campaigns, lectures, and writings for what they are today.
Abraham Kovoor’s challenge
I, Abraham T. Kovoor of “Tiruvalla”, Pamankada Lane, Colombo-6 do hereby state that l am prepared to pay an award of 100, 000 Sri Lankan rupees to any one from any part of the world who can demonstrate supernatural or miraculous powers under fool-proof and fraud-proof conditions. This offer will remain open till my death or till I find the first winner.
Godmen, saints, yogis, and siddhas, who claim that they acquired miraculous powers through spiritual exercises and divine boons win this award if they can perform any of the following “miracles”.
1. Read the serial number of a sealed up currency note.
2. Produce an exact replica of a currency note.
3. Stand stationary on burning cinders for half a minute without blistering the feet.
4.Materialise from nothing an object I ask.
5. Move or bend a solid object using psychokinetic power.
6. Read the thought of another person using telepathic powers.
7.Make an amputated limb grow even one inch by prayer, spiritual or faith healing powers,   Lourdes’ water, holy ash, blessing etc.
8. Levitate in the air by yogic power.
9. Stop the heart-beat for five minutes by yogi power.
10. Stop breathing for thirty minutes by yogi power.
11. Walk on water.
12. Leave the body in one place and reappear in another place.
13. Predict a future event.
14. Develop creative intelligence or get enlightened through transcendental or yogic meditation..
15. Speak or understand an unknown language as a result of rebirth or by being possessed by a spirit, holy or evil.
16. Produce a spirit or ghost to be photographed.
17. Disappear from the negative when photographed.
18. Get out of a locked room by spiritual power.
19. Increase the quantity by weight of a substance by divine power.
20. Detect a hidden object.
21. Convert water into petrol or wine.
22. Convert wine into blood.
23. Astrologers and palmists, who hoodwink the gullible by saying that astrology and palmistry are perfectly “Scientific”, can win my award if they can pick out correctly-within a margin of five percent error-those of males, females, and living and the dead from a set of ten palm prints or astrological charts giving the exact time of birth correct to the minute, and places of birth with their latitudes and longitudes.
I invite miracle performers like Satya Sai Baba, Pandrimalai Swamigal, Neelakanta Tathaji, Nirmala Devi Srivastava, Pujya Dadaji, Dattabal, Triprayar Yogini, Gtirudev Anandamurthi, Kamubhai, Chinmayanand, Acharya Rajnessh, Muktanand, Swami Rama, Swami Haridas, Sivabalayogi, Bhagavan Gnanananda, Gurumaharaj-ji, Maharish Mahesh Yogi, Hazarath Ali, Dr. Vadlaimudi, C. S. Teerthangar, R.P.Tiwari, Uri Geller, Ne1iya Michailova, Jeane Dixon, Sybil Leek and the numerous “professors” of astrology and palmistry, in India and numerous other gurus, swamijis, mahants, acharyas, andas, babas and bhagavans who have found fresh pastures and wealthier gullibles in Western Countries, to take up my challenge and prove to skeptics like me that they are not hoaxers.

432. AT Kovoor - 1 - Great Minds on God, Religion and Science

Great Minds on God, Religion and Science

Friday, May 28, 2010

Abraham Kovoor

1898 - 1978, Kerala-born Sri Lankan academic who was a well-known crusader against superstition and obscurantism and the scourge of Satya Sai Baba and other godmen in India. In 1963, he threw an open challenge offering to pay 1 lakh Sri Lankan Rupees to anyone who could perform a paranormal or miraculous feat under fraud-proof conditions. He is the author of the books "Begone Godmen" and "Gods, Demons and Spirits".  

1. He who does not allow his miracles to be investigated is a crook; he who does not have the courage to investigate a miracle is a gullible; and he who is prepared to believe without verification is a fool!

2. Some of the worst fears of my childhood were about ghosts, charms, curses, hell, and the anger of gods and demons. Systematic investigations and rational thinking from my university days made me doubt the veracity of numerous religious myths, occultism, prophetic predictions, immortal spirits, and claims of miracle performers.

3. I was a Christian in my youth because I was born and brought up in a Christian home by Christian parents. Most of us cling on to our parents' religion because we are indoctrinated by them from our childhood. But when I came of age to think and act independently, I discarded Christianity and became a rationalist because I could not accept the Bible as the word of an omniscient god. Similarly I discarded the beautiful land of my birth - Kerala - and adopted Sri Lanka - an equally beautiful country - because most of the Sri Lankans are followers of Gouthama Buddha who taught a more rational and tolerant philosophy than the founders of any other religion.

4. Nearly everyone in our midst believes foolishly in auspicious times, lucky numbers, omens, evil eye, evil tongue, lucky colours, lucky gems, charms, astrology, palmistry, light reading, tumbler talks, planchettes, kanapuwa, anjanamelia, card reading, numerology, necromancy, demonology, spiritualism, possession, materialisation, marvellous powers of prayers, poojas, manthras, sacrifices, pilgrimages, offerings to gods, pirith nool, holy ash, crucifix, relics, talisman, sacred places, sacred persons, sacred times, sacred objects, telepathy, clairvoyance, portent of gecko's chirp, dog's howl, owl's hoot and numerous other absurdities.

5. Sincere and honest persons earn their living by sincere and honest work. Dishonest persons do so by cheating those who work and earn. To the category of dishonest parasites who thrive by cheating the credulous among honest workers belong the teachers, preachers and priests of dubious religions and cults; mystics, saints, arahants and sidhas who claim that they have acquired enlightenment through meditation and penance; gurus, babas, anandas, rishis, swamijis and yogis who claim that they have obtained miraculous powers through yogic practices or as boons from gods; oracles, exorcists, charmers, soothsayers, fortune tellers and all types of occultists who claim that they have developed their special powers through spiritual exercises, astrology, palmistry, numerology, telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, precognition, necromancy, spirit possession, etc.

6.  (On his open challenge first issued in 1963) I am prepared to pay an award of one lakh Sri Lanka rupees to any one from any part of the world who can demonstrate supernatural or miraculous powers under fraud-proof conditions. This offer will remain open till my death, or till I find the first winner. Godmen, saints, yogis, sidhas, gurus, swamis and all others who claim that they have acquired miraculous powers through spiritual exercises or divine boons, can win this award if they can perform any one of the following "miracles":

7. Although no god was responsible for the creation of the Universe and the living things in it, man on the Planet Earth was responsible for the creation of numerous gods in the past, and probably he will continue to do so in the future.

8. Intelligence, a mental attribute, cannot exist without the functioning of a brain tissue...There cannot be a mind or intelligence without life and body and there cannot be life without a body. Just as there cannot be fire without a fuel to burn, there cannot be life without a body conducting respiration. Thus to speak about impersonal intelligence is crazy nonsense.

9. Spiritualists believe that discarnate soul has both life and mind. This is an absurd belief, because it is impossible to have life and mind without a respiring body. These bodiless 'spirits' are said to materialize, fully clad of course, before neurotic visionaries. How these disembodied spirits can speak without lungs and vocal cord, or how they can do physical acts without muscular bodies, or from where do they get their dresses to be fully clad, do not seem to bother these blind believers in spirits.

10. The so-called soul is a combination of both life and mind since life and mind cannot survive the body it is meaningless to talk about "an everlasting life", or an immortal soul. Gouthama knew this truth and preached the doctrine of 'anathma' more than twenty-five centuries ago. It is unfortunate that the doctrine of re-incarnation, a Brahminical belief which militates against 'anathma' doctrine, crept into some Buddhist Scriptures long after the death of Goutama, the Buddha.

11. We have to accept the scientific fact that everything in the universe is material. The old distinction between matter and energy, matter and mind, material and spiritual, no longer exist in the light of modern science. The fundamental particles that constitute matter are nothing but energy. Thus the "mind over matter" concept of philosophers is now an out-moded one. Mind is purely material in origin and working.

12. The renowned neurologist, Walter Hess, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his marvellous discoveries about the working of the mind has proved the material natre of the so-called spiritual values ot spiritual attributes such as love, compassion, kindness, metta, muditha, karuna, etc. He has demonstrated that mental emotions such as love, hatred, compassion, cruelty, kindness, anger, hunger, amor, sympathy, apathy, pain, pleasure, dislikes, fear etc., could be induced at will by stimulating the respective brain centre with electrical impulse. Thus Walter Hess proved that the so-called spiritual values are nothing but electro-chemical activities of the neurons, and not divinely inspired.

13. Is there any purpose in nature? From our observation of nature we can derive no adequate basis for such a belief. On this Earth, which is a minute speck of the universe, simple algae can evolve over centuries of time into a magnificent forest. Again, the same beautiful forest can be destroyed by a tornado. There is no plan or purpose in all this.

14. If we look around us, we see good as well as bad things in nature. It is not understandable why a benevolent God has created so many evil things. If there is a creator, all things both beautiful and ugly, good and bad, must come from him. And why has a benevolent god created so many evil things? If everything that happens in the Universe is pre-ordianed by god, then the mysterious being should take full responsibility for all the miseries, murders, torturing, wars, genocides, famines, plagues, rapes, robberies, and all types of vices. But no; religions have always had to have it both ways: while god was omnipotent, man was also responsible. He had free will, and so was accountable for his evil thoughts and actions. Should not the blame fall on the omniscient creator who gave man free will to be evil?

15. When one looks at the immensity of the Universe, in comparison to which our Earth is less than a minute particle of dust, surely an intelligent power that could create such an immensity  would have little interest in the Earth, let alone the man on it. Why should an omniscient god create a vast Universe for man when he cannot see even a billionth part of it? It just does not make sense.

16. What are the qualifications needed to become a successful godman? First, he must be skilled in woolly talks using meaningless jargon such as self-liberation, self-realisation, self-purification, ultimate reality, cosmic force, cosmic intelligence, cosmic soul, discarnate life, extra-cerebral mind, karmic force, nirvanic consciousness, divine force, divine light, extra-sensory perception, kundalini, etc. Secondly, he must be able to perform a few conjuring tricks under the pretext of 'miracles'. The third and the most important requisite is to have a few publicity agents to spread numerous cock-and-bull stories about the miraculous powers of the godman through books, newspapers, films, radio and the TV. With suitable publicity, devotees will gather around a godman like flies around a decomposing carcass.

17. Some of the local devotees of Sathya Sai Baba found fault with me for writing about their godman undergoing a surgical operation for appendicitis. One doctor devotee had the audacity and credulity to say at a meeting of devotees, without any feeling of shame that it was not for removing his own appendix that Sathya Sai Baba underwent surgical operation. "Out of compassion for a devotee whose appendix was giving him trouble, the Bhagwan took the diseased appendix into his own body in exchange for his healthy one, and it was that diseased appendix of the devotee that was removed from the Bhagwan's body."

18. Why do people fall easy prey to these charlatan cultures? The answer is mass hysteria. When two or three persons genuflect or prostrate before a godman, the others will simply follow. These imitators lack independent thinking and reasoning. If someone shouts "Haro Hara", "Hallelujah" or "Sadh Sadh" they too will shout. While the imaginary gods like jehovah, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, etc do not exist, godmen do exist, and are a menace to humanity.

19.  Though all religious teachings postulate a 'life after death', there are no valid reasons or evidence to believe in it.

20. Stories about children recalling their memories of their previous life have to be discarded as "pure myths". All those who have investigated such cases dispassionately and scientifically have been able to discover the fictitious nature, and the fraud behind such stories.

21. To say that child prodigies are born with the memory of the acquired knowledge of the previous birth is as absurd as the assertion of some rebirth investigators like Prof. Ian Stevenson, Prof. H.N. Bannerji and Mr. V.F.Gunaratne that physical characteristics such as facial features, complexions, wounds and scars can reappear in the reborn bodies. If it is true, it will be a death blow to the Eye Donation Society. Fear of being reborn blind will prevent people from donating their eyes.

22. If minds can have extra-cerebral existence capable of being reborn again and again, where were these minds before life originated on our planet? Can there be thought without a thinker, memory without a person to remember, or consciousness without someone to be conscious?

23. Although astrology furnishes no true guide to the characters or fortunes of men, and although its pretensions to science are false, it will continue to flourish as long as there are gullible fools in this world. Astrologers give their clients excuses for the past, praise for the present, and hope for the future.

24. I have made a large collection of astrological predictions made by the so-called eminent astrologers of various countries. My analysis of such predictions has clearly showed that none of those astrologers has scored anything above the operation of simple chance.

25. While astrologers are mostly deluded persons, I cannot say so about those who claim to possess Olas or Saptha Rishi Vakkiam containing the horoscopes of all people dead, living and yet to be born, written by Rishis of old. They are utter frauds because such a thing is a physical impossibility.

26. Neurotics and psychotics in meditation, who claim to have rceived divine revelations, who claim to have achieved enlightenment, who claim to possess paranormal miraculous powers, and those who profess to possess the power to know all the secrets of the unknown and the unknowable, are all fit subjects for the psychiatrist's couch, and not saints and sages to be adored or worshipped. Diversity in religions is due to the diversity of the hallucinations of their respective founders.

27. When illiterate and ignorant persons suffer from mental aberrations, they are branded as lunatics, and nobody attaches any value to what they say. On the other hand, if the victim of hallucinations happens to be a talented intellectual, he may be able to convince his hearers and readers that he has experienced super-consciousness, ultimate reality, enlightenment, oneness with god, self-realisation, etc., and it may be that he will have numerous devotees and disciples. Mentally deranged persons of extraordinary ability often become founders and preachers of religions.

28. He who believes in sacredness is sure to get mentally tormented by acts of desecration too. Psychology tells us that such mental traumas are the causes of neurotic afflictions, mostly among the credulous and mentally feeble types. Among the numerous neurotics brought to me, I have found by statistics that the prevalence of neurosis among communities is directly proportional to the extent of superstitious beliefs held by them. Even in such communities, there are more women neurotics than men for the same reason.

29. The so-called beneficial effects of sacrifices, pilgrimages, offerings, prayers, blessings, worships, vows, consecrations, dedications, ordinations, Lourdes water, theerthams, prasadams, sacraments, baptism, anointing of holy ash, yagna, pooja, etc., are merely subjective experiences without any objective reality. Similarly curses, charms, 'vas kavi' hoonyams, ill omens, inauspicious times, horoscopes, evil spells, etc., can be harmful only to gullible fools.

30. Academic education and intelligence need not be considered as marks of non-gullibility. In fact, some of the highly educated persons in exalted positions are extremely gullible, even resorting to witchcraft. It is only persons capable of rational thinking who can free themselves from credulity. Blind believers are mentally blind in spite of their intelligence and education.

31. According to the well-known Bibliologist Marshall J. Gauvin, no other book in the world has such perverting influence on man than the so-called Holy Bible. Lying, cheating, stealing, slavery, murder, cannibalism, genocide, incest, prostitution, adultery, nudism, pornography, sexual permissiveness, tyranny and torture are some of the crimes the Bible sanctions and defends...Considered as a moral guide, the Bible is the most dangerous book in the world...Those Christian apologists who clamour for the teaching of the Bible in our schools should read their Bible themselves before they press their demand.

32. Yet we may admit that the vast majority of mankind today are living in a much more advanced condition morally, socially and economically than in any previous age. The burning at the stake, the torture chamber and the casting into the den of lions are things of the past. To what cause should this progress be attributed? Certainly not to any one of the existing creeds or religions. Religions, at all times, did their best to keep human beings in ignorance, superstition and divided among themselves.

33. The forerunners of the French Revolution, the great Holbach, La Mattrie, Descartes and Leibnitz in Europe, and Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Paine and others in America prepared the way for the new age, 'the Age of Reason'... It was rationalistic and atheistic science and philosophy that inaugurated the age of Humanism with the new morality based on a real brotherhood of man regardless of race, creed, colour or caste.

431. G I T A 18 - 24

24]     Ch. 18                  Slokam 61

Eeswarah: sarvabhutaanam, hruddesahrjuna thishtati

Bhraamayan sarva bhuraani yantraaroodhani maayayaa

Eeswarah: sarvabhutaanam, hruddesah Arjuna thishtati Bhraamayan sarva bhuraani yantraaroodhani maayayaa

The supreme being In all types of living things In the heart of O! Arjuna Remains Rotating All the living things Like placed on a machine Is the maaya of physical energy

Eeswarah: sarvabhutaanam  that means god is prevalent everywhere.

Just like in our body, life is prevalent and pervading through the entire body.

If it does not present in any part, that means that is the death of that part.

Everything living thing has life.

When Prahlada was challenged by his father Hiranya Kassyapa

 if god is everywhere then could he show Him in the pillor, Prahlada said affirmative.

“indu galadu andu ledanu sandeham valadu

Tandri, chakri sarvopagatundu

Endendu vediki chucinaa andande kaladu

Dana vagrani vinte”

[Telugu]

When the king broke the pillor, god appeared to him and killed him.

Jagadish Chandra Bose emphasized that even plants too have life.

He proved it later on.

A seed getting sprouted, becoming a plant, a tree, giving fruits, and finally it dies.

It is a staunch evidence that it has life.

God is life and life is god.

Advaita philosophy is based on this.

It was proposed by Adi Shankara.

A + dvaitam = which has no second.

So it says that we need not search for god here and there.

From microscopic to macroscopic world he is present.

It is our foolishness to search for god keeping always with us.

Different people give different explanations and search for god.

A pujari says to worship god in a temple, offer him something, and ask for him.

A saint says god cannot be seen except by only Gnanam.

A politician says that so and so size idol should be built and worship.

Can we say or define how the life is?

All body forms are different, but life is one.

Just like electrical appliances like cooler, fridge, computer …are different but current is one.

“ekam sat, vipra bahudha vadante”

It is just like four blind people defining an elephant.

One defines that the elephant is like a pillor,

another described it as a wall,

the third said it is like a tail,

and

the  fourth, it is like a trunk.

That means actually nobody has seen the entire structure.

Even in Kurukshetra, when Krishna showed his viswarupam,

Arjuna could not visualize it.

Krishna blessed him that vision so that he could see that.

Similarly almost all the religions of the world are like that.

Each one tries to explain the God in his own style.

As man is not perfect, his visualization is also imperfect.

Imperfection leads to imperfection.

Actually Advaitam is very difficult to apply in day to day life.

A thief, a saint, an animal all are same.

How to treat them all equally.

Advaitam is good in philosophical concept.

In police cases, business cases, … it seems absurd.

That means, to understand the philosophical concept one should elevate oneself.

Krishna too did not tell Gita to Arjuna when he was wavering.

He waited till he got that maturity to understand.

To understand we should have “the punyam of last birth”.

Secondly if we are monger of things, craving for wealth, etc. philosophy cannot be understood.

If we always thing what is the benefit of doing this, we cannot understand.

To understand this philosophy we should become a gnani.

For others to understand they have to wait, elevate themselves, etc.

How to get punyam?

By doing good to others.

Pious life.

Following Dharmam.

Truthfulness is the ultimate.

Wherever there is truthfulness, there lies all the gods of the world.

Whatever is good to you, do the same to others.